Chapter 218: Chapter 216: Cycles

With the press of a button, I let my mana soak into the inner workings of the brass tool, cranking up the runes and enchantments to - hopefully - do the job they were designed to do, and that was to transform my mana into the magic that would rid me of the grime and nothing more. A few heartbeats later, the magic of the tool quickly swept over my body; strange as it was, ticklish in places, unpleasant in others, it peeled off the grime of me and dissipated.

The pain I feared might come never did. I still had my skin and, it seemed, all my hair and fur, too. The magical tool - shaped like a bar of soap but made of metal parts so complex I didn’t dare to understand its working - I was holding in the palm of my hand worked as it should. All the filth was gone from my body, either on the ground somewhere or stuck in my clothes.

Yet, instead of feeling weird about it, relief spread through my guts.

“Here, go ahead...” I said to Stella, throwing her the mbath. Even though she was right and it was only logical for me to try the tool first, not her, there was no dire need to use it hence why a bit of displeasure seeped into my voice.

“I...thank you, Korra,” Stella said simply, apparently aware of what she had put me through. It was a stretch, and I knew it wasn’t her intention, but for a moment, it took me back to the cellars where I was just a lab rat in Dungreen’s hands.

Waving her off, I let her do her thing while I got up to shake the dirt out of my clothes and actually change into clean ones. Thanks to the outfit-spatial ring, it wasn’t the lengthy and awkward affair that dressing up here high on the cliff would under normal circumstances be.

Both feeling better - and there never was any doubt that being clean would make us feel better, only the necessity of it - both Stella and I set about redrawing Maneur’s map on one large piece of paper. A daunting task. Given the shrinking nature of the maze, making the map as accurate as possible was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. It involved a lot of calculations. Nevertheless, we managed, and the result was...not what I expected.

“Is it just me... or... where we went...”

Stella, staring at the piece of paper, now a map of the maze, as I was, nodded. “We weren’t heading out of the maze; we were heading into its center.”

“Fuck!” I swore under my breath, with my thoughts trailing to the rest of our squad and Sergeant Pinescar. “Did they actually get out? Or...?” The words caught in my throat as I looked around. If what we drew was correct, there was a good chance they were here in this echo with us.

“L-let’s hope not,” said Stella, as struck as I was by the revelation. “Do you think Meneurmut knew we were heading into the center of the maze and not out?”

Did he? “Well...he had to, right? But why didn’t he say anything?”

She pondered, trying to find some reasoning for it. “Most likely... because he knew we’d be against it...”

“Yeah, sure, but if he explained...” We sure would have listened, so why didn't he?

“I’ll stop you there, little ones,” Traiana spoke. “Seeing your map and from what you’ve told me, your comrade made a sound decision. You found yourself somewhere in the middle of that maze, not at the entrance. Considering that, what do you think is easier to find? One exit located somewhere around the rim or the center of it?”

“The center,” I said; that was a no-brainer. Still...he should have told us.

“He could have told us, though,” argued Stella

“That’s something you’ll have to sort out with him yourself, little ones.”

“Wait...!” I stopped her quite rudely at that, but I couldn’t help it when she was talking about Meneur as if it was inevitable that we would meet him. “They’re here, too?”

“Calm your heart, little Guardian. No one but you two has found their way here in the last nineteen cycles.”

Whatever she meant by the cycles, it sounded like a lot. They weren’t here, though; that was all I needed to hear. “That’s a relief.”

“Cycles, ma’am?” Stella asked once she got over the fact that the misshapen space only swept us away and thought about what Traiana actually said.

The woman nodded. “That’s what the echo moves in, cycles. Each of them has a beginning as well as an end. As soon as one cycle reaches its final moments, it starts anew.”

Stella and I looked at each other in horror. “What-what will happen to us when this echo reaches its end?” she asked.

“Just like the cycle, you start anew.”

I swallowed dry. “As, right here, all messed up?”

“I’m afraid so. After all, that is how you started your journey here.”

“Shit!” Stella cursed, remembering the state she’d landed in here. “And we forget everything? I mean, you, ma’am, what have we learned, our skills?”

Instead of the nod I expected, Traiana smiled warmly. “You may have found yourself in the echo of the past and are subject to its laws. You’re not part of it, though. What you make your own is what you keep,” she said, tapping her finger on her head.

“At least that,” I let out a sigh of relief, horrified at the thought of being stuck here for who knows how long, repeating the same day over and over again without being aware of how many times I’d already lived it. “How long is one cycle, anyway? Wait, how long do we actually have until the end of this one?”

“While the battle dragged on for weeks, this echo spans five days. Since the runes adjust to the strength of the echo as it ends, you found yourself here at the beginning of it.”

In all the bad luck we had, this was at least some good news. We still had more or less five days to find our way out of this place, far more than I intended to stay here.

“What happens if we...you know, die here?” asked Stella, knocking my enthusiasm down a notch. “What, Korra? This is a fucking battleground! I don’t wish for it - who the fuck would want to die - but it could happen.”

“Ma’am?” I asked. Admittedly, Stella was right.

“I think you know the answer to that, little ones. You’re going to die,” she said as if the fact didn’t bother her at all. Which, thinking about it, most likely didn’t. “...then, like everyone else, whether they are part of the echo or not, you will find yourself at the beginning of it.”

“You mean... time restarts with our deaths?” I asked in the small hope that it might be so. At the very least, it would be quite convenient if we were to actually die.

“This echo doesn’t revolve around you, little ones,” Traiana chuckled. “It will end when it has to.” Meaning if we died now, we’d lose five whole days just like that. The question was whether the days in this place matched those outside. A conclusion that Stella came to, too.

“Does time pass here as it does outside the echo?” She asked, further clarifying. “I mean, whether....”

“I know what you mean, little one. But I’m sorry to say it’s as you fear. Here, the past may repeat itself over and over again, but outside, life goes on.”

“Shit!” Stella cursed under her breath, and I added a few swear words of my own, of course avoiding the local one: Traiana’s tits. If we were to fuck up and die right at the beginning of each cycle, we could spend months or years here, whereas, for us, it would be mere days or weeks.

“We should find a way out of here, and fast.” I know it should have been our priority from the start and I dare say it was; we just weren’t ready. Actually, we still weren’t, but knowing time wasn’t on our side, we needed to act, not sit on our asses.

“I agree with you, Korra. It’s just...” Stella said, looking back at the map of the maze, biting her lower lip. “I can’t make heads or tails of it. Where are we on that map now? If we ran into the center of my maze as it seems, does this cliff account for it? Is this the center of the echo?”

That was the biggest issue. If the map and our path through the maze were to be our way back - and that was a big if - we had to place it correctly here in the echo first. But how were we supposed to do that when there were no common landmarks? The tenth floor of Fallen’s Cry was covered in rolling hills and meadows; here, we stood on a cliff looking down on ancient woods.

“This being the center of the echo, little one? If anything, we’re near its edge.”

“Then the center is...?”

“It’s where you’d expect it to be, where the most crucial thing happened. Way down there,” Traiana spoke about the woods under the cliff, looking over our shoulders at the map. “Though that drawing of yours, that’s not just a map of a maze.”

“It isn’t? Then what it is, ma’am?” 

“What I said,” she spoke, distraught at what she saw. “What you have drawn are the main runic lines holding this echo here.”

It took time for my brain to process what she just said, and so, like Stella, struggling to understand, I stared dumbly for a few moments at the partial map of the maze, or rather our path through it that swirled around the center, sometimes moving away from it, mostly towards it, reaching it in the end. Well, almost.

“Runic circles,” Stella whispered, her eyes beaming with understanding still glued to the map. Unfortunately, I had to take both of them at their word, as my knowledge of runes went no further than knowing they existed.

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“So... the misshapen space, the walls of the maze, matches the rune lines?”

“The other way around, little Guardian. You have followed in the footsteps of the rune lines. Actually, it makes so much sense.”

“It does, ma’am?”

“It truly does,” she said, her voice unusually full of joy, mirth, and frustration with herself. “My apologies, little ones. I should have realized sooner. But it’s so obvious now that you have presented me with such a clear picture of how you got here. The misshapen space you’ve stumbled upon was an echo of the past that seeped around the rune lines to your present.”

“So...”

“And you know where those rune lines run through here, ma’am?” Stella beat me to ask. “We could place the map if you do.”

“Of course, I know, little one.” Traiana beamed, only to frown a heartbeat later. “But right now, you are nowhere near. Your drawing is a little distorted; however, you should be somewhere around here,” she pointed to a spot outside the paper, over half a map from the part of the maze we traversed.

Regardless, my heart leaped for joy as a squeal escaped from my throat. I couldn’t help it; we finally knew where we were, had a clue, a direction to go. Or had we? “Will you be willing to show us the way, ma’am?”

A bead of cold sweat rolled down my brow when Traiana didn’t give me an immediate answer but thought about it, looking off into the distance. 

“You know,” she spoke to both of us, eyes still on the battlefield down there. “Reliving these moments over and over again can be exhausting, to say the least. Most of the time, it’s a nightmare eating away at one’s sanity. I’ve grown numb to it, yet I do enjoy the moments when someone finds their way here. Feel free to blame me for wishing you would stay longer.”

Dread crept into my heart, and one word popped into my mind: jailer. That was one of the things she said she was. She may not have been the reason Stella, and I ended up here, but she may very well have been the reason why no one got out.

A growl actually escaped my throat as I took a defensive stance when she looked back at us. Stella, though still far from being okay, did the same.

“Your reaction is a fair one, little ones. And I do not blame you for that. Nevertheless, there’s no need to be on edge with me.” That was something a villain would say. ‘Trust me, I won’t hurt you!’

“While I enjoy these brief moments, the chance to speak with someone...alive, I find them far crueler than the memories this echo is built on. These are glimmers of hope in the darkness, reminders of what kind of life I could have if...” she said and paused, drifting away in her thoughts for a moment. “You, little Guardian, have asked me to be a guide for you above anything else I am, and that is what I shall be.”

I returned her polite bow of the head, and so did Stella. “T-thank you, ma’am. We appreciate your help immensely.” To my taste, she was too quick to dismiss the possibility that Traiana might mislead us. But while she may have been hasty in returning grace with grace as her upbringing had taught her, even my beast instincts did not see Taiana as a threat. Well, aside from her strength and the occasional drop of her presence. 

That said, we didn’t have many options other than putting our lives in her hands. “So which way?” I asked instead of dwelling on her true intention for too long. The eagerness to get out of this damn place was hard to quell.

“When you’re ready...” Traiana said, glancing at our map once more before pointing somewhere into the woods below the cliff. “...do say and follow me.”

“Well, I am, you, Stella?”

While I was sure she was no less eager to get out than I was, she took a breath before answering me, thinking about it. “Walking should be fine; more than that will be up to you, Korra.” I could see how her weakness grated on her, finding it shameful. She was pissed at herself, clenching her fists in frustration, but felt it necessary to tell me how things were.

“‘All right,” I nodded, my eyes falling on Traiana. “Am I right to think that we don’t stand much of a chance when it comes to fighting?” Those people, soldiers like her, down there were fighting something that threatened to wipe out the sapient races from Eleaden. Be it them or the enemy, I was under no illusions that they must have been much stronger than the two of us.

“You think too low of yourself, little Guardian. You’re not as weak as you think...for someone your age. In these times, you would both be more than adequate to join the ranks of regular soldiers. Nevertheless, you are correct in your judgment. This part of the battle was fought by senior soldiers and above. So, yes, I would recommend avoiding clashing with either side.”

“...and would you be so kind as to help us with that too, ma’am?” asked Stella, sounding so genteel it gave me goosebumps. She was never that polite to me.

“If you mean to interfere with the course of this echo, then no. As I said, I’m merely a watcher. Those belonging to the echo see only the me who fights with them on the front lines. But as a watcher, I am more than familiar with the events unfolding here. As long as we stay away from the center of the echo, avoiding clashes should not be much of an issue.”

“That...sounds good, ma’am.” Stella said, well aware, as I was, that there was a good chance we’d have to go right into the center of the echo. However, that was a problem to be solved when the time came, not now.

“After you,” Stella gestured to Traiana, that she could lead the way.

And so we set out on our journey through the echo of a past long forgotten.

 

***

 

Our pace was not as fast as either of us would have imagined, though. Hardly to blame for it, Stella was still not in the best of shape, and so even when she was doing her best, it was she who was holding us back. Needless to say, the terrain wasn’t exactly easy to traverse through. Rocks covered with moss and hidden among bushes under the gloom of a dark sky may not have been too much of a problem for someone with my eyesight and domain to navigate through, but the sheer difficulty of climbing down the rocks was draining. All the more so for someone who wasn’t quite fit.

“Are you all right there?” 

“Not the walk I had in mind,” Stella said back as we climbed down the slope. “...but I can do it.”

“If not, say so.”

Thanks to the sails I had for ears, I could hear her gnashing her teeth. “I will, Korra.”

“Isn’t there an easier way down?” I asked Traiana anyway.

“There is,” she nodded, moving over the stones with ease and grace despite her armor. “More than one. All patrolled by soldiers, though.”

That shut us both up. While those guys were supposed to be on the good side, our side, it was hard to say how they would react to the two of us sneaking around behind their lines.

We were more than halfway down - now, besides the rocks and bushes, the roots of the surrounding trees now weaving under our feet joined in hindering our journey - when Stella stopped to catch her breath. 

“Sorry, I need a minute,” she said, wiping the sweat from her brow.

As much as I hated to, I had to admit that it was stupid to go on like this. “You need more than that. We should find a place to stay and....”

“No, I can go on! Just...”

“What? You must see that a minute or two of sitting on a rock won’t help you.”

“‘Then you want to wait until I’m back to full strength?! Without healers, it could take me all day, at best.”

This time it was me who gritted my teeth. I didn’t want to wait that long. “That bad?”

“Um-hmm, I was a mess, Korra. I still am,” she admitted reluctantly, a strain in her voice.

“So, what do you suggest?” There wasn’t much we could do but let her rest every few meters. “You don’t want me to carry you on my back, do you?”

Just as I thought Stella would, she scowled at the idea, finding it as ridiculous as I did, humiliating even. Yet, only a few heartbeats later, as she didn’t immediately let go of the absurd thought, her eyes flashed with an idea, her lips curling into a smile. 

My instincts snapped to alert, warning me of the danger and telling me to make a run for it as fast as I could.

“What about on your beast back, Korra?”

 

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