by Jeramy Goble
“During the Wars. Yes,” Leona said. “But do you know why she asked the Voidwarden you’re familiar with for help?”
“Because it had the power to help,” Jularra answered, confident.
“No. Do you know why Detsepera engaged that particular Voidwarden?”
Jularra narrowed her eyes, confused. She looked around at Vischuno, Melcayro, Abranni, and Wona—who had just ascended the steps—to see if they had any clue as to what Leona was referring to. What did she mean, 'that particular Voidwarden'?
“Because none of the other Voidwardens would help. Acorilan’s Gracewarden wouldn’t help, either,” Leona added. “Couldn’t help.”
“Wait, wait,” Jularra interrupted. “The 'other Voidwardens'?”
Leona smiled.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why no one else in the world ever mentioned their country’s Voidwarden?”
“Everyone else has their own customs. Their own burial rights,” Melcayro replied. “In Hignriten, and even in Messyleio, we build a pyre for the dead at a special place in nature associated with the person.”
“Right,” Jularra sought to continue, looking back to Leona. “It's common knowledge that the Gracewarden battles to keep the failed souls out of Cylinnia, and the Voidwarden fights to keep the failed souls from escaping from Zunnor. Acorilan’s honored dead pass into the afterlife with the blessing of the Gracewarden, while the failed souls have to await the permission of the Voidwarden.”
Leona slowly wagged her finger. Her grin grew wider
“There were once many Gracewardens and Voidwardens located throughout the world,” Leona began. “Now only a pair survive. Those in Acorilan are now much more than gate guards.”
“But if they control who enters and leaves, what happens to those who die outside Acorilan?” Wona asked.
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Leona admitted. “As your friend over here mentioned, almost every culture has its own custom for honoring the dead in this world. But what happens to their spirits… I don’t know.”
“Wait a minute,” Jularra blurted. “Why are there only two? What about all the others?”
“At some point after Detsepera made the pact, your Voidwarden consolidated its power,” Leona answered. “Killed the other Voidwardens and Gracewardens.”
“Killed the others?” Abranni asked. Her face was a mixture of horror and astonishment.
“How is that even possible?” Jularra added to the group’s questions. “What exactly is it?”
“Come with me,” Leona said. “I don’t have much information on this particular topic, but I think there's something you need to see.”
Jularra hesitated, glancing over at the nearby forces of Messyleians, Bedrock and Spire, but Leona anticipated her question.
“Your people can camp in my field,” she said. “Do not—do not—let them enter my woods.”
***
Jularra, Abranni and Melcayro followed Leona with careful steps and suspicious eyes. There were no forest sounds to alleviate the awkward silence that drifted between Leona and the others, and the ground was insulated by the pine trees' fallen needles. There was no jovial chatting to pass the time, and the group made no effort to ask Leona anything as they walked.
After travelling for what Jularra guessed to be about three miles, the wide porch of a sturdy, single-story home slipped into view. While Leona marched right up to the porch and slogged up its modest steps, Jularra stopped to take in the building. The others halted behind her.
The appearance of Leona's home surprised Jularra as much as it enchanted her. The wooden steps, rails, beams and rafters had clearly been placed some decades previously, but while they were old, they were well taken care of. A narrow plume of smoke wafted out from somewhere at the rear of the home.
“Well, come on,” Leona shouted from the porch.
Jularra tore herself away from her study of the house and silently checked in with her friends. They each looked nervous, but steadfast, and together they entered the cabin.
After five wide steps and a deep, covered porch, the foyer fed immediately into a dark hall, the end of which Jularra couldn't immediately see. Leona had stopped, and now her eyes locked impatiently on the group clustered in the foyer.
“Either follow me, or go home,” she ordered. “My time is not yours to waste.”
Jularra was more than willing to proceed, but she was too stunned by her surroundings to do so. The look on her companions' faces said they felt the same. The sight before them demanded pause, and respect.
Every square inch of the walls, all the way up to the arched ceiling, was covered with Credellions.
Jularra was dumbfounded. She couldn’t even contemplate the existence of this many Credellions, in reality, or myth and legend—let alone owned by one person.
It’s just not possible.
Whether it was a matter of not having enough time to study, not being skilled enough in application, or simply not living long enough to earn them, Jularra couldn’t stop repeating to herself that people just did not have this many Credellions. The most Jularra had ever heard of one person having was one hundred and eight, and that was just one extremely lucky, persistent, and very old person. Vylas was in his sixties and only had around sixty Credellions. Leona looked comparable in age to Vylas, yet her home was smothered in them. There were hundreds in this part of the foyer alone. And while most magic practitioners Jularra knew kept their Credellions mostly private as a type of personal, spiritual concern, Leona publicly exhibited hers. This isn't just pride, Jularra thought. This is posturing.
“Well?” Leona barked impatiently.
Jularra jerked her head back in Leona's direction.
“I’m sorry,” Jularra said quickly. “I've just never seen so many Credellions.”
The rest of the group mumbled in agreement. Leona looked around, as if trying to view her Credellions with a fresh set of eyes, but looked back to Jularra and said nothing. Detecting Leona’s decreasing patience, Jularra whispered to the group, “Come on.”
Jularra stepped down into the lengthy hallway towards Leona, the others at the rear. Leona took a deep breath and sighed forcefully through her nose as though disappointed that they hadn't turned back.
They moved slowly, but Leona didn’t seem to care so long as they kept moving. Jularra and the others swiveled their heads back and forth, up and down, peering at the covered walls. Jularra recognized many of the types of Credellions, their related magic and degree, but most were foreign to her. She wasn’t aware of any type of catalog that explained all of the possible Credellions, but she imagined that if there were such a thing, it would look like Leona’s hallway.
As they progressed, Jularra felt her jaw drop further. Step after step revealed an unfathomable number of Credellions, dozens and dozens of them, each devoted to a single magical discipline.
Fire. Water. Dirt. Wind. Implement enchantments. Weapon augmentations. Armor enchantments. Construction. Architecture. Farming. Alchemy. Metallurgy. Wards of protection, of defense, of offense. Beast control. Farming. Botany. Music. Zoology. On and on. Every few feet was a new discipline. Each discipline had almost as many Credellions attributed to it than all that Jularra had in total.
Jularra couldn’t continue. She had to stop. She had to know.
“Leona?”
Leona stopped with her back to the group, then finally turned. Her eyes flashed in annoyance at being forced to halt yet again.
“How?” Jularra asked. “I’m sorry, but how is this possible?”
Leona continued to stare at Jularra without blinking, and Jularra felt as if Leona was looking through her, or looking at nothing.
Leona walked slowly towards Jularra. She could have been about to burst into tears, or lash out in violence.
“How?” Jularra repeated, this time in a shaky whisper.
Leona lowered her head and burned a stare into Jularra as she answered.
“By not taking it for granted.”
After another forty paces, well into the house, two extremely wide doors met them at the end of the hallway. As they approached, the light from Leona’s candlestick revealed the extent and filigree of the doors, which struck Jularra as odd. The doors were as tall as the moderate hallway, which to Jularra’s eyes couldn’t have been much taller than ten feet. But though their height was modest, their width and detail were not.
Each door was roughly twelve feet wide and formed of numerous carved panels, each approximately ten inches square, that depicted a variety of scenes. Before Jularra could make them out, Leona spoke up.
“There’s a lot of information about the history of magic in these doors.” As she spoke, she inserted three keys into a substantial lock of wrought iron which ran along the length of the seam between the doors.
“What are all these about?” Abranni asked. Her fingers slid along the panels as she examined them, awed by the intricate engravings. “Where did all this information come from?”
Instead of answering, Leona turned the third and final key. After it clicked, she heaved into the doors, swinging them open into the room.
The sight ahead delivered a punch of humility that dwarfed what they had experienced upon seeing Leona’s Credellions.
Behind the doors was a cavernous space. It was the shape of a broad oval, with the huge doors forming one of the narrow points. In the center—the highlight of a glass-covered atrium—was a large, pristine garden, complete with a dozen trees of various species as well as shrubbery, ferns, flowers, and herbs.
And along the sweeping walls of the expansive oval, with seemingly no room to spare, were bookshelves.
From the peculiar cobblestone floor to the wooden slats and rafters, stacked and cramped bookshelves lined the entire circumference of the oval walls, seamless and appearing infinite. The group fanned aimlessly out into Leona’s library, silent and shocked.
Leona, however, wasn’t interested in their shock. From the moment she opened the doors, she marched briskly into her massive library. She pointed at some sections as she walked and paused briefly at others, as if looking for something in particular. Her voice suddenly reverberated through the huge room, startling her visitors.
“Jularra!” she announced. “Over here.”
Somewhat dazed, Jularra began the trek across the room. Leona was already flipping through pages.
“I recall reading something about one of your ancestors,” Leona started. She slapped the book shut and slid it back into place before grabbing the one next to it.
“Specifically, it was Ayluven—the granddaughter of Detsepera, I believe. She commented in her journal about some of her contemporaries expressing alarm that their Voidwardens and Gracewardens were being destroyed. Ah, yes, here it is.”
Leona flipped ahead another few pages and turned around. She glanced up at Jularra before she began reading from Ayluven’s journal entry.
"I am finally rid of the Solkaskin emissary. The necessary business I had with him concluded some three days ago, but he somehow found a way to linger well past his welcome. Just when I thought our interactions had reached a natural conclusion, he found a way to pique my interest or concern—enough to justify an extension to his visit.
"Most of his irritating chatter revolved around gossip of the Solkaskin aristocracy, but his incessant recollections of his region’s panicking priests proved mildly stimulating. There was apparently a great commotion deep within their burial grottos recently, which prompted an immediate investigation from their priests and most accomplished witches and warlocks. The emissary said that very little was gleaned from their efforts, except that their Voidwarden and Gracewarden were missing, with their respective pools drained.
"Only when the emissary mentioned concern over the possible causes or implications did his demeanor shift from frivolous to bleak. His people are at a loss as to why this happened, who or what caused it, where their Gracewarden and Voidwarden have gone, and whether this event has somehow been caused by or affected their relationship with the Gift Gods."
Leona gently closed the book and placed it back in its spot before reaching for another.
“The only other reference I have to these events,” Leona mentioned as she flipped pages, “is from another journal entry of Ayluven’s—just over a year after the previous one.”
Leona began to read.
"There have been some unsettling revelations about the mystery surrounding Gracewardens and Voidwardens disappearing throughout the world. While the possible involvement of the Gift Gods remains uncertain, there seems to be at least one identity being attributed to these disappearances—that of our own Voidwarden.
"The appearance of a Gracewarden or Voidwarden outside their respective burial chambers—indeed, the appearance of Acorilan’s Wardens outside of our own mountains—has, as far as recent memory can dictate, never been observed. Nevertheless, there are increasing reports of sightings of something that resembles our Voidwarden out amongst distant roads, forests, and cities of the world. What this means—and what it may have to do with the disappearance of the other Wardens—remains unclear. Acorilan’s portion of the burden to uncover any remaining mystery, however, will have to pass on to my daughter, for my time to fulfil my part in my grandmother’s pact approaches."
Jularra had to catch her breath before responding.
“How could she—and everyone else—just… just sit there while our Voidwarden did that?”
As Jularra fumed, Leona flipped towards the end of book. After landing on a particular page, she handed the book to Jularra.
“There,” she directed. “Wait till you read what’s next.”
Seventeen
Mother died five nights ago. I haven’t written since before we went into the mountain, and have turned away every audience and attendant. I felt like, and still feel like, ripping the throat out of anything that wants to bother me. I had to watch that sick thing murder her. There cannot be a more obscene and evil thing than what my mother and I went through. And I swear, I will not let this continue. One way or another, I will find out how to kill that Voidwarden. I will not die like my sweet mother had to.
As I stood in that grotesque pool, I cursed at the Voidwarden. I cursed at it and vowed my revenge. I didn’t care that it knew my thoughts or intentions. I would not be afraid of it. I told it that between it and me, it would be the next thing to die. It laughed at me. The sick thing laughed at me! Then it WISHED ME LUCK.
When it finished laughing, it turned and shot energy at a far wall. A portion of the rock wall blew out and crumbled away, revealing the front of a tomb of some kind, and MOTHER’S SPIRIT WALKED OUT OF IT! She walked out and joined the Voidwarden by his side at the pool. I screamed and cried for mother until I only squeaked hints of nothingness. She never looked at me. Her head hung low. Her ghost’s eyes never looked up.
The Voidwarden said that with my mother’s help it would eventually be able to escape. It said it would figure out how to beat our Gracewarden, destroy the other Wardens, and be free. I don’t know what that means, but I do know that magic has most assuredly brought this upon my mother, myself, and our recent predecessors. I also know that if I’m born to die anyway, I will live until then, if only to kill the Voidwarden. This curse ends with me.
Jularra buried her face in her hands and stumbled towards the garden in shame. But the sound of her own crying angered her enough to stifle her grief. She wiped her eyes and turned back to Leona and the others.
“Only four queens into that fucking pact,” Jularra rasped, “and they already knew they were lost! Even then, they knew there was no hope!”
Jularra’s voice broke as she walked back towards the group. She wielded the book like an instrument of judgment, flailing it and whipping it a
round in the air. She clenched her other fist in front of her and pulled downwards.
The fires in the braziers, suspended from columns around the edge of the indoor garden, bellowed and roared. The blazes grew taller and wider. Before Leona could stop her, the fires swelled to many times their original size. The deep bowls holding them began to glow, first red, then yellow, then white, and finally tinges of blue, before the heat traveled up the braziers to the chains that suspended them. Within seconds, Jularra’s heat weakened the chains and caused the ferocious tempests of fire to crash to the cobblestone floor.
As the mutated fires fell about Jularra, a series of fiery rings scorched up around her. This was new, though her fury wouldn’t allow her to register it immediately.
She walked towards the others, her fist still clenched. Leona’s eyes widened.
“Jularra! Stop!”
Leona reached for her own magic, but Jularra whipped her arm out, throwing Leona against her bookcases and pinning her there.
“That was over four hundred years ago!” Jularra hissed. “Four hundred years of queens having to suffer that abomination. Four hundred years!”
Leona, suspended and flattened against the bookcase, stared down at Jularra. For the first time, she seemed at a loss for how to respond.
Melcayro approached slowly.
“Jularra?”
She stood, chest heaving, her eyes trained unseeingly on a distant spot of the floor.
“Jularra,” he said again. His eyes shifted back and forth between her and Leona, and his arms extended placatingly.
“Let Leona down,” Melcayro said gently. “We need her help.”
Jularra’s chest still heaved with passion, but finally she let her gaze drift up to rest on Melcayro. He took a step back.
“Please,” he added.
After a moment, Leona began to slide gently downwards until she found her feet on the floor. The rings around Jularra, as well as the blazing mess behind her, snuffed themselves out. Jularra’s breathing slowed. Melcayro dropped his arms as she relaxed.