100. Sanctum XXV (First Draft)

I felt that familiar tear within my mind again. I held on to the wooden railing of Morthus’s sick bed as the world reeled.

Despite knowing how far Thoth was beyond me, it was hard to accept. I had known that our fight would be difficult, nigh impossible. But knowing the cold reality made it all so much worse. So much about her actions made sense now. Her hesitation to kill me, despite being at her mercy more than once. It wasn’t about toying with me. That was just a bonus.

From the beginning, Thoth was strangely over the top. The image she put forth was one of a cruel child tearing wings off insects. Her actions, however cruel, held the same element of theater I recognized in myself. But the truth was far more horrible. Based off what Ralakos had said of the recursers, she wasn’t entirely mad. She was the opposite. A Kossmaster, maneuvering pieces, waiting until the moment my death would bring the most chaos and agony.

I remembered, with a chill, the totality of her victory at the coronation

Every human city, settlement, and hold, attacked simultaneously, with the same callous cruelty and brutality that Whitefall had experienced. Those strong or lucky enough would flee to the capital for aid. And when they reached it, they would find only ashes and death.

But that was supposed to be the end.

My stomach heaved, and I emptied it onto the floor.

It will never be over.

It had taken on such a clear picture in my mind. I would fight Thoth, wage war both indirectly and directly, save my family, save Whitefall, unite Uskar.

“Young prince.” Morthus’s voice was weak.

“Why would you show me that?”

“You needed to know.”

“This has all been happening for longer than any of us can remember, hasn’t it? Your recursers are all dead, and the only one left is more a monster than even Saravan could have predicted.”

Morthus nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s taken some time to wrap my mind around it. The things we planned to put into motion are already in play. Everything that is happening has already happened, and will happen again.

I placed my forehead against the rail.

“Young prince?”

“What good… is anything I’ve done… if there’s no end to it?” I asked, my voice raw. “Every advantage I seize. Everything I’ve sacrificed. What’s the point? My enemy is so far beyond me, in both knowledge and power. And even if I manage to kill her—gods know what that will take—the world still ends? Dammit.” I shoved myself away from the bed, and faced towards the door.

It was too much. It was too much before, and it was too much now.

I could feel Morthus’s eyes on my back.

“We seldom get to choose our roles, in the grand scheme of things. Yours is a difficult one. I have long been watching for any sign. At first, I thought you were a recurser. A human with demon-fire was simply unheard of.”

That sent a chill down my spine.

“But I’m not.” I said, the statement, more of a question.

“No.” Morthus sighed. His whole body deflated as he settled back into his bed. “You are something entirely different. If I am right, Thaddeus’s plan will have been in motion for centuries. You are not a recurser. You hold none of the corruption within your heart that Saravan feared.”

“So what am I?”

“You are something new. A rogue element in the cycle.”

Sunder the lynchpin.

I swallowed. “In my dreams, I see a black beast—“ I stopped, my body sagging involuntarily as soon as I saw Morthus’s eyes start to glaze over. Instead, I started with another topic that nagged at me. “I have no idea how to do this. It’s hard enough to see myself as a leader, as a prince worthy of a single kingdom.”

Morthus shrugged. “The way I see it. Your goal remains the same. Unite Uskar. Fight the recurser. And pray that the bonds you’ve formed and the strength that remains is enough to endure the coming storm.”

”Compartmentalize, Cairn.” Erdos had dragged me to the shade beneath an awning, shielding me from the mid-day rays of the auric sun.

”Easier said than done,” I gasped out, the panic attack playing at my neck, the back of my chest. I could feel the gnarled fingers wrapping around my throat, slowly squeezing the air out.

”Breathe.” Erdos said. “Break down the insurmountable goals into their most vital parts.”

I had a feeling that with the way my power worked, I would not retain my memories once everything had reset. It seemed tailor-made to allow me to make the most of this one single instance of the greater loop. I had to assume that this was my once chance. That when the world ended, so would my knowledge of it, and my lens into the future.

So, it came down to me. To save Uskar, and everyone I knew and loved from being stuck in an endless loop of pain and inevitable destruction. There wouldn’t be another opportunity. This was the end of the line.

It occurred to me, almost as an afterthought, that the gate Saravan had been so insistent on opening was likely Thoth’s destination. If her goal was to sow strife and chaos, that would be the easiest solution.

But Erdos’s words stuck with me. I couldn’t focus on that. The big problems. For now, I needed to plan for the issues most imminent.

“Morthus.” I said quietly. “How do I kill a mage that has an answer for everything?”

His eyebrow raised. “The recurser?”

I shook my head. The image of the cowled magician standing on the distant dune filled my mind. “No. Her cohort. The one harnessing corruption.”

“A battlefield manipulator.”

I nodded grimly. “He’s been tracking us. Somehow he knew the exact moment to strike, when we were at our most vulnerable. He’s been hounding us every step of the way, despite attempts to complex attempts to throw him off, magical and otherwise. I need to deal with him now, before we reach the gate.”

“And you’ve been taking steps against augury?”

When I looked up at him, confused, he seemed to take that as confirmation.

“And therein lies your problem.”

/////

It rankled. The idea that Thoth and company had a way of watching me, had been watching me, perhaps since I set foot in the Everwood. In retrospect, it made a lot of sense. She had a certain proclivity for showing up at the right place at the right time.

Augury was the practice of using vitality as a means of seeing elsewhere. It involved a complex ritual and was nearly impossible to pull off perfectly. There were several reasons the subject was banned within the enclave. First, it required the spilling of innocent blood. The blood didn’t have to be human, or any of the prime races, but the more intelligent the source, the clearer the picture. Drawing this to its logical conclusions, it made sense that it was largely practiced under the guise of complete secrecy.

The second reason was that it utilized demonic essence, and therefore was rather infamous for providing poor or borderline faulty information. The infernal research had shown this extensively. Often, wording was changed or reordered, or an image was shown that was altered, or more rarely, completely fabricated. This had a nasty tendency to create situations in which simple misunderstandings resulted in bloodshed.

According to Morthus, it was so engrained in the reputation of augury that the infernal practitioners had a saying for it:

Blood begets blood.

Thankfully, Veldani’s expertise was not limited to alchemy.

She paced the room between the four of us. It was attached to her laboratory, though the room itself was oddly quaint. It was lined with bookshelves on either side, a central slate in the middle of the room and a half dozen tables around us.

Bell sat next to me, but Maya and Jorra were spaced out. Jorra had given me a curt nod when he entered the room, but Maya had refused to look at me, her face a mask of barely disguised worry.

I needed to think of a way to resolve that which didn’t end badly. Telling the truth was out of the question. Just the idea that she was tangentially involved in the Whitefall invasion had bothered her deeply. If she knew the extent of it…

No. Even if it meant lying. She could never know.

I rolled the simple stone ring between my fingers, looking at the inscription on the inside.

“Some of you, I see, are very familiar with inscription magic,” Veldani passed by me, eyeing my chest. I subconsciously adjusted my shirt, so the edges of my jagged inscription were hidden. She turned her attention to the others. “For those of you who aren’t, the method of activation is simple. Impart pure mana into the inscription. Not too much. This is meant to be a sustained spell, meaning it will slowly pull from your reserves. It’s a simple inscription, so it won’t take much, but if you have slow regeneration you may have to take it off in case of emergency.”

Bellarex raised her hand, leaning into the faux-class setting. Veldani looked slightly ruffled at being interrupted, but nodded to her regardless.

“Yes, small one?”

“Isn’t it dangerous to use inscription magic for spells you haven’t mastered?”

“That is what they teach in the enclave. However, it tends to apply to magicians who intend to abuse them to push past their own basic limits.” Again, she looked at me. I was starting to get the feeling that Veldani didn’t think highly of what I’d done to myself. She continued to speak to Bellarex, who was the only one taking notes on a piece of parchment.

“So the spell to counter augury is not complex?” Maya asked, a hint of disbelief in her voice.

“Not in the least.” Veldani smiled. “In my day, when the practice was more common, every magician over the age of eight was given a tool not unlike this. You have all used a shielding spell before, yes?”

Everyone nodded but Bellarex.

“Right, void magician.” Veldani rubbed her forehead. “Tricky thing, that. Come see me after. You should be fine, but I’ll want to make sure for myself.”

Bell chirped an affirmative, and Veldani continued. “What you hold in your hand is a miniature version of what wards this very location. A simple shielding spell designed to counter an augury attempt. Augury is innately weak, so this is less difficult than it sounds. It does so by detecting the incoming magic, and creating a shield that effectively rewrites the spectral waves, rendering the attempt a failure.”

A subtle warning prickled at the back of my mind. I poked at it mentally, trying to figure out where the warning was coming from.

Jorra slipped the ring on his middle finger and focused. There was a barely perceptible glow as the inscription hidden between his flesh and the stone light up. “It… really doesn’t take much,” he said.

Take it off.

The thought was intrusive. I recognized it more now, coming from the dark, wretched recess of my mind that had abscessed at the hands of the demons. The part of me that could only see the downside.

Then, it hit me.

“Can you—“ I started, but Bellarex elbowed me. I glared at her, then turned back to Veldani and half-heartedly raised my hand. The elder infernal’s mouth turned up in amusement.

“Yes?” She pointed to me.

The interruption had given me time to sort out my thoughts. It wouldn’t matter while we were within the bounds of this facility. If there had been any attempts up to this point, the cowled mage would likely take it as interference. But if we left with the inscriptions activated, it wouldn’t take him long to figure out that we were aware he was watching.

And that just wouldn’t do, would it?

“Can the inscriptions be altered?” I asked.

“Altered how?”

I told her what I wanted.

Veldani’s smile grew shrewd. “With some moderate effort, yes. But the changes required will not be cheap.”

The constant hounding pressuring was fracturing our group. I had to constantly remind myself that half of my history with Jorra had only happened for me, not for him. Bellarex was holding up well, but she was a child at the end of the day. I’d seen her break in the looping battle with the monsters, more than once, and knew she was closer to that edge than ever. Even the bond I held with Maya was fraying. As Annette would say, I needed to streamline the board. There were too many avenues of attack, too many ways things could go wrong. If they did, and I died, the chance that I would end up back in the center of that nigh-unwinnable battle was far too high. I needed to simplify things, and quickly.

I stood, sweeping my coat behind me.

“I need access to your lab for alchemical mass production as well as your assistance. The modifications for the rings, as well as a second pair that function normally.”

“We are not a charity, dear prince.” Veldani’s eyebrow raised. “Morthus has asked me to provide you with everything you need, but there are limits.”

I smiled wickedly. After my more recent dealings, this felt so paltry in comparison.

“Name your price.”