She clenched her jaw, but soon relaxed it. "Nonetheless. I am an agent of Barsil. Sworn to protect it. And I will know if you serve the Eiden Rane."
"For the third time, no," Dante said, looking for a chair to cast himself down in. "We're trying to kill him."
"Prove it."
"And why don't you prove you don't work for Gil-Ragh, the Ill-Tempered Serpent Who Swallows the World? How can we possibly prove we're not working for the lich?"
"You've seen what's happened to the city," she said. "You'll forgive me if I want more than your word."
Blays perched on a table and kicked his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle. "You don't have to take our word. You can take the word of the thousands of recently dead people who witnessed us spending the last couple weeks beating the hell out of the lich."
"If that's a bluff, it's a mighty big one."
"Want to find out?"
The woman examined Blays for a long moment, then smiled for the first time. "You can call me Isa. Lay your cards on the table, then I'll lay out mine."
Dante located a chair by the wall and placed it across from Isa, seating himself. "If I told you everything there is to know about our war against the White Lich—our name for the Eiden Rane—he'll have more than enough time to kill everyone I know, which would rather defeat the purpose of our trip here. But I'll tell you enough to help you protect Barsil."
After a few moments of thought, he gave her a very clipped summary of the lich's origin in Tanar Atain, his sweep through that nation, and his aquatic march on Bressel. From there he grew more detailed in their preparations for the siege and their initial successes against the lich's attacks, then their defeat as the lich opened the portals and flooded the city with Blighted.
When he finished, Isa was looking at him like he'd just popped a lizard into his mouth and still had the tail dangling from his lips.
"You're here," she said. "In Barsil. In what you call the Mists. And you're still alive?"
"Wasn't that clear?" Dante frowned, sensing that he'd missed something. "Our purpose here is to stop the formation of any more portals—which means we'll also stop any more attacks on your city. Once that's done, we'll return to our lands and work to defeat the lich for good."
"You're alive. And you're here. How?"
"A…hidden technique."
"How many people know it?"
"A small and until recently very isolated group of sorcerers. They consider it their most sacred secret. As far as I know, we're the only ones they've ever told."
Something glinted in Isa's eyes. "Then how did the White Lich know about this realm?"
"That knowledge came out when we were trying to convince Bressel's priests to fight alongside their enemies. Our tactic worked. But a renegade priest named Adaine betrayed us. He brought the knowledge of the Mists to the lich. In response, the lich dispatched him here—by killing him. I suspect the lich used Adaine to get the portals open."
"Then it's your fault the lich attacked Barsil."
"I would argue that it's the lich's fault, as he's the one who actually did the thing you just said, but maybe the dead adhere to different philosophies than the living."
"This isn't a joke." Her right hand curled. "This isn't a joke at all."
The blade of light reappeared in her fist.
Gladdic moved forward, slapping his hand to his heart. "I dare you! Relieve us of the misery of our struggle, and bear the burden on your shoulders instead. Do you believe death is a threat to us?" He laughed in disbelief. "What will you do when you have 'punished' us so, and there is no one left to stop the Eiden Rane or his servants from rending apart both your land and ours?"
Isa's hand hadn't budged from her waist nor her eyes from Gladdic's. "What's the difference? Were you listening to your friend tell your story? The more you people touch this, the worse it gets."
"You know, you've got us there," Blays said. "But if you do kill us, you've got about a day to figure out how to do better than we have."
"A day? Why?"
"That's how long it's going to be until the lich opens his next doorway. Considering how many more Blighted he's got to work with now, I expect it's going to be a lot bigger and open for a lot longer than the last one—and Barsil's not looking too healthy as it is."
She uttered several deep blue oaths. With a twist of her hand, the blade disappeared. "My order has a saying. Don't kill your allies until you're damn sure you don't need them. And I'm not sure at all."
Dante had stood at the reappearance of her sword. He now lowered himself back into his chair. "Any other questions or death threats? Or are you ready to lay out your cards?"
Isa turned her back and gazed at a painting on the wall of a ship of many masts emerging from a dark fog. "It's like I told you. I'm an agent of this city. Similar to the Glove and Blade. There aren't many of us. Never been much need. There isn't much the people here can do to break the peace. But it's all about to fall apart.
"It wasn't just the portals. When they died, the undead were sent here, too. The Blighted. They're not of this place. They can't kill you, but they can hurt you. Make life hell. Their presence seems to fray the fabric, too."
"You're right," Dante said. "They don't belong here. They're missing their remnant."
"Their what?"
"The ether that's been bound to them since birth. It's like the light of their soul. Without it, they become monsters. I doubt this place was designed to include things like them."
"Designed." Isa turned from the painting. "So. Many of the people were forced to spend all their time containing the undead. Others feared total collapse. Those ones passed into the Becoming."
"The Becoming? Is that like the Worldsea? The last realm after this one?"
"You got it. Combined, these things have pushed us to the brink. Another attack—another hole opened through us—and the city will shred apart. That happens, and I think it tears a hole too big to heal. Everything else will fall apart with it."
"Er," Blays said. "You mean the entire Mists? Just…ripping apart, then?"
"Judging by what's happening here? Yeah. The whole thing."
"Wouldn't that trouble the gods a bit? I know they're up to very important divine business, enjoying the sacrifices to them and whatnot, but if their world is about to go up in flames, wouldn't they step in to stop it?"
Isa lifted her brunette eyebrows. "Do you see any gods? I don't see any gods."
"How foolish of me. Don't know what would have given me the idea that there's gods about. Other than the fact we're currently standing in the afterlife."
"How long have you been here?"
"An hour? Can't be much more than that, because I'm not hungry yet."
"I've been here for hundreds of years. Still waiting to see one of them."
Dante leaned forward in his chair. "I've never seen any gods in the world of the living, either. But that doesn't mean that they aren't there. That they aren't watching us."
She slung her jaw forward and gave him a bitter smile. "Think they're watching us? Then why aren't you praying for them to deliver us?"
"Because that isn't their job. Sometimes they may hand you a spark of inspiration or a second strength, but they don't step in to fix things. Our troubles are our own. Always."
"Pretty way to put it to yourself. But there's another answer out there. One that's a lot simpler."
"You think it's simpler? If there are no gods, then how are any of us alive? And why in hell is there an afterworld? Who else could have made this place?"
"Couldn't tell you."
"There is another answer," Gladdic said. "Perhaps the gods did build these worlds—and then walked away, abandoning us to what will be."
"How is that not worse than if there are no gods at all?" The anger in Isa's face drained away, replaced by a colder resignation. "Doesn't matter. Whatever caused the state of things, in the end, it comes down to the same thing: there's no one looking out for you. No one to save
you. You want to stop this lich of yours, you're all on your own."
Dante squinted. "But your order wants to stop him as well. Surely we can work together to make that happen."
"Could be. Right now, what few of us there are have to spend every minute we've got to stop the tears from widening. To stop the city from falling in on itself and pulling everything else down with it. In the meantime, I can give you two things. First is this." She reached inside her fitted jacket and withdrew what appeared to be a large silver coin, offering it out to them. Dante took it.
"That," she said, "is the mark of my office. Anyone in my order will recognize it and help you as they can. If they claim they know me and they don't accept it, that means they're lying about who they are. It can also be used as a signal. If you find your man, or information about the portals that can be used to stop them, you bring the ether to you and you wrap it around this mark. I'll hear your call.
"The second thing I can give you is your next move. You were looking at the plaza. Go ahead and look, but anything you might have been able to find has faded. Good thing for you we got there first. And found a thread leading from the plaza to the Split Crypt. It's a few miles to the south. We haven't been able to find anything there, but maybe you'll have better luck."
"It's a crypt?" Blays crossed his arms, still seated on the desk. "Why would you need a hole to toss dead people in when you're in a place where people can't die?"
Isa shrugged. "Once you've been dead long enough, some of us start to get a weird sense of humor."
"But you found nothing there?" Dante said. "Nothing at all that stuck out?"
"Can't say," she said. "Can't say I did." She stood as motionless as a figure shaped from clay and not yet given breath by the gods. "You said you were a sorcerer. From Narashtovik. That makes you a nethermancer."
"That's right."
"You watch yourself. Watch closely. There are things in the Crypt that mortals weren't meant to touch."
He waited for more. "What does that have to do with the nether?"
"It's forbidden ground. But most people would stay away even if it was the public commons. The few who have gone there are enough to ward the rest away. They speak of shadows. Spirits. That want to lure them to a place they don't want to go."
She didn't know anything more on that, but gave them clear directions to the site, including the spot where the thread from the plaza had terminated. Dante had her run through it a second time so he could draw a map, prompting an eye-rolling from Blays.
"One last question," Dante said. "If the lich opens another portal here and the Mists disintegrate, what happens to the people in it? Do they pass into the Worldsea?"
"What happens when a book grows too old and crumbles into dust?"
"I go and yell at a monk for not doing his job?"
"The wisdom in those pages. Where does it go?"
"Nowhere," Dante said. "It's just lost. Forever."
Isa nodded. "I don't know how much you care for the people here. Most of them died from your world long before anyone you know was born into it. But as long as they're here, they still exist. I'd like to keep it that way."
"We'll do everything we can. I hope we'll have reason to speak again soon."
She nodded, nothing left to say. Dante turned to go. As he neared the door, he heard the squeak of a cork being extracted from a bottle. Isa had gotten out a bottle of spirits and was pouring herself a tall glass. In the spectral interior of the building, lit not by candles or windows but by the thin light passing through the half-translucent walls, Isa looked more like a spirit than something real.
They walked outside, the walls opaquing behind them. Dante took the lead.
Blays glanced around himself. "I can't help but notice we're heading to the north."
"Very good," Dante said. "Although I can't help but suspect you just got lucky with a one-in-four guess."
"But this so-called Split Crypt is to the south."
"Where we'll go in a minute. First, we're heading back to the plaza. We know the lich opened a portal there. I want to inspect it for ourselves. Make sure that Isa didn't miss anything."
"There is another reason to do so," Gladdic said. "We still do not know who Isa is, nor who she answers to. Note how she watched over the plaza and led us away from it as soon as she saw us seeking answers."
"You think she might be trying to prevent us from finding the evidence? But the only person who'd want to stop us from stopping the lich would be the lich himself."
"We cannot assume that to be true. This is not our world. The powers that rule here may pursue interests beyond our comprehension."
"So more or less exactly like our world," Blays said, giving a friendly smile and nod to a woman strolling down the street, provoking her to smile in kind. "Do you suppose the White Lich knows he's on the brink of destroying this place?"
"If he does, he wouldn't care," Dante said. "He's also on the brink of cascading across the continent. After that, I doubt the combined army of the united world could fight him off. After remaking our world, it wouldn't surprise me if his next step would be to remake the Mists as well."
They came back to the plaza, which somehow seemed to be even more dazzling than the first time they had laid eyes on it. Next to the fountain, Dante and Gladdic moved back into the ether. As before, there were a number of rips and tears in the firmament, but as hard as Dante searched for the cords he and Corson had seen and tried to cut in Gods' Plaza, he couldn't find any hint of them. Or anything else, for that matter. Soon enough, he declared defeat and headed southward toward the Split Crypt.
Blays eyed the streets, which were visibly emptier than during their last visit to find the Tanarian sorcerer. "Imagine going through the stress of dying, then waking up here and learning you can just sort of hang about for as long as you like doing whatever you like until you get bored and decide to pass into the even greater beyond. Except just when you're starting to enjoy yourself, thousands of horrible undead show up from nowhere and you have to spend the rest of eternity willing them not to bite you."
They passed through a vibrant neighborhood of blue and green buildings and then into a quieter place of old stone. Following the map, Dante turned east toward a boulevard that would take them almost all the way to the crypt, then stopped short.
Ahead, the buildings looked fuzzy, as if he'd taken a good punch or gotten extremely drunk without noticing. Some ways beyond that—the fuzziness rendered it hard to tell how far—everything stopped the way the ground stops at the edge of a hole.
Dante gazed into it. "The doorways didn't seem to do any direct damage to Bressel. Why did they cause so much harm to the Mists?"
"I'm not sure," Blays said. "Maybe we can kill the lich to send him here to ask him about it."
"Maybe we should take a closer look. If we can't find Adaine, we might at least be able to undo the damage and stop this place from fraying apart."
Gladdic grunted. "We have pressing business in our own world."
"And if we mess that up, this will become our new home. It might be worth preserving."
"Even if this world persists, none of us will have cause to enjoy it—for we shall find ourselves each Blighted, hated by those who live here, and imprisoned until the day they discover how to destroy us."
"Oh. Right. Well, I still want to study it."
"Of course you do," Blays said. "If someone cut out your liver and tossed it on the ground in front of you, your first instinct would be to poke at it until you figured out how it works."
On a whim, Dante wiped his mind, meaning to look into the ether where the structures had been erased. But there was no ether. Instead, there was nothing. No nether, either, of course; as far as he knew, there were no shadows here whatsoever. The absence of both was as startling as if he'd looked up and discovered there were no sun or moon or stars or sky.
They moved on, coming to a much healthier neighborhood that could have been right out of present-day Bressel. With the w
ay people watched them from the windows, he began to suspect it was made by those from the present day. No one called out to them, however, nor interfered with their progress.
Once Dante was reasonably sure they weren't about to be assaulted, he decided it was a good time to test his loon. Yet when he attempted to use it, it was completely inert; presumably, with no nether to be found in the realm, it simply couldn't function.
They climbed a hill of stately homes. At the top, they looked across a field of grass and trees to another hill that seemed to be capped by another piece of the null gray of empty nothingness spattered in its many gobs across the city.
"That is the Split Crypt, as Isa described it." Gladdic stared to the east, then glanced westward. "Do you know where we are?"
Blays lifted his nose as if to test the air. "The middle of a rapidly imploding afterworld?"
"This Crypt—whatever it may be—occupies the same part of this city that the Pits do in Bressel."
"I see!" Blays nodded heartily. "Since it's clear that Dante doesn't get it, why don't you explain the significance of this to him?"
"I do not know myself."
"Then I suppose I'll let you figure it out on your own."
The road came to an end near the last of the houses. They continued downhill across the little valley, following a scant trail through the grass. A faint wind picked up, stirring the leaves. Approaching the hill, Dante saw that the gray cap above the trees at the top wasn't actually one of the null zones, but rather a hemisphere of dark clouds.
They hiked up the grassy hillside. There were plenty of houses less than two hundred yards away, and countless square miles of city beyond that, yet the only sound they could hear was the swish of the wind in the grass.
They came to the top. This was pressed flat like a ball of dough by a great palm. Ahead, birch trees grew in a ring, allowing glimpses of stonework beyond. They crossed through the trees. Standing stones rose from the center of a grassy clearing. They walked onward, but after a few feet, small sticks poked from the grass.
On the end of each one was impaled an oversized beetle, spider, butterfly, cricket, or grub.
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