Azran
“Master Jael! Master Jael! Look!”
A young bird was sparring in the dwindling twilight of evening – his partner was nothing more than the gently falling snows that made their slow descent to rest upon the earth.
The boy looked up to make sure his hero was watching, and then made a momentary slip on a patch of ice and fell, his wings flailing all around him and his sword skittering away across the barren snowfield of the monastery.
Amidst the laughter from the other acolytes, he looked up through reddened eyes to see a man clothed in a tunic of gilded bronze, threads of silvery hair spilling down his head and framing his smiling face. His eyes were deep, and the scars he borne across his cheeks were barely even noticeable once you heard his voice:
“Such performance from a Jilae,” he chuckled. “Are you in such a hurry to battle the demons of the world, little chick?”
The boy bent his head low, and sniffled.
“I know it’s not my path, Master Jael. But the others – my friends…”
His Jilae brain buzzed with activity as he looked in the whites of his Master’s eyes.
“I see them leave me,” he whispered. “In dreams. I see them all go away. To fight.”
The confidence in the face of his Master did not once waver. He took him by his wing and placed his fallen sword back in his claw.
“Fight on, young Azran,” he said. “Struggle, and grow strong. Dare to dream of a bright future. Dream of flying through these cold skies on your own wings and watching over your charges from above. A Proctor must be strong. He must be singular. But he must never forget that his people are what must come first.”
Azran watched him walk away, still beaming at all those around him who had stopped to listen to his words.
But something in the young bird compelled him to release the pain that was growing in his heart:
“I see you go away, Master Jael,” he said in little more than a whisper. “I see you go to a place where there are no stars – and you don’t come back.”
And though he was sure his timid words had been lost in the gathering storm of the snowfall, he saw Master Jael’s head drop a fraction of an inch before he walked on.
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Presently he sat in his chambers waiting.
Waiting for the girl.
As he opened his tired lids, he thought it odd that it would be those images that played behind his eyes today. The mind of a Jilae was a blessing and a curse, both. He could dance in the joy of his old memories, and cry fresh tears as he felt the pain of the past.
But the fact that it was that memory that played behind his eyes today meant something. It meant that the old, withered claw of destiny was upon them – that a time of change was being heralded, as usual, with a storm.
Or maybe his old birdbrain was just feeling the pangs of nostalgia once again. And the same sadness that came upon him when he saw the signs that he never did see when he was a child. Looking back now, it all seemed so obvious.
But then, we never can find something we don’t look for.
He sighed as he allowed his eyes to glaze over once more and enter the state of trance. He needed these memories now more than ever – as a reminder of the promise he made to himself on the day when his Master did not return:
That he would never shirk from his duty again.
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Yelena
It was high noon before Yelena made the trip to see Azran in his quarters, Dimedrious beside her weathering the stares of the brothers and sisters of the monastery who regarded her with even more suspicion than was the norm. They bowed in respect to the dog-man even as they turned away and muttered vicious rumors about his charge. Yelena didn’t have to hear what they said to know the content of their speech. To her mind, it was better this way. She deserved nothing less.
Yet there was one person who she looked for out in the winding torch lit corridors that she couldn’t find. The only person she did actually want to see, and yet was nowhere to be found. So, as they approached the Proctor’s quarters she stood on the precipice and turned to Dimedrious.
"Di," she said. "How’s Agathae?"
He sighed. He was trying to hide something.
"She’s fine."
Not good enough, Di.
"She didn’t come to see me, did she?"
"Look, Lena," he began, without knowing how to go on. "We all lost Cynthia. This is hard on us all. Agathae just needs some time."
Yelena smiled thinly as she turned back to the steel-encased door that led to the Proctor’s chamber.
"Why do I get the feeling our time’s running out?"
Before Dimedrious could answer she had knocked on the door and a voice from within had called on her to enter. She obeyed, straightening her beige fatigues and brushing her wild hair out her eyes. She had not been permitted to don her armor or take up her sword.
She entered the room with Dimedrious behind her and instantly felt herself transported to another realm entirely. The Proctor’s room was awash with curiosities from throughout Averix, set in display cabinets or sprawled out on his desk – stone-cut jades from the Summermyst mountains, a bust of the Jilae spirit-seer, An’Ushta, rapiers and scimitars from his own homeland in the Vrakoi desert, no doubt keepsakes more than anything else.
Yet, the thing that most dominated one’s senses when they entered the room was the pulpy scent of parchment. Books lined all the shelves of Azran’s chambers, some of them open and laid out on the floor, yet more heaped in great piles upon his desk at the room’s end. Presently the greatest quantity of written material was sprawled across Azran’s desk: maps. Some looked aged beyond belief, dust-caked and shriveled with time. They were general maps of Averix’s Northern Hemisphere including the monastery’s immediate surroundings, as well as scrolls that revealed specific locations hidden amidst the towns and cities of the South – ancient places known only to the acolytes of Caer Argent. Places marked as the breeding grounds of dangerous creatures.
But the map directly in front of Azran was clearly visible to Yelena as the Jilae's head rose to meet his visitors. Yelena couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread as she cast her eyes over the dark, gaping hole that was depicted on the shriveled paper - the long black throat that led into the center of their world.
"Thank you for bringing Sister Yelana, Captain Dimedrious," Azran said. "You may leave."
It was not a request.
"But," Dimedrious replied. "I thought-"
"The words I have are for our Sister only," the Proctor broke in firmly. "And her decision in this matter shall be her own."
Dimedrious snarled under his breath, but then bowed and obeyed the order. Now, Yelena’s suspicions were starting to get the better of her.
What ‘decision’?
"Just don’t do anything rash, Lena," Dimedrious said to her as he left. "There’d always be a place for you here, I’d make sure of it."
When he closed the door behind him Yelena stood face to face with Proctor Azran’s piercing eyes, gazing at her from underneath his jet-black hood
"Please, sit," he said. Again, not a request.
She took the small wooden chair opposite him and met his gaze with equal intensity.
"Has your Captain told you anything?"
"Nothing I’m not supposed to know, as usual," Yelena replied.
Azran smiled. "He’s a good soul. He cares deeply for you. You know it, we all know it. But I am not here to accommodate good souls. I am here to ensure the stability of our fighting units."
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"Even if it means sacrificing one of our order."
She did not say it with derision, and Azran knew it. The statement was one of fact.
"Your self-control has always been a source of pride for you, hasn’t it?’ he said. ‘Yet within you dwells something that cannot be tamed. It is a part of you, Yelena. Do you deny it?"
She shook her head. "No, Proctor."
"No," he repeated. "You never have."
At her glance of surprise, he stood up and walked towards a small crate stacked against a bookshelf. He opened the lid, and brought out the grisly trophy of a Yarrukian wolf’s head, then promptly set it upon his table.
The creature’s bleeding may have long ago ceased, but Yelena could still feel its gnashing jaws reaching for her throat as she looked into its eyes and saw again those black tears that had dried into its skin. They were like small rivers of chalk.
Azran sat down again and marked her expression.
"You have seen this before, have you not?" he asked her. "The mark of the Voidspawn."
She nodded. "But never so many in one place, Proctor. Never one so large. With such strength…"
The memory came at her fast and clear, charged with both sorrow and fury as she saw Cynthia’s body torn apart by the mutated wolf’s bloody claws. She looked away.
"What is the purpose of the order of Argent?" the Proctor then asked. She was growing weary of such questions. The Proctor had a penchant for never addressing anything directly. It infuriated and fascinated her in equal measure. All these tests he put her through…
Then the thought suddenly struck her: Had Yarruck been a test, too?
"We exist," she began, trying to shield her confusion and suspicions from Azran. "We live to safeguard the people of Averix from the greatest threats to their communities."
"And what is the greatest threat of all – the greatest threat to all life on the surface of our world?"
She answered without hesitation. "The Everloft."
Azran smiled. ‘The Everloft,’ he repeated. "Some ignorant individuals might have said The Glance, if they had been asked the same question. But not so those of Argent’s line. As Lord Jael was often fond of saying, you don’t solve a problem by attacking it on a surface level. You don’t cure a disease by treating one or two patients. Rather, one finds the root – the cause of all plights - and attacks it directly. And make no mistake, Sister, The Everloft is the greatest calamity ever to sear itself onto the surface of our world."
He rose and turned his back to her, standing in front of the stained glass window that afforded him vision of the entire monastery’s courtyard. Heavy snowfall battered the stone battlements, and initiates swung their swords with determination as they still trained well into the night.
"The horde you fought was led by no regular Voidspawn," Azran said. "This one could not only control and direct an army, but could use its own mastery of the Glance to corrupt and manipulate its host – granting it strength beyond what its mortal form offered."
Yelena blinked as she considered the Proctor’s words.
Strength beyond what its mortal form offered…
"Do you recall who created The Everloft?" Azran asked her.
"The bearers of The Glance," she answered, recalling what she’d gathered from tomes in the monastery’s great library. "Those who ruled over the world in its infancy, till their civilization was overthrown by Amarata."
"And now we do not even remember their civilization’s name," Azran continued. "All we have left is the ruins of their world we have built upon, and the damned pit they carved in the earth. But why did they create it?"
"For the same reason they enslaved all races of the known world who were not born with the Glance," Yelena answered again. "Power."
"Correct, Sister. But once again your words are the words of the tomes contained in our minute library. You know the general idea, but not enough to complete the puzzle."
He turned and looked back at her.
"The Everloft was an excavation, of sorts," he said, his tone grave. "An attempt by the old Magisters to reach the plane of the spirits that they so joyfully trafficked with. The Glance – magic – is a curse, Yelena, not because it confers unnatural power on the individual, but because of the place such power is derived from."
Yelena looked at her own hands, still imagining them as clawed and blackened with blood and the thing of darkness that had subsumed her.
"Within the deepest darkness of The Everloft’s innermost layers," Azran continued. "The Magisters found what they sought – they found the dark beings that called to them from within the bounds of the earth. And in delving within the great gaping hole they tore into the land, they severed the veil between our world and theirs. They opened a gateway into a plane of desolation so far beyond mortal reasoning that they became consumed themselves. They were eaten by the dark spirits they served within, without knowing what their true forms were. That was when Amarata seized her chance and struck at those that remained on the surface in the Rattling. The result was their banishment to the very Hell they had created."
Azran stood now over the wolf, letting his thin feathered fingers play across its grizzly forehead.
"But there are those who still hear the Calling," he said. "And their minds become consumed by those evil spirits who once whispered to the old Magisters. Those that still linger down there, waiting for their chance to claw at us from below. When one such entity – a Voidspawn – becomes strong enough, its mind breaks free from the prison of The Everloft, and enters into a willing mind consumed by greed, desperation, or some other base desire."
Azran paused momentarily, his eyes focused on the cool glass of the window to the outside world, as he considered his next words.
"But among the strongest Voidspawn," he said. "Are those who can move around our world with impunity. Those who were not born of the Everloft, but of Averix itself: the old Magisters. Their sightings are rare, but the signs are clear. They dwell in the deepest darkness of the abyss’ nether reaches, and they bring not only their own corruption, but their hordes of unholy servants with them."
Yelena stared back into the amber eyes of the wolf head and saw her own face reflected in its dull, dead mirror.
"When one such Greater Voidspawn appears," Azran said. "It does so for one purpose: conquest."
Yelena gulped reflexively, chewing over the severity of his words – none of which could be found within the books or scrolls of the Great Library. None of this was supposed to be known, and yet now she knew it. She knew that the Magisters of old were still alive down there, and they still had designs on returning to the world they had already put to the flame.
"Am I possessed by such a creature?" she heard herself ask suddenly.
Azran leveled his gaze at her.
"You have dreams, don’t you?"
She looked back at him. The answer was as clear on her face as the snow falling outside.
"Nightmares," she said.
"About your family."
"About a family, Proctor. I feel them. I feel that I know them, love them. But when I wake, I can’t remember them."
Azran was silent for a moment, seating himself in his chair and looking at her. Yelena got the sense, as she usually did, that it wasn’t really her that he was looking at at all – he was looking through her, at something that lay far beyond her mortal form. He seemed suddenly distant. His eyes – faded. He had entered the strange state the Jilae called ‘trance’.
"'It all begins with the dreams…'"
She eyed him quizzically and then all at once he seemed to come back into the room.
"My people have long put much stock into dreams," he said. "The Jilae maintain that repeated dreams contain messages from our past, or our future. Predications and sorrows, unfulfilled desires, and the most precious aspirations of our souls are the dominions of the dreamer. You dream of home, Yelena, don’t you?"
She nodded. "A home I don’t remember at all."
He stared back at her, eyes narrowed to thin slits. "And yet you know it is your home."
He leaned forward again, as though he’d weighed up his options and come to a conclusion.
"You do not bear the mark of possession," he said. "And yet, the creature that lies inside you is a product of The Everloft. The descriptions of Dimedrious and the others match perfectly. The power that flows in your veins cannot be denied and your dreams - they are symbolic of the whims of a Voidspawn. I know it as only those of the order of Proctors can. As you have matured, so it has grown with you. You have felt it, haven’t you? In moments of anger, or frustration, you know something is there, waiting for its chance to be released."
"I have tried to repress it through the teachings, Proctor," Yelena answered. "I thought Amarata would show mercy on me. But maybe she too thinks I am damned."
Azran shook his head. "Not all decisions are based on the will of Our Lady. She is the guide in the dark, but the freedom she gave us means we must be the masters of our own minds. Our own demons."
He cast his gaze back outside, deep in thought.
"Yours is a dormant spirit, Yelena. But it is more than that – it is a being close to its expiration. Something that was an inch from death before it found a mind to anchor itself to. This is why, I believe, you cannot hear its voice, and why you do not yet bear the marks of its poison. But your dreams are manifestations of its consciousness. As long as you remain on the surface of Averix, this entity will lie behind your eyes, waiting for its chance to take control. And its brothers will come to seek their kin."
He let the message sink in, seeing the searing realization of truth burn into Yelena’s eyes. She did not move an inch, but her breathing slowed as she slowly came to understand the full weight of his words. There was something living inside her. Something foreign that needed to be expelled.
"You are strong, Yelena," Azran said. "Stronger than many young acolytes I have seen in my time, but the minions of the deep are beyond mere mortal strength. In time, this creature will consume you. And you shall become its puppet."
She shuddered under the weight of his words, and again her focus flew to her own reflection trapped there in the darkened amber of the dead wolf’s eyes. But she lingered on her shuddering form there, and all at once decided that no more would she let herself shake. No more would she let fear condition her every movement.
From now on, she would only look forward.
"What can I do?" she asked, feeling her stomach. "How can I get rid of this…thing?"
Azran’s response was measured and calm, even though she knew he was still watching her, perhaps looking to see if the evil within was reacting more to his message than she was.
"Death is not an option," he said. "Your demise would only allow this Voidspawn to seek a new host. Perhaps even a stronger one. Make no mistake, Yelena, right now you are both its prison and its potential for freedom. There is one path, however, that is open to you, though you must act decisively. Tonight, Sister Virtir plans to call for a Denouncement against you. She will advocate for your imprisonment in the dungeons of Caer Argent. Completely of her own volition, not mine. She means to force you to submit in disgrace to interrogation, punishment, and to be bound up in chains. As with all those who have violated the principles of our Order, your name would then be stripped from the records of our bastion against evil. Should she acquire enough support, I am powerless to prevent this incarceration from taking place."
And Yelena knew, deep in her heart, that of course Virtir would have all the support she needed. She’d probably been planning this for months. Now the open humiliation in the Great Hall made sense. She’d been waiting for her to slip up – just so she could prove that she didn’t belong here. Just so she could watch her suffer in shame and degradation for the rest of her natural life.
"But you are no monster, Yelena," Azran said, and the candid nature of his words struck her.
Just like Di, she thought, he genuinely believes that. But do I?
"You have been a warrior that I am proud to call one of my acolytes," he went on. "You have upheld the teachings of Amarata, and our founders Lords Jael and Miron, more than anyone else of your age I have ever trained. You are more than worthy to call yourself one of us. Sister, you must remember that."
In spite of it all, she managed a smile.
"Proctor," she said. "Tell me the path that I must tread. Show me the beginning of the road and I’ll do the rest. And I promise you, I will vanquish this being that lives in me."
Azran heaved a heavy sigh, and this time looked at her, nothing else. He remembered the times she’d scraped her knee in the courtyard while training, crying out for her friends only briefly, before taking up her fallen training sword and dashing towards her sparring partner again. Limping with all her bodily might. And for once he allowed the part of himself that knew all the different ways this whole sorry mess could end slip by him and settle instead on hope. That was the only way this world had a chance of surviving the terror that was waiting below them all.
"Yelena," he said. "I know you will."