"let me down slowly"
Elisabeth sat still, watching her. Ikharos paced and glanced out the windows. Both were tense. Only Ikharos was allowing that tension to manifest as tightly-controlled animation, slowly looking around and quite carefully inspecting their surroundings - clearly concerned that they might not be alone. A concern she could empathise, sympathise with. Elisabeth, though, Elisabeth just sat still, so carefully still, and her false-eyes hadn't once turned or blinked. She didn't even breathe. Her steel skin was set in place and it did not shift.
Formora kept the pair of them in her line of sight as she topped up her glass and took another sip. The wine was sweet on her tongue and it settled warmly, instilling her with the bravery to air thoughts that would have otherwise gone unspoken. It gave her the strength to keep listening - politely, to let herself bask in the ridiculousness of it all rather than worry for what she was certain was next to come.
"-name is Elisabeth Bray," the steel woman was saying. "Of House Bray. Granddaughter of Clovis Bray I."
"Last bearer of his godforsaken legacy," Ikharos muttered.
Elisabeth's pale eyes flashed dangerously, but she did not even look at him. Her fingers dug into the arms of her chair and her stance, even sitting, was stiff and attentive. She was angry with him, Formora observed. And he with her - though the reasons for both were unclear. "I'm an Exomind," Elisabeth continued. "Once human, now... this. It was my grandfather's work - part of his search for immortality."
Formora glanced at Ikharos out of the corner of her eye, her interest piqued. He had stopped by the south-facing window again, gazing at the Scorn below with... well, a scornful expression. His irises shone again, fainter than before but with the same definitive purple glow - replacing their dull, steely grey. His pale face was almost gaunt, weathered into whip-sharpness by a hard life, and his iron eyes, oh they were hard indeed, so full of wariness and suspicion it was as if he'd been playing at the same game as her for centuries on end. He, at least, seemed to understand how things worked, human though he was. It was a genuine surprise to her that he entirely lacked elven features; his visage was too rugged, his frame too robust, he even had a short well-groomed beard as auburn as the long hair he had bundled up in a messy bun. He moved with the same unerring grace fit for one of älfya-blood, the same well-balanced gait, even the minute effeminate mannerisms - and though for a human he was slighter of form, he was still more broadly built than her. He had the wiry, stubborn physique of a bare-knuckled pit-fighter. It was easier to notice up close, with his broad-winged helmet nowhere to be seen.
"Immortality," Formora mused. "Like him?"
"Oh, if only," Ikharos commented. He didn't look at either of them; merely sipped from his own glass with his gaze pinned to undead creatures below.
"Not like him, no," Elisabeth said slowly, "but it has put us on the same side in the grand scheme of things."
Formora looked down at her glass and swished it slightly, watching the wine swirl. "You aren't his."
"... You mean the king's."
"You've heard of him. You know all about me." Formora looked back up. "How?"
Elisabeth studied her. "Because," she started to say, "I've already experienced this life before."
Formora took another drink and sighed. "Please, do go on."
"I know it's hard to believe, but... a force has been compelling, is compelling me to return to the same point in time - because in every iteration we lose. All of us. Everyone currently alive."
"What do we lose?"
"Everything," Elisabeth said, the metal plates of her face contorting into a severe expression. "We lose everything, Formora. Our lives, our future, our worlds and cities and peoples - and we lose the Light, all of it, until all that's left is the Dark and the things that are born from it."
Formora leaned back. "Light?"
"Yes."
"You foresee that we lose access to the sun above? To... this? Garjzla," Formora said. (Light.) A ball of dull yellow glow appeared in the air between them, hanging on invisible strands of magic. Ikharos's head whipped around and he stared with naked confusion and endless suspicion - and that, somehow, was something that bewildered her more than anything either of them had said thus far, almost more than Elisabeth's very appearance, almost as much as the twisted, undying things outside. Formora cut the spell short, slicing through those arcane strands, and the light flickered out.
"I don't foresee anything," Elisabeth retorted evenly. "I live it. And no, I don't mean that kind of light - but that follows soon after if they have their way."
"Who?" Formora challenged coolly. "After who has their way? Galbatorix? His pets?"
"Neither."
"She means the Black Fleet and their proxies," Ikharos bluntly cut in.
Formora shifted, leaning on the end of the couch and propping her chin up onto her knuckles. "And who, pray tell, are they?"
"The end," Ikharos replied. "The heat-death of the universe given a new, more definitive shape. Apparently you've already met one of the Fleet's sycophants."
Formora raised an eyebrow. "I have, have I?"
"In the alley I caught up to you," Elisabeth said.
"Agnisia?" Though Formora had turned her gaze to Elisabeth, she hadn't missed how the mere mention of the name cause Ikharos to stiffen in place and his breathing to momentarily halt. Oh, if she'd truly been intoxicated, she might have dared to call him out on it; as it was she still clung to some notions of reserved tact. "Or Skuldu?"
"Neither," Elisabeth replied. "No, I mean the creature that attacked you. That stung you."
Formora's empty hand rose unbidden to the back of her neck, where there was nary a mark but all the memory of the small, sharp pain - from whence the feeling of numbness and powerlessness had stemmed from. Buried in her own body. Living death. More fortunate a fate than what had befallen Enduriel - accursed, sorely missed Enduriel - but no more welcome. "You knew what it was," she accused.
Elisabeth nodded. Slowly. "I do."
"You've offered it your 'apologies'?"
"I have."
"And is it amenable?"
"She didn't say much. It's hard to tell. But she didn't strike me down, so I'm assuming she's in good mood."
"Does that ever happen?" Ikharos asked from by the window, back to watching the Scorn. "Does she ever kill you?"
Elisabeth shifted, slightly, and glanced at him. "Rarely," she said, openly choosing her words carefully. "Only ever if you've gone too far."
"It's my fault, then. Obviously."
"It's you they'll watch."
"So you're hoping they'll grow bored?"
"I'm hoping they'll let you live long enough for you to get your bearings."
"Is that why we're here?" Ikharos questioned.
Elisabeth exhaled. "Exactly."
"I don't mean this world. I mean here - in this building, with her." Ikharos barely looked at her. Formora carefully glanced between them; she wasn't yet sure of the dynamic between the two, but it was a paradoxical cross between begrudging respect and bitter frustration. Not friends, not quite, Formora judged, but they knew each other well enough - certainly more so on Elisabeth's part. Familiarity strained by pride and ego and futile necessity.
"Does she know?" Ikharos continued. "About them?"
"Not likely. They don't much care for mortal matters unless it disturbs their blood-tithe."
"Blood-tithe?" Ikharos half-turned. "What are you saying?"
"That we've crashed in on a stalemate and neither side's budging. You could be the push one of them needs to best the other."
"Whose blood-tithe, Elisabeth?"
"Those who came here willingly." Elisabeth gave him a daring look. "I'm not giving you what you want to hear."
"I don't understand why. You've already warned me."
"And how often do you heed warnings?"
Ikharos didn't reply. The furious smoulder in his eyes was fascinating.
"I'm just... You've fought one of theirs before," Elisabeth said. "You should understand why I'm so concerned."
"I'm careful."
"No, you're not. Just because you survived one-"
"It took everything I had to bring him down. Everything." Something dark flickered between his flexing fingers, like twisting mass woven through with thin strands of yellow lightning. "But I can use that against them."
"Different tools," Elisabeth said. "Different purposes. You're carrying a claymore into a knifefight."
"Fucking hell, can you give me something?!"
"There's a beach to the west of this place. It's locked into a memory. Your Deepsight will tip it over the line. You might find its contents interesting."
"I've already run through a memory of this place," Ikharos said more softly.
"I saw."
"It didn't make sense."
"That's why we're here." Elisabeth gestured to Formora. "Simply ask."
Ikharos looked at her, his brow furrowed. "You said we were just checking up on her."
"And-
"She looks fine enough. Better than fine; never seen someone look so good at the end of their tether." He glanced away, once more to the Scorn. "I should head back."
Elisabeth rolled her pale eyes. "You kick and scream for someone to tell you everything, but the moment I invite you to ask questions you run away."
"I've been asking you questions."
"When you should be asking her."
Ikharos reluctantly turned to her. "You were in the city."
"I… yes, I was," Formora answered, not a little confused.
"The radiation was thick there. How did you survive?"
"The radia- the poison in the air?" Formora questioned. "I warded myself."
"Warded?"
"See?" Elisabeth murmured. "You need to familiarize yourself."
Ikharos's jaw tightened. He looked as if he were going to say something - then blanched and ducked his head, closed his eyes. A shudder ran through his frame. "I... I'll be a moment," he rasped, and all but hurried for the door. Formora idly watched as one of his hands reached under his robes and pulled out a phial of something-
And he then was out of sight, closing the door behind him.
Elisabeth stared after him, her frustration having mellowed by some margin. "Ass," she muttered, though not unsympathetically.
"Is he ill?" Formora gingerly inquired.
"Of sorts," Elisabeth replied. She settled back into her chair. "An ailment of the spirit. It's not contagious."
"Mm," Formora hummed. She tipped her glass back and drained the rest of the wine. "Why are you here?"
"For the exact reasons I specified," Elisabeth replied. "To make sure you're alright. And hopefully to help him realize his new situation."
"You believe us friends."
"We were. Once."
Formora put her cup aside and worried at her lip. "I don't believe you," she decided.
"No?"
"I've seen many strange things in the past day and night - and I ache for simpler times, I do - but this is too much. You are too much."
"So is he."
"His face is flesh and blood. His eyes are real. You are not."
"Eka eddyr iluma," Elisabeth said. Her words were flowing, fluent, smooth. She wielded the ancient language well. "Hvaëtall eka ilerneo er iluma. Du endir er kuasta. Älfr achí néiat thorta medh eyddr eïnradhinr. Eka kenna hvaët onr flutningr. Eka kenna hvaët onr hirzla heill. Eka kenna du hlutr onr faedhír gegnr. Eka kenna." (I am real. Everything I say is real. The end is coming. He did not speak falsely. I know what you carry. I know what you keep safe. I know the thing you fight against. I know.)
Formora tilted her head. She tried not to let her surprise show. "You truly believe that."
"I do."
"But nothing you do or say will make me believe you."
"You're a sceptic. Understandably so. But what else could explain me?"
Formora ruminated on that. "I've been here some forty years," she said at last. "Though scry I might, the happenings of the continent are beyond my means to watch over. You could be the creation of dark magic. You could be a steel-child of the dwarves."
"Is it so impossible that I could be human?"
"I don't know. Perhaps. But the rest? Surely not. Nothing has that power."
"To do what?"
"Break time. Become immortal."
Elisabeth glanced at the window. "You know what they can do."
"They're hardly alive in the first place," Formora protested.
"But they used to be." Elisabeth paused. "Even if not anymore."
"What were they?" Her mouth felt suddenly dry. She recalled teeth, rotting flesh, jagged hands slick with blood and worse. Alive?
"People. Like you and I."
"What happened to them?"
"A dragon." Elisabeth looked back at her. "That's why he hates them - the Scorn. And their creator's kind. It was just another excuse he picked up to kill the thing that made them."
Formora stood up and walked to the window. She heard... the wet rip of flesh tearing. The snap of bones cracking. The muffled grunts of something hitting the ground hard. And when she looked outside - she saw Ikharos undoing all her work, pulling the Scorn one by one off their posts and throwing them to the earth. His hands were alight with purple fire and as they waved over each ghoulish beast the Scorn were reduced to nothing. Not even ash. Not even a wisp of smoke. Just... sudden absences melting from reality with thinning screams.
He looked up, then. Saw her. And she saw him - the glow in his eyes and the grim expression etched across his face.
"He doesn't know the language," she heard herself say. "But that's magic."
"Not the same as yours," Elisabeth told her.
"Why is he killing them? Why now?"
"He's as new to everything here as you. Only in reverse. They're the only things he understands. His hate for them, for the creature that designed them - that's natural to him. More than the very world we stand on."
"A dragon..." Formora whispered. "I've known their wild magic to take many terrible shapes, but this-"
"Not... a dragon as you would know it," Elisabeth assured her. "though he won't care for the difference yet. And that's a danger, as soon as he recognizes the connection."
"I am... I was a-"
"I know. But he doesn't. Not yet."
"And what will he do once he does?"
"To you? Nothing." Elisabeth paused. "But this isn't about your own wellbeing, is it?"
"No."
"Keep them close."
Formora stepped away from the window, quickly walked to the room adjoining the dining quarters and fetched her bags. She checked them over, hushed Agaravel the moment she began to whisper senseless drivel and paused.
"He can see them already," Elisabeth called out. "That potion he drank? It helps him see magic. Even the wild sort. Keep them under close watch."
Formora picked up her largest bag, drew out her sword and returned to her prior perch - laying out the bag beside her, under her direct scrutiny. Elisabeth watched but ultimately did nothing. Ikharos returned before long, the glow gone from his hands and eyes - though the latter were still too sharp by some margin. He looked at her, looked at the bag beside her and then back to her again.
"Dare I ask?" he all but whispered, voice rough. He looked almost haggard - as if he'd aged another decade in the time since he'd walked out the door.
"Is everything alright?" Elisabeth questioned with honest concern.
Ikharos grimaced. "What do you think? No."
"You're running out."
"I had something for it. Charged with radiant Light. A better Sunsinger than I gave it to me. It was supposed to last the trip."
"... Yes," Elisabeth said, averted her gaze. "It should've."
"Why is it gone?"
"Because she," Elisabeth gestured to her, "was beset by a Disciple."
"That doesn't answer my question." Ikharos scowled. "We're all expendable, Elisabeth. You've made that clear. Hell, I even agree with you - I am expendable. But why, oh why, was using my medicine so necessary?"
"Because your comfort isn't worth her life."
Ikharos blinked with surprise. Formora had to fight off the same urge. "But the sample I studied-" he started to say.
"It lasts indefinitely," Elisabeth interrupted. "Would you rather she remain like that forever?"
"We do the same thing to people who rub us wrong."
"We do not."
"Yes, Elisabeth, we do. We freeze people with Stasis. At least the venom lets them feel the wind on their skin."
"We're also in this for her sake. For the sake of everyone here. Or have you forgotten what you are?"
"I know exactly what I am," Ikharos said in a low voice. "But what I don't know is what here even is - because you won't tell me."
"Now that's not fair. I just haven't told you about them."
"They're the things I need to know about most."
"Why?"
"So I can kill them!" Ikharos snapped. "We're at war. You should know that better than anyone."
"Oh, I do." Elisabeth's eyes flashed. "They'll kill you. This is their world. You have to understand that before anything else."
"Then what the hell is happening here?"
"I would like to know the same," Formora cut in. Both of them gave her a surprised look, as if they'd forgotten she was even there. "What is happening?"
Elisabeth glanced between the two of them. "A turf war," she said. "One the Witness grows tired of. They're being called to action - to the real war. But they can't. Not as is. This world was designed to be a comfortable prison and they can't escape it. No one can. Not yet."
"Then why," Ikharos said with a grimace, "are we here?"
"To make sure they don't get out," Elisabeth told him. She turned to Formora. "And to cut out their influence from the local populace root and stem."
Formora frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You're supposed to be more cutthroat than that," Ikharos said, ignoring her.
Elisabeth afforded him a rueful smile. "I know. But we're stuck here, the three of us - and that's not even considering the Cabal you fished up. We have to make do with what we can."
"Elisabeth," Ikharos said. "Where are we?"
"Kepler-186f."
"And where is Kepler-186f?" He paused. "No. That's not the right question, is it? What is the nature of the anomaly that took it away?"
"There we go," Elisabeth said softly. "The nature of the anomaly... is to contain."
"Someone built it."
"Yes."
"To keep everyone inside."
"Exactly."
"To imprison Disciples of the Witness." Ikharos looked around, deep in thought, and though his eyes lingered on the bag containing the silver stone and Agaravel, it soon passed over to Formora. "Not her."
"No," Elisabeth replied, though it did nothing to assuage her growing confusion.
"Are there others like her?"
Elisabeth looked at Formroa.
"Yes," Formora heard herself say. "Some tens of thousands."
Her answer elicited a troubled look. " Just tens of thousands? But the colony ship could've carried-"
"Of älfya," Elisabeth clarified. "Of baseline humans that number is far, far higher. They haven't all evolved."
"Millions," Formora added. "The humans reside in their teeming masses across the mainland's coast, hiding behind walled cities."
"Cities..." Ikharos echoed, trailing off. "That's... a lot of people."
"More than home, I know," Elisabeth said. "And that's not even considering the other neohumans."
Ikharos glanced at Formora. "There are others?"
"Three distinct sub-types altogether. The älfya, the knurlan, and the urgralgra."
"Elves, dwarves, urgals," Formora automatically translated. "Though the urgal numbers are likely diminished and the dwarves as well, given the radical environment after the Fall. Both were hunted and chased from human lands."
"True," Elisabeth acknowledged, "but they still outpopulate the elves."
"Of course they do. They spawn like rodents and live only so long. Mayflies."
Ikharos's frown broke and the corners of his lips quirked up. "Mayflies spend most of their lives as nymphs," he said. "The myth's a sham. They live long for fragile insects all things considered."
Formora raised an eyebrow. "That makes it all the more applicable, does it not? Seldom but in their waning years do they exhibit any degree of wisdom, and by then it is too late. Their lives are short enough besides."
"How long?"
"As long as the humans. Only a little longer in the case of the dwarves."
Ikharos nodded in understanding. "And your... alfya?"
"Älfya," Formora corrected, wincing for his butchery of the language.
"Älfya," he said. It was a minor improvement. "They - you - live longer?"
"Of course." Formora tilted her head. "You really do not know what I am?"
"No more than you do me," Ikharos retorted. He glanced back to Elisabeth. "Though that's hardly the most pressing matter at hand."
"You'd be surprised," Elisabeth muttered. She raised her voice. "It wasn't the colonists who constructed the pocket space."
"So it is a pocket dimension," Ikharos murmured. He worried at his lip. "Great. And there's no way out?"
"None."
"And whatever made it - did it do so from within?"
Elisabeth nodded.
"Why?"
"Because they couldn't hope to escape. Only force a stalemate."
"But that doesn't... why?" Ikharos paused. "They were... pursued by Disciples of the Witness?"
"Yes."
"The thing that attacked me," Formora said carefully, her interest piqued. "That is what you refer to as a... Disciple?"
"Oh yes," Elisabeth confirmed.
"But why the chase?" Ikharos pressed urgently. "And who are they chasing? What were they chasing? What necessitates more than one Disciple to be here? The Subjugator was enough to stand guard over High Coven, at least when the Dark held power there, but... how many again?"
"Three or four," Elisabeth told him.
"Why three or four? You aren't sure of how many?"
"I say three or four because that number entirely hinges on what we do next. Our actions can expedite the process - or stall it."
"Is that what they wanted? To raise a new member?"
Elisabeth cocked her head to the side. "What do you think?"
Ikharos mulled it over. "No," he said at length. "They wanted a prize. Not competition."
"And what's the grandest prize of all? You know this already."
"The grandest prize..." Ikharos paused and grew serious. "The grandest prize of all is the truth. Or rather the ability to decide what is true. And what is not."
"You listened well."
"I'm not deaf. And She..." Ikharos scowled. "Cretin that She was, She made some valid points. But that doesn't... what decides the truth? Not always the Light. The Light's good for many things, but it's a veil over our eyes half the time."
Formora poured herself another glass of wine. She didn't bother interrupting them; it was tantalizing enough to simply watch as opposed to listen. Oh it was bothersome - she didn't care for how they'd all but invaded her newest hideaway - but it was a break from the blood-pumping mundanity that had plagued her stay on Vroengard, and she had wished to be bothered besides, hadn't she? Elisabeth in particular was an entertaining case - her facial cues were odd, given the lack of flexibility boasted by her metal features, but she made do in the strangest ways, expressing herself through the shift of steel plates and the twist of glowing eyes. Even the inside of her mouth lit up as she spoke. She was bright. A spectacle all on her own.
"Not the Light," Ikharos decided. "The real weight for truth in High Coven was Deepsight. Memory."
"Yes."
"But that's not the only way to shift the truth. She tried them all, and each of them fell through for her. That was why She failed, why She died. She tried altering the rules via a new paracausal system by hijacking the temporal vortex of a black hole. The Worms caught on, if the..." He paused. "If the dreams were right, if that... witch was telling the truth."
"They did."
"She even tried wishing. On a dragon." Ikharos's expression grew severe. Formora paused, the glass against her lips, and she lowered it carefully - but he was not looking at her, nor in the direction Agaravel and the stone. "Memory, paracausality, a dragon. Those decide the truth. They're not infallible, but they're the best tools in all the universe for the job. These Disciples are hunting for one of those."
Hunting for a dragon?
"What if I were to say it was all three?" Elisabeth inquired.
Ikharos stalled. "Fuck," he breathed at last.
Formora set her glass down. "What's this about a dragon?"
"Elisabeth's saying these Disciples are here for a dragon. To use it... I don't know how, or why, but that's..."
Formora frowned as a thought struck her. "When did these Disciples arrive? With you?"
"Not us," Ikharos replied. "Elisabeth?"
Elisabeth grimaced. "Some eight thousand years ago."
"That's..." Formora trailed off. "Nevermind."
Elisabeth appraised her. "You were thinking about the Shade, weren't you?"
"Yes," she admitted. "If they wanted a dragon, then there was no better way than through Galbatorix."
"What's this Shade?" Ikharos paused. "Like the Hive spell? Separating one's soul from their body?"
"Close," Elisabeth told him. "Only on a grander scale here."
"And this Galbatorix? Who's th-" Ikharos cut off and his irises briefly flashed yellow, geometric lines lighting up amidst the grey. He cocked his head to the side, as if listening for something, then straightened up. "I have to go," he announced. "Cabal are getting restless. I need to give them something to do, keep them productive."
"You best do that, then." Elisabeth stood.
"But we have to continue this conversation soon." Ikharos glanced at Formora and offered a nod. "Thanks for the drink."
Formora inclined her head. It was the polite thing to do, though she was glad for his departure. His magic, his nonsensical words - it had begun to set her on edge. Ikharos gave Elisabeth another meaningful look before turning on his heel and marching out of the villa. Formora expanded her mind and felt for his consciousness, pulling back when she felt the sheer defences arrayed around his own thoughts, and she observed as it began to fade the further he walked - until eventually he was beyond her means to pick out.
By then Formora had realized she couldn't find any trace of Elisabeth's own mind, though the woman had retaken her seat opposite her and was in the midst of helping herself to what remained of Ikharos's glass of wine.
"I can't..." Formora started to say. Elisabeth looked at her curiously. "I can't feel you."
"Oh, that." Elisabeth sat back, legs crossed, and drank. It was... odd to watch. Her lips were steel like the rest of her face and unmalleable, but they separated well enough to pour the wine in. She even swallowed. Some part of Formora had believed that a metal creature like her would have been more at home nibbling on some ore or perhaps a refined alloy; it struck her, then, that that assumption was likely ridiculous. Where was the vitality to be gleaned from dead rock? "It's nothing."
"Is that the case for all your kind?" Formora questioned.
"Hm? Oh. No, not at all. Exos are as human as the rest, just with some firewalls in place. I'm... this is intentional. I couldn't leave my mind exposed. I can't." Elisabeth's eyes shut off, stopped glowing for all of a moment. "The Black Fleet has Psions of its own, now."
"Psions?"
"One-eyed telepaths, most of them human-sized. Ikharos has some with him."
"I... believe I met some," Formora said at length. "They were with him when they found me by his ship. Three. They wore glowing cloaks and horned helms.
Elisabeth nodded. "That sounds like them."
"They felt for the edges of my mind, but they did not strike me."
"No? Then you likely have Ikharos to thank. Imperial Psions aren't so unlike their Cabal counterparts; they're just as domineering, but quieter about it."
"It's them you're hiding your thoughts from?"
"Mostly."
"Who taught you this?" Formora inquired. "It's not an insignificant skill to have."
"You did," Elisabeth pointedly replied.
Formora stilled. "I?"
"Far down the line from here, some iterations back. I thought it was clever when you presented it to me. It was after..." Elisabeth exhaled. "It was after the Ikharos of that iteration had died."
"Oh?"
"We were... under heavy psychic pressure. You compounded on his nullscape - his Void-based mental blocks - and you introduced some other effects I wouldn't have dared attempt." Elisabeth tilted her head. "Would you like to know how to do it?"
"In exchange for what?"
"Nothing."
Formora stared at her with growing confusion. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why... why did you save me? Why are you offering to help me?"
"Because you helped me before," Elisabeth told her. "And because you're a good person in the perfect position to help us. He doesn't know it yet, Ikharos, but he doesn't know much of anything around here and that scares him. A scared Ikharos is prone to making irreparable blunders. He'll tear everything down just so he can build it back up again in a way he understands - and they'll destroy him for trying."
"These Disciples?" Formora guessed.
"Them and others under their thumb. You might know some of them."
"The Shade," Formora murmured. "He who influenced the king?"
Elisabeth wordlessly dipped her head.
"That's…" She wanted to say preposterous. Formora just shook her head. "Is that what you're here for?"
"To put it bluntly: we're here to reduce the threat this world poses."
"You say that like you're not part of this world."
"Not originally, no," Elisabeth said. She took another sip.
Formora frowned. "You aren't?"
"I think I've told you this before. I'm from Sol. Planet Earth. Same as Ikharos."
"And those with him?"
"The Cabal? No. They hail from Torobatl - or another colony of their grand empire. The Psions are descended from those born on the moon of Brand."
"A moon?"
"Yes. A moon. I think it orbited a gas giant."
"Worlds. Moons." Formora closed her eyes. "Madness."
MADNESS COMES FROM THE STARS, Agaravel suddenly crowed, roaring into the recesses of Formora's mind. IT SINKS, SINKS, SINKS RIGHT TO THE OCEAN FLOOR. SETTLES LIKE SMOKE UNDER THE WATER.
"Hush," Formora urged her. "Hush, Agaravel. Keep your nonsense to yourself." When she turned back, she found Elisabeth smiling faintly. "What?"
"She's not wrong."
Formora scoffed. "She's as mad as you are."
"She's aware of far more than you give her credit for."
"She is mad, and that is the end of it."
"That's what he would say," Elisabeth muttered, then inhaled sharply. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean t-"
Formora froze. Her high spirits evaporated in an instant. "Do not compare me to that... swine. I am not him. I will never be like him. Her will is free. As is the-" she cut herself off, the anger rising up, roaring in her ears
Elisabeth averted her gaze. "My words were chosen poorly."
"Yes," Formora bit out. "They were."
"But Galba-"
"Get out," Formora snapped. "Get out before I lose my patience with you."
Elisabeth stood up and deposited her glass onto the table. "Je suis désolé," she murmured. It was not a language Formora understood, though it was quickly followed by, "Älf ero rangur abr edtha eom ilerneo sem. Eka weohnataí líki eom ilerneo ósjaldan, jótr, mar ëfa ono threyja húsa thenaer eka weohnata taka älf eom ono." (It was wrong of me to say as much. I would like to talk soon again, but if you desire space then I will give it to you.)
Formroa coldly watched her as she raised her hood up and walked through the door, quickly closing it after her - and then she was alone again.
Alone.
But for one mad dragon and another-
No. No. No use mulling on that. Formora heaved a sigh and leaned back. She helped herself to another delirious serving of wine and drank her confusion, her regret and anxiousness away. If the beast was crippled, then that was yet more cause for celebration - and even alone it tasted like sugary sweetness. Another freedom, bought for a time with one more life not her own.
As sweet as death. As sweet as gentle desolation, a slow undignified end. As sweet as dying alone, without that voice in the back of her head eagerly begging her to come out for a flight, a quick one, we'll sail through the clouds and touch the heavens. As sweet as hitting the ocean, feeling bones crack and the air whoosh out of colossal lungs, feeling the last remainder of being cut away, as swimming to shore alone and bloody and again alone. (She tried to remember but nameless things always remained voiceless.)
As sweet as sickly rot.
The hours passed by. Formora had dug out incense, more wine, even clumps of soil and a jug of filtered water to plant a couple of seeds and watch her magic take shape - blooming as vibrant flowers and padded leaves and delicate green stems. She stuffed some of those leaves into a pipe engraved with vines and she set it alight with but a whispered word, filling her mind with the spice of sparkling smoke. It felt good to ignore the urge to be quiet, to be still, don't move and don't let it find you. It felt better than good; her newest freedom was a bitter joy and she was content to ride it out all night long.
Agaravel spoke to her in the long dark hours. Not with words but with feeling, and on occasion Formora humoured the old dragon - tapping into memories of a life she'd taken, the sensations of a fearsome form she'd personally brought down. It hurt and it humbled and it filled her with the prickly-hot feeling of regret - and she felt glad for it, grateful, content at least that Agaravel had no rage left with which to cut her. That had been bled out of her a long time ago. Out of them both, nearly. Formora could have simmered in hate for an age and a half - but the reality of her situation had long since settled, only she hadn't cared to acknowledge it. Not until Enduriel had passed.
(Just them, now. Just the two of them and a hope that would never hatch.)
In the moonlight that filtered through the glass-spun windows Formora urged life to thrive beneath her fingers. She'd set the wine aside and even the smouldering leaves, satisfied with the starry fugue they'd left her in. She wove and wove and wove until at last she had a tri-faced flower - a rose, a chrysanth, and dahlia. The thorns pricked her palms and they supped from the blood that welled, but she paid them no mind, far too caught up in her work to notice. Or care. Formora did not stop until her voice cracked and the twisting flower stood near eye-level.
And then she took the energy she'd spent on it back - siphoning it from the plant and leaving it withered and dead. It crumbled to dust before her very eyes, reduced to nothing but decaying matter.
A howl split the air, so distant and muted Formora did not immediately process it - and when she did her dazed state all but strangled the flicker of panic before it could spread to the rest of her mind and fill her veins with primal poison. It was Scorn. It had to be Scorn. It sounded like the Scorn she had already crossed, if deeper. Formora stood up, walked to the window and overlooked the field from which the other Scorn had hung from their poles. She saw the beast there, hiking up towards the place they'd died, and it was still dripping with seawater. It was mostly bare like the others but for a loincloth and a helmet, but this one had leather straps drawn over its wrists and much heavier pauldrons bolted to its shoulders. It even had a cloak, bearing the colours of bruise blue, pus yellow and malicious purple. It settled down on all four- no, all six limbs and scurried over to the poles, inspecting them blindly, sniffing at their bases and then to where Ikharos had dragged the dead things off. It raised its head and looked around - and for a moment its eyeless gaze settled on the villa, on the window, on her before moving on.
It didn't see her. It couldn't see her. Formora didn't know why. How did it sense things?
The Scorn huffed and growled and pulled something over its back - a crude device of rough iron and tarnished bronze, not unlike the crossbow of the one from the night before but lacking the same frame. It began stalking in an easterly direction, moving quickly, and soon Formora lost sight of it entirely.
She waited for a time. Listened. Watched. Until she heard the squeal of an animal warped by the poison in the air and she watched as a doe with two heads fused together galloped back across the field - and it shrieked, kicking wildly as the Scorn caught up to it, leaping onto its back and breaking its spine through sheer weight. The undead thing dragged the flailing animal across the ground, rolled it over and gave a gruff snarl as a hoof hit its chest and cracked right through its fragile sternum rendered soft by decomposition. It tore the offending limb away with a wrench of its claws and thrust its frightening head to the doe's throat, tearing out its windpipe with a sickeningly wet noise. The doe shuddered and its struggles began to slow until it finally fell still altogether - dead by shock or bloodloss or some combination of the two.
And the Scorn began eating. It ripped open the deer's belly, shoved its hands into its ribcage and pulled its heart free - which it devoured with relish. Blood coated its mandibles, its jaws, and drippled richly red from its many needle-sharp teeth.
Sick, Agaravel murmured.
The Scorn's head snapped up.
"Sick," Formora quietly agreed.
It stared at them. The world thinned to them - her, Agaravel, and the beast outside. It rose to its full size, easily as tall as a Kull and infinitely more frightening, and it rolled its heavy shoulders. Gone was the wind, gone was the soft rustle of the sea, gone was the low creaking deep in the earth and-
Formora froze and listened more closely. Creaking. Creaking, she heard. The Scorn must have heard her thinking because it took a step forward, a step closer, and it picked its weapon up from by the butchered doe's side. It raised it up, taking aim. Formora didn't move. Why bother. Why not-
A pool of infinite black yawned open beneath the Scorn and it fell through, too fast to even yell - and if it had, the sheer din of creaking, of stone, earth and bedrock swaying with some otherworldly force would have completely muffled it. The pool disappeared, melted away, and the ground left in its wake was... the same. Undisturbed. Unbroken but for the footsteps of the Scorn - and they had suddenly stopped. No blue mist. Nothing.
Formora watched for another while, but creaking faded away. She returned to the couch, laid across it and closed her eyes - and waited the rest of the night out.
She was surprised to wake up at all. A part of her had been certain that something else would find her, that she wouldn't be alive to see the sun rise again - but there it was, hanging on the eastern horizon and gradually rising up. Of the Scorn there was no sign, none at all. Even the stench of it had dissipated, scattered to the winds. The doe remained, blanketed over with a swarm of thick-shelled shorecrabs.
Formora lurched away from the window and towards the kitchen; her head ached and the light hurt her eyes. After a mortal lifetime's worth of abstaining, a night of delight had left her full of morning regrets. She prepared a fixture - a mix of freshwater and raw energy siphoned from an enhanced gem purpose-built for powering incantations - and she drank it before the vitality in it could fade away. It suffused her tired muscles and muffled thoughts with a newfound vigor for life, to keep striding forward, to keep going. It woke her up properly and gave Formora the clarity to look at herself, her situation and realize for the umpteenth time that she still had nowhere to go.
"Only now fate is laughing at me," she mused.
Agaravel cackled from the other side of the villa. Fate! she crowed. Fate-fall-break-keepsake. Gather up the pieces, stitch them together. Mask the past.
"Enough of that," Formora urged her, gliding back into the main room. "You prattle."
Two become one, Agaravel intoned. Two visit one. Two fall upon one's-
"Agaravel, enough. I do not wish to hear it." Formora took up her bags and deposited them once more in the back of the villa, where she was more confident they would remains secure. After that she redressed, found the small personalised library - the life's work of a retired Rider or elven caretaker, she presumed. There were tomes aplenty to choose from, far more than the ashes left in the ruins of the ransacked archives of Doru Araeba, but little of it was of any tactical worth and only a few pertained to magic of any sort. Formora diligently read through each work all the same, taking breaks only to practise the spells she found within.
At last a time-capsule lodged in the mantle above the fireplace dinged as the sun reached its zenith. Formora rose out of the study, donned her spidersilk cloak and stepped out of the villa. The hamlet, she saw, was clear. No Scorn, none of those Psion creatures, no visitors of any sort. It was disarmingly quiet, but was no departure from the norm. The scent of blood was still strong and the skies were clear, if tainted by new towers of black smoke rising from the east. From the position of the crashed ship, Formora observed. Too thick and heavy for campfires.
She wandered the premises, hiding new wards amongst the brambles and meadows alongside those already planted across the game trails and cobbled paths. Formora even went so far as to lodge new spells deep in the earth, to sense for tremors or worse. The creature from before had only just passed her by that night, and though she was yet to decide whether there was any future still to be found in Vroengard - or anywhere beyond - the thought of falling prey to that... thing compelled her to set precautions in place.
Predators that passed through solid surfaces...
Feral corpses struck by ravenous hunger...
A bone-clad witch led by a living crystal...
Supposedly immortal men...
And a steel woman from outside the strict parameters of time?
It was all nonsense, Formora decided - and yet some of that nonsense had been proven before her very eyes, had been promised to her in a language that did not permit lies. Illusions? No. Illusions didn't kill, didn't prick her neck and inject her with debilitating venom; something had killed Enduriel, had wrenched his head around until his very neck had snapped and his life had extinguished. Fool that he was, he could fight well enough. He could resist such efforts. He had magic and strength and a vicious temper besides - and that was gone, now. Killed off in one brutal moment. If it were an illusion, it had too much weight to be taken any way but seriously.
She patrolled further yet afield, watching the skies and listening to the earth below as diligently as she studied her immediate surroundings. Formora threw her mind out far and wide, catching all the hidden life that scurried and slithered on the edge of the island's poisonous atmosphere, but nothing quite large or intelligent enough to pose any remote threat to her. Nothing worth her time. And yet...
Formora whispered another spell, a delicate one that pushed ever so slightly at the air - allowing her to feel the currents as they bounced off every surface in a significant radius around her. She found more things hidden from her other senses, many more, but nothing shaped like a person. Elisabeth - or anything like her - was not around. She judged that to be a good thing; of all the things she'd yet encountered, all the natural laws she'd seen broken, that was perhaps the most disturbing - because it was so real. Ra'zac and their Lethrblaka parents couldn't be telepathically detected. Few other creatures shared that trait and all who did were terrible besides. The very things her order had been charged with keeping at bay, charged with keeping clear of civilized, settled lands and the souls who resided there.
A vigil she'd helped shatter.
And now... this. Formora wondered if she'd played any part in it. She'd never heard of anything other than burning rock to descend from the stars and never living things, let alone the restless dead, but now - now... Was this in some way her fault? Had some natural order been harmed, been irreparably degraded with the absence of dragons and Riders responsible for keeping the state of things relatively uninterrupted.
Formora returned to the villa just as the sun had threatened to set; she'd seemingly pondered the hours away. Agaravel greeted her arrival with a wordless hum and the stone - as ever it did nothing. Remained cold and lifeless, nothing more. It needed a change, it needed the hand of someone suitable but there was no one like that for some hundreds if not thousands of leagues around - and the time of those characters was centuries past as it was. It had missed its chance.
And so had she.
Formora strolled into the villa's cellar and plucked another bottle of rich red wine. The vintage from the night before, while overpowering, had been fine indeed and with some hundreds of bottles leftover from the war and no one to claim it - why, it seemed a waste to let it all just sit there. She had time yet to enjoy it, besides. Formora climbed out, closed the door behind her-
And one of her wards was tripped. She remained still for a moment before setting the bottle aside and drawing free her sabre. Formora donned her jacket over a reinforced tunic and strode to the door; the detection ward had activated by the north of the hamlet, from whence the road in led to - but whatever it was beat her to it. A knock resounded down the hallway as someone rapped their knuckles hard against the frame. Formora braced her mind, readied a killing spell and pulled it open.
On the other side was something so utterly... other. A creature shaped like a man but with slender legs and a thin set of hips and waist. It leaned ever so slightly forward and was clad almost entirely in a set of dark padded plate armour - all save its bared head, which was pallid and hairless and dominated by a single orange eye with a Y-shaped pupil. Its mouth was thin and black-lipped, a dark marking running up from it to cradle its eye in a sort of natural trident marking. A series of four spiracles were in place instead of a nose. Behind it stood another pair of inhuman creatures, the same that had found her by the ship, and one of them - the one marked by a blue cloak - was supporting Ikharos. Who had a hole in his chest filled in with dark fractal glass.
"I'm fine," he weakly protested. Something bobbed in the air beside him; Formora almost gave a start when it glanced at her. It looked like Skuldu but only if her jagged horns had been replaced by smooth metal fins.
"You're not," the thing scolded, exasperated. It sounded… younger than Skuldu, but no less commanding. "You're a couple new orifices short of becoming swiss cheese."
Ikharos looked at her and said nothing; he was wearing his full suit of armour, helmet included, and the weight of it forced his head to lull forward. But there was something else. The purple-mantled creature was dragging behind it... Formora didn't even know what it was. A metal monstrosity, so many ragged steel foils and limp tendrils. It had a skull like... like Elisabeth, but colder. Starker. Less... human.
"Local subject Viridae-α1," the closer of the three strangers - though Formora was certain they were the exact same three that had cornered her before - said in a high, flanged voice. "By order of the Cabal Ascendancy and the office of Empress Caiatl, Bearer of the Tusk and Nobilissima-Penultimate, I, High Optus Indilic of the Order of Imperial Compliance, request your aid."
"Please," Ikharos gasped.
The one-eyed creature didn't even look at him. "Ah yes. Please."
AN: Huge thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!