We spent the night in a set of VIP guest rooms in the upper part of the Standing Stone fortress at Mingsheng’s insistence. He assured us that while we were on his secret mission our presence would be concealed from the Legion and the public story would remain that we were being imprisoned for the time being. Considering that our rooms had guards on the doors, it still felt more like we were prisoners than guests.
He had come up with a decent plan on how to get us out of the city without any Legionnaires noticing us. As part of his command for us to speak to the Emperor, he had a wagon outfitted for us to take us down one of the now defunct roads to Blossom City. Yuzuruha, being a potential criminal and still in a position where the Steadfast could use her against us, was being made to drive the wagon and was going to meet us at the east gate.
He had only asked one question. “Are any of you claustrophobic?”
That’s never a good question to hear. “No, I’m not.” Having been stuffed into cargo compartments and smuggling holds several times during my career, I was used to wedging myself into cramped spaces, although it wasn’t as though I relished the experiences. As soon as I had said that, an Unyielding Earth lion beastman picked me up and crammed me into a barrel before I could scream.
I was ashamed to admit that I fit into the barrel with no trouble. Mingsheng laughed. “Good. Then you’ll have no problem being taken out of here with the rest of the provisions for your journey. Don’t worry about your staff, I’ll have it loaded into a crate with everyone else’s equipment.” As the grinning beastman put the lid of the barrel over me, I heard Mingsheng ask who would be next.
It took an excruciating two hours of being jostled and carried before my barrel was finally set down and not picked up again. I’m not supposed to open the barrel until Yuzuruha lets us out. Hope she hurries up, because my leg fell asleep ages ago and the pins and needles feeling is driving me crazy. After a few more minutes, I felt my barrel being lifted onto something that creaked and rocked. That must be the wagon.
I strained my ears to listen in on what was going on outside the barrel. A voice, which I could barely recognize as Yong’s, was talking to Yuzuruha. “You are to deliver these mercenaries to Blossom City intact. The Steadfast recommends you use the old road through the Valley of the Last Sunrise to avoid detection. Once the matter is resolved, any and all charges against you will be dropped and your mercenary’s license will be reinstated.”
Her voice was easily heard through the wooden slats of the barrel and sounded incredulous. “Are y’all serious? What in the gods’ name makes you think I’mma go through there? Place is haunted all ta shit.”
There was a pause, then Yong spoke again. “Would you prefer I have you arrested now?”
I heard a growl, then a sigh. “Fine. And yer gonna make me explain ta them why we hafta pass through a giant graveyard ta get ta Blossom City. Thanks a lot.”
It was another ten minutes of the barrel rocking to and fro to the steady rhythm of a girdaban cart before Yuzuruha yanked the top off of my barrel, her face looming over mine. “Well lookitcha, all crammed in there like a bunch of pickles. And just as sour-lookin’ too.” She chuckled. “Get me out of here, musclehead.” I growled at her. She reached in with both hands, hooked them under my armpits, and with a strong yank pulled me out of the barrel with a sound that was a bit like a cork popping off a bottle.
Yuzuruha got Alicia out of her barrel next, who went and released Sheena. The tall, elven girl had a tough time, as her longer legs meant she was now thoroughly wedged in. Alicia had to pull part of the barrel apart with some tools, driving a wedge between the slats to peel away sections of it. When enough room was made for Sheena to poke her legs through, she unfolded herself, sticking her legs through the holes and then standing up, allowing her to step up and out.
Alverd was a much trickier task. He’d been forced to take off his armor to fit in his barrel and even then his wide frame meant he was stuck in there like an overweight cat with its butt in a ceramic bowl. The women had to work together to demolish his barrel piece by piece without harming him to get him free, a process that took all three of them working in tandem with the tools in the back of the covered wagon. As they worked over the course of an hour to remove Alverd from his predicament, I sat in the driver seat holding the girdabans’ reins.
Girdaban were quadrupedal with a body shape and mass similar to a cow but with far more musculature in their fore and hind legs. Their rib cages were sturdier than any other beast of burden and their livers were extremely efficient in filtering out natural toxins in their food. They seemed to have no necks and heads that were oblong and ovaloid in shape, with drooping jowls beside pronounced snouts with flaring nostrils on the end. A lack of horns made them less dangerous than an ox, but even a girdaban could be harmful if it accidentally stepped or rolled on someone. They often weighed in excess of four hundred pounds.
Unlike oxen, girdaban were even-tempered creatures that were extraordinarily difficult to spook. They were dumber than dirt and slow as molasses, but their unique constitution allowed them to flourish under a stunning number of bad weather conditions. Their ability to store water in a special organ in their body made them suited to long distance travel and thus they had earned an enduring legacy as one of the best pack animals in the world.
I felt Deotra’s weight on my shoulders and her phantom tail curling around my neck as I watched the two girdaban trek across the dirt road. Thank goodness I have someone to talk to. Let the girls fuss over Alverd for now. How have you been? I got a flood of warm butterflies in my stomach, and the sudden fire in my cheeks told me that Deotra was blushing. Damn, this emotional transference thing is wild. Her feelings are coming in so strong and clear, it’s like they’re my own.
There was a shimmer of glowing blue light and Deotra appeared on the seat next to me, holding her finger up to her mouth. Her voice sounded in my head. “Don’t worry. They can’t see me. Just keep talking to me as we normally do. It’s been too long since we had a chance to be together.” Her hand reached over and squeezed mine, and it felt real, like she was actually there.
“Phantom sensations? Or are you really there and just invisible?”
She shook her head. “We’re bonded through a familiar’s contract, so we share stimuli. Whatever your eyes can perceive or ears can hear, I can too. In return, I can create sensations that only you can feel or notice. So the feeling of your hand being held is easy for me to recreate.” She blushed again, her face turning down to hide her bright gold eyes beneath her bangs. She fidgeted in the seat next to me, her short legs swinging over the front of the wagon seat like a child’s.
“So, what do you make of everything we’ve been through, Deotra?” She mused over it for a moment, her face drifting into an expression of deep thought. Gods, she’s so adorable. I must have used up my whole life’s worth of luck to meet this girl. Finally she looked at me, still swinging her legs back and forth.
“You have some very interesting karma, Kuro. It swings all over the place, one moment towards good and then right back to bad all over again.”
I laughed internally and she smiled. “Don’t I know it. But it always seems to balance out in the end. For all the tough breaks I’ve caught recently, I’m still lucky to have met you.”
Deotra squirmed in her seat, her smile turning lopsided and childish as she fiddled with her fingers. “You shouldn’t say things like that. You might make me die of embarrassment.” She made a cute little mumbling noise in my head as she tried to avoid making eye contact with me.
“If you want some alone time we could look around Blossom City together. Maybe find a nice quiet place to sample local delicacies? Or a public monument so you can tell me everything you know? What do you think?”
A wave of excitement rippled out of her and through me, raw and giddy like a child’s. “Oh, I would love that! There are so many places we could go where we could just be off in our own little world. As soon as we do what Drache asked us, of course.”
I felt my brow furrow. Deotra picked up on my frustration right away, and the sensation of her hand squeezing mine returned. “I know it’s hard to trust her. So trust me instead. Remember that if she ever gets out of line I can always reassert control and cut her off. I don’t like doing it because it’s forceful, but even she has to remember that she can’t just be mean to people while expecting them to do what she wants all the time.”
She leaned against my left shoulder, her head resting on me, and I could feel the weight. “I want you two to get along. Drache can be intense but she’s the only friend I have. It’s not too much to ask the two most important people in my life to at least try to tolerate each other for my sake, is it?” There was a pleading undertone to her voice that bored into me, weakening my stubborn resolve.
“Maybe it would help if I knew a bit more about her, or at least what she wants. For now, all I know is that she wants me to find some kind of weapon. There has to be something you can tell me,” I said. She mulled it over, and I felt the complex tumbling of emotions mixed with logic in her mind and heart like a dog chasing its tail as she weighed her decision. Finally, she sat back up and fixed me with her big golden eyes.
“Okay. I’ll tell you what she told me. Any more than that and I’ll have to ask her permission first.” Well, it’s a start. And I’d prefer to hear this from Deotra than Drache. She’ll give it to me straight and not get confrontational about it. Deotra closed her eyes, and an image rushed into my mind.
A platform made of floating rock, hanging in a sky of crackling storm clouds, hovered far above a great temple wrought of volcanic rock hewn into the side of a mountain. The temple itself had to be at least a hundred feet below, and the platform had a dais upon it around which five people in stately dress stood. Each held a bejeweled scepter and wore a crown.
“The Five Kings wove their ritual to grant themselves power on par with that of gods. Drache believes they had good intentions, but whether that’s true or not, she doesn’t know for sure.” I could almost feel the stinging wind and hear the rumble of thunder as I drew nearer to the Kings. Up close, their figures blurred, their faces obscured by mist and motion.
“I can’t see their faces or bodies. What’s going on?”
Deotra’s voice was clear, even over the sound of the thunder. “I don’t know what the Kings looked like. Everything that you see is just what I imagine this must have looked like, based on what Drache told me. If I knew, I could paint a better picture but this is unfortunately the best I can do.” As she said that, a brilliant purple flash brought a swirling black portal into existence in the air above the dais.
“What the Kings didn’t count on was that their ritual would call a being of incredible evil to this universe. By opening what they thought was a door to limitless knowledge, they instead created a bridge to a universe where a monstrous entity had already devoured all life it could find. That entity was the Imbalancer of Scales.” The portal began to destabilize, growing in size until a monstrous appendage forced its way through, grabbing one of the Kings and dragging them through the opening.
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I was forced to watch as the King, still just a blurry outline of a humanoid figure dressed in regal finery was bent and twisted, bones snapping, skin ripping, screams turning into snarls. What was once potentially human became something monstrous made of shadow and blackness with no discernable features, but radiating a powerful aura of evil and bloodthirst. It bounded through the empty space it had been dragged into and forced its way out of the portal, lunging for the other Kings.
The next image was hard to “look” at. I found myself standing on a castle rampart, looking out at the sky and the horizon. Except the entire sky was filled with monsters. Misshapen, shrieking, demented beyond comprehension, they fell upon the castle from above like a swarm of locusts. An open air market behind the castle walls was engulfed by them, more screaming being drowned out by the sounds of battle and death.
Then the King landed on the rampart next to me, the stones nearly giving way under its weight. The monster was still vague in its shape, but I could make out two white “eyes” glowing like miniature suns in its black mass. It was still throwing off a suffocating cloud of malice that made me want to choke, before it let out a howl that while distorted, still sounded disturbingly human.
Deotra appeared next to me and pulled me away from the image, and it receded into the black emptiness of the mindscape. “So what happened next?” I asked. She wrapped her arms around my torso and pulled me to the side, and another image appeared. Streaking through the space I’d been floating in were a series of lights, shooting stars, that fell to a planet below me.
As the lights descended, they became angels, their featureless bodies unfurling wings made of brilliant light. They blazed through the armies of demons, cutting through them like wheat in a field. From the ground below, armies seemed to rise up from the dirt, representing the mortals inspired to fight alongside their heavenly allies, swords and spears and bows all trained to the sky to aid in the battle.
Then she appeared. The form of the goddess Eternity herself, clad in a robe of black and purple coated in starlight, wielding a silver sword in her left hand nearly as long as she was tall, cleaved her way through the sky with a single slash. Thousands of demons fell, their forms disintegrating into nothingness. But even as the goddess continued to wipe away their filth, more poured from the portal left behind by the Kings, now an enormous opening in the sky above the world.
Then one mortal rose from the armies and spread their arms to the sky, and the goddess floated down to meet them. She placed three objects into the mortal’s hands before returning to the sky to continue her battle. “What did she give that person? Do you know, Deotra?”
We floated over to the mortal, and for the first time since the vision had started I could see their features clearly. It was a young woman clad in a modest red robe, with tanned skin and long dirty blonde hair, crimson eyes streaked with tears. She held a staff, a knife, and a grimoire in her arms. In an instant I recognized the brass head and ruby of her staff. It was the Staff of Farewells, no question.
The knife was the same as the one Drache had shown me not too long ago. This time, however, looking at the blade didn’t trigger any weird visions; the blade was clear and reflective, giving it the appearance of a normal weapon. That has to be the Hand of the Usurper. If it was just given to this woman, it must not have borne witness to the atrocities I saw in its surface yet. Good. Last thing I need is to see all that crap again.
The tome was leather bound with a silver metal trim on its spine and covers. In the center of its cover was a long, thick golden line that splintered into many others at its top, with each line splitting off into more and more lines. It took me a moment to realize what it resembled. It looks like a tree. Looking at the book made my head hurt, as if I were trying to perceive a dozen things at the same time. No. Not a dozen, but hundreds, maybe even thousands. It’s like my eyes are trying to pull my brain in a thousand different directions to look at a thousand different things and claim they’re what’s real while everything else isn’t.
The sensation of Deotra’s gentle hands turning my head broke my line of sight to the book, and the unpleasant feeling ceased instantly. “You shouldn’t stare at that. People have gone insane staring at the Tree of a Thousand Branches.” Her face filled my vision, her eyes wide with concern. When she saw I was more or less okay, her small smile returned. “That’s the danger in seeing all the things that could be, and might not ever be, all at the same time.”
I was tempted by some force outside my sound mind to look back at the tome, but I wasn’t able to move my head. “Tree of a Thousand Branches?”
Deotra shook her head. “Drache didn’t tell me much about it, but she said it was the true means of victory, the greatest, and most terrible of the three weapons Eternity burdened mortalkind with.”
The three objects rose from the woman’s hands and ringed around Deotra, orbiting her as she narrated. “The Staff of Farewells has the power to draw out a mage’s true potential and amplify it a hundredfold. It can turn you into the ideal version of yourself. The Hand of the Usurper was crafted to allow even a mortal to have the power to slay a divine being. But it could never be wielded by anyone but a mortal, so that it couldn’t be turned against Eternity or her servants.”
The tome floated back in front of Deotra, and the familiar pull of the book’s energy tugged at me again. “The Tree of a Thousand Branches is by far the most dangerous of the three. Imagine time as a tree, and where we are now as its trunk. The Tree allows you to look to the future, see the hundreds of potential timelines that splinter away from the trunk and all the hundreds of possibilities that fragment further and further. You could see any future you wish, including the one you desire to see fulfilled.”
Deotra threw the book into the swirling black void, and I took a sharp breath of relief as the book’s influence vanished. “With the Tree, you could find a way to make that ideal future come to pass, knowing every twist and turn of Fate to avoid or guide the flow of time to that outcome. Such power was only allowed to remain in this mortal’s hands for the purpose of finding the perfect time to strike with the Hand.”
The next image was that of the woman, face still streaked with tears, plunging the Hand into the chest of a massive dragon, its gleaming red scales reflecting the young woman’s face. The dragon fell down, down, down into the featureless abyss until it disappeared from sight. “Drache says that after the Hand was used to wound the Imbalancer, it retreated through the portal and left the Five Kings to be defeated by the angels. The angels then separated the souls of the Kings from their monstrous forms and sealed them in magical shrines.”
“So what happened to the monsters themselves? Can they sustain themselves without souls?” I asked.
Deotra paused, as if she didn’t know how to answer. “From what Drache said, the bodies were used to create a barrier. Using the Imbalancer’s own power against it, to guard against a second incursion. Without the souls, the bodies cannot move or think, so it made sense to use their essence to fuel the creation of the barrier. So long as the souls remain detached, the bodies cannot die and thus the barrier cannot be unmade from this side.”
“From what I can infer from Drache’s words, she wants the Hand to correct some wrong that was done to her. As a weapon of incredible power that can slay divine beings, the wrong she seeks to correct must be terrible indeed.” I could sense the trembling in Deotra’s voice. She’s spooked, but whether she’s more afraid of Drache or this terrible thing, I’m not sure.
I’m missing something here. This is a lot to process, sure, but there’s some detail I can’t put my finger on. If the corpses of the monsters the Five Kings became are already being used to cordon off our world from the Imbalancer, then they’re dead. As far as I know, the only divine beings still left in the world are the angels governing the Theocracy of Shardin. So does that mean Drache wants the Hand to kill them?
Deotra returned to my side and stared at me. “When the time comes, Drache will tell us why she wants the Hand. Remember, if you cannot trust her, trust me instead. I don’t have the heart to lie to you any more than I already have.” She snuggled against me, burying her head in my chest. I hate to use her guilt against her, but that’s a pretty good reassurance. As heinous as it is to rely on it to keep her on my side, if it means she’s less likely to listen to Drache for the time being then so be it. I ran my hand through her hair, soothing her.
Then her ears shot up, quick as a flash. “Oh no. We’re almost there. I thought we’d have more time. Listen, Kuro. Don’t heed the voices and don’t stray from the path. I’ll find some way to guide you, I promise.” Before I could ask for clarification I pitched backwards without actually moving, and I came back to the real world still upright in the driver’s seat, where Yuzuruha had forcefully pulled the reins from my hands and brought the wagon to a halt. The sun was now hanging low in the sky, painting the horizon orange.
“Y’all there still, Kuro?” She said as she waved her armored hand in front of my face.
I pushed it away. “Yeah, I’m here. What’s going on?”
She frowned at me. “Well with the way y’all been starin’ straight ahead like a goddamn zombie we thought you died. Y’all have been out for hours. We need ta stop fer a second.” She pointed ahead.
Somehow, the air had become much heavier, tinged with hints of fog and inclement weather. We were no longer on an open plain but passing down a narrow cliff towards a rocky crag, with an opening maybe fifty feet across up ahead. Sheer cliff walls flanked the opening, maybe sixty or seventy high on both sides. Loose stone and rampant plant growth choked the passage, where a cobblestone road had fallen out of repair ages past.
In front of the opening was a single stone monument, an obelisk inscribed with Kierhaian language. Surrounding the obelisk were rows and columns of neatly arranged small grave markers, each a tiny pillar of stone carved with symbols. As the group disembarked the wagon, Yuzuruha placed her hand on the obelisk, then clasped her hands in front of her in a kind of prayer.
“Never thought I’d see the Valley of the Last Sunrise fer myself. Been told ghost stories ‘bout this place since I was a little girl.”
Alicia lifted her eyebrow. “Ghosts? Really? You’re scared of those at your age?”
Yuzuruha scoffed. “Maybe back in Ishmar y’all have plenty of other things ta be scared of. But here in Kierhai, we have ghosts. The way I understand it, this valley has some kinda scar on it left behind by the people who died here.”
Standing behind the monument, facing the east and the opening, was a single statue of a man clad in the traditional iron armor I’d seen soldiers wearing back in Standing Stone. He stood tall, his sword by his side, the face hidden by the mask worn under his bowl-shaped helmet. The ornament on his helmet resembled a sun flanked by wings. Compared to the road and the monument, the statue was eerily well preserved, with the mask resembling a snarling demon with almost lifelike features, including a pair of long, curving fangs.
“From the stories I was told, back when Kierhai was first comin’ together as a single nation, the Emperor gave the go ahead to build Standin’ Stone. We needed a show of strength and unity, so he thought buildin’ a big fort outta a big rock would do it. The construction lasted all through his rule, and even as he reached the end of his life the fort still wasn’t done. So he passed the secret instructions he’d given the Steadfast to the next Emperor ta continue the work.”
She circled the monument so she was looking at the statue. “Problem was, when the new Emperor found out that the Steadfast had the power ta act without his authority, he took it ta mean that the Steadfast could possibly rebel against him. So he sent an army of seven thousand men down the fastest road ta Standin’ Stone with the intention of destroyin’ it.”
As the last light of day began to fade, Yuzuruha took a torch from her pack and lit it, casting its flickering light across the area and causing the demonic visage of the statue’s mask to leer hideously at us. “When the Steadfast found out what was comin’ he put out a call ta round up an army ta defend the Stone. But a patrol of fifty men and women decided ta come here, ta this narrow pass, ta block the way for the imperial soldiers.”
“Along the way they begged every village and town they passed for volunteers. By the time they got ta this valley, they numbered two hundred and thirty. Nowhere near enough ta stop seven thousand. But the soldiers blocked the pass, rolled boulders up tha hills, made the villagers fashion spears out of sharpened sticks. When the Imperial Army arrived, they held their ground.”
Sheena gazed at the opening, adjusting her spectacles. “With the way the valley is formed, it seems like the right play. Block the opening and the enemy’s numerical advantage is removed. Attacks from elevation, staggered retreats, scorched earth tactics. You wouldn’t be able to hold it forever, but that wasn’t their objective, was it?”
The mercenary nodded. “Yeah. Seven days and seven nights the soldiers held. Each day they had to give a bit o’ ground. But they made the Imperials pay fer every inch with blood. On the seventh day, they were forced ta this end of the valley. By that point they were down ta six soldiers and only thirty villagers. They put their backs to tha west, to tha sunrise, and fought like hell.”
She put her right hand against the statue’s chest, in a show of solidarity. “Dawn rose on the eighth day and the Steadfast’s army arrived to find the last soldier and six villagers strugglin’ ta hold the entrance. When the battle was over, the last defenders perished of their wounds. When word came back to Blossom City that the Emperor had almost instigated a civil war he was removed from his post and executed.”
A chill wind blew through the empty valley and Yuzuruha took a step back in fear, almost dropping the torch. “What I was told was that some nights, the defenders rise up from the graves ta stand at attention. They think it’s the seventh night all over again, and that they need ta hold till mornin’. Never seen it fer myself, but I ain’t one ta tempt that shit if I can help it.”
Alicia rolled her eyes, strolled forward and grabbed the torch from Yuzuruha’s hand. “Ridiculous. There are plenty of things to actually be scared of in this world, and ghosts shouldn’t be one of them.” She took five bold steps towards the entryway, turned, and then glared at us. “See? Nothing to be afraid of.”
As the sun disappeared and the sky turned dark, the fog seemed to intensify. The last rays of sunlight gave way to the long dark and starry sky, and the air stood still, as if time had frozen. Like the exhalation of a giant, another blast of wind came from behind Alicia and snuffed out the torch, blowing the fog away.
From the grave markets, wisps of white smoke began to rise. They bulged and surged and twisted into humanoid shape, some taking the form of elves, other beastmen. A few were even human, all clad in the simple clothing of farmers and common laborers. Some dragged pitchforks, hoes, and crude spears with them, seeming to take solid shape as they rose up and stepped out of their resting places.
They marched over to where Alicia was standing, forming ranks. The little princess had to stifle a shriek as they advanced on her, then passed through her harmlessly. She ran back towards us, but just as she made it back to the statue another ghost stepped out of it. Clad in the same armor, drawing its single-edged blade in one smooth, practiced motion, it nearly gave her a heart attack as the figure stepped down from its elevated platform to the ground.
She stepped to the side as the warrior passed her, marching to the opening as the farmers fell in behind them. As one, the entire group turned their backs to the monument, raised their weapons, and gave a silent war cry. Yet the fear, the knowledge that this was their last stand, was etched across all their faces. Even now, unaware that they were long dead, they knew this was their last night alive.
The barbarian ran back to Alverd, who grabbed her to prevent her from falling over the side of the cliff nearby. As she gasped for breath, Alverd tried to maintain his composure. This too was a bit much for him, but he couldn’t show that he was just as overwhelmed. Instead he held Alicia, trying to steady her so she wouldn’t panic.
I wasn’t so courteous. Without even looking at her, I let loose a quip without thinking about it, as my brain did what it did best: acting without thinking.
“Tell that to them.”