by Sever Bronny
The mist thinned to true black nothingness. His breathing intensified as it reminded him of that horrible sickness when he had arcanely overdrawn at the Antioc arena.
He glanced down at his lightning palm, trying to quiet his raging heart. He was not alone, he kept saying. They were out there, somewhere, he was not alone. As long as he at least had his palm light, he was not alone …
Another shape loomed from the darkness, lit by his lightning palm, which was now able to reach further into the void since there was no mist to diffuse the light. But this shape was gargantuan and moved.
The deepest guttural growl Augum had ever heard reverberated his innards. Two massive horns tilted in acknowledgment of his presence. A great hoof pawed the air.
The bull demon would have charged had it been on solid ground, crushing him like an ant, and his arcanery would have been useless against its monstrous size.
The guttural growl reverberated once more as the bull demon, rolling gently in the air, neared in the abyss. Augum, who slowly revolved in the opposite direction, his robe drifting about him lazily, reached out and secured a telekinetic hold on the demon, halting his silent spin. But doing so put him at the mercy of the demon’s own slow rotation, as if he was a rod sticking out from a gently hurtling mountain of muscle. It was a peculiar sensation. Not wanting to tempt fate, he telekinetically shoved himself away from the demon, and watched the great hulking mass disappear into the darkness, only to be replaced by that lonely nothingness.
Augum tried the Exot ring, to no avail. He tried shouting, accomplishing nothing except tiring himself out and going hoarse. He next attended to his grisly wounds. There was a nasty shoulder injury he wrapped with a piece of torn cloth he scavenged from his necrophyte robe, using the same trick to bandage up two deep cuts on both arms. The rest of him was covered with what felt like hundreds of small stinging cuts and bruises, but those he could live with.
The heart-thumping excitement from the fight eventually died down, yet he drifted on … and on … and on … until exhaustion overtook him, and he rested his eyes … only for a little while. At some point, floating in that vast void, his hand dimmed to darkness as he crossed the dream boundary.
Void
Quarrel, quarrel for the light. Know naught but darkness, should you lose the fight.
Augum startled awake in pitch-darkness, gasping anxious breaths, instantly aware of that odd weightless sensation, as well as a deafening silence. Something had bumped into him, something that had disturbed a horrible dream. He had been confined in a tight space, perhaps a coffin, for eons. Eons. And there had been a poem that he had kept hearing. And now he was awake in nothingness.
“Shyneo.” His palm crackled to life. He was amazed he could remember the spell, or even feel anything at all. His shoulder stung something fierce, and his floating body itself felt like a throbbing mass of sharp cuts. That tingling strangeness that came from nightmares was still with him. It coalesced in the anxious sweat on his brow, in the rough haphazard beat of his worried heart, in the hollowness that was his stomach.
How long had it been since his last meal? What day was it? What year was it?
A shape glinted in the dark nothingness, a jagged shape that slowly revolved while moving away from him. He captured it telekinetically, ceasing its lazy spin, and carefully brought it near.
“A shield,” he said to himself, conscious of how loud his own voice was. Every sound in this miasma of emptiness was magnified. His quiet thoughts were a scream, his palm a beacon fire.
The shield was large and of an ancient design. He blew a cloud of dust off, able to make out a skull within a circle, the symbol of Occulus.
How long had it been floating around in here? Surely it could not be the entire fifteen hundred years since Occulus’ reign … could it?
The thought made his chest tighten. He didn’t want to die like this, floating into starvation and thirst until he was a shriveled apple.
“This is not my tomb,” he said aloud, eager to hear his own voice, to matter, to exist. “You hear me? This is not my tomb—!”
“Yes it is,” came a sudden reply from behind him. But as much as Augum wriggled in the null gravity, he was not able to turn around. It took the recoil of him flinging the shield away into space, and even then his counter-spin did not stop until an opposing telekinetic force did it for him.
“That was amusing,” said a fiery guttural voice.
“He turned you into a revenant,” Augum said to burning Erika Scarson, her robe of flame a sun in space.
“Still stating the obvious, I see, sweetcheeks.” She chortled. “I would chastise you for making me wade through a swamp,” then idly glanced to her flaming fingernails. “But after becoming all fire, dirt and filth strangely no longer bother me. Everything just …” She made a fiery POOF gesture. “… burns away. It’s quite satisfying, actually.”
“What is this place?” He was stalling, and he knew that she knew it.
“Don’t know and don’t care. Your enemy is death. Mine is boredom.”
“What do you want?”
“Before I kill you—and believe you me, my daft little sneak, I will do it oh so slowly, to garner maximum satisfaction—I want to ask you a question. That spell you used in the arena, the one to defeat me, to send my own spell back at me … was it Reflect?”
Augum swallowed. “It was.”
There was the hint of a smile within the flames. “A rare spell you can only cast but once a day.”
A silent moment passed between them. Burning Erika floated across from Augum, holding him in a telekinetic grip so that he faced her. Stupidly, he was conscious of his necrophyte robe, which kept floating aimlessly, interfering in the light of his palm. He was about to die and this minor annoyance was what was on his mind.
“Are we ready, sugar?” Erika asked in a soft, fiery warble.
Augum took note of his sweaty palm, of the coarseness of the robe against his skin, of the hollowness of his stomach, and prepared to cast a certain spell he could use to great effect here, one he did not fear the side effects of in this vast nothingness.
He tilted his head at her, his voice calm, accepting. “I am.”
She immediately smacked her burning palms together. “ANNIHILO!” A giant fireball roared at him. In that brief moment after it left her hands, she raised her shield, perhaps anticipating him casting the Reflect spell. But he did not. Instead, he summoned his own shield of hardened black lightning. The fireball smashed into it. Flames licked around its edges as he was sent hurtling back.
“Centeratoraye xao xen!” he incanted.
Centarro infused his being, speeding his blood, sharpening his reflexes and focus to new heights. Flying backward away from that crazy woman into great nothingness, Augum never felt stronger, more aware, more alive.
As she telekinetically yanked at him from a distance, whipping him back in her direction, he smiled to himself.
The fight was on.
“Voidus lingua!” Erika spat, her fiery form floating closer in the vast black nothingness. Or perhaps it was Augum that was floating to her. Everything was relative here. Regardless, his Centarro-enhanced mind easily fended off the mind attack that would have seen him mute and unable to cast further spells. A proper introductory shot across the shoulder, as they say.
Augum next summoned his shield to ward off a double fireball, except this time he tilted the shield so that the fireballs glanced off it, sending him shooting in a downward direction relative to Erika. He used the momentum to telekinetically tether himself to her burning form, sending him flying in a great arc and keeping her disoriented, for she was unable to turn to face him as long as he maintained his grip. The pair of mortal enemies spun like orbiting stars in space—but only for a moment, during which Augum cast his next spell.
“Voidus vis—!” He pointed at Erika’s form, hoping the black darkness cloud stuck to her, but she blew right through it. Unfortunately, it seemed the spell could not be anc
hored to an object, but rather to space itself. About the only use the spell had was to demonstrate just how fast the pair of them were flying. Further, casting the spell had forced him to loosen his telekinetic grip upon her, and he began drifting further from her. She, on the other hand, having nothing to throw away or anchor herself to, was unable to turn to face him. Cleverly, she drew a star shape. A flaming elemental popped into existence before her, and she used it to orient herself in space, before shoving it aside. The fire elemental tumbled off in to nothingness.
Augum summoned the intricate mental components of a sharp spell and pointed at her. “FLUSTRATO!” but at that moment, Erika had pointed at him and spat, “Impetus peragro!”
Augum, mind blazing with Centarric awareness, instantly knew she had cast Battle Teleport, a quicker version of Teleport—and she had appeared behind him. He had no way to turn around, for there was nothing to orient himself against. Instead, he tried something he had never done before. Looping his left arm behind his back, he summoned his hard lightning shield, visualizing it protecting his backside—and not a moment too soon, for a monstrous fireball walloped into him. Because he was untethered in space, the hit was not as powerful as it would have been anywhere else. Instead, it sent him hurtling away from Erika.
“Where do you think you’re going, hmm, kiddo?” she snapped, yanking on him telekinetically. He allowed himself to whip back in her direction. She followed up with another offensive spell—a massive burning wall, which she summoned between the two of them.
Augum summoned his shield once more and curled up into a ball behind it. He whooshed through the flames, using the time to carefully draw a five-pointed shape while verbalizing the spell. “Summano element minimus.” His shield disappeared as a lightning elemental crackled into existence between himself and Erika, flying along at the same speed while beginning a gentle tumble.
“ANNIHILO!” Erika screamed, and the elemental blew apart in a roar of flame. Augum soared through that ball of fire and crackling lightning limbs. His only action was to yank at Erika’s burning waist, increasing his speed toward her.
Erika pointed at him. “Paralizo carcusa cemente!” but once more, he fought off her spell with his highly-trained Mind Armor.
“You little fiend … summano arma crax!” She made a fist and a massive fiery whip uncoiled from it. She flicked her wrist and the long burning viper snapped at him. But Augum, instead of summoning his shield, had made a Centarric calculation—and took the hit. The whip slapped him across the chest, scalding the robe and the flesh underneath. He ate the pain by gritting his teeth, and immediately smacked his wrists together.
“ANNIHILO!” He felt an instantaneous drain on his arcane reserves as a massive bolt of lightning slammed into Erika’s burning legs, sending her twirling end-over-end, and slowing his floating advance toward her. She yelped—but in surprise, not pain. The spell did little damage, and she laughed as she tumbled in space. But Augum had already expected this. She was, after all, a revenant with regenerative abilities. No, he had other plans.
Augum yanked on her telekinetically, careful to have done it on her feet as they soared backward over her head, adding to her flipping momentum, but maintaining his rough position relative to her. She twirled faster, and Augum yanked again, and she twirled faster still. This time, the yelp she made was tinged with queasiness.
Augum recalled his great-grandfather’s lesson to appreciate the many nuances of existence with Centarro. For a brief moment, as he spun her faster and faster, he felt an overwhelming gratitude suffuse his being. He did not know where it came from, or why, but he was … simply grateful. Grateful to be alive, to have seen what he had seen, to know who he knew … and to be in love. How he missed Leera already, how he longed to be near her, to hold her. And how he missed Bridget too, and Nana … and everyone else. Oh, if only he could know they were all right!
In that moment of Centarric perfection, he was one with the void, one with the darkness … and one with arcanery.
Erika was now spinning so fast she was a fiery blur that dry heaved between shrieks. It seemed even revenants got dizzy. Most importantly, she was unable to cast a spell. Augum could not help but appreciate the trap he had laid for her. Only in total weightlessness was such a trick possible. It was almost a shame no one was there to witness it. As he continued to spin her, carefully controlling his own movements through space by tethering himself to her spinning center, he felt the strength of Centarro slowly start to dissipate. Time was running out. He carefully drew himself near her for the final action.
“Summano arma.”
He carefully timed sticking his summoned lightning blade into the path of the spinning body, neatly severing her head. Her body instantly flamed out, sending two twirling and smoking husks in opposite directions to perhaps float on forever, much like Occulus’ shield.
As Augum rapidly succumbed to the imbecile-inducing side effects of Centarro, he wondered if he would see her again in shadow form. Absurdly, he castigated himself for not saying goodbye. Somehow, he should have said goodbye to her.
And thus, as he devolved into a dull cloud of random thoughts, gently tumbling in that inky forever-weightless void, he mumbled, “Goodbye, Erika … goodbye …” until speech failed him.
* * *
For once, coming to from the side effects of Centarro was a cozy affair, for his body had achieved equilibrium in that black eternity. Floating in nothingness, he felt absolutely still. It reminded him of the times he used to float in the river as a youth, with not a worry in the world. The only thing that bothered him were his wounds, the searing sensation across his chest inflicted by Erika, the gnawing sting of his shoulder from the fat walker bite, the many cuts bruises, and of course, his hollow stomach. Oh how hungry he was!
But if he ignored the pain, he was a pond leaf at rest under a black sky with no stars, a leaf at peace with itself.
But it could not go on. If he was floating free, with nothing to propel himself against, he would eventually die of thirst and hunger. Then he too would float forever, a shriveled husk.
He drew the Exot ring to his lips, voice cracking. “Contact Bridget Burns. Bridge, you there?” but again received no reply. His worry over what had happened to his friends increased to an anxious flutter.
Suddenly, like an underwater chasm, a gargantuan and dim rocky wall loomed in the distance, stretching on into his peripheral vision. It neared rapidly—the shock of just how fast he was going was enough to shrivel his stomach to a prune. If he didn’t figure out how to slow himself—and quickly—he’d soon be a meat pancake.
An idea came to mind, but he had to focus and time it just right, waiting until he was feet away from the speeding behemoth of rock.
“BAKA!” and felt his body jerk sharply, slowing just a touch. “BAKA!” he shouted again, shoving at the air while slowing his hurtle even more. “BAKA—!” he desperately shouted a third time, bracing.
“OOF!” Augum slammed into the rock, but had luckily slowed himself just enough to prevent injury, and tumbled leisurely along it.
“Close one,” he said to himself in the inky silence. But where was he? Now that he thought about it, he had no idea how to reference the behemoth. Was it a wall, ceiling or floor?
“Bizarre,” he muttered, examining the ancient surface. It was pure rock. No lichen, no moss, no nothing. Primordial. Raw.
“Guess I just got to pick a direction and go, huh?”
This was the easy part … and ultra fun. Augum began leapfrogging along the wall, using Telekinesis to propel himself at a rapid pace. When he got too close, he would gently shove the wall away, recoiling his body backward. When he got too far, he’d pull the wall—and thus himself—toward it.
As he soared along the primordial rocky surface, he extended his arms and pretended he was a bird that flapped its wings slowly, but then maintained them in a glide. After gaining a good speed, he balanced himself so that he flew along the surface at a distance of about twenty
paces at a time. It was marvelous, exhilarating perfection, and he shouted out in joy, temporarily forgetting his anxieties and fears and multitude of pains. Here he could fly. Here he was free.
And this went on for some time in the perfect silence, hours upon hours, until his muscles got sore from the constant micro adjustments necessary to maintain level flight. His lips had long dried by then and there was a stiffness to his bones. Time became meaningless, eternal. He could see himself going mad from it. It was too silent, too vast, too dark. Whatever cavern this was had to be absolutely massive, larger than any space he had ever occupied. And to think it was underground! Was it made by man, or a god? And the ancient arcanery required to make such an enormous space be weightless …
Suddenly Augum yanked at the rock and jerked himself to a stop. He had spotted something as he flew by. He telekinetically pulled himself along the rock until he returned to the spot, and brought his shining palm close.
It was a piece of ancient rope, strung along the ground, anchored now and then by iron prongs nailed into the rock.
Augum glanced up and down the rope. Both directions looked identical. He chose one and propelled himself along it, curious as to where it would lead.
The frayed rope, ever straight, led him along the wall, on and on and on. Now and then it joined another rope, the two ends tied together. Each rope was different, as if made by adventurers from eons past who knew what they would be facing. He pictured a group of desperate souls gliding along this very surface, a thousand years ago, for here, all remained as it was. The air was dry and still and listless. A perfect preservative.
A perfect tomb …
At long last, with Augum suffering a terrible headache from thirst, the rope ended. It was tied to an iron stake, beside which was a large round door made of iron-strapped planks. There was a crude handle on which he pulled, bracing his legs against the edge. The door took some yanking, for it had gotten stuck with time, but eventually popped open. He glanced back at the immeasurable void, feeling infinitesimally small, before floating inside—only to fall to the floor with a thud.