ARC 7: CHAPTER 25: BOUNDARY

Vicar deposited me on one of Castle Tol’s tower balconies. I landed heavily, and had to lean against the railing for a minute to catch my breath and steady my reeling vision. I couldn’t get my heart under control.

I thought perhaps I’d taken a head wound during my repeated skirmishes over the last hour, or lost too much blood, but I quickly realized what this sensation was. Bitter frustration, impotent rage. Tol spread out before me like a sea of fire and shadow, framed in drifts of tumbling snow and ash. Darting silver and gold lights, warrior spirits from the Fences, battled ogres in the sky and on the ground. Cyril’s banners flew over the eastern gate, but there was still combat in the streets. I could not see what was happening in the square anymore.

I hadn’t been able to do anything. I couldn’t save anyone.

Vicar, back in his monk form, moved to the balcony door and checked inside. Seemingly satisfied there was no one within, he broke the lock with a murmur of aura and let it swing open. “We have little time,” he said. “Now that the Choir is here, the Gatebreaker will not waste much more time strutting. We are fortunate he decided to indulge in his taste for melodrama, rather than focus on his goal.”

“His goal…” I turned from the sight of the burning town. “You said he’s here for the same reason we are.”

Vicar glanced back at me and nodded. “Somehow, he’s learned that my order lost the Zoscian. Ager Roth is a god on the battlefield, almost unstoppable, but Orkael has his true name. With the artifact and proper preparation, we can bind him.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to think through the sensation of rushing water in my head and the distant noise of the battle. “But… how did he know to come here? We thought we were trying to pick up a cold trail.”

“The Dark Lord of Elfgrave is not omniscient. We have no idea what kind of information network he has built or how much he knows…” Vicar considered the question, his burn-scarred hand lingering on the door latch. “The mirror. You recall how it was acting strangely?”

I understood what he was thinking. “You think the abgrüdai in the mirror called him?”

Vicar nodded. “I think he was already in Kingsmeet, preparing this war. The elven raiders we’ve been hearing about, those were corrupted Seydii the whole time. When we took the mirror out of that room… yes! The sigils we found there were auratic dampeners. Once freed of them, the mirror was able to contact its own kind.”

At which point Ager Roth had come out of hiding early, believing there was a threat he needed to respond to.

Which meant all of this was my fault. And Lias’s.

“You said you’d figured out how to find Lias?” I asked. “How?”

Vicar opened the door. “I’ll let the good doctor explain it. It was her idea, but we require your axe arm… sword arm, whatever.”

“I can’t just leave this place to die,” I muttered, glancing again at the ongoing battle. “This happened because of my hunt.”

“This happened because of Lias Hexer, Reynard, and Alicia Wake. Now, enough self torment. We have a job to do.”

The hallways of the castle were eerily quiet. It made my skin itch.

“This place should be alive with the siege happening,” I said as we moved. “Where are the servants, the clerks and advisors?”

Vicar slowed, narrowing his eyes as we reached the top of a tower stair and looked into the next hall. He bared iron teeth in a sudden silent snarl. “Ager Roth is a prideful beast, but he is no fool. His show in the square was a distraction.”

I heard a scream ahead, high and shrill. It was followed by the sound of furniture breaking.

I rushed forward, tightening my grip on the crusader sword I’d borrowed. There were bodies on the floor. Dead servants, some guards, all torn and broken. Blades hadn’t killed these.

The door to Vicar’s room was smashed open. I stopped at the doorway, breathing hard from the sprint with Vicar just behind me, and took in the scene.

Delphine sat on her knees in front of the demon-infested mirror. She faced away from it, toward the back of the room, in the middle of a diagram she’d drawn around her in chalk. It was very similar to the one Lisette had used to trap Hyperia, only much more hastily and cheaply made. She’d pilfered candles from the castle for the nodes on the diagram, and I had no idea where she’d gotten the golden dust and other implements contained in a mismatched set of bowls and plates.

A cleric’s circle, fashioned to ward off dark spirits. Delphine was plastered with sweat. There were fresh scratches on her face, and she was breathing hard despite her seated position. Her fingers formed a warding sign in front of her neck, an approximation of the auremark. The real thing hung from a string wrapped around her hands.

“It’s still here!” She hissed without taking her eyes off the back of the room.

I searched and saw nothing. “Where?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice was tight with strain. After answering, she went back to muttering a string of prayers, trying to focus her aura into the barrier she’d constructed.

I knew there was something here. My scars had started to burn minutes before. My magic also sensed the presence of evil — that, at least, still seemed to work. My eyes went to the bodies. There was a dead maid in front of the door, probably the one we’d heard before. Her glassy eyes stared up at me. Why had they all been in this section?

“Beware!” Vicar snapped, just as my instincts screamed a warning at me.

The dead maidservant suddenly rose like a stringed puppet and grabbed at me. I leapt back, swiping my blade horizontally at the same time. I took one of her hands, but her momentum didn’t stop. Her mouth distended, and I could see something crawling in the toothless cavity within. It started to emerge, a wrinkled, eyeless thing with human teeth.

The maid’s teeth. It’d stolen them, and not just hers.

The demon shot out of the corpse’s mouth in a spray of gore. It struck like an eel — it looked like an eel, and a millipede, a serpentine thing with a human mouth and dozens of grasping digits. It tried to go for my face, but I was quicker. My borrowed sword lashed out even as I stepped aside, slicing the thing at a steep angle so about a foot of its length came apart from the rest.

The creature struck the wall in a splatter of rancid, stinking blood. Its body was impossibly long, still surging out of the corpse’s esophagus even after I’d cut it. The dead maid seemed to shrink as the demon emerged.

It wasthe real thing, not a Woed.

“Behind you!” Vicar warned me. I turned and saw the demon’s head crawling up the wall on what remained of its legs. They were more like fingers, I realized, each one resembling a thumb with a rotted nail. It made it to the ceiling, turned, and spat a string of harsh syllables at me that twisted themselves into comprehensible words.

“FUCKING BASTARD WHORE MAN I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU WEAR YOUR SKIN EAT YOUR LIVER SHIT IN YOUR EMPTY CORPSE YOU CUT OFF MY FUCKING HEAD!”

“Sorry,” I muttered as I took another guard. “I was aiming for your brain.”

“FUCK YOU!” It launched itself. Even ready for it, its speed startled me. I dodged the shrieking thing, but didn’t deliver a killing cut as I’d intended. It went scurrying off like a frantic rat through the sprawl of corpses.

“Shit.” I started forward, trying to track its path through the dead. “It’s going to get into another body.”

Vicar stopped me. “Ignore that parasite. There’s another in the room.”

I hesitated, but couldn’t see it. It had probably gone deeper into the castle. I knew its type — it would heal fast after it found food, and come back with a stronger vessel. Probably a knight, something that could protect it from my steel.

But hunting it would be time consuming and dangerous. Best to deal with the present threat. I stepped into the bedroom. Delphine glanced at me but didn’t stop her litany. I focused my power into my eyes, chasing away the shadows and tracing the unclean presence I sensed in the room.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

My gaze fixed on the dark space beneath the bed. “It’s there.” I pointed with my sword.

Vicar paced into the room, placing himself between the bed and Delphine. His form rippled, and briefly I saw more lupine features through the smoky haze of his shifting flesh. His voice took on a dry rasp. “I know you are there, abgrüdai. I can smell you.”

The shadows beneath the bed seemed to shiver, a disorienting sight that made me blink rapidly. The voice that came out was soft, small. “You are one to talk, zosite dog. I knew your sulfur stench the moment you entered the castle.”

I took a tentative step to the side of the bed. With an Art, I could have cloven the whole thing in half and at least injured whatever lay beneath it. As it was, I wanted to see my target and be sure of the stroke. No telling what lay under there. Just because it hid itself in a small space and spoke softly didn’t mean it wasn’t potent. Demons are strange, and even the most innocuous of them can be nightmares.

Vicar continued to address the thing. “I imagine your master sent you for this.” He indicated the mirror and Delphine.

A hissing laugh emerged from the demon’s hiding spot. “The Lion is not our master! He is our brother, our friend, our champion. Our knight. He led us to Heaven and opened the door. Oh, how we feasted! Say, if you gorge on the blood of angels and sit on their thrones, does that not make you an angel? I’ve always wondered.”

“All I see is vermin hiding under a bed,” I told it.

I felt the thing’s attention shift to me. The sensation was very much like suddenly realizing ants were crawling on you. “Hm… I see that mark on your face, warrior. So you are Shyora’s Bane. Strange. I don’t see it.”

I knew better than to converse with it, but Vicar gave me a look that told me to be patient. I didn’t know what he schemed, but decided to play along. “And what’s that?”

The demon was quiet a while. When it answered me, its voice had become bemused. “Tormentsister is somewhat well known among my kind. You could say she was a luminary among succubi. She dismantled kings, seduced saints, reduced her rivals into quivering shrines to her cunning. Oh, she was a black hearted thing, a cruel enigma. And then you… she encountered you, and became like a newly congealed succubus with its first fascination. Erratic, self destructive, short sighted. None of us could understand it. We all thought some cunning mind, some golden tongued warlock of Tuvon’s making had beguiled the famed Pernicious Shyora!”

The demon’s voice lowered into an angry murmur. “But now I meet you, and all I see is another ape with a sword. The Shyora I knew would not have cared a wit for such a bland meal.

”

“Who are you?” I asked.

I could hear claws curl against the stone beneath the bed, producing a grating hiss. “I… I am the last of the eight called out of the dark by the wizard, Reynard, to perpetrate his doom for the Elf King. I am the demon, Idiobi.”

I shivered. What was left of the Alder in my soul knew that name.

“The other seven are gone,” Idiobi continued. “But it doesn’t matter. Ager Roth is here.”

“Ager Roth is busy fighting the Choir,” I said. “You’re alone, besides that parasite that just scampered off.”

“True. And I cannot break the barrier your witch has erected on my own. Even if I could, I am not Yith or Raath El Kur. You win this round, Alder Knight. For now, perhaps there is still a meal for me outside?”

The creature laughed, a chittering, whispering sound that wormed its way into my ear and lingered there. It was followed by silence.

“It hasn’t gone far,” Vicar said. “That one is dangerous. It will try to follow us, but there’s nothing we can do about it for now.”

“Follow us?” I turned to face him and Delphine. “What have you found out?”

Delphine had stopped her prayers. She took a moment to collect herself before speaking. “The mirror.” She indicated the pane of tinted glass behind her. “We were right that the spirits in it are guarding something, but it wasn’t just knowledge.”

She stood, adjusted her robes, and met my eyes. I saw anger there, frustration, much of it directed at me. I could tell she hadn’t forgotten our earlier encounter. I hadn’t either, despite my best efforts to distract myself with struggle.

She stepped aside, careful not to disturb her diagram, and waved at the mirror. “Break it.”

I blinked at her. “Break it? Are you mad? That will release the demons.”

“Probably, but we don’t have a choice. This is a Wend Gate, one Lias constructed himself. This is why no one can find him — he’s gone into the Wend.”

I turned my gaze on the mirror. Of course. I should have guessed. “That’s very like him,” I said. “Make everyone think he’s gone to Bantes or further, when in reality he never even left the town.”

“He wouldn’t have gone to Bantes,” Vicar muttered. “We own it. Quickly now! We need a head start before Ager Roth decides whether he wishes to pursue this.”

“Or before the Credo Ferrum catches on,” Delphine agreed. “They will still be lurking about, waiting for an opportunity to pick up Lias’s trail.”

She was right. Even still… “Going into that realm unprepared is incredibly dangerous,” I said. “Even prepared, it’s dangerous. We need wards, meditation, the proper gear and rituals.”

“I am from a plane just as hostile to mortals,” Vicar said. “And you are still a True Knight. Delphine may be vulnerable, but she is not helpless. We cannot wait. Even if Ager Roth is driven away, the Credo will discover this and we cannot protect the mirror forever, not when the thing itself is working against us.”

He stepped closer to me. “It is dangerous, but we don’t have a choice.”

I cursed in frustration. “Fine. Let’s get it done.”

Delphine gave me an uncertain look. “You’re wounded.”

“Often. Vicar is right, we don’t have time. Stand back.”

I approached the mirror. In the dark corners of the room, on the window, in the rafters and in the fireplace, whispering voices called to me. I didn’t need to hear them clearly to know what they said.

If you’d taken us, you could have fought him.

In the mirror, I saw no dark apparitions taunting me with memories and insidious insults. Just my own reflection, battered, tired, covered in blood and injuries. The auratic light in my eyes seemed dimmer than usual.

“We have no idea where this leads,” I said without taking my eyes off it. “It could deposit us on a known road, or at the bottom of a phantom ocean.”

Delphine shook her head. “Lias would have used a path he was familiar with, I think.”

I glanced at the doctor, the former cenobite. I wanted to leave her behind. I did not trust her not to try and stab me in the back. But I didn’t trust Vicar either, and what I’d told him earlier still held true. Delphine Roch, or Sister Vera, might still know something about Lias’s plans.

“Whatever’s in there might be more dangerous than what’s out here,” I said before I could stop myself.

Delphine lifted an eyebrow. “Are you giving me a chance to go free, Ser Knight? I thought you were taking me prisoner.”

I shrugged. “You could have fled at any point.”

“Into a town infested with monsters and soldiers? Into a countryside that will be subsumed in war by tomorrow? I think I’ll take my chances in the Wend. Besides, I want to find Lias too. It might be our only way to stop all of this.”

“Fine, but once we’re in there you have to stay close and do as I say. I don’t know if you’ve been inside the cracks of reality before, doctor, but it can be unnerving.”

She didn’t reply. I took the sword in both hands, balancing my fingers on the disk-shaped pommel. It was a hand-and-a-half blade, and made for hands less meaty than mine. Not my preference, but it had good weight. I lifted it over my head for a vertical chop, same as I’d do with my axe to deliver a killing blow.

I focused my strength. Taking a deep breath, and still feeling like a deserter and a fool, I struck. The mirror shattered. Delphine threw an arm up to cover her face from the flying shards. One of them scoured me on the temple, drawing a thin slice. I stepped back and studied my work as blood began to leak down across the edge of my eye.

A curling, grayish miasma spilled out of the empty hole in the world where the’d been solid glass a moment before. It ate into the wooden wardrobe like a wound, jagged, pulsing, growing before my eyes. Bits of broken glass stuck out of the edges like ragged, torn skin on a bad injury. On the other side of that impossible hole, I could only see a shifting, foggy darkness.

Then that darkness billowed out and swallowed us.

Traveling into the Wending Roads is like submerging oneself in unfamiliar water, like stepping into a storm, and into silence.

For a long while, I felt as though I’d fallen into an unexpected sleep. Memory and sensation floated through me, fragments of thoughts, voices and recollections coming and going without any rhyme or reason.

Eventually, I realized that I stood inside a thick fog and could move. I still wore my armor, my cloak, held a sword in my hand. Blinking the haze from my eyes, I turned about and tried to see anything. There was nothing.

“Vicar?” I called out. “Delphine?”

The fog ate my words hungrily. I remembered that there were demons in here, and tightened my grip on the sword.

Picking a random direction was foolish. Instead I focused my senses outward, reaching out with my aura like it were the tongue of a serpent tentatively tasting the air. My Arts might be crippled, but it was still my soul, and I’d learned how to manipulate it long ago.

I felt something. A tug, like the telltale hint of a current. Would it just lead me right back into the castle?

No way to tell. I started to wander that way. My armor produced hollow rings with every motion, strangely loud and distorted like I weighed much more than usual and stomped along underwater. Every step boomed through the space, making the mist recoil.

No stealth in here, then. I called out for the other two again, but a disturbing thought made me pause. If there were spirits here, capable of taking on any shape they chose, they might try to trick me. I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference until I got too close for it to matter. My chest twinged again, more insistently than before. I gritted my teeth and kept moving forward, feeling a bead of sweat form on my temple.

Eventually, I started to hear a voice through the fog. It was a murmur at first, but soon clarified into a familiar voice. Delphine. She sounded frantic. I caught a single sentence through the indistinct ramble.

“I left Ormur behind. Oh, I hope he’s alright… he’ll be alright, he’s a good boy, smarter than me.”

A shape appeared in the fog. I hesitated, trying to sense anything off about it, then reached out and grabbed the doctor by the shoulder.

She let out a shriek, wheeling on me. I stepped back and held up my hand. “It’s just me.”

Delphine narrowed her eyes. “How do I know?”

I shrugged. “Probably can’t, not here. Who were you talking to?”

She coughed, looking embarrassed. “Myself. I do it when I get nervous.”

I nodded. “Try not to, here. The Wend is full of spirits, and you don’t want a doppleganger or chorn to hear you.”

Delphine shivered. “Is it all like this?” She glanced around at the fog.

I inspected the scene. The brume seemed clearer now. “No. It can get much stranger. You hear that?”

Delphine frowned and listened a moment. “It sounds like… water? Waves against a shore. Is there a beach nearby?”

“That’s the sea,” I muttered. “You’ll hear it no matter where you are in this place, but you’ll never find it.”

I started walking again. We needed to find Vicar, and then pick up some kind of trail. We needed to at least find a shelter so I could figure out what to do about whatever was growing inside my chest.

Delphine hurried to follow me. “What is it?” She asked, frowning at the distant sound of lapping waves.

I glanced back at her. “The edge of everything.”

[https://i.imgur.com/tFtOgWy.jpeg]