It had been three days of travel without rest or sleep, Renelle had refused to let them do so. “We must put as much ground between us and Sparatak as possible” she had said. Even so, she nor Hyrum had elaborated or explained further on anything or provide a simple answer to any of Levan’s questions. All he knew is that they were traveling to something that Renelle called a Poortgang. Which too was not explained to him.
But they had finally reached the Poortgang, it was a large stone gateway atop a grassy hill, that overlooked a vast flatland. Levan didn’t know if he was still in Saprosk or if they had crossed the border into a new land. Perhaps he had traveled into Kyyrokopol, maybe it was Aubuk lands they now stood in. Regardless, the Poortgang was underwhelming, Levan didn’t know what he was expecting it to be, but it was surely not just a stone arch atop a hill.
They made camp atop the hill, the first day they had finally been able to rest. Levans back ached from the weight of his pack, he had little time to pack and only had grabbed a bed roll, Vilip’s sword and a bed roll, his mother gave him a locket and his father gave him his hammer to take with him. The short time he had to say goodbye to them still weighed on his mind, he knew he had so much he wanted to say to them, but he couldn’t figure out how to put them into words. All he had told them was that he loved them, and would miss them, exactly what Vilip had said to him before he left with the army. And he never came back.
While Renelle had remained closed off to him, Hyrum at least had been willing to entertain conversation. Which he was glad to have. Levan learned a lot about Hyrum’s life before he became Renelle’s Bond Blade. He was a Bidualshamic nomad from Jebel Beru, which was some form of mobile city. The idea of that was hard for Levan to grasp, but Hyrum said that there were hundreds of Bidualsham Qafils that roamed the Diwa Desert, and that the man from Levan’s induced vision was also a Bidualshamic nomad.
Hyrum explained to him that he was in the same position as the man from his vision, a Sayf Alrima. “We are the unknown guardians of our Qafil. We are the few who can read and write and ride. We are as swift as the sand that swirls the air, and as deadly as the cobras the hide in the dunes.” Hyrum had told him, “We take our duties very seriously, and we must conceal our identities to protect ourselves and our loved ones from men who wish to be us. My people's way of life is hard, and the duty of a Sayf is even harder.”
Levan wondered about the man he saw in his vision, Ibilsin am Putur. Was he also afflicted with the terrors that this Nagan was unleashing. Was the army that was following his people sent by Nagan, or led by another one of his agents? He had posed that question to Renelle, and of course he got a muddy answer. “It is possible that Nagan has agents within the Royal Army of Aubukistan but the more likely answer is that it is just what the Aubuk’s normally do. They do not like the Bidualsham nor do they like their religion. They have been trying to exterminate them for hundreds of years, since the times of the old Patvian Empire.”
Her answer was as usual useless to him, but Hyrum had confirmed to him that his people were always under constant threat from the Aubuks. Hyrum explained to him that the Bidualsham were ancient people, from the earliest years of human history, they had been there when the ancient Gilnian Kingdom stilled reigned over the mountains and hills. That they had survived the rise and fall of the Aubuk Caliphate, and their subsequent wars with the Patvians. And that they would survive any other empire that came to their lands. As Hyrum put it, “We are the people of the desert, those who come may adapt to its harshness, but they will not understand its power. Only we, those guided by Saamas will truly survive its harshness.”
Despite that pious answer Hyrum had told Levan that he was no longer overtly religious, he did not believe in his god, Saamas the Great Flame, nor did he believe in Levan and Renelle’s God Tadhiel, and his Angelic children. Hyrum told him that life was far too complex for him to believe that a God or Gods created a life for each mortal, and that the truth that was revealed to him in his Bond Blade training was all that he needed to understand the world.
In spite of that, Levan didn’t think that there was anything that the Ashen Cycle could say that would force his renouncement of God and his Angels, even though he too did not take the words of the Lord Priests as seriously as his mother, he couldn’t comprehend the world without God and his Angels. To him, they made more sense than the few scrapes that he managed to pick out from Renelle and Hyrum. Perhaps it was true that there were no Gods, only man, or perhaps there were Gods, but his God was not among them, or he may be one of many.
When Levan asked Renelle if she still believed in God and his Angels, she did not provide him a straight answer, as usual, “God and his Angels are wondrous agents, but their existence is a question poised for more pious individuals than myself.” she told him. Her life was still a mystery to him, he learned that she was from a large city in Terresombre, and that her family was wealthy, at least from what Hyrum told him. Levan hadn’t heard of any major noble families from Terresombre beside the ruling Helwiss family. Though from the small answers that he could draw out of Renelle, he learned that her family wasn’t very powerful.
“My family is small, not as small as yours, but not as large as most noble families. My brother rules fairly and honorably, though his foolish piety oft gets in the way of proper rule and law.” she told him.
Levan admitted that he didn’t know much of Terresombre, nor did he understand their culture or language. Which led him to ask how she and Hyrum could speak the Vict tongue, which was the only time she gave a straight answer. “I cannot speak Vict, nor do I wish to learn how to. The Arcane Web grants me the ability to converse with you in the common tongue of the Fae.”
Of course, that led him to ask about the Fae, which he had never heard of before. And of course, he got an incomprehensible answer from her. “The Fae are those who came before, and still mold our world, though not as overtly as they did in the past. They are the ones who granted the gift of the Arcane Web, and their teachings are how I and other Mancers pull the Web’s strings to cast spells. But there is much that we do not know about them. Perhaps one day we will know more, but for now they are as mysterious as the ancient world of man.
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“I can only tell you as much as I know of them, which is unfortunately very little. But I thank them for the powers that they have granted me, but I also curse them for the power they have given Nagan. Their creations seem to have been of both good and evil. I fear that we will never understand their true motives.”
Levan was lost at the complexity of her explanation, though to him it sounded like she too was still trying to piece together what or who the Fae were as she explained it to him. “What about the Arcane Web?” he had asked her.
“The Web is the most powerful of all things in our world. Though it has been lost in the last centuries. Mancers and magic as a whole used to be very plentiful in the ancient times. Now it is for the rich and powerful. There are many who hold the innate ability to weave the Web, pull its strings and bring forth its power, yet the techniques have been locked away behind institutes and universities for the wealthy nobility and clergy. I cannot speak on the Web’s influence in the west, but for the Glusonian world it is gate kept.”
“Then how is it you can weave?” Levan asked.
“The Ashen Cycle taught me.” Renelle answered, “They search the lands for those of us who can weave the Web, they take us from our homes and train us in weaving in order for us to become Mancers, and of course to look for you and the Yoldi.”
“They kidnap you?” Levan asked in shock.
“If that’s how you wish to view it.” she said.
Levan scratched his head, “Do they offer you a choice.”
“No.”
“So, they kidnap you.” Levan stated.
Renelle shrugged, “I suppose. But after the knowledge they entrusted in me I have forgiven that sin, if it ever was a sin to train the powerful to protect the world.”
“Did I have a choice to stay in Zoidiv?” Levan asked.
Renelle looked at him, her icy glare sent shivers down his spine, “The choice was live or die, Levan. I would surmise most in that position would choose to live.”
Levan didn’t dare roll his eyes at the statement, nor did he dare to try and argue with Renelle. There was much about her that he didn’t understand and more of her that he feared. He even feared Hyrum, he deduced that she would without doubt send him out after him to drag him back to her and the Ashen Cycle. There was no use in trying to return to Zoidiv now, he was too far in at this point, despite how much he wished to go back.
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Levan didn’t remember falling asleep, but when he awoke Renelle was knelt before the gateway, white wisps flowing from her body into the stone, which lit up glyphs that he hadn’t seen on it the night before. Hyrum helped him pack his bed roll and pack, while also giving him a stern warning about the Poortgang “Once we enter the through the gate we will be in a place between realms. It is important that you do not wonder, it’s a labyrinth and we have not the time nor the energy to explore it.”
“A place between realms?” Levan asked.
Hyrum nodded, “If I understood it more I would explain, but I know only what I need to of it.”
“What does it do?”
“It will let us travel between places of great distance within only a few hours.” Hyrum explained, “But you must understand that it is very dangerous. That place was constructed by the Fae, and as Renelle has told you; we know very little about them and their creations.”
Levan nodded and looked up at the gateway, his stomach churned at the thought of going through it. His mind conjured up images of monsters and evils told to him as a young child, Could those stories be true, and those evils lay hidden away within that land between realms?
The glyphs on the gateway continued to light up, lighting in a chain to the top of the arch. Once the final glyph was lit the grass plain beyond the gateway began to swirl in a mixture of white and black, combining together in a dim gray that now filled the arch. Renelle stood up and turned beckoning him and Hyrum. Reaching Renelle she placed a hand on Levan’s shoulder.
“Listen to these words and make sure you remember them.” she commanded, “Do not wander off, stay with me and Hyrum. If you hear something ignore it and continue to walk. Do not stop. Do not move or touch anything. Do you understand?”
Levan nodded.
“Good, follow me.” Renelle said.
Levan followed her up to the gateway, the gray matter that now filled it seemed thick and liquid like, it reminded him of the clay used by potters or stonemasons. Renelle grasped his hand and walked him into it. It was cold, and sent a shiver down his back but it did not soak him as he had thought it might. As he entered it his vision blackened, all he could see was Renelle and Hyrum. He felt like he was lifted into the air and suddenly a fear grasped him, he wanted to break off from Renelle and leave the gateway, but he forced himself to stay. He shut his eyes and tried to remind himself he was standing on flat ground.
“We’re through.” Renelle said, “Remember my words, Levan.”
When Levan opened his eyes he saw a in the dim, unfathomable space. The sky was the color of a parchment, and an inky pool lay below the dark gray stone that they now stood upon. The air—if it can be called air—vibrated with an unnatural hum, a grotesque resonance of voices not meant to be heard. Shadows flicker in forms indescribable, as if place itself rebelled against their presence, casting a kaleidoscope of impossible geometries across the shifting void. Every footstep echoed with a hollow resonance, not from the stone below, but from some unseen presence lurking just beyond the veil. The stars—if they are stars—pulsed with a sickly, blueish hue, casting a light that seemed more felt than seen, burrowing into the marrow of his soul.
Levan did his best to abide by Renelle and Hyrum’s warnings, but he found himself entranced by this new inky expanse. As they walked the inky ocean below crashed onto the stone walkways, staining them in black watery ink. As he looked out into the expanse a lone silhouette of a ship stood against the murky backdrop, its outline blurred and shifting, as if struggling against the very fabric of this realm between realms. As he looked at it, he saw what appeared to be a man, but he was monstrous in design. He looked human at the distance he could view him, but one of his arms was a tangle of something sinister. Levan couldn’t tear his eyes from it.
Absorbed in the ghastly sight, Levan barely noticed Renelle’s urgent tug, “Do not look at him, Levan. Keep your focus. We mustn’t linger here.”
Levan nodded and let her guide him down the stone walkway. Their pace was quick, Levan struggled to keep it, almost tripping over his own feet. He wondered why they did not run through, though perhaps if they did it would attract whatever figure was out in the sea ink. Regardless, he didn’t not dare voice that question.
They took many turns and went through many different almost identical corridors, Levan now understood what Hyrum meant by this place being a labyrinth. Though for what felt like a few short minutes they had twisted and turned their way through it, they had ended up in front of another Poortgang. Renelle let go of his hand and knelt down in front of the arch, the white wisps flowing into the arch lighting up the glyphs like before.
Levan looked at Hyrum who was standing stalwartly looking down one of the many corridors that led to this junction. Levan again let his eyes wander over the inky expanse, it was an eerie place, one that he was happy to leave and never return to, though he figured he’d unfortunately not get that luxury. Within moments the Poortgang had the same dark gray matter fill its empty space. Renelle once again took his hand and brought him into the substance, and he once again felt like he was floating, and again he shut his eyes waiting until he knew the traversal was over.