The stars were beautiful, but they were wrong. With no light pollution marring the night, they were brighter than Lucas had ever seen them. Countless jewels twinkled in a jet black canvas that stretched from horizon to horizon, with a narrow band of milky white-purple slashing through it from North to South.
Every single one of those pin prick dots was a blazing sun a hundred times the size of the Earth. It was harrowing, to feel so small before the majesty of the universe. It took his breath away, for more reason than one.
Those weren’t his stars. Even though he’d slept beneath them for a month, he hadn’t stopped to really look at them until now. None of the few constellations he knew were present. There was no North Star. Even the patterns on what he could see of the crescent moon were subtly off, the craters in the wrong places, and he was sure it was just a bit bigger than the one he was used to.
It hit him then that he really was in another world. No friends, no family, no familiar comforts. A primitive world under assault from monsters. Far from home, with no idea how he got here, and no idea how he was supposed to get back.
A shiver went through him like a bolt of lightning as a realisation came to him: he didn’t know the specifics of how he got here, but he figured he had the broad strokes. And clues as to why.
The Skycloak still sat serenely beside him, resting on her knees with her hands in her lap, expressionless. She’d shifted her azure cloak aside, exposing her brilliant white armour. It shone in the night like it was alive with the light of the moon itself. It was flawless, not a fleck of dirt daring to touch the metal. As he watched, he started to notice movement in the light glinting on the breastplate, as if rivers of moonlight were flowing through the elaborate patterns engraved into the armour.
Her blue eyes were scanning the horizon, but she seemed to notice his attention and tilted her head a fraction to regard him. She said nothing, though, waiting patiently for him to speak.
They’d fallen into a heavy silence that Lucas hadn’t known how to break after her earlier question went unanswered. How was he supposed to answer? She was essentially asking if he believed in himself to show up and save her world some day. And, well, here he was. So he apparently had no choice but to believe in the first part. The latter was the sticking point. Even with this Gift that’d been dumped on him, he didn’t know how he could ever hope to defeat some apocalyptic Demon Lord who spawned murderous beasts.
Her predecessors had brought him here. Kidnapped him, basically. If they’d just asked…
“Why did your people try to summon Lucas Brown?” Lucas asked.
“They didn’t,” the Skycloak said. “They summoned the heroes prophesied to save us from the Demon Lord’s omnicidal onslaught.”
So the mages who brought him here hadn’t targeted him specifically? That was both reassuring and infuriating. More the latter than the former. “Okay. Why did they do that?”
The Skycloak looked at him for a long moment, searching his face until Lucas became mildly uncomfortable and had to break the staring contest, turning his gaze out over the rolling silver hills. Only then did she reply, “We have preserved many accounts speaking of those times, as ordered by Lady Claire. Many insights into the mindsets and rationales of the First Order are recorded in both the College of Wands and the Moontower, and it seems no two men involved in the summoning could agree on the precise reasons for their actions.” She paused. “But there’s a common theme. Even a hundred years ago, they foresaw the Demon Lord would eventually bring the world to its end if he wasn’t stopped. They needed the Five Prophesied Heroes immediately.” She put odd emphasis on the final word.
“Prophesied,” Lucas murmured. “And who gave this prophecy, exactly?”
“Good question,” the Skycloak said.
Lucas found himself glaring at her. “Seems like the kind of thing your Order should know.”
“The Prophecy of Five is a mystery dating back to the times before recorded history,” the Skycloak said with a hint of exasperation, staring him down without flinching. “There are many stories of its origin. Oracles, wise men, omens from above, and so on. But the truth is, Ser Rian, the earliest records our scholars have been able to find on the matter were written when the Prophecy was already ages old, passed down through stories and spoken of as if t’were as much a staple of society then as it is now.”
Lucas grimaced. “I didn’t realise it’s that old,” he said, which was true because he hadn’t known of it at all until today.
“Few have the time to learn history these days. I don’t blame them for it; there are more important things, for most people. The Doctrine of Five is as it has always been, why question where it came from or what it means?”
“I’m not following you,” Lucas said.
“It doesn’t matter.” The Skycloak looked back to the sky, as if dismissing the topic. She seemed to have an odd preoccupation with the moon. “The Prophecy’s original wording is as lost to time as its true origin, but we all know the content anyway: ‘Five warriors shall save the world. One wielding a bow, arrows flying true. One swinging a sword, the bane of any foe. One holding a shield, behind which their comrades can always find safety. One waving a wand, commanding miracles unimaginable. And one star, guiding them all safely through the night.’ And thus, every party of adventurers in the last millennium has consisted of five members. The basic principles of the Doctrine of Five.”
“And so the Order sought to summon the best five they could get, no matter who it was or where they were,” Lucas said, trying and failing to wrap his head around the idea that the ‘best five’ apparently included him. There had to be some kind of mistake here. He was just some guy. A nobody. What kind of magic had searched through the fabric of reality and decided he was the best man for the job? Their spell had to have gone wrong somewhere, somehow.
“From a given perspective,” the Skycloak allowed after a moment of contemplation. “The summoning was rather more complex than many believe.”
“How so?” Lucas asked, suspecting this was where he’d discover the flaw that had led to him ending up here instead of some gigachad super-warrior named Beastkiller Megahero from the Planet Battlezar.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“For some time before the summoning, before even the Demon Lord, the First Order had been seeking prospective heroes who matched the prophecy. There are records of serious problems for centuries prior to the Demon Lord’s arrival, magical anomalies and calamities coming in cycles that ravaged the population, and they sought salvation in the way our people have, apparently, always been taught: the Doctrine of Five. It’s unclear what they wanted or expected, but their searches for the Five failed. Matters got significantly more dire after the Demon Lord’s arrival, but they’d learned from their previous failures.”
Lucas itched to ask about the Demon Lord, but was certain that would be something he’d be expected to know. He stayed quiet.
The Skycloak continued, “Unwilling and unable to search far and wide for the Five Heroes as they once would have, and knowing they couldn’t wait for the Heroes to arrive on their own, they set out to perform the greatest work of magic the world has ever seen. And here is where confusion lies, and why there’s so much scepticism. You see, it’s commonly known as the summoning, because most don’t know that was just one part of the magic they performed. There was more to it. It wasn’t a matter of summoning the greatest warriors that fit the roles.”
Lucas’ grimaced. He felt he knew where this was going, now.
“They wanted to guarantee success,” the Skycloak said, speaking so softly her voice was little more than a whisper, yet he heard her clearly despite the wind. “There was no room for failure, so they used all they had, holding nothing back. No cost too great is a common phrase in their journals. For the people is another. Their magic would not only reach through the world to find the Heroes our world needed, but would ensure they would be immediately ready to save the world. A thousand wands, bows, shields, and swords, to provide power.”
Never mind. That was not where he thought it was going. Jesus. Surely she doesn’t mean…
“That doesn’t sound like what I’d call a summoning,” Lucas whispered, horror suffusing him from head to toe. “That sounds like a ritual sacrifice.”
The Skycloak nodded solemnly. “It worked, to a degree. The college has never seen magical talent like Claire Hammond’s. Rian Lee’s swordsmanship was undefeatable. Nothing could get past James MacAllister’s shield. And they say Aarya Reddy never missed a target with her bow. The only problem, of course, was that their Star was nowhere to be seen, and the Star’s power was designed to be the greatest of them all.”
White noise filled Lucas’ head, and his vision started to blur. Suddenly, he felt hot and cold at once, and something had squeezed all the air from his lungs and he couldn’t get enough air no matter how desperately he sucked in deep, gulping breaths. His heart felt like it was going to jackhammer through his ribs. His stomach had tied itself into a knot then sunk through the ground.
The day he’d found himself here, he’d been planning to meet them for lunch.
Claire. Rian. Jamie. Aarya. He’d heard three of those four names used in less than a day, but hadn’t put the pieces together, somehow.
They’d been summoned too, brought here to fight against the Demon Lord.
One hundred years ago.
“In the original Doctrine, the Star was meant to be the group’s guide. It was a discipline of knowledge, understanding all four of the other roles so they could give advice. Over time, it evolved in people’s minds to become the leader of the party, and eventually the Star was expected to not just have knowledge of all four roles but use them. Not to the point of mastery, of course, but of considerable enough skill. The Summoners expected the Great Star of Prophecy to be more than that.”
“You didn’t mention Stars,” Lucas whispered, still reeling but trying hard not to show it. He couldn’t break down now. Not here. Not now. “For the sacrifice. You said nothing about the Stars.”
The Skycloak remained silent. There was the slightest furrow in her brow, and she laced her fingers in her lap.
“How many were sacrificed for the Star, Swordmaiden?”
The moonlight glistened in her eyes before they fell closed. She breathed in slowly, then spoke, “There is no record in any account of how many Stars gave their lives for the cause. Every account I could find claims those who powered the working with their lives did so willingly, making the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good in the face of defeat at the Demon Lord’s hands.” She paused. “But I do not know how many Stars did so.”
Lucas drew in a deep, shaky breath. “And it failed regardless.”
“It did buy us time, recall. Four great warriors on our side were able to stop the Demon Lord’s advance, but not defeat him. Lady Aarya, the Great Bow, was slain at the battle of Caelan, taking down three Dread Generals with her. We might not still be here today, without them.”
Lucas felt like he’d been punched in the stomach and stabbed in the heart. It was only because he was still frozen in shock over the Star revelation that he didn’t burst into sobs.
“Lord Rian, the Great Sword, went missing shortly after, and these days he’s known widely as the Lost Swordsman if the speaker is sympathetic. The Deserter, on the other hand, is perhaps the kindest epithet used by those who mislike his leaving,” the Skycloak continued, oblivious, clearly caught up in her own troubles. “Only the Great Shield, Lord Jamie, and the Great Wand, Lady Claire, still live.” She let out a soft sigh. “And who knows where they are and what they’re doing? After all this time, even they’ve given up hope of Lucas Brown’s arrival.”
This was too much.
“People often ask why I still believe. Even many of my brothers and sisters have lost faith, if they ever had it at all. The world grows darker every day, so how do I still hope for light?”
He couldn’t deal with this. Couldn’t process anything.
“It’s because I believe the Great Star is the only hope we have left. And I refuse to live with no hope at all. I will not give in to despair.”
His brain was going to explode. It would ooze out of his ears. His heart was going to pulverise itself to pulp and drip through his ribcage.
“Many Stars must have been sacrificed, if they refused to acknowledge the number when they had no problem revealing that thousands of swords, shields, bows, and wands had offered their lives for the greater good. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely voluntary. I shall not believe so many lives can go to waste.”
Stop. No more.
“Over time, more and more importance has been assigned to Stars, and the Summoners were far from immune to this way of thinking. They didn’t want a Star who’d be passable in the other four disciplines, they wanted a master of all.”
I’m begging you.
“It stands to reason, then, that the power they transferred to Lucas Brown must be immense. The kind of strength that could defeat the Demon Lord once and for all. It’s our last hope, and so I cling to it. That's all we have left.”
Please.
As if in answer to his prayers, Jamie the monstercat stirred in Lucas’ chest, snapping to alertness. In an instant, Lucas’ senses expanded, countless new sounds shocking him out of his paralysis. Lucas seized on the distraction with every fibre of his being, surging to his feet and into a ready position, his mana exploding out of him and into the plant life all around. The Skycloak rose at the same time, her eyes darting from side to side.
“What is it, Ser Rian?” she asked, her voice back at full volume, resolute and unpanicked. The others were stirring at the sudden commotion.
With Jamie’s mana flowing through their bond, Lucas could hear myriad blades of grass swaying in the wind, every flap of a fly’s wings, each drop of dew falling from a flower.
And dozens of heavy footfalls on the ground, reverberating through the earth. Coming towards them, fast.
“Beasts,” Lucas breathed, his voice a thin rasp, and their camp burst into action.