by Marc Mulero
I have to be in perfect position when it happens. Only one shot at this.
But that didn’t stop him from trying his luck here, in the semi-dark. This time at its heels… this time he wouldn’t ignite the blade until mid-swing. Eres was invisible, right? Just a speck. No way the Aegod could see him…
Swish.
One flap of its wings said otherwise, forming a tornado of wind at the beast’s feet, forcing Eres’ arms into an ‘X’ over his face to shield from ungodly pressure as he skidded backward against his will.
No, he proclaimed, gazing at the beast through a cloud of mist, watching it roar in anger as they faced each other – one being a hundred feet tall, and the other in single digits, but Eres wasn’t about to stick around to see what came next. His impeller was already clicked and, just like that, he was a blur bursting forth.
“I just have to tag you, beast. C’mere.” His confidence was still brimming. Just as he touched ground, he flew forward again, aiming low at his heel. It was the easiest way.
Wham. The Aegod suddenly clapped down with two sets of meaty talons, creating a sonic boom of sound and wind, shaking the entire space. There it was again… that deafening ringing in his ears, and if Eres had been caught in between the strike, his bones wouldn’t even be fragments… they’d be dust. But he was no ordinary fighter, no. He was blessed with that quickdraw reflex and had already flipped up onto its arm, dashing desperately past the crease between forearm and bicep to the spot where he would make his mark.
Eres wondered - But why are there no other scars there?
A black smokey fire ignited as the blade clanged against the beast’s crystal flesh like stone against stone. It didn’t feel right; his arms were vibrating, confident smirk dropping to a frown. He’d failed. Wudon had mislead him. And before more thoughts could corrupt him further, another sudden gust of pressure was so powerful that Eres felt like his head had been crushed to his feet.
Eres blacked out for a millisecond and woke again feeling as though all of his organs were in the pit of his stomach. He was in flight, with the Aegod far, far below him. That’s what happened - he was launched into the air.
Slam. His back crashed against the icy ceiling so hard that it felt like his vertebrae was bursting out of his throat. He was broken, blood immediately filling his nose and mouth, vision spotted. Consciousness was flickering once more as he peeled off the ceiling, as he grasped for his loosened blade, as gravity did its thing.
“No!” His voice was barely audible, hand uselessly trying to catch the hilt falling faster than he was.
Then, as the stakes of failing caught back up with him, he blinked back to life like he’d just been stabbed with a shot of adrenaline. He clutched his impeller tight before it nearly fell from his grasp, kissed it, and blasted himself toward the tumbling blade. Now the Aegod’s roaring mouth was coming closer into vision once more. Of course. He was torpedoing right for it! Those mandibles carved with too many rows of teeth begged for Eres as a meal.
He reached desperately toward the spinning sword with all of his might. He was falling fast. Too fast. Mere seconds away from being clawed or eaten.
“C’mon. C’mon!”
The darkness was receding more rapidly. It was time.
At the last second, the incoming light became so bright that the rays had caused the Aegod to screech in pain, to turn away. A chance. He pulled his arm back, clicked the impeller one more time and swiped the hilt. Yes. He breathed a sigh of relief while bursting out of range of the Aegod’s mandible, just barely, just enough to ignite his Crule blade and drag it down it’s back – stone into flesh this time – using all of his momentum to penetrate, and slowing him enough to fall harmlessly into the snow.
He cranked the impeller to a thousand, glanced up at his long, glowing white mark that may as well have been his staked flag on the Aegod, and exploded toward the enchanted door through its legs, past its swiping claws, and over a mound.
Until…
Click.
Uh oh.
Click. Click.
He was out of juice, or air in this case. His legs were jelly, consciousness fading, and the Aegod – enraged - was faster than anything he’d ever seen before. He could feel its steamy breath heating his back.
So close. C’mon…
He waved the impeller around to gather air for it, to refill it just enough.
The archway was right there, just twenty feet away… He collapsed to his knees. All of his joints were on fire. His neck felt broken from the crash into the ceiling, his adrenaline was fading.
He waved the impeller one more time. Vision was trembling more and more with each of the Aegod’s steps, and then it didn’t. Eres scrunched his brow when he heard the flap of giant wings – it took flight – or hopped rather, just once to stomp Eres out, to crush the bug that dared enter its lair.
“I’ve seen the bones to prove it.” Wudon’s voice echoed in his ear.
“Not like this…” He shut his eyes, pressed the impeller to his back, and said a silent prayer to his parents to send him forward.
“Please. Please…”
Whoosh.
If the archway still contained that iridescent film, he would die slamming into it. But he didn’t. Eres flew threw open air to the other side just before the impact of the rampaging Aegod slamming into the wall in fury.
And then darkness.
Chapter 35
The Other Side
Eres awoke to what he thought was the faint sound of angels humming, a hymn so graceful that he was sure he would become weightless and float into the sky.
Am I dead?
His vision was still spotty, to the point where he couldn’t make out any definite shapes. So instead, he just laid there, enjoying the bliss of choir in complete surrender. Maybe the Aegod had eaten him, or ripped his body in two in exchange for his new colorful scar. But then again, maybe not.
Memory was coming back to him… he’d made it out of there, hadn’t he? He’d broken the spell.
“Wudon was right. Ramillion, you are the devil.” He laughed into a cough. “Hah, I am alive.” He curled onto his side, feeling the snap and crack of each vertebra trying to fall back in place. Every time he moved, a ringing within his ears spiked so high that he thought he was being tortured.
Just lay back. Lay down, Eres. Don’t move.
The choir returned, singing to him so elegantly, so fluidly. No words or distractions, just moving pitches that flowed like a calm ocean wave.
“I did it, didn’t I? I marked an Aegod.” He laughed weakly, wanting so badly to share the story with somebody, anybody. But no one was here. Just the occasional octor in Rudo, and memories in Gushda. No real connections, only lessons or advice.
I miss my friends…
He looked to the sky, yearning so badly for Ilfrid’s shider to blast through the air and come claim him. “I wave my white flag, everyone. Come and get me. I don’t want to be alone. Skrol life sucks. It’s not for me.”
Alarms were ringing in his head in protest, though, telling him that he wasn’t a quitter, not when he’d come this far. Not when his father sacrificed himself so he could be here, not when he had a life duty to defend Agden’s name and all of the others who protected him. Eres had to keep on. It was the only way, whether he wanted to or not.
Fine, he told himself. If that’s not in the cards, then I have to focus elsewhere. Elsewhere… hmm. Maybe I can post my Aegod memory in Gushda? Yeah, that would be cool, to help someone out after I, well, die. My own form of legacy, he smirked, since I’m barren and all.
What better way to make a mark than to display that? It would help future Skrols in the same way that Wudon did for me.
“Ha. Or maybe I would be putting up a memory for no one to see. I keep making this grand assumption that I’m going to be able to slay Seren Night.” He curled forward again, groaning all the way. “That I’ll stab him through the heart and all of his espers will topple to the ground like hoarded
gold coins. And I’ll be the hero that brought back order to the Skrols. Yeah, right.”
He thought back to what Wudon had said. “But did Seren already choose his inheritors? Probably people like him, hellbent on uncovering the secret. If I did kill him,” his vision was beginning to return, every bone in his body aching, “if I somehow managed that… do I then get to pick? Do I inherit the espers? How does it work? Where are the books on that?” he repeated loudly.
The angelic voices whispered to him. It was soothing.
He shook his head. “Slow it down, Eres. One step at a time.”
And that next step was to find some nourishment. His fingers reached around blindly to unclip his bag and dig for an item gifted long ago, something almost forgotten, yet so critical. His fliser - the refillable, auto-filtering contraption that would prevent him from dying of thirst.
“Water, yes…” He placed it over his mouth, unlatched the spout and gulped it down so quickly he nearly coughed it all back up. “Yes.” He gurgled, streams overflowing from the corners of his mouth. And when he wiped his face clean, something profound happened: a memory of him and Lorfa spending a night in the bathroom, when she confirmed that he was a sexless barren, that he was different. If not for her, he would’ve had no one during that miserable time. She was the only one there for him.
What he would do to have that comfort again.
“Ooma, I miss you. I always took you for granted back then, when I knew nothing. Just sitting on my chair, useless and stubborn, deaf to everything you taught me. Well,” he blinked hard and tried to sit up, “if I had Reach, I would tell you now that even though I didn’t know it at the time… I was listening. And you were right. The only reason I’m not losing my mind here, alone, in the middle of literally nowhere, is because of grace – the grace of Gushda and all that you promised it would be. I can meld with others, Ooma. I can feel what they feel. You were right,” he repeated, convincing himself of sanity while talking to no one. “Those connections tell me one thing: that even though it’s lonely out here, I know that it’s not over.
“Such a weird comfort in there, Ooma, I know you feel it too. That’s why you’re always in there, right? Well, I hope one day I crack the barriers to find you floating alongside me.”
He smiled at the idea. However utopian and childish it might have been, it was all he had.
Wait a second… there’s no ceiling here.
Once the spots blinked out of sight, he realized that the suns were gone. It was twilight. And he was laying on a sheet of snow that for once wasn’t blinding white but instead a calm shade of midnight blue. It was comforting, much like the angels’ singing. The sky was an even deeper shade too. He could lay there forever. But wait, what was this? In front of him the snow abruptly ended to reveal a lake, and further out were glaciers floating about that were bright like the waters in the cave. So strange. Verglas was supposed to be one unending blanket of snow on the surface, so why was he surrounded by a gigantic lake? And there near the edge… a single tree? It felt like another sphere entirely.
His heart knocked on his ribcage to remind him of the dwarf tree where he’d met Windel. Ouch. His chest tightened. Just a reminiscence, no significance, because where the leaves were flittering down then, they were crystalized here, frozen in time.
What else? He turned, wincing the whole way from the aching pain. “The door is still there.” But he couldn’t see what was on the other side any longer. “Another enchantment?” He looked down to his hands to see that although they were covered in fresh snow, they weren’t cold at all. “Must be another trick. Wait, what am I saying? Of course, it’s a trick. Hey!” he yelled. “Who’s singing out there?”
The stream was uninterrupted though, unfazed by the unharmonious disturbance.
“You aren’t crazy.” A sinister voice enveloped his ears.
Eres’ flight response kicked in almost immediately – an instinct to run. This was the voice he’d feared even before he started down the Northern Grottos.
What if he got me in here?
But he didn’t run. He couldn’t. Because marking an Aegod did something to him. It wrapped him in newfound confidence like another set of Glite armor.
So, he swung around to match a body to the voice. Where did it come from? Wait a second…
“The hymn is a gift,” the voice made Eres jump in place, “not just something that is heard, but that rejuvenates wounds too.”
It was coming from behind the tree. Eres forced himself up without tiptoeing. This moment felt the same as when he’d visited the Ozgulo Annex in the Colliding Spheres, when he took a seat across from the most frightening being he’d ever known. Seren Night.
Crunch. Crunch. He hobbled over snow, one leg heavier than the other, scar tissue snapping all the way.
There, the silhouette became clear. Wide-brimmed hat hanging to darken part of a long face, his back against crystallized bark. And what was he doing, admiring his double-sided blade?
Eres breathed out a sigh of relief. “Just another octor playing out a message. Thank Mustae.”
“I wouldn’t know lest I had plucked my own books from the Consortium, against that troll’s dictation.”
Eres almost laughed. “I guess Ramillion isn’t too popular once Skrols get this far in training.”
“… Know thy Enemy by Efias Trent. This author was like me, vacant on any magical touch: Sorcery, Reach, or otherwise.”
“Like me too, then,” Eres said to the hologram while inching closer to analyze his sworn enemy.
“Now I know all of the enchantments, all of the tricks. This one, a healing hymn, is used to signify rest. Our bodies respond by mending wounds suffered in there,” Seren’s eyes darted to the door, “and this tree will provide the proper nourishment. It is the troll granting us a break, or reward. That is my conclusion anyway. Always in the dark, we are. Always…”
Eres looked on, perplexed at how uemon this man once was. He could see the troubled look, sense it, but still, there was a calmness to him once.
“Where are we?” Seren asked the question for Eres. “The Edge of Eternity is my guess. The pole of Verglas. Hard to believe, I know, but those channels where we swam through must have propelled us far, because maps dictate that that,” he nodded to a glacier, “is the Froldrid Stig, one of many oddly lit glaciers. Enjoy it, I suppose, if that’s what you’re into, stranger.
“Me? I will continue my hunt, always, for information. They will not force feed me quietly. ‘You need the Ostara; You need the light. You need this, you need that.’ Do not drink up everything they say, stranger… it would be a grave mistake to live your entire life as a puppet unworthy of knowing. By whose standards, I ask.”
“There it is,” Eres nodded to himself, “that’s the spark, the seed planted that bloomed into the chaos you are now, Seren. Curiosity is revered when we’re young, isn’t it?” Eres tried to relate with the mad man. “But is this what happens when we carry that curiosity into adulthood, as a Skrol? Do we lead ourselves to a well of insanity? Or is that just you?”
“Look at this.” Seren twirled his double-sided blade to showcase the bottom edge. “An Aegod’s blood solidified… an Artificer’s dream. If I can somehow keep this weapon dirtied with it, I’ll have one of the only white blades in the living world. Then, when they see me coming, they will know an ice-road traveler is among them.”
Eres felt a very humbling shiver crawl down his back. He even took one step away. “That’s not what they think, Seren. Somewhere along the way, you took a deep dive into the darkness. And when we meet again, I’ll remind you of this vulnerable moment when you were once good. And you will answer, by words or with your life. On the dust of my fata.”
Seren straightened, obviously ignoring Eres’ empty threat and rounding the tree – no hobbling, no visible wounds that Eres could see. Had he been there that long? Or did this man manage to mark and escape an Aegod unscathed? Epic, if so.
Eres continued to curse him und
er his breath, connecting all of his anguish to him – the attack on Kor Vinsánce, his ooma’s worry, the death of his father, everything of importance. But he followed anyway, because within all of the terror Seren exuded, there was a mysterious intelligence too.
He remembered being grilled in Ozgulo… it was almost as if Seren could read his thoughts before he spoke them. Eres never wanted to experience that again. So then why was he so curious?
“Know thy enemy…” Eres said. But it was more than that, almost an infatuation.
“It is ironic, stranger, that in this moment I am both understudy and master. Don’t you think?
“On the one hand, I have to figure out what’s next, to uncover the troll’s predetermined path that he tries so desperately to make look unbeaten. And on the other - my words will come alive again in another time, when you make it here, whenever that may be. I am providing perspective, comfort, that you are not mad, that you haven’t, in fact, strayed into oblivion. I am proof of progress, and therefore I am your master, in some respect.
“I was reluctant to record this at first – for this,” he waved his hand at the octor broadcasting beyond the tree, “is not in my nature. To be immortalized, pfah. But I do recognize the importance this far along. What else are we Skrols but some disconnected ideologies?
“Now, however, I am to pose a different question.” Seren gazed forward to the glaciers. “What if this checkpoint wasn’t an intermediary at all? What if the troll is trying to show us that this is a Skrol’s life: desolate and glorious all at once? And that this,” he gestured around him, “is the true purpose of our trials.
“Hmph. Well, if that really were the case… what if I told you, I don’t buy it?”
“Mustae.” Eres gasped. “The writing was on the wall from the beginning.”
“I’ll tell you what I will do next, stranger, and you can follow me if you choose, or not. Either is your right. I will jump across this lake, this ocean, to the glaciers that call to us here. No doubt the troll has hidden some clue there in his agenda. And if not, no matter, I will take the Ostara bequeathed to me and forge my own path – wherever that may lie. You, stranger – use an impeller if you have one, Reach if you’re blessed, Sorcery if cursed – whatever means you have to move forward.
