The air was clear and cool. The city was busy and bustling. Criers cried the same non-news as last week. Trumpeters trumpeted the victory marches that’d become so popular. The Oldtown streets teemed with people shopping and seeking entertainment, and when he stopped looking, gazing ahead instead, their colourful clothing became a scintillating blur in the corner of his vision. It was almost as though the roadways were canals, surfaces iridescent with dappled sunlight. Laughing voices rising like a brook’s babbling, hateless and pure. The mood of Mund and the Mundians had never been better and it was reflected in the very atmosphere through which he coursed.
Late last Wanesday the reports had first come in from Karamat. The Chosen Lords Sentelemeth and Rhaegel of the Sunset had won a great battle against the dissidents, ending in the death by honourable duel of Lord Alaphar; at his defeat the rebel’s supporters had capitulated, signing terms, and after almost four months of pervasive dismay the purported ‘Mage War’ was finally over. Already Amranians were opening their stores again, and the gaols were emptied of their spies and informants. Everything was getting back to normal in the capital at last.
The nature of the advice Firstlore had given Lord Sentelemeth was something Azurelight couldn’t even begin to guess at, but assuredly it had led to Sunset winning the war. And now, suddenly, Firstlore’s pet portal project was given the go-ahead…
So surprising. The only funny bit was that Firstlore couldn’t go himself.
The Golden Wood was located in North Treetown. It was easily picked out from the air, with its majestic soaring branches, the scintillating haze of emerald light spilling up out of the ring like a jewel set in a burnished amulet.
There were quite a few people in attendance. He spotted the others like him, on a mound of tangled heather and mossy stones within the band of gold trees, and he sank down to hover beside them.
“Hail,” he cried as he descended.
“Master of Demons and Lord of the Dead.” Harpsong addressed him with a perfectly amiable grin on her face. “Protector of the Ekenrock, Defender of Tangledtree. Slayer of Bodycount. You’ve faced down two Invasions now, right? I’ve seen you defeat thastubabil just with your eyes. And yet – Mrs. Oroba Wallstock…?”
The enchantress-champion paused for effect, glancing around at the others to garner their support for her continued mockery.
“I’m not late, Harp,” he replied. “Eight minutes early, in fact, according to my internal chronometer.”
“Oh no,” she went on regardless. “Can’t face a lonely old hag, can you? What is she? A banshee-lord? You need back-up when we get back?”
Azurelight ignored the kid now, doing his best to look straight at their leader, Hoarbrow.
Unlike the others, the esteemed dwarven wizard didn’t so much as crack a smile. In fact she was frowning, eyes glinting coldly beneath the bushy white eyebrows.
“That’ll do,” the dwarf said curtly. “The lot of you. Have you forgotten why we’re here?”
Moontick and Spleensap straightened up, the druid offering a quick “Sorry!” under his breath – but the second-greatest diviner in Mund answered in her typical irreverent fashion.
“Preliminary patrol work,” Moon said dismissively, her thin elven lip curled in derision. “If it was important, they’d send Firstlore, wouldn’t they?”
“Firstlore’s busy. Just because he isn’t here, doesn’t mean this isn’t important.” Hoarbrow rolled her broad shoulders, glaring to establish dominance. “I would’ve thought you’d show a modicum of respect, young lady.”
Moontick shrugged. She was too confident in her power to show anyone or anything the respect they deserved. She even argued with Firstlore in front of the Gathering when the mood took her.
“So we’re the first in how long?” Spleensap asked, a trace of nervous trepidation still lurking beneath the druid’s voice.
“At least two hundred years,” Moontick responded at once. “The records are unclear. If the Magickers hadn’t damn-well sunk Asil’qarith –“
“Speculation!” Hoarbrow hissed. “Enough of those depraved delusions –“
“– it’d probably be another two hundred before anyone would’ve bothered,” the seeress finished.
“Come on, Spleen,” Azurelight said, eyeing his friend across the circle. “By the time we got to pint number six you were telling me you’d go through on your own, fates be damned. What’s changed?”
“I sobered up.” The arch-druid smiled wanly. “What about you? You were still scared stiff, last I saw you.”
“I’m not certain.” Azurelight gazed up at the immense portal of green fire towering over them, then looked back to his friend, offering a smile. “Maybe I’m still drunk. You were well unconscious by that point, as I recall.”
“You require an infusion? I’m guessing you got a good night’s sleep –“
“No. No, thanks, Spleen. Rather keep my courage.” The sorcerer grimaced then looked back to Hoarbrow. “I’m here now. Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
They started moving together under the power of Hoarbrow’s spells. What had been a background buzz quickly became a dull roar as they came into closer and closer proximity to Autumn’s Door, and Azurelight knew now that he was the only one to hear it. It was just like the trip to Grabera’s Common. All he had then was conjecture. Now? A second instance seemed to prove the hypothesis.
It’s the sorcery, he thought, gritting his teeth. Some distant blood connection, between myself and Litenwelt.
He just had to keep his head up and get through it. It’d be fine on the other side.
Wouldn’t be long.
The Magickers and Magistrati glared at one another, assembled on opposite sides of the Door. The Lords of Sunset had sent their agreed representatives, a trio of stately knights standing beside the Band of Gold assistants, each nodding to Hoarfrost in greeting as the five archmages came coursing up.
“We shan’t stand on ceremony. Everything is prepared?”
The dwarf received a series of sharp nods and curt replies.
“Well, then.” She glanced back at Harpsong, to Spleensap, Moontick – then to him. Obviously finding whatever it was she’d been looking for, she cracked a rare smile. “Let’s get this over with, indeed.”
* * *
They entered the flaring curtain of light with their usual confidence. They were archmages, at the peak of their power. They could handle anything.
Floating through with all the haste he thought he could display without looking hasty, Azurelight almost overtook Hoarfrost, and when the fire rippled over him and he emerged into the world beyond he realised almost instantly that this had all been a terrible mistake.
The first thing that startled him was the darkness. This wasn’t just midnight on a new moon night black. This was million miles under the sea black. Blinded in a coffin black. The fierce illumination of Autumn’s Door barely touched the dark tiles upon which it was based. There was no ceiling to be discerned even with vampiric sight to aid him; he found himself turning as he fled the portal’s song, looking back at it to keep some landmark in mind, judging his speed and distance by perspective.
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He had to get away from it. It was making him sick. Yet it was his only salvation. His home lay behind it – he would have to pass through it again, and, in spite of everything, the sooner their return came the better.
Wherever they were, whatever this shadowed chamber was purposed to be – it was truly enormous. The Door clearly didn’t scrape the roofs, and here he was, already sixty, eighty feet away from it, soaring in the blankness and shaping his shields – he could only assume the place was every bit as expansive if one were to come through the Door in the opposite direction –
Thud.
The half-nethernal breath was knocked out of him as he struck a pillar.
He’d hurtled backwards into the cold stone, and, jolted unexpectedly out of his planned trajectory, the arch-sorcerer fell away spinning. He caught himself and groaned, rubbing the side of his head where he’d connected with the chilled surface. Certainly the ghost-formed essences he wore helped minimise the pain, the severity of the injury he’d sustained – but the substance itself had proved impenetrable to them.
It’d been a long time since the ghost-form had let him down in this way.
He glanced around again, hoping the others hadn’t noticed – but what were the chances of that?
“Slick as starlight,” Moontick tittered.
“Yeah, we all saw that,” Harpsong thought at him. “Well – we’ve all seen it now.”
Even Spleen gave a short, involuntary laugh.
“How much to get you to erase it from everyone’s memories?” Azurelight moaned.
“More than you’re worth! Aha!” The enchantress cackled. “Found something interesting, have you there, sorcerer?”
“This metal needs investigating,” he thought back, sullen, still rubbing his head.
“Not metal,” Hoarbrow said. “Rock, of some kind, or… glass.”
Harpsong and Hoarfrost slowly started to light the chamber, the enchantress building luminous yellow lines across the floor, working them upwards – the wizard started near the roof, smearing frosty-white radiance right across the glistening, honey-coloured surface that seemed to stretch out over their heads…
“The chronal field in here… it’s intense.” Moontick’s voice was subdued, a hushed mind-whisper that set shivers crawling up the sorcerer’s spine. “I’ve never seen anything like it. We need to get some accurists to come through with us next time. No idea what a clock would do in here.”
While she spoke the illuminations spread, spread –
Azurelight turned, looking back at the great grey-black column with horror crystallising in his brain, jaw going slack.
Not a pillar. Pillars. Evenly-spaced throughout the chamber.
Hundreds and hundreds of them.
And as cords of burning sun-yellow incandescence reached up, up…
Not pillars.
Legs.
Legs of monolithic, crudely-shaped humanoids. Noseless, earless faces atop boulderous shoulders, more pillars dangling motionless like arms beside rotund torsos.
He floated upwards, looking down on this… host of colossi.
“Sixty-six feet tall,” Moon noted. “Each weighs nine-hundred and eleven tons… Perfect uniformity. I – I can’t see a single difference between them. Not a blemish. Not even a blemish!”
The seeress was starting to sound scared.
“Eldritches?” Hoarbrow asked in disbelief.
“Not one bit,” Azurelight replied, studying the nearest statue again. “Golems? Elementals?”
“If they were, they’re inert now,” the wizard said. “No magic in them whatsoever. Azurelight, what about the immaterial planes?”
He hadn’t even thought to check.
Two attempts to force a breach gave him the answer he decidedly wasn’t looking for.
“There’s nothing to get hold of!” he reported, trying to keep the sudden aching sense of foreboding from his voice.
Hoarbrow grunted. “Moon, would you be so kind as to report back to the supervisory teams? Who knows? Maybe we can get you your accurist… and an archaeologist.”
The arch-diviner had only just turned on the air when five more shapes burst through the wall of green fire.
Sunshadow, Azurelight growled internally, seeing his rival in her black-and-white striped robes, her sun-and-moon mask. What’s she doing here? This was to be my day! The highborn witch was shimmering on the air as she stuttered forwards, gungrelafor-essence radiating almost visibly from her, bat-wings snapping with every motion.
“Hoarbrow!” Firstlore almost gasped the word, plunging towards them, the old seer taking in his surroundings with a quick jerk of his hairless head. “Report!”
So this was his plan all along. To upstage us!
“You’re supposed to be lunching those fops from Zadhal, aren’t you?” their dwarven leader cried back. “Links!” she added, glancing from Harpsong to Merrytwinkle.
“Yeah, even though this was all his big idea,” Moon sent psychically.
Whatever anyone thought – the arch-sorcerer’s fears all slipped away quietly. Now reinforcements were here, any danger posed by this environment was overshadowed by the need to exalt himself above his rival.
Azurelight was close enough to see the expression change on the old man’s face – from scorn and disappointment to understanding.
Aghast, awful understanding.
The mightiest living arch-diviner screeched to a halt and, gesturing, turned on the air, glancing and scowling about in renewed concern and curiosity.
“Chronal amplification field,” he spat. “Inverted dampening effect. You’ve been in here three days already and to you it’s been no time at all, hasn’t it? Everybody out! Now! We’ll come back with a working prepared.”
Azurelight didn’t need telling twice. He was already moving before the command came.
Even still, he was one of the farthest from the Door.
He got to watch as the things got to work.
He got to see them, his vampire-eyes finally attuning to the cursed darkness.
See them, atop the Door’s frame, where they’d waited all along.
See them, as they wordlessly sprang down.
* * *
Searspear, the elven wizard, was the closest to the Door. Near the floor.
Doooooooom.
A gargantuan shape descended, and in the very next instant the leg stamped down on the wizard’s body. The elf didn’t even get a chance to react. Between one instant and the next, a weight of ancient power crashed right through the space he occupied.
Only Firstlore’s power could’ve saved him.
Only Firstlore went to the wizard’s rescue, streaking down to save his friend –
Doooooooom.
Carrying him straight into the path of the next leg.
Doooooooom. Doooooooom. Doooooooom.
Azurelight slowed in his flight for a moment, staring at the spot where Firstlore and Searspear vanished, gone without a trace.
Except a smear of bloody paste, extruding about the base of the pillar-like leg, puddling outwards from the point of impact…
It was as though these things knew what to expect of the champions, understood how to outplay them at this, their own game. When a petrified Merrytwinkle dove at the upper-right corner of the Door, the closest of the creatures leapt with fearsome agility, swinging a featureless arm-end… a hand, a fist, a club of disgusting force.
It struck the gnome enchantress so hard she splashed.
Harpsong got her leg stuck under a pillar, instantly amputating the limb, and, in the split-second that Spleensap diverted to help her, another creature leapt into the fray.
Causing the druid to vanish too.
Doooooooom.
Doooooooom.
Doooooooom.
There are so many of them.
Hoarbrow and Sunshadow each seemed to seize upon the bright idea of moving around the Door to the reverse face – both women unleashed death-curdles on the link as the dooms rang out.
A leg shifted – the panting Harpsong, diving through the air trailing her life’s-blood, died in an instant, and with her went the last echoes of the psychic connections that remained.
Moontick alone managed to swerve around the melee, the dextrous elven seeress grabbing Twigtrail by the shoulder, tugging the green-clad girl along with her as she barrel-rolled at an exit aperture.
It didn’t matter how fast she seemed to him – she was slower than she was supposed to be. Even she – even Moontick was blocked –
Doooooooom.
No. Not blocked.
Just gone.
He’d seen Twigtrail throw herself nonchalantly through walls in pursuit of her prey. He’d seen an attacker’s dagger break on Spleensap’s ribs.
But neither of them were coming back from a thousand tons, were they?
There was no route forwards. The arch-sorcerer span aside from the flurry of stone clubs, turning his back on the Door and the dying light… the already dying mage-light… fleeing not towards his home but up, up and away, away into the darkness –
No seams were there to be seen. His fingers clutched desperately at empty air.
The wind of a leaping creature’s arm droned just past his ear, all unseen, making tatters of his best shields.
He almost screamed, and found new velocities in his urgent flight. He put out a clawed hand to wring at non-existent seams –
Maybe there’s a way out! Maybe it doesn’t go on forever! Maybe I can escape – if I’m lucky –
He was very lucky indeed, to have that be his final thought. He didn’t have to feel the terror as a tremendous stony foot descended upon him. He was spared that indignity.
No, in his panic Azurelight flew straight into an impossible-to-see wall, and it was all treated with the same anti-phasing spells as the things chasing him.
He smashed his head apart.
The doorway to unconsciousness mercifully opened before him, and he took it eagerly, plunging through into the unknown.
The last thing he felt was the grip of weight at his navel as his ascent abruptly halted, the relative stasis of recoil giving way to inexorable motion, the world tugging him down –
Setting his soul free.