Sparrow hadn’t quite realised it until now, but since the day he’d been brought to Death Rope Passage, he’d hadn’t actually walked on foot for more than fifteen minutes without breaking into a warp.
It’d become so second nature to him after a month of constant warping that he was surprised, really, when Ninmah brought him to the mouth of the Barrows without so much as a skip in her step. They didn’t enter the crystal cavern, though. He’d not noticed it before: there was a small, narrow, winding path of stone protruding from the side and leading up the blackrock mountain in spirals. He couldn’t see the top of the mountain even if he craned his entire head back, and his vibrational senses weren’t giving him any information, either.
Ninmah only waved at him at the foot of the path to hurry, as he found himself unable to stop staring at the dense swirl of clouds above him.
Their parents are up there?
He shook his head and gathered himself, following Ninmah onto the snowy trodden path. Come to think of it, he’d never bothered wondering why the blackrock mountain housing the Barrows was the only mountain with clouds swirling around the tip twenty-four hours a day. It didn’t make sense when Immanu itself was already several hundreds of metres above every other mountain in Hagi’Shar, and the other sky-piercing blackrock mountains flanking the village were similarly clear and fully visible; if Immanu was already a village above the clouds, then how was it possible that this particular sky-piercing mountain was the only one still shrouded?
Two explanations.
One, he could simply chalk it up as another oddity of this village in the sky, where worms were giant and the people didn’t need to walk.
Two—and he’d already seen the Worm Mages telekinetically ‘pull’ objects to their hands by opening wormholes in their palms before—there were exceptionally powerful Worm Mages living above the mountain, forcing clouds to swirl around it so as to keep their existence hidden.
And if the children were already this powerful, how strong were their parents going to be?
… This path is strange, though.
It is not a path well-suited for humans to walk.
As the crystal wood village shrank behind them, Sparrow had to focus on sticking close to the side of the mountain. The path was beyond narrow—a slight sway or a brief loss of balance because of the wind would send him tumbling off the edge—and while Ninmah did leave footprints in the snow for him to follow, he couldn’t help but wonder if stepping on wobbling stone beneath him was part of the intended path. He’d know the answer if the path eventually got so narrow he had to shimmy across ledges with his back pressed against the mountain, but preferably it didn’t get to that point.
Why couldn’t they just warp intermittently up to the top of the mountain?
“... Because I want you to look,” Ninmah said, plucking the question out of his head as she glanced around, smiling briefly. “See the jutting ridge and scale marks on the side of the mountain? You can grab onto them if you find yourself slipping. The rocks of Immanu aren’t so weak that they’ll break off from you pulling and relying on them entirely.”
As they travelled up the spiralling path to the top of the mountain, he noticed more and more of these ‘ridge marks’ she was talking about. They were like… dents in the stone. Imprints. It didn’t matter where there were, how far up they were from the village, or how much snow there was depending on which side of the mountain was facing burning sunlight—the entire mountain was wrapped in these imprints as though colossal worms had once curled up the same path they were currently taking, and they were but mere followers treading in the worms’ footsteps.
Again with the worms.
Immanu… Immanu…
Just what is this place, exactly–
“Imagine a giant wall that runs around the edges of the world,” Ninmah said, slowing her pace so she could walk abreast with him, curling her hands in front of her; halfway up the mountain, the path expanded enough that they could afford to walk shoulder to shoulder. She could afford to look his way and send him a cheeky grin. “Before there was humanity and the world, there was only the Brightmoon and a void around it. The void was dark, and in it lay monstrosities that assailed the Brightmoon to no end, so the Brightworms decided to take action. A hundred thousand of them squirmed out of their fortress, wriggled in every single direction all at once, and once all of them travelled hundreds of thousands of metres away from the Brightmoon, they crystallised to form a giant, seamless spherical wall that kept out the void. Maybe you can’t see it now, but once your eyes get even stronger and even keener, you’re sure to see it wherever you are—we call it the ‘Wormwall’, that which forms the borders and foundation of our world.”
She raised her finger and pointed east to west, north to south. He followed her gaze, but his perceptivity level wasn’t as high as hers; he couldn’t see further than the horizon, and he couldn’t see what her eyes were glimmering at.
“On their way to crystallise themselves, the Brightworms spewed earth from their tails, shed snowy scales that melted into cold water, and breathed ether that turned into fresh air,” she said, harrumphing softly. “When the Wormwall was formed and the borders of the world were demarcated, the first humans were born from the earth. They were nourished by water and flourished in air. They were protected from what lay beyond the Wormwall, within the void, and… to this day, the Wormwall stands as humanity’s anchor to reality.”
Snow whirled around them as they neared the swirl of clouds, and soon they wouldn’t be able to see a metre past the edge of the path.
Even still, he frowned. He couldn’t fathom what she was describing. He’d never even left the Attini Empire, let alone the continent humanity had been pushed back towards, and let alone the other continents even further beyond that the Swarm had already conquered—Ninmah was telling him to imagine a ‘wall’ made of crystalised worms at the edges of the world?
It was… impossible.
And he didn’t think anyone else in the world could imagine it, either–
“Oh, but I’m sure some of your people already know about the Wormwall, though,” Ninmah interrupted, leaning forward to grin as she plucked his thoughts from his mind once again. “After all, if the Wormwall forms the foundations of our world, then a breach in the wall is what invites irregularities from the void that shouldn’t exist in our reality. They would be ‘bugs’ that shouldn’t exist, hm?”
“...”
“Our ancestors told us the Swarm came from beyond the Wormwall,” she continued, not missing a beat as he tightened his jaw. “The breach happened six decades ago. We don’t know exactly where. It could’ve been one breach at first, but by now, with every other continent completely overtaken by the Swarm, there could be a hundred breaches across the entire sphere—from the north, from the east, from above the skies, from below the seas. Repairing the breaches would be impossible at this point.” Then she pulled a hand to her chest, dipping her head slightly. “When they first broke through, the Swarm immediately knew to move inwards and hunt the Worm Mages down, who were a special group of humans given fractions of the Brightworms’ power via the worm systems. Originally, there were tens of thousands of Worm Mage villages across the world, all of them tasked with defending the Wormwall and protecting the Brightmoon in every corner of the world in complete secrecy, but the Swarm…”
She trailed off for a second.
And then she finished her sentence on a quiet note.
“... Now, there is only one village remaining.”
They crossed rocky paths, crystal paths, mossy paths, their steps slow and careful as they trudged through the foggy swirl of clouds. Sparrow himself felt like they were moving fewer than ten paces a minute with how careful they had to be, and once again he wondered why they couldn’t just have warped all the way up to the top. They could’ve bypassed the fog. They could’ve bypassed the treacherous landscape. Maybe the top of the mountain was taller than he assumed and warping up simply wasn’t feasible, but surely it wouldn’t be more difficult than treading these narrow paths on foot.
But, as the path started winding around in full circles faster and faster—the top couldn’t be very far off now—he started to notice the four-petal crystal blossoms growing on the side of the mountain.
There were hundreds of them.
Thousands of them.
Stems connected to each other like a spider’s web, petals glowing faint blue in the fog, lighting the path in front of them like lampposts to follow—and as the path finally ended to put him at the summit, out of the swirl of clouds, he was met with a flower garden unlike any other in the village below.
Above the entire rest of the world, the sun crested over the horizon and took his breath away. Oxygen was sparse here. They were so far up the sky was abyssal blue, almost black in hue, but that didn’t stop the garden in front of him from sparkling. The almost flat stretch of land that was lifted at a slight incline towards the end was completely filled with them—a thousand crystal flowers in eternal bloom, stems swaying and petals clinking against each other like glass droplets. Wooden boards paved a straight, single path through the garden to the very top of the slope, upon which was built a small shrine gate that would lead anyone walking through it right off the precipice.
It wasn’t snowing here.
They were above snowfall.
It wasn’t raining here.
They were above rainfall.
And eighteen Worm Mages were already kneeling in the garden of crystal flowers, facing the shrine gate at the very top.
Two of them flanked each side of the straight path every few metres, their heads lowered and covered by their fluffy hoods. Their hands were clasped in front of them, but they each twirled a small crystal flower as they sang in a worm’s low, warping voice. The notes lingered, each one twisting the air, and they made their bodies shimmer like they were mirages about to vanish… but Sparrow could tell with his vibrational senses. The boy kneeling on his left, third row up the path, was Utu. He’d heard all the Worm Mages’ warping voices before and could recognise most of them; he wasn’t in unfamiliar company.
So he didn’t resist when Ninmah took his hand, gently pulling him up the path—past the Worm Mages, past the crystal flowers—until he crossed the rectangular shrine gate at the very top and was face to face with the rest of the world.
An endless expanse.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
If he had better eyes, he was sure he could see to the very end of the world and back.
…
But the world wasn’t what Ninmah brought him up here to see.
As the Worm Mages below him kept singing and chanting, Ninmah waved for him to kneel right under the gate. He did as he was instructed, back facing the rest of the world past the gate. Ninmah, then, did the exact same—and from inside her cloak, she retrieved two wooden cups full of shattered quartz crystals.
A strong gust of wind would blow all the quartz out of the cups, but her balance was nothing short of perfect as she handed one cup to him.
He received it with both hands, holding it in front of his chest.
The singing stopped.
The chanting stopped.
He looked quietly down at the Worm Mages as they each pulled out their own cups as well, proceeding to speak to the crystals flowers in front of them as though the flowers were living, breathing people.
…
“... Hey, elder brother, Hey, elder sister,” Ninmah whispered, smiling wistfully as she dipped her head at two particularly large flowers right in front of her. “I’m here to visit again.”
And, seemingly in response, the two flowers shone even brighter than they already were.
Sparrow narrowed his eyes.
“It’s been… six years since mama and papa and everyone else left to try to repair the Wormwall,” Ninmah continued, as she started reaching into her cup and sprinkling pinches of quartz dust onto the flowers. “We’re still doing okay. I’ve brought all the older kids up here with me today. As you can see, they’re all still alive, which means I’m doing a really good job as the eldest sister, right? Aren’t I the best village chief you’ve ever seen?”
No response this time.
Ninmah’s lips quivered only a little before she straightened her back, tugging a smile onto her face as she gestured at him with a wave.
“This is Sparrow,” she said, voice shaking, trembling. “He’s… not from Immanu. You can probably already tell by his face and hair that he’s from somewhere really, really far away, right? But even if he doesn’t talk at all, he’s really, really good at fighting. Just a few days ago, he fought off an entire horde of giant bugs by himself! That weapon he’s got around his back can… um, it’s like a more powerful bow and arrow. He can put something sharp inside and shoot it out to kill a giant bug instantly. He probably could’ve done that even without the worm system we gave him, so… that’s why.” She glanced at him, blinking slowly. “With him here, papa and mama don’t have to come home so quickly. We can hold down Immanu until they fix the breach, stop the Swarm from crawling in, and save the world.”
Her words lingered in the air, and he tuned out the rest of his environment to zero in on her; she noticed him staring and quickly turned over the rest of her cup, her eyes watering as her voice became thick with emotion.
“... Sparrow. Give elder brother and sister your quartz as well,” she said, rubbing her eyes as she tilted her head at the cup in his hands. “They make the flowers grow faster.. The bigger and healthier the flowers, the stronger the connection between this generation and the last—and after you take care of the two of them, I have something else I want to give you.”
He was taken aback for a moment. Tense, even, but he felt he couldn’t very well refuse to at least help the flowers grow a little bit stronger.
It was something within his power.
So, while the Worm Mages beneath him stopped talking to watch him turn his cup over—the quartz dust carried by the gentle winds and scattered all across the garden—Ninmah turned where she knelt until she was looking at him directly.
He didn’t need instructions for this part; he turned and faced her directly as well, remaining on his knees as he watched her take out a white four-petal flower ornament from inside her cloak.
The exact same kind as everyone wore in their hair.
“... We didn’t give this to you at first because we weren’t sure if you were someone we could trust,” Ninmah said softly, pinching the ends of the ornament with both hands. “Our parents are gone. After my elder brother and sister died in a rogue Swarm attack while patrolling the borders of the village six years ago, they left us to repair the Wormwall where they suspected the breach was. We haven’t heard anything from them since. We can’t leave Immanu to look for them, either, because… it wasn’t just the Swarm that hunted the other Worm Mage villages down.”
His lips thinned into a line, and he listened.
“Sixty years ago, when the first breach opened and the Swarm came flooding in, most of the Worm Mages across the world gathered to seal it at the source,” she continued. “They failed, of course. They weren’t strong enough. They tried their best to support the rest of humanity over the next twenty years, but eventually, it came out that the Worm Mages had ‘systems’ in their necks, and that weaker versions of systems could be replicated with different insect classes—so you surface humans decided not to rely on our ancestors. While our ancestors were being slaughtered by the Swarm on the frontlines, the rest of humanity was capturing and killing Worm Mages in the back in order to research their worm systems, using them as the basis for all your derivative ant systems, beetle systems, butterfly systems, and so on and so forth. We were hunted to extinction by your ancestors’ leaders just as much as we were hunted down by the Swarm.”
“...”
“For all the power each of us individual Worm Mages may have, we are nothing compared to the might of a united humanity wanting to dissect all of us,” she said, sending him a wistful smile. “That’s why, thirty years ago, our grandparents alone decided to give up on fighting. With our grandparents and parents’ abilities, Immanu went into hiding by gathering immensely thick clouds around the village, and we vowed never to involve ourselves with humanity’s war against the Swarm again. Our parents always said if we were to leave Immanu, we’d run the risk of getting caught and experimented on, so they told us not to look for them even if they didn’t return from their super secret mission to repair the Wormwall… but, sometimes, we wander around this region, hoping to at least find their bodies half-devoured by the Swarm.
“...”
“We found you instead that night, lying in the snow,” she said plainly. “It registered to us that maybe you were dangerous. Maybe you would report us to your people and Immanu’s existence would be leaked to the rest of the world, but… whether we like it or not, we have to fight now, right?” Then she exhaled softly, shaking her head, “You and your people have finally brought your war to our doorstep, and the Swarm has found us as a result. That attack three nights ago was proof we cannot hide any longer—so we can’t just pretend to ignore the outside world anymore. At the very least, until our parents come back and use their abilities to make Immanu inaccessible from the surface world, we need to know how to defend ourselves so we can protect Immanu.”
Ninmah lowered her head, breaking eye contact. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, but they didn’t quite fall—she held out the diamond flower ornament with both hands as though inviting him to take it.
“More than any meagre worm system or warping ability, if you accept this ornament, you will become one of us—a child of Immanu,” she said, and everyone else lowered their heads at the exact same time. “We don’t want to fight to win, but we’ll have to meet you halfway, ‘in-between’. Teach us how to fight to live. Teach us how to use our systems to their fullest potential. We were paralyzed with fear that night seeing the Swarm for the first time, and… as the village chief, I cannot allow that to happen ever again.”
“...”
Sparrow remained silent, though.
Maybe Ninmah and the rest of the Worm Mages were still desperately trying to hold out hope, but, most assuredly, their parents were already dead.
He’d heard the stories and rumours: the Swarm currently surrounding the Asanyon continent in every conceivable direction was only endless because they were coming into this world from somewhere, and many militaries had attempted sailing off the continent in order to find that ‘somewhere’—but of course they’d all been futile efforts. Humanity was barely holding onto the last continent in the centre of the world as it was. To believe any military could not only break past the Six Great Mutants keeping humanity contained on the continent, but also break past however many Great Mutants there were out on the Crawling Seas, out on the Dead Continents, and then reach the edge of the world where the entirety of the Swarm was supposedly flooding in through a single breach…
Not even an army of Worm Mages could possibly reach the origin of the Swarm.
Having seen how the children of Immanu reacted to eight grunt insects three nights ago, he was more than certain their parents had been, similarly, lacking in battle experience when they set off on their journey to cut off the Swarm at their source. If even the continent’s strongest militaries couldn’t rally a force capable of breaking out of the continent, at best, they probably only made it as far as the Crawling Seas. They could probably warp great distances, after all—but the Crawling Seas were exactly as they were named, and a hundred times more fearsome than any military textbook picture could depict.
If their parents hadn’t returned after six years, they were already dead.
Surely, in much the same way, he was also already considered dead to the General and his former battalion.
… Former?
He gripped his hands into fists, feeling an itch in the corner of his eye.
I am still Sparrow, designated marksman of the First Bullet Ant Battalion.
I am a living weapon.
I led the Boreus here.
I cannot… accept being… a ‘child’... of anything…
…
… But what if the Worm Mages’ parents were still alive?
What if, like him, they were still somewhere out in the world alive and kicking?
He’d survived.
Why couldn’t they?
… No.
I cannot leave until they learn how to defend themselves.
They rescued me even though they knew I would only bring trouble, and they gave me everything they could offer even though I was a slow learner.
What is there to even hesitate about?
He received the flower ornament from Ninmah gingerly, with both hands, and before she and the other Worm Mages could even look back up, he was already trying—and failing—to figure out how to put it in his hair in a way that it’d look decently good.
If only he had a mirror.
Decree Three: Always return what you are given.
That is why I–
“You’re wearing it wrong,” Ninmah breathed, and it almost came out as a laugh. The rest of the Worm Mages below them chuckled as she had to get up from her kneeling position just to pluck his ornament out of his hands, searching his messy hair for somewhere nice to put it. “It’s not a pin that you stab into your hair. Yours doesn’t even have a pin since it’s for boys. What you do is find a pretty spot, twirl four strands of hair through the buttons, and just like a worm that gnaws on its own tail, you… ah. Like this.”
She twirled a finger and opened two wormholes in front of him, mirroring his own face back at him.
His face was plain and unassuming as ever, but the flower ornament really was a standout, clipped onto his hair slightly above his left ear.
And though it was on a living weapon, the ornament was… ‘pretty’.
Prettier than anything he'd ever received.
“Teach us about that ‘status screen’ thing we can make pop out of our necks, okay?” Ninmah said, squeezing his hands gently as she looked him in the eye, bright and blue. “We may be ‘strong’, but we lack practical experience. We lack the courage to fight. We lack the resolve to kill. So, please… train us however you’ve been trained. I’m sure we’ll be able to handle it somehow.”
In response, he dipped his head and closed his eyes—immediately feeling his hands being opened and something cold being shoved in.
He looked up and saw Ninmah beaming at him.
“Here,” she whispered. “Snack.”
…
… Oh, fine.
Snack worm addict.
So he sighed, stared at the four wriggling worms in his hands, and forced himself to gnaw through them with fire in his eyes.
[Unallocated Points: 18 → 19]