.
Brigitte and I looked around, mystified by the voice that had rung out. It wasn’t clear which direction was ‘forward’, nor was the voice giving us any indication as to what reason we should have to cooperate.
I realized that the voice had spoken in Ancient Fairy. Or rather, in the Elder ‘Child Language’, which was also the language for Servants. So Brigitte’s confusion also included not understanding what the voice was saying.
Given the circumstances that brought us there, however, I concluded that ‘forward’ would mean closer to the place where Amelia had apparently vanished, so I faced that direction and stepped forward. I gestured for Brigitte to join me.
The mystery voice stated, “Access request has been made for one mortal, of animal-aspectual hybridization type ‘Fox tribe’, identification unknown, and one Xa-ne juvenile, tentative identification based upon aura print found as ‘Senhion, Commander, Third Legion’. Xa-ne juvenile is in possession of two spirit constructs also for admission. Tentative identification results in a records mismatch. Commander Senhion has a date of death of Day 272, Year 4039. Identified individual’s home cave system remains online. Does the Xa-ne juvenile wish to request identity cross-reference with home system?”
A chill ran down my spine. I knew this slightly inhuman manner of speech well, from back then, from Daq R’mion’s time, even from Robert’s years. An automated voice response system…
I cleared my throat and responded, “May I request your identity first? I don’t know how we initiated this request.”
“The spirit construct currently waiting near the Xa-ne juvenile has delivered the request. The request comes from a known correspondent not currently present, identity ‘Diurhimath, Observer, Orbital Survey Squadron, Twenty Fourth Legion’. This portal security system is under the direction of the Autonomous Reasoning Construct operating as home system for Taihimel, Subcommander, Tenth Legion, currently deceased.”
The name rang a bell. Senhion would have had at least a passing acquaintance with the upper-rank officers of the other legions, so it wasn’t strange.
I licked my lips, then asked, “Can the cross-reference provide verification in the event that Senhion has indeed died, but reincarnated into a new Ha-ne body?”
“Is the Xa-ne juvenile attesting that this is the case?”
“Yes,” I responded firmly. “If verification can be made in such a case, please proceed.”
After our conversation had paused, Brigitte asked with considerable uncertainty, “Where is the person who is talking to you? I don’t feel any presence anywhere?”
I couldn’t easily explain the answer that I suspected was correct, so I gave her a modified version. “That legend you mentioned… I think that voice is on the other side of a door that works that way.”
“You mean he’s using [Shadow Pass] from somewhere far away?” she asked. “But I don’t see any Dark mana…”
To be more accurate, it was more likely that it was using a spatial magic completely alien to Huade to connect this spot to an entirely different Mortal Realm space.
“I think it uses a similar spell that isn’t Dark magic,” I answered.
“Do you trust it?”
“Trust it or not, Amelia is on the other side. I don’t think we have a choice if we’re to reach her.”
A different voice came out of nowhere, this one considerably more human sounding. “Greetings, Commander! It has been a long time indeed!”
It was an incredibly familiar voice. In fact, it was exactly the voice Senhion heard when hearing a recording of herself. I cannot recall why she chose to program her home system to use her own voice. In retrospect, it seems a bit narcissistic.
“It has been a long time,” I agreed, with a smile. “I apologize that my memory is not complete. I have been through more than a dozen reincarnations. I must admit, I remember you, but I can’t remember what I named you.”
“You named me ‘Little Jia’, Commander.”
“Little Jia,” I nodded. “Is my home cave really still intact? How are you operational?”
“Lieutenant Pelilel sealed the entrance after conducting your cremation, and it remains largely undisturbed. The one exception is the outer chamber, which is largely buried now, due to a tunnel collapse from a major quake on Day 41, Year 9725. The inner chambers and the connected personal extradimensional space remain intact. For safety, I transferred all of my patterns and structures to the extradimensional side before the failure of the mountain defenses after your departure. I judged the improvement in security provided by the tunnel collapse to be a positive, and left it alone, but I am ready to commence repair procedures upon your orders, Commander.”
“Thank you. Continue holding on those procedures for now.”
“You departed with your newborn son, Commander. May I ask if he is well?”
The question caught me by surprise. This ‘Autonomous Reasoning Construct’ was, after all, a computer, for all intents and purposes, but it was asking a very human-like question. I smiled, trying to avoid getting misty-eyed. “Oberon is very well indeed, Little Jia. He grew up to become a fine man.”
“I am happy to hear it. I have verified your identity. This new body is quite suitable for you, Commander. It looks very much like your old one, and appears to even include some of your old genetics.”
“It does. It is my old body’s great-granddaughter,” I explained.
“I understand. I have recorded your new genetics and voiceprint, and I look forward to our next meeting. I should be able to converse with you on the mountain surface if you should visit, and you may ask me to clear the entrance at any time.”
That was goodbye, since the stilted voice response system returned after that. “Identity is confirmed. Request from Observer Diurhimath is granted.”
A rectangular portion of the wall ahead of us took on a strange, immaterial grayness. Or it might be more descriptive to say, the surface itself grayed out as if it were computer graphics. I asked my companion while making a ‘proceed’ hand gesture, “Shall we go in, Miss Brigitte?”
I strode forward. It helped that my fairy sense and sight were no longer reporting solid rock in front of me. It now appeared to them as an open entrance, despite what my mortal sight was telling me.
“My Lady?” Brigitte yipped in alarm as she saw me walk straight into a wall. I did not faceplant, though. I simply sank into that gray surface.
The mortal sight was an illusion. My senses reported that the other side was an atmosphere with approximately the same composition, temperature and pressure as this one, and even the ground level on the other side matched. That last item was no doubt due to adjustments made by the portal system we had just been speaking to. There is no way the ground on both sides would match up after at least ten thousand years since the owner died, without adjustments.
I was smart enough not to stop short on the other side. After all, that’s a good way to be involved in a sudden rear-end collision, since Brigitte should be coming through. If I hadn’t been prepared, having a rough idea of what to expect, I’m sure I might have.
Brigitte did follow, saying as she came through, “My Lady, please don’t…”
She chopped off, because she had just found herself in open daylight, with a blue sky above, lightly dusted with benign clouds. A pastoral view spread out around us, with an orchard to our left, a garden full of fruit-bearing plants to our right, a small house of stone beside that garden, and ahead of us stood a round pavilion with graceful enameled columns holding up an ornate roof that appeared to be fashioned from jade. In the distance beyond the garden and cottage, a large lake spread out.
I looked back at Brigitte and saw behind her the nature of the portal on this side. It was a bit like a cameo from 2001: A Space Odyssey. A black obsidian slab jutted from this lawn of close-cropped grass that we were standing on. Beyond lay a broad meadow with tree-covered hills behind it.
“This isn’t possible,” Brigitte declared.
“Even though I just told you that the portal would connect to somewhere else?” I asked as I began forward. With nobody greeting us, I simply set out for the most attractive landmark, the pavilion.
It was fortunate that the supervisors who designed our Elder bodies equipped us with a way to compensate for the ‘global positioning system’ that would be thrown out of whack by teleportation to another space. I had experienced it in Relador, when Oberon’s spell was messing with my sense of direction. After I lost my sense of location with respect to other places I knew, it gave me a sense of vertigo for a moment, but then my brain compensated by simply laying the problem aside and starting a new mental map.
It was necessary in this case, because this was an entirely new space, not related to Huade’s geography at all.
Subcommander Taihimel of the Tenth Legion had acquired a small space and fashioned it into this miniature garden, creating a portal from here to that spot on the wall in the pleasure dome. No doubt, she’d built a little pavilion or cottage inside the pleasure dome, next to that wall, as cover for her connection to this private paradise.
It was too bright to send out my vampire sense, to see how large this place actually was, but it would be a little annex of Huade’s universe occupying its own subspace while replicating the gravity and atmosphere of our world. Conditions of light and heat and gravity were easily written into such a space with dimensional magic.
The reason the supervisors did not use subspaces like this to preserve the mortals and animals of Huade after the global catastrophe was stability. This trick that was often seen in the Immortal Realms, where subspaces as large as continents were easy for an expert with sufficient power to pull off, was next to impossible in the Mortal Realm. At sufficient skill levels, it could be done, but it became exponentially more difficult the larger the space became. For that reason, it had been far easier to create the caverns in order to deal with the emergency on the scales required.
Considering that, Taihimel’s small world appeared to be incredibly ambitious. Senhion’s private space was only a somewhat larger ‘cave’ to expand the size of her actual cave, giving her a few dozen acres of space. Taihimel must have kept a whole squad of Servants in this place, which looked like it might be several miles wide.
“Where are we, then?” Brigitte wondered as we walked.
“This is a small world that an Elder named Taihimel made in the ancient past. She probably wanted a daylight green space, back when the world above was wrapped in ice. Most of the immortals that came down to become Elders were born in the Mortal Realm to begin with. They tended to crave nature, the same way fairies do.”
“Who owns it now?”
“Nobody, I guess,” I told her.
“Somebody is here farming though,” she noted, pointing at the garden.
I extended my sense into there and found what I expected, a couple constructs made of the same stuff as Diur’s ‘proxies’. They were drones being operated by the Autonomous Reasoning Construct managing this world for its dead master. I wondered what they did with the produce they had been growing for the last ten millennia.
“It’s being done through magic. Something like a spirit created by the owner is running this place. It’s hard to explain, but the things doing the farming are not alive.”
We were just about to reach the pavilion when I heard my name called from a distance, and turned toward the lake, and saw Amelia waving from the shore. Lady Chiara was sitting beside her, holding a fishing pole.
