by Marc Mulero
“Whatever you decide, I will support you, love. But consider Aslock’s words. If they defeat our physical body, we would be floating blindly into a warped reality,” Elaina counseled.
“Where is my father?” Blague asked.
“Orin rests in the Nostrum Chamber. The scientists syphoned a critical amount of blood at his request, regardless of our doctor’s plea. He is a persistent Ardian, as most are. Now he must rest until he recovers,” Aslock replied.
Blague nodded slowly, somewhat absently before snapping back. “Listen, Elder… I’ve mulled it over. Don’t give me that look, I have. This existence you’ve awakened me to… it’s fascinating to say the least. And you’ve trained me to operate within it so gracefully, to wield its gifts. You know I could never repay you. And now I’m at an impasse again – the Aura must be stopped before my brother seizes their power. Even with everything you’ve bestowed, I must ask for more.
“Whether it be for me or my father, I would hope that we can call to arms together again. This dying world depends on it.”
Aslock’s jaw tightened as he stared back at Blague. He wanted to stop him after every word that came out of his mouth, but he didn’t for some reason. He couldn’t. So instead he did the mulling over this time, and eventually curtly nodded.
“I will do what I can.”
Felicity tilted her head in disapproval and stated, “We are a people who seldom join sides in conflict.”
Blague turned to her. “This is one war that you can’t hide from, Felicity. Of that I am certain.”
Blague stepped foot into the Nostrum Chamber where he’d spent many nights recovering from combat training, but that didn’t make the space any less eerie, not from this perspective. Not from the outside looking in.
This was the first time he was uncomfortable with the light of Cryos. Deep blue, shadowy, it illuminated large glass sconces decorating the walls. Where there should’ve been holding torches, there were bodies – living ones – all unconscious for one reason or another. Each was propped as if nailed to a futuristic cross. Limbs were spread wide, bodies straight as a pencil, each dipped into these bubbling one-person whirlpools that swished curative chemicals around up to their waist.
He strode past the line of fixtures, perusing the hallway alone for the very first time. It was one thing to sleep among them, and another entirely to trespass. He felt eyes on him every step of the way, even on his back, his hair standing on edge. Definitely the most haunting of the Citadel’s sectors. No doubt.
“I don’t very much like this room, Blague.”
He could feel her phantom touch on him, clutching like she was scared, but whereas a ghost from his past would’ve made the situation more daunting a time ago, here, it made him smile.
Then suddenly, his eyes were drawn toward the far end of the room, where a bolted capsule was fastened onto a wall of its own. It was there that he found his father resting. Of course it was him… the only one with erratic clouded eyes lost in a typical state of trance. He lay forward, head dipped, as if he were beaten senseless and left to rot. Depleted and overwrought, he hung there from a half-open pod where the glass encasing was raised to his chest. His arms were stretched and adjoined to separate mechanisms, each filled with the same fluid.
“Yeah… I never realized it before, but it looks more like a prison than a recovery room,” Blague thought.
“It is obscure. The patients remind me of statues from the churches of the Old World. I would never imagine this to be an effective medical bed… can’t argue with their results, though,” Elaina replied.
Blague grunted as he approached Orin, ignoring the other Neraphis stationed throughout the chamber. A few yards away now, he had to look up at the elevated pool bubbling about. But it was only here, up close, that he could see the toll taken on him - for agreeing to these self-inflicted tests. The ancient man who looked invincible fighting Halewyn, looked suddenly close to death. His skin appeared scaly and loose, tainted crimson, and blotched with prominent Cryos.
“How could I even ask him?” Blague spoke more to himself than Elaina. “There’s no way he could carry out such a tall order in this condition.” He sneered. “Sure. Hey, do you mind flying to an island and killing a bunch of reds before your evil son seizes control of the most unstable substance known to mankind?”
“Blague…”
He shook her voice away.
“Time works in strange ways, father,” he said to the unconscious man above him. “Surely I would have expected it to be you who faces this threat. But it seems that destiny has elected me to see it through.” Blague wasn’t sure whether Orin could hear him, but he went on anyway. “Aslock trained Elaina and I to protect this harbor of consciousness.” He looked down at his hands. “He assures us that we aren’t ready to combat such a threat, but it appears your blood flows through me, stubbornness and all.”
He gazed up with deep-set eyes, dumbly awaiting some sort of response, but there was nothing, just the mechanic movement of his father’s dreaming eyes.
“If I fall to Rol and the Aura, if I become consumed by their madness, I hope that you will avenge me and see the Sins to the future that I promised them.”
For a long moment after his words, Blague lingered and waited for them to resonate with his dad. Then, a minute of silence, goodbye perhaps. Who knew what was in store once he was to leave this Citadel? And so his fingers touched the tip of the capsule while he whispered something only for his Ardian ears. Then it was done.
No more sorrows, he decided.
It was time.
With his head held high, he slowly turned away to exit the Nostrum Chamber, proceeding past his recovering Elders and fellow adepts, taking pride in being part of the Neraphis, gaining strength from being even more than that: a defender of the exiled.
“In truth I would remain here until we could become a true Ardian, together growing as a whole. But I can feel inside that you already know what I want, and that we must veer from that path. You know what we must do,” Blague thought.
He felt a forceful squeeze around his arms.
“I would love nothing more than to enjoy our reunion, but life reeled me back because you needed me here,” Elaina replied.
Blague’s sight faded on his walk out of the room and his mind’s eye took over. He saw Elaina’s brunette hair blowing lightly in a phantom breeze. Her eyes were more determined than welcoming, hard pressed from the news that Aslock had revealed - Mulderan, the murderer of Elaina’s vessel and so much more, was on his way to obtain a force that would make him unstoppable.
“I will protect you, Blague, with everything I have. We’ll endure this storm, like all the others. I love you,” she said, squeezing her ethereal arms tighter around his.
Orin’s son faded from his presence. The old Grenich’s body was still propped up and unmoving, but for a lonely tear that escaped his eye.
Chapter 15
Aslock was deeply troubled in the hours that followed. Blague could see it. Endless pacing back and forth, muttering, deep contemplation that not only involved himself, but Soros, too. Whether it was to the Sin Leader’s benefit or not, only they knew. Perhaps the internal conflict was a result of a sense of duty versus heavily practiced neutrality. That’s what was causing his Elder to appear so uneasy. Challenging the very values of the Neraphis, from one of the greats no less, was not something that could be uprooted so easily.
“It’s clear… he knows Orin is in no shape to shoulder this burden,” Blague said to Elaina.
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean he will join us. An opportunity is only seized with the means to do so, Blague. And this time… you know we can’t do it alone.”
They both watched on silently.
What was the purpose of being an Elder to an adept, if not to protect as well as guide? But when does that responsibility end? Traditionally, it would be outside of Citadel grounds. Here though… well these were special circumstances. Or at least that’s what Blague had hope
d.
He gathered rations for the trip regardless, and watched Aslock leave the room rather abruptly.
“You know I will be gone before you’re back,” Blague shouted to the closed stone door. “Mulderan won’t sit on that island forever. We have hours at most. Not days.”
Forty crucial minutes had passed, and Blague was ready. Seeking Felicity was the only way to get to the war bird chamber and fly out of this tundra, so that’s what he did.
“So be it,” he said, trailing her.
“Haste is not our way,” Felicity countered, eyes focused on the dark hangar located deep under the ocean’s surface. “He likely couldn’t bear to see-”
Blue flames suddenly ignited. Rows of them, coming from… sets of fists held together?
“I… stand corrected,” Felicity stopped and tilted her head toward Blague in awe. “I suppose you do possess a uniqueness worth fighting for.”
In mesmerizing fashion, forty standing Neraphis expanded their Cryos to bathe the dark room in light, with Aslock the brightest of all at the center.
“You’re not here to stop me, are you?” Blague joked, and got a few chuckles amongst the small army.
He did it. Aslock managed to assemble a force to embark on their journey out of seclusion and onto the broken isles of Vicissitude. Blague and Elaina wouldn’t have to travel alone. Despite nefarious warnings of what loomed ahead, regardless of what his instincts must have told him, he chose to follow Blague.
“Halewyn was reluctant,” Aslock’s voice sounded epically wise within this cave-like space. “But his respect for the ancient brethren runs deep. I convinced him, adept, to set aside our life of passivity. I told him that we could not send you to face death alone. So here we are.”
Blague felt nothing but chills, could say nothing either. His gratitude was evident.
After a bow to Felicity, he paced over to his Elder with his head held high. Ready. Determined to take to the sky.
And so, with parting waters for three uniquely archaic-styled war birds, they traveled from one tundra to another, hours at maximum speed to try and disrupt a meeting of the world’s most wicked. Strategy, war stances, formations, were all developed and rehearsed among them in the short time that they had, until the pace slowed… until they found the red smolder afflicting the sky like a mushroom cloud. There it was in plain sight.
Destiny awaited them beneath this veil. Proprietors of smoke were about to meet masters of Cryos - a clash of the Earth’s Blood was underway.
“The energy of this land is menacing. You must feel it, too,” Aslock stared out into what appeared to be a foreign world. “Without your father, Rol is against us. You understand what this means, right? The risk we bear coming here…”
“I understand, Elder.”
“Hmm.”
“What is it?”
“This land…”
“What do you mean? You knew what you were getting into, the scouts told us –”
“No, no, not that. Think about it, Blague. If the surface of the earth is so unstable that it can suspend mass in the sky, then the planet must be surging with infirmity at its core. Gravity does not simply shift.”
Blague shared the view alongside him. He remembered so vividly the failed attempt to rescue Eugene here. What had become of this island? No longer whole, not obeying the laws of any science by the looks of it. Aslock was right… for entire landmasses to be flung into the air and just hang there, laying frozen in time, plagued them both.
He worked hard to suppress fear of the unknown, though. There were more important, crucial matters at hand: the Aura had to be stopped. His brother needed to be chased far away from here. There was one purpose, and only one at the end of it. Break their ranks. Shatter their alliance. End them.
Still though, it was hard to ignore their arena. “Look over there, the ocean is ignoring physics – a dry chasm here in the middle of the ocean? It feels like the devil is making his way up from hell.”
“I did not take you as a believer in old religion,” Aslock chuckled.
“The water refuses to fall in, look! There has to be a greater force at play here. This isn’t Cryos or Rol, this is something else. Something more…”
“Yes…” Aslock thought deeply, recalling his study from generations ago. “It is difficult to say for sure, but this does remind me of something from my lab days. A magnetic field. I am taking large leaps by extrapolating my small experiments unto a scale this large, but the behavior is the same. And if I had to hypothesize, I would say that it is a reaction from whatever it was that shook the world.
“If this is indeed magnetism spread throughout each airborne step, its force must be immeasurable,” he said, peering out of the aircraft window to the floating lands. “The scout reports are one thing, but imagination cannot trump the grandness of this spectacle.”
Three jets dove downward in triangular formation, with Blague’s at the helm. The triad pushed through the clouds, announcing their arrival to the Aura and Hiezers below.
Blague felt the carrier jerk as engines lost power for an instant. “That wasn’t turbulence…”
Aslock raised his hood over his long face. “No, it was not. If we get too close, the magnetic field could suck us in and end our strike before it begins.”
The Elder coded open the cockpit door and spoke calmly to the pilot, “Land at the foot of these steps. We will fight our way up. Inform the others.”
The pilot acknowledged the order and prepared for their grand entrance.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Expedient vertical landings were made onto the bottom-most isle that was Auront’s foundation. It was desolate and harsh down there. Waves crashed over the isle’s edges like a ship weathering a storm, but the Neraphis were not at all frightened.
Hatches flung open to reveal hooded reapers ready to face the heavy air and bizarre concrete terrain rumbling at their feet. They were most unwelcomed, of course. And then it started… the isle’s keeper - crimson smoke creeping closer to the intruders, directed by none other than Asura herself.
The tendrils stalked with a life of their own, crushing the bridges that the Aura had constructed not hours ago and making their way around the Neraphis as they exited their crafts, circling them like sharks around fresh meat.
Yet none of them were affected, not even Blague. He just ignored the distractions and squinted to try and make out who awaited them beyond the crimson clouds.
Shadows began to form amid grainy blankets. Three - he counted three figures standing far above him atop the highest floating landmass, taunting them from afar just by existing.
There, to the right, was the cloaked figure he hoped not to see. Armored shoulders gave it away, confirming that the scout reports were indeed accurate. His brother was among the Aura, and from the looks of it, he was a welcomed guest.
“My god… it’s true,” Blague turned to his Elder. “This is an alliance we cannot allow to be fostered. We have to break it now, Aslock. Break them now,” he begged, shifting focus to the shapes of Asura and Eugene.
And with that, the silent order was given: sixty cloaked Neraphis stepped in formation, each with unique weaponry, obscuring mantles, and Cryos spewing through hanging sleeves.
Opposing storms brewed.
Blague glanced behind him to see the collective energy of the ancients shoo Rol away like a disbanding tornado, dispersing it. And when the hazy path cleared, Asura’s ignited red eyes were all that remained.
She appeared as a ghostly ghoul teeming with Rol’s gifts. Scars running down her face were vibrant within deep crevices like molten lava, surrounded by melted skin. She was angry. Furious. To be encroached was not in the cards.
A screech reverberated so loudly, so earsplittingly that it made everyone uneasy. Asura’s muscles contorted as more smoke spewed outward and snaked down the suspended steps. Tendrils attached to each Aura member on the way, compelling them to surrender to her will.
It was happening… the
battle was beginning. An introduction unlike any other.
She lifted her chin, and the mass of crimson soldiers spread across the isles eerily turned to face the trespassers. Weapons cocked in unison.
The accommodating hostess had left, and the hive-minded queen had returned.
It wasn’t only guns though. There were other types of warfare at play here – torturous types. The atmospheres around them suddenly began to pulse. The air itself was forming waves like shaken sheets to throw them off balance, to disrupt equilibrium.
But Blague was no stranger to this. He ignored the hallucinogenic nature of it all and kept his eyes fixated high and far, where Eugene was stationed looking down upon his old leader. The sniper readied his rifle in hand, beaming a smug expression that Blague had never seen.
“He’s still in there, somewhere,” Blague said aloud.
“Your senses do not betray you, but it is her where we must focus.” Aslock nodded toward Asura. “She is the head of this snake. No one else. It is her we must remove.” His hands began to roll within his sleeves, generating energy. “As rehearsed, we will provide you with protection. Yes, and a path, but it will be up to you to reach them.”
Blague shook his head. “Right… but we could sure use some backup right now,” he admitted, feeling an ounce of doubt in this upward battle.
“My orb is remitting our efforts to the Citadel. Halewyn and Orin will learn of whatever we gather here, regardless of the outcome.”
“Comforting.”
The Elder laughed. “At least you are not alone, my friend. Now, show us why the Sins follow you.” He kept hooded eyes on the goddess.
Mulderan stood with his wife and lead scientist close beside him, watching as his brother glared back. It was a standoff of the worst kind: before the bloodshed, before the war, when all parties waited upon Asura to make the first move.
The Highest Lord knew what was to become of this land, and so he grinned and turned his back on the growing tension, pacing away from the Aura’s side.
