[prose-only version here]

XVII.

Duskmarch 21, Ashday, Year 731.

“Enough. Maelen, please. Let me see to your wounds.”

Alric kept his tone low and measured. He knew pleading would only harden her stubbornness and send her limping until the wounds festered.

All that afternoon and evening, she had limped alongside him, their shuffling steps for once matched in speed and rhythm. Inexorably, they’d marched west, out of the Greenwood Rise and into low, lightly forested hills. Twice, Maelen stumbled. When she caught Alric looking at her with concern, she’d scowled and sped up for a time. By the end of the day, however, the warrior had practically collapsed. Alric and Vessa made the camp near a hilly outcropping while Maelen panted that she would join them, “once she’d caught her breath.”  

“I’m fine. Wasn’t sleeping, just resting my eyes.”

Alric smirked. “Well, these burns look bad. I’ll cast a spell, like last time.”

She stilled then, studying his face. After a long, pregnant pause, she nodded.

“Go on, then,” she said, settling back down and closing her eyes.

Alric murmured the same half-heard words that haunted his thoughts—alien syllables he could never recall except when he welcomed the magic in. Once again, numbness crept from the crown of his head down his neck and into his limbs, like cold water filling his veins. By the time he could no longer feel his toes, the murmuring grew in fervor.

Maelen gasped, and both looked up, meeting each other’s gaze. The warrior pushed back the lock of gray hair that had fallen into her face and smiled at him. Then she examined her leg, where the worst burn had been. It was now a dull gray, like an old bruise, the skin otherwise unblemished.

“Thank you, lad,” she smiled, and stood easily.

Vessa had paused her careful stacking of tinder to watch. “That’s amazing, Alric,” she said, mouth hanging open and looking suddenly like a young girl.

He cleared his throat, blushing and looking away. As before, the uncomfortable tingling had begun in his limbs as he regained feeling.

Then he paused. Something was wrong.

“What is it?” Vessa asked, seeing his concern.

Alric waved a hand dismissively but stood slowly, taking stock of his body. Not all the feeling had returned this time. His limbs and torso still felt… deadened, somehow. Deep in his chest, a hollowness echoed, a missing rhythm he couldn’t name. Alric cocked his head, listening for it, and found only silence. Something had shifted. The magic—what he suspected strongly was Orthuun’s borrowed power—had changed him.

“It’s nothing,” he grinned, eventually, hearing himself force cheer. “I can’t fight, so I’m glad to be of some use to those of you who do.”

“More than some use,” Maelen chuckled, slapping him on the shoulder. He experienced the blow as… blunted. “We’re lucky you spent two months studying that book before we give it back.”

Vessa was squinting at him, her face appraising. He briefly caught her gaze then looked away.

“Yes, well. I need to make water, then we’ll eat?” The words had barely left his numbed lips before he spun and moved to be alone in the woods.

That night, lying awake beneath the quiet trees, Alric finally understood the hollowness in his chest.

His heart no longer beat.

Duskmarch 22, Wyrdsday, Year 731.

The next day was gray and forgettable. Cold rain fell, not as heavy as before, but steady enough to soak everything. Alric said nothing of his discovery: that he might already be dead, walking in borrowed flesh. But the realization made him distracted and irritable, and both Maelen and Vessa were quickly driven away from any conversation. The two of them fell into familiar banter while Alric pulled his hood over his bowed head and plodded dutifully wherever Maelen pointed.

He ate little that day but was more than a little relieved to find that he had an appetite, that his stomach growled from lack of food. He chewed his rations slowly. The jerky and oat cakes tasted dull, muted. Still, if he could feel hunger, perhaps his body wasn’t truly dead. What would happen if he continued to use his magic, however? It was a troubling question, and one his mind continued to grapple throughout the wet, muddy trek south.

The rain blurred everything. They trudged south through low ridges and scrub forests, where sandstone outcroppings loomed like old bones in the mist. Alric may have found it beautiful at some times of year, but all he focused on now was his own inner emptiness, the gloomy drizzle matching his mood.

That night, they found a rocky shelf that offered some protection from the wet for camp. The trees around them were scattered and smaller than the Greenwood Rise, but hardly enough to constitute a forest. By Wink’s instructions, they were a mere day away from Hadren Kelthorn and the Starless Rift. Maelen, still in rare good humor, wondered aloud what waited for them. Alric only muttered, his thoughts too heavy to share. The two women whispered after that, and soon it was time for sleep.

Duskmarch 23, Thornsday, Year 731.

“Shit!”

The curse snapped Alric awake. He flailed in his blanket, heartless chest tightening in confusion. “What is it?” It was lighter than night, he thought, as his mind took in his environment, but difficult to tell whether dawn had come because of the drizzle and heavy clouds above them.

Beside him, Maelen climbed to her feet, black mace in hand. She had taken to sleeping in her chain shirt, which Alric thought must have been wickedly uncomfortable. Better discomfort than death, he supposed.

Vessa hurled another curse, kicking something. “They’ve already gone! My pack’s torn open!”

“Who?” Alric blinked, still confused and not fully awake. He noted that his limbs still held that numb heaviness, his chest hollow. What did it mean that his heart wasn’t beating? One couldn’t live without a heart, could they? What had happened to him?

“I don’t… aargh! Rats, maybe. Or skratts again. They took some of the food and ran.”

“Not skratts, then,” Maelen grunted. “At least not the ones we fought in Vastren Hollow. Your face would have been chewed.”

“Well, they bloody well weren’t small rats. Something bigger. Maybe another kind of vermin. Gods damn these wilds! I don’t…” Vessa balled up her fists and shrieked into the gloom, stamping her foot.

Maelen crossed the distance between them and cuffed her hard on the shoulder. The slighter woman stumbled and looked up accusatorily.

“Shut it, lass. Screaming bloody murder isn’t going to help, just bring nasties to us. We lost some food. Nobody died.”

Alric grimaced at the comment, then pulled himself out of his morbid reverie to watch his companions. Maelen missed the point. Vessa wasn’t angry about the food—it was that it happened on her watch. Maybe she’d fallen asleep, or wandered away from camp at some point, or simply been distracted. Whatever the case, the thief’s keen eyes had failed to spot another thief, and she was furious with herself. Vessa Velthorn, Alric had come to understand, did not like to feel vulnerable.

“I was sick of oat cakes and jerky anyway,” Alric said into the terse silence. “Perhaps you can hunt us a rabbit or squirrel? I’d love a proper meal.”

Vessa looked at him and seemed about to say something wicked. She snapped her mouth shut, though, and rubbed furiously at her short hair. “Fine. Yeah,” she said. “I can catch us something.”

Maelen caught Alric’s eyes and gave him an approving nod. Then she turned to Vessa and said, “Good. That’s settled. Fix the packs, then we go see our friend Hadren.”

By the end of the day, the two women’s moods had flipped. Vessa stalked off ahead to forage and returned midday with an entire family of wild turkeys she’d found wandering amidst the shrubs and low hills. They paused to clean and cook them. Alric set aside his brooding to follow Vessa’s brisk instructions. The dagger felt heavy and alien in his wooden fingers, but she seemed pleased with his work. By the time they continued south, their stomachs were pleasantly full of meat, with enough left for dinner that night.

Unfortunately, the rain befouled Maelen’s attempts to navigate the hills. Had the weather been clear, she groused, finding the Starless Rift’s location would have been easy from a hilltop. Instead, they wandered aimlessly in the wet, muddy grasses, without a glimpse of Hadren or a distinguishing landmark of any kind. As the skies began to darken, she grumpily called for them to make camp. She gnawed her turkey by the fire, cursing the gods’ rain, a blind woman’s useless directions, and the endless gray hills. Alric and Vessa shared a smile at her ranting, and when Maelen saw it, she stormed off into the rain to… well, he couldn’t really make it out amidst the cursing and Vessa’s laughter. In any case, they slept wet and dirty that night. Alric focused hard amidst the dark and silence, but his heart remained still. Whenever he thought of using his magic, his mind winced away.

Duskmarch 24, Goldday, Year 731.

The rain only increased the next day, making Alric wake to Maelen’s curses. He couldn’t remember being dry after so many consecutive wet days, and a deep chill had settled into his bones to go along with the hollow emptiness left by his magic. All three of the companions broke their camp perfunctorily, with little conversation.

Though they’d vowed to explore the surrounding area for the Starless Rift and Hadren, the task seemed impossible given the weather. Vessa suggested that they wait out the rain, but Maelen shook her head at the idea. She kept glancing down at the mace at her hip, idly touching the weapon’s head almost as a habit, and said they needed to find the Rift soon. Alric wondered about that but was too lost in his own misery to question her.

So, without a clear plan, they began a trek through the overgrown ridges and craggy hills, the only sounds their squelching boots and the constant thrum of the rainfall. It was an aimless, fruitless morning of exploration, but sometime around midday Alric called the others to him with urgent waves of his hand.

“What is it, lad?” Maelen asked, looking like a drowned dog, her clothes soaked through and water running into her eyes. Vessa remained sheltered beneath her oiled travel cloak but looked no drier.

“I… hear something,” he said hesitantly. “Do you?”

The two women cocked their heads, concentrating. Vessa shook her head, but Maelen said, “Just the mace, humming as it does.”

“It hums?” Vessa asked, surprised.

“You don’t hear the chanting?” Alric asked urgently. They looked at him long and hard, pursing their lips, a clear sign they didn’t. He grimaced. “This way, then. Follow me.”

Though he almost always had quiet, barely perceptible whispers at the back of his perceptions these days, late in the morning a new sound had begun to overlay it, so subtly at first he wasn’t sure it was there. As they’d stopped to refill their waterskins with rainwater, Alric had recognized a voice, deep and somber, saying something just beyond understanding, though it seemed to be the same words or phrase repeatedly. When he turned, one direction caused the voice to raise its volume, just barely. It was in that direction he walked. With each shuffling, mud-caked step, it grew louder.

By the time they’d crested another low hill, the voice was distinct, not so much drowning out the constant whispers but somehow building upon them, like a background chorus to the repeated chant. The words, though, still eluded him.

Alric stopped with a start and shielded his eyes with a hand. Then he gasped.

They’d found the Starless Rift.

At first, he couldn’t make sense of it. Rain blurred everything into motion. Then the land itself resolved—a jagged scar stretching from the foot of a crag into the plain beyond. Wider than two humans laid end to end for most of its length, the rift was shaped somewhat like a crescent moon, black and empty like, well… a starless night sky. Even from this distance, Alric could sense the unnatural emptiness of it, an open wound in the earth needing to be healed.

Standing between the crevice and their hill was Hadren Kelthorn. He stood as straight as he was able with his bent back, his sparse hair plastered to his pale skull. Gone were the homespun clothes, replaced by dark robes as black as the Starless Rift.

What surrounded Hadren took Alric the most time to comprehend. Symbols were arrayed around him, like ones he’d seen etched within the vault of Thornmere Hold but huge, each one as large as the man at their center. The symbols formed a wide circle, black and bulky. Not carved, but built. At first, Alric thought they were stone. Then bile rose in his throat as he understood.

They were bodies. Dozens and dozens of corpses, all in black robes like Hadren’s, lay arrayed in patterned symbols around him. Alric thought that perhaps they were merely praying, but then he saw that Hadren must have needed to sever limbs or heads to create the symbols. Blood pooled around each construction, almost black in the weak, rain-clouded light, and Alric could see white flashes of bones everywhere. His mind reeled at the scene, skittering away from the mutilation and grotesquerie before him.

“By the Rootmother,” Maelen breathed, as she too made sense of it. Vessa stood motionless next to her, jaw clenched tight like she was willing herself not to vomit.

Hadren threw his arms wide in greeting, water spraying from the sleeves of his black robe.

“Welcome!” he called through the rain. “I’m so glad you made it.”

Next: Hadren Kelthorn [with game notes]