Ancel stiffened, squeezing every body part tight; his arms, fists, legs, neck, back, stomach, and still they were not enough. When he shot forward, his stomach leapt into his mouth. One moment, he was standing with Ryne, surrounded by Harval’s people and his Pathfinders, and the next he was touching the zyphyl’s surface, the Travelshaft a black maw. That one moment in between felt as if his body would tear itself apart.
He struck the zyphyl and stopped.
There was no sense of motion as he floated in the air. He was alone among a profound absence of light, absence of anything. The emptiness, almost tangible, begged him to reach out to it. His eyes were open, yet he saw nothing and smelled nothing.
The void stirred. It caressed him; its breath whispered along his skin. Abstract thoughts drifted aimlessly letting him know that within it, he still existed. So did the hammering of his heart.
Thump, thump thump, thump, thump thump. Faster and faster it beat. It was almost as if he held his heart next to his ear, its vibrations rippling through him, its rhythm thunder in his ears.
Bright pinpricks appeared all around him, thousands on thousands of them. They kept forming until they were a greater number than his mind could fathom. He noticed then that he moved and not they. It felt at first as if he drifted toward those lights, but as he drew closer, he saw that his speed defied all reason. With the realization, his body cried out from the rush, the jolt vibrating through his soul, stomach knotting as if he fell into a void. His mind cried tears that refused to leave his eyes. The lights grew from sparks into blinding white globes, and then into one continuous blurred line.
He stopped abruptly.
Ahead of him was a huge orb of blues, whites, greens, and browns, surrounded by deep, dark, emptiness populated by pinpricks. Slowly, familiarity came to him. Ancel recognized what it reminded him of: the nights when he would marvel at the moons traversing the night skies accompanied by stars.
He was looking upon a world from the outside looking in. Excited and scared all at once, his mouth opened. There was no one for his unasked question. No cold or heat suffused him, yet he shivered. He drifted down to the world’s surface, and as he did so, two moons circled it. In moments, he passed beyond them and into the pearly whites of clouds. They hung there, puffs of white smoke in different shapes and sizes suspended by nothing. The sun’s glow limned them in flaming hues, and for the first time, he felt its warmth. As he ventured below the clouds, he recognized where he was as compared to the many maps he’d seen.
Denestia.
He floated somewhere above Ostania.
With the thought, he zipped down toward a city, its buildings growing from tiny structures into towering edifices as they climbed the side of a mountain. A gigantic castle loomed below. He cried out when his speed did not slow. By reflex, he threw his hands up over his face as if they would protect him from crashing through brick and mortar. But when he struck, there was no impact; he passed through the walls as if they were air and appeared floating above a throne room.
Rot immediately assaulted his nostrils. He swept his gaze across the room. Several shadelings and a thin, reedy man in uniform held a woman captive, her clothes rags, her face a battered mask. Across from them, a younger uniformed man faced the king. The young soldier, he guessed a General of some sort, pointed at the king who wore black armor of interlocking plates. Behind the king, a boy and a girl, expressions filled with fear, huddled beside a man wreathed in black.
Ancel frowned, drawn to the soldier’s stance, to his hair, then to the woman and back again. His mouth fell open of its own volition.
Mother?
Da?
That would mean the king was Nerian. There was something else familiar about the Shadowbearer that he couldn’t quite place.
The children had to be his brother and sister. Anton and Celina.
Before Ancel could move, the world screamed. Svenzar and Sven tore a chasm in the floor. Materforging scoured the room.
The man wreathed in black near his siblings now held a sword, its blade dripping blood.
His father screamed.
Something whisked Ancel away.
He reappeared above a great tower. A Bastion, he knew at once. Soldiers massed in a field. On the battlements, his father cried while holding his mother. Galiana stood behind them.
Again, he was taken away.
He touched the ground in a field surrounded by familiar woods with the scents of home. The Greenleaf. In the distance, he saw the winery. Mother and Father tended the kinai. A howl broke the day’s silence, rolling across the plains. From the forest bounded several wraithwolves in long, loping strides. Ancel screamed and began running toward his parents but he knew he would be too late.
“I can give you the power you need.” A voice oozed into his mind.
He stopped in his tracks.
“The shade can sway these creatures. It is yours to command if you so wish it,” said another voice.
Gaiana’s face swam into his vision. “Remember nothing you see is real.”
“This isn’t real.” He yelled.
“Maybe it is or maybe it is not,” the first voice cooed. “All exists within the Planes of Existence. Every possibility. Will you let them die?”
Ancel’s hands trembled as he squeezed them into fists. Tears trickled down his face and he watched in horror as the shadelings drew close enough to pounce on his parents. He wanted to stop them. He had to stop them.
Inside him, his power burned. Dear Ilumni, help them, he prayed.
The voice screeched.
Charra appeared, slamming into a wraithwolf. The others of the pack stopped and turned toward the new threat. His power forgotten, Ancel ran for his parents. The voice cackled in his head.
Again, something snatched him away.
“Bring them back!” he cried hoarsely.
A hollow boom sounded. Ancel snapped his head around.
Smoke billowed from the winery. Char choked the air. One of the walls blew outward. From the debris strode a man swathed in all black. He dragged Mother’s limp form from the building by one arm.
Power surged into Ancel’s Etchings. He would not allow the man to take Mother again.
Yet, as much as he wanted to, craved to lash out, to release Etien, he did not.
Once more, whatever power controlled what he was seeing took him and deposited him elsewhere.
In silver armor, sword raised above him, he stood in a familiar city.
Jenoah.
The poisoned gods’ attack swept across the world. Not only here in Hydae, but in Denestia also. It was all connected. With one sacrifice, he could save Denestia, even if it meant the evil infecting Hydae, the darkness thrust upon it by Amuni, would still live.
He needed to give of himself.
The Etchings on his weapon and his body joined as one. He called on Prima.
Antonjur.
Power arched across the Planes into the Entosis, black and light at the same time as if a lightning strike marred his vision. It originated from the mountains hidden in the distance where Prima Materium coalesced, fed by the creatures that inhabited it. Something about the darkness in the elements was terribly familiar. But it was nothing that scared him. He embraced what Charra gave him.
The gods’ power struck.
Whisk.
Ancel leaped up onto the highest tower in Randane. Below him, the city churned in flames, ashes, and blood.
The ashes of my people. The blood of my people.
In the main square before the temples dedicated to the gods of Streams, and at the steps leading into the king’s castle, shadelings had Eldanhill’s refugees lined up. Eyes aglow, daemons flicked out strands from their heads while walking on spindly legs like giant insects. The black hair, or whatever it was, ripped into the prisoners. People Ancel knew. Many he considered friends. Some who were family. His people. Those he’d sworn to help protect.
Sela flew from each person as they died.
The daemo
ns screamed. All across the city came matching replies.
A portal twisted open. Some sela flew into it, while the remainder zipped into the dead and living alike. Those alive grew in size and power. The dead, shifted, got to their feet.
Shadelings. Every one of them.
Whisk.
He heard a roar. Through his helm’s visor he saw wave upon wave of shadelings charging across a rolling plain to him. Wraithwolves, darkwraiths, daemons, vasumbrals, other creatures, skittering like spiders, some appearing as if risen from the grave. Their fetid stench reached him even where he stood. He could make out the sweat, spit, and other bodily fluids as they came, worked into a fervor in their bloodlust.
Behind him, he heard a bellowing reply. To his left, Mirza stood, scythe spinning in his hand, Mater glowing from it. Behind him were rank upon rank of soldiers, faces grim against the tidal wave of flesh, fangs, claws, and steel. To his right was Irmina. Daggerpaws by the thousands spread near her along with scores of mountain men. Overhead, eagles wheeled and cried.
She raised one hand. Sparks appeared in the air. Each grew into living, silver, translucent ovals.
Ignoring the onrushing shadelings, he turned to his army. Too many battle standards to count flapped in the breeze. He knew them all. The most prominent represented each type of Matus still residing in Denestia. The Lightstorm, the Waterwall, the Guardian Wall, the Quaking Forest, the Stone, the Searing Fist, the Thirty-two Winds, the Icebound, the Black Halls.
He watched himself as he raised his fist.
Warriors in cloth, skin a deep bronze, stepped forward from the phalanxes. Faces a mask of calm, each one bore a massive two-handed mace slung over their backs. They strode to the front of his army. Muscles bulged in their arms as in unison they freed their weapons from their harnesses and swung.
The earth roiled with the impacts. It rose, a living creature in a massive swath of rubble, dirt, and blocks of stone that tore apart the enemies vanguard.
As sudden as it heaved, the earth subsided, calm and flat as if it had not just raged. To the front of the horde stood a man in black armor, hand on the hilt of a greatsword that punctured the starving ground.
He motioned to Ancel. “Come!” he shouted.
Ancel smiled. If in death he could help save his people, he would gladly give of himself.
Whisk.
Nine netherlings came forward, one by one, to bestow an Etching upon him. With each gift, his power continued to grow. War after war followed, with him leading the Setian to victory. Their enemies lay decimated before them. On the day he gained his last Etching, he broke the last seal on the Kassite.
The gods returned to the world swathed in destruction. The nine netherlings stood before them, matching their strength.
The gods fell.
The world burned.
Whisk.
Irmina sat on the ground in front of the brown, rusted gates. Shadows capered all around her. Tendrils caressed her and the man she cradled in her arms. Tears streamed down her face.
“I cannot save you, my love. I cannot even save myself.” She wailed.
Ancel looked up into her eyes, red rimmed with grief. A cough wracked his body as he squeezed her hand feebly. Life leeching from his body, he was drifting away. He tried to savor the scent of bellflowers from her underneath the sweat, but the only whiff he caught was of death. “Do it,” he whispered.
Sobbing, she lifted him and stumbled to a stone altar before the rusted gates. No, not rust, but brown, mottled, rotted flesh. She laid him on the altar.
A disheveled figure in tattered clothing shuffled over to him. The figure placed a tome by his head.
“Give in and he shall save you. The shade is his to command and so shall it be yours. Beg him, praise him,” a disembodied raspy voice said from the hungry shadows that licked out all around them.
Thoughts of his friends dying, of his parents, and of a world destroyed assailed his senses.
“Give in, and all shall be well again.”
He wanted revenge. Someone would have to pay for the suffering him and his people endured which now clouded his senses. A voice whispered that it was not real to him. A familiar voice but he ignored it. He was in too much pain and seeing Irmina suffer crushed his heart. The images of destruction stood etched into his skin, seared his being. Below him, Irmina knelt, head bowed, waiting patiently.
Etched into my skin. He attempted to draw on his Etchings. Nothing happened. He no longer had them. He didn’t think he ever had them.
No. This wasn’t right. He rolled off the altar.
The creature that was Irmina stood. “Almost,” it whispered, death’s stink even stronger now.
Whisk.
Faster and faster the visions came. Futures and pasts. Wars and rumors of wars. Lands and names changed. Friends and family dying. From each he garnered information. A lie here. A truth there. A picture formed. A mosaic to rival any ever created. In the center of it all, he remained, resolute and steadfast. He did not know where they originated, but at every turn temptations reached out to him. At every turn, he defied them. The visions built to a blinding crescendo, blurring into one.
Whisk.
Whisk.
Whisk.
He would not give in, no matter what he witnessed. Perseverance in the face of his doubts. Strength to conquer any weakness. He would prevail.
“Finally,” a voice unimaginably smooth and cold said, “finally, the Aegis’ last piece.”
Ancel opened his eyes.
The silver of the zyphyl extended itself to him. A huge bulbous form pushed out from the center of the silver mass. A single eye opened like dancing flames. It spoke.
“A cycle passes in the Planes of If,
A curse and a gift, the creator’s bane walks the land,
Stretching through time, he reaches his hand,
For any who can right the seeds gone wrong,
Streams of light singing a dark song,
Forms of the land open a path,
Flows fill an empty void,
Finally together as one the three who they dread,
Two thought dead, one willfully misled,
Heralding the end of the era when gods lay slain
Materium wielded and waste lain
Resurrection lies within both life and death,
The time when all breathes a last breath
The world battered to a dying husk,
All in the name of the Nine’s lust,
Yet hope dwells within the Entosis,
Guarded and kept by the blood of the Aegis
Through destiny’s doors
And from within a temple’s floors
It begins and ends with Etchings.”
“What … what are you,” Ancel managed.
“Ah,” the zyphyl said. Ancel could imagine the thing smiling. “One who asks the right questions.” The eye turned. “I am but one who stands between many worlds, a keeper of time, a bringer of dreams,”
“Nightmares are more like it,” Ancel said dryly.
“Yours are more volatile than most, but so … so …,” the eye turned, “fulfilling.”
“Why me? Why show me the things you did?”
“It is in your blood. You, more than most others, have manifested a power deep within what makes you. Eztezian. Netherling. ‘Tis a coupling not seen before. One thought not possible.”
“Are you saying my parents aren’t Stefan and Thania?”
The eye shifted, rotating right to left. “Of course, they are.”
“But you said … Never mind. What you showed me. Was it real? Was it true?”
“It is all real, all relevant. Maybe not to your time and place but in another. It is all choice. You chose well.”
“You said I’m the last part of the Aegis. What is it?”
The eye did a full rotation. “A concept, a power, an idea, a shield, a person, many persons, you, your brother, your sister, Irmina, your mother, your father, the gods, the world.”
Confused, Ancel frowned.
“Man must have faith. A belief. You have it in you. Many have preyed on that weakness. Man must have power. They crave it. The sentient creatures of all the worlds crave power. There are those who will upset balance for such. The gods have forgotten that which they were created to do. This world leans toward chaos. When the Annendin returns to reclaim the gods, he will see their failure. The world will be scoured. But man must have faith. You have it in you. So do many others.”
“Faith in the gods? In the Annendin?”
“In yourself. Follow the paths you believe are true. The answers will come.”
“Will I find the ones to save the world?”
“This world as you know it is doomed.”
“So what’s the point?”
“The world is so much more than the land, Ancel.”
Ancel stopped, his mind searching for answers. “It’s the people.”
“Ah.”
“Can I save them?”
“No one person can do so. There is no one savior. Yet-”
“Man must have faith.” Ancel understood now. “I must give it to them. Hope. Hope is what they require.”
“As the world must have harmony. I gave you the keys. Follow the path.”
Hands dragged at Ancel before he could ask another question. Cold to the touch, a substance covered his body and face. When his head came free, he saw Ryne and Galiana pulling him away from the zyphyl’s silvery embrace.
He didn’t remember much of the dreams he had inside, but the conversation was as clear as the blue skies above until darkness folded him in its grasp.
Chapter 46
Galiana sat in a lavishly furnished room provided by King Tozian, Torandil’s ruler, at her request. The room smelled of whatever flowery musk the Dosteri used to freshen their carpets. She studied Ancel’s prone form. She’d fed him kinai. All she could do now was wait. Almost a full day inside the Travelshaft had equated to a week in time on the outside, and a distance covered that would have taken two months. If not for what happened with Ancel it would have taken a day on the outside. Still, what should have been impossible, Halvor had made probable by refining the balance between the zyphyl and the Forms. But at what cost?
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