Chapter 55: The Titan That Sleeps (Patreon)

For several minutes after passing the pillar there was nothing. Then the sharp point of a horn began resolving out of the darkness, like the prow of a ship through heavy fog.

It retained the long, tapered silhouette from his dream, but stretched far enough to impale a ten-story building from roof to foundation. The material was ghostly white, and seemed almost to glow when touched by the light of the lantern.

Elliot felt a sudden sense of shrinking, as if he’d crossed over a ridge and seen a vast horizon out ahead. Even bound, the Titan radiated a stifling pressure that grew with every step they took.

Minutes passed with the horn above before the first head came into view. The first of three, hyena-jawed with dark green, leathery hide.

No—Elliot squinted. The green was moss. Endless swathes of it. He shivered. The whole body must be almost a thousand feet from front to rear, if the proportions held true from what little he could see.

“The Titan that Sleeps,” Speaker said, stopping short.

Even the Talessi guards—eyes normally in constant motion—stood staring, silent. 

Elliot found himself having to look away. The eye he could see was closed, but something about the sharpness of real life made it seem like the wrinkled lid could open at any moment.

“Where’s the dark spear you keep mentioning?” Elliot asked, already knowing the answer. If it was like in the dream, then it would be a few hundred feet ahead, jutting from the Titan’s left side.

“Further down. We shouldn’t draw too close. The conceptual leakage gets significantly worse within fifty feet or so.”

“Conceptual leakage?”

“I lack the comprehension to do an explanation justice. It makes proximity exceedingly dangerous. Can you sense anything, being this close to it?”

Elliot hesitated. He couldn’t, in truth. Unless the pressure was unique to him, but he doubted that from the tension on the faces of both Talessi. Should he claim to feel something new? What did Speaker need to hear in order to feel like there was no need to go back to the blood sacrifice plan?

“Trying to think of something useful to invent?” the man said, smiling faintly. “Don’t worry, Elliot. I won’t throw you away as simply as that. I need good faith effort. That means I need to trust what you say as we experiment, and I can’t trust what you say if you feel you must constantly perform to keep my interest.”

Frustrating man. “I don’t think I feel anything new. Just the pressure, and the corruption in the air from the spear.”

“Well. There are plenty of avenues to explore.” Speaker gazed back up at the Titan, his brow furrowing. “There is something else I wish to share with you. I trust I do not need to harp on about secrecy, now that you are bound by the poison pill. This is not to be shared, not with anyone. It is not something I would share with you, if I did not think it might help motivate your enthusiastic support.”

He met Elliot’s eyes. “I have personal ambitions, but this is not solely a selfish act. I said the Titans to the south have kept away from us, and that is true, but something is shifting. Telgariad has returned from his explorations below the surface of the world. Gen’vor descends from his mountain. The Serene Horde has been sighted across the Mourning Sea. Great powers are stirring, and no one knows why. Old habits are no longer safe to trust in. Having our own comparable power is something I believe might be essential to the survival of all our people, and soon.”

“How do you have this information, and no one else?” Elliot asked. “Or do others know, and they don't agree?”

“I have significantly more contact beyond the Crowns than almost anyone else in the north,” Speaker replied. “I am not a monster, and if nothing else, my success here should tell you that I am not ineffective at what I do. All I ask is that you consider the fact that there might be more to this than you or your masters have understood, while we work.”

Speaker turned away from the colossal being still mostly covered in darkness. “That’s enough for now. You’ll need a chance to think, and I to prepare. Tomorrow we will begin further experimentation. I’ll remind you only once. Do not tell anyone about what we discussed here. You might hide it from me, but I suspect I would know.”

The walk back to the cell was silent, except for the faint slapping of boots on moist stone. The barricaded lift sat within the entry cavern where Elliot had first fallen, and despite his efforts to make sense of it, the maze of passages they crossed on their way to the dungeon was still impossible to keep straight. 

When the Talessi had left, Elliot sat against the wall and thought about power. He’d never see Speaker as right, or good. Not in a million years. But what if he was correct? What if the Titans were coming? He desperately wanted the chance to discuss this with Breka. She’d been the first to admit no one she knew of really understood the Titan. Keeping it from waking seemed like a strong common sense approach, but if anything Speaker said was true, even part of it, the matter might be more complex than that. When it spoke to him in the dream, it didn’t seem like a monster.

And if the great powers to the south were shifting, what did that mean for Rowan?

“What about your sevens?” Yolena asked, crouched in front of Sasha.

“Do we have to do this?” the girl replied, rocking back and forth on her heels. She held a small stone shard, and had been using it to scratch figures into the packed earth floor.

“Do you want to be behind when you get home?”

“My class isn’t even doing multiplication yet,” she whined, looking pleadingly at Elliot.

“Hah,” Yolena said, grinning. “I have a niece in Tular your exact age. She even complains about math the same way. She’s been on multiplication for months.”

“It’s good to keep up the practice,” Elliot added distractedly.

“Fine,” Sasha replied. “But don’t you want to ask Elliot what happened out there first?”

“Nice try, young lady. Sevens.”

“Are you a local?” Elliot asked Yolena as Sasha went back to drawing, trying to balance the part of his brain feeling existential dread with the part that was useful for casual conversation. “I thought the Greenguard mostly came from deeper into the March.”

“I was born here. Left, came back.”

“Who’s your niece?” Sasha asked, still scratching at the dirt.

“Renny,” Yolena replied.

Sasha’s lips quirked. “She does the river dances with me. She’s nice.”

“She is nice. And she’s much smarter than me. Wants to join the Greenguard someday, but that’ll be over my dead body.”

The girl’s face fell, expression turning stiff.

“My sister is much smarter than me too,” Elliot hastened to add, “and probably nicer as well, if I’m being honest.”

“Really?” Sasha asked, perking up slightly. “What’s her name? Does she live close by?”

“Rowan.” Elliot replied. “She’s far away right now. But I’m going to travel back to her soon.” He found his hand reaching up to his chest, where the poison had been hidden, and forced it back to his side. “As soon as I can.”

“How far is she?” Sasha replied.

“Very far.” Elliot forced a smile. “But I’m a good traveler. And I have people who’ll help me.”

“I don’t like traveling. You have to go in big groups to stay safe from beasts, and there are bugs everywhere.” She began writing again. “But I hope your travels are safe.”

“Thanks. I hope you don’t have to go on too many trips.”

“Only to see my nan in Sostus. But that’s just once a year. And it’s worth it, because she’s the best.”

“I believe it,” Elliot replied. 

“I never knew my grandmother,” Yolena said. She looked vaguely ridiculous, hunched like a gargoyle over the small child doing times tables, red hair shorn short and muscles rippling under a dirty tunic. “Family moved too much. Too far.”

Elliot’s own grandmother never seemed too interested in children. Their conversations had been stiff, formal, and rare. A common theme in his extended family, although fortunately not his immediate. “I didn’t know mine very well.”

“Well my nan is lovely,” Sasha said. “She makes cheese biscuits when we come, and we get to stay up late to play games. She’s always really excited to hear us talk about stuff, even when Jory only wants to talk about racing, and she never tells our parents any secrets we tell her. When it’s time to leave, she packs a whole basket of our favorite foods to take with us, and walks us down to the road even though her back hurts most days.”

“She sounds tough,” Yolena said. “She’d make a good Greenguard recruit.”

“No,” Sasha said firmly, turning back to her work on the ground. “Dad says she’s always trying to do too many things, and she needs to rest more.”

“Right you are,” Yolena replied, eyes sparkling.

The ranger stood and walked over to Elliot’s position against the back wall, sliding smoothly into place beside him. “What happened?” she asked softly.

He hesitated. Speaker didn't seem to have a complete truth-detecting ability, but he was uncannily good at reading people, and presumably had some kind of skills to help. “I don’t think I should say now,” he replied, also softly. “I’m not supposed to talk about it, and he said he’d know if I did. Unless you think it’s just a bluff?”

“No. Better be safe. Truth detection is a tricky business. Hard to predict. Tell me if it becomes critical. Otherwise, bide.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, watching Sasha draw with the rock.

“You’re a young lad,” Yolena said suddenly. “And a merchant. Shouldn’t be involved in this.”

“Well, it wasn’t really my first choice.”

“But you seem like you have your head on straight.” Yolena glanced at him, her expression serious. “When it comes time to do something, can I count on you?”

“Of course,” Elliot replied, meeting her eyes.

“To make sure we’re clear,” she said, not looking away. “You say yes to this, I treat you like a ranger. I might ask you to do something that gets you killed. I wouldn’t like it, but I would. You don’t have to say yes, but if you say yes I need you to mean it.”

Elliot looked over at Sasha, still working on her sevens. There could be kids in the other cells as well. These were just people, not fighters. They deserved to go home. “Yes. I’ll do what I can, no matter what that means.”

Yolena grunted, closing her eyes. “Thanks. Going to be a rough one. I don’t see the opening now, but there’s always something. Might be good odds, might be bad, but it’ll be a chance.”

“We should have a bit of time, at least,” Elliot said, measuring his words carefully. “I might get an opportunity with…you know. Stuff.”

The ranger sighed. “Gods willing.”

“I’m done!” Sasha called out, standing up. “And I want to take a break.”

Yolena rose to her feet in one smooth motion. “What about eights?”

Hours later, time mostly passed in math and idle conversation, Elliot finally lay down in a corner to prepare for sleep. He’d been refraining from using [Eye of Niamh], in case there was an actual need, but training had become so ingrained in him that he still found himself manipulating the spatial pocket’s dimensions as a matter of habit. When he drifted off to sleep it was with one hand in his pocket, using [Golden Touch] to repeatedly empower the deformable piece of metal.

Then he was back on the shale plain, staring at black clouds. He stiffened. After what happened last time, he hadn’t known if returning was in the cards. The statue would be sitting behind his back, staring very near to where he stood. “Um, if you’re there, please don’t kill me.”

WHY HAVE YOU RETURNED?

Elliot turned slowly, then froze.

The statue was a statue no more. Towering above him, twenty feet at the shoulder at least, the Titan stood, incarnated. It still had three heads, long horns, and the body of a bull, but instead of a purple crystal its hide was a garden. Moss, roses, snow bells, twining vines, together they covered it to the point where it would have been impossible to say what existed beneath. Elliot could see its eyes for the first time. They burned dark green, like verdant stars.

But the spear remained. Jagged, obsidian, and jutting from the Titan’s side, rising and falling with every breath. Elliot could feel the cloud of corruption suffusing the air, though it was balanced now by the smell of rich soil and flowers.

“I just come here when I sleep,” he said, taking a small step backwards, “it’s not on purpose.”

YOU HAVE INTERFERED WITH MY BINDINGS. YOU RISK DESTRUCTION YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

“Sorry,” Elliot said. “I never meant to. But why is that such a risk?” He thought about what Speaker had said. “Are you going to do something terrible if you’re set free? Couldn’t you just, I don’t know, go on about your life?”

I AM NOT WHAT YOU SHOULD FEAR.

“Well then what—” his eyes widened. “The spear?”

IT IS NOT MEANT FOR THIS WORLD.

“But it’s contained by the bindings. If some other Titan was able to bind it and you, then shouldn’t you be able to do something about it if you’re woken up?” This changed things. The Titan didn’t even seem like it wanted to be freed. He had to tell Breka. “We could help you. There are a lot of people really worried about you getting free because they don’t know what you would do, but if it’s just the spear that’s the problem, we could figure that out.”

YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU SPEAK OF.

“Are you worried about whoever bound you?” Elliot asked. “Obviously you’d know more about that than me, but I don’t think they’ve been around for a long time. There aren’t any ninth-circles in the north anymore.”

FOOLISH CHILD.

The Titan leaned down, its eyes like searchlights. Elliot forced himself to stand his ground and look back.

WHY WOULD AN INFANT AT THE FIRST STAGE THINK HIMSELF WISE ENOUGH TO INTERCEDE IN THIS MATTER? HAVE YOU NO MASTER TO CURB YOUR AMBITION? I DO NOT SPEAK IN FEAR. THERE IS NO HIDDEN ENEMY. THE ONE WHO BOUND ME, IS ME.