Path of Dragons 14 - Chapter 1 - The Void

The void was nothing, and it was everything.

Elijah felt it pressing down on him, suffocating his very existence.  It squeezed him, both in a physical and ethereal sense.  The only reason he hadn’t already succumbed was the protection he received from Scales of Infinity. 

But even that wasn’t enough to safeguard him for all of eternity.

He had no idea how long he’d spent in the void.  In that space between the various layers of reality, time seemed nonexistent.  Elijah was well aware just how inaccurate that perception was, if only because he’d been forced to stop, rest, and recover on multiple occasions. 

After all, he’d spent years in the abyss.  He knew what it felt like to slowly starve.  He knew the effects of dehydration and lack of sleep.  And even if he could push past those inevitable consequences, he could still feel their slow build.

That was his best gauge of time.

To combat the effects of its passage, Elijah had used the Dimensional Monocle to identify dimensions where he could safely rest.  So far, he hadn’t done it often, largely because he’d yet to find a reality that he could truly consider safe.  In most cases, survivability was the best he could count on. 

The gateways to each reality were entirely invisible.  Without Coiling Path, he never could have sensed them.  But with that ability, he could just barely sense their existence.  Even then, it was difficult, and it required a significant degree of concentration.  Not the easiest thing, considering just how much pain he was forced to endure. 

Thankfully, his uniquely cultivated mind kept him from going insane from the torturous existence he’d thrown himself into.  Even as he slithered through the void, the spores surrounding the leaves of his mind continuously burst and were reborn in a cycle of destruction and regeneration.

That all-important ability gave Elijah the focus he needed to sense a seam and see what appeared to be a survivable world.  He hadn’t quite reached the point of desperation, but it had been so long since he’d truly rested that he’d resolved to take any port in a storm. 

So, he used World Coil and forced his way through the seam and into the new reality.

Immediately, he experienced a wave of vertigo.  Partially, that came from the dimension’s altered physics.  The most notable difference was that gravity wasn’t a directional force.  Instead, it pressed in from every angle – a constant pressure that, while mildly uncomfortable, wasn’t really painful. 

It was just weird.

However, it was also accompanied by a sudden cessation of the void’s effects on his body.  And while that was a net positive, he’d been living with it for so long that the lack left him feeling a little out of sorts.  His entire body tingled, with flows of white energy arcing from one rainbow scale to the next. 

He sighed, thankful that the dimension even had an atmosphere. 

Then, he looked around. 

Hunks of rock floated all around, suspended in mid-air by nothing and surrounded by blue vines.  Waterfalls descended from each one, though Elijah’s senses told him that they would see no end.  Instead, they cascaded into nothing in a never-ending freefall. 

Still, they were beautiful.

Silver, fish-like creatures danced in the water.  Some swam upstream.  Others continued downward.  Below, rivers crisscrossed the atmosphere, held in place by forces Elijah could neither sense nor understand.  Larger fish lived within those depths. 

Elijah slithered through the air, stopping only to luxuriate in the soothing mist of one of those waterfalls.  He didn’t dare go into the water itself.  Not when he had no idea how the silver fish might react to his presence. 

With that in mind, he followed the waterfall to the hunk of free-floating rock from which it had originated.  There were plenty of creatures there, too.  Small rodents.  Lizards.  Frogs.  They didn’t look exactly like the beasts from Earth, with many sporting extra eyes, limbs, or interesting appendages.  But they at least felt natural. 

And none of them seemed strong enough to hurt him.

The rock itself was about ten miles across and twice as deep.  So, it didn’t take long for Elijah to find a deserted cave where he could rest.  Normally, he wouldn’t have dared to shift out of the Shape of the World Serpent, but the Dimensional Monocle had told him that it was mostly safe. 

Elijah shifted.

His body shrank from the two hundred-plus foot serpent to his normal height. 

Then, at last, he took a deep breath – something he couldn’t do in the Shape of the World Serpent, which didn’t even have lungs and certainly didn’t need oxygen.  Instead, it ran on what he considered ethereal respiration, harnessing a portion of the surrounding energy to fuel its continued existence.

Elijah didn’t completely understand it, but that wasn’t so surprising.  There was a lot about magic he didn’t comprehend.

That first breath – after weeks or months – tasted sweet.  The air smelled of nature and humidity, with a hint of something he couldn’t identify.  It also came with thousands of new microbes against which his body was ill-equipped to defend.  A quick pulse of his Mantle of Authority stepped in where his natural immune system could not.

For a while, he just enjoyed being a human being.  Standing on two feet.  Breathing the air.  The humidity on his skin. 

As much as the Shape of the World Serpent was part of him, it was still alien enough that he couldn’t escape the differences in its existence.  His other forms had never had those issues, probably because they played into the bestial parts of his mind.  The World Serpent was a beast, too.  But it was also a creature of nearly pure magic.  And that would take some getting used to.

After a couple of hours spent reacclimating to his human form, Elijah deployed his tent, then took a long and luxurious shower beneath the localized clouds summoned by Blessing of the Grove. 

He really wasn’t that dirty.  The void was a realm of nothingness, and the contaminants seemed to skate right off the world serpent’s scales.  But still, the shower felt good, especially because it also served to counter any lingering effects that came from traveling through the void.

At last, he let his spell lapse, and he took a few moments to dry himself with a towel taken from his Arcane Loop.  Then, he slipped inside the tent.

As the tent’s defenses enveloped him, he let out another, far more satisfying sigh of relief and collapsed onto his pallet.  Surrounded by blankets and pillows, he lay there for a long few moments before finally sitting up and getting down to the business of dealing with the gnawing hunger that had plagued him for longer than he cared to remember.

One meal after another – all prepared back in M’yakein – disappeared until, finally, he felt satisfied.  He also drank gallons of water, guzzling them like a man dying of thirst.  Which he was, technically.  He could have kept going for weeks yet, but not easily, and certainly not without significant discomfort.

Once he’d finished eating, he once again collapsed into his pallet of blankets and pillows and promptly fell asleep.  After that, he only woke to eat, drink, and take care of the inevitable consequences of those two actions before sleeping once again.  He repeated that process five times before he began to feel even remotely normal.

Traveling through the void was not nearly as easy as he’d expected it to be.

If he’d known what lay ahead, he might’ve stayed behind until he was stronger.  However, even as that thought strayed across his mind, he realized that it was woefully inaccurate.  The moment he’d realized the opportunity represented by Shape of the World Serpent, his fate was sealed. 

If there was even a small chance of getting home, he had to take it.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t still worried about Treebie.  Or the people of M’yakein.  Benedict.  Jasai’i.  Louis.  And a few others he’d met along the way.  He was well aware that Treebie would continue his efforts to terraform the planet.  The tree didn’t need Elijah.

Not really.

And yet, Elijah still wished he could be there to guide Treebie.  To help him grow as strong as possible.  To be there when he finally achieved sapience. 

“Can’t be in two places at once,” Elijah muttered to himself.

He’d given Treebie every tool he needed to succeed, and Benedict would do whatever it took to protect him.  Jasai’i too.  After all, that tree was the only reason they were still alive. 

No – Treebie would be fine.

Elijah had to believe that.

The same couldn’t be said for Earth.  He had no indication if the planet had managed to avoid excisement.  Even if the planet was still where it should be, there was every chance that they’d screwed it all up by fighting amongst themselves.  He wanted to believe that humanity – and the other races who’d settled on Earth – would see the benefits of working together, but history suggested otherwise.

The only reason he had any hope at all was because he knew most of the strongest people on the planet, and he trusted them to do what was right.  Not only were there people like Sadie, Oscar, and Miguel on the combat side of things, but he also had faith in Carmen, Atticus, and even Isaiah to put the planet’s survival first.

None of that mattered if Earth had already been excised, though.

But if that had happened, perhaps some of them might have survived.  And after everything he’d done on Gorveth, Elijah had some reason to believe he could rescue whatever was left.  He’d already terraformed a good portion of one excised planet, and if necessary, he would find a way to do it again.

That surety – be it born of confidence or false hope – accompanied him as he stepped out of his tent and looked upon his refuge.  The tent’s defenses had kept most of the wildlife away, but just outside its parameters, creeping blue vines and a host of small animals awaited.

Just as Elijah prepared to examine the local fauna, he felt the ground tremble.  At first, it was just a subtle thing.  Barely perceptible.  But even that sent the beasts scrambling away.  The vines slithered backward as well, descending into the rocky surface until there was no indication they’d ever even existed.  At the same time, Elijah sensed the animals hiding in any crook or cranny they could find. 

In seconds, the surface of the rock was entirely bare.

Then came another tremble, this one slightly stronger.  And another after that.  Again, and the intensity increased to the level of a significant earthquake.

Elijah didn’t hesitate to pack the tent up, and by the time he’d finished, the quakes had become even more powerful.  They followed a rhythmic pattern.  One every couple of seconds. 

He’d visited enough alternate dimensions to know that it was time to go.  So, he stored his belongings into his Arcane Loop and crept toward the cave’s entrance.  Another earthquake rocked the floating hunk of rock, and with enough intensity to send Elijah stumbling. He caught himself on the ridge of the cave’s opening

Then, he looked back.

Hundreds of miles away, a black smudge stretched across the sky.  When Elijah used Eyes of the Eagle, he saw that it was a creature, and one that resembled a manta ray. 

That’s when he realized what had caused the earthquakes.

It was the creature’s wings.  They were so large that each flutter sent a shockwave through the floating boulders.  More troublingly, the landmasses closer to the creature were sent rocketing in all directions.  Many slammed into one another, shattering upon impact, while others simply careened into the nothingness all around. 

The scale of the beast – if beast it truly was – seemed impossible.  Certainly, its size exceeded that of any living creature Elijah had ever seen.  It wasn’t the size of a mountain.  Rather, it was the size of an entire range.  The only thing that had come close was the battle Elijah had witnessed during his second core vision, when he’d seen dragons the size of planets. 

But that was just a vision.  At the time, it had felt real enough, but in retrospect, it just didn’t have the same impact as a true experience.

This was different.

The giant manta approached with the speed of inevitability, and Elijah’s heart nearly stopped when he felt something truly terrifying.

It noticed him.

It knew he was there.

And it refused to tolerate his blatant intrusion.

A massive wave of mental energy slammed into his mind.  His Antlers of the Wild Revenant appeared in all their glory as Plain Sight forcefully activated.  And then, the trait shattered.

Elijah stumbled.

Dozens of spores popped in less than a second.  Panicked, Elijah shifted into Shape of the World Serpent.  Even as his body elongated, the mental assault continued.  The defenses granted by his Emerald Mind couldn’t hold up to the attack.  Elijah knew that.  But every exploding spore gave him a little more time to escape.

Still, he barely managed to use World Coil before they were all gone.  Pain lanced through every leaf of his mind as he slipped into the void.  Even after he’d disappeared from that reality and the rip sealed shut, the creature’s mind pursued.  Elijah jetted forward – if directions even existed in the void – narrowly outpacing it.

But he was faster than its thoughts.

Barely.

In the wake of that attack, the all-encompassing pressure of the void was almost a relief.  But it was a reminder that in most of these realities, all the power Elijah had managed to accumulate counted for almost nothing.

With that in mind, he continued his journey, hoping against hope that he would soon reach his destination.