‎Chapter 6: World without night

After four weeks in Carcerus, the three students had become accustomed to walking almost non-stop for eight hours at a time. Behind them floated the three wicker baskets containing the supplies and the clan's most valuable possessions. Around them marched several pairs, carrying heavy baskets together. The rest of the clan each carried a heavy rucksack. The only ones without packs were the guards, who swarmed around the clan, keeping an eye on the eternal ground fog in the center of the path as well as checking each of the numerous bushes and thorn thickets for monsters. Far ahead was a group of ten scouts who had been walking ahead for almost a week. They regularly stopped, camped and were caught up by the relief, which moved forward at a fast pace to restore the distance to the main party. Such a small group, far from any reinforcements, was easy to attack. In many of the stories told to Norman and his friends, the detachment found only the remnants of the vanguard.

In preparation for entering the Nexus, the vanguard had been waiting for the rest of the clan. Norman, Horst and Jane had practiced every work cycle. While Norman's old kendo training had been quickly refreshed and he had been able to expand his repertoire of strike sequences and defensive maneuvers, Horst had learned little. Lunging, swinging and striking was about the limit of his abilities. The strength with which he struck and the extreme precision with which he crushed even the fruit thrown at him in flight had nevertheless satisfied his instructor. Jane had shown little interest in the whole thing. After a week, her trainer had assigned her to a group of healers, where she could put her limited knowledge of the relevant spells to good use.

Norman had barely looked at his fighting staff before he asked why the thing didn't break apart at the first blow. It was artfully woven together, but it shouldn't be able to withstand any real strain. Her trainer had been happy to explain it to him. It wasn't particularly surprising, though. Magic. Magic, of course. The clan's battle staffs had been enchanted over months of work. The clan's two enchanters had gotten used to casting spells on the fly. First the wands became more stable, then fireproof, acid-proof and more and more secure. They increased the speed with which they could be swung. They had more mass when they hit. After a few attempts, he was quite impressed.

The fighters and scouts gathered behind dense bushes within sight of the brightly lit opening. Ashabtigor pushed forward and took a close look at the situation. Then he turned back to the impatiently waiting group: "The nexus is guarded. The node formed by the veins in the center of the nexus radiates much more strongly than in the paths. The inner wall of the nexus is much more densely overgrown. The light shines into the surrounding paths. The path near the transition should actually be completely overgrown. However, the area there is completely free of all larger plants. Someone must go to a lot of trouble to clear the area regularly."

One of the youngest scouts raised his hand: "So what do we do now?"

"We have to find out what's there, who's guarding the entrance and why."

Norman raised his hand: "Is it possible to build permanent settlements in a nexus?"

"No. The anger reacts later, but much more violently than in the paths."

"So how can someone regularly clear the entrance?"

"I don't know about that. But it would look completely different here if it was a one-off clearing. Besides, they dug up the stumps and camouflaged the holes. If you look closely, you can still see the subtle signs. This is not the way animals do things. Carcerus offers us another surprise here."

Norman was surprised at how calmly the clan members accepted this potential ambush.

Ashabtigor divided the clan members into three groups. The most skilled scouts went ahead to scout the transition zone and detect any traps or ambushes. The three students had been assigned to the next group to guard the entrance area to the Nexus until the entire clan had passed through.

The last group would guard the clan and the flying disks.

Horst suggested going with the first group: "I can also walk well!"

The commander gave him a friendly and rightly doubtful smile: "As good as my scouts here?"

"Ha sure."

Still smiling, Ashabtigor pointed next to Horst, where the scouts who had been assigned to the first group had just been standing. No one was to be seen. "I koa mi au irra, of course..."

Jane and Norman also looked around in amazement and turned their heads frantically in all directions. There was no sign of the group of over a dozen scouts. Two of them had been standing practically right next to Norman and he hadn't noticed that they had moved away. While the two other students stood around in confusion and made impressed comments, Norman looked around again slowly and thoroughly. In the slightly damp ground, he could make out the tracks that the rather large group had left behind when they came here. Further ahead, on the other hand, he could see no traces of where anyone might have strayed from the group. It was difficult to tell in which direction the scouts had left, as there were far too many tracks running around the meeting point. He made his way to the bushes that served as a screen. Far too few openings. And too small to get through completely silently. Where were they then... To the right, the path climbed ever steeper up the wall. Increasingly stony and practically without vegetation, without any significant visual protection. All that remained was...

"They're this way. To the left, over the stones and the rather scuffed root over there. And then they went down in the mist at the deepest part of the path. If you look closely, you can still see the last traces of swirls where they entered the mist."

Ashabtigor confirmed his theory with a brief nod, but seemed anything but impressed: "Of course they dived into the fog stream. Where else would they have gone?"

Norman looked a little crestfallen. For a moment he had felt really clever. Jane put her hand on his shoulder: "Cheer up. I didn't think of it."

The clan warriors waited for almost two hours. Then one of the scouts emerged from the stream of mist again: "The vegetation at the crossing has only recently been cleared, but we couldn't find any guards."

"Leviatarr, any magical emanations?"

The scout who was addressed stepped forward: "A number of tracer spells are active at ground level. Up to a height of four meters, the entire accessible area is permeated with them. I'm afraid we won't be able to prevent anyone from noticing us. I was able to sneak the scouts through, but the floating disks will alert the creator or creators at the latest."

"Any idea who placed the tracking spells?"

"The basis of the matrix is very similar to ours. Someone has gone to the trouble of making the spells permanent. So it's impossible to say how old the magic is."

Stolen novel; please report.

"How long would it have taken us to install such an extensive network of tracking spells?"

"Ten magicians would need at least four years."

"Out of the question! Such a complex project could never be carried out even in a Nexus. There is nowhere near enough time for the Lightbringer's wrath to cleanse the entire Nexus. Maybe if they had found a closed loop in the surrounding paths and had always walked in circles in groups... No. You can stay in a Nexus longer than in the normal paths, but no clan has ever stayed in a Nexus for more than two months before the wrath was activated. In all cases, the entire Nexus was cleansed. As were all paths up to three days' travel away."

Norman hesitated. He didn't want to show off and even if he would have liked to demonstrate that he didn't just come up with obvious ideas, he didn't want to embarrass himself again. While he was still pondering, Jane nudged him in the side with her elbow: "It's really cute how easy it is to read your body language. If you want to say something, say it."

He did: "Could a clan have created portable artifacts along the way and then buried them here?"

The scouts' magic expert thought about the idea for a moment and then nodded: "That's the only possible explanation. But I still don't see the point. Magic doesn't have a long range in the trails. After a week or two of wandering, they would be out of reach. And what good is a device that warns them when someone enters the nexus if no one is there to hear the warning? And each Nexus has at least half a dozen entrances. If someone cares if someone enters the Nexus, they would have to cover all the entrances. A huge effort for... Nothing!"

Ashabtigor ended the discussion: "It will be another one of the Lightbringer's traps. Only his monsters can settle down with impunity. For some unknown reason, he wanted to secure this nexus especially well." He clasped his hands and looked up at the glowing vein almost reverently for a moment: "This could mean that we are getting closer to the Lightbringer!"

While the three students just stood there confused, all the clan members dropped to one knee and solemnly intoned: "An end to the wandering. Peace for the clans. Freedom from Carcerus."

"So: forward! For the clan! For all clans!" Ashabtigor raised his battle staff and strode forward with quick steps, yet extremely vigilant. The students arranged themselves in the center, as they had been told many times before, while everyone fell into formation.

The first scouts cautiously crossed the area where the tracking spells were located. No explosions, no lightning strikes and no suddenly appearing guards. The cave, which the locals simply called "the way", met the huge hollow sphere of the nexus. Norman estimated the diameter at almost 200km. The other side was only vaguely recognizable as a slightly greenish haze. The clan members also rarely encountered a nexus. Most of the time, two of the paths simply crossed, resulting in a more or less right-angled intersection where it was quite easy to change paths. Entering a nexus, on the other hand, required a little finesse.

The necessary procedure had been gone over again and again with all members of the clan so that there were no accidents. If the gravity at the edge suddenly turned 90 degrees forward, they had to throw themselves forward and roll off. After the scouts signaled that the area was safe, the first group of warriors from the second group crossed the entrance. The students were there too. Horst strolled along like a happy tourist, admiring the scenery and rejoicing like a snow king when the gravity changed at the edge. He even turned around to test the whole thing again on the way back and then again forwards. When he picked himself up again after jumping over the edge, he found himself face to face with the furious Jane. She made it very clear to him that she would beat him up with her wooden first-aid kit if he didn't stop fooling around. While Horst tucked his head between his shoulders and started to flail about, she turned around again and stomped off. Norman noticed that her knuckles were turning white around the handle of the first-aid kit and that she was looking around frantically the whole time.

From the last conversation, she feared that something horrible would jump out of the bushes at any moment. Norman felt pretty safe with all the experienced locals around him. Nevertheless, he kept his eyes open vigilantly. The scouts had been looking for possible snares and pitfalls. The warriors around the actual clan were keeping an eye on the Misty River and the bushes. He therefore preferred to watch the empty space in between. Always on the lookout for any unseen opponents or other surprises. He was probably one of the first to notice how the ground was practically moving between the foremost civilians: "Watch out! Something's digging itself out of the ground!"

An old woman with a carrying pole over her shoulders threw herself to the side with unusual agility for her age at the last moment as a hand grabbed her leg from the ground. In more than a dozen places, humanoid figures burrowed out of the ground, pouncing on anyone nearby. While the first opponent skillfully swept away the feet with his staff to allow the old woman to escape further, he suddenly stumbled as a mummified-looking claw grabbed him by the leg. A quick thrust with the end of the stick shattered the rotten bones of his wrist, allowing him to jump aside while another figure burrowed out of the ground where Norman had just been standing. Leathery pale skin stretched over protruding bones. A few thinning strands of light brown hair were all that remained of the creature. Milky dead eyes prevented the zombie, for it must be something like that, from seeing the student. The fingernails of the still undamaged hand were elongated into vicious claws with which the figure reached for him in vain. Norman was not particularly impressed. The zombies in the horror films he watched on DVD from time to time had been much more robust. On the other hand, it was of course possible that his supposedly magical fighting staff was much more effective than a baseball bat, for example. He held the staff with both hands close together on the back third and swung it with full force. The zombie was flung to the side, but the crash of a breaking arm that he had expected did not materialize. He crashed to the ground without breaking his fall, skidded a meter with his face through the thin, puny grass and then stood up again, unimpressed.

Norman patiently awaited the next attack. A quick glance showed him that the other guards were not having any major difficulties either. He carefully took a few steps back and waited for the zombie to get back up. With the next blow, he would try to break one of its legs so that he could beat the thing to pieces on the ground. Finally, just two hundred meters behind him came the families with women and children. And close behind them, the floating disks. He tightened his grip on the staff and took a test swing. The undead was now back on its feet and swayed unsteadily towards him. Norman could hear soft popping noises coming from his direction, the origin of which he could not immediately make out. It sounded as if someone was cracking their knuckles loudly. A disgusting noise that sent shivers down his spine. All the more reason to make short work of it.

*

Jane had withdrawn close to the families. Not out of cowardice, but because this was the place the Ashabtigor had assigned to her. Here, where the best warriors were, the wounded would gather to be bandaged in a makeshift manner. Healing magic took too long and made the healer far too vulnerable to be used during a battle. She was as startled as most of those around her when hands suddenly burrowed out of the ground, but she knew zombies. And after the warriors around her made short work of the undead, she had enough time to sneak a little closer and get a professional view of the whole thing. She was curious to see what kind of technique had been used here to create the undead. Perhaps it was a natural magical effect here in this nexus. Or one of the zombie-creating diseases, which she only knew from the completely unrealistic university television. Norman was doing quite well. She had to admit that he cut a good figure with the fighting stick. She quietly muttered the first spell that every student of necromancy had to learn: "Soulsight"

Before her eyes, the cave seemingly darkened for her as the spell blocked out the normal light. The living grass of the ground gave off only the faintest fluorescent glow to her new sense. The men and women around her, on the other hand, practically glowed with life. After adjusting to the new way of seeing, she focused on the zombie that was picking itself up from the ground in front of Norman. She had always been fascinated by necromancy. And although she deliberately avoided pointing it out to her fellow students, she had chosen necromancy as her major from the very beginning. Her father had significantly expanded the scope of the corresponding lectures in the foundation course for other degree programs especially because of her. One of the few advantages she had had at university so far due to her ancestry. But not even her father knew how deeply she had already immersed herself in the subject. Before she had officially learned to read, there had been no reason to hide magical books from her. At least until she had learned to stop scribbling in them or damaging them.

Most child-rearing experts would call the use of geasa on children brutal and inhumane and predict terrible long-term consequences, but in her opinion it had done her no harm. Since her father had never bothered to remove the geasa that prevented her from damaging books, she still couldn't dog-ear paperbacks even if she'd wanted to. Not exactly a problem that caused her sleepless nights or trauma. And then she had found the Green Grimoire while playing. A book that could talk to her and kept this ability a secret from her father. A book that had taught her to read in a single day. And for a few years she had been able to "play" freely in her father's library. And read whatever she wanted as long as he wasn't there. As soon as she started school, he had locked everything away much more carefully, so that she had much more trouble getting hold of interesting grimoires. Only the Green Grimoire, the source of all her unusual spells, had always been accessible to her with its help and she had been able to learn a lot from it.

This knowledge may have come in handy now. As she continued to focus on the zombie, she used her years of practice with this spell to highlight the patterns of soul energy in its undead body. She had actually expected one of the three most common basic patterns for raising the undead. Even though almost every race in every dimension developed many spells from scratch, there were only a limited number of ways to achieve the same result. A uniform pattern of soul energy artificially pressed into the extinguished orbits of the once living body. An even glow over the whole body where the magic stopped further decay. Stronger lines along the major muscle groups where the spells that set the artificial life in motion were at work. However, the pattern was far too bright. The body contained far more energy than was used for most undead. And the individual pathways grew brighter as she watched. Starting from a central point deep in the chest, which glowed like a small sun and pumped its energy further into the body. Pulsating like a small heart, but not evenly, but faster and faster. As if it was pumping itself higher and higher...

"Fire and damnation! Norman! Watch out!" She thrust the basket of bandages, which she would always call a first-aid kit, into the hands of a surprised old woman and ran off. "...They're not zombies!"