The voices roused me gently this morning. A child babbling away while I lit a torch, drank, and attended to my morning routine through a hole in the slime wall and into the corridor beyond.

Withering Insect

It was a suggestion rather than an order. There was no imposition. If I desired it I could simply... not.

I let the spell enter my mind. I hadn’t understood Serpent Moment until I’d needed it. Withering Insect might be the same. Isolated as I was from all recognized paths, I was going to cling to every advantage at my disposal.

I began running around the hexagonal chamber, measuring my steps, tracking time. Once I gained a handle on the distances and speeds required I began recording my spell. My gear was carried with me. Transported along my circuitous path. I stopped after less than a hundred steps. I could go further. Much further. That was not my goal.

TransportII: Move all of the caster’s gear 150 ft over the course of eight seconds.

Magic had one known limitation. Albeit, one with workarounds, but the limitation was there. A recorded spell could only – unless cast in tandem with another spell – could only effect either the mage or not-the-mage. Otherwise I’d have recorded TransportII to move my gear and myself. It did mean, however, that I could record TransportII and Safe Teleport together to gain the desired effect.

TransportII would suffice for now. Needing to get dressed again was a small price to pay for getting through the iron portcullis.

Unfortunately, it would require two spells, neither of which I could afford to lose. I could use my Magic Swords spell instead, but if anything, that was even more valuable. Given how heavy the portcullis had been, I doubted my Push spells or Levitate would be enough, even combined.

They might be enough to get me through the stone door, but if I encountered any traps which lost my spells I’d be set back another day.

Then again, if I waited in the room all day – I’d been toying with the idea – I was guaranteed to lose a day. Teleportation spells weren’t hard to record.

I’d try the stone door. I wasn’t even losing my spells 50% of the time, the odds, as far as I knew, were in my favour.

It took nearly an hour to move the slime fully away from the door. I lit another torch and used the light to study the ragged edges of the slime, idly using them to draw runes as I waited. Disturbingly, the slime didn’t remain in place.

I hadn’t noticed in the morning, being to focused on making a tunnel to do my business through, but the slime moved on its own. The path seemed mostly random, almost like it was melting against the wall. Tendrils spread out in every direction from the edges, questing, prodding, merging back into the whole when they didn’t find anything. In all my years I’d never seen a plant like it. If I wanted to spend another night sleeping in here I’d have to make sure to move all the slime back to the opposite side of the room. Otherwise, it might end up suffocating me in my sleep.

The path was clear. I squeezed out the already ajar door and headed for the door of stone. I’d considered removing pins from the hinges again but decided against it. For one thing, it would take multiple spells (one per pin) to open the door. For another, I might want to close the door behind myself in the future.

Instead, I used PushIII to move the door towards me as I pulled on it. I felt the tattoo on my chest vanish. It was a sudden easing of breath, a chill, a relaxing of skin I hadn’t known was tight. It actually felt mildly pleasant for a minute. I’d have rather had the spell. I’d have to make it count.

It was enough. More than enough. Once I overcame the initial friction, the spell pushed the door open the rest of the way on its own. I let it press the door up against the wall before dispelling it. I probably wouldn’t be able to risk closing the door again.

It was only now I noticed the writing on the far fall. It had been to my back when I’d last fled through the room, on the same wall as the door I’d come by.

“I’ve forgotten my name.”

I wasn’t sure who that message was supposed to be for. Who it could be for. Was it a warning? It was a poorly written one if so. Far too vague. Was it a note for the writer to return to? In case they later were under the impression they hadn’t forgotten their name? That was... that was a disturbing thought. I wasn’t sure if the warlocks could do something like that with their natural talents, but the Mushroom-King probably could. Dark magic could, if you got “lucky”.

The room also contained a third doorway, one to my left. Unbelievably, the latch slid free and the door swung open like doors were supposed to. I had a moment of irrational fear that I’d returned to the round chamber near the Mushroom-King. I’d been joking, but some part of me appeared to subconsciously believe only the architect of that room could truly make working doors.

My subconscious fears were put at ease by the fact that, after a short corridor, the passage beyond the door ended with another iron portcullis. First Rain of Spring, I was saved.

I gave the portcullis a go all the same. You never knew. Perhaps this one was ratcheted or had oiled its runners.

Luck was with me. The portcullis lifted smoothly in its track. I was just strong enough that as long as I applied steady pressure I could keep it moving until there was enough space for me to duck under.

I’d seen the candles before entering the new room, of course. I wasn’t about to expend all my strength on lifting an iron gate into a room full of bloodthirsty wolves armed with battleaxes after all.

They were lit and scattered about the room haphazardly, as all candle arrangements in the dungeon seemed to be. It probably made the lighting feel more natural than with ordered rows. A warlock interior decorator.

It did raise the question of who had lit the candles. They were six-hour candles at most by the look of the wax. Probably less than two hours since they’d been lit.

Another possibility was that the rooms were in a sort of stasis, much like the dungeon as a whole. Time might stay paused until someone entered – or left – the room.

That last theory was a long shot. The torches on the upper floor had almost all burned out by the time I’d escaped imprisonment. Whatever the reason for the lit candles, it was better to treat them as a reminder to keep my guard up. I was far from alone down here.

The room had a single (stuck) wooden door as its only other exit. I pushed my way though it (eventually) and moved out into the long corridor beyond.

I could have moved the hundred foot distance far faster were it not for my caution due to traps and a potential encounter with the candle lighter. As it was it took me a full minute to reach the end of the featureless corridor before it turned at a perpendicular angle to the left.

A wooden door waited at the end of the corridor flanked by grey flagstones on all four sides. That was normal. But as I drew closer, the door seemed to move further away. I say seemed because it didn’t get any smaller. The door remained fixed in place, as large as ever, but the horizon grew, like my eyes could suddenly account for more dimensions. Everything else got bigger. I hadn’t shrunk, I was almost certain. The thought had been dismissed almost the instant it had crossed my mind. My perspective of the door remained identical.

There was simply... more. More between me and the door.

My life sense flared up as cobbles gave way to bright green grass. A moment later the ever present howling laughter of dogs was drowned out with bird song.

Light shone down from above. Not a lantern or chandelier, but the warm bright light of the sun. And yet when I looked above me there was no sun. There was no ceiling either. Just an endless black expanse stretching off into infinity.

“Sky without stars,” I breathed. Perhaps the oath held more than an illusion to chaos.

The ground felt unstable. Like I could fly upward into that endless void at any moment. Like each step might never come back down.

I fished out the stone I’d taken from the teleportal and tossed it in the air to check. It came back down promptly. The feeling was vertigo, or some equivalent. Not a reality. Probably. I put the stone back in my pouch.

The walls had also fallen away at some point. The grassy field now stretched out to the horizon in all directions. There were figures there. Pale. Shadowy. Drawing closer.

I started jogging for the far door. A quick glance behind me showed that the corridor I’d come from was gone. The door seemed my only egress. When I turned back, the figures were everywhere, spread evenly throughout the field. One was stood directly in my path, though it didn’t seem to be paying me much heed. I stopped before I ran into it.

It was a man, or at least man shaped. Male. He wore clothes and armour, somehow I could see both at the same time, though the extravagance of either should have been exclusionary. He had long hair and a simple band to keep it out of his face.

His face was shadowed, as though it we were in a very dark room, but even my torch and night vision could not penetrate the gloom, and the grass he stood on was brightly lit.

Stolen novel; please report.

His clothing too was the same dark shade, so that the whole figure appeared more shadow than man. He had no colour to him and I could faintly see through him, as though he wasn’t entirely there.

A shade of some sort.

I moved around him carefully. I didn’t know if shades were hostile, if he could even see or harm me, but I didn’t want to take any chances. My spells might not work here.

The other figures had shifted again. It seemed they occupied space whenever I wasn’t looking at it. Disturbing. There was probably a dozen directly behind me right now.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I cursed myself for the thought.

“By the endless tide Oswic, why’d you have to think that?” I muttered, eyes pointedly fixed on the door ahead. I was not going to check.

One of the shades turned her head to follow my progress at the sound of my voice, but otherwise the shades didn’t react.

I stopped again, scalp itching, and addressed her, “Can you hear me? See me?”

She nodded distractedly, then craned her neck slightly, as if trying to look behind me. She didn’t appear to be worried. Disinterested maybe. But it certainly didn’t help my paranoia.

“Is there something behind me?”

She looked at me with bemusement and rolled her eyes before nodding once more.

I couldn’t take it. I spun into a crouch spellbook and torch at the ready. Shade or not, I was going to go down with a fight.

Nothing.

Well... to be fair she was technically not lying. There was the rest of the field. There was the hordes of shades milling about. There was the empty sky. But nothing directly behind me.

I turned back to the prankster.

“What was that abo-”

She was gone.

Of course she was gone.

The grass probably moved too if I paid attention to it. The only thing which hadn’t moved was the far door. Unfortunately, it also didn’t seem to have moved any closer while I’d been walking towards it. It was as far as ever, a fixed point in the distance, like it was a floater behind my eyes.

“Oswic?”

I jumped and swung my torch wildly. The voice had been right behind me.

Naturally, I hit nothing. What was with this place and phantoms?

“Oswic, is that you?”

Behind me again. I took a deep shaking breath and closed my eyes.

“Yes?”

“Oswic, it’s me, Oscar.”

They snapped open. There he was, standing in front of me.

He was a shade like the others. A shadow drained of all colours. The only difference being I could just make out enough of his face to recognize him.

“Oscar? Am I dead? What’s going on?”

I’d heard tales of a field of the dead. Several, in fact. From multiple different cultures. It might have been cynical, but at this point my first instinct being I’d died without somehow noticing wasn’t that unreasonable. There was more than enough traps in the dungeon to do me in. I just needed to be unlucky once.

“Dead? No. This is not a place for the dead. It is a place for heroes,” he grinned ruefully, “It just so happens that most heroes are dead.”

“Does that make me a hero?” I didn’t know what to think of that. Obviously, I was dealing with things far beyond the normal calling. But I didn’t really have a choice. There was nothing else I could do. Not unless I simply wanted to curl up and die.

Which... I’d tried that before, in my early twenties. Clinging on to life back then hadn’t been a battle with magic swords. Just pain tearing my heart asunder. Endurance was an ugly thing. Half the time I hadn’t wanted to keep going, the other half the time I couldn’t. But it had been enough. Second by second I’d weathered the storm for eternity.

I suppose I’d had a choice back then.

Oswic nodded. His eyes closed slowly, sharing my pain, “It was enough. More than enough. Wisdom is bought dearly.”

They opened, and he smiled widely, “But such is the way of heroes. We get what we deserve in then end. Here at last is Elysium.”

At his words a hundred thousand flowers bloomed. They’d not so much risen from the ground as unfolded from nothing. One moment we stood in an endless field of emerald grasses, the next it was turned to gold. A cool breeze set the flowers swaying, loose petals danced on the wind. The breeze was welcome, a perfect counterbalance to the warm air.

I felt my worries slipping away. I couldn’t hold onto them if I tried. The feeling was unsettling. Would have been unsettling, if it too didn’t drift away with the breeze.

All the same...

“Truly? Elysium dwells in the dungeons of the warlocks of all places?”

“Bleakfort was not always owned by the warlocks. Bleakfort was not always called Bleakfort. Its history is long and tumultuous. I myself know very little of it.

“But fear not and know this: You are safe here. You shall need for food nor water while you dwell here. You shall not need for sleep. Nor shall-”

I joined him. I’d heard the words before, “Nor shall the ravages of time mar your face, nor the pains of man touch your heart.”

The words were such I knew they were true. Truer than true. Even the Mushroom-King couldn’t make me believe something as thoroughly. It was the difference between being unsure if you were dreaming, and knowing you were awake.

He smiled again, “Such are the Elysian Fields.”

Intellectually, a single concern remained. I gestured to the door in the distance, “Can one leave this place?”

“Any time.”

“I can’t approach the door.”

The shade put a hand on my shoulder, “All you have to do is want to leave.”

I sat, stretching out in the grass. I could do with a moment of respite. The world could wait. Oscar joined me. We were on the slope of a gentle hill now. A crystal river wound its way across the fields beneath us. The more I didn’t notice, the more there was. The slope we now lay on was covered in beds of moss, kinder than the gentlest of pillows.

“Will you leave with me?” I asked. The clouds were gentle white wisps above me, somehow still beautiful against that pitch black sky.

“My place is here,” Oscar replied, eyes fixed on the distant snow-caped mountains, “Leave the world to the living.”

“Is there anything you want me to tell them? Any messages you need delivered?”

He thought about that for a long time before finally shaking his head, “Leave that to the living as well.”

I propped myself up on an elbow to look at him, “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

I lay back again, grass tickled my cheeks. I’d known Oscar for a couple hours at most. I’d probably spent more time with his corpse. But here, side by side his shade on this easy hill above the shining fields, I’d known him for my whole life. In this moment, and perhaps only this moment, time would tell, we were brothers.

“Ho there! Oswic!”

I raised my head. A man, not a shade, was gently jogging down the hill towards us.

“Conan!” Oscar exclaimed gladly, leaping to his feet. For that’s who it was.

“Oscar?”

The two men ran toward one another and embraced, then clasped arms and danced among the flowers.

“What is this place? How did I come here? How did you? What’s Oswic doing here?”

Oscar laughed, “Enough, enough. I’ll answer all your questions and more. Come. Sit beside us. The sights will do your heart good and every word here is true.”

Oscar wrestled the other man to his knees. Conan retaliated, jumping at him, and the two tumbled down in the grass beside me. They wrestled there on the grass til a cloud had passed from one horizon to the next under my watchful gaze. Finally they stopped, both men heaving for breath as they flopped onto their backs. Conan’s arm was still linked tightly about Oscar’s shoulders.

As we all three watched the river flow out to become a gentle sea, Oscar finally answered Conan’s questions, much as he had mine.

“What’s beyond the sea?” asked Conan when Oscar was done.

“Another island.”

“And beyond that?”

I could hear the grin in Oscar’s voice, “More sea.”

Conan clouted him on the side of the head, “And beyond that?”

“As far as I know, the Elysian Isles go on forever. The world is a heroic place.”

“So why are we all here? Shouldn’t we be impossible scattered?”

“It would hardly be Elysium then, would it? It would just be... lonely.”

“Isn’t it lonely already?”

“It’s not how often we meet, it’s the knowing that there are ~~~~ ones out there to meet.”

I twisted my head to look at Oscar. ‘That there are ones out there to meet.’? That was always true. Perhaps not in Elysium, but-

“I’ve heard you can still exile a woodsman,” said Conan in apparent agreement. Whatever Oscar had said, Conan seemed to think it had answered his question. Maybe I’d missed some turn of phrase from wherever they were from?

Conan freed his arm and rolled on his side to face the two of us, “When we leave, can we bring the others back here to see you? I’m sure Eric would like to say hello. Or goodbye. Whichever this is.”

“You can’t return here, not in this lifetime. You may stay here as long as you like, but the point of death is to move on.”

“But the others. We could send them your wa-”

Oscar raised a hand to stop him, “This is your respite not theirs. Everyone must find their own way. You cannot guide them here. If they find this Land of Heroes, they will find it. If not, they will not. All you can do is trust them.”

That sounded similar to one of the lessons of the Magi.

“Lead and trust they will follow?” I asked.

Oscar shrugged, “Something like that. But you must lead by virtue, not rote. There is no map to Elysium. Nor any path which may be tread twice.”

Conan bit his lip, “It’s a shame-”

“It’s your respite, not theirs,” Oscar repeated, “Do not begrudge them their own when the time comes.”

Conan shoved him in the shoulder, “When did you get so wise?”

The shade looked sheepish, “It’s not my wisdom. Don’t let me start putting on airs. It’s truth. Plain and simple. Things are easier here. The answers lie closer to the surface. Give it some time. You’ll see them too.”

Several other shades had joined us by this point to watch the distant islands rise from the sea. Neither myself, Conan, nor Oscar seemed to know any of them, but their company felt easy all the same.

I stretched out on the mossy grass and closed my eyes. The thrumming power of the druids was like a warm blanket here. Stronger than ever, and getting stronger by the second, but no longer overwhelming. A blanket of sunshine, safe and familiar, beating in time with my heart. Beating in time with the waves crashing on the distant shore. With the clouds undulating across the sky. With the breath of the wind. With the pulse of the land itself.

In this moment, death didn’t seem so bad at all.