Journey Into Nyx

by Jenna Helland

  As the massive wave descended back into the ocean, the ship accelerated dramatically until their surroundings were indistinct streaks of blue light. When they finally slowed to the tempo of the wind, Elspeth and Ajani were alone on the glassy blue ocean. A waterfall stretched endlessly along the horizon line. The water at the edge of the world was like a placid pond as if enjoying a last few seconds of existence before cascading over the edge in a raging torrent of white-capped water.

  Directly in front of them was Kruphix’s Tree. Two enormous trunks were separate at the base, but they arched toward each other and joined at the top in a single leafy crown. Stars glittered beyond the waterfall, but the background was milky violet with tinges of deep blue instead of the matte black of Nyx. The seawater that plummeted over the edge disappeared into the abyss of the stars.

  They had reached the edge of the world.

  The Monsoon paused, almost as if it were treading water. The rhythm of its breathing rocked them back and forth on the calm water. Then a melodious sound rose up around them. It was reminiscent of both the song of a whale and the howl of a wolf. It was both plaintive and predatory, and shivers ran down Elspeth’s spine. But neither she nor Ajani spoke for fear of disturbing their vessel or interrupting its mesmerizing call. Their vessel raised itself higher out of the water, like a lion sitting back on its haunches. Finlike protrusions appeared along its flanks, and a crest of fins encircled the prow. Wisps of mist outlined the semitranslucent shoulders and powerful legs of this amphibious marvel.

  “It’s asking Kruphix to let it come home,” Ajani said softly.

  “Home to Nyx?” Elspeth wondered, and Ajani nodded.

  The indigo sky beyond the tree began to shimmer like a desert mirage. The vessel sprang forward and loped across the surface of the placid water. When it leaped toward the tree, the colossal form of Kruphix materialized on the horizon. The God of Horizons blocked out the sky like a dark nebula, as featureless as a shadow. The vessel bounded through the gap between the sacred trunks, and the God of Horizons opened like a window into Nyx, the realm of the gods. Beyond Kruphix, there was immeasurable depth and endless spirals and the sparkling cosmos.

  As they vaulted over the edge of the waterfall, Elspeth looked down. Below them was a star-filled void, and instinctively Elspeth felt how it bled into the boundlessness of the Blind Eternities. The Monsoon surged forward, and Ajani grabbed her shoulders protectively as they were engulfed into the form of Kruphix. Unlike the pain of planeswalking, this transition felt like riding a raft down a lazy river. There was blackness and disorientation, but she felt Ajani’s hands steadying her, and soon her feet were on solid ground though her eyes could see little in the dimness. She was captivated by glimmering lines that surrounded her as the Monsoon transformed fully into a celestial creature of Nyx. With a flash of violet light, it bounded off into a kaleidoscope of stellar formations and disappeared. When the light faded, there was nothing but darkness around them.

  “Kruphix is a portal to Nyx,” Ajani said. “Walk forward.”

  “I see nothing!” Elspeth didn’t want to move in the darkness. She didn’t know if Nyx was a flat plain, a field of razor-sharp shards, or as insubstantial as mist hovering above a pond.

  “Trust me,” Ajani said, taking her hand.

  Elspeth inched forward. With each passing step, it was as if someone pulled a series of veils from her eyes. The light grew more and more distinct, until they found themselves inside an open-air shrine built on an expanse of glittering black marble. Monumental crystalline pillars stretched up and disappeared in the brilliant colors of ionic clouds. In every direction there was an unobstructed view of luminous stars and billowing interstellar dust. The shrine was divided into distinct alcoves that were framed by glittering black pillars. Five alcoves lay directly in front of her. More alcoves, spaced farther apart, lay in the distance. But she couldn’t see how far the shrine extended or how many alcoves there were in all.

  “I’ve seen the shrine of Nykthos in the mortal realm,” Ajani said. “It looks much like this but more ravaged by time.”

  Elspeth inspected the five alcoves closest to her. Nearly identical, each alcove had a heavy stone altar with a glowing kylix. A divine artisan had carved different symbols into the black marble altars. She saw a flying horse, the symbol of Heliod, in the central alcove. Heliod’s kylix was lit with a circle of amber light—the termination point of the pillar of light from the mortal realm.

  “Here’s Thassa’s altar,” Ajani called. Her kylix was sky blue, and the water rippled like ocean waves despite the stillness of the air around them. A symbol of a bident emitted pulses of blue light.

  “Look at this,” Elspeth said. She’d wandered to the alcove on the far right and knelt down for a closer look at the whip carved into the altar. In Erebos’s altar the kylix overflowed with black ichor. Unlike the other alcoves, there was a melted bronze statue next to one of the pillars. She recognized it as a likeness of Xenagos, the satyr, but a mystical fire had melted it into a grotesque shape.

  “The satyr trying to take his place in the pantheon,” Ajani said, staring at the deformed bronze. “It’s not working out the way he would have liked.”

  “Is there an alcove for all the gods?” Elspeth asked.

  “All the real gods,” Ajani said. “We need to hurry. We aren’t in Nyx yet. If Heliod or Nylea discover you’re here, they will kill you before you can confront Xenagos.”

  “Can gods kill mortals in Nyx?” Elspeth asked. “Gods can’t kill each other.”

  “Assume the answer is yes,” Ajani said.

  “I need to choose an altar to ask for an ordeal?” Elspeth said. “And that god must grant me a favor if I succeed?”

  “Yes, Thassa’s alcove is over here,” Ajani reminded her. There were shapes appearing on the horizon around them—black shadows against the darkness of Nyx. Yellow eyes blinked and were gone. Ajani could sense the gathering of magic, but Elspeth acted as if she were oblivious to the growing threat. A burst of red flashed in the distance, like a candle had been lit. Ajani knew they had been discovered, but by what, he wasn’t sure.

  “Elspeth, you must choose,” Ajani said. “When the ordeal begins, you may be physically transported away. But if your body remains here, I will protect you until you’ve completed your task. But we must act now!”

  He took her arm and steered her toward Thassa’s altar, but Elspeth resisted. She broke away from Ajani and threw herself down before Erebos’s altar. Ajani lunged at her, trying to pull her to her feet before she could speak. But he wasn’t fast enough.

  “Erebos, I request an ordeal!” she shouted.

  The God of the Dead obliged her request.

  Erebos tore Elspeth back from the shrine at the edge of Nyx. Her body remained, but her consciousness was snatched away. Elspeth found herself in what felt like a dream. She stood near the window of a stone cottage with a thatch roof. Outside there were grassy hills dotted with cherry trees. In the distance, the Angel’s Palace hovered in the summer sky surrounded by sun-kissed clouds. Even before she saw the Angel’s Palace, she knew that she was back on Bant. But this wasn’t a vision of the plane that had been destroyed by the Conflux. Instead, her mind conjured a restored plane in a reality that could exist at some time in the near future.

  A broad-shouldered man was just heading out the door to work the fields. She could still feel his kiss on her cheek. It was her husband, but his back was turned as he walked out the door. She never saw his face. Out the window, a young man—her son—was tending to the horses in the paddock near a sturdy barn. He grinned and waved when he saw her looking at him from the open window. She felt a tug on her dress, and a chestnut-haired child looked earnestly up at her.

  “Yes, Mina?” Elspeth said. This was her daughter, whose seventh birthday was just days away.

  “Are you going to teach me more forms today?” the girl begged. In one hand, she clutched a blunt wooden sword that Elspeth remembered making for her. Erebos
’s ordeal came with a series of pleasant memories that Elspeth knew weren’t real but she wanted them to be.

  The smell of fresh bread mingled with the sweet scent of white flowers in a ceramic vase on the wooden table. A fragrant breeze wafted through the cottage. Her son had disappeared from view, but she could see the countryside in remarkable clarity. She could see the veins on the leaves of the oak trees on the other side of the field. That was the edge of their farm. No one could come onto her land if she didn’t want them to. No one would hurt her. No storms would ever appear on the horizon. This was her home, and she was surrounded by people who loved her.

  The little girl smiled happily at her mother and set her play sword down on the table. As Elspeth stared into her daughter’s green eyes, she felt her true memories slipping away from her. Daxos, Ajani, Nikka—they were vanishing into the darkness and in mere moments she would forget them altogether. And she wasn’t entirely sure that she cared. Here was everything she ever wanted. And all she had to do was let go of the pain of her real memories.

  The girl began to sing a jagged little song. It was obvious that she was making it up on the spot. “Across the river … oh, down the river.” As she sang, she plucked the white flowers out of the vase and laid them in a neat row on the table. While Elspeth struggled to remember the name of the flower, her daughter began pouring clear liquid from the vase into the gold cup on the table. The gold was very out of place in the rustic surroundings, and Elspeth felt confused that she hadn’t noticed it earlier. No, it wasn’t that she hadn’t noticed it. It just hadn’t been there before.

  Her daughter poured the liquid until it reached the brim of the gold cup. The liquid had no smell, but Elspeth knew it wasn’t water. Once she drank it, she was done fighting. Once she drank it, she could finally rest. Asphodel. Elspeth remembered the name of the flower, but in doing so, a shudder of pain wracked her body. Remembering her old life was like reopening a wound. If she stayed here, emotions like grief and despair would become like strangers she had passed by long ago.

  The little girl stared up at her expectantly. Every detail of her life with this child passed through her mind. From her birth to the joyful discoveries of her toddler years and even very recent days when they played together outside in the long summer evenings.

  “You should drink it, Mama,” the girl said seriously. “That’s all you need to do.”

  This was a vision of a home, safety, and comfort. She was so tired of the grief, of the destruction, and everything falling apart over and over again. Here was Erebos’s cup of resignation. Why should she be the one to fight Xenagos? Or the Phyrexians? Or any of the relentless evils that plagued the Multiverse? Didn’t she deserve peace? She glanced out the window at the man who would be her husband. Whoever he was, he wasn’t Daxos. Pain shot through her body as she reminded herself that none of this was real. She had not given birth to these beautiful children. There would be no finding rest here.

  “Please, Mama?” the girl begged.

  Elspeth snatched the gold cup and threw it against the wall. On impact, the gold shattered into a thousand worthless shards. Like everything else about the vision, Erebos’s cup was a bitter lie. Tears ran down the little girl’s cheeks, and Elspeth felt the regret as acutely as if it had been her real daughter she was abandoning.

  “Why?” the girl asked pitifully. “Why did you do that?”

  “Because no one ever promised me a life without suffering,” Elspeth said.

  And with those words, she was ripped back to Nyx.

  Elspeth!” Ajani shouted, but he sounded far away. “Open your eyes!”

  She blinked rapidly as her vision spun into focus. Above her, impossible formations of interstellar clouds seemed frozen against the infinite black of the starless cosmos. Burning white comets streaked across the sky. There were no echoes, no wind, and no scent of life. The pastoral scene from Erebos’s ordeal was gone, but so was the shrine on the periphery of Nyx.

  They now stood on a precipice of black marble jutting into the blackness that had replaced the vibrant night sky. The black stone beneath their feet was partially transparent, and stars glittered and astral clouds swirled inside its depth. The “floor” of Nyx was stellar components made corporeal. Such features were unperceivable from the mortal realm where Nyx appeared boundless and unfathomable. But what appeared to be an ethereal creature to a human’s eye actually had form in the realm of the gods. A celestial creature could stand here, lift a weapon, and commit violence upon another.

  Xenagos’s void lay directly in front of them. Elspeth had imagined it as an impassible gulf that the Satyr-God had created to protect himself inside of Nyx. From the mortal realm, it had looked as wide as the ocean. But standing at its edge, the gap was much narrower than Elspeth expected. And it wasn’t a moat of nothingness—it was still Nyx, just without the presence of god-forms, celestial creatures, or a multitude of stars. It was like someone had taken a cloth and scrubbed Nyx bare.

  On the far side of the gulf, there was another plain of jagged black marble where a wall of fire burned across the glittering stone. At least fifty feet high, the flame wall was curved on both the east and west edges as if it continued in an unbroken circle, which could not be seen from their vantage point. A towering gray mound lay just beyond the flames. Obscured by the fire and smoke, Elspeth couldn’t tell if it was natural or constructed. Protrusions of stone were embedded at even intervals up the center of the mound. The grayish surface looked sinewy and stretched.

  “Where are we?” Elspeth asked.

  “You must have completed your ordeal,” Ajani said. He shifted his axe from one shoulder to the other. “When Erebos opened the metaphysical gates of Nyx, we didn’t move, but the horizon moved around us. We have come to this new place without taking a step.”

  Elspeth believed him. She felt dizzy, as if she’d spun in circles again and again.

  “Are you injured?” Ajani asked, looking at her with concern. “Do you feel pain?”

  For the first time since Daxos’s death, her guilt nearly overwhelmed her. But as soon as she conjured her friend’s face in her mind’s eye, it was replaced by an image of the little girl, Mina, her unborn child. Erebos had fused the memories in her mind and left her a mental legacy of all she could have had and lost. His deceit crowded against her true memories and left rage lingering in its wake. Was she injured? No, but she would never be whole again. She couldn’t answer Ajani’s question, so she ignored it instead.

  “We made it inside Nyx?” Elspeth asked. “What happened to it? Why is it so empty?”

  “I don’t know,” Ajani said. “What happened to you, Elspeth?”

  Elspeth shook her head. Someday maybe she could tell Ajani about the death of Daxos and the ordeal she’d just been through. But they had managed what everyone believed to be impossible. They had entered Nyx, the realm of the gods. Xenagos must be somewhere close. People had suffered and died so he could make himself a god. People like Daxos, and Stelanos, and Nikka, wherever she was. The satyr must not be allowed to keep his false kingdom.

  “No time,” she said.

  Ajani nodded in understanding. “Heliod is searching for you. His minions skirted the edges of the shrine, but they wouldn’t enter it. Now that we’re in Nyx, they can’t be far behind us.”

  “The last time I met Xenagos, he tyrannized my mind,” Elspeth said. Her voice was filled with hatred, and Ajani looked uneasy. “I must be free of his influence before I fight him.”

  “I can protect you from his control,” Ajani promised. “I will never leave your side.”

  “I passed the ordeal,” Elspeth said. “I can ask Erebos for something in return.”

  “No!” Ajani said furiously. “He’s vain and cruel. Even Thassa was misinformed about the nature of the void. You don’t need a bridge.”

  Ajani was partly correct. She didn’t need Thassa’s bridge to cross the void. Even as she spoke, she swung her blade in the ritualized form that focused her spellcast
ing. She was harnessing the mystical energy that would propel her and Ajani across the expanse.

  “I do need something from him,” Elspeth said.

  “Kill Xenagos, but forget Erebos,” Ajani insisted. “He was forced to open the gates to heaven for you. That’s victory enough.”

  “It’s not enough,” Elspeth said.

  With a graceful motion, she dashed to the edge and leaped toward the fire on the other side. Infused with her spell, Ajani followed her off the precipice, and for the fleeting second that crossed the gulf, they felt weightless and unbound by the laws of physics. To humans watching from the mortal realm, they appeared as two constellations chasing after the firelight in an otherwise empty sky. When Elspeth and Ajani alighted on the other side, Ajani grabbed her hand. She felt his strength course through her. He was giving her most of what he had—a powerful bulwark against Xenagos’s manipulation. She would be the master of her fate, not some puppet dragged through the dirt of someone else’s theater.

  Before they could move, tendrils of fire burst from the wall reaching out to capture them. With the gulf at their backs, there was no place to back away from the flames. Together, they bolted for an opening to their right, but the flames blasted up like a geyser from the stone. In a heartbeat, the fire crawled behind them along the very edge of the precipice. It arched over their heads and trapped them in a fiery prison. Once inside, Elspeth realized they weren’t the only prisoners. She saw twisted shadows writhing in the flames. The shapes were heartbreakingly familiar. They had the forms of mundane creatures from the mortal realm—except these captured animals glittered with stars.

  “Ajani!” Elspeth cried in disbelief. “Xenagos trapped the celestial creatures!”

  Inside the Satyr-God’s trap, they saw the fuel that fed his cosmic pyre. The starry creatures that had enjoyed the eternal freedom of the night skies now suffered in torment. The mystical flames scorched them but didn’t consume them. Instead, the flames fed off their bodies, which had fused together in a wall of flesh and astral matter, and it intensified Xenagos’s power. At the sight of the creatures’ suffering, Ajani’s hands began to glow with healing light.