“He’s gone,” Mhell said.
Riven blinked. He was still staring up at the broken sky, still gawking at the Scion. He was still there, if indeed the Scion was a “he”. Which meant the “he” Mhell spoke of had to be the Cataclysm.
With some difficulty, he pulled his eyes away from the sky and looked down. The Cataclysm was no longer where he floated moments ago. If Riven focused, he was sure he saw a distant iridescent smudge in the gloom of the pit’s depth. The demon was descending farther into the enormous hole, going straight towards the bottom.
Straight for the god.
A warm blast of air shot up, scratching against the sides of the rock island, and Riven felt hot all over. With the warmth came a voice. That same voice he’d heard from the hole in Welmark, and under the mountain of dead Sept all those days ago.
Survive.
He froze, straining his ear to hear more even though it was quite apparent he wasn’t really hearing the voice, so to speak. The god’s words bloomed in his mind, then flowed in his veins, pushed out on his skin, and trailed into his earlobes for his brain to belatedly think it of as an auditory input. No, he wasn’t hearing the god at all.
If anything, the god was within him.
But then, what did the Cataclysm have to do with this deity who was supposedly broken according to Mhell? Survival. Was that telling, in some way? But that brought the more important question—why in the world could Riven hear this god speak?
“Do you hear anything?” he asked Mhell.
“Do you hear the god?” she asked back quietly, like a secret shared only between them.
She stared at him, icy white eyes daring him to try to fathom her and risk slipping. Riven’s jaw worked on its own. It seemed insane that he was hearing a god stuck at the bottom of some long-forgotten pit.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“I hear nothing of the sort. Nothing at all, in fact.”
Riven grimaced. Just the answer he’d been afraid of. How was he going to explain himself, how was he going to expand on the experience to someone who didn’t get it? Who didn’t share the same experience? No, there was no point in expounding on it. Nothing to gain. It wasn’t like he could jump into the pit and do anything about, well, anything at all.
“What did you hear?” Mhell asked.
Riven hesitated, but the need to tell won out. “Survival.”
“That’s it?”
He nodded.
Mhell looked down into the pit, thinking. She had torn off more of her sleeve and wrapped the ripped fabric around her wound to stop the flow of Sept. Riven stared at the wound. Did Deathless heal? He’d never bothered to ask or cared to find out, yet now it seemed so foolish he had never thought of such a basic question.
“Survival…” She stared back up at the Scion, eyes far away as though she was seeing beyond the creature hanging in the sky. “Perhaps this Cataclysm has something to do with this god’s survival.”
“You think the demon wants to kill the god? Why?”
“The only ones who can answer that are well beyond our reach at the moment. Besides, the Cataclysm could very well be heading down to aid this god. A source of survival, rather than an eradicator of one, perhaps.”
“It didn’t feel like this Cataclysm wants anything to survive, honestly.”
Mhell allowed a brief smile to cross her face. “We are not yet worth thinking so much over, it seems. But that means nothing. We have each other to think of. And believe me, one day, we shall be noteworthy.”
Riven grunted. That sounded like dreams of grandeur. But that smudge of iridescence wouldn’t leave the back of his eyelids, even though the Cataclysm was long gone. Survival. Riven’s Essence was all about Survival. Could the two be related somehow? Maybe he was looking into it too much, but that might explain why he could hear this god when no one else heard him. Some kind of weird connection between him and this broken deity.
Riven shivered. The thought wasn’t at all comforting. If the Cataclysm was heading down to kill this god, would Riven be next?
“Is the Cataclysm strong enough to kill a god?” Riven asked Mhell. “How do their powers even work? I mean, aren’t gods supposed to be immortal? How can something calling itself a god even die?”
Mhell considered for a few heartbeats before answering. A measured, controlled answer. Thoughtful. “Even immortality has limits. He was born from the Celestial Ruin, no doubt. And anything that is born must also die one day.”
“Celestial Ruin?”
“The event that created the Sundering Pit.”
“I thought it was called the Sundering. A meteor coming in to crash into the area, creating a giant sinkhole that led to a hole the depth of which is still unfathomable well over two centuries later.”
“What do you think created the sinkhole in the first place?”
The thoughts whirling in Riven’s head jerked to a halt. “I… don’t know.”
Mhell glanced at him, crack making her smile seem stretched a little too thin. “That’s the thing, dear. No one knows.” She looked back into the pit. “But the important thing is that yes, Cataclysms are surely powerful enough to kill this weak and broken god trapped far down below. I am not wholly certain where the god’s power lies in the hierarchy of the Deathless, but though the term may imply otherwise, I doubt he is strong enough to fend off a Cataclysm, much less be anywhere close in power to that of a Scion.”
As she said Scion, she stared up again. The golden-orange nebula glowed bright as the sun, scores upon scores of stars twinkling from its depths.
Heavy, thumping footsteps dragged their attention backwards. Riven and Mhell both turned and stared, eyes going wide at the strange figure walking towards them. He was a tall man with long, auburn hair waving with every step, attired in gleaming white armour whose sheen made it look like it wasn’t metal. Ivory maybe, or abalone. The etching and filigree was authentic gold though.
The stranger stopped when he saw them. He frowned at Mhell, then at Riven. They frowned back. Riven wasn’t sure what he was looking at. Maybe some apparition had gotten lost in time, popping out of the ancient ages when warriors still wore armour.
“Ascendant,” the man said as he frowned at Mhell. He turned to Riven, the frown growing deeper. Then he nodded. “Chosen.”
“Who are you?” Mhell asked. Good thing one of them had found their voice again.
The man didn’t look back. “The Scion’s Hand.”
The man walked past them. There was a golden dagger at his waist, and the tip of the golden sword nearly touched the ground. He stopped at the edge of the abyss, looking down with his frown as though he too had no goodwill towards the Cataclysm.
Then he jumped into the pit, the white glimmer of his armour soon lost in the darkness.
Riven blinked, as though coming out of a trance. He rushed to the edge of the pit and peered down, but there was no sign of the man in white anywhere. “What in the Chasm just happened?”
“We were witness to a Scion’s Chosen coming down.” Mhell’s voice was shaky.
Riven stared at her. “A Chosen? You have any idea what for?”
Even as he asked it, he realized it wasn’t hard to fathom why. Had to be that god, or that Cataclysm, or both. Though it was strange that the Cataclysm had caused such an enormous ruckus, had made is presence known everywhere, yet the Chosen had snuck up on them with no indication of his presence at all. He might have been any other man if not for his armour.
Mhell pursed her lips for a moment. “I believe he intends to contest whatever judgement the Cataclysm has proclaimed on the god. Kill the god or save him, the Chosen intends for the opposite to happen.”
“So it’s a fight between a Chosen and a Cataclysm? How can you be sure the Chosen won’t reinforce the Cataclysm?”
“I can’t. But I am willing to bet that since he didn’t show up before this, he’s only come down now to oppose the Cataclysm.”
Riven swallowed. It wasn’t enough that he had been witness to a Cataclysm’s descent. No, he had to stand witness to a damn Chosen as well. One who had seen him and said Chosen. Impossible. He was no damn Chosen.
And what in the Chasm did Ascendant mean?
“I… don’t understand what is happening at the moment,” Riven said. “Or why.”
Mhell smiled at him. A too-sweet smile. “I suspect it’s the shock of survival giving us trouble comprehending. Things take time to settle in. The implications need a while to ferment.” She paused, lost in thought. “And I will also need to find out more,” she muttered.
“I’m not sure I want to ponder the implications right this moment.”
“Good for you then that there are other things to worry about.”
Riven stared around. “Yes. Like how in the world we’re going to get off this rock.”
“Well, yes. But more importantly, it’s more about what you need to do once you do get off this rock island. The matter of the Spectres.”
Riven stared at Mhell for a good long while. Spectres? The Chasm was she talking about? He stared over the land and towards where the big battle was supposed to have been, though there had been no sound from that direction for a long while now.
He froze, gawking. Riven stepped closer to the edge of the rock island. He even rubbed his eyes, all because what he saw was impossible to believe.
The demons were gone. All of them, nowhere to be seen anywhere on the battlefield.
With their enemy no longer anywhere near, the Guards were regrouping. No doubt the Captain was reforming them into proper ranks, counting the dead, making sure the wounded were getting enough attention. There were a lot of dead, but Riven kept his eyes on the survivors. They’d made it. Somehow, perhaps in some way because of the insanity happening all around, they had survived. Just as he had survived. Both this debacle, and the one at Welmark.
Welmark. His eyes widened. Riven turned to Mhell, who was observing him with an expression somewhere between bemused and exasperated. “Those Spectres?”
“Of course, dear. The ones from Welmark you were hunting before this… mess. There are no other ghosts to speak of in the area. This is thoroughly demon territory.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Riven cursed. So much had gone on, he’d forgotten again, even after Mhell had brought them up only a little while ago. “Where?”
“Where you were. Near that large tree.”
“The Coral fort? But we saw nothing over there, and trust me, we’d know.”
“Trust me. I can assure the Spectres are there at this moment.”
Riven swallowed. His neck itched as though seeking to turn every which way, either to stare at the Guards, or to look for Viriya somewhere, or maybe even stare down at the pit and make sure the Cataclysm wasn’t coming out any time soon. But what choice did he have on the matter? Looking at it logically, there were some things he could hope to achieve more than others, and the Spectres were at the very top. The Cataclysm, and the Chosen too, were beyond his reach, Viriya could be anywhere, and the Guards were doing fine on their own.
Logic, though, didn’t help with the pain in his heart. He’d have to abandon everything just to get his job done. Would Viriya have left him alone, lost and perhaps in dire need of help, when she had a job to do? Riven couldn’t fathom it.
Though, and as much as he hated to admit it, there wasn’t even an inkling of a clue on where Viriya might be, except all the way at the bottom of the pit. Where the broken god was.
Where the Cataclysm and the Chosen were perhaps locked in a tremendous battle.
“How do you know where they are?” Riven asked.
Mhell seemed to be suppressing a shrug. “I caught them travelling while doing my own investigations. Why, though, is a question I cannot answer.”
Riven frowned. That brought up the question of what her investigations had found, but he had wasted enough time already. “How do I get off this rock?”
The land was too far off for him to think of jumping, much less actually attempting it somehow. Even if he had enough Sept to power his Essence, how would he use it to get to the other side?
“Simple,” Mhell said. “You only need to trust me for a moment.”
“Haven’t I been trusting you for a long time now?”
“All the better.”
She walked up to Riven, then grabbed him, one hand on his right shoulder and the other under his left arm. He tried not to cringe back at the closeness, instead focusing on the cracks crisscrossing her face like jagged smiles complementing the hint of a grin. A scary grin.
“What are you—?”
Riven never got the chance to finish. Mhell threw him. He shouted out, sailing through the air, the world whirling so terribly in his sight, he shut his eyes tight. With a painful thump, he landed on the other side, little poofs of dust rising up at the impact.
Groaning, Riven got to his feet. His shoulders were ablaze, though not so bad that he might have broken or dislocated it. Still. It didn’t feel nice. “You could have warned me!”
“You could have used your Essence!” Mhell shouted back. Even at this distance, her smile was too clear. Or maybe it was all those damn cracks. “Go, there isn’t any time to waste. Ghosts are flighty by nature.”
Swallowing down another curse, Riven turned and left without a backward glance. Scions, he must have turned into an old geezer. His back was trying to make him curve forward and stoop, his joints creaked in protest, his every limb stiff in rebellion at their continued overworking.
“I haven’t forgotten our debt, dear,” Mhell’s voice carried over the chasm between them.
Riven raised a hand in farewell, not stopping. “Neither have I.”
His horse had better be all right. Losing the crystal would be disastrous. Who knew what someone could do with the damn piece of a Scion.
He raised his head. This Scion still bathed them all that orange glow, the sky dark all around. A source of light. That was all the Scion was for now. Nothing he needed to worry over.
The Spectres. He’d have to find the Spectres. Something about what to do next would perhaps come to him as he went about the task, but he needed to get it done. Enough tangents. Enough demons, for now.
#
Finding the tree, or where it used to stand, wasn’t difficult. The Infernal’s pull on it hadn’t been a clean uprooting that had brought the whole structure to where he’d been dragged by Viriya’s Essence and ingenuity. Instead, the tree had shattered, pieces of every size flying in a barrage to the final battlefield but leaving a trail along the path they had gone along for Riven to conveniently follow back to where the tree had been.
Mhell was right. There were Spectres there. Riven paused as soon as he spotted half a dozen figures in the distance, a shimmering border outlining their otherwise rather human forms.
Strange how Spectres and Fiends were so different from one another despite both being Deathless.
There weren’t many options for Riven to consider. He was out of Sept so his Essence wouldn’t be of much help here, for what little dusted the ground everywhere would fade too soon for him to properly use. But then, his main objective here wasn’t to start a fight or subdue them. Whatever Father had “ordered” could go to the Chasm. Maybe they had been hostile back in Welmark, but with the Deadmage gone, they might be different now.
So taking a deep breath, Riven headed out. It would fine. He was an utter fool for walking into a group of potentially hostile ghosts, but with everything that had happened so far today, he deserved some slack.
The Spectres saw him coming and turned to face him as one. Riven looked past them, and stared at his horse. He smiled. The horse was still where he’d left it, having not moved a single inch.
How in the world had he been blessed with such a placid beast?
“Halt, mortal,” the lead Spectre said. “What is your purpose here?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Riven said, eyeing them all one by one.
By the looks of them, they had been rustic folks when they were still alive. That was, of course, if Spectres hadn’t changed clothes, which led to another rabbit hole of a line of inquiry that he didn’t need to distract himself with at the moment. Presently, the Spectres wore old, dirty clothes—torn shirts and trousers, boots caked in mud and dirt, belts with hoops for holding certain tools, and large gloves. He blinked. Miners. These were the ghosts of dead miners. Hadn’t Rio said the Deadmage had been from a mining encampment?
“What is your purpose here, mortal?” the Spectre repeated.
“My horse.” Riven pointed, though he didn’t take his eyes off the ghosts. “And the lot of you.”
The words sent the Spectres into a minor frenzy. They tensed, shoulders hunching and mouths setting into grim lines. Deathless they might be, but their expressions were very much suited to the living.
“What business do you have with us?” the lead Spectre inquired.
“What business did you have back in Welmark?”
“You think that is any of your business?”
“I was attacked and nearly killed. I’d like to think that yes, the reason for the attack and an uncalled-for near-death experience does deserve some explanation.”
“We could kill you now. Finish what we started back in Welmark and finally be rid of another annoying little Essentier. Face it boy, does reason really matter when your life is on the line?”
Riven tried to keep the frown from marring his face again. He was dealing with stupid threats, made worse by the fact they weren’t idle and were quite threatening to his life to boot. In his condition, depleted and exhausted, he wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight.
“You can try. But what could a handful of Spectres do to me?” Riven pointed up. “See that Scion over there? I don’t know if you noticed but that Scion is here to observe a Cataclysm at work, and I stopped that Cataclysm. Me, single-handedly, prevented a Cataclysm from destroying everything. You think you want to fight someone like that?”
The Spectre shook his head. “You could’ve tried for a more believable bluff, idiot. One measly Essentier could never stop a real Cataclysm. He’s doing what needs to be done to protect us all. To protect everyone.”
Riven couldn’t stop his frown this time. Another line of inquiry he needed to pursue. “So how do you think I survived? I know you saw the sphere. I know you saw the world turn grey and misty. I know you saw the Cataclysm use his powers. And yet, I survived it all.”
“Hah! For all I know, you might have—”
“That’s enough, Huffer,” another Spectre said from the back, the ghost of a man older than most present. “We don’t need to be pickin’ fights where there ain’t any. Essentier, what’s it you want?”
Riven glared at the one called Huffer for a while before turning his attention to the one who had just spoken. “As I said, I just want to know what you’re doing here.”
“We were seekin’ the Infernal. With the Deadmage gone, he was the next closest one who might’ve taken some pity on us lost souls and taken us under ‘im, if you get my meanin’.”
“And what good would the Infernal do? Give you an even greater chance to kill?” Riven’s temper rose with every breath, his face flushing with uncomfortable heat. These Spectres had escaped the Deadmage’s clutches only to come here and throw themselves under the Infernal’s. Damn them. All they wanted was just another overlord who could show them the easiest paths to slaughter. “You make me sick. All you want is to kill and destroy. What, are you jealous? You think taking it out on defenceless people is ever right? What sort of murdering monsters are you?”
Most of the Spectres cringed back at his words, faces downcast in shame, but Huffer stepped forward. “It was never our fault! Kennig went insane, then made us do it.” His eyes were searching Riven’s face as though looking for a single shred of absolution. Of forgiveness. “Kennig became a Deadmage somehow, and then he changed. He was always a little off, but all that power… twisted him. You Essentiers don’t know what’s it’s like to be under the thrall of one of them.”
Riven shook his head. “Why in the Chasm would you give yourselves up to some insane monster like that?”
“Because that’s the only way we can leave this damn place behind,” the Spectre of the older man said. “If a Deathless grows strong enough, one of the Scions brings ‘em to the Beyond. Most of ‘em stronger Deathless become even more powerful by taking other Deathless as thralls, servants, even slaves, bound to their whims and unable to make any decisions on their own, connected in a way you ain’t ever goin’ to get cause you ain’t one of us. That’s the basic exchange, see. We give up our ability to choose, and in return, we’re dragged to the Beyond when our master is pulled into it because of that connection.”
“And what choice do we have?” Huffer added before Riven could harp on about them choosing to let themselves potentially commit atrocities in return for this insane idea of ascension. “You aren’t one of us. You’ll never understand what it’s like to be stuck here, where everything is faded. All you see are blurs, all you can sense is grey, and gloom and everything’s murky all the time. We don’t belong here. There is nothing for us to do, noting for us to live for. We shouldn’t exist in this realm.”
Riven swallowed, eyes jumping from one Spectre to the next. It hadn’t occurred to him that they didn’t want the wholesale slaughter and destruction, that it might be entirely only the individual Deadmage’s fault. Could a similar thing be going on with the Fiends and the Infernal? Was that why they were gone now that Infernal had likely lost his hold over them and was no longer a sure way for ascendance. Ascendance.
The Chosen had called Mhell an Ascendnat.
He stared up, straight at the starry Scion. Faded, they said. Distorted , blurry, and gloomy grey everywhere. Wasn’t that what the world had turned to when the Cataclysm had landed? Riven couldn’t think of ever living in such a world, where he was shorn from everything that had ever made life worth living and enjoying. “Did you say the Scions grant ascendance? Then let’s try asking one.”
They all followed his gaze. The golden-orange light in the parted heavens bathed them in a soft outline like that of a candle flame.
“Are you crazy?” Huffer stared at Riven. “How would we ask?”
“We pray.”
They still looked sceptical, ready to dismiss him outright, but Riven stopped paying attention. For all their postulations of misery, they hadn’t offered any solutions. What harm was there in trying Riven’s? So he closed his eyes, and prayed.
“Oh, great Scion in the heavens.” Riven raised his voice, the forcefulness of his voice forestalling any protests that might have come up. “I know I have been lacking in my prayers. I know that I promised to pay my dues for all that you have granted me the last few weeks. I have gained much, learned much, gone through much, and in the end, I have come out alive and well enough to forge on. Better equipped to do so, in some cases. And for that, I, foolish mortal that I am, have failed to be grateful.”
“This isn’t—”
Riven barged over Huffer. The words seemed to come on their own, forming in his head with a feathery easy. When was the last time he’d prayed? For Mother, the day before he’d left for Providence Demesne, an eternity ago it felt like. “But you are here now. You are witness to me and this world I live and breathe in, and here I stand before you, only a mere mortal at your mercy. Here I stand in gratitude, and in supplication once more. Please, for all the I have gained and lost, for that I have rejoiced and suffered, for all that was given and taken, I beseech that you take these poor lost Spectres to your side. I ask, in return for never begging anything of you again, that you help these lost men ascend to your side.”
The silence that followed his little intonation was absolute. While Riven stared up at the stars twinkling in that gold and orange nebula, the Spectres stared at him. Maybe they were shocked. Flabbergasted, for all he knew. It wouldn’t matter if it didn’t work, though.
Doubts ravaged his mind—why and how would a Scion listen when they weren’t even physically present to hear him, why would the Scion accede to the wishes of someone who hadn’t bothered to follow up on his prayers, why would such an almighty being even care—but he didn’t let it show on his face. It had to work.
“It—it’s all becoming clear!” one of the Spectres said.
“I see it,” said another. “I see it now!”
Riven stared at them, mouth slightly parted. They were fading, dissolving into a sprinkle of glittering Sept that floated around them. A wild neigh burst out of Rio’s Sept horse, and it reared, taking a step forward. Strangely, it didn’t seem frightened, only drawn to the scene. Viriya’s charger nickered in muted fright, and even Riven’s horse turned to look with a soft grunt. Its Sept to be shining, its eyes fixed on the scene with a strange focus.
Huffer’s eyes were huge. Teary, almost. “You did it. The Scion listened to you!”
Riven nodded, distracted by the Sept. “Of course. Farewell.”
“Farewell. And thank you. Thank you so much!”
“I don’t think no one’s ever had a wish fulfilled by a Scion like this before,” the old man’s Spectre said. “Who in the world are you, Essentier?”
Good question. The whole thing had been a shot in the dark, for he had never heard of anyone being so directly answered by Scions in reality. The image of the Sept crystal revolved in his head. A piece of a Scion. Maybe a piece of the same Scion who had heard his prayer and granted his wish.
Riven shrugged. “Just another Essentier.”
The old man stared at him for a while, then nodded. “Well, I’ll be takin’ my leave.”
Riven nodded back. A chorus of farewells and thanks followed Huffer’s, and the Spectres slowly disappeared. Besides the broken base of the giant tree and the horses, all that was left was a few glittering Sept particles floating like golden dust in the air.
Gone. The Spectres had finally found what they had been searching for all the while. Ascendance.
Riven stepped towards his horse and mounted it. He sighed. It was time to be off, time to find Viriya and Rio and get away from this mess. They had to be alive. He’d make sure of it.
The Scion caught his glance again, the twinkle of that nebula filled with stars like a wink. A secret shared just between the two of them. Maybe the Scion wasn’t here in the same way the Chosen—His Hand—was, but maybe there was no need.
Those Spectres had been saved, regardless.