Homecoming

The entrance into the throne room stayed close for a full day.

Deme, Lavenza, and Richard waited in the main hall, surrounded by the petrified members of Demon King Antigonus’s legions.

“So this is what’ll happen to us?” Deme asked.

“Well, it might happen to us,” Lavenza replied. “You never know.”

“I don’t intend to leave here until I’ve found Rafta,” Deme shook her head. “If I haven’t found it before the end, I’ll become like one of them.”

“You’re not scared?” Lavenza asked. “It’s one thing to know the end. It’s another thing to see it. Some of us are not so brave.”

She glanced back at Richard, who remained unconsolable by one of the wide pillars. The hero sobbed into his arms. His hand gripped his face and pressed against his temples.

“I am scared,” Deme said. “But I made my choice, Lavenza, when we last spoke. My resolve is as strong as my father’s steel, or at least that’s what I hope. It’s just…”

“Just?”

“Now that we’re at the end of the Abyss,” Deme sighed. “Is there even any Rafta left in this world?”

“There are still places to look, Deme.”

“Yes, but do we have any time left?” she asked. “How many months have we spent in the Abyss? Spring and summer has likely come and gone. That leaves what remains of the fall."

“Hey,” Lavenza rested a hand on Deme’s shoulder. “We have time.”

“Thanks, Venz,” Deme chuckled. “I think I’ll go polish my father’s armor again.”

“It’s a great honor to receive a complement from someone like the Demon King,” Lavenza smiled. “If he thinks your father’s craftsmanship was excellent, there’s few higher praises in all Aparthia.”

“Did you know him?” Deme asked.

“No. Why do you think that?”

“Well,” she said. “At the end, you called him Antigonus instead of king.”

“Oh,” Lavenza mused. “It must have slipped my tongue then. I’m not using to greeting sovereigns by their official titles. I’ll leave you to your armor, Deme. I need to check on our hero over there.”

By the time Lavenza reached him, Richard had stopped crying. Instead, he had brought his legs up to his chest. His arms were wrapped around his feet as if he was a child again, cowering in some corner of the woods or in the closet of his old room where he hid from monsters.

“You must think I’m pathetic,” he muttered.

“Richard, if you could believe my words but for a moment,” Lavenza sighed, “you’d know that would never cross my mind.”

“Oh really?” he scoffed. “This entire time, we’ve been talking about coming down here to search for a way to stop the petrification. How much did you already know, Lavenza. Did you know we would find nothing? Were you laughing at us?”

“Richard,” she shook her head. “It was your quest, not mine. I had no right to interfere, and I didn’t know everything, despite what you may think. I didn’t know that the legions had petrified themselves by the time we arrived. I didn’t know that Demon King Antigonus had turned to this as his last measure against the Endire.”

“It’s not right,” Richard murmured. “It’s not right. It’s tantamount to suicide, is what this was. There must have been another way.”

“I doubt demonkind saw it that way."

“What did the headmistress even want me to find here?” Richard asked. “She said the salvation of Aparthia was here. Was she just lying?”

“In her own way, Headmistress Eifen did not lie,” Lavenza shrugged, “but the Aparthia she knows is not the one you want to save Richard. You want to save its people. She wishes to save its magic.”

“Its magic?”

“The death of the Endire means the death of all magic. For Menuans, and for all mages, magic is what gives life to the land,” Lavenza explained. “Headmistress Eifen wished to seal away magic. If the world was ever reborn anew, then magic would flourish again. This is the ultimate responsibility of all Menuans, of the headmistress.”

“You couldn’t just tell this to me before?”

“I did tell you,” Lavenza said. “I told you, didn’t I? That to her I am all of Aparthia. I didn’t lie to you, Richard, or withhold anything. You just chose not to listen to me.”

“She wanted to seal you away?” Richard stared behind Lavenza at Deme. “And the person you want to save… so that’s why she…”

“Yes,” Lavenza replied. “Now you understand.”

The doors to the throne room groaned open. Faye and Tamarin stepped out first. They held each other in their arms. Their eyes were stained with tears. Behind them, Castorp emerged. He set down his chisel and mallet with one hand and returned to his seat by the entranceway.

“It is finished,” he said. “I have the king’s heart for the Menuan.”

Demon King Antigonus’s heart looked like nothing more than a rock. It possessed a smooth surface and bore no trace of blood vessels or capillaries. It was like the petrification had scraped any semblance of life off the organ. Had it not been for the faint thumping of a nascent power beneath the stone, Lavenza might have believed that the troll had attempted to deceive her.

“Ist Kavan,” Lavenza chanted. The stone rose from the troll’s hands and entered the apostate’s pocket dimension. “Thank you, Castorp.”

“My work is finished,” mumbled the troll. He rested his head and began to snore.

“So,” Tamarin sniffed. “You’re headed to the edge of the city now? To return to the surface?”

“Yeah,” Lavenza nodded. “I have still business in Aparthia.”

“You sound like you’re not coming with us,” Deme said. “You’re not coming with us?”

“Demonkind lives in the Abyss, Deme,” Tamarin grinned. “All these years I’ve lived among humans, learned their language, spoken with Lavenza as if we were Menuans. I’ve done so little in comparison to learn about my own people.”

“I’m staying too,” Faye announced. “I’m also staying here, in the City of Stone.”

“You’ll be petrified,” Lavenza warned. “Before the Endire vanishes.”

“We’ll be petrified either way,” Faye shrugged. “Out there, I’m just demonkind whose magic pales compared to yours. Down here, I can do some good. There’s so much history I didn’t know. So much…hatred I never overcame. And now, there’s so much more that needs to be done before the inevitable. Shielding the city from erosion. Documenting as much history as possible.”

“And Castorp might need help when he’s petrified,” Tamarin chirped. "He's kind of cute, the more I look at him."

“I want the City of Stone to be here one day,” Faye said. “I want someone like me to see it and know that not everything is as it seems.”

“You’ll make for a lovely statue too,” Tamarin laughed. “We’ll need to put you somewhere high up. No one’ll be able to see you if you’re with the rest of us on the ground.”

Faye poked Tamarin with her staff. Deme shuffled up to the goblin shaman and threw her arms around her.

“I’ll miss you, Tam," Deme said.

“Oh child,” Tamarin brushed her hair. “I will think of you often.”

“The edge of the city is not too far from here,” Faye gestured to the monoliths beyond the king’s palace. “We’ll accompany you there. Richard?”

Everyone’s eyes fell upon the hero. Richard pushed himself off the pillar.

“I’m coming,” he said half-heartedly. “I’m coming.”

Tamarin strode to Richard’s side and shook him by the shoulders.

“Would you pull yourself together already, you dickwad?” she snapped. “Faye and I are staying. It’s where we belong. Time is short, Richard. You only have so much time left. Every moment you spend feeling sorry for yourself is a moment you don’t spend with the people you love.”

“I—” Richard muttered, but said nothing more.

Faye and Tamarin led the rest of the party to the opposite end of the city. It was strange, having Richard remain in the rear for once, but the two demonkind now paced through the streets as if they had lived here for centuries. They made notes of every new statue and talked excitedly about what needed to be done over the next few days.

The lift that the Demon King had alluded to was a giant oval slab that sat at the city’s northern edge. It hovered over a lake of sea green mana colored much like the sphere that lit the rest of the city.

“This is where we’ll part, Richard, Lavenza,” Tamarin said, “Deme.”

“Farewell you two,” Lavenza said. “Eco Severin.”

“Eco Severin…” the shaman repeated. “I never figured out what that meant.”

“Blessed be thy chosen!” Deme answered.

“Thy chosen,” Tamarin said. “I quite like the sound of that.”

“Tamarin. Faye.”

It was Richard who spoke.

“It was an honor to share this last adventure with you two,” he said. “I don’t know how you put up with me this whole time, but you managed. I’ll always love the two of you.”

“And we you, Richard,” Faye floated upwards and kissed him on the cheek. “Try not to kick yourself too much.”

“Welcome back, hero,” Tamarin chuckled. "Take care of Lavenza."

When they had boarded the lift, Faye uttered a spell beneath her breath. The giant slab shuddered then rose off the city floor. Beneath it, tendrils beneath the lake raised the slab upwards and began to push the lift out of the chasm. Deme sprinted to the side of the slab. She threw her head over the side and looked once more.

“Eco Severin, Tamarin!” she cried.

The goblin shaman and elf waved to her.

As they rose above the gorge, the city grew distant. Tamarin’s silhouette became a faint speck drifting down the street. Faye was even harder to recognize, but Deme and Lavenza knew she was there.

Lavenza wondered who would rediscover the City of Stone.

Would they walk its streets, marveling at the faces of all demonkind?

Would they visit the throne room and pay their respects?

In a small plot amidst the city, perhaps meant for a garden or a peaceful enclosure, would they find Faye and Tamarin again?

Lavenza hoped they would. She hoped they would find them sitting together, hands folded between their laps, eyes resting upon books turned to stone. She hoped they would know that they had lived.