Chapter 41

Day 90-91:

Welcome back Traveler. As you have achieved a journeyman rank from completing a recognized course of study in a field applicable throughout the Network, your provisional status has been removed. You have a total of four previously-encountered portals that you may choose to exit using. You have also met the Traveler criteria for any other portals connected with your organization on World number 5. Please indicate which destination you desire.

Veronyka grinned. “The one outside the End, on Challenge please.”

She didn’t have much time. Delphi had told her that she must find her way into the Halls and Challenge the Diamond Dragon before Sangrydr did. If not, her chances of survival went down drastically. He’d Seen that the Black Valkyrie departed exactly two days ago from her secret camp, with Routa in tow. Veronyka and Sangrydr both had almost exactly the same distance to cover.

Unfortunately, being on the same world as her past self, within the same Choice/Memory ‘plane’ carried a frighteningly high potential to cause a paradox. For all his knowledge and power, Delphi couldn’t send her back along her timeline in Challenge. Only she could do that for herself (with his expert guidance of course.) The two ‘doors’ he’d shown her were his specially constructed ‘hacks’ or tears into the Network. He couldn’t afford to give her them for this mission. They were usable a single time only, since the Network would realize what he’d done afterward and prevent him from doing it again. When he did allow her to use them in the future, and only after proving herself on this mission, her payment would be a favor to be named later. Something he couldn’t do himself.

Two days was the maximum time period she could manage with her current ability level. Achieving even that much, her math said, would leave her unable to chronoport for a week of subjective time, minimum. Luckily, she did have a lesser version of the same skill, which she hoped to have the reserves for by the time a need arose.

“Unlike inside your House’s closed chrono-loop, when you travel through the cosmos of time,” Delphi had told her before she departed, “there are but two categories of action: those which are required and proper, and those which are in grave error. Remember this, and act wisely, for mistakes are seldom correctable.”

So she took a deep breath and used the immutable portal stone as an anchor to guide her. With hyper-intense focus she exerted her will, channeling it through the new threads she’d painstakingly woven into her armor, and Moved forty-six hours in the Memory ‘direction’: what would be her own past. She opened her eyes and looked to the east, where the sun’s last light still peeked over the mountains. It had been higher before her Move, which was good. She hadn’t screwed that one up.

Praying that every step taken was the right one, she took off at a run towards the Door. She hadn’t been able bring Ream’ch along, who might have saved her so much time. The Network could detect the dragon’s presence and would automatically refuse her mount entry through a normal portal. Even in the mount’s shrunken state.

Running over rough terrain, without any road or trails to follow was exhausting. She couldn’t maintain a consistent pace, what with dodging rocks and jumping streams of now-melted snow. Dividing her attention between avoiding obstacles and scanning for threats challenged even her incredible focus. She had no brainpower to spare for other thoughts.

Thoughts about what she was here to do. Thoughts about how close to disaster she was skirting. After two years of hard work, subjectively speaking, if she failed to reach the dragon’s lair before the Black Valkyrie, Delphi put her chances at somewhere between ‘none’ and ‘a whelk’s chance in a supernova’. She’d long since lost count of how many times she’d cheated death since escaping the project with John. The bill was bound to come due sooner or later. She just hoped today wasn’t the day.

Which is why she nearly ran right into the lone orc she and Brunhyldar had/would kill a day later. Why the obviously distracted sentry was posted in such an unlikely spot, Veronyka had no clue. But this evening he was vivisecting a small rodent-like creature with a flat tail, and fluffy fur. He was cauterizing the bleeding using a blade heated in his tiny campfire. She passed within fifty yards, easily inside hearing range as she swerved to avoid him. The poor animal’s cries far outstripped its size though, masking her heavy footfalls and constant panting.

“Damn, that was close!” She muttered to herself once she was out of sight.

Her next obstacle were the two orcs patrolling by the exit from the tunnel leading to the Door. These too she couldn’t just kill, for the same reason. She did have one more ability, though. More of a parlor trick really, but it might come in handy here.

It was now well after midnight, and both orcs were far from alert. They’d planted several torches to give themselves a moderately-lit area about thirty yards wide. Both were sitting down, leaning against the rock wall side by side and chatting in their guttural language. There was no way to get into the tunnel itself unseen without either knocking them out, which is never as easy as movies make it look, or by getting them to move farther away, which had its own possible pitfalls. She chose the second option.

Scouting stealthily, which cost a ton of precious time, she found and re-positioned a string of stones on the cliff above the orcs’ heads, stretching back towards the End’s ruins. Some were small, only a few ounces, while many were a little larger, between five and ten pounds. Anything heavier was beyond her limit with telekinesis.

The first one was little more than a pebble. She dropped it right on an orc’s head. The brute snorted, but barely glanced up. Sighing in frustration, she then found and dropped a larger one on the other.

“Rah!” This one shouted, jumping to his feet.

The rest of whatever he was spewing wasn’t in a language she knew, so she ignored him. Concentrating carefully, she used the gravimetric coils now built into her gloves to snag the next nearest stone with her mind and lifted it to head height before dropping. She did the same to two more beyond, hopefully sounding like muffled footsteps leading away.

The hard-headed one shushed his partner, and pointed in the direction she wanted. She waited a few seconds, then made a farther pebble roll off the cliff, followed by two more ‘footfalls’. Now the two guards were very interested. As they moved away from the lit area, she carefully eased her way to a spot on the ridge right above the entrance point.

This was her hardest task: using the heaviest stone she could mentally move at a distance of just over fifty yards, she hurled it at one of the orcs as hard as she could. To the orc, it looked like someone on the cliff, even farther away had thrown the rock right at him. Bonus points, he didn’t see it coming so it bloodied his nose good.

Howling angry curses, the two sentries ran into the darkness where she could hear them awkwardly scrambling up the rock wall. Veronyka gave a quick look around, making sure nobody else had shown up, before lowering herself to the ground below. She hung as low as she could before letting go. The wet splat of her feet hitting the mud would’ve definitely been audible to the guards if they’d remained. But they were too far away, and too busy now to recognize the sound.

She pulled out that disgusting amulet she’d so carefully kept track of for two years, from its spot now resting under her armor. If it didn’t work anymore, she was screwed. Crossing her fingers she tip-toed past the remnants of the Door John, Hal, Sygraid and Treb had first used, then through the larger room beyond. The Valkyries guarding the Door to the Upper Passage could peer into the intersection room, but doing so took effort. They mostly relied on sound, since eavesdropping through that Door was much less exhausting. She hoped that hadn’t changed since Randgyrd’s death.

When she reached the first undead shambling around aimlessly, and neither the Valkyries nor the corpses reacted to her presence, Veronyka breathed a sigh of relief. Then gagged on her next intake.

“Ugh!” She coughed. “Purification on.”

Having one of her armor’s tricks work while the camouflage/disguised appearance was active always felt a little weird. She’d take weird over vomiting any day. Walking through the tunnel, past all that decay was easier this time. The undead weren’t bunched up at one end of the tunnel. They were much more spread out. They ignored her to the point that she had to watch out for them, or be bumped into, but that just required her to pay attention.

She’d just laid eyes on the ice wall, and door into Wotaanz’s room when a faint boom echoed up the stone passage behind her. The two straggler undead nearby turned and trudged listlessly the way she’d came. Then came a shriek, and the listless turned to a shambling run.

“Shit!” She cursed, hurrying into the ice-coated room.

She’d been really looking forward to a conversation with the ghost, just a few minutes of unhurried, uninterrupted time with the man who’d spent so much time in the company of her war-maiden ‘godmother’. Now she had to keep moving, or else...

“Randgyrd, is that you?” Wotaanz stared in shock when she stepped through the door. “I thought your sisters told me you had perished?”

Veronyka shook her head. “I’m sorry sir. They told you the truth. Like my friend John, whose eye you took, I’m from another world. When I came here, I was offered a chance to be a Valkyrie for my Visit. It was only after I met Brunhyldar and the others, that we realized my Valkyrie body had been your daughter’s. I swear to you, I meant no disrespect. I even have her memories now, thanks to uh, your wife, sorta.”

Wotaanz blinked, staring for a minute. “This is a story I must hear. Daughter, please tell me all!”

Veronyka glanced back through the doorway. “I’m sorry again, godfather. I must hurry, or else. Please, I need to keep going, quickly. I promise, if everything works out, I’ll come back and we can have as long a talk as you want. Would that be all right?”

Wotaanz studied her intently. “You speak truly. I’ll not interfere, if the weight of your needs drives you onward. I will hold you to your promise though, when next we speak.”

Veronyka rubbed her face. “Uh, that wouldn’t be a good idea, sir. The next time we meet will be my first time meeting you. You can’t tell anyone you’ve seen me. Not even me, until I bring it up first. If you do, from what Delphi says, it might just kill me right then. Or erase me from your world. Nature abhors a paradox as much as it does a vacuum.”

“I find your words very confusing.” Wotaanz confessed. “I See you speak the truth still, but cannot understand what you mean. You wish me to pretend that I don’t know you, when we meet next time? Why not?”

She sighed. “You can mistake me for your daughter again, that’s okay. I think you did that last—never mind, just take my word for it. Pretend we never had this conversation until I come back and tell you what’s going on. If things go the way I hope, I should come back really soon and then it won’t be an issue anymore.”

Wotaanz gestured at the exit leading into the Halls. “I do not understand, but it is plain that your time is short. I shall await our next encounter anxiously. Fare well on your Challenge, daughter.”

“Oh!” She snapped her fingers. “One more—no, two more things. Has the Seer ever mentioned ‘one who has died, and been reborn’?”

Wotaanz’s eyes widened. “He did, though it was some time ago.” He pointed at the glowing fissure. “That person you described was to stand right there, and would be taken to meet him. Did he mean you?”

“He did, but not this time. The next time we meet, when you’re pretending we never had this conversation, that’s when the Seer wants me to go meet him.”

She hurried to continue when he opened his mouth and paused. “Please, just trust me. It’s very important. Make sure I go stand right there. Okay? And when it comes up, you can say with certainty that it won’t kill me to return, because here I am right now. Returned.”

Now his jaw was on the floor. “You walk through time? Is that what you imply? How is this possible? My wife said such power was beyond even her.”

“It was.” Veronyka agreed, inching towards the exit. “Please, I’ll tell you all about it. I need to go.”

Wotaanz grinned. “I wait with breath held for your safe return, daughter of my wife.”

“Oh!” She remembered, as she ran through the doorway.

She called over her shoulder, without stopping. “When you see Sangrydr, talk to her as long as you possibly can! Trust me! You’ll thank me later!”

“Sangrydr? But she...” His voice faded out as she hurried up the steps.

The next undead that she encountered was no rotting, putrid walking corpse, but a full-fledged former-orc draugyr. It even had glowing diamond eyes and well-maintained equipment. When she rounded the last corner into view, and skidded to a halt, it raised a spike-studded mace in a salute.

“Shield-maiden of the Valorous, I greet you in peace!” The male voice carried like a roar heard from far away. “Welcome back to the Halls.”

She was suddenly very glad she’d accidentally figured out how to activate her armor’s ‘change appearance’ function.

“Are you one of the Valorous?” Veronyka asked cautiously.

The draugyr banged his mace on the shield he held in his other hand. It rapped out a pattern: one, one-two, one-two-three, the repeated.

“I am, beautiful warrior!” He quietly boomed. “Have you come to stand before the dragon, and best her Trials like the others before you?”

“That’s my plan, yeah.” She acknowledged. “Do I need to fight you now?”

“No.” He stepped aside. “I have had much practice of late. We need not spar. I believe none of the Valorous will delay you, though one or two might be bored, so ask before walking past one of us. Beware though, there are others here, living and draugyr without Valorous souls who will not let you go without a fight.”

“Oh, thank you!” She sighed in relief.

When she got abreast of him, the draugyr whispered fiercely.

“Shield-maiden! I am Warmaster Xuj, the Thresher! When called, I will answer!”

But when she looked at him, he was looking away.

“Good!” She encouraged him, confused.

The next encounter was even more odd. When John had come through, she remembered it had contained the trash from what looked like a storage room, and a troll plus two draugyrs. Now, all the trash was gone, picked completely clean. From the thick pile of ashes in the room’s center, it probably went there.

Now there were four draugyr, sparring lightly in pairs, and nothing living. All four turned to face her, with eight jeweled eyes gleaming in the murk.

“Uh, hi there.” She offered.

“We heard the signal.” One called. “Go in peace, Shield-maiden. Is it you alone?”

“Just me.” She confirmed. “But there is another Valkyrie following. Do you know what it means when one of us has black wings?”

She pointed at her helmet, where the red ones fluttered.

Hisses and curses were her answer. The one who’d spoken raised his sword angrily.

“We shall enjoy showing the honor-less one our true skill at arms!” He announced.

The other three beat their swords against shield in agreement.

“She should be the next person behind me, I think.” Veronyka informed them.

The four clustered up, obviously game-planning their coming engagement. She grinned at their pause to salute when she marched past.

The next level up was the one with the halls forming a rectangle, storerooms on both sides, and the three stairways leading up. It was patrolled by a mixture of possessed and non-inhabited draugyr. From what she saw, the Valorous had been given authority to command the others, because twice she came into view and her diamond-eyed allies ordered the other undead in the opposite direction.

One draugyr even stopped her when she went to take one of the smaller, spiraling staircases.

“Do not go that way, Shield-maiden.” He warned. “Two of the rooms which it leads to are filled with trolls and frost giants. Take the other small stairs.”

“But,” she looked back and forth, running her memory of John’s path through her head, “I could’ve sworn the other one was blocked.”

“No longer, Shield-maiden.” He told her, pointing with his sword. “When the great surge came through, they completely cleared both routes. The other way has no rooms for the dragon’s living servants which it touches, so we guard it. Tell the Valorous there that Flouki sent you.”

Veronyka blinked. That name sounded familiar.

“What do they call you, if you don’t mind me asking.” She inquired.

“Some call me the Sly, though most say ‘the Cunning’.” He answered.

“Flouki the Cunning!” She snapped her fingers. “Routa’s your daughter!”

“You know this? You have met her?” The draugyr stepped closer.

Veronyka smiled. “I do. She’s my friend, actually. She down by the Door right now, helping some other Valkyries out, even though she’s still in training.”

“Not blooded yet, then.” He confirmed.

“No, too young.” Veronyka replied.

“I thank you for your friendship of her.” Flouki saluted. “Is she ... crafty?”

“She is.” Veronyka grimaced. “Maybe too much. It makes her lonely. She was tricked by the woman following me, who used her and murdered two of my sisters.”

His voice turned hard. “This evil woman follows you into the Halls? Who is she?”

“Do you know what black wings means?” She pointed at her head.

“A dishonored one? I do know. How closely does she follow your path?” He looked back towards the stairs she’d come up.

“I’m not sure. Maybe a few hours behind.” She figured.

“Excellent,” her hair stood up at the evil glee in his tone, “I shall organize a proper reception for this evil, honor-less former Shield-maiden. When you see my daughter next, tell her I fought to avenge the wrong this woman did to her.”

“I’ll do that.” Veronyka promised.

“Valkyrie!” He hissed as she walked away. “I will heed the call!”

“Good!” She tossed over her shoulder.

By the time she reached the top of the other stairs, she was exhausted. Hoping it wasn’t a mistake but too tired to continue, she curled up on the landing with her feet against the door and took a nap.

“Shield-maiden!” A voice hissed through the door, waking her some time later.

“Yeah?” She rubbed her eyes.

It felt like she’d barely slept.

“The honor-less one carves a path through the dragon’s living servants as we speak.” The voice said urgently. “You said she was following you, so we thought you should know.”

“I did, I do, I—thank you.” She tried to shake off the cobwebs. “Do I need to fight you?”

“No. Nyd’hagh is distracted by our enemy’s slaughter of her less easily replaced servants. All the other Valorous who agreed to fight as draugyr have been called to stand in her way. I am the only one left, and must depart soon or the dragon will become suspicious.”