“What do the Wizteriaz have to do with this?” Irwin asked.
The Girdaim fell quiet for a moment, and as it did, Irwin thought of something.
“Are you able to talk amongst yourself?” he asked, leaning forward. “As in, right now?”
“Yes,” the center Girdaim said. “We are told you do something similar with the flying anvils?”
“Ganvil,” Irwin corrected automatically, before frowning. Should he move them apart, knock all of them unconscious but one? How was he going to be sure that they were actually telling the truth instead of rapidly concocting lies together? Who was even their leader… Likely not the one he was speaking to.
If I do that, they might not know all I want to know, he thought, focusing on the Girdaim.
“The Wizteriaz,” he said. “Tell me what you know of them.”
The pause was shorter this time.
“Most of them live beyond the Portal Gallery border within the Primordeal Chaos,” the center one spoke. “Only very rarely does one manage to make their way out, and they are like you.”
What?!
His surprise at that claim caused a bit of his pressure to leak through, and the Girdaim swayed.
“Ah, I mean this in the sense that they resist the Guidar,” the Girdaim said, sounding as calm as before.
“They fight the Guidar?” Irwin asked, not sure he’d understood that correctly.
“Yes, though only if they are pushed,” the Girdaim said. “There are legends among my people of the Guidar exploring the Primordeal Chaos beyond the barriers. They would bring only Shackled with them, many of whom were of my people. In many cases, the only ones that returned would be Girdaim! A single Guidar can’t win against a Wizteriaz Nebulea, and they see the Girdaim as kin.”
The Girdaim almost sounded proud, and Irwin wanted to shake his head. He recalled his conversation with the Wizteriaz, would likely never forget it either, and if that had been a proper representation of what Wizteriaz were like? They likely thought of the Girdaim as tools, nothing more.
Then again… I have only met one. What if there are Wizteriaz that are different?
He held the thought, feeling it clash with what he recalled of the purple cloud that had wiped out life wherever it went in its seemingly insatiable desire to drain the soulforce of others.
Let’s hope I never have to find out, he decided before letting the things he’d just heard sink in. What was the most important thing to talk about? The Wizteriaz? No, what he needed to know was everything these Girdaim knew about the current position of fleets, and what they could tell him about the Guidar or what to expect.
I need to get Daubtim here, he decided, his otherself moving before he even finished the thought.
“I am going to bring someone else here to ask more questions,” he said slowly, focusing fully on the Girdaim before him.
“I see,” the central one said. “Then perhaps you can tell us what else you want of us, beyond answers? You said you require us to do something else?”
Irwin let his soulforce senses focus on the Reptilian host of the horrid being, hesitating.
“I will tell you after the questions,” he said.
There was a long pause, and he guessed the Girdaim were discussing things.
“Ask us now. As much as we need to live and keep searching, if we can’t do as you want, there is no sense in us answering your questions.”
Irwin’s eyes narrowed at that. He should have seen that coming, he guessed, and part of him had, which was why he’d refused just now.
“Very well,” he said slowly. But before that, explain to me why some of your kind live in symbiosis with their host and why some of you crush their minds and take their bodies for your own.”
A shiver ran through the silvery eyes, and he saw the central one narrow.
“You know of those Unfaithful?” the central one asked, and for the first time, a strong and deep emotion reverberated in his voice. Disgust and hate.
“I unchained more of your people,” Irwin said slowly. “Some were not like the others.”
“Did you destroy them?” one of the Girdaim blurted, sounding almost hopeful.
“Should I have?” Irwin countered.
“They dare go against all we know,” the same snapped, while the hosts of the others turned to him, the silvery eyes narrowing in clear annoyance. “We are only what we are because of Yilda, and we need vessels to move. What are these lesser beings to us but a means to move?!”
Irwin watched the angry Girdaim, trying to find a difference between it and the other two. There seemed to be none, but he was starting to have a suspicion. He remembered from his first encounter with the Girdaim that those who were not of the Faithful usually had a worse ability to keep their emotions in check—especially under pressure.
He hesitated, then decided to make a small gamble. He wrapped the Girdaim in soulforce and moved him across his soulscape to an empty, barren area hundreds of thousands of miles away. He wrapped him in a barrier, guessing that it and the distance should block any communication between them.
I should have learned more about the Girdaim, he thought.
“Sorry, but I dislike this line of reasoning,” he said calmly, staring at the two Girdaim looking at him. “Let's continue without his obnoxious self.”
The Girdaim didn’t react, and Irwin let them think while he summoned an Aura Clone within the barrier he’d formed. Letting some of his focus remain with the ships in case anything happened or that he needed to react, he looked at the angry Girdaim, the host now looking around.
“Where am I? What did you do?” it snapped, glaring at Irwin’s Aura Clone.
“I moved you away from the others, who are now far away. I am curious, can you still talk with them?” Irwin asked calmly.
The silvery eye within the Deargan’s stern looked around as the host began turning around. The dullness in its eyes began slowly fading, and it blinked its multilidded eyes.
“Please don’t move me back to them,” a soft, lilting female voice said quickly.
Irwin hummed, feeling slightly happy. Even though he hadn’t spoken much with the Girdaim Zeek, he
“I take it from your quick action that whoever you found of the Symbiotics explained how our Girdaim aren’t very good at emotional control,” the Deargan said, stretching her arms and rolling her shoulders as if just awake. “I am Kilixiuz, but you can call me Kili, and this is Mach.”
She tapped her chest, where the silver eye had closed, and was shivering softly.
Irwin noticed that the horrible dissonance he’d sensed within them was rapidly easing up - though he knew from Zeek that it wouldn’t become anything but bearable.
“Mach has to rest now, because between the battle and his pretending to be a Faithful, his mind was stretched. He told me that the connection only works for a few hundred feet and that he will hopefully wake in a few hours.”
Good to know, Irwin thought.
He was about to ask a question when he was distracted by the other Girdaim, who had finally asked a question. Moving his focus there, he frowned. They had asked where he had moved the other one.
Odd that it took them so long to ask this, Irwin thought. Perhaps they were starting to have the same suspicion that he had?
“I moved him into a cell,” he said. “Now, you can speak among yourselves for a short moment as I move someone here who will be asking you questions,” he said, which wasn’t even all that untrue as his otherself and Daubutim were rushing toward Zeek and Poldixuz as they spoke. Still, it was only true in the sense that he might be asking them questions.
“You have yet to tell us what you wish of us,” the one who’d done all the talking asked, but Irwin ignored him, focusing back on Kili.
“Sorry, your old companions were asking where you were,” he said.
“Please tell me you aren’t going to bring me back to them?” Kili asked, her reptilian face pulling together in what Irwin guessed was a grimace of worry. Either that or she was trying to pull the corners of her wide mouth back to her ears.
“I won’t,” Irwin said as he felt Daubutim and Poldixuz appear in his soulscape. “I’m going to move you to another place to talk to another of your kind that I unchained long ago.”
“One of the Symbiotic, I hope?”
“Yes,” Irwin answered as he moved Kili into the normal-sized house that still stood against his giant smithy.
Daubutim and Poldixuz were standing in the center, talking softly, but they fell quiet as soon as Irwin’s blueish Aura Clone appeared, together with Kili.
The two Deargan looked at each other and let out lilting laughter.
“It is good to see another,” Poldixuz said, stepping forward and holding out his clawed hand with the razor-sharp nails pointed up. “I am Poldixuz of Gizmore Swamp.”
Kili held her hand above his, touching his nails with hers in a rapid ticking pattern.
“It is,” she said, sounding incredibly relieved. “Mach took a huge gamble, and when he gave me back control, I was almost sure it would be the last time I would move. It is good to see this is not the case. I am Kilixiuz, and I know not where I hatched.”
“A story I would be honored to hear,” Poldixuz said. “However, for now, are there other Symbiotics among those that lived?”
Right, Irwin thought, sensing the few dozen other Girdaim and realizing there might be others on the ships.
“None that we ever found,” Kili said, letting out a sound that sounded like a handful of small things dropping on the ground. “However, Zach and I have had some close calls with trying to find others and haven’t tried since we arrived in this branch.”
Daubutim stepped forward, drawing their attention as he focused on Poldixuz.
“Seeing as you are still able to talk, that rules out you being a Faithful,” he said, not even introducing himself. “Do the others have any knowledge that you do not?”
“Nothing from after we got our orders or arrived here,” Kili said. “However, they might know things from before.”
She turned to Irwin’s soulclone, and he saw her eyes widen, the deep green glittering softly.
“I am curious… what are you going to ask of the others?”
Irwin shrugged. “I was going to ask them to wake their hosts and see if any are like you and Poldixzus. Perhaps this isn’t needed anymore now.”
“No, it's a good idea,” Poldixuz said. “It is possible that some are so afraid that they have hidden themselves behind a layer of extremes.”
“But what will you do with those who refuse?” Kili asked.
“Kill them, please,” Poldixzus said before Irwin could answer. “They will continue destroying minds until their death, and each time they do, it makes the Girdaim look worse for it. Even now, it is almost impossible to find anyone who would talk with the Girdaim without disgust, fear, or disdain.”
Irwin shared a quick look with Daubutim, already knowing he agreed but wanting another perspective.
“Let me interrogate them first,” Daubutim said calmly. “After that, I think Pol’s idea is correct. Unless you wish to set them free somewhere, they are a liability, and doing that will doom many to lose their bodies.”
“Very well,” Irwin said, as he looked at the two Deargan. “Will you two be alright here?”
“We will be,” Poldixuz said. “I haven’t spoken with another from Xuzir in a very long time.”
“Then I’ll move you there,” Irwin said to Daubutim, who had already moved closer to him.
Daubutim just crossed his arms, eyes narrow and projecting a sense of readiness.
--
Two hours later, Irwin stared down at the three drifting ships, now devoid of life. It still left a bad taste in his mouth to kill beings that couldn’t resist themself, but he also didn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of those they would steal the bodies of.
“Not a single one,” he said, looking at Daubutim, who was inspecting the helm of the ship he was on.
“Pol told me a lot about the Girdaim,” Daubutim said while moving something around and swiping at the runes. “From what I know, only very few naturally become what most of them are now. It is why the Faithful destroy all eggs and younglings that are born in the Free Swamps, as he called it. Apparently, the risk is too big for those to become Symbiotic.”
Irwin sighed, glad he wasn’t doomed to be born into a life like that. His bond with Ambraz was a blessing, but he was glad they weren’t bound together like the Girdaim to their hosts, and that they both could act independently.
It’s a shame they aren’t handcarded, he thought. If they were, they could slot a body double card and have a body each.
As he thought that, he blinked.
Wait, those Girdaim can bond to anyone… why couldn’t they bond to a handcarded in the future?
“Say… did the Girdaim have any offspring?” he asked, looking at Daubutim.
His friend looked up with a frown. “They did, but Zeek has been curtailing it greatly because he says their people need time to stabilize. Also, Girdaim can reproduce much faster than its host species, and Zeek is afraid this could cause issues if left as is. Why?”
Irwin stared in the distance for a bit, realizing just how difficult something like creating a stable population would be in this case. It was very different from what he’d dealt with on Scour.
I have to keep this in mind as I introduce more things into my soulscape, he thought before humming.
“I was thinking that perhaps they could bind with handcarded and get body doubles so both can still think and move,” he said, before shaking his head as he thought of the horrible way the soulforce resonance malformed even with the Girdaim that didn’t violently take over the body of their host. “Perhaps it's not a good idea as we would get even more of those dissonant soulforce signatures.”
Daubutim got up, seemingly now more interested in what he was saying than what he was examining with the runes.
“You said this before, when we encountered Zeek, that their soulforce resonance was wrong. I had expected that this would become better with time, but are you saying Zeek still feels wrong?”
Irwin frowned, realizing he’d not really examined Zeek. Focusing on the room now, he realized that Daubutim was right, there was a change. Zeek still wasn’t resonating as nicely as he would prefer, or how most people without broken and shattered cards were, but it was a great improvement over what he remembered or what Mach was.
“It's not perfect, but an improvement,” he said slowly.
“Good. Zeek had told me it would get better as he left Poldixuz in more control. According to him, there was still a lack of balance because they had had to simulate the behavior of a Faithful. About having them bind with carded. I will not allow that on Eluathar just yet, as we already have too many issues. However, it is a great idea for the future.”
Irwin nodded, and as Daubutim returned to investigating the ships, he thought about what they had learned about the number of Guidar fleet and where they were sending most. They had already known some of it, but every little bit of information helped.
“You can bring me back,” Daubutim eventually said, hands filled with papers. “I’ll take Kili along to, and I’ll prepare a place for the other chained you found. Can you talk with Drinmal quickly and ask if he is ready to move with us? I want to get as much information as we can.”
Irwin moved Daubutim back to the room where the two Deargan were softly chatting as they sat on the couch.
“I’ll be right back,” Irwin said through his Aura Clone.
I can’t wait till we are done with this, he thought, as he moved his giantself to the small flotilla of ships to look for Drinmal.
--
“You are done for now?” Scintilla asked.
“I am,” Irwin said as he dropped onto the couch in the main room of Tiscian’s estate. He instantly regretted it as he heard something crack and tear, then decided to just ignore it as Scintilla walked to the couch and cuddled up against him.
“So, what now? Stay here for the family of the others to get here, or head out to Smelter first?”
Irwin hummed softly as he closed his eyes, enjoying Scintilla’s presence.
“Let's wait for a day or two,” he said. “You can look around to see what has changed since the last time and show me the things you remember.”
“Well, I can’t go too far,” Scintilla said with a snort. “Tiscian doesn’t mind what I did, but many others will not be as open-minded.”
“Ah… right,” Irwin muttered, having forgotten that part for a moment. “Did Tiscian tell you anything about when we can expect Ihrana’s heatmother and bladesisters, and those of the others to arrive?”
“The first should be here in a few days, but some might need a week,” Scintilla said. “Don’t worry. Ihrana, Zender, and the others are fine with waiting. They love the little village you made for them, and it's been a while since they were all together.”
“So, you think it's fine to go to Smelter?” Irwin asked.
“Yes, and I think Hind and Helm would love to go there.”
Irwin nodded as he focused on his soulscape, finding Hind and Helm in Tang’s house, laughing and seemingly happy. He quickly pulled back as he didn’t want to spy on them.
“Alright, let's go to Smelter tomorrow,” Irwin said as he sighed happily, wondering if they should just sleep there. Before he could ponder asking Scintilla, she got up and began tugging at him. Her new strength allowed her to actually budge him slightly, and he was pretty sure that she could lift him if she really wanted to. Move him? He doubted that.
“What?”
“Let's go! I want to take you somewhere,” she said, smiling widely.
“To sleep?” Irwin asked carefully as he followed her.
“Perhaps,” she said, her smile turning into a wicked grin.
Right, Irwin thought, as he felt his weariness fade.
--
Daubutim sat in his office, staring at the wall of the now fourteen-foot-high room, all of it covered in a map that showed Eluathar as a great dot on the bottom left. From there, long paths in different shades of blue led away to other places like Scour to the east, and Suderfuix and Dimanrintsia in the far north, the enormous Dimartintsia river leading towards it like an armsized path. Dozens of additional places were outlined on the map, and next to all were papers and symbols of ships with numbers.
The distances between the places weren’t absolute, with the shade of blue showing if a path should actually be far longer, but he just had so much wall to use. Besides, it was only a faint version of the mental map he had and used more for the benefit of others.
I’ll have to increase the room again, he thought as he looked at the mass of notes that sat left of Eluathar and started at the bottom and went all the way to the north. They were the places, harbors, and branches that he’d learned about across the years that existed in the Guidar realm and which had been detailed by Drinmal’s knowledge. The captain had a surprisingly good memory, being able to tell him dozens of branches and their main ports and cities, all of which were in some form relevant. Better yet, he’d actually learned more about the most distant parts of their own part of the Portal Gallery based on where the Guidar fleets were going.
“You can’t keep making the building larger.”
Daubutim turned to Lysbeth, smiling faintly.
“I need a map for this, and until we gain those runes we heard about, which allow us to create a crystal we can enlarge areas to see more details, this will have to do,” he said. “However, perhaps I should finally take some time to have the Stoneshapers guild create me that sea tower I told you about.”
“A giant tower a mile out into the sea with massive stone bridges connecting it to Treanba and creating an artificial inlet,” Lysbith muttered, moving to stand beside him. “Just so you can have a large enough wall?”
“Yes,” Daubutim said. “It will also be good for the future, so people won't forget again.”
“People always forget, my love. All but you,” Lysbeth said, giving him a quick kiss. “So, what will you do now? Did Irwin get the contacts we need in the other remaining places of resistance?”
“Not yet,” Daubutim said. “He is still on Igniz, letting some of the Blademaidens seen there family.”
“This is taking time we might not have,” Lysbeth said with a sigh.
“We have time,” Daubutim said, looking at her. “Basil and Scariander are moving from Scour with a fleet towards one of the three world candidates. If it's nothing, they will move to the second, while we will wait for Irwin to check out the third one, as it's a bit more dangerous.”
“When did this happen?” Lysbeth asked, looking at him in surprise.
“It is in the informational letters I handed out a few weeks ago. Most of this happened while you were busy expanding the Shadewalkers and including the Crathans,” Daubutim said slowly. “There are too many things happening at once to keep everyone updated on it all, which is why we will be starting the Eluathar Council in seven months and a week.”
“I thought we weren’t ready for that?” Lysbeth asked.
“We will be as soon as the Crathan Cardsmiths, those of Irwin's three hundred that came here, have integrated fully in the Cardsmiths Guild and their volcanic city is done,” Daubutim said, crossing his arms, eyes still on the wall. “Between those, our rapidly expanding Portal Navy, and the increase in two- and three-soulcarded warriors, we are closing in on a size that one person shouldn’t manage in detail.”
Lysbeth watched him for a while before speaking up again.
“So, does that mean you are going to ask Irwin to help you with your next soulcard?”
“Yes, and not just mine,” Daubutim said as he turned to her. “Did you determine what you want?”
“Me? Wait! Did Dahlia…?”
Daubutim saw the gleam of anticipation in his wife’s eyes and nodded.
“Yes, she has finally managed to make her first shadow cardseed. She and Irwin will be working on her next soulcard while he travels, and as soon as that is done, she will start making ruby-rank shadow-type cards.”
“Enough for some of my strongest warriors?” Lysbeth asked.
“Not immediately, but hopefully within a few months,” Daubutim said.
“That is great! I’m going to have to… and… yes,” Lysbeth muttered as she walked towards the door, vanishing halfway there.
Daubutim smiled, then turned back to the wall.
“That leaves only the library problems,” he whispered.