Warden's Path

by Heath Pfaff

  “We should hurry if we’re going to get there in time.” My own voice startled me. The void fled and suddenly I was with the others again. Ori looked up at me, and Korva’s eyes flashed in my direction, her expression set in a grim determination.

  “Lillin?” Ori’s voice was soft.

  I frowned at her and nodded. “Yes, we should hurry. What are we doing waiting here?” I stood up and tried to figure out where we were. This wasn’t the place I last remembered being. Where had we been? We’d left the school, and then there was a fight at the fountain with the Butcher, then we’d stopped to rest. Was this that place? It looked closer to the merchant district than I’d thought we’d been

  “How long have we been here?” I was having trouble getting fixed on time. Events were broken in my head, and there were pieces gone, lost entirely to the void.

  “We’ve been here for about an hour, Lillin. We’re on our way back to the school. The barracks were a loss.” Korva spoke calmly and smoothly.

  “The barracks?” We were going to stop by my home before we went there. I was sure of it. “Did we . . . I don’t remember going there.” Anger sparked up inside of me. “We need to go check on my family. This place is a mess. We should have gone there first.”

  “Lillin, we . . .” Ori began, but Korva broke in quickly.

  “You passed out, and we didn’t know how to get there without you.” The Warden spoke quickly. “It was probably stress. Things have been stressful out here.”

  “Then we can go now.” I said, vaguely aware that they were hiding something from me. Something wasn’t fitting together right. Suspicion crept in upon me. Was this like the situation with Arthos again? Where they hiding something dangerous? “Time is important.”

  “We’re out of time, Lillin. The King has ordered us back to the school. We won’t be able to check on your family now, but the next group out will be told exactly what they need to do. You needn’t worry about it.” Korva spoke clearly and with a note of command in her voice, but the words hit me in a terse, angry way.

  “What?!” I snapped, the waspish word buzzing in the air. “This was the main reason I came out here to begin with! I’m not turning away now. They need me! There isn’t anyone else out here to help them, and they can’t just wait around for the next group of scouts to come and find them. They could be dead by then, or something far worse.”

  “Enough, Lillin!” This time it was Ori, and her voice was cracking and painful. “Please, don’t do this again. We can’t keep having this argument. Everyone is gone. The men at the barracks were . . . they were worse than gone, and your family was the same. The darkness has taken them all. There is nothing out here for any of us. We need to go back to the school.”

  “Ori . . . “ Korva sounded both angry and sad.

  “We tried pretending last time. It didn’t work.” Ori answered.

  “Gone? No they can’t be. I dreamed they died, but I’ve dreamed it so many times.” All the visions flooded back up in my mind, each dream, every single one a horror, but for some reason one dream stood above the others, one that was sharper in detail and a clarity the others lacked. “No.” I said softly, shaking my head.

  “We need to go back, Lillin. It’s over. The city has Fallen.” Korva’s voice fell flat on my ears.

  “What use was any of it?” I asked quietly. “Why did we fight so hard if we couldn’t stop this? In the end I saved no one.”

  When Korva spoke it was with a grim determination that made her voice far more coarse than normal. “Blaming yourself is fine if that’s what you want to do, but you couldn't have done anything. None of us could. This wasn’t our fight to win. We need to get back to the school while we still can. Things are getting worse out here, and keeping you alive while you’re nearly catatonic has not been easy. We need you to fight or we’re all going to end up dead, and that is something that will be on you, Lillin.”

  I nodded stiffly, though I felt myself wanting to drift away again, to let my mind wander back inward to that quiet place where none of this had happened, and it could all be a dream.

  “Lillin!” Ori roared, the tone metallic and frightening. It snapped me back to reality. “You forced me to live like this, and you said you’d be with me. That we would go on together. You better not abandon me.”

  Those words hardened what remained of my resolve. I turned my back to the inner void, the inner safety. I turned my back on the wall of pain that wanted to fall upon me and obliterate reality. “Alright, let’s go. I can mourn some other time.” The words sounded soft and meek to my ears.

  We ran then, full flight through the streets. Horrors sought us, crawling from the wreckage of what had once been Black Mark, and we tore through what wouldn’t move, and went over and around what would. It was a full flight. We were no longer ascertaining the weaknesses and presence of our enemy. We were fleeing for our lives, tails firmly tucked between our legs. The war had come and gone and we had lost.

  The school came into view and then we found ourselves stopping as we reached the main intersection before the gate where stood a single man. Why this figure differed from the others I didn’t know, but each of us drew to a stop as he turned in our direction. He was dressed in black, an old outfit that hadn’t been in style for some time, and wasn’t exactly right even for the era that it belonged to. He had a grin that was too wide on his face, and eyes so black it felt like I might fall into them if I kept my gaze there. He just stood in the middle of the street.

  “Two roads cross here, four paths to follow. One way takes you home,” He pointed to the school. “One way takes you into the calming dark of madness,” He gestured back the way we’d come. “One way takes you away from this place for good,” Here he pointed towards the ports and the sea. “And one way takes you to despair and misfortune.” He pointed in the direction of Black Mark’s gate, back out into the world beyond that I had only so recently returned from. He spoke in a dark and rich voice, one that rolled through the air like it was a physical thing.

  “Of course your home is on fire now, burning and collapsing, and you fear the cool shadow of the dark. Would you then flee this land and hide the rest of your years away?” He asked, looking back at the ships. “That would be the wisest course of action.” Behind him the sky was starting to turn a strangely disquieting shade of purple, like an angry, bloody bruise.

  “Who are you?” Korva asked. “Do you know what’s going on here?”

  “I am the mouth of the Wurm, hungry and wide, and I devour all that which comes to my side.” His too-wide smile split revealing hundreds of needle-like teeth before he resumed talking. “Fortunately for you I am still mostly asleep, but not for much longer. No, soon enough I will wake to this world as I have woken to others. Nothing will stop me, not sword or spell, not spear or fire.”

  “I’ve seen you before.” The words rose unbidden to my lips. “Your portrait was in that house.”

  “I’ve seen you before.” He said, pointing at me. “More times than you remember seeing me. You’ve caught my eye.” As he said this he reached a finger up and pointed at one of the black voids in his face, the tip of the finger passing the point that should have been the surface of the eye and entering into the area that was supposed to be his skull.

  The sky was red now, and the ground had begun to shake. “The King is coming to meet the Wurm, and vanquish the dark.” The man clad in darkness grinned as he spoke. “The King is coming to wake the Wurm.” He turned his back to us, and his shape seemed to warp and distort in the fiery glow coming from the school beyond him. For a moment it seemed he distorted and became a massive thing, a twisted column of flesh. “I have no more time for you.” He said, and then his shape scattered like rats running from the sunlight when a cellar door was cast open.

  The gates to the school tore wide as a blazing figure approached them and fear sparked in my chest. “We should go.” I said, a surprising firmness in my voice.

  “The King is going to chase away t
he darkness.” Korva said, her eyes fixed on the terrible glow coming from the figure of the man at the gates. He’d found Everburn, and he was coming to purify our world with its fire. I wasn’t at all certain this was a good thing.

  “Korva, I understand the nature of Everburn, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be here when the King unleashes it on the city. We need to leave.” This moment, this awful moment, was clearing my mind, and one thing was certain. I didn’t want to be here anymore.

  Ori was nodding. “We should get to the port.” She took a step in that direction but I reached out and grabbed her arm.

  “No, we go out the front gate.” I said, pointing back the other way.

  “But the . . . “ She began to protest.

  “We’re not going to do what that thing told us we should do. I don’t trust it, and neither should you. We’re going out the gate. Come on.” I started walking without looking to see if she’d follow, but soon enough I could hear her heavy footfalls at my back.

  “Where will we go?” She asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, but we can’t stay here.” I looked back and saw Korva standing in place where we’d met the wurm.

  “Korva, come on!” I yelled after her. “We have to leave now.”

  “The King . . . Blackened, Lillin, look at the fire!” Her eyes were wide and she was staring at the King as he strode down the street, purple flame licking up from his flesh and rolling out around him to consume everything near his body.

  “Korva, you’re going to die. Everyone here is going to die!” I yelled back, but I’d begun to run the other way.

  “It’s so beautiful!” She screamed, and it was a terrible sound. It was a mix of rapture and pain.

  “I can’t leave her!” Ori shouted, and then she was turning to run back.

  “No, Ori, please! We can’t stay here!” But it was too late. Ori was running back down the road the way we came, and my feet faltered as a surge of heat, and an oppressive Will struck me so hard that I staggered. Ori fell to her knees and Korva had collapsed to the ground. The King had just exited the school and was still a block away from where Korva was standing. His Will was impossible. It was a weight that felt like it could stagger worlds.

  I clambered to my feet and with a roar I pushed back with all the Will I could muster, unleashing every piece of what I had inside of me. It rushed through my body like it had no concern for the physical constraints that held me together, and I directed it at protecting Ori and Korva. I couldn’t lose Ori again, and that meant I would need to try and save Korva as well.

  Ori was back on her feet, running towards Korva. She swept the other woman up in her arms and then turned to run back as the onslaught of Will and heat hit harder still. Every time the King took a step it increased the force of his power against me.

  “You won’t have them!” I screamed, and grabbed deeper than I thought was possible. I would not be moved. Something broke, and then Ori was grabbing me and dragging me with her as she ran by and heat lashed at us all. My skin burned and my grip on the Will was lost.

  “Run!” Ori screamed, and I did. Ori was carrying Korva, and we were running as hard and as fast as we could. I had no Will left to push myself. I couldn’t summon anything. It was crushed.

  Somehow, through some miracle, we made it through the front gates of the Black Mark, and then further. We ran until I collapsed and could go no further. From the hilltop we’d reached, we looked back at the city and watched as the darkness burned away along with the rest of the city. It wasn’t a figurative burning either. The walls and everything within them blackened and smoked as the fires of Everburn reduced everything that wasn’t stone to ash and dust.

  Then, just as I began to fear that the fire would spread further, that it would swallow up everything else, a piercing shaft of darkness cut up through the center of the light and tore into the sky. It split and fell back down upon the fire like a clawed hand trying to swallow it up. I didn't know what was happening, but I sensed that I was seeing the battle of two powers far beyond my understanding, and whichever won, the world would be lost.

  “We need to go.” I said, my voice hoarse as I tried to stand. “I don’t know how long this will last, but we need to be gone from here.” My legs were shaking.

  “Lillin, Korva . . . “ Ori spoke, and I looked over at her for the first time. The armor was blackened now, the white turned dark by the heat of Everburn, some of the detail melted in places. I wondered if it could be fixed, but that thought passed as I looked down into Ori’s arms. Korva was there, though she was still and unmoving. Her skin was blistered and cracked red and black, her eyes gone from her head. Smoke rose from her body. She wasn’t healing as she should have been. I walked nearer her body and reached out with my Will. It was raw and painful to touch, as though it was scorched as well. I could barely tell Korva was there at all.

  I took a deep breath. I couldn’t bring back the dead, but perhaps I could rekindle the dying. Wardens lived on Will, and maybe I could give her that. I reached back into myself and pulled at the bloody and torn edges of my Will. There was almost nothing to grab. I’d burned so much already, but I found pieces of my determination still left and I bound them to Korva.

  “I will not let another friend die today. I will not let her go. I will not. I Will.” It came on like a rush of water flowing into a loche, braking past me and flooding into Korva. I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t thought there was anything left, so there was no way to be ready. I’d never felt so much raw energy slipping past me. My intent was manifest, my Will in that moment was absolute, but what I was doing with it was a monumental task. I was forcing a flickering Will to stand again, and it didn't wish to.

  Korva sat up sharply, her mouth opening in a soundless scream as the crackled, blackened flesh on her body began to stitch back together and her eyes burst from the pits in her skull and reformed like clear glass, and then like pools of warm color, more color than they’d had since I’d known her. Her hands that had crumpled closed, the sinew dried and shriveled by the flames of Everburn, relaxed and her skin looked smooth and flawless.

  Suddenly I wasn’t watching her from my eyes. I was floating above and around her, distant. I was fading away, swept off on a breeze and caught up in the churning Will I’d drawn together to put Korva back together.

  Ori was clutching somebody, shaking her, calling out to her, but the body was limp to her touch. This sent a small spark of concern through me. Who was Ori so worried about? Did it matter anymore? Korva was okay. That had been what I was trying to do. I’d saved her.

  A surge of pain rung out in my head and I frowned. Ori had struck the slumping body across the face. Why had that hurt? She did it again, and it hurt worse this time. Blood spattered from across the back of Ori’s hand and up the street in front of them.

  “Blackened, Ori, stop!” I shouted, and suddenly I was there. I was the slumping body. My jaw was hanging strangely and I felt a terrible cracking pop as it snapped back into place. Clarity settled on me. I’d almost lost myself. I’d almost given up my body, carried away in the rush of Will. Ori’s hard metal arms went around me and it sounded like she was crying, a strange sound echoing up through the metal armor.

  “I thought you were gone.” She said softly.

  “I . . . I think I was for a bit.” I admitted. “I’m sorry.” I looked for Korva. “Is Korva . . . “ I let the question hang, and Ori pulled away so we could both look at the other woman. She was laying on the ground, body fine, eyes closed. She looked serene and peaceful. So very peaceful.

  I reached out a hand and touched her throat. A staggered sigh slipped past my lips as I felt a slow, steady pulse. “She’s alive.” I was relieved.

  “We’re all alive.” Ori also sounded like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  “Let’s leave this place.” I said, forcing myself to my feet. My legs felt weak and tired, but I made myself stand. I felt changed. It was like when I’d returned from se
eing Ori being turned into a golem. Something fundamental about who and what I was had shifted, though I wasn’t certain what that was yet.

  “Where will we go?” Ori asked, and her eyes were on the burning city of Black Mark that was wreathed in an angry shadow.

  “I don’t know yet. We’ll head for Night Watch. That is the fallback point for the Wardens, but if that place is as twisted as it was last time I was there, then perhaps we’ll move on to Evelsmoth. We can’t stay here though. This whole place is doomed.” As I said that, I had to wonder if I meant Black Mark, or the entire world. Whatever rose from the pit of turmoil in the valley beneath us, it was likely to be terrible and hungry. Perhaps we should have headed for the sea after all, and sailed as far from this place as the winds would take us.

  END