I’d been here before. Not only that, I now had a pathway of open and destroyed doors I could follow back to the others. If they were still alive. I didn’t hesitate. My finger was already on the page.
True Teleport
The sun rose.
That was the second time the sun had risen mid-transit. Thankfully I’d gone the full 150 feet permitted by the spell, so when I tipped over from the disorientation my gear didn’t all go into the lava. Being 150 feet removed had other effects, too. It was surreal how normal everything felt. The dungeon was once again cool and damp, though with a warm breeze coming from back the way I’d come. No fires burned, no walls were marred by explosions or charred with brimstone.
Normal was of course relative. Chains still rattled off in the distance, and the heavy foot falls of... something landed intermittently, interrupted when whatever it was stopped to roar. Something on the scale of the toad-dragon, if not larger.
But those were sounds I’d heard before, or some variation of sounds I heard before. It was reassuring to discover the whole world hadn’t been engulfed by flames. It had felt like it.
The room to the right contained a large throne on a dais and an even larger stone skull across from it. To my left the passage twisted off around a corner. The room was barred to me by a large iron portcullis. I remembered the throne and the skull form earlier in the day (this was still the same day? It had been the longest day of my life) but had I really gone through this gate? Had my teleport spell been made back then? (all those hours ago.) Or had I lifted it? It didn’t seem possible.
It could have been my injuries speaking, but I checked the hallway to my left first, just in case. It ended in a dead end, meaning I’d gone through the gate.
It came to me then.
This was the gate I’d tried lifting on my own for fun. As if raising my elbows past my lower ribs could ever be considered fun. I’d failed, needing my full strength and that of two of my swords. I had two swords right now, but no strength to speak of. I didn’t even have a second sword sp-
The sun had risen.
Magic Swords II. Two invisible blades and a shimmering of lights swirled into being in front of me. The swords joined their brethren and moved out to lift the gate before me. The gate rose easily, allowing me to walk through at full height before it was gently lowered to the ground. The swords followed me, dancing and weaving at my command. Two of lights joined the dance, while the others formed a perimeter about the room and illuminated possible retreats.
Magic Swords III: Four invisible blades dance and strike with the base force of 484 lbs. One for half an hour, two for 45 minutes, and the final for an hour. Two lights, bright as candles, swirl about it, rising into existence just before the blade appears for the first time and dying an hour after it vanishes. Two more lights join in at the end of the first hour, and end an hour after the first lights fade, providing 3 hours of light total. All move independently following the whims of their master.
The rune for the spell nearly took up half a page of my spell book. I didn’t even bother tracking most of the extra lights. It was messy enough as it was. It was good to have though, and I felt safer having it. I wasn’t about to be caught off guard without the strength to remake my spell.
I’d sequestered myself in the corner of the room during the duration of the spell writing which I was now regretting. Nothing had come by to ambush me, but standing still so long on the hard stone had given me cramps in both my legs. I should have sat in the throne.
Smashed doors marked my path back into the room of the headless men. I only recognized the room by the sloped spike-pit in the floor. The headless men themselves were gone.
I kept an eye out as I crossed the room, but they’d left no trace of themselves. I didn’t doubt that it had been me to scare them off. Hopefully they’d run away from Conan and his group rather than towards them.
I was back in the enormous chamber with the raised pool in the corner. The one which had granted what’s-his-name knowledge of medicine. Tadg? Something Deltic. It had been a long day.
I made my way to the far door, and down and over the pit I’d fallen into all those years ago.
Hours ago.
Days ago.
Again, it had been a long day.
The goblin corpses were beginning to smell, and it wasn’t like roses. I used my blades to push them all to one corner as I made my way through the room, pausing at the threshold to finish the job.
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It turned out I’d paused at the wrong threshold. The path led down the long hallway to the elevator room and its contingent crowd of people. They were gone. As was the lift platform. Back down the shaft I supposed.
I turned back and found my way to the mosaic room, and then the more hidden chamber beyond. The others were there. Their eyes lifted to meet mine, more sombre than I had expected from my arrival. They didn’t even comment on my skin or clothing. Only Conan’s had a twinkle of something else in them.
It was Brace who spoke first, “Rian didn’t make it. He went peacefully. In his sleep. Slipped away while we watched. I don’t think he was in any pain,” she took a deep breath, forcing herself to continue, “So... So thank you. For doing what you could.”
Stovepipe spoke up before I could reply, not that I could think of anything to say, “It’s strange. I can’t help but feeling... I almost don’t want to say it. It wasn’t the same with Oscar and Oisín, but with Rian... I feel sorrow, yes, but not despair. There is no fear in it. Just sadness. Does that, am I making sense?”
Conan gave me a sad smile, “Do you mind telling them? Better from your mouth than my own. I tried to explain, but,” his smile went wry with a flash of humour, “They said they wanted the words of a Mage.”
Erin offered me her own sad smile of encouragement.
I wasn’t sure if Conan had mentioned Elysium yet. I wasn’t sure if he, or I for that matter, ever would. It felt personal. Personal in a way I couldn’t explain except to say not all things needed to be shared. There was other things I could say.
“Rian’s death is not lessened by your lack of fear. Nor is something wrong with you or your mind. Instead, for the first time in a very long time, perhaps centuries, or even millennia, a death of a friend has proceeded as it should. With sorrow, but free from dread, free from fear. Righteous men need not fear death. Nor should we fear the death of a righteous man. We were never meant to be afraid. That was the work of the warlocks. Of their mosaic and their dark magics. So let us weep that Rian has left us, but not that he has died, for his journey has not ended.”
While Conan and I were away, we learned... we learned that we were never meant to be afraid. Righteous men need not fear death. Fear came from the outside. Doubt was instilled in men’s hearts, but it does not belong there. When you destroyed that mosaic, you freed us from doubt.”
Stovepipe nodded slowly, “Elysium.”
I turned to Conan and raised an eyebrow, but he looked as shocked as I did. Stovepipe noticed my expression.
“The Delta has long had its histories of death. There is a book, the Book of the Dead. It is read only by the desperate and by scholars of mythology. It is dismissed as metaphor or a way to comfort those who fear death. I did the same all my life. Fool that I was to so lightly dismiss the wisdom of our ancestors. It is not a book for those who fear death. It is one for those who love life and wish to know how to live. The afterlife is a given, the book makes no efforts to convince you of that. And yet, at some point doubt was instilled in men’s hearts. It does not belong there. This much is now clear. Perhaps it was only with the smashing of the mosaic that I could be freed from doubt.”
Tadgh?—that was his name. I’d been thinking of Rian earlier—spoke, “Can you be freed from doubt? It seems paradoxical. Certainty is incompatible with freedom. With certainty there is only one path.”
Stovepipe answered him, “If a vase tips off a table, you are certain it will fall, not doubtful. Freedom comes in what you do with that certainty. Will you watch it smash on the floor below, or catch it, and put it back atop its precarious perch? Perhaps you’ll move it somewhere where it cannot be so easily disturbed.”
“Humility is a virtue,” I added, “I’m sure of it. But false doubt instilled by another is not careful questioning, it is lies.”
“And yet, I have to question everything,” Tadgh said, “Even the idea that the vase will certainly fall. Stranger things have happened.”
“And yet again, some part of you cannot knows what is true.”
“And yet once more, I must doubt that knowing.”
“I think... I think it is better to act as if something is true, rather than be paralyzed by humility,” Stovepipe said, “Too much doubt will lead to inaction. That does not mean you should defend false truths, nor avoid questioning those truths which you hold dear. Always question, but when the time for action comes, set aside all doubts and act. And now is a time I must believe that my lack of fear is just, and my sorrow and desire are true.”
Sorrow and desire? Another of those strange Delta phrases. My knowledge of history was broad, but foreign cultures always would always remain foreign. There was too much depth to the world.
“We’ve all seen death before,” Tadgh replied, “Too much death too recently. I fear I have grown numb to it, even as my heart claims it has been eased.”
Brace spoke up from the wall where she was slumped, arms folded, head bowed, “Priest told me once mourning was complicated. Never know how you’ll feel. Never feel the way you think you should. Said it was normal. All things happen in their own time.”
“Was that-” Erin started to ask before stopping herself.
Brace nodded, “Parents’ death. I went to the priest for punishment. I couldn’t stop feeling happy. I couldn’t stop feeling free. I thought I was a monster. But the tears came with time. They were controlling, didn’t let me live my own life, but the joy was not at their deaths. It was in how their deaths had pulled everyone together. I’ve noticed that about funerals. They seem to always set the world a little more right. Everything comes back a little bit more on path. It almost seems disrespectful to say, but it’s true. We feel what we feel.”
The man whose name started with a ‘C’ sound—Kilton?—met my gaze. His eyes were a brilliant blue, like the rarest and most beautiful lakes on a windless day. The dark marks framing his eyes only served to make them stand out all the more.
“You promise me?” he asked, “You promise all of us that this joy is not evil? That this gentle stirring of our hearts in our time of sorrow comes from desire, not madness?”
“I don’t know about desire, but it comes from peace. This I swear.”
All of them looked at me strangely then, even Stovepipe and Conan. It was hardly my fault Kilton (Killian?) had phrased his question in such an odd manor. Once again a cultural divide, but despite his apparent initial misgivings he seemed to eventually be put at ease.