Warden's Path

by Heath Pfaff

  Without needing to communicate a desire to go faster we all quickened our pace until we emerged back into the light. I felt a rush of relief as the sun touched my skin again. It was getting later in the day, but we were well away from the cabin, and now back out into the sanctifying light. My momentary relief at being away from the darkness and back out in the open was gone as fast as it had come.

  We should have been well away from the cabin. We were not. Moments after we emerged back into the sun, Dreea pointed ahead of us, and our eyes followed the direction of her gesture. The cabin was on the right side of the path. We’d circled and come back out exactly where we’d gone into the woods. There had been no turns, no loops, no direction other than straight on the path we’d taken, but here we were.

  “It could be a different cabin.” I said, but the words were hollow. It wasn’t. I knew that cabin well enough. It was burned into my memory. It had been to the left of the road when we’d gone past it, but now it was on the right. We’d somehow gotten turned around and were coming right back towards the cursed place.

  “It could, but it’s not.” Arthos was clearly just as unhappy about this turn of events. I could hear it in his voice, and see it in the taut way he stood. “This place can’t be real. It has to be one of those near-realities that we tap into with the doors for training. There is no other way we could walk in one direction and end up walking back along the same road without turning around.”

  It was an interesting theory. We had passed through a door to get here, but then who was controlling this place? I’d always thought that those places had to exist in some form of reality for us to be sent there, but Arthos did know more than I did about such things.

  “Whether it is one of those training realms or not, this place can kill us. We need to find a way back to Black Mark. Can we scry here?” I asked, voicing my own concerns, but also hoping to keep us on some kind of track towards leaving this place.

  “Yes.” Arthos nodded. “You can scry for a door anywhere, at least if you’re able to do it at all. Even if we’re inside a closed space you should be able to tell where the origin door should be. Let’s make camp here for now and I’ll see what I can teach you of this.”

  “So near the house?” Dreea asked, her eyes still on the cabin and its smoking chimney. I’d thought it looked like a good place to raise a family when I’d first encountered it, but now it looked ominous. It looked hungry, like a creature lurking near the road ahead, waiting to swallow up anyone foolish enough to get too close.

  “We can’t move much further away without ending up back here. We might as well set our camp and try to figure things out where we are. I don’t want to go back to the mansion, and certainly don’t want to go on to the city beyond, Prosper. I feel like that’s where we’re being pushed. Walking more will just burn more time.” Arthos answered, and in a way I felt he was right, but I had a strange feeling that this place wasn’t simply some small pocket of existence that only held shape behind a magic door. This place felt real. There was no denying that we were in a twisted and dark corner of existence, some place that shouldn’t have come to be, but it also felt grounded and stable. Of course, that might have just been my rising paranoia.

  “I’ll start a fire.” I said, and moved to do exactly that. Perhaps a roaring fire would make the clinging menace less weighty upon our shoulders. Night was coming.

  11.2

  As the sunlight dwindled and the fire attempted to keep the dark at bay, my mind slipped back to my first trial at the Warden’s school. There a single torch had meant the difference between life and death for us, and that light had come close to failing on more than one occasion. It had been a learning experience, one about preparing for bad situations, and taking the time to make sure the things keeping us alive were in good working order. It had also taught us, whether intentionally or not, to trust in the light of a fire. There was comfort to be had there. Warmth and light could go unappreciated, taken for granted by those who always had it near at hand. I was having trouble finding comfort that night.

  “Scrying is complicated, Lillin, not because the technique itself is difficult, but because the skills necessary to make use of the technique are uncommon. Using your Will is an exertion of your intent over the intent of others, or the inanimate. Scrying has nothing to do with your Will. It is almost the opposite of that. You are going to look for another Will, like you’re listening for it, but you need to know what to listen for, how to hear it.” Arthos was trying to explain the technique, but the way he was describing things was leading me to something I’d been considering for a long time.

  “You can’t feel it when someone uses their Will, can you?” I asked, interrupting him as he was about to go on.

  “Well, anyone can feel a Will when it is exerted against them, Lillin. If it clashes directly with yours, then what you’re actually feeling is the way the other person’s Will is interacting with your own, and not actually their Will.” Arthos explained, as though I was missing something very obvious.

  “I understand that, Arthos, but I’m telling you I can sense Will anytime it used near me. It’s like a pattern, but not one that I see or hear. I just . . . well, I know it’s there. Sometimes the pattern is simple, sometimes it’s intricate. When you activate a door it’s very intricate, but a pulse to push or move something is just a quick surge with no shape or crafting to it.” I attempted to explain.

  Arthos was quiet for a moment, as if in thought, and then I felt a small surge from Arthos, though I didn’t see anything.

  “I felt that, but I didn’t see anything.” I noted with a shrug.

  Arthos looked surprised. “You’re not joking. That’s . . . well, it’s very unusual. I don’t know anyone else who does that. The people in Black Mark would be very interested in this skill of yours.” He thought for a moment as I felt a strange stirring of pride and also concern. Why could I do something the others couldn’t, and what did it mean? Was I gifted, or did this have something to do with why I couldn’t focus my abilities well?

  “Well, this will help you with the scrying work we need you to do. Doors, the ones we use, have a few particular properties. This isn’t common knowledge, but in many cases it isn’t the door itself that’s important. We put a lot of effort into making the doors seem special, but it’s actually the keystone below the door that holds all the magic. A doorway can be formed just by activating a keystone, though by using a keystone and a frame you get a more consistent and easier to use portal. That’s why most of the doorways in the school, and in places where we’ve established bases, are set in door frames. Some of the keystones have even formed a permanent seal with their doors. They’ve become one piece, though that is uncommon. The point is, even without a frame, the keystone is still active. There are places where we don’t use a frame because it’s convenient to hide the presence of the door all together. In these cases a curtain on some rods will serve as a portal. Once locked in place the curtains will only open when the portal is active. If the keystone is disabled the curtains can be drawn aside like one would expect.” Arthos attempted to explain, and then he reached into a small pouch at his waist and drew out a very small stone.

  The stone didn’t look special in any way, but as I focused on it, I thought I could feel a small wave or force coming from it. “Do you know what this is?”

  “Is it a piece of a keystone?” I asked, guessing based on how similar it felt to the energy waves I sensed around doors.

  Arthos gave a smile and nodded. “That’s exactly what this is. The energy that comes from the doors is all similar. This is a training tool. When you’re learning how to use the doors, this little piece of a broken keystone can help you to feel out whether or not you’re running through the process correctly. This can also be used to scry for doors.” His smile slipped some. “This will be difficult for me to teach because I was never able to master it myself. It’s a simple skill if you can do it at all, I just didn’t possess the ability. I think you d
o.”

  “Open your hand.” He said, and I did as he instructed, holding my palm open to him. He took the stone and dropped it into my palm.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen when it landed, but whatever I might have expected, what actually happened was very underwhelming. Nothing. I had a rock in my hand. I gave Arthos a questioning look. “Was that supposed to do something?”

  He laughed. “No, not yet.”

  Dreea, who had come closer and was watching all of this with interest also laughed. “Magic rock isn’t very impressive.” She pointed out. “Thought there would be lights, or noises . . . something.”

  It was actually nice to hear her laughter, and to see Arthos smile as well. Where we were, the things that had happened to us since we’d arrived, it was all so difficult to find any respite from. We needed a little laughter.

  “Close your hand around the stone and focus your Will into it like you’re trying to press on it from all sides at once.” Arthos said as the moment of joy slipped away.

  I nodded, closing my hand around the stone and focusing on it. I Willed it to move, pushing in every direction at once, and strangely the stone grew warm in my hand, and quite forcefully tugged. It was so powerful that my hand jerked in a direction, a clear and precise pull. I was a bit startled, and clearly my face betrayed that.

  Arthos nodded, looking pleased. “That’s it. That was scrying. I think you just succeeded.”

  “That was it?” I asked, surprised at just how easy that had been. I’d expected something at least a little more complex.

  “That was it.” Arthos answered. “You either can do it, or you can’t. Most people can’t.” He looked in the direction my hand had tugged and frowned. “Try it one more time?”

  I nodded, closing my fist and focussing my Will at the stone. It didn’t need to be precise, which was a good thing, but it did need to be even from all sides. That was more complicated, but not that difficult. Again the stone heated, and then it tugged in the exact same direction, harder. The pull was significant again, like the stone was trying to drag itself out of my hand. I looked the way it had tugged, down the road, back in the direction of the mansion. That was clearly the direction the stone wanted us to go.

  “Well, I guess we know where the nearest door is.” Arthos said dryly.

  “Do you think it’s the one in the mansion?” I asked, feeling anxious, unhappy we’d be going back in that direction again.

  “It might be, or it might be in the city beyond. The one in the mansion stopped responding to us. I don’t know what that means. There has be a keystone there or the door wouldn’t have worked, but if there is a keystone we should have been able to take the door back to Black Mark.” Arthos gave a shrug. “The most we can do is follow the scrying back to the source and see what we find.”

  “Back into the dark.” Dreea’s voice was so quiet it was almost hard to hear. There was no humor left amongst us.

  Chapter 12

  Into the Dark

  12.1

  We set out in the morning. As we walked, stopping occasionally to take scryings and keep ourselves moving in the correct direction, I thought of Zara, worrying about how she would be doing without us. Arthos assured me that she would, after a while, return to the stables, and until then she was well adapted to take care of herself. Still, I missed my mount, and not just because walking was much slower than riding. I felt responsible for her wellbeing after how deeply I’d forced the bond upon her. She was also a wonderful calming force. Running my fingers through her fur was probably more relaxing for me than it was for her.

  Unfortunately I wasn’t in the best situation to idly pet Zara anyway. We could have run the route back the way we’d come and made better time, but Arthos didn’t think it wise, and when the strange shadow fell over us again, and the sounds of the forest animals vanished as though they were a candle flame snuffed out by a draft, I was in agreement with the choice. There was no point in running headlong into whatever this place held waiting for us. We walked for some time before the scrying began to point us off the path of the road to a degree, and I realized it didn’t intend us to travel back to the mansion where we’d first arrived. I wasn’t sure whether I was relieved or not.

  “It’s taking us to the city, to Prosper.” Arthos wore a frown as he spoke.

  Dreea growled her response, and I flashed my teacher a concerned look. “Do we keep following the scrying?” I asked, though I couldn’t think of another way for us to go. We needed a door to escape and apparently this was the only door available to us.

  “We do.” I could tell he didn’t like the words as he spoke them. “There isn’t much other choice. We’ve already tried walking away from this place and we ended back at that cabin. The only other way for us to leave is to follow the scrying to a keystone and use that to send ourselves back to Black Mark.”

  “Try talking rock?” Dreea asked, gesturing at the pouch in which Arthos kept his communication stone. “Maybe the Wardens can help.”

  “I’ve sent several messages now. They’re either not receiving them at all, or they can’t send messages back. I’d guess it’s the first. I still don't think this is a normal piece of reality. We’ll keep walking until we find the keystone, no matter where that takes us, and then I’ll open a door and get us free from this place. We’ll be fine.” Arthos seemed convinced of his plan, and it made sense. I wasn’t certain it would be so simple, but I couldn’t think of an alternative.

  Begrudgingly we started moving again, picking up the pace some. At some point the feel of the air around us had changed, and I realized that, for the first time since we’d entered the shadows, a breeze had stirred and brought with it the unique scent of sea air. That alone was enough to tell us what we would set our eyes upon when we finally crested a particularly high hill and looked down at the city of Prosper, a decaying metropolis at the edge of the sea.

  Beneath the shroud of dark we’d entered it was hard to determine what time of day it might be, but I judged it to be late evening judging only by the sky, gray and dark, with just enough light to make out a few details. A few lights did burn down amongst the labyrinthian roadways of the city. In many ways this was a city of traditional style, the kind one would build in times of peace that had only come following times of war. There was a large castle near the heart, and the less fortified parts sprawled out from there, three different sets of walls climbing into the sky, though none as impressive as Black Mark’s, and certainly none as tall or imposing as the city of metal monsters I’d visited in training. Still, this was the next largest city I’d ever encountered, and it was impressive. Towards its edges it dwindled into farmland, except for the far side from us which ended in docks and piers that crawled off into a sea that looked black from where we stood.

  It was clear that something terrible had befallen Prosper. In places the walls appeared to be down, and there weren’t nearly enough lights coming from the massive sprawl. Smoke rose in a few places, but many of those places didn’t appear to be chimneys built for the purpose of channeling that smoke. We were far enough away that it looked completely still, but that might have just been the distance and the lack of stronger light. The whole scene before us had a certain twisted, ragged look to it, as though it had been built to shun the glance of an eye.

  I pulled the scrying stone from where I was keeping it and willed it back to life. It gave a hard tug down towards the city, though, not towards the middle of the dark, creeping metropolis. Our door was off somewhere on what I’d been thinking of as the east side, though I wasn’t sure about my compass directions anymore. It was hard to keep directions straight when the sky was dark but starless, and though most of the cities I’d read about were bordered on the north by the sea, this one might not conform to that knowledge. It probably didn’t.

  “Over there.” I said, gesturing to the others. “I can’t tell exactly where, but it’s on that side of the city.” The place was big, and from here the streets looked like t
hey’d been planned out by a man walking the route in his sleep. I wasn’t certain how we’d manage to get through it all without getting lost, and the thought of becoming lost in the knot of chaos below was unsettling. Prosper looked vile and dangerous. I supposed that if we found the doorway we needed, it wouldn’t matter if we were lost, but that was little comfort.

  Arthos gave a nod. “It looks like we’ll have to head in through the gates. I have no other idea how to get through the wall. We might climb it, but that entails a risk of its own. The nearest downed section is much further away, so we’ll have to chance the public entrance. We’ll move quickly but carefully, and do our best to avoid the locals. I don’t want to meet anyone else that might be like the last one we encountered. I wish to be very clear on this.” Arthos looked at both of us, meeting our eyes in turn to make sure we were paying attention. “We are going for the door. I don’t care about the tesseract, whatever that is. We find the door and we leave. We take nothing with us, and we engage as few of the inhabitants here as we can.”