[written down by Johana Passerin]
In the preceding part of the story, three strangers met in Maghon: the Vezanian Al-Raqím, the Lorinian Jarn, and Klaes of Yller. Each of them carried a small package and was tasked with delivering their shipment to a mysterious customer without knowing exactly what it contained. In this, the stories of all three converged. They also knew that they might meet other similar messengers. As they say in that region, “birds of a feather flock together,” and so the three got acquainted. Soon, someone else took an interest in them, but a strange pair of overly curious men failed to inspire any trust in Klaes and the others, and they revealed nothing. These two then returned—in Paladin armor, with fellow soldiers. A brawl ensued from which only Jarn escaped, but a mysterious woman from a tower came to the aid of Klaes and Al-Raqím. She was, as it later turned out, an apprentice of Master Talantius. It was he who had ordered the shipments the messengers carried.
That very evening, the band holding back the last remnant of the Primordial Chaos snapped in the very heart of the Free Land, and a New Age—the Age of Barbarism—spilled out in all directions.
Talantius gestured for them to follow him. Soon they saw Jarn; he was lying on one of the couches. He looked happy, dreamy. He smiled blissfully. In front of him on the table sat an empty glass.
“He will be fine,” the old mage said. “We had to give him a sedative. He’ll sleep it off. Give me your gifts.”
Jarn and Al-Raqím handed him their packages without a word. The old man accepted them reverently.
“Thank you.” He bowed and retreated to a secluded part of his tower.
He worked feverishly throughout the night. From the ingredients the strangers had brought him, and from other substances he had kept prepared for many years, he concocted the Elixir of True Vision. When the murky dawn arrived, his work was almost finished.
Jarn woke up first. His head ached slightly, and he vaguely recalled the previous night. How he had run for his life, and how that beautiful woman had stopped him and brought him here to the tower. She had promised to help his friends. And she spoke the truth! By the sacred orchard! How relieved he was to see his sleeping friends on the couches beside him.
Then he looked out the window and rubbed his eyes. Dawn had broken, but low clouds hung in the sky, and to the southwest, it seemed to be darkening again. A fierce wind bent the crowns of the trees and swung the shop signs. Many of the lanterns had torn loose and were tumbling down the street like thistle blooms.
His companions soon woke up as well and observed the scene with him.
“What on earth is that!” Klaes exclaimed.
“Some sudden change in the weather?” Al-Raqím suggested. “I’ll have to postpone my return journey and wait for it to die down.”
“Except it won’t die down,” said a voice behind them. Lyra stood there. Her loose hair shimmered as if it held drops of water. She had dark shadows of exhaustion under her eyes. She had worked with Talantius all night.
“How so?” asked Jarn.
“Because it is no ordinary storm, but the storm of a new age, the cloud of the eternal battle. A deadly cloud that will devour everything in its path,” she answered. It sounded menacing, even though she said it in a calm and kind tone. She certainly had no intention of frightening them right now. She would leave that to Talantius.
“My master wishes to speak with you,” she said, gesturing for them to follow her.
They found the mage sitting with his back leaning against the central pillar of the tower, muttering something. Then he opened his eyes and looked at them. “The time has been fulfilled. Did Lyra tell you what is approaching here?”
They nodded. Klaes spoke up: “She did, but we do not know what it means. It sounds terrible—the Eternal Battle. What is it?”
“Ah, my boy, the Eternal Battle is… The Eternal Battle is a legendary place. An age-old and endless battle that has no conclusion. Turmoil, the determination to fight, to drench the earth in blood—one’s own and the enemy’s—regardless of the reason. The wise say that it once covered the entire world, that the whole world was a constant state of combat and destruction. It was chaos, ruin. Eventually, they managed to push the Eternal Battle out of Qurand and establish a peace broken only by the simple little wars of mortals. But not entirely. A small piece of land remained gripped by this ancient age. The Paladins volunteered to guard this place, to clench it in a protective belt of fortresses and ramparts… ultimately, that is why the Free Land was actually created.
But the balance of things has shifted. Even good intentions can become a doom. Some of the powerful on Qurand overstepped their authority. The Siranian Empress, in cooperation with the Paladins themselves, attempted to create a kind of Web that would perfectly grasp the world in the embrace of the order they control. For several years, the fate of Qurand hung by a thread. I watched this drama in the stars. Few on earth actually suspected this, perhaps only the wise in Sairis and a few initiates. But the pendulum swung too far in favor of order, and that gave the forces of chaos a free hand to countermove. The stars did not reveal the details to me, but several months ago, I predicted that the protective band in the middle of the Free Land must snap, and I prepared accordingly. That is why you are here now.
“I see much, but my power is ultimately limited. The band has snapped, and on its wings flies a new age, an age of war, an age of barbarism. All of this comes from a place that is usually cut out of maps.”
“But are we safe here?” Jarn stammered.
“Here—for now, yes. I have created a dome over the town that protects it. But I cannot hold it forever. Lyra, please, come here.”
Lyra stepped up to the old man. He took her hand and placed it on the pillar. She took his place, and it was evident that it cost her far more effort than it did her teacher. He led Jarn, Klaes, and Al-Raqím to the window. The darkness had advanced. At the borders of the town, they beheld a terrible scene: people and animals running about desperately, and a massive, menacing bulk of monstrous faces, claws, and bodies, intermingled with an opaque black mist. It rolled across the land like a flood, followed by a wall of clouds from the ground to the sky, advancing from the south, but appearing to stop against an invisible barrier before the town. The torrent of destruction rolled on—around the town. People fled in terror. Some, however, fell face down to the ground and did not rise again. The fear and terror of what they saw coming killed them.
Klaes stared in shock at the destruction, incapable of movement or a single word. Al-Raqím gazed at the wall of black clouds, and every cell in his body advised him to run out of the tower and flee northwest, as far and as fast as possible.
Jarn turned away and covered his face. Sobs shook him. “Can’t it be stopped!?”
“I don’t think anyone can stop that cloud,” Talantius raised his voice to be heard over the rising sound of the storm, “but there is a way to weaken its power. Because its power is partly an illusion!”
“How?”
“You were summoned here to bring me rare ingredients from your lands. From them, tonight, with Lyra’s help, I have created the Elixir of True Vision. This allows one to see the approaching force in its true form. That terrifying spectacle and the deep fear you feel—and which the simple folk down in the town feel even more—is caused by the fact that inside the cloud, one age of the world is literally breaking into another. What approaches is a fracture between worlds. All who arrive in the wake of this fracture appear as terrifying apocalyptic beings, because their position on the boundary of ages lends them this guise as a cloak.
“In reality, however, they are simple warriors—wild, valiant, hardened by the Eternal Battle, but ultimately merely mortal beings. But everyone on Qurand now sees them as they appear to you at this moment. As ghostly monsters. Therefore, people die primarily of fear. The terror of the fracturing of ages kills them, not the incoming hosts.”
He raised his hand, and the friends saw that he was holding a vial. “Their fateful or archetypal appearance is so terrible that whoever looks upon them goes mad with fear, or is paralyzed by helplessness, and thus cannot defend against them. And that is exactly what happened to those poor souls down there who remained outside the protective shield. Sadly, we cannot help everyone, but at least those who are currently in the town will be saved.”
He opened the vial and smeared it on Jarn’s eyelids. “Look there now and tell me what you see!”
Jarn obeyed him. He wiped away his tears and looked down. He no longer saw monsters. He saw men in armor, strong warriors, but not demons. He still felt great fear, but despair ceased to control him. He saw the cloud, but it was not dark; it was more like a gray mist tossed by the wind.
“I understand now, master,” he whispered.
They returned to the central room. Lyra stood there, leaning against the pillar. She looked determined, but it was clear she bore a great burden.
“How much time do we have?” she asked.
“Two, three hours before Maghon is completely surrounded,” the old man answered.
“Then we’d better go, we don’t want to stay here!” Jarn exclaimed.
“You want to run? Just walk away? I wouldn’t advise that. It would catch up to you very soon and you would die,” Talantius said harshly.
“No good deed goes unpunished,” Al-Raqím muttered.
The old man withered him with a look and hissed: “I think you’ll still profit from this if you put at least a little effort into it.” Then he turned to the others. “I will send you north. I will smear your eyes with the Elixir, which will allow you to see the true nature of those beings bringing the age of chaos, so that when you clash with them, you will not go mad with fear. Hopefully, you will manage to escape. However, the Elixir is not just for you. It needs to be taken to one of the powerful cities, for instance to Sairis or Xalgon. The people of my order who reside there will hopefully know how to mix enough of this substance to allow the Old Age to mount a resistance against the New one on equal terms.
“I only finished the Elixir tonight, because its final ingredient was the wind coming from the storm itself. And I verified that it actually works. All of this was uncertain. Now I am giving you a sample, the rest of the raw materials you brought, and a detailed description of its manufacture. With this, my task ends and yours begins. If you fail, Qurand will plunge into barbarism and nothing of our age will be preserved. If you succeed, you will give at least one great city a chance to defend against the tide of the new age and stop it.”
All three messengers stared at Talantius in disbelief.
“Why us? Why don’t you go yourself! We don’t even know what to do! Xalgon and Sairis are terribly far away!” Klaes cried out.
“As I said, I have fulfilled my role. I am an old man who can barely walk; I would not be of much use as a messenger. Lyra and I must take care of our people; we will not let the poor people of Maghon perish here. Grave challenges await us here,” Talantius answered calmly and cast a very serious look at the trio.
“We are just simple people; we are not warriors. We were only supposed to bring materials here. We want to return to our homeland,” Jarn said full of despair, rhyming almost unconsciously.
“Look outside! You cannot return home right now anyway! Wherever you go, sooner or later the new age and its monsters will catch up to you. With the Elixir, you have a chance to escape from here at all, and then also to save your homes,” Lyra called out, still supporting the pillar.
“For such a service, it would be fitting to receive a reward,” Al-Raqím muttered.
Everyone turned their eyes to him in disbelief.
“Al-Raqím,” Klaes said, “did you even hear what was just said here? Have you looked out the window? How can you care about…!”
“Think of the home that you may help save with your service. They will pay you back many times over. A good reputation is the best capital,” Talantius said quite calmly. He gave the impression that Al-Raqím was not the first Garionite he had met.
“I love my home, but I love it even more when my coin purse jingles!” Al-Raqím growled defiantly. Almost childishly defiantly. He was coping with the shock in his own way—by fleeing to the familiar.
Talantius muttered something into his beard and turned to Klaes. “Your colleague is actually attempting to pray, but in Garion, this is usually done by starting to talk about money. I hope you have a clear mind and understand how serious and noble the task before you is. I will entrust the Elixir to you.”
“Where should we go, and how do we escape from Maghon?” Klaes responded matter-of-factly, as the weight of the task began to bear down on him.
Talantius reached into a scroll stand and pulled out a medium-sized map. He unfolded it on the table and gestured to the others. They saw Maghon and the surrounding area, the north of the Free Land. “In the forests to the northeast of Maghon lie long-abandoned silver mines. The mountain is interwoven with a network of subterranean passages that begin not far beyond the town and its fields. Through these subterranean adits you can reach Iacana, and onward to one of the great cities. There you must seek out one of the Archmages of the old Samagant1.“
“Through subterranean paths? But we don’t know our way around here at all, by the Stone of Transformation!”
“It is necessary to go through the underground initially, because the new age will penetrate there only with great delay, and you will be safe during the first leg of your journey. If you went along the surface, the warriors would be constantly on your heels, not to mention that the storm has now surrounded the town. You might be able to overcome a few hundred swords to reach the entrance of the adits, but a prolonged stay in the middle of the storm would be fatal to you. Furthermore, I will give you a guide for the journey, who will lead you at least to Iacana. She is an experienced huntress who knows the surrounding wilderness very well.
“But now, Lyra and I must turn our attention to saving the people of Maghon, and you must set out on your journey.”
Talantius relieved Lyra in holding the protective dome. His apprentice went outside, and within a moment, a crowd of people began to gather outside the entrance to the tower. They carried a little of their belongings with them, but most of them had terror and madness in their eyes, thinking of nothing but saving their own lives, and perhaps the lives of their children or parents. Lyra opened the doors and let them inside, into some sort of spaces within the tower. They entered, some crying and wailing, others silent and resigned.
When Lyra returned, she brought with her an inconspicuous girl in the leather garments of hunters. Her hair was braided into a plait; she had a backpack and a quiver of arrows on her back, and a longbow in her hand. A long dagger was tucked in her belt.
“Lyra told me I am to guide you to the Silver Hills and onward to Iacana. So I will lead you.”
“What is your name?” Al-Raqím inquired.
“Just call me Huntress,” the girl said. “We hunters believe that a person should not be addressed by their true name while in the wilderness. We are going there now, and therefore I will reveal my name to you only when we emerge safely from the woods.”
Talantius smeared the eyes of all four with a drop of the Elixir, which was to protect them from the madness caused by looking upon the warriors of the Eternal Battle. Then he sealed the vial well and wrapped it in wool and linen. They received a little elixir for their own use in a smaller vial. Klaes hid both vials on himself. They also received a scroll describing its manufacture and the remaining ingredients.
“I bless you on your journey!” the mage said. “And I would like to give you one more thing to take with you.” He rummaged in a cabinet for a moment and then handed them a small object that resembled a saucer or a coaster.
“What is that? It looks like a coaster for a beer glass,” Jarn thought out loud.
“It is a rarity. Guard it well. To the one who carries this ancient relic, the doors of a cozy, homely house are open, one of which is located right in Iacana.”
“The Three Foxes Inn?” Al-Raqím guessed based on the picture.
“Yes, The Three Foxes Inn. I trust you will find help there. And now you must go. We will prepare a surprise for the enemies that will lure them to the other side, and you will then easily pass through the forest and the mines, and happily find Iacana.”
Then they said their goodbyes. Talantius gave them his right hand, and the four messengers carrying the Elixir crept out through the back entrance of the tower. They were still shaken and surprised. They crept toward the last abandoned houses to pick a spot from which to escape into the forest. The Huntress went first, showing them the way with hand signals. Suddenly, loud bangs, a roar, and a rumble rang out. The protective dome vanished with a deafening sound akin to a thunderclap.
“Now! Run!” the Huntress cried.
They sprinted across the pastures toward the forest.
Klaes, who was running last, could barely catch his breath. When he looked back at the edge of the forest, he saw a massive warrior behind him. Fortunately, thanks to the effects of the Elixir, he saw him only in his human form, but he still seemed terrifying. Brawny, scarred, with war paint and a savage appearance. He cried out. The Huntress stopped, turned, and fired. She hit him, but the brute seemed not even to notice and immediately hurled one of his spears at them. Luckily, he missed. They dashed on. Klaes stopped, leaned against a rock, and fired his bombard. Not even a direct hit from the ball slowed the killer down. On the contrary, he immediately returned Klaes’s fire with a blow and threw another spear at him. Klaes felt a sharp pain in his side. Fortunately, the spear only grazed him and stuck into the ground behind him.
In the end, they overcame the enemy with combined forces. They supported the bleeding Klaes, whose wound ultimately wasn’t so shallow, and ran on. After a while, however, they had another berserker on their heels. They managed to escape to an elevated spot, so they had him below them. They threw rocks at him; Al-Raqím threw knives, and the huntress finished him off with arrows. They thought he was already dead, but even in his death throes he slashed around with his saber and hit Jarn.
“We must move on right now!” the Huntress urged them. “It’s not far to the gate to the mines!” And indeed, shortly thereafter, the entrance gate to the adit appeared before them.
Just as they were about to step into the underground, a deafening roar echoed. The sound of a thousand fiery pyres. A gust of scorching air swayed the treetops and swirled the dust, leaves, and pine needles around them. They looked back. In clouds of smoke, they saw Talantius’s tower slowly rising into the heavens. The remains of the village of Maghon vanished forever in a tangle of flames and smoke. The tower continued to rise, but eventually, a dense cloud swept in and obscured the view of the tower, the sky, and the forest. It stung their eyes and made them cough.
“Well, now they are in heaven,” someone remarked.
“And we must go under the earth,” the Huntress said.
They walked into the dark corridors, trying to recall what Talantius and Lyra had told them about the history of the place. It was a lot.
“Lyra said something about a certain Timot and Saguin, two adepts of magical teachings who went here so they could devote themselves to their studies undisturbed. Supposedly, they stumbled upon older underground corridors, perhaps even a kind of temple. Saguin then unexpectedly died, and Timot and Lyra buried him. But Timot went mad with grief and turned to the dark sciences. So dark that he supposedly had to die by Lyra’s hand,” said Jarn, who had enjoyed Lyra’s storytelling. It sounded like an adventure fairy tale to him.
“Is Lyra that old?” Al-Raqím wondered. “She didn’t look it.”
“And Talantius is even older,” the Huntress muttered. “Let’s go. We must find the place of Saguin’s final rest. I remember that after it, we are to turn north.”
And so they walked through the dark, narrow passages; their time was measured only by the oil diminishing in their lamps. The air smelled of ancient ages. Branches forked around them, inscribed with a strange script that none of them could read, not even Al-Raqím, who was well-versed in the languages of Qurand.
Then they came to a crossroads. Before them were metal doors, gray as lead, hard as steel. An inscription on them read: Do Not Enter!
They could therefore go left or right. They went left first, which was closer to a northern direction. There, past another turnoff, they found a strange room. Inside was nothing but a chair, a bowl of boiling water with a key inside it, and on one wall, a cabinet: a beautifully decorated wooden partition with round stained-glass windows.
“What is this?” Al-Raqím wondered.
“I have a bad feeling about this!” Klaes growled. “Don’t go in there!”
Nevertheless, the beautifully decorated and richly painted windows of the Cabinet lured Al-Raqím. He didn’t listen. The closer he got, the clearer he heard strange mumbling and whispering. He felt irresistibly drawn to it. Klaes tried to pull him away by force, looking back as he did, and caught sight of a horrific apparition on the chair in the corner. A formless mass of limbs and eyes.
“Aaaaaaaagh,” he roared, covered his face, and ran. They all fled.
“What did you see in there?” the Huntress asked him.
“I don’t know! I don’t know! It has multiple limbs and it changes shapes,” Klaes groaned.
“But I heard beautiful voices from the windows,” Al-Raqím said. “And I didn’t glimpse any horror. Maybe the path leads through there!”
“Hush!” Klaes snapped at him.
They tried the path to the right. The corridor soon bent, and stairs led down. Down the stairs they came to a well. They shone a light down and saw that there was a passage in which ivy grew, black as night. Fortunately, Jarn’s botanical knowledge warned the others against the temptation even to touch the plant.
“I know it! It causes madness and evil visions. Do not touch it! We cannot go this way!”
So they had to go back and stood again before the door with the inscription Do Not Enter!
“What are we going to do?”
“The door is locked. We need a key!” Jarn said.
“There is a key lying next door in the bowl of hot water,” Al-Raqím noted. “Maybe it’s the key to this very door.”
“That would be quite logical,” Klaes said.
Jarn said nothing. Resolutely, he turned and walked into the room with the Cabinet.
“Don’t look into that corner! Whatever you do, don’t look at that chair!” Klaes warned him.
Jarn readied a thread and a crochet hook. But the key could not be fished out with any of his tailoring tools. At the same time, by accident, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the phantom in the corner on the chair. He cried out and ran outside.
Al-Raqím took his place and tried his luck for a while, but not even his pickpocketing skills helped him in fishing the key out of the bowl of hot water. He failed.
“We must get the key. There is no way but forward!” said Jarn, who had already somewhat recovered from the harrowing experience.
“Outside, the hosts of those berserkers await us. The only path really seems to lead forward. Provided, of course, that the key is for that door,” Klaes stated.
“Someone has to take it out,” Al-Raqím said.
There was silence for a moment. Then the Lorinian spoke up: “I am in no way suited for the fight, and a burned hand I will heal up right.”
He stepped toward the bowl. He closed his eyes and quickly reached into the water. The water was boiling. He grabbed the key and hurried out with it, quickly getting away from that dreadful place.
Everyone looked eagerly over his shoulder. They rejoiced when Jarn managed to insert the key into the lock and turn it. The doors opened, and before them lay a corridor, sloping slightly downward. They hastily continued on their journey.
Eventually, they discovered Saguin’s sarcophagus. In a separate room lay nothing but a massive stone coffin.
“It looks exactly as Lyra described it here. A short distance from here must be the turnoff to the left,” Jarn said. He examined the coffin. He noticed black handprints on it. Perhaps some kind of decoration. Al-Raqím leaned over the tombstone, but shrank back in alarm.
“What is it?”
“The tombstone is cracked. And the one who should be sleeping his eternal sleep in there is gone.”
- It can be assumed that Talantius was a member of the Celestial Magic school. ↩︎
