Madelaine grunted, as the mathematics finished themselves in her head, and another skeleton ripped itself free of the flesh containing it, and clambered up, to join the others killing and clearing bodies. She mentally sank back into herself, weary; that was it for her mana. And then she forced herself to start moving again, exhaustion creeping into her as she once more moved back into the fray, raised her blade, and began methodically killing the distracted fleshpuppies.
“He's still alive, somehow.” King Archmage Mersin's own mana had long since been depleted, and he was tearing into the beasts with a fury with an enormous sword, borrowed from a warrior who had retreated from the front lines as their time had grown perilously short.
“I have no idea how, the weight alone ...” Another adventurer, a grizzled gray-haired woman whose name Madelaine hadn't caught yet; she used an enormous axe with a long handle, which she used to alternately kill, and then hook and pull down from the pile. There were only a handful of adventurers left, carving into a hill of fleshpuppies, who tore at each other in their frenzy to get at the center of the enormous pile.
They'd probably have also left, except that three black wardens had joined them, after the last adventurer had given up, apparently having heard something of what was going on; she wasn't sure which of the cloaked figures were doing what, but flashes of fire, pressure, and something like healing magic, but twisted and corrupting, tore through the beasts.
It seemed like so little, but bit by bit, they carved a path into the mass of flesh, and then the magic had ceased, for the creatures they now dug through were already dead, ripped apart from above or, increasingly, just … dead.
And then they reached a point, and the bodies suddenly began moving outward with a sudden wave, drenching them in gore, as the bodies gave wave to a flood of liquified ick. There were curses, only Princess Arias fast enough to move out of the way; Madelaine found herself spitting, having opened her mouth to say something at exactly the wrong moment.
And then a giant stumbled out, and it took Madelaine a moment to recognize Sir Thomas, her blade already halfway out – chunks of flesh fell off of him, and she started when she noticed that several of them belonged to Sir Thomas himself. Well, nothing healing couldn't help, but still. Ouch.
“Thomas!” King Mersin grabbed Sir Thomas' arm, and to Madelaine's surprise actually got himself under his armpit and lifted; Sir Thomas looked over to King Mersin with kind of a dumb expression, but after several long seconds of staring, suddenly shrank. Princess Arias got blood and other stuff all over her still-pristine clothes, but she took his other shoulder, and they began a procession back to the gates.
Madelaine and her skeletons guarded their retreat. Well, alright, the Black Wardens helped, especially with the annoying fleshbugs. One had gotten her good earlier, but the healers had put her back together, and then she'd come back to kill more of them, and help Sir Thomas, who had somehow gotten all of the fleshpuppies really mad at him in particular. Madelaine kept glancing back at the hill of dead bodies. That was nearly satisfactory for the crime of wrecking this place.
Halfway back, Sir Thomas seemed to pause, the two figures parting and moving away from him; he pulled his foot up, staring at the bottom of it. Madelaine found herself slowing, observing Sir Thomas turn to look back at his footprints. She looked at them, and blinked. She'd noticed they were bloody, and mentally skipped past that. What had escaped her attention before was that they seemed to actually be bleeding.
She skipped over to the nearest footprint, and looked down at it. There were tubes sticking into the ground, trickling blood. The other footsteps also had weird bleeding tubes in them. Madelaine slowly lifted her eyes, following the footsteps back to Thomas, who was staring down at the footprint in front of him. He was talking to himself.
“Fucking goats. I knew I should have listened more closely to that part.” He looked over to Princess Arias, who had her hand on her sword, staring at him with a very curious kind of expression. Madelaine didn't know what it meant. Thomas, for his part, just … laughed, looking her up and down. “I know I'm not going through that portal, Arias.” Madelaine's eyes suddenly stung, and she had to blink them. What? “You can put your sword away.”
“You … what did you do?” King Mersin's rumbling voice. So quiet she could barely hear.
“I accepted a bargain.” Thomas seemed to consider that for a moment, with an odd glance to the side; Madelaine followed his gaze, but saw nothing there. What was wrong with him? “Or something else. It doesn't really matter.”
“No, I guess it doesn't. I'm sorry.” King Mersin looked from the footsteps to Thomas, then turned and started walking towards the gates. Madelaine started walking forward, but stopped short when several figures began moving through the gates. Arias glanced at them, but kept her attention on Thomas, who just stood, looking exhausted, blood trickling from a hundred wounds. They just … stood there, waiting for the others to approach.
It was Princess Arias' grandfather, The Sage. He frowned at Princess Arias.
“What is the emergency, child?” He followed her pointing figure to Thomas' foot, which Thomas lifted once more from the ground, with a horrible ripping noise, to show to The Sage. The Sage leaned forward to look at the foot, then back up at Thomas. “Hrm. You're compromised. Okay, yes, that does make sense.” He looked out at the hills, frowning. “That puts certain things in a different context, I think. No, I think we're already too far gone here at any rate.” He seemed to be talking to himself. Madelaine moved closer to hear. “This does paint the dangers in a different light. Thomas, do you feel any differently?”
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“That is a very difficult question to answer.” Thomas' smile was slightly broken. “Not feeling a lot of anything just this moment, which is probably for the best.” The Sage, for his part, looked Thomas over again, then nodded.
“You'll be more useful lucid. Sage Fen?” A middle-aged man, balding and needing a shave, moved forward. Fen was wearing a plain gray garment, which was somewhere between a robe and a dress, tied at his waist with a simple white sash. Thomas grimaced as the man touched him, a pale green light erupting around him. It stopped a moment later, Fen shaking his head.
“It's going to take quite a lot. The boy is nearly dead. Sage Tari?” A pale woman moved forward, then, to stand next to Fen; the green light shone from nowhere once more, and Thomas' grimace deepened. Madelaine found herself standing next to them, then, ignored by the others.
The light shone, and Thomas' muscles moved to hide bone, and skin spread to cover raw muscle, bloodflow slowing and stopping. He seemed to be having trouble, Thomas jerking and twitching as the healing light shifted, growing deeper and shallower, almost a second breath, layered over his short and shallow breathing. There was a shimmering, something moving from the pale woman to the middle-aged man, as the healing continued, his body continuing to grow back. Thomas let out an odd noise when his boy parts grew back in, a quiet something between a gasp and a cough. And then Fen stepped back, Thomas whole once more. The Sage nodded.
“Alright, then. Thomas, what are you feeling?”
Thomas looked up at him. And then leaned forward, and started … coughing, or puking, Madelaine wasn't sure. It was bloody, with weird ugly chunks. She was stepping back, and didn't stop moving backwards when Thomas straightened again, eyes wide.
“F-fuck … that doesn't … that doesn't feel right at all.” And then he was leaning over again, adding to the disgusting pile in front of him. The Sage was unmoved through it all, observing, with only the slightest of glances to the middle-aged healer.
“Sage Fen?”
“I removed what contamination I could, but it's part of the fundamental construction of his body. It's curious; I don't think we've observed brood with dedications before. If not for the circumstances … well, we could move him to quarantine with the others.”
“He has the concepts.”
“We could request a delay, then. I think it may be important to observe how the phenomenon evolves.” The last member of their group spoke up, then, a hooded figure with a melodic voice, which Madelaine couldn't quite place as a boy's voice or a girl's voice; it straddled the line in an uncomfortable way.
“That experiment is not as important as the opportunity to see what happens to the astral when a concept is fully severed. The risk of contamination is too great.” The Sage nodded.
“You're right, of course. I'll take him to the others when ...” He trailed off, as Thomas jerked again, another coughing fit taking him. “I'll send you what information I can. The girl is clean, take her with you.” He gestured to Madelaine, who didn't understand most of what was being said, but narrowed her eyes at that. Was she just a piece of luggage, then? A clean piece of luggage? “Quarantine, of course, but she has useful skills, so I suggest the academy when she has finished.”
“Come, child.” The woman, Tari, reached a hand out for hers. Madelaine looked at it, then back up at the woman.
“What's wrong with Thomas?” The hand remained reaching for her, its owner taking a moment to look Madelaine over before replying slowly.
“He's very sick. It is the sickness which has destroyed everything here.” Madelaine looked back to Thomas, who was now staring off to the side at apparently nothing, eyes glazed.
“But, but you healed him. Why is he still sick?”
“His sickness is part of him. We cannot heal what is not damaged. Come, child. Sage Eslan will take care of Thomas.”
Madelaine slowly took the woman's hand. She didn't trust her, she didn't trust any of these old people. But she was feeling lost and alone, and the hand was a guide. They started walking. She glanced back once more, when Thomas started saying something unintelligible; she heard something about truth and goats. What was up with him and goats, all of a sudden? Princess Arias was there. Why was the princess still there?
They were most of the way to the tunnel of darkness, the so-called gate that opened a hole in the walls of the cotton candy city, when a shout from behind made Madelaine turn back. Or try to; the hand holding hers tightened, so it was a struggle to see what was happening. But then, it was easy to see, once she looked.
Thomas was large again. Larger even than he had been; a true giant. And it made it easy to see, even at her uncomfortable angle, the new arm reaching up from his shoulder, from his waist, fingers reaching for the sky, and then blooming red … terror touched at her, as she saw the largest tree in the world, branches reaching for the sky and reaching out, Thomas' dull expressionless face visible only a brief moment more, before seeming to twist out of sight. Arms now branches reached down for the tiny figures before it, flattening the closest – and then Princess Arias moved forward, known to Madelaine in the distance only for the long hair blowing around her, her swords still sheathed.
Queen Arias spoke Truth, and Reality quivered. It was not a voice, and Madelaine could hear it clearly for all the intervening distance. The ground beneath them cracked, and the woman holding her hand stumbled, but continued pulling her along, more forcefully than ever. The tree that had been Thomas cracked, and blood poured forth. The sky cracked, and darkness shone through. It was all Madelaine could do not to crack, as well, and she directed her attention back forward, and started running, beginning to pull Tari along.
Dust poured down on them, as they ran through the tunnel. The bricks didn't fit together quite right anymore. Reality didn't fit together quite right anymore. They ran through the city of wondrous smells and sights, now abandoned. Things were falling around her, reality still trembling in the aftershocks of the truth that Queen Arias had spoken. Tari's grip shifted, and Madelaine found herself slowing, to let the woman lead. They moved through the empty city, once full of people and life. Thumps and crashes would have drowned out her thoughts, had she any, but Madelaine's mind was a terrible void, a nauseating empty freefall that ripped at her chest.
She felt the twisting of fate, and pulled the old woman to the left. Rain poured in that space a moment later, a terrible rain of stones and bricks and dust that left her struggling to breath. They kept moving. Behind them, Truth was Spoken again, and reality quivered once more.
They reached a larger tower Madelaine had not visited before, a dozen or more black-robed figures standing in front of an open door. There was conversation, which Madelaine couldn't process, and then they were through the door, and there was a shimmering light of blues and purples, spread like a stretched canvas across an impossibly delicate stone arch. She looked back over her shoulder one more time – but there was nothing to see, only the white stones, and a door looking out over a scene of falling rubble.
And a hand pulled hers once more, and she found herself following the old woman, who stepped into and through the shimmering light, like it wasn't even there, Madelaine pulled towards it, into it. There was light, chaotic and twisted, blazing over her entire being. It slowly resolved itself.