The morning after Vyrkad briefed the companions on their missions, Sakrattars woke before the sun. He reviewed the map he’d been provided several times, committing all details to memory, then set to work flipping through his spellbook and the various notes he had taken during the brief. Although his information recall had always been second to none, Sakrattars still liked to have physical affirmations that his recollections were indeed correct.
Amale was the next to rise, then Jo, with the latter eventually rousing Kaja from her sleep. When Dimitri arrived at their doorstep, Leif was rushing around in a tired haze, clumsily gathering his equipment and complaining that no one woke him up. Waiting for them outside was Barzom and his scouting team, as well as Captain Tullius and Leo. While Tullius and Leo were staying behind, they still wanted to send the companions off properly.
When they reached the central plaza, Leif gave Jo’s hand a hearty shake. “See you on the other side,” he said cheerily. Sakrattars pursed his lips. Why provoke such an ill omen?
As Dimitri’s team continued west, Sakrattars, Jo, and Kaja turned down the north road. Reserved almost exclusively for miners and loggers, the north gate was positioned at the narrowest part of the valley, where the river terminated at a small lake. Loggers in the mountains would roll the trunks of great evergreen trees into the river, where they’d float downstream into the lake, get fished out, and then were used to power the forges.
The north gate, while called a “gate”, was more of an informal checkpoint with a guardpost on either side of the river. Unless the ferix found reason to fear an army of foxes or owlbears, there was no risk of an invasion through the north’s wild and inhospitable terrain, so security was thin and the soldiers bored. Sakrattars showed their pass, signed by Vyrkad, to the on-duty guard. The ferix’s eyes scanned the text lazily, then flicked up to each of them in turn. He settled on Kaja, who smiled brightly up at him. Grumbling a few words in ferish, the guard waved them through. Whatever Vyrkad was thinking, it was above his rank to care.
Sakrattars adjusted his pack and pulled his rhino-hair cloak closed against the biting wind. Their destination was on the west bank, around a day’s walk upstream: a mountain that the ferix called “Mount Blade”, not for its shape or mythology, but because that’s where they mined diamonds—a gem they valued primarily for its cutting properties. Sakrattars had been shocked to learn that they routinely discovered veins of other precious materials like ruby, sapphire, quartz, and amethyst in the Mount Blade mine, but these were either left alone or discarded. Back in the Empire, such treasures adorned the necks and hair of nobles, and were prized items in a wizard’s collection of spell components, though only the wealthy could reasonably purchase them. Sakrattars wondered whether the gems were what attracted the wizard in the first place.
There was one odd detail in Vyrkad’s briefing that concerned Sakrattars, however. According to the miners’ reports, the wizard kept to himself and rarely left his tower, though they could see his shadow roaming around the candle-lit windows. This fact they all agreed on but, bizarrely, the miners were conflicted on where the tower was located. One claimed he saw it just inside the cave mouth, another said it was tucked at the end of a little-used passageway. One even said he saw it outside the mine, built as if carved out from the mountainside itself. The simplest explanation was that it was an illusion spell, intended to deter curious ferix. Depending on the strength of the spell, Sakrattars thought that he might be able to counteract it but that contingency didn’t exactly fill him with confidence. He hoped that the wizard would be amenable to treating with one of his fellows and voluntarily make his presence known.
The sun was high in the sky, but the air no less chilly, when the companions decided it was time for a break. Sakrattars filled his water skin, then huddled away from the wind.
“Aren’t you gonna wash up?” Jo called from the river’s edge. Kaja had already stripped off her clothing and was swimming happily in the crystal clear water.
“Have you noticed the temperature?” Sakrattars replied irritably, while scraping together a few handfuls of twigs and dried grass. With a word of magic, the kindling ignited into an admittedly pitiful fire.
“Fine.” Jo shrugged and tossed her own clothing onto shore. “Go ahead and smell like an orc pit when you meet this mountain wizard.” She waded thigh deep into the river and splashed the ice cold water onto her arms and face with a shiver. The layer of dirt, dried blood, and dust that had accumulated during their time in the Steppes washed away into the current.
Sakrattars snorted, but took a discreet sniff. He didn’t smell bad. It wasn’t good either, but he thought it would be alright. Closing his eyes, he dreamed of the bathhouses in Aurea—the steaming pools fed by wood-fueled boilers, the scented oils attendants applied before the strigil, and the taste of the grilled fishes and fried bread the vendors sold outside. That last thought made his stomach growl.
With a flick of her finned tail, Kaja disappeared underwater. She swam with a natural grace that surprised Sakrattars, though he supposed that it shouldn’t. White dragons were known for their semi-aquatic lifestyle in the icy oceans of northern Calthia and, though Sakrattars still didn’t fully understand the zmaj’s connection to their draconic counterparts, their similarities were undeniably stark.
After a long, mildly concerning minute, Kaja splashed back to the surface with a fish in her mouth. It flopped and wiggled as she waded out of the water, trying unsuccessfully to get a grip on the slippery creature. Eventually she grew tired of its struggle. She thrashed her head, bit down harder, and the fish instantly froze solid. Sakrattars watched with dismay as Kaja spit it out, picked it up, and offered it to him.
“Can I have—um, an unfrozen one?” Sakrattars asked once the shock wore off. Kaja nodded and jumped back into the river. Before long, Jo had salvaged his attempt at firebuilding and Kaja caught enough food for Sakrattars to make a ring of skewered fish, roasting around the healthy flame. Clean and clothed, Kaja enjoyed her frozen fish while Jo showered her with praise for being such a good hunter.
Sakrattars plucked a stake off the fire and peeled back the charred skin, his mouth watering at the sight of the steaming pink flesh underneath. It was plain and unseasoned, an insult to the culture of cooking he grew up with in Arvisian Bay, but it was the best meal he had ever eaten.
*
*
Sakrattars peered at the canvas map, then to the setting sun and surrounding features. He was sure they had the right mountain, yet they hadn’t found any tower inside or outside the mine and Sakrattars optimistically assumed that Vyrkad would have mentioned if there were more than one diamond mine on Mount Blade. He was beginning to fear that they’d have to continue their search in the morning.
“Should’ve expected this,” Jo grumbled, scooping up a stone and flinging it at a tree. “This is why I don’t like magic.”
Sakrattars bristled. He stared harder at the map, trying to resist the urge to take his frustrations out on her, but was ultimately unable to help himself. “Kaja uses magic, yet you never complain about her,” he said moodily.
“‘Cause she uses it in a way that makes sense, not to make weird, vanishing buildings.”
Sakrattars rolled his eyes but was vindicated by Jo’s obvious ignorance. Kaja’s magic made the least sense, actually. Thosian wizardry had recipes, it followed set rules, and its effects were predictable under a practiced hand. Kaja, meanwhile, wielded magic like she was plucking it straight from the ethereal realm. She never used spell components; she didn’t even seem to know what they were. One time Sakrattars asked her how she went about converting the air element from her lungs into ice breath without a channeling crystal and the only answer he received was a blank stare followed by a small head tilt.
“Alright then,” Sakrattars settled on saying. “I need more time to think this over. We’ll have to spend the night.” Fortunately, Vyrkad had given them permission to use a small shelter tucked just inside the cave mouth. With no miners currently on site, they would have the whole place to themselves.
Jo stood with an audible sigh, and Sakrattars felt the last of his patience drying up. “You didn’t have to come,” he snapped. “You can go back to Forgeheart and I’ll do this myself.”
“And leave you alone out here?” Jo teased. “Kaja’s the only reason you got to eat today.”
Sakrattars huffed. “You can go, Kaja will stay with me, right?” He looked at Kaja, whose eyes got wide. “You want to stay here with me?”
Jo cut in, saving Kaja from having to make a decision. “Yeesh,” she mumbled. “Sorry, okay? We’re both staying”—then she added as a quiet after-thought—“even though this wizard seems like a real piece of work.”
Truthfully Sakrattars was grateful that Jo was staying, but he was still irritated with her. “Then stop complaining and let me focus,” he said.
“Fine, fine.” She waved it off and ran a sheepish hand through her hair. “Imma go hunting. Wanna come, Kaja?” Kaja paused, then shook her head. Jo shrugged, assumed her saber cat form, and bounded off into the forest. Sakrattars walked in the opposite direction, eyes scanning the ground. Kaja scurried after him.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Looking for plants,” he replied absently, drawing his knife from his sash. “Magically significant ones,” he amended. “A gift for the wizard when we see him.” It seemed silly to offer such a basic thing to someone practicing such high-level magic, but it felt better than showing up empty handed asking for favors.
Kaja nodded in the way that, as Sakrattars had come to learn, meant she didn’t quite understand but also didn’t want to appear ignorant. “What plants?”
“Mountain flower, bristle thyme, purple-tipped ivy—ah! Silvery lichen will do nicely, very nicely!” Sakrattars ripped a piece of parchment from his spellbook and gently shaved the metallic-colored lichen off the tree bark with his knife, catching the flakes in the paper. With easy deftness, he folded the paper into a small envelope to protect the precious contents. “This is really expensive in the Empire,” he said to Kaja who, despite her lack of comprehension, made for a captive audience. “It only grows in northern Calthia.” She nodded obediently, and didn’t even object when Sakrattars continued to lecture her about the various plants they came across.
It was dusk when Sakrattars called off his hunt. He had found several components he could give to the wizard, all of them humble with the exception of the lichen. “I wish I could have found another patch,” he lamented, eying the parchment envelope enviously. “I would have liked to collect a packet for myself.”
“You want more?” Kaja asked.
“It would have been nice to have.”
“Okay.”
Sakrattars thought the conversation over and they continued in silence for a few more paces. Then Kaja suddenly veered towards a rocky outcropping. “Hey!” he scolded, hurrying after her. “You get lost and Jo is going to have my head.” But Kaja didn’t appear to be listening. She examined the underside of the layered rocks, shook her head, and moved on to the next. When Sakrattars caught up to her for the second time, he was starting to get angry. “What are you—”
Kaja pointed to the bottom of the slick wave of rock above them, where a large patch of silvery lichen was flourishing. “I see it in dark, wet places,” she said. “I saw it a lot back. . . home.” Her expression slipped for a brief second and Sakrattars felt it like a twist in his gut.
“Well, thank you,” he said awkwardly, hoping he wouldn’t have to acknowledge their mutual discomfort.
There was a hidden victory in the moment, though, one he gleefully took note of: he was correct to assume that the Grayspurs were near Kaja’s homeland. Silvery lichen had a limited range, mostly within Volgaria, which was closed off politically and economically from the rest of Calthia. The only other place it could be obtained was in the lawless wilderness encompassing the Goldenwoods, the Grayspurs, and the central mountains. He was now certain Kaja and her zmaj brethren were from that area. The confirmation grounded him back in their ultimate purpose for being there, but finding the zmaj would have to wait until Dimitri received Vyrkad’s word that he would honor an alliance with the Aurean Empire. Sakrattars filed the information away for later use, and refocused on their current objective.
When Sakrattars and Kaja returned to the mine, Jo was waiting for them empty-handed. “No animals on this damned mountain,” she grumbled. “The noise from the miners must scare them off or something.”
Disappointed by the fact that they would go to bed hungry again, the companions stoked a fire in the ashy pit outside the cabin and Sakrattars prepared a thick mountain flower tea. It wasn’t filling, but it was warm and would calm their nerves for sleep. Jo and Sakrattars leaned back with their steaming tins, while Kaja sprawled out on the ground, her own tin left untouched. A glistening speck floated down into the firelight and landed on her nose. It was soon followed by another and then another until the sky was filled with twinkling snow.
Kaja perked up, reaching out her hand. “Snihl’ad’s blessing,” she said softly.
Sakrattars sipped his tea. “Snihl’ad?”
Kaja watched as the snowflake on her palm was joined by several others. “Our. . . mother.”
Jo propped herself up. “Your mother?”
“No.” Kaja shook her head. “Our mother.”
Sakrattars considered this. Imperials frequently referred to the goddess Aia as “the mother”; it would stand to reason that zmaj could also have a maternal deity. In any case, it was the first time Kaja had mentioned anything about religion or culture so the breakthrough was exciting. Sakrattars was only disappointed that she wasn’t forthcoming with more details, and he knew how Jo disliked it when he asked Kaja too many probing questions. He made a mental note to talk to Kaja about it in the future, when Jo was otherwise occupied.
The weather intensified and Jo stamped out the fire so the companions could move into the cave and cabin within. Kaja asked if she could stay out, a request Jo was willing to grant so long as Kaja promised to come in to sleep.
As Sakrattars was preparing for bed, he glanced at Kaja’s small, shapeless silhouette on the lip of the cave. It had to be near midnight but Kaja still gazed up into the eye of the storm, silent as the falling snow.
*
*
A gentle nudge stirred Kaja from her sleep. At first she thought it must be morning and Jo was waking her, but the cabin was dark and her companions were still in their beds. Through bleary eyes, Kaja counted a fourth person in the room. She sat bolt upright, gripping the locket around her neck.
At the edge of her bed was the Child.
Holding their doll close to their chest, their wooden mask featureless in a way that made Kaja feel sad, the Child gestured to the cabin door. Kaja hadn’t seen the Child since Castrum Ustarius, when she was in her dragon form. Thinking she might be out of body again, Kaja looked down to where she had been sleeping but saw nothing except the straw cot. She felt her torso, her arms, her face. She was still in her body. Her zmaj body. So how was she seeing the Child? Kaja swung her legs over the side of the bed and made her way across the cabin, pushing the door open on its well-oiled hinges.
She could immediately tell that whatever was off inside the cabin extended to the outside as well. The cave mouth was hazy and gray as if a curtain of thick smoke was obscuring the view of the evergreen forest beyond. The other direction, the interior of the mineshaft, was both light and dark, fuzzy yet clear. Kaja felt like she was walking through a dream or in her spirit body. Only she wasn’t doing either of those things.
The shadows shifted and Kaja whipped her head towards it. Nosing around in a pile of discarded gem fragments was a small creature, roughly the size of a barn cat. Kaja first thought that it was a black lizard, with its long, serpentine body and row of spines running down its back. But the longer she stared, the more she noticed: the horned head, the way its outline wavered like black mist, the rivulets of blacker-than-black shadow that dripped from its body. It almost reminded Kaja of—
The creature suddenly looked up, its burning eyes capturing Kaja’s gaze. Though it resembled a demon, Kaja didn’t feel the predatory pull she felt around the Fallen. The creature hissed, stuffed one of the gem shards into its mouth, and retreated further into the tunnel.
Not knowing what else to do, Kaja shook Jo and Sakrattars awake.
“What’s wrong?” Sakrattars asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Kaja hesitated. What could she say that didn’t sound completely crazy? She glanced at the Child, standing motionless and pointing to the door.
“There’s something outside,” Kaja said.
This snapped both Jo and Sakrattars to attention. They flew out of bed and quickly dressed. Kaja shifted nervously as Jo pulled on her cestuses and took up position on one side of the door, with Sakrattars on the other. After one last look, Jo slammed the door open and they burst out into the cave, fist and spell at the ready—
—and there was nothing there.
Jo peered around a few dark corners and shrugged. Sakrattars instantly relaxed, releasing a long, exhaling breath. “What did you see?” he asked, his tired gaze resting on Kaja. But she stared right through him, at a fixed point down the tunnel where the Child was walking silently into the mineshaft. Sakrattars briefly followed her gaze, then turned back to her expectantly. Kaja chewed her lip. Sakrattars had looked straight at the Child but said nothing of it. Whatever was going on, he still couldn’t see the way she could.
The Child paused at the edge of visibility, beckoned, then disappeared into the inky darkness, leaving Kaja alone to explain herself. “There was a lizard,” Kaja said at last. Seeing Sakrattars’ expression grow wearier, she quicked added, “not a lizard. A demon. . . but not a demon.”
“Kaja, what are you saying?” Sakrattars groaned.
Jo came up behind him. Her posture had not relaxed as much as his. “Let her speak,” she said.
“I don’t think it was an animal, it didn’t. . . feel right. It saw me, then went that way.” Kaja pointed down the tunnel. She could tell that Sakrattars still didn’t believe her, so she thought it would be a bad time to mention the weird ethereal haze, let alone the Child.
“Let’s go look,” Jo suggested.
Sakrattars grumbled. “Can’t it wait until morning? Maybe she was dreaming.”
“And if it’s Irkallu? Are you gonna wait to see if we get our throats cut where we sleep?”
Cowed by the rebuke, Sakrattars sighed. “Why do you always jump to the worst possible conclusion?” he muttered.
After gathering the rest of their belongings, the party headed into the mineshaft to search for the mystery creature. The tunnel was large and spacious, supported by strong wooden beams reinforced by blackened metal. Even though it was lined with carts loaded with discarded stone and raw gems, there was plenty of room for the companions to walk comfortably abreast.
Sakrattars magicked up a group of floating red lights which, to Kaja’s eyes, only served to highlight the strangeness of the shifting, fluid shadows. Sometimes one of the lights would catch a mineral vein just right and it would twinkle like starlight against the darkness of the stone walls. Other times, Kaja would think she spotted another such vein only to see the flame-like glow wink out with a faint, unintelligible whisper.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Eventually, the companions came upon a three-way split in the tunnel.
“Well, I don’t think we’re going to find whatever Kaja saw,” Sakrattars said with finality. “We should go back and get some sleep. I want to be well rested when we—”
“That way,” Kaja said, pointing down the left fork. The Child nodded, then dissipated into the shadows.
“Trust her,” Jo said, resting a hand on Sakrattars’ shoulder. Sakrattars grunted but followed her lead.
The tunnel began to open up and the carts became fewer and further between. The wooden scaffolding vanished and the walls looked less carved by ferix pickaxes and more sculpted by nature. For Kaja, the whispers grew louder and the weird blue flames more frequent. She clutched her locket, but remained quiet. In the distance several colors danced and sparkled, becoming larger and brighter as they approached.
“What on Kynara’s green—” Sakrattars gasped.
The companions stood at the entrance of a large chamber, populated with a dense grove of twisted, gnarled trees as far as the eye could see. Unlike the trees outside—which were notoriously immobile—the contorted, naked branches of these trees, powdered with lucent green lichen, wriggled and writhed in unsettling agony. Growths resembling giant puffball mushrooms carpeted the ground beneath them, weeping a luminescent pink sap from gaping wound-like scars. The odd fungus expanded and compressed with slow, rhythmic sighs, almost like it was breathing.
“Is that. . ?” Sakrattars stammered. Standing like an obsidian beacon in the middle of the animated, glowing forest was a tower.
“Told you to trust her,” Jo said proudly. She patted Kaja’s shoulder.
Kaja blushed, her lips turning up in a shy smile. She looked to the Child, nodding to them in gratitude. The Child, though their expression was hidden by their mask, radiated with palpable joy. They hugged their doll close and used its tiny arm to wave to Kaja. Then they dissolved back into the darkness.
*
*
As the companions journeyed deeper into the eerie forest, Sakrattars felt a lump growing in the pit of his stomach. Everything was wrong: it was the middle of the night, they had gotten to where they were by trusting the word of a young girl, and he hadn’t had adequate time to mentally prepare for meeting with the wizard so soon. If they turned back now, he feared they wouldn’t be able to find the tower again come morning; but neither did he fancy spending the night out in the open surrounded by the creepy flora. As if to accentuate that point, a small branch reached into the back of his hood and poked Bartholomew experimentally. Sakrattars quickly slapped the twig away.
Even still, his biggest source of worry came from the fact that the ferix never mentioned a forest in their mine—and Sakrattars thought the unique features of this one would surely have been worthy of inclusion. His only ray of hope was a literal light—a flickering orange glow in one of the tower’s windows signaling that someone might be awake and willing to receive them.
The tower itself was tall and narrow, constructed of black granite blocks streaked with veins of glistening quartz. Rings of glassless windows stretched up the structure at regular intervals, suggesting floors with rooms radiating out from a central staircase. The tower reached as far as they could see, the top floors vanishing into the darkness somewhere above them. The chamber was so massive that, if not for the lack of stars and moon in the “sky”, Sakrattars would have no way of knowing they were actually underground.
Sakrattars glanced at Jo and Kaja, took a deep breath, then knocked on the arched hardwood door. When there was no response, he backed up to get a look at the window aglow with firelight. Were they being ignored? For an Imperial to leave his door unanswered was a breach so offensive it was virtually unheard of. There were myths of gods traveling the roads of Aurelia in the guise of vagrants and hermits to test the hospitality of the faithful. Those who invited the strangers inside were lavishly rewarded, those less generous were grimly punished. Sakrattars knew of men who rose from their death beds to order servants to prepare food and drink while making sure their unexpected guest was comfortable.
Though, Sakrattars reflected grimly, if the wizard set up his studies in the remote wilderness of the Grayspurs, he likely wasn’t bothered by proper social etiquette. Nor was he likely to want visitors at all.
“Hello?” Sakrattars called, sounding more apprehensive than he would have liked. “I’m sorry for the late hour, but I come from the Academia Arcana. . .” It was a lie, of course, but Sakrattars thought that an Imperial wizard would respond better to that name than to the University at Barsicum.
“Who are you?” a sharp voice hissed from the shadows. Sakrattars jumped. A small black drake slithered out into the open, a saliva-coated gem in its little clawed hand. Jo shifted and crossed her arms, clearly put off but not yet willing to voice her concerns.
“That’s the lizard I saw,” Kaja whispered urgently.
Sakrattars relaxed, feeling a modicum of the anxiety whirling around in his chest subside. The creature wasn’t a demon or Irkallu—it was just a wizard’s familiar. Perhaps it had even guided them to its master’s home.
“Who are you?” it demanded again, crawling up the granite and hanging its head back with contempt. Even against the black stone in the dark chamber, the drake’s scales seemed to eat up any bit of light it touched. “How did you find my tower? Did Vhel send you?”
“Vhel? Who’s. . . ” Sakrattars blinked. “No, no. I’m Sakrattars Mistwood, I—”
“An elf!” the drake cried. “An elf! An elf!” It shook its head as if dazed from a blow, repeating the words over and over again under its breath.
Sakrattars hesitated. Of all the outcomes he had planned for, he never expected this one. “I’m a student of magic, as well. An Imperial wizard,” he said carefully. “Are you here from the Academia Arcana?”
The drake’s head snapped to attention, its eyes narrowed lethally. “My work, you’re here for my work. Vhel sent you! She knows, she knows, she knows. . .” Still muttering incoherently, the drake stuffed the gem back into its mouth, then skittered up the tower and jumped through the firelit window.
“It doesn’t sound like he wants to help us,” Jo ventured wryly.
Sakrattars swallowed but his mouth was dry. Diplomacy between the Free Ferix and Aurea could be depending on his ability to get this wizard on their side. He couldn’t stand the idea of going back to Forgeheart a failure. “The wizard didn’t sound well. We should go inside and check on him,” he suggested.
“He looked a’right to me.”
“The drake isn’t the wizard! That was just his familiar.”
Jo squinted up at the window where they’d last seen the drake. “So that’s a familiar, huh?” she said pensively. “And you’re sure you didn’t just get a normal toad?”
Sakrattars pursed his lips. “We don’t have time for your nonsense. Besides, Bartholomew is just as good as a drake,” he said indignantly. He stalked up to the door, preparing to knock again, but it creaked open on its own. Taken aback, he glanced at Jo. Her eyes had gone wide and her mouth narrowed into a tense line. Sakrattars pushed the door fully open, the muscles in his arm stiff. “Excuse me? Sir Scholar?” he called tentatively. “Are you alright?” Jo and Kaja huddled at his back, all three peering into the pitch blackness of the tower. When he received no response, Sakrattars said, “pardon the intrusion.” He straightened up and led the way inside, willing his fraying nerves to keep it together.
His magical lights ghosted along behind him, illuminating the interior of the tower. Sakrattars gasped and Jo’s eyebrows shot up. Kaja stepped closer, hiding in Sakrattars’ shadow. They were in a long hallway lined with identical wood doors. Despite the tower’s shape, there were no stairs or indication of vertical height.
Without a word, Jo turned to leave but the door slammed shut, trapping them inside. She jiggled the handle desperately, to no avail.
“Wait, don’t!” Sakrattars cried. But Jo paid him no heed and brought a powerful kick into the door that shattered the wood and twisted the metal hinges until the shards hung uselessly from the frame. He climbed through after her, but instead of being back in the forest, they found themselves in a small, cluttered study.
Charts, maps, and notes were pinned to every surface, centered around a single desk facing the window on the far side of the room. A candle, melted down to a stub, flickered with an orange-yellow light. The wizard was hunched over the desk, his robes hanging loosely on skeletal shoulders. His hair was long and unkempt, his skin pallid, and he was writing hurriedly, almost in a panic. His free hand clawed and tugged at his scalp. Twirling a gray-white strand of hair around his finger, he absent-mindedly yanked it from his head.
A whispering voice wafted through the room, its source unclear. “She ruined everything. She knows, she knows. . .”
An answer came. Though the voice was the same, everything else about it—the tone, the timbre, the emotional state—was radically different. “Shut up! Don’t say it! Don’t think it! Or she will know!”
A third voice. “She’s here. . .”
The drake slithered up the wizard’s body, wrapping itself around his neck like a living scarf. It dropped the gem shard into a brass bowl where a half dozen similar shards had already been collected.
“Yes. . . yes one more, good, thank you. . .” the wizard mumbled, his true voice identical to the disembodied whispers.
The drake turned its glowing eyes toward the three intruders. “The elf!” it hissed. “He’s hiding Nyssa from us! He’s bringing Vhel to us!”
“No! Please listen—” But Sakrattars’ plea was cut short by a pulse of magic that drove them from the room. The shattered door disappeared before their eyes, leaving them staring at a blank stone wall.
“We need to leave,” Jo said, her severe tone marred by a tremble. She swung open the nearest door but beyond it was another infinite hallway lined with identical doors. “Gods damn this magic shit!” she swore, slamming it shut and whipping around to face Sakrattars. “Can’t you get rid of it?”
“I—I—” But Sakrattars couldn’t bring himself to say the words, to admit that he had no idea what was happening or how to stop it. The magic influencing the tower was not just beyond his skill level, he had never even heard of such magic in all his years of study. Whoever this wizard was, he couldn’t have come from an Imperial school, and without that connection, Sakrattars’ mission was as good as dead. The only thing left was to try to escape what was becoming an increasingly dangerous situation. “One of these doors has to work,” he finally said.
The companions split up, pushing open doors as they worked their way down the hall; but every door led to a different dead end, over and over again. They opened into dungeon cells, into solid walls or bottomless pits, or maelstroms of swirling darkness. Various scenes were coruscating across the walls—muddy, unclear, and rippling as if viewed through a flowing river. They saw snow falling, and sandstorms raging. Armored legions marched below while dragons soared through the skies above. Orcs pulled themselves over steel ramparts, crushing ferix defenders that stood in their way. With every door and each new vision, the voices grew louder and more numerous, arguing with each other incessantly until their discourse became a maddening cacophony.
“Nyssa is the key.” “Don’t think about it! She’ll find out where it is!” “She already knows! She knows, she knows. . .” “She doesn’t! The world will end before she finds it.” “The world has ended! It’s over! She knows!” “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”
“What in the Abyss are they even talking about?” Jo snarled. “What is Nyssa?”
“It’s not real,” Sakrattars said. He felt dizzy and nauseous, and his mind was racing. “Nyssa was home to the first elves, but it’s just a myth, a story you’re told as a child.”
“Well he seems to think it’s real!”
“Just keep looking for a way out.” Sakrattars threw open another door and he was suddenly staring at a burning city under a solar eclipse. A great tower roofed in bronze scales crashed to the ground, scattering itself across a beautiful marble mosaic. Sakrattars knew that mosaic, that city.
It was the market square in Aurea.
Before he could fully process what he was seeing, he heard Jo shout in alarm as a flurry of long-tailed bats exploded out of her door. They buffeted her body, knocking her over, then wheeled down the hall towards Kaja. Sakrattars tried to warn her of the threat approaching from behind, but it was too late. The creatures passed through Kaja like she was a ghost, slamming into Sakrattars’ chest and sending him reeling across the hall. He lifted himself in time to see Kaja turn to face the remaining bats, only for one to barrel into her and knock her prone before she could properly react.
The bats fluttered away, vanishing into the darkness. Sakrattars rose, hand squeezing his chest as his heart palpated beneath. The companions huddled together at the next door, each unwilling to face it alone. Slowly, cautiously, Kaja pushed it open.
They were back in the wizard’s study, but it was different somehow. Sakrattars’ eyes hurriedly scanned the room, his brain reconstructing it from memory. The candle. It had been burned down to the stub the last time they’d seen it, but now it was tall and pristine. The wizard twirled a strand of hair around his finger and nervously pulled it out. The hair was black, not white.
“Vhel. . .” the wizard said the name venomously. “I hate her, I hate her so fiercely I fear it will kill me.”
After searching for guidance on her friends’ faces, Kaja shut the door. Jo opened the next.
The wizard stood at the window. The candle on his desk was burned down to nothing. His hands, old and gnarled, clutched the railing. “It’s happening again. . . or did it happen already?” he said, his voice shaking from age. “Damn you, Vhel. I won’t let you win.”
A great shadow passed over the window. The wizard recoiled in fear as the shadow spread two dark wings from its long, thin body. “She’s here! She found me!” he gasped. The shadow beat its wings once and melted into the darkness. A deep, reptilian growl shook the tower.
Jo stiffened. “That sounds like a—”
“Dragon,” Sakrattars finished weakly.
The wizard, seeming to notice the companions for the first time, extended a bony finger in their direction. “You led her to me!” he accused in a shrill voice. “You led Vhel here!”
Sakrattars wanted to protest, to say that there was no way a dragon could fit in the diamond mine and that they would not have missed the presence of one even if it had, but his voice caught in his throat. Nothing about this made sense. He had to be dreaming, there was no other way. A foul wind rushed through the window, snuffing out the candle and leaving Sakrattars’ spell the only source of light. The red glow reflected off a rippling shadow passing outside.
The tower wizard dashed to his desk with a speed belying his age. He slammed shut the book he’d been writing in and clutched it close to his breast. Pushing his way past the companions, he fled through one of the doors and into the forested cavern. Sakrattars, Jo, and Kaja swiftly followed, breathing a sigh of relief when they were back in the surreal forest.
But relief turned to horror when they saw the dragon coiled around the granite tower. Her form shifted like squid ink in water, pools of shadow dripping off her body and vaporizing before they hit the ground. She was small and lithe for a dragon, only a fraction of the size of Bhorovane or Anya, but her presence no less terrifying. Seeing her quarry trying to escape, she jumped to the ground, crushing the tortured plants of the forest under her claws.
“She’s here for my work,” the wizard fretted. “She knows, she knows. . .” The contorted trees closed in and blocked his path, trapping him and the companions in a glade with the dragon at the center.
Vhel lashed out with her talons, her tail, her teeth. Jo dodged one of the blows, grabbing the dragon’s arm to tip her balance, but Vhel recovered swiftly and flung Jo across the glade as if she were nothing. It wasn’t the strike of a serious opponent, it was more like a cat toying with a helpless mouse.
As Sakrattars and Kaja rushed to Jo’s side, the tower wizard drew a vial of ruby powder from his pocket and crushed it in his hand. He signed an arcane symbol and a massive fireball crashed into Vhel’s side with a spectacular explosion. Jo grabbed Sakrattars and Kaja and flipped them over, sheltering them from the heat with her body. They didn’t have time to process what had happened before Vhel burst out of the smoke unharmed. Acting on pure adrenaline, they scattered just as the dragon brought her tail down where they had been.
Jo wrapped her arms around the tail and, straining her muscles with all her might, attempted to drag Vhel back. But the dragon just flicked her off and sent her flying once again. Through his haze of panic, some part of Sakrattars found that strange. Vhel was big but Jo should have at least been able to hold her own in a contest of strength.
“She’s not a dragon,” Kaja said, her expression uncharacteristically grave. There was a flurry of snowflakes and a gust of cold air, as she flung several dagger-like icicles at Vhel. They sank into her flank, smoking and hissing as they did.
Sakrattars’ heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. “What are you saying?”
“Bhorovane had magic coming out of him like this,” Kaja gestured broadly around her. “Vhel has magic like this.” She pointed from the dragon to the wizard, then the dragon to Jo.
“You can see magic?” Sakrattars asked faintly. It was a stupid, automatic response; words to keep his mouth occupied while his brain struggled to piece together what he was hearing. The ethereal realm, the source of magic, was known to be a fickle thing—subject to the whims of emotion and distorting in the hands of the incompetent. He recalled the bats in the tower, how they had only struck Kaja once she had seen them. . .
A bolt of adrenaline surged through Sakrattars’ body as the realization set in.
“Jo! It’s not real!” he yelled.
Jo, distracted by the idiotic claim, was sent sprawling by another whip of the dragon’s tail. She recovered her stance, forcing a gasping breath into lungs that suddenly didn’t want to work. “Feels damned real to me!” she rasped. Nearby, the tower wizard was casting spells in a state of escalating panic, fumbling with his component bag and spilling the contents in the chaos. The drake tried to regather the ingredients for its master, but the dragon’s lashing claws and flailing tail made it impossible.
“It’s an illusion! This whole place is an illusion!” Sakrattars cried. “Kaja can see it! You and the wizard make it strong with your fear!”
Swatting the tower wizard and his drake away like insects, Vhel pinned Jo to the ground and opened her fanged mouth wide. Jo could feel the hot breath, smell the rotten odor. Everything about it was real: the pressure on her ribs, her hammering heart, the helplessness as she struggled in vain to free herself.
Then Jo turned her face away from the beast and caught sight of Kaja. She had her hands clasped over her mouth, tears glistening at the edges of her eyes as she watched. But Kaja wasn’t looking at Vhel, Kaja was looking at her. Jo recognized it, knew all too well the frustrated, fearful look of someone who wanted so desperately to help but could not. There was only one kind of battle Kaja wouldn’t—couldn’t—physically rush into to protect her friends, and that was a battle within the heart. Jo took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Don’t look so worried, she thought, I trust you.
Vhel’s jaws snapped shut and Kaja stifled a scream. The dragon’s head twisted and wrenched, but Jo remained uninjured, her face at peace. She flexed her arms, breaking free of the dragon’s grip as easily as if its talons were made of paper. Rearing in frustration, Vhel recoiled from the answering punch as Jo regained her feet.
“Wha. . . what are you doing? Kill it! Kill it! It’s going to slay us all!” the tower wizard screamed. He upended the contents of his spell pouch into his hand and began the arcane symbol.
Sakrattars gasped. “No, wait—”
The drake bit down on its master’s hand in a last attempt to stop the spell, but the combination of the wizard’s terror and his magic gave the illusion one final surge of power. Vhel pounced on the wizard, consuming him in an oscillating veil of living darkness. Her form warped and shifted, then collapsed in on itself and melted into the ground, leaving the wizard standing in the center. His body swayed for a moment before falling, his precious book dropping from limp arms.
The companions rushed to his side but there was nothing to be done. Vhel was gone, the drake was gone, and the wizard was dead—terror permanently etched upon his lifeless face.
*
*
Sakrattars flipped through the wizard’s book, scanning the words again and again, trying to make sense of them.
“Why do you still have that thing?” Jo poked the fire and stretched her legs out with a groan. The orange light of sunset settled on the snow-covered evergreens, creating an illusion that it was warmer than it felt. It hadn’t been long since they emerged from the mineshaft and the fact that the sun was already so low on the horizon perplexed them. True, they had no sense of time in the mine, but both Jo and Sakrattars had trouble believing that they had been in there for almost a full day. Regardless, they made the decision to spend another night in the cabin and head back to Forgeheart in the morning. There wasn’t any urgency, not anymore.
“It’s a diary,” Sakrattars said, eyes still glued to the page. “Most of it doesn’t make any sense, it’s just rambling about Vhel and Nyssa and some paranoid conspiracy.”
“Figures,” Jo grunted.
“The only half-way coherent entry is the first one,” Sakrattars continued. “It’s also the only one that’s dated. . . 1491 A.I.” He pointed to the page where the date was written, clear as day—a date that wouldn’t come for another one hundred and sixteen years.
“So he was crazy,” Jo said assuredly, as if the matter had been settled.
But Sakrattars didn’t share her certainty. The idea that the wizard inhabited a different time was a strange one, but so were all the other ideas Sakrattars had been exposed to ever since he met Jo and Kaja in Barsicum’s market. He skimmed the entry one more time:
Spring, 1491 A.I.
I got within sight of the walls of Nyssa before I was turned away. Not the orcs of the steppe, not the fey of the Blackwood, not the dark legions of Norsivex could keep me from my prize.
Norsivex. There was that name again. It filled Sakrattars with dread. He continued:
But a dragon could, and a dragon did. Her name is Vhel, though even writing it on this page causes bile to rise in my gut. I hate her. I hate her so fiercely it feels like the hate itself will slay me. She’s a beast of shadow and her realm is of fear and trickery. With the remains of civilization ravaged by war, she has become powerful and has chosen Nyssa to be her lair.
I can’t let her keep me from the ancient knowledge the true elves left behind in their last bastion. The descendents who call themselves elves (as if they deserve to cling to that name) want to keep us from the power their forefathers wielded. Selfish! Spoiled! Savage! I’ll show them all. I’ll become strong in a time when Vhel has become weak, and then they will know the truth of the arcane.
It was an apocalyptic vision of the future, one that rattled Sakrattars to his core. As a diviner, he was used to viewing time as fixed and linear. Just as there were irrefutable events that happened in the past, there were things that were fated to happen in the future. Despite the common misconception, divination didn’t seek to predict those events—rather it was the practice of using magic to “read” clues about a time and place from the ethereal realm, where time and place were meaningless and everything existed all at once. If the information he could divine was variable, clues from a time that didn’t exist, why would he divine at all? Caught between accepting a fatal flaw in arcane theory or accepting a bleak and terrifying future, Sakrattars could bring himself to do no more than reread the entries over and over, as if an answer might present itself on the worn pages.
Mistaking the purpose of his silence, Jo nudged Sakrattars’ shoulder. “Vyrkad knew getting the wizard’s help was a long-shot,” she said gruffly. “If Dimitri destroyed those cannons, the ferix can hold out on their own until the legions come.”
Was she trying to comfort him? Sakrattars sighed and shut the diary. She was right though, and once they returned to Forgeheart and secured the alliance, their obligation to Dimitri’s mission would come to an end. Then they could focus on finding Kaja’s homeland. He would have plenty of time to think about the diary later.
Kaja emerged from the woods and approached the fire. “Jo,” she said softly. “There’s. . . something.”
Jo and Sakrattars followed her to an overlook on the ridge. She pointed to the southeast. With the setting sun on their backs, they gazed across the foothills and past the small, distant spires of Forgeheart. Where they expected to see the golden steppeland spread just below the horizon, they instead saw a mass of dark shapes—rows upon rows of soldiers extending beyond view. Sakrattars felt his heart stop, his blood run cold.
Ironfang was marching on Forgeheart.