Tell No One

Tell No One.

Chapter 7

Wiping away the remains of the black blood beading under her thumb’s touch, Mezhan Kwaad sighed discontentedly despite the delightful sting the action had induced. Yal Phaath was deterred for now, but that left her with the same annoying quandary – Who had sabotaged her work, and to what end?

For the fourth time that day, the sound of the membrane to the chamber dilating drew her attention away from her thoughts. The figure of the same shaper initiate from earlier, Yakun Kwaad, padded balefully into the room, genuflecting as he did so. Mezhan Kwaad was almost nigh on certain she saw his eyes flicker away from what must be a spectacular bruise forming just below the blue of her eye sac on the left hand side.
“Speak” She intoned, ignoring his insolence for now.

“Master, I hear I hold the answers to what you seek, not Master Yal Phaath.”

Now he had her full and undivided attention. He had spoken what she already knew, of course, but this mattered little when accompanied with the ideal that he could actually answer her question. Mezhan Kwaad had to carefully rein in her surprise at the confession, calming her tendrils once again with a single thought.

“What leads you to believe I seek anything from him?”

Yakun Kwaad genuflected again, his gaze not meeting hers.
“He suspects you of heresy, just as he suspected my previous master…who was sacrificed almost a klekket ago.”
This time Mezhan Kwaad did not interrupt him. “If it were not for my actions, I fear the same fate would have befallen you also.”

His actions? Was he admitting to what she thought he was? So then what was this?
“You imply that-“ Mezhan Kwaad found herself cut off by the shaper initiate in what was a blatantly insubordinate and potentially deadly move.

“I deliberately destroyed the dweebits, master, I did so as to prevent the discovery of your work here.”

The master shapers’ mind raced in circles, confirmation was all she needed to set her precariously on edge, and he most certainly wanted something out of this. So it was blackmail then?
“Why?” Asked Mezhan Kwaad curtly, tendrils deathly still.

Yakun Kwaad inclined his head respectfully, his own headdress knotting in awkwardness,
“Because there is something that I might ask of you.” He uttered bravely on his part.

“Speak it.” She could not risk ignoring what was liable to be an early warning.

“I see what you see,” Yakun began gingerly, fumbling with his oozhith in unaltered, natural hands “Worldships ailing with little hope of recovery, with almost no hope of ever being capable of crossing the void to the promised worlds. Our people die in ignominy, whole domain crèche’s wiped out needlessly, and for what? Because the gods wish it?”

Mezhan Kwaad noted that Yakun was veering dangerously toward her own personal views. What had it cost Yal Phaath to buy this one’s faith through false admittance?
Still the initiate continued,
“Do they? Do the gods really wish it? How can we do their will when there will be so few of us left?”
He paused then, composing himself for what would be the reason behind this little drawl, Mezhan Kwaad knew his type well and would no doubt find the ending just as amusing. He would get her to reveal the truth and then pounce upon it with conviction. She couldn’t risk that, not yet.

“I asked to be transferred here, because I hear the rumours about our domain just as any of the others do – but to know for sure if what they spoke of you was true? I had to know for certain. I had to know.”

The master shaper let the awkward silence that befell them drag on a moment longer than was appropriate. It would do good to make him sweat this one out for a moment or two.

“Know what, exactly initiate?”

His eyes went momentarily wide , like a crecheling caught with their hands in the food platters reserved for the more worthy. Though where, exactly, his concerns lay, Mezhan Kwaad could not tell by observation alone.

“The heresy you practice” Yakun Kwaad whispered so lightly, that the master shaper found herself struggling to hear it. “I wish to continue learning as I began…”

Mezhan Kwaad cut him short with a single, sharp motion of her multi-implemented hand, gesturing so suddenly, that the initiate actually flinched. The master shaper uttered a low curse at that disgusting display of fear. Fear was to be mastered, not nurtured! If he was genuine, she would make sure he learned that lesson personally, and with abhorrent zeal.

“You went to all this trouble simply so you could continue your work?” She quizzed, casting a wide arc in the air with one hand, “I think not.”
She wagered that even without the maa’it implants, she could have seen the subtle changes in his body temperature as he squirmed under her gaze and toiled laboriously inside to find an answer to her questions and suggestions.

When at last it seemed Yakun Kwaad could no more escape her gaze than he could have admitted to Yal Phaath that he was a heretic for real, he sighed, his tendrils curling in low to frame his face – defeated expression and all.
“I-“ he stammered, unable to get the words to form on his lips, eyes nervously gazing around the room as if to scan it for sensislugs.

“Your words are quite safe here,” she assured him, but her irritation showed never the less, she was becoming impatient and soon his chance to speak would be passed.
And he would be dead.

“I know what it is like master,” He responded mid genuflection, and Mezhan Kwaad picked up on something acutely subtle in his voice then, if it had not been for his pause she may have missed it all together, but it was there as clear as day to all those who looked deep enough. The way he gingerly pawed over the words as if they alone would induce death, how he had begun to perspire, wiping the sweat that beaded on his forehead away with the long sleeve of his oozhith. It was not overwhelmingly warm, she noted. It all spoke of a secret hidden. She would never have been so transparent!

“What it is like?” Mezhan Kwaad questioned tersely.

Yakun Kwaad looked at her then, fixing her with a stare she could only liken to a slave that realized it’s tenuous place in the hierarchy, wistful, resigned to the facts.
“I know what it is to lust after what is abhorrently forbidden to us, to love what the gods say we should not.” He blurted out.

Mezhan Kwaad’s blood chilled in the deepest depths of her veins, all feeling flowing to the muscle that would unleash her hand-spears, dispatch this possible informer where he stood. How much did he truly know?
“What you speak of, it is lies.” She spat, tone as dangerous as she could make it.

“I speak from experience.” The initiate shot back, realizing his mistake when he saw the fire burning bright in her otherwise cool-green eyes.
He dropped to the floor, forehead pressed firmly against the hard, unforgiving surface in deep supplication.
“Kill me if that is your wish, I came only to ask my request and to warn you. There are others who would take this information and use it to your end.”

“And you would not?” Mezhan Kwaad sneered mockingly “What information would that be?”

He had not used exact terms, there was every chance that he was still an instrument for Phaath’s means to an end, the master shaper needed to know for certain before choosing the path best to take.

“Your affair with the warrior of domain Rapuung, I required use of the succession pools, it was only I who saw you, but next time – Agh!” His startled cry penetrated the air, splitting it into silence between them. The pain he felt in his forearm brought fire to his elbow and wrist joints in searing, merciless assaults on his nerves. Drawing his arm up into his line of disorientated vision, closer examination showed a glimpse of the tail end of a needle thin quill.
‘- dart’ his mind registered a split second before dark spots tunnelled his vision and all faded to black.

*****

Vua Rapuung lay awake upon the course, scratchy vurruk-carpet lined nest bunk, eyes glinting in what little light managed to penetrate the entrance membrane sealing him off from the capillary network of halls beyond. How many moments had it been now? How long until it would be safe to leave? Vua Rapuung noted that he has not heard his crèche brother – whose minshal was next-door to his- return yet, perhaps he would not? Perhaps he had taken Vua as an example and decided to likewise, finding himself his own ‘Suun Esh’? That idea made him laugh bitterly and inward, they weren’t crechelings anymore, not by half.
That was the reason he could not confide in Hul Rapuung – He could not tell him of his ongoing tryst with the shaper. The strength of his crèche brothers’ conviction was admirable, but he would never believe by word alone that the gods had given he and Mezhan Kwaad special dispensation. He could not even risk these thoughts, but they had crept up on him continuously like the most stealthy of foes – daring him as the shaper had.

Running a worn and calloused hand through the patch of hair adorning the uppermost part of his skull, he stretched out on his nestbunk, consigning himself to the fact that he could be in for a long wait. Sighing, he delighted in the exquisite ebbs of pain that issued from the cuts – still weeping- he now bore on his torso from his nightly devotions to the slayer.
Atonement for his heresy? He wondered, or merely food for the gods so that they may keep Yun-Yuuzhan’s vengeful and potent gaze away for longer?
It was not his place to question such things.

The sounds of movement in the chamber next to him, made Vua Rapuung cock his head to one side, enabling him to hear better away from the sound – devouring carpet. Hul had returned then?
Not long – He told himself inwardly with a delightful knot of tension in his belly, when he was certain Hul was asleep; he could leave for the shapers compound. And her.

Not long inevitably took quite some time, much to Vua Rapuung’s annoyance. But when the noises of shifting around and muffled mutterings ceased, the young warrior knew his moment had at last arrived.
Rising slowly from the bunk, feeling the vurruk carpet shift beneath his weight as he did, Vua Rapuung slipped from the chamber as silently as an drifting tracer spineray towards it’s target, and he in kind, towards his own.

From his shadow-bound hiding place, behind one of the corridor’s arching rib-like struts, Hul Rapuung waited, tense, for several heartbeats before pursuing his brother into the night at a fair distance. This was a well anticipated move, he thought, and this was becoming one of the best distrustful decisions he had made in quite some time. Vua Rapuung was into something, but just how deep Hul could scarcely imagine – indeed, he was going to find out soon enough, even if it was the death of him.

Following at as long a distance as he could without losing track of his crèche brother, Hul edged his way along the capillaries and hollowed out tubular sections of the worldship that made up it’s honeycombed network of walkways and passages, all lit by the large luminous patches of green-blue fungi or bug-globes. The light was not so brilliant down here as it was in the higher reaches of the worldship, this suited Hul Rapuung just fine, Vua Rapuung was no fool, he had not attained his rank of distinction through birthright as some had, he would be wary of those who may be foolish enough to follow him.
And so he should be.

Confrontation was not Hul Rapuung’s plan, though he kept his coufee with him at all times. The path Vua Rapuung took was an arduously long and dangerous one, treading too close to the areas of the worldship reserved for the elite and their entourage of attendants at times. Here the bioluminescent fungi was at it’s brightest brilliance, and Hul found himself hanging back more so than he would have preferred to avoid detection. However, he had noticed one thing about this route, it bypassed or skirted around places more commonly used by those who would have recognized him, wherever Vua Rapuung was heading, he wanted to reduce his chances of being spotted by those he knew.

Dropping down silently behind a small coral outcrop, Hul Rapuung slid, back against the wall, into a hollowed out niche in the coral struts of a much larger passage. His brother had halted, only meters away and appeared to be scanning the area with a dark and suspicious expression upon his face. Had he seen? Did he know all along and was merely luring Hul Rapuung out here to challenge him away from the prying eyes of others? No, his brother was no coward, just as he was no fool.
He dare not move an inch, even to sneak another glance, for fear of the coral at his back being dislodged in large fragile flakes at his withdrawal of touch. Even when he heard Vua Rapuung’s steps heading away again, Hul waited several moments more before deeming it safe to move off to a more suitable place of concealment.

It was almost an eternity before Hul’s trail came to an end, he had followed his crèche brother through the one-board gardens littered with juvenile amphistaff groves and immature poisoned razor-grass that would cut and snag painfully under foot. Past the clearly defined boundaries of the gardens, marked by a line of mollusc-like minshals for the workers, both of them had slipped past the oblivious sentry standing outside of the dwellings. Hul Rapuung made a mental note to speak to that one’s superior about their tardiness when next he got chance.

And so here Hul crouched, in the shadow-laden niche of the worldships supporting wall, staring in what he could only describe as utter bemusement at a shaper compound.
As a high ranking warrior, Vua Rapuung would have been granted access to many places others were forbidden, but even he should not be granted access to a shapers damutek without good reason. The shapers were those – aside from the Supreme Overlord – thought to be closest to the gods. They revered life, created that which had been gifted to them by the gods themselves – and as such, the shapers were kept at a respectful distance from the rest of Yuuzhan Vong society.
So why was it then that Vua Rapuung had cause to be here?

Risking another glance, Hul Rapuung peered from his hiding place, careful all the while not to lean from the darkness of concealing shadows.
Vua Rapuung appeared to be searching for something at the edge of the compound, gaze cast down toward the ground in earnest, where he scuffed at something with a booted foot.
Hul could not make out what, exactly, his sibling was attempting to uncover – not at this distance – and to move from hiding held a great amount of risk. He was determined not to have come this far just to fail and be placed back at square one again.
Patience, all good strategists most worthy of traits came from a well honed patience and the ability to know when this was best used.

Vua Rapuung had stopped what he was doing now, something contained within a gelatinous substance, similar to blorash jelly, rested at his feet. Unfortunately for Hul, he was too far aware to make much sense from what he was observing. Across the way, Vua Rapuung cast a cautionary gaze all around him, the air was still enough, carried no unfamiliar scents on it’s gentle, but methodical, circulation. Yet something did not feel right to the warrior, he was troubled by a terrible sense that no warrior should pay mind, foreboding. Was this after effects of his encounter with the shaper too? Had he been tainted somehow?
Not too far away from him to see, but high up in the cavernous space that arched up like the gigantic rib-cage of some ancient and forgotten war-beast, towered a large yorik coral effigy of the shaper goddess, Yun-Ne’shel. In all her horrific and magnificent glory, it was she who looked down upon the compound below, observing all – and in her omnipresent potency, she stood as a constant reminder to those who dared defy her, the gods wrath was inevitable. It was they who had made the Yuuzhan Vong after all, they could just as easily tear them apart too.

Should he have returned here so soon? The warrior wondered as he gazed up in awe, should he have returned here at all?
He glanced back down at the object he had uncovered, reaching down with his hand outstretched to grasp the gelatinous-blob, brushing away the coral flakes and dust to awaken what was in fact a carefully concealed creature.
The strange near-transparent creature shifted beneath the warrior’s calloused touch, changing slightly in consistency. Vua Rapuung gave a simple nod of approval, he was pleased that no one had found this particularly wonderful little biot.
He had procured it by force only a day earlier, from the hands of a terrified worker who had been making their way to the damutek’s of the intendants. The worker would know better than to attempt to speak out about the encounter and theft – death was often a proficiently effective threat in these cases.

The creature had now begun to thin out, stretching it’s glistening surface out like an ooglith masquer, moulding it’s self to the palm of Vua Rapuung’s hand.
The way the biot worked was beautifully simplistic yet complex enough to confuse some of the sensing biots on older damutek entrances. It worked by picking up and storing the bio-signatures left by those who came into physical contact with the identification’s biots at the entrance to each damutek. Applying the creature to ones hand and then placing said hand against the sensitive pad, that exuded needle like spines to ‘taste’ those who wished to enter, would allow the creature to effectively capture enough of a bio-signature left by the last Yuuzhan Vong to use the identifying pad.
Fresh signatures were best, not to mention safest. A wrongly interpreted bio-signature could set off a potentially catastrophic chain of security measures inside the shaper damutek – and Vua Rapuung could not afford to be seen here, let alone be found responsible for several untimely shaper deaths.

Taking one final look about him, the warrior was satisfied that he had not been followed. It had been wise to choose this hour then.

*****
Hul Rapuung stared in disbelief at his crèche brother’s actions. A deeply repressed aching-dread twisted and turned in his gut, causing him to gape like a crecheling at what he had just witnessed. Vua Rapuung had walked toward the main entrance to the damutek and had proceeded to enter….undeterred?
Was his mind playing cruel tricks on him? What madness was this? The twisting of his innards told him otherwise, this was real enough, Hul Rapuung had not been hallucinating – so why then? Why would his brother desire access to one of the few places aboard a worldship most dare not go? Not only was this a matter of great disrespect among the shaper and warrior castes alike, but he had done so in full view of the visage of Yun-Ne’shel!

The sound of the damutek entrance sealing behind his crèche brother renewed the potent fiery anger in Hul Rapuung’s mind. Surging through him, the rage forced it’s way through him, causing him to thrust his balled fist against the jagged, craggy surface of the Yorik-coral wall he had previously been so tightly braced against. Cursing with anger untold, the warrior found no solace in pain as he watched blood well up and around spiked-knuckle implants, concealing the faint flash of pure white bone mixed fragmented coral shards that lay within.
No, the pain did nothing to help him focus, it was a mere splinter’s prick compared to the fury and confused frustration he felt. How was he supposed to follow Vua Rapuung now?

Slumping back against the fissured wall of his hiding place, Hul Rapuung sank into a sitting position and took several deep breaths of cleaning air. He would not follow, he would wait all night cycle if he had to, but one thing he was certain of, he would confront his crèche brother about this bout of sacrilegious and unexplainable actions. And then it would be Vua Rapuung who would find no solace in pain.

*****
The interior of the shapers damutek was like something out of a bizarre and haunting dream. A thousand unfamiliar scents were strewn upon the humid air, and the tall-arching walls oozed some kind of peculiar white coloured ichor that released a raw and organic tang to the air’s scent. Nourishment, he thought, for the walls of this damutek.
It was this ichor that kept the fungi lining the barriers here, so red, it glowed with a vibrancy Vua Rapuung could only recall seeing on his visits to older worldships. Reserved for those who required good light to work in, no doubt – the elite.

As he wandered stealthily quiet through the winding passageways, each branching off into smaller ones that lead to various and equally confusing areas, Rapuung took great care to keep an ear primed to any noise, however subtle, that could indicate his impromptu discovery.

Moving through the passage membranes was easy enough, even the lowest ranking shapers were allowed to tread here, the biot still adhered to his hand would be true to the task for at least another cycle. But as the intrepid warrior heard something squish under foot, he had not the time to examine whatever gods-given, and possibly foul, creature he had stepped in, for some other sound had caught his ear. Echoing faintly in the distant most pathways he had travelled, he could barely make out the patter of bare feet upon the cold coral floor. So slow and rhythmic in their movements were they, that Vua Rapuung could tell whoever it was, had not yet become aware of his presence.
Cold fears that the warrior thought he had long since slain, reared their ugly heads for one last potentially fatal stab at his mind – had he been followed after all?

The footfalls fell in such a way, that they betrayed their owner’s confidence more and more with each measured, deliberate stride. A warriors confidence though?
It was not unheard of for damuteks to be guarded, the shaper caste was in steep decline due to recent acts of blatant heresy being rooted out. Whole domains had suffered as a result, whole damuteks torn apart for fear of the contamination spreading. Shimrra could seldom afford to lose so many to petty domain rivalry and assassination in the name of self escalation.
Somehow Vua Rapuung could not imagine Mezhan Kwaad falling pretty to such atrocities. She was veraciously strong in mind and body, her subtle yet abundantly potent manipulation of Rapuung the last time they had met, was only a fraction of what she was capable of with those deft fingers of hers. And if one so strong minded, as he considered himself, could succumb to the allure of her unknown talents inside these concealing walls, what chance stood many who opposed her?

Shaking himself from his reverie, he noted, with much urgency, that he had still not found a suitable hiding place.
Ducking through the next sections of membrane – which regrettably sphinctered open with a slight wet ‘pop’ – Vua Rapuung backed up as flat as he could make himself, against the supporting, slightly convexed wall. Jagged protrusions that framed each porthole, for no other reason than ornateness, would keep him somewhat concealed enough to slip back out of the entrance should someone come this way. Or so he hoped, he would stick out like a vua’sa in a crowd of shamed ones should he be glimpsed out the corner of an errand eye. He would be forced to kill then.

For what seemed like an infinite amount of time, he waited, breath falling shallow and silent as he listened to the sounds of the foot steps grow steadily louder, closer. His hand inched instinctively toward the coufee sheathed at his right hip, hand gripping the pommel tighter with every step he heard.
Closer, closer still, until –

The tall and slender figure stepped light footed through the threshold, all too unaware of what awaited them should they spot Vua Rapuung. The wriggling many-tentacled headdress they wore, a sign of the shaper caste – one who seemed unexplainably agitated to merely be out for a quiet stroll. Her headdress coiled in tight knots, flicking out like an amphistaff initiating a strike, her posture tense, stiffened by whatever thoughts plagued her mind.

Adrenaline coursed and surged within Rapuung’s blood-stream, mere milliseconds before an all too familiar scent provoked memories as sharp as the coufee he clung to so tightly.
How had he not realized until now?
Images flooded his alert mind, images of those tendrils dancing in pure disarray, the feverous touch of her cruel hands cutting deep, leaving in their wake his most favourite scars – a stark reminder of what they had consummated here in the pools that supplied the damutek with its own life blood. Her lips crushed hotly, passionately against his, her taste seductively addictive…sublime.
The images that the mere scent of this shaper evoked, assaulted his mind with such ferocity that the words formed on his lips, left his mouth before he could prevent them from doing so.

“Mezhan Kwaad.”

The shaper, now already several feet away, paused as if she had heard her name filter through to her as a whisper on the breeze.
Her headdress swayed and curled gently with every thought that wove its way through her weary mind, a welcome change from the troubled thoughts she had been forced to contend with up until now.
Had she really heard that voice?
Slowly, she turned around as though in doing so, she would find her dream was just that…unreal. It was for that exact reason that her deep-green eyes glittered with genuine surprise when she allowed her gaze to rest on Vua Rapuung.
In her multifaceted eyes, he saw a thousand words unspoken, words and sentimentalities she was perhaps too proud to profess, but he knew – shapers pride or not – she meant every single one of them.

He approached when he was certain that they were alone for the time being, pausing under an arms length away, taking another sweeping gaze at his surroundings for good measure. For someone who had spent his entire life aboard the worldships of the Yuuzhan Vong, this place was worlds apart from anything he would have seen outside its walls. It was oddly unnerving. Unnerving still was the mark she now bore.

Confusion intermixed with curiosity as he reached out to her, cupping her chin lightly with one battle-worn hand, tilting her head slightly to regard the deep purple hue of the bruise on her prominent cheek bone. Better revealed by the damutek’s overhead light globe, the warrior could tell it was fresh, recent. He had received enough of such things in his time to know, but a shaper?

In his eyes, Mezhan Kwaad saw a silent askance, and she felt shame. Not for the simple fact she had acquired such a pitiful mark – she had witnessed crechelings who could inflict more damage in play - but for the fact she had let the situation escalate this far. Yal Phaath was out for her domain’s blood, and according to Yuuzhan Vong doctrine, he had every right. What Mezhan Kwaad had set in motion, would give Yal Phaath what he wanted, for now at least. It was but a neathlat over the wound of suspicion, but it would serve her purpose for the short term and give her enough time to find a better, more permanent, solution.
A necessary sacrifice, she told herself, to preserve the greater, more refined and tested of heresies.
But all Vua Rapuung would see would be guilt – and that would sour the best of a warrior’s moods.

“What is this?” His question left his lips a hoarse and disbelieving whisper, his worn fingertips ghosting over the tender, bruised flesh beneath.

The shaper took hold of his arm at the wrist and gently, but firmly, pulled the hand away from her chin, even as several of her tendrils snaked down inquisitively from their lofty perch to investigate it.
“You should not be here, not now.” Inwardly, Mezhan Kwaad berated herself for allowing that slight hint of urgency to seep into the cracks of her statement.

A frown creased Vua Rapuung’s brow, the light fading from his gaze to be replaced by something darker. The shaper would surely sense this, along with the change in body temperature, the mix of adrenaline and the cold sense of dread twisting his gut. He knew that by the moment he physically felt it, that she would have sensed the danger well in advance.

Indeed, Mezhan Kwaad had already begun to move away, hand-spears tensing, pressing against the insides of her fragile fingertips in anticipation.
He was quicker than she had anticipated.

Darting forward, he grasped at her wrist and twisted her arm until she was forced to hold it at an awkwardly painful angle, lest she wish to break or lose it. Her shot would go wide if she chose to take it and Vua Rapuung had been fully prepared for that.
But it never came.
Instead, her eyes blazed indignantly through the blistering pain that shot up her arm and into her elbow to crash against her nerves like a downed yorik-et to ground. She did not cry out, nor give any indication that he had caused her any harm, she had inflicted worse upon herself in ritual cleansings and sacrifice after all. He was a warrior, and they would always conduct themselves in a heavy handed manner, exasperating as it was, she liked that.

“Why do you recoil?” he asked, voice a suspicious growl.

“I do not,” she hissed in outraged response, “I can be here no more than you, now go!”
Her urgency did little to quench his veracious suspicion’s thirst.

“Who is he?” Rapuung demanded after several moments’ awkwardness.
The shaper would have laughed if the situation had not been so directly serious.

“He?” She did not have time for this, but his vice-like grip would not lessen on her wrist by force alone – and Mezhan Kwaad could not afford to let them find either of them here.

“This other you have…ensnared.” The warrior growled, and the shaper in response fixed him with an almost mocking stare.
Typical of a warrior to assume that he may have a rival, that this was about him. It both enraged and amused her, only seeking to do the unexplainable and endear him further. She was his, and he hers – as long as they were strong, nothing could change the fact that they were free.

“Fool,” she berated him, he would thank her for it later, “You see no further than the end of your own aspirations, there is no other!” She punctuated the last words with such strong conviction, it was almost as if she could see his doubt clouded mind free it’s self from the hindering mists.
He would not apologize of course, that was not in a warrior’s nature and she for one did not mind. His grip was loosening, his hard glare softening in realization. But before a single word could pass between them, sounds of great commotion filled the halls toward the sprawling arms of the damutek, and the entrance that therein lay.

Mezhan Kwaad’s head snapped round in the direction of the distant, but prominent, commotion – they were here.