by C. M. Carney
“There is nothing to be sorry for. You could not have known.” With a flick of his wrist the black fog took Gartheniel’s mind once more. “None of you could, which is why only I am worthy to lead the fight against the Prime.”
Myrthendir removed the stasis cube containing the arboleth egg from his bag and stared at it for several moments. He flicked the top open and the larva inside the leathery sack launched a spike of psionic force at the elf lord. He grimaced, letting the psychic assault wash over his mental defenses. His mouth turned up in a viscous sneer as the Prime mind realized the ineffectiveness of its attack. The larva’s tentacles spasmed in terror.
“Yes,” Myrthendir said as he bent the larva’s mind to his own. The mental scream ended, leaving a hole of silence in the aether. “Now you understand that none of your kind are a match for me.”
“But I am,” came the voice of the one Myrthendir had once loved above all, even himself. The elf lord turned to see Sillendriel walking towards him on light feet, flanked by the paladins and warborn he had sent to fetch her, including the four bearing the black fog cube.
“My love,” Myrthendir said rising from the throne, replacing the stasis cube in his satchel and turning to her.
“I am sorry I failed you. I should have known. I should have tried to help you.”
“There is nothing to be done my love. This is what I am meant to be, an evolution, a perfection of this base form. I’m sorry I did not let you see the truth of it.”
“I feel what drives you. I have seen why you loathe the Prime.” She held a hand out to him. “Please, let me help you.”
“You know nothing.”
“But I do, my love. I know when your soul journeys into its reverie you do not relive your past selves as the rest of us do. You relive only one life. The life when you were an illurryth.”
Myrthendir hissed in shock and anger. Nobody could see another elf’s reverie, it was a solace stronger than even dreams. In a rage he fired a bolt of aetherial magic towards his one-time love. With a casual flick of her wrist she turned the attack aside.
Myrthendir’s eyes went wide, but he quickly recovered. “Interesting, you’ve removed the walls Lassendir and your mother built inside your mind. The world must seem a vortex of chaos to you now.”
“I am at peace with all that was, is and will come. Let me help you find peace.”
“I have purpose, I have no need for peace.” He sent another volley of magical bolts her way, yet once again she swatted them aside with no more effort than a man swatting at a fly.
“You are not to blame for what you did as illurryth.”
“Stop!” The elf lord yelled.
“You are not responsible for the battles you won against our people. You did not slaughter innocents. You were a victim, just as much as they were, a hero, taken by a great evil, not the evil that took the hero. You did not do those things.”
“Then why do I remember doing them?” Myrthendir’s voice was that of a man begging for forgiveness, for absolution, but he would not forgive himself.
“That is the great evil of the Prime.”
“They will return, unless I stop them.”
“Then let me help you. Let all of us help you.”
“It will not work. We are too fractious, too individual. It makes us weak.”
“It also gives us our greatest strength.”
For the briefest of moments doubt twined into Myrthendir's mind, but then he buried it. “I am sorry my love, but I cannot abandon my great purpose. Like you I have seen the future. I am the engine of a great evolution. I will push the Realms to the next phase of their existence, no matter how many people I must make grist for the mill of change.”
Sillendriel hung her head in resignation. “Then I must do what I can to stop you.”
“You cannot. Even without their limits on your power, you are no match for me.”
“That would be true if they were the only checks upon my power.”
Myrthendir’s eyes squinted as a twinge of worry grew inside him, a sensation that only grows to an itch if one pays it heed. He refused to be distracted and sent a pulse of thought into the Iron Crown. Inside the cube the buzzing grew fierce as the black fog awoke once again.
“You are bluffing, and it will do you no good,” he said in a cold voice as the streams of particles exploded from inside the cube, urged on by Myrthendir’s fears. “Take solace though. I will keep you by my side, always.” The black fog spun into a tight, thin lance and then punched downwards.
*****
With barely a glance in the fog’s direction Sillendriel erected a potent telekinetic shield and the black fog flowed over it, darkening her entire world. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for what would come, sat and closed her eyes, exorcising the horrors of the world from her consciousness. Her astral form, her true soul self, flowed from her body and flew. It passed through the barrier of solid thought and through the black fog.
She stood before Myrthendir and raised an astral hand up to his face, not willing to touch him, for fear that he would sense her presence. She wanted to help him, but sympathy now would lead to the suffering of untold millions. She closed her hand and expanded her mind upwards and outwards.
She was unable to cleanse the infection that had taken her people, but she could stall it, slow it, just enough for Gryph to stop Myrthendir. If he still lives. The future, always so certain, had become a world of mists and fog, and all paths leading into the future were shrouded. She was a woman suddenly gone blind and deaf walking a once familiar path without eyes or ears to guide her. All she had now was her faith. I must trust in my visions. I must trust in Gryph.
If the man Gryph was not on the bridge cradling the body of his dead friend, then all was lost. He was the one tendril of light in an ocean of darkness. Her soul form passed through the walls of the Spire and touched the trickles of life buried deep in its roots. Aurvendiel still lives, but how much longer?
She touched the thousands of souls below her, each one buried beneath the black fog. In her mind she expanded herself covering them all in her warmth and ease. The black fog screeched in rage like an animal reacting to pain and then she understood its true nature. He isn’t controlling them, he is becoming them. Soon there would be nothing left but Myrthendir.
How long before it becomes permanent?
She pulled all her will, all her strength and all her love into herself until it began a blinding singularity. Then she sent it outwards in every direction. Weapons stopped their attacks. Spells died on twining fingers. Buried minds remembered parts of who they were.
Below her everything paused. She soared over the bridge where thousands of her brothers and sisters were as rigid as statues next to another people, large men bereft of hair or ornament that she had never seen before. Deep inside these fierce warrior giants she sensed old souls, begging to serve their people.
Then she found Gryph cradling the body of the gnome Wick. Next to him stood another of the large men and a Thalmiir man clad in an armored automaton. The gnome woman stood over her lover, the dagger that had killed him flaring green in her hand, and buried beneath the fog she screamed.
Gryph, she sent. You must leave him. You must run. Gryph looked upwards and then around at the vast army paused in front of him. He stood, said something to his fellows and then sprinted down the bridge. Hurry. She sent.
*****
Myrthendir watched as the power of the black fog scoured at Sillendriel’s shield. He had no desire to hurt her, but he would allow no one, not even her, to sway him from his purpose. The millions of tiny motes pummeling against the telekinetic shield sounded like a hurricane made of sand.
She is powerful, he thought, impressed. But she can only resist for so long, and I am as patient as the stars. The paladins she’d taken from him ground to a halt, like a water wheel whose river had gone dry.
He grinned, thinking the burden of keeping her shield active required all her focus, but then he felt her
through the aether. She is everywhere. Realizing she had played him, his eyes snapped to the dome of mental force. The black fog pulled away, and she was there, sitting cross legged and peaceful, as if she had no care in the world.
He thrust outwards with his mind, trying and failing a dozen times to push himself into one of his thralls, but a field of calm and peace enveloped them all like a warm blanket wrapped over a sick child.
“No!” Myrthendir screamed and sent a wave of aetherial power at the dome. It shuddered and recoiled like a soap bubble, but held its shape, bouncing the power back at the elf lord, knocking him off his feet.
He stood once more, a wicked grin focusing his will. “This will not do.” He held his hands in front of him focusing his will into a single point. Aetherial magic was the ultimate power in the Realms, and it allowed Myrthendir to change the rules of the reality itself. He grunted with the effort and then expanded the point into a hole.
Every cell in his body screamed as power thrummed through him and he forced his will into the hole, expanding it slowly. She was there on the other side of the rift, mere inches from him. A sense of pride filled him. No one had ever resisted him so effectively, but like all the others she would soon succumb.
He pushed his will forward. He had defeated the Prime, become more than any before him, and he would let no one slow him. With a howl, he expanded the hole and stepped through into what remained of her small world. His breath was ragged from the effort and her eyes eased opened, gazing upon him not with hate and anger, but sympathy and love. Then she spoke.
“Stop this, I beg you.”
“I cannot. What I do, I do for all of us.”
“There will be no more us.”
He jerked backwards under the unexpected emotion, eyes wide. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply and drew his blade. He pulled his arm back, tip ready to plunge down into her. Her eyes did not plead, did not fear, they showed nothing but compassion and love. For the briefest of moments he hesitated, and she smiled. Then her eyes went blank.
With no further ceremony he thrust down, plunging the dagger into her chest.
42
Gryph’s world became small and made only of Wick. The gnome lay in an expanding pool of purple blood, his eyes staring without focus at everything and nothing. Tifala looked down on Wick as well, but the fleeting bits of emotion were gone, shrouded over by the power of the black fog.
The bastard won’t even let her grieve, he thought.
Her eyes turned towards him, swimming with the mites of the black fog. They held no sympathy, no warmth, no awareness she had just killed the man she loved. Gryph knew she would kill him as well. She drew green life energy into her blade once more and pulled her arm back, ready for a killing blow.
“I forgive you,” Gryph said, and then closed his eyes. He refused to add more pain to her heart by forcing her to watch him watch her. You don’t think any of you are surviving this, do you? a voice that may have been the Colonel’s or may have been his own, mocked from deep within. He smiled grimly as he waited for the sharp pain that would end this life.
It did not come.
He opened his eyes and saw Tifala, arm still raised high, her shimmering green sword still pointed at Gryph’s chest, but she was not moving, as if some outside force had frozen her body. Even her cold stare had become blank and distant.
Grimliir strode up in his goliath rig, followed by Errat. Both men were covered in blood but seemed otherwise unharmed. Grimliir reached down and tore the vines holding Gryph apart with ease, then helped him to his feet. Gryph nodded his thanks and retrieved his spear. Around them, the warborn and elves stood unmoving, rigid as statues.
“What is happening?”
“I do not know,” Errat said. “We were separated and thought we would soon die, but then they just stopped.”
“Something is blocking the black fog,” Grimliir said in a voice that sounded almost fearful.
“What could do that?” Gryph asked.
“I do not know,” the dwarf said, the whirring of his rig announcing his unease.
Gryph pointed at Tifala. “Secure her, this frozen state will not last.”
Grimliir nodded, and a nozzle protruded from his arm. Errat gently lifted her and turned her away from Wick’s body. Gryph allowed a brief smile to cross his face at the warborn’s small kindness. If somewhere deep inside she was aware, there was no need to further torture her by having her stare at her lost love.
Automaton webbing shot from Grimliir’s arm and bound Tifala hand and foot. She wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.
Gryph nodded and cast Animate Rope and reached out, searching for his length of spider silk he’d wrapped around Ovyrm. He sensed it, over the edge of the bridge, still wrapped around the xydai. He toggled open his Halo of Air interface and saw it was about to hit zero, which meant Ovyrm was still alive.
Gryph walked to the edge, and the rope twined upwards and around his arm. He pulled and ordered the rope to bring the adjudicator up. A moment later, with Errat’s help, he had the xydai on the bridge. He was alive and in the same comatose state as Tifala. Errat carried him to Tifala and Grimliir wrapped him in webbing.
Gryph knelt next to Wick and lifted him from the pool of blood. He set him down in the middle of the bridge, promising himself to return and bury his friend, if he survived. “I am sorry Wick, I failed you. I failed Tifala.” He held Wick for several moments before a distant voice intruded into his mind.
Gryph, you must leave him. You must run. It was Sillendriel. She was somehow holding the enemy at bay. He stood and looked at Errat and Grimliir. “Keep them safe.”
Run, Sillendriel said.
Without another word, Gryph turned and sprinted through the cadres of frozen warborn and elves. He had no idea how long the elf maiden could hold them and knew each moment might be his last, but there was nothing he could do but run.
Gryph ran like he had never run before.
*****
Sillendriel did not die, but her wound was mortal. The globe of telekinetic energy popped as her body slipped from Myrthendir’s blade. The small part of him that was still the second son of the Regent of Sylvan Aenor felt the smallest twinge of pain, but as he watched her blood stain the cool stone of the dais floor, this last bit of the man he had been faded like a wisp of smoke caught by an errant breeze.
He looked into her eyes and saw nothing. He turned his attention from the soon to be corpse and looked to the silent paladins. “Kill anyone who enters this chamber.” As expected the paladin gave no sign he had heard, but Myrthendir saw the infinitesimal mites swimming in the man’s eyes and knew the black fog still had him.
He walked up to the central trunk of Aurvendiel and traced a hand along the smooth wood of the tree. He sensed the smallest spark of life hiding deep within.
“You and I are likely the only ones who know she still lives my love,” he said over his shoulder to Sillendriel, neither expecting nor receiving a response. “But she is weak and soon she will fade forever.”
Myrthendir knelt next to a small hollow at the base of the tree and eased his hand inside. The fleeting energy was stronger here and nearly invisible motes came towards him like a faithful pup to its master’s hand. They flowed over him before retreating with spastic urgency.
“Yes, you know what I am,” he said, caressing the bark like a predatory lover.
He dug into his satchel and removed the stasis cube. He flipped the top open and pulled the now placid arboleth larva from inside. He held it before him and sensed the extension of his mind grow hungry in anticipation, but he held it back, assuring it of his dominance. He was the superior being now.