The Decision Made
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The next morning they had a meal around a small table in one of the forge’s many vaulted rooms. Gray, metallic, and matte, silent except for their echoing voices and movements. Trevor decided that the rooms somehow reminded him of the sanctuary at his cliffside church, though he was not sure which should be considered an allusion to the other.
They were together at the breakfast table. Michael, Tasha and Trevor sat eating while Jacob regarded them with an expression which could have been a mild amusement. Through a window, or some kind of display, Faye looked on in her dragon form from the great platform.
Trevor studied the bas-relief battle scene on the wall while he ate. The stylized figures echoed that of the statues that had greeted them as they entered from the platform. They held spears similar to the one that the Ghost Lady had given him, and were fighting some sort of quadrupedal machine. “Jacob, why isn’t there any armor or anything around? What do you do as an armorer?” To which Jacob laughed.
“There are more perils in this old clump of sod, and back in the hill, than you realize,” he said. “If someone steps on us, they will feel it.”
Jacob looked pensively over at the scene depicted on the wall and sighed. “Though if it comes to it, force of arms will not keep us forever. Ghing are like waves against stone. For a season, the stone seems to prevail, but by and by, it is ablated into dust.”
“So, have you decided?” ventured Jacob.
Trevor chewed his current bite a bit longer than was strictly necessary. Some kind of sweet pastry he was unfamiliar with. “Yes, I am going,” he said decisively. He looked over at Tasha, hoping she would say no. A muddle of wanting her safe, mixed with the lingering betrayal of her enchantments. She met his doubtful eyes before turning to Jacob and nodding her head anyway.
“Very well,” said Jacob, “I must finish my preparations. All should be ready by this afternoon.”
Faye’s dragon eye blinked slowly at Trevor from her window. “I shall take my leave shortly then.”
“Thank you, Faye,” Trevor said. “It was wonderful meeting you!”
“I am glad to have met you as well,” responded Faye. “I would be less quick to thank me, though. You will have adventures, I dare say, but I fear they will be less to your liking.”
She then turned her gaze to Michael. “Goodbye, my friend, it is an honor to have known you. Take care of them, and find a good place for them when the work is done.”
“Goodbye, Faye. Insofar as it is in my power, I will do so.”
With that Faye turned and launched herself upward towards the unguessable heights. Moments later she had vanished into the darkness.