Oriech appeared beside her. “You did the job well. Your puzzle is solved. And so, with your trial passed, the time has come for you to make your requests. I shall remind you that if you wish to leave, that must be your request. If you request anything else, you will have to earn your way back to the center of the forest for a second request. The return trip will be far more trying and will take no less than one full day in the outside world.”
“Can we request that the disturbances outside be stopped?” Myranda asked.
“You cannot request anything that changes the outside world. Your change is limited to you.”
“Then I request that Deacon be cured,” she said.
“Again, the request is limited to you.”
“It is no good,” Deacon said, shuddering as a wave of chaos swept across him. “We could request a thousand things. We could request the knowledge of how to solve this problem that has been caused. We could request the tools to achieve the desired goal without making the error. But it will delay us by a day. The blue moon will have passed.”
“There will be other blue moons,” Myranda said.
“No… There won’t. There is no other choice for me to make. Time is unraveling, and the only thing powerful enough to cause it is the very concoction I have been building and its proper application at the proper time. That time is breaking down means I have already performed the task. I have a date with destiny.”
He shut his eyes. Another, more vicious wave swept over him. When he opened his eyes again, it was with apology and regret.
“We have one chance, Myranda. I have to leave. Twisted as I have become, I am the only one in this world with the knowledge to understand what is happening and the power to stop it.”
“Deacon, no. Let us think this through. We have time here. We can—”
“The affliction is progressing. The longer I wait, the deeper the claws sink. I am sorry. I’ve created this disaster. I have to fix it. Oriech, I wish to leave.”
“So be it,” Oriech said.
Branches overhead spread apart, revealing a path leading to the iciness of the valley.
Deacon clutched the coin. “I need some time to prepare, but I am nearly ready to do what I set out to do. I am going back to where it all began, Myranda. That seems a fitting place to end it. I’ll do my best to set things straight and leave the world better than I found it. But if I fail, or you truly believe there is no other way, I trust you to do what must be done.”
Deacon marched for the opening. As he crossed the threshold of dry undergrowth to icy snow, he faded from the forest. Myranda squeezed her staff. The enchanted wood groaned under the viciousness of the grip.
“Is there a way out of this, Oriech? Or is this all just another one of the games fate has chosen to play with us?” she asked.
“I can’t answer that without sending you back for more trials,” Oriech said. “But in your heart, and your mind, you know the answer. Trust them both.”
“Then send me out there.”
“Go. And make us proud, as you always have.”
#
Myn stood with her wings spread and her claws crackling the icy ground. Ether stood before her, with Ayna buzzing back and forth. Each had arrived not long after Myranda’s call for aid went out. Since then, Myn had been discouraging them with ever increasing firmness from entering the ring of trees.
“It has been more than a day, dragon,” Ether fumed, her human form heaped with furs to ward off the chill. “I do not care what Myranda told you. She would not remain in that place for so long if she didn’t need help. She’d demanded immediate help. Ivy agreed to be left behind so that I could travel more quickly, and now I have squandered a full day of precious time waiting.”
“She will return. And you are not to enter,” Myn stated.
Ayna buzzed aside to look upon the trees. Myn raised her wing a bit more.
“It is a genuinely fascinating place. I’ve never felt its like,” the fairy said. “The nearest thing to it in my experience is the crystal arena, but this is more, somehow. The crystal arena feels like the product of whatever wills are occupying it at the time. This feels like a legion of wills, all piled atop one another.”
“Yet another reason to enter it,” Ether said.
Ayna shook her head and flitted back to Ether. “By no means. You will find that one of the many ways that I am superior to Deacon is my own quite secure knowledge of when something is not to be trifled with. Though I am somewhat fascinated that you do not seem aware of this place. You were watching over the world as a more general consciousness before my associates and I summoned you during the blue moon ritual, were you not?”
“I was.”
“So shouldn’t you have a comprehensive awareness of things of profound mystic importance such as these?” Ayna asked.
“My attentions were focused upon the other Chosen, if and when they should arise.”
“Curious. I suppose even one of the original intended Chosen isn’t perfect or infallible.”
Ether glared at Ayna. “I am as near to perfection as any being can ever hope to be. Indeed, I exceed perfection in all ways that matter, in that I can adapt to any challenge.”
“Mmm. But you quite literally spread yourself too thin. Perhaps you would have been better served by focusing yourself upon a single pursuit, as I have. After all. You claim to exceed perfection. That means you are, by definition, not perfect. I, on the other hand, would never make that claim.”
A flash of violet colored the valley. Myn, Ether, and Ayna turned to the ring of trees. A portal had already opened on the north end of the ring. Ether and Ayna darted toward it, but before they could reach it, Deacon’s form tumbled through and the portal vanished with a clap of energy. The fairy bobbed in place where the portal had been, then pivoted and pointed a tiny finger at Ether.
“Where is your perfection now!” she said. “You had to keep focused on a single point in the world for scarcely a day, and you failed at the very moment it was needed. My point is made.”
“You were distracting me with your blather!” Ether countered, swirling into the air as flame.
“Mere words are sufficient to foul your fabled vigilance? Hardly a sign of quality.”
Myranda’s voice cut through the exchange. “What is going on?”
Ether and Ayna turned. Myranda was standing beyond the ring of trees. Myn pounced, pulling the wizard tightly against her and rumbling in relief and joy at her appearance.
“I’m fine, Myn. I’m fine,” she said softly, stroking the dragon on the brow. “Ether, Ayna. Did you see Deacon?”
“Briefly,” Ether said.
“They were arguing,” Myn said.
“Some things never change, I suppose,” Myranda muttered. “Listen closely, everyone. I know where Deacon is going. We, every last one of us, need to get there as soon as possible. He is convinced that because he caused it, he is the only one who can stop what is happening. Whether he is right or he is wrong, we need to be ready. Ayna, where is Calypso?”
“Still on the other side of the mountains. She cannot travel as quickly as I can. I don’t suppose we could expect to have her here in less than a day unless Ether or I fetched her.”
“No, we don’t have a moment to lose. She will meet us when she can. We have until the blue moon rises.”
Chapter 11
Hours later, Myranda and Myn touched down in an icy field. When Myranda had last been here, she could scarcely imagine a more terrible place. A day’s travel by foot from the nearest town to the north, and another day’s travel to the nearest town to the south. It was a forsaken, barren stretch of ice. At the time, the only thing to differentiate this patch of earth from any other in the field had been the frozen remains of a beast she now knew as a dragoyle and a warrior she now knew as Rasa. Now a small memorial stood, a marble plinth marking this as the place where the swordsman had fallen.
She hopped from Myn’s
back and held her staff tightly. The sky was darkening. The blue moon was rising. Even without focusing her mind, she could feel that this place was wrong. It was humming with power. The very air and earth seemed to be anticipating what was to come. It created a tension, a fragility. This place was thin ice over a deep lake, ready to shatter at any moment.
Myn’s head lowered, her eyes shut. She sniffed the air and flicked her tongue. Myranda took notice and sharpened her focus. It was difficult to pinpoint, with the whole field quivering with mystic energy, but there was certainly a point of disturbance. She turned her attention to it. Before she could attempt to dispel the magic in place, the illusion fell of its own accord. Deacon stood before them.
No longer in the forest, and thus no longer buoyed by its unique nature, the chaotic effect upon him was even more pronounced. His arm was no longer a shifting accumulation of ghostly forms. It was solid now, constant, but wrong. The flesh had the translucent and faintly luminous appearance of something carved from some manner of milky crystal. Veins of the afflicted flesh striped up his neck and left streaks of white hair where they curled across his scalp.
“Deacon… Look at you…”
“I know. An affliction created when I transported incorrectly seems to feed upon further transportation. Fascinating. Not to worry, though. I shan’t need to transport any longer.” He took a breath. “You can feel it, can’t you? You can feel that something is going to happen here. Not something may happen. Not something should happen. Something will happen. The seams of reality are straining and separating. It can’t be stopped. Either I find the flaw and correct it or these echoes, these disturbances, just keep happening. Time won’t matter anymore. And to a degree, neither will space. Chaos of every kind will reign.”
“Do you even know how to stop it?” Myranda asked.
“I don’t. Not specifically. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
“Interesting,” Myranda said. “You are talking about the fate of the world.”
“I take this perfectly seriously, Myranda. But I cannot help but be fascinated.”
His voice was chillingly calm, and his tone terribly familiar, though Myranda for the moment refused to allow herself to dwell upon it.
“We should wait for the others,” he said. “Ether is on the way, I assume? And Ivy as well? It would be unwise to face a moment like this without the full complement of the Chosen.”
“They will be here soon.”
Myranda felt a tremor shake the field. Thin lines of curling light began to weave jagged patterns around them. It was not her doing, nor could she feel Deacon weaving a spell. It was happening on its own.
“I hope they hurry,” Deacon said. “I’m not certain how much longer reality will keep its present form if we don’t get started. The moon is nearly in place. Even the clouds have separated to mark the occasion. Portentous.”
“How can you be so calm?” she asked.
“There’s something comforting about inevitability. Whatever will happen will happen. We will do our best. We will succeed or fail. But by the end of the night”—he gestured to his hand—“this? This will be over. It taught me much. But I look forward to the peace.”
He pulled his pack from his bag and dumped it out on the ground beside the memorial. Most of the goods seemed completely random: a few lengths of bandage, a piece of blue enameled armor, a scattering of dried bones. The largest piece, and one that by rights shouldn’t have fit into the bag, was the Sword of the Chosen.
A speck in the sky to the south moved with unnatural speed.
“Ah. Ether is here. Right on time.”
As she drew nearer, Ether’s present form was revealed to be a silvery-feathered griffin. A streamer of blue suggested Ivy was atop her back and, evidently, unhappy with the speed at which the shapeshifter was traveling. A brilliant yellow second streamer of light revealed that Ayna was present as well.
Ether set down in the field, Ivy clinging tightly to her neck with eyes squeezed shut. The elemental shifted to wind, dumping Ivy to the ground.
“What has he done?” Ether demanded, eyes sweeping over the widening lines of light splitting their surroundings.
“Nothing yet,” Deacon said.
“Deacon,” Ivy said, climbing to her feet. “What happened to you?”
“I shall explain after. Because time is of the essence now, and it very likely won’t matter for much longer.”
Another tremor shook the field. The jagged lines of light lengthened, now meeting at a point not far from Deacon’s feet.
“Nearly time. Listen closely, everyone. I’ve heard a great many tales where this has been done, but not until this moment has it ever made any sense to me. I am going to tell you precisely what I planned to do, because some part of it will cause this whole mess. I need you all to understand, as best you can, what I was hoping to achieve and how. There is something missing, some flaw. It must be corrected, or there is no telling what will happen.”
Another tremor shook the ground. It didn’t fully subside, merely weakening to a low rumble.
“The D’Karon came to this world and nearly destroyed it. If not for you all, our people would still be killing each other on their behalf, weakening the world to eventually be subsumed by them. And there is nothing to stop them or those like them from coming again. Dark worlds, perhaps some even worse than the ones from which the D’Karon hail, can open a door to this place. But it shouldn’t be that way. And I realized it didn’t have to be.”
The ground shook.
“Get on with it, Deacon!” Ivy shouted.
“Chaos, order, time, space. All the building blocks of a reality. What if they weren’t abstract? What if we could manipulate them just as we do earth, fire, wind, and water? The more my mind was torn and twisted by the affliction, the more I saw there may well be ways. But not by mortals. It needed to be done by the gods. Or someone with access to the same traits and natures of the gods. The Chosen.”
He knelt and began arranging the items at his feet.
“I needed to sample the Chosen. And just as a physical or mystical formula needs physical or mystical things, an abstract formula doesn’t need something as simple as a lock of hair or a drop of blood. It needs moments, places, proximities. I scoured the world for samples of every Chosen and their exploits. Not only the five, but the fallen as well.”
“But what are you trying to do?” Myranda said.
He picked up the sword and pulled free its covering. After a moment of hesitation, he touched the handle, placing one of the many Chosen emblems firmly against his flesh. There was no sizzle. No flash. He’d yet to be declared a traitor to his world. He palmed the coin and gripped the sword tightly with the same hand. Some semblance of the odd weight and significance of the coin bled into the already potent sword.
“I want to remove something from creation. I want to make certain that no one can ever enter this world from the outside again. And because such a trait of existence is abstract, and thus beyond my influence, I had to change that.”
The rumble was growing stronger. The moon approached its zenith. There was no longer any question. Whatever this disaster truly was, it was already happening. It would not be enough to simply stop what Deacon had set in motion. The solution, if it existed at all, rested within the spell itself.
“This is the moment, everyone. Be ready.” Deacon raised the sword over the meeting point of the lines of light.
“Are you certain this will work?” Myranda asked, flaring the gem of her staff.
“I am certain it won’t. Not the way I intended. But now we shall find out why, and lay bare the broken workings so that we may repair them.”
He plunged the sword into the ground.
#
The plunge of the sword was felt around the world. From Castle Verril to the deepest reaches of the Southern Wastes, from New Kenvard to the Crescents. The tension that had grown to the point of catastrophe in th
at frozen field had been creeping up throughout the many kingdoms. Mystics had felt it as a distant, troubling pressure. Even untrained minds could detect it as an unplaced anxiety gnawing at them. Then, in that moment, when the sword found its place—
Silence.
All was calm. All was as it should be. But to have so constant and potent a feeling pulled away all at once was enough to bring people from every corner of the world to a stop. People stood in place, brows furrowed, eyes shifting. Every person in every kingdom was struck at the same moment with a sensation they could not identify.
#
Deacon removed his hands from the Sword of the Chosen and took a step back. The coin dropped to the ground, seemingly drained of its uniqueness and gravity. The trembling around them had ceased, but the lines of light hadn’t vanished. Their jagged paths straightened, leading out from the sword’s position like a starburst. One by one, they curled and split. The architect of this spell took his place beside Myranda and watched it unfold.
His assortment of artifacts drifted up around the sword. The filaments of light curled out from them and wove upon themselves. They traced out sigils in the air, forming an orbiting galaxy with the sword as its center. Each sigil was deceivingly simple. They symbols were barely larger than dinner plates, yet they resonated not only with meaning, but with power.
“It worked…” he said.
“What are we looking at?” Ivy asked. “They’re beautiful.”
“These are the abstract elements of existence,” Deacon said, stepping forward. “Time. Space. Chaos. Order. Love. Hate. Music. Drama. So many more. I never imagined there would be so many.”
“Keep your distance,” Ether said. “The world is restored. The damage undone. Put an end to this now.”
“It isn’t that simple,” he said. “I’d devised the spell such that these wouldn’t simply be revealed, they would be made real. Physical. I wanted to remove an element. Disable it. And that isn’t what’s happened. They’re simply present. The spell isn’t whole, so it cannot be completed.”
The Coin of Kenvard Page 28
