Within the Seal

For a long time, longer than she had lived, she raged. She snarled at the prison of light surrounding her. Hurled curses at the holes where everything that had been removed from her should have been. Everything they’d taken to make the imprisonment possible.

She hated those who had betrayed her.

And she grieved that it had all been necessary.

Teacher Nolsa

Nolsa landed on her back, thrown by the barrage of mana bullets sent her way. She fell on her side, then quickly raised her head in time to see Perkay’s dagger sink into Darisen’s belly.

“Impressive,” Darisen said, “But not enough.” The gathered mana lanced out in a straight spike, piercing Perkay through the chest.

Perkay’s hands rose up to the hole in his chest, fingers curled like claws as his mouth flapped. The old craftsman pitched forward, landing on his shoulder.

Perkay had given Nolsa the time she needed to recover from Darisen’s barrage of bullets, and she was determined to use it well. Nolsa pulled hard on the mana in the air, breathing deep of the energy from the broken barrier.

Darisen turned his eyes to look at Nolsa. “As I said, insufficient,” Darisen scowled as he pulled the dagger from his stomach, tossing the blade aside. Rippling, multicoloured mana surrounded his hand as he covered the wound. He seemed utterly unconcerned with whatever Nolsa might do.

The air thumped, and Nolsa’s head turned to see another barrier over the pedestal, but with Tal inside. Unlike before, the barrier was made entirely of dark mana, with no ripples of light showing on the surface.

The Elder froze, his face twisting with fury as he realized he’d forgotten the most important thing, keeping Tal away from the sealed one. With teeth bared, he buried the base of his staff in the wooden floor, splinters flying out from the force of the impact.

The light mana in the air, glittering as it floated, started to move. Darisen raised his hands, and Nolsa could feel him pulling on the energy. Fear bubbled up from her gut as she felt the power thrumming in the air and witnessed how much mana the Elder was able to gather above his head.

Nolsa continued her gathering but quickly split her attention. Darisen might not think much of her, but that didn’t mean she was out of the fight. She put her attention into the medallion in her hand, teasing forth the mana of the water-infused gem and mixing it with the dark mana she’d collected. Nolsa sent the resulting tendril out again, keeping it as flat to the floor as she could manage.

Darisen held his hands up as the glittering mana condensed into a bright ball of light. Such was the power that Nolsa could see the roots of the spell take shape within the ball of light, see the thing take form according to the Elder’s will. His voice droned just outside of Nolsa’s hearing as he built his attack.

Nolsa’s tendril of mana wrapped around the handle of the dagger.

“Gather tight, a point of light!” Darisen chanted, the ball obeying his chant and shrinking in his hold. In mid-chant, Darisen stepped forward, stomping his foot onto the flat blade of Perkay’s dagger. He glanced at Nolsa and shook his head. He looked back to the barrier. Holding the light above him with his left hand, he pointed at the dome with his right. “Uuslumin, God of the brilliant sun, guide my light and purify this evil!”

The light blasted out, and a finger-wide beam struck the dome.

The shield shifted, deforming under the weight of the attack, its surface rippling like water.

Nolsa willed the tendril of mana to release the dagger’s handle and forced another purpose into the spell. Her head throbbed as she inserted another concept, but the feel of the mana sharpening in her hold was the confirmation she needed. The tendril released the handle of the dagger and shot upwards, the end of it forming into a spike that pierced Darisen’s outstretched arm.

The remainder of the white mana exploded in Darisen’s hand as Nolsa’s attack cost him his concentration. But Nolsa was too late. Just as Darisen’s blinding attack came to an end, the barrier popped once again.

Tal stood with his left hand on the pedestal, gazing intently at the light drinking orb without a hint of awareness of the world around him. Suddenly he moved, his head shaking.

Tal’s hand had sunk into the top of the pedestal.

Unnamed Talkarn

[Why not? You’re the rarest of the rare, you and your seed! It makes sense though, the only way a Human could be here is if something impressive put you here. God’s fruit, yes? If they’ve gone that far, why not also make you the one type of person immune to my charms.]

Every time she changed the topic, Tal only felt more confused. “Seed? I don’t have a special seed; I can barely even hold any aether that isn’t already in my blood.”

[Indeed, but you sure do have a lot of aether despite that, don’t you? How was developing an element? Frustrating, wasn’t it? Couldn’t hold a ball of aether in your gut no matter what you did, hmm? Even though any Unsown should be able to do at least that much! Oh yes, I can feel your annoyance now! You tried very hard indeed, even though you understood in your way that it was always impossible. Well, you were right!]

“Why are you dancing around it?” Tal snapped. “It’s not funny!”

She continued as if he’d never spoken, [Anyways, from the lowest Barren to the most potent mancers in the world, none were immune to my hunger and my Hungry. Except for one person who was much, like, you.]

“How am I supposed to believe you can’t do anything to me?” Tal demanded. “What happened to that ‘one person’ who was so much like me?”

[What happened to him was that I killed him the usual way. He put up a good fight, but with me in charge of my body and everything it contained, he was really no match for me. As for you…]

Tal gasped as cold hands dug their way into his stomach. His guts alternated between freezing and burning as her claws dug their way in, looking, grabbing, demanding for something. And then the hands dissolved. At the same time, Tal felt a rush of aether bloom within his core, slowly spreading and radiating out to his extremities.

[Oh, that’s bracing!] She exclaimed.

That was not the word Tal would have used. He could feel the echo of the hands dissolving. The pain was excruciating as if he could feel his own hands melting away as if thrust into a heat beyond his comprehension.

“What was THAT!?” Tal shouted.

[‘That,’ was the effect of your seed. A rare and true seed of purification. Your seed works in reverse from likely anyone you’ll ever meet, absorbing mana instead of creating it. It will absorb mana, converts it to aether and distributes it. Hahaha! You can’t hold aether or mana because you are built to prevent you from ever doing so!] Her pain had faded as she explained, but she was starting to feel strangely wobbly. [Oh, but you can circulate aether like nobody's business! Oooo, I’m getting some of that aether coming back to me; feels good.]

Tal wanted to call her crazy, but that would be pointless; she already knew.

He could feel her wandering again. “Hey. Why the effort to put me here, though? You knew I was borne from a God's toy fruit, and you weren’t surprised at all by the idea.”

Her emotions flickered once again to amusement. [Oh, Linumbra’s Hollow Home is more than just a hollow tree. It is THE Hollow Home. One of the eight Aether Trees that govern the leylines of the world to regulate the flow of mana and aether. Having it stuck in a barrier for so long has surely made things awkward for someone.]

“Easil said it was the Masked who put me here,” Tal admitted.

Her emotions rippled with genuine alarm. [Oh, wow. Lady Death herself delivering a soul to live again. You have quite some pedigree, boy.]

“Talkarn,” he replied.

[Hmmm?]

“My name is Talkarn. Or just Tal. What is your name?”

[Oh me? My name is Cynlaird Alexan, Champion of the Tumion Empire and the worst thing to ever happen to Humanity. ]

Tal was stunned into silence. Not because of her name and who she was. She wasn’t wrong when she, Alexan, had noted he had no frame of reference for who she was. He was just stunned because he hadn’t expected an answer.

[Now Tal, you have three choices,] Alexan continued, suddenly all business. [You can step away from the pedestal and leave me sealed within here, which is probably the worst option for everyone involved. The second and third options both involve dropping the barrier, but that comes with a cost!]

“And what’s the cost?” Tal asked.

[Don’t rush me! I’m getting there! And time is a bit faster here without any pesky bodies distracting us.]

Tal wished he could give a proper shoulder-heaving sigh.

[Now, dropping the barrier comes with a big problem. That problem is me! I’ll still be here, but I can’t just go wandering around on my lonesome. Some time ago, a particular set of individuals decided that would be a big no-no.]

“So what happens to you?” Tal asked.

[Well, the option that couldn’t be taken before was to have me broken and destroyed. I was too powerful back then, but that’s no longer the case. The barrier did sap a bunch of my strength, after all. The proper term for what you’d be doing is ‘purification.’ You’d be having me purified, something for which you’re uniquely suited! You’d have to find the rest of me first, though. You can count on spending a good portion of your life with me if you make that decision.]

“And?”

[And the next option, if you’re courageous, or stupid enough, is to put me back together and see if I can be made sane? Which is, of course, no option at all! And then you’d still be spending lots of time with me! Even worse, the last time I was in one piece, I presided over the deaths of countless innocents, and that was only half of the terrible things I did. Oh, and the last result is that you die and I get loose, which is the worst thing that could happen, but that wouldn’t be your problem anymore, hee hee.]

Tal didn’t know what to make of it, the things she was saying were ridiculous, and he felt her holding something back as she talked about her history. “The way you talk, you sound like some kind of God with how hard you’d be to kill and how terrible you’d be if you were loose.”

[Oh, I almost was!] Alexan giggled. [I was just on the cusp of godhood at the end, but then things went… wrong.]

This time she let Tal see it. Fields of corpses, rivers of blood. Bodies were lying in ruin, covered in flies, rats and vultures as the scavengers took their fill. The dead stared up at him, or, not him, Alexan. She stared back and felt no pain, no remorse, only need.

More bodies shambled into sight, long dead but still moving, strange cords of rippling multi-hued light wrapped around the moving corpses to keep them on their feet. From the still warm to barely intact skeletons, the threads of sickly light kept them in a state of half-life. And those still moving dead hungered. Just like her.

Next in the vision came cities surrounded by those moving corpses, piles of the dead pushing up against walls and climbing inexorably over the defences, and the defenders, merely adding to the numbers. The vision shifted again, a city in an endless forest, stout walls manned by equally stout four-armed defenders, they too were swarmed under. Another city, tall glimmering spires built into jagged cliffs hanging over endless water, winged people fought in the skies against foul corrupted corpses of their kind. More cities, more dead.

How far had this hunger spread?

All that lived fought the hordes, and the hordes cared not, consuming all that was before them. The monsters drove outwards, eating everything and adding the life force of the living to the endless devouring horde.

And behind it all, was Alexan, that soul-tearing hunger driving her beyond sanity.

The horror of it shook Tal to his core. This is what she had done? This is why her friends sealed her away? How had this happened?

[So what’s your choice, Talkarn? Step away and let me rot? You can see now why Darisen is so adamant about keeping me here. Or will you take this fragment of myself and seek your new life outside the barrier? You can decide whether to purify me or have me stitched back together like a stuffy later. Just know that the rot in the tree is a product of what I was. The longer I am here, the worse it will get.]

“And how do I know whoever came along next wouldn’t be devoured by you?”

[None! Aside from the point that it would take me a while to do that with the power I have left. The tree has really sucked me dry, hee hee. It would take me a few decades to gnaw away at some poor soul as I am now, and that would hinge on them being a wimp! What’s your decision?]

Again, Tal had no doubt she was telling the truth, which made him hesitate. And her offhand comment about the rot in the tree being hers. That wasn’t some little thing! How long did the tree have if he turned her down? How long would the people trapped in here survive?

The world around him suddenly shook, and Tal groaned at the sudden pressure. The space around them had gone from darkness to glowing softly with light. A quick look around and Tal quickly found the point from where the light was coming. It would have hurt his eyes, if he’d currently been in control of them. The darkness rippled under the force of the light.

[Better choose quick! Time is almost up!]

“There’s no choice there at all,” Tal snapped, “How do I release you?”

[Hee hee, hold on!]

The world exploded in a rush as Tal’s mind snapped back to his body. He reeled in place, feeling as if he’d smacked into a wall running full tilt. His left hand still rested upon the pedestal. Tal’s vision, still swimming from the sudden mental impact, snapped back to the pedestal. He felt it first, and now he saw it as his hand sunk into the sucking void of darkness.

[In a place where only the soul exists, the decision itself is enough. Brace yourself, here I come!]

The dome of black around him shattered, exploding outwards in a shockwave matching the one that had knocked Tal on his arse before. The light drinking shadow on the pedestal rose up, away from the pedestal as if it had never held the power to contain the shadow.

“What?” Tal asked.

“Tal!” called Nolsa, her voice choked with worry and pain.

“No!” Darisen shouted with fury.

The shadow struck him in the stomach, and Tal screamed with pain.

End Chapter