OBSIDIAN 3.5: ENTER CHAOS
“The road already conquered does not always foretell the twists and turns of the road ahead, and he whose eyes are turned back to read the pattern will misplace not just one footfall, but each and every one. The pattern is imposed by the mind, a structure against which to rest, lean in weariness and wariness. In truth there is no pattern. There is only the imposition of greater and greater minds. There is only the super-structure. It can always betray you – and it will.”
– from ‘The Syth Codex’, 39:99-107
Nothing happened.
I kept circling the clay mound – Shadowcloud was drying it out, sealing away the tower inside, so I watched the cracks spreading throughout the surface, anticipating one of them yawning open suddenly, a torrent of demons showering forth –
But it never came.
Glimmermere had landed, and assumed her human form – or not so human, as seemed to be the case. She was so slender and tall, her features so delicate and eyes so bright, that she had to be at least half-elven. She looked to be in her late teens, but she could’ve been two or three times her apparent age, depending on the quality of her blood. Her robe was lily-green and silver-blue, her mask a shark-like thing covering her eyes and nose. She was an inch or two over six feet tall; the hair poking out from beneath her hood was the hue of seaweed, blending in with the colour of her garment remarkably well. From what I could see of her skin she appeared to have a dark, almost ebony complexion.
Apparently she was communing with a number of subterranean insects, checking the buried structure for signs of activity.
“What are you getting back?” Shadowcloud asked.
“Hold on,” she replied then, after a pause, continued: “Very little. I think they’re being driven mad when they touch it. They’re responding satisfactorily when I’m telling them where to go, but they aren’t coming back afterwards, and those I’ve found which have been to it won’t talk to me. I’m working on curing it but it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Wyrda’s maw… It’s as though… as though their souls have gone…”
“When they touch it?” the arch-wizard pressed. “You mean, the black rock.”
“Exactly.”
“Great. Timesnatcher, how far off are you? We need more than one enchanter here when we go in… Timesnatcher?”
He kept mentioning the arch-diviner’s name. I kept circling around. Glimmermere was still there on the ground, head bowed in concentration.
Ten minutes had to have passed when we picked something up, but it wasn’t Timesnatcher.
“Feychilde? Shadow-”
“I’m here, Neverwish!” I tried to keep my cool, but this was pretty exciting actually. “Glad to hear you’re back up on your feet.”
“Courtesy of Nighteye –“
“I think that you can, hm, consider that a favour repaid, my friend, and –“
“You’re not getting money off your next anti-glamourings, Nighteye. Persuading Leafcloak to let you come with me should be plenty enough.”
“I didn’t mean that, old chum! I, hm…”
“O-kayyy,” Neverwish cut him off. “We’re on our way. Three minutes. An arch-wizard magister’s bringing us – she wants to see you.”
“Em?”
She didn’t reply right away, and I wanted to call her name again, but I knew it’d sound stupid.
Neverwish replied instead. “Yeah, her. She’s not linked-up, though. This is for champions only.”
“Ah, I get you.” I tried to hide my disappointment, sound nonchalant, but had no idea whether I managed to pull it off or not.
“You got to tell me your secret one day, man,” the arch-enchanter went on in a musing tone.
I had the sudden urge to blurt, ‘You keep your greedy eyes off her!’
“Ha-ha,” I managed instead.
“Children,” Glimmermere interjected. “Need I remind you that the communication channel is intended for official use only?”
She was such a hypocrite.
“She’s trying to talk to her bugs,” I explained, “but their souls are gone.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Oh dear.” Nighteye sounded glum.
“I was trying to get hold of Timesnatcher,” Shadowcloud said, “to ensure he brought multiple enchanters, so I’m doubly glad to hear you’re on the way. I’m worried touching this substance the demons have created will do the same thing to us.”
“Might not be an enchanter you need, in that case,” Neverwish replied.
“If it makes us mindless drones, it’ll be worth having every possible countermeasure in place, just to be on the safe side.”
I liked the arch-wizard. Shadowcloud appeared to be sensible, and a decisive leader.
“Inbound now,” Timesnatcher said out of nowhere. “Sorry about the delay.”
“What happened?”
“Some enterprising demons decided to visit the Winter Door – they wanted to set the dead men of Zadhal loose on Treetown, and if we were thirty seconds later they just might’ve succeeded. Then on the way back we heard about an attack in a tavern, but by the time we got there…”
The conversation continued but I stopped focussing on it, letting it fall into background noise – I saw Em’s hair shining in the night sky, and thrust my wings, rising up to meet her.
Neverwish, Nighteye, Dustbringer and Starsight were with her.
I hadn’t realised before that Neverwish was a dwarf.
He was four-and-a-half feet tall and stout as a barrel. A thick, unkempt blond beard flowed down from behind a full-faced mask of expressionless stone; the only holes were grooves at the mouth, nostrils, eyes. His robe was purple, embroidered with dwarvish runes I couldn’t read – the hood was pulled tight about the mask and he wore heavy grey gloves. If it weren’t for the beard, he’d look like a stone golem toddler playing wizard dress-up.
The others settled themselves down on the ground. Em met me and when I wobbled, feeling slightly too high-up, she took my hands and steadied me.
Her flight-spell wrapped around me, and I instantly felt safe; I felt that I could fly again.
“Ka- Feychilde,” she breathed, pulling herself to me – and this time when we kissed it was just like the first time.
Despite the grief of the last twenty-four hours – despite the trials we’d had to endure tonight… This was worth every moment.
“You died,” I said, somewhat accusingly, once we parted.
“It vozn’t a big deal,” she replied with a smile, shrugging slightly. “You almost died.”
“That… I’d like to say it wasn’t a big deal.” I looked around, looked down. “I feel pretty weird being high up now. I actually crashed, when they were all fighting that gigantic thing.”
“I heard – are you okay now?”
“I guess… not a hundred percent, no. I’m so tired. But I’m better. I’ll get better.” I smiled back. “Just you being here makes me feel at least, oh, fifty percent better –“
“Only fifty percent?” she asked, eyes wide, imploring.
“Maybe sixty – seventy – okay, a hundred percent, oh –“
She suddenly flung her arms around my waist and squeezed me. I settled mine around her shoulders.
“… can someone tell the new sorcerer to stop having a tickling-match up there?” I noticed Glimmermere muttering.
“I told you, man, I need your secret.”
“Neverwish!”
“Sorry, Glimmermere; I didn’t know elves were such prudes.”
“Shadowcloud, tell Neverwish that he…”
I didn’t care. I let their voices fade out again – I’d missed something Em was saying.
“Sorry, Em, I’ve got this – chatter –” I waved a hand at my ear, “and it’s making it hard to hear – say again?”
“I said I vont to come in vith you.”
“In? In there?” I jerked my head back at the hill. “Oh, I don’t know if –“
“Feychilde wants to bring his girlfriend with us,” Neverwish said. “Personally I vote no. He’s gonna get distracted at the worst time, bet you.”
“Twelve is an auspicious number, a figure of power,” Starsight said softly. “I’ll take that bet.”
“They’re discussing it now,” I said to Em in an effort to explain why I cut my sentence off.
“Ahh.”
There was a tension in her frame as she scrutinised my face, like she was waiting to see some clue as to their decision before I gave voice to it.
It was Timesnatcher who decided.
“Link her up,”he said.
I looked across. I could see them coming now. The ice-clad Winterprince was flying them: there was the arch-diviner, in his black robe with its white hourglasses, his metal upper-face mask with a twelve-pointed star on the brow; there was the yellow- or gold-robed Lovebright, clothes and mask covered in red love-hearts; and –
One more champion, flying alone like a scarlet smear of blood across the smog, the iron-scaled wings he was now using glinting in the darkness.
Redgate!
“Link her up? That’s out of the ordinary, even for you, Timesnatcher,” Neverwish said.
“I’ll link her up, then.” A young girl’s voice, Northman accented. Lovebright was Jaid’s favourite champion (favourite non-druid champion, at least), but I suspected it had everything to do with the love-hearts, and the name, and had nothing to do with the nature of enchantment itself. “Evening, Emrelet. I saw you back at Roseoak but I don’t think we’ve been introduced – I’m Lovebright.”
“Lovebright! Pleased to meet you.”
I smiled at Em and squeezed her hand. Together we floated down towards the rest of the champions, everyone seemingly congregating near Glimmermere.
Supplying the wizardry we had Em, Shadowcloud and Winterprince. Healing our wounds were Nighteye and Glimmermere. For telling us when we were about to die we had Timesnatcher and Starsight. Enchantments were going to be handled by Neverwish and Lovebright. Joining me on the sorcerer-team were Dustbringer and Redgate.
A few weeks ago I would’ve been dredging the muck with my dropped jaw at the thought of embarking on an adventure in such esteemed company. Now, after all the misery and death I’d partaken in during the Incursion… I was still left feeling like I had to hold my chin up with both hands.
These were some of the best. The best of the best. The top archmages in the city. Likely in the world.
This was really happening.
Still, some things had changed. A few weeks ago I’d have thought that surely, with a force like this, we would overpower anything. But the battle at Roseoak in particular had opened my eyes. I’d learned to trust the instincts of my faerie queen advisor. And I’d almost died. I no longer felt invulnerable, not in the here and now.
As the others completed their introductions, I wasn’t particularly bothered by the way Neverwish’s head was always turned in Em’s direction. My mind was fixed in purpose, and a cheeky, leering dwarf didn’t figure high on my priorities list. I was already going through the different ways we could penetrate the obsidian building’s defences.
This was really happening, and it had to happen – lest Lord’s Knuckle be left with a dark temple to Chaos buried in its heart.
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