Namely my survival and the completion of my quest.
I did not care if I had to channel my inner naked mole-rat to get it done.
I did not mind that my eyes now watered at even the thought of the sun.
I did not begrudge myself the decided lack of heroism implied by eschewing danger in such an unknightly manner.
I was doing what was required to avoid starting a war of one against far, far too many.
Bravely.
I would be lying if I said there was not much beauty, life, and magic underground, for I could see it, feel it, take it within, and become it.
But where’s the excitement in that?
Adventure is, after all, more exciting the greater the challenge, the more pressing the obstacle, and the more torturous the path.
At least when the teller sums things up and puts the most desirable face on things after the deeds are done and memory makes even cold, sodden campfires grand.
So, my journey underground was fraught with peril, harried, and full of danger.
Honest.
Except when my time was spent enjoying the formations of marvelous underground microscopic communities, the natural collection, cycling, and restoration of magics that were lost, imperiled, and despoiled above ground, or finding my way through a world I had never imagined existed and had to leave behind far too quickly.
While the world fell apart above me, I admired what remained beneath.
Also, Lucius was so excited he could barely contain himself.
He got to say hello to quite a few relatives, meet some long-lost cousins, and reacquaint himself with more than a few dear friends he had not seen since the days after Uërth’s fiery formation.
All from the warmth and comfort of my tunic.
Or so he claimed.
Sometimes I did not know what to believe.
Pet rocks were, after all, rather hard to read.
Especially when they spent most of their time hidden in a pocket.
But I took him at his word.
What did he have to gain by lying?
Besides, I could see his magical emanations constantly interacting with the local strata as we traveled.
He was, in fact, much better connected than I was.
Which was quite a good quality to have in an ally.
Especially for one as socially challenged as I.
The Light of My Life
After traveling I do not know how long underground—Alric was keen on telling me but I ignored him—I began to grow tired of the relative safety and security of subterranean wayfaring.
I know the inclination is about as crazy as I am but, after living a life in fear, safety can begin to wear one down.
Security is as overrated as it is tiresome.
Lucius’s constant reminders that I was now an Empyrean Earthworm or the Earthworm Knight did little to encourage further subterrestrial travels.
I refused to let him know this, however.
Alric, on the other hand, might have let Lucius in on my secret since I had been studiously ignoring his insightful knightly commentary on the risks of upsetting the diurnal cycle. Regardless of whether or not Alric played a role, I certainly was hearing a lot of worm references from my little elemental friend.
My fatigue and Lucius’s constant jibes were not, however, what ultimately drew me up from beneath the earth.
Those were mere trivialities.
The fight for Uërth’s future focused around Kerraboer and the Chaos Gate, in contrast, was enough to get even me out of my worm-filled reveries.
Coming from a sheltered enchanted forest in the far north, I grew up with summer squalls and winter storms. I even saw the occasional arcane tempest. But I was never witness to the full force of a tornado, hurricane, or tsunami. These were weather events heard about other lands, tales from the high seas and mysterious lands of heat and climatic vagaries.
My first contact with the cataclysmic forces vying around Kerraboer was akin to experiencing all these foreign weather phenomena wrapped up together in one nice package with a heavy dose of arcane tempest and a nice sprinkling of the stuff of nightmares too heinous to recall upon waking from deeply troubled sleep.
And this is just what I felt from the far edges of the battleground, protected beneath the earth and within my Sigil Shield.
I did not want to consider what being in the heart of that maelstrom must be like, oppressive days spent within the haze of vile phantasms and fell magics.
Having the bravery to wake up, to stand, much less fight, was the stuff of legends.
That Uërth’s defenders managed to hold day in and day out, year after year, was the very definition of awesome.
Standing firm in the face of such misery must be as formidable a task as holding the sun aloft in the air barehanded in the void of space without aid or protection.
Or, put more bluntly, impossible.
But they did it.
Uërth’s allies held the demons back, choking them on their blood and filth as the spawn of Chaos spewed forth from the maw of oblivion.
If ever there was a miracle on Uërth, this was it.
“How did you do it, Alric?
“How did you manage?”
I could not even see Kerraboer. I had not even left the safety of my ethereal warrens underground and already the weight of the moment was overwhelming.
Did I really want to go into that?
Alone and almost naked before the very forces of Creation and Destruction?
“We did it because we had no other choice.
“We managed because there was no alternative.
“The weight of Uërth’s future, the promise of her destiny left unfulfilled, held us aloft and made us more than we were.
“We were reforged and remade in the fires of annihilation and brought that annealed purpose to bear on our foes.
“They could not and cannot stand before us.
“We were remade as one.”
If only I were more like Alric, I would charge headlong into battle and give true meaning to his words.
But I was no Alric.
I was a mushroom farmer who had happened upon a dying man and a magic sword.
What could I hope to do in the face of forces that rent Creation in twain and filled the void between dimensions with the brood of Chaos?
“Saedeus, you do not have to be anything other than yourself.
“Lord Chalmeire the Bright himself would ask none of his Knights of the Holy Sword to be anything else.
“Why would you expect anything different?”
Old Alric did have a point there.
Or two.
I never was very good at counting.
“As torturous as your path to this point has been, do you think anyone else would have gotten where you are now under the circumstances?”
This was a trick question.
No one else would have been foolish enough to make the same decisions I made continually to set myself up for endless comical, life-threatening escapades.
No one else could have made as many mistakes as I had.
“Your trials are what made you, Saedeus.
“Your path is not what you stumbled upon.
“Your journey is who you are.”
If I did not know any better, I would say Alric was being supportive, and a bit corny, but, like counting, I never really was very good at reading people.
Especially ones who weren’t there.
So I took him at his word.
And knew he was right.
I might be a coward but I managed to move forward in spite of my fears.
I might be weak but I pushed ahead even when I thought I would fail.
I might be ignorant but I knew enough to stand up for what I believed in.
I was a force of ineptitude to be reckoned with!
Where had these pep talks been when I was slinking around the moldy outskirts of a village that did not want me?
Better late than never.
Taking a deep, settling breath, I allowed myself to float upward towards the Uërth’s surface, ready to face my future with my eyes open and my mind clear.
As soon as my head broke ground level, I wished I had never left the comfort and security of my subterranean refuge.
What, exactly, had I been thinking?
The Unlight of My Life
If my impressions below ground had been bad, and by bad I mean awful, then the unrelenting horror of the truth was so far beyond hideously abominable that I would have to steal a demon’s soul just to think of a term that was close to the travesty that marred the distant horizon.
The truth of Alric’s words hit me then.
As terrible as this blight was, the alternative, that the demons’ advance continued, was far worse.
Worse yet was if I let this dire strait stop me from what needed doing.
Then the alternative would come to pass and the demons would win.
A bruised and pitted land stretched ahead as far as the eye could see. Ominous, multicolored clouds writhed overhead, reaching hungry vaporous tendrils to the ground in flashes of putrid color. Barely visible within the heart of this tumult, a proud keep rose heavenward on a vast promontory, the prow at the headland of a massive butte.
This was the Keep of Kerraboer, bastion of the Empyrean Knights. Even from this distant vantage, I could see that the keep was sprawling, an immense fortress that glowed with an inner radiance. From where I stood, iridescence played upon its convoluted surfaces, refracting light that was not present in the gloom like sunlight scattered upon thousands upon thousands of untouched icicles beneath the clearest of winter skies. Though impossibly bright, the light did not cause my eyes to water or force me to shield my gaze. Instead, my spirit was warmed and lifted.
If I said I had angelic visions and heard a heavenly chorus as I forced my mouth to close while I stared in awe like an uncultured schoolboy upon the fortress, I would not be far off.
But my rapturous ogling had no place now.
And I refused to let divine sentiment interfere with the purpose of my mission.
At least while I could.
I did, however, catch myself staring at the keep far too frequently.
In addition to its high walls and lofty perch, the keep was shielded beneath a lustrous dome that appeared as unwavering as the heavens.
Beneath the Keep of Kerraboer, barely visible in the distance, forces surged and flashed in manifold expressions of arcane power. Of the troops harnessing these dreadful forces, little could be seen, at least directly. The powers that held them together, the magics that bound them and strengthened them en masse, were as resplendent as Heaven above.
They stood together.
Their strength was unity and it was this unwavering shield that held back the forces of Chaos.
The same magics could be sensed continually reaching and probing out, endeavoring to stem the unwavering tide of the Abyss pouring forth from the onyx craw of the Chaos Gate.
Of the Gate itself, little could be seen; it was too dark. Nothing of Uërth that entered appeared to ever leave.
Sadly, what could not be seen could still be felt. The soul-crushing reality of the Chaos Gate was there laid bare before my quavering soul.
This was the maw of Oblivion, the door to the ultimate end, the place where entropy reigned and dreams went to die.
It was also my destiny.
I think I preferred harvesting mushrooms.
“Call out to the knights and they will bring you into their fold.”
Alric’s words were a whisper, his voice in my mind so soft I was not certain if he had spoken or if I was remembering his thoughts as my own.
Deep down, I knew he had spoken.
Opening myself as I had when I became Light, I sought outward not through myself but through Loer’allon, who was my connection to the Empyrean Knights and all they embodied.
Loer’allon became the conduit of my intention, casting my mind adrift on uncertain wings of need.
For dramatic effect, I pointed her august blade toward the Keep of Kerraboer—a lightning rod in search of a storm.
I do not know if the Empyrean Knights heard, but the forces of Darkness certainly began to take an interest.
A mass of swarming Darkness separated itself from the swarm hovering on the periphery of the necrotic cloud.
It was too far away to see clearly, but I sensed enough of the demonic presence to know that I was in for whole worlds of hurt.
There were far too many for me to do much other than run. Even if I could somehow defeat all the infernals swooping toward me from the skies and loping over the rough terrain on an intersection course, more would follow.
Then more.
And still more.
I could not hope to defeat the entire mass of gathered hellspawn on my own.
Could I?
Now that was an interesting question to consider.
I needed to stop acting like the man I had been and start acting like who I was.
Now.
Right this instant.
“Be patient, Saedeus. The demons are not yet upon you. There is still time.”
Time for what?
If I was not going back to take shelter underground, then I was going to pile a mountain of demonic corpses so high that even the knights on the parapets of the Keep of Kerraboer would have to look up to see me boldly striding its peak.
I do not know how to describe what happened next.
All the voices in Loer’allon, all the Empyrean Knights manifested in the blade, all the lives Loer’allon had touched, reached out to me and brought me into their fold.
I was a single note in an indescribable chorus that filled the firmament with purpose, holding the demonic cloud aloft, preventing it from touching down and directly engaging the knights and their allies at the foot of Kerraboer.
I was a single scale in the hide of a vast, implacable dragon that swooped its mighty head back and forth, blazing ruin upon the Chaos Gate and any demons that dared to enter our realm. My mighty claws smote ruin upon the advancing flanks of demons, scattering their ranks into the dust. My wings beat the foul demonic sorceries back while my colossal tail swept whole contingents of demons from the field of battle. My impregnable scales sheltered the allies of Light beneath my breast, protecting them from the worst of the demonic assault.
Without even a thought to resist, I was drawn into the heart of the dragon.
Kerraboer
The mantle of the Empyrean Guard held me.
I was a mote in Heaven’s eye, a speck on the field of battle and the entirety of the realm containing it.
The forces of Chaos lashed and struggled against my might but could gain no purchase.
Instead, they slunk and snuck around my periphery, finding their way into the wider realm of Uërth beyond to wreak havoc and destruction upon those unable to defend themselves.
Even then, I would send parts of myself after these usurpers, but the infernals were too many, their ravenous numbers beyond the Chaos Gate without end, and I was too few.
Many of those knights I sent did not return.
Fewer still came to replenish the numbers of those lost.
The more knights that left my fold, the weaker I became, the less able to stem the onrushing tides of Chaos hammering at Uërth’s beleaguered shore.
Time and attrition were wearing me down.
Eventually I would fall.
Just like Heaven before me.
“Saedeus, chosen of Loer’allon, arise and be met by your ken, your brethren in arms.”
What exactly was happening?
Was I dreaming?
Had these visions been a stress-induced flight of fancy?
Or was someone actually talking to me, calling me back from my reverie?
My voice was hoarse, cracking as I spoke, all the while trying to stand, bow, and orient myself at the same t
ime.
Without falling flat on my face.
Which was the anticipated outcome of almost any amount or type of physical exertion on my part.
“I am here, my liege.”
Liege?
Who was I to call anyone liege?
In Balde no one would even claim me and now I was claiming someone I did not even know?
I stood shakily in a vast cathedral, the walls lost in the play of light on and within the clear, unblemished walls. Sunbeams formed pillars for columns that were not there.
Except for one other, I was entirely alone.
Despite this, the space was full.
Full of potential.
Full of spirit.
Full of certainty.
Full of rectitude.
Full of promise.
Full of my brothers who, like me just moments before, were here but not here.
They were what made the continued existence of this place, the storied keep of Kerraboer, possible.
I, too, was here to help.
Before me stood a man.
He was, however, like no other.
Or at least no other I had ever seen.
I did not dredge my memory for his likeness or equivalent because that did not matter.
He mattered.
His presence was a testament to the very reason we all struggled.
Like the sidhe, he was an ineffable mixture of Light and corporality. But, unlike the sidhe, he had been born a man and had become more.
He was a bridge between Heaven and Uërth.
He was a link to our past and our future.
Just as we could not let him fall, he could not let us fall.
He was Chalmeire the Bright, leader of the Knights of the Holy Sword and Lord Ruler of Kerraboer.
How does one describe a being who looks like he is made from liquid light?
Large, haloed, and impossibly bright?
Brilliant, otherworldly, and scintillating?
Amorphous and somewhat inchoate?
Hard to look at and resolve?
In need of shading?
I think he had a beard.
Did he shave?
Could he shave?
Lord Chalmeire’s form wavered and flitted like a campfire...in slow-motion...without a breeze...or fuel for the flames...or radiated heat.
Soul Stealer: Legacy of the Blade Page 17
