There was a crack, a snap, followed by a groan as the tip of a great timber fell just behind Weld’s heels, clipping him with an end of a branch as he bolted through the forest. It wasn’t enough to stop him and it wasn’t enough to stall him, for fear of his pursuer was greater than pain. All things realized, nothing was going as planned.
That notion had finally come to fruition now that Weld was bolting down the mountainside—over rock and underbrush—between pine after pine. He ran, the wind carrying him and flowing at his side and against his back in aid of his flight but no matter how fast he ran, he could still hear it close behind from the snapping of logs and the splintering of the forest. What he had to dodge and leap over, it simply crushed underfoot in its never-tiring pursuit.
In his heart, Weld knew where this would end and didn’t like it. He could see light through the forest and the glistening of the lake, and the location of their camp, beyond. With all the speed he could muster, he ducked to dodge the last few branches and exploded from the undergrowth in a flurry of leaves and needles out onto the lake shore.
Their camp was just ahead. He could see their tent and their smoldering fire ring against the backdrop of the woods, just far back enough from the lake to keep on dry ground. And, he could see his friend Sorek peacefully meditating next to the lakeshore in utter stillness and tranquility. He appeared to have even donned his traditional Aetheran robes for the occasion, which only served to perfect the image in this case.
That was about to change.
Weld glanced over his shoulder as he sprinted just in time to see a mass of fur and claws ram its way into the open in his wake, sending whole tree limbs flying into the water of the lake upon its arrival. It grunted and roared a deafening bellow before reorienting itself and charging after him. The rhythmic pattern of its knuckle beat the open ground like a drum as it pressed forth.
“Help!” Weld screamed at Sorek and he bolted by, right behind him. The whole lake basin and surrounding mountain walls amplified and echoed his pleas. “Sorek, get up!”
Sorek hardly moved and opened one eye to glare in annoyance at Weld as he darted past. That was until he felt the ground begin to shake beneath him, followed by his childhood friend bolting by pursued by what could only be described as a monster. Lucky for him, the beast was so fixated on Weld that it hadn’t stopped to notice Sorek.
Weld rushed through their camp, being sure to steer clear of their tent, and pulled the air around his body before jumping inhumanly high into the nearest pine. He was sure to choose one whose trunk was thick and whose branches were broad enough to act as a fortress against his pursuer.
He grabbed hold of a branch, nearly falling short, and frantically pulled himself to safety before realizing the branch was nowhere near high enough. In fact, the branch he was on basically put him at mouth height for the beast, and that was no good seeing as he was trying to escape becoming lunch in the first place. So, he threw his weight up and climbed onto another branch, then another, but he quickly ran out of branches to climb to before he was stranded.
Suddenly, the whole tree shook violently as the beast rammed into its base.
If he hadn’t channeled the wind to steady himself at that moment, Weld would have fallen right on top of it. The beast nudged the pine a few more times, circled it once, then centered itself directly below Weld’s branch. Weld himself pressed himself back to the tree’s trunk and wrapped his arms around it as best he could. To his dismay, not only could he not get his arms around the trunk, but he couldn’t find a good grip, not even between the layers of bark.
“Maybe I should have picked a smaller tree . . .” he muttered to himself, staring down nervously at his doom. Then, he reconsidered the size of the beast below. “Then again, this one’s just fine . . . I think.”
For the first time since the start of the chase, Weld had a chance to get a good look at his pursuer as it snarled up at him, showcasing its large, yellow teeth under an elongated muzzle of striped brown fur. Its hind legs were stubby and didn’t offer much assistance as it reared up the side of the tree, snapping closed its jaws just under its prey.
But what it lacked in the hind regions it made up for with its long, burly forearms. It grasped at the lower branches with its whorled claws and stone-like knuckles—the branches bowing under the weight of his broad and thickly muscled torso that was nearly twice the size of Weld himself.
This creature was known to the Aetheran people as a heradon—one of the many great mountain dwelling beasts that were said to live above the timberline where nothing else could survive. They were the largest animals in the country, as Weld would have come short of shoulder height standing next to it by a good few feet, and were active all through Aethera’s harsh winters. To top it off, they were fiercely territorial, and Weld guessed that this whole issue must have arisen out of his hiking through this heradon’s territory.
His father had taught him about these beasts and had also prepared him for an eventuality such as this. Even so, Weld was hesitant to come to that conclusion, as it was unsavory and not of the Aetheran way. That, and hopefully, it would be unnecessary.
“This is fine,” Weld told himself. He was so warm after running that he wanted to throw his coat away. “It can’t reach me.”
But the heradon didn’t care either way and began to pull down on the lower branches. Under its immense weight, the entire pine began to bow and bend toward the ground.
“Alright,” he conceded to himself, “looks like it doesn’t need to.” His boots began to slip against the branch as it declined.
As a last resort, he opened his palm and drew it back. He felt the wind in the palm of his hand and in the greater space around him. He reached out and ensnared it to his will while simultaneous melding to it. Like a conductor to a symphony, he pulled as much air as he could in and around his palm and conducted it down at the beast. But in comparison to the heradon’s build, that blast of conducted wind was little more than a pathetic gust. It did little more than cause the beast a brief discomfort by drying out its eyes.
With little else to hinder it, it quickly resumed its assualt.
Weld let out a sigh of frustration with himself. “Some Astral you are . . .” His tree continued to bow and the branches the heradon was leveraging from showed no sign of breaking. By now, Weld could smell the scent of decayed flesh on its breath, and its jaws were only coming closer. “No way this is my end.”
Still, Weld hesitated. It wasn’t the Aetheran way, he told himself. It was the way of his father—the way of survival—but it looked as though it was about to be the only option open to him.
So, with reluctance, he reached down to his thigh where a magnum revolver was strapped. He might not be able to conduct the elements well under pressure, but there was one thing he could certainly do—and that was shoot. His father had made certain of that.
He drew it with ease and aimed its unpolished metal down at the heradon’s head. It was heavy in hand and was likely the only thing of its caliber that could deal with a creature of this size. That was partly the reason Weld’s father had taught him to carry and shoot one, especially when traveling to the remote places of Aethera where there was no one else to rely on and where the danger was greatest.
He gritted his teeth and closed one eye. “This should get you out of my tree.” Then, he pulled his aim from the heradon’s head and fired one booming shot into the ground next to it. The blast from the shot alone shook the valley more than the heradon’s footsteps ever could, and Weld had five more in waiting.
The heradon roared and recoiled, descending back down the tree in a fit of shock. Its retreat was short-lived, however, as its focus quickly returned and grabbed for Weld once more.
There was an incessant ringing in his ears from his first shot. The throbbing threw his focus off, but he powered through it for the sake of not becoming lunch. “Back off . . .” Weld whispered to himself, taking aim at the heradon’s head as insurance. “Just back off . . .”
Suddenly, Sorek’s voice sounded, followed by a rock flying through the air that collided with the flank of the heradon. “Hey!” he shouted, standing plainly on the shore of the lake. He waved his arms to get the beast's attention.
The heradon turned and locked on to Sorek with its bright green eyes and let go of the pine. A defending shot hadn’t been enough to scare it off but a fresh, moving target appeared to be getting the job done.
Weld kept his aim on the heradon, even as it started to pace away from the base of the pine and toward Sorek who still hadn’t chosen to take cover. “Sorek,” Weld shouted down to his friend, “I don’t think you want to do that.”
“I don’t,” he agreed. He hunched over and loosened himself up as he stared down the beast. “But I don’t see how else . . . well, uh—actually, I might die. We’ll see, I guess.”
Without warning, the beast roared and charged him. Sorek held his ground until the very last. As the heradon was upon him, he dodged to the side with all of the grace and prowess of a true air conductor, yet his movements did not call the wind as Weld’s did. He was light on his feet and darted to the side as the heradon thundered past and threw himself into a thicket of nearby underbrush. From there, he didn’t move a muscle and played dead.
Weld did his best to mirror Sorek and kept deathly still in his tree.
The heradon took a while to realize that it hadn’t trampled Sorek and slid to a halt. It sniffed at the air and threw its head back and forth in search of its prey, but found nothing. It stayed there for a time simply waiting for something to happen—for any signs of movement.
When nothing came of it, the heradon grunted and shook its razor-backed hide before turning away from them and their camp and slowly lumbering back into the forest. Even when it was far off, they could still hear and see it moving up the side of the mountain as it pushed past the trees.
Finally, when he couldn’t see or hear any more signs of the heradon, Weld let himself breathe. He jumped down from the pine by conducting a pocket of air below and around him to soften his fall and land as though he were weightless.
Sorek also sat up from the underbrush with a matte of leaves in his hair. He spit out a bit of dirt. “Is it gone?” he asked carefully.
“I think so,” Weld replied. “I hope so.”
They met each other back at camp around their blackened fire pit.
Weld couldn’t help but take notice of the stark contrast between Sorek’s colorful Aetheran robes and the rather colorless jacket and pants he wore. Of course, Sorek had only donned his traditional Aetheran attire for his day of meditation and was likely to change into something more appropriate for their mountaineering environment before evening. Weld, too, had a set of robes that had once belonged to his mother, though he rarely wore them except on special occasions where appropriate.
“Are you alright?” Weld asked his friend.
Sorek checked his body for any marks. “Well, I’m not dead,” he stated plainly.
“After what we just went through,” Weld started, “that is a profound and significant statement.”
Sorek couldn’t help but laugh a little, despite his disheveled state. His eyes were even a little red, as were Weld’s. “So . . . how did that happen?”
“Nobody mentioned the trail to Yuciben Peak went through a heradon’s territory,” Weld replied. He raised his left wrist to bring up his Personal Application Device, a computer chip that electrostatically attached at the base of the wrist and projected a holographic display for general utility and connection to interplanetary infrastructure. In this case, Weld used his PAD to bring up a topographical map of the region before pointing to the location where he had stumbled across the heradon. “Right there.”
“Do you think it will be back?” Sorek asked, taking a closer look at the map. “Are we camped in its territory?”
“We shouldn’t be,” Weld replied as he closed the holographic display. “It chased me a long time and we’re well within the timberline. It should have given up sooner—but it just didn’t. It was either too focused on me to realize we had left its territory or something else is wrong with it. Maybe it’s sick.”
“In that case, I bet you’re glad you didn’t have to kill it,” Sorek added.
“I’m glad even if that’s not the case,” Weld emphasized. “I can’t go around blasting all my problems away. It’s not a great or mature way for the Astral to go around solving issues—as convenient as it might be.” He paused dramatically. “That, and ammunition is expensive, especially for this.”
Sorek could see his point. A protector of worlds should be more nuanced in his approach to conflict. “Sometimes blasting away your problems works,” Sorek said, trying to lighten the mood. “You’ve already gotten much better at using your abilities. I mean, you just outran the largest animal I’ve ever seen.”
“I won’t say I did it with ease,” Weld added, somewhat pessimistically. Then, he decided to take a more reasonable outlook on the issue and to be considerate of Sorek himself, as his friend was Aetheran through and through, but did not possess the ability of air conduction. Despite this, Sorek had learned the motions and poise of the art from his mother who was an air conductor. He had been the one to pass that knowledge onto Weld, and at this moment, Weld thought he should be respectful of that and show gratitude. “But, I suppose you’re right.” He spoke kindly to Sorek. “It is something.”
“Anything to give you an edge before you leave,” Sorek replied with a smile. “Moving with the wind is the first part. If you can move with the wind, casting it will come in time.”
“Did you see the gust I conducted in the heradon’s face?” Weld asked. “You might have been too far away to see it.”
“I did,” Sorek answered. “What about it?”
“What did you think?”
“You were clearly under pressure but your form was fine,” Sorek replied. “It didn’t look like it did much. The heradon didn’t seem to care.”
“Well, it’s massive,” Weld defended. “It naturally cheats.”
“Yeah, I think a normal-size animal would have been knocked back, but it was—it was fine,” Sorek finished, consoling his good friend’s ego. “Like we said, you’re making progress. Ephem will help you finish what we started and hopefully more. By the way, how do you plan to learn to conduct the other three elements without telling anyone who you are?”
Weld thought about that for a moment before answering. “My father suggested I sit in on some other conducting classes in my spare time. He said to make up a convincing excuse as to why I wanted to do so. I was thinking I could say I’m trying to make up a new form or something like that.”
Sorek’s eyes lit up. “I’ve heard earth conductors use water conducting techniques to manipulate sand since it can act like a fluid. I could see that working from air to fire, or even water, but it’ll be interesting if you get away with it in an earth conducting class. I can’t really see how those two would translate.”
“I suppose I’ll have to worry about that at some point,” Weld decided, equally worried about the future excuses he would have to dredge up. “But those aren’t all my abilities extend to. Learning elemental conduction will help me become a better Astral but I have no one to help me learn how to manipulate other things like—I don’t know—trees and metals, or other matter. Maybe basic matter manipulation will be easier after all this. I suppose that will come in time.”
“I think so,” Sorek encouraged. “Just keep a clear head and let Ishami lead you.”
That was a more reassuring statement to him than Weld thought it would have been. While he had little to look to, he certainly still had the image of the divine by which to mold himself. “. . . I suppose that’s all I can do,” he said, contented. “I only wish I had started training with you sooner.”
“It’s the least I can do for the future Astral,” he humbly replied. “Remember me when you’re heralding justice and ending wars, and all that.” He centered his focus and centered himself. “Our training hasn’t all been all altruistic on my part. Even though I can’t air conduct like my mother, there’s something in my blood that stirs when I train with her. I may not be able to call the wind as she can, but something about it makes me feel like I belong.”
Weld considered those words and also felt them resonate. “I see . . .” he said softly, almost to himself. He was half lost in thought. “I suppose, for me, it helps me remember.”
Sorek put a friendly hand on Weld’s shoulder. “It does, and she would be proud.”
Weld smiled. “But there’s still one thing I need to do before I leave,” he boldly stated. He pointed to the jagged and stoned-ridden Yuciben Peak that loomed over the lake basin. “I have to climb that one last time.”
Sorek double checked the time on his PAD. “Are you sure you want to do that? It’s almost noon.”
“I have to do it,” Weld resolved. “I have to say goodbye.”
“What about the heradon?” Sorek asked, reminding his friend of the ordeal he had just gone through and the likelihood of its recurrence should he try to climb the mountain a second time.
“There’s an old trail I can follow,” Weld explained, taking one last look at the map on his PAD. “It goes along the side of the lake and up around the backside of the peak. I’ve heard it’s not as nice as the main trail, but it should see me to the top.”
“Do you want me to come with you this time?”
Weld shook his head. “I feel I need to do this alone one last time.”
Sorek nodded in agreement. Solace and quiet contemplation was the old Aetheran way. “I see,” he respectfully replied. “I’ll be down here meditating . . . Just scream if you need anything.
This time I’ll hear you.”
“I’ll probably be within eye-shot the entire time,” Weld added, starting away from camp. He gave a departing wave. “See you this evening. I’ll expect you’ll have dinner made by the time I get back.”
“I will if you can take my cooking!” Sorek called after him.
Weld laughed to himself as he headed down the lake shore. He watched his step as he passed by the location where the heradon had disappeared into the forest, but he quickly realized that his concern was unfounded and the heradon would be far gone by now. So, he kept on around the edge of the lake on the border between the water and the wood before locating the old trail he was to follow.
During that time, he took a moment to breathe in the crisp, early spring air and appreciate the mountainscape. It would likely be the last time he saw it before leaving for Ephem, an ancient institution that taught the art of elemental conduction to those Arowans who had been given such a gift. Though, if Weld was being honest, he wasn’t a true conductor, but the latest of the enigmatic line known as the Astrals.
One Astral appeared every generation to act as a sort of protector of the known worlds—an agent to keep peace and end war. The Astrals of old were thought of by some as powerful and veritable demi-gods who could call storms in their wake and crack the earth with their very voices.
An Astral was to be loved and feared—cherished and respected. Weld thought of the Astrals as revered servants of the worlds. That was what he aimed to be, at least, someday.
Right now, he was not Astral Weld, as he so desired, but simply Weld Vander—son of Octavius and Arceli Vander—native to the country Aethera upon the face of planet Arow. And, when it all boiled down to it, he was nothing more than that.
In truth, at that moment as he walked along the lakeside, he wasn’t even thinking of himself or his future. He wasn’t thinking of what was to come, or what paths lay ahead of him.
He was thinking of the past.
The crystal waters allowed him to see straight into to the depths, and in them, he remembered things that could have been.
After all, this was the lake where he and his father had spread his mother’s ashes.
The old trail was not as obvious as the main one had been. In fact, the only way Weld could think to describe it was vague, at best. The underbrush had overgrown itself in most places, making it difficult to follow, especially when the path diverged or took a sharp turn. There were numerous times when Weld had realized that he had lost the path after wandering up where he thought it had been before having to turn around and stumble back for any sign of the true path. That, and the path itself was rather wet from the early spring having melted off a great deal of winter’s leftover snow. It was muddy, but his boots were dealing fine with that.
Despite all of these setbacks, he was making decent time, and the time alone was suiting him well. It was in moments like this that he truly felt a part of the world, and of the universe itself. Of course, anyone could have said that, but as the Astral, Weld truly felt it.
To him, the very matter around him felt intimately intertwined with his being as though it were a part of him. Underfoot, he could sense the rigidity of the earth with each step, and on his breath, he felt the ephemeral nature of the air. At his back, the warmth of Arow’s twin suns was present and he could comprehend the very energy its rays held. And the pools of water, and the creeks that flowed down the mountain were no different than anything else. Just as he saw a reflection in their surface, he also felt a deeper reflection within them, perhaps one that instead reflected his essence.
This was unlike how an ordinary Arowan conductor interacted with the world, from what he had read. In time, a master elemental conductor might begin to see themselves as one with their elements as Weld did, but for the most part, lay conductors used their abilities as tools or mere extensions of themselves. He understood that notion in the abstract, but he found it difficult to separate himself from everything else to a point. A conductor’s abilities extended to one element, whereas his seemed to extend to all matter around him, and there were other things apart from that he could manifest in himself. He could focus his vision and hearing to heighten his awareness to inhuman levels—that had actually been one of the first things he had ever learned to do and the only ones he had ever mastered, relatively speaking.
But in the end, he told himself that he was enough like a conductor that he could learn from them. Pretending he was a conductor was something he would have to work on, he reasoned, and it was truly his only shot.
That’s what made his state of being so difficult. He was outside of what was normal even for the extraordinary people of Arow—not entirely, but enough so that he felt isolated. To make matters worse, there was no one else like him in the known worlds and no one who could truly teach him who he was supposed to be.
There had been one organization in the past, the Priority of Aegion, who had been appointed as the guardians of the new Astral and who had made it their duty to help see them trained to their full ability.
At least, that’s what he had been told, as the Priority had shirked in both of those duties when it came to him.
Weld could remember the day they had come to his door, though the memory was foggy, as he had been very young at the time. He couldn’t remember exactly what the members of the Priority had told his father that day so long ago, but he remembered their faces well.
Three and an apprentice had appeared where nine should have been. There had been a woman from the planet Anac, Arow’s sister world that inhabited its same system. Weld remembered her blinding silver hair against her dark skin. She had been tall and strong, and Weld recalled feeling a sense of admiration toward her on account of the way she proudly and defiantly carried herself. There had also been a Vitari man whose ocher skin and great horns had mesmerized young Weld, as that race was rare to see on Arow. Lastly, he remembered the warm, burnt-rose skin of a Tathendi man whose eyes shone bright and bold even in the dimmest of light.
The apprentice had been something else entirely from the three. She had been a mild-mannered Terrain from the planet Earth with jet black hair and a look of concern about her. His father had later told him that, though she had said nothing during the entire confrontation, she had been the only one who had been truly honest. The three had carried themselves proudly, but his father said that he could sense dread in the air. It hung about them, he had claimed, and the only one who showed it was the Terrain apprentice.
His father had maintained that all the Priority had told him that day was that his son was the Astral and to keep him safe until they return for him.
However, that day never came, and the years were slipping away. That was why Weld and his father had decided the time was right to take matters into their own hands.
It was time Weld learned something from someone—anyone, really—even if it wasn’t from the Priority, their sages, or whoever else had abandoned him. Besides all that, Weld’s mother had been an Aetheran and it seemed fitting that he connect with his birthright. He thought that it might be his first step in understanding himself—who he was, and who he was supposed to be.
Weld returned to consciousness after being nearly lost in thought. It was a lot to comprehend, and even more for him to bare, but that was the way of things.
On his ascent, the forest began to thin as he rounded to the windy side of the mountain. Here it seemed that rock and stone ruled, and there was little soil or vegetated ground. The mountainside was bare after thousands of years of being scoured by glaciers, though small pools of water remained dotted about the place.
Weld glanced in each of these mirrors as he passed by, one after the other. Each reflected the same image but told a different story. In one, he saw his winded hair—cast and formed by the mountain gusts and thrown to its liking. His hair was dark brown and almost black near the tips, but near the roots, it lightened substantially, leaving a thin, sandy colored veneer at the base of his locks. It was a sort of reverse gradient, and a trait that was distinctly Aetheran and of his mother’s side.
One time, his father had messed up a haircut and they had been forced to shave Weld’s head entirely as a result of the error. For nearly a week, his hair had looked almost blonde before growing back out and darkening. During that time, he had thought he looked like a completely different person.
The next pool reflected his features, which seemed to mirror the rugged landscape themselves. His browline stood well defined and his features were sharp and defined like those of his father. His eyebrows were thin and angled slightly inward, giving him a resting look that he had been told by some made him seem intimidating or overly sincere, though he knew well that wasn’t fully the case.
His eyes stood somewhere between the roundness of his mother’s and the narrowness of his father’s, and his skin trended that way as well between the paleness of his mother and the overly sunbaked skin of his father which had accrued from his years of scientific fieldwork. His eyes, however, contrasted above everything else, as they were a piercing emerald green flecked with streaks of pale olive.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Many natives of planet Arow exhibited such colorful eyes, each according to their nation. The exception to that rule was the nation of Withra which was composed of many islands that had been isolated from one another for a long enough time that a variance was created within its own borders, or rather, within its former borders.
In truth, Weld didn’t entirely know where his father hailed from—and neither did his father. Octavius often self-described himself as a bit of a mutt with traces from all across the known world. Weld’s grandfather had claimed to grow up on a space station and joined a band of smugglers there, though in secret, he had told Weld that the band had actually considered themselves legitimate pirates. That had been when he was too young to tell the difference between the truth and fanciful tale made to suit his age, and if he was being honest with himself, he still wasn’t sure which it had been.
The unknown element of his father’s line had been something that spoke to him. In a way, he was a product of the established and the unestablished—of the cultured and the lost. The latter half, he felt, gave him his sense of wonder toward the world, and perhaps his sense of adventure. It had done as much in his father, to be sure.
But soon, the pools faded, and with them, his reflection. The mountainside only steepened from there on out. The old trail began to bear the brunt of its name as the path showed itself to be entirely washed out in places, leaving wide gaps that Weld had to hop across. And as the trail worsened, so too did the risk associated with a fall.
When he had started his hike, the trail had followed parallel to a rather gentle slope. Now, that slope was gone with nothing short of an abyss where it once was. As time passed and Weld got closer to the top, the mountainside turned to a veritable cliffside.
At least the trail’s made of rock now, he thought to himself. It’s solid.
As he turned the next bend, he instantly lamented telling that to himself as the trail was washed out.
Luckily for him, the trail was wshed out on a gently sloping portion of the trail away from any sharp drops. That being said, he still wasn’t looking to fall, as he would have landed on the remnants of a rock slide below. And so he stood there, eyeing the impasse in the trail and the sharpened boulders below. The gap wasn’t necessarily gaping—he could jump it, particularly if he air conducted—but it would be close. There might be an easier way to go about it, he figured.
Then, Weld realized that this dilemma might mean something more than it appeared. He took it as a sign, or rather a test orchestrated by the divine—by Ishami. It was an opportunity to further hone his skill. So he decided he would bridge the gap.
“Alright,” he said to himself, preparing a plan of attack. He decided he would first try the earth by conducting a slab of stone from the mountainside to form a bridge.
He focused all his attention on the earth within the mountain. He felt it and comprehended it. It was right at his fingertips, ready to bend to his will and move with him.
Once he had its signature, he threw two punches away from the mountain in an attempt to dislodge the earth like he had seen Eirnarokians do in the past. He moved the same way he imagined an earth conductor would by taking a wide and steady stance and throwing his punches with all the force he could muster.
He wasn’t surprised when nothing happened. He stood frozen in his botched earth conducting position for a time before realizing how silly he must have looked and ceasing the nonsense. Carefully, he took to examining the mountainside and scratched his chin in contemplation. He wasn’t quite sure what he had done wrong. He had felt the earth, yet it refused to move. In a way, it felt like having a paralyzed limb. No matter how much he willed it to move, it simply wouldn’t. It was like a part of him was resisting himself.
After staring at the mountainside for an unreasonable amount of time, Weld eventually concluded that not even a pebble was out of place. “Maybe a different direction?” he futilely suggested to himself.
So he faced the gap and honed in on the earth beneath him this time. Surely it would move this time, he felt. He took a much less overly dramatic earth conducting pose and, once again, threw his weight forward to motivate the stone.
This time he had results.
A pebble flung out from between his feet and cast itself across the chasm, landing with a smack on the opposite side before falling to gravity’s sway.
Weld couldn’t believe it. The divine Astral could hardly toss a pebble. This had to be some cruel trick of Ishami if this was truly its will.
To make himself feel better, he imagined something Sorek might say if he were there beside him. “It’s fine,” he told himself. “It’s something.”
After that, he realized his current method wasn’t going to get him across.
Water, he thought. That would be his next step. Maybe he could make an ice bridge. He certainly felt enough moisture in the air around him that he might be able to pull enough out. Though even then, he wondered if the bridge would be thick enough to hold his weight, but it was worth a try.
This time, he imagined what a water conductor would have moved like, so he let his arms flow as such—gently and gracefully as the sea.
Then, he realized that he looked even more ridiculous than on his previous attempt. Last time, all he did was take a squatted stance. This time, what he was doing looked a bit like bad dancing, yet he felt something click, so he quickly threw a chop toward the gap.
He was immediately disappointed again.
Two drops of water managed to condense out of the sky before him before freezing to snow. They were quickly torn apart from the air resistance and practically vaporized halfway across the gap. They didn’t even reach the other side.
Weld clenched both fists in frustration and could feel his face getting red. He thought himself a pathetic excuse for the Astral. He felt so far from being able to call the fury of nature, and in reality, that was the case.
Next on the list of elements for him was fire, but he quickly decided that was just silly. There was no way he could walk on a bridge of flame no matter how dense. Besides, he couldn’t even manifest fire from nothing, as even the most novice fire conductors could. All he had managed to do in the past was to hold a flame in his hand, and often times, that ended up being too hot for him to hold over an extended period.
So, as usual, air it was—though not a bridge of it. Yet again, his most familiar element would be his way across, so he stepped back to get a running start and surrounded himself with the wind. He ran at full speed, or as fast he could manage with his heavy coat, and kicked off the edge.
At some point when he was soaring through the air, he came to understand, quite deeply, that he should have sized-up the gap much better than he had. He was going to fall short and saw it coming, so he conducted an extra burst of wind around him that encircled him in a wheel. It helped him glide a few extra feet but not enough to land on the other side. He was in range of reaching the edge, however, and before he fell to meet the same fate as the pebble, he reached out a clawed at it until he found a decent handhold. He was surprised he wasn’t more panicked than he was.
He held onto the edge for all he was worth, grasping at what few handholds the trail offered. It took some time to get a good grip, and he nearly slipped before he found a rock to push against with his left foot. He used that as a foundation and was able to pull himself to safety.
He curled up in the fetal position, shaking and huffing air like mad, but he took control of himself quickly and shook it off. He stood and turned around to eye the gap one last time. If it had truly been a test from the divine as he had speculated, he assumed he had barely passed—if at all.
He didn’t like knowing that he would have to cross the divide again on his return trip. Then again, the experience of being disappointed in himself was much better than nearly being trampled by a heradon.
But that was something his future self would have to deal with, so he oriented his attention to the journey at hand and toward the jagged peak that loomed above his head.
It was just after midday that Weld saw he was nearing the peak.
From his experience, the wind usually howled up here as it bowled over the crest of the peak, but today, the air was unusually clear and calm. It was as if nature was aligning itself with his experience—as if the land was saying one last goodbye in the politest manner it could muster. After all, the last time he and his father had hiked the peak, the wind had taken to throwing them off their feet on more than one occasion.
The trail had been straight uphill for the last leg of the trail, leaving him nothing short of breathless as he pressed to the top. He had also had to wade through a number of leftover snow drifts which didn’t serve to relieve his already strained effort. But, it was all worth it when he finally reached the top.
Yuciben Peak was highest in the region and ascended well above the treeline, capped in stone. It was barren of vegetation and life, save for a few, small, low-lying patches of brush that dotted themselves here and there between the rocky and eroded ground. The peak dwarfed the landscape around it, even the adjacent mountains, against its magnitude.
There was also a crude and sharp metal marker that had been anchored into one of the nearby rocks. It was bent halfway down its shaft and curved in its entirety like a wave. Locals claimed it was a marker, placed there in ancient times by Aetheran monks who would walk the peak in order to bring themselves closer to the winds of heaven. Of course, there was no way to verify such a claim, so Weld took all of that with a grain of salt, but the imagery still spoke to him and the idea within it was as apparent and valid as anything he had ever known as he stood on high.
Upon the zenith, Weld took in all that lay at his feet. To the north, he saw a vast and untamed wilderness where no semblance of society made itself known. Yet, it was vibrant and full of life between the forested valleys and white-capped peaks, and the places far beyond that he could only imagine. The Aetheran winds had scoured this wilderness and formed it of its own. The mountain walls and harsh winds had kept the land a wild and untamed frontier.
To the south, he saw the exact opposite in the town of Yuciben—the place where he had grown up since before he could remember. It was the only place he had ever lived. He had been there so long that it was, in fact, a part of him. It was home and shelter—safety. It was itself the known which had ordered and oriented his life, and he was on the cusp of leaving it all behind in pursuit of himself.
It was something that frightened him, but more so, it was something that captured him to his very essence. The wilderness was what called his heart and he could resist it no longer. For too long he had waited for the path to make itself apparent—for too long he had kept himself in comfort and safety. The time was now to learn what it meant to be the Astral, and he was well prepared to live in the moment.
He looked down to the lake below, and in some way, a notion made itself clear to him in the very mimic of its waters. His childhood and adolescence had been one of strict order and obedience. He had been sheltered, in a way—sheltered from the reality of things—of suffering and chaos.
But even in its perfection, his shelter had not been enough, as death had broken the symmetry of his world. Surely, his mother’s death was something to lament, and that was something he felt with all he was, but there was place to grow within the despair as his father had taught him.
With the spirit of his mother on his lips, his father had told him to never deny the truth of things—to accept the world for what it was—and despite that, to see the will of Ishami in it. His father told him to never use his loss as a weapon against others, or as an excuse for his own mediocrity when he felt it so. Instead, he was to accept it—to make it a part of him and of his identity and to use his understanding therein to reform the world.
And so, as Weld stared down upon the lake, he realized that his mother’s death had been more than what it was. It was the foundation for his path to becoming the Astral. It was grievance and gift to be sure, but it was something he could use to pull order from chaos, and so, form the world.
Where he stood was the edge of those two planes manifest. To the south was what he remembered, and to the north was what was going to be. It was his charge as the Astral to move forth into the unknown and to grapple with its full power. That was what drove him now and what called him to cease his child-like placidity and to chase his true self.
If the Priority wouldn’t return to make him the Astral, then he would do so himself.
However, there was one problem that stood out: He had no idea what he was doing.
That, and there was no one left on the face of the Known Worlds who would come to his aid or help him remedy that one, glaring issue. A supposed savior would have to learn his place in the world alone.
Still, he had the blessing and encouragement of his father and felt the same in the spirit of his mother. It would not be easy grappling with the wilderness that sprawled before him, but those two things would be enough to keep him oriented. That, and in his heart of hearts, he knew the great spirit of Ishami would guide him on his journey and speak to him when the time was right.
There was no stopping his sense of uncertainty. But in this tranquil place, at this time of silence and stillness, he was able to calm his nerve and think. He decided that if he couldn’t force the elements to bend to him, perhaps he could bend to the elements. He had no trouble keeping the wind at his side, so why not the others?
Weld took a deep, cleansing breath. He closed his eyes, and instead of reaching out with his body, he reached out with his thoughts. He latched on to the moment and lived in it with all of his will.
He shifted his feet in the earth and felt the rock crawl alongside his feet. He opened his eyes and saw that the earth had taken shape around them, creating an anchor between himself and the mountain.
It wasn’t quite a bridge of earth, he acknowledged, but it was enough.
Then, he reached out into the thin mountain air. Once again, he forgot about mimicking the movements and instead focused the mind. In that moment, he reached out and pulled the moisture from the air around his open palm. The water clustered itself there and formed a dome that gleamed in the light of suns. Weld brought the orb close to his eyes and was mesmerized by the stillness of its surface.
It wasn’t quite a bridge of ice, but it was something.
And as for fire—well—he didn’t have the means at the moment, but he was sure that something would arise at the right time. He released the water in his palm and the earth from around his feet. It seemed it was not enough to force nature to his will but to work in tandem with it. There was more than just something to that, he felt.
He stayed upon the mountain for a time before, in the distance, a storm began to gather. It rolled over the mountains like the sea over rock and obscured the suns overhead. Though its blanketing of the land was not complete, as it let what seemed like a hundred shafts of light pierce its darkness, Weld knew it was time to get back to camp before the wind returned.
He bundled himself up to protect from the cold and returned to a terrestrial state of mind. He tucked down against the rising wind and began to descend to the valley floor.
However, there was something he didn’t realize—something dire he missed at that moment.
The old trail where he had come from was behind him.
Absentmindedly, he started down the main trail and toward danger.
Weld held himself in a sort of walking meditation for the duration of his descent, only apart from regular meditation in that he kept his eyes open to prevent him from falling down the mountainside for the second time in a day.
And in any case, Weld often enjoyed all kinds of meditation with his eyes open, even when he was still and sitting. Closing one’s eyes during regular meditation was a way to help calm and focus the mind, but Weld hadn’t found that the case at all in the past. In fact, his mind seemed to vacillate in that state, flipping from one thought to the next without mitigation like a spinning leaf. Closing himself off to the world seemed only to unleash a torrent of worry. This was particularly the case as of recent with his future so uncertain and with so much responsibility pressing down upon him in such a short time. No—he needed to focus on something external, and by allowing his eyes to remain open, he found himself able to hone his attention on an object or sensation more capably. By doing so, his thoughts would finally quiet and he contemplated all the natural splendor.
That was, more or less, what he was attempting to do now—and that was what blinded him to the reality of the situation.
Still, he felt that these tranquil moments in his life would become fewer and farther between now that his life was changing. So he cherished it and he gently strode down the trail toward the treeline below.
It was nearing late afternoon now, Weld guessed, as the suns were still well behind a thick layer of cloud cover. He could see their campsite from where he was and saw that Sorek had lit a fire in his absence. From that distance, the fire seemed more like a candle in the grey—meek and flickering, as though it could be snuffed out in an instant.
The heat of the fire was surely at odds with the current climate facing the lake basin. Weld could tangibly feel the temperature dropping, and to accent that sensation, a light snow began to fall.
Finally, a thought interrupted his tranquility. He recalled that he had forgotten to replace the round he had fired when he tried to scare off the heradon, and drew his magnum revolver to fix that. He carefully broke the top of it, letting the barrel and cylinder fall forward on its lower hinge. He did it slowly to ensure that the extractor didn’t accidentally throw out the unused projectiles with the used ones, and with that in mind, he manually pulled out the spent round and tossed its black casing aside. As the cartridge flipped through the air, a thin wisp of bright blue smoke spiraled out of it before it cratered itself in the ground. In a few days, it would degrade. Not a trace of it would remain.
Weld replaced the lost round and latched his sidearm back together. He was about to holster it when he heard something shifting in the distance to his right.
That was when he realized where he was, or rather, where he shouldn’t have been.
He was on the main trail. Not only that, he was just above the treeline in the domain of what to him, at that very moment, was death itself.
The stirring to his right continued. He turned to see a relatively flat, bowl-shaped impression in the side of the mountain with a crag at its far end from which huffs of steam were emanating. There was one tree that had grown next to the crag, somehow managing to grow between the cleft of two boulders, but it didn’t look as a tree should have. Its lower branches were sheared clean off and its upper ones seemed to have been gnawed clean of their bark. Accompanying those features were sets of deep gashes that had been laid into the base of its trunk.
It wasn’t a tree, but a chew toy, and from the sound of things, Weld was next.
Of course, Weld was already well acquainted with its occupant as the heradon and its thick, brown hide strode into the light. It pressed its full weight to the heavens as it stretched its tall forelimbs and flexed its great, scythe-like claws. If just one of those claws were to wrap itself around Weld’s neck, which it was fully capable of engulfing with room to spare, he guessed that it would have cleaved his head off in an instant with little effort on the part of its bearer.
All of Weld’s being told him to bolt—to make a run for it as he had that morning. There was still a great deal of space between him and nature’s wrath, enough so that running was a viable option, but something held his feet in place fast as the earth itself.
His body was telling him to run, but his instinct told him to hold his ground. In that moment, he saw beyond the fear—beyond the heradon and what it represented. Before him was not a beast entirely, but the unknown itself—and the unknown was something he dared not run from any longer. This was an opportunity set in place by Ishami, he told himself. This was his call.
Despite all that reassurance, he still couldn’t deny the fact that a two-ton beast was sauntering toward him and could kill him in an instant if it chose. But that was the nature of the unknown. It was beautiful and terrifying, and he could still meet it with its own means if it came to that. So, he held his revolver close with its barrel arched toward the heradon’s center of mass, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. He wanted to discover what it was to be the Astral—not the next one in line.
The heradon showed no signs of charging him as it had that morning, to his relief. He attributed that to his standing his ground on this occasion. His instinct hadn’t killed him yet.
As the heradon came closer and closer, his mind kicked into full gear in questioning why he wasn’t running yet. He stifled that as best he could, and if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t quite know how to answer that question.
“It’s a test . . .” he whispered. “There’s something here . . .”
He harkened back to the day and imagined a design therein.
He had tried to run from nature, and that hadn’t worked. It hadn’t brought him any closer to who he was.
He had tried to force nature to concede to his will, and that hadn’t worked. It hadn’t brought him any closer to who he wanted to be.
Then, he had made himself as one with nature—that was the answer. There was as much chaos in him as there was in the beast that towered over him, and likewise, as much order as would make itself apparent. He and the heradon were truly no different from the wind and stone—from the snow and fire. They were a part of the universe and the universe was a part of them, so Weld made that reality manifest. If he could form a connection with the inanimate, surely he could form one with the animate.
He reached out with an open palm, then reached out with his mind. “There’s a better way . . .” he muttered. “There’s a better way.”
The heradon’s grunts became louder and louder, and soon, Weld could feel the heat and decay of its carnivorous breath. His mind wouldn’t shut itself up so he closed his eyes, held his ground, and hoped.
Then, suddenly, the shifting stopped. The heradon was still.
The beast brought its head lower and sniffed at Weld’s hand, spraying it with a dusting of moisture and mucus.
Weld did his best not to wince at that, though he imagined all of the diseases he was sure to be riddled with later. To be sure, it was a disgusting moment, but it was also a magical one. After all, his arm was still attached.
Slowly, he peeled open his eyes to the greeting of a head nearly the size of his body with a pair of deep eyes staring into his. The heradon was still as it held its elongated muzzle inches from Weld’s palm. Weld kept his vision fixed on the heradon’s eyes. In them, he found his connection. Just as he could feel the mountain and wind, he felt the heradon, and in its own way, he sensed it felt him back. It was no different.
There was a moment of clarity between them, and in it, Weld began to lean forward to put his hand on the heradon’s muzzle. He believed it might somehow solidify the connection between them, but just as he was about to place down his palm, a high-pitched cry sounded from the cave.
The heradon rocketed to attention and arched its head back to its dwelling. Concern racked it and it pulled away from him to that which needed it more. The heradon hurried back to its cave and disappeared therein, leaving Weld alone in the snow.
Weld couldn’t tell how long he simply stood out in the cold marveling at the fact that he wasn’t dead—but he knew it must have been a long time. That moment of reflection was broken when he remembered the cocktail of goop covering his hand. He bent over and did his best to wipe the entirety of the contents on a nearby rock, though he wasn’t as successful as he would have liked.
From there, he took one last look at the heradon’s cave and turned in a sort of calm stupor for the camp. He had nothing left to say, and nothing left to think after the experience. He let silence fill everything as he reinitiated his descent and holstered his revolver.
In the end, he was a little closer to who he wanted to be.
Even as they sat together by the fire, Weld was reluctant to disclose his recent experience with the heradon to Sorek. In some strange way, he felt it was for him only—as if it would betray the moment if he told. That, and he didn’t feel a need or want to. The experience had told him much, but its lesson had been self-contained. There was simply nothing to review.
The darkness of night encroached around them. The sky and mountains faded in the distance and they fell to black. All that was left were the stars clustered above and the faint slivers of Arow’s two moons. But over everything else, the night was utterly dark. So far as they could tell sitting by the fire, there was no other world but that which was around its light.
The two made idle conversation as they finished cooking dinner. They both sat across from each other on rocks they had reclaimed as seats.
“How was it up there today?” Sorek asked Weld. By this time, Sorek had exchanged his robes for a fur-lined jacket much like Weld’s. Of course, being Aetheran, the fur was synthetic.
“Very good,” Weld replied with a nod. “It was extremely clear, if you can believe that. I made it up just before the cloud cover rolled in.”
“And did you find what you were looking for?” Sorek continued.
Weld considered that. “I did,” he replied, without giving much away. “It was a good goodbye—for now. I suppose I won’t be gone forever. It’s not like I’ll never see this place again.”
“You’ll have winters,” Sorek added.
“I’ll have winters,” Weld agreed, as Ephem suspended for holiday over the winter. “. . . I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around after that. Things are sure to change after all this . . .”
“They will,” Sorek affirmed with a degree of understanding, “under the guidance of Ishami, to be sure.”
Weld was silent for a time before answering, “. . . I hope so.” He pulled away from uncertain thoughts. “But what about you? What will you do?”
Sorek leaned back and relaxed as he mulled that over. “Hmm . . .” he hummed, “I don’t know. I’ll have to see where the future carries me. I’m sure I’ll be stuck here for at least another year unless something comes up . . .” He trailed off.
Weld sensed there was something to that and pressed him. “What might come up?” he asked.
Sorek stumbled in his reply at first, but eventually found honesty. “I—I know you’re not to be envied,” he said slowly. “What you are will not be easy, but anyone can see that it will be exciting. You’re going to go places and see things that no one else has seen, and do things that no one else can do.” He searched for words. “And I’m stuck here.”
Weld knew that his friend spoke the truth. “I will remember,” he assured.
“You may not,” Sorek said with a tinge of despair, “and I understand why . . . The winds are changing . . . It is our way.”
Weld did his best to recover the situation. “I cannot forget what you have given me,” he reassured. “It is the foundation of my power.”
Then, Sorek smiled. “. . . I suppose, once you’re truly the Astral, you’ll give me that as an official statement?”
“For what?”
“For a fraction of fame, of course.” Sorek snapped his fingers. “There's immortality in fame and I’ll take what I can get.”
The two laughed over that, and over many other things that night.
But as the night grew darker and the moons crested overhead, they eventually crawled into their tent and curled up in their sleeping bags. It was a pocket of warmth against the cold of the night and snow.
The last thing Weld remembered before he drifted off was wishing for a sign of reassurance—for something that would guide him forth.
He didn’t stay awake long enough to receive his wish.
— — —
The darkness broke, and my mind began to wander. I found the company of three others who seemed to become my friends over the course of an instant as if we had bonded over nothing.
Out of that bond came a legend, or rather, a hope. One of them explained to us and told of great, otherworldly treasure that lay with the depths of the earth in a labyrinth of catacombs. She was honest in her telling, saying that what she had heard was no more than a myth in reality—though the legend had potential to be truth.
It seemed that the story was captivating enough for the four of us. There were a great many problems that beset me in this world of which I found myself, though I found it difficult to articulate them mentally. In fact, everything around me seemed a haze. It was vague and unfamiliar—more emotional than physical. But, I was trapped in it, and to some extent, subject to the sway of this reality.
Of course, the world changed when we reached the catacombs. It was as though a veil from my eyes had been lifted and I could finally and distinctly see and hear. At last, I could perceive this reality as much as I could the waking world.
There was something marvelous about that, and the notion sent chills down my spine. In fact, as my friends and I continued into the depths, the world around me only intensified. It became hyper-real, though I knew somehow that it wasn’t and that it shouldn’t have been.
Still, the details I saw in the etching of the catacomb walls and in the texture of the dirt and roots that encased us told a different story. I began to lose my perspective over things. This strange reality was blending with the true reality, and I began to not be able to tell the difference between the two.
Perhaps that was the solution to the world that we sought. Perhaps that was the treasure of the legend.
Or perhaps we were simply on the cusp of something much deeper than that.
In time, we found ourselves in an atrium—a wide, open chamber of a vast and sprawling underground complex. The rough dirt of the tunnels gave way to finely smoothed stone that held up the walls and pillars that flanked us as we went. It was dark and dank in the chamber, and the only light that shone to illumine the depths fell from narrow shafts that let a few beams of light down from above. It still wasn’t enough to defeat the darkness, however, as much of the place remained drenched in it.
This was particularly distressing to me as I noticed carvings etched into the walls. There was meaning in them, I could tell, though they remained veiled and unknowable.
Something about them told me that they held something that I needed—a bit of knowledge or understanding—maybe history at the very least. Something told me that they were the true treasure we sought, but no matter how much I wanted to comprehend them, the dream simply wouldn’t allow it.
There was something in me that wouldn’t allow it.
“There it is,” one of my companions declared, bringing the group to a halt. He gestured to a wall before us where a stone doorway stood sealed shut.
There was nothing about the doorway that particularly stood out to me. It wasn’t carved or graffitied with meaning like the rest of the chamber walls. It was plain and bare, and its doors were polished down to perfection with not a blemish in sight.
“What is this place?” I asked my companions.
Another answered me. “None of us know,” he humbly admitted, “but we know it is only for you.”
The three of them took a grave step back, leaving me in the forefront.
I was significantly taken aback by the gesture. After all, this had been the journey assigned to us all. “Surely it’s more than that,” I objected. “Don’t any of you want to see what we came all this way for?”
To my surprise, they all shook their heads and chanted, “It’s not for us.”
With that, I finally let go and turned away from them. Whether I was being prodded onward by my own curiosity or the story itself, I could not tell, but something called me forth to complete it.
I stepped toward the door and placed a hand across its unmarred surface. The moment I did so, a sudden jade light flared out from the former dark stone. It flashed in a swirled and radiant pattern—one comprised of symbols and information, but it was only there for a moment before dimming to nothing once more.
Though it wasn’t the end, as the doors began to groan and shift. The sealed doorway slowly collapsed inwards, scraping across the ground and shaking the very foundation of the chamber as it opened, coming to rest with a crack.
The way was open for me.
Beyond lay a staircase divided down its center by a single row of pillars. As I looked up to where it might ascend, I could not see its end. It would be an infinite journey if my eyes could be believed.
Despite that, I took my first step, then another and another.
I didn’t make it far before I felt something off in the air and stopped in my tracks before I even passed the first pillar. The stairway itself seemed darker than the chamber below, both in the way of ambient light and in the way of its atmosphere.
There was something wrong with it. There was something nefarious that became the place and gripped it. But it was more than that, as at that moment, I felt as though I was being watched.
That’s when the incorporeal sense that held the stairway became manifest and a shadowy figure wrapped in violet and black stepped out from behind the first pillar. It hummed a sinister tune and reached out to me with fingers in the guise of sharp daggers. It was one with the darkness, as its body seemed to pulse and flicker in the low light like vapor on the wind, and its face could not be resolved to my eyes.
It was something more that, I knew. This creature was not simply an adversary as I wanted to believe. It had a connection to me.
In a way, it was a part of me.
When it finally spoke, its voice rang hollow to my ear, as if it were speaking out of emptiness itself. “Who . . . are you?” it slowly asked, arching its neck into the air and expanding its splendor.
Apprehension held me fast. “. . . I am Astral Weld,” I finally and definitively answered.
The creature did nothing but stare into me in absolute silence. It held its position and didn’t move a muscle.
Then, it suddenly lurched forward from the shadow. “You lie!” it screamed, as it wrapped its fingers around my neck and hoisted me into the air.
There I hung struggling and gasping for breath. My head set itself to blindness as I clawed at the creature’s grasp, only to find it was tense as iron and unmoving as malice itself. I tried to call upon my powers, but there was nothing I could pull at. All of my senses were locked off under such throes. It was as if the whole world was a book that had closed itself to me, and for the first time, I truly felt separate from all things.
I flailed in its grasp like a pathetic animal with nothing left to me. After all, there truly was nothing left to me.
But in the flurry of my mind, something suddenly pierced the chaos to make itself known. It had a will in and of itself, and so I made it my final charge to let its word escape my lips.
I pulled up at the grip of death one last time—not so that a breath could enter my lungs, but so that one could escape it.
“Ishami . . .” I choked, “. . . help . . . me.”
Right after I had concluded that utterance, a wind howled down the length of the stairway in a great rush that knocked the creature off its feet to relinquish its grasp. Together we tumbled and fell down the stairway and were thrown back out into the chamber on our stomachs.
I closed my eyes when I hit the ground and found my body feeling something akin to shattered as I landed. But there was something that rode along with the pain that seemed to muster a vigor from deep within me. In its own way, the pain renewed me, so with all I had I pressed up from the ground to confront chaos one last time.
As I stood, I saw that my friends had gone, but something else had joined me.
At that instant, a divine brilliance overcame me—my skin began to glow, and my eyes glowed even brighter. The wind surrounded me at my will and created a dense vortex that encased and protected me, and the chamber began to quake at my behest as though it were being torn asunder.
That was the moment I truly felt like the Astral I was supposed to be, for I commanded the storm.
But that was only a physical representation of what was happening within. Once again, I felt connected to the universe and to Ishami itself. I was an embodiment of order, but I knew that wasn’t entirely the case as I held chaos at my fingertips, ready to release all my fury upon the creature of shadow that now lay broken at my feet.
When I spoke, my voice was not empty, but entirely full—full of life and determination, and all of the rage therein. “Your time has come,” I called, throwing my hands to the side and sending fissure down the flanks of the walls. I bore my breath on the wind and turned it to a hurricane.
The creature recoiled and groveled on the ground. It tried to hide itself from me. “No—!” it begged. “Not you.”
I lost all pity and brought the storm to bear on that which had nearly destroyed me.
The will of Ishami was with me.
When I came to understand that, the dream finally recessed its grasp.
— — —
Weld awoke to the sounds of night—to the hum of nearby insects and the gentle lap of the waves upon the lakeshore—and more importantly, to the sound of silence beyond.
He didn’t move as he contemplated what he had just experienced and took to staring blankly at the tent wall.
Experience was the right word for it, he decided, as it had felt more than just a dream. It had been as real as anything and he had just gone through it whether anyone else had or not. It was real enough to him, and even if it wasn’t explicitly so, it might as well have been.
And in that notion, he felt secure.
“I called the will of Ishami . . .” he said in a whisper, trying to rationalize it all. “I really did it . . .”