QUARTZ 9.5: CROWNED

“Mortal sensibilities have always been geared towards the immortal. You look to transcend yourselves, define yourselves by boundless ambitions. Why then does it surprise you to see that immortal sensibilities have always been geared towards the mortal? That they look inward to the soul, for the invaluable immanence that is native to your cruder plane? If you found yourself a god, would you not seek to further those causes you loved when you were merely human? Would it surprise you to find they wished they could merely sit and read a book, unmolested by the prayers of the faithful? They are not as you; and yet they are. For you are as them, are you not? What else might you be and yet hold them gods?”

– from ‘The Syth Codex’, 5:99-108

Crowns were meant to be heavy affairs. Hard to damage, sure. Big and ostentatious, of course. But the books I’d read growing up always made it sound as though the weight was supposed to be a symbol for the burden borne by the wearer. I wondered how much it’d weighed on Malas’s head, whether the ratio of dragon-size to stone made it heavier or lighter than it seemed to me now. In this half-real state, it was more like a child’s play-crown, woven of leaves. I found myself continually worrying it was going to fly off as I ripped through the skies, patting at my temple to ensure it was still in place.

It didn’t seem to be letting me go any time soon.

I did hope it wasn’t going to look too ostentatious. I apparently had no imitators. It wouldn’t do for me to go around looking like Direcrown mark two.

Perhaps I wouldn’t get to wear it for long. ‘Safe enough for now,’ that had basically been the twins’ assessment, which they were surely basing on the contents of Malas’s mind. But they’d all but admitted they had no way to properly expose all his secrets – he was far too eldritch for them to dissect like they’d dissect a mortal inhabitant of the material plane, no matter how quickly they’d gotten the hang of using their power on eldritches during the battle. Once the full truth of Prince Deathwyrm’s iconic artifact was uncovered, I was sure to have my new toy robbed from me and sequestered on some dusty museum shelf for the highborn to gawk at.

I’d just have to enjoy it while I had it. “There’s nothing so straightforward as an anti-divination pendant, unfortunately.” That was how Rath had chosen to put it. How wrong he’d been. It was just another example of a prophet’s short-sightedness. Using their third eye in place of their brain. How in Twelve Hells would an arch-diviner have special knowledge about anti-divination objects? Assuming they worked, their very definition removed seers from the running.

And I’d bought it when he’d said it, using even less of my brain than him.

Clever, Kas. Real good, making mistakes like that.

I had to work on the assumption that the crown blocked an enchanter’s magic, if Jaid and Jaroan hadn’t been able to penetrate Malas’s mind until it was removed – but did it work like the pendants I was used to? Would it allow friendly thoughts through, or block them all? I was moving at maximum speed, and there was a chance I’d simply gotten out of the twins’ range before I tried calling back to them telepathically. But the link felt dead every time I’d tried to use it. I had to accept the possibility that the crown of the dead dracolich was going to stop the city’s defenders from gaining access to my thoughts.

I wasn’t going around Mund without anti-enchantment cover provided by my brother and sister, not even for a second. Never again could I put my trust in Bor, and Spiritwhisper had always been the most virtuous, most pig-headedly trustworthy of them all. If the crown let me slip through Everseer’s net…

If it let me see the back of Irimar’s head, for once, without him knowing I was watching…

I smiled to myself as I soared.

What else had my brother and sister seen in Malas’s head? Did they know the reason why? Why we had to suffer? Why Mund had to be the sacrifice? Whether the thoughts of the heretic contained pure reason distilled as crystal water from a mountain spring, or madness the likes of which rose only from the oozing dreams of Mekesta, there was no doubt in my mind that it was upon the dragons and their forebears we had to shovel our hate.

I kept my eye on the rising sun, racing against the day itself. I knew only that I had to arrive as quickly as possible. Every second wasted could spell one, or ten, or a hundred fatalities. Every archmage lost to the demons strengthened the dragons, Mal Tagar’s servants scooping out the souls of the fallen to feed the prophecy-machine of resurrection, of Returning.

Why, then, did Zel always seem to hate the dragons, if she were in league with them all along? Was it all an act?

It wasn’t the first or hundredth time I’d wondered about it. Maybe I was always overthinking it. Maybe it was just natural to hate what enslaved you, and the restrictions on her freedoms were loose enough to let her run her tongue about it.

Perhaps… perhaps…

What would it have been like, if I’d had my conversation with Everseer before losing Zel? Would I have accused her of serving the ancient dragon, right then and there?

Would she still have left, no explanation?

The air itself was urging me onwards, rushing and booming in its haste to reach Mund, and I put aside all distracting thoughts, focussing on the war which lay ahead of me.

It was good, I supposed, that I’d had Malas to hone my skills on, cut my sorcerous teeth on his bony carcass. I felt ready to fight. My instincts were on point. My shields, while slow, were sturdier than ever. My new weaponry longed for fiendish fodder, targets to tear apart and send screaming back to hell. And, what was more, I finally felt purpose.

All because of you, grand-daddy, I thought at Malas’s lost spirit. If you didn’t swing by Telior… dark elves or no, the twins would’ve had to drag me back home kicking and screaming. I suppose I have to thank you.

But to whom did I owe my thanks for this insane hurricane-wind, driving me onwards? Was it the gift of a god? Or was it some simple by-product of the storm my brother and sister mentioned? Was its source more sinister?

The woodlands passed by on my left, the road to my right. I had to be travelling back at six, seven, maybe eight times the speed with which I’d travelled on the way out. The landscape whipping past beneath me was more like one of Spiritwhisper’s illusory maps than anything real, even such large features as towns and hills speeding by in a blur.

There was just one thing that didn’t blur, unchanged by my movement, because of the angle of my approach. Right in front of me, not distorting, but gaining in clarity second by second.

The storm dwarfed the city over which it loomed.

It was difficult to take in the true immensity of its great billowing black clouds. It was a manifestation of Mekesta, there could be little doubt. It stretched up as high as the ocean was deep, and the outer surfaces of the tempest were like the waves of Northril, churning and twisting rapidly in vast plumes, like the arms of incomprehensible demons reaching out in torment. Even as I perceived it in the distance, the sky began to dim about me, and I knew I was already within its imperceptible boundaries.

It was as though twilight stole over the morning as I came closer and closer to my home. I could only pray it was just an appearance, rather than some unspeakable chronomancy like the time-jump Vaahn’s avatar brought about in Zadhal.

It’s just a cloud, I told myself. And even if it’s not… it didn’t end well for the Prince of Chains, did it?

I grinned, all alone in my little patch of increasingly-dark sky.

Yeah. Time to get my game face on.

The smile had arranged itself, but I was missing something.

Oh. Oh yes.

The weight of it was so meagre, its shape a constant reassuring presence, light-enough to be forgotten for months.

I retrieved my mask from my pocket. It was a little bit soiled, blood and pond-water and sea-salt crusting many of the folds in the metal, the creases in the leather.

It was my more-devilish mask. The horns surmounting the temples looked a little crueller than the ones atop my customary covering, especially with the grime filling the grooves, shadowing the spiralling spikes. These eyes were narrowing in anger as much as laughter, the cheek-bones higher, more grin than smile – more grimace than grin…

It suited my mood. I almost put it on, before I caught myself.

It’d been a long time since I was last conscious of my scar. I’d hidden it so well with gremlin spells that even I only saw it when I was shaving.

Just like the robe.

I looked down at the remains of my once-proud garment. I would’ve said I filled it better now than I had before, were it not for the ultimate irony… The right sleeve was a mess, rippling in the wind along with the force-tendrils extending from its frayed opening; colour couldn’t really be discerned anywhere below the right shoulder, with so much muck caked into the remaining threads. But across my torso, the shades had shifted subtly, light green patches darkening to nightshade blue across my breast; the grey cowl and mantle had returned to their former purple hues.

The tiny silver mouths were still there twinkling brokenly beneath the dirt, all across the forest-green outer layer, laughing away at the insanity of it all.

I settled the mask on my upper face, keeping the hood back so that the crown could sit squarely atop my head.

I was ready. Whatever the gods had in store for me, I would suffer it gladly, so long as I could bring more good with me than evil.

Mortiforn, I prayed, closing my eyes even as I soared. Mortiforn, the Naked Blade, he from whom each wound is Made; Lord Suffering, I come before you in supplication.

The empty room appeared before my second sight, grey spaces peeling away into rough approximations of walls… the blank black void of a table spread out before me, and in the chair opposite –

Above the chair and table, a huge spectre loomed, a humanoid skeleton of indeterminate gender swathed in black cloth. It had to be seven feet tall, that or it was floating – it was impossible to tell from my angle. The only colour I could see this time was the flickering fires in the pits of its eyes.

Ah… Where is Mr. Owl?

“He is otherwise occupied, Mr. Mortenn.” The croaking voice was masculine, and the jaw rattled senselessly with the words. “To me is it given to attend this meeting, in his absence, and to offer thee all his apology.”

And you are?

“Elmedosk, sir.”

… Mr. Elmedosk?

“Very good, sir.”

Do I… I was suddenly confused as to how to proceed. Do I need to come back later? I didn’t make an appointment, or anything. I realised then what he’d said. I’m not… late, am I? I wasn’t told we had a meeting!

“Thou hast chosen to grace our solemn halls with thy presence only a little later than was anticipated, Mr. Mortenn. It is matters unanticipated upon which our good mutual friend Mr. Owl dwelleth at length. Might I ask thee of thy supplication? The hour lengthens, and my tasks are myriad.”

I was being hurried along. Like a Sticktown shopper in Hightown.

Sorry… I didn’t realise we had a time limit.

The spectre’s skeletal face was inherently expressionless. He simply stared down at me across the table, purple pinpricks flaming away.

I suppose I just want to ask… am I too late? Not – not for this, er, meeting. I mean… am I –

“It is not given to me to know the turnings of thy day, nor the perils unto whose depths thou seekst to plunge. Might the agents of Chraunator not aid thee in this? Into their care the gears of time hath been placed.”

I’ve tried him, a few times in the past. Most gods… most gods don’t roll out the welcome-carpet like yours, when we come knocking.

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“Lord Suffering is not as most gods.”

No, he isn’t. Look –

“Thou camest hence seeking a gift. With all my powers, I espy no supplicant before me. I see one who wills, and dares, and demands. Speak thy heart’s desire, and plainly.”

The croaking voice was as patient as ever, never rising or falling, a steady nonchalant drone. Yet I took the flaring of the spectre’s eyes for a warning.

Sorry, I mentally murmured. Mr. Owl – he knew my future, once. I just thought, if he could see through someone like Duskdown –

“We are the children of the Open Man. What is thy friend’s magic before that of a god? All of us know of thy sacrifice.”

My sac-

“Yet I am not of the god’s Chosen, and thou hast clad thyself in the raiment of thine enemies, armour sanctified by the Dark Mother.” He tilted his chin as if to indicate the crown I could neither see nor feel upon my brow, but the amethyst fires still burned in his eyes, his gaze trapping mine. “I see thee not at all, past or future, and cannot say that Mr. Owl or even my Lord Suffering might see thee clearer. Thy doom shall change, and change again, a thousand times ere thou and I and they might meet once more in the shadowed land.”

I almost lost my connection with Nethernum as my fleshly body, speeding through the storm’s outermost layers towards Mund, was suddenly overcome with shivering at the spectre’s suggestion. The trance gave way to a vision of a twilit wasteland, shadows coruscating like fiery black mountains on the horizon – myself, the vampire and the god in the centre of abyssal nothingness, ringed by spectres.

My death…

“Of course, Mr. Mortenn. As with many things, the first is the worst.”

I… never really thought about it that way.

“The price of life is always and only death.” He held up an arm, the sleeve of his shroud sliding back to expose the bone-wrist.

The skeletal thumb and first finger formed a circle.

“The price of death, as I fear thou shalt learn to thy cost, is life.”

Malas will be back.

“It shall seem a distant thing, yet, even shouldst thou avert the plots of all thy foes, and claim Mund’s future for the gods of light – even shouldst thou tally the long centuries… Thou hast assuredly earnt his everlasting enmity with thy theft.”

Until he goes to Infernum.

“He will not be blown through the Door for many cycles of the moons. He remaineth unready. The question is this: how shalt thou pay?”

So if I take this off…

“Think not to evade the wrath of Malas with such a token. To wilfully abandon the jewel of his hoard would, I think, fail to satiate his hatred.”

No, I mean… would you be able to –

“Ah. Yes. I would witness thy sacrifice once more. Past and future. Life and death.”

I’m not sure – the arch-diviners in Mund would know I’m coming, wouldn’t they?

“Wert thou not already hastening unto thy home, ere thou didst claim the spoils of thy victory? Any with the power whose thought did but lightly upon thee tend should know all thy quest, and more.”

I suppose… But they’re not expecting me until it’s too late, I’d imagine. I’m meant to sit there in the cave – chat it out with that weird-looking dwarf…

The spectre started shaking his head.

“Mine apologies, Mr. Mortenn. Thou art wrong, and I alike in kind. See – they expect thee none at all. Thy fate was secured by Mr. Overlorn. Whether at a snail’s pace or on a hawk’s wings, too late or late, thy coming on this glorious day of sacrifice shall go unlooked-for by those whom most thou fearest.”

Too late or late.

He read my mind.

“Farewell, Mr. Mortenn. Farewell.”

I broke the trance without saying my own goodbyes, opening my eyes immediately – and it was like I’d gone for a mid-morning nap only to awaken late for my evening meal.

The sky was etched in ever-shifting charcoal smears. The long grasses of the prairies were whipped about in vast swirls, crashing like the waves of Northril. The sunlight was dim, Kaile’s might laid low before the storm of Mekesta.

It would be down to the mortals to stop this madness.

It would be down to us to save ourselves.

Please, Belestae… give me at least this much luck.

I brought forth the carrion-bird of Zadhal into the air before me. Joining with it was unlikely to produce wings, and it would be far slower than the wizard-flight on its own, but if I could bring it into the wraith-state perhaps I could ride it – loan it a portion of the flight-spell Orcan had put upon me, add the momentum provided by its huge wingspan to our combined, weightless speed…

I almost didn’t bother but, on a whim, I decided to try joining with it anyway.

And I flexed my new wings.

Perhaps I’d been wrong. Maybe the gods were watching over us after all.

Thank you Belestae!

Now, Orovon! Speed me!

Speed me home.

* * *

They weren’t like sylph wings. They had shrunk somewhat from the gargantuan appendages they’d been when the bird had been wearing them, but they were still ginormous to me, stretching at least ten feet in either direction. It was fortunate that the wraith-state left them as weightless as paper sails – they were coated in dead feathers, and I fancied I’d struggle to beat them half as fast if I were in a solid form.

I may have lost Avaelar, and the Zadhal-bird whose squawks I’d silenced from the halls of my mind could never replace the honourable fey – his keen advice, his healing breath – but it would do for this. It gave me what I needed most in this moment.

It damn-near doubled my speed.

If only I still had access to a perception power… I crossed into the rain, and sheets of the stuff started falling right through me. It wouldn’t slow me down, wouldn’t cling to my clothing, but it was cold all the same as it swept in great gales through my shadowy wings, my permeable flesh – and it made it nearly impossible to see clearly. The lights of the road, way off to my right, were gleaming away despite the early hour, their magical sensors set to awaken as the sky’s light dimmed.

I’d lived in Mund my whole life – I’d seen thunder and lightning around my home a hundred times – and I’d never witnessed anything like this. This unnatural night-time chilled me in a way no torrential rainfall could achieve, whispering to me that we had failed already – even should I have arrived in an instant, like Arreath Ril, what good would I actually do? Was I not just one more sword set to melting in the wake of the dragon’s breath?

Are you not just one more body, one more power, returning to feed the machine of apocalypse?

I shook my head, trying to clear my eyes, trying to clear my mind of the doubts. Ahead of me, the huge fortifications of Mund appeared like a low wall of glittering quartz. Lightning threaded the horizon, jumping down into the streets behind the walls.

Just seeing that filled me with the same heat, the heat of exuberant, furious desire I thought I’d lost forever.

Gong! Gong! Gong!

I followed the dancing forks of electric fire with my eyes, tipping my head back to look up at the swirling ocean of blackness, confront it fully.

Mekesta…

I tried to pierce the opaque heart of the tempest with my sorcerer’s-eyes, but it was like an upside-down well of oil, a font of pure nothingness.

Mekesta…

You will lose.

* * *

It felt like I’d never arrive. Like the slowly-enlarging city before me was a mirage of my fantasies, soon to slip away from my grasp even as I closed my fingers about it.

But no. The rainswept walls rose up before my eyes, the Maginox’s needle splitting the horizon, and there was no glimmer of glamour, no lethargy in my mind. The lightning flew. The thunder boomed.

I was home, truly home.

Clustered about the Road before the western gate, the shanty-town of ramshackle dwellings had grown. The migrant camps had sprawled both upwards and outwards since we left Mund. Where before the watch had been mandated to keep the spread within certain limits, it seemed that now the regulations had been tossed to the winds. What must’ve been new ‘streets’ in mid-construction were there to be found on all the outer borders, but under the blistering wrath of the storm these places were falling apart, looking more like a corrosion eating its way inwards than the results of an expansion. Recently pegged-down tents were flapping freely, shutters were clattering, planks of unfinished roofing ripped loose to saunter end over end down the thoroughfare.

In spite of everything Everseer had done, everything the witch-queen of Mund wanted, the population of the city must’ve been undergoing an explosion.

I looked down at the meagre crowds still out getting drenched in the open, their hats and hoods cast back, abandoned to the wind’s frenzy. They were crying in various languages, trying their hardest to strap- or nail-down the storm-blown wooden beams, the wild canvas walls of their homes.

Their existence, the normalcy of their struggle – it made my smile broaden yet further. Why wouldn’t people come to the most glorious, richest city in the world? This was life, seeking to improve itself in defiance of the harbinger of death. This was humanity, mortality, doing what it had to do to survive, thrive, no matter the risk, the calibre of the danger.

They were here, and here they would stay. Here they would be buried in their droves, whether we won or not, whether they died of imp-fire or brickblood or simple old age. They were our responsibility – my responsibility.

The hosts of the Twelve Hells certainly wouldn’t be treating them any differently on account of their lack of citizenship. The agents of Infernal Incursions had such a wealth of victims to hunt within the city-walls, they rarely seemed to slake their bloodthirst amongst the poor families huddled outside. However, this was due to be a fateful morning.

Even now I saw the first signs of Incursion I’d ever seen beyond the wall – a herd of six epheldegrim were sauntering out of a collapsed pavilion like they owned the place, their dark fur flecked with bits of gore. Despite that, I couldn’t spot a single champion, a single magister, a single magic-wielding defender.

No wonder they think they own the place.

Their assumptions were swiftly corrected as I swooped low and called them to heel. It was only as I dipped towards the street that I realised I was still hurtling at maximum speed, and I threw my wings wide to catch the vapours of the nethernal currents, screeching almost to a stop.

A few people who’d been running from the demons saw me, one of them screaming anew at the ghastly appearance I must’ve been presenting – but the others seemed to recognise that I’d dispelled the seven-legged horses. That I was an ally. A champion. One even nodded to the one-armed, death-winged wraith soaring over the tents before turning again to dash off into the rain.

It felt good. Just that little gesture. The man who’d nodded to me was just one more windswept stranger, probably a foreigner to my land… but he told me everything I needed to know.

I’m back.

Gong! Gong! Gong! went the Bells.

Boom! Boom! Boom! went the thunder.

And as much as I longer to crest the white wall now looming up over me, crest it and look down upon my hateful, beloved city… I knew what I had to do.

Senses honed in on the summoner. Still at work. An innocuous tent of dark-green canvas almost the same shade as my robe, no different from any of the others in any notable outward feature.

Just the blazing ball in my mind pointing to the imp, hard at work on its next creation. The herd had likely sapped its strength. Who knew who many innocent lives had already been taken to fuel its diabolical sorcery?

I carefully adjusted the wraith-state of my wing-tip, and, thanks at least in part to the allowance of satyr-strength pervading my form, I easily ripped apart the canvas with a single slash of decaying feathers.

I looked down at it. Just a second- or third-rank demonoid.

“I have no need of summoners,” I snarled into its tiny frightened face.

The imp wasn’t a teleporter, and it tried to fly off, but I opened portals and fed it to the jawless hell-horses it’d brought into my path. Two of the epheldegrim shared it, wrapping their freely-hanging tongues about its midriff and tearing it apart.

I surveyed the horses approvingly.

“Stay here!” I commanded them. “Defend this place – leave your post only to slay creatures of Infernum! Do not suffer any sentient creatures of this plane to come to harm.”

I swelled my voice and called out in clear, cold Mundic:

“Citizens of the camps! These six hell-horses are claimed by a champion and will defend you. Do not fear them – unless you are a demon! Mages, magisters who may be listening – do not waste time trying to destroy them!”

I took my own advice about wasting time. I left it at that, and moved on.

I could’ve crested the walls, but I chose to save a few seconds by passing directly through the smooth surface of the rock, just a hundred yards or so south of the gateway. It’d never looked particularly thick – five or six yards, perhaps. I plunged at the pearly, tooth-white wall head-first –

Satyr-reflexes let me twist aside, redirecting my momentum at the last second, as the tip of my wing collided with the wall and I came within a whisker of splatting myself.

Of course the walls were proofed against insubstantial trespassers. Because that totally made sense. It wasn’t like someone could just fly over it… At least the Ceryad-chamber had an excuse.

I gave up. Whatever the Five Founders were chewing when they conceived of the wall, I wanted some.

I started laughing as I went upwards instead.

What a heroic return that would’ve been. How confused the Magisterium would’ve been! The Zyger-bound convict Feychilde, found in inch-thick pulp, pasted to the wall over the camps. I can hear the report now. ‘Less than eight seconds after he declared them the new protectors of the camp, the epheldegrim were unceremoniously removed from the plane along with their master’s spirit…’ Celestium…

Hoping no one down there had been poking their heads out into the wind and rain to witness my almost-suicide, I soared vertically to the parapets then floated forward, surveying Mund.

Surveying Sticktown.

The wooden warrens were beneath my feet, a network of endless alleys and bridges and tunnels, gleaming wetly in the darkness like a vast black coral reef. The shrine of Kultemeren I’d never even visited was just below me. A stable, its fences burst, horses of the Materium variety charging about aimlessly, their braying awful to hear. A million points of light reflected from the district’s rooftops under the sheeting rain. Far off, I could see the Giltergrove, where a pale green radiance seeped forth from the copse of giant, gold-glinting trees. And beyond…

“Sir!” barked a man’s voice, half-fearful.

I turned to behold a young wall-guard and his older, heavier companion, newly emerged from an internal stair ten yards away. The grey-head was still getting his breath back, his weapon completely unreadied, more walking-stick or leaning-post than instrument of death; the youngster who’d challenged me had levelled his spear, but the shaking of his hands was magnified down its length until the point was wobbling to and fro in the air between us.

“Sir! Who are you? Th-the ma-magisters have been called!”

It was clear from the way he was reacting that he was at least suspecting me of fiendhood.

“You don’t recognise me?”

I tuned down the wraith-state to the point where I actually felt some of the weight of the massive wings.

“F-Fuh…”

He swivelled his head to shoot a confused glance at his old companion.

Before he turned back, I was gone.

* * *

I could’ve pressed the young guardsman for information – where had been hardest hit, where I would most be needed. I should’ve, perhaps. But the momentum in me wasn’t going to be stopped by white walls or such paltry concerns. I had the scent of my quarry.

They were everywhere.

A basement filled with teeming zikistakram, one of the weakest forms of demons. A hive of red-and-black wasps, each the size of my fist, their stingers like knitting needles. A draumgerel spitting acid-globs at the foundation-beams of an apartment building, corroding away the supports one by one.

Three separate events in the first minute of travel.

Three boxes ticked, three steps closer to satisfaction.

It was there at the back of my mind – I had no idea what time it really was, how long the Incursion had been going. There shouldn’t have been so many separate sites under assault. There should’ve been far more mages out on the streets. I’d seen magisters – two of them lying face-down near the draumgerel, gaping holes in their torsos, barely discernible from the mud of the roadway under the torrential downpour.

Maybe they knew I was coming after all. This is how the Magisterium rolls out the welcome-mat. Thank you, Henthae.

At least I wasn’t likely to get bored as I made my way towards the heart of Sticktown.

Homeless people splashed through the drop-floods, choking and spluttering as they fought the wind and rain to escape more-lethal opponents. The rake-armed trio of obbolomin on their heels made poor additions to my collection, but I took them anyway, earning a chorus of gratitude-filled howls from their would-be victims for my diligence.

I was at Branbecks Bridge and I found myself turning northwards, following instincts I couldn’t help but obey. It wasn’t just the trail of infernal essences burning away, visible to my sorcerous eye in a way they’d never been before. It was the trail of memories.

I knew where I was going.

I was going home.