Spellheart 10: Chapter 36

“Okay, we need to find Elara...” I said when I realized nobody knew where she was. Not even Mac, with access to a scanner that could stretch across the Hearthwood.

[There’s only one place in the Hearthwood I can’t see,] Mac explained.

“And that is?” I asked, already having a feeling of what he would say.

[Inside The Challenger. I can’t see through whatever that hull is made of. I would wager the reverse is also true.]

I nodded. “I was hoping to put this off a little longer, but it looks like we need to postpone any talks about dealing with the Planetary Defense Array and clean out The Challenger.”

The people around me nodded. I’d been a little nervous about dealing with The Challenger, and not just because of the two Immortal Ascendants in there. I was more nervous about seeing whether we could go back to Earth with The Challenger and The Wanderer’s powers combined.

On the one hand, it would be nice to have access to the resources of Earth again. I’d largely let go of my old life there, but going back for just a visit was tempting. I might even bring my companions back there, though they’d probably be unimpressed with my apartment after living in a palace. I wouldn’t even be able to surprise them with indoor plumbing since I’d already brought that invention to the Hearthwood.

But Elara was worth pushing those fears aside. I turned to my companions. “Grab Ethan. We’ll need him to order the Immortal Ascendants to not fight back. After we handle the two Immortal Ascendants, tell Ethan that we'll transfer him from a cell to guest quarters.

Yorik and Assyrus soon departed. I asked a few questions from people in the city who might know where she’d gone just to confirm Mac’s guess.

“Demigod Elara? We don’t dare to call ourselves her associates, but she gave us a parting gift,” one woman who’d been spotted talking to Elara said. She was a soldier of the Hearthwood and had fought in the battle previously near where Elara had been guarding the city.

“A parting gift?” I asked as the woman slowly pulled out a tiny golem from her pocket, no larger than a hand. Despite its diminutive size, I could tell it was as powerful as a Wizard. An item like that was powerful enough to form the foundation of a powerful clan, and the elf who’d received the gift was reluctant to reveal it, even to me. Her hands trembled as she looked up at me with wide eyes, assuming I would seize it for myself.

“If she gave it to you, then it’s yours. I just want to know where she went.” I said, curling her fingers over the little golem.

“She said she had a very important task to take care of. One from her beloved husband. She seemed very excited for it.” She glanced at me curiously.

I frowned. I hadn’t told her to do anything. In fact, the two of us hadn’t talked at all since we went for our walk.

Something was going on here that I didn’t understand. I didn’t like it.

I had little longer to stew in my thoughts because Nela and Assyrus returned a short while later with a manacled and downcast Ethan.

“You weren’t lying to me when you said I was a clone, were you?” Ethan asked me.

I shook my head. “I’ll show you myself. Just make sure those Immortal Ascendants stand down.”

As soon as that pair was out of the picture, taking care of this would be a lot easier.

We all made our way out the front gates and stood before The Challenger. The ship loomed over us like the corpse of a massive dragon once had long ago.

“We couldn’t force our way in, no matter what we tried,” Nela explained.

I cracked my knuckles. “I saw. But you all aren’t me. Let me give this a shot...”

And so I prepared to replicate my previous efforts to break into this tin can. Without the adrenaline of battle, it was harder, and I bruised my knuckles pounding on the metal. I took out Spell Eater, though its tip was still bent from the last time I’d used it as a prying tool on this thing. I was about to put it to work anyway when Sam called me.

“Hey, Theo! Ethan pointed out the entrance. It’s over here and still wide open from when Louis and Ethan left!” Sam said.

“Oh...” I said, staring down at my bruised knuckles. Perhaps all this fighting and redirected too much blood flow from my brain to my fists. Now that my lengthy war was over, I’d need to think about relaxing and building for the future.

We entered The Challenger with Ethan leading the way. He knew the place best and was already proving useful by pointing out security measures.

I didn’t like the fact that he would very likely get away with having his crimes against us waived, despite the fact that he had no doubt brainwashed elves by the millions. But he could do a lot for us, and it’d be foolish to execute him or let him rot in a cell when he could help us deal with The Challenger.

With Ethan leading the way, our brief excursion took us through the ship far faster than before. From the inside, the place looked nothing like the city-destroying monster we’d faced.

Despite slamming nose-first into the ground, everything within the ship was perfectly level and still.

“Doesn’t your ship have its own internal gravity?” Ethan asked.

I shook my head. “No. The Wanderer is more fond of compressed spacetime and reality warping than with the ability to be space worthy.”

“Curious. Well, this ship was clearly meant to be a flying fortress that could sail the void between worlds.”

I let out a sharp breath. “So you really could have all packed your bags and left this world behind? You could have left me and mine in peace?”

Ethan glanced at me. “Couldn’t you have done the same? I know you already have a base and allies on the orc homeworld.”

I scowled. He was right. I could have packed up the entire Hearthwood and moved everyone in with the Blackgorge Tribe. I just didn’t want to leave behind what was mine. I supposed that was probably Ethan’s point.

After a long stretch of silence, Ethan nodded toward a metal door. It had previously been locked, but it was open ever since I’d snapped the lock to peek inside.

“Is this the room you mentioned?” Ethan asked quietly.

“Yeah. It’s the one with all the clones.” I stepped forward and pushed the door wide. We filed in one by one, each of us peeking in on a place that looked even more like a mad scientist’s laboratory than my workshop.

“Damn...” Dean shook his head. “Metal diapers? Must be cold.” He pointed to the contraption each clone was wearing as they floated nearby. I pointed out those I recognized. Tim, the Sunspire King, Ethan, and a few others.

“Look at that! They’re extracting a huge amount of vitality from this place.” Sava pointed out a thick glass container full to the brim with sticky white... energy. I was pretty sure it was just raw life zeal. Or at least that’s what I hoped.

“Why keep so much here?” Nela asked.

Sava placed a hand on her hip and raised a finger like she was about to give a lecture. “I imagine growing a chaka — excuse me — growing a human takes a lot of the stuff. Once they’ve matured into a viable organism, though, they can produce it. It’s like extracting energy from one of our Patriarch’s precious nuclear reactors. For those, he invests some energy and then is able to extract much more.”

“So... this is me?” Ethan asked as he approached one tank in particular. “Or rather, it would have been the next me as soon as I kicked the bucket...”

“Are you going to turn evil now?” Dean asked. “Because every clone of mine that’s gotten to this point has turned evil about now.”

Ethan took a deep breath. “I... I suppose I’ve already turned evil after a fashion. Louis would consider working with you all me turning evil.”

Dean brightened. “You know, I never thought of it like that. Hurrah! Finally, a win when it comes to evil clones.”

“What’s that in the back there?” Sam pointed. We followed his gaze. A curtain covered the back half of the room, and I swept it aside to figure out what was underneath it.

There, covered in cobwebs and dust, was another clone. One we all recognized instantly.

“Louis?” Sam said as he pointed at the body floating in the container.

“That’s him, alright,” I confirmed. “I guess he wanted a backup plan in case he died. It’s a damn good thing we found this place. I would hate to do our last battle again.”

Sam frowned. “Very strange. He had to know the clone wouldn’t really be him, though he might look the part. I find it hard to believe he’d replace himself so. Everyone who’s reached Demigod would be familiar with the dangers.”

I shrugged. “Maybe Louis assumed the rules didn’t apply to him.”

“Maybe. He was in charge of the Cult because of how powerful he was. Not because of his leadership skills. Though he did a good job thinking long-term with the Cult until recently.”

“You mean, he did a good job doing whatever his future self told him through the headset?”

Sam nodded. “Yes, that would be an apt explanation. Perhaps his future self was actually this clone and had to arrange for his own existence?”

“Perhaps...” I agreed, though not entirely satisfied. “Now, how do we shut this thing down? The others can stay, but not him.”

Sava identified the oxygen cables. The clone was already at a pretty high cultivation level but not yet at the level where he could transcend physical needs like an Immortal Ascendant could. The clone had never opened his eyes, and now he never would.

We left the creepy clone tank room behind after that. Ethan wore a somber expression.

“We need to take care of the two Immortal Ascendants,” I said as I closed the door behind me.

“Ah... right. They should be up ahead. Wait for my signal. I will order them to stand down,” Ethan said.

We followed Ethan’s directions and, sure enough, came face to face with two powerful elves. Their heads were tilted down, and their arms and legs were bound to a pillar by thick enchanted chains by the collars around their necks and the manacles around each wrist and ankle.

Everyone tensed as we came across them. I definitely wasn’t the only person to know that if ever there was a time for Ethan to betray us for his freedom, it was now.

“Looks like they’re asleep. Good.” Ethan raised his voice. “Wake up.”

The two imprisoned elves lifted their heads and opened their eyes with lifeless mechanical expressions. My fingers tightened around Spell Eater, preparing for a fight. I still had a few uses with that digital stopwatch, so if Ethan betrayed us, I was prepared to turn back time and skewer him before he could do so.

But it was all a false alarm.

“Both of you, you’re being relocated to a new facility. Do everything this man says.” Ethan jerked his thumb back at me.

The two Immortal Ascendants turned to me with dull gazes.

Ethan glanced at me as well. “That’s the most authority I can give you without working some serious mind magic. Several layers of security protocol are embedded into the powers controlling them, and Louis didn’t give me access to the highest level of features. Sorry.”

I shook my head. “Don’t be. They won’t remain like this much longer. When I purge the mind magic from them, any surprises Louis left in their brains won’t matter much.”

Ethan nodded, and I snapped a pair of my own zeal-restricting collars around the two Immortal Ascendants. Unlike on normal elves, I doubted this was sufficient to control these two. Not if the apparatuses they were currently wearing were any indication.

The Cult had clearly gone to tremendous lengths to ensure that these two would never betray them, and they’d used much more than a couple of collars to make that happen.

Everybody eased up when the two Immortal Ascendants were on their way back to the Hearthwood. They’d power the city for a time and generate more zeal crystals with the rest of the prisoners until such a time that we could treat them for their mind control problem.

But before then, we still had to find Elara.

Ethan took us into the belly of the beast. I realized where we were going pretty quickly. In fact, we just about traced the line of destruction I’d left inside the ship as we made our way to the Mana Generator.

“I take it you’ve been here before?” He asked as he glanced back at me.

I smiled. “I have.”

“The security systems indicate two unauthorized personnel crossed this threshold.” Ethan glanced at a smashed door.

“One of them was me. The other...” I stared ahead.

“It had to be Elara,” Nela spoke what I was thinking aloud.

The Mana Generator room was much as I left it, walls blown out left and right. The room was still blazing hot, and Yeminel twirled her fingers to bring a cool breeze blowing through it despite the fact that there was nowhere it could have come from in this room.

“Whew...” Dean waved his hand in front of his face like a fan. “Is this the boiler room? Because it’s damn hot in here. Ladies, don’t touch that over there. That’s molten iron.”

“You could say that,” I replied to Dean. “This is presumably what makes The Challenger’s power. It’s leaking an awful lot right now.”

The elves stayed clear of the molten metal, but Sam, Dean, and I could approach it without fear. I did so, though Sam stayed back.

The room was truly a mess. The power surge I’d triggered had busted a little of pretty much everything. Raw conceptual energy, power I thought of as mana, was still spilling into the room. It was interacting with the ambient zeal in strange ways I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. Earth zeal seemed to be slowly morphing into metal, which was where the molten iron came from.

Other aspects were reacting even more strangely. The air had a faint blue glow to it, and the wind Yeminel was generating was slowly gathering more and more dust that definitely wasn’t there when we entered the room. I didn’t like it.

“Uh... you know, if we had any way to measure radioactivity, I’m pretty sure we’re all getting a thousand lethal doses of it a second.” Sam shot a cautious glance at the Mana Generator.

Dean’s eyes widened.

I pulled him back. “A thousand lethal doses for a human, Dean. We’re fine. I toss about rods of refined uranium all the time, and I haven’t grown any extra limbs. Focus, we need to pick up Elara’s trail. Though Sam’s probably right that we shouldn’t linger here too long. I think the mana in here is worse for us than radiation could ever be.”

Dean gulped, but kept looking. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before we picked up Elara’s trail again.

“I think I found something!” Eltiana called from the upper railings on the other side of the room. “We’re looking for Elara, right? This looks like her handiwork.”

Whatever she wanted was deep within The Challenger. But why?

And how’d she receive instructions from her husband? I had only just been coming to terms with the thought that it was me!

Everyone was glad to leave the extremely dangerous leaking Mana Generator. I was just glad the thing seemed stable. The Challenger seemed to be repairing its containment sphere, which was both good and bad.

Good in that it wasn’t about to explode. Bad in that it meant I needed to deal with it sooner rather than later. Mac and I would need to put our heads together to figure out how to merge it with The Wanderer. Hopefully, while keeping Mac in charge of everything.

“This way!” Eltiana continued to lead the way. Before I’d met her, her tribe had been the reclusive assassins of the Hearthwood. While that tradition had fallen a bit by the wayside with my unification and the sudden surge of power for the entire region, it wasn’t gone entirely.

Eltiana had taken it upon herself to push the frontier of her family’s skills to new heights, which meant figuring out how to apply those abilities at the Wizard and Sorcerer level, something nobody in her tribe had ever had the opportunity to do before. And she’d been proving quite good at it, too, as evidenced by her ability to track Elara through a destroyed ship. I didn’t see any tracks, yet she had her scent like a bloodhound following a trail. The serious expression on her face was a far cry from her usual carefree attitude.

“We’re close! I can sense her!” Eltiana said as she crawled forward. She was crouched on her toes and her fingertips. Skittering along the ground like a spider. I wasn’t sure that part was entirely necessary, but I wasn’t about to complain.

“There! She should be right behind this door!” Eltiana jumped to her feet and threw open a door... behind which was an empty room.

The chamber was wide and sparsely furnished. In fact, there was no furniture at all other than a chair. The walls were circular, and a few glowing lights traveled up and down their length.

I turned to Ethan for an explanation. He seemed to recognize the place.

“This is the thing Louis uses to enter the Primordial World on command. It’s far better than natural entrances since it can even take you directly to a parallel universe,” Ethan explained.

“Look, she left a note!” Eltiana dove for the note, lifted it and flashed it to me. I picked it up and read it aloud.

“I hope this note finds you well. Sorry, everyone, but at last, duty calls. Make sure you get everyone you care about inside The Hearthwood because the world’s about to be destroyed. Sorry!”

I dropped the note.

“Shit.”

<Note>
Man, time travel stuff makes things complicated. It will all make sense eventually though! (hopefully)