Third Prince - Experts From The Ministry Of Works

Experts from the Ministry of Works removed the blocks in the archway leading out of the chamber. Archaeologists from the Ministry of Antiquities studied their inscriptions. The archaeologists refused to commit to an answer about what the chamber was meant to contain, but they believed its big stone head had once been a living giant (albeit not the God of War).

"Why would there be a formerly living giant's head here?" asked Parsifal.

"It's an act of reverence," said the Minister, "or retribution."

"Retribution?" asked Bon Bao. "I don't like the sound of that."

"At least he's dead now," said Parsifal.

"Do giants really die?" asked Bon Bao.

The Minister of Antiquities laughed.

"Gargogryeo in the northeast," he said, "and my homeland in the northwest. We both refuse to let our superstitions about the giants die."

"What does everyone in the middle of the north revere?" asked Renjie.

"The spear," said Parsifal.

Qiang Peak Abbey was attached to the palace of Northern Duke.

"All right," said Bon Bao, "there's a giant's head. What about that opening? Could water really have forced its way in? What caused the floor to collapse? Which happened first?"

"The collapse came first," said Marakiri. "Water moving beneath us caused it. That exacerbated irregularities in the walls. Water from the falls forced its way through. But I feel some other agency helped. Something like… the soul of a vengeful giant!"

She extended both of her hands at once.

"Oh my gosh!" said Renjie. "Really?"

"Really," insisted the hydromancer. "While giants do die, they can linger for a while – and this collapse happened quite a while ago."

"That's so cool!" said Renjie.

"Let's not jump to romantic conclusions prematurely," said the Minister of Antiquities.

"Agreed," said Parsifal. "Let's continue."

"Are we sure that the passage is stable?" asked Bon Bao.

"It's fine," said the Minister. "Just don't walk on the part sloping down."

"If anyone here is going to make the whole thing slope down," said Bon Bao, "it's you or me, old man. If I understand where we are, the collapse slopes towards Hell King Hades's Cut. If that entire side of the mountain gives way, how much farther down is the bottom?"

The old man slapped Bon Bao's back. He was strong.

"Your analysis is correct, young man," said the Minister. "You've got that sense of subterranean direction. We'd fall twelve hundred feet before being crushed by thousands of tons of granite."

"Unless we were crushed along the way," said Whisps.

"Unless that happened," agreed the Minister.

"We won't trigger a collapse," said Parsifal.

"You're just saying that to make yourself feel better," said Bon Bao.

"We diverted the waterfall," said Parsifal. "If we hadn't done that, thousands of pounds of water would be rushing down this corridor every second."

"The Third Prince is correct," said Marakiri. "The objects deposited in the wetlands almost certainly filtered through gaps in the rock underneath this partial collapse. But the muscle boy is also correct. The entire wall will eventually fall into Hell King Hades's Cut."

"Can you narrow down 'eventually,'" said Bon Bao.

"A winter sometime between now and ten thousand years from now," said Marakiri.

"Why winter?" asked Bon Bao.

"It was ice that caused most of the damage here," said Marakiri. "Freezing water expands, causing cracks in the rock to expand, allowing more water in, which freezes until swoosh! It all crashes down."

Bon Bao felt somewhat reassured by the explanation about ice. They proceeded into the passageway. The worrying had not been worth the effort. After a hundred or so yards, the corridor turned away from Hell King Hades's Cut and became entirely flat. Several archways came and went. Each one had all its sealing blocks. The Minister of Antiquities marveled at them.

"Are we going to open any?" asked Bon Bao.

"Now is not the time," replied the Minster. "As you observed, all of this is the work of hobgoblins. What we need to find is a way down. Any chambers made by giants will be deep."

"What if there's a way down in one of these rooms?" asked Bon Bao.

"It won't be like that," said the Minister.

"What will it be like?" asked Bon Bao.

"You'll know it when you see it."

Sometime later, they entered an enormous round room. Four other corridors opened off it at uneven intervals. A dozen obelisks poked up through its floor in random places. No obelisk stood the same height as any other. None had straight edges. Weird holes pierced them at odd angles. Inspecting one closely, Parsifal noted there was no seam between the obelisk and the floor. There were no seams in the floor at all – or in the honeycomb patterns carved into the walls.

A pit a hundred feet across opened aggravatingly off-center in the middle of the room. A smooth stone lip five feet high ringed the pit. It was just tall enough for a giant to trip over, thought Parsifal, but he was glad it was there. If the pit had a bottom it was not visible.

"Looks like a way down," said Parsifal.

"Except I don't see a way down," said Bon Bao.

"We'll make our own," said Parsifal. "Bring your men forward."

The Minister of Antiquities saluted. 

"I get the feeling this room was made by giants," said Bon Bao.

"Correct," said Parsifal. "Everything here is one solid rock. Wherever there were irregularities or weaknesses, the giants removed them when creating these shapes."

"Exactly so!" said the Minister of Antiquities. "To defend against those forces my esteemed colleague mentioned, the ancient giants used sorcery to restructure even natural stone."

Parsifal ran his hand over a honeycomb.

"I've never seen anything like this," he said. "Not even at Kadar-Jormu Citadel."

"As far as I know," said the Minister of Antiquities, "no one has been inside Kadar-Jormu Citadel."

"What about in Gargogryeo?" asked Parsifal.

Bon Bao shook his head.

"I've never seen or heard about a chamber like this," he admitted.

Parsifal studied several more honeycombs.

"I can't help but think that this came at a cost," he said. "Crumbling is the fate of stone. No matter how mighty, even ancient magic could only redirect that fate – not avert it."

"That sounds like woo woo," asked Bon Bao.

"There is truth in woo woo," said Parsifal. "The giants must have solved this problem. Did they transfer bad fate to less important regions of the rock?"

"Good," said the Minister of Antiquities. "Good! I've never contemplated this question. Don't blame me. As mentioned, I've never seen a chamber like this. But the solution Your Highness proposes is elegant. Yes! Yes, I think you've got the thrust. The giants redistributed the fate of rock. Yes! Of course!"

The Minister laughed.

"We believed giants shaped rock the way they wanted all at once," he said. "Not so!"

"They created the good fortune they wanted," said Parsifal. "And put the bad in surrounding rock. Because the surrounding rock's fate was to crumble, it was easy to mine out. Blessings in misfortunes."

"Sounds like woo woo," said Bon Bao. "But it makes sense."

"Ah!" said Renjie.

"Ah!" replied the Minister of Antiquities.

"Ah, ah, ah!" said both Renjie and the Minister at the same time.

"Share with the rest of us," said Bon Bao.

"Rangiku can do this!" said Renjie.

"You're little sister can shape rock like a giant?" asked Bon Bao.

"Yes!" said Renjie. "Well, not like this. It takes her all day to sculpt someone's head. She doesn't like working with stone. She usually works with wood. But it's like you say! She never makes the final shape right away. First there's a layer of crud that has to get scraped off. Then she works with what's left to make the final shape."

"I see," said Parsifal. "There's no need to create the final shape inside the rock in one go. It's only necessary to create enough good material to reshape later. I've only seen Rangiku work with wood. But I know she is able to reattach broken branches, and even move branches between different trees."

"Yes," said Renjie. "That's her favorite trick."

"The giants could create blocks of flawless stone," said Parsifal, "transport them like we do, then fuse them at the final location. Has the Ministry of Antiquities found blocks like that?"

"Probably," said the Minister. "We wouldn't have known. They'd look like quarried stones."

"There were blocks like that near my village," said Bon Bao. "They were at the bottom of a mine and had suffered a lot of damage in the fall. That never made much sense to anyone."

"Could we convince the Sixth Princess to join us?" asked the Minister of Antiquities.

"She doesn't like caves," said Renjie. "There isn't much she could do. It takes her all day to make a normal person's head – nevermind a giant one."

The Minister of Antiquities walked over to one of the round chamber's entrances. He ran his hand up and down the edge of the rock.

"I see," said Parsifal. "You want her to help us out of a bind."

"I do," agreed the Minister.

"If it's legitimate," said Renjie, "she'll help. But what's the bind?"

"I see," said Bon Bao, imitating Parsifal. "Anyone damaging giant-worked stone risks getting slapped with a curse. That's why nobody digs into giant ruins. We need a way to secure lines for going down the well, but you don't want to drive spikes into this rock. You want the Sixth Princess to shape holes in the rock for you."

"That might work," said the Minister. "But I was thinking she could create flares on these arches. The Ministry of Works could build frames against the flares. The frames would support winches and other mechanical devices."

"The Ministry of Works loves mechanical devices," said Parsifal.

"The Sixth Princess would also have more insight into the magic here than we do," said Marakiri.

"I should have thought of this," said Parsifal. "I've only seen Rangiku make a stone sculpture once – but it was of the Empress and that's the sort of thing that should stand out."

"It took her a month to make that sculpture," said Renjie. "Digging into a mountain is not something she would ordinarily do. With all this talk about moving the fate of rock, I wonder if that giant's head did just that."

Marakiri clapped excitedly. 

"He transferred good fate to his side of the room," she said, "leaving the other side to crumble!"

Both little islanders bounced gleefully. Watching them, Parsifal thought of another lesson ancient giants could teach present generations. The natives of Warakirikobu Archipelago were easy to dismiss as playful fey creatures.

But those playful fey creatures started the crack which collapsed the Arkhanate of Urarhtu.

"You can't call it romantic speculation now," Parsifal observed. "We've hypothesized a mechanism through which an ancient giant might destroy his prison. If the Arkhanate hadn't fallen, his sabotage would have been detected and erased. But the Arkhanate fell – and so did the rock in his tomb. The three Asamati stood above all. If First Qianqiu Emperor really did summon the Asamati Polemarch from Acheron and imprison him below us, it's inevitable – as Princess Iba Algi said – that he too will break free. It isn't only other factions we have to worry about, but the God of War's own ability to manipulate the fate of stone."

"She guided us to that tomb with the painting of the waterfall," said the Minister of Antiquities.

"I've always said Iba Algi is amazing," said Renjie.

"What will we do if we find the Polemarch's prison?" asked Bon Bao.

"There is only one thing we can do," said Parsifal.

"Hope the Sixth Princess can erase the sabotage?" asked Bon Bao.

"The only thing we can do is return him to Acheron," said Parsifal.

"How do we do that?" laughed Bon Bao.

"We can't do anything until we find the prison," said Parsifal. "We can't find the prison until we go down the hole. We can't go down the hole until the Ministry of Works builds its mechanical devices. The Ministry of Works cannot build its devices until it gets here."

Labor arrived.