I find it interesting that he jumps straight from "language doesn't drift apart" to "something is broken". Isn't it equally likely that there is some celestial mechanism that works to keep language uniform which hasn't been broken?
It is always funny to me how the "clearly not Jedi" of the wheel of time in this crossover seem to have a hard time to comprehend that not every world necessarily has a wheel/pattern or that it could be just one of many cogs in the machine…
Come to think of it, the thought that some random being from the outside could just look at the wheel and think of all the resources that could be harvested from it must induce at least some measure of existential dread in sheraine…
I find it interesting that he jumps straight from "language doesn't drift apart" to "something is broken". Isn't it equally likely that there is some celestial mechanism that works to keep language uniform which hasn't been broken?
Part of it is working off of book knowledge. Ron already knew people that had little contact were speaking the same language, and had been for thousands of years or they would have diverged. But now the Old Tongue also developed along the exact same lines in lands that have no contact with the rest of the world.
Just look at places like Japan and Korea, or Germany and France. Even close neighbors still speak different languages, and in our modern world we actually see a move towards more homogeneity. But the prerequisites for that don't exist in Wheel of Time.
So now he has a theory to explain it, though he doesn't have confirmation of it.
It is always funny to me how the "clearly not Jedi" of the wheel of time in this crossover seem to have a hard time to comprehend that not every world necessarily has a wheel/pattern or that it could be just one of many cogs in the machine…
Come to think of it, the thought that some random being from the outside could just look at the wheel and think of all the resources that could be harvested from it must induce at least some measure of existential dread in sheraine…
The Wheel has always existed and is fundamental to Aes Sedai because their power comes from it.
The idea that it's not, in fact unique, might actually be more frightening than the idea that there are worlds that have no Pattern at all. Because Ron is also speculating that at least one of the Wheel-like mechanisms has been broken. So the great threat they've fought against, the Dark One breaking the Wheel, it kind of sort of might already have happened. And nobody noticed.
My theory: It was somebody's pet project towards the end of the Age of Legends. A world-spanning ter'angreal network to improve communication by messing with people's language learning over the generations.
My theory: It was somebody's pet project towards the end of the Age of Legends. A world-spanning ter'angreal network to improve communication by messing with people's language learning over the generations.
To be fair, if there wasn't just one player character Godbound in this party story, they could've had an argument about this hypothesis within fiction.
As it is, both Sheraine and Gemiad lack the proper context to meaningfully challenge his theory for any discrepancies and leaps of logic.
But it is 90% guesswork and intuition and 10% knowledge of the Godbound metaphysics and 'the real world' lore and this is an 'okay' believable conclusion for Ron to come to.
I think you've put your finger on what I dislike about that bit. The MC has been dropping big "this is how the plot may be going" hints, but for readers unfamiliar with Godbound and in-universe companions the rationale feels wafer thin. If we're jumping into debugging celestial engines, I would like it to be for a more substantial (and worrying) reason than, "Huh, people sure do seem to be speaking unexpectedly clearly".
Plus, I find it believable that Ron ponders the question why, who and for what reason he has been put in there to pounce on the opportunity like this to find some meaning in his quest. He has a lot of power, but it is hard to determine what is the most responsible use for it in these circumstances, without any kind of instruction or context.
In fact, you may be correct, that the whole language thing could be a coincidental factoid unrelated to the Engines, but the conclusion Ron makes about his purpose might be on the right track.
I think the best approach is not to think of Ron as author's avatar, preaching the word of god. Ron is our/their resident expert on Godbound lore, but he's not THE expert. Remember that his knowledge mostly comes from reading the rulebook, not lived experience, and Arcane Knowledge isn't one of his domains. He is forced to deal with the 'Outside Context Problem' of him being here and Godbound metaphysics complicating the things, just like the rest of the characters are forced to deal with him.
I think you've put your finger on what I dislike about that bit. The MC has been dropping big "this is how the plot may be going" hints, but for readers unfamiliar with Godbound and in-universe companions the rationale feels wafer thin. If we're jumping into debugging celestial engines, I would like it to be for a more substantial (and worrying) reason than, "Huh, people sure do seem to be speaking unexpectedly clearly".
Please do remember that I'm very deliberate in not using any other perspective than Ron's own. With one exception which I labeled a sidestory for a reason.
We are seeing this story through an unreliable narrator. His insights, his conclusions, can be in error and there's a lot he misses. As in keeping with Robert Jordan's own approach to characters.
Plus, I find it believable that Ron ponders the question why, who and for what reason he has been put in there to pounce on the opportunity like this to find some meaning in his quest. He has a lot of power, but it is hard to determine what is the most responsible use for it in these circumstances, without any kind of instruction or context.
It's been a question for some time and this wasn't the only answer he's come across so far. The incursion of Angels, the survivor from a dead world, these too could be the reason why he's here now. Or maybe he's wrong and there is no reason, it's just a unique, random event. But how would that further the story?
Not sure if it matters much but there IS linguistic drift in WOT. During the age of Legends, there was a completely different language. Due to "old blood" some people will sometimes spontaneously say words and phrases from that older language without knowing what they mean. Scholars and Aes Sedai study the language as the Prophecies of the Dragon are written in that language. Many books from that time period also continued to be printed/copied in that language as well. It has a different script than the modern language and also differs from the language written by Ogier. Ogier may have a racial language to go along with their different writing system, but it isn't shown.
The Trollocs also have their own language, much like the "Black Speech" of Mordor.
There are regional dialects as well. With certain words and phrases having localized meanings that are sometimes baffling to outsiders. Such as the Malkier use of carneira from the old tongue to refer to one's first lover.
One reason for a lack of linguistic drift - The entire world was united before the breaking with a single human language and traveling and Sho wings allowed for instantaneous/rapid global transport. Aes Sedai/channelers live for hundreds of years and in many cultures become "honored elders" having long lived elements stabilizing your generational language differences would prevent severe drift, though as common is a degenerated form of the old speech, it is odd that it degenerated the same way on the Island of madmen.
The empire of Artur Hawking united most of the continent and later Shara Seanchan that event would have had a second hard point to centralize linguistic changes as the Kings speech became the lingua franca.
"Because these people have had no contact with the rest of the world for thousands of years. And if they are as hostile towards each other, this continent should be host to a thousand different languages that shouldn't even resemble what is spoken in the rest of the world."
Everyone else had frozen, only to look at me after a few seconds. "Yes, I've freed him of the Dark One's corruption. No, it's not permanent. No more permanent than when you wash the mud away. Now," I said, looking down on the female channeler. "Will you answer my questions or do I need to do a few more impossible things?"
Is he saying it's temporary in the sense that he'll be back to where he was in days, or temporary in the sense that he's now free of corruption, but will be restarting the process of going mad from the beginning?
Eala held up a hand to stifle the grumbling rising up from the others, and stepped forward. "And what person would trust a murderer at their back? Because yes, I do know how to cut someone off from the Wellspring forever. And I also know that very few are strong enough to survive that for long. We are one people, woman, you may not understand that but we do not turn on each other."
One reason for a lack of linguistic drift - The entire world was united before the breaking with a single human language and traveling and Sho wings allowed for instantaneous/rapid global transport. Aes Sedai/channelers live for hundreds of years and in many cultures become "honored elders" having long lived elements stabilizing your generational language differences would prevent severe drift, though as common is a degenerated form of the old speech, it is odd that it degenerated the same way on the Island of madmen.
Yes, the whole world did speak one language, but that was 3,000 years ago. And as you noted we do see how that language changes into another one, but that too is uniform across the world. Even for societies that have little contact with others.
The Seanchan sort of can be explained by the idea that their language was replaced by the Arthur Hawkwing's army. But that was a thousand years ago. That's a thousand years for languages to divert, and it should be a lot more than just using words from the Old Tongue for specific cultural traditions such as the Aiel Da'tsang, the Seanchan's da'covale, or the Malkieri carneira.
Also, even the printed word can't quite explain it because that doesn't fixate pronunciation and spelling would also start to drift in the absence of any central authority that enforces it. The White Tower doesn't print many or any books, as far as I know.
The explanation in the books is that everybody spoke the Old Tongue and it's legacy just endured, but languages are so malleable that this explanation falls short. I do understand why he did it, he wasn't a linguist like Tolkien so Robert Jordan came up with something to avoid having a hundred different languages in his expansive world.
Is he saying it's temporary in the sense that he'll be back to where he was in days, or temporary in the sense that he's now free of corruption, but will be restarting the process of going mad from the beginning?
This isn't the same custom everywhere on the continent, but many don't just kill or gentle any male channelers because people do use the One Power in their conflicts with each other and that includes the men. However, people being people, they don't just think of it in such utilitarian terms and construct a more emotional reasoning. It can be repaying the debt they own for the destruction wrought by their ancestors, duty to their people, or just that they too are part of their group and that comes with certain protections.
And inevitably at some point the fail-safes fail and another piece of the continent gets wrecked.
Not to argue for or against the engine of language thing. But there are spiritual reasons language could remain static that just don't exist irl. We know Rand and crew end up spouting the old tongue and weird phrases because they're all reborn. Convergent language drift could just be a thing cause of soul recycling.
Or Robert Jordan just didn't want to think about it. Whichever.
Edit: Plus everyone is oddly connected to the World of Dreams. Things be weird in Randland yo.
That actually is a very good point, Tel'Aran'Rhiod is essentially a low tier collective consciousness for the entirety of humanity that is very much temporally off compared to the waking world, and souls are reborn constantly even those that are tied to the Horn of Valere. Language being relatively unchanging because of such things is definitely possible. And it's not like there aren't various dialectic accents, I think I remember Mat bitching about Sea Folk being entirely unintelligible or something like that.
From what I understand, Old Tongue and modern language(s) is not the same. My guess would be that language drift (from Old Tongue) happens, but then the changes are mutually spread across the world to all connected. Mostly. There could be still hiccups and nuances not spreading as well or as fast.
Differences in Other languages may be caused by specific circumstances.
Not to argue for or against the engine of language thing. But there are spiritual reasons language could remain static that just don't exist irl. We know Rand and crew end up spouting the old tongue and weird phrases because they're all reborn. Convergent language drift could just be a thing cause of soul recycling.
Or Robert Jordan just didn't want to think about it. Whichever.
Edit: Plus everyone is oddly connected to the World of Dreams. Things be weird in Randland yo.
You make a good point, both about the collective unconsciousness that is a thing in the Wheel of Time and that language/memory does seem to linger beyond death.
Though it's mostly Mat that it happens to and he has some other things going on as well when it comes to his past lives.
"Aes Sedai have tried to remove the taint for centuries, but they realized it was impossible. Did you truly restore that man's mind?" Sheraine asked as we settled in for the night. After getting the lay of the land and bartering for some food as well, I'd flown us directly back to our camp on top of the pillar-like hill. It's hard to have a good conversation when you're going a hundred miles an hour without anything between you and the wind.
"I freed him of the corruption that had settled on his soul," I said as the strips of bacon sizzled in the pan I held above the fire.
"If you can do this, could you do the same as you did in Falme? Cleanse saidin in an area?"
I let out a breath. "You felt what happened when I did use it. Morden wasn't important, but even without using its name, the Dark One turned its attention towards me. If I try to cleanse saidin or just remove what corruption has accumulated in Rand's soul, I risk a direct clash with the Dark One." I grimaced. "I fear I'll lose that one at this moment. As a champion of the Creator herself, Rand has some advantages I lack and he needs to grow much more before he's ready."
Whatever had happened was far more intense than the flashes I remembered from the books whenever someone used the Dark One's name. Was I just more sensitive, or was it the use of my divine powers that had enabled it to intrude into reality a little deeper?
Sheraine frowned. "You weren't afraid of drawing his attention at Falme."
"Oh, I was," I said as I added some of the greens we'd gathered ourselves before we'd gotten ambushed. "Which is why I waited until its attention was fully on Rand. Between that and the Heroes of the Horn running around, I had enough distractions that I got away with what I did. It was still a gamble," I admitted.
"Speaking of gambles," Gemiad said. "What are the odds that these people just happen to know about the Portal Stone you're looking for? How many are there?"
"I don't know how many there are, and I'm not sure this is the one we're looking for. But even if it isn't, it should give me a solid location of where we can find the right Stone. I'm more worried about our food situation, we didn't get that much food."
Not surprising, the patrol of the Stalking Panther tribe, the name of their people apparently, had traveled light. So rather than offering their own supplies they'd helped us forage. Even then, we still didn't have enough food to last a week.
"This Portal Stone is also used as a marker of their border with their neighbors to the southeast," Sheraine said. "While I don't trust their own description of this Bloodhawk tribe, just having the Panthers as neighbors will have made them wary of outsiders." She grimaced as she worked her injured thigh and tried to rub some of the stiffness away.
"They told us there were only a few times a year that any sort of peaceful contact between tribes was possible," I said. "And that it happened at specific places requiring specific rituals. That does explain the welcome the Sea Folk received. But it also means that I don't think we can expect a better welcome from anybody else in this region than what we already got from the Stalking Panthers."
"Not unless you want to drop in as a dragon again," Gemiad said.
"Ha, tempting. But we got lucky. They froze rather than act in their panic."
"Which is a dangerous gamble when there are so many wilders around," Sheraine said. "I hadn't expected that without Aes Sedai to teach them how to wield the One Power. Even the man appeared to have had some training." She shuddered. "And without Aes Sedai to control such matters, they must be using the One Power against each other."
"Which means most, if not all, tribes have at least one channeler," I said. Not that surprising when you considered how the Aiel and the Ath'an Miere managed to find all of their channelers. In many ways, and despite what Sheraine and other Aes Sedai believed, it was the Westlands that were the least organized when it came to channelers. "Looks like dinner is ready. Let's eat!"
***
As it turned out, the Portal Stone they had directed us to wasn't the one I was looking for, but it did give me the exact heading I needed for the right Portal Stone.
We flew over a chaotic geographic tapestry. Once, the land looked like it had been folded up until it broke and it had left a maze of stone and earth. Then a perfectly flat mesa towering five hundred meters over its surroundings that had to be the size of New York. We flew over another jungle, which then gave way to grassland, which turned into a lake of bubbling magma before it turned into a forest of fast-growing bamboo at the edge of a lake it took us three hours to cross. At least three large herds of hippos had claimed the shallower portions of the lake while one of the smaller islands was entirely occupied by sunning alligators.
We flew high but couldn't miss the little signs of human occupation, though never actual people. Any sign of smoke I steered well clear of. But we also saw carved totems here and there, some painted, others charred and cracked by fire. Ruins of piled-up stone, scattered as if by a giant's rampage. A flat segment of perfectly smooth road that began at a crater lake only to end up buried in desert sand.
We were now flying over that desert. Tall dunes of reddish sand snaked their ways across the landscape, the only speck of life a few plants huddled around a watering hole barely an arm's width wide.
"Is this what the Aiel Waste looks like?" Gemiad wondered as we looked through the viewing window in the belly of the airship. The wheel lock kept it on its current heading and I was more worried about missing the Portal Stone right now. If my calculations were right, we should see it today. Or maybe tomorrow if I'd overestimated our speed.
I shook my head. "The parts I saw were dry, but it had a little more hardy plant life as well as gulches and canyons. This is just sand and even more sand. This looks more like the description I've heard of the southernmost region called the Termool. Not even the Aiel can survive there."
"We won't either for much longer," Gemiad said, studying the speck of green one could charitably call an oasis. "Water isn't the problem, but food is. If this desert doesn't end tomorrow, or we don't find the Portal Stone, we'll have to turn back."
"We're almost there," I promised her. "And it should only take a couple of hours at most once we're there for me to find everything I came here looking for. Both the cache and the Night Road."
"But you won't leave, right?"
I frowned at her. "What do you mean? You just pointed out that we can't stay. Ah, you mean…" I sighed. "No, I have no intention of just opening the Night Road and leaving this world. I won't abandon you and everybody else while you're facing the Last Battle. I won't even be opening the Night Road without more preparations, it is far too dangerous."
Gemiad crossed her arms. "How so?"
"Because I don't know what's on the other side of the gate. Could be perfectly safe, there could be defenses that will kill anything trying to cross, or an army of creatures far more deadly than Trollocs just waiting to invade." Having Uncreated get into this world would be a disaster.
"And that's your way home?" Gemiad said aghast.
"The first step, yes. But I'll probably have to navigate several Night Roads and figuring out what path will lead me home … I don't know if it's even possible."
"Then why try? Why not stay here? If it's not about avoiding the Last Battle and you don't even know if your family will still be there if you even find your world?"
I stared out over the desert. "I didn't have these powers back home. Now that I do, there is a chance. A hope. I might-" I broke off when I spotted something on the horizon, off to our left. It was a rock formation, about fifty meters tall, but instinct told me the side we could see had been carved. "I think we might have found it."
I went up to the pilot house and disengaged the lock. It still took us almost two hours to reach the formation. I needed the others to announce when we reached as I couldn't see it from up here, but even before that I got some details from Sheraine and Gemiad.
A face had been carved into the side of the rock formation at some point, one with a helmet of some sort. And someone else had later hacked away at it, turning the eyes into craters and obliterating the lower jaw. On top of the rock was indeed a Portal Stone, and it could only be the one I was looking for.
Securing the airship was a little hard, the top of the formation was flat and hard. No trees or boulders that the anchors could bite into or wrap around. In the end, I had to resort to carving some anchor points out of the rock myself.
"So, where is this Night Road you are looking for?"
Even from down here atop the rock formation we could still see quite far, and what there was around us was pretty much nothing. "A little hard to say." I consulted my compass. "This Portal Stone was two-point-twenty-three miles south by southwest from Nol Caimaine." I pointed in its direction, but all that was left of its crystal arcology was a fine sparkling dust among the grains of sand. "The entrance to the Night Road was southeast of the city, one-point-two miles from its river dock." That river was also gone.
There was a great dune blocking our view of the actual area, a sand devil dancing its way along the top of the ridge and heading north. The plaintive cries of a bird chick somewhere close by was the only sound piercing the mournful song of the desert wind. High above, hidden in the glare of the noon sun, its mother answered its young.
"But I want to see if the cache mentioned in the travelogue is here, first. There might be something useful in there."
Sheraine looked around with a doubtful expression. She no longer needed the crutch, but she still favored the leg. "From your description, this traveler came here during the Breaking, when Nol Caimaine still stood. However deeply buried it was, it surely won't have survived all this destruction?"
"Oh, it's not buried," I said as we walked closer to the Portal Stone. It stood at the edge of the cliff, a part of the bowl the pillar stood in hanging out in the air. The steps leading down barely had any color left, the symbols on the pillar worn down to vague impressions by the wind. "Or you could say it's not buried in the ground. It's buried in the Pattern."
"Should we think of reality like a roll of fabric again?" Gemiad asked.
"A tapestry or a blanket works to," I said with a hint of a smile. "But if I understood the translation right, the traveler created a pocket in reality itself. Then he hid the opening. He anchored that opening to the Portal Stone to provide it stability, but that's also the weakness." Find the lock!
I drew my power up as I breathed in, then sent out feelers that probed the space around the Portal Stone. Reality felt rigid within the borders of that depression as if it had been fastened to scaffolding and braced. I could almost see the structure, but it wasn't what I was looking for.
I was looking for something else, something that had been added later. Something less sturdy than this. And there it was, a thread leading to nowhere. "I think I've got it, might want to step back."
"Why?" Sheraine still took a step back.
"Because there's no mention of any security measures in the travelogue. And I don't know if that means they didn't add any or they didn't want to share how they safeguarded their possessions. Here goes." Free for the Taking!
I pushed the Effort into the empty space and found resistance even as my power shifted and probed. It was trying to pick a lock made to resist such attempts by reconfiguring itself. Only my nature allowed me to understand some of what it did; it was a work of art. But when you had the equivalent of a couple of nukes in your pocket, it didn't matter how clever the locksmith had been.
The sound of crystal shattering echoed across the desert. Space to the right of the Portal Stone swirled before unfolding like a bag being turned inside out. One moment, the spot had been empty. One blink of the eye later, there was a foot locker-sized chest made out of a copper alloy gleaming in the desert sun.
The chest had clearly seen some use, there were scratches and dents all over, as well as a couple of faded labels and words etched in an alien language scrawled on the lid.
"What are you expecting to find in there?" Gemiad asked.
"Travel supplies, but supplies meant to help a traveler of the Night Roads. So probably a weapon that would make even a Power-wrought sword look like a toothpick. Maybe some clothes or armor. Hopefully, something that helps with navigating Night Roads and finding their entrances. And almost certainly, things I haven't even thought of. Or nothing, if the traveler or someone else who read the same text I have already got here."
However, that seemed unlikely, given that the spatial pocket had been intact and locked. And nothing had exploded or shot at them. "Right, time to see what we got."
I walked over, studying the lock on the chest itself. It was a simple thing, a combination lock, though the symbols were just as alien as the writing on the chest, but clearly from a very different language. Or they were numbers. Either way, this wasn't an obstacle.
Then I smelled flowers, coming from my left. I looked over my shoulder at Sheraine. "Something wrong?"
"I don't know. And neither do you. If this chest has truly been left alone for thousands of years, its contents might have become unstable. I've heard horror stories of what happens when someone tries to use a damaged ter'angreal. Can you guarantee me that whatever is in that chest won't be just as dangerous?"
I shrugged. "I don't think that will be a problem. The chest itself is perfectly mundane. If anything inside was unstable, it should have gone off the moment I emptied the spatial pocket." I returned my attention to the chest and gave it a nudge with my will. The universal code is freedom
The combination lock spun on its own, wedges popping away from the lock's ring like it was a reverse stargate. A few moments later the lid swung away and something jumped into the air. It hung in the air for a moment, a twisted constellation of black metal rings the size of a basketball, densely inscribed with glowing symbols.
Before anyone could speak, a sphere of glowing light pulsed out from the orb passing harmlessly over us only to stop once it reached a radius of about five meters. "What is that?" Sheraine asked, one hand pointing at the metal rings, which were rotating faster now.
I didn't waste any words but called upon a miracle. Mark the Maker
The orb's mystery unfolded and I gasped as a war flashed before my mind's eye like no other. Warmachines strode, flew, swam. People, many human, many not, bedecked in bright armor, naked save for war paint, or wearing a living suit chanted, screamed, gestured in silence as they fought, bled, died.
And at the center were titans, their clash not a battle but a natural disaster. One word and time fled, one sweep of an arm and a sun was born, one strike of an axe and a sea's worth of water sprang from the ground.
But at the center of the vision was this orb, three people caught in its light shell. They hammered on the light without avail, a spell bounced off the metal sphere itself and ricocheted through the sphere until it was blocked by an interposed shield.
Then, space itself twisted and everything was gone.
"It's a trap!"
I turned away and scooped up both women, already gathering my power as my wings snapped out. No shield shall bar-
Space twisted and the light vanished, the sun vanished. We vanished.
This chapter was improved thanks to the efforts of my betareader, DragoLord19D !
If you find yourself eager for more of my stories, you can find some links in my signature. Including to my original stories which you can find out more about on my website. On my website you can also signup to my newsletter and if you do that, you get the short story World Eater for free.
I froze as I couldn't see a thing anymore. I felt the plateau's rock underneath my feet, but it was the only thing. The wind was gone, the sound of the bird chicks absent, the heat of the sun a fading memory on my clothes.
Sheraine had let go of the One Power. "What happened?" There was an odd echo as she spoke.
"There was a boobytrap after all." I grimaced and let her and Gemiad go so they could stand on their own two feet again. "It was meant to capture enemies and transport them instantly. Unfortunately, I didn't get any information about where to."
"We have a problem then. Because I can't embrace the One Power anymore. I can … feel it. Just can't … reach it." She was gasping.
"Air's thin," Gemiad said from somewhere in the dark. "I can't channel either!"
I was gasping as well, though whether it was for air or because I was losing my fight against my own panic, I didn't know. I'd led us straight into a trap made by people who had dealt with things even more dangerous than Godbound. And when I called upon a miracle to free us from the need for air, at least for a little while, I felt the other jaw of the trap close in.
It was as if I was trying to swim upstream, as if I was walking against the storm. An empyrean ward? The book said those were rare, reserved for the most important locations. Where were we? Why was it so dark?
No, needed to focus. Take on one problem at a time, and the empyrean ward didn't stop a godbound, it only made it more difficult. But I had the reserves to pay this toll. Breathe free!
The miracle took shape, and all our breathing eased. That ward had doubled the cost of the Miracle. I could only perform perhaps two more before I was tapped out entirely. "Just breathe. You won't need air, not for another quarter of an hour. We'll be out of here before then."
"And where is here?" Sheraine asked.
"I don't know. A cell, maybe. That trap was meant to capture enemy soldiers and … weapons. But we might not be on your world anymore." I didn't want to believe it, but my insight into its working told me the teleport mine could actually do that. It worked by switching two locations and everything inside its reach, bypassing any need to move through Uncreated Night. The downside was that it burned itself out, and the destination couldn't be changed after the mine had been made.
"We've been transported to wherever the people that made that device wanted to bring their prisoners to. One of the Former Empires. I'm going to get us back to your world. I promise." With that, I steeled my resolve and finally committed.
I reached down inside my power, into the well of my soul. I flew through a vast ocean of potential, filled with constellations, not of stars, but ideas. I couldn't see them, not most of them. You couldn't really see an idea; you experienced them.
The ferocity of Beasts ran hot through my veins, the crisp frost of Winter nipped my scales, and Wealth's hunger filled my mind with gold and dragged me closer, I had to fight against its gravity only to tumble through Time, every blink a tick, every breath a tock. Tick, the moment to ask her out has passed, tock, you hold your first child in your arms.
With a shudder, I broke through and escaped. The book said nothing about this, it should be the work of a moment to bind a new Word to myself. And yet, as I'd moved through Time, I knew that not a second had passed in the real world.
I searched for what I was looking for. It shouldn't be hard, it couldn't help but catch the eye. And there it was, blazing away all on its own. I rocketed towards the Word and opened my mouth, swallowing the Sun whole.
Light filled me, fire filled me, truth burned me. A scream brighter than a lighthouse spilled from my mouth and the darkness was annihilated. In a flash I saw we were trapped in a metal sphere, some sort of titanium-silver alloy stained dark gray by additives, the ground underneath our feet was only flat because it had been teleported right along with us.
The light winked out, though I could still see everything perfectly fine, and I dropped to one knee as my heart pounded in my chest.
"By the Light," Sheraine said, blinking rapidly. "What was that? What did you do?"
"I empowered myself, I'm … more now." I stood up and flexed a new mental muscle. Behold the Sun
Light as gentle as a spring day chased away the dark once more, allowing my traveling companions to see our surroundings. And because it just came with the Word, it bypassed the empyrean ward.
"More what?"
I couldn't help the grin. "Yes. Just didn't expect it to be quite so spectacular. Or painful." I took a deep breath to settle my nerves, but it did little. Another reminder that we had little time before we'd be back to asphyxiating if we didn't escape very soon.
Then I realized that Gemiad was nowhere to be seen. How? I spun around, but there was no door, no exit at all. Just me and Sheraine, the rock from the plateau, and the copper alloy chest. "Gemiad? Gemiad, where are you?"
"What?" Sheraine looked around now as well. "She was just here."
I pushed with my power, looking for the path out of here, the same one that must have been used to take her, but I felt nothing. There was no echo, no path to trace, there was no way to leave this place except teleportation and nothing had been teleported out of this room in a very long time.
But how did they take Gemiad then? Unless … nobody had? I ran over to the footlocker and threw it open, a wide-eyed Gemiad stared back at me with her knife bared. "Ron?"
"I'm here," I said, kneeling down but hesitating to reach for her. I opened my mouth to ask how she had gotten herself into this position. Had she fallen in? Though, why close the lid if it had been accidental? "Come on, I'm getting us out of this place," I said instead, offering my hand.
At last Gemiad blinked. "Yes. Yes, please." She took my hand, and I pulled her out. The locker was big, but she still had barely fit. Only once she stood on her own two feet did she sheathe her knife.
I saw that the chest had been empty, except for a single sheet of blue, plastic-like material that had rows of strange symbols on its surface. I quickly stashed it in one of the pockets of my coat.
Gemiad looked around the featureless room. "How are we getting out?" It was a perfect sphere, only a few burrs and slashes here and there marked the presence of previous occupants.
"I'm going to make an exit."
Walking over to the nearest wall, I rapped my knuckles against the metal. No real flex, it sounded thick. And something had already tried to cut their way out, but hadn't gotten any further than scoring some deep scratches into the surface.
I had taken the Sun word because it was one of the most powerful Words and I didn't know what to expect once we got out of here. But to get out of here, Sun wouldn't work. Instead, I had to fall back on a Word and Gift I'd used plenty already.
I only had a general sense of what this material was, something far superior to any tank armor back home, as resistant to force as it was to magic. But I didn't use anything as simple as mere magic. And while creating something like this alloy using Transmute was beyond me, ironically, nothing stopped me from turning it into something worth far less. Metal becomes wood!
It still wasn't easy, the empyrean ward forced me to double my commitment and the material itself resisted me as well. I felt the Effort slip away. Rather than returning in about a quarter of an hour, I wouldn't get it back until tomorrow. Which meant I had only a little Effort left.
But before my eyes, a section wide enough three people could walk through it at the same time turned into the warm yellow-orange of pinewood. Still had to break through and given the amount of material I had to transmute, it had to be half a meter thick.
With a shout I dug my fingers into the wood and started tearing parts out. If only I could revert to my draconic form, I would have broken out in a moment, but while this room was big, it wasn't big enough for that.
However, this still counted as a form of labor and all my labors counted for thousands. Gemiad and Sheraine had to step out of the way as chunks flew through the air, the smell of pinewood growing thick.
Then, I punched through and I felt a gush of air rush past my arm and into the chamber. I let out a breath in relief, there was air outside. "We're almost out," I announced as I redoubled my efforts. And even before my first miracle ran out we were standing outside of our cell. Though, looking at it from the outside, perhaps tank might be a better word.
It was one of many, rows of tanks all along the circular wall of a vast chamber so big the light I was emitting barely reached the far end. There were several rows below us and many more above, as if we were in a gigantic tower that could have easily housed an aircraft carrier.
All of it, except the tanks, was made from a steel alloy stained black. There were no markings that I could see, but there were light fixtures, even if they were dead. The air smelled dead, not rotten or decaying, but as if it had been circulating inside a completely sterile environment for centuries.
Some of my Effort came back now that we were outside the tank and apparently, outside the area covered by the ward. A moment later, the smell of flowers appeared, even more jarring in this setting.
"That's better," Sheraine said as she summoned a light orb of her own. Though it flickered and seemed to bob in the air rather than hoover steady. She frowned at it. "Still feels like I'm trying to suck air through a reed."
"That might not improve while we're here. It might be more about how … far we are from the Wheel here."
"The Wheel is everywhere," Sheraine said, shaking her head, only to freeze and then grimace. "You said we might no longer be on our world?"
I nodded and looked around the chamber again. I noticed there were no railings or other safety barriers between the wide platforms and the central void. "Yes. That trap exchanged locations, so strictly speaking, distance is entirely meaningless. And a place like this wouldn't have been built on your world. Not before that Former Empire had conquered it first."
"You spoke of that before. What do you mean by a former empire? How … far are we from our home?"
I let out a long breath. "I'm sorry, I don't know. I know a little about a couple of Former Empires, barely more than a name, but the trap hadn't been made by any of them." I had gotten a little about who had made the mine, or should I say what. It had been made in a factory belonging to something called the Foundry of Exchange. Or maybe that had been the name of the factory, the paradigm behind it had just been too alien to really grasp.
"As for what a Former Empire is, imagine a people with the knowledge and wealth of your Age of Legends. Except they never forgot how to wage war and even elevated it to a level beyond anything from the War of Power. Balefire wouldn't be considered the ultimate weapon to them, just something to equip the troops with and hope it wouldn't be immediately countered."
Sheraine glanced at Gemiad. "Even the Forsaken feared balefire enough they stopped using it. It threatened to unravel the Pattern."
I nodded. "And the Former Empires had no such fear, they had quicker ways to unravel a world. Be very careful, touch nothing if you can help it and treat any object as if it is a powerful ter'angreal that's malfunctioning."
"Wise words to live by," Sheraine said, looking straight at me. Then she studied our surroundings again. "I suppose one direction is as good as another in this situation. Though, there might be a door over there." She pointed to our right and started walking, keeping well away from the edge of the walkway.
"Might as well," I decided after a moment and we followed her.
"Perhaps you can tell me more about these Former Empires as we walk," she said. "Why call them that, for example?"
"It's a long story," I warned her.
"I think we have time," Gemiad said as gestured at the long row of tanks that disappeared into the gloom only my eyes pierced.
"You're not wrong. Very well, this all began a long time ago, as ever with people that couldn't just be happy with having every need satisfied and knowing neither want nor lack."
This chapter was improved thanks to the efforts of my betareader, DragoLord19D !
If anybody wonders, this is an excursion to the universe beyond. After this, we're going back to the Wheel of Time.
If you find yourself eager for more of my stories, you can find some links in my signature. Including to my original stories which you can find out more about on my website. On my website you can also signup to my newsletter and if you do that, you get the short story World Eater for free.
Of course, the history of Godbound invited all sorts of questions, not all of which I could answer. "I don't know," I said. "I read this in a book, remember? And this is all based on a good bit of speculation rather than fact. Doesn't help that this language just doesn't have the words for some of the concepts. But that traveler left that chest behind after the Shattering, and that was almost three thousand years ago during the Breaking. So a long, long time ago."
Sheraine shook her head. "You ask me to take much on faith. I've always thought that most people walk in the Light, that the destruction of the War of Power and the Breaking could be laid at the feet of the Dark One and those too weak to resist his temptations. Now you claim a history in which people did far worse for no greater reason than philosophy and personal power?"
I made a so-so gesture with my hand. "Is that truly worse than selling your own soul and the future of your world out to an abomination that had been imprisoned by the Creator herself?"
"I want to say yes," Gemiad said. "Especially since the Forsaken didn't destroy any worlds that I know of."
"I want to say that the Former Empires didn't do some of the things the Forsaken did," I said. "But some were truly alien in how they thought and viewed reality."
The Aes Sedai glanced at me. "And what of you? If these Former Empires were destroyed long ago, in what sort of nation did you grow up? One of their successors?"
"Ah, no, thankfully. We didn't reach such heights, but we have … more than what you all have," I told them. "And our own failures. Which is comforting, in its own way."
Sheraine frowned. "How do you mean?"
"If we are not just subjected to the whims of beings far beyond our power, if our failures are our own fault in the end, than it is possible to learn from our mistakes and do better. It means we aren't trapped to repeat our mistakes." I hesitated. "Unless you live in a world governed by the Wheel."
"Perhaps," Gemiad said slowly. "It's not that we don't learn from our mistakes. It's just that we eventually forget what we learned. But we'll never be lost forever."
"And some mistakes, we will never make no matter how many times we live," Sheraine said.
I guffawed. "Which would put you one up over the Former Empires. They made every mistake."
We finally reached something that might be an exit. It was a break in the row of tanks, and an oval frame jutted out of the wall. It could be a door frame, though I saw no seams. On both the right and left, so high I would have to reach up and almost stand on my toes, an arrangement of crystals and something that kind of looked like a tuning fork might be the door controls.
"This … place looks remarkably intact if it's truly from the Age of Legends," Sheraine said. "Though I wonder how we are expected to open this? Unless it can only be opened from the other side?"
"No," I said. "I think the crystals on either side can be used to open the door. Or perhaps it senses when those who are permitted approach and open on its own."
"You think?"
I took a deep breath. "I'll find out." This time, I didn't use a miracle. Instead, I dipped into the ocean of potential again and shaped a Gift I'd already used several times. If I had to puzzle out everything here, I couldn't waste all my Effort on miracling it. Discern the Maker's Design
I went over to the controls on the right, studying both them and the wall. "These people used sound to open the door. Though it's not really a door. I think this worked more like the Waygates." That's why the controls were so intricate. It wasn't just about opening or closing the door but about telling the facility where to open it to.
"There's a secret way to open Waygates," Sheraine said. "Not many know it. Do you know the secret behind this one?"
"Doesn't matter, this place has lost power so this gateway doesn't work either." My attention was drawn to a panel sort of shaped like a pouncing vampire squid just underneath the controls.
"We can't be stuck here," Gemiad said. "The people that made this place must have thought of it. And they would have needed some way to move through the building while they were building it."
"You're not wrong. They did consider that situation." I pressed on the panel and rotated until it clicked and sprang away. The gateway was still a mystery to me, I was bound to Artifice, not Engineering. But the people that had made this place had been at a point in their understanding where magic and science converged, and magitech did fall under Artifice.
Reaching into the guts of the exposed controls I unclipped a handle, gave it a twist, and pulled. Then I had to walk all the way to the left, open the panel there, unclip that handle, pull it, and then twist. With a hiss, the gray metal filling the doorway faded away to reveal a passage running at least a hundred meters before it hit an intersection.
"This place must have been built by giants," Gemiad said as she stared down the newly revealed hallway. The ceiling was so high I could have walked through it in my draconic form, and I would only have to duck my head when I passed through the gateway.
"I'm getting the impression they weren't exceptionally tall for humans," I said, joining them. "But I don't know why they built at this scale." I wasn't getting much from my surroundings. Not only was this place old, but I got the impression that much of it had been grown rather than built. But since these were still devices and mechanisms, they did fall under my Word.
Sheraine tilted her head. "Does it matter?"
I made an uncertain sound. "The problem is that a lot of the Former Empires were inscrutable, according to what I read. They could value things you or I couldn't even comprehend, and not even consider things we worry about every day. That makes navigating one of their possessions even more dangerous because you can't assume. Except we don't have the supplies to take this slow."
"We don't," Sheraine said with a nod. "So lead the way." She peered into the hallway. Our lights only illuminated the first sixty to seventy meters, so she couldn't see the end of the hallway like I could. "You're our best scout in this place."
I swept my arm out. "Follow me. And don't speak too loud, sing, or hum. Sound appears to have been very important to these people."
We entered the hallway, but nothing happened. There were no alarms, no reappearing gate the moment we'd left that gigantic room, just silence as the rubbery metal floor material even ate our footsteps. I noticed that even here, they had avoided right angles. Wverything, even the walls of the hallway, curved or flowed from one shape into another.
When we reached the intersection I had hoped to see some sign, some marking that could tell us where we were or where to go. But there was nothing. Some light fixtures that I doubted could ever fully illuminate this place and some tubes about the length of Sheraine two-thirds of the way up towards the ceiling. They were arranged in a configuration that offset one from the other.
"We should take either left or right, and then stick to that heading," Sheraine said, looking into the darkness. "Unless you have found some clue in those … things."
I shook my head and turned away. "I've figured out how the people that built this place navigated it, but we can't use it."
"Why not?"
"Through music?" Gemiad asked, drawing both our attention. "You said they considered sound to be important. And those things look like giant flutes."
I nodded. "You're not wrong. The air of something passing by would move through the 'flutes' which would create a unique sound that must have been loaded with meaning. Meaning I can't even begin to figure out."
"Then we must treat this as a maze," Sheraine said. "We'll keep a left."
"No, I think we should go right." I stared down the hallway in that direction and unlike the other hallway, I saw the beginning of a set of stairs.
Sheraine regarded me, then where I was looking at. "You can see more than us. Part of your empowerment?"
"A minor benefit," I said as we started walking again. We did find the stairs I spotted, they were relatively broad and short, but that just mean we didn't have to pull ourselves up at every step. We started to find some rooms, some I figured to be examination rooms or maybe labs.
Certainly what equipment had survived gave me that impression, but whatever happened to this place had been sudden. Some sort of containment had been broken and those rooms were utterly trashed. The others, they just had dead workstations and emptied lockers.
Maybe whoever had worked here had evacuated the place, or maybe someone had gone through later and taken what was worth carrying out. What was clear, however, was that this wasn't how you were supposed to navigate the place.
The central room, the one with all the gateways, that had been how you moved from one level to another, from one place to another. It explained why I didn't see any elevators. They had something better.
Time had little meaning in this quiet, abandoned place. Though judging by our own needs it had been ours already. At least we had water, thanks to Sheraine. "I've never felt this before. Holding on to the One Power feels like I'm trying to control a skittish horse," she said, catching her breath before taking a swig from the canteen I'd made.
"I don't think it will get any better while we're here," I said as we headed for the largest intersection we'd come across so far. "We're lucky you can channel at all." I had wondered if the One Power would work offworld; now, we had our answer. We finally stumbled across something different as we reached the intersection.
Several hallways lead to a large hatch with several symbols in a circle in its center. I pulled out my translation glasses and put them on. My eyes stung as I looked up at the symbols, and my vision swam as the lines swirled into some sort of meaning.
"What does it say?" Gemiad asked as I squinted at the hatch.
"I … am not sure. The sentences keep shifting around. One sentence is 'Eagerly these bellies wait', another says 'Steam rises, food smells', and a third goes 'Delicious rush' … I don't get it."
"How are they shifting?" Sheraine asked, joining me in studying the hatch.
"The words stay in one group, but the order shifts. It can be 'The bellies eagerly wait', then it becomes 'Wait on the bellies eagerly'. This language might be too strange for my glasses to translate properly into something we can understand."
"It sounds like poetry, may I?" She held out her hand.
I had to admit I hesitated for a moment before handing the glasses over to her. Sheraine blinked rapidly as she looked through the glasses at the hatch, but that lasted only for a second or so. She nodded. "I think it is, perhaps, maybe …"
"Steam rises, food smells
The belly eagerly waits
Delicious rush"
The symbols lit up at the last syllable, then the hatch sprang apart into four flower petals that slid into the walls. It revealed the largest hallway yet as something clattered to the floor. The corridor was sparingly illuminated with bluish lights that just made the crevices in the undulating walls and ceiling darker. A rush of air slipped past us. It wasn't fresh air, though, as my nose wrinkled at the smell of iron and faint rot.
"It smells like a butcher's shop," Gemiad said.
"The poem was about food, or eating," Sheraine said, not showing any of the disgust or nausea I was feeling. "Though this smells fresh. We aren't alone here."
"How are you ignoring that smell?" Gemiad asked. "Is it another Aes Sedai secret?"
Sheraine shook her head. "Nothing like that. I've spent years in the North, fighting Shadowspawn. Once you've cleared a couple of Trollock camps with their pots still on the fire, a mere smell hardly compares." Yet her gaze turned inward and she pressed her lips together. One blink of the eyes and the mask was back, and I was sure it was that. "We need to investigate regardless."
"Before we do, I'd like to take a look at that," I said, pointing at what had fallen into the vestibule. It appeared to be a pile of crystals and silvery steel-alloy plates, but a closer look revealed that those could be arranged into the upper half of a vaguely humanoid figure; in fact, it once was. "And I'd like the glasses back."
"Oh, yes." She took them off and handed them over as we walked. "Those are surprisingly comfortable. I stopped noticing it was on my nose."
"Magic items like adjust themselves to their wearer as standard. If the person that made it has any idea what they're doing," I added as I secured it in its case again. We'd almost reached the construct when it shifted all on its own, and we froze.
Something in that heap of metal and crystal rattled, and then, like a plant reaching for sunlight, a fleshy stalk emerged. It wriggled around, its tip shaped a like a sunflower seed swaying back and forth.
"What in the name of the Light is that?" Sheraine exclaimed.
The thing whipped around to face us.
"Dangerous," I said as the head sprang apart and revealed a mane of slender feelers surrounding a central mouth that just had rows and rows of teeth as far down its gullet as we could see.
Sheraine's hand snapped out and she threw a fireball at it. Rather than dodging, the eldritch anemone turned to catch the fireball and swallowed it whole. I could actually see its stalk expand and contract as it went down its throat.
"Retreat!" I pushed Sheraine back, Gemiad was already stepping back herself, and threw a lightning bolt at the thing. To my horror, it caught the attack with its frills, the electricity snapping between the feelers as it traveled down to the central mouth where it got slurped up.
Light flashed up the stalk now, the mane strobing red and blue, and something traveled up the stalk. "Get behind me." I couldn't even check because I had to keep my attention on the eldritch abomination in front of me. I drew the club half of my spear and threw it with all my might as the giant anemone spit something wet, pulsating, and sharp at us.
They connected with the sound of a gunshot, both deflecting from each other, and whatever it had puked whistled past us and hit the wall some distance behind me while the club clattered past the downed construct.
"What is that?" Sheraine asked from behind me.
"I still don't know," I said, still keeping both eyes on it. Options were running out. It ate both weaves and my lightning. But that lightning wasn't really divine, just a move I learned through my instinctive grasp for the Lesser Strife. Weaker than a weave of the One Power, really. I could try and tear it apart with my claws, but I didn't want to touch it. Which left one other option.
"Close your eyes!" I took a deep breath. The sun's wrath erupts!
I exhaled a thin beam of liquid fire, hot as the sun and just as bright, it connected with the stalk in a moment. My will still shaped the fire I breathed, though it had gotten so much hotter, and I only wanted to burn this thing. White flame with a blue fringe gobbled up the flesh, racing up and down the stalk, and in a heartbeat it was nothing but white ash that rained down on the pile of metal.
"That could have been right at home in the most corrupted parts of the Blight," Sheraine said. "I'm not even sure that was a plant or an animal."
"It kind of reminded me of a sea anemone," I said. "They are animals, but they live in warm, shallow seas and they don't get anywhere near that size. I'm going to take a closer look. Stay here just in case there's something else hiding in there."
"We can't get out of here without you," Gemiad said. "So we're dead anyway if something happens to you. We're coming with, three people will see more than just one."
"She's not wrong," Sheraine said. "I might very well notice something you would miss."
"Let's spread out a little, just in case," I said before leading them over to the downed construct. I stopped out of arm's reach and drew the other half of my spear, the metal clattered and crystal rang as I poked it.
"Is that a hand?" Sheraine pointed. "Is this like those moving statues and metal puppets you summon?"
"Yes. This is a construct, though a lot more intricate than what you've seen me create." Satisfied nothing else was hiding inside of it, I went to work tracing where that tentacle had come from. It had buried its way through a gap in the chest plate and into the inner workings.
There was a second covering in there that had been wrenched apart. I just used the maintenance access built into the construct to follow, and that revealed the core. It looked like something straight out of a Power Rangers show, except if they had a Game of Thrones-sized budget.
The creature had been wrapped around this, but in doing so, it had disconnected the chakra engine from both the motive cog and the cognition engram.
"Are you trying to repair this thing?" Sheraine asked.
"I'm considering it," I said. There were other systems in there. Something that could generate a forcefield, gravity manipulator.
"And what will happen once you do?"
"Hopefully, it will start up and provide us with some information. But chances are it can't speak a language we understand and it won't understand us. And it might just see us as intruders and attack." Something shifted behind the chakra engine and I shifted to peer behind it. My eyes grew wide as I saw the small beetle-squid construct reconnect two systems. "Get back, it's self-repairing."
I let go and we both took a few steps back. In that time, a hum filled the air and light flickered inside the construct's chest. Then everything slid shut again and the whole thing rose up into the air. It levitated on what looked like a reverse waterfall of blue light, gathering in from the floor and coming together at the crystal underneath the construct's belly.
The arms were free floating at its sides as well, connected by more intense flows of light. The head was connected in a similar was, a long hollow cone with crystals growing inside like a geode. The hum became a tinkling chime, a soft melody.
"The Fifth Note of the Third Line of the Seventh Chorus has regained awareness," it chimed. "This one can't detect the Song of Work and Study." Then it turned to face us. "Unrecognized individuals perceived in secure area."
It raised its right arm which transformed into a cannon, a crystal beneath the barrel lit up and a laser dot appeared on my chest.
"Preparing for hostile encounter."
This chapter was improved thanks to the efforts of my betareader, DragoLord19D !
If you find yourself eager for more of my stories, you can find some links in my signature. Including to my original stories which you can find out more about on my website. On my website you can also signup to my newsletter and if you do that, you get the short story World Eater for free.