September 12th 948

The Dags - Southeastern Viemen

Dawn

The air on the forest floor was still and chilled. In the crispness of the autumn dawn, the call of the mountain deer echoed softly through the wood, waking Ellis slowly from his sleep. He rubbed his eyes sluggishly and stretched his neck clockwise. He then looked around at the familiar ruins within which he and Mary had set up their camp. The two had ridden quickly through the night toward the ruins, as the route was quite familiar to them. After their arrival, they had scouted the area before setting up camp.

Now fully awake, Ellis stood up and shook himself free of the wool blanket he had wrapped himself in the night before.

“Mary,” Ellis said as gently tapped her pack with his boot, “Wake up, Mary, it’s mornin’.”

Ellis then whipped the blanket a few times in the air and proceeded to roll it up.

Ever since their first time happening upon the ruins while searching for herbs, Ellis had been unable to forget the place. Not long after Telhari had left, Ellis became impatient for his return. One day, Ellis was feeling particularly slighted, and took it upon himself to go out in search of Telhari in an effort to force him to come back. Ellis became lost after a few hours and attempted to try and use his senses to search for Telhari. Though he was unable to locate him, he inadvertently had found himself once again in this ruined hallow. After that, Ellis continued to make trips out to the ruins to continue training himself. He would practice his swordsmanship alone; but he would also, on certain days when he felt particularly at ease, return once again to the stone wall to sit in silence with his eyes closed. He had never forgotten that feeling— being as if awake and asleep, relaxed yet focused. He found that his training went more smoothly on the days when he trained this state of mind. His moves were smoother, his strikes quicker, and his intuition was at its peak.

“Mary,” Ellis said more forcefully as he plopped the folded blanket down onto the ground.

“Mhm…” she grumbled softly in return as she let out a yawn. With great effort, Mary wriggled herself out from beneath the blanket and stretched.

As with many things, it had not been long after Ellis began this new routine that Mary herself became aware of it. After following him to the stables one morning, she rode behind him in secret into the mountains; though, in actuality, she had recognized the pathway before they had even come upon the ruins. Mary had tried over many weeks to understand what Ellis was trying to explain to her — about the trees and the wind and the sun and being awake yet asleep— but, whether because he was a bad teacher or she a bad student, she remained unable to grasp it in the end. Mary resigned instead to continue her own training alongside him. And when Ellis would leave to sit himself in silence somewhere within the ruins, she would watch him curiously for as long as she could bear before returning to her training.

“Have you thought about which way to go?” she asked him.

“I have an idea,” Ellis said as he shouldered his pack.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I felt it last night, before we went to bed.”

“Felt what?” she asked with a puzzled look.

“Something,” he answered, sounding not quite convinced himself.

“Is it like Telhari’s magic?”

“Yeah! Sort of…”

She frowned at him.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you…” she started, “But are you sure?”

“I am!”

Ellis groaned out loud and sank his shoulders.

“I can’t explain it, but I know something is there.”

She tilted her head doubtfully at him.

“It didn’t feel evil or dangerous, I promise. It felt more….calm.”

“Calm?” Mary mulled it over in her head a few moments before conceding. “Alright,” she said with a smile, “You lead the way.”

Ellis grinned happily to himself and trotted over to where the horses had been tied up. Together, they mounted their beasts and took off deeper into the Dags.

***

Telhari followed the call of the wind, meandering through the mountainside and caring not which way he turned or stepped, trusting full well that so long as he headed east he would find his way. It was, then, rather surprising when Telhari found himself standing once again in the ruins of the ancient temple grounds that he had discovered many weeks ago. Strange though it was that he should happen upon it twice by accident, he thought nothing more of it and continued on his way. That is, until something caught his eye.

In the center of the compound sat the large stone platform which they had seen prior; and scattered about it were several dozen broken arrow shafts and lengths of cut bow-string. As Telhari studied the area more, it became apparent that this place had signs of habitation: there were horse-shoe prints and droppings; well-trodden paths laid with booth prints; he saw collections of ashes and burnt wood; there were gashes in the trees made by the touch of a blade. As he traced the perimeter of the fallen temple he spied two clearings on the ground, roughly the size of two adults. A moment’s more of searching and he found a pair of horse tracks leading farther up the mountain.

As Telhari thought about who might have such a desire to frequent this place, he felt a chill run suddenly down his spine. Instinctively, he looked above him as a shadow passed overhead: great, sweeping, and accompanied by a rush of wind that moved sinister and stirred the trees unnaturally.

***

Mary rode just behind Ellis as the two continued their wayward ascent into the dense mountain forest. Though she did not voice her concerns, she was nevertheless uncertain about their path. Under usual circumstances, Mary had great trust in Ellis’ instincts. But their current situation was certainly a dangerous one. Their obstacle, this time, was the hoary and treacherous mountain range of the southeast— known locally as the Dags.

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Like sharpened blades, the Dag peaks rose from their mountain base, jagged and perilous, as if marred by an unknown force in eons passed. Drawn by some nebulous feeling, the two were headed deeper and further than any currently living Viemen native, and perhaps more so than any citizen of past generations. Everyone in Viemen knew of the Dags, but in all the years since the town’s founding, none had ever gone more than a mile deep. In fact, after hunting herbs for Sir Perry, the two had asked around town if anyone knew about the deep forest beneath the Dags. Even Ma Mileena, with all her stories and frighteningly sharp memory for a woman of her age, knew nothing of the Dags. If Ellis shared the same worry as Mary did, then he bore no outward signs of it.

In these recent few hours of their journey, the forest canopy had only become thicker and the tree trunks had only grown wider. Now, the smallest tree within sight had a breadth as wide as her horse, if not perhaps a little wider. There were only scattered sunbeams that managed to make it to the forest floor; and even then they only appeared when a gust of wind rustled the treetops. Ancient roots snaked along the ground and made the terrain terribly uneven. Their path with dimly lit and the air was becoming more frigid as they continued climbing higher. Mary could not shake the feeling that she was entering an entirely different place altogether. She no longer felt as if she was in Omnirius; but rather that she was in another, more uneasy place, separate and distinct, which held innumerable secrets.

“How much further, Ellis?” she called out to him, a bit of worry tinging her voice.

No answer came to her. Instead, she brought her horse to a halt behind Ellis, who had stopped suddenly just before a large outcropping of stone which stretched out across their path.

“Ellis?”

“There is something up ahead Mary…”

Ellis did not know how he knew, but he did. He gently pulled the reigns of his horse and guided it around the fallen mountain rocks.

“Ellis? Wait!”

Ellis ignored her plea and continued on. He felt no fear, but only the gnawing feeling that there was something just beyond his sight.

Ellis heard Mary approach him from behind. In front of them lay a narrow mountain pass, born of two sheer rock faces that rose thousands of feet up; but this path was not simply an advent of nature. It was faint — nearly all but eroded away— but there were still the unmistakable marks of intelligent design hewn into the rock face. Rising columns had once existed, marking this place as an entrance of some kind, or at least that is what Ellis figured.

“Come on, Mary.”

“A-are you sure?” she whispered.

Unfortunately for her, Ellis seemed to have no fear of this place, and thus continued onward. She thought for a moment to leave him behind, but she was immediately wracked with guilt. Despite her fears, she pressed on after him.

Together they wound through this mountain pass which was too narrow for them to ride side by side; all the while they continued to ascend at a modest incline, ever upward toward the Dags’ gnarled peaks. Before long, the mountain pass widened, falling away quickly to reveal yet another wide open forest stretching out on seemingly level ground. Yet this bit of forest was, if at all possible, even older and more overgrown than that which they had previously traveled. Trees reached impossibly high toward the heavens, connected by a latticework of branches and vines. The air was at first welcoming, with its warm and slightly floral scent; but that welcome reprieve soon faded with the realization that such weather should simply not exist.

It was autumn in Viemen, cold in the south, and even colder at this elevation of terrain. There should be no vegetation so green and lush as the emerald moss which grew across the massive boulders that lay strewn about. There should be no such grasses as soft and vibrant as those which formed a thick carpet across the forest floor. This place was, as she had suspected, an entirely different world from their own.

“Ellis…I don’t like it here.”

But by the time she turned to hear his response, he was already several yards ahead of her.

“Mary!” Ellis called, oblivious to her concern, “Come look at this!”

Ellis had stopped at the edge of the forest glade and was poised looking out into something beyond. She rode slowly over to him, ever mindful of her surroundings and the quickening of her heart beat.

Yet even still, her mouth fell agape when she looked long into the valley that stretched out below them.

The forest glade they had entered into ended abruptly at this precipice; below was a sheer and rock face with a chasm over forty feet wide that reached down into depths unknown. On the other side of the abyss was a leveled out space several thousand feet in diameter and occupied with uneven terrain and the remains of carved structures from a material she did not recognize. On the other side of the valley, a large river jettisoned over a cliff’s edge and flowed downward. This place must have been a settlement of some kind, of that much she was certain. But what she could not understand was how some of the structures had been built at so many different elevations. There was of course the main settlement nestled at the basin of this arduous mountain valley, but there were several other buildings resting on different outcroppings and ledges, and still others that were perched atop large columns of stone. But as she continued to gaze around her in amazement, an unsettling realization dawned on her. These buildings had once rested together, on the same level, as one.

This valley had once been whole; a complete settlement crafted by intelligent peoples. Yet some unimaginable cataclysm must have befallen this place, rending it from its paradisal hearth. Like a piece of fine porcelain that has fallen to the floor, one can, with a good eye, see how the broken pieces once fit together. The cliff edges surrounding the valley were flanked by complementary fractures. Different buildings, mangled and half collapsed, were left so after they had been ripped from each other and lifted into the air. There was no telling how many structures had fallen into the yawning chasm that now surrounded the settlement, nor how many of its people had been crushed by the falling debris from the mountains above.

“We have to go down there Mary.”

“Ellis…maybe we should go back?”

“What if Telhari is down there!?” he responded desperately.

She gripped tighter to the reigns of her saddle.

“Alright. But only a few minutes. We go down and give a quick look around and then we leave. Got it?”

He nodded eagerly with a smile.

A few more yards in the distance, a precipitous stretch of stone reached out across the chasm and connected with the ancient town. Mary followed behind Ellis as he started over the igneous crossing. She could feel the horse pause nervously for a moment, frightened by the narrow width of the bridge and the sensation of emptiness on either side. She patted the stallion’s head and urged him onward.

Ellis, who had already reached the other side, dismounted happily and jogged off into the ruins.

“Ellis! Don’t go too far!”

Ellis heard her call to him but was too distracted to respond. This place… it gave him the same sensation as the other ruins, and yet it was different somehow. Even more potent. Any time he had been around magic in his life he had always been able to tell. Even before he properly knew what it was, there was always a way that his body could tell. Whatever this place was, it was full of magic— or something else just like it. His whole body was tingling; as it had done when he had met Telhari for the first time in the Lonely Song all those months ago.

Ellis closed his eyes and stood still. He ran through the process in his mind as he had many times before, imaging himself seated on that stone wall beneath that same shady tree. His perception shifted; the air seemed to melt with his skin and before long a new sensation tugged at his heart and mind. He turned toward the sensation and opened his eyes anew. He walked in this direction a few moments more before he saw something in the distance.

At the far end of the settlement, caught between two abutting rock faces, was another passageway. Yet from this gloomy aperture there came an ominous aura that made Ellis, for the first time, feel uneasy. A weight dropped in his gut and a fear pulled at him.

“Ellis?” Mary called softly as she came around the corner of a nearby pile of fallen mountain-rock and debris.

“Are you alright?”

A strange, wailing wind washed over them both, stinging their skin with a chill that pierced deep. Yet Ellis remained unmoving; drawn inexorably toward the beckoning call of some force which lay beyond. For just a small moment, there seemed to be a voice on the wind. A voice that seemed to say—

“Ellis!”

Shaken from his stupor, Ellis turned to Mary; on her face was a look of fear as he had never seen it. He followed her outstretched arm upward as the sunlight disappeared and the valley fell to shadow.

But it was no cloud that had darkened their sky.

Above them rippled the silhouette of a behemoth creature; scaly slick and obsidian black, with two large demoniac wings that spread out wide as it descended upon them.