Chapter 10

Tamalain looked at the house her mother had called her from, it was her home, but it seemed smaller now. She slowly walked to the door and two other figures appeared next to her.

"Stave? Heart? How is this possible, how can I be here? How is it you are here in fact?"

"If you want answers go inside, we will join you shortly," said Stave.

Tamalain knew he was right, but she wanted to explore and remember.

"Tam, we don't have much time. Once you wake, this is gone, forever. Veeshan is only giving one time to try to explain events to you, "said Heart.

She looked at them and realized this really was just a dream. A controlled dream, but still just a dream. "Very well then, that Dragon had better have had good reason to do this. Seeing you and this place hurts worse than being cut open by a sword." She turned away and entered the image of her home.

Once inside, she was greeted by Willow, her mother. Willow ran to her and took her in her arms, crying. "Oh my daughter, I am so sorry we didn't get away in time. The word to evacuate had only arrived a few hours before the stone hit us. I was helping Elder pack and move out. His age had made things hard for him to do. Your father had a team of his helping others load the wagons so we could move as a village, but we ran out of time."

Tamalain held her mother and cried as well, she cried harder than she had cried in over ten years. The truth hurt, but to know what had really happened, they were ready to move when their lives had been snuffed out by a cruel twist of fate. "I have tried to be what I was supposed to be, but I have been hampered, and worst of all, betrayed by one that was supposed to see me to that future."

"You mean Jordan Trueshot of course. It was not entirely his doing daughter. He was a puppet of another, a being from beyond that somehow has seen you as a threat, but is unable to confront you directly. It uses those it can influence and imposes its will upon them. Our own gods have tried to stop it, but it is not a form they can stop directly. The mortal realm is the battle grounds, and sadly, you set up a situation that made it nearly impossible for the gods to slow it down."

Axemen and the rest, The Green Brother, Elder, Eaglesclaw, and Tamalain, her grandmother arrived. No one said a word until they had all been seated around the now larger table, sipping a cup of tea.

Tamalain looked at them all and realized they looked just as they the very last time she had seen them alive. This sent chills down her spine and started upsetting her even further. "Ok, what is going on that Veeshan would do this."

Elder rose and spoke, "As your mother said, there is a being, a power if you will out there somewhere that is affecting every aspect of you life. So far, none of the gods have been able to balk its actions in a direct manner. I understand you have found a new path for your life; this may free you from it for a time, at least I hope it does.

"So you are saying that I am being attacked by an unknown being? Could this be the reason for the way the family has been managed so carefully over the centuries? I have the power to stop a god in its tracks if I am angry enough. I don't have the control needed over the power to do battle with a deity of that scale."

"Tama." said Eaglesclaw, "It will not be you that has to stop this unknown power. Several of the Norrathian Gods seem certain it will be your granddaughter that will have to face the final battle. They also fear she will destroy them along with the other. They are as uncertain as we are."

"If they had not interfered with Norrath and caused Luclin to explode, I wouldn't have any real issues with any of them."

"You know that, we know that, and quite a few of them have begun to figure it out for themselves," said Eaglesclaw.

Willow stood and went to Tamalain, gently took her face in her hands and kissed her forehead. "You will wake soon, and we will never meet again, changes to the realms are coming. Follow your new path, and I would recommend you practice swimming before you sail."

The scene faded and soon all was dark and Tamalain drifted off into a deep, undisturbed sleep for the remainder of the night.

"Tam, I'm telling you there is no way to move that lump of lead. It weighs over twenty five tons," said B'rill in frustration with his former student.

"So a sledge is out, what about a cart with reinforced wheels and base."

"No material we have available can stand the weight, beside the wheels would just sink into the ground."

"Make them wider then, and low to the ground. Say a full foot wide, made of steel rims and axels. The base only need to hold the lump, nothing else."

"Ok, say wide wheels work, what the hell are you going got use to pull it. You would need a team of a hundred oxen to even move it a mile a day, and it is three hundred miles to the docks. I don't even want to think about that murderous slide down the cliff face."

"How about this, a spell to give the cart a lift, even half weight reduction might help, as to the cliff, just drop the damned thing over the edge in an area with no houses or building below it."

B'rill looked at her like she had lost he mind. "Ok, the lift spell might help, but just dump it over the edge?"

"Why not, it's not as if the impact in sand will do much damage. It might get dented, but it won't break or crack."

A dwarf that was looking over the massive lead block decided now would be a good time to break in, "The lass has a few good ideas on the wheels and cart, but the drop is a non starter. Its not pure sand its rocks and sand mixed. A hard enough impact on stone will crack this, so not a good idea."

Tamalain thought for a moment, "How about this, pick a spot, then the area below it needs to be prepared for the arrival. Dig down and remove the rocks in the designated area for the drop. Maybe make it a water/sand mix to soften the impact. Would that work?"

"Yes," Said the Dwarven engineer.

"Are you out of your mind Tam? Do you know how much work that will be, and the cart. I know for a fact you don't have anywhere near the funds needed to even move this thing, much less pay for the drop zone. The ship to carry it out to sea will need to be modified to handle this kind of weight on its deck without over turning."

"That stumped me to B'rill, until I thought about what Boruss said he made at times, lead ballast. We have it installed center mass at the lowest part of the ship. Make it so the room is sealable and just drop the bottom of that chamber out at the right time. The water will take the place of the lost mass and the ship can return to base for refit."

"Lass, you think too much, that is a great idea. I will pass it on to the shipwrights at the Docks and see what they have to say about it. I do know the first thing out of their mouths will be, Is she nuts?"

Tamalain let these ideas digest for another minute, "Now I have to visit the High Council and torture the funds for this operation out of them. They are as much at fault here as Trueshot. B'rill, what is the status on him now."

B'rill looked saddened, "He was found guilty of conspiring to destroy the Elven people, and enslaving all other living beings on Norrath. He did give us a name though of the force controlling him."

This is news to me, what is this force, this being called."

"It calls itself The MUSE. That is all we could get out of him on that topic."

"Muse, that involves inspiration and stories, books. Yet how can something like that affect us here ... Oh no, no way ... That would be too funny."

"What, Tam, what would be too funny."

She laughed and laughed until tears were running down her face and she couldn't catch her breath. B'rill got a bucket and filled it from a nearby fountain, running back he dumped the cold water over Tamalains head. The cold shock snapped her back to reality quickly.

"Oh B'rill," said Tamalain, still gasping for breath, "The Muse is a writer of stories, the writer of history. We have free will while the Muse writes a story, and we keep getting in its way, that is just too funny to be true."

"Tam, what did you drink at lunch today?"

"I'm sober B'rill, just very amused. I bet the Muse is listening right now and getting a touch annoyed that I may have figured out what it is up to."

Tamalain felt as if something had withdrawn from her presence, causing her to giggle some more and think nasty thoughts at her tormenter. "I did annoy it, it has left for now."

Now, back to the lead lump, the wheels, run a few experiments to find out how wide and how many axels will be needed to support the weight on the roads. The drop point can wait a few months until this is on the road. Now I am off to blackmail the council into paying for all this."

She spun on her heel and marched out of the office, head held high, and a maniacal grin on her face. B'rill saw that and shuddered.

"I hate when she gets that look. It always means chaos is about to break loose and I have to pick up the pieces afterwards."

"Boy, just stay out of her way this time around, she is on a mission and will get it done, one way or another."

B'rill sighed and decided the dwarf is right, let her dig herself out this time. Then he remembered the last time he decided to allow her to do that and felt real fear.

Tamalain spent less than an hour with the full council in chambers. By the time she was done, they were begging to assist in any way they could to remove the threat of the insane Drakota Lords spirit from their lands for all time. Her walk back to the wrecked smithy shop gave her time to think about how a cart could be strong enough to hold that many tons and still be able to move.

By the time she arrived, she had come up with an idea that she wanted to run by the engineer. "The weight will bend the axel no matter how strong you make it. Here is what I am thinking. She sketched out a design for the dwarf and he gave it thought. Instead of the wheels being on the ends of the axels, the frame would extend out to the end and the wheels would be underneath the cart. The axels ends would be part of the frame, help take the strain, preventing the ends from collapsing.

"A good idea I see here, and it will support that level of weight easily. The next question is, how we get the lump on the cart."

"For an engineer you sure seem to have a lot of questions on this project."

"I am a mining engineer girly, so bite your tongue."

"Sorry, now how about this. How do you lift heavy stones in a mine that resist breaking down?"

"We wedge it up. Put a beam under it, do the other, end ... Now that will work I think. Heavy beams longer than the cart is wide, brace and lift the ends, have center support that get hammered out as the cart is pushed under, yes indeed, that will work. Good thinking there. Lowering though, that might be a problem."

"Only if it drops, or maybe build up a ramp under it," Tamalain mused.

"Hey there, that might just work. I need to run, I heard several others discussing this project, and there may be a few solutions we haven't thought of yet."

"Go to it oh bearded one. I will be dealing with other issues that are ongoing here in the Glenns."

B'rill had continued the interrogations until it was clear that Jordan Trueshot didn't have anything else to tell them. His trial would be short and it was already decided that he would be handed over to the Fay for the Heart tree to deal with. A less than pleasant fate, but better than being staked out for all to see as he dies.

"Jordan, I still don't understand why you wanted her dead so badly for so long. What happened when she was a child was not something she had any control over and you know that. Was it her madness, or her future you feared?"

"You idiots don't understand, she is the ordained one, the one sent to destroy the gods of Norrath. I had the try to stop her before she reaches full maturity and comes to control her power."

"Jordan, you are missing a few facts, and I know why now. MUSE gave you half the facts to work with. It is not this Tamalain that will fight the final war; it will be her Granddaughter 300 years from now that fights and drives away MUSE."

"No, that is a lie, The MUSE does not lie, and it can't lie. It is the keeper of history."

"Then it is trying to interfere and write history. By doing what it has done, it has set the very events it feared in motion. Your MUSE has set its own destruction in motion."

"LIES! ALL LIES!" Jordan had started foaming at the mouth in his raging insanity, his eyes wide and wild, "I must stop her before she destroys all that is!" His flailing body fell to the floor and he started twitching in a seizure.

"MEDICS! He need help now," yelled B'rill. "MUSE, if you are trying to kill him, you are making an even bigger mistake. She may be upset with him now, but killing him will turn her rage on you and she will make sure her daughter and her Granddaughter have it in for you as well!"

The twitching stopped and Jordan started to cry. " Oh B'rill, what have I done, what have I done. I was so sure I knew the truth, the future, then it broke me. It broke my mind and sent me into the nightmare. I would have been better as a dead slave to the Vampire. I am going to die; I know that. I did what I did of my own will."

"Yes Jordan, you will die, but as a free soul, not a slave." B'rill stood and left the cell and vowed never to return. He knew he could not face the sight of the broken and sad man on the floor again. He looked at the medic, "Take care of him, be careful, but take care of him." The medic nodded and went in to check on what had once been a proud and strong Elven.

It took three weeks before the Dwarf returned with a plan for the cart, only it wasn't a cart. Not even close to being a cart, more of a nightmare on wheels. "You see lass, a few of us were at the pub and discussing how much the axels could handle. Then in walks this bunch of gnomes, all asking about us and the project."