In the instant that they passed through the stone, the Paragon was almost wrenched free of Jordan’s grasp as his hand and mind slackened. Trying to teleport through a solid object was the surest way to make sure they never found a body, though it was possible for a mage that was skilled or powerful enough. His instructor, Magus Gershwile, had joked more than once about that grim fate while he and his classmates had struggled to send rats from where they sat to the empty cage across the room that had waited for them.

It had taken a week before any of the rats that had managed to disappear without vanishing in a spray of blood to reappear on the far side of the room, alive and well, and there hadn’t been a wall in the way then. That had been years ago, of course, and Jordan had improved since then, but had he improved enough to fling them from the depths of darkness back into the light?

It was unlikely. Even as they soared through the emptiness between spaces, he could feel the hands of evil clawing at them and trying to drag them back to where they had departed.

Teleportation was an instantaneous thing. Done correctly, one would vanish in one spot and instantaneously appear in another, though it would always seem to the person in transit that seconds or minutes had passed. In fact, it was widely held that the longer it felt like it took, the closer one had come to the edge and that those who never reappeared simply stayed stuck in that timeless moment forever.

Jordan considered that entirely possible that that was the case here as he swallowed hard and tried to stay focused on their destination. Even being lost in the dark forever would be a kindlier fate than being raised as the servant of a monster, though, so he didn’t regret what he’d done for a single moment.

There was no denying that the faster he moved and the harder he strove, the further his destination moved from him. That thought was enough to bring him slowly to a halt as he drifted there, somewhere above the ground but far from the muddy field his magic had aimed for. He could feel the two of them beginning to freeze solid there, and that might have become an actual eternity were it not for the single silver thread that suddenly penetrated the endless dark.

The light of the moon would have been unable to breach the veil of unnatural darkness that shrouded this place had he stood in the real world. Here, though, past the boundaries of the world, the strange magic that caused that strange effect apparently didn’t apply, and the goddess of magic still reigned supreme.

That she had taken pity on him was not entirely a surprise; it happened sometimes in the stories. He only wondered if she’d done so to save the mage who was in danger or the servant of another god. Lunaris was as merciful as she was mysterious, and her ways were never entirely understood, even by her devotees. Though most of the world saw her only as the guardian mother who lit up the night for the world, she was the patron god of mages, too. As he gripped the thread and pulled himself forward again, Jordan uttered a prayer of silent thanks for her intercession.

Suddenly, time started again, and seconds later, they found themselves in a heap of tangled limbs in a dark, snow-covered field. It was close to where he’d been aiming, probably, but that didn’t tell Jordan a lot. Even with Brother Faerbar’s glowing blade radiating outward, he couldn’t see the road.

While Jordan continued to search for some sign of where they should flee, the paladin lifted him up by the scruff of his collar and shook the mage like a rag doll.

“You … traitorous viper!” he said coldly, even though his eyes burned with fire, “You left all of those men to die!”

“Th-they… already… dead…” Jordan gasped, barely able to speak. “Must…flee…”

“We were slaughtering the devils by the score!” the Paragon said, raising his sword threateningly. “There’s still time to regroup. Still time! Take us back at once, or I’ll have no further use for you.”

Jordan could see that the man was half mad with rage and grief, but what he asked was impossible. Even if he had the strength left to try and the desire to end up back in that pit, they would certainly end up embedded in one of the stone walls for all eternity; the spaces were simply too claustrophobic.

So, he just hung there in the warrior’s grip, waiting for the man to run him through or strike his head from his shoulders. The blow never landed. Instead, the older warrior froze, ears pricked to some distant sound. Then, without explanation, he dropped Jordan and started walking forward.

Jordan had no idea what had just happened, and he wasn’t about to ask what miracle had given him reprieve. Instead, he listened to the dark, trying to hear what it was that the paladin seemed to be listening to. It took a minute of walking before he heard the child’s wail over the crunch of ice under their boots. By then, the Paragon was running.

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Abruptly, they found the edge of darkness, and it fell away to reveal the thin gray light of dawn. Brother Faerbar stopped there, paralyzed by what he saw, even as Jordan rushed forward toward the sound.

The wan light was not yet enough to reveal any real details, but the shape of the shadows was more than Jordan ever wanted to see anyway, and the steam that was still rising from some of the corpses revealed that all of this had happened within the last few hours. He rushed to gather up the squalling child of five or six, hoping that the sound would lead him to further survivors. There was none, though. Not even the woman who still held the blood-stained bundle in her arms was breathing.

Jordan offered a second prayer to Lunara, sure that this was why she’d saved him. There were more than enough stories about how she would move heaven and earth to save motherless children and war orphans. This probably wasn’t even the strangest story on record, he realized, numbly, though he had no idea if they’d survive long enough to tell anyone.

Even with a knight glowing with divine might, the monsters that would come for the three of them come nightfall would be all but unbeatable now. Jordan looked past the field of dead bodies and up the road, trying to decide how far they could get before the last sunset, and he didn’t like his odds. It was only when he turned back to the Templar to ask him his opinion that Jordan finally saw a welcome sight: the sail of a ship.

. . .

Markez had been so busy pretending that everything was normal and that there wasn’t some monster lurking beneath them while they slowly poled their way through the darkness that he entirely missed the light on the far shore at first.

It was only when the children cried out that dawn had come again that they thanked the gods of the waters and cried out. “Well then, don’t stand around gawking at the sun. We got ourselves a sail to raise.”

Polling through the utter blackness that still stood adjusted behind them like a river had been as miserable as it had been unavoidable. With no starlight to show them where the sandbars or the shore were, they’d had to take that whole section nice and slow so as not to sink their fragile wooden world.

Now, as well as he had these children trained, it might take less than an hour to get their sail up and put that evil place behind them as quickly as possible. Markez was shocked they’d made it through at all, though that wasn’t something he was likely to tell anyone until he could find a pub where he could share drinks with a few salts his own age if such a thing even still existed in this fallen world.

No sooner did they have the sails up, though, and were once again starting to make real headway than another oddity was sighted. Two men were running towards them, and each of them was stranger than the last. The first one was wearing plate mail and glowing brighter than the sun itself, and the second was a skinny young man wearing bloody robes. He would have been inclined to put both of them in his wake, given how desperate and dangerous they looked. He doubted that everyone on this boat together could have possibly beaten him, even without whatever crazy magic he seemed to wield.

But for the baby, he would have left them both, but if Markez had a weakness, it was that. How could he ever hope to leave a defenseless infant behind?

So, he guided the boat toward the far shore and ordered his crew to loosen the sails so he could have a closer look at these two and decide what it was he should do about them. Fortunately, spilling wind from a sail was the only order that the sailors of this ship were any good at.

“You’re a strange couple of parents,” Markez called to the two men on shore as they pulled up close. “I’m not sure I can let such dangerous strangers come aboard my vessel, though!”

“I understand that you are nervous, sir,” the young man with robes said very politely, “I would do no less in these… trying times. But we can be of help to you in your darkest hour, as it were.”

Markez didn’t laugh at the joke. Instead, he set his chin and turned to Mr. Light, “And who’s this then? What’s with the light show? I haven’t seen a single Siddrimite since your god was plucked from the sky!”

Markez watched the man tense, and for a moment, he thought that the knight would draw his sword, but the man resisted, showing him how close to the mark he’d gotten.

“We are in a great war for the soul of the world,” the knight said with evident exhaustion, “and it shames me to say we are losing.”

“So then, why do you want on my boat?” Markez asked, confused.

“I don’t,” the man declared, shocking his companion. “Take these two and get as far from this evil place as you can, I will—”

“You can’t be serious!” the younger man yelled at the older one. They clearly hadn’t thought this through at all. “They will end you.”

“It’s where I belong,” The Templar said simply. “Only I can slay this foul beast. That is what this power is for. To end—”

That was when the thing rose from the dark, boiling waters just ahead of the ship. The children screamed and fled aft, but Markez could only look at the thing in awe. It was the most horrific thing that he was ever likely to see, from the tips of the broken swords that made up its rusted maw to the corpse of the woman that was chained inside of the rib cage where its heart should have been if it was alive.

Just seeing that was enough to shave years of his life, and all he could do was stand there petrified while the two strangers sprung into action.