The odd readings had led her here. No new rifts, no new activity from the ones they knew about, but still, the Duchess stood on Darktow, sweeping the hand unit in slow half-circles. She wrinkled her nose. She might as well be dowsing for all the effect this was having--
Wait.
There.
Across the bay from Darktow.
She found herself on the end of the little pier, thinking she might just have to break down and lay out a set of walking piers around the sims, but carefully put the scanner away and sighed, jumping into the waves.
She dragged herself back onto solid land, squeezing water from her hair, and took out the scanner again. It was near the shore temple, she knew that...the little temple which had just appeared one day, as many things did on Gearhaven, and they'd had so much else to do they hadn't really investigated.
But it wasn't inside...
She walked around the structure, moving towards the dragon's skull they'd found somewhere, and stopped.
There it was again. And...then gone.
In frustration, she knelt at the cliff's edge, putting away the scanner again, and just concentrated. She was a by-gods magical being, and if technology wouldn't work, there was always--
Calliope music. Distant. Very distant. Faint. But...there.
But where was it coming from??
She craned over the edge of the cliff and--finally. Saw...it.
A...skull. A small one. Floating...over the water.
"I don't suppose you talk, or anything?"
She waited. She sighed.
"Probably too much to hope for..."
She went off to find Justine.
(Continued in part LXVI.)
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