Year 221. The Athenaeum - Tahrir

JIRA ne’JIRAL

Nara-ward stared at the floating, glowing object while the Holy Bishop continued reading the book on the pulpit before it. “The sphere. It most certainly came from that sphere,” he assured, looking partially over the pit’s edge it hovered over. “It was much too big to come from this. The wings alone, if those could be considered wings.”

Jira nodded in agreement, attempting to keep a safe distance from both book and sphere; her mind conflicted on the inability to control herself when reading from the text and of her transformation in the fight against the manticore, for which she had received a dozen questions from her fellow captains once the initial awe had died down. She had attempted to circumnavigate them, succeeding on all but two regarding the whereabouts of such strength and viciousness in battles prior. Jira had no suitable answer for such questions other than a lie regarding being blessed by God, something she was prepared to utter had the Holy Bishop and his apprentice not begun prattling about the origins of the Athenaeum and its contents.

Beyond willing to escape from the line of questioning accompanied by accusing eyes, Jira had engaged in conversation with her former squire. Wording her memories and personal theories constructed from her experiences in the Tower, the Silver Knight broached many a topic with the young Tahririan, eventually moving the subject of conversation from possible origin to the facts known via the contents in the place. The dates on what she quickly dubbed artifacts were indisputable for the time, and—with the previous words, albeit increasingly dubious, of Milligan—she was able to put the Athenaeum at over fifty thousand years old in the lowest estimate. Her highest estimate was over one hundred thousand, given the visible age of the environment and a general feeling in her gut.

“If this place is that old, what are we doing here?” Nara-ward asked with his eyes glazed over in wonder. “No humans should be in here, right? They couldn’t have possibly built it.”

“Who knows who truly built this place,” Jira said, staring into the shadows of the eastern side of the room. “But, I agree with you. I don’t think we should be in here.”

Nara-ward blinked and smiled. “Makes the Holy Bishop’s mission even more dangerous, but honorable that he is doing it. To lead a quest into an ancient, inhuman repository of knowledge that was undoubtedly corrupted by someone of our time to create these manticores? That is honorable.”

“As you say, Nara.”

“Do you not agree?”

“I am not sure. All I know is that I wish to leave at the end of this and...figure some things out. Goscelin was right, wrong as he was in delivery. We need to finish this war. If we carry on any longer, Khirn will be left to the Veorisians.”

“I understand, Jira.” Nara-ward dropped his head and looked back up with nervous, childlike curiosity. “How fare your people in this war? How is Yvon ne’Banuus? She vanished from the public eye following Acocaea.”

“Acocaea was hard on the Great Blade,” Jira answered, recalling the dreadful look in the woman’s eye the weeks following that terrible battle. She had attempted to speak to the woman on some level of familiarity, but it had failed as a miscreant would fail at convincing themself that they were not the wrongdoer. “It was a battle that took a night that should have taken a week. A month. We all suffered the rage that plagued us at Gortinda. We saw good friends massacred like rabid animals. She still fights, but she cares not for diplomacy anymore in the capacity she was forced into at the Bastion. The Prime and the Great Wolf handle such matters now primarily.”

“What of the other Greats?”

“They fight alongside her, defending Belanore from Dekun now that our fighting in Aslofidor has stimied for the moment. Naval warfare has increased, and there are reports of elvish fleets looking to use our home’s chaos to their benefit.”

“Terrible, those pirates.”

“People raised not to know any better, left without chances to grow and only deserving to die. Like savage barbarians in a tribe, raised to kill, plunder, raid, and laugh about it in their huts.”

“I pray for them, either way, that they find peace in death.”

“Then you are a better man than your contemporaries, Nara.”

Six days passed in the Athenaeum—six days of deliberate planning, conversation, collection of lore, and translation of the text. For every word that Crius could understand, Jira was forced to translate sentences. For every sentence Crius could understand, Jira was forced to translate whole pages.

It was agony.

Every attempt that Jira had considered to strike against the Holy Bishop and what had quickly become a congregation was futile. She found herself unable to unseathe her blade and give the order. Her arms had stiffened each time, her heart thundering with worry, her eyes stinging with tears, and her mind stirring with catastrophization of the attack. Every possible avenue of failure played out in her mind. Soon, that catastrophization became an undeniable truth. She was good with the sword, better than most here, and her soldiers were well-trained by her hand and the hand of Prokos, yet they could not withstand the combined might of Loukas Tamasos and Misandros Tateas, not when they wielded arcaeno as faithfully as they did. Only a select few in her former guild possessed the ability to cast the powers of arcaeno, and even then, it had only been in training. They had never gained the opportunity to use it in actual combat beyond the final moments of Acocea when Orlantha had brought them through the gates. They would strike and kill a few before being overwhelmed and put down by the Harbingers.

That did not account for the still untold limits of Crius’ power. The man who was able to sway an entire military force save for three distinct individuals. No, the longer they were down there, and the longer it became clear to Jira that Milligan had yet to develop an active interest in interfering, the more her plan fell apart. They wouldn’t make it close to the man. And their deaths could just as well empower that sphere just as the book would.

She had to wait and see and hope that the wild man of the Tower would be willing to fight when called upon.

Prokos and Sodon understood this to a degree, with the former expressing his discontent more verbally than the latter. It was the times that she had seen the growing impatience in his face that she was glad Goscelin was not here.

When Crius began understanding whole pages on his own, Jira was filled with her own impatience.

She vanished into the shadows of an adjacent antechamber, her arms at her side as she looked around for the telltale signs of the wild man. “Milligan. Kilmour. Whatever your name is, speak to me. Appear to me. We need to talk.”

Silence was his response.

Jira began to pace, her footsteps loud and clacking on the cold stone. “Milligan. You told us that this place was important. I have yet to find a damned thing that tells me how to do what we must do. Not a book. Not a map. Not a journal. Not a sword. Not a hammer, or a dagger, or a bloody scroll. Even the Grimoire of Paths does not tell me what I need to know despite seeming like the best option. We were remade for a purpose, removed from fate, yet here we are with that man in there learning to use ancient arcaeno. You didn’t know about him. You express worry that something is wrong here. You are silent despite my pleas for help. So tell me, Milligan, what do I need to do? Help me.”

“Veoris,” he said from the shadows.

“What?”

His voice cracked. “Veoris. I should have just sent you all to Veoris.”

Jira squinted her eyes to find him in the darkness. “Why? The thing in Veoris, is that what we need to look for?”

“This place is wrong. I don’t know how or why, but I was wrong. I did my research, I did my hunting, I used proxies, and I searched, and I thought I was finally right. I thought I had finally solved the problem.”

“Milligan, what are you talking about? What are you wrong about? What do you mean ‘finally right?’”

“That sphere. There’s something wrong about that sphere. But what? What’s wrong with it?”

“Milligan, what do you know?”

“No...no, I can’t be wrong again. Jira, you have to find something in there. It has to be there.”

“I’m telling you, there’s nothing here. Do you want me to explore the entire building? How long will that take?”

“I don’t know, Jira. Just find it. I know it has to be there.”

“It is-”

“I know it is!”

“I have looked-”

“Find it, Jira!”

“It isn’t-”

“I cannot be wrong again!”

“Milligan!” Jira nearly shouted.

Silence.

“Milligan? Mill-oh, piss off. I’ll figure it out myself, you useless bastard.” Jira turned around to find the Bulldog standing in the antechamber doorway. He had his hand on the pommel of his sword, his eyes wide with confusion, and his mouth downturned in a frown.

“ne’Jiral? Are you okay?” he asked.

Jira brushed the loose strands of hair from her face and smiled warmly. "Yes, Captain Tamasos. I’m fine.”

“Who were you talking to?”

Jira approached him, her smile never leaving her face. “Myself, Captain. Myself.”

The Bulldog looked past her into the dark room. “I heard a name. I heard-”

Jira placed a hand on his shoulder. “You heard wrong, Loukas. Please. I am worn from the trek. Let us return to the others. We have work to do.”

The Bulldog roughly removed her hand from his shoulder and glared hard. “I leave this undiscussed for the safety of our company. When we are done here, we will have words, Jira ne’Jiral.”

The path to hell was set like the sudden, unexpected checkmate in a game of chess. It happened so quickly. Without warning. Like those flashes of light in battle. Jira had tried to stop it, finally mustering the courage to stop whatever transgression was about to pass, spurred on by the fear in Milligan’s voice. Only, by that point, Crius had translated the worst of the book. By his eyes, the Grimoire of Paths was opened, and the sphere began to rotate. It had infested the entire scope of the Athenaeum, and soon things began to appear. Manticores and undead. The previous inhabitants of this place, most likely. Or former explorers drawn into the same trap.

Whatever the case, the Harbingers and the Contemptors were more allied than ever for survival.

She had been pushed out of the central chamber, chased down hallway after hallway by a snake of teeth she barely escaped. Now, she ran faster than she had ever run before, pulling her sword hanging on her hip into an offensive savage grip in her hands. Blood trailed after her with each step, corpses of friends and compatriots decorating the lost repository in a gory fashion. The burning sensation of her sprint brought as much agony as it did a strange relief to the tension in her head. The blue-lit halls of the Athenaeum raced her on as she turned corner after corner, passing by engravings, banners, flags, coats of arms, weapons, shields, armor, and even upright coffins encrusted with jewels. This was as much a wellspring as it was a mausoleum.

Clashing of swords rang out with bravado as she neared the last corner before the side door to the central chamber. Jira raced into the main chamber with her sword held high to behold the great horde of bones and rotted meat dueling with those left of the company. The Hamfist and Praxis the Brambleheart fought together against an ogre with the skull of a dog; Alden and Sodon the Unbreakable against a great troll; Markos the Ravenous and Oeagnus the Fleetfoot clashed against a monstrous duo of bull-like monsters. Others were flailing against whatever they could. Crius, lost in a trance and protected out of loyalty by a wall of Harbingers, continued reciting the spell, Nara-ward by his side, holding his head in abject terror.

Jira was overwhelmed, staring for any sign of an opening in this melee. What she saw first and last in those initial moments was proof of why Misandros Tateas, despite his personality, had earned his rank.

Year 221. The Athenaeum - Tahrir

MISANDROS TATEAS

In the frenetic barbarism, the space where he had been standing at the base of the wall defending the Holy Bishop burst into a cloud of dust from the cobblestone surface. A frog-like creature armed with an axe cried out and swung twice with a giant’s ferocity. Misandros voided the first with such ease as to have been an incorporeal wraith to its blade. The second was less successfully dodged but dodged all the same - its blade carving through the layers of his rerebrace and inches of his right arm. Misandros buried a grimace and continued running, reaching such a speed that when the thing swung its axe for his head, it missed entirely as the radiant warrior flanked it.

Granting himself a second of self-praise for the nearly impossible feat—accomplished only through sheer adrenalized indignation at the absolute state of the world—the radiant warrior performed a quick lunge for the first of the creatures behind the frog. The blade of his cut through its face just underneath his nose, a glut of black blood rushing down its tattered neck. Misandros spun around to slash across the exposed throat of the second abomination, cutting through its jugular and trachea, leaving it tumbling to the ground as blood fountained from its wound. The frog bellowed and spun around with a series of vicious swings. Misandros voided each one, his breathing controlled and deep. He rolled under another attack, rising to his knee to slice against the frog’s lumpy leg, severing it at the shin. It cried out and crumbled, granting Misandros enough time to stand up and skewer it through the first few inches of what he assumed was its nasal cavity.

It choked and gurgled, its hands reaching up in some vain attempt to plea for its life. “Stop, human!”

The disgust on Misandros’ face was as bare as the sun on a summer’s day. “You speak my language, beast?”

“A gift from Li,” it answered, spluttering black ooze from its mouth. “One you will gain too if you break the Locks.”

“The Locks?”

“The Locks of Entropy! The prison. You must break the Locks...and all will be united under the vision. You have already been marked—your death and revival in the sands. You know what awaits you. We can offer so much more.”

Misandros spat at the creature. “Foul...disgusting. I will listen to your vile words no longer.”

The frog’s eyes flashed midnight black. "Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du!"

A crackle sparked his brain. His old wounds from the desert flared. He sliced the blade up, carving the frog’s face from nose to eye socket. He sliced the blade down, leaving a deep gash from forehead to jaw that spilled blood so ruinous in his vision that it appeared like sludge. Another slice, and another, and another until the frog beast was left twitching and unrecognizable.

“Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du!” another creature groaned as it approached him from behind. He removed its head and the heads of all the others that repeated the words. He looked up at His Holy Bishop reciting the words from the book, activating the madness they had been thrust into. Crius looked back for one instant. His mouth was pulled tight in a grin of perfect, white teeth. Misandros swore to himself before his conscious thoughts ceased that Crius suddenly looked much, much younger than he had before.

Misandros turned around and smiled, raising his sword to rally the living nearby to join in a charge against the aberrations.

Year 221. The Athenaeum - Tahrir

JIRA ne’JIRAL

“Keep fighting!” Misandros Tateas shouted moments before his blade was knocked out of his hand, following a blindingly quick riposte from a well-armored skeleton bearing bleeding blue flames for eyes. A follow-up swing bisected his face to the center of his skull and neck. Blood, teeth, brain, and other mouth parts spilled onto his chest as he tumbled with a gurgle. The few Harbingers aware of the sight wailed in sorrow and lashed out with a series of brutal, double-handed strikes. The skeleton deflected each one, ducking and spinning as if it possessed the flesh and muscle to do so—performing a ballet before finally sticking its sword in the bellies of those soldiers one by one, piercing the weakest portion of their plate and slicing it out and opening up the side of their stomachs to release a portion of their guts into their grasping hands. Each fell onto their back with a choking groan, the clatter of armor and sword a resounding end to their part in the melee.

Everything that happened next occurred within seconds, the speed of the combatants enhanced by the unnatural levels of adrenalin coursing through their veins. It was slowed down to an analyzable speed in the mind of the Silver Knight.

With a lunge, the undead charged Jira, voiding a hacking slash from her and slicing up with the same motion. The tip of its sword cracked against her right poleyn, leaving a deep scar in the metal. Jira back-stepped and hammered again with alternating side swings. One caught the undead flush on the arm, cutting through the layers of its vambrace and kissing the skeleton underneath. It hissed and reflexively bashed its sword into hers, knocking it down to leave her open for an effortless up-cut.

Prokos intercepted the attempted strike, leaping at the undead with a forceful pump kick that defied the weight and physics of his armor. It fell back to roll onto its feet, barely baring its sword in time to block the downward arc of Prokos’ gleaming blade. Jira pushed the undead back hard and ducked a savage blow for her neck, stabbing her sword for its thigh and piercing it without quarrel. Prokos flanked the undead and swung down, cleaving its head in twain.

“Ha!” he gleefully smiled. “We got practice in that bloody Tower.”

“That we did,” Jira smiled, accepting his hand to raise her to her feet.

“Hey, Jira!” Alden shouted with a trace of genuine fear. “Tateas is getting up again!”

Jira sat up in tandem to witness the captain rising from the ground, his face sewing itself together in a grimace of hate. Black clouds swirled through the wound, and in the chaos, Jira noted them as having come from the sphere, attached to it in thin, barely perceptible tendrils. “What...the Hell...happened?” he slurred low, droning before shambling forward with half-balanced steps.

“What is this?” Jira heard Prokos whisper.

“A problem,” the Silver Knight replied. “That sphere. We need to stop the Bishop. Whatever he’s doing is not good.”

“No...you were...wrong,” Misandros grumbled, loosely grabbing his sword from the ground and swaying side to side, his face still healing. “Not a wellspring. A...prison.”

From the crowds of battle, the Bulldog forced his way through and stood across from the risen captain. Jira watched the sight unfold like a tragedy. “Misandros. You have risen again. You-”

Misandros lurched forward and vomited a spew of green-black bile. Despite her distance and the more immediate threats around her, Jira stepped back in fear at the sight. The bile burned a hole in the ground. He vomited again as the Bulldog took a step toward him, arm outstretched to help what had been his friend. “God...I feel so...so...”

The Bulldog had never looked so crestfallen. “Misandros...God forgive me.”

Misandros struck at him first, swinging his sword hard and locking blades with the Bulldog. Jira heard the words uttered by the captain in perfect clarity; all other sounds drowned out like a muted concert. “A prison,” he groaned through a bloody slime dripping from his gums. “We must free them. Break the Locks of Entropy. Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du!"

The Bulldog maneuvered expertly, slicing his blade through Misandros’ collarbone. Shards popped against his skin, bulging like an infection. He stumbled back, recovered, and continued his advance, moving as if uninjured. The Bulldog’s stoicism fell into a yelp of sorrow and fear. Jira sprinted at them, Prokos by her side—their plan of action set with a single nod—and sliced through the unsuspecting risen man’s neck without opposition, leaving an open gash at his jugular. Arterial spray ran down his body with each pump of his impossibly beating heart as his advance stuttered. Jira attacked again, stabbing the man through his chest and slicing up at an angle, separating his shoulder from his torso. On he went, turning a stuttering shamble into a burst of speed, physically pushing past the Silver Knight, who stared at him with gawking confusion. He swung at the Bulldog. Loukas dodged and cracked down on the back of his head, the sharp edge of his sword embedding itself into his skull and brain. Wrenching it free prompted the revenant of Misandros to drop once more to his knees and onto his face. Blood spurt from the wound and covered the front of the Bulldog.

“What madness have we let ourselves fall to again and again?” the Bulldog inquired to a God that would not listen. “Why have you allowed this? Why do you punish us and not the King and his devils?”

Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du.

Around them, more of the company began to fall to the ever-rising horde of undead and aberrations. What had begun as near a thousand fell to only two hundred countable.

“Crius allowed this,” Jira said to the shivering Bulldog. “It’s Crius. His arcaeno. That sphere. That book. He caused this.”

“Then you caused it as well,” the Bulldog immediately whispered, his eyes hateful toward her as the blood of his fallen friend pooled under his feet and dripped from his mouth.

Jira shook her head. “Loukas-”

The Bulldog turned his body fully toward her. His sword shuddered in his grasp as his teeth were gnashed in rage. Behind him, the Hamfist and the Brambleheart felled their foe and immediately engaged a swarm of small imps. “You translated it with him. You read from the book as well if it is the cause of this.”

“I did not-”

“Look at this insanity. Since Gortinda, it has followed us. And the outlier has always been you. You have always been there. You and that damned bear.”

“Loukas, think about what you are implying. I have been fighting for the Duke, for the rebellion, for freedom for years. Since the beginning. Why would I betray you?”

The Bulldog took a step forward. “What did you do to that fucking manticore? You ripped its spine out. You changed fighting it. The same for the scorpion. You were late to Acocaea and fought the Runemaster. Killed him after countless had died for nothing. No one normal could kill him. I fought him. I barely did anything.”

Jira nodded subtly to Prokos, who slowly moved to flank the Bulldog as he advanced with more steps, each one increasingly similar to his fallen friend. “It was pure luck, Loukas.”

The Bulldog twirled his sword. “What are you, Jira? Really? Are you a spy? A consort for the Devil?”

Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du.

“Loukas, I am none of those things. Regain yourself, please!” Jira’s eyes were nearly red with stinging tears as the tragedy approached her with shuffling feet.

“You spent your life in Amphe. Where our Holy Bishop remained all his senior years. Did you corrupt him? Did you twist him with your pupil in the Tahririan? Is that why he revived my friend? My comrade? Is that why Misandros Tateas lies dead as a mutation on the ground? Is that why he read the book? Is that why we are here?” Goscelin’s voice began tumbling from Loukas’s mouth, dripping with egregious amounts of reddish slime. “Why are we here, Jira? We should be back home! Fighting the King! Not here! Not here! NOT IN THIS PRISON!”

Loukas lunged at Jira and stopped short of slashing her across her face. Milligan’s hand held him by his throat, clawed fingers dug into his flesh.

He sputtered, his mouth quivering, his eyes rolling back and swelling with bloody ooze. “Oh God. I can see Him. He wants out. He wants out. We’re all dead. All of us. Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du. Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du. Tʼu aw-”

Milligan ripped the Bulldog’s head off his shoulders and threw it aside, a long scream rushing from Jira’s lips. Milligan, wild as ever in appearance, slapped her once to silence her shock. “We need to kill him,” he said. “I’ll hold off the rest, free up your company. Prol-Pron...young man, you help me. Jira, get to Crius. Kill the bastard.”

Jira set her jaw and breathed once before rushing, the wild man and Prokos diverging to their objectives.

She carved her way through monsters, dead species, and impossible creatures. One stood as the final barrier between her and the wall of Harbingers defending the Holy Bishop. The beast was fat with so many rolls along its body that it could have been made from flabby dough. Gray-skinned and hairless, hunched over with a massive boil bulging from its left shoulder and a series of pus-leaking spinal protrusions running down its back. Its face was tusked and scabby, eyes bulbous like a fish’s, and its forehead split down the middle with a disgusting black-green ooze spilling from the wound. Any identifying sexual characteristics appeared to have either never formed or melted into its body, leaving Jira wondering if it had been anything she could have identified before whatever mutation overtook it. When it breathed, an echoing snorting noise, the air was beset by a stench resembling a chamberpot that had gone three days without emptying. It was, altogether, an impossible thing that Jira would have cowered against had she not been used to impossible things already. Still, the sight of its fat-limbed design was enough to make her feel nauseous.

Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du.

She called out to it roughly six yards from its position. Her voice was taunting. Aggravating. The thing grunted and looked at her, and Jira felt a pang of worry clutch her heart. Worry that this thing could best her with ease. Then the thing bellowed a horrible choking noise and lunged with a swipe of its right arm. Jira floated around the attack's trajectory and launched a hard stab into the thing’s chest, shocking it with a jolt of pain. It responded in kind, moving as quickly as it had the first with a brutal backhand to Jira’s armored stomach.

Spittle and blood erupted from her mouth, as did a groan. She flew back and collided with the far western wall. Jira rolled out of the way as it launched its own body at her, crashing its back into where she had stood, the spinal protrusions bursting from the impact. It ran, ran, ran on all fours for her, babbling something she could have mistaken as a wretched bastardization of language. Then, just as it reared its arms for her in a slamming attack, she kicked away in a dance to the right. She twirled the blade into a reverse grip, keeping her wince of pain hidden as the internal wound in her stomach flared. Its hands slammed into the stone ground, and Jira stabbed her sword sideways through the beast’s temple, severing its eyes from its brain. In the follow-up motion, she heaved it forward to bisect its eyes. It screeched like carrion birds as Jira swiped once more and ripped through the impossible thing’s head with her sword. Black-green blood gushed, its tusked mouth agape in a silent scream as it twitched and flailed, nearly catching Jira with its arms. Then it fell against the stone with heavy convulsions before finally going limp and remaining still forever.

“Captain ne’Jiral!” the head of the wall cried out as she approached. “You are simply amazing.”

Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du.

“Let me pass,” she said emotionless, breathing heavily as blood filled her mouth like spit. The sphere was rotating violently like a beast trying to escape its cage. A growling sound emanated from it, nearly drowning out Crius's chanting. Bright red light burst from its surface in symbols and phrases, dissipating in the air like wind. “Before we all fucking die.”

“Do not let that woman pass!” a voice called behind her. Misandros risen again.

Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du.

Jira turned on reflex at the sound of malicious approach and swung her closed fist fiercely. The knuckles smashed into Misandros’ face, crushing it inward in a glorious display of bone and meat. What remained of the radiant captain’s face was little more than clumps of sockets, squirting eye pulp, distended jaw bone, and dripping brain matter as his body flew back toward the chaos. His body snapped awkwardly from the landing, bent backward and sideways.

Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du!

“Captain Tateas!” the Bishop’s guards shouted.

Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du!

Guile Eclipse wiped away the blood of the dismembered guards from her face and spat a tooth that did not belong in her mouth onto the ground. Jira ascended the short stairs to the pulpit where Crius stood, his hands flipping through the pages of the Grimoire at a blur of speed. Nara-ward’s eyes were clenched shut, and his hands covered his ears. She pitied him and knew the work to heal him again would be beyond her capabilities.

“Bishop Crius,” she said, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder to spin him around. What looked at her was not the Crius she had traveled with for months: angularly chiseled in body, a young-old face with hoary hair and eyes the color of blue diamonds, his pristine teeth shining in a smile of pure ecstasy.

“I know you,” she said, low and afraid. “I know your face.”

Crius grabbed her hand and snapped it. Bone and blood broke through her skin as a scream broke out of her lungs. “Your friend was wrong. Not suffer for his incompetence.”

With no effort detected, Crius threw Jira ne’Jiral into the pile of corpses she had made and read from the book's final page.

“Jira! Stop him!” Milligan cried out as he clawed his way through swarming rows of horrors. “Stop him!”

“Jira, stop him!” Prokos shouted. “Stop him now!”

“Jira, get up! Stop him!” Sodon the Unbreakable, Praxis the Brambleheart, Beles the Hamfist, Oeagnus the Fleetfoot, Markos the Ravenous, and Alden Rasidaios pleaded.

Jira struggled to her feet and fell to her knees. Exhaustion was set in. Adrenaline could no longer sustain her. Even this new form had its limits. Why? What had Milligan done wrong? What had she done wrong? Why could the others not be here? She had killed the Runemaster. Was that not enough?

“Jira? What happened?” Nara-ward asked as the final word of the book's final page was uttered.

Black and white was the color palette that filled the Athenaeum. Then red and gold. Sound ceased to exist, as did smell, taste, and feeling. Even her heartbeat stopped producing sensation. Her eyes squinted as she attempted to make out some sight other than color. A great crash of all feelings shook the foundations of reality and knocked those living onto their backs. The monsters vanished as their mutations and undeath were burned away.

Sound returned. Sight returned. Feeling returned. Smell returned. All was normal again. All should have been normal again. Such wishful thinking, Jira thought.

She fought the unbeatable pain in her body to sit up and gasped breathlessly as her eyes beheld a new figure standing next to Crius Alexander Totallis. The black sphere was gone. Nara-ward was gone.

They were of average height but well-proportioned in lean muscle—exuberantly dressed in silks of vibrant, aggressive tones that fit their body perfectly. Their black hair was shoulder-length, shorn on one side, straight on the other, and decorated with tiny silver disks carved to resemble the sun. Four smoking lines connected magma-red eyes to luscious red lips, pulled back enough in a near-decadent smile to show the tips of sharp, fanged teeth.

“NO!” Milligan bellowed, charging past carnage and death to throw his fists at this newcomer.

They deflected each strike with a flick of a finger, audibly shattering Milligan’s wrists. “Kilmour,” the newcomer said in a breathy, echoing voice that sent splinters of pain into Jira’s ears. “Deluded, simple fool. Easily misled by dreams and hope. Dark will your days now become. Weakness' castigation.”

The wild man thrashed against the newcomer, but no matter how hard he threw his body against them, he only hurt himself. “You’re supposed to be dead! They killed you!”

“Death binds not my chains,” the newcomer smiled. It was emotionless before it was genuine. Hateful before it was loving. “In my own power, imprisonment was the only choice—a recourse now dust in the earth.”

Milligan was thrown out of sight. From what, Jira could not tell. His scream of pain was drawn out and guttural before it faded from the world. She groaned and wrapped an arm around her bruised stomach, writhing in her attempt to rise to her feet.

“I have long awaited this day,” she heard Crius reveal. She spat on the gore-filled ground as her heart hurt to pump. “I have poured over your words again and again, listened to your dreams in an effort to understand your wishes. I...I hope that I have done well.”

A chuckle, dark and foreboding, warm and cold, draining and invigorating. “Much did I ask for, and more did you perform. For implacable toleration, ample reward shall be yours.”

“What are we to do with the rest of these...pawns? What is their fate?”

No hesitation. Immediate consideration and conclusion. A mind beyond anyone. “Until the end, theirs’ is life.”

Jira managed to stand, a gout of crimson spewing between her teeth. “CRIUS!”

The newcomer clapped pale, long-fingered hands. Sparks of creation were formed between their palms, just as quickly snuffed out as they were made. “Born of outcasts, named as a catalyst, Guile Eclipse. Sweeting.” As they spoke, Jira was lifted by invisible hands and dragged to them. Face to face, Jira smelled their breath. It was sickly sweet and disarming. They looked to Crius. “My servant. Born wise and monsterful. Bitterly limited in godsend, cursed by words unknown to him. Yet for you...kin chosen...in time, all language is a battlefield. A shame awakening eludes them still. Perhaps to you, more than just the means to free me could have been provided.”

“What are you?” Jira shuddered, true fear filling her body and shattering her mind.

Magma-red eyes bore into her soul. “The requirement. The necessity. Oh, a truth you won’t yet acknowledge. You will still fight...so fight, you will. Join the fool. Find him in the cold land. And then return home...where the soul will be illuminated.”

Jira clawed at their face only to fall on her own as she stumbled through the door of a wooden hut. A clatter of noise resounded in her ears as she broke through a table and felt consciousness slipping away. The last thing she heard before entering a realm of imageless dreams was the sound of Veorisian chatter.

Year Null. The Devoid

Unknown

“Where are we, Your Eminence?”

“A world long desired to been revisited. My domain. My realm. My beloved.”

“It is...beautiful.”

“To be more exquisite shall we rebuild it. In time, when the Gods are remade. But for that, we need him.”

“Him? He failed, Your Eminence. Fell on the field of battle in his first real test.”

“Such is the common fate of all Children of Blackstone.”

“Can we not just rely on the Queen? With time, she will achieve the resurrection.”

“Time is what she needs, for she does not have it. Time, he will give her. And for that shall he rise to carry my power.”

“Your power? Your Eminence, I don’t mean to doubt or question your wisdom, but he already possesses the Runes. What more could he need?”

“The Runes of Lam Av’an. Puissant in this most chaotic universe. Immortality he will achieve if he hones his aptitude, as you did. But I don’t need another you. I need him. Thereunto shall Lam Na’hal be his gift.”

“Lam Na'hal. As you say, Your Eminence.”

“Rise, Erik Apa.”