Chapter 16
Mara had been woken that morning by an incessant knocking on the door. After being told by an exuberant Maddie to grab her spell book and reagents, the vampire had taken Mara behind the manor towards the forest. In the predawn hours where the frost bit hard and the snow drifts still remained in the streets, the two trekked through the forest beyond Lureaux. Maddie had been incessantly obtuse about their destination, replying with deflection after diversion whenever Mara asked. It wasn’t until the sun crested the jagged peaks of Maddie’s homeland that Mara saw their intended destination.
Sat in a glade in the slopes of the foothills, eight standing stones sat arrayed in a circle. They were carved with swirling, twisting designs that seemed to loop together and interlock in unexpected ways. In the centre of this ominous circle sat a stone table that had been carved with a depression in the centre. It must have been truly ancient, Mara thought, for the water had eroded the designs on the table itself as rain trickled along furrows within the surface. All told, the circle of standing stones had a larger radius than the average house. Such was the bulk of these stones that Mara doubted even two of Solvi could reach their peak. Completing this mystic ensemble, a low waterfall cascaded over smoothed rocks into a furrow dug by the builders of this place. The moat was just deep enough to be a risk to those taking the current lightly as the pair used steppingstones to cross to the circle proper.
“Alright, this place is clearly magical. You brought me to some Elysian hideaway?” Mara observed wryly, her eyes scanning the patterns for any sign of familiar arcanography. Maddie, her infuriating self, did not answer until she sat herself on the table with a courtly grace.
“Yes, and I will now sacrifice you to the eldritch gods of the deep places.” Maddie replied sarcastically, referring to the monstrous formless flesh that dwelled in the caves beneath their feet. As well as in the sky since Auryth’s rings were also the aberrant flesh. “This place actually predates Elys. It’s so ancient that our best guess is that the druids used to worship here. With good reason. This place is a ley conduit.” Maddie explained with an even voice. Mara gasped regardless. This place was nowhere near the gargantuan conduit that rested beneath the temple she’d explored but such places were known for their connection to the Arcane. The raw power of creation permeated this place as a well that even the most novice of mages could draw from. “I see from your reaction you know what it is. Good. But I didn’t bring you here to charge your batteries to make bigger booms. I brought you here so you can hear it.” Maddie continued before snapping her fingers. The magically charged gesture did not match known spells yet the stones reacted regardless. Light slithered from the ground to the carvings on the stone until the whole vale was bathed in a soft blue-green glow.
“That’s impossible! No somatic, verbal or material components yet you cast as if you’d written the arcanography yourself!” Mara expounded with incredulity, hand running over the slithering patterns with awe. It wasn’t possible to cast this way normally yet here they were. The glyphs weren’t even recognized arcanography and functionally meant nothing. At least to her.
“You’re a teacher so I thought you’d appreciate a demonstration of the principle.” Maddie shrugged, waving her fingers in a circular motion one way, then the other. The glow rose or dimmed with the motions, causing Mara’s mind to race. This flew in the face of established arcanomechanics! “What you think of as the correct way to cast is merely a single language in a myriad of techniques. I have performed certain spells so often that they are ingrained in my memories. So, I show the arcane the memory-.”
“And it uses it at a template! Analogous Casting is rare but not unheard of.” Mara posited with enthusiasm. She rarely felt so cheerful. Maddie nodded in acknowledgement, yet clearly unfinished with her lecture as she drew tendrils of energy from the stones around her. Above them, arcanographic symbols began to form as if being written by an invisible hand.
“It is a skill that can be taught and employed by the best mages. But it will not make you stronger. You will remember I told you that you speak with someone else’s voice. Well, you cast with it too.” Maddie almost admonished like a disappointed parent. Mara at first thought she referred to Renaud and, perhaps, how Mara aped his casting techniques. Yet Maddie had a surprise in store for her. “Your body has so much necrotic energy in it that normal casting is like passing treacle through the eye of a needle. And to top it all off, you’re terrified of magic.”
“I’m not scared of magic! And I account for my unusual physiology!” Mara retorted, aghast at the accusation that she would be scared of the thing that brought her such joy.
“When I was an elf, we taught these techniques over a long time. We helped mages to learn at their own pace.” Maddie remembered awkwardly, as if cringing from the words of an unseen teacher. “But we don’t have time for debate. I’m lucky you talk so much.” She appended with a conflicted expression before reaching out her hand. Mara cursed herself for falling for such an elementary trick as the symbols above them flared. The mage attempted to resist the spell placed on her but found its strength overbearing. Even her body’s natural defences could not stay the drowsiness now pervading her entire form. Dimly, Mara’s became aware that this spell was far too complex for a mere sleep spell. Her mind slipped from all reason as her eyes darkened. Maddie was there to catch the prone mage, carrying her to the stone where she lay restfully. Maddie set about casting the necessary charms and protections before settling on a low fallen stone and opening a book.
Mara, meanwhile, came to consciousness in a muddled reflection of the stones. There was no Maddie, no sun in the sky above her. Even the rings were absent from the twinkling sea of stars. As she got to her feet, a vague purplish affectation pervaded the world around her. Small trails of purple motes eddied with her every movement through this strange place. She’d heard of this realm, read about it, but never visited. The Ephemeral Lands, as they were known to the druids and the elves that came after them, were where the barrier between the Arcane and the material world were thinnest. Here, thought and dreams could become reality. These realities could range from the wholesome to the horrifying depending entirely upon the mind that looked upon it.
The stones reacted to her awakening by flaring up, light piercing through the fog surrounding them. Mara came upon a path, set in a forest of thick ancient trees. These sacred boughs would not have moved Mara were they not carved with arcane symbols and tied with zeffi; the ritual ribbons elves used for grave markers.
“Anywhere but here.” Mara breathed, dread clinging to her lungs as she realised where she’d been sent by the stones. Ahead of her, the ghostly echoes of young laughter flew through the trunks of that cursed place. Mara knew that there was no retreat from this glade so long as she remained bound in sleep. Grimly, she set herself to task and followed the overgrown path that led to the caves of Ruran. After a short while, following the indistinct laughter and jovial banter, Mara came upon a great opening in the earth. A deep gully cut by a stream led into the darkened depths of the cave, which had white walls stained with primeval artistry. Allegs bounded after blampies and koprans, silhouettes of humans giving chase. Beneath these offerings, three figures were busy daring each other to follow the stream’s murky trail into the depths. One, a young man with a peach-fuzz beard and vials aplenty. He knelt by the stream collecting samples for his lab. Another was a young woman with auburn hair who’d brought a picnic for lunch, seeing as neither of her companions had bothered. The final figure was also a young woman, one Mara ached to recognize. Beautiful blonde curls, startling green eyes and soft features. With a shaking breath, she acknowledged the day she bore witness to. And the mistake her younger self would soon commit.
“What is the point of showing me this? I know what happens here!” Mara demanded to the star strewn sky. She hoped Maddie could hear and would answer. The mage didn’t recognize the spell and had hoped that this place would forever be beyond even her accidental reach.
“Do you?” The ghostly vision of Lyra demanded, looking directly at the present version of her love. Her eyes were accusing, all traces of kindness sapped from them. The mage tried to respond before Lyra turned to look at the group once again. There, her past self had finished showing off the magic Renaud had taught her and cast one of her own. One that intended to summon those buried within the cave from ages past. She’d only wanted to know what the paintings had meant. The rift created opened its ghastly, screaming maw and sent them to the ground. Shortly after, its unstable creation caused it to implode with blinding light.
When Mara found herself able to see again, she stood in an immaculately clean hallway lined with faceless clerics and healers. The pristine metal cladding gave the room an air of sterility. She looked about herself with confusion, not remembering this place or its sorcerous smooth stone floors. Then, she heard it. Cries of the most unimaginable agony leant an eerie cadence by the echoing all sounds possessed in this place. They pierced not just Mara’s ears but her very conscience. She remained in the hallway, staring ahead to a pair of double doors set into the wall nearby.
She was unsure what eventually possessed her to move. Perhaps it was the futility of remaining still. Perhaps she was curious. But with guilt-ridden steps, the mage forced herself towards the doors with metal panels in place of handles. Weak from anxiety, Mara shoved her whole body towards the cries of agony. As the door gave way, she came upon a sight that had haunted her for decades. A sight that she had never seen but knew, in the haunted early hours of a day to come, must have happened. A sight with which tortured knowledge she knew to be truth.
Laying on two iron-wrought beds in the far corner, the remains of her friends lay. They were but the passing of her love and comrade, drawn out to hopeless lengths. Lyra was being tended to impotently by a cleric who could do naught but stare and document the progress of their death. Sunken into the sheets, a wretched mixture of taut skin and brittle bone in the shape of her friend lay groaning softly. A scream wrenched itself from her tortured and cracked lips whenever she had to be moved. Mara dimly remembered the horrifying effects of necrotic magic when exposed to mortal flesh. Rather than mercifully rotting the body on contact, it lanced through the entire system in moments. Exposure to the raw energies of Annun was the purest, most concentrated dose that could be achieved in this world. The body could not digest food, heal or move unaided. After exposure, it was merely a matter of time until the body stopped functioning entirely. Only later in her studies did Mara discover that the treatment had most likely only prolonged their suffering.
“And why should they have suffered and died for your mistake?” The familiar voice of Thomas, Arthur’s grandfather, inquired. His tone was polite, even conversational. But the bitterness within lent it an edge he did not possess in life. “There would have been justice had you perished. But here you stand, an affront to nature and fairness itself.” Thomas continued with such malice Mara flinched. That he wore the robes of a healer, spattered with the black blood she’d coughed on him upon her arrival, made it all the worse. Yes, she had suffered for weeks in this place. She’d begged Arawn to spare her with a swift end. She endured in spite of her prayers with only Renaud to comfort her. She hadn’t wanted her parents to see her disfigurement.
“The just world is a fallacy. You know that.” Mara retorted in a small voice, unable to meet the eyes of a man she’d respected so much. Had he truly thought these things? “No doubt my survival made Lyra and Edmund’s families hate me.”
“So, you ran.” Thomas accused, his lip curled with contempt that almost seared Mara.
“What was I to do!? Live forever punishing myself for it? It was an accident! I am not to blame!” Mara howled at the spectre, finger pointing accusingly. The world around her contorted with her anger, giving Thomas a more fiendish countenance while the screams of her first love grew to deafening quality. Mara closed her eyes tightly, envisioning with all her might her apartment and its warm stove, a mug of tea and a comforting book to pass the time with. Anything but this. Anywhere but here.
“Oh, are you sure you want to be here?” Armin asked, his smug grin leering at her from the table. Naturally, he’d manifested his own cup from which to sip. “The place where you lie constantly to everyone around you including the man who lives in your head?” He drawled with a contemptuous extended pinkie. “Here I was expecting Renaud’s sprog to have some measure of magical talent, yet I discover she’s afraid of being any mage with a name.” Armin punctuated that observation with a laugh, causing Mara to slam her fist on the table with an angered curse. “Temper, temper. We both know what happens to necromancers when they get righteous. Well, I do. You’d have to know more than one spell to do any real damage.” Her senior shrugged dismissively, lifting his spell book above the table and dropping it with a thunderous detonation.
“Stop it. This is my mind. I am in control, and I am not to blame.” Mara spoke with barely checked anger. She had to be angry in this moment or the sorrow would overwhelm her. The image of Lyra had burned itself behind her eyelids, tormenting her with every blink. Armin leaned forward and opened the book before her, displaying the darkened tower where he’d threatened her. Mara’s eyes were drawn to it almost immediately burning with insatiable curiosity. “What is the meaning of this? I didn’t give you permission to do any of this!” Mara barked attempting to look at Armin. He had vanished into thin air, replaced by the howling darkness and deep snows of Annun. These darkest depths reserved only for the most cruel and vindictive of souls. Those who needed to cleanse more than just their memories. Above her on its ominous crag stood the jagged likeness of Armin’s illustration.
With determination, Mara ascended the tower. It was considerably less homey than their previous journey, decorations strewn about as if thrown in rage. The lab had been upturned with such violence that a splintered table blocked her ascent. The grim Mara hauled it down from the frame, only to reveal an ominous hooded figure behind. Before she could so much as register its existence, the figure fled up the stairs. Mara cried after it and gave chase, flying up the staircase. Her sorrow had now almost fully mutated into unadulterated rage. She was growing tired of these games or whatever Maddie was doing.
Eventually, Mara came upon a door that was slightly ajar. There were no other exits save through this door. She mentally prepared for whatever was to come. The entity behind this seemed intent on punishing her for whatever transgressions it could find. Mara was surprised that a spectral Solvi hadn’t turned up to admonish her for rejecting her. She felt a momentary regret before steeling herself and opening the door with a wary stare.
Within the highest chamber of the tower was a spacious living area domed with a glass ceiling. The circular room possessed a bed, rugs to keep feet from the cold metal, a small kitchen and eating area. Built into the tower opposite the entrance door, a great steel throne distorted itself from the wall and cast a shadow over fully one half of the room. Above her, the same starry sky pierced the otherwise gloomy approximation of Annun she now found herself in.
“Lie after lie after lie. I was wondering whether your tenuous grasp of the truth was ever going to surface.” Spoke a direct copy of her own voice, emanating from the depths of the throne. Mara did not need to see the shadowy approximation of herself to know that the hood and mask were not present. She was thankful this creature, whatever it was, had chosen not to show her own face. It was difficult, but she could deal with her own disfigurement. “Can you?” The shade challenged, as if answering her own thoughts. “You shower with your eyes closed. You wear clothes and your mask to bed. You won’t even trust those who love you with what you really look like.” The shade jabbed with surprising accuracy. But Mara wasn’t shaken from her anger by this creature. If it could read minds, it was hardly surprising that it knew her routine.
“I’m not afraid of you. Or your tricks. Just tell me whatever nonsense you want doing so I can be on my way.” Mara snarled as she furtively looked about the room for a weapon. Magic would not work in this place, but a psychic thrashing would certainly send someone back to the world of the living. The shade sounded a mocking, condescending laugh that sparked Mara’s anger back to life.
“You still don’t get it after all my careful hints?” The shade asked incredulously, before groaning with resignation. Suddenly, Mara found herself pinned to the ground by a clawed hand with skin white as snow. The knee on her chest certainly felt genuine, making her breath come in fits and bursts. “There are no magic words or secret phrases that will make me disappear. You made your choices, and I grew from them.” The shade growled from her shadowed vantage, Mara managing to see three glowing orbs just above her. Her air-starved lungs shrieked against the strangulation, yet Mara managed a bitter laugh all the same as she struggled with the arm binding her.
“You’re my conscience is that it? Aur above, you’re about as subtle as a hammer to the forehead.” Mara scorned, desperately attempting to shift some of the weight on her chest to no avail. The shade did not move.
“Me being your conscience would imply that I’m the fabrication. Maybe I’m the real one and you’re just a publicly pleasing front.” The shade tormented, playing with her perceptions like a demented child. The taunts clearly worked for Mara’s anger possessed her with such strength that she flung the shade clean across the room, destroying the bed as she flew through its timbers. “Solvi will be so disappointed you did that with me and not her.” The shade sneered, diving once more into the dark. Rather than a shadowy version of herself, Thomas emerged from the darkness cleaning his glasses. Mara drew back and raced towards the bed, screeching her fury at yet another thinly veiled attempt to torture her.
“Is this all you have?! Goading me to anger? What does my rage buy you, anyway?” Mara demanded, taking up a bedpost as a cudgel and running at the only shade visible to her. The vision of Thomas evaded her first clumsy swing before catching the backswing in a vicious grip that splintered one end of the wood. Undeterred, Mara tried jabbing at him with the jagged end.
“The question’s premise is erroneous.” Thomas noted in that infuriatingly objective manner of his. Mara’s blow was sent wide by an interjecting force; a sword wielded by the shade of Armin. He regarded her with a cocky smirk just as Thomas dissolved into the darkness.
“What makes you think we want anything?” He asked, swiping at Mara with his sword. Brief flashes to her basic combat training were barely enough to redirect the hammer blow of his blade. Physical strength had no baring in the world of dreams. Something was giving him far more strength than her anger had given her.
“I didn’t take you for a swordsman.” Mara jabbed with a desperate attempt at the dream’s logic. It had worked for other nightmares, why not this one?
“Needs must.” Armin chided with yet another arm-deadening blow to the bedpost. It sheared curls of wood shavings from its length and sent them to float away, disintegrating to isolated purple motes. The mage staggered as another blow from beneath her sent the bedpost careening through the air to land far beyond her reach. “As was said earlier, this isn’t a little puzzle for you to solve.” Armin’s voice became dispassionate, the sword held aloft as he walked slowly towards Mara. She backed away, towards the door. The comfortable room atop the tower began to shake with a staggeringly powerful gale outside.
“I was sent here against my will to find why the Arcane won’t listen to me. Can you blame me?” Mara laughed weakly, hysteria slowly closing in on her mind. Her thoughts became jumbled, her awareness shrinking to nothing but the point of Armin’s sword. A point that now dove like a bird of prey towards her chest. Quickly, Mara dived out of the way only for the sword to shear through the tower’s metal wall like a sheet of paper. The spray of sparks fell upon Mara’s prone form as she staggered back to her feet. Another blow came to punch a hole in the floor where her thigh had been moments earlier.
“Maybe you should try your teachers. I hear Renaud and Lorana have terrific allowances for failure.” Lyra’s voice scornfully suggested. Mara dared not look up at her love, for she knew what that sibilant slithering cadence likely meant. She didn’t want any more horror. And so, she kept evading about the room as the ghastly approximation of Lyra sent blow after blow in her direction. Her robes tore, her flesh was rent. Mara could hardly stand with the attrition being dealt to her. The mage briefly began to worry whether the damage to her mental self would translate to the physical realm. “I’ve got an idea! If the Arcane is a semantic semi-sentient force, what if it just doesn’t like you?” Lyra quipped cheerfully as the sword came down on Mara’s back with staggering force. She felt nothing but the burning agony of her chest and a breathlessness that wouldn’t be sated even by the deepest workings of her lungs. The hysteria that been threatening to overwhelm her did so as she managed to flail over onto her back. The tower’s walls compressed and bent and warped until they finally gave way and tore free of the structure. As they flew higher in the gales, they opened like the petals of a flower to the sky above.
“What, no gloating? No coup de grace?” Mara wheezed against her failing lungs. The absurdity of it all. To be beaten senseless by her own psyche. Perhaps it was better that she should fail at the preliminary. She could not stand against the likes of Albrecht, Ranva and their leader. Albrecht had practically toyed with her while she had to resort to tricks. As she looked up at the stars, Mara became all too aware of how powerless she had been in the face of it all. Armin or Renaud or Solvi had been there for her. Not this time. And she had failed them.
“Thy fear is grace enough for me.” The gravelly baritone intonations of the voice in the dark rang clear as a bell into Mara’s mind. Of course, it never spoke out loud. “Gird thy heart well for it will not preserve in the depths.” The voice continued, as all about her the floor of the tower was rent upwards by dozens of skeletal hands that pawed and grappled what limbs they could reach. Feebly, struggling against terror and her own flesh, Mara tried to prise the hands from her. Yet for every hand she weakly shoved away, two more would wrap their steel wire fingers about her. The frantic fighting turned to panicked thrashing as Mara became overwhelmed. The hands dragged her through the floor, which opened as a pair of doors beneath her. Taking her further from the sky and its twinkling lights to the darkness that lay in the earth of Annun.
Mara tore at the darkness, screaming silently against its oppressive stillness. Gone was the intent to learn anything from this cursed place. Now only the instinct to escape had overcome her, taken hold of all thought and wrung all reason from it. Vainly, Mara tried to call upon the magic around her to save her, to oust her into any realm that wasn’t this one. She would carve through demons, crush a thousand fey or deal with any devil that offered her release from this personal torture.
As if summoned by her desperation, a small light blossomed in the darkness. A light that Mara followed fanatically. It led to a door, iron-studded and made of wood. In the dim light leaking around it, she saw the barest of dark stone walls. Thinking it was another trick by the shades, Mara extended a shaking hand and tentatively tested the ring of the door. It unlocked and swung outwards, blinding Mara as she staggered into the room, unsure exactly where it had come from.
She woke with a battle cry, groping for a staff that was not there. The warmth of Maddie’s spells grazed her cheek as she found herself once more in the waking world. Next to her, the vampire stood with overwhelming concern etched into every crease of her expression. Mara shied from the woman, growling with contempt as she got to her feet. She staggered at first, Maddie reaching out to help only to be rebuffed with a forceful expletive. The two women stood in silence as Mara caught her breath, leaning against one of the stones.
“There aren’t enough gods and curses I could call down on you.” Mara eventually sneered. Her heart still raced in her ears. Memories of the dream world were distressingly fresh. They were branded in her mind as much as any material event. “I don’t know what you hoped to accomplish. But I am like to never cast spells ever again. Not after that cheery jaunt through history.” Mara added as her voice shook between anger and terror. Maddie regarded her with an expression between regret and compassion, unable to find the words to soothe her charge’s frayed nerves. “Let me guess. You hoped I’d overcome my fear, hatred and anxiety. Mellow out a little!” Mara taunted in a voice dripping with such sarcasm that Maddie averted her eyes. When they returned to meet the mask, they were unbending in their resolve.
“No. The dreams show you to yourself. If you see hatred, it’s because there is hatred. If you see fear, it’s because there’s fear. And if you are scorned-.”
“I already knew I hated myself, thanks.” Mara snarled with a dismissive wave of her hand. From the stony silence behind her, Mara guessed that the vampire hadn’t been expecting quite that retort. “How could I not? After everything I did? But that doesn’t explain why I’m so weak.” The mage sighed. She returned to seat herself on the low table, head hung low. Maddie’s silence continued for the moment before the soft footfalls of her boots circled about the table to sit next to the mage. She tried to place a comforting arm on Mara, only for her to catch the wrist in the effort. Taking her arm away, Maddie looked out over the city of Lureaux.
“Perhaps that’s why the dream showed you hatred and fear. Maybe that’s what the Arcane seeks from you. Or how it best understands you.” Maddie pondered, looking over at Mara with a reassuring expression. “Would that everyone could achieve their full potential on gumption alone. You know what I think about when I cast fire spells? Kornan.” Maddie’s gaze towards the city shifted from one of presence to pensiveness. Mara could barely register what Maddie was saying in her current state, but the name Kornan brought her somewhat back to reality. “Long ago, the city of Kornan defied the wishes of its sovereign. I was sent to deliver an ultimatum. One that they refused. So, my superior made good on their threat and put the city to the torch. That night still sets me in awe of her power.” The vampire continued with a wistful expression. It was not an unhappy memory, by Mara’s estimation. Nor did she revel in the slaughter. A pure moment of truth crystallized into a spell. A moment wherein Maddie had found herself. “You remind me of her. Sorry, no shortcuts. I don’t know what drove her. She was a mystery to everyone, even the ones who adored her.”
“You going to play the pronoun game all day?” Mara wryly commented, some of her old humour returning as the panic began to recede.
“Why yes, I am. I shouldn’t even have told you that story.” Maddie shot back, Mara allowing her to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder this time. “The point I was trying to make is this. Not everyone needs a righteous cause or wholesome memory guiding their actions. Good can come from even the vilest of motivations. What cowed you, made you weak in your words, may one day be your sole strength.”
Chapter 16
Mara had been woken that morning by an incessant knocking on the door. After being told by an exuberant Maddie to grab her spell book and reagents, the vampire had taken Mara behind the manor towards the forest. In the predawn hours where the frost bit hard and the snow drifts still remained in the streets, the two trekked through the forest beyond Lureaux. Maddie had been incessantly obtuse about their destination, replying with deflection after diversion whenever Mara asked. It wasn’t until the sun crested the jagged peaks of Maddie’s homeland that Mara saw their intended destination.
Sat in a glade in the slopes of the foothills, eight standing stones sat arrayed in a circle. They were carved with swirling, twisting designs that seemed to loop together and interlock in unexpected ways. In the centre of this ominous circle sat a stone table that had been carved with a depression in the centre. It must have been truly ancient, Mara thought, for the water had eroded the designs on the table itself as rain trickled along furrows within the surface. All told, the circle of standing stones had a larger radius than the average house. Such was the bulk of these stones that Mara doubted even two of Solvi could reach their peak. Completing this mystic ensemble, a low waterfall cascaded over smoothed rocks into a furrow dug by the builders of this place. The moat was just deep enough to be a risk to those taking the current lightly as the pair used steppingstones to cross to the circle proper.
“Alright, this place is clearly magical. You brought me to some Elysian hideaway?” Mara observed wryly, her eyes scanning the patterns for any sign of familiar arcanography. Maddie, her infuriating self, did not answer until she sat herself on the table with a courtly grace.
“Yes, and I will now sacrifice you to the eldritch gods of the deep places.” Maddie replied sarcastically, referring to the monstrous formless flesh that dwelled in the caves beneath their feet. As well as in the sky since Auryth’s rings were also the aberrant flesh. “This place actually predates Elys. It’s so ancient that our best guess is that the druids used to worship here. With good reason. This place is a ley conduit.” Maddie explained with an even voice. Mara gasped regardless. This place was nowhere near the gargantuan conduit that rested beneath the temple she’d explored but such places were known for their connection to the Arcane. The raw power of creation permeated this place as a well that even the most novice of mages could draw from. “I see from your reaction you know what it is. Good. But I didn’t bring you here to charge your batteries to make bigger booms. I brought you here so you can hear it.” Maddie continued before snapping her fingers. The magically charged gesture did not match known spells yet the stones reacted regardless. Light slithered from the ground to the carvings on the stone until the whole vale was bathed in a soft blue-green glow.
“That’s impossible! No somatic, verbal or material components yet you cast as if you’d written the arcanography yourself!” Mara expounded with incredulity, hand running over the slithering patterns with awe. It wasn’t possible to cast this way normally yet here they were. The glyphs weren’t even recognized arcanography and functionally meant nothing. At least to her.
“You’re a teacher so I thought you’d appreciate a demonstration of the principle.” Maddie shrugged, waving her fingers in a circular motion one way, then the other. The glow rose or dimmed with the motions, causing Mara’s mind to race. This flew in the face of established arcanomechanics! “What you think of as the correct way to cast is merely a single language in a myriad of techniques. I have performed certain spells so often that they are ingrained in my memories. So, I show the arcane the memory-.”
“And it uses it at a template! Analogous Casting is rare but not unheard of.” Mara posited with enthusiasm. She rarely felt so cheerful. Maddie nodded in acknowledgement, yet clearly unfinished with her lecture as she drew tendrils of energy from the stones around her. Above them, arcanographic symbols began to form as if being written by an invisible hand.
“It is a skill that can be taught and employed by the best mages. But it will not make you stronger. You will remember I told you that you speak with someone else’s voice. Well, you cast with it too.” Maddie almost admonished like a disappointed parent. Mara at first thought she referred to Renaud and, perhaps, how Mara aped his casting techniques. Yet Maddie had a surprise in store for her. “Your body has so much necrotic energy in it that normal casting is like passing treacle through the eye of a needle. And to top it all off, you’re terrified of magic.”
“I’m not scared of magic! And I account for my unusual physiology!” Mara retorted, aghast at the accusation that she would be scared of the thing that brought her such joy.
“When I was an elf, we taught these techniques over a long time. We helped mages to learn at their own pace.” Maddie remembered awkwardly, as if cringing from the words of an unseen teacher. “But we don’t have time for debate. I’m lucky you talk so much.” She appended with a conflicted expression before reaching out her hand. Mara cursed herself for falling for such an elementary trick as the symbols above them flared. The mage attempted to resist the spell placed on her but found its strength overbearing. Even her body’s natural defences could not stay the drowsiness now pervading her entire form. Dimly, Mara’s became aware that this spell was far too complex for a mere sleep spell. Her mind slipped from all reason as her eyes darkened. Maddie was there to catch the prone mage, carrying her to the stone where she lay restfully. Maddie set about casting the necessary charms and protections before settling on a low fallen stone and opening a book.
Mara, meanwhile, came to consciousness in a muddled reflection of the stones. There was no Maddie, no sun in the sky above her. Even the rings were absent from the twinkling sea of stars. As she got to her feet, a vague purplish affectation pervaded the world around her. Small trails of purple motes eddied with her every movement through this strange place. She’d heard of this realm, read about it, but never visited. The Ephemeral Lands, as they were known to the druids and the elves that came after them, were where the barrier between the Arcane and the material world were thinnest. Here, thought and dreams could become reality. These realities could range from the wholesome to the horrifying depending entirely upon the mind that looked upon it.
The stones reacted to her awakening by flaring up, light piercing through the fog surrounding them. Mara came upon a path, set in a forest of thick ancient trees. These sacred boughs would not have moved Mara were they not carved with arcane symbols and tied with zeffi; the ritual ribbons elves used for grave markers.
“Anywhere but here.” Mara breathed, dread clinging to her lungs as she realised where she’d been sent by the stones. Ahead of her, the ghostly echoes of young laughter flew through the trunks of that cursed place. Mara knew that there was no retreat from this glade so long as she remained bound in sleep. Grimly, she set herself to task and followed the overgrown path that led to the caves of Ruran. After a short while, following the indistinct laughter and jovial banter, Mara came upon a great opening in the earth. A deep gully cut by a stream led into the darkened depths of the cave, which had white walls stained with primeval artistry. Allegs bounded after blampies and koprans, silhouettes of humans giving chase. Beneath these offerings, three figures were busy daring each other to follow the stream’s murky trail into the depths. One, a young man with a peach-fuzz beard and vials aplenty. He knelt by the stream collecting samples for his lab. Another was a young woman with auburn hair who’d brought a picnic for lunch, seeing as neither of her companions had bothered. The final figure was also a young woman, one Mara ached to recognize. Beautiful blonde curls, startling green eyes and soft features. With a shaking breath, she acknowledged the day she bore witness to. And the mistake her younger self would soon commit.
“What is the point of showing me this? I know what happens here!” Mara demanded to the star strewn sky. She hoped Maddie could hear and would answer. The mage didn’t recognize the spell and had hoped that this place would forever be beyond even her accidental reach.
“Do you?” The ghostly vision of Lyra demanded, looking directly at the present version of her love. Her eyes were accusing, all traces of kindness sapped from them. The mage tried to respond before Lyra turned to look at the group once again. There, her past self had finished showing off the magic Renaud had taught her and cast one of her own. One that intended to summon those buried within the cave from ages past. She’d only wanted to know what the paintings had meant. The rift created opened its ghastly, screaming maw and sent them to the ground. Shortly after, its unstable creation caused it to implode with blinding light.
When Mara found herself able to see again, she stood in an immaculately clean hallway lined with faceless clerics and healers. The pristine metal cladding gave the room an air of sterility. She looked about herself with confusion, not remembering this place or its sorcerous smooth stone floors. Then, she heard it. Cries of the most unimaginable agony leant an eerie cadence by the echoing all sounds possessed in this place. They pierced not just Mara’s ears but her very conscience. She remained in the hallway, staring ahead to a pair of double doors set into the wall nearby.
She was unsure what eventually possessed her to move. Perhaps it was the futility of remaining still. Perhaps she was curious. But with guilt-ridden steps, the mage forced herself towards the doors with metal panels in place of handles. Weak from anxiety, Mara shoved her whole body towards the cries of agony. As the door gave way, she came upon a sight that had haunted her for decades. A sight that she had never seen but knew, in the haunted early hours of a day to come, must have happened. A sight with which tortured knowledge she knew to be truth.
Laying on two iron-wrought beds in the far corner, the remains of her friends lay. They were but the passing of her love and comrade, drawn out to hopeless lengths. Lyra was being tended to impotently by a cleric who could do naught but stare and document the progress of their death. Sunken into the sheets, a wretched mixture of taut skin and brittle bone in the shape of her friend lay groaning softly. A scream wrenched itself from her tortured and cracked lips whenever she had to be moved. Mara dimly remembered the horrifying effects of necrotic magic when exposed to mortal flesh. Rather than mercifully rotting the body on contact, it lanced through the entire system in moments. Exposure to the raw energies of Annun was the purest, most concentrated dose that could be achieved in this world. The body could not digest food, heal or move unaided. After exposure, it was merely a matter of time until the body stopped functioning entirely. Only later in her studies did Mara discover that the treatment had most likely only prolonged their suffering.
“And why should they have suffered and died for your mistake?” The familiar voice of Thomas, Arthur’s grandfather, inquired. His tone was polite, even conversational. But the bitterness within lent it an edge he did not possess in life. “There would have been justice had you perished. But here you stand, an affront to nature and fairness itself.” Thomas continued with such malice Mara flinched. That he wore the robes of a healer, spattered with the black blood she’d coughed on him upon her arrival, made it all the worse. Yes, she had suffered for weeks in this place. She’d begged Arawn to spare her with a swift end. She endured in spite of her prayers with only Renaud to comfort her. She hadn’t wanted her parents to see her disfigurement.
“The just world is a fallacy. You know that.” Mara retorted in a small voice, unable to meet the eyes of a man she’d respected so much. Had he truly thought these things? “No doubt my survival made Lyra and Edmund’s families hate me.”
“So, you ran.” Thomas accused, his lip curled with contempt that almost seared Mara.
“What was I to do!? Live forever punishing myself for it? It was an accident! I am not to blame!” Mara howled at the spectre, finger pointing accusingly. The world around her contorted with her anger, giving Thomas a more fiendish countenance while the screams of her first love grew to deafening quality. Mara closed her eyes tightly, envisioning with all her might her apartment and its warm stove, a mug of tea and a comforting book to pass the time with. Anything but this. Anywhere but here.
“Oh, are you sure you want to be here?” Armin asked, his smug grin leering at her from the table. Naturally, he’d manifested his own cup from which to sip. “The place where you lie constantly to everyone around you including the man who lives in your head?” He drawled with a contemptuous extended pinkie. “Here I was expecting Renaud’s sprog to have some measure of magical talent, yet I discover she’s afraid of being any mage with a name.” Armin punctuated that observation with a laugh, causing Mara to slam her fist on the table with an angered curse. “Temper, temper. We both know what happens to necromancers when they get righteous. Well, I do. You’d have to know more than one spell to do any real damage.” Her senior shrugged dismissively, lifting his spell book above the table and dropping it with a thunderous detonation.
“Stop it. This is my mind. I am in control, and I am not to blame.” Mara spoke with barely checked anger. She had to be angry in this moment or the sorrow would overwhelm her. The image of Lyra had burned itself behind her eyelids, tormenting her with every blink. Armin leaned forward and opened the book before her, displaying the darkened tower where he’d threatened her. Mara’s eyes were drawn to it almost immediately burning with insatiable curiosity. “What is the meaning of this? I didn’t give you permission to do any of this!” Mara barked attempting to look at Armin. He had vanished into thin air, replaced by the howling darkness and deep snows of Annun. These darkest depths reserved only for the most cruel and vindictive of souls. Those who needed to cleanse more than just their memories. Above her on its ominous crag stood the jagged likeness of Armin’s illustration.
With determination, Mara ascended the tower. It was considerably less homey than their previous journey, decorations strewn about as if thrown in rage. The lab had been upturned with such violence that a splintered table blocked her ascent. The grim Mara hauled it down from the frame, only to reveal an ominous hooded figure behind. Before she could so much as register its existence, the figure fled up the stairs. Mara cried after it and gave chase, flying up the staircase. Her sorrow had now almost fully mutated into unadulterated rage. She was growing tired of these games or whatever Maddie was doing.
Eventually, Mara came upon a door that was slightly ajar. There were no other exits save through this door. She mentally prepared for whatever was to come. The entity behind this seemed intent on punishing her for whatever transgressions it could find. Mara was surprised that a spectral Solvi hadn’t turned up to admonish her for rejecting her. She felt a momentary regret before steeling herself and opening the door with a wary stare.
Within the highest chamber of the tower was a spacious living area domed with a glass ceiling. The circular room possessed a bed, rugs to keep feet from the cold metal, a small kitchen and eating area. Built into the tower opposite the entrance door, a great steel throne distorted itself from the wall and cast a shadow over fully one half of the room. Above her, the same starry sky pierced the otherwise gloomy approximation of Annun she now found herself in.
“Lie after lie after lie. I was wondering whether your tenuous grasp of the truth was ever going to surface.” Spoke a direct copy of her own voice, emanating from the depths of the throne. Mara did not need to see the shadowy approximation of herself to know that the hood and mask were not present. She was thankful this creature, whatever it was, had chosen not to show her own face. It was difficult, but she could deal with her own disfigurement. “Can you?” The shade challenged, as if answering her own thoughts. “You shower with your eyes closed. You wear clothes and your mask to bed. You won’t even trust those who love you with what you really look like.” The shade jabbed with surprising accuracy. But Mara wasn’t shaken from her anger by this creature. If it could read minds, it was hardly surprising that it knew her routine.
“I’m not afraid of you. Or your tricks. Just tell me whatever nonsense you want doing so I can be on my way.” Mara snarled as she furtively looked about the room for a weapon. Magic would not work in this place, but a psychic thrashing would certainly send someone back to the world of the living. The shade sounded a mocking, condescending laugh that sparked Mara’s anger back to life.
“You still don’t get it after all my careful hints?” The shade asked incredulously, before groaning with resignation. Suddenly, Mara found herself pinned to the ground by a clawed hand with skin white as snow. The knee on her chest certainly felt genuine, making her breath come in fits and bursts. “There are no magic words or secret phrases that will make me disappear. You made your choices, and I grew from them.” The shade growled from her shadowed vantage, Mara managing to see three glowing orbs just above her. Her air-starved lungs shrieked against the strangulation, yet Mara managed a bitter laugh all the same as she struggled with the arm binding her.
“You’re my conscience is that it? Aur above, you’re about as subtle as a hammer to the forehead.” Mara scorned, desperately attempting to shift some of the weight on her chest to no avail. The shade did not move.
“Me being your conscience would imply that I’m the fabrication. Maybe I’m the real one and you’re just a publicly pleasing front.” The shade tormented, playing with her perceptions like a demented child. The taunts clearly worked for Mara’s anger possessed her with such strength that she flung the shade clean across the room, destroying the bed as she flew through its timbers. “Solvi will be so disappointed you did that with me and not her.” The shade sneered, diving once more into the dark. Rather than a shadowy version of herself, Thomas emerged from the darkness cleaning his glasses. Mara drew back and raced towards the bed, screeching her fury at yet another thinly veiled attempt to torture her.
“Is this all you have?! Goading me to anger? What does my rage buy you, anyway?” Mara demanded, taking up a bedpost as a cudgel and running at the only shade visible to her. The vision of Thomas evaded her first clumsy swing before catching the backswing in a vicious grip that splintered one end of the wood. Undeterred, Mara tried jabbing at him with the jagged end.
“The question’s premise is erroneous.” Thomas noted in that infuriatingly objective manner of his. Mara’s blow was sent wide by an interjecting force; a sword wielded by the shade of Armin. He regarded her with a cocky smirk just as Thomas dissolved into the darkness.
“What makes you think we want anything?” He asked, swiping at Mara with his sword. Brief flashes to her basic combat training were barely enough to redirect the hammer blow of his blade. Physical strength had no baring in the world of dreams. Something was giving him far more strength than her anger had given her.
“I didn’t take you for a swordsman.” Mara jabbed with a desperate attempt at the dream’s logic. It had worked for other nightmares, why not this one?
“Needs must.” Armin chided with yet another arm-deadening blow to the bedpost. It sheared curls of wood shavings from its length and sent them to float away, disintegrating to isolated purple motes. The mage staggered as another blow from beneath her sent the bedpost careening through the air to land far beyond her reach. “As was said earlier, this isn’t a little puzzle for you to solve.” Armin’s voice became dispassionate, the sword held aloft as he walked slowly towards Mara. She backed away, towards the door. The comfortable room atop the tower began to shake with a staggeringly powerful gale outside.
“I was sent here against my will to find why the Arcane won’t listen to me. Can you blame me?” Mara laughed weakly, hysteria slowly closing in on her mind. Her thoughts became jumbled, her awareness shrinking to nothing but the point of Armin’s sword. A point that now dove like a bird of prey towards her chest. Quickly, Mara dived out of the way only for the sword to shear through the tower’s metal wall like a sheet of paper. The spray of sparks fell upon Mara’s prone form as she staggered back to her feet. Another blow came to punch a hole in the floor where her thigh had been moments earlier.
“Maybe you should try your teachers. I hear Renaud and Lorana have terrific allowances for failure.” Lyra’s voice scornfully suggested. Mara dared not look up at her love, for she knew what that sibilant slithering cadence likely meant. She didn’t want any more horror. And so, she kept evading about the room as the ghastly approximation of Lyra sent blow after blow in her direction. Her robes tore, her flesh was rent. Mara could hardly stand with the attrition being dealt to her. The mage briefly began to worry whether the damage to her mental self would translate to the physical realm. “I’ve got an idea! If the Arcane is a semantic semi-sentient force, what if it just doesn’t like you?” Lyra quipped cheerfully as the sword came down on Mara’s back with staggering force. She felt nothing but the burning agony of her chest and a breathlessness that wouldn’t be sated even by the deepest workings of her lungs. The hysteria that been threatening to overwhelm her did so as she managed to flail over onto her back. The tower’s walls compressed and bent and warped until they finally gave way and tore free of the structure. As they flew higher in the gales, they opened like the petals of a flower to the sky above.
“What, no gloating? No coup de grace?” Mara wheezed against her failing lungs. The absurdity of it all. To be beaten senseless by her own psyche. Perhaps it was better that she should fail at the preliminary. She could not stand against the likes of Albrecht, Ranva and their leader. Albrecht had practically toyed with her while she had to resort to tricks. As she looked up at the stars, Mara became all too aware of how powerless she had been in the face of it all. Armin or Renaud or Solvi had been there for her. Not this time. And she had failed them.
“Thy fear is grace enough for me.” The gravelly baritone intonations of the voice in the dark rang clear as a bell into Mara’s mind. Of course, it never spoke out loud. “Gird thy heart well for it will not preserve in the depths.” The voice continued, as all about her the floor of the tower was rent upwards by dozens of skeletal hands that pawed and grappled what limbs they could reach. Feebly, struggling against terror and her own flesh, Mara tried to prise the hands from her. Yet for every hand she weakly shoved away, two more would wrap their steel wire fingers about her. The frantic fighting turned to panicked thrashing as Mara became overwhelmed. The hands dragged her through the floor, which opened as a pair of doors beneath her. Taking her further from the sky and its twinkling lights to the darkness that lay in the earth of Annun.
Mara tore at the darkness, screaming silently against its oppressive stillness. Gone was the intent to learn anything from this cursed place. Now only the instinct to escape had overcome her, taken hold of all thought and wrung all reason from it. Vainly, Mara tried to call upon the magic around her to save her, to oust her into any realm that wasn’t this one. She would carve through demons, crush a thousand fey or deal with any devil that offered her release from this personal torture.
As if summoned by her desperation, a small light blossomed in the darkness. A light that Mara followed fanatically. It led to a door, iron-studded and made of wood. In the dim light leaking around it, she saw the barest of dark stone walls. Thinking it was another trick by the shades, Mara extended a shaking hand and tentatively tested the ring of the door. It unlocked and swung outwards, blinding Mara as she staggered into the room, unsure exactly where it had come from.
She woke with a battle cry, groping for a staff that was not there. The warmth of Maddie’s spells grazed her cheek as she found herself once more in the waking world. Next to her, the vampire stood with overwhelming concern etched into every crease of her expression. Mara shied from the woman, growling with contempt as she got to her feet. She staggered at first, Maddie reaching out to help only to be rebuffed with a forceful expletive. The two women stood in silence as Mara caught her breath, leaning against one of the stones.
“There aren’t enough gods and curses I could call down on you.” Mara eventually sneered. Her heart still raced in her ears. Memories of the dream world were distressingly fresh. They were branded in her mind as much as any material event. “I don’t know what you hoped to accomplish. But I am like to never cast spells ever again. Not after that cheery jaunt through history.” Mara added as her voice shook between anger and terror. Maddie regarded her with an expression between regret and compassion, unable to find the words to soothe her charge’s frayed nerves. “Let me guess. You hoped I’d overcome my fear, hatred and anxiety. Mellow out a little!” Mara taunted in a voice dripping with such sarcasm that Maddie averted her eyes. When they returned to meet the mask, they were unbending in their resolve.
“No. The dreams show you to yourself. If you see hatred, it’s because there is hatred. If you see fear, it’s because there’s fear. And if you are scorned-.”
“I already knew I hated myself, thanks.” Mara snarled with a dismissive wave of her hand. From the stony silence behind her, Mara guessed that the vampire hadn’t been expecting quite that retort. “How could I not? After everything I did? But that doesn’t explain why I’m so weak.” The mage sighed. She returned to seat herself on the low table, head hung low. Maddie’s silence continued for the moment before the soft footfalls of her boots circled about the table to sit next to the mage. She tried to place a comforting arm on Mara, only for her to catch the wrist in the effort. Taking her arm away, Maddie looked out over the city of Lureaux.
“Perhaps that’s why the dream showed you hatred and fear. Maybe that’s what the Arcane seeks from you. Or how it best understands you.” Maddie pondered, looking over at Mara with a reassuring expression. “Would that everyone could achieve their full potential on gumption alone. You know what I think about when I cast fire spells? Kornan.” Maddie’s gaze towards the city shifted from one of presence to pensiveness. Mara could barely register what Maddie was saying in her current state, but the name Kornan brought her somewhat back to reality. “Long ago, the city of Kornan defied the wishes of its sovereign. I was sent to deliver an ultimatum. One that they refused. So, my superior made good on their threat and put the city to the torch. That night still sets me in awe of her power.” The vampire continued with a wistful expression. It was not an unhappy memory, by Mara’s estimation. Nor did she revel in the slaughter. A pure moment of truth crystallized into a spell. A moment wherein Maddie had found herself. “You remind me of her. Sorry, no shortcuts. I don’t know what drove her. She was a mystery to everyone, even the ones who adored her.”
“You going to play the pronoun game all day?” Mara wryly commented, some of her old humour returning as the panic began to recede.
“Why yes, I am. I shouldn’t even have told you that story.” Maddie shot back, Mara allowing her to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder this time. “The point I was trying to make is this. Not everyone needs a righteous cause or wholesome memory guiding their actions. Good can come from even the vilest of motivations. What cowed you, made you weak in your words, may one day be your sole strength.”
