by James Duvall
Another hour went by before the warp singer finally stopped in the seclusion of a quiet glen, hedged on all sides by tall evergreens. The entrance was a narrow corridor through rock, which the warp singer slipped lithely through. Sapphire lurked in the passage, looking out through the gap with her belly pressed to the ground and her wings flattened across her back. For some reason the mist did not pervade the glen like the rest of the mistwood. It crept in at the edges, spilling over rocks like waterfalls that never reached the ground.
The warp singer approached a sheer rock wall and raised her lantern to study it. She waved her claw over it and the surface began to shimmer like glass. With a single stride she was gone, disappeared from the world as though by the break of day. Sapphire wasted no time, emerging at a quick pace with her belly low to the ground, wings ready to fly should the warp singer return. The light from the portal began to fade.
Sapphire stopped, looking toward the fading portal and then back toward Nobri. She did not know where it might take her.
If it brought her here, it can bring me back, she reasoned, studiously ignoring that she had no concept of how the portal might be activated without the mythical creature's help. Cautiously she drew closer. The light continued to fade. She reached out to touch it. The light brightened to its previous level, startling her back toward the entrance to the little glen. Gradually the light began to fade again. With another prod it brightened, opening once more. Sapphire took a deep breath and stepped through.
Until that day Sapphire had never stepped through a real portal. She'd never even seen a real portal before. The spells to produce them were well beyond the most skilled of the bridgers and the knowledge needed to weave them together into one stable transit were locked in the university archives, out of reach of an enterprising luminarian mage. It was not at all like passing through a gate. There was no relocating involved there, simply a hole in the shardwall pried open by virtue of the gate's power. Magically sensitive creatures like luminarians often felt a little tingle of energy when passing through. The sensation of stepping through the portal was a hundred-fold greater, as though lightning were crawling through her veins. Sapphire felt as though she had lunged off a great precipice and her wings refused to open. Inertia, moment, a sensation of raw, unbridled speed as she whipped through a soundless void. She found herself breathless on the other side, standing in a quiet and crumbling courtyard, stars glimmering above. All the world was still.
As the rush of inertia left her, Sapphire could think of only one thing: the warp singer. She couldn't see the creature anywhere, only empty city streets. Much too empty. There were no lights in the windows and adventurous weeds grew up in places where hooves and boots should have trampled them into oblivion. Quietly Sapphire made her way along the road, passing old stone buildings, most of which were still intact. The architecture felt old to her, even older than the most ancient parts of Cahen. The city was built upon a hill and at the center, on the highest point, rose a white tower. Taller than Havek Tower. Taller than...
“What is this place?” Sapphire asked, half-expecting Dawn to answer.
“It's the tallest tower I've ever seen,” his voice said, making her jump. Sapphire looked over at the image that had formed next to her. She sighed and did not address him. Still he followed after her.
There were no torches here, anywhere. No lamps on the road, no braziers cheerfully glowing on the corners or even laying cold and dormant. This was a problem for her. What kind of city didn't have lights? Could this place really be so old that there was not even torchlight to guide them down the streets at night? It didn't make sense.
“The architecture is too elaborate for a city without lights,” Sapphire commented as she passed beneath a carved marble archway into a garden.
“You're not paying attention to the lamps,” Dawn's image answered.
“I am. There aren't any. There's just...” Sapphire froze. There were no lamps in the traditional sense, but she had been looking for what she had been expecting to find. She hurried to the edge of the garden and looked down the street. Thin stone columns stood along the side of the road, evenly spaced every dozen feet or so. They weren't lamp posts, but there were clear bits of crystal atop each of the rods. Sapphire looked up at the one closest to her. She had to climb up on one of the flower beds to reach. Dawn's image hovered on the other side of the gem.
“You know what that is...” he said, leading her thoughts like a teacher with a student on the brink of understanding.
Sapphire reached out to it, tapping the surface with a dark cobalt talon. It pulled on her the same way the Arlorian Focus did, but to a much smaller degree. She surrendered a touch of magic to the gem and it lit up with a pleasant white light.
“...brightstone!” Sapphire blurted out, barely able to contain her excitement. There were brightstone lamps all along the road. Genuine brightstone, too, glowing brighter than the cheap glowstone substitutes made from quartz. The garden itself boasted a dozen. There was a king's wealth in brightstone here, unmolested for what had to have been at least a thousand years. This made even less sense. Someone would have taken them by now. This was the kind of fortune that brought people like those sky pirates to the Lost Islands.
Slowly Sapphire found her attention drawn back to the high tower. “This is the sacred city...” she said, her voice low and reverent. She looked down at the ground beneath her and lifted a paw off of it, stepping back to inspect where she'd just trod. Thin blades of grass poked up between crumbling paving stones.
“The virtue of magic has preserved this place,” Dawn observed, voicing Sapphire's own thoughts. Exposure to thousands of years of wind and rain and treasure hunters should have eroded the city much more severely. Alsimor stood in defiance of the progress of time and the world that had forgotten it.
Sapphire continued up the road with Dawn's image at her side. Twice she had to remind herself that it was not actually him, and she wished it would go away. It brought her little comfort, serving as a reminder of the many days it had been since she had spoken to him. She looked back at the trailing phantom and there on the streets of the sacred city, she felt more alone than she ever had. As though sensing her pain, the image of him stopped and looked at her with sorrowful eyes.
“He loves you,” Dawn's image said.
“I know,” Sapphire answered softly. Mercifully, the image faded.
Ahead was the white tower, the warp singers, and the greatest hope she had for Dawn's mortality. This was the place where the legends said Alshim the Wise had stood in defiance against the tyranny of his brother Dulshim. The city would have fallen that day, were it not for the intervention of the warp singers.
The closer Sapphire came to the tower, the more she could feel the presence of magic in the air around her. For a while she thought it was some enchantment, whatever was keeping the stonework from eroding away, but it was less refined than that, raw energy loose in the air. The novelty of this might have been lost on a lesser practitioner, but Sapphire could appreciate the elevated ambient levels.
Sapphire paused at the base of an old fountain and summoned her Arlorian Focus. Power glowed within like captured starlight. The gem floated before her on its misty halo, turning lazy circles and pulsing white like the slow and steady beating of an ancient heart. The focus was fully charged, a task that should have taken her several more weeks, finished in the span of a few hours on the streets of Alsimor.
Experimenting with a simple barrier spell, Sapphire found that Alsimor's ambient power could replenish the focus faster than her own draw down of the reserves. This was a feat she had never accomplished even in the relative abundance of Havek Shard. The barrier made the world around her shimmer as though viewed through a lens of flowing water. Sapphire let the barrier fade. Before her, a brightstone lamp stood unlit.
Why isn't it charged...?
There was more than enough ambient magic to sustain all of the brightstone lamps, yet for some reason none of them were lit
. Closer to the tower Sapphire found the lamps in higher numbers, but still all were unlit. Dawn would know more about brightstones. She made a note to ask him about that when at last they spoke again.
Eventually Sapphire came to the center of the city. Nearer to the white tower the residences grew more lavish, multistory buildings with servant's quarters, stables, and gardens, many of which had been planted with fruits and vegetables which Sapphire was keen to sample. It had been far too long since she had a good mouthful of juicy citrus. Raw onions were not appetizing on their own, but had a habit of lasting a good long while once they were out of the ground. Sapphire chewed on the juicy pulp of a tangerine as she stuffed her bag full of onions, potatoes, and more of the sweet tangerines.
The luxury homes ended at the city's heart. A road of white paving stones formed a ring around the white tower which rose from an island in the center. There was a single bridge from the ring to the island and from the edge Sapphire could see the river flowing beneath it and south over the edge of a cliff. It was not far from there to the shimmering shardwall. It was deep purple here, eerily reminiscent of the warp singer's eyes when she slew the Harvester.
I should thank her for that, Sapphire thought as she crossed the bridge. The doors to the white tower were open before her. Judging by its height and the windows, Sapphire estimated there were seven levels. Flying up to the roof, Sapphire found a small orchard. She landed among the trees and found, to her surprise, that nearly every tree was a different species from all the rest, though all were fruit-bearing. There were oranges, tangerines, nectarines, plums, apples of all colors, and other fruits she did not recognize.
Just beyond the orchard was a set of stone stairs, leading up to a small dais circled by stone arches. Statues of luminarians guarded the entrance, tall specimens with their heads held high. The arches were exquisitely carved, smooth as glass to the touch and white like fresh milk. The central archway had been altered, however, bearing a crudely carved inscription in old holharren.
Ihsa fahrth ehr salyis ahlin
“I believe the sun yet rises,” Sapphire translated. There was a soft purple light glowing beyond it, beckoning Sapphire to ascend to the top of the dais. As she crested the steps she saw the source of the light. It was a songshard, yet not; to call it a songshard was to call a mountain a rock. The violet gem spun slowly on its axis, floating a few inches off the ground and rising over Sapphire's head. So much magic resided within the gem that it took physical form, pouring from the font as soft white mist that pooled at the base and spilled off the dais like a thinning fog.
A faint glowing image hung in the air before it, a luminarian, not much older than Sapphire herself. She was transparent and had purple markings on her wings but she lacked the size of the warp singers and her tail had no blades. Like Sapphire and all her flight, she was melodian. Her neck was raised, but her head hung down, her eyes forever closed in death. The ghostly image was familiar to Sapphire in some way but she could not immediately recall. Curiously Sapphire stepped a little closer to it, lowering her head a little to look up at it so that she could see the image's face. Her chest showed a grievous wound, but her face bore a faint smile.
“Arya...” Sapphire felt a little chill run through her body, her next breath coming quick and shallow. A very similar stone statue hung over the elder's home back in Cahen. The old priest also had one, but these were of course only crude stone renditions. Somehow in the translation they had preserved that soft smile but they had lost the little imperfections in her fur and feathers that made her all the more real here.
Flapping wings sent Sapphire lunging for cover behind the massive violet crystal. She pressed her back against it, tucking her wings tight around her. Heavy paws thudded along the roof, drawing closer to the dais where Sapphire was hiding. Carefully she twisted her head to peer around the crystal, pressing her paws against the ground very slowly so as not to make a sound. She could see him approaching through the misty haze pouring over the gem. He was bigger than the one she'd been following. Much bigger. Broad-shouldered and marked with the same white and purple colors as the female. His long tail bore two sinister blades, curved like the Reaper's scythe. He stopped at the base of the stairs, reaching out with his forepaw and grasping at the edge of the first step. He ran his paw along it before swiveling his head to point back up toward the crystal. It was then that Sapphire saw the thin strip of violet cloth tied across his eyes.
He's blind...
Taking careful steps, Sapphire eased away from the crystal. The blind warp singer mounted the stairs quickly. Sapphire froze in her tracks. He was only a few paces away now, standing before the image of Arya. He cocked his head slightly, ears raised. Sapphire felt her muscles had turned to stone. Icy chills crawled up her limbs and like tendrils of ice beneath the skin, threatening to choke the courage from her heart like strangling vines.
The warp singer started moving again, walking around the side of the crystal opposite from Sapphire. Stirred to motion, Sapphire tried to match his pace, circling the crystal the same direction as him to keep it between the two of them. Anxiously she stole glances toward the edge of the roof, telling herself that if she could quietly reach the side she could glide away, undetected.
They had traded places now, Sapphire standing before Arya's hovering image and the blind warp singer studying the ground behind the crystal. The soft light cascading off the crystal pooled around his paws and draped briefly over his head. For a moment, Sapphire thought she could see a glow through the aura. Then the blind one lifted his head, his nose pointed directly at her. Through the crystal's aura Sapphire could see his eyes, burning brightly through the blindfold. For a moment they were touched with surprise, then his brow furrowed in rage, light-lined pupils flaring.
Sapphire's world slowed to a crawl. She could hear her heart pounding through her ears like distant rolling thunder. Her body felt a thousand miles away from herself. She could hear nothing, feel nothing, but she could see. She saw the warp singer's lips tug back to reveal his teeth, saw his muscles bunch as he started toward her. His claws scraped at the stony ground, the smoky aura of magic flowing around his paws and then coming back together behind them. He bore down on her, his face twisted in rage, eyes brimming with a hatred unmatched by anything she had ever witnessed. She didn't remember thinking about running. Her only thought pounded through her head: I am going to die.
She blinked once. In the fraction of a second before her eyes reopened, the warp singer lurched forward. Sapphire surged to motion. The edge of the roof rushed toward her, blades of grass passing beneath her in a blur. She reached the edge and plunged over without opening her wings. Instead she tucked them tight against her sides and dove like a falcon, plunging into a deep ravine. Wind roared around her. She turned upward to skim the surface of the river and rose again on the other side of the bridge.
She did not need to look to know the warp singer was seconds behind her. She reached for her Arlorian Focus and found that the usual few seconds it took to summon the gem each took a century. She wondered what Torch would do in a situation like this. She wondered if she would ever see her mother again. Poor Amethyst deserved better than two cubs gone to the creator before her. She had a desperate thought and turned skyward, flying straight upward into the starry night sky. In her mind's eye she could see her mother, weeks after Torch had gone and fearing the worst for him. Flint at her side, doing his best to comfort her but the worry in his eyes betraying the thoughts they all knew to be the truth but feared to speak of, for that might make it real. For now there was a fool's hope, and that tiny ember was the only light left in the world for the small family over the alchemist's shop.
No. I won't do that to them.
Tucking her wings as she turned, Sapphire let her momentum carry her. She focused all the power she could scrape together, silvery comets rocketing from her focus. The warp singer had followed her, drawn to a point directly beneath her by her upward trajectory. Comets pummeled him acros
s the chest and shoulders, slowing him. The others showered down around him, falling glittering out of sight far below. In an instant he vanished, purple light rushing past Sapphire like wind. Purple light flashed above her and she looked up as she began to fall. Somehow he was above her now. He poured out his hatred in a multitude of deep violet fireballs, the wrath of heaven itself. So shocked was she that she barely managed to draw a defensive shield up around herself, crackling as thin as a wish and desperate as a midnight prayer. Fireballs burst against the thin barrier, threatening to drain every ounce of strength from the focus.
Sapphire dove toward the ground again, fireballs accumulating in her wake. She thought of Amethyst again, gently stroking her mane, comforting the little cub that could not understand why her brother had not come home. She could hear her mother's soft voice singing, the words quiet beneath a backdrop of explosions as fireballs rocketed into the ground all around her, cratering the earth and leaving smoke and flame all along the river banks as she twisted and arched through the air above it. The sky was alive with death, filled with thick smoke and broken ground.
I'll be your candle on the dark road ahead,
and I'll be your lantern when the stars have all fled.
Ducking beneath the bridge again, Sapphire twisted wildly, ensuring she did not come out from beneath it on the same trajectory. As she rose above the edge of the ravine she saw the female from before, still holding her lantern and looking up in surprise. As Sapphire shot past, Lantern spread her wings to take to the air. Staying near to the ground Sapphire raced around the base of the tower, looping around it twice in quick succession. She hoped to confuse them so she might split off in an unexpected direction and steal a few seconds.
I'll be your lighthouse on the stormy night sea,
and I'll be your moonlight on a dark winter's eve.
With Lantern in the fight, she could not hope to overpower her attacker. Stopping to fight one would leave her open to another. On her second pass of the tower, a third warp singer stepped out from the doorway, confusion on his face. Sapphire flared her wings to avoid crashing into him at full speed. She passed over his head so closely she felt her paw brush against his wing. Pulling up cost her dearly. Speed bled away as she rocketed upward against the backdrop of unfamiliar stars and a full moon stained violet by the distant shardwall.