Seph chuckled. “I think I’d like that.”
“We, um, have to bring the others in now.”
He gave an acknowledging nod, and reached to one side to grasp Karlona’s hand. Instantly Karlona blinked as she was brought into the time bubble.
After Jak explained what they were doing, Karlona acknowledged her with a nod and grabbed Marek’s fingers to bring him into the bubble as well. Marek’s face showed a mixture of wonder and nervousness as he realized what was going on.
“This is incredible,” he said, reaching out to a leaf that hung suspended in mid-air.
Jak was used to the effect by now, but she let Marek have just enough time to enjoy the moment before they set out.
They walked for some time, awkwardly at first, since they had to continue holding each other’s hand for the Pillar of Eternity to work for all of them. Occasionally, someone would slip and fall out of the time bubble, requiring them to stop and re-establish physical contact before they could move on.
“This magic really is amazing,” said Marek as they continued their journey. “I’m surprised you haven’t defeated Cain already, or taken over the entire nation by now.”
Jak was about to respond and say that the magic was more complicated than that, but before she could say a word the world lurched around her.
Instantly, she nearly lost her balance as her body was thrown forward by something in the staff’s power. Where the world had stood still just moments before, motion exploded around them. Birds flew through the air, but at a speed far greater than they were capable of. Trees further down the mountain swayed in the wind, but faster, back and forth, back and forth, like they were caught in some strange kind of dance.
Jak glanced at the Relic in her hands. It pulsed with a bright light shining out of its runes, shining in such an intense way that it gave the impression that something wanted to get out. And with the world responding the way it was...time was speeding up instead of slowing down.
As quickly as it had come, the glowing in the staff stopped and time froze once again.
“What was that?” Karlona said once everything had calmed down.
“I…” Jak considered letting go of the staff. “I don’t know. We’d better find a good place to let go.”
Still holding each other’s hand, they ran ahead. They still weren’t far enough away from the demon cries they had heard earlier. Not far enough for comfort anyway. And with all that time that had just passed, they had lost some of their advantage. If time sped up again, who knew what could happen? The demons could attack them from behind and they’d be moving too fast for Jak and her companions to realize what happened. What would that be like for the demons, to see them suspended there, barely moving?
The world heaved around them once more, the passage of time increasing in a moment. But this time they were running when it happened. The sudden change caused a shift in momentum that threw Jak off her feet in a blink of an eye. She fell face forward to the rocky ground. The Pillar flew from her hand, and her grip on Seph’s hand loosened as well.
Time sprang back to a normal pace, just as Jak’s head connected with a large rock, and everything went white.
8
She had lost consciousness before, but this time something was different. To start with, she was still thinking straight. That usually didn’t happen when she was hit on the head before. Usually when you get knocked out, there’s a sort of dullness that accompanies the sensation of waking up, and a sense of not knowing where you were. That wasn’t the case at all. Well, at least she had clarity this time. Her mind wasn’t foggy at all, though she legitimately did not know where she was anymore. That much was the same.
She stood in what looked like a white corridor, like something she would see in the queen’s palace, but blanketed in a soft, white glow. She was still dressed the same, but her spear and the Pillar of Eternity were gone. She scanned all around to see where they could have gone.
“Another has come,” said a gentle voice from behind her. She spun, but did not see the source of the voice.
“Who’s there?” she called. Her voice bounced off the walls of the strange hallway, echoing for some time after she spoke.
“But this one is different. It already has one,” said a different voice, this one slightly more high-pitched. Once again, it seemed to come from behind her, but when she turned to look, it wasn’t there either. Yet there seemed to be some kind of shadow in the corner of her vision. If she didn’t try too hard to see it, she thought she could just make it out.
“Why can’t I see you?”
“Impatient though, like the last one. Never living in the present.”
Jak paused. What was happening here? The last thing she knew was that she hit her head on a rock, and in the next moment, she had come here.
She stared down the hallway. Well if the voices weren’t answering, she could only push forward and maybe find some answers ahead. She took one step, then another. She couldn’t make out the end of the corridor, but there had to be an ending, right?
“Oh, that’s interesting,” said the second voice. “The other one didn’t do that before. He just yelled at us until he was blue in the face.”
“Hello?” Jak said. “I can hear you, can you please explain what’s going on?”
“Well, she did say please,” said the second voice.
“We are your guides,” said the first voice. “My name is Perchel. You are here because you seek a Pillar of Eternity.”
Jak froze. “What do you know of them?”
“We know much, but also nothing at all,” said the voice. “Why do you seek its strength?”
“I want to help people,” Jak said to open air. “There are others depending on me. I need the Pillar to help me defend against our enemies and build a place of peace.”
The second voice piped up again. “Well, she makes it sound so simple when she puts it like that.”
“Quiet, Harglim,” said the first voice. Then his attention focused again on Jak. “You will not see us, not yet. But we are to be the shepherds in your preparations.”
“What preparations?” she asked.
“To see if you are ready to take up the Pillar of Eternity, of course.”
Jak took a deep breath. Okay, this was good. Whatever had just happened, it didn’t appear to be a bad thing, at least not yet. Perhaps if she could pass whatever these ‘preparations’ entailed, she could actually achieve their goals sooner than they thought.
“Where are my friends?”
“They are not in any danger. You will be returned to them in time.”
“And I don’t suppose you could just give me the Pillar?” she asked, knowing what the answer would be.
“Oh, I’m afraid not. You seem like a decent person, but it’s not ours to give, nor do we make the final decision.”
“Who does?”
“Why, the Pillar of Eternity, of course. It speaks the will of the Guiding Hand.”
Jak nodded to herself. That fit with what she knew of the Pillars so far. The first one had even spoken to her when Mt. Harafast had erupted and she had gone back to save Skellig. Perhaps this was a similar phenomenon.
She looked back at her surroundings. “What is this place?”
“This is an in between place. It exists outside of time and space,” said the voice. “When you are ready, we will take you to the first part of your preparations.”
Jak squared her shoulders. Well, there was no point in dawdling. “I am ready.”
The bright light of the hallway grew brighter, illuminating everything until she could see no more.
She was in a cave that contrasted starkly with the bright light of the room she had just left. It was dark, almost completely dark, yet she could make out some small details from the light of a fire. The light came from...there, several torches held up by men and women. Not just one, there were several of them. She squinted at the newcomers. There wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about them.
They didn’t have the look of bandits or any other sort one might find in caves like these. They looked more like ordinary folk, more like…
Her eyes narrowed as the flickering firelight fell on a woman, with a round belly that suggested several months of pregnancy. There was something familiar about her.
She put up both her hands. “Hello?” No response. Each member of the party continued walking down the stone corridor as if they hadn’t heard her.
“Some parts are merely vision.” said the strange voice behind her. “At other times, you will be able to interact with them, but not all.”
“Okay, so what am I supposed to see?” she said.
“Keep watching, and you’re sure to find out.”
Jak turned her attention back to the familiar-looking woman. She took a step forward to get a little closer.
“I can feel it,” said a voice at the front of the group. “There is definitely something here.”
They continued some distance down the stone corridor. She was going to have to move if she wanted to keep up with them.
She tiptoed forward, trying to remain as silent as possible before remembering that they could not hear her. In the end, she fell into step behind the last of the group. Could she push past? Would that even work in a vision? She wanted to get a glimpse of that pregnant woman near the front. Perhaps if she moved ahead, she would just...pass through the bodies or something. She reached out a hand to the nearest person to see if he was corporeal or not.
“There’s structure here,” said a female voice from up ahead.
Jak’s hand froze just shy of the man in front of her. She knew that voice. There was something softer about it, younger, but there was no mistaking…
“Karlona, I think you’re right,” said the male voice from up ahead. “That’s not a stalactite, it’s a column. You can see the seams. But look at those markings.”
The others crowded around the speakers, including Jak. She needed another glimpse of the woman who was her mother. But how? She didn’t look anything like a Shadow Elf, and the Karlona she knew was not pregnant. And how had she ended up in a cave. Perhaps this vision wasn’t real, but a representation of something else.
“It’s old,” came Karlona’s voice. “And there are more columns here, in a pattern. It looks like it’s leading to something. In fact, is that an entrance of some kind?”
Those in the front of the group hurried forward, with those in the back trailing close behind, including Jak. Though the others couldn’t see her, something made Jak feel like she was a part of this, like she was a member of the expedition.
As they moved, Jak saw the columns the others had talked about. Yes, those definitely looked man-made, though they blended almost seamlessly with the rock around them. And just up ahead she could see the others beginning to funnel into a stone doorway made of smooth, clean-cut stone.
She recognized that archway.
In a moment, it all fell into place. She wasn’t seeing her mother as she was now. This was the past. They were in the Hollow Peaks! Which meant that Karlona’s pregnancy had to mean this was just months or weeks before Jak was born.
“There’s something ahead of us,” a voice shouted. It was muffled, coming from the other side of the stone archway. “It’s the Pillar of Eternity, it has to be!”
Jak didn’t follow them inside. She knew what lay there, and it wasn’t a Pillar of Eternity, though it was a Relic of great power. The Relic that started all of this.
In a rush of spontaneous power, a great wind swept out of the stone archway and through the corridor. In the blink of an eye, the torches carried by the expedition flickered and died. The entire cavern was plunged into complete darkness.
Panicked shouts echoed all around Jak. Though she had an idea of what was happening, she couldn’t help but take a step back. This was the moment that it happened.
“Someone,” she heard her mother’s voice yell above the others. “Get the torches lit again. Vander, you’re a Flamedancer, see if you can give us some light.”
“I...I’m trying,” came another voice, youthful and lacking the gruffness Jak was used to hearing. But there was no mistaking that voice. That was Vander, another surviving member of the Shadow Elves. “I can’t seem to get my brand to work.”
“No one else is a Flamedancer, Vander. Try again.”
“I can’t!” the voice came out in a panicked wail. This prompted a chorus of renewed shouting and scrambling. Calls of ‘someone find the flint,’ or ‘I need to get out of here’ ran through the cavern.
Jak merely listened. She knew why Vander couldn’t use his Flamedancer brand. They would all soon discover that their brands were no longer of use to them. Because brands no longer worked once you became a Fae.
“Oh, thank the ancestors. Who lit their torch?” said Karlona.
The shouting and chaos died down as others registered what she had said. Finally, the man who appeared to be leading the expedition spoke up. “I don’t think anyone lit a fire.”
Indeed, Jak could still see nothing in the darkness. She couldn’t have seen her own hand if she waved it mere inches in front of her face.
“But I can see?” said Karlona. “What’s going on?”
“Wait!” said Vander. “I see something too.”
One by one, the rest of them began acknowledging that they could also see, despite the darkness.
“That is all you are meant for here,” the disembodied voice spoke to Jak once again. She resisted the urge to turn again and try to find the source of the voice.
She covered her eyes as the darkness gave way to white light. For a moment, there seemed to be nothing but the light. Then it faded to nothing, and she was left standing somewhere completely different.
9
She let her eyes adjust to her surroundings, blinking back the afterglow of the sudden brightness. It took a moment before she noticed that the Pillar of Eternity was back in her hands, its polished surface gleaming in the cool light of morning.
She stood in a small town, not all that different from Riverbrook, though the roofs weren’t thatched. Instead the buildings were covered with curious tiles made of what looked like wood. And in the distance she could see where all that wood came from. An enormous forest rose in the distance, with trees that would have towered over her had she stood next to them. She had never seen so many trees in all her life. They had trees in the mountains, but she had grown up in the grasslands. Never had she laid eyes on a real forest before.
Several people were walking through the dirt streets, some carrying wagon loads of supplies, others going in and out of what looked like a general store and a drinking establishment with an inn of some kind.
She glanced at a wagon pulled by several oxen. Felled trees lay on the wagon, cut into great long sections, but still enormous compared to what Jak was used to seeing. Unlike the previous vision, this was definitely a place she had never visited before.
“Where have you taken me?” she said aloud to her invisible guides.
She received no response. Instead, the wagon driver glanced at her, frowned, then continued onward with a further glance or two in her direction.
They could see her this time. This wasn’t purely a vision. So did that mean that this was really happening? Had she somehow been transported away from the mountain? And to where?
She placed the tip of the Pillar of Eternity into the ground, using it as a walking stick as she stepped forward towards the small village. It was a little larger than Riverbrook, and there were definitely more people going back and forth on whatever business they had. Well, the inn would probably be a good place to start if she wanted answers. She began taking long strides to close the distance between her and the larger building.
A bell chimed as she pushed open the large door. Yes, she could definitely interact with her environment now. This was more than a vision.
Several men and women sat at tables inside, and footsteps sounded from the floor above. It was a busy
establishment.
“Haven’t seen you before?” said a voice in front of her. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness inside. “Looking for a room? It’s early but we have a bed that’ll be available in a few hours.”
As she had when hearing her mother speak in the previous vision, she recognized the voice.
Yewin stood at a long counter, running a wet rag through a mug in his hand, before setting that down and picking up another to do the same. Though he did not have his characteristic glow, there was no mistaking his sharp cheekbones and long blonde hair. It was him.
“Yewin,” she said before she hastily brought a hand to her mouth.
The man looked up to get a good look at her. “Do I…”
But the rest of his words were cut off as his eyes went wide. Jak knew immediately what he was looking at. His eyes glanced to the brands on her arms and face.
“Demon…” he said in a hushed tone.
The scrape of chairs against the wooden floorboards sounded as several men in the bar got to their feet, their heads coming round to fix on Jak. Some reached for weapons.
“Wait!” Jak cried. “I’m not a demon. It’s a long story.”
Yewin narrowed his eyes at her. “How is that even possible.”
“Look, I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” she said. “Demons don’t talk.”
Nobody moved a muscle, though Jak kept a wary eye on the hands of some of the customers. She didn’t immediately see any combat brands in the room, but she couldn’t make out everyone. And several bore axes, knives, or other weapons. If one of them threw something at her, she would have to act fast to activate the Pillar of Eternity or dodge out of the way.
Yewin, to his credit, relaxed just a bit, enough for Jak to notice. “Well, you seem relatively sane, though how, I cannot tell. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to ask you to leave.” She felt her spirits drop. Was everyone afraid of the unknown?
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