With horror and resignation, she watched as a thin, glowing, tendril root crept towards her. She didn't move. She didn't deserve what her friends had done for her, but she did deserve whatever this thing was about to do.
Slowly, the glowing root reached out and touched her face. She felt the rough vegetation touch her skin and once more the world fell away.
Her heart opened up to see the entire world.
All she could do was see and witness, everything.
The cistern was bright with a blue light that shone from within everything around her.
“What's happening?” she said out loud in a whisper, “Why is everything so beautiful?”
It was so beautiful.
As if every moment before then had been nothing more than a shadow.
That was until her surroundings can into full view.
Along with the full cost of what had brought her to that place.
Her own selfishness rose up in her mind and she could no longer avoid it.
She knew then that she hadn’t really cared for these wonderful people.
Time and again, she used and ignored them, and everyone who ever had the slightest concern or care for her.
Her mind raced with guilt.
It was my fault that…
It was my fault…
It was…
Tears streamed down her face, emotions twisted themselves in and out of knots.
She collapsed on the stone walkway, exhausted, head resting on the ring of roots around her.
When she came to once more, her mind was finally at peace.
“That's because I have removed the influence of blackweed from your body.” a new voice said within her mind, “It’s been poisoning you for years.”
The voice was right though, something had been clouding her mind for as long as she could remember, inhabiting her thoughts all along. Not only influencing her thoughts but every action, down to how she treated others.
The shadow of her former life fell away and all she could feel was regret.
“Fulang, is that you?” she asked into the darkness.
“No, she's our sister, although I haven't conversed with her for years. I am known as Dochas.” the voice explained.
“I don't understand, your sister? None of this makes any sense! I'm just so tired and everything is falling apart!” Gansel sobbed.
The voice was chipper and pleasant despite the fact that the death that surrounded her, “Do not despair, for you are the Branch!”
“What does that mean anyway? The Branch? Is that supposed to be me? And what are the Root and the Crown and what does any of this have to do with them? Sisters? Stop with this cryptic nonsense! I can't take it anymore!”
“Indeed, Fulang does have the habit of being overly symbolic. With what you've been through you deserve the plain truth.
We are of the First Born, foremost of our father's household, brought forth to your reality via his Vortice.
Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us, the Vortice, for some reason was malfunctioning and the interface corrupted our interface with Jerdon.
For eight thousand years, we've been trapped within his Vortice, our psyches splintering into the multitude of beings within this reality.
Recently, in the past five hundred years, our other sister, Saorsa, her psyche has deteriorated deeper and deeper into depravity like the Dixwari, Eizyr, Xortekani, and the entity that annihilated your city and soon nation.
Fulang and I fear that if Saorsa’s psyche isn't restored soon that her darkness will consume your world, your reality, destroy the Vortice and us along with it.”
“But what does any of this have to do with me or Asman?” she felt waves of hope and despair washing over her, emanating from the roots around her.
Was it saying that they were our accidental creators? That the world was derived from their minds as if some sort of fever dream?
“Our father told us once that in every Vortice, there comes a time and place where the lines of interference that create the reality within the Vortice, cannot resolve their non-quantum state. Conduits between our psyches and your reality are formed.
Sometimes these occur as visions like has occurred with you, the Branch, and Asman, the Root.
Other times, these conduits exhibit themselves as powers or abilities, such as what we now see in your Primus Sharpe, his successor, and soon to be seen in the Crown.”
Her head was full to bursting. Was all this happening in her mind? Was she imagining all this?
“Of course this is all in your mind! But that doesn't mean that it isn't any less real than anything else in your world!”
“Stay out!” she screamed, “I didn't ask for any of this!”
“Well, neither did we, but here we are together. Please help us! Seek out Fulang! Seek her out with the help our children, whom you will soon meet. They will assist you but do not tell them you have anything about us. For they aren't ready to understand.”
“Leave me alone!” she screamed and suddenly, the light receded away and the dim glow of the roots faded away. The lantern-lit gloom returned as her voice echoed throughout the empty cistern. For a short while, she sat frozen, the lantern light shining off the tear tracks on her cheeks.
Overwhelmed to numbness, she stared as they wove in and out through the bodies of the dwarves. There was no blood. The roots were drinking deep. She could see Earlok’s sunken and unseeing eyes gazing into the darkness through a gap briefly. Then more roots grew around and over them until they disappeared beneath the mass.
Sometime later she heard another sound. Was it footsteps? Or the sound of teeth and claws creeping toward her? More creatures coming to kill her? She didn't care. She was done with it all. Let the darkness take her. She had nothing left.
She buried her face in her arms and felt hot tears falling again.
A voice rumbled in front of her, "Gansel?"
Shocked at the sound of her name, she looked up and saw a large shape approaching her out of the dark. It was Asman! His hands were out in front of him and he was feeling his way forward with his clawed feet. His toes met the mass of roots that wrapped around the walkway and he stumbled a little.
"Wait! Let me guide you over that…” her voice trailed off, unwilling to describe the sight any further.
She placed her feet in the gaps between the vines and took his hand in hers. Once he was clear of the roots, she hugged him.
He put a large hand on her shoulder and squeezed back, "What happened? Where is everyone?"
She gasped for air, shuddering in her effort to not cry. She couldn’t tell him what had actually happened.
"They're gone. Some creatures down here, a monster killed them," she stuttered out, hating herself. It was only half a lie, she thought, she was as much a monster as those things in the dark.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "We should leave before anything comes back."
Together they crawled across the vines, she heard something skitter across the stones as Asman shuffled forward. Thinking that he had kicked something loose, he patted the ground around him to search for what it had been. "What's that?"
Gansel saw the seed she had dropped. Her heart jumped in her throat as his fingers grazed it. "No! Don't touch it!"
But it was too late, he had it in his hands. Would it consume him like it had the dwarves?
No. He crouched there, holding it in his hands, staring at it with his empty eyes.
He blinked and held it out to her. "It says that it's yours."
She shivered at the words.
He took her hand and placed the seed in it. He smiled a toothy grin. "There. I think it's happier now." He continued to crawl forward as she heard the voice in her mind once more, ‘Follow the Root, he will carry you and lift you up.’
She frowned and put the seed back into her bag. "Fine."
She saw the lantern that Earlok had dropped and picked it back up. Broken on two sides, the light within flickering low. She shone it on the
dwarves buried beneath the vines and whispered, "I'm so sorry."
Turning around, she caught back up to Asman.
Even with the dim lantern shining ahead, it took them what seemed like hours to find their way out of the city’s old cistern and sewage-ways. But Asman, unable to see, for some reason could sense which way to turn to make their way out of those foul tunnels.
Finally, they could hear the sound of the sea and smell the fresh air. Exhaustion began washing over her with the sound of the waves. The sewer pipes lead them out near the mouth of Myskatol Harbor. They stepped out onto the sand and breathed deep lungfuls. The smell of burning wood mixed with the scent of sea and salt. Gansel turned around towards the city and saw that all of Frogtown and most of the city was on fire. Through the smoky haze, she could make out the shuffling of thousands of humans wandering around the wharves and docks on the other side of the bay. What was going on?
As she watched more closely, she realized they were lining up and boarding every ship in the harbor except one. There was one ship anchored well away from the rest.
She heard the yelling up the beach and turned away from the city to see a small boat pulled ashore by a goblin and two elves. Her eyes could barely stay focused, so tired. She just wanted to rest. To lay down and sleep. Her legs felt like water and the next thing she knew, her face was resting on the warm, dry sand. She was so tired that she barely noticed being taken aboard the boat by the bugbear.
Asman picked her up and carried her over his shoulder up to the ladder and aboard the goblin ship. The elves brought them below and gave them a corner in the hold, fresh hay and blankets lined the floor. There she collapsed next to her companion and with empty eyes she gazed into the darkness of the hold. Her head felt hot and she thought she saw her mother standing in the shadows.
Lore stepped out into the dim light and stood next to Asman. He didn’t react to her presence, was this another trick? Gansel couldn’t tell, she looked so real and her forehead bore the bleeding cleft caused by the Bug’s ax.
“This is all your fault Ganny. You did this to me!” the revenant called out.
Gansel felt like she was going to swoon. Before she could lose consciousness, she stretched out a hand towards Lore. “I’m so sorry mama. It is all my fault. I’m… so… sorry.”
Her eyes closed over their tears and she felt as if she was descending into the cold, dark depths of the Saagar Sea, falling, floating, into a dreamless sleep.
✽✽✽
Asman closed the door to the cabin. Captain Rhuur Hel’duur had been kind enough to allow the young human to rest within. He felt the wind pick up and it seemed as if the smell of Port Myskatol burning pushed the Zeedrak back out to sea. Adjusting the bandages to cover his now scarred and deformed face, he limped out to the ship’s rail.
Something in him had changed during that last battle. As he stood before his uncle, at last, he knew that his mission was a failure. There would be no freedom for himself or Buchak. It was their destiny to be outcast. Doomed.
He could see the purple glow of the dead and damned around him as they formed a circle. But he could also see more. The buildings, the street. Everything around him could be seen now in a monochromatic lavender hue.
His uncle stood there with two massive tentacles rolling off his shoulders like flesh-bound ropes. They lashed out towards Asman, wrapping around each of his arms, crushing the bones beneath his skin. The pain drove him to his knees. He clenched his fists. He couldn’t fight Buchak, he was here to save him!
Then a voice rang within his mind,
‘You must. You are the Root. You must fight and lift up the Branch and the Crown.’
A green glow grew within each fist.
He felt his mouth go slack with fear, what was this?
Yet another horror?
The glow grew and he opened his palms.
Two emerald beacons shot forth and he forced his hands to face his uncle.
The light torn across the corrupted bugbear and Asman could see the ends of the tentacles begin to fray apart like a poorly braided rope.
Buchak screamed in pain as his tentacles disintegrated.
He screamed in pain and leaped up to the rooftops to escape.
Asman turned to run but was faced with hundreds of dead humans glowing violet.
He lashed out and torn through the crowd, eventually falling into a well and down into the cistern.
If he had not have seen Gansel weeping in the dark, he would have laid down to die a failure.
But now he had a new charge, to take up the mantle of the Root.
Whatever that meant.
How his head ached and his body screamed from the exertion. Unable to stay awake any longer, he settled down once more on the small deck that served as the head and fell asleep into a blank and dreamless sleep.
28
The phenomenon of being was a terrible thing of beauty for them.
They remained astonished that, despite the interruption to their continuity, it was as if they had always existed and there had never been a moment when they had not. The world stretched out before them and they knew that it was being served up as their own. They could perceive so much more than they ever thought possible.
As they stretched their senses, they knew with a thrilling certainty that there was room enough to grow. Room enough to grow and consume. Where the world wasn't empty, they would absorb what was other and make it their own.
At first, when they revived on the city streets, everything felt raw, like an exposed nerve. The only thought they had was to feed and destroy everything weak to dull the searing awareness. Then they heard the song of the Harbinger.
It was alluring and exquisite. It called them to follow. Not in any particular direction, but to serve. Giving into the song was their first experience of delight. Following the Harbinger was ecstasy. The bliss of submitting to the Harbinger's guidance gave them a purpose they had never known in their prior form.
Previous life under the guidance of the Assembly, fractured and tenuous, had been so limited. So many voices clamored and grasped for control. So much mewling and weakness. Chasing carnal needs, stuffing the world down their gullet to fill an insatiable hunger that only led to the grave. They knew only a dim spark that would have never achieved the magnitude of what they possessed now.
They dwelled now in the perfected moment. When they looked, the dazzle of the world was observed with ten thousand eyes. When they listened, it was to a glamorous harmony counterpointed by the sibilant guidance of the Harbinger.
Now they were unified. No longer was there any distinction between weak individuals. No Assembly, Warden, Deacon, or Primus. They were now a singularity that stretched into eternity and the Harbinger had such perfect plans for them.
They would grow. They would consume. They would make this world in their image. The image of the First Born.
It was already happening. They were expanding outward. A part of theirself was expanding across Eldervost. Fusing with all throughout the lands who imbibed the blackweed. They could feel their presence grow in what had been the Fatherland. Soon it would all be within them.
And there! Joy sang within them as they spread from land to sea. Another cell stood now on the decks of what had been the Royal Navy of Eldervost.
As they broke down the doors of farmhouses in Liebertigkit, eager to consume the weakness within, they could feel the wind and smell the salt spray against their faces. Such a perfected plan they followed west into the sunset.
On occasion, the voices of weakness would sound from within. Those who once struggled for power over the Assembly cried out like hungry ghosts. But all they needed to do to reign them back into the glory of oneness was look up from the ships at the Harbinger floating above. Guiding them. Urging them along to where they could grow.
Towards their wondrous future.
Towards Saagardell.
Apprentice
The Necrosopher’s Apprentice Page 30
