Legacy of the Blade: The Complete Trilogy

by Joseph J. Bailey

“Shift, Saedeus! Shift!”

  Alric’s words cut through my stupor as the ground fast approached in alternating kaleidoscopic flashes of open blue sky and bare brown earth.

  Emptying myself as Alric had shown me, I expanded outward and shifted.

  The world warped and transitioned, my mind broadening and expanding as my sense of self expanded.

  I pushed myself forward, attempting to stay my headlong rush toward the ground with a controlled, arcing descent.

  The world became absolutely dark.

  Laughter rang out within, filling my mind with rolling waves of sound.

  “Yes?”

  “Your descent was not quite gradual enough.”

  My awareness snapped back to my body.

  I became corporeal once more.

  And that was how, in mere moments, I managed to get myself buried in the earth beneath a field of battle as angelic beings fought for their survival with vile agents of Chaos.

  I had avoided one trap only to create another.

  I had to be the most skilled Empyrean Knight in all the realms.

  At least I did not faint.

  But the day was not yet done.

  What had befallen Ueryan and …loel…?

  Had the demon and its trap consumed them?

  Had they escaped and returned to Il’alen?

  Had they continued on to Kerraboer?

  Were they looking for me even now, risking further demonic attack on my behalf?

  Had they summoned reinforcements?

  Was the sky currently ablaze with their retribution?

  To answer these questions, if answer them I could, I first needed to escape from my present predicament.

  “Gather yourself and shift again.

  “You will be able to sense the way out.”

  I sighed, doing my best to relax.

  I was, it seemed, destined for success.

  I let my sense of self flow outward. My mind unfurled and with it, my body.

  Feeling the natural movements of energy around me and the increase in demonic taint toward Uërth’s surface, I surged upward into the light of day.

  I had succeeded in putting myself much farther underground than I would have guessed.

  I was, without question, good at being bad.

  I could see no sign of either Ueryan and …loel... or the demon that had been assailing them. For that matter, I could not see Doeren Muer either.

  “Kerraboer is very near, Saedeus.”

  In the brief moment I had been wrapped inside …loel… I had traveled nearly half a continent.

  Which also explained the trap that had ensnared us and the seething horde of demons charging across the barren landscape toward me.

  The Plains of D’rith Sinae

  Loer’allon came alive in my hands.

  Her dance became my own.

  Wreathed in Light, becoming Light, I scythed through the advancing wall of demons in a cloud of ichor, entrails, and fell arcana.

  I was a fog the demons could not touch.

  I was a blade the demons could not counter.

  I was a doom the demons could not avoid.

  Every demon’s fall added fuel to my assault. I did not let the foul demonic essences screaming, tearing, and threatening to rend me apart become me as I once had.

  These fallen parasitic souls were a catalyst, the means to greater, more efficient action. Their foul essences neither tainted my own nor became part of me.

  Though the avalanche of their iniquity and profane cognizance tried to force its way in, I let their knowledge and experience burn away with their obscene bodies in a conflagration of power that cleansed their stigma from Uërth entirely.

  When Loer’allon finally stilled, her blaze softening in the battle’s aftermath, and all the demons were no more, only a scorched and pitted battlefield remained.

  Sadly, of Ueryan and …loel… there was no sign.

  Of course, this was not the end.

  There was no end to demons on the Plains of D’rith Sinae.

  I just enjoyed a brief respite from their insidious incursion.

  Moths to a flame, more would come.

  So I ran.

  Bravely.

  And without hesitation.

  For flight is often the better part of valor.

  Aided by my Sigil Shield, I ran much faster than was humanly possible.

  I ran phased into ethereality.

  I ran that I would not have to fight more.

  For now.

  “Adjust your heading slightly to the east.”

  Alric provided guidance when my mind wandered, when the haze of combat took me from myself, offering a means of return to the fullness of the present.

  I was glad to have him, for without his help my mistakes and oversights would be dire indeed.

  I was already good enough at making things difficult for myself.

  I did not need any extra help.

  Alric’s words were my cure.

  So I listened.

  And was thankful.

  As I sprinted across the blasted plains, Loer’allon danced freely and often, her blade cutting in silent finality, her Light an antidote to the hellspawn that assailed us.

  Lost in the throes of combat, I was but a witness to her silent majesty, the hand that lifted her torch high that she might shed light on the abandoned plains and cleanse the unholy abominations from the xeric steppes they sought to claim.

  We were but small lights in a well of Darkness.

  Except Lucius.

  He offered no light at all.

  He merely slept.

  Soundly.

  And in my pocket.

  For him there were no demons.

  Yet.

  The Dust Beneath My Boots

  After my last misadventure, I made an important discovery.

  I proudly awarded myself the Saedeus Mark of Unbravery—heretofore referred to as SMU—for its conception and execution.

  Ever thankful and appreciative of my mistakes and shortcomings, I now had an almost surefire way to avoid infernal traps.

  I could run underground.

  Or, more accurately, remaining incorporeal, I could flow beneath the desiccated landscape as easily as I could over it.

  Of course, I missed the beautiful sights and sounds of the steppes while doing this…

  Ravaged corpses.

  The worn-out husks of abandoned and destroyed towns and villages.

  Terrible magics lying across the region in a noxious pall.

  Demons gathering like vultures on the hunt looking for prey.

  All the usual points of interest of a joyous romp through the countryside.

  Sadly, I had business to attend to.

  Namely my survival and the completion of my quest.

  I did not care if I had to channel my inner naked mole-rat to get it done.

  I did not mind that my eyes now watered at even the thought of the sun.

  I did not begrudge myself the decided lack of heroism implied by eschewing danger in such an unknightly manner.

  I was doing what was required to avoid starting a war of one against far, far too many.

  Bravely.

  I would be lying if I said there was not much beauty, life, and magic underground, for I could see it, feel it, take it within, and become it.

  But where’s the excitement in that?

  Adventure is, after all, more exciting the greater the challenge, the more pressing the obstacle, and the more torturous the path.

  At least when the teller sums things up and puts the most desirable face on things after the deeds are done and memory makes even cold, sodden campfires grand.

  So, my journey underground was fraught with peril, harried, and full of danger.

  Honest.

  Except when my time was spent enjoying the formations of marvelous underground microscopic communities, the natural collection, cycling, and restoration of magics that were lost, imperiled, and despoiled above gr
ound, or finding my way through a world I had never imagined existed and had to leave behind far too quickly.

  While the world fell apart above me, I admired what remained beneath.

  Also, Lucius was so excited he could barely contain himself.

  He got to say hello to quite a few relatives, meet some long-lost cousins, and reacquaint himself with more than a few dear friends he had not seen since the days after Uërth’s fiery formation.

  All from the warmth and comfort of my tunic.

  Or so he claimed.

  Sometimes I did not know what to believe.

  Pet rocks were, after all, rather hard to read.

  Especially when they spent most of their time hidden in a pocket.

  But I took him at his word.

  What did he have to gain by lying?

  Besides, I could see his magical emanations constantly interacting with the local strata as we traveled.

  He was, in fact, much better connected than I was.

  Which was quite a good quality to have in an ally.

  Especially for one as socially challenged as I.

  The Light of My Life

  After traveling I do not know how long underground—Alric was keen on telling me but I ignored him—I began to grow tired of the relative safety and security of subterranean wayfaring.

  I know the inclination is about as crazy as I am but, after living a life in fear, safety can begin to wear one down.

  Security is as overrated as it is tiresome.

  Lucius’s constant reminders that I was now an Empyrean Earthworm or the Earthworm Knight did little to encourage further subterrestrial travels.

  I refused to let him know this, however.

  Alric, on the other hand, might have let Lucius in on my secret since I had been studiously ignoring his insightful knightly commentary on the risks of upsetting the diurnal cycle. Regardless of whether or not Alric played a role, I certainly was hearing a lot of worm references from my little elemental friend.

  My fatigue and Lucius’s constant jibes were not, however, what ultimately drew me up from beneath the earth.

  Those were mere trivialities.

  The fight for Uërth’s future focused around Kerraboer and the Chaos Gate, in contrast, was enough to get even me out of my worm-filled reveries.

  Coming from a sheltered enchanted forest in the far north, I grew up with summer squalls and winter storms. I even saw the occasional arcane tempest. But I was never witness to the full force of a tornado, hurricane, or tsunami. These were weather events heard about other lands, tales from the high seas and mysterious lands of heat and climatic vagaries.

  My first contact with the cataclysmic forces vying around Kerraboer was akin to experiencing all these foreign weather phenomena wrapped up together in one nice package with a heavy dose of arcane tempest and a nice sprinkling of the stuff of nightmares too heinous to recall upon waking from deeply troubled sleep.

  And this is just what I felt from the far edges of the battleground, protected beneath the earth and within my Sigil Shield.

  I did not want to consider what being in the heart of that maelstrom must be like, oppressive days spent within the haze of vile phantasms and fell magics.

  Having the bravery to wake up, to stand, much less fight, was the stuff of legends.

  That Uërth’s defenders managed to hold day in and day out, year after year, was the very definition of awesome.

  Standing firm in the face of such misery must be as formidable a task as holding the sun aloft in the air barehanded in the void of space without aid or protection.

  Or, put more bluntly, impossible.

  But they did it.

  Uërth’s allies held the demons back, choking them on their blood and filth as the spawn of Chaos spewed forth from the maw of oblivion.

  If ever there was a miracle on Uërth, this was it.

  “How did you do it, Alric?

  “How did you manage?”

  I could not even see Kerraboer. I had not even left the safety of my ethereal warrens underground and already the weight of the moment was overwhelming.

  Did I really want to go into that?

  Alone and almost naked before the very forces of Creation and Destruction?

  “We did it because we had no other choice.

  “We managed because there was no alternative.

  “The weight of Uërth’s future, the promise of her destiny left unfulfilled, held us aloft and made us more than we were.

  “We were reforged and remade in the fires of annihilation and brought that annealed purpose to bear on our foes.

  “They could not and cannot stand before us.

  “We were remade as one.”

  If only I were more like Alric, I would charge headlong into battle and give true meaning to his words.

  But I was no Alric.

  I was a mushroom farmer who had happened upon a dying man and a magic sword.

  What could I hope to do in the face of forces that rent Creation in twain and filled the void between dimensions with the brood of Chaos?

  “Saedeus, you do not have to be anything other than yourself.

  “Lord Chalmeire the Bright himself would ask none of his Knights of the Holy Sword to be anything else.

  “Why would you expect anything different?”

  Old Alric did have a point there.

  Or two.

  I never was very good at counting.

  “As torturous as your path to this point has been, do you think anyone else would have gotten where you are now under the circumstances?”

  This was a trick question.

  No one else would have been foolish enough to make the same decisions I made continually to set myself up for endless comical, life-threatening escapades.

  No one else could have made as many mistakes as I had.

  “Your trials are what made you, Saedeus.

  “Your path is not what you stumbled upon.

  “Your journey is who you are.”

  If I did not know any better, I would say Alric was being supportive, and a bit corny, but, like counting, I never really was very good at reading people.

  Especially ones who weren’t there.

  So I took him at his word.

  And knew he was right.

  I might be a coward but I managed to move forward in spite of my fears.

  I might be weak but I pushed ahead even when I thought I would fail.

  I might be ignorant but I knew enough to stand up for what I believed in.

  I was a force of ineptitude to be reckoned with!

  Where had these pep talks been when I was slinking around the moldy outskirts of a village that did not want me?

  Better late than never.

  Which could also be said about my arrival.

  Taking a deep, settling breath, I allowed myself to float upward towards the Uërth’s surface, ready to face my future with my eyes open and my mind clear.

  As soon as my head broke ground level, I wished I had never left the comfort and security of my subterranean refuge.

  What, exactly, had I been thinking?

  The Unlight of My Life

  If my impressions below ground had been bad, and by bad I mean awful, then the unrelenting horror of the truth was so far beyond hideously abominable that I would have to steal a demon’s soul just to think of a term that was close to the travesty that marred the distant horizon.

  The truth of Alric’s words hit me then.

  As terrible as this blight was, the alternative, that the demons’ advance continued, was far worse.

  Worse yet was if I let this dire strait stop me from what needed doing.

  Then the alternative would come to pass and the demons would win.

  A bruised and pitted land stretched ahead as far as the eye could see. Ominous, multicolored clouds writhed overhead, reaching hungry vaporous tendrils to the ground in flashes of putrid color. Barely visible within the heart of this tumult, a proud keep rose heav
enward on a vast promontory, the prow at the headland of a massive butte.

  This was the Keep of Kerraboer, bastion of the Empyrean Knights. Even from this distant vantage, I could see that the keep was sprawling, an immense fortress that glowed with an inner radiance. From where I stood, iridescence played upon its convoluted surfaces, refracting light that was not present in the gloom like sunlight scattered upon thousands upon thousands of untouched icicles beneath the clearest of winter skies. Though impossibly bright, the light did not cause my eyes to water or force me to shield my gaze. Instead, my spirit was warmed and lifted.

  If I said I had angelic visions and heard a heavenly chorus as I forced my mouth to close while I stared in awe like an uncultured schoolboy upon the fortress, I would not be far off.

  But my rapturous ogling had no place now.

  And I refused to let divine sentiment interfere with the purpose of my mission.

  At least while I could.

  I did, however, catch myself staring at the keep far too frequently.

  In addition to its high walls and lofty perch, the keep was shielded beneath a lustrous dome that appeared as unwavering as the heavens.

  Beneath the Keep of Kerraboer, barely visible in the distance, forces surged and flashed in manifold expressions of arcane power. Of the troops harnessing these dreadful forces, little could be seen, at least directly. The powers that held them together, the magics that bound them and strengthened them en masse, were as resplendent as Heaven above.

  They stood together.

  Their strength was unity and it was this unwavering shield that held back the forces of Chaos.

  The same magics could be sensed continually reaching and probing out, endeavoring to stem the unwavering tide of the Abyss pouring forth from the onyx craw of the Chaos Gate.

  Of the Gate itself, little could be seen; it was too dark. Nothing of Uërth that entered appeared to ever leave.

  Sadly, what could not be seen could still be felt. The soul-crushing reality of the Chaos Gate was there laid bare before my quavering soul.

  This was the maw of Oblivion, the door to the ultimate end, the place where entropy reigned and dreams went to die.

  It was also my destiny.