Victor and Ranish Dar sat together on a low, freshly oiled wooden pier that extended from the grounds of his mentor’s house into the placid, deep blue waters of a lake. Sojourn’s atmosphere was thin, though the dense Energy of the small world served to make life comfortable for the people living there. The overall effect, however, was that the stars were almost always visible, especially away from the city. It also made the water look dark and almost like a mirror of the star-filled firmament overhead. The lake was beautiful, and the soft breeze tickling his bare chest as he dried off put Victor at ease as he dangled his feet over the edge.
“Enjoying the view?” Dar asked, his bright gaze aimed at the brilliant expanse of stars above.
“How could I not? When I heard the guide say Sojourn was a ‘city world,’ I’d thought countryside homes and lakes were out of the question.”
“Well, it’s a small world, and much of it is taken up by the city. People want to be where the action is, so the vast majority of the populace lives in, around, and above its streets.”
“Like the, uh, Arcanum where we met?” Victor pictured the floating spires on their stony, rune-etched platforms.
“Exactly. It doesn’t hurt that grounds such as mine are prohibitively expensive. Those of us who own the lakes, forests, and valleys would charge a dear price for the city to expand.”
“But no one owns the sky,” Victor said, connecting the dots. “That’s why the Arcanum is floating above the city?”
“Perhaps, though, it’s likely that the first towers were simply put up as a show of power.” Dar shrugged and leaned back, basking in the sunlight. “I received word from my driver; your friend is en route.”
“Lam? That’s great.” A knot of tension Victor hadn’t acknowledged melted away. Thanks to the way he'd dominated the challenge dungeon, he knew his friends weren’t exactly safe around the city. He sighed, closing his eyes, enjoying how the cool water lapped on his shins with the gentle waves stirred by the breeze. “I share Farscribe books with Edeya and Valla, so when they finish their dungeons, I’ll pick them up.”
“Providing you’re available, aye, that’s a good enough idea.”
“You think I might not be?” Victor opened one eye and regarded his stone-fleshed host.
“I have tasks and training for you. The city may reach out with one of their demands.” He shrugged, both of his blazing eyes still closed. “The future is fickle; don’t make too many plans, especially about trivialities. If you’re busy, I’ll see your friends home safely.”
“Fair enough.” Victor started to relax again.
“Speaking of tasks, there’s the matter of the Fae girl.”
“Sora. Right.” Victor had been dreading the topic ever since Dar had mentioned it on the coach ride from the city. He didn’t like thinking about his time as the Aspect of Terror, let alone looking at the aftermath.
“She’ll likely have a fit and regress when she sees you. Well, perhaps not. In your current form, you don’t resemble the one who terrorized her. You can make yourself smaller, yes?”
Victor nodded. He was naturally close to Dar’s size, closing in on ten feet, and with just the two of them on the pier, it felt perfectly natural. Still, he’d recently improved his Alter Self spell and knew he could bring himself down to a much less intimidating stature if he wanted to. “Yeah. You think I should be smaller when I see her?”
“I do. I’m also quite interested in that spell. I noticed a curious lack of its mention in your journal.”
“Yeah . . .” Victor didn’t know how to proceed. Dar was easily one of the top five most powerful people he’d ever known, and he didn’t want to offend him by lying or holding back information, but he also didn’t want to betray Tes’s trust. Now that he’d visited Sojourn and learned about some of the power scales of people in the universe, he couldn’t help wondering how she’d stack up. She hadn’t ever mentioned “iron ranks” or “tests of steel,” let alone the “lustrous veil” that lay beyond. He knew those were terms coined by the old masters of Sojourn, but surely other civilizations had names for the same stages. Or did they?
Tes came from a world of dragons, a place where Elder magic reigned, and the System held no sway. Perhaps things were different in that case. How would Tes compare to Dar? Victor had only seen her true form in a couple of illusory glimpses, but he’d felt her aura, or, at least, the part of it she let loose to make a point. What’s more, she’d been altering herself down to the size of a petite human. If Victor changed himself so much, his Core would be a fraction of itself, yet Tes had been starting from the size and shape of a dragon! Even so reduced, she’d been immensely powerful.
“My innocent question seems to have set your mind’s gears spinning,” Dar chuckled.
“I’m trying to think of a way to explain to you, without offending you, that a very powerful being taught me how to do that magic and made me promise not to spread that knowledge.”
“And you fear angering this being?” Dar’s stony brow lifted over one eye.
“I . . . fear what it would do to my spirit if I betrayed her trust.”
“Ah! Don’t lose sleep over it. We’ve years of study and work ahead of us. Perhaps one day you’ll introduce me to this friend of yours, or perhaps you’ll realize the secret isn’t something you need to fear sharing. It’s possible I know more about it than you think.” Dar winked at him, and then, with a grunt, he stood, water streaming off his stone legs. Victor shook his head; he kept thinking of Dar’s flesh as stone, but he knew it wasn’t. It moved and felt like flesh. “Come, it’s time you faced your handiwork.”
Victor swallowed a groan as it tried to escape his lips and hopped up, nodding. He summoned a clean pair of pants and a comfortable, loose, linen shirt. Dar gestured to the house. “I’ll meet you on the deck if you want to change.”
“Thanks.” Victor watched his retreating back, and then he quickly slipped out of his damp, homemade shorts; he’d cut the legs off a pair of torn pants. He pulled on his dry clothes, shrugged into Lifedrinker’s harness, and then, still barefoot, made his way up the long, steep flight of sandstone steps to the house. It was situated on a hill, but the slope was severe enough that Victor couldn’t see the house until he stepped onto the upper landing. The back of the residence was set with windows that opened onto a broad wooden deck that overlooked the lake, and Dar stood near one of the big glass doors, waiting for him.
It was a beautiful, well-appointed home, but it wasn’t ostentatious. It had a few large living spaces—a dining room, two parlors, a library, and half a dozen or so bedrooms. Everything was open and bright, and Victor had the distinct impression that it was designed as a place for Dar to relax. Victor liked the white-washed brick exterior walls and the tarnished copper roof; it looked like it belonged to the rocky, hilly landscape. Soft-spoken servants, all wearing the same uniform of pale blue shirts over tan pants, could be seen here and there, cleaning, cooking, and basically waiting on Dar’s every whim.
In the few hours Victor had been at the house, he’d seen at least four different servants, but they all looked related—green skin, yellow eyes, and pointy ears. He was curious whether they worked for a company or directly for Dar and, if so, why they all looked so similar. The topic hadn’t come up yet, so he pushed the thoughts aside as he stepped across the deck and followed Dar through the giant-sized glass door into one of the home’s parlors.
“The Fae girl is in one of the bedrooms. My steward restrained her for her safety.” He didn’t elaborate, but Victor could read between the lines. Whatever his alter ego had infected her with might drive her to harm herself. “I’m going to explain what you must do, but then I’ll leave you to it. My presence seemed to alarm her.”
“Oh, you checked on her already?”
“Yes, while you were swimming, I took a look.” They were standing in a hallway now, and Dar nodded toward one of the closed wooden doors. “Fear not; these doors and rooms are enchanted against prying ears. When I examined her, I could see the infection you caused, and while it would be devastating if left unchecked, it’s nothing a strong Spirit Caster with the proper affinity couldn’t remedy.” He inclined his head toward Victor. “It should be trivial for the original caster to rectify.”
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“Didn’t you say the other guy . . . what was his name? I wanna say Eleanor . . .”
“Elandor. Yes, his mentor came to me distraught, but I’ll be surprised if he hasn’t paid someone to fix the lad by now. I’ll check on it before I send you there.”
“I thought you were going to give me a choice.” Victor’s objection was half-hearted. He and Dar both knew he’d do it.
As if to illustrate that point, Dar ignored his words. “When you look with your inner eye upon the girl beyond yonder door, you’ll see that your fear-attuned Energy has manifested into a sort of pseudo spirit and is assaulting her on two fronts. It attacks her Core on this plane, and on the Spirit Plane, it attacks her very spirit. It’s powered by your will, so it shouldn’t be difficult to command it to return home. Pull that Energy out of her, and, if you must, Spirit Walk to claim any that resists.”
“Seems easy enough.” Victor scratched the back of his neck, wondering if he’d missed something.
Dar was quick to drop the other shoe: “There will be a small challenge involved. Your fear manifestation has been corrupting her Energy, attuning it to fear, making it something you could cultivate if you wanted. You may find it difficult to resist the urge to drain her dry, which would kill her just as surely as if you opened one of her veins.”
“Shit. Is that going to mess up her Core?”
Dar clapped him on the shoulder. “Not permanently. Once you remove the influencing corruption, her Core will slowly cleanse itself. You have a powerful will. Use it. Silence your urges and command your Energy to return. This is an excellent chance for you to practice—a safe exercise; if she dies, none will come looking for her.”
“What the fuck, Dar?” Victor looked at his new mentor with sudden anger flaring behind his eyes.
Dar scowled at him and shrugged. “I’m simply trying to put your mind at ease. This woman has no family or sponsor in Sojourn. Her homeworld is distant, as are her kin, and none know that I brought her here.” His big hand was still on Victor’s shoulder. It was heavy, but none of his aura leaked out, and though his face was scowling, Victor didn’t feel any anger. Was the man testing him? Was he making light of Sora’s life to see how Victor would act?
“I’m not going to kill her.” Victor turned to the door and took a step, part of him bracing, wondering if Dar would tighten his grip and stop him, but the giant let his hand drop. Victor stopped before the door, concentrated, and cast Alter Self, shrinking himself back to his old human proportions—just a fit, broad-shouldered man of about six feet. Without looking back, he opened the door and stepped through.
The first thing he noticed was the stench. It smelled like sweat and piss and fear. Idly, he wondered when he’d begun to be able to smell that scent. Had he always? “No,” he whispered as his eyes caught up with his nose, and he took in the scene. The curtains were mostly closed, allowing only a sliver of light into the spacious suite. Closed doors on the left and right led away to other rooms, but there, in the main chamber, the space was dominated by a big, four-poster bed draped with gauzy, pale blue curtains. A table, bookcase, and several comfortable chairs filled the rest of the space.
Victor stepped onto a plush, dark carpet and moved toward the bed, noting the shadowed, veiled figure writhing there. He could hear ragged breaths, whispered words, and the soft clink of chains. Victor reached up a hand to Lifedrinker’s haft, seeking some comfort as his nerves suddenly turned to ice. He’d seen countless horrors, from monsters to evil men to the terrible aftermath on a battlefield, but this was something different. Sora wasn’t a monster. She wasn’t a dead soldier. She was a person twisted by the dark side of Victor’s spirit, made ill and mad by the force of his will.
Lifedrinker’s haft was warm, and he felt strength radiating from her. Suddenly, he felt ashamed. Who was he to hide from his own handiwork? Did he answer to his fear, or did it answer to him? Growling, Victor summoned a torrent of inspiration-attuned Energy and cast Inspiration of the Quinametzin. As his eyes flared with the white-gold Energy, the shadows fell back, driven away by the clarity of his mind. He strode forward, and in three long steps, he was at Sora’s bedside, throwing aside the gauzy curtains. She lay there, wrists and ankles bound by padded silver chains to the bed’s posts.
Sora’s eyes were wild, wide open, and bloodshot. Her gray, nearly white hair was a sweat-matted mess, and he could see the sheets around her were drenched—sweat or urine or both; Victor wasn’t sure. It smelled like both. She wore the same clothes she’d had on in the dungeon, though someone had removed her leather armor, leaving her in a soft, earth-toned, close-fitting vest over stained, tan pants. Her lips were pale and cracked with dehydration, her cheeks devoid of color, and when she briefly focused on him, a whisper croaked in her throat, but Victor couldn’t make out the words.
“Shit, chica,” Victor sighed, reaching down to grasp her wrist. She tried to pull away, but Victor’s fingers were like iron bands, his arm an immovable force. Still, he held her gently and willed his inspiration to extend, to include her. “Come on, focus on me. You’re okay. Whatever you're seeing or feeling—it’s not real.” She continued to writhe, her knees going up and down, her hips shifting left and right, her head flopping about on the pillow. It almost seemed like she was trying to get something off herself. “Goddamn it,” he hissed, “If I knew this was so bad, I wouldn’t have been swimming like an asshole while you were suffering. Fucking Dar should have said something.”
Victor’s frown deepened, and he closed his eyes, turning his gaze inward, starting with his Core and pathways as he always did to open his inner eye. He quickly let his gaze travel out of himself, and that’s when he saw and felt the rich, roiling storm of fear-attuned Energy raging at the center of Sora’s being. Despite himself, something in Victor felt excited, like a wolf eyeing a wounded rabbit. It would be so easy to pull that Energy out of her, to add it to his Core, swelling it, pushing it toward another advancement.
Victor looked at the temptation abstractly, almost like he was outside his body, watching himself figuratively salivate over the feast his corruption had created for him. He squashed that feeling, crushing it into nothing with his will, and then he turned back to Sora and traced the corruption away from her Core into her pathways. He could see his Energy there, and, almost like an echo of one of his spirit companions, he recognized the shape of his spirit. Dar’s description was apt; his spell had created a pseudo-spirit entity that was carrying out his Aspect of Terror’s will.
With a surge of focused will, Victor walled off Sora’s Core and pulled the corruption, dragging it through her pathways and into his, through the connection where he held her wrist. It resisted at first, hungry to complete its task, but once it felt his touch and tasted the familiar grounds of his pathways, it practically charged toward his Core. It rejoined the glowering ball of purple-black Energy from whence it had spawned. When nothing more came out of Sora, Victor stared for a long time at her Core, watching to see if it would begin to recover, to drive away the corrupted, fear-attuned Energy.
If Dar hadn’t warned him, Victor might have tried to help, to siphon away some of that tainted Energy, but he knew better. Her Core needed time to cleanse itself and generate new, properly attuned Energy. If he pulled all of that tainted Energy out, she would die. “Did I get it all?” he asked softly, not expecting an answer. Sora’s writhing had ceased, and she lay with closed eyes, still pale and slick with sweat but quiet. Victor kept hold of her wrist, then sat on the side of the bed, shifting her slightly to make more room. He needed to see how things looked on the Spirit Plane.
He wasn’t worried about his body; he was in Dar’s home, and there wasn’t any way anyone would get to him to cause harm without the powerful Spirit Caster knowing. Additionally, if Dar wanted to harm him, he didn’t need Victor to be on the Spirit Plane to do so. He closed his eyes, built the pattern for Spirit Walk, and flooded it with Energy. When he looked around, the house was gone, and he was sitting on a large, flat stone overlooking the twilight landscape of Sojourn.
Before he could take in the vista, marveling at the changes between the world’s Spirit Plane version and that on the Material Plane, he noticed the coiled, black-feathered serpent on the stone beside him. It was both alien and familiar, and Victor knew it was the manifestation of the pseudo-spirit his Aspect of Terror had created to infect Sora. It watched him through hooded eyes, black with vertical red pupils. As he regarded it, the serpent’s tongue flicked out and seemed to lap up some misty white Energy that coalesced in the air before it.
“Is that Sora’s spirit?” he growled. The serpent unwound and slithered toward him, but Victor didn’t flinch. It was probably four feet long with weird, glossy black feathers adorning its scales that invited his touch as it slithered into his lap, slowly sliding up along his chest, resting against him like it was coming home. Part of Victor wanted to recoil, but part of him recognized the serpent as part of himself. Its weight was comfortable, its chilly aura a perfect echo to the resonance of his fear-attuned Energy. “Okay, hombre. You’re done. Leave her alone now and come home.”
The serpent’s head was on his shoulder, and it lifted further still, bringing its face close to his and looking him in the eyes. Its dark tongue flickered out again, and then it simply burst into a cloud of purple-black smoke. Unlike natural smoke, though, it didn’t waft away. Rather, it settled on Victor and sank into him, and regardless of his wants or desires, he felt a massive influx of fear-attuned Energy. Victor grunted in surprise as his Core swelled, stretching to bursting and then compressed with a soul-jarring pulse of Energy.
***Congratulations! Your Core has advanced: Advanced 9.***
“Shit,” Victor muttered, then he cut the Energy feeding his Spirit Walk spell. As the material world slammed into his senses, he jerked his head, looking at Sora, hoping she was all right. To his relief, some color tinted her cheeks, and her eyes were closed as she breathed deep, steady breaths. He reasoned that the serpent had been the spiritual manifestation of his spell and had been slowly feeding on the corrupted Energy from Sora’s Core, siphoning it like a leech.
Using his inner eye, he looked at her Core again and saw it was still roiling with fear-attuned Energy, but that, at its center, a tiny, pale pearl of pale shimmering Energy slowly grew. Victor was reasonably sure that as her Core recovered, it would slowly push out the corrupted Energy, and she’d be okay. “Are you in there, Sora?” He squeezed her wrist, still cool to the touch, but then, everyone’s skin felt cool to Victor’s hot hands.
Her eyelids fluttered, and she took a slow, wheezy breath. It took a few seconds, but her gray eyes finally focused on him. She licked her cracked lips and croaked, “Victor?”
“Hey!” Victor summoned a copper water bottle from one of his rings and handed it to her. “Drink that.”
“What . . .” Her eyes widened, and something flickered behind her irises like a shadow, and she shuddered. She squeezed them shut, took the bottle, gulped several mouthfuls, and then handed it back. “I’m embarrassed to say that I feel terrified right now. My Energy feels wrong, and I keep having flashes of . . . nightmares. Has my Core been poisoned?”
“Sort of. I removed the infection; it’ll recover. You’ll probably feel much better if you can sleep until tomorrow.”
“You removed it? Why?”
“I caused it! I guess I tore you with my talons or something; it’s all a blur to me. I mean, whenever I wear that aspect, things are unclear afterward.”
She closed her eyes, and he could tell she relived some painful memories. When they opened again, he could see she had more questions, but she looked around, taking in the gauzy curtains around the bed and the dim room beyond. “Where am I?”
“At my, uh, mentor’s house. He had you picked up when he saw you didn’t have anyone looking after you.”
Sora glanced at his hand, where it held her wrist, then up into his eyes. “Weren’t you taller before?” Before he could answer, she asked, “You’re not angry?” Her eyes pooled with tears.
“Seriously? I thought you were going to be pissed at me. I mean, you just went through a day of hell.”
“It’s . . . I don’t remember it all.” Her voice was quiet and soft, and he could see her eyes getting heavy. Whether she remembered it or not, Victor’s nightmare manifestation had done a number on her. He found himself feeling more than a little responsible for her. Learning that she had no mentor or family in the city and that one of Dar’s people had found her alone and taken her without any objection—it all felt a little sad.
He recognized the feeling as different than guilt; they’d been fighting, and she’d known the risks. He wasn’t guilty. He supposed he just empathized with her. Even he, the only earthling in this part of the universe, had a support group here in Sojourn. How bad would it feel to not only lose but to find yourself alone afterward?
“All right,” Victor shook his head, standing. “Time for you to get some rest. We can talk more tomorrow.” His musings loosened his tongue, and he added, “Hey, you know what?”
“What?” He couldn’t help noticing how she turned her hand up, her fingers stretching toward his.
Victor took a step back, but he smiled and said, “I guess we’re more than just dungeon friends.”