B2 Chapter 21: Tears of the Phoenix

Caledon sat on the outskirts of the Emberwood, his head in his hands. His Phobia was planted in the ground before him, offering him a degree of warmth and light as night fell. He held his head in his hands.

He had gained his first invocation from the Dreadwood.

[Authority of the wyvern]

He wished he could rip it from his Fearcore, along with the very first invocation he received when he first descended from Anhedonia.

[Corrupt]

The moment he had walked from the wyvern’s corpse, reeling from what he had gained, Caledon had noticed a chilling sight.

The Emberwood’s inhabitants were bowing to him, in deference. It was only then that he realised he had been invoking his Fear inadvertently, subduing them to his will.

His eyes stared at the flickering flames of his Phobia, and he felt his nausea rise.

“Zel… With this, I might influence the will of elves, inadvertently. Subjecting them to my… authority. I did it without even thinking.”

Caledon felt bile rise in his gut.

“It is a repulsive Fear. I never should have killed that wyvern.”

Surprisingly, his guide hovered before him, on draconic wings in silence. He expected Zel to provoke him, at his show of weakness. Instead, he was met with a soft voice.

“Why do you descend?”

Caledon let out a sigh, as he slumped against the tree.

‘I suppose… Because of what I saw when I descended. All of those elves with their wills stolen from the-‘

“You wish to save them? I am a master of corruption, Caledon. Lies are my domain. Tell me the truth.”

Caledon’s hand tightened over his Phobia, the ornate torch.

Why did he descend?

To fulfil his father’s final wishes?

To become a Highlord that people respected for their mastery over their Fear?

Revenge?

It was a simpler motivation. Embarrassing to admit, especially when compared to the alternatives. It was nothing as grand as glory, or as base as revenge.

“Not them. My mother. I want to bring her back. The person that she used to be, before she departed for the Archcity of Dreams… before she changed. She must be subject to the very same thing corrupting those other Fearshapers.”

His memory turned to the elves floating like tiny lights in a sea of gold. Corruption enveloping them, depriving them of their wills.

A blush rose to his cheeks. He descended because he loved his mother, and wanted her back. Caledon tensed as he anticipated his guide’s harsh words.

To his surprise, Zel only nodded, and there was not a hint of mockery in his tone.

“As I’ve told you before, truth is crucial for a Fearshaper of corruption. Everyone can lie to themselves, but you can bring your lies into reality. Remember this. No matter now ignoble your intentions, see yourself clearly. Dunce.”

The familiar moniker brought a soft smile to his face.

‘But what is the point Zel, if descending only means that I would pose a threat to my mother, even if I did manage to cure her of her condition.’

“What is corruption, Caledon?”

Caledon shifted, eying his guide in surprise. His voice was absent of his typical arrogance.

“The perversion of reality. My Fear distorts what I see and experience as truth. I can subvert the will of others.”

“That is but one aspect of it. Because of the nature of your awakening as a Fearshaper, that is the side of it you are most familiar with. Bringing your Fear into reality, and imposing your corruption onto others. It is but one side to it.”

Caledon watched as his guide continued, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts.

“Remember. There are many sides to a Fear. You can embrace corruption as you know it, and impose it onto others, for your own enrichment. More relevantly, you can impose it to subvert the corruption of others – this means of salvation is the most likely for you.”

Caledon nodded. He had reached the same conclusion as Zel. His most likely means forward, was to impose corruption to subvert the will of the Highlord of Dreams. That entailed embracing invocations that repulsed him. To embrace the imposition of corruption wholeheartedly.

His heart was thundering in his chest, for his guide was not done.

“Or?”

“You can dedicate yourself to its eradication. The deprivation of corruption. Purity. Two sides of the same coin.”

Caledon’s eyes widened.

“Two sides of the same coin. How?”

“With Shiver as an example, would it make sense, if she delved into the depths of her Fear, becoming a mastery of ice, only to be unable to exert her abilities to withhold its advance?”

Caledon’s brow furrowed.

“But that wouldn’t make sense. If Fearshapers could gain masteries of their Fears to lessen them, they wouldn’t have anything to Fear? Besides, when Quietus was explaining Trepidation to us, he never mentioned-“

“Free yourself the notion, that you will ever be free of your Fear. But that does not extend to corruption’s influence over others. Subverting the Highlord of Dream’s influence, either by imposing your own corruption, or by other means, could save your mother.”

Zel paused, fixing him with his golden iris.

“Besides, the rat does not see through the lies that surround your world as I do. Tell me, if phoenixes are beings of purity incompatible with you as you say they are… why do you see them at all when you query the… voice?”

Caledon’s eyes widened at the implications of his guide’s words.

How would it be possible to obtain an invocation from a phoenix? A being that embodied the polar opposite of corruption? It has a 1% compatibility with my Fear, and I attempted to kill the fireash bee with a far higher compatibility – receiving nothing.

Will I have to massacre a large number of phoenixes until I gain it? Is that truly the only way? At least a hundred? Just to obtain a single invocation? If that’s even what the percentage indicates…

Caledon paled, as he considered his alternatives. The prospect of not having to impose what he reviled was incredibly tantalising. Yet it could also be a pretty lie, one that stunted his descent, and his chances of freeing his mother.

He gritted his teeth. Purification? One creature stood at the height of it all.

A darker question, sank into his chest, weighing him down, and making his breathing laboured.

Would I be willing to do so, to save mother?

Caledon closed his eyes, and lost himself to his memories, as the soft crackling of the emberwood and dancing firelight of the canopies reached him.

He lounged under one of the autumntrees bordering Brimstone mansion. A boy of ten, in the presence of the eternal phoenix.

His father was tending to the refugees, casualties from the Rampage. He had seen them stream into the city, like an endless current. He tended personally to the ones with the worst injuries, calling on his Fear to rid them of their injuries.

Sale had accompanied his father, and she tended to the wounds of others with care. Now, she rested, lounging with him in the peace of the evening.

They had also journeyed into the Winterlands in search of undead. The hordes that assaulted Brimstone’s walls had been turned to dust at his father’s hand.

"Sale… may I ask you something?"

The immense phoenix twisted towards him, and gently ushered him under one of her wings. His voice betrayed his concern for them.

“Another question, young Caledon? Your mind certainly doesn’t rest!”

Caledon flushed as she teased him. He clung anxiously to her beautiful feathers, afraid to let go.

“Ask away, little one.”

“Your spark. Tell me more about it.”

“Oh, Caledon. There is no need to concern yourself with your father and I. The undead pose little threat to us.”

“Can you tell me anyway?”

He heard her laugh ring out into the courtyard before them, just as gentle and soothing as her presence. Caledon stared deeply into Sale’s eyes, a melding of red and gold, and clung to her as she gently nudged him.

“Phoenixes have a single spark. One chance at rebirth. When we die, it consumes us, forging our bodies anew. We are reborn a hatchling, in possession of our memories.”

“Does it hurt?”

He averted his gaze as her laughter reached him once more.

“You are a kind boy, so much like your father. Never change, little one. Dying does, but the rebirth brings no pain, so don’t worry about me. I still have my spark, and no one has even gotten close to killing me.”

Her eyes shone with a beautiful pride, as her innumerable feathers began to glow.

“But Sale… what if a creature waits for your rebirth? To kill you when you’re vulnerable?”

Caledon gulped as the eternal phoenix’s eyes drilled into his own.

She hadn’t meant to scare him, but he could feel the nature of his father’s Fear emanating from her.

Immolation and regeneration, eternal.

“We retain our strength that we possessed in our past life, young one. That is how we persist. A spark signifies an invaluable chance, yet it is hardly a guarantee at survival. But fear not, for it is not one easily squandered.”

Her voice was soft, but it needed no edge to it to reassure.

Finally, he relaxed, smiling at the sight.

Caledon returned to the present moment, shocked out of his reminiscence by the arrival of a creature.

A twisted, cruel turn of fate.

To test him.

The phoenix alighted on his shoulder, and he tensed as he heard it croon. It leaned towards him, and wept for him. Its tears greeting the injuries inflicted during his gambit with the wyvern, and he watched as the pain was eradicated.

He reached up towards the phoenix’s neck.

Caledon softly stroked its feathers as he bit into his lip.

There were lines that weren’t meant to be crossed, no matter the inconvenience.

To kill a phoenix, one had to kill it twice.

First, to deprive them of their spark, their second chance.

Then, to end its life for good.

Phoenixes were meant to fly free from harm, free to grace the world with a beauty and kindness that it did not deserve.

Perhaps, the reason why his Fear resonated with them at all, to the miniscule degree that it did, was for a simple reason.

Just as corrupters turned twisted reality and truth into something foreign, phoenixes wept for the wretched, and twisted their despair and surrender into something far more potent.

Hope.

---

Solastra Flora watched, as the young Brimstone felled his first flame wyvern. One of the lesser lords of the Emberwood. Or that was how the beast saw itself, ignorant to the true rulers in its midst.

As the boy had stared down at the dead beast before him, his shoulders slumping, his gaze fixed on the blood on his hands in revulsion. Throwing his Phobia away from him, to the ground, as if trying to escape from his Fear.

Then, she had watched as the young man’s hand later rose to stroke the phoenix that had greeted it. Even though he had been tempted by the powers that the Singer assured him the creature would bestow, he had resisted. Instead, Caledon had chosen to return the phoenix’s kindness.

How easily Idriel reduced the lives of creatures to resources to be accumulated. Casually denigrating the sanctity of life, turning it into a tool for descension. She knew its creator’s intent.

She knew, that it had never been intended to be used for the ends that it had been.

“How much he reminds me of you, Saravagan, Highlord of Dreams. You had a heart too big for this world, didn’t you, Dreamy.”

She watched, as unbeknownst to the boy, the creatures at the edges of his periphery bowed collectively towards him, as his Fear itself into reality, through instinct. 

In his ignorance, the boy had stumbled upon the true nature of Trepidation, brought to him by the discerning words of his guide. The tantalizing truth that lay beneath the Singer’s words.

Although, not even Zel had been able to identify a solution to the boy’s dilemma.

How did one bypass the restrains of “compatibility”, in their descent through Trepidation?

If it was even possible, what would it achieve?

“I find all of them worthy.”

She laughed over the rustling of leaves in the dawn wind. 

When the sun rose, she would reunite them.

And she would bestow upon them, the true fruits of her Archcity.

---

Caledon woke to a gentle sunrise. He had been too tired to care about the creatures of the Dreadwood attacking him. Mercifully, the phoenix’s tears had healed his outwardly wounds.

He had made his decision.

“Where to next Zel? Perhaps there are other places in the Dreadwood with creatures we could I’m compatib-“

He heard the forest quieten in an instant. He stared at a point in the air in front of him. Watching, as reality tore itself apart to expose a sea of stars, twinkling in inky darkness.

He watched as a large, grey hand with black nails intruded into reality.

“Not again!”

This time, Caledon called forth corruption for his own ends.

[Authority of the wyvern]

The hand flinched.

Caledon felt the adrenaline running within his veins, looking up at it in defiance. He felt a mixture of dread and excitement at the prospect.

I called my Fear. I imposed corruption.

It continued spasmed, struggling to release itself from the influence of his Fear.

Then, he watched as a blade parted reality itself. The colour of the night sky, it sliced donwards, creating another tear in reality.

A familiar man walked through, resting the sleek greatsword of stars resting on his shoulder.

Virgil. Their guide.

“Virgil. You work for her then? I know Solastra gave us a day, but I haven’t obtained enough invocations to-“

Then, the man did the last thing he was expecting.

Virgil fell to his knees in supplication. Caledon’s eyes widened in alarm.

Is this the result of my Fear? I’m subordinating his will to mine-

The man’s droning voice reached him, flat and unbothered, cutting through his thoughts.

“Please don’t make this difficult. Ever since you came to this forest I’ve been working so hard.”

Caledon blinked in surprise. He had expected to advance on him… not exactly to complain about the rigours of his job.

Wiry black hair parted briefly to reveal pleading eyes.

“Please don’t make this difficult. Your friend Vale is already waiting for you in the Highlady’s court.”

Caledon’s fist was tight around his Phobia, as his mind whirled. The man was clearly a Fearshaper beyond Trepidation if his abilities were anything go by.

He gulped, but as he glimpsed through the tear he saw Vale. She gave him a small wave.

Could it be a tr-

---

Virgil watched as his planned succeeded flawlessly.

The preoccupied lord staring at him warily, as the whip of roses and thorns flashed through the tear, encircling him around his leg, the thorns retracting themselves to prevent harm from reaching the lord they encircled.

He watched as Caledon was pulled straight back into the heart of the Archcity of Life.

Virgil supposed it hadn’t been strictly necessary. He probably could have convinced the boy to return with him without the extra effort. Yet, he knew that the boy was distrusting his reality around him, and Virgil was hardly in the mood to entertain his doubt.

Watching the whip of thorns and roses retract into his tear, he sighed, knowing that he would have to make it up to Knight Clona for lending him a hand. Even if he didn’t strictly need it.

“Tsk.”

Why wasn’t he in a mood for a cordial chat, with Highlord Brimstone?

By all measures, the boy was perfectly reasonable, and Virgil didn’t doubt that he would get along with him.

His only dilemma was… there was one final Fearshaper that awaited him.

The most Insane of the trio of monsters that the Highlady had welcomed into her garden.

Virgil Starstrider hoped Shiver would be open to persuasion.