RESONANCE
ACT II, SCENE II
ACT II, SCENE II
Within a laboratory hidden below the Grey Fleet of La Noscea
"What does he need her for?"
The voice was feminine, and floated as usual above the faint hum that was an almost constant feature of the facility, but while the words formed a question, the tone was not inquisitive in the slightest. It was a tone that a disapproving matron might use to rebuke some dingy waif, and coming from a particular and deceptively delicate-looking Roegadyn throat, it carried a hint of menace.
"What's he doin' that's all that different from usual? That Wood Wailer gal, that tiny little madam, Melange..." The other voice, gruff and deep already, tightened a bit on the name. "He finds a useful one, does what he wants for what he wants. Hells, I'd do it. And you can chuck an icicle if you want, Glim, but if you found a long-necked poncy sorceror who suited your purposes, you'd be doing the same thing. Don' even lie to me."
The female sniffed, pushed up the sleeve of her red robe, and pored over the book laid out before her. The ink on the page was still relatively fresh, and was densely packed with figures, numbers and a pair of charts. Her eyes were narrowed, scanning, taking it all in. "These numbers... Twelve, it's true. This advances us by moons, maybe a full cycle, if we can incorporate this into the projectors we'd be ready for Mor Dhona within days. But what under the stars could cause this sort of a reaction? The Burning Wall's corrupted, but it's supposed to be much more stable than this."
The male, whose hair matched hers in color and highlights, black with tinges of cobalt, looked up from his own workdesk, where he had been sharpening a small but ornately-forged one-handed pick. "That's all your stuff. I'm just gruntwork, and I ain' inclined to changin' that now. Especially now. Still trying to get the cannons modded."
"You're not stupid." The female countered. "We studied the Wall for fortnights. Its matrix is too dense, too amorphic, for these readings to be possible. But there they are. I looked at the readings, looked at the samples, saw what he saw. They simply just don't shatter like this, not this way. We tried. But the pattern's there - induced fractures, explosive release, too much like we're doing with our own samples. You know blasted well what this means - someone's beating us in our own work, or there's some natural phenomenon just begging to be put to use." He fingers tapped on the pages as she spoke.
The other Roegadyn, a massive specimen of even their own race, turned around in his reinforced chair to look directly at her. "And the boss near twitching at it all. You'd be too, I bet, but ya can't even think of if right now. Yer all in a tizzy."
The delicate fingers dragged down the page - any harder, and she'd have torn it. "She's going to compromise us. You peel a banana, you eat the fruit, and you toss the peel. That's how it's supposed to work. He's wrapping himself in the peel. He doesn't need her. We're more than capable of keeping away any trouble."
The male huffed in her direction. "What, like I ain' thought about that already? You're tied up in the lab and the field, he said. I'm needed in the forge, he said. She's all innocent looking and useful, he said. Like I don' get it. He tumbled Melange, tossed out her into the field, same thing... and don't give me that look; yeah, I ain' happy about it, but you're the one always chidin' me. Funny how he starts takin' a spellslinger for an escort, an' you're the one gettin' all worked up this time."
Glimmer flexed her left hand, and a hint of frosty blue seemed to form around it, part of her namesake. "I am not some silly girl."
"You can call me a target, but you can't call me a liar." The male stared at her, long and direct enough to make it an obvious challenge.
She met it with a stare of her own. "This is ridiculous. Even you have to see that. He's getting too close, too involved, too quickly. I don't like it, and you don't like it either. This puts everything at risk."
"Yeah. And we don't get a say. Welcome to my world for the last few moons. It's just hittin' you because unlike the others... she's a mage. Your role. You think this little flamethrowing fluff piece is gonna try to horn in on your own role, don'cha?" His nostrils flared.
She grit her teeth. "You ought to be every bit as concerned, Obelisk."
He broke eye contact, and waved a hand. "'Course I am! But you know how this works. We made our oaths. The more we fight it, the more he's gonna shut us out. This ain' like you - you know the best thing is to wait it out, let him get what he wants, see what happens, an' then it's back to business. Somebody's always tellin' me that, who... oh, yeah. You."
The shimmer around her hand disappeared. "You really are an arse, you know that?"
He grunted out a chuckle. "Mom taught us both. But hey, you ain' supposed to be the one gettin' jealous. I'm the problem child, remember?"
She smirked, and finally turned from him, glancing back over the pages. "We're close. So close. Gods, the power we're going to unleash..."
"But in the laugh there was another voice. A clearer laugh, an ironic laugh. A laugh which laughs because it chooses not to weep."