Isle of Wysteria: The Monolith Crumbles

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  Privet watched as a Madaringian mage created a prismatic bubble, slowing down time inside of it to a glacial crawl, locking a panicked Eriia in place as her crew attempted to scamper off.

  “Oh no.”

  Privet threw himself over the side of the bed and came crashing to the floor.

  Alder stirred wistfully as Privet pulled himself along the deck with his arms. Elbow over elbow, his limp legs dragging behind him. Pulling himself up on one arm, he grabbed the alarm bell and began ringing it as loud as he could.

  “What’s going on?” Captain Evere bellowed, running up and throwing the door open from the nursery below. He took one look outside and saw what was happening.

  “We’ve been betrayed!”

  * * *

  Talliun held Athel tightly, her face red with tears. The sound Athel made was the most horrible noise Talliun had ever heard. A long, moaning wail. It was like listening to someone having their living heart torn out of their chest. Talliun squeezed her even more tightly, desperate to do anything that would stop that terrible ghastly shriek.

  But there was nothing that could be done. The once Queen of the forest wept so completely that she lost control of her limbs. They kicked and twitched, her entire frame quivering with grief.

  Talliun’s own sorrow became anger, and she turned to Koriar. “Tell us where they are,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

  The Stonemaster King wiped his nose woefully. “They used void magic to move everything to Arianis Kultur, the ancient capital of the water tribe.”

  Athel stopped struggling, her face growing pale, her eyes growing wide. “The bottom of the ocean?”

  Koriar placed his face in his hands. “Yes.”

  Athel broke free and crawled over, her heart shattering within her.

  “How are we supposed to get there?” she cried, grabbing his jacket and shaking him. “How are we supposed to get at them when there’s a hundred leagues of ocean between them and the surface?!”

  “You…can’t.”

  Urgent footsteps approached, and Captain Evere ran in, panic on his face.

  “We’ve got to leave!” he yelled. “We’re under attack!”

  Athel ran with the others, stumbling and blundering, her body staggering as she wept and wailed.

  They reached the drawbridge, and met the horrible sight. The task force was being systematically trapped in time-bubbles by the mages from Madaringa. Most everyone else had been stripped of their own powers, leaving them all but helpless before the merciless magic.

  Athel turned to King Dolan, whose eyes were cold and merciless.

  “WHY?!” she screamed, her tears falling off her chin. “Your people suffered more than anyone at the hands of the Stone Council! You were the most energetic about participating in this invasion. Why would you betray us?!”

  “I didn’t betray you,” he explained darkly. “The gods betrayed us. This world betrayed us. So, we have found a new god, one who will make a new world. A god who rewards those who serve him.”

  “A new god?”

  King Dolan held his hands out at the scene before them, terrified Eriia attempting to flee, only to be stilled in place. “Can you imagine how delighted Valpurgeiss will be when I deliver this entire task force to him as an offering?”

  Athel shook her head, her eyes quavering. “But…why?”

  “As if you need to ask. Watch someone come in and casually destroy everyone in your family, watch someone effortlessly annihilate half your population. Stand there feckless, unable to do anything to stop it, knowing that even the authorities are powerless to stop it, and then you’ll realize the truth.”

  Athel cowered, her crumbling heart in her chest. “The truth?”

  “That the only thing that really matters in this world is your own strength, your own power. If you had suffered like we had, you’d understand why I‘m doing this.”

  King Dolan looked out proudly at his work. “Valpurgeiss is strong, and he will make us strong.”

  Athel shrieked in grief. “You think I don’t understand suffering?”

  Talliun grabbed the man in disgust and punched him in the gut, he folded in half and fell over, retching the contents of his stomach out into the bridge.

  From the command platform, Privet shoved the ramp down as best he could.

  “Come on everyone!” he screamed. “We’ve got to go!”

  Athel staggered out, her legs giving way as she crumpled to the ground, watching helplessly as Eriia after Eriia were captured, along with their screaming crews.

  “Useless,” she whispered. “This has all been useless!”

  As she watched, her eyes became dead and lifeless.

  “So many people, so many lives…all for nothing.”

  Her limbs went limp, her skin grew pale. The black rain trickled down her face.

  “We threw away everything for this one chance, and it was all for nothing!”

  Her heart died inside of her.

  Privet pulled the key off the chain from his neck and held it up. Ryin ran over to aid him. He placed the key into the keyhole for the cargo release, and the oversized doors shimmered, swinging open into a portal.

  “Let’s go!”

  When Athel saw him, his limp legs dragging behind him, she shrieked like a banshee. She grabbed the sides of her head, her eyes shaking wildly with grief.

  “Privet saved me! He lost his legs so I could do this, and it changed nothing. NOTHING! It was all in vain! It’s all been for naught!”

  Her soul was shattering. She could feel her very being cracking and breaking apart. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe. She looked out at the gruesome menagerie of frozen soldiers in the valley before them and screamed like a woman possessed.

  “WE TRADED EVERYTHING WE HAD, AND WE GOT NOTHING IN RETURN!”

  Captain Evere and Talliun ran up and began helping people through the portal. They scooped up Ash and Trillium and took them through, setting them down on Privet’s couch, then running back out to help the others.

  They stopped when they saw red robes. A mage stood before them, ready to cast his spell.

  “Goodbye,” he snickered.

  As the thrust his hands out, he was swatted away by an enormous tree branch. Evere and Talliun looked up as Deutzia charged, grabbing two more mages and flinging them across the valley.

  “Well done, lass,” Evere praised.

  Deutzia shimmered proudly, then folded up her branches, slipping in her top and squeezing her thick trunk through the cargo door portal. Halfway through, she was blocked. While the gate was large enough for her on this end, the exit on the other side was far too small for her thick trunk. She rammed herself over and over, the gate squealing and cracking. She let off more than a few sparkling curse words, then forced her way through.

  Athel’s eyes darted about, watching the screaming soldiers as they were captured by the by the hundreds. Her grief-stricken body shivered at the thousands of dead laying in the muddied ground.

  “I did this…I KILLED THEM,” she screamed. “I killed all of them. They trusted me, they followed me, and I led them into a trap!”

  Athel saw King Issha lying dead, impaled by a glassy stone dagger.

  No…

  She saw Guru Inthanos’ smoldering remains.

  NO!

  She saw King Buni floating in a pool of his own blood.

  NOOOO!

  She saw Naanie and Nuutrik crying over the body of Chief Maaturro, crushed beneath a boulder.

  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

  Athel fell forward in a frenzy, scampering on all fours towards the edge of the drawbridge, her face filthy with mud and black rain.

  “No, lass,” Evere yelled, running up and jumping on top of her.

  “Stop it!” she screamed, fighting against him, “Let me go!�
��

  Evere grabbed her hands, pinning her down with his weight.

  “Release me!” she screamed, resisting with all her might. She kicked and bucked, fighting him so hard she tore open her stitches beneath her bandages. Her amber blood seeped out, dripping up her neck.

  “It’s time to go, lass.”

  Desperate, she bit into his hand as hard as she could.

  Evere winced, but did not let go, even when she drew blood.

  “I’m not going to let you jump, lass.”

  “Please,” she screamed, reaching out over the edge towards the broiling waters below. “PLEASE, JUST LET ME GO!”

  “No, lass.”

  “Why not?!”

  “Because people need you,” he said, holding her tight. “Your children, your friends. Alder. Privet. Mina. They need you.”

  Her struggling paused and she looked up at him with broken eyes. The level of sorrow he saw inside of them was beyond description. The color had drained away. “I’ve got nothing to give them,” she whispered.

  She ceased her struggling and her body went limp, her grey eyes vacant and hollow. “I’ve got nothing to give anyone…”

  She lay there quietly, her blood trickling out onto the ground.

  “Why won’t you just let me die?”

  Privet and Ryin shoved Alder and Mina’s beds through the portal. “What are you waiting for?”

  Captain Evere hefted Athel’s limp form over his shoulder and ran for the platform. The mages were drawing in closer now, the few members of the task force not already trapped running through the portal as fast as they could.

  Ryin helped Andolf pass through and then realized someone was missing.

  “Ellie!”

  He scampered up over the top of the howdah, the last of the Eriia wailing and fleeing overhead. He jumped down into the gunnery nook and found Ellie struggling against her harness which had become jammed.

  “Come on, let’s go,” he said.

  “I can’t!”

  Ryin grabbed the metal buckle and his tattoos glowed. The metal became soft, and he pulled it free. The pair of them ran up over the top as a time bubble was cast. It flowed over the platform, freezing everything inside of it as it gained on the pair.

  Sensing there was no time, Ryin jumped up, holding her hand. His tattoos glowed as they came down, and the metal of the deck gave way. They collapsed to the second deck, right before the portal as Evere and Talliun pulled Privet through.

  “We made it.”

  Ryin stepped in, but something yanked back on him. He turned around just in time to see Ellie looking back at him, the time bubble passing over her, freezing her in place.

  “No!”

  As the surface passed over her face, her eyes became tender.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shoved him through, and he fell backwards into Privet’s house.

  The gateway and the temporal spell reacted with one another, and the portal shattered. The image of Ellie’s frozen face came apart like shards of glass, then fell away. The key in Privet’s hand dissolved into dust, running through his fingers as he lay in the entryway.

  Ryin found himself fallen on his haunches, looking outside into the walkway that led up to Privet’s house back on Ronesia. The entire front of the house had been torn away by Deutzia, who was busy planting herself in the front yard, the broken doorframe around her trunk like a necklace.

  “Ellie!” he screamed, but she was gone.

  As Ryin covered his face sorrowfully, the handful of survivors stood around in the living room, hopeless disbelief on their faces. After all they had done, after all they had sacrificed. Against impossible odds, they had fought their way into the monolith itself, and nothing had changed.

  The only sound was that of Athel sobbing where she lay, collapsed on the floor. Without hope, without warmth. She cried so deeply, no one dared touch her or say anything.

  It was harrowing to watch. Her mighty heart, her unbreakable will, which had led and sustained them for months, which had forged an alliance from squabbling delegates, which had stood up defiantly against even the gods themselves, was gone.

  Gone forever.

  “I wish I had never been born,” she sobbed, her grey eyes endless pits of grief. “Why wouldn’t you just leave me back there?”

  Andolf stepped forward, his own eyes red with tears.

  “You have to find the courage to try again, my child,” he said softly. “You have to hope. You have to.”

  “I won’t,” she whimpered. “I’ll never try again. All I want to do is die.”

  “You have to. Because if you don’t, in two months time, there won’t be a world.”

  Outside it was raining.

  It rained all night long.

  Epilogue

  The Wysterian Alliance had been the world’s dream. The last best chance for survival.

  There was a flash of silver, and Kahn Alakaneezer fell to the ground, dead.

  It was built on an idea. The belief that the peoples of Aetria could live together in peace.

  A swish of metal, and King Turino collapsed, his eyes lifeless.

  Many had believed in that dream. They had believed that it was a good cause, worthy enough to risk everything, even their very lives.

  A quick thrust of blade, and President Kaln slumped forward and died.

  They had dreamed of all they would have built together, all the things they would accomplish as a unified people. They had envisioned a world filled with peace instead of war.

  A slash of edge, and King Frians was thrown down into the pit, dead with the others.

  Now that dream filled an unmarked grave. An Alliance flag, torn and tattered, was tossed atop their bodies, their blood soaking into the fabric.

  * * *

  A dark portal opened, and Blair stepped out into the chamber, flicking the blood off of his long metallic fingers.

  “Well, this has been a cheerful morning,” he said, pleased with himself. “After living a few thousand years, I can tell you sincerely that boredom becomes a real problem. I can happily state I haven’t been bored even once today.”

  Queen Sotol and Tigera paid him little heed as they looked over their chessboard. Deliciously, she reached down and scooped up nine droplets of black shakes, and let them trail down her throat. Her shimmering white hair lifted up and floated in the air around her.

  “Am I to understand you’re playing another game?”

  “Of course,” Tigera mentioned.

  “But why?”

  “Like you said, to relieve boredom.”

  Blair looked up at the ancient crumbing gargoyles and columns, the greenish hue everything took on from the barrier that held back the ocean around them. “I supposed Arianis Kultur is a bit on the drab side.”

  Blair walked over and looked at their game with disinterest. “All the other Alliance leaders are dead. I think King Dolan will make a fine addition to our Kabal; he has just the right amount of savagery.”

  “There’s no such thing as too much savagery,” Tigera said, his eyes looking over the Queen’s body hungrily.

  “We will keep him on a short leash,” Queen Sotol explained. “He only betrayed them once he was sure they would fail to destroy us. He’s an opportunist, and can’t be trusted.”

  “And you aren’t?” Blair quipped.

  She looked up at him with her dark eyes. “I’m the one who saved you from utter destruction.”

  Blair returned his fingers to normal and wiped them off on his shirt. “Well, I’m going to grab a few people and start dispatching the rest of the Alliance soldiers before the time-spells wear off.”

  Queen Sotol shook her head. “No, I have plans for them. Take them into custody. Without their magic, they will make perfect slave labor.”

  Blair
shrugged. “Sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. Besides, we have everything we need, and here we’re untouchable, thanks to you. What would we need slaves for? I’m just going to kill them.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.”

  Blair raised an eyebrow. “I may dance along to your tune when it suits me, but the fact is you can’t give me orders, number four.”

  “It’s number two now, actually.”

  Blair raised an eyebrow. “A leaf-witch as number two?”

  “Hold your tongue son. She is your superior now,” Dev’in explained.

  Blair looked over and looked at his father, who was stroking the hand of his deceased wife. “Surely you can’t be serious.”

  “I have never been more serious. She has brought us closer to restoring Valpurgeiss to his ancient power than any other person. It is only fitting that she serve him as my number two.”

  Tigera picked up his knight and set it down, satisfied.

  The Queen flicked her finger and her rook slid across the board, taking his bishop.

  “Ah squat,” he cursed, not having seen that gap.

  Blair shrugged and lazily looked over the pile of pieces she had taken from him. “Do you really think you can beat her?”

  Tigera laughed. “Oh no, not in a thousand years.”

  Blair scratched his neck. “Then why play?”

  Tigera leaned forward and scratched his goatee as he moved his pawn. “Because winning is not the point. It’s like watching a panther stalk her prey. The conclusion is forgone, but the thrill of the hunt, the predatory savagery of it all, it is beautiful to watch it all play out.”

  “You could at least try to anticipate what she will do.”

  Queen Sotol leaned back. “If that is what you think, then you know nothing about chess at all. The goal in chess is not to anticipate your opponent’s moves; the goal is to create a situation where every possible outcome is in your favor. For example, the spikes I used to blight the trees of Wysteria. Had Athel left them in place, she would have died, and the Alliance would have splintered without her leadership. If she had removed them, she would irreparably injure her relationship with the other matrons, and lose her throne. If she had manipulated someone in the navy to remove them, a war would have broken out between them and the Wysterians. If she had accepted my offer for the antidote, I would have bargained for a cease-fire, and we win by default as the double eclipse approaches.”