Cylus 2nd, 720
Spread my wings, watch me soar.
Tilting forward with tight-shut eyes, a brown-skinned man teetered over the edge of nowhere before diving fully unto darkness. Hurtling through another world somewhere between the real and the unreal, North slipped his legs forward into the whipping air until foot met ground. With a jilting skid through the flaming waters, he slowed to a brisk gait upon the pools of reflection within the Veil between worlds.
Turning his head and flicking his tail, North’s wolf-like ears perked until he heard the splash of his co-confidant, South, the one true friend he had in Idalos. “Here we are again, in this place, where the dreamers dream and the lucid walk. I do wonder when the danger here will be made apparent.” Amber eyes swept suspiciously over the crackling flames, a doorway of stone leering back from beneath each scorching pathway to another place.
“You know how I feel,” said South, “about here, where ‘now’ or the passage of time itself is in question. Nothing good can come of this.”
North smirked. Reaching up and through the licking flames, he pushed open a door and peered through the crack, his limbs surrounded by the warmth of dancing light that did not bite. “You know,” said North as he peered into another dream, “this place is more useful than you know. I recall that Etzos was a place without Immortal revelry, and yet everywhere I look, Sintra has sunk her fangs. I don’t like it. Not one bit, South.”
Seeing more of what he didn’t want, North shrugged and pulled the door shut with a groan of cinders, steam billowing from his skin as he pulled his hand from the flames. From what he could read of the Elements, they weren’t very fond of this place either, their voice muted and twisted into something unnatural that he couldn’t control.
To test this thought, North snapped his fingers and Manifested a single flame, his finger as the wick. It burst to life, like there was tinder in the air. Before it could grow too out of control, he pinched the flame to its end and rubbed his fingers together over the rousing sensation of a mild burn upon his fingertips. “I never really noticed that Ether seems more potent here. I’ve been having thoughts, in my dreams, about that place I went as a child. Father thought it was a Fracture, and from what he’s told me of such a place, that Ether ignites so brilliantly as it leaks from Emea, the boundless chaos of unreality. It’s beginning to make sense.” North peered at his Familiar. “Do you think the Veil is the bridge between waking reality and Emea?”
Slowly, South gave a nod. “I would imagine so. Those ...things inside your Soul draw their power from that place. Do you remember when magic ceased and your Sparks were ringing with desire? We resisted becoming something else, but you feared the magic would not return. Shortly after this, the Etherstorms...”
“Yes,” said North, scratching his chin. “The Etherstorms.” There was so much going on in the world all at once, a mess of things really. “Melrath seemed to have more luck quelling the strangeness of that time. The values of Etzos, it seems, have completely crumbled. The very Immortal of deceit now holds the High Marshall’s ear absolute, and so many are fine with this. What changed? How did this happen?”
South bowed his head in thought, before shaking his head.
“It had to be the magic. A powerful mage must have been keeping Sintra’s lot at bay.” North snapped his fingers again, trying to remember his days passing through Etzos so long ago, and who the people revered back in those days. It came to him in a flash. “Karnos Vuda,” came the name, rolling from tongue. “What happened to Vuda, Chief Advisor to the High Marshall?”
“Do you think of him a mage?” asked South. “Your time here was from before I had met you, though we came through on the return but we were sweeping through like the wind bound for home.”
North nodded. “I heard rumors. The people here seemed to think he was powerful. I’m not sure what his Sparks are, but I know he ran a tight ship here in Etzos. If he’s still alive in all of this...”
South interjected. “-But do you want to? I mean, who are these people to you? This was never your home. Wouldn’t it be safer to stake our claim somewhere else?”
North shook his head, sighing abruptly. “It might seem like chaos here,” said North, “and it might seem like a lost cause, but the Immortals have their roots deep within every other city upon Idalos. This place is also close to the borders of Melrath. Think of the troubles the Lotharro brought to our borders, children of an Immortal? Sintra would set her sights on Melrath next. It needs to stop here.” North squeezed his fists tight, recalling the warnings of his people, dredging up old sentiments of distrust and unease, and the stories of his youth. “I’m convinced, we have to try, South. We have to.”
A spell of quiet began between them, but South broke the silence: “I will support you, wherever, whichever way you choose.”
North nodded, then motioned for them both to get a move on. “Come, let’s get to the bottom of this. I don’t want to be left in the dark when Sintra drops the guillotine on her enemies.” Stepping towards another door, he peered inside, and what he saw made him still. “South...” North’s voice choked.
The Familiar poked its head through by North’s knee, the pair of them wide-eyed as the peered out at a scene of utter carnage. They were speechless. A scorched battlefield, bodies piled high, a man covered in dirt and rime screaming and swinging his sword at loincloth-cladded tribals with pointy sticks as ghostly wraiths clashed with them and clouds of insects.
“This dream is too dangerous, North,” warned South, but North was already pressing inward with a leap into the fray. Reaching deep inside, he undid the stoppers on all the restraints in his mind, and as naturally as you or I could breathe, he pushed his body into the shape of another. A flash of hot pain coursed through his body, but it faded in an instant as he Unleashed into battle not as a man, but a wolf, bounding to the man’s side.
South joined them, but kept to the edges of the conflict.
1104 words
