They had only just arrived, but it was like he'd been there for years. It had been many months since he'd last been there, but part of him expected to still find his and Jegojah's footprints on the ground. His life had changed in this arena, and it was here where events were set in motion that saved the city of Suld, saved the katzh-dashi from destruction. It had been many months, but the pain he felt at seeing the crypt was almost like new. He, Sarraya, Allia, and Sapphire had appeared facing its magnificent marble walls, gleaming like snow in the midday sun. It had been months since he'd last seen it, but it was completely untouched by the elements. Its white marble was just as brilliantly white, and the inscription etched into it was still clean inside, with no sand built up in it as it tended to do in nooks and crannies.
Faalken. How he missed his old friend, even now. The only one to die, and who had died because Tarrin, in a fury, cared more about killing Jegojah than he did about protecting his friends. He had been indirectly responsible for Faalken's death, and though he didn't let it consume him, it was a fact that he would never allow himself to forget. Just as he'd worn the manacles to remind himself of Jula's betrayal, he carried inside him a scar that would never disappear, a scar he would never allow to vanish from his mind. It was his reminder of what happened when he lost control, of how those around him he loved could pay the price for his own failings. Creating this wondrous crypt in the ruins of a Dwarven city, a race who had allowed itself to be exterminated in order to save the rest of the peoples of Sennadar during the Blood War, was the least he could do. And it seemed right to lay him to rest here. A new hero to rest beside those of antiquity, to add his name to their countless unknown ones, to remind everyone of the sacrifices that had been made both in the present and the past.
Tarrin had brooded a long time about the Dwarves when he first came here, he remembered. He had a towering respect for a people who were willing to sacrifice absolutely everything for others, who had been destroyed to the last man, woman, and child in order to defend their home. That was courage, and it was something that everyone on Sennadar, even now, five thousand years later, did not forget. They had been gone five millenia, but the songs and stories of the legendary bravery and sacrifice of the Dwarves still echoed from taprooms and parlors all over the Known World. In their own way, they had had a profound impact on his life. They had built the city where he and Jegojah had fought, but their sacrifice and his memories of this place had had quite an effect on him, and it was here that he had started significantly shaking off his feral nature. On many levels, in many ways, both blatant and subtle, Tarrin owed the long-dead Dwarves a great deal of gratitude and thanks. Though dead five thousand years, their hands had stretched across time and helped shape the present, and Tarrin thought that they would have been satisfied, even happy, to know that they had had one final chance to help protect the world that they had died to save.
Tarrin stared at the marble crypt a long moment, every memory he had of Faalken swirling unbidden through his mind, and then he turned his gaze to look past the broken walls of the arena. The city was exactly the same, every tower exactly where he remembered seeing it rise up over the walls and the rubble. He knew exactly where he was, and could guide them with unerring accuracy to any part of the city they wanted to go.
Mala Myrr, the Lost City of the Dwarves, protected from looters by the desert and the Selani, cradled in the arms of the Holy Mother. If there was anywhere he would want to begin a journey through the desert, it was this place.
A thought occurred to him. In all the confusion after leaving here, he had forgotten that the Goddess had moved a great deal of priceless Dwarven art after he had stupidly left it sitting out at the mercy of the howling winds. She had never told him where she put it, and after a while, he'd forgotten to ask any more. But the turning had restored all his memory, even things he had forgotten through time and nature rather than a curse, and it was again very fresh in his mind.
He was going to take this up with Mother as soon as he got back. He wanted that art put back where he'd gotten it from. To take it seemed wrong to him. It belonged to the Dwarves, it belonged in Mala Myrr. "Is this it?" Allia asked quietly in Selani.
"This is Faalken's crypt," he affirmed, looking at it again. "This is where I fought Jegojah."
"I remember this place," Sapphire said, looking around. "It looks much different from the air, though. It looks like time hasn't touched it very much. It looks the same now as it did a thousand years ago."
"I kind of like it that way, Sapphire," he told her. "This place is very special to me. I like the idea that no matter how much things change, this place will remain the same."
"Dwarves lived here?"
"They did," he answered.
"A pity I'm not old enough to know them. They look to have been quite remarkable stoneworkers."
"How old are you?" he asked curiously.
"About two thousand," she answered. "But a thousand of that was the time I spent as a drake, so it doesn't really count in my mind."
"Shew," Sarraya huffed. "I forgot how hot it gets out here."
Tarrin turned his attention to himself. He could feel the heat, but it didn't really bother him. His Weavespinner protection from fire made the searing heat of the desert actually rather pleasant. And it was hot. The heat shimmered off the stones and sand of the city in undulating waves, hot enough to burn unprotected skin that may touch it, and the sun struck down like a hammer on anything its rays touched. It was late summer in the desert, and summer in the Desert of Swirling Sands was one of the most hostile environments in all the world. But as summer waned, the famous storms that gave the desert its name would begin to spawn off the Sandshield, howling across the desert like tidals waves of raging destruction, scouring the rocks and threatening to scald and strip exposed flesh off the bone. "I like it," he told her.
"You would," she said acidly. "Mister immune to heat."
"Be thankful it is just hot," Allia told her. "This is the quiet season. Not long from now, the storms are going to begin."
"Don't remind me," Sarraya grunted. "I still feel a little tender from a few of those. But right now, I may actually prefer a little skin-stripping sandstorm to this heat."
"Stop complaining and shield yourself, like you did back then," he said dismissively. "When are you going to leave, Sapphire?"
"As soon as we get clear of the city," she replied. "If I return to my true form here, I'd knock down several buildings. That would defile this place, and it's not very pleasant for me either."
"How long will it take you to get home?"
"Not long," she smiled. "My lair is on the eastern edge of the desert, but conditions this time of year are perfect for flying east. The winds aloft will push me along. I should be home in about seven days."
"Well, let's get started. It's going to take us about an hour to get to the edge of the city," he told them. "This place is pretty big."
After climbing up to the stands to get out of the arena, they exited near the grand open courtyard or plaza or whatever it had been in antiquity and turned up one of the wide avenues leading to the eastern edge of the city. "Why did you bring us here, deshida?" Allia asked curiously.
"This is the only place in the desert I'm sure that I'm familiar with enough to Teleport to, sister," he answered.
She frowned. "How familiar do you have to be?"
" Very familiar," he answered.
"Then how did Jenna Teleport into the dining room?" she asked. "Surely she did not study it."
"No, but it's what you'd call local," he answered. "There are two ways to Teleport, deshaida. There's local and long distance. They have different rules."