Seed 17

June 23rd, 2032.

“Three kinds of textual magic, and all of them are complicated. Motherfucker.” I cursed aloud as I rubbed my forehead, comparing the three forms of textual magic I knew about.

Glyphs, cyfrins, and runes.

Glyphs seem to be symbols which represent pillars of magic, calling upon the universe to perform certain actions. They were ideograms, representing the idea and concept of a thing. Cyfrinic was closer to a language like English and Spanish, a phonogram language. It was less overtly powerful. But could more easily write instructions for magic to follow. Like a cookbook.

Runes had been around for thousands of years, but had been popularized by the Chantry. They act as triggers to activate and deactivate certain spells that are weaved or sealed inside power sources. They were pictograms. Not far off from glyphs but in modern times they represent numbers instead of ideas or concepts.

Though supposedly it had been a more complex language once. Before the language had been simplified for the sake of the Titans.

Rune threads often needed pretty exact numbers for certain applications like forming a shield over a house or transfiguration. It was the magic most directly analogous to coding, so it had a lot of math involved. Fortunately, my math skills weren't bad at least.

There was so much space in a circle… how much information could be layered into them, what could I make it if I combined all three of them?

Though rune threads were the most difficult of the three textual magics, they were the standard number system of the Isles before the Pale King.

Runes were very simple rectangles etched with rows and rows of binary inscriptions, two remarkable symbols used to direct magic.

It was the only textual magic accepted in Calafia, used in all modern enchanted items. There was nothing wrong with that. But it was clear it was meant to be paired with the other textual languages. All three had been intertwined for thousands of years, and so much was just being… forgotten and cast aside.

“The False Martyr has much to answer for,” I hissed to myself in Old Tongue. “Language, history, culture, beliefs stolen, eradicated, warped. Old evil.” It was nothing humans hadn't done to each other, over and over.

It did not make it any less horrible.

Ultima nodded from where she was lounging like a cat. “I see now why you were unsettled, my apprentice. To see something so terrible with your own eyes is a heavy burden.”

I had told her what I had seen after yesterday’s events.

“I worry for the dragon-child Mentor, her Elder is a kinslayer. I have to meet her. Despite my worries.” Dinah was strong, her control over fire was insane. But her grandmother was a century and a half old. Witches didn't weaken with age like humans did, and dragons grew stronger with time.

Ultima had a grim expression but nodded. “You are a good witch, my apprentice. Which is why our training will increase when it comes to the Elements and learning the feel of them, of how they affect the expression of soul.”

I nodded. “I understand, they must be an extension of my body, not merely energies to be thrown.”

Ultima grinned. “Before any of that, I have a task for you child.” At my lost look, she elaborated. “There are texts I have left at the sacred grove of Adamu Enguina, on the beasts known as griffins. Acquire the tomes I have left there and study the Wandering Nightfall tonight.”

“You wish me to study an Other, the one responsible for this cosmic day?” I questioned aloud.

Ultima leaned over with a cheeky grin, floating over a lunchbox. “You wished to learn the ways of the wild ones, to face off against Beast, Spirit, Witch, and Other. Complete your task and be safe my little raven.”

I flushed and nodded as I grabbed the lunchbox. Luna fluttered over to offer a mothy kiss I accepted with a pout.

Time to be a witch.

----------------------------------------

I grumbled as I scurried across Cruorpool. It had been a quick run using a combination of air and void magic.

Didn't make it any less exhausting. I had also fallen flat on my face at least three times. The sacred grove of Cruorpool was located within the forum, occupying the north end.

It was gorgeous, a series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of trees, shrubs and vines. A small green hill constructed of mud brick, palms, and fruit trees, oaks, and sycamores and sagebrush.

“Oh, this is going to be interesting.”

I walked up the steps of the sacred grove. Noting how the trees seemed to shift by inches. How the wind sang mournfully, and strange inscriptions were marked in circular networks across the soil and the flora. It was a work of great love and labor, and I wondered who had built this place.

From what I recall, places like this that had survived had religious and cultural uses, along with acting as repositories of medicinal plants and replenishable food like fruits and honey. It was a safe space, to give offerings to the Titans and the spirits, or make vows to them.

I think it was also used for weddings by the clans, but I was less sure about that.

“It is very pretty.” I hummed to myself as I walked up the steps of compressed mud brick. Their acks interlaced with vines and delicate roots, and sweet-smelling mycelium veins. Ultima said she had left the book at the shrine at the very center of the grove.

Witchlights floated lazily, khi shaped into balls of light in many colors. Blues and pinks, reds and oranges and greens, casting the grove in glorious patterns of light.

It took me only another minute or two to reach the top, and I stopped with a blink at the singular redwood tree, spreading fractal branches covered in cyan leaves. It was a subtle difference that made Calafian forests unnerving, alien, and yet... not too alien.

The tree was enormous, easily thirty feet in diameter and five hundred feet high. Clearly the spiritual center of the grove, deeply rooted into the soil. The smell of mild spice with earthy undertones and sweetness struck my nose. I watched the haze of magic dancing around the fluted trunk of the great tree.

I suddenly became weightless as I was pulled on by a figure standing at the foot of the shrine built around the tree. I scrambled to nullify the magic but didn't get the chance when I was let go just as fast.

“You’re Ultima’s child are you not?” I blanched when I was suddenly stared down by an old man. A gray-bearded silver-eyed being wearing a plain soil-brown cloak and skin as dark as my mentor’s. “Witchling, tell your mother that she can not have one of the few surviving texts on greater griffins and leave them in a sacred grove.”

I blushed an ugly shade of red. “She is not my mother,” I shook my head empathetically, ignoring the ideas summoned by the assumption. “But I can understand that being a tad… irritating.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Then it seems you inherited better common sense, good. Perhaps you’ll survive much longer than most lawless witches.” He brought out a book from his skin, space twisting into knots around the book.

The fuck?

The old man smirked. “This is the ultimate expression of turning an item into a place, the realm of the Self. I'm sure you've seen your mentor summoning objects.”

I nodded. “I always thought she just made them. But she has an item she can open a portal into then?”

He nodded. “Indeed. Innerworld magic is powerful, allowing one to shape and understand an object or person from within. It involves forming a magical diagram to form a gateway, and entering and claiming the item with your power.”

He floated the texts over to me, a total of three, and I placed them inside my belt packs. “So… uhh…” What should I call—

“Sacerdos or Priest Amadeus is sufficient.” He replied dryly.

“My mentor tasked me with researching the Wandering Nightfall, does this place have more information on this Other?”

His pale eyes twinkled. “As a priest who bears the words of Calafia dearly… I suggest exploring the shrines dedicated to the beings of the High. If you want the answers you seek.”

I stared at him, feeling a familiar urge to throttle someone. “I want to be mad, but this is probably going to be a good lesson. So fuck you, and thank you in advice.”

Amadeus. “Do as you will human.” He slid past me with a croaking laugh, hopping down the steps of the grove. But paused for a moment. “And… I suggest you keep your distance from the clerics of the Chantry. Some would wish to see how a human reacts to being bound to the Chantry rather than a coven.”

I shuddered and nodded, and he left silently.

I stood before the shrine, dedicated to only one being, Calafia herself. Carved into the trunk of the redwood was the image of a creature that was like a walking void, rising out of a churning, boiling sea. With a serpentine head, curling horns, wings shaped like wedges, and a lanky but muscular body. Dozens of white eyes spread across every facet of crystal darkness. A solar halo surrounded her head.

Have I seen this before?

“I won't get my answers here.” So I decided to explore the vast sacred grove, which reminded me more of a Shinto shrine if all the work was put into making a glorious garden.

I explored the grove, going up and down across the many plant-laden steps. There were several shrines dedicated to local spirits, as well as Others and Titans like Hel and Cipactli respectively. The Sister and the indeterminate gendered cousin of the Titan they all lived on respectively. Each shrine had stories and legends of the beings witches held sacred.

This grove was mainly dedicated to Calafia… and the Sun, who was worshiped as well if in a more distant fashion. It was a lineage of deities going back to the very beginning, the first Others, the Light and Dark. They were the stars and the dark swirling between them, born from the formless void.

One by one, they were said to have died and retreated into the nothing, that all the stars in heaven are Dead and Forgotten. The Titans and the Others who remain are said to be the last echoes of a dead age.

The Sun and Calafia were said to be kin, so sun worship often went hand in hand with Calafia.

I finally found an area that might be able to answer my questions. Etched with backward shadows… just like I had been seeing all-day. They were pointing towards the sun, or shifted towards other directions.

“What do you think you're doing here?!”

A familiar voice rang through the air and I squeaked. Then I turned my head and saw that Dinah was alone, leaning against a tree with a miserable expression. She was holding a picture with a forlorn expression, it was a drawing of her, clearly done by a child.

I had seen her get mobbed by kids once, clearly out of her element. But she had let it happen too…

She had seen those children die too.

I stepped inside the area, shrugging down my hood with a faint grimace. Dinah’s gaze followed me instantly, tail lazily arcing through the air. She stood up, and I ignored how she was over a foot taller than me.

“Um, hey?” I waved with an awkward lopsided smile.

She tilted her head like a curious cat. “Hello, human… Celia.” Dinah corrected herself.

“What are you doing here, if you don't mind me asking?” I asked, hoping I didn't piss her off.

The dragoness shrugged. “Reflecting on everything I don't know. Finally understanding why so many shrines here lie empty. That I don't know our history like I thought I did. That grandmother lied.” Her voice was choked with pain, guilt, and rage. “So I'm here, in the shrine of the Other we wronged by crippling their child.”

“The Wandering Nightfall?!” I shouted, and she jumped at my loud voice.

She nodded with a soft hiss. “Do you know about that Other?”

I shook my head. “No. I was told to research them by my mentor at the sacred grove. I wasn't given any other information, I think she wants me to wing it.”

Dinah flapped her wings with a raise of a brow. “That spirit of no name, was borne of that Other. I never understood it before.” She pointed to one of the carvings, depicting an inky darkness that was nothing but limbs.

It was like a gigantic siphonophore made of limbs and hands twisting together like thread. Eyes of pure bright emerged from every available facet of skin, like the teeth of a gaping maw. It was an image of a battle, it's blood dripping down onto a shooting star, and birthing a living eclipse.

“What can you tell me about the Wandering Nightfall?”

Dinah stared at me like I was insane. “You’re asking me? Asking someone who decided to hunt you down?”

“Are you hunting me down right now?”

Dinah just glared. “Are you serious?”

I brushed back a bang with a huff. “Dinah, I only have so much space for anxiety and dread in my life. So answer my question or don't.”

Dinah sighed. “You are truly alright with simply moving on so easily? Just like that?”

“We both saw what we saw, Dinah.” She flinched, sucking in her teeth. “It was awful and wrong and unfair. I don't think you're much older than me are you?”

“I turned seventeen one month ago.” She answered.

“So you're about three months my senior, we’re both still young and your kin lied for over a century.”

“I'm supposed to be better than this,” Dinah just looked angry, fangs flicking out. “A lord looks after their own, we’re dragons, we’re Fire. Fire is loyal, all of its children are. First to our parents, and then to your family, your clan, then to whoever you choose to follow. To break that loyalty… is a deep spiritual pain, it can harm us.”

I… had never heard of this before. “So what we saw is a bad sign isn't it?”

Dinah breathed, and out came puffs of flame. “It means she never held loyalty to anyone. Not to her own parents, her clan, or her people. A dark dragon.” There was fear there, connotations I didn't comprehend. She let out a deep groan and nodded. “You wish to call for a truce then?”

“I guess?” No, what the fuck was she talking about?

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Dinah smiled, and I felt heat rush to my cheeks. “Good. I understood correctly then.”

Don’t contradict her, don't contradict her, don't contradict her—

“Yes.” I lied as easily as I breathed.

Dinah clasped her hands together, cocking a hip. “I will start this truce by telling you of the Wandering Nightfall. They are one of the Others, and once a year they approach the planet, passing over Titans like ours, feeding on the shadows, pulling them towards its maw. A watcher, a wanderer, an Other of Dark traversing the stars.”

“So it causes the shadows to run in strange directions, is that all it does?” I had a feeling there was more to it.

Dinah blinked. “I am uncertain, to be honest. All I know is that the sacred grove is closed for the duration of the night.”

I straightened my back with a grin. “Then that means I'll have to spend all night here and find out for myself.”

“Are you mad?! You wish to stay here while a living Other roams over our head!” Dinah yelled at me, leaning forward, tail violently lashing behind her.

“You’re telling this to the girl who decided to follow a stranger across realities to learn magic. Where does sanity come into play there?”

Dinah hissed. “You’re very stubborn aren't you?”

I flashed a pair of finger guns at her. “You know it, babe.” What the fuck brain?

Dinah laughed. “You’re strange. This truce will be interesting, but if you're adamant on refusing to leave. I have an idea to facilitate that goal while keeping an eye on you.”

“Sure. Makes sense. I'll keep quiet on whatever you have in mind.”

Dinah seemed pleased, chirping happily as she gestured for me to follow. We moved quickly through the foliage, darting past bare shrines which twisted and turned with shadows until we came before a squat tree, some thirty feet around and one hundred feet high.

“A baobab tree?” I muttered. One of Dinah’s ear horns twitched slightly in my direction.

She tapped on the three in a specific pattern, her hands dancing with dragon’s fire. To my surprise, the wood parted like foam to reveal a secret room.

“Huh, neat.” I said aloud as I followed after Dinah, and the door closed behind us with an odd fleshy snap.

There was sizable space in the room, illuminated by witchlights and containers holding odd glowing fireflies. The room had a desk perched against a wooden wall, along with a small collection of books, charts, and maps.

Dinah smiled. “This is a private space I found, where I can hold my more personal belongings. Books I've been gifted from people I've helped across Caudalann as my father’s herald.”

“Is that your position in the court?” I know each taifa was their own self-contained unit with its own executive, courts system, and defense force.

“It is. Our tribula is the dominant one, with the others as our allied tribula and kinsmen. Part of our people, as it has been for five centuries.” She explained with an enthusiastic glee, bouncing on the tip of her clawed toes. “I was placed as a herald to serve as my father’s voice, it gives me experience with speaking with the other clans and their families. And allows me to help our people freely.”

“Interesting job, I think most heralds gave way to diplomats on Earth. Though some retain ceremonial roles like in the United Kingdom.”

“Diplomats… yes I believe some taifa use that term instead of herald, a Common word we borrowed from humans.”

“So Common is a form of English?”

“English… I remember an old text that recorded battles between us and tribes who called themselves English… along with Angli, Engle, and Angel-cyn.”

“You fought the old Angles?” How the fuck did people from Europe cross both reality and a whole ocean to fight with witches? “Is that why you speak the language you do?”

“I believe so? The Pale King provided a script for it, which allowed it to replace Old Tongue.” Dinah stared at the cyfrinic script interlaced into my clothing with a look of longing.

So even the nobles had gotten their language taken from them.

“I could teach you some of the basics, if you don't mind?” Dinah’s tail began to flick rapidly and I knew I caught her.

“I hope you have food, we will be here for some time.”

I waggled my lunchbox with a smug look.

----------------------------------------

“So Cyfrinic has eight different vowels versus fifteen for Common?”

“That’s ignoring how Cyfrinic can form diphthongs and triphthongs by blending two or more vowels. They're formed by combining a strong vowel like a, æ, e, o with weak vowels like i, y, ə, and u. Or by combining two weak vowels.” I pointed to my sheet where I had written down many of the basic rules of the language. “Cyfrinic has thirty-three phonemes versus forty-four in Common, twenty-four phonemes in Spanish, and thirty-four in Arabic.”

“Are those the languages you speak?” Dinah questioned with a wide-eyed stare that made me blush.

“English is the main spoken language in my country of birth, while Spanish and Arabic are languages of my family.”

I eagerly sipped the thermos cup of chicken-mushroom and vegetable soup. I let the succulent fungus-meat pour into my mouth, along with carrots, potato-choke, and rice. Dinah herself was picking at a little bento box thing packed with rice, seared fish, and cooked vegetables.

She stuck out her tongue, and I stared as it wrapped around her meal and pulled it into her mouth. It was so… long and… dextrous.

I hissed when droplets of my soup spilled on my chest, and the dragon tilted her head.

“Are you alright?” She said with complete sincerity.

I swallowed the remnants of the soup in my mouth. “I'm fine, just me being clumsy. No big deal.” God, what was with the people of this place being so hot? “You know I never asked. But what is the nature of your Craft if you don't mind me asking?”

Dinah’s gaze became calculating and sharp, claws gently tapping against the wood of her desk made into a makeshift table. “Why do you want to know?”

“Curiosity. I know there are seven circles of the Craft, loose overarching categories of esoteric feats. Evocation is about bringing forces into existence and shaping them. Bargains are the crafts with costs and sacrifices. The craft of the Making work through items or resources that can be handled and altered. Crafts of the Planes deal with the world and other worlds, whether to travel or to tap into them for power. Correspondence crafts manipulate or affect others through their connections, misdirection and interpersonal interaction. Lore deals with information, gathering, manipulating, leveraging…”

“You should breathe.” Dinah suggested with a concerned look.

I pouted and did so, letting air into my lungs. “Fine. Crafts of Protection deals with defense, limiting others and warding in various forms.”

“Evocation is my specialty, as a dragon-child.” She explained with an uncertain grin. “The dragons are beings of power, amalgams of elemental and spirit and beast. Evocation is easy for us in that regard. For me, I work best with elemental and war magic. I specialize in offensive abilities, as well as creating arenas and enhancing one’s ability to fight.”

My teeth clicked together in horror. “You could have trapped me into a duel this entire time couldn't you?” I hadn't thought of it then until now. Fuck.

Dinah scowled but nodded. “It would not have been fair, not against a newly minted witch. While fairness was not a requisite, I wanted to bring you in peacefully. Even if my own actions were less than ideal.”

“I still don't understand how I managed to avoid you, I've looked up what you've done in the past. You're a good hunter.” She had once tracked a beast hiding within the boiling sea and followed it into its lair, slaying it and forging a tooth into her lightning spear.

“You are hard to notice.” She answered with a frustrated bite of her lip. “You vanish through crowds of people, a ghost in one’s perceptions. Your energies are a void, sliding and shifting between the energies around you. I had to see where things were not to find you, and it does not always succeed. Your soul is a dark abyss which twists and twines like warring stellar serpents.”

I blinked rapidly. “I don't know how to take that.”

Dinah shrugged, with a bemused little smirk. “Take it as a compliment that I find the depths of your soul intriguing.”

What the fuck do I say to that?

“Do you think it's been enough to find out what happens at night when the Wandering Nightfall is overhead?”

“It is currently twenty six minutes after sunset so…” She yawned, cracking her jaw.

“How do you know that?”

“I always know where the sun is.” Was all she said. “Let us complete the task your mentor set out for you. The magic of the Day of Shadows is at its peak at dusk, in two minutes time.”

I smiled as she stood up to open the doorway, and I hopped in after her with a hop in my step.

We’re outside, and it does not take long before the energy in the air changes.

It's a faint sound, but it becomes more obvious as I listen with my ears. It was like a word, a sound, a song. A mournful dirge of death that made the endless twilight above sing in harmonious discord.

The night was suddenly cast in a mystical, otherworldly mauve-pink glow. There was a new sun in the sky, its orange-crimson blending with the silvery reflection of the moon. Both rippled in enthusiasm and I swallowed my curse.

The shadows cast by otherworldly light were pulled towards the gravity of the dark sun. They came alive, wetly pulsating as they budded into three-dimensional creatures.

Dinah stared curiously, flames sparkling around radiating claws. “So this is the power of an Other.”

This isn't that impressive, why would… No.

“Is this happening all over the Isles?” I squawked in horror. “You said it drains power from shadows, that’s across hundreds of thousands of square kilometers!”

Dinah nodded. “Calafia’s kin are strong indeed, even those few who remain are beings who could battle with the greatests of spirits. There are legends of evil Others who shattered civilizations, razing them down to bedrock. Defeated only because their godly power was stripped from them.”

“So the shadows come to life, and are drawn on for power by the Wandering Nightfall. Fascinating, more information about this world is always good. It's so different from home.”

“What is home like for you, Celia?” The dragon watched my reaction with violet eyes around gold-speckled black.

“Different,” I said with a faint bemused beam. “My world is bigger, billions of people across countless lands. But it lacks magic, it's only there at the edges where our worlds touch. But it's… we’re dying by inches because of the mistakes we've made in the last century and a half.” The bemusement was gone, replaced by naked fear. “We’re being hit by disasters of our making, enough that some countries are collapsing under the pressure. Wars breaking out between desperate nations.”

The Middle East was broken beyond repair, India and Pakistan are bleeding each other dry. The Koreas are a nightmare… Europe was barely recovering from their economic crises and the collapse of Russia. Africa and South America were being wracked by boiling temperatures, droughts, and sweeping crop failures. So many people were—

“Celia?” Her voice broke through my mental static, and I let air fill my lungs.

“This world was a way for me to get away from it all, to learn something amazing and unique. Away from all the troubles of home and beyond.” I sighed, remembering the pressure of my childhood after dad was gone and she vanished from our lives.

It hurt too much to think about.

“It seems both our worlds are sources of pain for us.” Dinah sounded so bitter, eyes dark and stormy.

“Hopefully we can change that someday, make things fair.” I almost clenched my fists, holding back from reaching out to my glyphs.

Dinah muttered. “Make things fair…”

I opened my mouth and felt a chill. What was that?

The shadows chittered, bounced and danced and died and lived again. Flesh sloughed off before materializing like new, and the pink-mauve skies flashed scarlet.

And I saw the false sun wink.

The sound that followed was like a nail against a chalkboard, like a wind rushing on rust and crushed glass. It was a greeting threaded across the edge of our minds and souls. Of reality breaking at the seams, of a radiation of pure gibbering insanity.

A hand gripped the edge of a tree and then came more along with the body.

It towered over both of us, leaning down to look from the shifting canopy. It was a monstrosity of a hundred hands, the limbs twisting and bending at impossible angles, shards of bright blinking like eyes. Joints cracked and popped, while eyes clattered with hunger, unending pits of infinite gravity.

My eyes were burning, at the infinitely fractal nature of the entity, space twisting into madness and screaming and terror. A body made out of blacker than black dark, crying stars beating as one of many bloody hearts. They wept, dripping inky blackness onto the ground. Shadows dove into the Dark to be devoured, and the Hecatoncheires smiled with a pattern of dead constellations.

It was absolutely terrifying.

“We need to leave. Now.” Dinah pulled me back, and I almost swallowed my tongue.

“Yeah.”

It was a dread pressure as the Other sang and danced with jubilation, fractal fingers unfolding into more limbs as they lunged.

FUCK!

The Other passed through the trees, and to my horror they rusted like metal, flaking away into motes of shadow and roaring starlight.

Don't let it touch you, I heard the unbidden thought in my mind and cast magic in a blink, air, and void circling around each before freezing solid.

To my horror, the barrier cracked and warped, silver light breaking through a barrier I had seen block powerful explosions cast by Ultima. Ones that could level buildings and sunder tanks.

What happened to you Cybele?

A spike of pain shot into my brain and I was suddenly pulled off of my feet. Dinah took us into the air, leaping half a hundred feet. I was buffeted by wind and branches that broke against the barrier I had instinctively activated with a squeeze of my hands.

We didn't get far as the Other seemed to skip through existence, dozens of hands weaving together to form patagial wings. Dinah let out a curse and accelerated, the air shimmering with heat.

The dragon spread her wings, cutting through the sky with incredible speed. I flipped myself in her grip to face the Other, and winced at the screaming shadows pulled up and away and into the godling.

I activated the glyphs of void once more, and reached deep into the energy, into recursive loops of essence and power. I could feel how it underlied everything, and I saw the Other for what it was.

If someone like Dinah was Fire, then the Wandering Nightfall was Void. It was like staring into an endless abyss, a writhing and roiling dark matter halo, streaking with colors I shouldn't see. Ultraviolet streaks and fractal starburst gamma rays, sour yellow notes and gibbering gravity waves espousing sorrow and rage and hunger and despair—

I gripped tightly onto the void, and twirled it between my fingers like a pen. Intuition from weeks of learning magic and glyphs guiding my actions. I condensed the energy, crushing it down to size, and the screaming aether rushed in as twisting vortices of swirling dark.

I tossed the white-violet mass of void and skipped it like a rock. The Other recoiled as the roiling gravitational anomaly smashed into it. It didn't last, as the entity simply absorbed the brunt of the force, stars winking out with little ill effect.

“We must return to my tree.” Dinah said that wasn't an insane prospect, flying in circles and gracefully avoiding the rapidly expanding limbs of an Other.

“WHAT?”

“If such a dangerous being is out there, why has it not attacked and ravaged Calafia? Unless there are limitations it must bear with?” Dinah flapped her wings, and unleashed a fire whirl, air and flame pulled down into a roar which the Other hissed at.

Bound, lessened, bereaved.

“I…” I had seen how the being was walking through molasses, chains of ontological emptiness pulling it down to earth. “If we leave… can it follow us through whatever is keeping it bound?”

Dinah’s face was grave, and I turned pale.

“We need to distract it, to find our refuge.” I felt my stomach flip as Dinah twisted through the air.

Give it light.

“I have an idea.”

“Then DO IT!”

The Other lunged at what felt like supersonic speed, springing forward with impossible quickness.

Void and fire, I thought to myself.

I combined the two distinct flows of power, feeding the fire with void until it flared with gold. I tossed it, and it formed a sphere of round golden flames I split into dozens in a blink.

The Wandering Nightfall stopped their lunge in an instant, eyes filling with fascination and enthrallment.

“Down!” I hissed, forming another spell and pushing us down.

We hit the forest floor in seconds, Dinah wincing at the landing, and breaking into a flat run, arm around my waist.

I pulled more void with a glyph, and as mass was negated, we shot forward like bullets.

There was a mournful song right behind us, and I got a front-row seat as a tide of arms and legs and hands and squelching star-eyes cut through plants and trees and animals like a blade.

Gods above and below.

I saw the tree, and I twitched as I felt reality twist and ripple and fold into knots. It was strange and non-euclidean and nauseating but it was safe.

Dinah opened the door with a panicked roar, and I was thrown out of her arms and bounced off a wall.

“Mother of fuck!” I slammed my head onto the hardwood floor with a muffled insult. Dinah was sprawled over a sofa, ass over tea kettle.

The door slammed behind us, and reality shook as the entire tree hiccuped. It was the sound of metal against metal, a rage, and sorrow so vast it filled my stomach with bile and made my sight swim with colors out of space.

But we were alive.

…

I laughed until I cried. “Oh. I'm going to… going to steal Ultima’s shampoo for this.” Don't tempt spirits. “We almost died.”

Dinah groaned. “You are… welcome to rest here for the night.”

“I'll… do that.”

Without another word I passed out.