He tucked himself into a ball. The head of the worm landed, cracking apart. Dante exhaled as hard as he could so the wind wouldn't be knocked out of him. He landed on a pile of the worm's tenderized flank. This gave beneath him, then his head bonked down on something hard.
He felt very warm. Light coursed over his eyelids. He opened his eyes. The weathered face of Gladdic hung over him, creased with concern.
"You are awake," the old man said.
Dante rolled onto his elbow. "Wasn't I?"
"Yes," Blays said. "Right up until you weren't."
Gladdic stood, hand pressed to his back. "I believe your head struck one of the beast's bones. But there appears to be no damage."
"It would be incredibly hard to tell either way."
Dante got up, a lot less woozy than he should have been, likely due to Gladdic's treatment with the ether. His clothes were damp and smelled murky, which he supposed was to be expected, considering their fall had been cushioned by a heaping pile of fresh worm viscera. And, judging by the broken stalks, a lot of giant mushrooms.
"Once you are recovered, lead us forward," Gladdic said. "I fear we have no time to spare."
Dante touched his head. The pressure was gone. Had he lost his connection to Adaine when he'd been knocked out? There was an ache, sure, but it was pointed in the wrong direction. It was…
Dante laughed. For the first time, Adaine wasn't below them. He was slightly above them. And dead ahead.
"This way."
Dante detoured around the partially coiled, partially exploded body of the worm. He didn't see any of the worm heads projecting from the ground here, and a quick check didn't turn up any holes in the ground for them to be lurking in. Even so, he kept the nether in hand.
"I felt a wind from the other end of the chamber," Gladdic said. "To me, it smelled of the Mists."
Dante glanced back. "You think the entrance to the rift is here in this room?"
"If so, the lich's portal must be close indeed."
Dante hiked across the room in the direction of the pressure. The way things had been going, he expected the way forward to be blocked, or perhaps guarded by the offspring of the very dragon Sabel had had to kill. Instead, he came to an arched doorway that looked as though it might have been man-made, the first such instance since they'd entered Talassa.
And beyond this looked to be stairs, if very uneven and rough-hewn. Dante turned to the others and nodded significantly. Gladdic dimmed the ether until there was barely enough to advance by. Dante dropped the shadows, not wanting Adaine to sense his presence.
He mounted the steps, the pressure in his forehead increasing rapidly. Another doorway gleamed ahead. He crouched before it. A cavern opened ahead, smaller than the others they'd traveled through, though still large enough. A few of the blocky crystals were scattered about, providing various shades of blue light, but these were much fewer in number than they'd been before. Some greenish toadstools of modest size grew here and there. Overall, however, the space was less lively and more open than the others they'd seen.
Which meant Dante's eyes were drawn directly to Adaine. The dead priest kneeled in front of the opposite wall, head bowed and hands outstretched. Ether glowed from his palms, the light stretching to left and right. At each end of the cavern, a vertical whirlpool of misty ether churned slowly. They were already twenty feet across and expanded visibly as Adaine fed them more light. In another minute, they would be as large as the portal Dante had seen in Gods' Plaza.
Dante motioned for Gladdic to curl to the right and for Blays to lag behind. He exited the doorway and angled to the left, crouching low and using what mushrooms he could for cover. Once he was within thirty feet of Adaine, he got down behind a stand of pale green mushrooms, glanced at Gladdic to confirm the old man was ready, and reached for the nether.
"You are the most dogged foes I've ever had to contend with." Adaine stood and turned to face them. He lowered his hands, keeping the ether within them. "How did you know you didn't destroy me in the mountains?"
"Well, for one thing, there was no body," Dante said. "Or even any blood. I have lengthy experience with the conversion of living things to dead things, and it tends to leave a mess of some kind."
Adaine shook his head, laughing ruefully. "Saved by your own ignorance! I'm already dead, aren't I? If I die here, do you think I leave a corpse behind me?"
"Yes?" Blays said.
"How did you find this place? How did you even find the Realm? This knowledge has been lost to all but the oldest minds."
"You speak of the Eiden Rane who you serve," Gladdic said. "Thus to answer your questions is to betray ourselves to him."
"Come now, what is more glorious than the unraveling of mysteries? Besides, you are here to kill me, yes? Which means that you have put me in a position where I will have to try to kill you instead. Since one of us is about to die, what does it matter what is said now?"
Blays wiggled his sword in his sheath. "Doesn't that seem more like an argument to skip all the blabber and go straight to the seeing who dies?"
"We scoured the mountains until we found you," Gladdic said. "Then we chased you here. Now it is your turn to answer my question: How can you do this? How can you betray your people and your nation? Indeed, your whole world?"
"It's quite simple." Adaine tipped back his head. "I have spoken to Taim."
"You utter fool. The Eiden Rane is not his messenger. The lich is a deceiver! He cares nothing for our gods except in how they might be used to facilitate our own destruction!"
"Has it occurred to you that we might be standing in Taim's own land right now? Why do you suppose his guardians are so ready to defend me and attack you? Could it possibly be that I'm carrying out his will?"
"And has it occurred to you that this sign of Taim's 'favor' is nothing more than a trick of the lich, who manipulates these beasts to his own ends?"
"Yes, I had that same thought. Which is why I asked Taim about it directly. You should do the same, Gladdic. It's easy."
Gladdic narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"
Adaine gestured to one of the softly glowing blue crystals. "Get on your knees, pray to Taim, and then smash one of these crystals to focus the ether within you. Do this thing, and the lord you have spent your life serving will hear your voice. He might even respond to you. I think he will. You are an ordon, after all!"
"Enough of this, Adaine. You have claimed for years that Taim speaks to you. If you are so lucky, then you are the only one."
"No, Gladdic. This is different. See for yourself."
"I have no time for—"
"Why not try, Ordon Gladdic? Are you afraid of what he'll tell you? Afraid that when you hear it from Taim's own mouth, you'll no longer be able to deny that I work toward his will?"
Gladdic opened his mouth, then closed it. "There is no sense to be made of this so-called 'will.' What you are doing will destroy the Mists entirely, along with everyone within them. Why would Taim wish to do this to his own people?"
Adaine began to pace slowly from side to side. "When you told me about the Mists, I was just as confused as you are now. The afterworld you described to us in Bressel is nothing like what is promised us in the Ban Naden! How could this be? How could the very word of Taim himself be false?"
He adopted a look of anguish. Then the light of possibility entered his face. "But there are other possibilities, aren't there? What if, once upon a time, the Garden of Taim was real? And so was the punishment of those who failed to abide by his laws? In fact, let me suggest that everything worked precisely as written in the Ban Naden: those who obeyed Taim's laws found glory in the Garden, while those who failed were cast from it into torment.
"But being cast from the Garden didn't mean eternal doom. Except for those few who'd lived their mortal lives as sheer demons, raping and slaying the innocent for their own pleasure, those who found themselves in the tormented lands could attempt to live nobly and well—and, if they did so, could o
ne day be admitted inside the walls of the Garden. It was a simple yet elegant system, one that touched all men's hearts with its fairness.
"But then came the war between Taim and his brother Arawn. Those of you in the north have your version of the conflict while the rest of us elsewhere have ours. Yet do you know how we can be certain that there was war? Because ever since that time, ethermancer and nethermancer have warred against each other, too. As above, so below, after all.
"Now here is where things get truly interesting. What if it came to be that one of the outcomes of this divine war was that all of the gods were somehow ejected from the afterworld they'd once created to fulfill Taim's vision? Without their power and guidance, what do you suppose would come of that world? It would change, wouldn't it? Perhaps it would even become, in time, what we now know as the Mists."
"How can such a claim be true?" A bit of spittle flew from Gladdic's mouth, caught in the gloam of the strange lights. "If that world's shape was crafted by the gods, how could their work be undone?"
"All you have to do is think on the nature of the Mists." Adaine gestured as if gathering up wool to be spun. "Don't the Mists respond to the will of the people who live in them?"
"From everything we have seen."
"Then your eyes accord with reality. That's good. Next, think on the nature of man. He is crass. Lowly. Slothful and criminal. He will always seek base pleasure and avoid hardship. If this wasn't our nature, if we were better than this, we wouldn't need the gods." Adaine came to a stop, clasping his still-glowing hands. "Now consider a man who has lived a life in such fashion and has just died and passed into the next world. Do you think he wants to be punished? And for what? Living down to the nature of the being the gods caused him to be? Do you think he wants to struggle for the redemption that will allow him into the stately peace of the Gardens?"
"The struggle toward grace and justice is what elevates our souls," Gladdic said.
Adaine got a good laugh at this. "Yes, and a few people appreciate that struggle very much. But if you think most of them are getting a kick out of it, then you've learned very little in your time on our world!
"So the answer, of course, is no: a newly-arrived dead man doesn't want to fight and suffer for his redemption. Instead, he will push and kick against any such punishment. He will exert every ounce of his will to avoid it. And remember! In the Mists, one's will can reshape the land itself. Over enough time, and enough mortals acting against the Garden and the torments beyond it, the gods' design was worn down, worn and torn down—until none of its original shape remained.
"Haven't you ever wondered why the Mists felt so subdued? So…tame? You see, they weren't meant to be this way. We changed them. Through the very same weakness the afterworld was meant to correct in us. No playwright could pen better irony!"
"Surely Taim would not be pleased with such a fallen state," Gladdic said.
"Surely not! Don't you see? This is the very reason he's happy to see it destroyed!"
"He is Taim, father and foremost of the gods. If he wishes the afterworld changed back to its correct state, why does he not simply do so himself? In a similar vein, if he wishes the Mists' corruption destroyed so badly, and I and my friends threaten to prevent this, why does he not come in person to kill us, but tasks you to do so instead?"
"At last, a good question! Two good questions. The very same ones I asked him myself, when I shattered the crystal and spoke to him. But Taim wouldn't give me the answers to these things. Some matters are beyond mortals, Gladdic. You should know that."
Gladdic watched Adaine from across the room, dark light glinting within his eyes. "At last, a question you have no answer for. Perhaps that is because there isn't one. Perhaps you fabricate this tale from whole cloth."
"If you want to find out for yourself—"
"Yes, I know." Gladdic waved his hand in tired dismissal. "Then I have only to ask him. Yet I have no need to do so."
"Suddenly the truth is no matter to you?"
"Even if you are correct about everything, and present it without a single lie or distortion, it is of no consequence. Nothing has changed. Your path will mean the dissolution of the Mists and the loss of everyone in them—and the slaughter of everyone in our world at the hand of the White Lich. And worse, when they die, they will dissolve directly into the Worldsea."
"The fate of these lands isn't ours to determine. It's Taim's." Adaine crossed his arms. "If the Mists are the land of the will, you might call this realm the land of the ideal. You should ask yourself what will become of you if you defy your god. How he's likely to answer you. Do you think he'll look kindly on that?"
Gladdic answered angrily, but Dante didn't catch it, because his loon was pulsing. He answered. "Nak?"
"Master! Dante!" Nak was breathing hard, like he'd been running. "Have you located the portal yet?"
"We found Adaine a few minutes ago," Dante said. "We're speaking with him now. Everything's under control."
"Then why are you letting them through?"
"What? Letting what through?"
"The Blighted! They're pouring out by the hundreds!"
"Nak, that can't be so. The portal isn't open. I'm looking right at it."
"Then either you're blind or I'm insane, because I'm looking right at an open door!"
Coldness ran down Dante's spine. "Could this be a ruse by Adaine? Are Somburr and the others still watching the rift in the mountains?"
"Yes, and they haven't seen a thing."
Two possibilities sprung to Dante's mind, neither of which he wanted to be real. With his throat clamping shut, he looked past Adaine and into the two seemingly inactive portals. There was a great deal of ether circling about them, as well as cloud-like streaks of it passing between the two whirlpools, rippling along the cave wall like liquid light. It looked to simply be playing across the surface of the stone, yet now that Dante looked at it closely, there was a depth to it he hadn't noticed before.
Heart drumming in his ears, Dante reached out his hand, flicking his wrist in a clawing gesture. Nether dashed forward. Adaine jerked, intensifying the ether in his hands in preparation to defend himself, but Dante's shadows veered away from him, headed toward the left-hand portal. Everyone paused and went silent, watching.
The nether sank into the portal. Its face rippled, then bulged outward. Small tears appeared in its surface, widening into larger circles. Perhaps it looked as though the portal was about to burst, but Dante hadn't sent nearly enough nether to do that, nor had he sent it against the long roots that he and Corson had tried to sever in the Gods' Plaza.
Ether fell from the surface of the portal like dust from a shaken rug. Light glared from what had been revealed behind it: shifting clouds and thick mists dotted with rocks and trees placed without rhyme. The ripple in the ether continued on, following the curve of the back wall of the cave until it came to the right-hand portal. The surface of this also fell away into vanishing dust.
The whole room grew as bright as daylight. What was revealed on the right was virtually the same as that on the left: a functional and open doorway through the Mists. A glowing tube connected them. And through this tube, hundreds of pale Blighted marched from the right to the left.
"The portal's already open," Dante said. "It's been open this whole time. Adaine, you liar!"
"I didn't lie," Adaine said, affronted by the accusation. "You just never asked."
But something more had been exposed: thin black lines cracking away from the edges of the portals and the tube between them. These didn't seem to be in the Realm, but rather in the Mists. Even as Dante watched, the cracks were growing bigger.
Dante drew on as much nether as he could, meaning to obliterate Adaine before the priest had time to react. But Adaine had already reached the same conclusion as to where things stood. Behind him, a crystal the size of a post shattered, vomiting shards; a thunderbolt of ether leaped to Adaine's grasp, so potent that he had to wrestle it as if it were the horns of a
n angry bull.
The two forces collided with a bang, shaking the room. Flaming tendrils of light and dark mushroomed to all sides, forcing Dante to shield his face. In the same way that the earth in the Realm was "alive," imbued with something more, so too seemed to be the nether and the ether: they seemed less in control, wilder and more primal.
Gladdic drew down ether of his own, launching it at Adaine. The old man's face was warped by the wrath of the betrayed. Adaine backpedaled two steps, meeting the attack with a mixture of darkness and light. It was enough to ward off the worst of it, but stray sparks and shards shot at him, scratching his face and singeing his robes. Rather than bleeding, his wounds were simply empty and black. It was enough to freeze Dante in confusion until he remembered that Adaine was already dead.
And if he was killed here, it would be the final death. Dante drew forth more nether. As he did so, Blays circled to Adaine's right, both swords in hand. Adaine flicked a white bolt at him and Blays blinked into the nether.
At that same moment, Dante came at Adaine with an angry flock of shadows. Adaine pulled clumsily at the ether, retreating further toward the softly glowing passage where the Blighted continued to march between the two portals transferring them miles across Mallon and onto the very doorstep of the refugees from Bressel. Dante didn't know if Adaine could enter that passage and slip back to the Mists, but if he did so, Dante and Gladdic would rip the portals out by the roots.
Yet Dante didn't intend to let him get away again. He breathed the nether to him, summoning it from the toadstools and the stone, from the dark depths of this world, and came crashing down on Adaine for a third time. Gladdic joined him. The flash of sorcery dazzled Dante's sight. He waved his arm in front of him as if to clear smoke.
Across the room, Adaine had fallen to his knees. His face and arms were crossed with empty black wounds. He reached skyward, as if beseeching the gods. On the ceiling, a skull-sized blue gemstone splintered, showering pieces to the ground. Ether lurched from it. But rather than heading for Dante or Gladdic, it spread across the ceiling.
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