Zadown

The wailing, mournful cry of wyvern-rider horns broke the calm of the drowsy winter afternoon. It was not the normal one long note that told of approaching glass storm, however. The cry ceased, started again and ceased, a different signal. Another replied to it, repeating the same pattern of short wails and short pauses, and when the bells of the Brotherhood of Armageddon responded to the alarm, it was with a series of smaller bells ringing a tinkling weave of sound that had never been heard before. Right then Jankiize realized the taint of the Law had grown worse and she jumped up from the chair she had been sitting on, drinking after-dinner tea with Nemue, and started to put her armor back on with frantic speed. “That’s no glass storm! It’s the Law this time, I can feel it.” “So? We are still best off staying here. The wyvern guard will repel any attack … hey? Hey!?” Jankiize turned to leave, did not pause to explain but waved one last time at the door, then ran off to the streets where guards were already running towards the gates, civilians away from them. Nemue stayed behind, opened her mouth to shout something but thought better of it, shrugged in frustration and slammed the heavy door shut. The narrow streets were in chaos as people who usually would have sought the nearest shelter tried to get as far away as possible or to their own home. Jankiize dodged her way through, grasping the sheath and hilt of her katana with white knuckles. She tried to mutter a cantrip that’d given her some extra speed but the overwhelming presence of the Law made her stutter, the spell fizzle uselessly. The young woman gritted her teeth and kept running in her heavy armor, ignored both the jostles and the shouts she got. As she got closer to the Dreamer’s tower, the crowd got thinner and she pressed on running faster, sweat streaming down her face. When she reached the path that wound upwards from the town to their tower, she allowed herself to stop once, to turn around to see what was happening while she panted. The streets were mostly clear by now, sky thick of wyvern guards and the city walls thick with bright helmets, shining spears glittering in the sunlight, colourful pennants flying. Far, far away she could see a wide cloud of dust – that and the oppressive, bland gloom the two only signs of the enemy. She looked again, paying attention to every little detail: the dark red stone towers of Arkstâd, round and well-fortified against glass storms and traditional enemies; the black gulls crying and circling as usual, not caring about the strifes of men; the clear, thin winter sky, a few errant clouds here and there only emphasizing the light blue color of it; the long, sleek forms of the graceful wyverns, clumsy on ground but beautiful and agile while flying. She turned around again and ran the last part of the path to the tower. The door felt heavy after her run and the wards on it seemed to pulse feebly as she opened it instead of the usual bright display. Jankiize looked relieved to see the Dreamer, who was staring towards the monastery of the Brotherhood of Armageddon through a porthole. His eyes were dark blue, almost black, and he had the vacant look of somebody who was not fully in his body. Jankiize walked slowly closer, realized she was still gripping her sword more tightly than needed and relaxed her grasp. When she got close enough to see the ripples in the air that marked the borders of the planewalker’s wards, she whispered. “Uncle?” She could see him return, his mind slowly reeling back in. His eyes turned lighter, more blue, and the vacant look disappeared. Finally he blinked slowly and luxuriously and turned to look at her. “Ya, Janki?” “You are going to stop them, aren’t you?” “Ya? Oh, th’ Steam Army. Actually, I don’t have to. ‘Tis ironic, but th’ advancin’ taint o’ Law has done my work for me an’ reduced th’ old wards Arenogh of th’ Many Faces left behind. We can just march in to the monastry an’ take th’ Grail.” Jankiize had first frowned but now her face was a mask of dismay. “What!? You said you’d attack them, that you’d go get reinforcements! We can’t just steal their Grail now that they need it the most!” Purple appeared in the Dreamers eyes but he looked more perplexed than furious. He did not seem to understand why she was angry. “Steal, m’lady? ‘S hardly theirs, to begin with – ‘tis a vagrant artefact, here just because this place happens to fulfil th’ proper criteria for its appearance. A small outpost o’ Chaos, beset by unstoppable forces of Law. All that ‘s just theory, in any case. We are here to get it, to use it for all o’ th’ Chaos, not just this small town here in th’ middle of nowhere.” Jankiize’s eyes narrowed and she raised her voice. “They are depending on you, uncle! You are their Lord of Chaos, the one the prophecies of the Brotherhood talked about. If you intend to just take the Grail and flee the Steam Army, you can figure out a way to do it without me. Pact or no pact, I’m not helping you to carry away their last hope!” The perplexity on the planewalker’s face deepened, his eyes shimmered and changed color to green. “Ye’d truly risk th’ pact for this town of no consequence? I was under th’ impression parents mattered a lot to ye mortals, even more than those glitterin’ pieces of metal yer kind hoards.” “They do! The people in this town matter to me, too! And I will see both saved.” The Dreamer sighed and smiled wanly, without any humor or warmth. He looked down at the girl and spoke with serious tones. “Ye will, will ya? Ye’ll order my four hundred troops against that vast army, duel whoever leads them, slaughter th’ human an’ gnome engineers on th’ opposin’ side with yer strategic brilliance an’ ancient knowled’e o’ war? Ye’ll resurrect yer parents?” Her voice was quiet but as serious as his had been and she withstood the Dreamer’s gaze, stared upwards without wavering. “No. You will, uncle. You will.”

Fifteen He could feel the bland taint of Law the moment he stepped through the portal back to his tower in Arkstâd. The Dreamer’s blue eyes darkened and he drew his sword, dreading at first that he had been away for too long, that the Steam Army had overrun the meagre defenses and was already here, the fight already lost. A quick look around told him everything seemed alright, the guards at their posts and the wards active. That did not change the oppressive feeling of the taint hanging over the tower like stormclouds. He sheathed Pain and took the stairway downward to find Jankiize. A moment later, he found her engrossed in trying to maintain a small portal open, the difficult magic trying to constantly slide away from her control. “That seems a mite hazardous to try alone, m’lady.” Startled by the sound, Jankiize lost the last remains of control over the portal she had and it trembled for a moment, then collapsed into itself with a tortured, raspy groan. She turned to look at him with a mixed look of joy and accusation. “If you’d been here to teach me, uncle, I wouldn’t have tried that alone. I’m sure I could’ve done it fine too, it just seems magic is … harder to use, lately.” She casually slammed the grimoire shut she had been using for her experiment and took a step towards the Dreamer, who was looking past Jankiize, through the walls of the tower. “’Tis th’ Law, m’lady. Even ye should rec’nize their taint when ‘tis this bad – th’ one-dimensional, flat blandness that reduces all th’ possibilities to one, to th’ most probable outcome. It cripples th’ Art, as we work with th’ unprobable an’ impossible.” His dark blue eyes turned briefly to regard Jankiize, then dropped to the title of the large black tome and changed their color to grey. The Dreamer’s voice was chilly and uncharateristicly precise in its intonation when he spoke again. “Aczaer Planebinder’s “Theories on Astral, the Impenetrable Wall and Parallels”? I was studying that, young lady, I certainly did not mean it to be study material. It is far too dangerous.” Jankiize’s face held no signs of repentance as she met the Dreamer’s look. “You left it lying around your table with all the other books. How was I supposed to know? It was very interesting, too – you have talked a lot about the multiversum, but nothing about the meta-multiversum, the parallels and the Impenetrable Wall…” The Dreamer’s darkening eyes silenced her, eventually. “Nobody has ever returned. Most planewalkers have died trying to open the portal, the last, permanent and utter Death, because they have lacked the power to break through and so they have lent their own lifeforce to the spell. That’s planewalkers, immortal wizards who breathe, drink and eat the very essence of magic and who have studied for hundreds or thousands of years before trying. You’ll leave that particular tome and all others pertaining to the same subject alone, young lady.” Jankiize stared at the planewalker with open defiance. “That’s so like you, uncle.” “Ya?” “You are gone for almost two months, and when you return the first thing you do is to scold me for trying to get somewhere with my studies without you. It is not easy, you know, to try to learn magic from moldy old tomes or to practice fencing with the troops. As for that platinum, it’s almost all gone. I would’ve had to sell something soon.” The Dreamer had the sense to look faintly abashed and he took a half-step backwards as Jankiize stepped closer, looking angry, her voice accusatory. “Oh. Well, I’m back now.” “About time, uncle. Fish me some gold, I need new clothes unless you want me to walk around in rags. And it’d be nice to buy meat, haven’t had any money for that since I started to conserve the little I had, not knowing when if ever you’ll be back.” “As ye wish.” He shrugged and plunged his hands into the flow of the Astral, snatching a few gold coins from the depths of the Paths and handed them to Jankiize. His eyes were still grey as she snatched the icy gold from him and stormed away, tense and angry. * * * “Heya, Nemue!” “Hi, Janki!” The two young women waved to each other and then dashed to meet, the hubbub of the marketplace continuing unabated around them. They did not even try to talk right away, instead walking away from the worst noise and thickest crowds. Once they reached the narrow, cool alley of tailors and textile merchants, they finally agreed it was quiet enough to chat. “Guess what, Nemue?” “What? You finally ran out of money and need my help to find a buyer for something?” “No, no! He is back! No more skimping!” “Ha, about time. Criminal, leaving you alone for so long with so little money … what did he think you’d do to get more?” “He doesn’t think, that’s it. I’m not even sure if he has ever been mortal. He doesn’t eat or drink anymore, that’s for sure.” Nemue shivered melodramatically. “He gives me the creeps. Can’t understand how you can stand him, living in the same house … those scars, and the way his eyes change color, and the odd armor that moves around, brrrr!” Jankiize looked away, upwards to the clear, blue winter sky. She tried to keep the bitterness away from her voice, to entertain the notion she did not care, but she couldn’t manage it. “It’s easy, him not being at home ever, really … he comes from some far corner of the multiversum, stinking of blood, mutters something about the Eternal War, tosses a few coins at my direction and leaves right away. The perfect father, ha.” Nemue gave her a sympathetic look. For a while they walked on in silence, not really aiming their steps anywhere. They ended up near Nemue’s home and by silent agreement they continued to that direction. “Hi, girls!” “Heya, aunt Gahlia!” “Hi, mom.” “I’m making mushroom pies – if you can give me a hand, you can have some. And Janki, for Grail’s sake, take off that armor here. Don’t know what your uncle is thinking, making you wear it all the time…”

“I fathom that askin’ him for reinforcements to my private war effort ‘s out of th’ question, then?” “Ya, even yer dim-wit’d mind seems t’ be able to comprehend th’ consequences of yer littl’ duel. What is this private war effort of yers, say? Ye’ve been rarely at th’ front line, lately.” The Dreamer shrugged, made an empty gesture and turned towards Owiric, stopped walking. “I’d tell ya if I could, Sir Owiric, but all I can say ‘s that ‘twas ordain’d by th’ Avatar o’ Chaos herself. An’ that it might turn th’ tide of the Eternal War, it really might.” Owiric glowered back, pointed at the Dreamer with his armoured finger. “Ye an’ yer mad schemes! ‘Tis ‘nother Maiden o’ Daggers disaster yer plannin’, neh?” The tall, scarred planewalker swatted the accusing finger aside and sighed in a bored manner. He stared directly in the dark eyes, his deep blue gaze locked with Owiric’s. “’Twas almost a success, an’ even if th’ beast we would’ve unlock’d would’ve been too much, it’d still been better than what is goin’ on at the moment. There’s no predecent, not in th’ last twenty thousand years at least, for this chapter o’ th’ Eternal War. We are losin’, old rival. ‘Tis soon a multiversum ruled by th’ cold, still, dead an’ static Law.” “So ye say, an’ stay behind, not fightin’ th’ war to prevent that, ye knave. Ye tryin’ to escape to th’ Parallels an’ need troops for that? Ye should know better than that, th’ Dreamer – nobody’s ever returned, never.” A wan smile and a negative gesture were his answers, then he glanced briefly to all directions and leaned closer to Owiric. “Naw, not that, tho’ I must admit I have thought o’ that as last resort, when th’ fight’s reachin’ th’ Borderlands in twenty years. I still cannot say, but if ye could spare some troops…” Owiric struck the Dreamer with a gauntleted fist, a blow that sent him reeling despite his wards. “YER darin’ to ask ME!? Well there’s a lark!” In the depths of his full helm, Owiric winked in a way only the Dreamer noticed. Thinking quickly he took a step backwards and forced his eyes to shimmer and change, to turn black. “Keep yer lemurs then, ye mollusc – I bet they’ve been train’d to flee at th’ first sight of an enemy, ye craven, inept ser’eant! I’d scar ya, but I don’t want to stain my blade on yer poltroon blood.” “Thrice-damned trouble-maker! De Varmeghast was right, all ye can think with is yer blade, an’ yer not good even with it.” Owiric made a well-known insulting gesture and marched away, leaving behind sneering the Dreamer who slowly lowered his hands from the hilt of Pain. The Dreamer muttered half-formed insults and marched away towards the gates of the Fortress. Despite the fact he was sure Owiric had something in mind with all this, he felt his spirits plummet. No troops, not a lot of allies here and from his cursory glance at the maps, the war was going even worse than he had thought. He nodded silently to the Dreamer of the past who was being escorted towards the Room of Maps, knowing how grim and unsatisfied he must look. Nobody tried to stop him for a talk or a challenge as he walked through the hallways and corridors; even the two archdemons at the gate only nodded to him. He stepped through the gate and glided through the space between the Chaos Fortress, changing and rotating behind him, and the door back to the Paths, submerged in his thoughts. There, once again back in the Void, he paused to look forward, towards the heart of the multiversum, where countless pearls of distant planes glimmered against the black velvet background of the nothingness between the worlds. Arkstâd called him – it’d be good to be home, at the centre of his own web of power, and he needed to figure out a way to get the Grail without staining Jankiize in the process, without letting the damned cup get away again … and yes, he had promised her to finish that lesson about sealing runes. He turned around, stared at the twisted knot of nothing that marked the hidden door to the Chaos Fortress. If Owiric really intends to meet me here, he’d better hurry. He is too slow and too blind to follow me once I start running. His instincts whispered to him words of warning, unintelligible but urgent, and he responded by whispering words of magic, cloaking himself in a pocket of Void so any clumsy search would miss him, any planewalker in a hurry would run past. Having made his choice, the Dreamer resigned for a long wait and was preparing to enter a light trance when the door opened again. Somebody ran out wearing an enchantment that blurred his or her ward signature, obscured the form and shape of the body. The Dreamer could feel the crudeness of the spell. He knew it would have fooled any mortal, anywhere, but he saw through most of it even without really trying, in the short time he had before the entity sped past him towards the more civilized portions of the Paths. One of young De Varmeghast’s followers, I’m sure. Now there’s a story I should hear someday, what do they do there and how, exactly, is their leader related to old Ghavel. Storing the questions for later, he let himself fall into the trance. * * * The Dreamer blinked, emerging from the trance to full wakefulness in one, disorienting instant. For a brieft moment he could still see his thoughts and memories floating in front of his mind’s eye, clouds on the stormy sky of his inner realms, then he focused his eyes on the expectant figure of Owiric. The warlord was look at his direction but not directly at where he was hiding – the Dreamer suppressed a grin and let the enchantment fade, the grin re-appearing on his face when he saw the glare on Owiric’s face, the warlord realizing he had not been accurate in his estimation of the Dreamer’s location. Owiric growled a greeting, stepping closer. “There ye are, damn’d nuisance of an ally.” “Heya, Sir Owiric. So, what was all that about, ye knave?” Owiric’s face turned more serious and weary and he gestured towards the door with more helplessness than the Dreamer had seen in the warrior since he had killed Owiric’s apprentice. “Th’ things aren’t right, here. Ye think ‘s all about th’ Law’s strength, but naw, that’s not it … ‘s also ‘bout th’ weakness of Chaos. That mockery o’ a duel ye went through’s just a small part of what ‘s going on, an’ Chaos bein’ Chaos, well. There’s not much hope for it, th’ Chaos itself, intervenin’.” “I see. Strife weakenin’ our ranks? Chaos bein’ … chaotic?” “Mock me all ye wish, bastard. That’s how things are, an’ ye’ve been better off stayin’ away from th’ Courts. Ye done with th’ insults, now?” The grin faded from the Dreamer’s face and he nodded, suddenly solemn. “Get to th’ centre of it, then.” “Ye comin’ here must mean whatever yer tryin’ to do ‘s important, right? ‘Twas a quest for Chaos itself, ya?” He nodded again. “Well then … ye have no hope in Hell to get any troops from here, ye know. Yer chances were slim t’ begin with, an’ that scene with De Varmeghast just ‘bout buried yer slim chances.” “Ya, so? Ye happen to know some place I can get one thousand o’ th’ Chaos’s best warriors in a month or two, hmm?” “Ye need a thousand? That does sound like yer tryin’ to break through the Impenetrable Walls to th’ Parallels, it really does.” “Ye really think th’ Chaos would ask me to leave her in a time like this with as many troops I can muster? I wish, but naw.” Owiric’s eyes narrowed inside his full helmet and he muttered, in a voice that was still as loud as normal speaking voice. “I could get ya two hundred.”

Baba! Orders another angsty teenager from ACME personality catalog to keep things interesting around here.

The room that opened before the Dreamer was huge, its far corners shrouded in rust-colored mist. In the middle of it were several massive tables of stone and wood and bone, covered in three-dimensional maps of the Paths, two-dimensional maps of the key planes and four-dimensional maps that showed the inexorable advance of the white tendrils of Law’s armies through time and space. Around the maps moved the solemn figures of the Chaos high command, planewalkers, demigods of chaos, archdukes of various hells and other powerful creatures that had fought and intrigued their way through the ranks. Many of them turned to look when he entered, or let their senses brush him briefly, and some greeted him discreetly. He noted the presence of Sir Golden who had been with him in the attempt to bring back the Maiden of Daggers, Owiric, his old rival and current uneasy ally and Ghavel, commander of the area of the Eternal War the Grail was, and several others he knew somewhat well: Averrellius, Duke Slaqûar, Xerzes of Hellfire, Chirm the Whip. The Dreamer started to walk towards Ghavel, who watched his approach impassively, when he noticed a planewalker moving with a retinue of half a dozen people he did not know moving to intercept him. The planewalker leading that ragtag group of young followers gave the Dreamer a challenging look and approached closer than was polite. He was wearing a bizarre combination of black leather, dark metal and crimson satin, an attire that his followers had obviously tried to copy but were even less successful at not looking like fools than their leader. He had short black hair, two pale scars on his moderately handsome face, one more showing on his left hand – from his belt hung a rapier and various daggers, tied to his back was a sturdy broadsword. His mouth turned downwards to a sneering smile as he made a mocking bow. “Welcome, Scourge o’ th’ Planes. We’ve been bereft of yer company for far too long, m’lord.” The Dreamer’s eyes flashed purple and he bared his teeth in response, even less a smile than what the other planewalker had on his face. “An’ who ‘s this royal ‘we’, whelp?” The young planewalker grinned, turned his back to the Dreamer as he surveyed the faces of his followers showing feigned shock on his and slowly turned back. “He does not recognize me, my lovlies! It seems that my fame has not had time to spread all ‘round th’ Paths yet, those who still live in small caves an’ tiny barrels at the far reaches beyond Borderlands do not know me! Well, well – but allow me to fix this unfortunate lack in yer lore, m’lord Dreamer. Baron Tlaiv de Varmeghast, at yer service.” He repeated his bow as his followers laughed, some openly and without care and some nervously, watching the Dreamer warily. All color trained from the Dreamer’s eyes leaving them as two dark pits in the face of a pale skull. Some tiny part of him whispered words of warning, but he paid no heed to it. At the centre of both his black eyes a red flame flickered, then exploded. Hissing, faint forms of his anger already manifesting around him as he drew more ambient magic than he needed, he replied. “Yer name ‘s unknown, whelp, an’ yer tools of war are untested on any field o’ war I’ve seen, child. Stand aside an’ finish this foolery or gain one more scar.” Tlaiv grinned again, this time with an edge to his mien. He ignored the flickering ghosts of wrath hovering around the Dreamer, the red eyes that glared at him, and continued with a mocking, dangerous tone. “So ye reply to my little jests, m’lord? I’d think ye’d have a bit more magnanimity in ye, under all those scars of lost fights. Spare me of tryin’ to find an unscar’d spot to mark, Hermit.” By now everybody was watching the two, tension in the air almost palpable. The Dreamer was dimly aware of Owiric’s warning gesture, Sir Golden’s malevolent laughter, but his world shrunk to contain only himself and the insolent pup in front of him and all outwardly distractions disappeared. Lightning grew from his fingers to form two sets of crackling, sparkling claws he used to tear a gash into the air, drawing forth from the black wound a long, unruly bolt of lightning that danced between his two outstretched hands. In its light his baleful face was an absurd collection of lights and shadows, the scars breaking it apart. Tlaiv had time to only draw his rapier, which looked thin and useless illuminated by the Dreamer’s display of raw power, before the bolt of lightning tore through the air with a thunderous boom and crashed on Tlaiv’s wards, vaporizing the outermost of them in one blow. All that happened so fast a mortal could’ve missed it with a blink. The following display of swordsmanship was no less hectic, the Dreamer cracking open Tlaiv’s defense with brutal ease and slashing open his remaining wards with a few wide sweeping blows. Just as he was about to gash open Tlaiv’s body and leave him a scar to remember, Tlaiv tossed his rapier aside and cowered before him, his attitude changing in an instant. Confused by this un-planewalkery move the Dreamer hesistated enough that Tlaiv had time to whimper in a shocked, miserable voice. “Mercy! A merest jest an’ ye are ready to shredder my youn’ skin!? I ‘ad heard ye are brutal an’ unpredictable monster, but I tried to prove everybody here th’ rumourmon’ers are wron’ an’ mistaken. Alas, they were proven right instead.” The crowd around them, most of the bystanders far away but watching intently with their augmented senses, seemed to think this was it, that the score was even. They started to turn away, to comment some aspect of the fight with their neighbours, when the Dreamer took a relaxed step forward and swung his great spectral sword with both hands, slicing open Tlaiv’s jerkin and drawing a shallow but long wound that bled blood and dreams. Tlaiv’s mock fear was replaced with a real disbelief as he grabbed the wound and stared up from his kneeling position. His followers fingered their swords and maces, scimitars and axes in a manner that suggested they were ready to declare this ending foul and wrong by their own strength, but the Dreamer’s stern and cold stare broke their bloodlust before it had time to properly raise. “Let it be, ‘prentices. ‘Tis not a planewalker’s way to go against one with many, not in manners of honour. Let it be.” They returned his cold stares, but said no words as they dragged their wounded and muttering leader away, leaving a dark stain on the stone floor – not the first nor the last of such stains, here. He broadened the circle of his cold, remorseless gaze, and saw hostility, approval, disinterest and thoughtfulness in response, noting carefully to the vaults of his memory who reacted in which way. This appraisal was broken by the arrival of Owiric, who glared openly at the Dreamer and hissed with a voice that was a whisper to him but loud enough to be clearly heard by anybody curious. “Are ye mad, Wodzan? Do ye seek yer doom here? Do ye know who that was, ye rock-headed idiot?” “That was a fool, Sir Owiric of Chaos – what of him?” “Ye know who commands th’ troops in yer own area of War, fool? Ghavel de Varmeghast, he does. De Varmeghast, ya!” That’s what the warning gesture was for. So much for getting any troops for my plan ... wonder if that was the exact purpose of this scene?

Fourteen B The shape of the place he was looking for unfolded in the Void before him, black on black, invisible. Just an innocent looking stretch of nothing to most. Last time, he had needed a key, back when he had still walked the middle road or an illusion of it. A lifetime ago, almost. This time he was a key, and he stepped through the unseen wall without an effort. From the darkness to the light, again. This place has called me to it ever since I joined this war, but this is the first time for me to enter the Courts of Chaos as a full member. Behind him was the wall to the Void, showing a surface as dark and mundane as it had done from the outside. It looked like a perfect window - you couldn't see it, but it was there, a barrier between him and the empty, free Void, a block between him and his Paths. Before him – the Chaos Fortress. It was as he remembered it, indescribable in its constant rotating change, holding no form for long. It showed him proud stone castles with their towers and battlements filled with bronze statues of maids twisting in abject horror, pyramids of ice glowing with green, phosphorus sigils proclaiming the end of the known multiversum, great spheres of water filled with fiery salamanders crawling through them hissing steam and curses. Now, marked with chaos and finally beginning to master his taint, he could see past the half-truths of these visions, and as he felt his eyes pulse in the same, erratic rhythm as the fortress, he knew he would be able to enter it without going insane. He felt the benign brush of the watchdogs on his wards, gave them the equivalent of a tiny nod and waited. He did not have to wait for long before there was a flash of light, and the Avatar of Chaos appeared, smiling as she stretched her newly created, naked body. She had leathery wings with beautiful white feathers here and there, big, eerie, blue eyes with fiery red sparks inside them, dark horns protruding from between white hair and a shiny coppery skin that glistened in the glow of the Fortress. “Welcome back, little one. Still not finished with our mission, have you? Ignoring our wishes, not content with what power we have given you, are you?” Her voice was sharpness and satin, the meow of a cat that has already eaten and is still hunting, contempt and pleasure. “Ye know I would not dare to ignore ya, Chaos. An’ ye know th’ task ye gave me, back when I was young an’ back when I declined it, ‘s not a trivial one. As a matter of fact, I’m close.” The Herald of Chaos laughed, a sound both beautiful and cruel, bared her sharp teeth and forked language. “Excuses, immortal boy, always excuses. But you amuse us, for now. You may go, and squabble with the others in the Fortress, plead them to help and stave off their pleas and cries. Go forth and make us proud, little Godslayer.” She gestured lazily and was gone without a boom or a flash, let her visible avatar vanish. The Dreamer could still feel her watching him, smiling a smile that could change into a lethal bite if he’d make any mistakes here. He floated through the chaos-tainted space towards the fortress … now a twisting maze of screaming flesh, now a mansion made of bones … and opened his mind carefully to the odd sensations that surrounded him here. With care, also, he floated into the everchanging sphere of the Chaos Fortress, navigated his way through the outer layers of deception and confusion. For a moment, all he saw with his eyes were shifting, dancing colors creating no obvious patterns, then he landed on a solid, real stone floor, archdemon guards sizing him up and giving him a grudging approval. A being looking like a thin floating purple robe with thick, glistening dark tentacles sprouting from inside the hood approached him and rasped a few half-formed words of welcome in a language in which saying anything positive was a feat of linguistics, Àlankhân: “Greetings, oh being I will not destroy quite yet, Duke Wodzan Xe Chanima of Chaos.” “Heya, demon.” “Chaos high command has been waiting for you, Scourge of the Planes. This way, lest you desire to be flayed alive and be fed to the lemurs, Duke.” The Dreamer grinned, his eyes shimmering in dark colors. Speaking to high ranking demons, the only ones who dared to use Àlankhân, the language of the masters, was always refreshing. So many either did not know him or feared him, tried to avoid him or opposed him that to talk with somebody who challenged him with every sentence without drawing its weapon made him feel more awake than most battles. “I will walk into your trap, demon, only to tear it and you apart with my bare, bloodsoaked hands. Show the way, so I can slice you open from behind when you try to betray me.” The demon’s tentacles slithered against each other, a rustling sound that was the closest thing of laughter he’d ever heard from their kind. It rotated sluggishly around and glided deeper into the fortress, the planewalker walking closely behind it. The insides of the fortress were not quite as confusing as its outward appearance, but the corridors and stairways, portals and doorways still defied gravity and other laws of nature with mocking ease. In some rooms even the dimensions and time had given in, and the Dreamer saw a future version of himself walk towards him along the roof of a large hall, nodding to him but looking grim and dissatisfied. The hallways and rooms were mostly empty and the few entities they saw did not pay any attention to them. This was not a fortress to store troops in or a bastion of war, and the two nobles of some distant Hell at the door were the closest thing to servants or guards this place seemed to have. The gliding robe before him was a powerful demon lord, that was obvious from the language it used alone. They reached a tall pair of doors, both painted with hundreds of tiny scenes from the Eternal War, and the planewalker noted with a faint smile that in a far corner of that iconostasis was a small picture of him challenging the Myrmidon to a duel to the death. The demon gestured and the doors swung open, revealing the heart of the fortress – the Room of Maps.

Tiny illusionary armies crept across a map on the table, paused and flickered back to their starting positions. Frowning, the Dreamer crouched over the map and tried to divine a working strategy against the impossible numbers of the Steam Army: the golems and the war machines loomed over the tiny dot marking Arkstâd, a thin line of transparent monks and local guard standing between the two. Jankiize, who was sitting in empty air slightly above the table right next to it, buoyed by her own spell, pretended to be reading a huge tome but in reality kept her eyes on the endless wars waged just below her. The planewalker sighed and with a small gestured made the phantasms vanish, turned his eyes towards the girl so quickly she had no time to switch her attention back to her book. “Int’rested in strategy, Janki? Or just bored of th’ teachings of Zorian Craewley? Ya know, mortal, yer kind can’t have th’ luxury of avoidin’ their studies, lest ye be dead o’ old age before ye learn how t’ counteract aging.” Jankiize squirmed under his piercing blue gaze but closed the tome titled “Illusionary and Distractonary Conjurings – from cantrips to rituals, by Zorian Craewley”. “I’ve been here half a year now, uncle. When are we going to get the Grail? And how are you going to defeat the Steam Army?” “’S not that easy, m’lady. If I could crush them with a slash of Pain, I would. As it is, any move I could make would make ‘em realize my presence, an’ I’m sure they already have a faint idea of somethin’ opposin’ them, with th’ work th’ Grail’s been doin’ against ‘em. When that’d happen, they’d call for more forces, make this place a true battlefield in th’ Eternal War. In th’ end, th’ way things stand, this whole place would be obliterated from th’ multiversum, leavin’ only a dead desert of white, perfect sand behind th’ departing forces of Law.” The girl nodded thoughtfully and let her spell go, landed deftly despite the weight of her armor and deposited the heavy book on the table. She found an empty chair and sat down, looked up to the Dreamer’s face. “That wasn’t an answer, uncle, and you know it.” “Ha, ye didn’t answer my questions either, m’lady. But as ye wish – we shall get th’ Grail when either I risk everythin’ an’ try to strike past th’ wards that protect it, or when I risk myself in a frontal, all-out assault on th’ Steam Army. I’ve been preparin’ for both eventualities, an’ right now I’d wager crushin’ th’ Army is th’ better o’ th’ two plans.” “But how?” She pointed towards the map, disbelieving look on her face. “I mean, there’s so many of them. We have here, what, thirty warriors? I know you can last against forces like that for a long time, but there’s just one of you!” “Ah ya, one of me, thirty of my warriors, ‘nother seventy or so waitin’ nearby, an’ then th’ forces Chaos has trusted me with. Ya know, me, th’ Scourrrge o’ Planes, Slayerrr o’ th’ Myrmidon, th’ wily Godslayerrr?” She could not help but giggle at the faces the Dreamer made as he listed his titles. As he turned back towards the map she stopped and watched intently as he outlined his basic strategies with gestures and translucent illusions. “Here’s where I’d attack, an’ they’d send these troops against me assumin’ whoever commands that army would not see through my disguise, at which point there’d be an Astral portal approximately here, see? An’ at that point as th’ seventy o’ my forces would use that portal an’ hit the Army there, th’ troops I’d managed to wrestle away from th’ Chaos high command would strike ‘ere, an’ a planewalker or no planewalker on th’ other side, it’d be th’ end of it, ya?” “I see. So, what are you waiting for, uncle?” He dismissed the illusions and sat back, shrugged. “I’m lackin’ th’ troops from th’ Chaos army I’d need. War’s not goin’ well, an’ ‘s hard to get any troops for own use, especially to a far-away place like this. Which reminds me – I should get goin’, have to meet Chaos high command before situation gets too bad either here or out there an’ the trip’ll be pointless.” The planewalker stood up briskly and started to walk towards the stairs that lead to the topmost room of the tower. Frozen by his sudden move Jankiize could only stare after him, then sprang up towards the Dreamer with an miserable look on her face. He heard her footsteps and turned back to see what more there was to discuss. “Uncle! You are going now?” “Ya?” She calmed down but looked disappointed. “I was just thinking that you’d stay a while. It’s been a long time since you last told me a story.” He shrugged and motioned her to follow him, started walking again with slower pace. “There’ll be time for stories later, Grail Carrier. This must be done now, an’ ‘s good ye reminded me of it, really.” “But … but I need help with my studies, and we haven’t had a practice fight in ages, and you still haven’t finished the lesson about sealing runes you promised to finish. Besides, I have no money, uncle.” As she spoke, they had arrived to the highest room of the tower. A portal to Astral stood in the middle of it, with several small windows to different planes floating all around it. Two bored demons leaned to the walls, muttering with each other in their own language. Portholes to every direction let in faint beams of natural blue moonlight from outside. The Dreamer paused at the threshold of the portal, plunged his hand into Astral, drew it back with a cold, frost-covered platinum coin he wordlessly gave to Jankiize, ruffled her hair, muttered something along the lines of “ya, later” and stepped through. Jankiize kicked the stony side of the gate and glared into its blue depths. “I hate you, anyways.” Ignoring the two snickering demons, she slowly drifted to one of the portholes and looked out. The view was quite magnificient from here: the tower was tall and built on a rocky overhang higher than the town, so you could see Arkstâd from above, the dark red ocean of lava and the black desert of stone. Early autumn air was thick with algae floating in the life-giving ocean’s thermals, giving everything far enough a murky green hue, and she could see wyvern-riders and the small black dots of gulls, the bluish disc of the bigger moon glowing over it all. She turned her eyes skyward, noted the few rare stars that had enough brilliancy to shine through the green veil of algae and the heat distortions and let her gaze slip past them, to the dark night sky. Somewhere beyond the sky her uncle ran on his mysterious errands.

The marketplace was chaotic and loud with people shouting offers, wyverns letting out shrill cries as potential buyers poked and prodded them and black gulls jabbering with each other. Jankiize was both tense and exhilarated about the new, exciting world of mortals she’d seen so little of before this. She was wearing her new armor with a cream and black –colored tabard, beads of sweat forming on her face from the heat of the nearby lava ocean and from the effort of carrying the weight of her scalemail. She turned towards her companion, a local girl called Nemue the Dreamer had hired as her servant and guide, and spent a moment just watching her as she animatedly haggled down the price of an earring Jankiize wanted. She was heavily tanned, almost brown with black hair, a young woman few years older than she. Nemue was wearing no jewelry and had no weapon, just a soft leather jerkin over cotton shirt and trousers that seemed far more sensible in this heat than her own clumsy armor. Worn leather sandals and a simple belt finished the outfit. Just then she turned towards her, triumphant, and motioned her closer so she wouldn’t need to shout over the clamor. “Half a bar of silver he says, that’s as low as I could get the price.” Jankiize started to fumble with her purse as she replied, naively revealing most of its contents on her palm. She did not notice the warning look Nemue gave her, absorbed in the process of searching through her money for a proper coin. “How much that was again in platinum? About a nugget?” As she raised her eyes she finally saw Nemue’s frantic gestures and gave her an incomprehending look but put the purse away, after choosing enough coins to pay the earring with. She paid, realizing that she’d overdone the payment by the gleeful tone of the merchant’s voice and turned towards her companion, who whispered exasperatedly. “That was stupid, girl. Now you’ll have all the pickpockets of the city after you!” Jankiize blushed, embarrassed and angry at herself at the same time. “Oh. Sorry, didn’t realize.” Nemue sighed and grabbed her arm, leading her away while still whispering loudly. “Too late now. We can hope they will not try anything stupid, you being with Lord of Chaos, but … money’s money. And it’d be loss of face for them to leave your purse to you, now.” “But … it’s not like I’m the only rich person around. None of those jewelry seemed too cheap and they were doing a brisk trade…” Jankiize’s voice faded as the annoyed look stayed glued to Nemue’s face. “That’s not the point! They do not flaunt their money, nobody does, here. You are allowed rich clothes and jewelry, but showing precious metals out there on the street is just stupid. Where have you lived, in a barrel?” The armoured girl’s eyes narrowed and she glared at Nemue. Jankiize seemed to grow as she assumed an icy, imperial posture. “In a barrel, yes. I think I’ve had enough of your company for today, guide. You are dismissed.” “What!? Don’t be silly, girl. You don’t want to walk these streets alone.” Jankiize turned around to hide her face and marched defiantly away. Nemue almost started to follow her, then her shoulders slumped in defeat and she turned around, heading towards her own home. As soon as Jankiize had rounded a corner, her shoulders slumped as well and she walked dejectedly towards their tower. In the bustling crowd she did not pay attention to a small, ragged boy bumping into her, but continued her walk, gloomy thoughts circling around her head. She opened the stone door, now warded with deeply-etched runes, and stepped in to their antechamber. This one room was pretty much the same it had been when they had bought this tower: small, still slightly dusty, big part of the room taken by the stairway. An angelic guard sat on a small stool, disguised both by illusion and a plate armor to look like a local warrior. He nodded solemnly to her and turned back to play dice with his demonic counterpart, also masked and armoured, who winked lecherously to the girl and then winced as his binding punished him for his small transgression. Jankiize ignored them and took the stairs up. As she walked upwards, the tower changed, stretching to every direction. The room directly above the ground level was the size of a large hall, littered with various maps, dim portals and idle angels and demons. She saw the Dreamer sitting at his large table, the space in front of him stacked full of books, parchments and letters. Jankiize paused there, remembering something, and after a brief search realized what she had been afraid of: her purse was missing. Glowering she approached the planewalker, who raised his eyes from the parchments he was reading. “Ya, Janki? Ye seem angry ‘bout somethin’.” “Somebody stole my purse! Could you catch the thief, uncle?” The Dreamer put down what he was reading and regarded Jankiize gravely, waiting patiently for the worst indignation fade from his ward’s face. When she seemed calmer, he spoke slowly, articulating each word with care. “Yes, yes I could catch the thief, m’lady. Do you fully understand what would happen then, Jankiize Towikae Vangaijuua?” Her voice was subdued as she replied. “Yes, I think I do.” “And would want me to exact that fate on whoever the thief was, for the sake of some meaningless pieces of metal, Grail Carrier?” The girl doodled some half-formed, meaningless runes on the floor with the tip of her boot, kept her gaze lowered. “No, I guess not, uncle.” His face broke into sudden smile, wan but warm, and continued with his normal odd accent. “Good. Next time, ask me to ward yer purse or do it yerself, hmm?” “Yes, uncle.”

To write, or not to write: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind not to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous critics, Or to use the pen with a sea of inspirations, And by writing store them? To write: to dream; No more; and by a dream to say we start The head-ache and the thousand mental shocks That stories are heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To write, to dream; To write: perchance to be read: ay, there's the rub. Runs away very very fast to avoid the volleys of rotten eggs and spoiled tomatoes

The dreaming boy turned around in his fevered sleep, burrowing deeper into the nest of blankets and pillows. He half-awoke, then let himself sink under the waves of sleep again. Melvin and Vinnie were less fortunate - the short period of almost wakefulness changed the two dream creatures into molluscs. There they sat, two snails cursed with the intelligence of humans, waiting for a bus they both knew they'd be too slow and too small to be able to board. Vinnie turned towards his friend and voiced the thoughts of them both. "This sucks."

I'd both hate to know what other people think and let other people know what I think. Only people I've never really thought bad things about have been my girlfriends at the I'm-in-love-and-everything-is-funny-shade-of-pink -phase. Say I'm at my old army buddy's place sleeping on their sofa and he has to leave for work at 7am and wakes me up - what point there'd be for him to see that I'm thinking something along the lines of "stop that noisy showering and get lost already so I can sleep 'till 11am in an empty apartment"? And there's far worse cases than that, faaar worse... it's not the abstract thoughts that count, it is what you do about them.

The stone door swung open with a moaning creak. The Dreamer stepped in, followed closely by Jankiize and Hroeder, the landlord of the tower they were examining. The room they had entered was not very big and contained a lot of dust and a spiralling stairway both up- and downwards. The planewalker stood at the doorstep and looked around, an inscrutable look on his scarred face, his eyes dark green. Time passed and Hroeder started to fidget nervously, not used to the immortal planewalker’s different sense of time. Jankiize, familiar with the ways her guardian’s mind worked, waited stoically. Hroeder could not wait silently for so long and spoke anxiously. “Does it not please you, o Lord? It is what you said you were looking for, an isolated, easily defensible structure.” The Dreamer frowned and retracted the tentacles of his mind, irritated by the small talk of the landlord. “Hmm? Oh ya, ‘tis quite close to what I was searchin’. How much an’ in what currency do ye want for th’ whole tower, mortal?” “Err… seven bars of gold or three ingots and five bars of silver, o Lord. Very cheap for such a sturdy tower!” The landlord gulped as the planewalker fixed his stare on him. His greed withstood the test, however, and he did not shout out a lower price to break the ensuing silence. He did not notice the Dreamer’s hands disappearing either, a mantra of afterthisnevermeddleintheaffairsofthelords going through his head. Hroeder did notice, however, when the planewalker’s hands finished their jaunt through the Void and returned with gold – the unmistakeable ‘clink’ of pure gold registered even through his fear loud and clear. The Dreamer silently handed him seven cold, gently steaming bars of gold, all different, all marked with letters and runes and numbers he was unfamiliar with and most importantly, all heavier than the usual bar of gold used here. “Does that conclude th’ pact in a satisfactory manner, Hroeder of Arkstâd?” Hroeder glanced up from his armful of gold, barely managing to hold all the differently shaped bars in his arms and nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, thank you most kindly, o Lord. I will send a servant later with the necessary papers.” The Dreamer’s return nod was perfunctory and it was followed by a gesture of dismissal Hroeder obeyed with relief and alacrity. Jankiize glanced after him with a bored air, then turned towards the planewalker who was now standing in the middle of the room, engrossed in the visions of his second sight. “Uncle?” “Ya, m’lady?” “You know he asked too much, and you gave him more than he asked?” “Why’d I care, hmm? Generosity ‘s a trait I get to exercise rarely, an’ I do not waste my time lookin’ for a recipient who follows some nebulous virtues so he’d deserve th’ gold I fish from th’ depths of th’ Void.” He turned away from the currents of mana and gave her a knowing look. “Ya see, to ask too much from th’ likes of me ‘s either stupidity or courage. As long as it stays in th’ realms of courage I don’t mind – if he’d asked, say, twenty bars of gold it’d been different.” The anger always close to the surface flashed in his eyes, not directed towards the girl, and he smiled. She grinned back. “So, how much gold can I ask, uncle?” “I’d suggest platinium, m’lady Jankiize – all the gold ye could ask would weight too much for yer puny frame.” * * * In front of them opened the vast plains of volcanic wasteland. The desert was covered with peculiar camps out of which great pillars of smoke and steam arose. The Dreamer could, by enhancing his eyesight, barely see the nearest golems and steam-powered warmachines that made the most of the camped army. They seemed tiny from this distance, but he had faced them too many times to believe in that illusion. He turned towards his companion, one of the monks from the Brotherhood of Armageddon, here out of the town showing his dry, dead face openly. The monk was leaning on a stout, tall staff that was adorned with both semi-precious stones and runes. Under the pair’s feet the teleportation circle they had used was still fading gently from this world, its sigils glowing fainter every passing moment. “This all of them, Sreacjim? Or do they have forces beyond th’ horizonts, or perhaps allies in th’ Void?” Sreacjim cackled, gave the Dreamer a lipless grin. “You want more, Lord of Chaos? These tiny armies do not sate your ceaseless appetite for destruction? Hah, well, they do limit our scouting a bit – after this the taint of Order grows too strong, and the radiant force of the Grail weakens as we travel further from it. These might be the vanguard, who knows, and there could be endless rows upon rows of them waiting in the shadows of the old ruins of the Achallem Empire, yes, and in the Void. Or this could be all.” The planewalker nodded and concentrated, sending out the tentacles of his mind, stretching them thin and far this time. They swam through the bitter clouds of Law’s taint, spread over the huge army and spiralled down to briefly examine the camps. His eyes turned tepid grey and his features slack as he poured more and more of his focus into the difficult task, the undead monk waiting with the patience of the dead. The Dreamer noted briefly the squads of crystal golems, the few efficient-looking human and gnome engineers moving around the camps absorbed in their own work, the various warmachines with obscure mechanical crews talking with each other by a language of light pulses and shrill cries. Here and there he spied people who looked like officers, but even they were all mortals, most of them human. They were not locals, that much he could sense even through the faint link he had with the outer fringes of his perception, but he could not place them any more accurately than that. He reached further, deeper into the deadly cloud of monochrome clarity of Law and felt something stir, touched some other greater power briefly before withdrawing quietly and with stealth. When the Dreamer came to, the first thing he saw were the bright aquamarine eyes of the dead monk. He blinked and stretched his body, orienting himself back to the physical reality. “Quite th’ army they have, whoever they are.” “What did you see, Lord of Chaos? Do the numbers please you? Enough blood, oil and crystal shards for your hungry sword?” The planewalker scowled briefly, then shrugged and accepted the truth that even his great powers could do little to chastise an animated corpse, ignored the insolent tone of the monk’s voice. “There is somethin’ behind the army, some mastermind of th’ Law. He does not declare himself openly – th’ flags were all standard an’ I could see no angels to divine their lord’s name from. I could wreak havoc in th’ camps an’ perhaps make him appear, but that’d make them know I am here. Whoever’s behind all this would more likely get some help than confront me personally – th’ gladiators o’ th’ Void do not create armies to hide behind.” “So, mighty Lord, you will do nothing to help us, then?” “’Twas not what I said, carcass. There’s just some need for subterfu’e an’ tactics. I am as eager to get rid o’ this army as ye are. The flows of magic are already weak here, this plane cannot sustain th’ strain o’ th’ taint of Law for long before magic will be dead.” They turned to look towards the smoke-veiled camps again, the planewalker and the dead monk, two thin figures standing between the town and the crushing fist of the Steam Army.

Fourteen The Dreamer barely had time to land on the stone pier of his Astral harbour before grinning Jankiize rushed towards him, stopping right before hitting his wards. She did not seem like a child anymore, despite her short stature compared to the tall planewalker. She was 5’3” now, her long, yellow pony-tail almost reaching her hips. On her face was a look that would have told a keen observer she had seen more than normal children, but she had weathered those storms. She was wearing casual version of the cream-and-black -colored spirit-raiser robes, still quite elaborate but simple enough to actually move in, and from her belt hang the dark scabbard of her sword, Winter’s Touch. On the middle finger of her right hand was a single metal ring, the signet ring of the House Vangaijuua – from her left ear hang a small and elegant wooden earring, from her right a metal one. She had no other ornaments and needed none to be beautiful, only thing marring her appearance being a straight, narrow scar on her right cheek. “Hey, uncle! Where have you been this time? And where’s the maid of honor you promised me?” He did not answer right away, but grinned right back at her. His scars moved around his face but even their intimidating effect was undone by the sheer warmth glowing in his golden-white eyes. The Dreamer let his wards fade away and danced forward with moves originally meant for battle, grabbed the startled Jankiize by her armpits and raised her high. “Why, Li’tl Princess, I’ve been scouting out th’ exact location of th’ Grail, of course!” “I told you not to call me … what!? You found the Grail, uncle?” He grinned again and winked, a very uncharacteristic gesture for him, and lowered the girl down slowly. “I might’ve, Li’tl Princess. I might’ve indeed. Or should I call ye th’ Grail Carrier, neh?” “So you can bring my parents back, now?” Those hopeful words removed some of the joy from the air and shadowed the Dreamer’s smile. He made an empty gesture. “Naw, ye know th’ pact as well as I do, Jankiize. After th’ task is done, then I will bring them back.” She frowned and lowered her eyes, playing absent-mindedly with the hilt of her katana. “Ah … and how long will that be, uncle? I’d prefer my parents not to be the same age as I am, when they finally return.” “A few years, I’d imagine. Or until th’ Grail escapes us – this one hunt’ll is all I ask of ye, as per by the pact. Ye can’t see th’ balance fallin’ over, but I do, an’ this is th’ best chance to right it either I or th’ cards can see.” “Balance, bah. But I guess that is the best I can expect from you, uncle.” She looked up again, hostility and affection mixed in an impossible way in her eyes. The hate began to clear from them like a lifting mist and she sighed. He continued speaking with a neutral tone. “Ya, I’m afraid so, Jankiize. Th’ pact’s as good a bargain ye’ll ever get from me, ya. But we do not have th’ Grail yet. We’ll have to leave soon to ensure we’ll get it at all. It is hard to track, but th’ fact I tracked it makes it clear it is not impossible to track, an’ I’d rather be there before any other planewalkers that’d at best make it vanish again, at worst gain it for their own uses.” “We, uncle? You are taking me with you?” “I can hardly brin’ th’ Grail here for ye to carry around, ya know? Th’ whole point of th’ pact’s the fact I can’t do that.” He gave a short, dry laugh and started to walk past the girl but turned back towards her after a few steps. “Oh ya, Janki, we still have a short time before we go, say a month or so. I need to finish yer armor. Choose some things ye want with ya but nothin’ too heavy, ‘s easier for me to fetch ye things once we are there than tow ‘em all th’ way through half th’ known Void.” He resumed his walk, quickly absorbed in his thoughts, leaving a muttering Jankiize behind. “A short time … say a month or so. That’s an eternity!” * * * “How’d ya like it? Not too heavy for ya, puny mortal?” “It is just fine, uncle. I’m not meant to use it all the time, am I?” Jankiize turned around, clad in a full suit of adamantium scales, trying to familiarize herself with the luxurious weight. The armor had no helmet, but it had added runes around the neck that extended its protection to the wearers bare head. None of the magical protection it granted showed directly to the mortal eye, but the bronze-colored scales glinted faintly in an eerie manner. The accompanying black gloves and boots were made of dragon hide and were unadorned. “Ya, actually ye are meant to use it all th’ time, m’lady. ‘S th’ uniform of th’ Grail Carrier, an’ ‘s not all just for show, youn’ lady.” “Um, for that it is a bit uncomfortable. I was hoping I could’ve used my spirit-raiser robes.” Her words had a pleading tone to them and she gave the Dreamer her best cute look. He shook his head sternly, not moved by the display. “We can’t give ‘em any clues where ye are from, just in case. Not to mention I want ye to have all th’ protection ye can have, Grail Carrier. Ye’ve already been in mortal danger almost half a dozen times in yer short life. Next time ye are shot at or used as a target for old enchanted spears, I’d rather see ye wearin’ this. It won’t deflect th’ blow from any planewalker’s blade but ‘s better than nothin’.” “Aw, can’t you just protect me? It is a bit much to expect me to wear this all the time.” “I can’t be next to ye all th’ time, m’lady. I will have to keep fightin’ in th’ Eternal War for there to be somethin’ to be saved by all this.” Jankiize pouted for a moment, but soon forgot to stay annoyed when she tried several different practice moves, fighting invisible enemies with an imaginary sword. Something of the Dreamer’s ease of drifting deeper into one’s own thoughts had transferred to her, perhaps due to the fact she had been relatively alone as she grew up, her own ideas her only constant companions. He watched her go through the forms he had taught her, the small faults of her style seeming huge to him, who had practiced and honed those same forms for hundreds of years. Still, she should fare fine against any mortal. What she lacks in strength and experience she makes up in the equipment she uses. Useless in this game of so few mortal players and so many immortal one… He shivered as he felt an unescapable doom over them both, felt as if nothing he’d do would be enough to protect something as fragile as this mortal, or any mortal, through the chaos ahead. Not wanting to voice his feeling, he moved silently forward and carefully adjusted the poise of the girl. She gave him a questioning look and then concentrated on committing the adjustment to her memory.

I stumbled, leaned on my makeshift staff to not to fall. This morning's rain had made the sharp rocks slippery and travel over them was almost impossible. I paused and looked around - the view had not ceased to amaze me, yet. Everywhere around us the small, twisted birches were blazing in different shades of yellow and red. We were in the middle of the remains of an ancient mountain range, worn to tall but still majestetic hills. "Hei, we can't stop here, mister. Still a few kilometers to go." "Yes, right." I turned to follow my local guide, a short and weathered man. It was impossible to tell his age - he could've been thirty or sixty. He did not wear the colorful garb of his forefathers anymore and in the failing light it was hard to see him if he stopped moving, with the green and brown outfit he had. I noticed with envy he did not need a staff to move around in this "pirunpelto" as he had called it, a devil's field of shattered rocks, left here by the receding ice after the last ice age. I allowed myself one last glace around the magnificent view, noted the dark clouds overhead that promised more rain and steeled myself to go on. I wasn't here to admire the empty but beautiful land, no. I was here on my own and Midnight Squad's business. My train of thought meandered away from the boring details of walking through the field of rocks and towards the leather-bound tomes I was carrying in my backpack. They had been quite a catch, and I was sure the Black Jackal had not know what he had in his possession. On one of them had been made a lot of notes in a small, weird handwriting that one of the Midnight Squad's psychics had said to be almost certainly Baron Zoria's! How anything he had owned had ended up on such a lowbrown, common supervillain as the Black Jackal was a mystery, but we had been more concerned by the actual books itself than their history. It detailed numerous ages old natural spirits, some of them even by the name. And one by its true name. It had taken a lot of boring, dusty research to get to this point. But the tremendous possibilities of being able to summon one of the primal spirits to help us, to use one of those forgotten, menancing spectres lurking in the prehistoric dark, beyond the civilization, for good .. the mere chance this might work made me giddy. So giddy I almost lost my footing, again. * * * "This is it, mister. They say one of the most powerful seitas of Lapland was here, before the retreating German army blew it up 1944 .. nothing here now, though." I swallowed. Nothing? I could feel the presence heavy over the place, a spirit old and malevolent and angry, still wounded by the fifty years old explosion. Very, very angry. I felt my amulet's warmth even through two layers of clothing and shivered in the dark, glad that the local guide could not see my face. "You may go now." "Uh, southerner, you want to stay here alone? It'll rain soon again, and it'll be below freezing during the night. You sure you'll manage?" "Yes, yes. Now go." The guide gave me an odd look, but I barely noticed it anymore. My hands were trembling in anticipation as I removed my backpack and fumbled it open. He had not gone even by then, and I waved him away. Finally he left and gave me my precious solitude. Muttering, I growled one of the few cantrips I could do without a full-blown ritual, feeling a brief stab of bitterness as always. My relatives might be more powerful than me, mages, warlocks and witches of great renown, but after this my name would be known, yes! The last word of the cantrip escaped my lips and my vision sharpened, my eyes suddenly penetrating the veil of darkness and the border between real and unreal. With my new vision, I dared not to look at the spirit again, fearing what I'd see. Instead I hunched over the old tomes and started shouting the odd words inscribed on their pages aloud, not caring anymore if the guide would hear me still or not. "Meahcci čuohti boazu ..." My own voice faded, even when I could still feel my mouth open and close, my tongue move. I knew I was shouting directly to some other place now, yelling words only the spirits could hear, and I felt a powerful surge of joy course through my veins. This was what it meant to be born with blood of the sorcerers of Mu! This was what I had missed all my life! I stood up and let the book fall, not needing it any more. The spirits guided my words, possessed me to make me cry aloud the words they needed to hear, but even when they controlled me they could not stop me from modifying the spell of opening. I mixed in old chants of binding and compulsion, told the wakening force to go to Paragon City and to help us, help the side of good against the growing tides of evil and crime. I threw myself into the spell, too late realizing I was powering it with my own life ... and world faded away, strength leaving the empty, thin husk of my body. The human skeleton that had been a man a moment ago raised its arms towards the stormclouds one last time before falling to the ground, its brown and rapidly aging bones scattering all over the old sacrifical ground, rain soaking the remains. Something insubstantial escaped the dead man, mixed up with the now freed primal force. Old hatred towards all humankind and the new spells of binding (reinforced by what survived the death of the man) fought as the spirit sunk deep into the earth, free but confused by this new inner conflict, anxious to grow a form powerful enough to be able to walk the Earth again. It gathered darkness around it and devoured the lingering traces of the souls of sacrificed reindeer it found and plunged deeper, and deeper. Only to re-appear years later as the being to be known only as the Polar Night, years after the destruction of the Midnight Squad, after all records of its summoner were wiped out in the Rikti war.

Me and my friend watched "I, Robot" before it opened in Finland and we both pretty much hated it, but towards the end the visual language of the movie (if I am allowed to use such a clumsy term) was an interesting mishmash all stolen from well-known scifi/fantasy movies. Various Star Wars movies, Matrix, Space Odysseus 2001 etc all were represented in one way or another, and the hunting for these stolen pieces of imagery was sorta fun. The movie itself was crap. Also, just saw "King Arthur", and .. uh, I don't really remember anything about it 4 hours after it ended. It was just sad, washed out "big ancient armies smash each others to bits" epic, with Arthur himself having the charisma of a turnip (please excuse my insult, all turnips out there) and Guinevere being rather .. flat, in more than one sense. Heh. Pirate it, watch it with loud friends, whatever, don't go to the theaters to see it.

Suddenly, something blocks the rays of light and the restoration of Jagon's armor stops, teeters on the edge ready to turn back into degeneration. The seraphim's face twist into a visage of rage and fear as he tries to recognize the tall, thin figure that stands between him and his salvation. "Who dares? Who dares to stand in the way of the chosen of the Lord, to condemn themselves to eternal torment by such act of heresy?" "Th' eternities hold no torments for me an' the likes of me, Jagon. An' th' gods hold no sway over my fate, either." The last sound the spirit of Jagon hears is the greedy wail of a spectral blade.

Before him stood a heavy, reinforced door of stone and iron. It was set in a sheer cliff of basalt and on it had been written a far more impressive array of protective enchantments than the front gates of the city had had. The empty space around the door was littered with the dark green remains of the glass storm – everywhere else the shards had been tidied away. On the massive door was a small hatch and a large knocker. The guards and the seneschal retreated silently away as he studied the door from a distance, but he paid no attention to them any more. His mind expanded, sending its tentacles towards the door to go through it, but he was swiftly rebutted by the even more impressive second layer of warding written under the first, a piece of art made by a planewalker or some other powerful being: runes of misdirection, obfuscation and amnesia. The Dreamer blinked in confusion, his eyes cycling through all the colours of the rainbow, and regained his clarity of mind only with great concentration. He took a step forward to steady himself and realized he had physically reeled from the force of the backlash, heard the hushed muttering of the mortals far behind him. Uhh… that could be Arenogh’s work, if what I have heard about him is not overly exaggerated. That’d mean it is warded against Astral travel as well. He walked forward, the green glass shards tinkling under his boots of dragon-leather. At the door he shrugged, then swung the knocker producing a loud, deep booming noise. Without a noticeable pause, the hatch in the door was opened and a cowled figure stared through it. He spoke quickly, impatiently, sounding as if he had been interrupted doing something important, his voice dry and raspy. “Yes? You are too old to become a novice and too young to be looking for your final doom, even with all those scars, stranger. Get lost.” He tried to close the hatch, but only managed to slam it against the Dreamer’s fist. The planewalker had moved with unnatural speed and as the he knocked the hatch open again his eyes blazed. “This th’ Brotherhood o’ Armageddon, monk?” “Yes, every fool knows that. And they know not to anger us, too. None shall pass this door unless I let them through, stranger.” The monk stared back with emerald green eyes from the depths of his cowl, withstanding the planewalker’s burning gaze without flinching. After a moment he spoke again, slower and with more patience. “Well, well … guess you might have something to talk with us about, after all. It has been a while since any of your kind was seen here, planewalker.” “There aren’t many of us, old man. An’ th’ few seldomly find themselves in such places as this, so devoid of greater powers.” The monk unbarred the door, a process that took a long while, and swung it open. It moved smoothly and without making a sound, and the Dreamer walked through the widening gap into the darkness inside. He adjusted his vision and saw how the corridor had been designed to be easily defensible against both mundane and magical attacks. From this side he could see the whole glory of the wards written in the door and the basalt around it, the traps hinted at in the overall design. The monk swung the massive door shut without much effort, put the two bars in place and turned to face the planewalker. He motioned the Dreamer to follow and walked deeper into the stronghold of the Brotherhood of Armageddon, the planewalker in tow. They moved through wide and narrow tunnels, large and vast rooms, moisture dropping from the dark, porous walls, their steps echoing through the misty, empty spaces. A few times they saw a small group of monks somewhere further away, appearing from the mist and disappearing into it like phantoms. In same abrupt manner they heard noises, appearing and fading: the clamor of heavy bells, voices raised in chant, sounds of metalworking. Eventually they reached a small stone door which the monk opened with a key, and they entered a tiny chamber, just large enough for a bed, a cupboard and a small table with two chairs. They both sat down and the monk, his face still hidden in the depths of his cowl, broke the ensuing silence first with his dry voice. “So, the Grail has brought you here?” “Ya, ‘t has. Ye have it here, neh?” “Yes. Yes, we have, and we will keep it here. You will not have it.” The planewalker shrugged, his eyes so dark green they were almost black. “Th’ lore says it travels to where th’ need is greatest, to defend against th’ attacks of th’ Law. Ye are under siege, then?” “Law? Perhaps they are forces of Law, or of Order. But yes, the mindless machines out there in the desert are closing in. The Steam Army the locals call them, and while the Grail has not allowed us to re-conquer the areas they have overrun it is our best defence against them. It powers our meagre magics and fights against the corruption of the Order – against the paralysing sense of futility they project.” The Dreamer nodded thoughtfully. If I attack them to get the Grail, it will defend itself against me. Not to mention if they are keeping it in a vault warded by Arenogh I might not even be able to reach it without their help. “Perhaps I can do somethin’ about th’ Army. Without it, ye will not need th’ Grail, neh?” “Ha! You haven’t even seen the Army, planewalker. I know the lore and I know how powerful your kind are, but you are not gods.” A dangerous grin appeared on the Dreamer’s face and his eyes turned grey. “Ya, ‘s true th’ gods are not us – but that hardly makes us less powerful. They call me th’ Godslayer, an’ not entirely without reason.” The monk raised his gloved hands wordlessly and removed his cowl. Underneath it his face was desiccated and dead, the emerald green eyes the only living things in that dry mask. “This is what they did to me, the previous planewalkers, as they asked me to wait for the next one all those centuries ago. See now why I do not fear you, Godslayer?”

Cursing, the planewalker conjured a field of force around him, unable to come up with any other trick that’d worked on the approaching downpour of deadly shards. Almost as soon as the green sphere encased him, the storm was upon the city. He had a fleeting moment of time to see how it all worked, how the buildings had been designed to withstand storms like this, the jagged, sharp icicles of dark green volcanic glass bouncing off and breaking up. Then the deadly shower struck his wards. It made them shimmer and pulse, but they had been made to take harsher punishment than unenchanted knives of glass. In a few moments the wide but narrow storm front passed him and he stood alone in the plaza, carefully lowering his excess wards away. So that is why their city looks like a fortress. But if the sparse and inexact Grail lore is right, they should be under attack as well… The Dreamer’s train of thought was derailed by a crowd of people appearing as if from thin air, all staring at him. He stared back with yellow eyes and raised his hand to the hilt of Pain, feeling uncomfortable from all the attention. “Did you see that? Lord of Chaos! He survived the rain!” “Which one are you, o Lord? Arenoch the Master of Change? Lâkentyr, Tyrant of Fire?” “Lord of Chaos! The lords are back! Magic’s here! For the Chaos! Fetch the Seneschal! Hurrah!” The crowd all started shouting and cheering, obviously not hostile but objectionably loud to the hermit-like planewalker. He grimaced, scars shifting and twisting over his face, his eyes flashing purple, but the crowd was too large for all of them to see his mood and the noise continued. “Silence, mortals!” The words of command crashed over the crowd, made the people both silent and still. The closests of them had been pushed to almost within Pain’s reach – now the calmed and startled mob gave them some room to move back. The Dreamer still glared at them but now had enough room to think clearly. Arenoch and Lâkentyr? If they refer to planewalkers, they might be Arenogh of the Many Faces and Lakenter of White Fire. But both are gone, died or transformed, hundreds or thousand years ago. “Where’s yer leader? I don’t want to talk to a many-voic’d crowd – so scram, chaoslings.” The babble started again, this time more muted. But people did scatter, after giving him a mixed looks of hope, curiosity and fearful hostility. Through the dispersing mob came a small squad of the wyvern-helmeted guards and a noble or otherwisely important civilian, wearing an impressive collection of furs and feathers, all dyed with various metallic colors. He was short and thin under his collection of clothes and he had the harried look of a baron who has been left alone for far too long and is now told that the king has arrived. His guards seemed nervous as well, crowding around the civilian. “Oh, oh, greetings Lord of Chaos! What should we call you, Lord, hmm?” “Hiya, m’lord. Ye can call me the Dreamer for now, mortals. An’ ye are?” “Oh of course, I am, hmm, the Seneschal of Arkstâd, Vralpar the Innocent IV, at your command!” The Dreamer narrowed his yellow eyes, already disliking this man and his involuntary fawning. “Well then, the Seneschal, could ye take me to see th’ Grail?” The silence that fell was deafening. The guards turned to look at each other and the seneschal, who wasn’t really sure where to look. The Dreamer, irritated by it all grabbed the seneschal’s lapels and dragged him closer, his eyes turning purple. This made the guards point their spears at the planewalker’s general direction, torn between the duty to guard their superior and the desire not to anger this mythical and powerful Lord of Chaos – the seneschal just whimpered and finally managed to focus his light grey eyes on the Dreamer’s scowling face. “The … the … the Grail? The Holy Grail?” “Ya, th’ Grail. A shinin’ cup that radiates power, I doubt ye have a lot o’ those around ‘ere, do ya?” “Um, yes, hmm, that is no. Not a lot, as such, not at all.” “Stop whimpering!” “Yes, o Lord of Chaos.” The guards had relaxed slightly, seeing that there seemed to be no violence in the near future, but they still looked very unhappy about the whole situation. The plaza was empty around them, but skulking in the shadows of the small alleys were the remains of the crowd, watching to see what the planewalker would do next. The gulls and wyvern-riders were riding the thermals again, sky as thick with them as before the storm. The Dreamer breathed deeply and lowered the now silent Vralpar down. “Now, where’s th’ Grail an’ what ‘s th’ problem in seein’ it?” “The Brotherhood of Armageddon has it, o Lord.” Those frightening words had an aura of finality to them, as if they were the last words anybody could say – as if any words that followed them would be useless. The guards hang their head in shame, acknowledging that this matter was beyond their courage, and the seneschal had a sad, scared look on his thin face. The words had no such effect on the planewalker who only frowned in incomprehension. “And?” “Yes? They have it, o Lord. Thus, it is beyond the grasp of us mortals, alas.” “Ye mortals, per’aps, but that wouldn’t include me. Now, guide me t’wards these Brothers of Armageddon, an’ I shall do th’ rest myself.”

Curiouser and curiouser .. I love stuff like this.

Six C Running through the maze of narrow Paths of the Veil, the Dreamer draw his wicked-looking knife and gazed at it with dark blue eyes. "Did ya think I was too merciful, Mask-Maker? Should I have slit his shoulder open all th' way to his elbow, like my master did to me?" The knife spoke back, its voice like a dozen snakes with scales of steel gliding over each other. "yEs mAstEr bUt thEn yOu havE chAngEd. thE chIld mAkEs yOu sOft." "Ha! As if ye knew, piece of sharp steel. Why do I even bother talkin' with ya, hmm?" "bEcAusE thE othErs arE scArEd Of yOu and sAy whAt thEy thInk yOu wAnt to hEar mAstEr. i hAvE nOthIng to lOse." "Oh ya, so it was, ye posses'd junk. ... or well, I could give ya to an angel, how'd ye like that?" "onlY wAy yOu evEr wIll gIvE mE tO an angEl is pOint fIrst, mAstEr." "Ye know me too well, Mask-Maker. I really should destroy ye, someday..." The planewalker sheathed the knife and sped on, eyes toward the uncertain future.

Thirteen B “Evenin’, m’lord Seven of the Crows.” The Dreamer did not turn or lift his dark blue eyes from his Chárôt cards. He made a vague gesture towards an empty chair, moved the cards around with his other hand while muttering incomprehensible words. “Evening, Lord Dreamer. Do you have time to listen to my report now, m’lord?” The planewalker sighed and turned to look at the assassin, who was clad in a black, chitinous armor, two short but sharp dark sickles hanging from his belt. He blinked a few times, his eyes switching to purple, then to green, and nodded. “Ya, might as well – ye’ve already broken my concentration, sickle-for-hire. Th’ silences between th’ cards are hard to read, mortal … but enough of that, tell me what th’ knights have been up to?” Seven looked at the chair warily and then sat down, turned his full-helmet towards the planewalker. His words echoed oddly inside his helmet, masking his real voice with the sounds of flapping wings and the distant, harsh cries of birds. “The wooden Void long-ships they use are hard to track, being rather fast, but we’ve done our best. The full list of the planes they have visited is on this parchment.” He produced a scrolled-up parchment from inside his armor and put it on the table. “To summarize, they seem to be moving around the war zone, mostly on the chaos side of it. They’ve visited numerous planes but they haven’t stayed on any of them for long. It seems that they are searching for something, Lord Dreamer.” So they do not know where the Grail is, either? This both complicates and simplifies my search… “Anythin’ else, Seven?” “As I am sure you know, their main fortress is rather impenetrable, so no, nothing else. And I hope you do realize that we might have to abort this line of work any day soon – the outfit still hasn’t decided what to do with the escalation of the Eternal War.” The Dreamer grinned, scars dancing across his pale face. He made another vague gesture, this time pointing out the irrelevance of such minor matters. “’Tis as well. Yer already done more or less what I needed, Seven of the Crows. I’d warn ye ‘bout th’ dangers of joinin’ th’ forces of Law, but I’m sure yer ancient an’ honor’d company knows better than sellin’ th’ information about their clients.” His eyes slided towards dark grey as he spoke, then flickered back to green and he smiled. “That ‘s all, m’lord. May th’ fates o’ th’ hunt favor yer steps, Ûmar Kharvoi, Dayfly o’ th’ Crows.” The assassin was visibly startled by the name and the Dreamer’s smile grew wider. Seven stood up, backing down from the all-knowing smile of the planewalker, composed himself and bowed. “Fatespeed, Wodzan Xe Chanima.” The Dreamer ignored him and turned to read parchment containing the list of planes the Knights of the Holy Grail had moved through. The names of the planes sank into the same bottomless pit in his memory that already contained all his old dreams of the Grail, the holes in his divinations and the brief moments he had actually seen the Holy Grail. His eyes turned white. Oh. I see, now. * * * The city of Arkstâd sprawled under him. It was built on the edge of the solid fields of stone, its obsidian piers pointing towards the depths of the great lava-sea. The air was thick with leatherclad wyvern-riders and the black gulls that nested on the shores of the unhospitable, red sea. Below the circling, winged shapes the Dreamer could see the fortified, solid buildings of the city. Even the merchant homes seemed to have round towers with narrow portholes, thick gates of rusty iron and dark steel, spikes topping the walls and armoured soldiers patrolling the premises. He blinked and adjusted his eyesight to better see through the heat haze raising from the sea, briefly checked that his levitation and invisibility cantrips were active. Finally! I can sense the Grail down there – this close even it cannot shield itself from me. Too much chaos power flows through this city for it to obscure and hide it all. He let the levitation spell go, gradually, and landed on the edges of the medium-sized city. The planewalker estimated Arkstâd had possibly 30.000 inhabitants, more if the houses rising from the stone had deeper underground parts as well. Knowing that any mage, even mortal, would notice his clumsy invisibility more easily than they’d notice him without it, a paradox that always brought a wan smile to his face, he let it go as well. Absorbed in his own thoughts of how to best capture the elusive Grail he marched forward towards the nearest gate and was surprised to be challenged by the guard. “Hey, pale stranger! Halt and show your pass!” The Dreamer blinked. The guard nearest to him was blocking his way with a spear of some kind. He was wearing an armor of red and black, made of leather and steel and concealing his features fully, the helm resembling the head of a wyvern. From his belt hang a mace – nearby guards had shields and crossbows, all handling themselves with discipline and alertness rare in the usual city guards. The planewalker’s sluggishness at complying to the guard’s request and the way he stared at the soldiers made them all turn to look at him. “Ya? Pass?” “Yes, a pass – without you will not get in. If you are here to join the mercenary forces, you need to go to the camp a few miles inland. Recruits are not allowed in.” I could just kill them all, but with the way the Grail works it might consider me an enemy. Too much of a hassle in any case. “Right you are, sir.” He smiled, his eyes purple. The planewalker turned around and walked behind the nearest corner, the guards losing interest in him as soon as they saw he wasn’t going to try anything suspicious. He sat down on a rock and leaned on the nearby wall, frowning to himself. Now, what would be the easiest way to get in without too much attention? He was brought out of his reverie by a loud, far-away horn. It wailed mournfully, a piercing cry from deep inland, sounding as if it was somewhere above the ground. Another similar wail responded to the first, almost directly above the Dreamer, and now he realized it must have been the wyvern-riders’ horns. Right after the long, haunting wail had subsided, a heavy bell tolled somewhere in the city. Its tone was as mournful and sombre as the horns it replied to, and by the faintly trembling earth reverberating in the same rhythm as the bell he could hazard a guess just how enormous the bell was. Very suddenly the sky was clear of both gulls and wyvern-riders, and even on the ground the few humans in sight scurried to some sort of shelter as fast as they could. Some gave him a worried look, but did not say anything after they saw his foreign features, his marred, frowning face. Soon, he was alone on the empty street. The silence seemed eerie for a place that had a moment ago been full of the sounds of people. The Dreamer looked curiously around, but saw no reason for this sudden run to hiding. He stood up and walked back to the gate, found it closed and barred, the guards gone. He could feel the crude but effective magic stored in the iron and stone of the gate, runes that would have foiled most mortal spells of ruin and unbarring. The planewalker only shrugged and bypassed the gate through Astral now that there was nobody to see his trick. As he surveyed the inner city, he started to hear the sound. It was a mix of patter and tinkle, far-away and very loud, and coming closer very fast. He turned around to see the glass storm.

Was waiting for the B-Day shockwave to pass my timezone - just saw it go past so: Happy birthday Yui!

There's more regrets than things I do not regret. What I regret most is not finding a gun when I was looking for one, late january '02 - I'd been a lot happier if I'd found it. *sigh*

Thirteen These two cards again. The Seven of Chaos and Ten of Evil, reversed – a fight and a broken army, but where and which army? The Dreamer stared at the two cards with his blue eyes. The first was a confusing disarray of seven different arrows entangled and melted together in a pattern that seemed to jump out of the two-dimensional card and engulf the watcher, the second showed a convulsing corpse nailed to a floor of a cavern of ice with ten dark, curving scimitars, all ten wounds oozing blood. With a shrug, he picked them off the stone table and inserted them into his deck of cards. As he put the deck down, something made him stare into the depths of the Void. Something was not right, the wrongness too subtle to be voiced but undeniably there. Hunches like this had saved the planewalker before, many times. He rose up bumping into the table clumsily and as he moved away the top card of the deck slid off, got turned around as it fell and landed on its back. The Wheel of Fortune, slowly rotating. His bodyguards appeared, almost without order. These two had survived many years of strife with the planewalker, knowing sometimes faster than their master when they were needed. The Dreamer merely nodded to them, walked slowly to the narrow point of the stone pier. He inhaled deeply, a useless gesture to him. He could scent the Law without breathing. The tang of killed potential clear now, the feeling of vivid colors fading and the sharp edges of magic losing their deadliness all too familiar. Nowhere else he would have sensed them this early, still – but this was his home, here he could sense the first shockwave of the approaching enemy from a long way off. He blinked slowly, luxuriously, knowing that it would be his last moment of peace for some time, and opened his black eyes with a wan grin. “So ‘t has come to this? Very well.” He turned to watch the bodyguards, speaking now more rapidly. “Alcháel, go find th’ girl an’ protect her. Ye can order any lesser angels to help ya in th’ task. Ghrâzkhian, yer an actin’ captain in charge of th’ counter-offensive forces – take charge of th’ demons I’ll conjure.” He turned slightly, grinned with more conviction to his old second-in-command. “Herald.” “Yes, master?” “Blow th’ call to arms.” “As you wish.” The majestetic, tall angel readied his beautiful trumpet, paused and raised it to his lips. Its clarion call rang through the Astral harbour and entered the dim portals, woke up the whole army of the Dreamer. It rang again, proclaiming defiance and promising swift defeat to any and all forces that would dare to go against the armies it was raising, touching the strings of courage within those it was calling. Third time it rang, a last note of warning and wakefulness, a note that conjured up images of unyielding resistance and sharp steel. Then it fell silent. The response was portals opening up their gaping maws, spewing forth squads of demons and angels that stared at each other warily but were quickly separated and lead to different positions. Runes flickered here and there as the unseen defenses readied themselves, triggered one by one by the muttering and gesturing planewalker. He was standing amidst the chaos of moving troops as a conductor of a grand orchestra, an eccentric maestro whose slightest twitch was a strict command. The Dreamer’s black eyes saw nothing as he went through the traps and wards inside his head, mumbled the right trigger-pharses with the right gestures and the right thoughts. The normally placid lines of power were stirred, bent this way and that to power all the deadly suprises the planewalker had woven during the years. Finally he ceased, whispering one last enchantment that would protect the girl, and gazed again into the depths of the Void, half-dreading what he’d see. And there it was, a wide, grey sea of Law’s troops ready to crush against his fortress as a destructive tsunami, shrouded by magic but not totally masked. From this distance he could not sense the individual presences of planewalker captains, but he was absolutely sure there’d be at least one, possibly two, three or more. Already he could see colourful explosions that tore at the seemingly inexorable force, the outer fringes of his defense waking up from their slumber. They had been expecting those, he was sure, but still they’d cause casualties. The opposing captain was moving his troops quickly forward, knowing that losing momentum this deep into somebody elses’ territory would be the worst possible thing. He felt a current of tension course through him and his eyes turned the color of dusk, red and orange and yellow swimming lazily over them. “Herald, command th’ close defense. I’m movin’ in.” “So be it.” He barely saw the beautiful angel draw its magnificent holy long sword, a rare sight. Then he heard the call of the blood too strongly to refuse, the blood in all the veins of the creatures that were invading his space, his part of the Paths, the blood that he should set free, and dashed forward with a sweeping gesture that made a few squads of his warriors to follow. “RAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaahhhh! Fo’ th’ Chaos!” “For the Chaos!” The resounding reply of his followers sparked a flame in his eyes: they burned bright red now. This was no insignificant skirmish over some tiny, broken plane near the front – this was personal, this meant real war. Even in his mind-clouding bloodlust he knew better than to burrow straight into the middle of the enemy army and he circled left along faint paths, yelled in triumph as the traps claimed more of the enemy forces. Soon he reached the enemy front and crashed into the advancing troops with wild abandon. Realizing dimly he had some of his own troops following, he yelled his old battlecry, cynical but true. “Freedom in death or oblivion in bloodlust! Fo’ward, my slaves!” They responded with wild yell and rushed to tear wider the gap their captain had managed to hack. After the red haze clouding his vision cleared somewhat, he looked around, trying to identify his attackers more specifically. But the troops were carrying standard Law banners and he still could not see any planewalkers among them. Even their despairing battlecries as he crashed into them was just the same old “For the Law!” as always. He was also realizing that even though he and his followers had inflicted terrible losses to the enemy, his guard was almost gone, wiped out by the superior numbers of the opposing forces. The Dreamer changed his direction and the remains of his guard gathered around him, fought for a way out. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the main force of the Law surge forward past this fight, get torn terribly by the more vicious traps closer to the Astral harbour, but resume their advance. As he let his body dance its old dance of death, slicing and scything through the elite angelic forces with inhuman ease, he finally caught a glimpse of the real opponent. Khalear! Hah, should’ve realized nobody else is brave enough to do a foolish raid like this. Well, he should be alone. And if he is, I shall scar and break his shiny armor! His goal now in sight, the Dreamer abandoned the troops that had followed his attack and sprinted forward towards the armored figure who was giving out orders to his closest cadre of warriors. He briefly noticed Herald at the front of the biggest part of his own troops, already in melee with the enemy, and a portal spout a dozen of barely controlled demons to the enemy’s flank. The fight was now fully joined and chaos of spellfire, claws, swords, black and white wings reigned everywhere. He felt the raw chaos of the situation as invigorating breeze, leaped forward with renewed energy slashing and killing, and managed at last to get Khaleaer’s attention. The empty platemail marked with dents and cuts instead of scars, inhabited by the spirit of a powerful paladin did not waste words on the Dreamer but readied his shield and sword. Khalear moved to meet him, parried the first feinting blow of Pain easily. The Dreamer danced backwards through the melee as Khalear mounted his counterattack, parrying or dodging all the blows with apparent ease. Just as the paladin was about to shift to more aggressive stance, the Dreamer lashed back with a rapid flurry of blows which forced him to retreat with slow, steady steps. His last slash scratched Khalear’s wards, Pain howling in pleasure. As the paladin readjusted his shield and moved forward, fighting with a balanced style, the Dreamer danced out of the way. He made a clumsy mistake, however, and Khalear rushed in triumphantly ready to scar the Dreamer. Who muttered a command word for one of his most powerful traps laying right under his opponent. A rune written in bright, blindingly white fire appeared below the empty platemail, giving him a fraction of a second to ponder its foolishness before the explosion knocked it upwards, the Dreamer flying after him in hot pursuit. Below the two planewalkers, dozens of warriors on both sides lay dead or dying, shreddered by the blast meant to harm planewalkers or gods. Khalear was shaking his hollow head in effort to clear it, his wards almost gone in the explosion. The Dreamer’s first blow knocked the paladin’s blade away, the second bit deep into the living metal. Wordlessly accepting defeat the paladin raised a new, temporary ward and started running away along the Lost Paths. His troops, mired down everywhere by the Dreamer’s forces, saw him go and give the retreating signal, and tried to disengage as well. Without much success. * * * The Dreamer sheathed Pain and blinked his eyes back to blue. The body of the angel he had just killed started to drift slowly away, some current of the Void claiming it as its prize. He turned to look backward and was surprised how far his Astral harbour seemed to be. Between him and his home, the Void was full of debris – slowly rotating discarded weapons, pieces of armor and shields, floating demonic and celestial corpses by the dozens, abandoned bodyparts; most of them remains of the now annihilated army of the Law. The planewalker frowned, irritated by the sight and growled a few words to the demon next to him. “Ghrâzkhian, take care o’ this mess, will ya?” “Will do, master.” The hulking demon started to growl to his own subordinates. The Dreamer grimaced as he headed back towards the harbour, tiredly dodging the dead and dying, his blue eyes filling with shades of brown. Most of my traps are spent and my personal army is in shambles. This’ll tie me down for some time. Not what that hollow-headed fool was aiming to do, I’m sure, but still a thrice-accursed inconvinience. Can’t continue with my search … oh. He sprang forward at his usual high speed, let his wards deal with the few obstructions he met along the way. Herald flowing up to meet him, something the angel never did, made him hasten his step even more. He ignored his second-in-command, leaped past the piles of corpses lying around and sped over the bridge leading to the small castle. The ground was thick with white feathers and red blood here, the remaining bushes in the garden resembling huge birds. His passage made the stained feathers whirl in the air, a red-white snow falling again and again like the castle had been inside a snowglobe. Here in the narrow corridors the fighting had been intense, the morale of the troops of Law unbroken by the flight of their leader since they had been unable to see it, and here had been the Dreamer’s traps least numerous, both because the castle was new and because he did not want them to harm the girl. The planewalker had to force his way through at places where two angels had been locked in a deadly embrace, their wings still blocking the way. The door to her chambers had been broken and lay on the floor next to the corpse of his bodyguard, Alcháel. The room was in shambles. He could see from the corpses and their locations, from the broken weapons and marred pieces of armor that the melee had been intense here, both sides dwindled to the last, most ferocious and desperate fighters before the end. In the middle of it all was a weakly coruscating emerald field of protection, centered on the prone figure of a blood-splattered girl clad in her practice armor, lying on the floor. The Dreamer’s eyes flashed black and he bounced forward, landing next to Jankiize. He gently turned the girl over, let the sphere of protection fade to see her better. Despite his lack of healing skills, he could tell she was alive and so he wasn’t surprised when she opened her eyes. She whispered, the words almost beyond a mortal’s hearing. “Uncle?” “Ya, Janki? Are ye wounded?” “No… but I killed an angel.” He looked around and saw Winter’s Touch embedded in the chest of a surprised looking, icy angel. Next to it lay the corpse of the human warrior, his body broken by half a dozen blows, a peaceful look on his blood-stained face. The girl stood up carefully, as if waking up from sleep, and surveyed the room with eyes that did not seem to register much. Her gaze stopped at the warrior, her face almost blank. She mouthed a silent “oh” and turned to look at the Dreamer, whose eyes were now the deep blue of the infinite Void, the eyes of an immortal in the presence of a mystery he had seen countless times. “Ya, he is gone, yer warrior. Died doin’ his duty, so I’m sure he’ll rest well.” “Where? You know where we go, right, uncle?” “Ye can ask that from yer parents, later. ‘S not for me to tell where th’ individual mortal soul travels, to heaven or hell, purgatory or oblivion. I can only follow ‘em, afterwards, if I so wish. Yer most likely better versed in th’ afterlives of the people of the Holy Tree than me.” He shrugged, and they both felt the vast gulf between them, a mortal and an immortal. The planewalker moved forward and reached as if to remove Winter’s Touch from the angel’s corpse, then thought better of it. “Retrieve yer sword, m’lady. Remember what I said about th’ blade? ‘Tis yer life, th’ blade ‘s. Take good care o’ it.” The girl shook her head with a hint of terror in her eyes and backed down a step. The Dreamer’s eyes turned dark grey as he regarded Jankiize, his face stern. “I don’t want it, uncle. I … just don’t.” “Then yer a fool, Jankiize Towikae Vangaijuua. Abandonin’ yer blade does not mean th’ world will turn so soft for ya ye won’t need one – it’ll just mean when th’ wolv’s close in all ye’ll have to fight against ‘em is a fright’d expression. Power makes th’ world go around, an’ a blade’s a personal power, th’ power to defend yerself even if ye lack th’ aggression to do anythin’ else with it.” The planewalker’s eyes were now completely black, the scars on his face twisted to a frightening look. “Now, retrieve yer sword.” She grabbed the hilt of her katana reluctantly as if it had been a poisonous snake ready to bite her at its earliest oppoturnity and moved to sheathe its bloodied blade with her slightly shaking hands. The Dreamer coughed loudly and she turned to look at him startled by the unusual sound, halfway through with the move – he was holding a silken cloth, giving the bloody blade a meaningful, narrow stare. Wordlessly chastened, she wiped her blade clear and finally sheathed it, shivering involuntarily as the sword clicked to its place.

Twelve B It was a dark and stormy night. Lightning cracked the skies open, shouted with the voice of thunder. The Dreamer, standing on the forsaken moor all alone, was drenched but did not care about such irrelevant detail. He retracted his mind slowly and stared into the opaque gloom without seeing anything with his grey eyes. Thrice-accursed gods! They have warded that insignificant castle all the way from foundation to the top of the ugly, squat tower. And those wards are not insignificant at all. If whoever did that is still there, it could track me down. He shrugged and stood there doing nothing for a while, rain pouring over his wine-red armor and plastering his grey hair over his skull. Then he started digging. * * * A lone knight on his stout horse rode slowly across the moor. There was nothing there, of course, but the patrols had been written in the Booke Of Instructions Ande By-Laws, and what was written was sacred. It was a pleasant sunny day, a refreshing breeze blowing from the sea. He paused to scan the moor and to his own great suprise saw something odd. Some way off, a part of the moor was disturbed, as if something had been buried there. The knight spurred his horse closer and stopped next to the disturbed patch of earth. The area looked rather big, bigger than any animal he had seen around here would create. It was almost like ... a grave. Abruptly, the ground broke up as something huge surged upwards in a shower of earth, slashed at his horse with a large, transparent blade. The horse whimpered one last time and fell over, trapping and crushing his left leg before he had time to react. He groaned in pain, then almost passed out as the mud-covered creature grabbed the lapels of his platemail so hard the metal twisted and hauled him from under the horse without paying any heed to how much it hurt him. It held him high in the air with its wiry arm and stared at him with yellow eyes, watching with interest the knight convulse with pain. "Yer a knight o' th' Holy Grail, ya?" "... yes, yes I am. What do you want of me, foul monster?" "Information, Sir Knight. Information." It grinned, showing white teeth. "Now, I am not very good with th' information gatherin' methods from fragile mortals such as ye, so I'm just goin' to ask this once, very nicely, before I turn ye to an expert o' mine. Where 's th' Holy Grail? An' why did ya try to attack me, hmm?" The knight paled even more, already white-faced from pain, and for a moment fear shone in his eyes. Then it was replaced by resolution. "I ... don't know, monster. And even if I did, I would not tell." "As ye wish, Sir Knight." The monster made a small gesture with its free hand and a massive, hulking demon appeared out of nowhere, bringing with it the smell of sulphur and ashes. It dropped the knight, making darkness engulf him for a brief moment as his mangled leg hit the ground. "Ghrâzkhian, I want ye to take this gentleman an' get from him th' answer to these two questions - where 's th' Holy Grail an' why they tried to attack me. Take yer time an' don't kill him, neh?" The demon growled something in response and grabbed the knight, vanishing with him.