The Caverns of Kronos

The Chamber of Discourse - Part 3

     After a few minutes had passed, Resalintas returned to the maps on the table, wishing Skulnya were with him as he pondered battle tactics in preparation for the inevitable return of the Shadowarmies. An hour passed as he stared and thought and plotted, and other officers came and went from time to time, being careful not to disturb him as they also consulted maps and situation reports while, outside, Kronos rose above the western horizon and began to climb up into the sky. Some of the soldiers camped in the huge tent city looked up at it, but most of them ignored the small moon completely, having their minds firmly fixed on more practical matters.

     “Captain Resalintas?” said a voice.

     The priest looked up to see who was speaking to him, but the other occupants of the tent were engrossed in their own business and weren’t paying him any attention.

     “Captain Resalintas, can you hear me?”

     Resalintas realised that it was the farspeaking spell again, but now much louder and clearer, and he answered it by thinking in his own head. “Yes. Who is that?”

     “He answered it!” cried the voice in jubilation. “He heard me! We finally got through!”

     “Stop babbling and tell me who you are and what you want,” said the priest angrily, and the tone of triumph and joy in the farspoken voice was instantly replaced by nervousness and apprehension. Part of Resalintas instantly regretted having snapped at him, realising now that the speaker was a young man who’d been trying to get through for some time, but the rest of him was tired and worried about the state of the war and had no time for pleasantries. Besides, if they were so timid and lacking in self confidence that they could be cowed by a stern voice coming from thousands of miles away, they had no business dabbling in magic.

     “Er, you probably don’t remember me,” said the voice hesitantly. “My name is Thomas Gown. I’m a wizard, and I’m one of the group you sent into the Underworld to find the priest with the Sword of Retribution.”

     “I remember,” said Resalintas, his eyes widening in surprise. “I thought you were dead. Where are you?”

     “Well, er,” said Thomas, an embarrassed tone entering his voice. “You’re not going to believe this, but we’re inside Kronos. The smallest moon.”

     “What?” exclaimed the priest out loud in indignant disbelief, making the other officers in the tent look up in surprise. He left the tent and walked out into the open, so he could talk in privacy. “What kind of nonsense is this?”

     “It’s true, Sir,” protested the wizard, and the pleading tone of fear in his voice told the priest that he was telling the truth, or at least believed that he was. “We’re in a city built by the Agglemonians, so they could live up here until civilization rose again down there.”

     “Extraordinary,” said Resalintas thoughtfully.

     “We got up here by means of an old Agglemonian teleportation network, but the thing is, we can’t get down again, so we were hoping that you or someone could come up here and, er, sort of, get us down again. Please.”

     “You have my sympathy,” said the old priest, “but there’s nothing I can do at the moment. You’ll just have to sit tight up there until we’re less busy. Rescuing half a dozen youngsters who took it upon themselves to go exploring when there’s a war to be won is very low on my list of priorities at the moment.”

     Thomas bristled with anger, forgetting, for the moment, who he was talking to. “We didn’t go exploring!” he snapped. “We were forced up here to escape from a tribe of saveges. And in all due modesty, rescuing us should be high on your list of priorities. We’ve found something up here that you might find very interesting. Very useful in the war.”