Soul binding is the process of taking mana and linking it to the soul of an individual. This bond persists through death and was the secret to the Dragons’ great power, granting them the ability to extend their lives by millennia through rebirth.
Fel. 1100 years ago.
The day the Ikhwezi suddenly appeared in the center of the city through a portal hadn’t been a surprise to Reylynn, or any of the other Revi, for that matter.
She, like the rest of her people, could see along the threads of fate and had seen their arrival coming. What did separate Reylynn from her people was just how far forward she could see. Most Revi could see days or weeks into the future. Reylynn could see years.
Dreamers, those like Reylynn, were called. What she saw wasn’t a guaranteed future, but more like the average of the most likely of many possible outcomes. And what she had seen terrified her.
Reylynn had been an astronomer and cosmologist most of her life, the stars were her passion and she enjoyed looking up at the night sky through the telescope in her lab. She did not let the knowledge of what was coming take away from her passion. She and everyone else in Fel were well aware and they were ready.
She glanced at her wand and the enchanted red and white robes she had placed by the door before looking up at the clock. Less than an hour before everything went to hell.
She wrote down her observations in her telescope as she’d done every night for the past several days. A new shooting star had appeared in the sky and Reylynn had spent the last several nights tracking it. She’d put its initial orbit on a collision course with Ciel, Terre’s nearest neighbor after her twin moons, Diurne and Nocturne.
But now her calculations suggested a different path. She turned to her long time friend and partner, Nilaa, and tapped on the table to get her attention.
Nilaa was a tinkerer by hobby and had helped Reylynn build most of the devices in the laboratory.
She looked up from the clockwork device in her hands, which looked like a small tube slightly smaller and narrower than Reylynn’s wrist, took off the magnifying glasses she was wearing, and signed, “Yes, Reylynn?”
Revi elves didn't have a spoken language. Fel was a small city on one of several asweyr continents floating just below Terre’s anacoustic zone, making audible conversation virtually impossible. Instead, the Revi used a mix of sign language and emotional telepathy.
Reylynn pulsed with curiosity as she replied, “Can you check my math? The numbers I got don't make sense.”
“I'm a little busy. Can it wait?” Nilaa pulsed with a mix of anticipation and irritation as she made a show of pointing to the clock.
Reylynn didn't need to follow Nilaa's hand. She felt the pulse of emotions from those nearest her entering her mind. The desire to protect and defend their home upon twin waves of anticipation and fear. The time had come.
Reylynn amplified that feeling through her own telepathic connection, sending the sensations to the next person who would send it to the next until eventually everyone in Fel was aware. Then she grabbed her wand, threw on her robes, and made for the door, Nilaa right behind her.
Hundreds of Revi poured out of their homes and places of business armed with their weapons. They gathered in the courtyard or took up positions on the nearby rooftops.
Reylynn stood back on the edge with the others who would soon be fighting. She watched and waited while healers and those who could provide other support moved past her.
Excitement floated around the courtyard as a blue wall of crystalized mana sprouted from the ground, growing until it was the size of a small home. It cracked and split, opening to reveal a cavern within it.
The Ikhwezi were very alien in appearance. Most were crystalline beings with mechanical joints not unlike the parts making up Reylynn’s telescope. Out of the hole in the crystal cave came nearly a hundred of them, each carrying large sacks. And wounded… so many more wounded. Some were missing limbs or had entire chunks of their bodies simply gone, leaking something white that Reylynn wasn't quite sure was blood. Those that couldn't run were carried.
Reylynn couldn’t read the expressions on their faces, to her they were static and smooth like the stone they appeared to resemble, but she could feel the fear, grief, relief, and even curiosity in the way some stopped and looked as they went by. They hadn't expected to find help on the other side of their portal, let alone have it appear so quickly.
Other Dreamers like Reylynn had watched the Ikhwezi care for their own and they'd been able to share some of the insights into understanding their physiology. Thus they were ready and almost immediately, they were directed away from what was about to become a battlefield.
Being so high above Terre’s surface, having a relatively small population, and having access to foreknowledge meant war wasn't very common among the Revi people. That did not mean the Revi did not prepare for it. Each person maintained the ability to fight if needed throughout their lengthy, millennia-long lifespans. The entire citizenry formed a militia that could and would defend the floating lands they called home with vicious resolve.
And Reylynn and those around her did so as the second wave of Ikhwezi came through the portal, their backs to the Revi, but facing the monsters following them.
Some looked like insects, multi-legged with segmented bodies. Others slithered like snakes, the smallest of which were dozens of feet long and thicker around than any pair of warriors fighting them. All were made of stone, metal, and crystal that moved and writhed with an unnatural fluidity that differed greatly from the Ikhwezi fleeing them.
Reylynn knew her school of magic was useless against these creatures. She had seen in her Dream that her spells of light and shadow would bounce harmlessly off the crystalline armor of these monsters. But she had seen her role in turning this fight.
The Ikhwezi defensive formation was bolstered by Revi magic and ballistics finding targets from overhead. Some Ikhwezi looked around, their own weapons shifting to fight a potential two-front battle, but quickly understood when none of the attacks fell on them. They widened their perimeter, allowing Revi with melee weapons to fill in their ranks and assist them.
The moment the first Revi entered the fray, the courtyard devolved into chaos.
Pinchers cleaved Revi bodies in two, stingers impaled them. The deaths of Reylynn’s people were returned twofold as hammers and maces cracked and crushed rocky exoskeleton, revealing the glowing fragments that served as their hearts that were quickly destroyed.
Almost all who fell today knew this day would be their last. And yet they fought without hesitation.
And yet Reylynn did hesitate. She knew the man who would be responsible for the deaths of everyone Reylynn ever knew was in that melee. The man she would have to kill. The man she would come to love.
That was the real source of the dread Reylynn felt. There was no avoiding this future. Every time Reylynn Dreamt, she saw only the end of the Revi and this man.
Reylynn brushed the thoughts aside and moved into position as the man approached. He was an imposing wall of braided, rope-like features approximating muscle with obsidian plates covering his frame. He towered over the Revi and many of the Ikhwezi as well.
Despite his solidly built appearance, he moved with a lithe grace even she would have found impossible to match as he delivered devastation with his war hammer. He spun the weapon, cracking it off the head of a snake-like monster, shattering it like a glass vase dropped on the ground. He dodged a man-sized claw of a scorpion monster, which put him in the perfect position to deal a blow to one of its legs in response.
The ground began to tremble as the largest monster yet came through the portal. The crystal cavern seemed to bulge and stretch as two eerily human hands dragged a mass of black rock and yellow crystals the size of Reylynn’s lab out.
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The figure began to shift as rock split apart, revealing hidden joints and features. A four eyed head, which was really more a cavernous maw on the end of a short, thick neck, emitted a trembling roar which Reylynn felt as vibrations through the ground and her body.
It heaved itself up on four limbs at its back and center, using one of its front sixth limb to steady itself while its free hand scooped up a Revi fighter and tossed him down its mouth like he was little more than candy. Blood seeped through cracks and holes in its neck as its mouth clamped shut and its jaws began grinding back and forth.
The courtyard filled with the emotions of fear and awe as a second, third, and fourth monster dragged themselves out of the cave, each unfolding itself to a similar size as the first one.
They broke through the ranks of the Revi and Ikhwezi, who were forced to cede the courtyard as even more of the smaller monsters continued to come through the portal.
They retreated, but the fear was quickly replaced by grim resolve as three peaks of confidence, assurance, and excitement swept through the Revi as the man with the hammer drove the weapon’s head into a grasping hand, shattering the finger joints like dried deadwood.
He used his momentum to slide under the creature, plant something under it, and roll to the side. An explosion knocked the monster onto its side. Stone fell away, revealing the weakness in its chest.
Before the man could take advantage, he was knocked away hard by the monster’s other hand. He dropped his bag, a small white crystal falling out of it. He hurriedly picked up the bag, but hadn't noticed he'd dropped what he’d been carrying inside it.
Reylynn darted between the warriors and monsters and grabbed the crystal. The moment her fingers touched it, the world around her changed.
She wasn't in the middle of the battlefield anymore. She was in a clearing in a rain forest surrounded by tall, wide trees and fungi and flowers of colors she had no names for. Ferns covered every inch of the ground that wasn't occupied by thick tree roots, rocks, or fallen trees.
It was no longer night time either. Sunlight broke through the overhead canopy, checkering the ground with shadow and light.
Then she locked eyes with a giant, black spider nearly as large as she was. Eight violet eyes looked back at her.
Reylynn gasped and dropped the crystal in surprise. The scene faded as quickly as it had appeared and she was back in the middle of the battle going on in Fel's courtyard. She hadn't seen any of that in her Dream of today. What was going on?
Reylynn looked down at the crystal on the ground. She had to learn how to use it. Her Dream showed her casting spells with it. But that spider in the forest. Where had it come from? How had she gotten there? Why hadn't her Dream showed her that?
Reylynn had to find out. Taking a deep breath, she slowly picked up the crystal and was back in the forest.
Where the spider had been, there was now a woman with four arms and four violet eyes looking back at her. The skin around her face and arms was actually sheets of black chitin that flowed past each other seamlessly with each breath she took.
She was sitting on the ground, wearing a robe-like dress that shifted from yellow to amber to red with gold trim and stitching.
It was a style Reylynn had never seen before, but its beauty contrasted with the distinctly alien features of the woman’s face and body. Her lower arms were crossed in her lap and she leaned back on her upper arms in a pose of casual indifference.
She raised her two lower arms and signed to Reylynn.
“I apologize if I scared you. You arrived earlier than I expected.” The woman gave a disarming smile.
Revi sign language was as much about facial expression as it was the signs and gestures. The woman’s appearance was eerily uncanny as she made expressions that didn't quite look right on her chitinous face.
Signing with only her free hand—she didn't dare set either crystal down—Reylynn asked, “Who are you?”
“I am…” she paused, her face contemplative. “You may call me Taika.”
Reylynn waited, expecting more, but the woman just stared at her impassively. Deciding nothing further was forthcoming, she asked another question.
“You said I got here earlier than you expected. How did you know I would pick this up? What is this?” Reylynn raised the crystal up.
Taika finger-spelled the word violin. And then she sat up straighter, raising her upper arms out from under the brush they’d been hidden by, revealing a wooden instrument with four strings in one hand and a bow in the other. With her lower hands, she signed, “I knew you would come here to learn to play Lindsong.”
Taika put the wide end of the violin under her chin, resting it in the cup attached to it. She nodded to Reylynn, pointing at her hands with her lower left hand.
At first Reylynn didn't understand, until she realized the crystal in her hand had changed into an exact mirror of the instrument Taika held. Reylynn looked at it with curiosity. She'd held instruments like it on the few times she'd been down to Terre’s surface. The dragons could hear its notes and often sought the ground folk to play them songs.
Reylynn mimicked the actions of the woman and followed along as she ran the bow along the four strings and Reylynn… heard.
No, that wasn’t the right word. All Revi were deaf, they lived their entire lives in a zone whose air was too thin to conduct sound. Rather, Reylynn felt the soft vibrations singing from the instrument carried by the mana that pulsed away from it as they passed through her very core.
It started as the slow drip of morning dew from the tip of a leaf falling into a puddle, a steady drip that grew into the frantic splashes of large moon rabbits playing with each other in a pond. All the while, motes of mana flickered and danced around Reylynn in a multitude of colors that slowly shifted across the entire spectrum of the rainbow.
The Revi didn't have a sign to describe the soft lullaby she felt and the sight of the mana coming from the instrument. The Revi word for beautiful and the emotions conjured with it seemed lacking for the concept Reylynn tried and failed to grasp in her mind.
Reylynn closed her eyes as she continued to feel the music and upon opening them, was suddenly back in the middle of Fel's courtyard.
The instrument took on a mind of its own as it used Reylynn’s body to cast a spell that was equal parts restorative and supportive. Motes of green, yellow, and pink mana in the shape of musical notes and waves emanate from the instrument. They carried the song Reylynn felt the instrument playing to the warriors fighting around her.
The Ikhwezi could hear the music playing, its sound carried on the waves of mana emanating from the violin, while the Revi felt the music within them, in the same way Reylynn did. They raged against the monsters with raised resolve, rallied by the restorative rhythm of Reylynn’s refrain.
Hammers chipped away at the behemoths’ armored undersides, exposing crystals which the Ikhwezi targeted with brutal efficiency, killing them far quicker than Reylynn would have thought it would have taken.
The tide of the battle turned as the Ikhwezi and Revi pushed the attacking monsters back into the portal. The man who'd dropped the violin slammed the head of his hammer one-handed into the ground, shattering the earth beneath the portal, causing it to break apart and close.
All motion in the courtyard ceased as everyone realized the fighting was over.
Somewhere in the fighting, the man had lost his arm. White liquid poured from where the limb had been. He picked up his hammer, letting it come to rest on some sort of mounts on his back. Then he picked his arm off the ground and immediately turned and locked eyes with Reylynn. He came to her, his mouth moving in the pattern of speech for a moment. He paused, stopping in his tracks, then tried again.
Reylynn pointed to her ears, then to him, and shook her head.
He nodded, then pointed to the violin.
Reylynn blushed, she had technically stolen it. She held it forward for the man to take back, but he shook his head and took a step back. His eyes, small and dark in the same shape as the giant lenses on Reylynn’s telescope, began to glow a soft blue.
She began to feel something at the edge of her mind. Like the pulse of emotional telepathy, but in a language wholly not her own.
She pulsed with surprise.
The pattern shifted slightly.
She shifted her emotional pulsing to curiosity.
The pattern shifted again. This time, Reylynn thought she understood the emotion: eagerness. She returned it with a pulse of excitement.
Then, something she neither expected, nor seen in her Dream, happened. The very thoughts of another, completely coherent and as though they were her own entered her mind.
“Can you understand me?”
Unsure how to respond, this was a form of telepathy wholly new to her, Reylynn pulsed with inquisitiveness and signed, “And you, me?”
“I do not know your sign language, but my race has spent eons cracking the code to telepathy. I can understand your thoughts only if you let me in.”
Reylynn paused. It was considered rude in Revi culture to use emotional telepathy without first getting the person’s attention. Though this wasn’t exactly like that as he had, in his way, asked for permission and even though he didn’t know it yet, she knew who he was. She pulsed with acceptance and the man, Anathi, nodded.
She began to feel Anathi’s emotions. The weariness, the fear, the desire to protect those of his people. And a level of caution towards her.
“You knew my people were coming.” It was a statement, not a question.
Reylynn nodded. “We had time enough to prepare. My people, the Revi, can see along the path of time.”
He seemed to be taking in that information. Before he could respond, Reylynn pointed to the arm he carried in his hand.
“Does that not hurt?” Reylynn asked.
He put his good hand to his ruined shoulder where torn wiring and shredded armor still leaked that clear-white fluid, though not as much as before. “This is not blood. I will be fine.”
“We still need to get you patched up. Follow me.” She turned once to make sure he was following her and when he didn’t move, she added, “Your people will be taken care of. Now, if you want the answers to your questions, then you will come, Anathi.”
There was the recognizable emotion of surprise on his alien face at her calling him by name. Reylynn didn't wait to be sure Anathi was following her, but felt the soft thump-thump of his heavy footsteps through the ground as he moved.