They each turned to each other and read their faces which had grown pale. Each of them felt this distinct tugging at the inside of their minds but wanted to ascertain whether their companions had also experienced it before speaking.
“Is that—”
“A fable rift,” Aura interrupted.
In an instant, two large rifts were rended in the space behind her leaking ethereal green light. The abyss did not fight back for its territory, it relented. Walking out from them were two ephemeral crows. Both of them looked well-rested and strengthened.
Syllis felt an odd twinge in her stomach. The withered tree had healed her body—to the point of even removing and sealing her gills—as well as completely rejuvenating her mind by pulling all foreign interference from it. There was one aspect of Syllis that this tree lacked the ability to heal though. This was her personality and emotions. She had been left with her familiar sense of dread and hope tangled in the pit of her stomach. Now, with the pull of a fable rift at the inside of her mind, she felt the encapsulating sense of dread gradually being unwound, untangled from her hope.
‘Still, I can’t get too hopeful…’ Syllis resolved inwardly. There was a chance that the rift could close before they could make it.
“Clyde, Syllis,” Aura said, “get on!” She gestured to the two ephemeral crows.
Syllis joined Aura and Clyde was left on his lonesome.
As the two ephemeral crows began dashing up the large-slabbed staircase, Syllis felt the slight quivering of Aura’s body through her hands on her waist.
After being overwhelmed with her unique sense of sonder before her death, Syllis could easily imagine why. She saw the human woman occasionally glance over at Clyde, or rather the space behind him in anguish. That was where Korman would have been.
It was entirely logical that the withered tree had not brought Korman back. His body had long been devoured by the four suns’ flame. Still, with the absurd nature of the fable they had lived and breathed in for the past six months, they hoped that some miracle would have brought him back anyways.
“Why now of all times?” Aura asked, shaking her head and focusing on the staircase in front of her.
“Freak luck,” Syllis said before laughing.
Clyde remained silent for a moment before saying, “or the four suns’ threat was somehow preventing any fable rifts from appearing?”
“Then why wouldn’t one just appear at night or in the abyss?” Syllis asked. She looked upwards, hoping to see the light of day peeking through.
“I don’t claim to know all the answers…” Clyde’s words trailed out before he continued, “actually… Maybe the abyss itself is hostile enough to prevent them from appearing as well. We’ve all seen how it fights with the four suns’ flame, as well as Aura’s tears.”
Syllis nodded in approval. It was a relatively stable theory—aside from the problem of nighttime on the surface. There was no explanation for why they did not appear then. Still, she deemed it adequate enough to not bring it up. Especially after her absurd theory about their revival and the withered tree. She was in no place to judge.
She noticed the complete lack of abyss as they continued to scale the great staircase. She failed to see a single nibbling speck of abyss anywhere around them. ‘Perhaps the four suns’ flame had truly carved away all of the surrounding abyss from these stairs.’
Rumble! Rumble! Rumble! The shifting of rocks to their sides began in an instant. Without any prior warning they began to crackle as they shifted.
Syllis smiled at this hasty shift in atmosphere. The hopeful nature of a fable rift finally appearing was a blessing, but suspicious. Now the literal earth around them was shaking, it seemed more reasonable.
“Wipe that grin away, Syllis,” Clyde said, “please. It looks like your ‘god’ has taken the entirety of your mind from you.”
The woman was surely exhibiting some symptoms of compromised sanity, though this was not one such example. Instead, this was her natural reaction to the predictability of something meant to be so innately unpredictable.
“Sorry,” Syllis said, maintaining her grin as sunlight became visible only around a hundred steps ahead of the ephemeral crows.
‘Will it burn as it had? At a lesser rate or not all?’ She wondered. ‘Perhaps this small sun will behave just as Asanoch’s false sun, merely providing warmth.’
They emerged from the abyssal staircase, arriving on the surface. They were greeted by the familiar trees with beautiful yellow leaves. Their shadows, cast by the small sun, danced and formed amorphous yellow shapes on the ground below them.
Syllis looked up to the sky, at the swirling purple above, this aspect of the fable was one of the only ones to resemble Ethrailia. She remembered the many nights that she would swim up to the surface and gaze upon the ever-rolling cosmic sea. The myriads of stars—pale-violet, dark-purple, white and grey, faint-green and shifting blue—each pulsating with unique time causing them to feel like true, living organisms.
Syllis had never believed it, despite her father’s intentions to orchestrate her beliefs. She never found what any of the few religions that believed such a ridiculous thing had to say to be relevant to real life.
The temperature of the sun felt twice as hot as Asanoch’s false sun. Any other kindred would find it reasonably warm. To Syllis though… with her innate weakness to any heat, she felt uncomfortable. She could still withstand it, albeit while sweating an eerie amount.
Syllis hissed as she held her hand up, shielding her eyes from the warmth. She let out a sharp exhale before asking, “do either of you see it?”
“Can you not?” Clyde asked, his voice laced with worry.
“My bond isn’t exactly made for this heat,” she answered, irritatedly.
“We’re about—”
Rumble! Rumble! Clyde was interrupted by the shifting of more earth beneath their feet. The crows lost balance, being thrown from their feet. Aura, Syllis and Clyde were all thrown off, landing against the warm patches of purple grass.
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Syllis removed her ‘shield’ and swung her gaze around her like a violent swing of a sword. She saw the earth, tearing itself apart.
The abyss began to seep through the cracks. It was different from what happened at the start of their fable, where the earth below them began to sink. This ground was not sinking into the large, open abyss. Instead, the abyss seemed to be growing in spots and forcefully tearing the ground apart to exit.
Aura stood and dismissed both of her crows before saying, “there’s no way the crows can move with these tremors.”
“Then we’ll go on foot,” Clyde said. He had already been placed back in the leadership role for their small group.
Each of them tried to maintain their footing as the world tore apart around them. They began running towards the fable rift at a modest pace. It was important that they made it in time but more importantly, they could not fall into these newly torn burrows into the abyss.
As they approached, Syllis felt a fiery pain burn inside of her. It was like one of the four suns had taken shelter in her chest. She cried out in pain earning her worried looks from Clyde and Aura.
“Keep looking forward!” Syllis yelled like a commander. There was no time to explain her pain to them.
Syllis immediately bit down on her hand, trying to distract her mind from the rampant pain. Her pain did not relent though, the focus was not on her hand. This episodic pain began to rise like lava, bubbling to the surface of a volcano. She had hoped that the once withered tree could have rid her of this pain. Her hopes had been in vain though.
‘Just what is the source of this pain?’ Syllis cursed the world's disdain for her. ‘If this pain can persist and survive while under the influence of something that can mend not only the physical, but the intricacies of the deepest parts of my mind, then what could it even, possibly be?’
As they moved closer, they took a couple, slight falls. Each time, they got back up quicker than the last.
Crush! The rumbling sounds were replaced by horrific crushing.
Clyde’s face grew pale as he looked off to the side.
Syllis followed his gaze. There, emerging from an abyssal pocket was a horrific amalgamation of abyss and stone. It was unlike the taran, less human than even those fiends. It was even more incomprehensible than Aura’s ephemeral creatures with their bizarre properties.
She did not know how to describe these creatures, or even how to understand them in her mind. The only thing that came to mind was that their countless eyes—or something akin—looked like the ‘soul of a star’ that her father had described to her many times.
Once their gaze landed on her, she felt a chill spread throughout the entirety of her body. It overpowered the burning sensation that she experienced by several fold. The corners of her lips quivered before she forcefully warped her mouth into a smile.
Though they had likely meant to cause damage, Syllis could not help but want to thank them. Her body had begun to pulse with a deeper, cold pain, tinged with longing.
“I’m more comfortable with the cold, you fiends!” Syllis yelled at them with a fuller smile than she ever had before.
She instinctively felt the want to throw a javelin towards them but decided against it. ‘Something so intense and incomprehensible couldn’t possibly be affected by my primitive bond.’
Syllis had never been entranced by the idea of a ‘god’ existing, even through her bond. There was a greater chance it was some, other entity, like a demon or something similar. This single moment, the gaze focused on her and the chill within it, combined with this overwhelming pressure around her, did more to convince her that there was an all powerful god.
Even more terrifying was the addition of several dozen more gazes. As she ran, Syllis spun, taking in these dozen more amorphous beings of abyss and stone. There was a sort of order in their stone with their entirely identical appearances. It was unnatural, going completely against the wild and indistinct abyss that surrounded their stone.
“Syllis!” Aura cried out. She was gritting her teeth and leaning on the side of Clyde, who wore a similarly pained expression.
‘Oh, right…’ Syllis could not help but feel joy internally. The burning skies had hurt her more than Aura or Clyde could understand, after they had first entered the fable. Now, the situation had been flipped on its head, Syllis was the resistant. She was not about to let her companions suffer though, especially with her mind having been freed from any foreign corruption.
Several walls of icy-blue surrounded all sides of them, leaving only a small gap for them to continue their run towards the fable rift, towards their way home. Less than a second later, these walls were shattered by their cold gazes.
‘A battle of attrition huh?’ Syllis didn’t think that she could win in a battle of anything with them as her opponents. With her mind being reduced to a blank canvas—from one that had been drawn on, torn, and glued back together several dozen times—she figured that this was her best chance though. Maybe, she could help her companions hold on until they reached the fable rift.
A series of these nearly all encompassing walls rose and shattered in an almost rhythmic fashion. In accordance with this rhythm, Syllis felt her mind slowly pulsing with the slowly materializing effects caused by the relentless use of her bond.
“Nearly there…” Syllis mumbled out loud as she was tossed to her side.
Clyde fell to the ground beside her and wrapped his arm around her waist. He pulled her back to her feet, along with himself. Throwing a worried glance at Aura, he turned back to Syllis and said, “just a little further, ok?
“Just a little further and then we’re home again.”
“Pitiful, just pitiful,” Syllis said out loud.
Clyde looked forward with a pained expression.
“Pitiful, pitiful, pitiful.” Syllis continued to curse her bond. It was pitiful, how she could waste almost the entirety of what the withered tree had restored, in only ten minutes.
The fable rift began to pull harder on the minds of Syllis, Clyde and Aura. Syllis in particular felt this shift the most. This strengthened pull, along with her rapidly increasing corruption and occasional piercing gazes of the them, formed an unbelievably symphony of mind-shattering pain.
Still, the violently raging rift in space—warping the area around it and leaking ethereal lights—looked beautiful under the bright sky.
After a half-dozen more walls of icy-blue were risen, they had finally made it within twenty feet of the rift.
Clyde wrapped her hand around Syllis’ arm. It was healthy and unlike the malnourished appearance it had given off before her resurrection.
Syllis watched as Aura stepped beyond the boundary of the rift first. Then, Clyde approached with Syllis in tow behind him. She saw the rift rage violently and a streak of lightning form within.
“Wait!” Syllis called out as she watched Clyde step through, looking back towards her with wide eyes before his figure faded entirely.
The rift in front of her began to rage violently, just as the one they had first entered had raged. It was like it had some anger, a score to settle with Syllis.
‘Whatever you have in store for me, fate…” Syllis muttered out loud. “I will take it on with my entire being!”
Under the watchful gaze of them far behind her, Syllis stepped through the rift. Immediately, she felt that something was wrong. Her vision began to blur and the disconnect did not happen. Her limbs did not feel distant and intangible, they felt like they were being torn apart.
Syllis would have laughed if she could feel her mouth, throat and vocal cords. She did not even know if she had them anymore. Through the indescribable pains that spread across her body, through all of her bones, muscles and what felt like something else, even deeper behind it all, she could not tell if she would be left with much of anything as far as her physical form went.
‘I should have guessed that this was what fate had in store for me… Why not, why not tear me apart?’