60. The storm

I stood on a mossy branch above the ancient tower, staring out across Skyisle valley. The evening was coming to an end, our small town painted orange by the sun slowly setting behind the glacier-covered mountains.

Delta sat beside me on Leemy's branch, wearing a white dress. My sister had a whole wardrobe now, stored in one of the rooms of the half-renovated Alanian tower beneath us, made by the village seamstresses. She had a solid body now that she designed herself, made from a combination of Leemy’s springy bark and white silk spider threads. Her insect-powered legs bounced beneath the white dress controlled by about forty thousand ants working together. Her white, spider-silk hair floated in the wind, blown back by the distant storm rolling over the Ishikarian mountains.

It had been nearly a year since Kliss left us and we had become the sole supervisors of Skyisle under the authority of the Gregarius Empire, a title bestowed upon us by the 4th Overseer of Skyisle.

Our town was small, but it was our home. It was a peaceful place, surrounded by untamed nature, with the deadly, mist-filled Valley of Death forming an impassible barrier from one side. The people here were simple, but kind. They were the reason we had chosen to stay, despite the fact that everyone here was capped at level twenty, despite the radiation and poison pouring out from the Valley of Death.

"What are you thinking about?" Delta asked, her voice soft. In only a few months, she had attained incredible precision modulating vibration of silk strings to produce a very realistic emulation of human speech. Her spider-silk reinforced body controlled by an ant colony was incredibly tough, reinforced by my Modify over eleven months and coated with several layers of interlocked titanium plates. Elder Delta had become a real, tall and imposing figure in Skyisle in charge of the magical education and town reconstruction efforts.

"I’m just thinking about how far we've come," I replied after a deep pause. "It feels like only yesterday we freed Kliss from her vow. I wonder how she's doing in Cessna..."

"Who cares?" Delta shrugged. "We're making great progress here. We have each other and that's all that really matters!"

It was true, we had come a long way. We had made many friends in the village and were raising a new generation of mages. Slowly but surely we were making a difference. We had managed to fix many of the ancient Astral Engines beneath Skyisle, uniting them into a single network controlled and fed upon by Leemy.

The thousand-year-old dryad was regaining her strength and healing the valley, slowly driving away contamination. Unfortunately it wasn't enough - whatever was happening in the magogenic zone was slowly getting worse.

We had secured Skyisle, but we were fighting a losing battle as long as radiation, poison and monstrous Astral Phantoms spewed from the ruins of the Tricameron Citadel.

The sun had disappeared behind the mountains now and the sky started to grow dark. The storm entered the valley and drew nearer. In another ten minutes, large drops of water started to pitter-patter against the leaves of the Mystic tree.

"Leemy, give us some cover," Delta said. We were speaking in ancient Alanian, so that our Dryad friend could understand us.

The Mystic tree's branches moved with slow precision, forming a shield of purple leaves directly above us.

"Any new data to explain what's causing the magogenic zone to expand?" I asked.

"No clue," Delta said. "But whatever it is, we need to get down there and find a way to stop it."

"You could relocate me," Leemy’s leaves sang with a resonance of whispers. "Plant my core in the heart of the Valley of Death. I am growing stronger, my Chrysalis skill is almost repaired. I will be able to make a new seed that can stand up to the poisons."

"Poisons, but not Astral Phantoms," Delta mulled. "We'd have to relocate you and a hex-lantern and a battery to power it for a thousand years."

"It's a multi-tier problem," I nodded. "We'll sort it out in time. The biggest problem is that we don’t have a thousand years to wait for you to cover the entire Valley of Death, Leemy. At best we have another three years or less… until the Empire discovers that the 4th Overseer isn’t doing their job properly."

“I believe in your prowess, Sentinel,” Leemy languidly sang.

A distant rumble resounded from the storm with brilliant flashes lighting up the sky.

"A zarnitza?" I looked to the horizon.

"Nuhuh," Delta said, squinting at the clouds. "That's not thunder or sheet-lightning. The sound is… irregular, rapidly moving."

Another echoing boom resonated from the broiling storm and a brilliant, straight line of fire pierced through the sky, cleaving the clouds in its wake.

"What the hell that?!" I yelped. "Some kind of a weapon?!"

"Dragonfire," my sister replied, her Infoscope instantly defining the terrifying ray.

Another boom came from the sky. It didn't sound the same as the blast of dragonfire.

"A dragon... that’s fighting something... in the storm…" Delta mulled, squinting at the tumultuous sky.

Another blast of fire momentarily parted the clouds, revealing a large skyship and a dragon wrapped around it. The monster was enormous, its claws were pulling the burning magisteel bulkheads of the ship apart. An array of spellfire struck against the dragon from the ship, cutting through its scales and wings. The dragon roared angrily, clawing at the ship with renewed vigour.

Without thinking I took off my backpack and pulled out a large flare gun I had built a few months ago.

"What are you doing?!" Delta looked at me.

"The ship is coming down. They can't land in the dark," I said. "I'm going to fire a flare. Whoever is on that ship is going to die if they crash into the mountains."

"That's an Imperial ship," Delta said. "They are our enemies."

"They're people," I said. “There could be Ishikarians aboard.”

I aimed the flare gun and fired into the air before Delta could stop me. The flare hissed and ignited with an ember detonation, lighting up the valley and casting dancing shadows across the forest as it slowly descended.

The skyship pierced through the clouds, heading straight for our valley. Another colorful blast of magic slapped the dragon’s maw away from the gaping hole in the hull of the ship.

"They're coming down!" I yelped. "We need to get to the crash site! Leemy, try to smother out the flames if it comes anywhere near your saplings!"

“Yes, Sentinel,” The Dryad sang.

There was a deafening crash as the ship finally landed, smashing into the side of the mountain, pulverizing trees in its wake, leaving a train of burning dragonfire behind it.

. . .

We arrived at the crash site to find the ship broken in half, with the dragon's massive, somewhat mangled body wedged in between the two halves. The enormous red-scaled beast wasn’t moving or breathing, the crash-landing ship had broken its neck upon impact with the rocky mountain side.

The ground was scorched and on fire, with burning bits of metal and debris scattered everywhere. Glowing, purple dragon blood coated parts of the ship. Most of the exterior of the skyship was still aflame, coated with dragonfire which refused to die akin to napalm.

We cautiously approached the ship. Upon initial examination there didn't seem to be any survivors. It was a grim scene of ruination and death to which I was no stranger.

The scene reminded me of the USSR Ufa train disaster in June 1989. I recalled how an enormous cloud of butane gas leaking from a gas pipeline into a valley was ignited by wheel sparks from two passenger trains traveling through Asha in Chelyabinsk Oblast. The 10 kiloton detonation and firestorm birthed by the butane cloud had destroyed 250 hectares of forest and set both of the trains alight. The disaster was the worst railway incident in Soviet history, resulting in nearly six hundred people dying in the inferno and hundreds more enduring horrific injuries and burns.

Asha was only a thousand kilometers from Aralsk, so I had used some of my administrator privileges to send army help to the scene. I didn't know it then, but the USSR was already in its death throes and the incident was just one of many results of Soviet administrators not caring about their jobs and cutting corners. The fault for the disaster lay with the Soviet Ministry of Petroleum that had canceled the installation of an automatic real time leak detection system. The total evacuation took us 16 nightmarish hours. I was one of the people directing military units and medical teams that pulled people from burning trains and searched the surrounding woods and mountains for fleeing victims. Many of the misfortunate passengers were never found, their bodies turned to ash or burned beyond recognition in the firestorm.

Rain was pouring from above, but it wasn't able to put out dragonfire. I stared into the maw of the burning skyship as I processed the scene in front of me. 

"You are NOT going in there," Delta said, a wet, metal and silk covered hand grabbing my shoulder.

"I have to," I said. "Someone might be alive in there."

"It's too dangerous," she said.

"I'll be careful," I promised.

"That's dragonfire, you idiot!" Delta barked. "What if you..."

I pulled my soaked shirt over my mouth and nose and leapt into the inferno. I heard Delta’s titanium-plated boots thumping after me.

I was immediately assaulted by heat and thick, noxious smoke. I could feel the heat searing my skin, but I pushed onward. If there were any survivors, I would help them. I knew that in a situation like this every minute counted.

I coughed and my eyes watered, but I continued forward. I breathed through my rain-soaked shirt as best I could, examining the gloomy, warped interior of the ship.

It was dark and difficult to see. I switched my eyes to the magic-current seeing spell I had designed 13 years ago. The first thing I saw were the charred, dragon-claw pulverized remains of the crew that were closest to the hole. It was a gruesome scene and I forced myself to push onward. 

I continued to search the ship, but I couldn't find anyone alive. It was a massacre. The people on this ship hadn't stood a chance against the enormous, killer dragon.

A door lead to the passenger compartment. I tried to open it, but it was jammed. I grabbed at the handle and used modify to take the lock apart, kicking at the door.

"Damn it, Dante, why are you like this?" Delta growled from behind me, having caught up to me.

With another kick I brought down the door. Everyone inside was dead, their organs pulverized by the impact. A few ceiling bulkheads had come down, bisecting passengers. It was getting harder to breathe, my eyes were watering.

"Wait... I recognize that battery," Delta said suddenly as she scanned the scene of the disaster.

I turned to where she was looking. Delta had defined our Skyisle Alanian battery and… her broken, ruined body with perfect clarity.

The body of Kliss was one of the people bisected by the bulkhead, her legs completely cleaved away, pulverized into pulp.

I rushed to our friend, grabbed her body. I used Delta's Infoscope to connect to the girl’s soul, tethering it to myself.

[Dante, she is dead!] Delta sent. [There's almost no blood left in her body!]

[I know,] I replied with a growl of Russian swears, retreating through the smoke.

[Her primary Vow will awaken soon and drag her into the Astral. We... won't be able to fight it,] Delta insisted. She grabbed the Friendship-Vow disrupting battery with one hand, thumping after me through the thick smoke.

[I'm going to save her,] I sent, coughing. [She came back to Skyisle... because of me!]

My body was weakening, succumbing to lack of oxygen. I tripped on a broken bulkhead and nearly fell, but Delta caught me in her steel-reinforced arms, heaving me and Kliss through the flames.

Delta carried us out of the ship and into the rain. She placed both of us down on the ground, away from the blossoming smoke Coughing out smoke from my lungs, I reached out to Kliss with a shaking hand. Her body was cold. 

There was no life left in her.

"Dante…" Delta pleaded, her white dress burned, ripped and covered in soot. "She's gone. There's nothing you can do.”

“The rewind?” I barked.

“We are too far out of town,” Delta shook her head. “It won’t reach. By the time we bring her in range, the tether will fail.”

“Damnation,” I spat.

The dead body in my arms suddenly shuddered. A single blood-covered eye opened, staring up at me. The girl’s face twitched, torn muscles moving with unnatural, uncanny jerkiness.

"Our deal is up, mortal. Kliss Eliza Cessna is dead. I am taking her to Equality," the cold, expressionless, alien voice of Vovan spoke with the blood-stained lips of the dead girl.

"No you are not," I growled.

"You are weak, mortal. Your necromag core isn’t here. You can't hold onto her soul very long with your thread," the Vow stated with a grotesque, sideways smirk. "She is ours now. Soon, Equality will embrace us for all eternity."

I looked around the forest desperately. Our tower and the town was too far. I couldn't run, feeling too weak from oxygen deprivation. Delta's armored body was very sturdy, but also very slow. Even if I created another vow, it wouldn't be enough to save Kliss! 

I didn’t have healing magic nor the time, nor sufficient mana to bring a body that was cut in half back to life.

“You lost,” Vovan hissed out. I saw his golden, divine thread winding around the soul of Kliss, about to rip her away from me for all eternity.