by A. Attanasio
Lara could not see Caval in the darkness, though she sensed him. Vaguely, she became aware that he was warning her, summoning her to help avert a terrible calamity. What precisely, she did not know.
Beyond the stars, above the suns of the night and just within the corona of the Abiding Star, beings of an exalted order dwelled. When she herself had dwelled in the fierce light of the Beginning, she had sensed the calamity emerging. It had been a feeling like a never-guessed fear, an unknowable dread.
The Nameless Ones. So they were called by those few of the Bright Shore aware of their existence. The knowledge came to Lara like everything else in the Abiding Star, as if already known, as if remembered. When she tried to grasp more, she pushed against sleepiness.
Some terrible thing impended. Caval's cry pierced her with a splinter of this truth. She had been called back into time by an urgency only gradually coming clear. Though the sorcerer Caval had brought her soul to the Abiding Star and had called her forth from it, she became ever more convinced that he did not dwell at the focus of the coming calamity. Listening to the silence she carried within her soul from the Beginning, she grew increasingly sure that she had been summoned to help the man she loved—Reece Morgan.
Lara put a hand to the crystal prism about her neck. Its Charm gave her phantom form substance, but it could not give her understanding. The farther she moved from the Abiding Star, the less clearly she could recall all that she knew while in its radiance. Even Caval's voice had vanished. And the Nameless Ones seemed an odd notion to her now.
Down the Well of Spiders, she floated. The deeper she went, the more her wounds ached and the less clearly she could think. She was becoming her former self—a slain witch reanimated by Charm.
Faeries twinkled in the dark niches of the Well, and a giant spider scuttled past, rasping against the rocks. This was no arachnid as she had known in the forest of her first life. Those small creatures could grow only so large before their chitinous exoskeletons restrained them. The spiders of the Well actually consisted of huge assemblages of mites, hundreds of miniscule creatures bound together by Charm and hunger.
Lara kept her mind outside of herself, on the glossy rocks with their side chutes and tunnels. Most Cobwebs and spider nests veiled most of these passsages. Bioluminescent tendrils illuminated the spiral path downward and the obscure depths to which she had committed herself. Pain flashed in her all the brighter as her descent grew darker.
After a while, she forgot how she had found this Well at World's End. The knowledge had come with her from the Abiding Star. It would go no farther among the inchoate shadows.
She sailed through the lightless shaft thriving with pain. And just when she had almost forgotten her mission and contemplated climbing back up to World's End and from there to the joy of the Beginning, she emerged on Irth.
Lara arrived in the Spiderlands. The webworks of arachnids shawled a sere terrain of thorn trees and scattered boulders. She sat down on the sandy ground and lifted her torn face toward the flrecore of the Abiding Star. Understanding flowed into her, and she remembered once more all that she had known before.
Her pain had not diminished, though her mind had grown clearer. Reece Morgan had climbed into the sky after Caval and returned to Irth from the Dark Shore. Somehow the presence of Reece in the Bright Worlds had poisoned the Nameless Ones, and in turn those terrible beings intended to destroy him.
"Old Ric knew," she said aloud to the spider-festering land. "The gnome knew. I saw that. And if he finds Reece first, we will be ghosts together, Reece and I."
She did not want that for him. He had been too good to her, and she determined to defy her suffering and find him, warn him, protect him as he had once protected her.
Weightless, she rose to her feet and scanned the horizon. Scraggy brush and broken rocks swept in every direction. She lifted the crystal prism and gazed into its depths while chanting, "Reece—Reece Morgan—"
A direction came clear, and she willed herself to rush toward him. Her phantom body did not budge. She had journeyed too far from the Abiding Star to enjoy the powers she had possessed at World's End. Here on Irth at the very brink of the Gulf, her form possessed a nearly corporeal solidity. And the pain of her old wounds throbbed miserably.
To calm herself, she fixed her stare again on the Abiding Star and drew strength from its warmth. The leagues of distance between her and the man she loved trembled before her, reflecting the heat of noon in wrinkly mirages. Even they held more actuality than she—though she was real enough to feel pain.
She walked south, toward where the crystal had indicated that Reece dwelled. Each step inflamed her with hurt. She cried out, and her voice startled the spiders that hung like gems in their silver webs.
Eating Sh adows
“She went down there,” Old Ric said with conviction, standing at the brink of a sinkhole wide enough to admit four horses abreast. "I feel we must follow her. She has said she is on the same mission as I."
Broydo clutched at the gnarled bough of a dwarf pine to anchor himself and peered over the crumbly rock brim. Daylight fell as a murky shaft into darkness flimmering with distant lights. Among the colossal boulders that composed the wall of the pit, the elf observed a troll cave with a mossy ledge strewn with bones. Closer to where he stood, viper holes riddled the flaking shale rim, and he glimpsed a crimson tail lash out of sight. "Only a wraith would dare go down there. Where does it lead?"
"Wherever she wants to go." The gnome kicked a stone into the sinkhole, and it plummeted soundlessly. "This is the infamous Well of Spiders, my friend."
"Infamous to gnomes mayhap, but I've never heard of it." Broydo stepped back gingerly from the edge, disappointed that their long hike had led only to this forbidding hole in the ground.
He retrieved the serpent sword from where he had placed it on a flat rock, and he slashed the air with it as if driving away the cold breeze and its scent of frost. "What more do gnomes know of this Well of Spiders?"
"It connects the worlds," the gnome said, and studied the glittery darkness of the deep. "No one knows who created it. Few had explored it and survived in pre-talismanic times. Only with the most powerful amulets may any living creature enter the Well and live."
The elf hunkered under a fire-bald tree of blistered bark, the sword across his knees. A blaze had seared this countryside several seasons before, and now a pale wood of saplings hazed the undulant knolls. "Is this the way we will go to find the dark thing?"
"It's far too dangerous." Old Ric turned abruptly from the Well and strode to where his companion sat. "He would never survive down there," he added, and indicated with a glance at where Asofel sat beneath a red willow, too weak to leave the lady's dream.
The Radiant One looked like a doll. He watched them with pink fetal eyes, bald head bowed chin to chest. They had bundled his shrunken body in shawl moss.
"I wonder he has survived this long." Broydo nervously pulled his leaf-knit tunic tighter about himself and stamped his boots of vine-lashed tree bark as if driving off the cold. The air of this high country felt wintry, but the chill the elf endured carried the same clammy apprehension that had accompanied him since he departed from his clan after the battle with the dwarves.
"He would not have survived had you not accompanied us," the eldern gnome said with an appreciative nod of his hoary head. A sad glance acknowledged the arrow that still impaled his chest. "With this, I could not have delivered him as far so quickly. The dwarves would have found us in the low country, still bumbling through the Forest of Wraiths."
"I've done little," Broydo answered distractedly. His mind returned again to his clan and his dreadful concern for them now that the hordes of dwarves swarmed across the land. "I am merely obeying the command of my elder, Smiddy Thea."
"So you have reminded me time and again, Broydo." The gnome's thick eyebrows knitted tighter. "The life-debt between us is fulfilled. You are kind to have escorted us this far from your home. But now you must t
ake the serpent sword and return to defend your clan."
Broydo ran a blunt-fingered hand through his tight green hair. "Our adventure should be concluded. We have destroyed the demon Tivel, retrieved the Necklace of Souls, and healed my stricken clan—and yet the dwarves give us no peace to enjoy our triumph."
"Go and give your people the protection of the serpent sword." Ric jangled the crystals that draped his pierced chest. "I have the Necklace of Souls to give me the strength I need to find my way to the dark thing."
"And how will you drive the dark thing from our worlds with Asofel—like that?" Broydo shook his head at the shrunken grotesque under the red willow. "Smiddy Thea has charged me to accompany you and serve you as you served us. I cannot return to my clan until you have accomplished your mission for the Nameless Ones."
"So you have said several times each day since we quit the Forest of Wraiths." Ric put a gentle hand on his friend's shoulder. "And each time, I tell you the same: You should be with your people."
"If I have any people—" The elf hung his head morosely. "The dwarves may well have slain them in retribution for the many of theirs the Radiant One killed."
"And I've told you, I think not." The eldern gnome picked up the sun hat he had fashioned from vines and fronds and had taken off to peer into the Well of Spiders. "The dwarves want the Necklace. They are not thirsty for blood but for Charm, and they will not waste resources on vengeance when there is yet the chance they may track us down and retrieve the last of Duppy Hob's amulets."
"Well then, yes—" Broydo sighed heavily. "I am once more convinced that my clan is well. I am once more convinced that we must be on our way to find the shadow thing before the day of the Nameless Ones passes."
The gnome slapped the elf's shoulder. In his torn breeks of browncord and his green blouse serrate with silk ruffles now stained with mud and blood, Ric looked ghastly—yet he smiled. "The worlds have not vanished for the moment, and so there must still be time to save creation. With you at my side, friend, I cannot fail."
"How will we continue?" Broydo twirled the serpent sword anxiously in his thick hands. "How will we leave World's End if not down the Well of Spiders?"
"We will have to book passage on an ether ship," Old Ric answered decisively, then continued less certainly, "That is, once we find our way to a city with a sky harbor."
Broydo's mouth turned downward, and he scratched at the mossy green beard that splotched his ebony cheeks. "I know of no cities on World's End."
"Then we'll have to find our way to Hellsgate." Old Ric bent and picked up Asofel. The Radiant One weighed no more than air.
"That means we will have to descend the World Wall and risk getting eaten by a roc." The elf stabbed apprehensively at the scorched ground and continued to mutter as they strolled away from the sinkhole. "If only there were some way to be certain that my clan is well..."
They descended from the wild uplands into fields of flowering stalks. The cultivated plants announced the perimeter of a marsh community. Stilt huts appeared among the trees, and scaffolds and rope bridges connected the trunks.
The residents, a blue-haired clan of elves, greeted the wanderers warmly. Reed flutes heralded their arrival, and the clan elders emerged to hear Broydo recite his lineage and the story of his wanderings with the eldern gnome.
While Broydo spoke, elves came in from the fields and down from the verandas of their tree houses. By the time he concluded, the entire clan had gathered on the tussock where the strangers stood. They gazed with awe at the weird, staring homunculus lying at their feet.
News of nearby dwarves alarmed the clan, and Broydo swore to them that the three travelers would leave the village long before twilight. Once assured that their cousin elf wanted nothing more than food and fresh clothing before continuing to lead the dwarves deeper into the marsh, the blue-haired brethren enthusiastically agreed to help.
Old Ric would not part with his beloved silk shirt and cord breeches in exchange for grass-woven garments. He did, however, strip and allow his clothes to be cleaned and himself bathed.
The swamp elves marveled at the barbed arrow that skewered him. The fletching had worn away, and the shaft had blackened with mold. When his garments had been cleansed, they dressed the gnome with ceremonial solemnity to show their respect.
The victuals the bog clan served included sugar stalks and honey berries prepared in mint sauce. These dishes reminded Broydo of the meals he had shared with his own clan, and moisture filmed his eyes.
Through the blear of his sadness, he perceived the elves around him looking oddly transparent. He blinked back his tears, and his breath slowed in his lungs when he gradually began to realize that the clan figures had changed.
At first, he did not know what he was seeing. The elves appeared somehow brighter, their plaited garb more colorful.
"Broydo!" Old Ric called out in alarm. "Look! Have you noticed? They have no shadows!"
Shock jerked Broydo to his feet: The clan's shadows had completely disappeared. As the elves themselves began to realize their condition, screams of fright exploded from them.
Quickly, Broydo peered down at himself and ascertained that his shadow curiously remained, as did Old Ric's and the shadows of all other objects within the village. Only the unfortunate elves had become transparent to the rays of the Abiding Star. Yet they felt as solid as ever when they angrily seized Broydo and demanded to know what evil magic he had worked upon them.
While the elves' focused their fierce attention on Broydo, Old Ric grabbed Asofel's bundled body and scampered off into the marsh. Left to fend for himself, Broydo lifted the serpent sword and faced the loud anguish of the clan with tears glistening on his cheeks. "This is not our doing!" he shouted. "I swear upon the ghosts of our blood, this cruel magic is not our doing!"
Yet the crowd would not listen. Brandishing his serpent sword, Broydo turned and fled. Dozens of runners pursued, shouting threatening curses and raising sticks. Broydo kept them at bay with the sword and bolted into the gloomy enclaves of the swamp.
The clan's young warriors charged after, determined to drag him back to answer for their lost shadows. As soon as they entered the green darkness beyond the village clearing, they vanished. Their sticks and garb fell emptily in heaps to the ground.
Hearing no sounds at his heels, Broydo stopped midflight and turned about, aghast. He walked over and picked up one of the vanished men's headbands. The cloth still warm with body heat provoked a cry of fright from him, and he flung a panic-stricken look to the gnome up ahead.
Old Ric did not see him. His gaze had fixed instead upon Asofel, who sat where the gnome had dropped him among the underbrush. The Radiant One had swollen to twice his former size. The pink of his eyes gleamed anthracitic black, and he stared now with wincing clarity at the shock of the elf and the gnome.
"This is our lady's dream," Asofel whispered, his voice a rasp.
The gnome dropped to his knees before the sprawled and waxen figure of Asofel. "You—you did this?" He gestured vaguely toward the village where elves shrieked to see their clansmen evaporated into the swamp's perpetual dusk.
"I need their Charm..." Asofel breathed softly. "And I need still more."
"More?" Broydo stalked closer and impaled the serpent sword in the peat beside the Radiant One. "What barbaric appetite is this? You want to kill more of my kin?"
Asofel made no reply. He shut his eyes and curled tighter about himself.
"Why have you not eaten my shadow, Asofel?" Broydo demanded. "Why have you spared me?"
Old Ric pulled Broydo aside. "Waste no strength on him, elf. He is of another order of creation. He does not answer to our laws. You heard his first words."
"This is the nameless lady's dream—" Broydo scowled, profoundly troubled by this turn of events. "To him we are just dreamstuff. Taking our lives is not murder to him—it's just energy."
"Sadly true—sadly true," the gnome mumbled. Shock had set his thoughts flurrying, and the thi
nning screams from the village felt like pieces of his mind flying off. "Assuredly, this was not murder. It was an exchange. The Radiant One saved your clan, and, in return, this unfortunate swamp clan was doomed."
"And yet, he wants more!" Broydo nudged Old Ric aside and yelled at Asofel, "Eat the shadows of the trees. Eat the animals. Do not eat the elves!"
Asofel made no reply. He had become once again inert.
Ric gathered tatter moss from nearby boughs and began fashioning a blanket for the enlarged entity. "Broydo, come and carry him," he called. "We dare not tarry with dwarves asleep all around us."
"I'll not carry him," Broydo insisted.
Asofel's black eyes opened. Saying not a word, he lifted himself ponderously to his feet. Stubble darkened his scalp where hair had begun to grow, and a halo of midges and marsh flies smudged the air around him.
Old Ric offered his arm, and the Radiant One put his weight of feathers upon him. With Broydo slouching behind, haunted by the horrified wails of the villagers, the gnome and his withered guardian continued their journey across World's End.
The Mag us of Elvre
The fallen kingdom of Arwar Odawl flourished in the jungles of Elvre. Only one road connected it to the rest of Irth. Yet, the tiny realm had already become more prosperous than many larger cities, such as the busy trading capital of Drymarch or even the vigorous industrial terraces of Saxar.
Once a floating city, Arwar Odawl had plummeted to Irth only a few hundred days earlier, destroyed by black magic. Among its ruins dwelled the most powerful magus under the Abiding Star, the interloper from the Dark Shore, Reece Morgan.
The magus lived quietly in a humble cottage on a knoll above the sand rivers of Kazu. Arwar Odawl loomed nearby. Its ruins had been transformed from a mountain of rubble to a towering city of spires and tiered neighborhoods. Stately palms lined broad boulevards, and trellises of flowering vines dripped outlandish blossoms over a maze of lanes and winding byways.
