Those who pretend to care, but do so only out of a desire to maintain their power, are the true villains of every story.

Lars Hedric, Priest of Earoni

"And here I thought we were at the end of the journey." Having lost count of the steps already descended a while ago, Sheala bemoaned the continuing downward spiral carved into the rock. "How much further?"

The blue fairy light was playing tricks on her eyes.

"I can't say for sure," Sayra replied. "This was built before my time. But my ancestors were often big on the Norridic Cycles."

"The what of the who?"

"The Norridic Cycles," the elf said again, leading the way deeper into the mountain. "The theory that everything happens in periods, or fractions, of a ten-year period, which was determined by someone, don't ask me who, as a lucky number to be worked into all calculations."

"Are you kidding me?" Sheala's voice cracked with indignity. "You're saying there could be three thousand steps?"

"Actually, three thousand six hundred. Or more. Or less. It is about the symbology of numbers. And once you allow for portions of the Cycles to be included, it really could be any number." Sayra didn't stop as she spoke, but drew attention to the surrounding walls. "I sense magic was used to assist in this excavation. So, for example, if the mother of the elven mage who assisted in creating these steps was born on the last day of the Earonitan, then perhaps he would have seen symbolism in the fact that the First Month, comprises eleven percent of the days in the year. Then used that to guide his decisions as to how many steps to include."

"Great." Sheala sighed. "So the entire theory is gibberish then?"

"Some would certainly say so. I, myself, am not wholly sold on the concept and tend to err on the side of randomness playing a bigger role in when events occur. Rather than belief in some arbitrary number based on the yearly rotation of Geiha around the sun and someone's prejudices."

There was the slightest hint of something up ahead, noted by a light not coming from the fairies Sayra had summoned. It's brightness started faint, glowing up the stairs from around the ensuing twists below them. At first, it was nearly drowned out by the blue of the fairies. And even though the orangish glow intensified with each new step they took, none present dared to speak of its presence.

Upon reaching the last of the stairs, the passage spilled into a large, circular and domed chamber that was easily fifty feet across. Ringed by grand sculptures of otaurs so lifelike, they forced Sheala to provide them a second and even third glance to ensure she didn't make the same bad assumption as when she had first seen Korg.

However, there was no doubt that each of forms standing fifteen feet tall, twice as big as their companion, were in fact made of stone and not flesh. Their weapons were massively scaled and cast of gleaming, untarnished steel. Some held tight to battleaxes similar to Korg's, while the others brandished swords, and one a spear.

The guardians remained silent and menacingly at strict attention along the wall, just beyond a series of two perfectly carved concentric rings on the floor. Similar to what had been on Sheala's, and her sister's, medallions before they had been used to gain entry to the shrine and consumed by molten stone. Large pots burning with smokeless flames of orange stood in the gaps between each of their feet.

Sheala approached one of the urns, noticing the distinct lack of heat in addition to the absence of any soot. She passed her hand through the flames to confirm that it was harmless and then, without concern, stuck her head into the fire.

Brentai grabbed her and pulled her back. "Sheala!" he cried. "What are you doing?"

"Look." She returned her head to the flames once more. "It's harmless."

"It's a cold fire," Sayra explained. "A magical, eternal flame. If it weren't, these fires would have expended the oxygen in this place and been extinguished long ago."

While the others were pondering the mystical blaze, Korg remained in the center of the room, eyeing up his silent brothers and standing tense under their presence. Almost as though he were quietly communing with them.

"So, this is it?" Brentai gawked at the towering statues of otaurs with their chiseled and solemnly demanding demeanor. "Where's this magic rock?"

Done with her foolishness of showing how the flames did not ignite her flesh and hair, Sheala removed her head from the unburning fire. "Yeah. Don't tell me we came all this way on a wild goose chase. Because I'll be pretty pissed off if we did."

The silver-haired elf noted how all the otaur statues glanced to the center of the room. "There must be another chamber. An inner sanctum. The old temples of the old Hitithe Empire always had an antechamber with a statue of an otaur outside of it." One foot in front of the other, she paced around the outermost of the circles carved in the floor, noticing a slight dip to the surface from one to the next while wedges of stone were uneven within them. One was loose and shifted as she put her weight upon it, but only by enough to confirm her suspicion was correct. "Below us."

"Well, what are we waiting for? No time like the present, and I do so much prefer the direct approach." With a snap of her fingers, Sheala summoned the attention of their otaur companion. "Korg? Can you be a dear and get us through?"

The implication from the former thief desiring the otaur to once again use brute force to open the way, Korg hefted up his axe. With a swing powered by robust muscles, he hacked at the stone underfoot. To the disappointing result of a resounding ring of steel on rock and no noticeable progress.

Sayra moved to calm Korg as he prepared to strike again. "As much as I do not doubt your strength, my friend, I do not believe brute force is going to solve this problem."

Korg halted his attempts and snorted with annoyance.

"Was worth a shot," Sheala pleaded her case for the failed approach. Her vision then launched to the dome of stone above them. "Time for a Plan B. Any suggestions?"

"I have one." The hard voice so eerily similar to Sheala's forced all to turn towards it. Descending off the last step, revolver drawn and leveled at Korg with one hand, General Nightwing held the golden-hilt of one of her graysteel blades in the other. "How about the three of you just back away and allow me and my dear sister to catch up on old times?"

"Cass!" Sheala took one step towards her twin before the slim barrel of her weapon moved from Korg and trained on her instead.

"Uh uh, sis. Don't know if you've heard about this little toy of mine? But I assure you, it causes quite the sting."

"Cass. Please. Stop this."

"Stop what? Demanding justice?" Just from her tone, Cass portrayed a genuine curiosity as to what and why. "The elves. The Rebellion. Our uncle. They all took something from us."

Thinking she was distracted enough not to notice, Korg charged for Cassandra. Due to his weariness, he was certainly a step or two slower than he normally would have been. But even fully rested, it wouldn't have mattered. The distance was too great, even for his impassioned attack.

Cassandra wheeled the tip of her weapon back towards the otaur, battleaxe raised high, and pulled the trigger just as he weaved to his left to avoid the shot that roared forth. Flame and smoke from the end of the barrel belched and bellowed while the echoed rang off the walls of the chamber.

Sheala covered her ears. Eyes clenching, she buckled under the weight of its force within her skull.

As she opened her eyes, the sight of the otaur pivoting through the air, feet off the ground like he was nothing more than a doll, was a shock to her. Never had she seen the beast look so helpless and frail as Korg growled out in pain. There was a spray of blood and then he struck the stone floor with a thud of muscle and a clacking of horns.

"Korg!" Sheala ran to him. The beast laid there, a hole in his right side that had torn away skin and muscle down to what was now the shattered bone of ribs. As he breathed with laborious intent, Sheala could see his lungs as they pushed out and then back in to exhale while blood spewed. "Korg?"

He snorted an uncharacteristically weak snort.

Sheala grabbed to hold his massive hand in hers while he clung to remain in this world. "Hang in there, buddy." Sayra was soon over to them, kneeling beside the gravely injured beast. "Can you help him? You know healing magic, right?"

"I do." Sayra sighed. "But this is very serious. I don't know that I can save him."

"I don't care what you think you can do. You'd better do it." Powerful, threatening, and inflamed green eyes turned on to her sister as Sheala chided the elf. Still standing there, Cass had felled Korg and was in the process of leveling the weapon at Brentai, who had drawn two of his knives, but made no other aggressive moves after seeing what the general had done to Korg.

"I assure you, sister," Cassandra replied to the furious look with cold indifference. "I have one for each of your friends if you choose to stand in my way."

"Cass, listen to me." Sheala gave Korg one last, pitying glance, and stood, leaving him in Sayra's care. "You're wrong. None of those people that you believe to be at fault are the cause of Mother's and Father's deaths."

"You're really going to try this again?" Head dropping slightly, Cassandra shook it in disbelief. "I was there. I saw the markings of the Hitithe Rebellion on the arrows used to murder them."

Hands up, thinking maybe showing she was unarmed would mollify her sister's demeanor, Sheala approached with a caution befitting the anger she could sense in her younger twin. "It's a lie," Sheala said.

Cassandra wheeled her pistol now onto Sheala after she advanced a few steps, turning the tip of her sword to Brentai instead. "Halt right there. I'm warning you. If you try to stop me? I won't hesitate to kill you too."

"I don't believe that." Sheala, however, stopped upon the threat being issued, but took another step shortly thereafter. "I know you, Cass. You've always looked out for me. Even when I wasn't looking out for you." Another step. "I remember what you said about Ebeth and his gypsies." Another step. "And you were right." Then another. "We should have never stayed." And yet another. "I was only thinking of myself, and not how much you were being hurt." Still another.

Cassandra shuddered, fighting back a tear upon hearing those words. Words she'd always wanted to hear. Words of understanding and confirmation that she'd been right and Sheala knew it. "No!" Regaining her composure, at least outwardly, she retrained the drooping tip of her weapon on Sheala who had advanced a few more steps while her thoughts were in a fog. "You're the one that's been lied to. And you're trying to confuse me. It won't work."

Sheala froze. She wasn't more than five strides away from her sister now, but she'd seen what that weapon she held could do to a specimen like Korg and envisioned what it would do to her. Or Brentai. Or Sayra. "Cass, listen to me. The only thing I've wanted, all these years, after giving up the foolish and impossible dream of bringing Mother and Father back? Was to be with you."

"Touching." There was a particular dryness to Cass's response that belied how much she wanted the latter as well. A false sense of strength that she was now hiding behind. "But see, you're wrong. It's not a foolish hope. It's not an impossible dream. There is a way to bring Mother and Father back. The Tear. It has the power."

"It does not," Sayra admonished while continuing to work on Korg's wounds that were consuming his life. "Death is not reversible. Not even by the power of the Tear of Earoni."

"Lies!" Cassandra's arm stiffened and the end of her weapon quivered in the air. "Lady Noranda has—"

"Lady Noranda knows nothing of the Tear," Sayra interrupted. "Her lies betrayed the Greater Goddess once, and her lies will betray you in the same way now."

"Enough of this!" Cassandra shifted her sights on to the elf who saw and fumbled back from her task of helping Korg. "You have poisoned my sister, and I will end the source of the tainted words you have spoken to her."

Finger curling, hammer sliding back as though in slow motion, the general prepared to fire. A split second before the revolver roared a second time, a flash of silversteel rose to change the course of the shot, sending it up and into the ceiling. Cassandra, in utter shock, turned to her sister standing there with her sword drawn and resting under the barrel.

"I won't let you hurt people anymore," Sheala swore the oath with a exhale that spoke to how much she disbelieved what she had just done. "This has to stop, Cass. Lord Hedric killed our parents. And you are helping him to kill more innocent people."

"Well, well." Cassandra pulled her revolver back and tucked it into her sword belt. "So, this is the way it's going to be, huh?" She drew her other saber in response, now holding them both at the ready.

"I—I don't want to hurt you." Sheala stammered the words.

"Hurt me? Oh, dear sister, I don't think that's in the cards today." Her sister's reply came with a smile. "I noticed your blond-haired friend isn't here? The seer?"

"She had other things to attend to."

"Shame. Considering she was the only reason you and your friends walked out of Koroth Ulin so easily. Without her? You don't stand a chance."

"Cass, I don't want to do this the hard way." Grip tightening on the hilt, Sheala brandished the elven blade before her.

Her sister just stood there, watching. "I wouldn't want to either, if I were you," she taunted Sheala. "You always were weak. If you won't join me? Then I'll be forced to treat you the same as any other rebel."

The subtle sound of a knife's edge hurling through the air played in the ears of anyone astute enough to notice. Sheala was. It flew past her left ear and Cassandra batted it away with the flat of the sword in her right hand as though it were an annoying insect. The general looked beyond her to Brentai, who was bringing forth another of his weapons. "That's a bad mistake, Pelsan. You'll get even less mercy once I'm through with my sister here."

"Brentai," Sheala called over her shoulder. "Stay out of this. I can handle her."

"No. You can't," he replied.

"Listen to him, sister," Cassandra smiled. "He's not completely stupid. And let's not be coy. You don't really know how to use that sword, anyway. Do you?"

Sheala scowled. The banter was designed to do nothing except distract and discourage her. "I can hold my own. Want to try?"

"If you insist."

Cassandra came at her sister in a flourish of twirling steel. The movements were numbing to the mind, almost hypnotic, making it was difficult for the former thief to concentrate on where each strike would come from, much less the next one. It was a blur, and Sheala found herself just becoming lost in the anger of her sister's eyes as the older twin blocked, retreated, blocked again, retreated some more, and continued until she was backed up in the shadows between the legs of one of the otaur statues.

With a cutting, bloodlust filled attack, Cassandra brought both of her blades down simultaneously while Sheala blocked and held them at bay with the flat of her sword and bolstered by the palm of her other hand against the smooth metal for added support. But Cassandra was too strong. Her attack drove Sheala down to her knee while Cass laughed in her face. Sheala had never felt such strength.

"Fool," Cassandra spat at her. "Look at you. Weak. I don't want to hurt you. But I won't let you stand in my way either."

"Sheala!" Again Brentai called out with uncertainty about what to do obvious.

"I told you stay out of this, Brentai." The older of the sisters grunted and strained against the force of the younger. "You hear me! Don't you dare interfere!"

Sheala tried to push up, but was only pushed down onto her second knee. There was just too much power she was fighting against. Power that it didn't seem her sister should be able to possess.

Brentai didn't listen to Sheala's plea to stay out of it. He came in brandishing two blades and giving a battle cry meant as an obvious distraction for the general.

Cass's reaction, however, was best described as curious why he would even try. With barely a concern for the threat he posed, as he came into range Cassandra turned one of her swords on him and punched its tip through the joint where shoulder met torso. The graysteel piercing his flesh and going clean through stopped him in a wail of pain as he dropped both knives. He grabbed hold of the blade with his other hand, not caring as it bit into the skin of his palm and wanting only to tear it free.

Laughing at her sister still struggling to rise before her, Cassandra reveled in her superiority. "I'll give you one more chance, sister. Join me, and I'll let the Pelsan go. He seems special to you." Sheala grunted while Cassandra pressed her weight down, the general's remaining sword upon hers providing more than enough force. When the delay between offer and answer had grown too long, Cass prompted her for a reply. "What will it be?"

"What about—" Sheala's muscles burned as Cass loomed over her. "Sayra and Korg?"

"The elf and the otaur?" Cass shook her head. "Meaningless bugs to be squashed. They'll die. Someone has to. Otherwise, I'd start to get a reputation of being soft."

"No deal." Sheala's answer was finite in both the breath it took to utter and the defiance behind it.

She let go of the resistance she was putting up, allowing the brunt of her sister's weight to fall upon her. As she did, the former thief slid out from underneath, Cassandra's sword barely missing her as it crashed down to stone, and Sheala took Cass's legs from under her.

There was an accompanying rip as the sword her sister was holding tore free from Brentai's flesh and an ear piercing, and decidedly unmasculine cry from the Pelsan followed. Sheala hoped he'd understand that what she did, even if it hurt now, was done out of love and an attempt to save him.

Twisting up to her feet, Sheala expected to gain some advantage from the surprise, but was disappointed to find Cass had already recovered. As the two squared off, Sheala began to contemplate this chosen strategy and wandered how long she could, in fact, hold out against her sister. Someone who was obviously stronger and a better with a sword than she was.

Brentai, wounded, his one arm limp at his side, pulled himself away with his still good arm in a crawl.

"Come on, sister," Cass moaned. "Are you really going to make me kill everyone here? Including you?"

Sheala shrugged. "Not actually part of my plan, no. I'd kind of thought about walking out of here with the Tear, ridding the land of Lord Hedric, and saving the world, personally." Lunging at her sister, Sheala pressed an attack. It was clear within the span of a few swings of her silversteel blade, and Cassandra deftly blocking each with her graysteel counterparts, that Sheala wouldn't best her this way.

As the two women separated, Sayra lunged in with her own, rarely used, sword. But Cassandra swatted her away like a fly and with enough force to launch her ten feet through the air. Before the elf even struck the stone of the floor, it was Korg's turn to enter the fray. He plowed into Cass, leading with his horned head and knocking her swords from her hands while driving her into the wall. She slammed against the rock while the otaur grunted and strained, his wound still bleeding a gush of blood as he fought to hold her there.

"Stupid, bull-faced monstrosity," Cassandra cursed him. A thunderous blast from the revolver she had drawn once more from her belt ripped through the otaur's chest. As Korg stumbled away, he released Cassandra, and fell over dead from the gaping wound.

"No!" Sheala charged at her sister, sword swinging wildly. Out of control strokes fuels by grief succeeded in keeping Cass off balance and prevented her from retrieving her swords.

Cass leveled the pistol she held at Sheala several times during the assault, but never once brought herself to pull the trigger. Instead, the general continued to stumble backwards around the room, twisting and turning to avoid being struck by what seemed like chaos, but what Cassandra could also see as every swing having a strategic purpose behind them.

The constant motion and feints upon feints resembled a technique Cassandra had tried to learn, but failed to even grasp. It was the Guskas Blade Technique. A style of fighting she'd seen her father on more than one occasion try to teach to soldiers on Fimmirra when she was a child. Not more than five, perhaps, other than her father, ever mastered it. How her sister had learned it was an anathema to Cassandra.

Like a banshee heralding death, Sheala screamed at her twin and chased her down with unrelenting determination. "Stop hurting people I care about!" Her wail of anger mixed with that of frustration as her sister continued to evade.

Cassandra swiped up one of her swords as she skittered past where it lay. Her second saber was back into her hand a moment later, and she used both to stem the tide of the assault while Sheala was gasping for air after her sustained attack and beginning to show signs of fatigue.

That was the point where Cassandra capitalized on the situation. Spinning low, the general performed a maneuver similar to what her sister had earlier, sweeping the former thief's legs out from under her.

Sheala crashed down flat on her back as she lost any sense of footing, her silversteel blade leaving her grasp before clanking and sliding across the stone out of reach.

Cass jumped atop her, straddling her stunned and disarmed opponent. But in the heat of battle she still maintained her wits, if only by a tender thread. Rather than slashing at her with her sword and killing her, as her instincts insisted she should, Cass planted the firm metal of the hilt into Sheala's temple, rendering her instantly unconscious.

With an angry huff that blasted a lock of red hair from out of her face, Cassandra stood. "Sorry, sister. Hopefully, when you wake up and see what I have done for us, you'll be more grateful."

Noting that the Pelsan remained in no condition to challenge her, the elven woman laying still at the foot of one of the statues, and the dead otaur, Cassandra stepped over to where the sword Sheala had used came to rest. She'd kill the silver-haired gnat with the elven forged blade once she got what she wanted from her. The elf had said something about the Tear being down, and Cassandra required the knowledge of how to get to it.

If anyone knew, it was the elf.

Crouching at Sheala's weapon, Cassandra marveled at the craftsmanship. Elven workmanship was meticulous, if not bordering on gaudy, but this sword wasn't so bad as far as the style. It would make a fine addition to the swords the general already carried. As she reached out to wrap her fingers around the hilt, energy struck her like a bolt, throwing her back across the room.

Cassandra didn't know exactly what her head struck, only that it hit whatever it was rather hard, and enough to cast her into a bottomless pool of blackness.