The answer dawned upon him an instant too late. A sword hissed through the air. Deacon pulled his mind together to muster a defense, but it was no ordinary sword, wielded by no ordinary warrior. The defense barely slowed the blow enough for him to roll back. He scrambled to his feet and looked upon his foe. Standing tall, with sword in hand and fury in his eyes, was Lain.
“Who are you and what have you done to the others?” he seethed.
“I don’t have the patience to explain it, and there is little value in doing so for an echo of the past. Leave me to my task.”
Lain didn’t waste breath on further words. He seldom did. The warrior burst forward with a speed Deacon had forgotten could exist in a creature who lacked the knack for magic. The wizard unleashed a flurry of spells. Lain deflected and scattered them with his masterpiece of a blade. It was all that Deacon could do to keep Lain’s weapon from tasting his flesh. Death wouldn’t linger, of course. It couldn’t. But while he was incapacitated, there was no telling what Lain might choose to do with the sigils.
The assassin kept the pressure on, slashing away the spells hurled in his direction. Deacon tried to summon portals to send him away, but the D’Karon magic needed a target, and they had been whisked away with the rest of the world. It was inevitable, but eventually Lain’s agility and skill combined with the weapon that could counter his magic proved too much for Deacon. An attack hit home, driving deep into Deacon’s abdomen.
It should have been enough to kill him. But the rule of death was presently repealed. Deacon stumbled. He wheezed. But he had enough of his wits left to conjure a blast to knock Lain back. The wizard stumbled. He withdrew the sword. His body felt cold, but he had what he needed to ensure the weapon would no longer be a factor. A swirl of earth magic split the ground beneath him. He dropped the weapon into the crevasse and sealed it away.
“You…” Deacon coughed. “You did well. But you are through now.”
Lain’s fierce gaze flicked to the sky. Deacon didn’t need to look. The others were already finding their way back.
“It doesn’t matter,” Deacon said. “I can already feel my strength returning. You’ve lost your weapon. You can’t counter my magic any longer. You don’t know how to work the sigils. You have no time to try. And death is no concern here. What good is an assassin in a world where no one can die?”
Lain’s gaze flicked aside again. “There are worse things than death.”
Deacon had trained all his life to think deeply and think clearly. He could maintain maddeningly complex networks of enchantments and spells in his head simultaneously. He could recall deep and nuanced mystic interactions and weave them together in moments. But when it came to thinking swiftly and decisively, he was nothing compared to Lain.
The malthrope dove aside. Deacon abandoned the more potent and more easily dodged projected magics, seeking instead to summon something more direct. His magic began to swirl about Lain as the malthrope’s feet struck the ground. After three strides, Lain must have been wracked with pain from the spell already, but he continued on. There was the glint of steel in his hand. Deacon added some hastily hurled bolts of energy. Lain deftly dove between them, rolled, and continued his sprint. Finally, Deacon realized the flash of steel he’d seen was the dagger Ayna had wielded against him. This realization struck him a moment before the blade did.
The force of the blow and Lain’s charging weight knocked Deacon to the ground. The blade had found his heart. Under its mystic influence, the twisted, chaotic form Deacon had taken on began to be wicked away.
#
Myranda and Myn and Ivy were the first to reach the island of reality they had been cast away from. Having had to navigate oblivion once already, finding their way back was swift. The others were already visible in the distance. Myranda’s hands were trembling as she dropped down from Myn’s back. A friend and ally she had lost years before was back. And he had her husband pinned to the ground with a blade. Even the small mercy of the nearly unrecognizable distortion of Deacon’s features had finished dropping away. It was simply him. Blooded. Burned. Defeated. And struggling as the release of death refused to come.
“Myranda…” Deacon murmured in a ragged voice. “I… I’m sorry…”
“Don’t talk,” Myranda said, crouching beside him. She looked up to Lain and touched the grip of the dagger. “I’ve got him,” she said softly.
The assassin nodded and stood. He looked to Ivy. The music sigil slipped from her fingers and reverted to its original form as it crunched into the snow.
“Lain…” she whispered.
She rushed to him and wrapped her arms around him, sobbing uncontrollably. Myranda fought to keep her eyes on her stricken husband.
“I’ve made a terrible mess of things…” Deacon wheezed.
“You weren’t in your right mind.”
He shook his head. “No excuses. Listen… to set things right…” He held out a hand. The air beside him rippled, and a pair of semicircular fragments tumbled down. “The death sigil. It needs to be repaired. The spell can’t be completed until they are whole again.”
“Not before you are healed,” she said.
“Listen. Anyone can manipulate the sigils. Control their power. But only chaos magic can alter them. Break them. Repair them. Summon them. That… affliction is chaos. It is how the spell was cast.”
“It’s gone now.”
He shook his head again. “My shadow.”
She looked to the mote of black beneath him. It was in his shape, but twisted and ghastly. It had the same unnatural shape and motion that Myranda had long ago learned to distrust. The same sort of cold mockery of form that clung to anyone under the influence of one of the D’Karon generals. The shape was too perfectly, too precisely as Myranda remembered it. The only thing lacking was the cold certainty in its motions. This was Epidime.
“No… It can’t be him. You survived the mark until you cast the spell. He couldn’t have been in control of you.”
“He wasn’t. I left him in the cave. But I can feel his mind now. It is him… an empty, wild version of him, but it is him.” He smiled weakly. “Perhaps he infected me with a slice of himself. Perhaps chaos itself was what spawned him. I would dearly love to solve the riddle. But time is short. He is still clinging to me. I can still repair the pieces. Bring them to me.”
“Can we trust him?” Ayna said, buzzing with Calypso beside her.
Myranda took her marked hand from the dagger and touched it to his face. Though the shadow shuddered and recoiled, Deacon was unhurt. The mark spared him. It meant a great deal. It meant this was truly Deacon, and it meant that the actions that had marked him as an enemy of the Chosen were not his own, but the work of that wretched creature clinging to him.
“So long as that thing isn’t in control, he can be trusted,” Myranda said. “Bring me the pieces.”
Calypso gathered up the halves of the death sigil. Ayna swirled her wind to collect the nearly complete space sigil and the entirely intact gateway aspect that was removed from it. Ether crackled up to the island of reality. She looked upon Deacon’s stricken body, then turned to Lain. Myn had thrust her head between Ivy and the assassin, great tears rolling down her face as he gently stroked her brow.
“I knew you would find a way,” Ether said. “You always did. You always will.”
“What is all of this? What has happened?” Lain asked.
“You’ve been plucked out of time,” Ether said. “You’ve been dead for years. In the moment I pulled you from—”
“I had already decided to give my life to protect you all from Bagu,” Lain said.
Ivy pulled reluctantly away. Myn did the same. Ether stepped up and gently caressed Lain’s cheek. She couldn’t hold back the tide of tears. “I wanted you back. But you aren’t. Not really. You are a stolen moment. A memory given form. You can’t stay.”
“I wouldn’t want to. I have a job yet to be done,” Lain said.
“Then… then he’s going?” Ivy said, sadness coiling about her. “We are going to lose him again?”
“He’s already been lost. There’s no changing that.” Ether had a genuine, heartsick vulnerability in her expression. “But at least this time we can say goodbye.”
Ivy tackled him in a tight hug. Ether embraced them both. Myn pulled the group to her in a single-pawed hug.
“Y-you need to know,” Ivy said, voice cracking with emotion. “Sorrel! Sorrel and the twins made it. They found more like us, Lain. There are more malthropes. A whole society. They had their trials, but they are still there, and they are strong. It’s so beautiful, Lain. And they’re your family.”
“The war is over,” Ether said. “The world is at peace.”
“The slaves are free,” Myn rumbled.
“It’s all because of you, Lain.” Ivy sniffled. “You did it.”
“Then my life was worth something,” Lain said. “No need for tears. This is the best I could have hoped for. It is what I always meant to achieve. All that remains is for me to return to my final task.”
Ivy reluctantly pulled away.
“I love you, Lain,” she whispered. “We all love you. And we always will. The world will never forget you.”
The others released him. Lain looked to Myranda. Each offered a solemn, respectful nod. The moment allowed for nothing more.
“Touch the sigil,” Deacon instructed. “It will be enough to send you back.”
Lain silently turned and stepped to the sigils circling the sword. As though in salute of his sacrifice, the array rotated to present him with the proper piece. He held out his hand.
And he was gone.
The weight of the moment didn’t have time to linger. His job was done, but theirs remained.
Deacon was fitting the fragments of the space sigil together. The landscape around them smoothly shifted from the mountainside to the icy field they had begun their battle in.
“The pieces fit. It is too much of a risk to break the sigil again to restore the gateway aspect. Just”—he coughed—“return it to the sword. Together or apart, it will serve its purpose, so long as it isn’t shattered. And do the same when I fit the death sigil together again.”
“There must be some other way.”
“You remove the dagger and I’ll lose control,” he said. “You remove the affliction and I won’t be able to repair the sigils. It has to be this way, Myranda.”
“I’m not letting you go that easily. You have a son to raise,” she said sharply. “Do what you need to do. I’ll find a way to save you. What good is there in being Chosen if I can’t save the father of my child?”
He raised a hand to her cheek. “You can’t save everyone. It’s fate.” He pulled her close and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been a better man.”
Deacon took the two pieces of the death sigil. He touched them together. The pieces fused. Deacon released a final ragged breath and fell limp.
Calypso and Ether quietly took the restored sigils and replaced them. Myranda remained on her knees, eyes on Deacon’s lifeless body. Before the grief could work its claws past the anger and shock, a motion caught her eyes. The shadow, still wretched and twisted, was struggling. It tugged and pulled. With Deacon gone, the chaotic presence began to panic. It was a parasite without a living host. It tore free and peeled away, its form dark and jagged. It moved with the same unnatural motion as Epidime, and like the D’Karon creature, it attempted to seize control of a new host. The blackness curled about Myranda. It contacted her for only an instant before her mark seared it away. This was precisely the sort of otherworldly demon Epidime had been, but it was empty and feral, lacking the cool calculation of the monster she knew.
Abandoning her, it streaked toward the other Chosen. One by one their marks forced it away. Then it came to Ayna.
“The mark. Someone put her in contact with the mark!” Myranda called. “If that thing truly is Epidime, or something like him, it will seize control of her.”
Already the fairy was shuddering and twitching. “Epidime…” she whispered, in a voice that was not her own.
Calypso acted quickly. She grabbed the Kenvard coin from the ground again and snatched Ayna out of the air. She clapped the icy coin against the tiny, struggling creature. Ayna shrieked in anger and pain.
Myranda rushed for the still-rotating sigils and pulled the gateway sigil free. It had but a single purpose, to open the door of this world to another. With her fingers wrapped around the spoked wheel, Myranda offered a single flex of her influence. Instantly, a portal opened. The ball of darkness that formed above the sword rippled and roiled.
The black demonic wisp curled from Ayna’s tiny body. It tried to worm its way up Calypso’s, but Myranda reached out with her marked hand and caught it like a squirming eel. It squealed in her grip and tried to pull free. She thrust her fist into the darkness she had summoned and released it.
In the brief instant she was in contact, Myranda had felt the tug of the void, as though it were hungry for her. That same otherworldly hunger tore at the squirming black mass. It shrieked as it was drawn toward the darkness. Tendrils and claws burst out of the writhing shape. One of them slashed at Myranda. It struck and hooked the gateway aspect. The other slashed the time rune, setting it in rapid motion. The black void shifted to brilliant white. Ether scrambled to correct the whirling rune. The demon’s grip was strong. One moment it seemed that it would pull itself free. The next it seemed that it would pull Myranda after it. Myn wrapped her tail about Myranda and held her tightly. The tug-of-war continued. Finally, with a brilliant flash of light, the gateway aspect shattered in the demon’s grip. It produced a final, agonized wail and flailed for something to grab hold of. Its claw made sizzling contact with the Sword of the Chosen, tearing it from its place.
With its removal, the sigils began to vanish. The demon was drawn away. The portal closed. The sword rattled to a rest on the ground.
Ivy stared in disbelief at the fallen weapon. “Is it over?” she said.
Myranda turned to where Deacon lay, motionless and growing cold. She narrowed her eyes. “No. It isn’t over yet.”
She dropped to her knees and pulled the blade from his chest. Little blood came. His heart was not beating.
“Myranda,” Ether said. “It was his fate.”
“I’m through letting fate have its way,” she affirmed. She placed her hand over the wound and held out her other. Her staff darted to her grip.
“His spirit is gone,” Calypso said.
Myranda shut her eyes. Her crystal flared. The wound on his chest slowly closed. She dumped all the strength she had left into him. Gradually, his body became whole, healthy, but vacant. The easy part was done. Next came the hard part. Fortunately, she’d traveled this path before.
“Ayna. Get him breathing.”
“He is dead, Myranda,” Ayna said.
“Keep air going into and out of his lungs. And do the same for me if I stop breathing. You are the highest master of wind magic. It should be simple. Calypso. Keep his blood flowing, and mine.”
“It won’t do any good if there is no mind or soul.”
“I will provide the soul. Ether, I need you to guide me back.”
“I shall make myself visible at whatever distance you require,” Ether said.
#
The world washed away as Myranda sank into as powerful a focus as she could muster after the day’s trials. Surrounded by such smoldering and intense souls, the vacant shell before her was a chilling reminder of how far gone Deacon was. She knew his spirit better than any other. It had drifted far, but it was not yet beyond her reach.
She stretched her mind and spirit. Her consciousness slipped further and further. The cold, unsettling, and far too familiar sensation of her spirit slipping free of her body followed soon after. She was, once again, on borrowed time. She didn’t care. She set her mind on the half-
felt point in the distance and pursued. The world lay far below her now, its people little more than points of dim light in an icy expanse. Above, Deacon grew more distant. He became more difficult to pursue. As had happened once before, a golden light and irresistible force swelled above her. It threatened to blot Deacon’s spirit out. Myranda didn’t allow herself to look away. She wouldn’t lose someone like this. Not again.
Myranda forced herself further and further from her physical body. The force above that was separating her from what she was now certain was the weakening spirit of her beloved became more difficult to resist.
“You won’t keep him. I won’t let you have him. Not yet,” she demanded.
She could feel her strength, already taxed by battle, draining away. She knew that if she let that strength dwindle too far, there would be no returning to her body. If that happened, she would have sacrificed her life. If she didn’t turn back soon, she and Deacon would both be gone. Righteous fury spurred her forward. She would not fail. She would not be denied.
The force ahead of her relented. She surged up to meet the ember of strength that remained of Deacon. Around them, she felt a presence. More than one. A circle of wills that dwarfed her own. Each was endlessly powerful. Each was needle sharp in its focus. Myranda felt as though she were surrounded by a ring of suns, too bright to look upon directly. Potent enough to threaten to snuff out her meager existence. She took the hand of the afterimage of her beloved. When she tried to pull him back, he would not budge. It was as if he was tethered, chained to this point in the plane. Deacon was their prisoner. They both were on trial.
“Give him back to me,” Myranda demanded.
The wills around her remained impassive.
“Have we not done everything that was demanded of us? Have we not protected your world for you? Fought your battles? Drove off your rivals? Haven’t we endured endless war while you waited until your rules were broken before allowing us to fight? Haven’t we picked up the tattered leftovers of our kingdoms and stirred them to new life?”
She tugged at him. They still wouldn’t release him.
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