Chapter 49 - Cold

A marvel of creation, a place created by the very hands of the spirits whose existence had been long before the first flesh and likely will remain long after the last has returned to the land.

Pillars carved of pearl white stone, a magnificent material for the innumerable stories carved onto their skin, held unmarred for untold millennia.

Some told of battles won at harrowing times, and some told of great feasts whose songs had shaken the valleys as they drank the lakes and rivers dry.

But some... told of defeat.

Of failure.

And of the end of an era.

The death of their beloveds, but also the birth of their new hope. 

A story spread across stone, spanning thousands of years of Giant History, and it laid ruined around them, as the night hordes flooded over them, careful not to damage any of it.

The carvings left on them, so lifelike and perfectly done, that it was as though giant corpses were strewn upon the earth they tread upon.

A shockwave ran through the area lifting the dust into the sky! A slash cut through the sky and hit a cornered magical barrier, exploding into two directions and cleaving the ceiling, causing a collapse! 

Those pieces fell over the priceless stone carvings, covering them and shattering all over, leaving a wreak were life once held.

Irreparable damage. Faces and names, actions and their consequences lost to the new tide of history writing itself with it's corpse.

It was a tragedy, to be unable to-; Water fell from above in short drops.

He blinked twice.

Water...? 

Pipes. Darkness... Water.

Flowing water.

His steps slowed to a stop.

His jaw tightened. His stomach turned upside down, and his heart beat grew slow. His demeanor flipped. 

Betrayal.

Is that how this all happened? 

A face surfaced, seared into his mind. A name carved into the wound on his arm. Another drop of water, he side stepped it, and watched it hit the ground.

With each drip, it felt like a drum in his ears, and a hammer beating against his head! He was suddenly conscious of all of the water on his body. 

His lungs seized.

He couldn't breath.

Yet all he did was frown.

He was no stranger to this; Fear.

He bit his inner cheek hard enough to make it bleed, the sensations associated with the memory were drawn aside, as his body went into survival mode.

His eyes had been following the drop of water, slowly rolling on the ground.

It had fallen from the airways above, but where was it going?

Where... This wasn't the first time thinking about it. He could tell. There was something familiar about this line of thought.

He fought viciously against the rising panic and anxiety that the water was bringing in order to maintain his line of thought, to prevent it from escaping, but even his muscles were tensed up without his permission.

He'd not even noticed, the sweat dripping from his palms. The girl in his arms held onto him, starring at him with her big round eyes.

Yet he didn't notice at all, he wasn't even there anymore, his mind was chugging like a coal train starting up. A memory was trying to surface. Where did the water go? Where did that pipe lead? 

What had he thought before? Why was it coming back up? More... more memories started to rise up.

That woman's face. And the faces of other people flying above. They had watched.

They had watched him fall, and did nothing.

His heart beat like a punch to the chest. 

How could water fall into this place, and not have flooded it full in the last thousands of years. In a single year, with no way to drain, a swamp would form, let alone a thousand or more.

They had chosen to allow that injustice, without asking a question, or even giving a look of pity.

Where had it gone. Where was he going to be taken by that pipe?

It wasn't even indifference.

Why had he not thought of it before? Was it the pink pollen obscuring his mind? He felt the dejavu strike him like a hammer strikes hot steel.

They were laughing.

His nails dug into the palm of his hands. He shut his eyes tightly. He didn't want to continue to see more.

Anymore, and he would lose all focus.

...Yet his teeth could be heard grinding against one another, still.

Sewers.

How could he restrain this grudge?

Were their sewers?

Even as he fought tooth and nail to suppress the cold, it had already invaded his bones.

Where? Rivers. Rivers carved into stone. Into the path. He tried to refocus. But his aura began to rise from his body, like steam.

His arms started to tremble, and he gripped one hand on his wrist. 

The entire Giant Road was always running downwards, it was always on an angle. Water was following the river. He looked down. The water drop was flowing the wrong way.

A vein slowly started to snake it's way down his neck.

Constance, who had been keeping a lookout while trying to think of a way to save everyone, felt a heat she had never felt before, at her back and turned.

Her pupils shrank, and she put her sword between herself and him.

What... was that? What was that thing? She had made the mistake, of having her Insight active, when she looked at him.

It was there again.

The shadow of murder lingered behind the steam the violet steam that was blowing off his body, it was looking somewhere else!

She looked at the girl, who was safe in his arms despite the storm of malice, and grit her teeth. She didn't know what he would do, if she got close again.

Like that day in Avancia, just before she went down here. He was somewhere else. Something was wrong and if she made the wrong choice, it could spark a desperate battle.

She was too tired to safely overpower him and save the girl at the same time if something went wrong.

He leaned his head slightly forward. He could feel his muscles tensed across his whole body now, and relaxed, before they tensed again.

He was shivering, despite being warmed by his aura burning.

Just a little longer.

Downwards. Roads. Sewers. Rivers... Fish?

He needed to focus just a little longer, or else it would escape.

Fish flowing down the river.

He couldn't lose it just yet.

Why fish? 

Where did the water come from? 

He couldn't allow his emotions to flow, yet.

Lake. Lakes have fish. The sea has fish. The water flows downwards at a slow angle, almost unnoticable. Masterful builders.

Why?

The waters source is higher in the mountains, but the mountains are empty... His spacial awareness flipped. He started to feel nauseous.

The memory was playing inside of the darkness within his closed eyes. He couldn't escape it. That seemingly endless dark.

He drew from memory the layout of the roads. Water flows down. The roads carved with rivers, run down. Fish, follow the flow of the river. Fish... what kind of fish?

His eyes opened, but it was dark, he could hear the suffocatingly strong current of water deafeningly playing in his ears, the memory was dragging him back, he slightly turned his head and spoke through a husky shivering breath, "What do the fish look like?"

He sounded hypothermic.

Constance, who was on edge, didn't want to look away from him for even a second, but, saw from the corner of her eye, and slowly began to speak, "Scaley. A long mouth. Whiskers. A ridge over it's spine. And... a reverse scale? Somewhere near it's eye, there's a reverse scale." 

Argo turned his head back forward. Her voice had come through fine. His hearing was not overpowered.

He felt a devastating pain like paper ripping up his arm trying to claw his attachment to reality from him, but he held the girl even tighter.

She was the only sensation grounding him.

Keeping him from being dragged away by the current completely.

Long mouth. Whiskers. Ridge. Reverse scale... and in the mountains?

...A Sun Fish.

A special fish served at imperial banquets found at the top of mountain valleys, where the sun was nearest to the earth, in those pools untouched far above, they swam.

He felt the girls arms wrapped tightly around his neck. He could feel her little breath, and focused on it. The noises and sensations calmed slightly.

So why... why were the Sun Fish swimming towards the third gate? 

He could feel the accumulated exhaustion rising. His aura which he was burning like steam, was making him dizzy as well.

But the memory was not yet finished.

Would they not be swimming backwards? To Avancia? The highest point...?

The builders of this place were masterwork builders, Giants who devoted their whole lives to the creation of things, and the performance of their chosen crafts, would they make such a mistake, to have Sun Fish swimming the wrong way?

No... they were not sloppy.

The Sun Fish were swimming to the highest place.

The Third Gate... was that highest place.

His brows furrowed. 

His back exploded with pain, and then it went numb. That calm had been before the storm.

He could see a ladder. It was there, waiting for him to grab it. An explosion had gone off.

There was a drop-off ahead. 

There was death.

He lost the ability to feel the girls hands, or her breath.

The drop was coming.

He reached for the ladder.

It was his only chance.

He couldn't move his left arm.

His head pounded wildly.

Water... was he afraid of water?

The girl had been afraid of water... the girl... the girl...

He slightly smiled.

How dare he be afraid, after telling her to be brave? 

His hand brushed against the ladder, but he didn't grab it, instead facing the harrowing drop into the unknown.

But there was nothing.

He was looking at his feet.

The cold dissipated from his body, and instead an unbearable heat rose in place of the memories sabotage of his nerves! The steam rising off of him dissipated, as he reigned back in his aura, and his mind was grasped back in his vice-like grip.

"I'm fine." 

Constance who had her sword at the back of his throat, with a demeanor that portrayed neither indifference, nor emotion, a complicated look, slowly lowered it.

She didn't dare to ask him what had happened, he already looked pale as a ghost. If it happened again, or triggered something by questioning, then, she really didn't know what to do.

Argo looked ahead. The girl in his arms stared at him. And he gave her a smile. She would stay with him.

He understood why it was, that he had taken such a liking to the girl. And he understood why he had come down here now, as well.

He put a fragile hand on her head, and gave it a pat, causing her big round eyes to scrunch up a bit, and her to shake her head, causing him to smile a little more, before looking ahead.

Despite the pain from the constant relaxing and flexing of his muscles, as well as the overuse of aura, he couldn't help but be awed by what he saw.

...Masterworkers.

Looking towards the Second Gate, he could see the tops clearer and clearer the further his sight searched, but northward, to the Third Gate, he stopped being able to see, after a short while.

It was clear as day now, that the way ahead was rising, not falling in elevation. When one could only see boulders, it was obstructed, and hard to guess.

But now... it was as simple as looking.

He put his ear to the river carved into the ground, while Constance stood over him, with a confused look. What was going on?

The girl put her ear to the ground too.

"Do you hear that?" Argo looked at her, his throat felt stuffed up, but he refused to let it win, "You do."

The Nightmares flooding past, Constance knew she wouldn't be able to sleep properly for a long time, but, even that was not enough to make her feel as bewildered as what she was seeing.

The girl and Argo had somehow had a conversation, and agreed on something, as he rose up and picked her up.

His arms were not so weak that he couldn't.

Her nose scrunched up. She tried to guess at what was going on, and spoke carefully in case it triggered something.

"The river flows to the sky," Constance looked at the two of them, Argo was speaking, but she felt like she was hearing gibberish, "The Sun Fish follow the river upwards. We need to head to the Third Gate." 

"...What?" 

The Sun Fish, she didn't know anything about them, but if they were actually creatures that swim upwards, wouldn't they go to the Second Gate?

As if reading her confusion, Argo began spoke shortly, pointing at a droplet of water, "How does water flow?"

Among all of the ruins, the river path alone had no cracks or breaks. It alone, was without issue. Preserved especially well.

Constance's pupils shrank, her brow furrowing, "Downstream."

Not a moment after she had spoken, she understood. 

The water droplet... it was not heading towards the Third Gate, but towards the Second... which meant...

She slightly frowned.

"How is that possible? We definitely descended down the long road from Avancia? The fish were swimming down? Are you sure their Sun Fish? Couldn't you be wrong?" 

It didn't make sense.

Even assuming they were Sun Fish, and the people who had built it, had taken that level of precision in their craft, how could they have switched the elevation without anyone noticing? 

And when? Even a Master had not noticed? Couldn't it be an illusion that was still being cast in this maze like place? 

"They are Sun Fish. Down here, how is one to dodge down from up, anyway?" Argo followed the river path with his eyes.

"With the surroundings," Constance paused when she finished speaking, and caught on quickly, what she was seeing, wasn't the truth, she knew that by how Argo moved and where he looked, "The dark, the boulders, the hands and faces, they all obscure the change in elevation. But why? For what purpose?"

Argo had begun to walk while she was speaking, and rounded a corner as he spoke with a serious look, "...I don't know." 

Why did up and down need to be obscured? 

What he found more pressing, was how the water could possible flow, down from the Third Gate, and down from Avancia? 

Was the water stagnant, or were they standing over a massive basin full of thousands of years of water? 

The pipe he had nearly fallen down in his memory, it went straight down. But he had been sucked into it to begin with because of the suction force and downwards pressure.

Assuming that the pressure was built up for a long time, and the pipes didn't budge, couldn't that pressure push the water up the mountains? He didn't know.

But it didn't matter as it stood, and so he assumed it was suction.

Pressure was being redirected uphill, from the water that fell down through the path, keeping a constant flow with extreme force, essentially self actualizing.

Was that... even possible? He didn't know either.

What he did know was that the river split into multiple up ahead, with fish following them all. 

The river had been broken into four by a large carved rock.

A river breaker.

Thin roots had pushed the River Breaker upwards, revealing that it was a cap of some sort. It was small. 

A drain?

"Give me your sword for a moment." Argo crouched down, and set the girl on her feet before reaching his hand back at Constance.

Constance stared at him, and at his already weak form, and shook her head, stepping forward with sword in hand, "Tell me where."

Argo turned back to stare at her, but he knew she was right, and the heat of the miniature sun was growing more volatile, "Slide your sword exactly where my finger is. Don't cut if off. Then use it like a lever." 

She couldn't see it. The floor, properly, for what it was. The Lonely Flower was still obscuring her mind.

But... she chose to trust him.

He had earned that much, at least, with her.

Her strike was precise, showing off the years of training in the church spent to master such a clean execution.

As soon as the lid had some give, he put his hand underneath and realized how insanely heavy the slab of stone was! 

It nearly fell and cut his fingers right off, but Constance's sword was strong, and she was stalwart, holding it despite the immense weight.

Argo, now able to get his shoulder under the lid, and bracing against it, spoke quickly, "Drop. Hurry up."

The girl dropped down without question, and Constance took a final glance at Argo before dropping down, her sword, which was acting as the lever and taking the brunt of the weight, leaving with her.

Argo let his own bodyweight and the weight of the lid do it's work, as he was essentially throw by the weight of lid down.

Running water and...

...Gears?