The staff was taller than she was, a glistening silver metal with only a hint of color that changed hue in the light from a light yellow to a bright red, inset with crystals just as her training staff had been. It was in the style of a fire staff, with the archway for the flame to ignite inside of with the crystals set along the brim and the arch itself. There were crystals set into the bottom as well- but they weren’t all fire crystals. She spun the staff and saw crystals off all different types.

She gripped it by the long handle and saw etchings inscribed there of beautiful flames.

But she felt no magic.

Something was terribly wrong.

She turned and called, “Gareth?”

He was staring at her in open-mouthed awe, as if he could not process what he had just seen. He had one hand over his open mouth and the other outstretched toward her, and he seemed as if he was trying to say something, but his body would not allow him to speak or move. He was in a state of reverence that she did not understand. He was in the presence of the avatar of a god.

“Gareth?” She called again, and began to walk back toward him, “Gareth, something’s wrong. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t channel magic.”

He took a step back from her, swallowed, and stepped forward again. Orenda thought for a moment that he may be afraid of her, because she didn’t understand what this meant for him. There had been so much buildup, but it had been so easy to take, and it did nothing! The artifact that was supposed to slay the Emerald Knight couldn’t light a candle!

“It doesn’t…” He grabbed the carpet and came rushing to meet her, rolling it as he went. “It doesn’t work?” He asked, mirroring her panic, but it was more to him in a way that Orenda didn’t understand. The staff wasn’t just a tool to him, it had been a fixture in his life; it held meaning for his people. To Orenda this was a setback, but to Gareth it was a crushing blow.

“Let me see it,” he said, “Maybe I can figure something out.”

Orenda tried to hand it to him, but when he touched it his hand let off a sound like cooking meat, and he pulled it back as his glove burst into flame. Gareth screamed and jerked off the glove, sending it careening into the lava below.

“It burned!” He said, in shock, “I… I think. It’s been so long since I’ve been burned. Is that what that feels like?” He stared at the mark on his hand and continued, “I’ve been burning people to death. I mean, I knew it hurt but… that really hurts. It keeps hurting once it’s over. That’s my good hand…” He flexed his fingers to make sure they still worked and seemed satisfied with it. “I suppose that means it works.”

“No,” Orenda argued, “I don’t know what that was. I didn’t feel anything.”

Gareth took her hands by the wrists and guided them to stare at the staff.

“I’m going to say something that will make no sense,” he said, pursed his lips together, and continued, “I think… I think this is made of sterilite.”

“Sterilite… doesn’t conduct magic,” Orenda said.

“I told you it wouldn’t make sense,” Gareth said, “But that’s what it looks like. It glistens like Xac’s hair. Except his is a white silver, not… it changes like a flame.”

“Gareth it doesn’t work!” Orenda said as if she thought he wasn’t taking it seriously, though she knew he was. But she was frustrated and angry that the entire trip had been wasted, that it was all for nothing, and he was the only one there, and neither of them could fix it, so he was the only direction she had to send those emotions. It would have been different, before. It was different when she was a nameless Knight in the Order- but now? Now she was Orenda Firefist the second, the Chosen Child of Thesis who had pulled the sacred staff from the sacred flame, and everyone in Henoluhur, everyone in Huriyat AlIinsan had identified her as someone important. She was the chosen one! She couldn’t tell them that the staff that was supposed to overthrow the empire couldn’t send a scry!

“Some intelligent fucking design, mom,” Gareth took a step back and threw his hands up, “Your dumbass god made a mage staff from sterilite! But that makes sense, the same god who creates horrible flesh eating viruses and those bugs that burrow into your eyes.” He was talking animatedly, trying to burn off the same energy that Orenda felt in her anger, wiggling his fingers to indicate bugs. He stopped and stood with one hand on his hip to stare at the staff in contemplation. “I wonder who really made it… I wonder how they put it here and why? It’s obviously just a ceremonial little… pretty thing to look at. Sterilite is rare so they made something fancy out of it, then they put it in the magic flame knowing it wouldn’t burn. It was a trick. It’s always been a trick. I hate being right all the time.”

“But it burned you,” Orenda argued, “And no one could cast a spell like that, that would burn for eons!”

“No one I know can cast a spell like that,” Gareth said, “It doesn’t mean it can’t be done. At the very least, we can now put this all behind us, and we have an item that is… probably one of a kind. That thing is priceless. We can chalk this up as treasure hunt.”

“This is an artifact made by Thesis for the Chosen One!” Orenda argued, “No one else has ever been able to take it!”

Master, the staff said, I am limited. I am weak. I must be reunited.

“Reunited?” Orenda asked.

“Who are you talking to?” Gareth asked.

“The staff. It speaks to me.” Orenda explained, staring at it.

“Well,” Gareth said, “It really must be hereditary. Madness isn’t all bad, Orenda, you find yourself zoning out to worlds much better than this one. Can we go now?”

I must be reunited with the artifact. The staff explained. It is no longer here. It was stolen more than two centuries ago by a man in green with a soul that did not belong to him. It was taken from the temple deep inside the mountain. It is yours. You must have it.

“There was another artifact?” Orenda asked. “If I find it, you’ll become the weapon of a god?”

Yes, master. Together we can accomplish anything. It will grant you power beyond your wildest dreams.

“There isn’t another artifact, Orenda,” Gareth said, “This was it. This was our chance. I came along on this ridiculous quest, but you can spend the rest of your life chasing dreams and it would still be foolish to go up against the Emerald Knight.”

Orenda ignored him and instead asked the staff, “Do you know where it is?”

I am searching, master. Trapped as I am I can do so little. Please, help me. Take me into the open air and I will feel the connection. We will find it together.

“I suppose I’m ready to go,” Orenda said, but when she finally looked at Gareth, she saw him staring over her shoulder at something that quite obviously had his attention, so she turned and followed his gaze.

The sculpture she had seen when she entered the room, the one on the other side of the sacred flame that had been mostly blocked from view- was moving.

She had assumed it was decorative, had assumed it was there to help those who had come to take the test- but now she saw that the outer edge was lined with crystals, and they were lighting up. The light flowed across the runes and spelled out words that she did not understand, then spilled out onto the stone surface, into the cracks that lined it, until the whole thing began to glow as if it were melting into magma. But it was not magma, not the bright reds or oranges of fire, but a strange, dark light.

Orenda felt the same thing she had felt in the sacred flame, but she was not inside it, only peripheral to it. But she identified it. She knew what it was, because she had felt it so strongly before. But she did not understand why the sculpture had sprung to life with the sacred flame-

Until she identified it correctly.

It was not a sculpture.

It had never been a sculpture.

It was a doorway.

And someone was stepping out of it.

He was the tallest person she had ever seen, made taller by the boots he wore, which stretched past his knees. He wore long gloves and tight pants, all in black, but no shirt. Instead, strips of the black leather crossed his flesh, which was as pale and grey as a corpse. Some of his dark hair was pulled into a bun at the top of his head, and his eyes looked like the void between the stars, like eternity stretching into infinity that held all the secrets of the universe. When his cape cleared the doorway, the dark mockery of the sacred flame disappeared completely, and Morgani Magnus, the fallen, the demon who walked the face of Xren, stared at them as if he had not expected to see them.

The sculpture was once again only a sculpture.

Morgani was the one who broke the silence when he asked, “Ronnie? What happened to your face?”