Skip, half a step on landing, and a launch into another skip.  It was the pattern of movement Quartes had settled into.  Done at the edge of the tunnel, where a mistake or a change in weightlessness could be offset by a push against the wall.  It had sped his movement down the dark tunnel.  The speed put him at ease.  If he could move fast enough, tolerate a missed sleep, then he wouldn’t have to deal with the worry of he or his possessions floating away from him while he rested.  He passed only one set of crossroads, and came across no other carved lines.  It was ultimately the spec of light ahead that told him of a coming change.

The spec grew larger, warm and inviting, and was joined by others.  Many of shafts cut into the mountain and to the sky above were intact here, and were illuminating a larger space.  Quartes slowed his pace over several leaps, until each step launched him into the air almost more than they propelled him forward.  He saw the arch as he neared, cut from the stone along the top of the tunnel.  His people had not been inclined towards the written word, but some things could be accurately portrayed in that form.

‘The Hall of Serijo, Enlightened of the Mountains.”

A few slowing and stumbled steps brought Quartes to a stop as he took in the arch.  He hovered over the word enlightened, shaking his head.  There was other items there, a faded crest of the hall, a partially broken crest of the line of Falden.  After a moment more he pushed off and continued down the hallway.  It opened up soon enough and more slowing strides brought him to a halt as the walls of the road fell away to reveal the hall.  There was an immediate difference here to those he has passed through in his past.  Changes befitting the strange nature of the hall.  Extinguishing his torch and carefully stowing it away, Quartes looked at the open space of the hall before him.  All the halls he had seen before seemed to take pride in their openness.  In them, pillars and arches created wide spaces.  Stairs traversed up and down levels while from high ceilings the sun had shown down into mirrors and pools which scattered the light, bringing warmth and illumination to the stone.

Many of the halls he had passed through been destroyed in some way but they all shared enough of the same architecture that he could envision what was meant to be.  Before him was something new.

The passage ended with a rounded platform, jutting out into the open expanse.  What collection and direction the light may have once had was gone but so many of the shafts remained unobstructed that much of the hall was illuminated by at least dim light.  The round platform had no railing or any stairs continuing the path.  Instead it ended just upon the open air of the hall.  Across its wide distance, in the surrounding walls were other similar rounded platforms leading into tunnels.  None of them were connected, instead in the open space of the hall there were scattered dozens of platforms.  They ranged in sizes, some wide enough that a handful of individuals would make a crowd, others enough to hold a hundred soldiers in formation.  They all hovered in the air, no sign of support above or below.  Upon some he spotted floating spheres, bound to the platforms by chains.  Others contained carvings, while some were just simple slabs of stone.

In the wars of his Cycle, Quartes had seen the few airships and even the sky fortresses that had been under the control of the Silver Empire.  In their size and speed he saw the final stage of this craft of the Line of Falden.  Here he saw the beginning of the craft, and it further done as art.  Each of the stone platforms appeared to be an individual work, some intricately carved, others with statues, whole and fragments, adorned them.  The Last Landian stepped up to the edge of his grounded platform looked about and then with a breath pushed.

He floated through the open space of the hall, feeling a kiss of warmth as he passed through one of the shafts of light and then landed on one of the floating platforms.  It shifted slightly under his weight, the Landian falling to his knees and sliding along before stopping at the center of the platform.  He steadied himself with a breath before seeing what his hand rested upon.  Metal lines gilded the top of the platform, streaked in grey and blue silver.  Even as he knew what it was he drew forth the old blade at his side.  Saw the same patterning.

“Illithimar alloy,” he observed.  He brushed aside more dust, finding more of the gilding.  Further investigations found some of the alloy had been used to spell out words.  “Crafted by Silvar Serijo in Honor of the Arrival of Quar, Heir of Lehn.”  He couldn’t resist a short laugh at the irony of that.  How many Cycles ago had Quar been the Heir of Lehn?  It was not the answer that he needed.  The gilding would not be much alloy but…Quartes looked to the other platforms.  He jumped to the closest, keeping his footing as he landed this time.  Steadying himself as the chains of the this platform rattled.  He took a moment to take in the gilding, a moment more to press a hand against the glass sphere affixed to the platforms by the chains.  He hand pressed to the glass and a light grew within the orb, within the heart of now he could see was mounted a small strip of blue-silver metal.

“It was a gift from the mountain,” came her voice from his past.  She had drawn the blade from his hip, the very sword sheathed by his side now.  “The metal on its own will only ever be what it what meant to be, illithimar is more stubborn than even us and our memories.”  One finger of hers had brushed a vein of blue-silver metal along the sword’s blade, another then a strip of grey steel.  “Blend it, mix it it in with the uncertainty of the world and you can make it do whatever you need of it.”  In his time he stepped over and touched another of the glass orbs, its light flaring to life.  

“Seems to me Elhandriel that there would be a blessing and a risk to that,” came his own words from that long past.  Elhandriel had nodded to him as she sheathed her family’s sword.

“I seeing that difference that is the wisdom we have often lacked,” she had whispered then, tears gathering at the edges of her violet eyes.

Quartes kicked back a step, floating to the center of his platform and thought.  The airships of his Cycle had been gilded with alloys of illithimar.  The sky fortress had core of the same at its heart.  There was no disputing that those had been some of his greatest weapons in the wars of his Cycle.  The dozens of platforms here, even in the small amounts offered by the gilding, gave him a tool.  Stripping the alloy would no doubt drop the platforms, destroy yet another relic of the Landians.  Yet, what tools and weapons could he make to aid him?  His hand brushed the Hilt Shard and its broken but pure blue-silver blade.

Was there illithimar waiting to be crafted into what would end the Cycles of Dragons?

A low roar reverberated through the hall and brought the Landian out of his thoughts.  At the far end, beyond where even the light shafts illuminated, a red glow was gathering.  Quartes looked about.  The map back in the way station had at least implied the direction the road from the Hall of Serijo to the Grand Hall would take.  Casting his eyes over the space to the right from where he had entered Quartes looked at the trio of platforms that lined that wall.  Another roar echoed, the sound of it beating in the Landian’s chest as it shook even the chains of the platform he stood on.  He cast a glance to the crimson glow as it grew in intensity.  A crash hit and dust and rocks fell from the top of the Hall.  Experience had taught him clearly.  There could be no doubt that a Dragon was nearing.

Quartes looked back to the rightward wall.  One was larger than the others.  That would have to do.

Pushing off, Quartes jumped from platform to platform.  Making his way for his chosen passage, all the while the roar of the nearing Dragon echoed about the hall.  He pulled from his mind the Dragons they had fought in his time.  None had they called from the Halls of Serijo, but never had they trekked there.  If it was the Dragon of the Hall then perhaps it would stay here.  There was another that came to mind it could be, one he had fought before at the height of his own strength.  The Dragon of the Hendarks, the predator of the mountains themselves.  If that was what approached now.  He’d only survive made his way out of the mountains…