Thomas Gown's connection to a group of powerful wizards who lived thousands of years ago is finally revealed, and he learns that he may be able to save his world and his civilisation, along with others beyond number, from a threat that will manifest...
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The Jules Verne arrived back at the portal eight days later and then had to wait another three days for the portal to re-open.
They used the time to make more observations of the two warring planets, watching more battles and drawing maps of the major population centres. There was only so much they could learn without actually walking the streets of their cities and talking to people, though, and by the time they were able to return to their own universe they had learned just about everything it was possible to learn using the scrying mirror alone.
Saturn and Captain Strong then teleported back to Tharia. It would be at least two days before they returned, and in the meantime the rest of the crew sat around in silence, talking in low voices as they discussed the horrors that waited for them in the Shipbuilder universe. Lirenna spent hours in Thomas's cabin, the two of them holding hands as the wizard tried to console and reassure his wife, neither of them quite able to believe that what they'd heard could possibly be correct. Weapons capable of laying waste to entire districts of a city! Hundreds of people killed in a single strike. Thousands of others left with horrific injuries. They'd thought they'd left such horrors behind at the end of the last Shadowwar, and even then it had been thought that only such evil as came from the demonic realms could deliberately unleash such widespread destruction and suffering. The war being fought in the Shipbuilder universe had been fought between humans, though. If they were being led and directed by malign, demonic powers they had, as yet, seen no evidence of this.
"The only thing in Tharian history that comes close is the campaign of Kull the Sacker," said Thomas somberly. "The way he massacred the entire populations of every city that didn't surrender to him straight away. Thousands of men, women and children gutted and dismembered, their remains left to hang, rotting, from the walls of their cities when he moved on..."
"And even he's thought to have been possessed by something," agreed Lirenna. "Some kind of evil presence. Is it possible that both those planets have been infested by something evil? Something that drives people to extreme acts of madness and barbarity?"
"I don't know," admitted Thomas. "I just know that, when we go down to those planets, we'll have to be very careful. Very careful indeed, and when we come back we'll probably be put in quarantine to make sure we're not bringing something back with us."
Later that day, the wizard went to the ship's chapel to see Timothy. They talked about the two warring planets for a while, told each other how terrible it was and how they couldn't understand what could possibly make the two planets hate each other so much.
The cleric could tell that that wasn't the real reason the wizard had called on him, though. "What's really brought you here?" he asked. "What's on your mind?"
Thomas sighed, and told him about Daleen Verdantia's visit of a few days before. "I made a real fool out of myself," he told the cleric. "She thought I... That I..." He paused, knowing how foolish he was going to sound, but he pressed on anyway. "She thought I was coming on to her. I wasn't, but I somehow managed to make her think I was and she came to my cabin to tell me that, that my advances, the advances she thought I was making, were... weren't entirely unwelcome. I had to put her straight. Tell her it was all a mistake. I feel such a complete fool! The Gods alone know what she thinks of me now."
