by C. M. Carney
“I cannot heal his wounds Tal,” Jurredix said without looking up at the Grandmaster, his tone cold, precise. Beneath him, Errat moaned, but he did not awaken.
“We have to do something,” Lex begged. “Please.”
“Put him in the Order Engine,” Tal ordered after a moment’s thought. “It will slow the infection and buy us time.”
“All respect Grandmaster, but that is illogical. We cannot heal him. All we can do is slow his demise. And without the Order Engine, your own condition will worsen. You are letting human sentiment cloud your judgment.”
“Perhaps but do it anyway.”
The archon stood, eyeing the Grandmaster, his scarred face frowning.
“If you won’t, I will,” Lex said and tried to push the shimmering board of energy Errat rested upon. It didn’t budge and Lex grunted in frustration. The strong, yet gentle hand of Jurredix fell to his shoulder.
“I will tend to your friend. Despite my objections, I am sworn to serve the Grandmaster.” He walked towards the Order Engine, Errat’s gurney trailing behind him. Jurredix pushed the warborn inside the circular arms of the device and Tal tapped several controls on the console. With a hum, the engine cycled up and a shimmering sphere of silver-blue energy expanded around Errat, slowing time within to a crawl.
Lex breathed easier and some tension drained from him. Jurredix assured him that Errat would remain stable for as long as the Order Engine was active. He turned to see Tal walking towards them.
“Hello friends, I am Odymm Tal, Deacon of the Circle. You have already made the acquaintance of Jurredix. Welcome aboard Order’s Vengeance.”
The Grandmaster held his hands wide to encompass the entire ship and Lex was unsure whether he should chuckle at the ship’s name or be fearful. Men consumed by vengeance were dangerous, foolhardy and more often than not willing to die. Had the Realm of Chaos driven Tal mad, or was the ship’s name an amusing fuck you to the Princes?
They introduced themselves and Tal could barely contain his excitement.
“So, it is true. You are from the mortal realms. We hoped, and feared, as much when we saw the beacon from your spell. We have not encountered another order mage since entering the Realm of Chaos.”
“I’m more of a dabbler if truth be told,” Lex said.
“Does dabbler mean idiot?” Simon asked. “Cuz if so, I agree with Lex.”
Lex didn’t waste the effort giving Simon the stink eye but sent an abashed look to Tal. “That might not have been the best course of action. It attracted attention from some bad elements.”
“Only bad elements call the Realm of Chaos home,” Jurredix said.
“My friend is right, and it doesn’t take much to attract their attention.” Tal extended his hand to Lex. Lex took it, surprised at the strength of the man’s grip. “And it allowed us to find you. Perhaps the Source is watching over us.” Tal released his grip and his face turned grim. “While it pleases me to make your acquaintances, your presence is a bad omen. How did you come to be here?”
Lex told the basics of their tale, including details of the chaos incursion in Harlan’s Watch and his fear that a full-blown invasion was imminent. He even made brief mention of the near breach in the ruins of Xygarrion.
“Ruins,” Tal said in alarm. “So, it is as we feared. Our city is … destroyed.” He cast a sideways glance at Jurredix, but if Tal’s sadness moved the archon, he showed no sign.
“Yes, I am sorry.”
“I always knew it in my heart,” Tal said, stumbling as he sat on the steps leading up to the Order Engine. Jurredix moved to Tal’s side, but the Grandmaster waved him off. “I am just tired, old friend.” He turned to Lex with a fierce intensity that harbored a deep fear. “What of Sylvan Aenor?”
“It thrives, and Dar Thoriim has reopened to the world.”
A whimper of relief pushed past Tal’s lips, and he gripped Jurredix’s forearm in celebration. The archon gazed down upon him, and despite his lack of features, Lex sensed the automation was almost pleased.
“Then perhaps Merria and Berrek lived. Maybe Berrek married, had children of his own. Perhaps the Tal name still exists.”
“I’ll help you find out, once we get back to Korynn,” Lex said. “The El’Edryn might be prudes, but they keep track of everything. I won’t say it’ll be fun sifting through 5,000 years of records, but I’ll make you a deal. Help us get back and we’ll all search with you, no matter how many paper cuts we get.” His foolish grin faded on seeing Tal’s expression.
“5,000 years?”
The joy in Odymm Tal’s eyes dimmed as the weight of five millennia bore down on him. Lex cursed himself and his big, damn mouth. He wanted to say something to ease the man’s pain, but could think of nothing.
How does Gryph do it? Lex had never felt less suited to his leadership role than he did at this moment. He was a fool stumbling in the dark who’d once again let his mouth dig a deep hole. He looked at the suddenly ancient looking Deacon, apology painted on his face, and stopped his mouth from blurting a stupid comment that Tal looked good for his age.
“The Tal name survived,” Vonn said. “You are a legend of the Circle, a hero who saved all the Realms from chaos. Help us find a way home and lay claim to that legacy.”
“I never wanted fame, nor power. I just wanted to protect my family, my people.” Tal looked at Lex. “I just never thought it would cost me so much.” He paused as the full weight fell upon him. “5,000 years, I can hardly conceive of that time scale.”
“How long has it been for you?” Lex asked.
“Less than fifty years by my estimation,” Jurredix said. “But the Realm of Chaos makes precise calculations, unreliable.” Jurredix looked down at Tal. “It would seem this proves your theory.”
“What theory?” Lex asked, turning to Tal.
“The Circle has long surmised that the barrier the Source used to seal the Realm of Chaos acts very much like the Order Engines,” Tal explained. “Only vastly more powerful. Time flows slower here. If it did not, the damnable Princes would have pierced the veils long ago.”
Another question burned into Lex and he feared he knew the answer. “Why have you not gone home?”
“Because, there is no way home,” Tal said.
33
Tal began the tale of how he and Jurredix had come to the Realm of Chaos, but then thought better of it and chose to show them. He held his hand out, palm upward, and a sphere of energy shimmering like the iridescent surface of a pearl expanded outwards flowing over Lex and the others. Its passage took them into Tal's memory.
Lex stood in hell, or at least as close an approximation as he ever wished to experience. He understood that he was experiencing what Tal had lived through. He stood alongside Jurredix at the edge of a massive circular room. Bodies and parts of bodies lay strewn about him as he battled with Rowyn Vex, a one-time trusted colleague corrupted to madness. At the room’s center, a ring of hovering red metal spun above another rail of the same metal. Through the insides of the ring was another place, a maelstrom of raging reds, oranges and blacks.
For the first time since the beginning of days, the Princes of Chaos had access to the mortal realms. Swimming in the morass beyond the Realm Gate were four monstrous forms. One of the Princes had already pulled himself partially through the gate.
Lex could not tear his eyes from the sight, even as his mind began to fray. Few mortals were strong enough to resist the ravages of the Princes. But, Odymm Tal is one of them. The Grandmaster would not let the creeping madness take him. Lex’s guts churned at the indescribable vileness of the closest Prince. Mixengettorax, the Lord of Rage and Blood roared in triumph, knowing in mere moments all the Realms would suffer his wrath. But, the Grandmaster refused to surrender.
“Jurredix give me control of the anchor.”
“It does not have sufficient power to seal the breach.”
“I know, I have another idea.”
Tal took control of the Anchor of Order
and prepared for the end. The anchor was a matrix of pure Order Magic designed to secure and reinforce an Order Lance. He struggled to control the construct. Under normal circumstances, he would never use the anchor in this manner.
But this was no ordinary circumstance. If the Princes weren’t stopped, it would be the end of the world. He turned to the archon, his longtime companion. He spoke no further words, for none were needed. The archon lowered his head in a nod.
“It has been an honor my friend,” Tal said.
“I will see you in the Forum after we coalesce,” the archon said.
Tal pushed all of his will into the anchor and it accelerated past Vex, whose momentary grin of glee faded when she realized she was not the target. The point of the anchor slammed into the spinning metal of the Realm Gate, releasing the incredible energies of the rift.
An explosion shredded Vex’s body, threw Jurredix backwards into the far wall and tore off one of Mixengettorax’s arms. The concussive force tossed Tal up, cracking his armor. The Realm Gate twisted and spun tearing at the hole between realms. It expanded and then contracted, bisecting Mixengettorax before spinning down into a singularity. The Lord of Rage and Blood screamed and transformed into a stream of energetic particles that were then sucked back through the rift.
The hole in reality pulsed, pulling everything in the room towards it as inexorably as the event horizon of a black hole. Lex felt his borrowed body pulled towards the singularity point and then he blacked out.
Sometime later, he opened his eyes to discover he was floating in the odd pseudo-liquidic space of the Realm of Chaos. His armor though damaged, had held. He spun listlessly, like a paper boat caught by storm surge. Then something heavy smacked into the back of his legs. He watched a shard of blood-stained crystal spin by him.
The Order Lance is gone, Lex thought.
A hand closed about his forearm and he turned to see Jurredix. He smiled down on his old friend and pulled him into a fierce embrace. Behind the archon, hundreds of shredded body parts spun like asteroids, the remnants of the Princes of Chaos.
Lex understood that the Princes were not dead. They could never truly die, for they were not alive as mortals understood the concept. The Princes were primal sentiences inhabiting the eddies of this Realm. Though their bodies were destroyed, they could never be permanently killed.
The Princes would return in time.
Doubt hummed through him. How can you fight an enemy that cannot die? Lex thought and a single word, spoken in Tal’s voice came back to him.
Ceaselessly.
As if recognizing that Lex needed something to give him hope, Tal cast Anchor of Order again, and from across the chaotic field of rubble and body parts, the shattered crystal flowed to them, encasing them in a new Order Lance.
Just as the process completed, a length of curved metal scrawled with unspeakable chaotic runes, zipped by Lex, spinning like the rib of some ancient beast. A fear that was not Tal’s, but Lex’s own, filled him, for he recognized the crimson metal, and remembered where he’d seen it before.
Lex’s eyes opened in a flash and he was back in the control room of the Order Lance. He collapsed to his knees, as had the others. Vonn met his gaze and Lex saw the same realization, the same terror in his friend’s eyes.
“The Princes are building Realm Gates,” he sputtered in a pained voice and looked to Odymm Tal.
*****
Lex had never wanted to be more wrong about anything in his life but knew that was a false wish. He told Tal and Jurredix what they’d seen under the streets of the chaotic copy of Harlan’s Watch. Jurredix was doubtful, claiming that like a Port Gate connection, a Realm Gate required two devices to operate. Lex countered that argument with Gaarm’s claim that the Vex were building a Realm Gate beneath the real Harlan’s Watch.
“The Vex?” Tal’s eyes widened and then snapped to Jurredix. “She left behind an organization, disciples with the knowledge to build Realms Gates. How could I have been such a fool?”
“As I have referenced frequently, your species has a talent for self-deception.” The archon turned to Lex. “And you trust this Gaarm speaks truthfully?”
“I don’t trust Gaarm at all,” Lex countered. “But he has no reason to lie, not about this.”
“You’re sure?” Tal asked.
“We are,” Vonn agreed. “He may have worked for the Vex at one point, but they treated him no better than a slave. He is no true believer.”
“Okay,” Tal said, his face a disturbed grimace. “We’ll assume this Gaarm is telling the truth about the Vex and what they’ve built. We’d have to take it on faith anyway, since we cannot ignore it and risk it being true.”
"There is something we're missing," Seraphine said. “If you think the Vex could build something as complicated as a Realm Gate, then you don’t know the Vex I know."
“She’s right,” Vonn said. “Whoever Rowyn Vex left behind to continue her legacy, their gene pool was long ago diluted. The Vex we encountered were a bunch of wannabe rich kids looking to piss off daddy. They could not do this alone.”
“Who would help the Vex?” Tal asked, his shoulders slumping. The motion made the powerful Grandmaster seem every one of his hundred plus years.
Tal was right. None of it made any sense. Despite being an aspect of Cerrunos and bearing the Old God’s soul, Lex had nothing in the way of memories from his previous time in the Realms. Therefore, he had no context of the history of the magical world. But he knew the history of Earth. The people there weren’t all that different from the people of the Realms. Most simply wanted to be left alone to live their lives. But, every once in a while, a leader would rise on the back of lies and hatred and the world would burn.
“Earth.” Lex’s eyes went wide as a terrible realization filled him. “Oh shit. It all makes sense now.”
The others turned to him. Over the next couple of minutes, he told the others not only about Earth, but about the banishment of Morrigan, his life on Earth as Alistair Bechard and his return to the Realms as Aluran. He told them he was an NPC, and that Gryph was a Player. He told them what Krenaaz had told him, right before the Order Bolt atomized him. To their credit, both Tal and Jurredix took the existence of other realities rather well. Then he told them what he knew about the Cabal.
“There were rumors that Bechard was not working alone, that for all his power and wealth, he needed help to invade the Realms. This help came in the form of a secret cabal. I don’t know who the others are, but I know one thing, they were unwelcome in Aluran’s new world order.”
“He left them on Earth when he sealed the Realms,” Tal said.
“That’s what Sean’s buddies in the Resistance said.” Lex looked from Tal to Jurredix.
“You think this Cabal wants revenge?” Jurredix asked.
“I think they want what was promised to them, and I think they’ll sacrifice anything, including the Earth, to get it.”
“Nobody is that big an asshole,” Simon said, his tone unsure as if he hoped the others would convince him. “Sacrifice an entire world for what?”
“Power,” Tal said. “It always comes down to power.”
“I believe Lex is right,” Vonn said, his face grim. “If this Cabal took over the Vex, they wanted something. I think I know what that something was.” Vonn explained the mission that had brought him to Harlan’s Watch. “Harlan was a Deacon of the Circle, one who’d become obsessed with the Vex. He’d warned the Circle that the Vex were undergoing a resurgence, that they had found something ancient and powerful.”
“But the Circle did not listen,” Tal said, a pained look on his face.
“No, they did not,” Vonn agreed. "Only when Harlan disappeared, did the Circle request the aid of the Templars, which is how I ended up in Harlan’s Watch."
“The Circle is as rigid in your day as they were in ours.” the archon said, glancing at Tal.
“Pompous fools.” Tal rubbed at his temples. “It's a miracle the Princes haven’
t overrun Korynn already.” He looked at Vonn. “Did you ever discover what they were after.”
“No but considering recent events we can make an educated guess.”
“The knowledge of how to construct a Realm Gate,” Lex said.
“It fits the facts,” Vonn agreed.
“Why would this Cabal share this knowledge with the Princes?” Seraphine asked. “Those guys don’t have a reputation for playing nice.”
“Because they need them,” Jurredix said. “There is more potential energy locked away in the Realm of Chaos than the rest of the Realms combined. That is why Rowyn Vex tapped it to power her Realm Gate. Nothing else has enough power.”
“But to trust the Princes is madness,” Tal said, pacing back and forth, each movement brought him pain. “They do not share. They are driven only to conquer and pervert. This Cabal of Earth may have power, but they are fools if they believe they can control the Princes.”
“Or geniuses,” Simon said.
Everyone turned to the undead teen, some incredulous, others merely curious.
“What do you mean?” Lex asked, a tickle of dread creeping up his spine.
“This Cabal of yours…” Simon began.
“They’re not my Cabal,” Lex protested.
“Fine, THE Cabal wants into the Realms, and they can build Realm Gates, which means they have …”
“A gate of their own,” Lex blurted.
“Yes, which means there are …”
“Three of them,” Lex finished.
“Right,” Simon said, showing no irritation at the frequent interruptions. He held up three fingers, lowering them one at a time as he spoke. “The Princes get Earth, the Cabal gets the Realms and poor Harlan’s Watch ends up here.”
“Simon is right,” Vonn said, eyes wide. “If the Realm of Chaos is truly the only place to get the energy to power a Realm Gate, then once the Princes are on Earth, they won’t be able to reopen them. They’ll be forever gone from the Realms. The Cabal isn’t helping the Princes of Chaos, they’re helping themselves, and banishing the Princes at the same time.”