Another day and a half of hiking and Nicole got her first view of the Ulkun settlement while looking down into the valley from a cliff-side path. The city was laid out on a hexagonal grid, with a large, open area at the center, which if the city had been built on a rectangular grid, would have been the town square, but since it was based on hexagons, Nicole reasoned it to be the town hex. Three streets came together at the center, with a ring of seven road hexes around it, making a round-about the center of the city. The central hex appeared to have seven monoliths placed in it. The streets were very wide and clearly designed for heavy traffic, but there was zero movement in the city.

  However, the most striking feature of the city was the sheer size of it and the way it seemed to have been constructed. It was clearly a place designed for thousands, carved from a massive boulder a glacier had pushed into the center of the valley, millennia ago. All of the buildings were part of the carving, making the entire city a massive sculpture.

  As Nicole examined the structure, she noted a striking similarity to the hive-like building her party had been sleeping in, appearing almost the same, despite the obvious difference in materials. The one was very clearly inspired by the other.

  “Can we please slow down, just a little?” Peares came close enough for Nicole to hear him whine, causing her to roll her eyes, “My feet are killing me! I think my blisters are starting to bleed again!”

  Seeing Nicole’s pained expression mirrored in the face of Kazic, the two of them set a brisk pace, to keep themselves just out of earshot of the complaints, but close enough an actual shout for help would be heard.

  Lyra shook her head and followed, saying, “It’s a shame the council didn’t pick someone better suited for the terrain.”

  “Aye. Me ears are starting to bleed from all the whining.” Kazic joked.

  Nicole added, in a mocking tone, ” ‘Oh, the sun is so bright and painful to look at!’ ”

  ” ‘And me poor feet, they won’t stop bleeding!’ ” Kazic chuckled, “Even though the both of ye trolls have healed them at least twice, each.”

  “Oh and his allergies!” Lyra added, with a chuckle, “I don’t think his nose has stopped running the entire time. He’s such a city creature.”

  “Oh well,” Nicole gestured to the city, below, “at least we’re almost there. When we arrive, we can give him lots of food, a radio and then, once we’ve talked with Ogomid, we can look around for pieces of Kurg. They might even be able to tell us more about it.”

  They’d reached the stone city and for once, Peares was too busy taking in the sights to complain.

  Up close, it reminded Nicole of a ghost town and was even larger than she’d realized, with doorways for creatures at least twelve feet tall, which was the same scale her piece of Kurg had been built to. She’d seen a few abandoned cities in her time, both modern and primitive. During childhood, she’d once toured an empty, modern city on a mining planet that had been nearly mined out and in the past year she’d visited an old dwarf mining town with only a few residents, to help them evacuate, due to the dangers of an imminent landslide.

  The stone city somehow felt different. The abandoned places had simply felt empty, but as she and her team walked one of the main streets of the city, she had a feeling of hidden eyes watching her, though the heavy feeling of death was thick in the air.

  Recognizing the sensation as a common side-effect of necromancy, Nicole adjusted her senses to allow herself to see magic. She wasn’t surprised to see the black ribbons of necromantic magic everywhere, which made perfect sense. The city clearly wasn’t abandoned, even though the residents weren’t on the streets and Lyra had explained to Nicole that the Ulkun had been revived by infusing their life stones with life energy taken from plants and animals, a form of necromancy, on top of the Ulkun having died and come back as something very loosely related to undead.

  They reached the town hex and Nicole got a closer look at what she’d taken to be monoliths from a distance. Up close they looked more like rough, weathered, humanoid statues, between eight and twelve feet tall. Six of them stood at the corners of the town hex, facing inward, while the seventh stood at the center, with its back to them, facing the sun, which was about to dip below the horizon. Each was made of weathered, white marble. Their eyes were sapphires and below them, each bore a pointed protrusion that looked a tiny bit like a human nose and a chiseled line that looked like a crude mouth. They had feet without toes and their hands ended in three large fingers which if laid out flat would have formed a triangle. Each finger was effectively a thumb, due to the way they were aligned in opposition to each other. The statues also had a socket in the abdomen, which held crudely-carved stones.

  Lyra stepped to the edge of the town hex and called out, “Ogomid!”

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  Nicole was surprised when the statue at the center slowly turned around, revealing the stone in its socket was covered in what looked like arcane symbols, with two prominent scratches down one side of it!

  It spoke in a patient voice that had clearly been formed by vibrating a stone, “Welcome, Lyra. Our discussion is at a stand-still and we would value the opinion of an outsider.” Ogomid then spoke in a very emotional tone, “It is good to hear my name spoken. Thank you for saying it.”

  “I can tell you’ve been practicing our language. It’s nice to hear you speak it so well.”

  “I studied my memories of your pattern of speech until I felt comfortable with it.” The marble creature nodded, “Will you join our discussion?”

  “How long has it been going, Ogomid?” Lyra asked.

  “Since last we spoke. The discussion began and continued while we worked on the city. It continues, even now, with no decision made.”

  The jaws of Nicole and all three dwarves dropped, but neither Lyra nor Peares seemed surprised. More than twenty years for a discussion? That was very weird.

  “Very well, Ogomid,” Lyra seemed to make a point of saying his name aloud, “with your permission, I will join the discussion with mind-to-mind communication through you and if you would allow it, I would like my child to join us, as well.”

  Ogomid nodded, “I trust you, Lyra.”

  Lyra began a wordless tune and as soon as she’d turned off the nullifier, Nicole joined her. Normally, Nicole wouldn’t have bothered to sing for the sake of telepathy, but it was easier to keep her mind in sync with Lyra that way, because the older troll couldn’t use telepathy without song. Together they entered Ogomid’s mind.

  Suddenly, Nicole knew what it was like to be at least three-million years old, with the oldest memories consisting of words that had been carefully etched into a wall and read on a regular basis, because the original memories had been ground away by the relentless flow of time, like stone erodes through wind and rain. The majority of the rest of Ogomid’s memories were of constant work, either preparing for or directing the periodic siege of the world, to collect life energy, with thousands of years between each incident, but after the last such invasion and the war it sparked, there were memories of building the new, stone city, which felt like they’d gone by in the blink of an eye.

  The shared mindscape was a dark void, like that inside Kurg, but the void was filled with looming, stone shapes. Most were humanoid, but the largest, which appeared to have been constructed for heavy lifting, were centaur-like, with four legs and two arms, standing nearly eleven feet tall! Very few of them had heads, instead having gems for eyes in their torso. They were made of just about every type of hard stone available, with granite as the most common material of choice.

  The mindscape was silent for a moment, until Ogomid called out, “These are my friends, Lyra and her child-” he paused for a long moment and then turned to Nicole, asking, “What is your name, child of Lyra?”

  “Nicole.” She sang the word, since she could say nothing without singing when using troll song.

  “Lyra’s child is named Nicole. They are here to help us conclude our discussion.”

  Ogomid began with a long accounting of the facts, telling the story of how the Ulkun had been building a great city, Kurg, which had been part of the mysterious Great Purpose laid on their backs by the Life Giver, but since they’d returned to the world, no fragment of the city would open for them.

  “Kurg was sealed on my orders, by the authority of Irkith, our first king. Since his life stone has been destroyed, I can’t countermand the order and Kurg remains sealed. Without Kurg, the purpose of our existence is frustrated. We built this city for shelter and have spent whole solar revolutions in discussion, ever since. We need purpose. We need a function to serve. Without it, we’re lost and stand idle.”

  Nicole was shocked to hear it, because while she’d had trouble opening her piece of the city, the first time, she’d ultimately been able to use the piece inside her head to command the other to unlock. She was also shocked to hear all of the Ulkun murmur their agreement with Ogomid’s words, in unison.

  Lyra was about to open her mouth, but Nicole set a hand on her shoulder, then sang out, “I can open Kurg. In fact, I already have.”

  Suddenly, the discussion became a cacophony of thousands of voices all speaking at once, in excitement! Ogomid shouted them to silence, bringing the discussion back to order remarkably fast.

  “Will you share the memory?” Ogomid requested.

  With a nod, Nicole brought all of her recent memories of Kurg to the surface and shared them with Ogomid. As she did so, the great stone creature wept joyful tears of molten stone.

  He prostrated himself before Nicole and begged, “Please, allow us to resume our purpose of building up the city of Kurg! Please, unlock the city for us!”

  Lyra looked mildly amused.

  “Whoa, whoa, slow down!” Nicole sang, “I just want Kurg out of my head, that’s all.”

  Ogomid looked up at her and shook his head, “This is beyond our power, but it may be possible for the Architect of Kurg. Failing that, the Life Giver must surely be able to help you.” He removed his life stone from the socket in his abdomen and set it on the floor of the void before Nicole, “I offer you my life stone in payment, if you will unlock the city for us.”

  Lyra whispered in her ear, softly singing the words, “He’s offering you command over the Ulkun. If you accept, they’ll serve you and you’ll be their leader.”

  Nicole shook her head and pushed the stone back, with her foot, “No! I won’t make slaves of anyone!” She took a moment to consider, as Ogomid returned his life stone to its socket, then sang a suggestion, “Okay, I’ll put it this way: it looks like my best bet is meeting the Life Giver, even if the Architect fails me. How would I go about meeting them?”

  Ogomid stood and answered, “Irkith taught us the Life Giver would return someday, for they didn’t explain the Great Purpose, even though Kurg is part of it. I can guarantee nothing, but they may return if we complete the city.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  All of the Ulkun hung their heads as though ashamed they couldn’t answer her question.

  In the end, Nicole agreed, “Fine, I’ll help you unlock the city, for now.”

  Ogomid nodded and so did the rest of the Ulkun, which was mildly disconcerting.