Searing, 67 122
Travel back to Southern Ecith was time-consuming, but relatively relaxing. Most of it was over the warm southern ocean, which was precisely the sort of atmosphere for which an albatross was suited. Days of flight, nights of flight, red mornings blending into starlit nights in the totem’s signature fugue state.
From time to time, Imogen dipped into slipspace, the empty sky shattering and cracking to admit the lone seabird. In the right places, at the right times, the map of the place between worlds lined up just right, and even a short jaunt could cut a hundred miles off the trip.
She didn’t do it often, though. Not only did that burn energy she’d have little chance to replenish in flight, the trip was proving a very pleasant sort of monotony. Why push herself to end it quickly?
As she flew, she repeated the final stanza of the spell in her mind.
Unlike the first two parts of the spell, which had required some… creative interpretation, this one was straightforward. The witchcraft of the covens of Zaichaer placed a very special emphasis on similar lines and language throughout many disciplines of magic. They carried a special and unambiguous meaning:
“Don’t.”
Straightforwardly, the lines referred to the dragonshard called Voidrillium. One of the products of the Sundering, rightfully banned throughout the whole of Karnor, it was the dragonshard embodying absolute destruction, the kind of destruction which left nothing growing in its wake. In theory, it was an enormously useful substance for all manner of spells and machinations, as raw destruction carried great power both symbolically and in practice.
Imogen didn’t actually know where to get Voidrillium, but that wasn’t the main problem. She was confident that she could find some if she wanted to. Spells involving the forbidden dragonshard, however, inevitably led to the ruin of the witch herself. Simple enough for even a child to grasp; the price to harness the power of ruin was to be ruined.
It wasn’t a matter of risks, either. Neither challenging an Arbiter nor robbing a primal’s bed had been particularly safe, but Imogen had done both anyway. No, the problem was that to utilize Voidrillium, she would need to merge it with a part of her own soul. That would make self-destruction absolutely inevitable. There would be no heroics or sneaky, clever ways to get out of paying the price for such an absurd and arrogant act.
So Imogen wasn’t going to add any of the Dragonshard of Destruction to her pact dagger. A witch’s spell, like any recipe for baking, would fail catastrophically if you simply left out an ingredient; and so, she was going to have to make a substitution.
Days and nights later, the albatross touched down on the little island Imogen had taken to calling Serendipity. It wasn’t much, little more than a high rock jutting out of the sea with sandbars that halfway disappeared during high tide. But it offered just enough in the way of protection from the elements (and the beasts of the mainland, for that matter) to allow Imogen to set up a comfortable lean-to.
She was gratified to see that the little hut was still there, driftwood built into the side of a shallow cavern, and a bedroll plumped up on a pile of dead leaves stolen from the far shore. No match for a hotel in Kalzasi or even the hut she’d set up with Carina half a year past, but still a good place for her to catch a nap and recover from the long flight in.
There was another, larger cavern on the tiny island, but she had decided not to spend too much time there. That would be her destination tomorrow. Tonight?
The seabird waddled into the bedding and pulled it around herself, nesting, before closing her eyes and letting the servants of Thiovan take her.
The next morning, Imogen rose and dressed using some of the spare clothes she’d bought back in Kalzasi and secreted in her various hidey-holes in Southern Ecith. She didn’t intend to be here long and there wasn’t anyone around to see, but dressing made her feel more comfortable, and that might matter. She wasn’t really sure if this would be difficult.
Once she was dressed, the Ork made her way into the central cavern of Serendipity. It was a modest cave system, worn smooth by water over Gods-knew-how-long, but was still fairly interesting to look at, filled with tan rocks and tiny quartz crystals and little imprints of seashells. The ocean was still rather a novelty to Imogen, and she took about an hour to just wander about the first cave, running her fingers along the bumps and peering at the more complete fossils.
Kitty joined her in this, plainly happy to be able to move about after several days’ travel. She wasn’t entirely sure what things were like for the young cat when he indwelt in shadows. How much room was there? Did he have to expend energy to keep up? Was it boring? How much could he see? Questions he was too young to answer, for now.
”We’ll spend a day or two in the woods before we fly anywhere again.” she told her familiar, as reassuringly as possible, ”But stay in this first cavern until I come back, will you? I wouldn’t want the thing to hurt you.”
Kitty mewled plaintively at her, but did not move to follow as she descended deeper. There had once been three caves in this rock large enough to stand and walk around in–though the third had always demanded a bit of crouching–but after Imogen’s work a few months ago, the third cavern was largely flooded, accessible only by swimming. That was her goal today.
The witch waded through the second cavern and into the third, taking a couple of deep breaths before plunging into the dark, salty water. The seawater weakened the ill effects of the thing she’d imprisoned down here, but how much, she could not be sure. Ideally, she’d spend as little time as possible with it.
When she opened her eyes, she was… relieved was the wrong word, but it was certainly better that it was still here than it was not. She’d expected the heavy boulder to be lying on the cavern floor, even perhaps having worn into it a bit. She was quite surprised to find it floating in the water; as she could well attest, it was far too weighty. Still, if it had one impossible attribute, why should it act normally in all other ways?
She wasn’t too worried about it floating out, anyway. It was much larger than the cavern entryway. She just hoped she could get through the magic she was about to perform fast enough that it couldn’t start burning her out as it had before.
Imogen swam to the floating stone and conjured her Pact dagger. It was a plain weapon, bought in Drathera and made of common steel, but inset with a fairly dramatic red gemstone; the magmatite she’d stolen from under Koid’s rear. That Transmutation had been quick but agonizing, as the act of imbuing a dragonshard into a Pact weapon was a lot like stuffing a bundle of elemental energies into the mage’s own body and soul. This should, in theory, take longer but be easier and safer. In theory.
The Reaver took the dagger in both hands, drifting closer to the floating stone, and closed her eyes, letting herself relax. She let the dagger partially dematerialize, the form leeching out of the metal… and then plunged it into the rock.
The rock had no eyes with which to see, of course. No ears to hear, no skin to touch, no tongue to taste. No nerves to suffer, no mind to fear. No soul with which to yearn.
But… didn’t it?
The rock had no concept of yearning, of frustration at inaction, or anything of the sort, but Imogen did. Imogen’s soul contained all of the processes by which the happenings of the world might be translated to thought and understood, and Imogen had compressed her soul into a dagger, and then intermixed it with the rock.
The mortal soul is not really meant to intersect with a rock. Unlike mortals, rocks have little in the way of ability to categorize and catalog events, to determine what is important and what is not, and to forget that which is meaningless or painful. In a single moment, Imogen saw everything the rock had experienced over its long, immortal life.
She forgot most of it, of course. That was the only way to process it, except as an act of psychic trauma. But she could recall, and thus, see, flashes. Fragments.
Wait, that couldn’t be right. The rock had reached Ransera, had buried itself in the earth of Southern Ecith. Moreover, if it floated here forever, in the space beyond space, Imogen would never be able to end this recollection. She’d drown in that cavern, withering away in the light of a rock which wasn’t even there, apparently.
No, the rock must have somehow escaped slipspace. She couldn’t find, in the rock, how it had happened, but she knew how it could have occurred. She imagined the flows of aether which constituted Traversion, imagined the slipspace simply breaking apart into shards one day. Once the portal had opened, even just for a few seconds-
Imogen snapped back to herself, the memory of impact apparently traumatic enough to finally eject her spirit from whatever transient hallucinatory realm she’d entered. Noting at once the strain in her chest, Imogen kicked away from the glowing rock and broke the surface of the water, gasping for breath. The ork swam backwards, scrabbling at the rocks until she found purchase enough to heave her body into the shallows.
She lay there for a few minutes, breathing heavily, letting the dark caverns spin around her, then pushed herself to a seated position, the water rising only to her navel. She stared down at her hands, as though to confirm that they were still flesh and had not become rock themselves.
A moment later, she realized she’d forgotten the dagger. Luckily, she didn’t have to go back. Instead, Imogen simply raised a hand, summoning it back to herself. The Pact weapon flew quietly out of the cavern, and she caught it easily.
Where previously the only light in the dagger had come from the mounted dragonshard, now soft light shone around the entire length of the blade. Though the hilt remained a simulacrum of ordinary steel and leather, the hands-length of steel which once constituted the weapon proper had been replaced with the otherworldly material of the rock.
Imogen dismissed the weapon, and it disintegrated back into her soul. If she’d expected pain, or some sense of corruption, none came; it seemed that the Transmutation had gone entirely as planned, with the exception of the sudden aeons-long flashback at the bottom of a Hytori garbage disposal.
The witch stared at the light shining through the cavern for a moment longer. The procedure was a complete success, but somehow she felt she understood the world a little less well than she had when she had woken up that morning.
”You’re a weird rock.” she told the cavern. She said things like that to comfort herself in the face of absurdity, but it didn’t always work. Today was not one of the days it did. Her voice echoed in the flooded cave for a moment.
Still perturbed, she retreated back to the world of light.
~~ Something That Doesn’t, Or Shouldn’t, Exist ~~
Travel back to Southern Ecith was time-consuming, but relatively relaxing. Most of it was over the warm southern ocean, which was precisely the sort of atmosphere for which an albatross was suited. Days of flight, nights of flight, red mornings blending into starlit nights in the totem’s signature fugue state.
From time to time, Imogen dipped into slipspace, the empty sky shattering and cracking to admit the lone seabird. In the right places, at the right times, the map of the place between worlds lined up just right, and even a short jaunt could cut a hundred miles off the trip.
She didn’t do it often, though. Not only did that burn energy she’d have little chance to replenish in flight, the trip was proving a very pleasant sort of monotony. Why push herself to end it quickly?
As she flew, she repeated the final stanza of the spell in her mind.
The final component to make it desist
Is something which doesn't, or shouldn't, exist
Is something which seems only willing to hate
Is something no gods, in their wisdom, create
Unlike the first two parts of the spell, which had required some… creative interpretation, this one was straightforward. The witchcraft of the covens of Zaichaer placed a very special emphasis on similar lines and language throughout many disciplines of magic. They carried a special and unambiguous meaning:
“Don’t.”
Straightforwardly, the lines referred to the dragonshard called Voidrillium. One of the products of the Sundering, rightfully banned throughout the whole of Karnor, it was the dragonshard embodying absolute destruction, the kind of destruction which left nothing growing in its wake. In theory, it was an enormously useful substance for all manner of spells and machinations, as raw destruction carried great power both symbolically and in practice.
Imogen didn’t actually know where to get Voidrillium, but that wasn’t the main problem. She was confident that she could find some if she wanted to. Spells involving the forbidden dragonshard, however, inevitably led to the ruin of the witch herself. Simple enough for even a child to grasp; the price to harness the power of ruin was to be ruined.
It wasn’t a matter of risks, either. Neither challenging an Arbiter nor robbing a primal’s bed had been particularly safe, but Imogen had done both anyway. No, the problem was that to utilize Voidrillium, she would need to merge it with a part of her own soul. That would make self-destruction absolutely inevitable. There would be no heroics or sneaky, clever ways to get out of paying the price for such an absurd and arrogant act.
So Imogen wasn’t going to add any of the Dragonshard of Destruction to her pact dagger. A witch’s spell, like any recipe for baking, would fail catastrophically if you simply left out an ingredient; and so, she was going to have to make a substitution.
~~~
Days and nights later, the albatross touched down on the little island Imogen had taken to calling Serendipity. It wasn’t much, little more than a high rock jutting out of the sea with sandbars that halfway disappeared during high tide. But it offered just enough in the way of protection from the elements (and the beasts of the mainland, for that matter) to allow Imogen to set up a comfortable lean-to.
She was gratified to see that the little hut was still there, driftwood built into the side of a shallow cavern, and a bedroll plumped up on a pile of dead leaves stolen from the far shore. No match for a hotel in Kalzasi or even the hut she’d set up with Carina half a year past, but still a good place for her to catch a nap and recover from the long flight in.
There was another, larger cavern on the tiny island, but she had decided not to spend too much time there. That would be her destination tomorrow. Tonight?
The seabird waddled into the bedding and pulled it around herself, nesting, before closing her eyes and letting the servants of Thiovan take her.
~~~
The next morning, Imogen rose and dressed using some of the spare clothes she’d bought back in Kalzasi and secreted in her various hidey-holes in Southern Ecith. She didn’t intend to be here long and there wasn’t anyone around to see, but dressing made her feel more comfortable, and that might matter. She wasn’t really sure if this would be difficult.
Once she was dressed, the Ork made her way into the central cavern of Serendipity. It was a modest cave system, worn smooth by water over Gods-knew-how-long, but was still fairly interesting to look at, filled with tan rocks and tiny quartz crystals and little imprints of seashells. The ocean was still rather a novelty to Imogen, and she took about an hour to just wander about the first cave, running her fingers along the bumps and peering at the more complete fossils.
Kitty joined her in this, plainly happy to be able to move about after several days’ travel. She wasn’t entirely sure what things were like for the young cat when he indwelt in shadows. How much room was there? Did he have to expend energy to keep up? Was it boring? How much could he see? Questions he was too young to answer, for now.
”We’ll spend a day or two in the woods before we fly anywhere again.” she told her familiar, as reassuringly as possible, ”But stay in this first cavern until I come back, will you? I wouldn’t want the thing to hurt you.”
Kitty mewled plaintively at her, but did not move to follow as she descended deeper. There had once been three caves in this rock large enough to stand and walk around in–though the third had always demanded a bit of crouching–but after Imogen’s work a few months ago, the third cavern was largely flooded, accessible only by swimming. That was her goal today.
The witch waded through the second cavern and into the third, taking a couple of deep breaths before plunging into the dark, salty water. The seawater weakened the ill effects of the thing she’d imprisoned down here, but how much, she could not be sure. Ideally, she’d spend as little time as possible with it.
When she opened her eyes, she was… relieved was the wrong word, but it was certainly better that it was still here than it was not. She’d expected the heavy boulder to be lying on the cavern floor, even perhaps having worn into it a bit. She was quite surprised to find it floating in the water; as she could well attest, it was far too weighty. Still, if it had one impossible attribute, why should it act normally in all other ways?
She wasn’t too worried about it floating out, anyway. It was much larger than the cavern entryway. She just hoped she could get through the magic she was about to perform fast enough that it couldn’t start burning her out as it had before.
Imogen swam to the floating stone and conjured her Pact dagger. It was a plain weapon, bought in Drathera and made of common steel, but inset with a fairly dramatic red gemstone; the magmatite she’d stolen from under Koid’s rear. That Transmutation had been quick but agonizing, as the act of imbuing a dragonshard into a Pact weapon was a lot like stuffing a bundle of elemental energies into the mage’s own body and soul. This should, in theory, take longer but be easier and safer. In theory.
The Reaver took the dagger in both hands, drifting closer to the floating stone, and closed her eyes, letting herself relax. She let the dagger partially dematerialize, the form leeching out of the metal… and then plunged it into the rock.
~~~ Something No Gods, In Their Wisdom, Create ~~~
The rock had no eyes with which to see, of course. No ears to hear, no skin to touch, no tongue to taste. No nerves to suffer, no mind to fear. No soul with which to yearn.
But… didn’t it?
The rock had no concept of yearning, of frustration at inaction, or anything of the sort, but Imogen did. Imogen’s soul contained all of the processes by which the happenings of the world might be translated to thought and understood, and Imogen had compressed her soul into a dagger, and then intermixed it with the rock.
The mortal soul is not really meant to intersect with a rock. Unlike mortals, rocks have little in the way of ability to categorize and catalog events, to determine what is important and what is not, and to forget that which is meaningless or painful. In a single moment, Imogen saw everything the rock had experienced over its long, immortal life.
She forgot most of it, of course. That was the only way to process it, except as an act of psychic trauma. But she could recall, and thus, see, flashes. Fragments.
She saw the rock floating in darkness, without any illumination except that produced by the particles annihilating themselves in a gentle aura about the rock. It had been made, of course. Everything had to be made, at the start. What had made it? The rock didn’t know. Nobody can observe the moment of their own conception.
It had drifted long. It didn’t know how long, and she couldn’t help it with that. There were other rocks, of course, and some of them had broken as it touched them. Other rocks broke the rock when they touched it.
It didn’t mind that. It was just a rock.
Then, at some point, something had seized the rock. One moment it was floating, as it always had and always would- the next, it was falling. It had long experienced gravity like a rudderless ship upon the ocean experiences tidal movements, drifting on the waves without aim or end. Now, however, it was like a whirlpool, sudden and irresistible. It began to move, faster and faster.
Then, without warning, it stopped. The gravity still pulled, as strong as ever, but it was stuck against something invisible and invincible. Caught like salmon in a net, but the rock didn’t struggle. This was just how things went, sometimes, for rocks.
When something new next happened, the rock found itself suspended in a great white chamber. The rock didn’t know anything about the chamber, but Imogen could make out a few details. The rock hung above a marble pillar, the top capped with a brass device, emblazoned with runes. Presumably, this was the source of the invisible field which kept the heavy boulder suspended in the air.
After a while, figures came to visit. These, Imogen recognized, were Hytori, though they wore outlandish outfits; pure white, form-fitting robes. They spoke with each other, but Imogen did not know the tongue they used. Still, she thought she could get the gist by their tone and expression.
What is this thing? One seemed to say to the other, Was it made or found? (Curious, cautious)
What’s the difference? (Indifferent, dismissive)
One of the elves held up a hand, and a metal rod formed in it. The elf inserted it into the invisible field surrounding the rock, and the two watched as it grew pitted and lost its lustre, slowly disintegrating.
Does it eat the metal? Does it hate it? (suspicion, doubt)
What should we do with it? (bemusement)
If the conversation continued, it continued outside of the rock’s… hearing? (The rock didn’t hear. Imogen did not understand how any of this information was reaching her. Perhaps it was similar to the skeletons? They shouldn’t have been able to perceive either, but they did. Did everything? Did everything perceive everything else, but only notice when a mortal called attention to it?)
Eventually, the Hytori returned and took the rock, using the device to levitate it into the bottom of a very deep hole. They would throw down scrap and garbage, which would slowly disintegrate. When only dust was left, the elves collected that, and then threw in more waste. Imogen couldn’t tell if they wanted the dust or if they just thought this was a very convenient method of garbage disposal.
The mountains of waste rose and were rendered to dust many, many times. Eventually, however, there came a day when the people stopped throwing the garbage in. The rock sat there, amidst the dust, for more time. It wasn’t waiting, because it had no expectations at all, but it did do nothing for a while.
Then, after much time had gone by, the pit split open. For the first time, Imogen could see more of the rock’s surroundings- it had been seated, it seemed, within a pit in the depths of some sort of massive structure or superstructure–perhaps it was a city, with all the walls and such–and that superstructure was shattering. The rock rolled down through the cracks, bouncing right into…
The planet of Ransera shone below the rock, vast and blue below. Imogen had never personally seen the world from space, of course, but it was hard to imagine anything else that this could be. Indiscernible continents gleamed below heavy clouds, as the rock began to plummet.
The rock was drawn inexorably down, at last given leave to follow the pull of gravity which had caught it so long ago. It fell, surrounded by debris from whatever it had been trapped in, a vast rain of metal and rock and other, less identifiable material. It began to slow as it approached, growing brighter and hotter, and hotter and brighter and-
Suddenly, the horizon shifted. The endless night above Ransera was swallowed by featureless white, and then the planet itself vanished away. If Imogen had been there, she would have blinked. The rock was now in slipspace.
Freed of the planet’s gravitational shackles, the rock floated in the white void, surrounded by the ruins which had fallen into slipspace alongside it. Distant specks, equally far and near in the space without space, which Imogen could see but couldn’t quite perceive. These were well-known features to any practitioner of Traversion.
The rock floated there, then, for the rest of eternity, liberated from its prison amidst the stars only to find a new one here, where there was neither light nor dark. It floated and floated and floated and floated and floated and-
Wait, that couldn’t be right. The rock had reached Ransera, had buried itself in the earth of Southern Ecith. Moreover, if it floated here forever, in the space beyond space, Imogen would never be able to end this recollection. She’d drown in that cavern, withering away in the light of a rock which wasn’t even there, apparently.
No, the rock must have somehow escaped slipspace. She couldn’t find, in the rock, how it had happened, but she knew how it could have occurred. She imagined the flows of aether which constituted Traversion, imagined the slipspace simply breaking apart into shards one day. Once the portal had opened, even just for a few seconds-
The rock felt the gravitational whirlpool take hold once again, and it slowly accelerated, sinking through the shattered hole in the veil which had simply opened one day of its own accord. The glowing stone sank through the atmosphere, transitioning from featureless nullspace to the air of Ransera once more, this time stained red by the Great Eclipse blazing above.
The rock plummeted, once more growing hot as it accelerated through the atmosphere, the detritus and dust it had accumulated through its time as a trash disposal in the pit burning away. The earth rose up to meet it, and-
~~~
Imogen snapped back to herself, the memory of impact apparently traumatic enough to finally eject her spirit from whatever transient hallucinatory realm she’d entered. Noting at once the strain in her chest, Imogen kicked away from the glowing rock and broke the surface of the water, gasping for breath. The ork swam backwards, scrabbling at the rocks until she found purchase enough to heave her body into the shallows.
She lay there for a few minutes, breathing heavily, letting the dark caverns spin around her, then pushed herself to a seated position, the water rising only to her navel. She stared down at her hands, as though to confirm that they were still flesh and had not become rock themselves.
A moment later, she realized she’d forgotten the dagger. Luckily, she didn’t have to go back. Instead, Imogen simply raised a hand, summoning it back to herself. The Pact weapon flew quietly out of the cavern, and she caught it easily.
Where previously the only light in the dagger had come from the mounted dragonshard, now soft light shone around the entire length of the blade. Though the hilt remained a simulacrum of ordinary steel and leather, the hands-length of steel which once constituted the weapon proper had been replaced with the otherworldly material of the rock.
Imogen dismissed the weapon, and it disintegrated back into her soul. If she’d expected pain, or some sense of corruption, none came; it seemed that the Transmutation had gone entirely as planned, with the exception of the sudden aeons-long flashback at the bottom of a Hytori garbage disposal.
The witch stared at the light shining through the cavern for a moment longer. The procedure was a complete success, but somehow she felt she understood the world a little less well than she had when she had woken up that morning.
”You’re a weird rock.” she told the cavern. She said things like that to comfort herself in the face of absurdity, but it didn’t always work. Today was not one of the days it did. Her voice echoed in the flooded cave for a moment.
Still perturbed, she retreated back to the world of light.
