Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 213: Conspiracy

"Your daughter was never captured," Lord Aesin explained for the third time. "Somewhere and somehow before you encountered Lord Kel and Herd Lord Haygan, someone took steps to switch your daughter with someone else.

We had been on Rome for six months now. The fight with Tisiphone long over. Lord Aesin had made use of the confusion of battle to infiltrate the Portal Authorities database. A week of combat between the goddess and I had given him ample time to track down shipping manifests that showed who on Rome was receiving materials that were needed to create another CERN.

The rest of our group had returned to Talahm. My attack had resulted in an inter-world fracas that was argued in Senate chambers. The video of events that I had recorded had shown that Caesar was the one to initiate hostilities, and Olympus was sanctioned instead of the Tuatha de Danaan.

King Teigh was not happy with me, but he managed to calm the fires of his fury just short of ordering me back to Talahm. I honestly believed if not for his Oath, his promise that I could hunt for those responsible for my daughter's death, my recall would have been made. The inroads he was making with the Senate, the establishment of diplomacy, and acknowledgment of Talahm's political acuity actually were enhanced once the video of my battle with Tisiphone was made public. If not for that he may have been forced to ignore his Oath, at least for a time.

I had received a blistering dressing down, and a warning to remain within the shadows until I gained the information I was looking for and could leave Rome. He made it clear that he would brook no further actions on my part. I was to forgo my anger and resentment until I had gathered the evidence I was looking for and returned to Talahm. There was to be no more indiscriminate actions taken. Justice would be served to the guilty, and only those proven guilty.

The information contained within shipping manifests had led Lord Aesin to a daughter of the Goddess Nyx. That Tisiphone was also a daughter of Nyx was coincident. The Furies had nothing to do with events involving my daughter and the CERN dungeon, but another daughter had, one that had not yet attained goddess level.

Nemesis would be considered a minor goddess in any other Pantheon, but for Olympus, she had stalled at the Demi-god power level. She was effectively immortal, the same as her brothers and sisters, but when you compared her to Thanatos the God of Death, it was easy to understand how jealousies might arise. Especially for a Pantheon that was prone to jealousy and hubris.

What had to rankle was that no matter how many countless millennia she had existed, she had never been offered System quests or opportunities to ascend. Hacking the System was in line with how the Olympian Pantheon was conditioned. Nemesis would do anything, dare anything to gain the power of a God.

"A young woman had been cloaked in illusion and made to assume your daughter's identity," Aesin continued. "It wasn't until after you had agreed to the demands of Haygan and entered the CERN Dungeon that the ruse was discovered.

"You and your people were almost slaughtered because they thought you responsible, once the illusion was discovered. Lord Kel was certain that it was a scheme engineered by you, some plot to derail the alliance he and Haygan were involved with. Lady Patricia believed otherwise and convinced them to take a wait and see attitude. She suggested that it was better to keep you under observation and to find out exactly what you were up to, and as long as you were providing them with information and materials from CERN your usefulness would see you and those with you safe.

"It was years before they realized that you had no idea your daughter, Sieph, had been replaced by an illusion and that you had no idea that she was missing or had any idea where she was located. Since you were providing them the resources, information, and people they needed, they saw no reason to change what was working. It just wasn't worth upsetting the efficacy of your endeavors to solve a mystery that had no impact on their plans."

"Someone must know where she is," I said thoughtfully.

"If they do Princess, they have been very circumspect and kept that secret from getting out. There has been no hint in all these years, no rumor that Sieph lives. And trust me when I say, the Aziza would know if anyone had knowledge of her location. There is no secret that can be hidden from the Aziza if we make a concerted effort to ferret it out. Secrets whispered, are eddies of air, currents of sound that the Aziza are adept at riding.

"Once we return to Talahm, I will prioritize finding out the truth of your daughter's life and how she was hidden," he promised.

"I think not," I said. "If you have had no hint after all these years, the chances of you unraveling this mystery may be beyond our abilities."

"Truthfully," Aesin replied, "there may have been no hint because we didn't know to search or listen for one. Now that we have uncovered evidence that your daughter was switched with another, we can work with the people that were on that trip to find anything that may have been out of the ordinary as you traveled.

"We can start by identifying the Knocker who wore your daughter's illusion."

I wasn't sure how to process this discovery. My cautious optimism was tempered by my fury at Nemesis, but even with this new evidence, I knew she wasn't the real power behind this. She had to have had the backing of one of the major Gods. There were simply too many Olympians involved, too many disparate threads that needed to be monitored for her to have been the ring-leader.

I was torn between wanting to confront her, to rip the answers to the questions that I had been searching for from her even if that meant destroying the workings King Teigh was engaged in, and returning to Talahm to begin searching. Hoping that Lord Aesin was right, and we had never found evidence that my daughter yet lived because we had been focused on asking the wrong questions.

I was certain that anything that stood out on that trip would be remembered. The Sidhe's memory was long. It was one of the reasons it was foolish to give insult or slight to one of our people. We would never forget, and though it takes us tens of thousands of years, we would replay the insult tenfold.

But the swapping of my daughter for another must have been done in the depths of night, when secrets were born and carried away on the wings of Nightmares. If any of my people had noticed anything, they would have spoken of it by now.

I didn't believe Lord Aesin would find the answers, even with this new line of inquiry. But even if he couldn't, I took solace in the knowledge that Sieph lived. And if I never found her, that was better than the heart-rending thought of her death at the hands of Olympus. There may never be a resolution, but there could be peace.