"Yaesh!? What the hell are you doing here?" Aster exclaimed as she put down her battle staff. The Khrè Yujul had turned away from her to sit on one of the large footstools in the room, taking care to arrange their three tails around it so that he wasn't sitting on them. They were dressed in a plain grey toga similar to those Aster used to see them wear when they visited Anna's workshop. Except this time, the magical patterns covering their tunic were much more elaborate and colourful than she remembered, giving their clothes a very striking appearance, even if it would be completely invisible to anyone unable to see magic. Their three eyes were, as always, covered by their pointed, three-tiered bonnet, which was covered with moving arabesque patterns made of magic. Their four hands were resting on his knees and they seemed to be calmly waiting for Hermione to calm down.
She was indeed short of breath, her hand on her chest, her gaze going quickly from Aster to Yaesh, looking for an answer. Aster put her hand on Hermione's shoulder and smiled to let her know that there was nothing to fear from Yaesh, and she calmed down.
The room was small, a kind of comfortable hideaway surely designed to allow certain prestigious guests to isolate themselves from the party for a while if they so wished. The walls were draped in warm colours, a carpet covered the floor, and a window offered a view of the infinite asphodel field stretching out into the eternal twilight. With five footstools on the floor, it was clear that everything had been done to make the room as comfortable as possible. What's more, given the decorations and fabrics sewn with pure magic in the form of silk or crystal, the room had been decorated with Khrè Yùjùl visitors in mind.
"Who are you? What do you want from us?" asked Hermione defensively in her best classical Yùjùl. Aster nodded with some pride, Hermione had improved a lot in terms of Yujul pronunciation, some syllables and sounds still sounded very strange in her mouth, but that was to be expected considering that Classic Yujul was a completely alien language.
"Let me introduce you to Koxhkoxh Yaesh, one of the princes of the Koxhkoxh dynasty currently ruling the Khrè Yùjùl empire... "Aster began, but Hermione interrupted, her eyes wide.
"But, you told me that you had problems with the Koxhkoxh and that they were looking for you and Kav-deb!" She said worriedly, her hand still clutching her battle staff.
Koxhkoxh Yaesh then spoke up, in an amused voice. "You have nothing to fear, young human. I may bear the illustrious name of the Koxhkoxh dynasty, but I belong to a secondary branch of it. I couldn't care less what the Imperial branch decides to do or not."
Aster sat down on one of the footstools opposite Yaesh and motioned for Hermione to do the same, saying, "Yaesh was a very regular customer of Anna's when she still ran her golem and artefact business. I met them several times when I was little, they would sometimes drop in for tea when they picked up their orders."
"I see..." Hermione said as she sat down on a footstool, still suspicious.
"I've just saved you a great deal of trouble." Said Yaesh gravely, the corners of his strange mouth tightening.
"What do you mean by that? We've been invited to this ball and all the guests so far have been perfectly courteous." Said Aster, frowning.
"You didn't notice them then..." sighed Yaesh.
"Are we in danger?" Hermione asked worriedly, ready to react.
"You were in danger in the corridor, but here, under my protection, you're not at risk." Yaesh said with some satisfaction. "Aster Karrasinki, your name is well known to the emperor himself you know?"
"Really?" Said Aster.
"Aster... what have you done?" Hermione said looking exhausted and a little desperate.
"Oh I'll tell you, first of all, Kav-deb the master of depths and his apprentice refuse to help the empire, and do so by copiously insulting the emperor with, and I quote: "Son of two who can't see the sun, eat without sauce and lift the stone". Before fleeing, causing the destruction of one Imperial fleet ship and damaging three others. And now I've heard nothing more from Anna, and the next time I hear of a certain Aster Karrasinqi and discover the existence of a Hermione Snow, it's during a council of strategists for Operation Terra Thra, who are bemoaning the failure of the Ulthar coup despite the help provided by the Empire." Yaesh said.
"What are you getting at?" asked Aster, trying to ignore the mortified look Hermione was giving her.
"The Emperor has sent the Koxhyak after you, I don't know how, but a rumour told them you were here. You'd better watch your backs, someone here, or someone who knew you were coming, has probably given you away." Yaesh said.
Aster saw Hermione blanch out of the corner of her eye. "The Koxhyak?" she asked.
"The dynasty's private secret militia. They're not tender-hearted." Yaesh said, hesitating over some of the terms used.
"Aster, we can't stay here." Hermione said anxiously.
"Yaesh, if what you're saying is true, we'd better not hang around, I..." Aster said.
"Wait, I've heard that you're looking for an iron chrysalidis, and I don't know of much use for such an artefact... Anna hasn't quite disappeared has she?" they asked with an indefinable emotion in their voice.
"Indeed." said Aster, bringing her hand to the medallion containing the small flame resting on her chest.
"Well... I'll help you sneak out of here. You have never seen me." Yaesh said.
Aster and Hermione exchanged glances and nodded simultaneously.
Yaesh got up from the footstool and pulled out of one of their long sleeves a paper-thin ceramic rectangle engraved with a network of tiny symbols. These began to glow more and more intensely as Yaesh gently pushed his magic into the array. Soon, purplish mists rose up in the room, growing thicker and thicker, until the walls and floor disappeared beneath a cottony veil. Yaesh themself gradually disappeared from Aster's vision, until she could perceive nothing more of them, not even their magic. Instinctively, Aster's hand went to Hermione's and clutched it. Gradually the mists dissipated, allowing the twilight light of the edges to filter through, until in a gust of wind they vanished completely, leaving them on a narrow path of beaten earth in the middle of the endless plain of flowering Asphodel.
Aster immediately let go of Hermione's hand and sat cross-legged on the ground, taking out iron ink and a blank parchment from her satchel, then began to draw an array from memory as quickly and accurately as she could.
"Aster! What are you doing, if we're being chased we should get out of here fast!" Hermione exclaimed, alarmed by Yaesh's speech.
"We have Khrè Yùjùl on our tail, they see magic with unparalleled precision, all of them. Even if we were buried underground, they'd find us. I'm making an array of magica diffusius. Once activated, our magic will blend in with that of the environment." Aster said, biting her lips in concentration.
Hermione raised an eyebrow... "That kind of magic needs to be activated consciously all the time, doesn't it? And if we're not in a place charged with magic, we'll still be magically visible. Are you even sure you can maintain the spell throughout the journey?"
"Those are the shortcomings of this spell, but out here on the edges, finding an area of low ambient magic is impossible. And I only intend to activate this spell when there's a risk of running into Khrés." Said Aster, adding the last few lines to the array and praying she hadn't made any mistakes. She straightened up and took Hermione's hand in hers again before pulling out the crystal of condensed magic she would use as a map of the edges. "Come on, we're close to the goal."
oOOOo
Aster slammed the rusty iron door of the mausoleum behind her. Hermione was in front of her, bent over leaning against a wall, gasping for breath. The tip of her battle staff was still glowing and crackling from the powerful spells she had unleashed a few seconds earlier on their attackers.
On the other side of the door, Aster could hear the claws of the stranded scraping against the metal of the door, hurling themselves at the door with hunger and desperation. Their vile gurgles audible through the door. Aster hurried to lock it by sliding the thick iron bar across it.
"What was that?" Hermione asked, a shiver running down her spine.
"Stranded ones, they're what happens to travellers who get lost on the asphodel plain. They lose their minds, and change, transformed by the tearing apart of their essence, drawn on one side by the different planes of existence, and on the other by the beyond." Said Aster, observing the interior of the mausoleum, an ancient structure of dusty dressed stone, on either side of the door, two carved stone recumbents, representing a strange, stretched-out silhouette. Something was engraved on plaques inlaid into the recumbent, but tempted as she was to read this ancient language, the aeons had rendered it completely illegible. At the far end of the Mausoleum, a wide opening led down to the depths, a staircase carved into the rock.
"There were so many of them... What did they want with us?" Hermione asked, looking around by the light of one of the runes on her staff.
"The stranded are not dangerous alone, but in packs, they become formidable hunters. Anna told me that they seek to devour travellers to regain a link with the material planes, driven by the terror of the beyond. It's an instinct." She said, looking at the map. This was indeed one of the passages...
Their duo, spurred on by the cries and cackling of the stranded, made their way down the cold, dusty staircase into the depths. The cut stone gave way to a staircase carved right into the rock. As they descended into the darkness illuminated only by their runes, the air grew wetter and wetter, the steps ceasing to be carved and giving way to a gentle slope that went deeper and deeper. The sound of water droplets falling to the ground in an irregular plic ploc made Aster jump more than once, and she pressed herself against Hermione. The cave smelled damp, of moss and wet lichen.
After what seemed like hours of descending, they emerged on the surface through a cave entrance covered in moss, lichen and climbing plants, with a fine trickle of water running down into the cave.
Hermione looked completely lost. "Aster, we've been going down for hours! How could we? I... Why? We haven't taken a single step up."
"Edges don't follow that kind of logic." Aster said as she emerged from the cave. A misty marsh lay before her, shrouded in a diffuse greyish light. Reeds and gorse grew on the banks of small, muddy islands, under the thick foliage of tall, twisted elms. Starting from the entrance to the grotto was a mossy black wooden pontoon plunging into the swamp. Floating peacefully above the shadowy waters and stretches of duckweed and water lilies were bluish gleams resembling will-o'-the-wisps.
"So this is the second level of the edges?" murmured Hermione. "What are these lights?"
"They're the souls of the dead, drifting slowly towards the beyond. If they don't get eaten first." Aster said, staring at one of them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hermione hold out her hand. "Don't touch it! We don't know who those souls belonged to. A skilled necromancer would know how to temporarily possess a body coming into contact with its soul."
At her words, Hermione withdrew her hand as if it had been burned.
"This place looks peaceful. No strangers in sight." Hermione said as they stepped cautiously onto the damp, mossy wood, her gaze trained on the souls floating in the mists above the marsh. Aster, for her part, kept an eye on the map: they were on the right track, the shortest path to the depths of the marshland.
"Don't let your guard down, Hermione, it's from this level onwards that we risk encountering the dark smugglers. They collect souls in their lanterns and take them to their masters. They're very bad at distinguishing between living and dead souls." She says, clutching the small vial, warmed by the heat of Anna's soul inside, to her chest. "And soul-eaters also move between the levels of the edges, not to mention other travellers. But as long as we follow the map, keep a low profile and stay on the path, then we'll have done all we can to avoid danger as best we can," she whispered into the oppressive, damp silence of the marsh.
It was difficult to judge the passage of time in these places, the light was always the same, whitish and diffuse, the floating souls more perceived as bluish auras than real ones like the flames whose appearance Aster was used to seeing. Some seemed delicious, making her salivate, to the point where she had to force herself to look away so as not to set a bad example to Hermione by gulping one down. Others, rarer ones, were vitiated by their very nature, as if they gave off a pungent odour that only she could smell.
Several times, Aster signalled to Hermione to stop and crouch motionless to let a creature pass just below the surface of the turbid waters, or to quicken her pace when the mists became denser.
The transition to the next layer of edges was smoother, giving way to grey weeping willows, devoid of colour, as if they were made of ash and charcoal. The mists had dissipated, giving way to a uniformly grey sky. White flakes fell from the sky in a slow waltz, before joining the thick layer of grey-white matter on the ground. The path continued, the last pieces of wood from the pontoon giving way to a narrow path on which the flakes did not fall. "Snow?" Hermione asked, opening her palm upwards to drop a few flakes. "It's not cold..."
"It's ash," murmured Aster. "Don't go too far from me, this place is more dangerous than the last. The willow forest is home to many soul eaters." Their journey through these ash-covered lands was marked by a tense silence, both of them keeping a careful eye on the edges of the path. They had to stop for a long time during an ash storm to avoid getting lost, but apart from a few large, gaunt bitterns searching the ashes with their beaks for some creature they couldn't see. Aster was worried, and not just because of the threat of their Khrè pursuers. The shortest route to the starry lake was not far from the fortress of Gahab-en-d'l, one of the masters of the dark smugglers in this part of the edges. For the moment, she had not come across any of his hooded figures, nor seen any lanterns with their worrying light, but she had little hope of succeeding in going completely unnoticed on his domain.
Soon after the storm had died down, they set off again, trying to clean their cloaks of the thick layer of ash that had fallen on them, the path becoming more and more winding, the ash willows becoming rarer, and in front of her a vast desert of white ash stretching as far as the eye could see, the path disappearing beneath the ashes.
"What are these things?" whispered Hermione fearfully, her gaze fixed on the titanic tentacled insectoid legs covered in shifting chitin, moving slowly a few hundred metres away. The thing was so big that one of its legs was like a huge tower, the creature's body hidden by the thick grey clouds from which the flakes of ash were falling.
"I don't know..." said Aster as she swallowed, her gaze fixed on the diffused glow she could see through the clouds, as well as the monstrous magical power of the thing, its silhouette visible with her cursed eye through the clouds like a paradoxical mixture between a sparkling sun and an absolute, devouring void. "We mustn't linger here, follow me Hermione."
"But, the way..."
Aster took Hermione by the hand and pulled her towards the ash dunes, not caring that the path was no longer visible beneath her feet, to get to the lower layer she would have to trust the map. A mixture of relief and fear filled her when, like quicksand, the ashes began to absorb her little by little, dragging her under. "Trust me," she managed to say before the ashes swallowed her and Hermione whole.
oOOOo
Aster sat up slowly, her head aching and her body sore. She was disorientated for a few seconds, but jumped to her feet as soon as she remembered. She is on the edges, descending towards the last layers before the circles beyond and the realms of the birthless. The iron chrysalidis within her grasp. She looked around feverishly, searching the mound of ash she was standing on. It was with immense relief that she saw Hermione sitting up, recovering her senses. She tugged at her clothes to make sure that nothing had been lost in the fall, and fortunately, everything seemed to be in its place. She clutched Anna's vial of soul in her hand to give herself courage before taking out the map.
As expected, they had indeed landed in the edge layer that Sonya had affectionately nicknamed "the cathedral". An immense forest of trees with fossilised trunks that looked like quartz, each more than a dozen metres in diameter, stretched towards a dark canopy so high up that, despite her piercing vampire vision, she couldn't distinguish anything. The ground between these gigantic trunks was a mixture of fossilised roots, rock, silvery sand and phosphorescent moss, illuminating the area with a diffuse greenish light from the ground.
Hermione sat up, grumbling and glowering at her, but soon they were off towards the depths again, Aster gliding along the mound of ash to reach the ground gently, Hermione at her heels. "Hermione, we're in one of the most insidiously dangerous places on the edges, here whatever happens, don't turn round, don't pay any attention to the singing or the footsteps, and don't ever let go of my hand."
"Yes mum." scoffed Hermione. "May I ask why? These rules seem quite arbitrary to me."
Aster shrugged. "I'm only repeating what Sonya told me, and she doesn't joke about this sort of thing."
Walking through this place was torture for Aster, the atmosphere was oppressive, this strange melody that seemed to whisper forgotten things in her ear that she couldn't understand, or even really know if she was hearing something, or if it was the murmur of a stream flowing between the massive fossilised tree legs pre-dating the very birth of their universe.
It was even harder to ignore the procession of hooded figures in long flowing white robes walking in silent procession along a path parallel to their own, at once near and far.
So much so that it was almost a relief when one of her fears was realised and a bluish glow approached them, skipping along the path. Instinctively, Aster positioned herself in front of Hermione, her battle staff at the ready, even though she was well aware of the inefficiency of such a manoeuvre, Hermione being much taller than she was.
As what was approaching her became more visible, Aster gritted her teeth. She recognised this kind of being all too well. But this time, there would be no Anna or Sonya to look after her. It was a large creature dressed in a grey cloak with a texture similar to that of a dragonfly, wearing a moro-sphinx mask, with only the jet-black legs, resembling hen's feet, protruding from the cloak. In its hand, it held a long black metal stick with a spiral tip, from which hung an elaborate metal and crystal lantern containing dozens of small, appetising blue lights.
The creature stopped in front of her and immediately began to open the lantern. Reacting at a moment's notice, Aster grabbed the creature's thin, scaly wrist to stop it. "Dark smuggler, we are not souls due, nor are we on your master's list." She said in her best Anna imitation.
The dark smuggler let out a hiss, said several words in various languages unknown to Aster before saying in perfect classical Yujul. "Three souls for two bodies, that's curious... and your soul, oh, your soul... " He said, bringing his masked face close to hers. "An amalgam of broken and torn fabric, an incomplete weave built on those she made her own. I can't even see the core of it any more, dissolved in the moving, screaming mass of the broken ghosts of those who once were. Simply marvellous."
"What do you want?" asked Aster defensively.
"The little soul you keep so preciously in a vial would please me immensely, but you won't part with it. So I'll have to be on my way." The creature straightened up and was about to go round them before stopping. "Ah yes, I'm sure that Sir Gahab-en-d'l would be delighted to receive something like you, little-great-devourer. The blessings of your protector will not allow you to maintain this form indefinitely, not with such a hungry soul." Then he continued on his way, hopping in the opposite direction to them in search of a handful of souls to capture.
"What did he mean?" Hermione asked in a trembling voice.
"I don't know." Aster admitted, although a strange feeling persuaded her otherwise. As if something was twisting inside her.
oOOOo
Aster was hurrying to pack their tent into the bag, while Hermione was destroying one by one the stones they had carved with runes a few hours ago to protect and stabilise their camp. She would have preferred not to have to stop and reach the starry lake in one go, but they had thought it safer to stop and rest than to continue their descent towards the depths of the edge of the world.
It was difficult to realise how much time had passed in these parts; several days had surely already gone by outside the edges. She tightened the last straps of her pack, checked that they had not forgotten anything, then walked towards Hermione, who was busy erasing the last traces of their passage. Hermione nodded with determination, causing a wave of affection to run through her mind... Hermione was proving that she was prepared to go to the ends of the world for her, literally.
They set off again along the steep path. The penultimate layer of the edge where she was standing was a steep slope of dark red and grey stone shining with dust. Rare greasy plants with a heady scent grew between the rocks, and from time to time a few lost souls floated gently down the slope. The bottom of the slope was a distorted vision of an impossible landscape, endlessly replicated as if through face-to-face mirrors, while the top was no more than a distant layer of mist hugging the profile of the slope. They had arrived here by a kind of fairy ring of dead moss that they had found on one of the ancient paths through the decaying bocage that made up the layer of edges preceding this one, and had been lucky enough to discover a flat spot on the edge of the path where they could place their tent to rest for a few hours. Even she, who hardly needed any sleep, had had to close her eyes in exhaustion. The fact that Hermione was continuing with the same strength and determination was all the more impressive.
In this strange place, a twilight that reminded her of the first layer of edges came from the unfathomable and chaotic depths at the bottom of the slope, making it even more disturbing and inhospitable. And that was without mentioning the pale soul-eaters she could see lurking between the rocks, spying on their progress. Anna's soul must have attracted them, but her aura forced them to keep their distance. She would have loved to sink her fangs into the flesh of one of these abominations and devour the dislocated souls making up their being, but she didn't have time for that and couldn't allow herself to stray from the path. The soul eaters seemed to have understood this well, staying out of the way, only visible for a moment between two rocks, or by a reflection on their whitish eyes coming from a cavity in the slope.
Aster's legs were aching from all the walking, and she could see Hermione leaning more and more on her staff out of the corner of her eye, but luckily, according to the map, she should soon find the rift to their destination. The high monoliths of smooth white stone that were rare at first were becoming more and more numerous, which was a good sign, they would just have to find the right one. Her attention was diverted from her thoughts by Hermione's hand resting on her shoulder. "Aster, the soul eaters, the ones who've been following us since we got here, they've disappeared!"
She frowned and watched. Indeed, whereas since the start of their walk along the road to the scree slope, the soul-eaters had been following them like scavengers from a good distance, now there was not a single one anywhere near. Not even her cursed eye could make out the slightest trace of their passage. However, what her eye did allow her to notice was the powerful radiant magic in the distance. She sensed that whatever it was, it was big, but she was still unable to distinguish what it might be. "Hermione, I think something spooked them, look over there." She said as she pointed to the source of magic approaching at an alarming rate, the thing was vast, so far away, and yet she could make out its immensity.
"I can't see anything... wait, there's a dull grey shape in the distance in the air."
Aster froze, comprehension hitting her hard. That thing... "Hermione! It's a Khrè Yùjùl craft! Follow me! Quickly." She said as she ran towards a large rock just by the side of the path. She stuck her back to the rock and took out her scroll of magica diffusius and activated it without further ado, hoping it wasn't too late. Her magic moved across the array covering the scroll, twisting and shaping itself in the directions of the iron ink, reality twisting around it, until both were covered in a thin translucent veil.
Aster clung to Hermione, clasping her hand in hers, and cautiously rose to her knees, just enough to see over the rock. The Khrè ship was approaching fast, it was a long way off, and would pass over a kilometre away, yet from here she could feel the displacement of the air produced by the titanic craft. It must have been two or three kilometres long, its grey ceramic fuselage bulging with incongruous shapes. No light escaped from it, a sober titan hurtling incredibly fast above her. It would have been at this description that she would have stopped if she were unable to see magic, but through her eye, she was witnessing an entirely different spectacle. The ship was criss-crossed from front to back by veins of colour-changing magic, so bright it was blinding. Thousands and thousands of points of light studded the surface of the ship, whether they were dark openings so that the blind crew could feel and observe the magic outside, or various devices and artefacts.
The sight was one of terrifying splendour, all the more so when she saw the dozens of points of magic flying around the craft... Imperial Khrè golems, Aster swallowed, this wasn't a ship for exploration or trade, but one designed for war. What was this thing doing in this part of the edge?
After what seemed far too long, Aster finally saw the craft disappear into the distance. Too frightened by the possibility of being spotted by such a force, she preferred to wait a few more minutes after the last glimmer of magic from the thing was out of her sight before turning to Hermione.
She was huddled in the shadow of the rock, her staff clutched in her hands, her eyes closed tightly and her shoulders trembling. Aster, feeling the pressure off, leaned over Hermione and placed a quick, chaste kiss on her lips. She relaxed instantly, blinked and sighed deeply. "Is it over?" she asked with concern.
Aster smiled, "Yes, we're out of danger. It was a Khrè warship, I have no idea what it was doing there, I suppose..." She was interrupted by Hermione grabbing her by the collar of her cloak to pull her towards her and kiss her vigorously, her soft lips against hers, the sensation of a canine nibbling her lower lip... Aster was surprised at first, but soon returned the kiss, holding Hermione close to herself, both hands behind her back, one clutching her shoulder, the other at the base of her nape. They stayed like that for a while, losing themselves in each other, stopping only to let Hermione catch her breath. When they stopped, Hermione was short of breath, her pupils so dilated that her amber irises were no more than thin rings around dark wells. Aster leaned her forehead against Hermione's, gazing into her eyes. "There's more to not needing to breathe than I thought." She said with a smirk.
Hermione laughed before taking her in her arms for a moment to give her a little bite at the junction between her shoulder and her neck. Surprised, Aster gave a little cry and struggled weakly, laughing. "Hermione, stop teasing me, we have to leave."
"When all this is over, I want a week's rest, where you'll be all mine." Hermione grumbled as she released her from her embrace before standing up and dusting off her clothes, her cheeks pink from their intense moment.
"I promise," murmured Aster, taking her by the hand before resuming their journey.
oOOOo
They emerged in a crackle of dazzling light, Hermione almost tripping at the rough landing. "What on earth was that?" Hermione said, trying to regain her balance.
"The transition to the last layer of the selvedges is always difficult, I had to force my way through." Aster replied as she moved her fingers, trying without much success to calm herself down and make the little flashes of pure magic running through her skin finally stop. She had really forced her magic to make the portal stable enough so that they wouldn't both be disintegrated during the transition, leaving behind only their souls drifting towards the outer circles. A fate Aster had every intention of avoiding at all costs.
"It's beautiful," Hermione said after a moment.
Aster nodded. "It's the edge level that I prefer by far." The two of them were standing on a small island made up of the top of a flat basalt column just at the water's edge, in the middle of an infinitely vast lake whose shores she could not see. The water was so calm and flat that it looked like it was made of crystal. So smooth that it perfectly reflected the infinite sky studded with stars above them. The lake was so perfect that, looking towards the horizon, it was impossible to see the boundary between the water and the sky.
The path, if you could call it that, was made up of a series of almost entirely submerged basalt columns similar to the one she was standing on, the furthest ones invisible, almost merging with the surface of the lake once out of the dim light given off by the rune of light from Hermione's staff.
As she started forward, Aster's eyes searching for the cornflowers Janessra had mentioned would lead them to the caravans of the Ashog's fogs, Hermione was amazed. "I feel like I'm walking among the stars." She said elatedly.
Aster laughed, amused by Hermione's reaction, so similar to her own on her first trip to the starry lake. "You have no idea how right you are."
"They're not literally stars?!"
"No, but as you know, the deeper you go into the borders, the more space contracts. A few steps in the Asphodel meadows carries you several kilometres into the main plane of existence.
"Yes, you told me that a long time ago... wait, don't tell me that..."
"Here, every step we take corresponds to about one light year." Aster declared as she turned her gaze to Hermione, revelling in the shock of realisation on her face as her eyes roamed the millions of stars in the sky and reflected off the surface of the lake with new understanding.
"In four steps we'd be at Alpha Centauri..." Hermione murmured in awe.
"Alpha Centauri?" asked Aster.
"The nearest star system to ours, four point thirty seven light years away."
"We'd have passed it by now." Aster laughed, letting Hermione absorb the realisation as she continued to walk from basaltic column to basaltic column. The cornflowers... she wondered, scratching her head. The magic crystal that served as her map no longer indicated anything of interest to them, its only function being to guide them towards the lower or upper layer of the edges. Following it now would only lead them back to a fault line through which they could climb again.
She motioned for Hermione to stop. "There's no point in continuing, we have to understand what Janessra meant by that cryptic message about following the cornflowers to find Ashog's fogs." She said, taking out of her bag the 'letter of recommendation' that Janessra had given them. Aster sat cross-legged and put the letter and the map on the ground while Hermione held her chin, her eyebrows furrowed in thought. Aster looked at the letter, it was just a blank parchment rolled up and fastened with a thin blue ribbon. Had Janessra lied to them? No, Anna's return seemed to be in their best interests, given the deal they had got them to agree to.
Aster was beginning to despair when Hermione took the parchment from her hand, a glint in her eye. "Aster! I think I've got it, leave it to me." She said as she unrolled the parchment and held it open in front of her, her gaze riveted on the exasperating whiteness of the paper. Suddenly, Aster saw Hermione's magic discharge into the parchment, which charred in a flash of light, leaving only a cloud of dust on the ground.
"Hermione! What have you done?" Aster exclaimed in outrage.
"Wait!"
Aster stood still, perplexed. Nothing had changed around her. "What are you talking about, can't you see that..." Aster paused, the temperatureless air of the starry lake was getting colder and colder, steam forming with each of Hermione's exhalations. The water of the lake was slowly freezing, as an eerie mist rose around them. So much so that after a few minutes they could no longer see the stars, lost on the piece of basalt in the mist in the middle of the frozen water.
"Aster, the ground."
"What the..." the ground had become covered in ice cornflowers, which were beginning to emit a bluish glow. "They're coming, you were right Hermione."
In the middle of the mist, a series of white points of light approached, accompanied by a strange clicking sound, as if a thousand small spikes were hammering the ice. The thing approaching was large, its silhouette increasingly visible in the mist. It appeared to be an enormous scolopendre, some fifty metres long and over three metres high, made of white ceramic covered with bas-reliefs and engravings in strange and changing patterns. Its head was a dome pierced by eight kinds of luminous portholes, and numerous lanterns filled with small luminous white orbs hung from its sides. It was supported by hundreds of small mechanical legs, also made of ceramic, moving along the ground almost like a wave.
Aster stood ready, her staff clutched in her hand, not quite sure what to make of this... thing. Hermione was at her side, also wary and ready for battle. With a loud snap, the thing came to a halt, its legs anchored in the ice. After a long second of heavy silence, part of the mechanical creature's flank opened like a shutter being lifted, revealing a white light coming from it. Aster swallowed, both fascinated and worried by what she was seeing: inside the sides of the thing were dozens, no, hundreds of articulated white ceramic mannequins. Each of them represented a different species: Veelas, Matagots, Nagas, Centaurs, Humans, Yùjùl, but also many other creatures she had only heard of, or of which she was unaware.
A bluish fog much denser than the surrounding mists then emerged from a hidden part of the contraption and approached the mannequins before disappearing inside the one in human form. It then began to move, slowly and awkwardly at first before becoming agile and dexterous in its gait as it approached the kind of counter separating the inside of the machine from the outside. Aster was most uncomfortable, not knowing where to look as the mannequin's face was entirely smooth.
Then a timeless, disembodied voice sounded in the air. "Travellers, you have rung the cornflower bell, you have called us, but we do not recognise you."
Aster didn't have time to think about what to say, Hermione had already stepped forward, she was frightened, a discreet shiver running down her shoulders, the cold making her fingertips blue. "Janessra Kabahib-shinaq has recommended that we trade with you to find what we're looking for."
"Oh, new customers I see," the mannequin pulled out some kind of plate from under the counter and began tracing things on it with its finger. "Aster Karrasinqi Potter, Hermione Snow Granger, welcome. We are those of Ashog and we sell to those able to pay the price. We have many things from many worlds and many times. You want something specific, perhaps we could exchange it... tell us, what does your heart desire, little vampire, daughter of Lagaelis."
Aster felt a deep-seated fear rise up inside her, the thing knew their name, knew far too much. Ashog's fogs, she would have to be extremely careful with whatever this creature was. "You know our names, can we know yours?" She asked.
"We are known as the Fogs of Ashog in your land, and we go by many other names in many other languages, times and worlds. We do not have individual names, because we are no individuals. Is that enough for you?" Said the disembodied voice.
Aster nodded slowly, not really understanding what it meant. "We're looking for an iron chrysalidis." she said, seeing no reason to dilute the matter any further.
"The soul weaver, a powerful and rare artefact, um... oh we see, three souls for two bodies, that explains a lot. Yes, we have what you call an iron chrysalidis."
Aster swallowed, her throat dry, "What do you want in exchange, we can pay."
"Your currency is of no value to us, you have far more valuable things that interest us. We are prepared to give you the object of your desire in exchange for a memory of love and a memory of hate."
"What do you mean?" Hermione interjected, her face frightened.
"We have asked, we will take, and you shall have, just bring to the front of your mind the memories you wish to yield to us, we will see if they are suitable."
"Aster, are you sure this is a good idea?"
"We have no choice, we can't force the chrysalidis out of this thing, it's too powerful. I can feel it in my bones. Trust me, I've got a plan." She says, trying not to let her panic show.
"A love memory to start with, present it to us," said the disembodied voice insistently.
The first thing that came to Aster's mind was the sensation of Hermione's lips on hers some time earlier after having escaped the vigilance of the Khrè Yùjùl warship. The intense relief, the butterflies in her stomach from the affection, the warmth of Hermione in her arms, her soft form, the depth of her gaze, her... Aster fell to her knees, her body jerking in spasm, her mind suddenly empty, with the horrible feeling of having lost something forever without being able to even put her finger on what. She raised her head. "What have you done to me?"
The mannequin manipulated a translucent sphere of purple magic with pink and soft mauve accents with its fingertips before slipping it into a crystal vial which it placed under the counter. "You've paid the first half. It was a sumptuous memory. Now give us a memory of hatred."
Aster sat up painfully, her head aching, like electric pressure at the back of her eyes, a coppery taste on her tongue, tingling at the top of her nape. "I..." she began but Hermione interrupted her.
"Take the second half of the payment from my mind!" she exclaimed.
"Hermione! No !" But it was too late, a sphere of blue-black magic with grey reflections had already been torn from Hermione's forehead and slipped through the creature's fingers into a crystal vial, which also disappeared under the counter.
Hermione was prostrate on the floor on all fours, panting, her body visibly shaking, her fists clenched. Aster immediately fell to her side and hugged her.
"You have fulfilled your part of the bargain, here is the iron chrysalidis". The creature said as it levitated a strange metal object in their direction, until it dropped to the ground in front of her. Aster could see that it was brimming with magic. It was a kind of half-egg covered in runes, bordering on the microscopic, pulsating with magic like the beating of a heart.
"It's been a pleasure doing business with you, here's an invitation, don't hesitate to use it if you're ever looking for something special again and you're prepared to pay the price," at these words, a rolled parchment fell beside the chrysalidis and the side of the metallic scolopendre closed. Aster, clutching Hermione in her arms, saw the scolopendre start to move again, its hundreds of mechanical legs withdrawing from the ground, and the thing disappearing completely into the mists. With it, the ice cornflowers disappeared, the temperature returned to normal and the mist lifted, leaving the two of them once again alone on their little basalt platform in the middle of the immensity of the starry lake. The only traces of the creature were the parchment and the small metal object lying on the ground in front of her.
Hermione turned her face to hers, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I can't remember what I've forgotten," she whispered shakily. Aster held her tighter and placed a kiss on her lips before whispering, "We have the chrysalidis, we're only one step away from bringing Anna back. Thank you, Hermione."
A slight smile spread across Hermione's lips. "Whatever that thing was, I don't want to hear any more about it." She said as she stood up. "Come Aster, let's take the chrysalidis and go."
Aster nodded, and watched as Hermione began to walk with difficulty, leaning on her staff. She stuffed the iron chrysalis into her bag and prepared to get up. Then her lips pursed, and she hesitated for a moment before giving in to the urge and picking up the parchment.
oOOOo
The sun had just disappeared below the horizon of the English countryside on this summer's evening, and two hooded forms were trudging along a dirt path towards a small house isolated in the heart of a copse not far from a pond with gorse swaying in the night breeze. The two travellers were exhausted, the smaller of them walking ahead of the taller, leaning on her staff at every step, one of her eyes shining with a strange glow in the half-light.
As they approached, the windows of the house lit up with a welcoming orange glow, as if by magic. The door opened in front of them and a large ginger cat, with a squashed face more reminiscent of a small tiger than a cat, trotted out to rub against the leg of the taller of the two figures. The latter lifted the animal with a joyful cry of "Crookshanks!"
The duo entered, the door closing behind them. Aster sighed. "Thank you for looking after the house." She said quietly to the ever-invisible brownie. She took off her cape and tied it to the coat rack before taking off her shoes and replacing them with her slippers. She was exhausted, her limbs aching from the journey through the borders and the painful climb that had followed. Hermione had already entered the sitting room and collapsed on the sofa, Crookshanks in her lap, in front of the crackling fire in the hearth.
The house was clean and welcoming, Crookshanks well fed, two steaming mugs sitting on the lounge table next to the bundle of letters they must have received while they were away, proof that the Brownie enjoyed the house. She walked over to the letters and quickly sorted through three letters from Ethan, probably news of the Order of the Asphodel. A letter from Severus, perhaps he was worried, after all she had no idea how long their mission had taken. Oh, a letter from Sirius, that's right she'd managed to convince him to stay at one of the hospitals in Ulthar to recuperate from his years in Azkaban... A letter from Nepeta addressed to Hermione, letters bearing the seal of the Hanse of Svorak also addressed to Hermione...
Pff, she'd deal with all that when she could. She took their two mugs and headed for the sofa. "Hermione, you've got mail ... Hermione? Oh..." A tender smile spread across Aster's face, Hermione had fallen asleep on the sofa, Crookshanks curled up in a ball on her lap. The journey had been exhausting, especially for her. It was, after all, her first time in the edges.
She took a blanket and snuggled up to Hermione before covering the three of them. Her mug in her hand, the iron chrysalidis in her pocket, the Philosopher's Stone safely in her desk, Anna's soul around her neck. All the elements were there. Her gaze wandered to the flames, her mind conjuring up the sight of Anna's face smiling at her in the fire.