Weight of Worlds

Kirs staggered away from the basin. Hidden away in the corner, it had frozen to the wall but had survived the eruption of power. Hopefully. The jugs next to it were rimed with frost, yet the liquid inside was perfectly unaffected by the massive chill permeating the rest of the room.

Esmund had helped her assess how to cut the tub loose when something had happened outside. He’d vanished with a crack of force that rove the ice covering the ground into fist-sized plates.

Her soul-sight had gone completely numb to all senses, reluctant to even stretch across the room, let alone down the tower. Saleema had near floored her a dozen times during the past few moments.

Slipping on the ice, she made her way toward the opening. Screams, shouts and, for a moment, lights played across the wall. That didn’t come from Saleema. At least, not if she was still within the ritual entrapment.

The woman came into sight, kneeling on the ground and shivering, yet the sight didn’t fill Kirs with ease. The posture of the others suggested something had— Es appeared in the opening, gently pushing her back.

“We have a little more time,” his voice was artificially calm. His eyes, despite the alien glow, had a flinty calm to it. The kind of look he only had when he was hurt.

“What happened?”

“We don’t have that much time.” He once more led her toward the basin.

A dried and dark substance covered his right hand, flaking off in patches. She picked one loose, causing both to stutter to a halt.

“Is this blood?” She’d seen the effect before. Warp could occasionally release immense amounts of heat, especially when two sources clashed. She took a step back. His right leg was soaked with fresh gore, dark red and gleaming. She stared at him wide eyed. “Es?”

“I’m alright, this— Hey!” his voice turned sharp like the mana he wielded, as she slipped around him. His rough hand seized her by the arm and yanked her back. They were of a height, but his was not the soft body of a scholar. His features had darkened to match the cold look in his eyes. “What help do you need?”

Kirs swallowed and glanced behind him. Then back to the basin and the jugs. “I’ll need a space cleared of ice.” The ground below Es snapped and shattered, steam vapor rising from the wooden boards. Yelping, she staggered back at the sudden rise in temperature. The wooden boards were scorched dark and was couple centimeters lower than the rest of the floor.

We don’t have time. She nodded and grabbed the basin, still frozen to the wall. “I’ll need access to the remainder of the entrapment ritual.” She pointed towards her desk where a small plate of metal rested, also sealed beneath ice. Turning to gather it, she followed behind Es, but he stopped and turned toward her. “What’s out there?”

“We need this to work.” He nodded toward basins and jugs. “It has to be worth it.” He blew the desk into dust with a simple touch, catching the plate and flinging it out of the gaping hole in the wall.

Kirs had returned to the jugs. She’d gotten one loose and was scooting it toward the center. Reaching up past her knee, the liquid sloshed oddly inside it. Appearing like water, yet it reflected light in an odd striped pattern. It slopped too thickly one moment, then too wetly the next.

Gathered from the nearest shrine of the Triplet Goddess, the so-called ‘Serpent’s Blood’ was difficult to find and contain in anything larger than a small pool. She’d attempted a few rituals to thicken or concentrate it, but it seemed she could not interact with it almost entirely, outside the physical.

She’d already used it to ensure the awakening of a tethered, could it not then be assumed that awakening someone to the fourth stage could be done through it as well?

Dovar slipped his sword free of its scabbard. The weight felt odd in his hand. Slightly heavier than he was used to. The gleam, too, felt off. It should be the burnished light of bronze, yet the metal in his hand was silvery. Even after all these months of training with the fiyan steel, he always expected simple bronze.

Odd to think of bronze as ‘simple’. Compared to Korfyi, they could barely work the metal.

Grev rose to shaky feet, but fell before he could straighten. Vomit stained the snow next to him. Yells and cries rose from him as he glared across the distance. Dovar shivered as he watched the body.

It was too small. In the distance, a steam rising from the cooling blood. Whatever Sansir had done, it was deceptively strong. Saleema had been knocked back down. The sword started shaking, Dovar was gripping it too tightly. He shook his head and loosened his grip again.

The groups, four in total, were no longer straining to keep her contained. Best he could tell, she was hardly fighting them at all. Occasionally, she would twitch in her prison of space, purple eyes gleaming in the dark of her bowed back. She was hardly beaten. Holding their senses strung together wasn’t effortless, and she likely had recognized this.

Biting at his lower lip, Dovar seized Grev’s collar and began dragging him back. Above them, a tether-sense extended from the tower and something, the accessory plate, was flung from the opening. Ayvir caught it one handed, taking a step closer to the ritual. Prepared for when she broke free.

Grev kicked at the ground and Dovar’s feet. He stumbled once, but the light-tethered lacked the coordination to stop him at the moment. “Recover and be ready. Honor him.”

Red-rimmed eyes fell away, and soon he stopped fighting. Dovar dragged him underneath the breezeway encircling the courtyard, leaning him against a pillar. “We will avenge him,” he said, sword clattering against the stone. It took effort to right his grip and release the tension in his entire arm.

“I just want him back.”

Dovar squeezed his eyes shut, staggering away as if he was the one hit in the head. Before him, the groups were flagging. Their corded ropes trembling despite the minimal effort from Saleema.

Things were gonna get ugly. They’d lost near three hundred tethered from the Sleeping Sons, as many again had fled. They were down to a dozen exhausted fighters, concussed Grevor, Esmund, if he was still around, and Dovar. No triplet masters, not even someone specialized in toughness or stalling.

Ayvir dropped the accessory plate onto its spot in the ritual. Space flashed and loosened. No longer restricting her movements, but creating a general field of resistance to all alterations. It would make generating material a little tougher. New stores of mana opened within as well.

Obsidian bound her around the thighs and waist, obstructing the movement closest to her levers. Ice chains bound her ankles together and to the ground. Light sparked around her head, and a cloying, dark, pungent smoke rose around her collar. Warp shattered the tiles in the entire cloister, leaving only the ritual circle whole.

Saleema slowly began rising, her spirit still suppressed for now. Though from the strain on many of their faces, not for long.

Air rushed in Dovar’s ears and his sword clashed with hers. “It can’t end here,” he told her, teeth gritting as forced her blade aside. He had to push on the flat edge of her weapon and still it took chips out of his steel.

Dovar was, by all accounts, a skilled swordsman, talented, then trained for long enough to be an expert. He had the disadvantage in weapon, but her restraints, archaic training and lack of reach, were hefty penalties to overcome.

Pushing on her with currents of wind, he rode his own. Circling, he slashed, stabbed, feinted and dodged. She had much of Ranvir’s awareness, avoiding his edge even when blinded. The smell from the smoke was bad enough to bring tears to his eyes, and it was right under her nose.

Dovar picked it up, snarling at her. “I cannot end here. I am not finished with the garden. Asny does not have a home to get back to!”

He slipped aside a sloppy thrust, seizing his blade in both hands, and swung. Saleema staggered and fell to a knee. The steel blade broke, sparkling bits of metal scattering in every direction as half the sword skittered across the ground behind her. He could see the faint white from the scratch he’d left on her skin.

Droplets of rain had fallen. Morphos is free to use his abilities. The realization sent panic through Dovar. The groups had broken, unable to continue.

Blinking, Saleema reached up and touched her neck. Dovar rushed away, a searing pain flashing across his chest. He fell and rolled across the broken tiles. Coming to a stop, he touched the gleam of blood on his chest. Red sheathed his chest. Rain droplets were already thinning the blood and setting it running.

“Again!” Saleema screamed. “Which one of you—“ she cut off in a strangled gasp, cupping her shoulder. Dovar blinked, wondering what was going on. Black frost squirmed below her fingers, spreading across the flesh to her neck.