by Rhys Thomas
It comes undone, but the speed of which it moves gives it another shape. That of a disc. And I’m instantly reminded of Krillans Destructo Disc from Dragon Ball-Z and the thought of it makes me laugh manically.
Then my lances shoot forward, Marisa out of nowhere screams in my mind but I ignore her and her shouts to stop, that I’m not yet ready for binding fires.
Two of my three lances stab through the fodraca legs. It howls and thrashes and I scream also. Unbearable torrents of pain blossoms in my legs and I practically crumble into the ground.
My third lance struck the fodraca, just as it manages to twist aside as my lance passed through its right eye and skull, then I’m partially blinded and weeping. Searing hot agony seizes my brain and it’s unimaginable.
I blink blearily through the fog clouding my thoughts; I feel the hum of the fiery white disc. Then Ariana is there, jumping onto the fodracas shoulder, her axe already swinging overhead and hacking at its thick red neck as a gout of fire bursts out of wound and sprays across her hand. She falls away with a yell of pain and its all the focus I need.
As she fell, my disc of death flashes through its stomach in the blink of an eye and instantly it falls into two halves; dead on the ground. As the white flames blinks out of existence, I feel myself falling away.
Interlude: Deep One
I came back to myself with a gasp of exhilaration, after so many years… I shook away the cobwebs of memories that fought to overwhelm me. Finally, I had him, my brother. The tentacles on the side of my face writhed in excitement, I rose to sit properly on my onyx glass throne, as aetheric barriers fell away all around me.
I sighed with gratitude when the first being I saw within my ghostly throne room, was my servant Ton’ash. He bowed reverently in my presence and my tentacles preened at the submission I saw there.
“Great One,” he warbled at me. “It has been far too long.”
“That it has, Ton’ash,” I said and was pleased when my voice roared throughout the abyssal plane. I was home.
“Then it is good news my Lord?” he asked, his black dome helmet glinting reflectively the stars that spread out between me.
“Very good news, Ton’ash, very good. It seems my brother has awakened at last,” I told him and was rewarded with his hiss of outrage and anger.
Even though I was the betrayer, I had warped every mind in the abyssal plane to believe that it was in fact my brother who had betrayed me.
“Then we must find him my Lord,” Ton’ash exclaimed, nodding his dome firmly.
I raised my claw to stop him, “no not yet. He is beyond the White, the astral barrier he erected so long ago in his escape. No, we wait, eventually he’ll collapse the barrier for us and then…” I trailed off. Thrilled at the chance to meet my brother again.
“Shall I summon the generals my Great One?” Ton’ash asked me.
I nodded, then shook my head, “no. A simple message we suffice, tell them to advance our plans. And inform Dyarkum that his minions are to proceed ahead of schedule, I want my brother focused on the Shi’en.”
“At once, Great One,” Ton’ash bowed and faded away.
I leaned back in my throne as I mentally counted my disposable pieces.
The Draugur, the Greys, the Exemplars and the Shi’en. Each lead by a creation of mine, a primordial beast.
I sighed forlornly, as my tentacles moved in agitation, not liking where my thoughts were leading me.
I was the Great One, the Deep One, the great betrayer of my own kin. It saddened me more than I liked, summoning a tithe of my aetheric reserves I enhanced my vision as the aetheric glass surrounded me once again. I looked out into the great beyond, to the furthest reaches I could see, and there just out at the edge of my enhanced vision. I could see a monstrosity worse than I, of colossal proportions.
I shrank away before she, the things master could sense my presence again. And then I set my sights back on the astral barrier.
Rokkaia.
He was so weak, when I caught but a glimpse of him, so mortal, and only just now was he piecing himself back together. I had seen his look of disbelief through the opening his presence formed in the barrier. He had no recollection, no knowledge of what he truly was, what we really were.
It saddened me, to see someone so great fall so far. Now I was the Great One, a title I had never asked for. If only I had been rash, instead of a schemer, if only I had shared my findings instead of plotting. Maybe… My body writhed in irritation, rebelling against my thoughts, but I remembered the look in his eyes the night I killed his beloved Maylith.
“If I had explained myself, they would’ve thought me mad,” I chuckled, and the noise of my speech bounced around me.
“I can wait a little longer, dear brother. Then I must kill you, because if I don’t, we all may just die.”
Chapter Twelve
The wagon tossed and listed slightly as the crude road grew rocky in patches. The sparse and buried vegetation, and the sloping hills and banks of snow surrounded us on all sides. Now and then bejewelled dears and rabbits would take notice of the wagon train, before scurrying away to hide.
The cold air kept everyone moving but also froze any talking that might be done. And especially when a storm came. I was sat next to a Venyin man by the name of Hurallan. We were covered from head to toe in furs and layers of padded clothing. Which was needed considering we were the last wagon in the line of them, so all the snow that was kicked up by those ahead formed into a flurry and cast our way.
“How long till we stop?” I shouted over the din of noise made by the four eyed and horned oxen and the loud creaking groans of the wagons.
The oxen as it turns out were called Thadda and were usually only used by the Venyin to pulled their wagons and were treated more like prized horses than usual beasts of burden. After all, if a thadda dies then the wagon it pulled is basically dead weight.
The wagons function more like a small house’s for each driver and their family, as well any luggage they carried. “Bout a’ couple hours yet, go check on ya ladies. I’ll be fine right here,” Hurallan called from right next to me.
Through the showering flurries of snow and the biting wind, I could vaguely make out the grey cloudy sky above us.
Patting the old man’s shoulder gratefully and turning around on the bench, I made my way inside the hut-like wagon. Immediately, I spun about and pushed against the door closing it. Shelves and alcoves lined the left-hand side and clink constantly as we moved. To the right was another smaller alcove but with Hurallans bunk inside, fashioned slightly to resemble a stretcher. Across from where I stood were the two sleeping forms of Ariana and Marisa. Raised on a mat off the floor and covered from head to toe in blankets.
Both had been in and out of consciousness for the last two days, the former having woken briefly, muttering a few choice words and then falling back into a state of semi-wakefulness.
The latter though, had only woken once and I was becoming increasingly worried for my soul-bound partner. After the fight two days, I had come awake, after falling unconscious, my body weak and ruined, yet the majority had healed or scared come my daily allotment of power.
I had then found Ariana, passed out, drained and wounded severely. She had taxed herself so completely that Thion had come awake just for a moment to inform me that all was well and that he was repairing the vessel. That she just needed time to rejuvenate and that the gaara was systemically purging her system of damage and impurities.
Marisa had been a whole different matter though; I had felt no sign of her at all. And it was only till after hours of searching, I found her back at the collapsed inn amongst the wreckage. I didn’t understand why she had been there though, and the only person I could ask was Ariana.
Thankfully she was still breathing, and I guessed that she too was healing. All I had done the past few days was check up on them and make sure they comfortable.
Kneeling down beside the bed they shared, Ariana was soundly as
leep on her back, tired lines marring her beautiful features. I stroke a few stray strands of her raven black hair away from her face, and my touch soothed her, as the creases that were lining her forehead and the slight pinch of her brows smoothed away.
I smiled at that, and then reached passed her to the draconic phoenix. My Marisa purred at my touch and the sensation traveling around her chest vibrated up my hand.
I sat back from them and began to remove the outer layer of my clothing. There were no fires in the wagon’s for obvious reasons, but the thick walls and clothing made it mildly okay and not bone rattling cold like it was outside.
My body swayed with the rocking motion of the hut. Crossing my legs, I sucked in a deep calming breath, as I then threw my consciousness within my delve.
I had learn over the past few days that I could in fact shape the power within myself. As of now the power was nothing more than residue, I had already filtered it through the runes of my arms and behind my ears.
It had been quite a display, luckily nobody had been around while I meditated. Now though, I had a problem I didn’t have previously which was that runes felt stained.
They were the same jade green, but now they were permanently tinged with a gold hue around the edges. And it fucking hurt when I filtered the power through them.
I guessed this was only temporarily, but I wanted to be prepared in case—well—in case they never heal. The runes behind my ears were completely normal, not having been taxed at all.
I knew I had basically done something I wasn’t at all ready for during the fires and fight at Wheldrake. My wrapped arms pulsed, and the healing burns itched annoyingly, as I drew myself and delved around the runes layering my arms.
My delve was a plane unlike my dimensional pocket plane. For starters it was brighter than that creepy dark place, and secondly this was actually inside of me. Kind of at least. I didn’t fully understand how I formed it, but after my subsequentially dream-trip-thingy. I now had a better understanding of the way to manage my power. It just needed a little experimenting first. The delve was a lot like how I imagined a domain to be. A giant invisible planet-shaped orb, and within, was thee essentials. A place where I could figurative and literally sandbox my power.
Unleashing a tendril of my will, I subconsciously probed the runes and saw that even though I hadn’t damaged them. I had in fact forcibly opened the flood gates and then slammed an onrush of ambient power through them, like a tidal wave pushing through a toothpick size hole. It reminded me of that really bad Aliens movie, the 4th one, I think. Where the weird alien-hybrid-baby-person, get sucked out all gross-like into the vacuum of space.
The pressure had simply overtaxed my runes initially, but that was also coupled with my dousing the flames of that house, had burnt my runes out so to speak. Withdrawing the feathery tendril, I decided to test shaping how I saw my runes, or more specifically compartmentalize the different areas were my runes were active.
With an unfurling, the entirety of my delves surroundings shifted, till I stood within a vast yellow-cream void. Custard colour. I then willed a small circular island to manifest beneath my metaphysical feet.
There, I focused on a vague image, and a form appeared made out of grey and yellow mist with swirling greyed out runes running through and along it’s form. With jade and gold runes on the arms and head. This was to be an imitation of my body and the inactive and dormant runes.
Then summoning with my will, a pair of form-fitting gauntlets to appear around the imitation’s arms. They were of a shiny grey steel and etched into the gauntlets were the same runic patterns burned into very own flesh.
Everything down to the jade colour that glowed faintly, then to the golden rims. And how the runes seemed to have a metallic sheen to them.
Actually, instead of gauntlets I made them elbow length gloves and I then did something I didn’t entirely understand. But I tied the form in the place permanently, I leashed the construct to this small island within my delve.
The leashing was a form of anchoring a construct, and the intent was to keep the construct I had made, on this island.
My leashing came in the form of writhing snake-like chains that formed through the creamy clinical floor and wrapped themselves around the constructs ankles.
I then fixated my thoughts to forming a small domain around the island, and then leashing that to my construct. I half expected the leash to be chains again, but this time they were transparent bonds. Then I withdrew as my island drifted off within the delve.
Just before I came fully back to my body, a brilliant band of light shot through my very essence, the warmth and colours its exuded encased me and folded around my sense of self. I followed that trail, climbing it as if I would a cable under water, pulling and gliding my body along.
The trail led to the very edges of my delve and like an umbilicus between us I became aware of Marisa’s awakening presence in my mind. Her voice crackled like static in the delve, without wasting any further time I withdrew completely but kept hold of the bond that tied me and her as I came back to myself.
Just as blur of bronze and red crashed into me and sent me sprawling onto the floor laughing and hugging my soul bonded. “Oh, you have no idea how good it is to hear you,” I laughed, perhaps a touch too loudly but thankfully Ariana didn’t wake up.
*You. Have. No. Idea. Honestly Alaric what the hell were you thinking? Trying to use binding fire... You could’ve killed yourself—you could’ve killed all of us. You have no idea how lucky you are. None at all!* she thought to me and when I laughed; she thumped her forehead against my own, but I just held her tight.
“It’s so good to hear you again my love,” I sent to her, closing my eyes to just feel along the bond and her comforting presence. It reminded me of that; no longer was I alone, and that never would I be again.
Marisa for me was the warmth and the embrace of home and family. I depended on her being there for me, I needed her way more than she did me. And I was grateful for her and whatever shitty fate that had brought us together.
*Thank you,* I thought to her and she gave me a confused look; her head tilted to one side.
*Whatever for?* She asks inquisitively.
Chuckling I brushed our heads together, *never mind,* I thought back to her, as Marisa then brought her draconic face into my neck and nuzzled. Her chest rumbling pleasantly.
*This is so frustrating though,” she purred playfully. *Right now, all I want, is to have you stuff me with your massive-*
Choking on a breath, I started to cough at where her mind was going, and god would curse me for an idiot if I didn’t want it just as much as well.
*Cock!* she finished seemingly unaware of my spluttering, eventually my choking rounded out into a short soft laugh. *How about this, once you’ve got your human form again, we’ll do whatever you want,* I thought back to her and felt her face move in a nod against my neck.
*I’ll agree to that. But do remember to try and woo the Faen in the meantime. Anyway, enough of that; tell me what’s been happening. I believe I’m right to assume that we’ve left Wheldrake far behind?*
*Yes,* I sent with a nod. *We’re with a Venyin caravan heading towards the mountains and then on to Glen’dal.* So, I told her everything, from my experimenting in my delve to manifesting a construct and just generally finding a better way to utilise my power. Or should I say, to actually use my power.
I wanted to tell her of the strange dream-trip-thingy I had experienced, but something held me back. Not to say I didn’t trust Marisa, but that this felt oddly personal and that she wouldn’t be happy to hear about it.
Also, there was the slight fact that I was pretty sure, that the portal-cloud-thing was actually the White. You know, pretty sure I called it the giant white space pucker or something. I had felt a draw to it even back at Ra’als facility when I first laid eyes on it. Now though, well it just felt slightly out of reach.
Then there the dreams I’d been having the last few nigh
ts about a little girl named Sal and talking with my primordial beast, Shade.
Moving over to the bed Ariana occupied at a shuffle. “Stay here a minute, I’ll see if there’s any scraps of food I can get you,” I said to Marisa, and plopped her down back next to the Valakharian scout.
I returned a few minutes later having found a few thin strips of smoked jerky, I couldn’t remember having bought. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to explaining to Aria I had spent all of her money. After a while of just sitting in their company, Marisa drifted back to sleep, her head resting comfortably on Aria’s shoulder.
I hoped Ariana would wake up before it was night, I would need her assistance if the creatures I had faced last night were still following us. With a shiver not aimed at the cold, I suited myself in the fur layer and went back outside to join Hurallan.
A shout from up ahead, about five wagons in front of us called out as I stepped outside. The distance between each wagon growing more and more, as those upfront made the hill and those behind started to struggle. The shout was then followed by a series of waving hand signals.
“What the hell is he saying?” Hurallan asked me. I squinted at the leading wagon and then onto the mountain beyond. It loomed high and towering like a set of insurmountable stairs leading away from us, it also looked cold as fuck.
“I... uh-” I was about to say I didn’t know, when suddenly I felt a probing at my mind like a nudge pushing me towards what it wanted me to see, to act and say. To allow it entry into my thoughts.
I instinctively latched onto the feathery touch and straggled it like a vice. *Alaric!* Marisa’s voice came through urgently, the instant after I destroyed the foreign invader.
*what the fuck was that?* I growled mentally.
*I don’t know, but I felt it too. Whoever did it though is really far away, I’m surprised you even felt it. I was trying to reach out to you but even I couldn’t.*