A covered wagon tumbled down the Golden Grain Highway in the early hours of the morning, drawn by two draft horses that looked none too pleased about the pace they were keeping; not so fast if it wasn’t for their cargo, but certainly difficult. The pace was necessary though, otherwise the carriage would never reach its next destination by nightfall. The stretch of highway that connects Traverse to its closest southern relative, Burden’s Bluff, is just short enough to entice travelers to attempt to make it from one to the other in a single day, but you have to get started early, and make sure your horses are fit enough to keep a steady speed.
“How’re they holding up, Duncan?” a voice asked from inside the vehicle.
“Well enough,” Duncan replied. Driving horses certainly wasn’t his forte, but the gruff dwarf wasn’t about to let the other man do it. It was also a nice bluff to put forward, to have a heavily-armored, battle-hardened dwarf at the head of a vehicle typically used for trade. Most who crossed their path would assume that he was alone, and adorned in the heavy plate so as to defend himself should things go down. He even had a heavy crossbow that he couldn’t shoot for shit next to him on the bench; his hands always seemed to shake when he wielded anything other than his sturdy hammer, which was hidden, as he was always instructed.
They had been traveling for about two hours, since before dawn, when Duncan noticed the man on the side of the road a few hundred feet ahead of them. The dwarf naturally slowed the horses to a trot, prompting a “What is it?” from the cart. “There’s a man on the side of the road, looking at us. Slim build, baggy tan clothes, definitely human, erm… looks young? Couldn’t be more than twenty-five. Can’t be too careful, right?”
“Yeah, sure. Keep on rolling if he talks to you, but play nice if he walks along with us.”
“Got it.”
In just a moment, Duncan was on the young man. The clothes were simple, a black undershirt with tan pants and a matching shawl that was lined in thick white wool. There was a knapsack tossed over a shoulder, and a finely carved walking stick in one hand. He had curly light-brown hair that looked tousled after a long night of sleep, a dopey smile, and these piercing golden eyes that reminded Duncan of the people back in Traverse. Many of them had an unnaturally bright eye color, as if the endless sun and waves of grain that permeated the south of the Empire left them constantly cheery and unbothered. The thought had mildly irked Duncan before, and it continued to do so when he looked down at the man beside his cart.
“Hi! I’m wondering if you could spare a bit of cargo space for me? You’re heading to Burden’s Bluff, I assume? I’d have a chance of making it by night that way, and I could forward you a few coins for it if you wanted. I don’t have much, though.”
Duncan narrowed his eyes, his ever-present wrinkles multiplying as he peered down at the boy, who started to walk backwards casually as the carriage and horses pushed on. “Your legs seem fine to me. You got a name?”
“I’m Pax Pollock, sir. You?”
Before Duncan could answer, he saw a note slip onto the bench from behind him, out of sight of Pax. I trust your gut, it said.
“Are you ferrying goods, or people, sir?” the man asked, continuing his lackadaisical gait.
Duncan was astounded, and defensively placed a hand over the note. There was no way that kid could have seen it from his angle. This Pax definitely threw off some sort of energy, Duncan decided. “I don’t think I like what ‘yer insinuating, boy…” That being said, it didn’t seem like a hostile energy… “It’s not like that, but a few people. Give me a second?”
“Of course!” Pax said cheerily.
Allowing the horses to maintain themselves on the fairly straight road, Duncan poked his head through the canvas of the wagon top, and spoke in hushed tones to his friend. “Kid saw ‘yer note, somehow. Nearly as observant as you, Wren.”
The human man huffed, and passed a hand through his thick, salt-and-pepper hair. “Yeah, okay. I’m a little intrigued, but if he seems off to you…”
“Overbearing, sure, but off? Eh…”
“Duncan, if you think he’s okay, I think it’s a good idea!” The woman beside Wren spoke up, not seeming to care if they didn’t want her opinion. Duncan couldn’t help but smile at her; he’d been the one to find her, and suggested her to Wren.
Wren and Duncan looked at her, then shared an ambivalent look with each other. They turned to the final member of their party, a young human man wearing half plate, who touched the ceremonial glaive at his side. “What do you think, sir?”
The man laughed a little at his elder. “I’m with her, honestly, but say the word if you want me to step out.”
Duncan nodded, and turned back to face Pax. “You asked my name earlier. It’s Duncan. Folks inside say you can hop on it, and we’ll figure out payment when we get there. Sound good?”
“Yes, absolutely! Thank you!” Pax stopped in his tracks as the wagon continued, letting the rear of the vehicle catch up to him. He’d heard the four separate voices from inside, including Duncan’s, as well as gauged their general temperaments with his keen ear. Duncan was right, Pax was eerily observant, but only because he’d practiced endlessly in the vineyards of his monastery for many years. Pax was looking forward to meeting whatever people were in the wagon, though, so he hopped onto the step, inhaled a quick breath, and opened the curtain to get in.
Inside there were three people, just like he’d heard. To Pax’s left was a human man about his age with dark brown hair, cropped short, but long enough to run your fingers through. He wore a steel plate cuirass, and there were two weapons at his side; an ornate-looking glaive and a simple but well-forged longsword, as well as a shield. The shield had a very flat chevron pattern, with light violet on the bottom that reached up towards a turquoise top. Atop the design was a pattern of what looked like a gryphon, with its hind legs planted firmly in the purple, and its claws raised high into the blue. Pax could have sworn he recognized it from a book. As it was the only spot available, Pax sat down next to the man.
Now across from Pax was a middle-aged human man and a young human woman, who almost looked like she could be the older man's daughter. The woman’s hair was as smooth and dark as a bitter chocolate, but her irises were beautiful blue rings around welcoming pupils. The eyes were nearly identical to the older man’s, who was wiry and wary, but seemingly just as welcoming. His smile was subtler than hers, but he didn’t seem upset about Pax’s presence.
“Did I hear your name was Pax?” the man asked, to which Pax smiled and nodded. “My name is Wren Doomas. Good to have you on board for the day, as far as I’m concerned.” Wren held his hand out for Pax to shake, which he gladly accepted. “That there is Elias,” Wren continued, gesturing to the man Pax sat beside.
Elias sat up straight. “It’s okay, Wren, I can give the last name. I’m Elias Eagleheart.” After another handshake, Pax immediately recognized Elias to be a member of a prominent noble house from the northern reaches of the Empire, but only said “It’s a pleasure.” He didn’t want to be overbearing about being in the man’s presence. Elias seemed to be put at ease by that.
Pax’s gaze met the woman’s eyes across from him, and she broke out into a dangerously infectious smile, one that rivaled even his. “I’m Kishori Somers! It’s great to meet you.” As Pax took her hand, he noticed that the shine in one of her eyes faded ever so slightly, for only a moment. Pax recognized it as a tell that she’d lied, but he was sure that it was only partly. It wasn’t really a lie; it was more like when his mother had told him that his father had left them. True, but the teller clearly knew that the truth they’d told was different than the one they’d really meant. Pax decided to put it aside for the moment; Kishori’s smile was too kind, he was sure that she meant no harm by what had happened. He made sure not to let on that he’d caught it.
“So Pax,” Kishori continued, “what takes you south? It’s a long, lonely walk.”
“I’m just a wanderer, currently. Spent most of the past decade at a monastery, and after feeling like I’d found what I wanted there, I left! Now I’m looking for the next chapter. People who I can help.”
“Well that’s great! I’m sort of in the same place, actually. Wren seems to think that he’s going to wrangle together a bunch of people like us to do just what you mentioned: help people! Like he did in the old days.” Kishori prodded Wren with an elbow, and he rolled his eyes.
“You’re from Traverse, aren’t you?” Wren asked. “You have those eyes, like honey and wheat. Why’d you sleep on the road, rather than in town?”
He’d nailed the two assumptions, which told Pax they were similarly in tune with people. “Yes, both of those are true… I just didn’t want to be a bother for my family for a night, since I wasn’t planning on staying. Plus, I like being on the road, I didn’t feel like I needed one night in a real bed, just to get back to the old bedroll.”
“Sure, sure… Well, like I said, it’s good to have you. And Kishori’s not joking about the whole ‘gathering adventurers’ thing.” Wren saw Pax’s eyes glow for just a moment, so he continued. “Now, I don’t mean to be overbearing, or to entice you with some dream that isn’t realistic, but if you do think you can help people, I’d be interested in talking with you more about a few ideas I have.”
Pax nodded along as Wren talked about his life, and what brought him to where they were now. Years of adventuring with a small party had ended in the way that many parties do, but after reconnecting with Duncan a couple decades later, and meeting Kishori, they decided to try to put together and cultivate a larger party. Not quite a guild, but perhaps something akin to it. Afterwards they’d traveled north to meet with the mages of Highhaven, but ended up meeting the young knight, who happily agreed to accompany them. Wren didn’t expect they’d be in Burden’s Bluff more than a day before heading south to one of the coastal cities, Soughe or perhaps Epollonia. From there, who could say? They would go where the wind took them, and if he wanted to, Pax was welcomed to join.
But of course, the wind would do as it pleased, and they would simply be left to react to it.
----------------------------------------
South of the Bluff, a similar covered wagon was traveling north from Soughe, driven by two simple traders. The natives of the port city were fish salesmen, and thanks to a few expensive, enchanted cold storage boxes, they were well equipped to move all throughout the reaches of the Empire selling seafood, a luxury which very few citizens of the nation could normally have. The cold boxes themselves were nearly impossible to distinguish from normal crates on the outside, and that was by design.
On this particular trip, the two men had actually spent nearly all of their time outside of the wagon itself, as on the afternoon of the first day, the younger of the men, Jahn, discovered two stowaways tucked away amidst the cargo. The wagon had been searched by guards at the city limits, who had been looking for two similarly-described stowaways, but nothing had turned up. For that reason, Jahn was doubly disturbed when he’d found them, and as such twice as ready to agree with whatever the apparent criminals demanded of them. Clearly they must have magical powers, to have evaded the thorough search party, so it would be best to simply do as they asked, and be on their way. Picking up on Jahn’s nervousness, one of the two stowaways had convinced him and his husband to take them as far as whatever the first town north of Soughe was. From there, the urchins would depart without a word, and the fish traders would have no harm done to them, nor goods stolen.
It was as such that the pair of stowaways found themselves lazing around in the back of the carriage, healing from the last of their lingering wounds. The one who’d done the talking, a half-elven woman with blood red hair, amber skin, and emerald green eyes, was leaning against the weirdly comforting warm surface of one of the cold boxes, keeping a careful eye on the cracks between the wagon’s roof and rear flap. She knew how close they were to town based on what she’d heard from the two traders during that morning’s eavesdropping session. They don’t seem scared or stupid enough to say anything to anyone, she thought. And even if they do, we’ll be long gone by then.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
The half-elf always kept one eye on her ally, who was currently fast asleep, and snoring way louder than she would have ideally liked. He appeared human to anyone looking, with pale skin and long, straight black hair that he pulled back into a short pony, but she still didn’t think so. When they first met in that prison cell they had promptly escaped from, she asked him if he was a sanctus or profarus — mortals descended from angels and devils, respectively — to which he responded that he didn’t know. Beneath his sleepy eyelids, the man’s irises were an unnatural shade of blue-green, like the color of the seas the half-elf knew so well.
As she stared at him, the woman watched as his eyes groggily began to open. The man yawned. “Oh, good morning, Seneca.”
“You’re smart enough to know Nera’s much closer to the opposite horizon,” Seneca said. “Get enough beauty sleep?”
“Excuse me for actually doing work in getting us out of town. Were you the one who paralyzed that prison guard with literal lightning, using nothing but your bare hands? I’m pretty sure that was me.”
Seneca chuckled as she flipped a dagger in the air. “If I’d managed to nab anything other than this flimsy thing, it would’ve been a different story. Besides, you needed my help clinging onto the bottom of this cart, else we would never have made it outside the walls.”
“Whatever,” the man smiled, his eyes tiny seas that Seneca was dying to figure out. Mysterious people were liabilities, in her book, but the man was too likable for that to be an issue to figure out right at that moment. More pressing in her mind was what to do once they got to the Bluff. She would need a good, light sword, ideally a bow and arrows, and enough random supplies to last them a few weeks on the road. Food could be hunted, but bandages, a firestarter, bedrolls… “What are you thinking about, Sen?”
Seneca moved from the back of her mind to the front again. “Supplies. How to get in and out of whatever shitty town we’re quickly approaching as fast as possible. Is there anything you need, Eden?”
Eden thought long and hard about it. “I… I don’t think so. Like I said earlier, my memory is hazy, just in general. Whatever power I have is… well it’s not tenuous, but I’m not confident about controlling it, if I’m being honest. But no, I don’t think I really need anything for it.”
Seneca sighed, and started moving to the back of her mind again. “Okay. Well… let me know if that changes, I guess.”
The next hour or so passed quickly, and before the pair knew it, the carriage was slowing down as it entered a populated area. Seneca’s pointy but blunted ears picked up the sounds of commoners moving about, and her acute sense of smell noted the scent of roasting meat and stale mead. Peeking through a hole in the wagon cover, Seneca saw that they were already very close to the center of the hamlet. “Alright, E, time to get moving.”
With the wind behind them both, the pair of stowaways gathered their minimal belongings and left the safety of the carriage.
----------------------------------------
Not so far east of town, tension began to rise in the air just above the bluff the town was named after. Like the latent energy that lingers before and after lightning strikes, raw, intangible arcana began to gather above the lone cliff. With a silent roar, the air itself shook violently, and motes of the magical energy shot off and connected with a handful of random spots all over Matryoshka, forming temporary ley lines that engraved an imperfect, scattershot pattern all across the skies of the continent. Imperceptible to the average person, the magic was gone just as quickly as it had appeared, as suddenly the magic folded in on itself, and coalesced into the form of a man.
The arcana crackled as the air prepared to be displaced by his form, and with a loud, mystical gong in his ears, the human man suddenly found himself lying on the crabgrass bed of the bluff. The sun was yet an hour away from setting, but natural colors were starting to make their way across the sky, painting the scenery above him in beautiful shades of blue and pink.
As soon as he formed completely, once again physical after the energy form he had emerged from, which had seemed endless and instant at the same time, the man clutched the left side of his face and let out a blood-curdling scream. The wound was practically still burning, and he could feel the heat over his eye, drying out any tears he might have otherwise shed. He could feel the unbearable fire crawling all over his skin, first down his neck to the torso, then to every limb and digit on his body. The fire was gone, he knew that. He’d been saved, but the phantoms of it still haunted his mind so potently it may as well have been real.
His body ached. His throat burned. His face was numb. All pains I can do nothing about. I’ve lost them. I let go in the channel, and the chain was broken, and I lost them.
“Fuck,” he said quietly. Then louder. “Fuck!”
While the skin around his left eye — or what was left of it — cracked and simmered, his right eye sobbed. The man’s crystal blue irises burned with the cold passion of someone in unending pain, hardly able to look at anything beyond what was right in front of him.
“Abel…” he whispered to himself. “You idiot…”
Luckily for Abel, he didn’t have to look very far in front of him. As the human’s eye adjusted to the new world around him, he saw a pocket watch with silver casing, just two feet away from where he was lying on his belly. Some poor noble must have dropped it here. Wherever here is… Abel slowly stretched his arm out, and clasped the watch in a shaky hand. Dragging it towards him, inches away so he could concentrate, Abel read out the words that were etched above and below the circular lid.
“Limited… Series.”
Naturally curious, and happy to have found the briefest distraction from his agony, Abel managed to undo the clamp keeping the lid from blocking the face. On the inside was a smooth, circular disc made of an opaque, gleaming quartz. There were tick marks on each of the twelve hours, perhaps made from iron or steel, and four hands that accurately measured the hours, minutes, seconds, and… he didn’t know the fourth one. Clockwork wasn’t new technology, per se, the gnomes of Cresciila had invented it some couple hundred years ago, but clocks themselves still weren’t too prevalent in the Empire. Even so, Abel knew well enough that most clocks only had two or three hands.
The artifact seemed so odd to him, yet it fit comfortably into his palm. Abel’s thumb naturally found an extruding gear on the top-right side of the watch, and as he toyed with it, he figured out how to manipulate that mysterious fourth hand. It clicked neatly into each of the twelve hour positions, and after moving it from place to place, Abel also realized he could push down the gear, clicking it into some sort of mechanism inside the timekeeper. He tried it while the hand was in the third hour and the seventh hour, but neither worked.
Another bolt of pain shot through the man, reminding him of his predicament. If it wasn’t for the distraction, he’d have passed out again due to the pain. But something about this damn watch kept him awake, kept him aware. In one way or another, be it distraction or some feat of magic, Abel knew it was his solution.
“Screw it… Rule of threes, right? Let’s try… starting from zero.” Using the gear, the man clicked over to the topmost hour mark, which instead of being labeled ‘12’, was labeled ‘0’. With a deep breath in, Abel clicked the gear into place. But nothing happened. As another bolt of fiery pain shot through him, Abel clenched the tiny machine tight, struck the dirt with his fist, and on a whim clicked over to ‘2’. “I don’t think a rule of fours exists, but I’ll goddamn make one.”
As the wizard pressed in the gear, the quartz face suddenly shone with a faint blue light and runes that he hadn’t noticed began to glow on the watch’s casing. The symbols in the circle rapidly began to expand, shining reflections of themselves in a circle onto the ground around his body. Like a small beacon of health, the energy flowed from all around him, and as Abel flipped onto his back to see the light display, illusions of spectral clock faces appeared all around him, and started to tick backwards and forwards, simultaneously rewinding and forwarding time in Abel’s own little corner of the universe. Or at least, his body was rewound partially, as the pain began to fade slightly. Abel could feel the left side of his face begin to scar, and moisture returned to the eye. He still felt a lingering thrumming from the heat though, like a second heartbeat.
But he was alive. And while he wouldn’t allow himself to think about it just yet… he was right.
----------------------------------------
Pink and orange and red filled the sky as the sun began to set, the horizon a beautiful, ever-expanding silhouette, where the trees and rolling hills of the Empire became a foundation for something so breathtaking it ought not be described. But standing tall amidst that backdrop, they could see the shadows of thirteen figures, reflections which loomed so large they seemed otherworldly. They couldn’t make out the faces of the people, but it was a vision so beautiful as to be bound to their mind until their dying breath.
Wren elbowed his last-remaining companion in the carriage, who had fallen asleep shortly before they would arrive in the town. “Hey, wakey-wakey… We’re here.”
“Oh… great!” Kishori smiled, and stretched her arms up to the sky. “That was the exact amount of time I needed… Where’s everyone else?”
“They went to explore the town and get to know each other, I think. You should join them.” As the girl smiled and stepped out of the wagon, Wren leaned towards the bench where Duncan was still sitting, attempting to figure out where to hitch the vehicle. He smiled as he saw Kishori spot Pax and Elias further down the thoroughfare; it very frequently seemed crazy to him, living in the world that they did, that they could actually help people; but maybe. To do real, good work for small town folk like the people in Burden’s Bluff, and every other place like it. Looking at the three of them, Wren felt a sense of new pride, as if some grand dream he’d never realized for himself could come true for them. But until then, Wren would live as simply and as straight-forward as possible, and as such, life found him worrying about room and board. The older man shared a look with the hardened dwarf. They had made their way to a small, unassuming inn, and without discussing their exact plan, or where their younger companions were off to, Duncan and Wren both stepped inside to handle the cost of their stay.
“So Pax,” Elias started. “You said you lived at a monastery. Can I ask which one?”
Pax smiled; a lot of his time at the monastery was during a time of his life that he’d rather not think of, but everything after that was great. Revelatory. “It’s called the Tranquil Monastery at Celeste. It’s a few thousand steps up Celeste Mountain.”
“Oh, I traveled near Celeste when I was a boy, once. Would you call yourself a monk, then?”
“Something like that. They were able to do something for me a long time ago, and as recompense, I helped out there for a long time. They taught me how to heal a little, how to be merciful, and how to make my way without disrupting others. Best two decisions I ever made.”
“Huh… I always wondered what a life of study would be like… most of my family stay close to home.”
“But not anymore, right?” Pax asked. Just before Elias could answer, the two men were assailed from behind by Kishori, who roped an arm around each of their necks.
“So what are we getting up to, gang?” Elias tossed Ki off them lightly, and the two of them laughed. Pax smiled, but as his new companions talked, his ears twitched, and he suddenly swept his vision across the small crowd in the center of Burden’s Bluff. Around half a dozen ramshackle stalls made up the hamlet’s evening market, which seemed more like an excuse for townies to talk to each other than a real place of commerce. Among the forty or so humans and féarfolk that clearly lived here, Pax identified a man with a ponytail who was talking with a weapon smith, the former of which was very clearly foreign. His hair was like dark coal, while his skin was nearly gray, like pale ash left behind after coals fade. His eyes were small oceans unto themselves. The young man was jovially shooting the shit with the vendor about nothing in particular, and Pax could tell that the man wasn’t actually interested in buying any weapons. Just around the corner, however, Pax caught a flash of brown cloth as someone in a burlap hood moved behind the smith, and calmly lifted a blade off a part of the counter the smith wasn’t looking at.
“Hey!” Pax yelled out. The thief looked in his direction, their bright green eyes below the hood flashing in the light of the low sun. “Not yours, bud!” The thief quickly stole another identical blade from the tables, and dashed away. Of course, the man with the ponytail followed. Pax sighed, and started running after them before the vendor had even realized what was happening. “Don’t worry ma’am, I’ll get those blades back!”
As Pax ran away, Elias and Kishori were left to stare at each other. “What the hell? What did he see that we didn’t?” Elias asked.
“I saw it, Eli,” Ki said playfully. “Come on, we gotta follow him!”
Ahead of Pax, the two thieves darted through the gravel paths of the town center. “Did you get what you needed?” one of them asked. “Yeah, but keep running, E!” The hooded thief could have easily outran her partner, but she couldn’t leave him behind after what he’d done for her. Then again, if she didn’t kick it up a notch, that damn nark would catch up quick.
“Sen, slow down!” the man with the ponytail shouted.
“Names, idiot!” Seneca called back. She turned quickly on her heel and barreled down an alley, waited for Eden to catch up, and toppled a stack of crates to block the path. As they darted away, Sen risked a look over her shoulder, and saw that the man chasing them easily flipped over the debris, using a foot to bounce off one of the buildings’ walls so that he didn’t even touch the crates. “What the hell…” she muttered.
Seneca and Eden tumbled into a small neighborhood of one story houses, and without a clear place to hide, they backed up against an old, poorly-built well. Pax could hear Elias and Rho catching up slowly, their armor clearly keeping them from running as fast as he could.
“I’m not gonna turn you in or anything,” Pax said as calmly as he could, steadying his breath after the sprint. “You just can’t steal those.”
Seneca was mad. How could this dude not be out of breath? And how did he see me in the first place? “There’s two of us and one of you, man.” She leveled one of the blades towards his sternum, while the other hung loosely at her side. “Back off.”
“Are we really fighting him?” Eden whispered. A bolt of electricity twinged behind the man’s eye.
Seneca let out a brief sigh. It was an empty threat, and she knew it. She had spied two allies of the man following him, and they would be there soon. There was no way to tell what they were capable of until they showed up, and she didn’t want to take the chance. “Okay, listen-”
Before anyone could listen to whatever she would say, a loud screeching sound filled the air, like the sky was being ripped apart. From a different path, Elias and Kishori entered the area, wide-eyed and out of breath. “What in the hells was that, Pax?” Elias shouted.
The five people all looked at each other, and when the sound roared in their ears a second time, they all looked up. That time, along with the sound, a magical rift appeared in the air, which blew ice-cold wind out of it. Eden felt the gale twist around him and tighten around his chest; his heart started beating harder, faster. Suddenly, his eyes shot open as he tried to understand what he was seeing.
A hundred or so feet above them, the tear in the sky, not unlike a jagged cloud, began to form two shapes; two people. One was a blue-skinned giant, at least twenty feet tall, with a massive club made of ice in his hand. But while he was odd, the vagabond souls in the empty square all had their eyes locked on the other person; a beautiful woman with light brown hair that billowed in natural waves as she fell, pointed ears and angular features, and massive wings that were splayed out behind her like arms waiting to catch her.
Eden knew that without a doubt, the woman was an angel; and that giant was about to fall on top of her with the weight of the world behind their descent.