Desolation

[Zadown]

He lifted a shattered piece of wood up to examine the numerous cuts and nicks it had sustained. A short frown set the scars on his face to motion, then he let the piece of debris drop. The Dreamer took another look around. He was near the edge of a wide swathe of destruction, the damage more intense nearer the middle of the immense furrow. Everything was cut by numerous small blades, stone and wood, dead and organic matter alike. Behind him rose a forest, far in front of him, behind the wrecked farm, the foothills of a mountain range. The air was mild, smelling faintly of earth and moist wood, a whiff of old necromancy making him ignore the normal smells. The Dreamer narrowed his dark blue eyes when he recognized the trace of magic in the air. He blinked when the other planewalker appeared from behind the ruins, eyes returning to their normal shape and color.

 

"Anythin' curious, Suentalv?"

 

"It's a crushed farm. I'm a city person, can't make heads or tails out of these piles of stone."

 

Suentalv made a wide gesture of surrender, but there was a grin on his youthful face and no remorse in his tone. He had yellow hair, blazing with thick color that made it look like it was drenched in paint, small sparkling blue eyes, no facial hair and face so devoid of marks of age it looked like he would not have been able to grow any yet, either. His attire was monochrome black from his heavyset leather boots upwards: black trousers of some thick material, black trenchcoat, black leather gloves, holster for a black gun hanging from his black belt. Suentalv was not as tall as the Dreamer, but he was not short, either, and his build was lean verging on muscular. He lifted one booted feet to rest on a block of stone and looked around at the remains of the farm. Standing before the battle-worn Dreamer who was clad in his usual creamy white robes there was such an absurd contrast between the two it might have seemed deliberate to an ignorant observer.

 

"What you think, Dreamer? A bad joke by our lovely lady Balance?"

 

"Naw. She 'as her reasons, m'lord, she always does. Though I would not be averse at sayin' her reasons may not always be th' sort we'd end up enjoyin', ya. Now, where's the corpses?"

 

"Eh? Locals may not have invented any entertainment worth mentioning yet but wouldn't they still be civilized enough to take care of the corpses, still? I mean, some survived for sure and it's been a long time since it happened, mortal-wise."

 

"Smell th' air, 'prentice."

 

Suentalv started, then raised his voice in rising anger, gloved hand gesturing in objection.

 

"You may be older than me, but ... whoa, necromancy? Do you think that's the bad guys?"

 

"It doesn't tend t' be that easy with her, Lord Suentalv. In th' wider perspective, 'the bad guy' might as well be me. Necromancy 'as an unnecessarily bad reputation."

 

The Dreamer stared at the direction the faint trails of necromantic magic led, the same direction the swathe of destruction had proceeded. Suentalv shrugged and started walking that way, gesturing and talking as he went.

 

"Bad, of course! Who would want to see their old relatives lurching around, rotting and messing up the places and the inheritance order. There's this story I heard, back in Chtan'ghal, about a bunch of the Cult of the Damned members stirring up trouble ... are you listening, old man?"

 

The older planewalker sighed, his eyes darkening to grey, before trailing after his young associate who was already well into his story, underlining every sentence with a gesture, left hand resting on his holstered pistol.

 

"... the state police were already edgy, and having to deal with zombie infestations didn't make their mood any better ..."

[Zadown]

"There's the evil demon-worshippers! Stirring up trouble with zombies as is their style."

 

"Ye call clearin' rubble with them as trouble, m'lord?"

 

The two of them stood on a round ridge, slightly off from the path of the worst devastation. Below stood the remains of a small rural village, the torn furrow losing its cohesion here, signs of destruction scattered everywhere. Most buildings had been reduced to uneven piles of stone covered with shingles, some leaning this way and that with one corner more torn that the others. Among the ruins lurched zombies in various states of decomposing, majority carrying stones to piles, some waiting for orders in an orderly formation next to the few humans present. One of the humans was clearly the main necromancer, wearing elaborate dark robes with red patterns. The three others had more practical attires of leather and sturdy fabric, stained in organic colors that bespoke of close contacts with the dead workforce: rusty red, fading yellow, pale green. From their leather belts hung tools of their trade, either meticulously cleaned or not used lately, the edges of the etched iron gleaming. Wicked shapes, axes and saws, smaller things that a torturer would have found many unpleasant uses for.

 

The whole operation had the air of work that paid by hour if it paid at all. They saw one of the reanimation technicians sitting on a boulder that used to be a piece of a house, swinging his legs and chewing on something. The head necromancer argued about something over a large piece of parchment with another technician, pausing from time to time to order those zombies around that came to him empty handed. All four humans had the sort of untidy stubble that told volumes about how long they had been away from home.

 

Suentalv grabbed his gun. Its black surface shone darkly in the weak sunlight penetrating the flimsy clouds that were almost hugging the ground, barely high enough to avoid to be called fog. Blue engravings glinted with inner light along the length of the barrel, half runes, half ornamental.

 

"Just four mortals. Easy to clear these off."

 

"An' why'd we do that, pray do tell?"

 

"Can't you see it? Smell the necromancy hanging in the air? It's evil, old man. Evil!"

 

"So?"

 

At a loss for words, Suentalv gestured his frustration wildly, the broad motions so vigorous they would have been hard to miss even for the weary supervisors down the hill. A shout echoed through the ruined landscape, too distorted by distance and the collapsed buildings to make any sense when it finally reached the two planewalkers.

 

The Dreamer smiled wanly, narrowed his grey eyes, turned to watch the approaching squad with solid calm. He gestured and after a short hesistation Suentalv re-holstered his sturdy pistol. Another small gesture defused his active wards, the dying electric charge triggering a faint smell of ozone.

 

"If ye 'ave t' make a point, blast a zombie, not a mortal. An' let me do th' talkin', 'prentice."

 

"I told you! Just because you are a few years senior ..."

 

"Over two thousand an' five hundred years senior, ye mean."

 

"... a few years senior as I said, doesn't mean I'm an apprentice!"

 

The squad was led by the necromancer with one of his apprentices walking next to him, hand resting on the handle of a cleaver. Behind them shambled six zombies, some armed with lengthy pieces of wood grabbed from the piles of debris. This close the Dreamer could easily see how grim the two humans looked, the detailed repairs done to the zombies. He blinked to take a brief glimpse at the flows of magic. What he saw was not surprising - the spells woven around the necromancer and the necromancy itself were both crude if moderately effective, unreal fabrics he could have unravelled with a tiny gesture. The apprentice had higher potential but even less skill, both of them so far below his inhuman strength he had nothing to worry about. Unless he wanted to keep the mortals alive.

 

They stopped a fair distance from them, frowns of confusion mixing with the grimness, zombies lurching to a halt behind them. A tiny hint of uncertainity flickered in the necromancer's posture.

 

"Evenin', Adepts o' th' Art."

 

"This disaster area is restricted for recovery workers only. If you cannot show us a suitable passport we are required to take you two into custody for trespassing."

 

Dreamer's wan smile twisted into feral grin. He gestured again to stop Suentalv from drawing his gun.

 

"We might be persuaded t' follow one of yer 'prentices to th' nearest area o' civilization, if ye ask nicely, ya. I'm afraid takin' us into custody'll be somewhat impossible, but we will promise t' be nice, neh Suentalv?"

 

Suentalv had no time to make any gestures, affirmative or otherwise. The necromancer growled aloud and pointed at the two planewalkers with a bony finger. The zombies reacted as fast as they were able, streaming past the robed mage in a series of jerky motions. Showing more free will, the apprentice hesistated, then tugged his cleaver free from his belt but did not move forward. Both planewalkers acting at the precisely same time, Suentalv reached for his pistol, drew and aimed in one smooth motion and blew one zombie's head cleanly off, while the Dreamer snapped his fingers loudly, more for show than for any reason required by the counterspell he had cast. The remaining five zombies all fell down like stringless puppets.

 

"Tch tch. If ye do one more aggressive gesture, Lord Necromancer, why, I will 'ave trouble dividin' my calmin' efforts between my associate Suentalv an' myself, given at that point ye've already gotten one warning more than our usual adversaries, ya."

 

Something in the necromancer's eyes warned him a tiny moment before he could sense the spell being woven. Cursing the slowness of spoken commands in some faraway section of his complex mind, the Dreamer barked a command.

 

"Kneel! ... not ye, Suentalv. Not ye."

 

He sighed again.

 

This will be a long assignment.

[Zadown]

"Did ya notice th' ease o' drawin' on aspected mana flows, 'ere?"

 

"It's because of the sub-planes are closely coupled to this main Prime, right? Think they are god-homes, elemental, sentient or what?"

 

"Could be anythin' - what do they teach ye 'bout different kinds o' magic here, Adept?"

 

The necormancer's assistant almost stumbled on the uneven surface when he tried to glance backwards. There was awe or fear on his face, but it looked like he could not convince himself that he had actually been addressed and turned his attention back at finding proper footing.

 

"Yer not deaf or mute, mortal, ya? They must've taught ye some basic magic theory by now."

 

"No, sir ... I mean, yes, yes they have. Magic comes from different fiefs, the dream worlds of Goddess Sau Henh, the Celestial Mother. Her first dreams were real and created us, but then, exhausted ..."

 

He drew breath and was silent for a moment when he navigated a particulary hazardous part of the uneven forest path, glanced quickly backwards only to see the Dreamer's impatient nod.

 

"She dreamed of shadows, then, and shadow worlds of fire, water, earth, death and so on - the seventeen Fiefs controlled by the seventeen Lords of the Craft. We loan their power on their sufferance, well, mostly on the sufferance of Khal Mah, the Lord of Death."

 

The assistant paused and turned around. He was wary, confused.

 

"Surely you know all this, masters? Master Suht Tyhm would have not deferred to anybody beneath him in rank."

 

They all stopped, the thick forest drenching the three in shadows. The Dreamer was wearing an amused sneer, Suentalv seemed both bored and edgy at the same time, looking into the dark encircling them. Silence was almost absolute.

 

"Ye hear that, 'prentice? Show th' mortal a trick that doesn't involve blowin' his head off, will ya Suentalv?"

 

Before Suentalv had time to reply, a series of out-of-place loud thuds interrupted them. Plunging into the immortal time, the Dreamer noticed half a dozen blurred projectiles but could not think fast enough to do anything about them. One struck their guide Aik Pah, two ended up jutting from the oily dark sphere of protection swirling into existence around Suentalv and at least one hit his own wards, getting deflected harmlessly away.

 

Ward-piercing quarrels. Oh my.

 

The Dreamer let his own wards grow opaque as well before flicking a spell into the space just above and beyond them, something he had been thinking about as possibly being useful against mortals they weren't supposed to kill. A distant part of his mind had been going over the details even as he had been talking and walking, provided the required combination of minute gestures and mental images as soon as he requested it.

 

Even through the emerald green of his wards, the flash was shockingly bright. For a silent moment everything around him was bathed in bright green - his face, his robes, the forest floor around his feet. Then the screams started. Suentalv's growl overwrote the noise the mortals were making.

 

"Now can I kill somebody? They shot at us!"

 

He was brandishing his gun, his wards a smoky monochromatic blur around him, excitement and battle lust in his posture. The Dreamer made a dismissive gesture, radiating ageless calm.

 

"Naw, we should just talk with them, ya? We still 'ave no idea what we need t' balance, 'ere."

 

"But you know the drill, they can't mess with us! I mean, you yourself at Tlaenor .."

 

"Silence! 'Twas different, pup, an imprisonement an' a request for true name, not some misguided mortals tryin' to skewer us with bits o' wood!"

 

The calm had shattered in an instant, and now a suppressed storm raged on the Dreamer's countenance, his eyes jetting out sparks of fiery purple. Moaning Pain crawled upwards in its long scabbard, its hilt edging towards the sky behind the Dreamer's back, and the old planewalkers hands curved into bony claws enveloped in a halo of raw, hissing mana. He found the fiefs easy to connect to, drained their flavoured power like a man finding a glass of cold water in the middle of a desert. Shrugging aside his usual habit of concealment, he blazed a moment with every one of the seventeen signatures of the different local colors of magic before he managed to suppress himself. Gnashing his teeth he narrowed his eyes, slowly floated back to the ground without ever having consciously realized he had been afloat.

 

"Next time ye speak like ye know somethin' of me or my past I'll have to scar th' correction on yer lily-white hide, young one."

 

"... right."

 

Still moving with shaky, angry motions, the Dreamer walked over where Aik Pah whimpered in pain, turned the young man over and with a violent jerk removed the bolt from his chest. Aik Pah spluttered blood, too weak to even reach the Dreamer's white robes with the dark red jet. The planewalker muttered something and made a few gestures. A circle of verdant light sprung into existence around them both, glowed bright for a short moment and then faded out like a pleasant dream, leaving only a smell of lilacs behind. Aik Pah's sallow face turned healthier within seconds and he slowly rose up to a sitting position, dazed but seemingly otherwise unhurt.

 

The Dreamer turned his attention to the attackers, all five of them covering their eyes with their hands, some staggering around, some sitting or lying on the forest floor. They were still wailing and moaning, their weapons abandoned. He gestured, the gesturing fingers briefly burning with friendly green flames, then pointed at the five blind mortals with the same motions as a priest flicking holy water. Five new circles of healing bloomed briefly and were gone, enrichening the scent of lilacs, ceasing the moans and whimpers. One by one, the attackers staggered upright. They wore clothes with dark green and black patterns, their faces smeared with a mixture of grease and ash. Short weapons suited for chaotic melee in a forest adorned their belts and they all had carried crossbows that now lay on the ground next to them. A motif of a half-leaf, half-egg was a recurring theme on their equipment, every one of them wearing such a silver amulet.

 

"Filthy swamplings!"

 

Aik Pah's loud yell startled them all. The Dreamer had slowed himself back down right after his blinding spell had done its work and none of the others had any such ways to cheat the bylaws of Time. Thus the thrown axe, a tool usually reserved for salvaging parts from otherwise unfit cadavers, spun through the air unimpeded and impacted, blade first, on the forehead of the nearest partisan.

[Zadown]

Even Aik Pah himself seemed shocked by what he had done, an air of still uncertainity settling over everybody as gravity dragged down the unresisting, dead ambusher. The corpse landed on its knees, then toppled slowly sideways. Suentalv pointed his gun upwards and gave the Dreamer a questioning look, the older planewalker already snarling words that materialized as trashing chains of force. Aik Pah crashed against the nearest tree as the chains fastened around him with bruising strength. Three of the partisans scrambled for their weapons while the last one's hands gained glowing haloes of emerald light, a strong connection to the life-giving fief visible to both of the planewalkers.

 

Fate-damned mortals, how hard can it be to keep them from killing themselves.

 

Another snarled spell, a hasty gesture, and a ward flimsy from a planewalker point of view appeared around Aik Pah, its color indistinquishable from the magic of life the partisan mage was invoking. The yellow burning in the Dreamer's eyes flickered, as if getting ready to abate. Suentalv suddenly pointed his gun at the life mage, as if he had heard or seen something the Dreamer was not aware of. A merest moment after wondering what had triggered the gesture, he could feel it too - an outpouring of power, a tidal wave surging from the fiefs to this world through the narrow passage of a mortal mage. At first its raw vibrant force was visible only to their second sights, the three mundane soldiers blind and deaf to the change in situation. Then the forest sighed, the leaves rustling as if a strong wind had gripped the forest, the two flares of emerald winking out and shadows deepening around the mage. The scent of lilac rode the unseen wind and was swept away, crushed under the deep, rich smells of upturned earth and natural decay, of a forest after a rain and of a meadow in full bloom. Darkness growning at the epicentre swallowed the mage, stretching and rustling before it reached upwards with two thick limbs and extended sideways, retaining a vague humanoid shape. There was wildness in it, in its twisting growth, and it seemed to draw from the forest around it. It soon towered over the three soldiers who were now backing off, terrified reverence etched on their faces so deep echoes of it would remain as long as those men would live.

 

The titanic creature took a step forward, then another, moving more like an elemental force than the human that it had used as a seed, its steps surprisingly quiet. It creaked as it moved, the leaves attached to it sighing in the wind its own passage created. The darkness in which it had grown was gone, and inside its misshaped head two lanterns of emerald green shone, illuminating whatever it laid its gaze upon. When it spoke, the voice was the thunder they had expected its footsteps to be, the boom and crackle of a summer storm.

 

"Who uses my powers without compensation? Who dares to channel from my fief without sufferance?"

 

Its twin beams of green light had landed on the Dreamer and Suentalv, the former smiling a slanted, cruel smile, eyes pink, the latter frowning, gun aimed at the verdant giant. Suentalv glanced sideways at the Dreamer, kept his gun steady.

 

"Can I shoot that at least?"

 

A manic laughter erupted from the horribly scarred visage of the Dreamer, the sound jagged and unpleansat, hacking. He managed to nod at Suentalv halfway through, almost shaking from mirth or anticipation or from effort to contain himself. Suentalv's gun barked like a cannon and spat out a thick beam of red fire that punched into the heart of the giant. An explosion shook the tree elemental. It coughed smoke, ash and burnt leaves before rushing forward, claws of moist wood extending outward from the ends of both of its forelimbs. The Dreamer capered to meet it, both hands gripping the hilt of Pain with such force their whiteness was easy to see in the green gloom. He seemed to kneel directly in front of the titan's path, then kicked himself upwards with uncanny speed, dodging the elemental's bearhug. Pain slashed at the giant's throat in a vast arc, killing and corrupting whatever it touched, then the Dreamer was past the forest giant. He somersaulted at the top of the arc of his leap and landed softly behind it. Another loud bark of Suentalv's gun, the Dreamer turning wildly to meet a new charge, both superfluous gestures: the creature was already falling, another fiery explosion inside its shoulder merely sending smoking twigs and leaves to every direction. Wildness did not leave the Dreamer yet - he bounced forward, mouth half-open, teeth gleaming in the night, Pain held in one hand like a sabre.

 

Another slash, then he tossed the blade aside and tore from the head of the detoriating creature its core, a human skull that had been extended in one fell burst of concentrated life magic into something vast but thin, fragile, like clay. Inside it two lanterns of emerald fire still burned, lighting up the savage face of the furious planewalker. The Dreamer's voice was a rasping snarl, a twisted growl that held the shapes of words in its skein.

 

"Come t' me, Wodzan Xe Chanima, Godslayer an' Dreamer, Knight o' th' Grail, Scourge o' th' Planes and Soldier o' th' Scales, god-thing, if ye want t' constrain th' powers of yer fief. T' me, in person, godling, ye hear?"

 

Fury loosed its grip on him, and he could see in the depths of the fire he stared into, that stared into him, a vision of the god he had so challenged. A vast creature, a titan of earth and stone and wood, trees growing on its surface, eyes lakes and beard a full forest, floating in a plane of its own. Was a plane of its own, that god, not ruled over one. He expelled the useless air he had drawn in during the fight through his nose and tossed the crumbling pieces of the skull away, last flickers of the emerald fire floating into the dark like fireflies.

 

"Or don't, then."

 

"So ..."

 

Suentalv glanced at the three petrified partisans who had soiled their breeches, at the mess of the tree-giant and at what remained of the corpse after the giant had stepped on it, turned his head back to frown at Aik Pah tied to a tree with the chains of force, weak ward glowing around him.

 

"... are these swamplings the bad guys, now?"

[Zadown]

"Who says they will honor the bargain? We let 'em go, no way they come back to us. They think we are monsters, right?"

 

The Dreamer grinned.

 

"Ya, we are. An' I say they do. I soulmark'd one, if they flee I'll track them down an' tell them in no uncertain terms how bad an idea 'twas t' make me angry."

 

Suentalv's sideway glance was slightly perturbed. He quit leaning on the wide tree and spat out the blade of grass he had been chewing on, glanced to his other side at the sullen Aik Pah. They had taken all his tools and stored them into Astral to Aik Pah's obvious distress.

 

"What's the deal with you and gods? I mean, we've all heard stories... "

 

"Ye don't hate th' sanctimonious leeches? They are nothin' but trouble, they an' their mindless worshippers. It started yellin' at me so I bloodied its nose, nothin' more t' it - no excuses, like for our poor misguided mortals."

 

"That's curious, they tend to say you are nothing but trouble, Dreamer."

 

Suentalv grinned, the Dreamer shrugged, glancing at Aik Pah too as if gauging just how misguided this particular mortal was. The scarred planewalker shifted his gaze to the edge of the forest that lay a short distance away, past an open field of grass in the middle of which their shade-providing tree stood.

 

"My trouble's th' right kind, pup. There they come, ya?"

 

A small group of four exited the cover of the trees, paused for a short moment and then started heading towards the planewalkers and their guide. At the front was an older woman of indecipherable age, the life magic that had flown through her during her long life having altered her considerably. Her skin was like lined bark, eyes glinting deep in her face the color of river-honed obsidian. The green and brown dress she wore left her arms and feet bare, blocky black tattoos covering most of the skin, leaving only the center of her face unmarked. Her long hair had strands of green where a normal elder would've had streaks of grey, giving her the overall appearance of a small, moving willow. Two of the others were those partisans who had attempted to kill them, a touch of fear or awe lingering around them like a persistent dream. The fourth was a warrior as well, this one wearing a suit of heavy leather armor studded and reinforced with some sort of resilent wood.

 

The Dreamer stood up from his lotus position as the party apporached, showed his empty hands in the universal gesture of peaceful greeting and spoke with a loud, carrying voice as soon as the mortals were near enough.

 

"I shall not instigate treachery or violence in this parley. These bindin' words I, Wodzan Xe Chanima, speak o' my free will."

 

Suentalv just stood up, wiped his trousers clean and nodded at the approaching people, but stayed silent. The leader of the small group duplicated the gesture the Dreamer had made. When she spoke, it was with a hissing voice, with enforced breaks when she had to breathe out small clouds of steam. Her hands swayed little in front of her every time she said something, empty gestures that looked like branches in the wind.

 

"I, Tham Mih, will speak for the Fief-Lord El Maeh and his people, and for us who compensate him and life on his sufferance. My words are straight as pines and my wisdom old and rooted deep. Do you bring words of truce from our old enemy Khal Mah, scarred man?"

 

"Not quite, mortal. We were sent 'ere t' balance whatever had become crook'd when Maiden o' Daggers danced through yer realm. Did this little war o' yers start then or is it older an' just made worse by th' recent destruction?"

 

Tham Mih cackled, an unpleasant sound, and even her retinued managed brief smiles.

 

"The Lord of Fiefs have been fighting ever since they were born, several whole ages before this. There are truces, scarred man, but no peace. If you seek to right what was broken during the Week of Knives you'd do well to free those captured by the maggots of Khal Mah, crawling from their under-warrens to open air like worms after a rain of blood, instead of wounding our already bleeding lord El Maeh further."

 

"She lies!"

 

Aik Pah yelled and pointed a finger at Tham Mih, eliciting glares of hatred from the three warriors. Aik Pah's face turned red and he stabbed at air again.

 

"We have done far more for the land with the help of the deceased than her murdering swamplings skulking in the shadows, killing those who try to hunt for food when their farms have been destroyed. They claim to be protecting the game and the forests but they are just greedy and selfish!"

 

By then Suentalv was laughing soundlessly and the Dreamer's eyes were spitting out purple sparks. The two exchanged glances and the Dreamer could feel a slight tap to the door of his mind. One of the warriors started an angry response that slowed down into faint, unintelligible bellow when the planewalkers accelerated into immortal time.

 

* Still think it's not a bad joke by Lady Balance, Lord Dreamer?

 

* I'm inclinin' towards that explanation slowly, ya. Ye might 'ave more acute perception than I've estimat'd at first, Lord Suentalv. Th' previous times I've been tested this sorely at least 'ad some sort of discernable goals. Perhaps ...

 

* Only way we can stop their petty squabbles is to eradicate them to the last mortal.

 

* There must be somethin' else t' this, some subtle change that'd plunge this world into either Law or Chaos unless we intervene. We must be underestimatin' th' problem - it may be one we can't force our ways through an' it most certainly doesn't have this pointless conflict at its core.

 

* Can we at least shed these mortal hindrances?

 

* Ya. They are sidetrackin' us.

 

The Dreamer lifted his empty hand and frowned, his intense glare interrupting the warrior's tirade.

 

"Th' parley's over. As per by th' old customs, we'll give ye time t' withdraw before we cease t' hold ourselves constrain'd by th' peace of parley. Ye may all leave, now."

 

He turned his furious gaze at Aik Pah.

 

"All of ya."

 

"But.. !"

 

"You can't ...!"

 

"Silence!"

 

That worked, as he had hoped it would.

[Zadown]

"Back t' th' startin' point, ya?"

 

Suentalv drained his pewter cup, grimaced briefly and filled it again from a clay jug. He didn't seem to mind the local excuse for wine, which made their stay at the far corner of a tavern in the first larger patch of civilization they had find slightly less conspicious.

 

"It's not that bad, old man. At least we know a bit more about the place. Seventeen fiefs, constant strife, some sort of system of sufferances and such ... reminds me a bit of the time when in Chtan'ghal ..."

 

The violent hacking gesture made it clear the Dreamer wasn't curious about what had happened in Chtan'ghal. His eyes were dark, so close to black it was almost impossible to see if they were closer to purple or blue.

 

"Th' mortals sidetrack'd us already quite enough, Suentalv. Ye any good at anythin' in particular 'sides havin' a finely-tuned sense of danger? Could be a reason why she chose us two."

 

"None I can think of, old man. Could be we two were the only free agents she had. Balance has not ever been especially known of the extent of her armies."

 

"Not known, ya. She's not blusterin' as much as th' other two, however."

 

"She put all she had on the line at Battle of Dreams, or so they say. And it wasn't much - I was there."

 

Suentalv glare morosely into his cup as if daring it to disagree with him.

 

"A-ha! But 'twas enough. 'A single strand of silver, more tenacious than a chain of iron', as they say. 'Tis always been her way t' win in a way that makes her seem weak. Once or twice, a coincidence, aye, but in hindsight ye can see she's playin' with a marked deck. Or with fated hands."

 

"You talking about yourself, now?"

 

"To an extent, aye. Th' time since I woke up has been nothin' if not Fate-charm'd. For every step backwards, setback or defeat, there's been an unexpected redemption."

 

The younger planewalker first frowned, then looked decidedly uncomfortable as if he had realized something and did not like the taste of it.

 

"Are you saying you've always been one of hers?"

 

This time the Dreamer's laughter was very different, its ingredients from the lighter side of emotional palette. His eyes glowed soft silver and he banged the robust, crude wooden table once before calming down.

 

"Always 's a long time, young one. Especially yer 'always'. I've certainly balanc'd things long before my pilgrimage t' meet her. 'In th' end, everybody works for her.', I was told by one o' her grey emissaries. Take that as ye may."

 

"But ..."

 

Suentalv made a wide gesture, trying to find the right words to express himself. The Dreamer shrugged.

 

"My words exactly, young one. I disagreed as well - t' agree would be a road into stagnation, away from th' conflict that keeps us movin' through th' years. Ye were there durin' the Grail Wars - even if on th' wrong side - so ye can say if th' triumph of Balance seem'd inevitable to ya, did it?"

 

"No. The opposite, if anything. Never thought the nature of the multiversum could shift back and forth with so vast an arc."

 

An uncharateristic seriousness quieted the younger planewalker, total agreement with that emotion deepening the Astral blue in the Dreamer's eyes. Both of them turned their mind's eye back towards that time of strife, how Law's victory had seemed inevitable, then the advance of Chaos a crushing, unstoppable juggernaut and lastly how both sides had lost their coherence at the end, after Grail's betrayal. The Dreamer was startled out of his reverie by Suentalv's sudden sign for silence, delivered with intense frown and slightly tilted head.

 

"Dim us, Dreamer. Quick."

 

Accepting the hissed, urgent request without question, he suppressed part of what little power he tended to radiate outwards and conjured a veil around them both that hid the rest. Suentalv gestured towards the door and touched the grip of his gun but did not draw it. The Dreamer rose with agility he seldomly showed out of combat. His eyes shone like two glinting citrines as he glided through the room to stand next to the door, Suentalv following with some cluminess. A few locals watched them with curiosity but as they did not make any inconvinient sounds the planewalkers ignored them, straining to sense whatever was approaching.

 

* Planewalker?

 

* Two, maybe. Faint, clouded traces, either really weak or rather good at hiding.

 

* If these guys are from Atyaer's band o' Law's 'finest', it'll be a fight, ya.

 

* Not that bad a feeling, I'd say. Just take a look first, old man.

 

The signatures for their sixth senses did not get any clearer, but they could hear something out of ordinary - two female voices arguing in New Planewalkerian, not loudly but easy enough to follow, the sources getting nearer. The first one was gruff and authoritarian, old and on the deeper side for a woman, the second higher but oddly flat, lacking emotion.

 

"I can't sense anythin', Clarian. An' ye were sayin' they were right here, too."

 

"If they were here, they hear us and vanish, now."

 

"Pshaw! I'd be silent if ye weren't so hopeless with mental communication, child! We'll look around to humor ya, an' ask if there's been any strangers 'bout, but then we'll continue our mission instead o' following these hunches of yers."

 

"I've never been wrong before."

 

"Time's th' first one, also!"

 

"Wait."

 

The Dreamer winked at Suentalv, conjured a grin to his face and stepped out, some tension still remaining in his posture. Suentalv followed more carefully. When they got outside, they saw the two women in front of the tavern. The older one looked like an adventurer, wearing a scavenged set of mismatching armor that had seen heavy use and little repairing or polishing. A thin layer of dust and grime made it all different shades of grey and brown, mud obscured the line between her greavers and sabatons. Younger of the two also wore armor, a set of custom-fitted plate that had been well cared for. It had the healthy, dull glint of oiled metal. Neither of them wore a helmet. The older woman had marks of heavy combat, several scars criss-crossing her stern face, white streaks in her dust-brown hair marking whatever scars her scalp had. Her eyes were the color of steel and she wore a frown, glaring at the Dreamer but not reaching towards the heavy mace she had on her back. If she had been mortal Suentalv would have guessed her age to be in the late thirties or early fourties - as it was he got the impression she was close to the age of the Dreamer, nearer three thousand years than thirty. The younger woman who had been called Clarian earlier had the outward appearance of being in her twenties. Her hair was straw-yellow, her scarless and smooth features somewhere between plain and moderately beautiful, but they had the same lack of liveliness as her voice had had. Clarian's hand was frozen in midair reaching towards the hilt of her massive sword jutting out from behind her back.

 

"Heya, m'lady Terezin."

 

A nod accompanied the greeting, and a swift glance at Clarian, then the old, scarred planewalker ignored the younger of the pair.

 

"What brings yer kind t' these hinterlands o' th' multiversum?"

 

"Right! Ye, Scourge, 'ave far more reason t' answer that question than me. As ye should know, Lord Whirlwind, these are firmly at th' edge of our sphere of influence - 's Chaos now reaching it's boil-infested claws this way too?"

 

"Always th' funny one, m'lady. An' behind th' news, unfortunately. I've been workin' for Balance now a while, ya, an' we are 'ere merely t' soothe over any disturbances th' wake of Maiden's passage might have created."

 

"She's savaged a dozen or more planes hereabouts, as ye should know if yer keeping track at how succesful yer summons were. But naw, ye 'ave t' appear just here. In league with Evil these days, are ya?"

 

Moving with grace she grabbed the heavy weapon attached to her back and lifted it with one arm, pointed its reinforced, spiked head at the Dreamer to underline her words. Clarian lowered her hand but her posture did not relax even if her face was calm. The Dreamer seemed to be the only one unruffled by the growing tension. His eyes shone a faint silver and he smiled.

 

"I'm 'bout as interested in joinin' those ranks as I am about joinin' th' ranks of yer lot, m'lady. An' they are strong enough not t' need our manipulative hand tippin' th' scales. If yer 'ere t' fix things, as unprecedent'd as it may be we are on th' same side. Just like ol' times, ya, Lady Wildfire?"

 

"Nobody calls me that, anymore."

 

But she lowered her mace, muttering the words instead of snarling them.

[Zadown]

All four of them were sitting on stones, in a part of the forest that was near the little town. None of them really required the amenities of civilization, and while two strangers in peculiar clothes might have been worth ignoring, all four of them would have surely caused commotion in the long run. It was almost dark, black clouds rolling across the sky with thunder rumbling somewhere far away, the wet trees shaking off fat drops of rainwater still clinging to their leaves from time to time in brief showers. An expectant silence hang over the meeting: Suentalv looked like he felt awkward, Clarian's face was blank, and the two old planewalkers had the tranquil air of ancient immortals who were past the issues of time. Eventually the Dreamer spoke without preamble, like he was just continuing the conversation they had had in the town.

 

"So, what help do ye need with Evil?"

 

"Ye think we'd want yer help?"

 

"Ya."

 

"Ha! Still with th' arrogant streak, even after all these years. Fine, then, let's see if ye an' yer 'prentice are o' any use t' Good."

 

Terezin's mouth twisted, finding the taste of her own words sour. She sighed and continued with less acid.

 

"How'd ye go about consolidatin' this place, Wodzan?"

 

The Dreamer's deep blue eyes narrowed and he shrugged.

 

"'S not th' kind o' place I'd conquer, m'lady. Too many gods, an' with th' fiefs eliminatin' them without replacements ascendin' either from th' old ranks or from outside would be a practical impossibility, ya."

 

"There, ye answered t' the question already."

 

"They are infiltratin' a fief t' gain a foothold? One or all?"

 

"One, still, we'd wager. Clarian's good at sensing power, so we were going t' check the priesthoods for foreign taints first ..."

 

A lifted hand, shape altered by the disfiguring scars, paused her.

 

"Naw. She can't be good enough t' smell th' taint before they've entrench'd so deep ye'll going t' have an abyss o' a campaign t' even get to th' parasite godlin'. We'd better visit th' fiefs, instead."

 

"But I am not a planewalker, m'lord."

 

Clarian's voice was as flat as ever, which made Suentalv's exclamation seem even louder in contrast.

 

"What!?"

 

"Ye didn't notice? 'S obvious - she's only twenty or so years old, ya."

 

The Dreamer grinned at Suentalv before making a dismissive gesture.

 

"It will not be an issue. I look forward t' seein' what forces th' Lords o' th' Craft have protectin' their precious fiefs."

 

His grin widened, turned more feral.

[Zadown]

"Oh, Fates, this seem so wrong. Sure this is the right fief, old man?"

 

"Never seen a heaven before, m'lord?"

 

Suentalv shrugged and stared straight up, marvelling at the brilliant summer sky with few obligatory wisps of white. Him, the Dreamer and Clarian were standing ankle-deep in soft, dazzlingly green grass. The grassland extended to every direction, ending to a far-away wall of trees on their left and to only slightly closer ocean behind them, a few green dunes and a narrow beach of sand acting as a buffer between the two seas of monochrome. Ahead they could see a white city at a distance that would have been impossible on a round world. No animal life was visible to any direction, not even birds or insects, giving the whole place a heady sense of tranquility. Only background noise was the tiny sighing of gentle breeze as it caressed the vast expanses of grass.

 

Clarian was watching the city, her face as unreadable as ever. Suentalv lifted an arm and watched the shadow it cast on the grass, some of the peace of immortals in his manners, now. When he spoke again he sounded slightly muted, reverent.

 

"It reminds me of a place I visited once .. where a whole hell's worth of demons got loose and killed everybody and everything, to the last tree and rat before leaving. Only their twisting shadows were left behind, that and some tall grass that gradually covered everything. Might be fitting, after all."

 

The Dreamer nodded.

 

"Ya, Murhmae. Th' story goes it was a mortal's revenge, that he'd been wrong'd by a rich, untouchable official. There's a lesson, there, t' be learnt."

 

"'Do not meddle in the affairs of warlocks, for their wrath is destructive and swift', eh?"

 

"Somethin' along those lines, 'prentice."

 

"By the three-brested concubines of Zkah's Grand Vizier! I've told you not to call me that, old man! I've got the scar, I can walk the planes, and I do not need any more teachers!"

 

"Ssh."

 

Both of them turned to Clarian who had hushed them and was now staring slightly away from the city, at a nearby patch of empty grass. A moment before he registered the disturbance in the lines of power, the Dreamer noted a look of nervous unease on Suentalv's face.

 

He is good at this. If nothing else, that talent should help him live past his first thousand years, no matter how much like a novice he sounds.

 

Like a reversed mirage, two tall, old men in blinding white robes and large, soft hats appeared at the spot they were all staring. Both held tall ornamental staves in one hand and some sort of round drums adorned with a dozen of small bells each in the other. What little showed of their skin was black and wrinkly, their eyes two little dots of obsidian, their faces resembling ancient turtles. Nothing else changed, but the atmosphere was suddenly subtly yet irrevocably different, an air of quiet, unhurried menance hanging over them all. When they finally spoke, it was with dry whispers that despite their faint volume cut like a knives.

 

"Halt, trespassers. You are not of Khal Mah."

 

"You are not dead. Yet."

 

Other than their tiny jaws and dry lips twitching slightly when they spoke, they were completely immobile. That did not prevent them from projecting an aura of assertive, almost smug threat. The Dreamer nodded thoughtfully at the two heralds, then turned his attention at Clarian.

 

"Ya, Hound? Do they smell o' death or o' Evil?"

 

Only the fact her face was normally like cast from stone made the slight twitch in the muscles around her eyes and the tiny widening of her nostrils visible. She shook her head.

 

"They seem uncorrupted, Lord Chanima. But we need to visit the city of the dead to be sure."

 

"Ye do realize that'll cause an unavoidable ... incident, ya?"

 

Clarian nodded.

 

*

 

A flick of the blade cleared Pain of the rivulets of dream-matter and liquid, putrefying remains of souls. The sword trembled, whether from its own or from its wielder's anticipation it was hard to tell. The Dreamer stepped over the body of his latest victim and looked forward, expecting to see yet another squad of the white-clad caretakers or possibly more of the mourning women in red. To his mild surprise the way to the gates of the city was clear. He frowned and turned to look at Clarian who was behind him, inside an emerald ward. The Dreamer stabbed his whimpering sword in the ground, took one last good look at the surroundings before coming far enough out of his battle trance to speak.

 

"Is Suentalv's distraction workin', m'lady? Or are they already runnin' out o' servants to throw at us, ya?"

 

"No. They are regrouping behind the gates, Lord Chanima. I think the Lord of this fief is within that group."

 

"That'd be convinient. If he is still in control, this is th' wrong fief - if Evil's consolidatin' this cluster o' planes at all."

 

"They are, Lord."

 

"Ye 'aven't been wrong so far, Hound. Let's go meet th' welcomin' committee."

 

He grabbed the sword from the ground, lifted it so it lay on his right shoulder and started walking slowly towards the gates. Behind him, one by one, the corpses faded out of existence, leaving behind only a perfect summer day.

 

*

 

The gate opened. Behind it awaited the core of Khal Mah's army, resplendent in its glory: first rows of the caretakers, their robes and hats dazzlingly white in the summer sun, behind them a number of inhuman, tall necromancers in black and gold robes, their painted masks glued on empty darkness, both regiments flanked by mourning women in red. Despite the ornamental grandeur of the spirits the Dreamer could sense the power inherent in them, knew from the trivial fights he had already had against the white and red servants how they would have been a match against most planar footsoldiers. The towering necromancers, twice as tall as Clarian, had even stronger auras, haloes of dead souls trembling over their hooded heads and black flames dancing on their fingertips. The Dreamer frowned.

 

If I'd want to fight all these I'd have to call my troops too.

 

Behind the dozen necromancers was a colossal red, black and gold palanquin or platform, on which a massive throne stood. At a lower part of the platform stood two simple skeletons carrying black banners, the other wearing a golden crown adorned with precious jewels, the other a worn and rusted soldier's chain coif. Before the thorn itself was Lord Khal Mah itself, titanic as most gods preferred to manifest themselves. His apperance was that of a well-tanned learned man in a judge's regalia, carrying an enormous black leather-bound book with a stylized silver engraving of scales on the cover. On the other hand he held a long dark wooden staff that had two curved hooks at the top end and one long blood-drenched spike at the bottom.

 

There was a curious stillness to the whole scene, like instead of a gate they had opened a book and were facing a masterful illustration, one designed to awe the reader. The Dreamer saluted the fief-lord with his naked blade, then sheathed it and glanced at Clarian who shook her head. Taking the salute as a sign to speak, Khal Mah thundered his challenge with the roaring words of an angry deity.

 

"More of you itinerant knights, forces of destruction with no fief to call your own! Did you come here to steal what is rightfully mine, to subjugate this fief, too, under the sceptre of your nebulous philosophies!? Or do you just revel in devastation and blood as intrisic values, fiends!?"

 

The Dreamer grinned, eyes as blazingly white as the robes of the caretakers.

 

"We 'ad heard that one o' th' fiefs was taken, an' since our 'nebulous philosophy' 's opposed 'gainst such takeover here an' now, th' Lady o' Scales sent us 'ere t' cleanse th' spreadin' taint. Since 't seems yer already reverin' th' aforementioned scales and this fief's clean of outsiders, we'll be leavin'."

 

He nodded and turned as if to leave, but paused when Khal Mah's voice boomed again.

 

"All this obliteration, only to see me!? An excessively wasteful method of social visits, I'd say! To leave myself as the sole benefactor of your outlandish politeness, as much as I weep to keep my brothers and sisters devoid of this exquisite experience, I'd advice you to visit the fief of Decay next! If, and I suspect that won't be the case, you can find Lady Thun Qio, extend to her my apologies for sending you to her realm without warning my most beloved sister first!"

 

A tall portal sprung in existence in front of the scarred planewalker, its dim gaping maw hinting at various colors of nauseous green and moldy grey, with smaller traces of every conceivable color and some colors too disgusting to even think of. The Dreamer shrugged, sent an illusionary explosion of emerald fire to the clear summer sky to signal the far-away Suentalv with a small upward gesture, grabbed hold of Clarian with his other hand and sidestepped through the Astral, eschewing the provided portal, in one fluid move.

[Zadown]

The contrast to the fief of Death was overpowering, beginning with a wall of stinking fog. With millennia of experience, the Dreamer had cast a levitation cantrip on himself and Clarian before even landing in the foul muck that now oozed below them. Suentalv who followed them close behind was wearing an uncertain frown and barely managed to avoid falling in the mud. They had arrived in the middle of a rotting forest, the leafless trees reaching skyward like claws of a ghoul. A low susurration seemed to come from every direction, a sound of things slithering over each other. It was punctuated by the wet sound of big drops of mud or dirty water landing on the swampy ground. Somewhere beyond the range of their sight something huge moved, sending ripples through the ponds and making the dead trees wave their claws menacingly. Small swarms of insects flew around, ignoring the intruders.

 

Suentalv glared at their surroundings and unholstered his gun. His voice was barely audible when he grumbled.

 

"I have a bad feeling about this."

 

The Dreamer nodded, yellow flaring in his eyes, his face an immovable, serious mask. He lifted his right hand as if to draw Pain, then paused briefly before letting the hand vanish. When it reappeared shortly afterwards it was holding a a long, slender box, dark green in color, smooth and gleaming with soft inner light everywhere except where a silvery rune of stasis had been engraved. It opened with a hissing sound, exhaling gelid clouds of dark. The Dreamer plunged his hand in and drew a sword out. The silver and black blade was straight and long with only one cutting edge, the shape angular and not round like a sabre. It exhaled cold and dark, the supernatural mist making it hard to see its exact shape. He flicked the blade forward, and the clouds surrounding it uncoiled like a dozen fading tentacles.

 

"I doubt th' locals'd be impress'd with a blade o' decay, neh? Time t' see if I'm really as bad a smith as they say."

 

"Locals aren't all we have to worry about, m'lords."

 

Clarian's normally placid face showed intense concentration and there was a hint of excitement in her voice. She squinted, trying to see through the gloomy miasma that ruined visibility to every direction.

 

"Evil?"

 

Suentalv looked around, looking downright nervous now.

 

"Yes, I think so. Once we find something besides gnats and centipedes I will have a clearer picture of what is happening here."

 

A shudder ran through the dead forest, creating small waves in the bigger pools and making the mud ripple. The trees swayed, their limbs making a curious breathing sound as they cut through the heavy air. They could see motion ahead, like a walking hill or a slow tsunami made of mud.

 

"Looks like we won't 'ave t' go lookin'."

 

The Dreamer grimaced and made a few practice sweeps with the new blade before moving forward to meet the guardian of the fief. Suentalv hesitated, then ran after the older planewalker, mud splashing below his feet, the crude levitation spell merely giving him a pair of invisible stilts to move on. Clarian came last, her huge sword ready. As if their move forward would have been the last affront, a last straw before the floodgates of rage could be safely opened, as soon as they started running they could hear a groaning crash as a number of dead trees were flattened under the approaching colossus. It then stretched upwards, eclipsing the purple, mournful sky. The thing had stubby hind legs and forelegs, a third pair of limbs between those two and antennae or additional limbs reaching above and beyond the forelegs. From its pale underbelly a terrible stench rolled towards them and they could see countless skeletons and some still rotting corpses stuck on the uneven scales. It paused, wavering in the unnatural position, before it exhaled two swirling, buzzing clouds loudly through holes on both sides of its head. As the clouds surged towards the three intruders, the creature let itself fall back into the muck, landing with a force that made the earth itself sway.

 

Two blazing yellow eyes fixed at the closest of the two clouds, the Dreamer ran forward too fast for Suentalv to stay close to him. As the cloud came closer and resolved into individual death wasps, black glistening sleek things made for killing and burrowing through decayed flesh, the Dreamer inhaled quickly before spitting a cloud of his own. This one was made of channelled fire stolen from another of the seventeen fiefs, bright and beautiful amidst of all the gloom of decay, a lone sun in the night. It incinerated the cloud of wasps totally, a few least unlucky ones impacting on his outmostwards before burning up and falling into the muck. Suentalv did not stop to gawk and fired his gun at the other cloud, the enchanted round exploding at the exact middle of it. One or two wasps survived the blast and flew erratically off into the darkness, their killer instinct confused by the loss of their swarm.

 

Something crashed at where the Dreamer had been, but either the weak impacts of the wasps or his battle frenzy had woken up the emerald glow of his wards and it was easy to see he had leaped upwards, towards the back of the immense creature now just ahead of them. Nearly as disoriented as the wasps, Suentalv shot at the giant thing. The explosion seemed insignificant, tiny, compared to the girth of the guardian, illuminating a part of gleaming carapace and a human-sized figure perched on top of the monster but doing no apparent damage. The thing turned its massive head towards Suentalv, the young planewalker seeing his own reflection a thousand times in its compound eyes - even if it wasn't harmed by his gun, the line of fire punching through the dark had marked his position clearly. It opened its jaw and Suentalv's sense of danger went wild. Panicking, he sidestepped through the Astral and crashed into a tree far away from the combat at the same instant the monster spewed a cone of acidic fluids where he had just been.

 

The carapace thudded like wood under his dragonhide boots when the Dreamer landed on the creature's back. It was the size of a medium ship, the muck-covered back dull brown under the slick layer. He could see a blowhole and somebody sitting on the creature's neck like a rider, glancing at him.

 

Dead rider. I hope the creature itself isn't undead, they hardly care about cold.

 

He had time only for two steps forward before the creature trembled under his feet and the blowhole exhaled an even bigger swarm of death wasps heading directly at him. The Dreamer's mind went through a series of particular abstract thoughts at the same time he grabbed his blade with two hands and cut laterally through the cloud. A minority of the wasps were frozen before they managed to collide with him. The rest hit the now active wards, creating a thunderous boom as several bolts of lightning tore through the swarm and struck the colossal monster. He accelerated through the remains of the wasps and cut through the undead rider in another wild lateral swing.

 

The beast roared in anguish.

[Zadown]

The Dreamer landed with grace, relaxing from his battle stance as he descended. Eyes narrow, he studied the steaming and crackling corpse, but the compound eyes were dull and its legs did not twitch any more. Suentalv appeared from between some dead trees, ignored the remains of the guardian and stared at the Dreamer. He waved his bulky gun, it's barrel cherry red from overheating, to disperse some of the smoke it was exhaling, then holstered it.

 

"Seen Clarian?"

 

"Naw, I kept my attention on th' enemy."

 

He waved the extended blade of his sword around a bit, copying Suentalv's earlier gesture without realizing it or caring, and it shortened back to its original length with a grinding, metal sound that sounded loud in the after-battle silence.

 

"That lightning strike you did, conducting it through the blade like that ... pretty neat. And how did you get the blade to extend itself?"

 

"'S merely a representation of th' spirit o' th' weapon, like our bodies. Havin' crafted it, I am more finely tuned with it than I am with a blade I've gotten some other way. Not as easy as it seems, ya."

 

Suentalv nodded, then looked around at the devastated dead grove. Most of the nearby trees were down, their broken trunks sinking into the surrouding mud, a few were burning lazily and with sickly turquoise flames. The air was now clear of insects, the shockwaves and heat having driven them off. He frowned, then paused his roving gaze and started running a moment before Clarian, moaning softly in pain, appeared from behind a fallen tree trying to stagger into upright position. She had been too close to one of the sprays of acid and her block with her wide two-handed sword had not been a complete success, that much was evident from the pattern of the smoking craters on her armor, sword and skin. Her greavers and sabatons were coated with a thick layer of mud, sprayed droplets of the foul muck covering some of her injuries. Suentalv reached her quickly, then seemed at loss at what to do before clumsily helping her to stand.

 

"Ye know any healin' Arts, 'prentice?"

 

"Yes, but it's all slow stuff, rituals and such. We can't ..."

 

"She can't stay 'ere, aye. 'Tis th' Fief o' Decay, not a good place t' be injured if yer a mortal. Take her t' th' Prime an' find Lady Terezin, then do what ye can. We'll 'ave t' assume that this place is infected, an' I'll poke around a bit, perhaps even challenge them if th' resistance seems weak."

 

Clarian coughed once, then her body was wrecked with a short series of painful-looking spasms as she kept on coughing. Suentalv tightened his grip slightly, keeping her upright.

 

"No need to .. assume, m'lords. The guardian was tainted. Evil's here."

 

The Dreamer nodded, then shooed the two away and turned towards the center of the demi-plane. When he could sense their departure behind his back, his face transformed - a new blaze of red and white was kindled in his eyes, and his mouth twisted into a feral grin, the scars on his face writhing madly. He thrust his still unnamed blade forward, his grin widening as the blade extended itself again, growling with the voice of ice and metal.

 

I shall name you Misery, and we will have such fun together, here.

 

With long, graceful leaps, the Dreamer charged forward into the heart of Decay.

[Zadown]

The deeper he ran, the clearer was the taint even in this Fief close to the traditional tone of Evil. Whoever was in control obviously felt trying to overpower him with lesser minions would have been a waste. The detail made some small analytical part of him, pushed deep down by the battle trance, to realize the evil overlord must be from a clique nearer to Law than Chaos and his feral grin widened a fraction. Even if there were no direct assaults, he felt the sub-plane turn more hostile every step he took. Its essence battered at his wards and enchantments, a poison trying to find a way through. He was a veteran of a thousand hostile planes however, his defenses impervious against such weak, ambient corruption. Its malicious presence made it easier to maintain his battle trance, easier to stay angry, to illuminate the way ahead with two red glowing eyes of fury, but he could not feel even the outer layers of his wards harmed in any real way.

 

The Dreamer leaped over a fallen tree, running at a speed that created a wind behind him, the wind's whistling drowning any fainter sounds of the planar swamp. He felt free, like a dog unleashed and told to kill after ages spent in the dark, or like a hawk with its hood removed at last. At the same time he felt angry, angry at the decay battering at his defenses, at this whole pointless fight against Evil, at having to keep Balance here at the sideshow of things while the major conflict was going somewhere else. The Dreamer locked his grin on his face, held Misery ready and ran like speed would have mattered.

 

Eventually, he knew he was getting closer. He wasn't a master on navigating through planes, but with a small plane like this sensing where the center was wasn't too hard. The trees were becoming sparser as well, the plains of mud slowly slanting downwards - an impossibility on any conventional Prime where the mud and water would have slid into the hole he could now see opening before him, quite normal on demiplanes like these Fiefs. It looked like a gaping mouth exhaling mist, and for a passing moment he wondered if it was bottomless and the real center of power was elsewhere. Soon he could feel the aura of another planewalker inside it, and see thin pillars of stone reaching upwards from the depths of the fog.

 

A ruined temple, of course. How archetypical.

 

He grasped some of the power floating through the plane and pushed it into his wards, letting them flare as a challenge. An answering flare of wards from the planewalker standing in the middle of the remains of a temple was almost immediate, the configuration not familiar to him as such but of a sort he had seen dozens of times before. Some of the wards he could see he would've used himself in a situation like this - assuming the enemy was already in full control of the plane, it fed him with a stream of mana far stronger than anything the Dreamer would be able to utilize. Thus, wards that could take advantage of that extra magic, protective enchantments relying on brute strength or enchantments that had requirements beyond the usual light flow of mana.

 

A selection of wards concentrating on magical protection, too. He must be poor at melee combat, one of those ascendants who were frail and sickly when mortal and who have not advanced past such limitations.

 

The pure, joyous anger that had carried him here dissipated and his eyes dimmed, turned black. In that moment of deepening calm he could feel a surge in the lines of magic and saw a sphere of concentrated nether speeding towards him.

 

Quite a range he has.

 

He surged forward and immersed himself downwards into the immortal time, dodging the missile itself with ease. When it struck the location he had been standing at, the soundless explosion was far more immense than he had been anticipating. Swirling, twisting darkness expanded behind him and the mud-covered earth rocked underneath, slowing him down. The Dreamer was not sure if he could have outran the shock wave even on steady ground - now it swept past his stumbling form and over his wards, its dull, cold teeth shearing off the outmost layer of them. He snarled and accelerated further, twisting incantations between his curses that made him ready to fly if necessary. A jet of hellfire lanced at him from his opponent's outstretched hand, but that he evaded with ease, time distorting all around him.

 

Time distortion and battle trance both rendered what he sensed more abstract, harder to understand or analyse in any way that was not directly related to survival. He could see the painted pillars reaching skyward, holding nothing up, the symbols and pictures on them, the mist swirling around his tall opponent's black robes. But none of it made sense in his altered state of mind, everything reduced to lines of sight, paths to take, locations of possible ambushes and sets of distances. Blue, cold embers flickered on his adversary's hands, magic pulsing around the necromancer in a pattern that spelled trouble. That he could see clearly, the background turning even more hazy as his brainpower was channelled to analyse and counter the current threat. The Dreamer risked snarling a counterspell even though he knew the imbalance in available power between him and the enemy.

 

The gambit worked. The spell had been too delicate, too attention demanding, to survive the distraction. Still, he was not able to force a catastrophic failure on the enemy, something he had not been expecting but had secretly hoped. While the laylines of magic danced and sang with the mana they had given up and then gotten back, now flavored with freezing cold and soul-devouring darkness, the necromancer reached through Astral and draw forth his staff, ready to defend himself while the ambient mana boiled with too much instability to be worth using. The Dreamer's grin reappeared, feral and slanted, scars writhing around his face.

 

You are no warrior, whoever you are.

 

His first blow struck the staff as the necromancer parried. That was enough to trigger some piece of retaliatory magic imbued in it, and the Dreamer growled wordlessly when the staff spat a tongue of raw shadow at him. It struck the wards, waking up his own active defenses, and the explosive sound of a forked bolt of lightning striking the necromancer was mixed in the Dreamer's growl and in the ominous crackle of shadow magic. The planewalkers pushed each other away with their weapons, both of them with smoking wards. Normally there would have been a lull then, a short pause to fling insults at each other while preparing the next assault spell behind their back. Time was on the side of Evil, however - the local plane fed him, rejuvenating his wards and replenishing his mana, and the Dreamer did not want to fight from distance against this enemy even if that had not been the case. He leaped forward again, distracting the necromancer with a masterful feint before landing a satisfying full blow on wards. Misery's blade vibrated, groaning when it could not penetrate the whole set of ward layers before the Dreamer pulled it back.

 

Just as he was about to leap forward again and batter aside what wards remained, the necromancer made a sweeping gesture that sent a wide wave of darkness at him. He tried to do a circular parry but failed to rotate the blade fast enough before the wave struck and flung him back to the muddy incline with great force. It hardly harmed his wards, but he could sense the necromancer concentrating on a new powerful spell now that he was not on his face, distracting him. Acting on an old instinct, the Dreamer roared a word of power, allowing himself a mirthless grin when he saw that his ephemeral field of force had blocked a volley of bolts of hellfire. Another part of his mind was already marshalling mana and channelling it through his crude but powerful psychic powers. It made it hard to concentrate on what the enemy was doing but he counted on to at least dazing his adversary.

 

He could see swirling apparitions of poison-green skulls surrounding the necromancer at the moment he aimed and released his psionic lance. The opponent sealed the spell he had been casting with the last uttered word at the same moment and as he could sense the other planewalker's mind trembling under his assault he felt a deep, bottomless horror flood his own psyche. A brief, coherent thought flickered through one of the sections of his mind ... impossible, you can't instil fear in one of us... before his battle trance crumbled into trembling pieces of a consciousness in the grip of unholy horror. A tiny part of him, not in control of anything useful, broke into manic laughter: he could see the Dreamer falling to one knee while holding his head in his hands, as if he had been somebody else, some useless rookie crushed under the terror of war, while at the same the necromancer was shivering without control, a rivulet of blood seeping from one ear.

 

World snapped back into focus, the earlier horror fading like a bad dream. He recovered only a moment before the necromancer did, and spent the precious time by charging forward again. Already some of the damage Misery had done was being repaired. Unfazed by his approaching blade, the other planewalker was weaving some complex spell once again. He could smell the scent of hellfire, this close, but instead of worrying about the conjuration the Dreamer gathered his strength and sliced downward at his enemy. Instead of Misery's groan as it sunk into the waiting wards, he could hear a loud metallic crash and a short curse in demonic.

 

Bodyguard. If that's the way this is going to be played ...

 

An inferno of purple flames raged below him, but he had anticipated the spell quickly enough and was now floating in the air, frowning at the archdemon next to the necromancer who waved its broken broadsword at him angrily. Muttering a simple spell the Dreamer fired a volley of magic missiles at the archdemon, each one of them impacting on the hapless creature. An expanding cloud of blood soon obscured it and its master, giving him some time to approach the necromancer from a new angle.

 

Such a waste of perfectly good blood. Phacyra would be mad.

[Zadown]

"Ye should know th' old planewalker adage, stranger - 'Do not disturb a dragon in its lair'. I'm surprised ye've lasted this far, scarface."

 

They were the first words spoken during the long battle. The necromancer's voice was silky and superior, almost beautiful. His face was still hidden by the dark cowl, conjured shadows darker than any natural darkness acting as a mask that did not even show a pair of glowing eyes. A putrid wind blew on the Dreamer's face, the vast wings the necromancer had crafted once the fight had turned more mobile stirring the foul air. They were made of night, stars twinkling in their depths, making the new Lord of Decay look like a butterfly-shaped hole in reality.

 

"I know that adage better than most, given th' number o' times I've proven it true. Th' most grievous o' th' injuries ye've managed t' inflict on me, however, has been that of ignorance. I've rather grown used t' being recognized, necromancer. But looks like th' ignorance is mutual."

 

The Dreamer spat blood to end the sentence. His wards had been broken a while ago, and he had fought on like a berserker mortal, dodging and deflecting spells that would have done more than just a scar had they landed fully. His robes were smeared with a number of unsavoury stains, ranging from mud and immortal blood to the remains of summoned creatures. The Dreamer was still standing, but only with the help of his flying cantrip - his left foot was burned to a ruin, coils of smoke curling upwards from the red, black and purple mess.

 

And these were my favourite boots, too. Getting closer to one hundred and sixty scars ...

 

"What perplexes me most, Knight, 's what ye count as a situation desperate enough t' activate th' last wards and run. But I suppose that story's written on all those scars ye carry. One more an' ye'll leave, Spawn o' Balance?"

 

Disgustingly reasonable words, smooth and as well articulated as the corrupted translation enchantments allowed. Tiny pinpricks of red flared in the dark, muddy orbs of the Dreamer's eyes, but instead of snarling in anger he shrugged.

 

He is right, as infuriating as it is. I was never supposed to challenge this usurper alone in the first place.

 

Being connected to the plane gave the Lord of Decay an edge in sensing disturbances in the local Astral as well. He uttered a half-syllable, not enough to make it clear if it was the beginning of an insult or a spell, before he turned his head rapidly. The Dreamer felt it a moment afterwards, a familiar ripple in the texture of the plane. He didn't pause to think before firing off a small number of icy missiles, a feeble conjuration meant to tear apart mortals or inconvenience planar warriors. Against this planewalker demigod the lances of frozen water, not even made of primal ice, crashed against the wards. The crash they made was loud, but they did not even gouge the outer layer of the defensive enchantments. What they did was far more fatal - they made the necromancer hesitate.

 

Lady Terezin stepped out of Astral without a trace of disorientation on her face, her heavy mace already being swung with both hands. Lord of Decay started the move towards parrying the blow, but he was hopelessly too slow. The blow connected with full force. It felt wrong, but the only sound was a faint thock, as if somebody had knocked on a large dead tree lightly, with polite indifference. The wards flickered and faded, leaving behind a single calm moment: the necromancer hovering backwards, his staff now between him and the two attackers, the Dreamer floating forward, predator's grin returning to his ruined face, Terezin readying her mace for a new blow. It was clear to them all how the possible futures would converge if the fight continued. Alliances between planewalkers were detested not only because they invariably ended up badly, one or the other getting backstabbed, but because nobody wanted to face two godlike enemies at the same time. The Dreamer's slash was met with a parry from the chunja-wood staff, while Terezin's second strike glanced from the necromancer's backup wards. Before either of them had time to react, the Lord of Decay was gone.

 

"Yer late, Lady Wildfire."

 

"I told ya, nobody calls me that any more. Looks like ye got a new scar, Wodzan."

 

"Ya, one more. I'll soon lose count."

 

He tried to grin but ended up grimacing, scars twisting as his face glowed with pain. Released from the battle trance he could sense his battered body reporting its various injuries one by one, forcing him to shut his eyes and grind his teeth. When he opened his eyes again he knew they were brown, and he could not hold back a short hiss of displeasure at his current state. It felt like he was deflating, those parts of his analytical mind that had been denied a voice during the fight now berating him from the unnecessary risks he had taken, and he suddenly felt every one of his over three thousand years of age.

 

I've been far too stupid today. It had been better if she had not appeared at the last moment, like some emissary of the Fates, been much better if I had been forced to flee. Immortality only lasts as long as we take good care of it.

 

The Dreamer's eyes darkened, retaining only a hint of their earlier brown, turning so close to black Terezin entertained a thought of him running after the necromancer, somehow trapped in his battle stance. But he stood still, staring through the empty spot where their enemy had disappeared, and when he spoke there was no fury in his voice, no energy at all.

 

"Perhaps I should follow my master when that happens, neh?"

 

"He .. left?"

 

"Ya."

 

A silence followed. Immortals did not like the idea of an end, no matter how voluntary.

[Zadown]

Another nodescript piece of wilderness with rocks to sit on and tall trees that provided shade, no mortals asking questions. They did not look like the winners: Clarian's face was pock-marked, lingering traces of primal Decay resisting healing magic, the Dreamer was wearing no shoes, his left feet a colorful ruin, a few glowing sigils of restoration burning with white light over the black, red and purple burn. Therazin and Suentalv were both uninjured but did not look happy, the latter fiddling with his gun, the former sitting still like a statue.

 

"Ye think ye can handle th' rest o' it, Therazin?"

 

"Ya, of course. We should actually get movin', I need t' return Clarian to Zlayroem an' return before they try again. Then we need t' figure out what to do with th' Fief o' Decay, th' place's a mess in every sense of th' word."

 

"Suentalv can take her, ya?"

 

"Weren't we supposed to head back after we were done here, Dreamer?"

 

The old, scarred planewalker shrugged. His eyes were cloudy green and he seemed tired, a slowness in his motions that seemed more than just the fatigue of a wounded.

 

"I 'aven't seen th' esteemed Lady o' th' Scales for a while, now. She can wait t' see my ugly face a li'tl' longer. I'm th' senior here, 'prentice - take her back, then go meet th' Lady. I trust ye can report properly on yer own, ya?"

 

"Yes, but ..."

 

The Dreamer's eyes narrowed and turned darker, the silent hostility in the glare silencing Suentalv fast.

 

"Ya?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Good, then. We'd all better get on our way. 'Twas good t' see ya again, Lady Wildfire."

 

A twitch of her lips, but no smile, just a nod when she rose to leave.

 

"I hope yer 'prentice can take her home safely. Ye won't be happy t' see me next time if not, m'lord."

 

The Dreamer rose swiftly, hearing Suentalv's raised voice as the last thing before sidestepping into Astral.

 

"For the last time, I'm not ..."

 

Then all he could hear was blessed silence, the black, uncaring velvet of the Void all around him.