Cold obsidian

“Sereg,” said Vlada as soon at they stopped, “Kangassk’s illness scares you, I can see it in your eyes. If it wasn’t for you, I’d think he’d just caught a cold or his stomach hadn’t got along with wayfarer rations and spring water; it’s his very first journey, after all… But you…”

She put her hands on his shoulders in a long-forgotten gentle gesture. Sereg made a step back, startled like a man rudely awakened from his sleep, and turned away. He stood there for a while in complete silence, watching the stars twinkle in the dark sky and the sharp horn of the moon shine through the fleeting clouds. There is no way to look a tall man into the eyes when he doesn’t want it, he just lifts his chin up and leaves you wondering below…

“Sereg,” Vlada called to him in a quiet voice and added all of a sudden, “Sergey…”

The Grey Inquisitor lowered his eyes to meet hers.

“For ages,” he spoke slowly, like in a dream, “I haven’t heard this name… It feels strangely nice to hear it again…” He sobered up. “Your Kangassk is delirious, true. But that Malconemershghan he quotes is an old acquaintance of mine. This is what troubles me.

“No, you can’t remember him. Everything about this man is within your memory gap territory. I’ve never told you about Malcon before for there had been no reason to disturb the past. Looks like I’ll have to now. Well, know this: because of that man I burned down a city once. I also burned him. And, what’s most important, his book.”

“What book?”

“Heh, the book…” Sereg craned his head with a sad half-smile. “It was full of stupid little poems similar to those your little fool is reciting now.”

“I don’t understand…” Vlada looked at Sereg in helpless bewilderment, her eyes wide open. The huge age gap between those two was evident now, only there was no one nearby to notice that.

“These poems are a code. He wrote his book with the code. A book about non-magical interference. Malconemershghan was a genius, I give him that, one of my best apprentices ever and… my favourite student. And I killed him, burned him down to ashes, along with his followers, his city, and the very memory of his existence. I had to. Otherwise, Omnis would have been a dead world now. You remember the Stygian spiders, don’t you, Vlada?”

Vladislava covered her face with her hands and slowly sank upon the ground. The silence around them was so heavy and deep Sereg could hear her heartbeat.

Not a long time ago, just about two thousand years, in the North, between the Sumo Mountains and the place where Fervida meets Gileda there was a great city. It had a name back then: Erhaben. Now, that name is long forgotten and the remains of Erhaben are marked as “The City of Tricksters” on the maps. No one goes there for there is nothing to see among the overgrown ruins and ancient dust.

Malconemershghan was a genius and a dreamer. The citizens of Erhaben loved him so much they chose him to rule over them. He promised to lead his people into a great future, and he kept his word, working day and night to make his great dream come true.

He discovered the primal force with which Omnis had been created by the worldholders, the force that, unlike magic, needed no stabilizers, the force undisturbed by the anomalies of No Man’s Land. If anyone succeeded in mastering it, they would be able to move mountains with their will alone.

Malconemershghan dug deeper into that matter. He spoke of the primal world where the worldholders had come from, the world where every single person was their equal and the primal force of creation ran freely. That’s how his great dream was born, a dream of sharing the power of worldholders with the people of Omnis, a dream of the Golden Age.

The shining dream had blinded him. He could not even conceive the non-magical force to be dangerous but dangerous it was; so dangerous, in fact, that the worldholders themselves refused to use it. What used to be harmless in a newborn world full of primal chaos became deadly and destructive as the world matured and entered the realm of order and balance.

Malconemershghan refused to hear of it; his apprentices, inspired by their master’s dream, would not hear of the possible danger as well. Crazy poems were being chanted on every corner of the great city, disrupting the balance.

Sereg had come in time, almost in time to save the day… Omnis had survived, the order prevailed, but the balance remained unstable even five years after the fall of Erhaben. And when the charred ruins of the Tricksters’ city had been already overgrown with grass and the world seemed safe again, hordes of unimaginable, alien creatures flooded Omnis: the Stygian spiders, as people would call them later. It was no war, it was slaughter, a bloodbath. Who were these creatures? Where had they come from? Were they indeed alien invaders that came to prey on the weakened world? Were they the last creation of Malcon and his followers, blinded by hatred and revenge just as much as they used to be blinded by the golden dream? There is no answer still…

“Vlada, he’s crying!” the traders complained to her when she returned to them with Sereg in tow.

And yes, Kangassk was crying his eyes out. He lay on the ground, covering his face with one hand and grasping his soothstone with the other.

Vladislava touched his brow.

“No more fever,” she said, reassuringly. “Just tears… Hey, Kangassk, speak to me. Tell me what you saw.”

When Kangassk found out that the nightmare was over, he sighed with relief. The moment of joy was very brief, though, for as soon as he opened his eyes he became aware of his tears and saw the pity on the faces of the traders around him.

They – and not just they, the worldholders too! – had been watching him cry like a baby for who knows how long! It was a disgrace poor Kan had no idea how to ever wipe out. He was so ashamed with himself he wished the earth would just swallow him up.

Kangassk wiped the tears from his face with a dirty hand and struggled to his feet. First of all, he glanced around the assembled company to make sure no one was going to crack a joke. No one was. Good! Slightly encouraged by the polite silence, Kan decided to answer Vlada’s question.

“I saw Malconemershghah,” he said, the ridiculously long name sounding easy and natural for him now. “I saw a burning city… I saw monsters. Some were a dark horde, fast and blurry, crushing everything on their path like a black tide. Some looked human from afar and resembled a bad joke up close: sharp-toothed, long-clawed creatures dressed like jesters. Yes, I was scared!” The last phrase sounded like a challenge, a test whether the listeners would take him seriously. They did; everyone, even Sereg.

“I know what’s wrong with him,” said the Grey Inquisitor, addressing his words to Vlada alone and ignoring everyone else. “He carried a magical object into the White Region, his soothstone. Looks like it didn’t go well with the local anomaly and triggered something. The boy saw the past or maybe a glimpse of the future. That’s what those stones are for, after all. Only it’s not that simple. You know, he wouldn’t be raving over an ordinary vision…”

That said, he walked away and sat where the light of the fire couldn’t reach him, a dark, ominous silhouette against the moonlit road. Vlada understood him; as for the puny mortals, he rarely bothered with explaining things to them.