[quote]She quickly rattled off the names of all the tools and supplies she'd need as she inspected the elevator more and more closely.[/quote]

He stood atop a half-submerged gear, wavering his weight from left to right and back again, and he stared for a long silent moment at Rain's back. After awhile he made a decision, and like a cat he leaped into the mess of tangled wires and dangling sprockets to pry free some of the parts that Rain had requested.

Slowly, the list of supplies accumulated at Rain's feet -- the metal-man carried hydraulics over his shoulder and fished a toolbox out of the pond. He clambered up the catwalks, and would follow Rain's instructions wherever his assistance was required. It seemed her tone of authority on the matter of repair was all that was required to secure his willing obedience.

"Celana is the lost paradise," he called down to her after awhile, continuing a forgotten conversation. "The gods' home. They left it, can't find it again, so they're angry and sad and try to create Celana again, but they can't agree how, so they fight, and people fight, and people die." He threaded a strong cord through a pulley and tossed the ends down to Rain. "Sages tried to find the road to Celana, to lead the gods home, but found a prison instead. The song, the song." He began to hum the familiar melody -- but he stopped when the same song echoed from across the basin.

Nor picked her way along a catwalk at the opposite side of the pit, having just emerged from a freshly dug hole in the wall. She stood with her arms clamped around a railing, staring down at the water far below, and sang softly to calm herself.

The little blue bird lighted on a broken bar above the hole Nor had crawled out of, and it kept one sharp eye on what was being said inside.

[hr][quote]"What makes the song so powerful against you?" she asked, trying to distract herself from the discomfort with learning. The God of Caverns seemed to have a vast store of knowledge, and that drew Grace's interest more that the power he could grant her.[/quote]

While Grace's mind relived the tragic memories, she would feel the full weight of the god's attention focused on her; like the eyes of the earth itself peering into her heart. There was nothing to distract Shaiolesh from her.

Within Grace's mind grew once again memories that were not her own: these were the sounds and images of the people of the underground, who had once worshiped Shaiolesh, who breathed consciousness into the stone much in the same way Grace had done. The very walls of their lamplit caverns seemed to hum with life. She remembered the peoples from the sunlit lands descending into the caverns with blades and savage screams, calling the cavern-born heretical and demonic because they were afraid, because they did not understand. The cavern-born did not fight, but turned the passages so their pursuers were lost for an eternity with their own hatred. Shaiolesh meant to show Grace that she was not alone -- that she was as one of the cavern-born, who were destroyed after Shaiolesh had been imprisoned by the Song. Now, Grace was the last of her kind -- unless there were more who might join her, to rebuild, to welcome the blessing of the cavern.

A memory of Celana interrupted these thoughts -- a flash of bright flowers and trickling water -- and Shaiolesh spoke again.

[i]We were powerless in Celana,[/i] he explained, his voice like that of the child in the dream. [i]Like humans we lived, and we were happy in our ignorance of corruption. The Song resonates a frequency within us, our last connection to Celana, that recalls that powerlessness. Though humans may attempt to sing it, only that snare called Nor has a voice that can match that frequency. We do not know why. The gods are afraid, and with fear comes hatred -- with hatred, violence.[/i]

The Song echoed in the pit outside the hole carved into the rock; Shaiolesh was quiet, weakened but content to rest. Grace's own power, therefore, was weakened. Like the god of caverns, she could feel the ripples of sound drawing her power away. The golems she had created began to move sluggishly, their attention slurred.

Grace knew, instinctively, that with more people to add strength to Shaiolesh's power, they could easily counter the effects of the song. Nor no longer had the prisoners of the Stone to amplify her ability; she was now only one voice. Wouldn't it be nice, Shaiolesh mildly suggested, if all people could live happily in the caverns, to leave the other gods shut out to rage among themselves?