The four took at least half an hour – or a mite bit more – to reach back to the southern gate on the sloping road cleaned off by the guards with gentle waves of their arms spreading processed mana. Mana that was unseen to the others, yet sensed in their bodies as it passed through them. Sigi on the other hand watched with a calm expression, containing the excitement he felt still upon witnessing etheric waves wash across the thick whiteness reaching up to their knees – almost.
Their legs slowly warmed by the invisible force and energies parting the snow that began its rinsing over the sloping land of the whole North. Their soles still sunk a just a little into the slush melted as the spell generated by the guards contained a bit of dawn maghia. Just a bit necessary to soften the snow hardened by the cold climate biting their skin, slashing their throats as they took small and deep breaths as they exerted themselves traversing the short distance.
“What is it?” When they finally reached the shadow of the gate that moaned open before them, Sigiwaer stopped in his tracks.
“Don’t you feel it?” He asked quite innocently, like he was still in his small, innocent form before receiving the enigmatic gift. The dark eye that can see beyond the natural world.
Azugh and Eadwald looked at each other, closed their eyes for a short moment, trying to sense anything beyond the creeping nekrotic matter trying to overpower the others’ including the Iuboron keeping it at bay. Yet even when they strained their sense, they felt nothing besides the guards’ spell that slowly waned as their little group entered. “What about you uncle?”
Priernuss remained silent, and stared at the south, his face slightly contorted as he lengthened his vision. “We shall have visitors very soon. We should put off the visit to the woodland for a little bit.” He said as he sensed gust of elemental energies reaching from at least hundred or two southwards. Eadwald and Azugh once more looked at each other, awareness of what the two must have felt showing overtly on their faces.
Though that expression changed. Eadwald now looked concerned, but still excited at the prospect of the imperial delegation arriving at last. Though he felt even after six years of waiting, it may have been to soon. But he was now even more glad for not waiting around in Vhoragos, not knowing whether his mother, his dear siblings learned and were taken care of. For the past six years he had to fill the shoes left empty by Ulrich who went ahead through the gates of Asphodai – a fact he had to face as they tracked uphill, through the shadows of snow blanketed forest: through the deadly moors where sinister elementals and their undead servants still lingered. A task he was not alone with thankfully, as Priernuss and Aelfsigior both aided in the healing of his mother whose façade everyone one of them seen through.
Long gone were the days of her full happiness, though she was no miser when it came after her beloved’s passing. She still looked after Sigi and Amiriniel, prepared their breakfast, lunch and dinner though no longer whistling the tunes of old songs or reciting archaic poems written in the origin planes of the Elhyrissian Empire. She still taught the two the mysteries of maghia, showed them how to manipulate time to a very basic level to mend wounds, to force the body back to a state before laceration or the breaking, cracking of bone, yet her patience proved thinner when the two had a hard time mastering one of the hardest of aspects gifted to mortal kindred. At the end of the day, she apologized for her short and sudden burst of anger and sorrow as the raising of her voice led to the curtains being blown as fluctuations in her tone revealed themselves in those moments.
And in those moments, they came onto the threshold of revealing their peering through the veil she cast over herself. When Sigi failed to properly flung his body back in time, before he made the small cut on his palm as per the training, he almost blurted out words he now knew he would have regretted even in those very moments. He thanked the Deossos for stopping the words coming from not his mind but his beating heart.
In a similar case, even Amiriniel found herself perplexed and in the heat of her emotions she yelled back at her own mother, but managed to keep the words of revelation within her dented heart beating fast from emotions and the ecstasy of spells she cast, though failed to properly materialize in those minutes and hour. Unlike her brother though, her efforts were much closer, a toe over the threshold so to speak and whilst neither of them spoke of it, Mirdbruil was, to an extent aware at the possibility that her act had been exposed.
Eadwald was the sole children of hers who managed to keep this from Mirdbruil, though he felt his own hypocrisy at putting up a mask pallid and desolate. He never uttered a word about Ulrich that would break the weir holding the tides of feelings welled up in all of them. For the simple and naïve reason of believing, Ulrich was still alive but simply lost or in bondage of the revenants and their damned queen haunting the central parcels close to the gloomy and jagged walls of Dhaugruz, in her hidden court.
In spite of that, Eadwald stared up at the skies – revealed or hidden mattered not – and squinted his sparkly golden eyes. Beyond his consciousness he tried to peer into what he witnessed in the wormhole which once connected the Greigor Gates of the monastery and Vhoragos; to peer into the realm of otherworldly beings where the souls said to traverse towards their final destinations – the Realm of the Gray Monarch, Asphodai.
Even now, whilst the others began to recalculate their plans for the little sauntering into the woodland, Eadwald stared in hope of seeing Ulrich standing before the pallid gates hewn from some etheric stone of a quality beyond even marble processed by the erudite hands of aevhen or dwarven kindred. Knowing deep down how much a foolish thought it was that the undead would take living captives. Still hope remained always in his heart, hope that the day he strikes down that accursed wretch, Ulrich would come back into their lives, even if only for a moment before they pass to the fabled isles where the Empire reborn within the boundaries of Elhyrissian.
“Have you ever seen a dragon of the Heavenly Host?” As he stepped forth from the realm of notions, thoughts Eadwald heard his brother drop the question towards Priernuss as they continued the mild climb on the ascending road of slush and cold earth.
“Only once if I’m being honest.” Priernuss stopped for a moment as he answered the question, pondering as he recalled the fateful meeting with a dragon. “Just about a decade into my adventuring, vagrant days.”
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“What was it like?” Sigi stopped for a moment to rethink his words. “I mean, standing in its shadow.”
Reaching into the crossing of streets in the southern parcel of Vonschneithar, Priernuss stopped and the others faltered and watched as his face grimaced. Slowly he dug into his mind, evoking the feelings of the day he first stood in the shadow of the mightiest beast who soar the skies and the astral sea between the planes of existences, mortal and eternal. “It is a surreal experience, one of contending sensations of awe at the majesty and the air of royalty similar to the draevhei.” He began and as the last words left his lips, Sigi looked a bit puzzled and pensive as he recalled how he felt a bit afraid when he first met Aurelithae. Though he concluded it was more out of his meek nature back then that the exertion of the draconic heritage of the draevhei kindred.
“But I also felt a bit of fear. Fear knowing that dragons could simply erase my existence, my form in a simple breath of their chromatic flames that burn as strong as the Illius itself.” He continued evoking puzzled expressions from all three this time. “More in the sense of allegedly close to it. There was this old magus Numearil whom we can thank for the Illius being kept so far away from the follies of mortal kindred. A foolish son of the previous Elhyrissiar, and an elder brother to the current who wished for a way for his people to fly like their forefathers. An endeavor that proved his doom as you all know now.”
As he finished, they all stared at the Illius, and for a moment Sigi felt like it would be a worthy early feat to reach the same heights and beyond. To find a way to travel to the Illius and bask in its light without being burnt to crisps, to nothingness. “Don’t even think about it.” Noticing the boy’s wondering gaze, and the shifting of his thin dark brows and the triumphant smile, Priernuss brought him back to the cold reality. “Not even the chosen of the Amber Lord like Numearil was safe from the heat of the Illius. One who carried the blood of his favored pet the Heavenly Monarch in his veins.”
“But what about a chosen of the Almodo? Surely we would have resistance akin to the eldest of dragons or maybe even the Titan who said to raise the Illius into the sky.” Sigi retorted, though his tone fluctuated as he was a bit unsure not long after the notion shew itself into his mind. “There are things better left unknown. There are myriad other things to discover in this plane.” Priernuss said as he began their sauntering towards the southern square of the walled village.
**
Cold winds blew against their face as they slowly reached the threshold of the shadows beneath the branches bereft of foliage. Snow cracked softly beneath their withered feet as they made careful steps on the sloping, treacherous lands – even for the two of them. Roots slithered under the heavy and cold blanket, towards their soles and even eyeing their ankles to wrap around them, and drag them further into their fold. Yet as they reached closer to the round hem which trims swallowed the little light that reached beneath the snow, they retreated back beneath the earth.
Though they came to this conclusion. A revelation that came almost too late as they sensed the aspect of Dusk engraved into both to varying degrees. Orhading who was blessed and augmented by the essence of a great Aydvroegh whom himself was beyond in age than the trees, the world they all occupied. On the other hand, Uchitemar himself was an undead with the clear mind of the living free from the binding shackles of a necromancer, still in possession of myriad feelings, of notions a luxury for most raised or risen dead. Still shackled into a withered body not his own. One that since his departure from Vhoragos, tracking Eadwald and his entourage has since been improved upon by another Aydvroegh of seemingly greater standing in the hierarchy of Dusk, the executioner of the Nightscale’s whims and desires.
He carefully followed in the steps of the group, keeping an eye on them and binding the few vagrant undead Uchitemar run into, or in truth ones who evaded the blades, spears and spells of the group. Or simply bartered with the blessed spirits of the moorlands, granting him a small army of the dead he occasionally unleashed upon the six in hopes of taking down Eadwald who was exhausted for the first two to three months after he tapped unknowingly into the power granted by the Almodo.
Uchitemar proved fairly lucky as the group seemed to had the single-minded goal of reaching back to Vonschneithar instead of trying to reason why all these undead were attacking them. Unknown to him, they simply thought it was payment for their decision of evading the villages and small towns found between their home and Vhoragos. Never once it passed their minds to investigate the source of their curtailing travel.
Nevertheless, even after half a year of tracking through the dreary, sloping and snow-covered vistas, Uchitemar remained in the shadows, only sending a few of his recently acquired dead. Even when they finally arrived to Vonschneithar, Uchitemar remained in the shadows of the blessed woodland. He watched, memorized the pattern of the village guard making their rounds in the woodland, cutting down the few bestial revenants whom approached near the threshold whilst the ones belonging to the thinking races were swayed by him.
Years passed with these monotonous days where he simply bid his time, waiting for the Will of Dusk to give its sign to him, to let him earn glory and recognition of the one who truly roared the first dawn into existence. But the sign never came – at least not in the form he expected.
One gentle night, he strolled around following a lone group of fresh revenants – a group of woodcutters from a nearby settlement eastwards to Vonschneithar – when chance, Dusk led him towards the pale figure cloaked in white, shapeless robes exuding an air of regality, yet were still somewhat mundane blending into the snowy surroundings lit barely by the Lunarius. He met Grimslaukh who was strolling around after concluding his meeting with the White Terror ruling the western parcels, whose territory stretched farther now with the demise of the Crimson Praetor a few decades, even centuries ago.
In his eyes, he saw the purest form of Dusk shimmering darkly, one that he had read many times on the eastern isles when he was a little niuvhe before his family were exiled by the tyrants who fabricated lies about the Lunarius, conferring feats upon the Dawn Father, the Magnificent Mother of aevhen kindred and Fate-Weaver for the creation of Lunarius, for creating light in the darkest hours.
Glancing upon the form, he quickly realized he stood in the presence of one most favored by the eldest of dragons, of all beings truly, the one who truly out of his good heart gifted mortal kindred of this world a way to traverse even in the direst of hours. Though at first, he stood in awe and fear before one that appeared no different from him, or well before he was forced into a withering vessel. But then, awe triumphed over fear, and he swiftly got on his knees, and bowed in greetings to the emissary of the Dusk, the one who knew the Will of Dusk without need for asking, patience; the one who immediately peered into his past and future and saw the great possibilities waiting on the ladder of time; and the one who seeing worth in him even just at a glance, mended and renewed his withering form and given him and Orhadin the most important task.
To venture beyond the threshold of the Woodland, and destroy the Pillars of Dawn erected by the accursed Elhyrissiar to keep the dead, the blessed spirits in mortal husks within the boundaries, the tender, caring shadows of the Vesgeriath Woodland. A task most dire for their kindred, blessed by the Night.