Cassandra Pendragon
His eyes had glazed over and his body had gone rigid. Halfway through I had been forced to keep him upright when his legs had given out. To me the frothing stream of alien memories wasn't half as overwhelmingly, half as suffocating, but with every image I had seen a knot of fear had tightened in my stomach. Why? Why had he experienced Gaya's creation half a universe away? Had our past genuinely been sucked across the aether? Had the Source attracted more than just energy? I simply didn't understand what was going on and that made me nervous.
I clenched my jaws and lowered my glowing gaze back into his vacant eyes. A tug on my awareness, almost like a doorbell ringing, was the only warning I got before chaos, muted and distant, but still strong enough to make me tremble, swallowed the warm sun and drowned out the smell of cherries. This time I didn't feel the past, but relived what he had experienced on the other side. I wasn't part of it, though. Instead it seemed like I was floating above the spectacle, watching like a god from ages long forgotten. Energy and memories became a churning maelstrom, a watered down reflection of what I had seen myself when I had forced my way through the portal, but now I wasn't running for my life and I had a chance to ask for help.
"You're still with Mephisto, aren't you," I sent through my connection to Ahri. "Can you let him in? Can you let him watch?" Barely an instant later two imposing figures materialised at my side, one carrying a burning crown, the other fiery wings.
"By the thirteen eyes," the demon rumbled, his piercing gaze fixed on the mess far below us. "What is that?"
"And here I was, hoping you'd know," I replied dryly while Ahri sidled up to my side and wrapped her tails around my legs. "Whatever it is, that's what had me running for my life."
With raised eyebrows he mumbled: "no shame in that. Heavens, I can't even…" despite the missing words I knew what he meant. I hadn't been able to make heads or tails of the swirling thunderstorm, either. Imagine a roiling vortex of colours, an amalgamation of light and darkness that expanded and contracted like a beating heart. Tiny embers, that could as well have been stars in their own right, I just couldn't tell, ignited here and there only to be extinguished again. Streaks of black coiled around the edges and crisscrossed the entire thing in an hypnotic, ever changing pattern. To me it truly looked like chaos incarnate, but maybe the demon saw something I was missing.
While the thought crossed my mind I finally stopped playing coy and actively pushed what I had seen in John's mind and back on Earth towards Mephisto. A feat I could only accomplish because Ahri had learned Viyara's trick of linking minds somewhere along the way. Otherwise my own nature would have prevented it.
The two didn't need much time to comprehend what I was showing them, but I still found myself with a few moments alone in the darkness. The entire scene was eerily similar to my previous visit and even though I knew that I wasn't really there, my body still reacted. My wings swelled, their song become faster, deeper, more aggressive and a surge of energy thundered from my core. Light enveloped me like a gown and two silver beams tore the night asunder when my gaze sharpened.
As if on command my eyes darted along the meandering maze of darkness across the changing maelstrom and this time I managed to follow each line. Boundaries, I thought as I counted six distinct sections, each cordoned off by an intricate web of black veins. The realms, I wondered while I increased the flow within me even more. As if a curtain had been pulled back the pattern suddenly came together in one blinding instant. Runes, I realised. The entire thing was covered in transmuting, always adapting runes like a spell that kept on reinventing itself. And I could read it.
It wasn't the same as reading a book or even trying to decipher ancient sigils on an ominous altar. No, in a way it felt much more like communication, as if the scripture itself was talking to me, except it couldn't be. Magic could overcome a great many things and I would have accepted talking spells readily, I mean the wisps I had created in Shassa's tomb way back when had been similar enough, but I wasn't there. Not really. I was watching a memory… come to think of it, John himself should have been down there as a minuscule part of the alien structure. But then how could I watch from high above? How could I see something in its entirety, if my host was a part of it? I swallowed dryly as soft, silver scales erupted down my back and along my arms. In short, I couldn't. Which meant that the thing was either much larger than I had thought and we were still stuck within its aura, or, more likely, the sheer power had turned the memory into something real. The same way the memories of my fight against Gabriel were much more than dust in the wind.
My senses roared to life, but there was nothing to hear or smell and the distant vortex didn't seem to change, either. A self depreciating grin spread across my face when I realised that I had simply taken the worst possible outcome for granted, even though it was far less likely than I had assumed. A mortal couldn't carry memories like that, their head would simply explode, and John was many things, but an immortal he was not.
So far so… maybe not good, but at least not deadly for the moment. With a quiet sigh I focused on the runes I had seen and tried to listen to their melodies. I didn't expect to understand much, but to my surprise it was positively easy, as if I had heard their alien lullaby countless times before. It wasn't exactly words I heard, but I felt the meaning, the very purpose of the runes:
A lock, a key, a dream to see
A crown, a lie, a fate unfree
An angel's plight, a demon's wrath
Darkness obscures the hidden path
The light restrained, the war unleashed
The final spark is not bequeathed
Close the gate, reveal your fate
Immortal's doom, for dawn we wait
Gloomy, chopped lyrics… surprisingly that didn't assuage my worries, not one bit, nor did it make much sense to me. I still didn't know how, why and who. Come to think of it, I didn't actually know anything. With a shrug I ended my transformation before it had even properly begun and leaned my head on Ahri's shoulder. Maybe she had an idea. Supposedly she was the smarter of the two of us and the demon was a self proclaimed genius on par with Amazeroth. At least if there was a kernel of truth behind his boasting.
"Any ideas," I whispered, when I felt Ahri's presence slip from my memories.
"Honestly? Tons. One less likely than the next."
"Fret not, my young Padawans. I might not be able to decipher the meaning of those sigils, but I'm starting to get an idea of what we're dealing with. Mostly. I still haven't figured out why that… thing down there seems to mimic Gaya's structure, but one step at a time. For now we're under much less pressure than I had feared. Let's leave this place for now. I don't think there's much more to see." He turned away from the distant spectacle and snapped his fingers.
"You were saying," I hissed when the dissolving reality had reformed. Unfortunately we weren't on a sun-drenched platform among Greta's boughs, but a pitch black battlefield under a starless night. Bones and broken weapons jutted form the ground like fingers raised in accusation and the smell of wet, cold earth mixed with blood and spilled intestines nearly made me choke. A cold, harsh wind whispered through the no man's land between two armies, while each and every soldier watched in petrified fear as the sky was torn asunder. The distant moon shimmered, weak and sickly, on the polished bronze of a towering shield while streaks of angry flames cleaved the night. Between heaven and earth two deities went to war, ending the conflict their followers had started.
"Athens and Sparta," I mumbled, "the first Peloponnesian War. But that's not right. I was there. It was a war between humans. Bloody and long, but the arcane battles were fought elsewhere. How can this be?"
"How can any of this be? It's a memory…," Ahri began, but was immediately silenced:
"Wrong," the demon snapped, "on both accounts. This is neither a memory, nor is it a real war. This is a legend come to life, fuelled by countless souls who are imprisoned here. John was one of them. He's down there… but I still don't know why. Why Gaya and Earth?"
"It's not only those two," I stated quietly, but firmly while the battle between Ares and Athena raged across the sky. "It's more than that. Every shred of transcendent energy…"
"Explain yourself, Cassandra," Mephisto rumbled. His voice easily drowned out the thunder strikes of the two gods going to war. "How do you know?" I sighed.
"Because I've nearly been killed by our long dead siblings when they charged at me. And also because I know what's causing this. It's an artefact. One of ours." The demon faced me fully, his eyes smouldering with barely suppressed hellfire.
"The ring? You have it?" I shook my head cautiously, Lucifer's warning was still ringing loudly in my ears. It wasn't even a lie, I was simply answering the first question he had asked.
"Something else. The Source, I called it. I can tell you all I know once we're back, but it's not much. It's powerful and apparently attracts transcendent forces, that much should be obvious."
"So… the vortex we've seen, this entire world… it's all made from transcendent energies," Ahri mused, then her eyes went wide: "Which makes it as close to real as it can get. In a way it's like… oh hells! It's a bloody seed!"
I clenched my teeth as she fanned out her wings, the delicate, crimson flames turned into a crackling curtain behind us and with a twist of her awareness she cut a hole through the flimsy world of memories we were stuck in. An instant later the three of us stumbled into the bright sunlight and my eyes began to water in the glare. The smell of cherry blossom tickled my nose and the sounds of nesting birds pressed against my ears as I spread out my tails to regain my balance on the coarse bark. We had made it back. "I can't believe I couldn't see it," Ahri cursed and even stomped her foot.
"What… what's gotten into you," Mephisto mumbled, while he conjured his heavy staff and leaned on it with a drawn out sigh. I didn't have to ask. Instead I tried to catch her glowing, multicoloured eyes, but she didn't look at me. She was prowling up and down like a hunting dragon, her thoughts a racing mess as she tried to fully understand what had set her off.
"Do I have to spell it out again," she finally groused, her irritation directed at herself and not us. Not that it made much of a difference. Mephisto had involuntarily volunteered to become her valve. "One fine, unrivalled mage you are… that entire thing is a sprouting seed. The manifestations on Earth are the first shoots and it has taken root on Gaya. I just don't know… oh, hells! Greta! Stupid. We've been so stupid!" I imagine you're feeling just as confused as the demon and two humans, who were staring at her as if she had lost her marbles. John was, at the same time, scrambling to his feet and nursing a magnificent lump on his head where he had made much more intimate contact with Greta's limbs than he had ever wanted to. Sorry, but keeping a perfectly healthy mercenary upright hadn't been overly high on my to do list when my fiancee had started to freak out. Anyways, the explanation was bound to follow as soon as the vexed vixen had managed to return order to her frothing thoughts.
A step away the dark wood rippled and flowed like water when Greta seemingly grew out of one of her branches. She cocked an eyebrow and studied us for the fraction of a second. "What's all this? Since when are you the one to throw a tantrum?" Ahri's silhouette flickered and she reappeared in front of Greta. Her wings turned into a white hot blaze and the acidic smell at the heart of a star tickled my nose. It was still faint and muted, for now, but when my angel's fingers closed around the dryad's neck to hoist the struggling spirit straight into the air I finally realised that I probably had to intervene.
With a thought I was at her side, my wings turned into a crackling mesh around her flames and I breathed in her ear: "let her go. You're hurting her." I felt the tension in her body, but with a deep breath she release the girl and took a step back while Greta slumped to the ground and massaged the charred handprint on her neck.
"Sorry," Ahri whispered, but the flames in her eyes were still roaring inexorably and I didn't dare to let go of her. "Your heart. Take us there." The voice was still hers, but it was laced with so much power that I could barley recognise it. Even Mephisto couldn't suppress a shiver as the wave of force washed over him and the two humans, as well as the girls I had brought, immediately keeled over. The dryad didn't have a prayer, either. As if in trance she nodded apathetically and vanished to reveal a deep, gaping hole where her body had been.
"Are you going to explain," I hissed irritably, but she only shook her head and tugged on my wings while her ears quivered nervously.
"Not here. You can let go. I'm not enraged. I'm scared."
"How very comforting," I rumbled, but did as she had asked. I mean, if I couldn't trust her I might as well have started looking for a nice volcano to jump into. As soon as my wings had vanished her tails snaked around my waist and pulled me closer to the gaping, pitch black hole. "You want us to jump, don't you," I asked, which sounded only marginally whiny. Throwing myself down a long, narrow shaft wasn't the stupidest thing I had ever done, but it had to be an honourable mention.
"Not enough space to spread our wings and I don't want to hurt Greta. How bad can it be?"
"Depends on what's down there. Do you know?"
"No… but unfortunately I have an idea."
"Are you finally going to tell me what the hell is going on?" She shook her magnificent head.
"You'll see in a moment. Maybe I'm wrong, but… do you remember what Greta and Auguros told us about this tree?"
"Sure." I shrugged. "Its seed has been nourished by her and…" "Before that," she interrupted me quietly. "Amazeroth provided the framework for the magic. They said he worked on it for a long time. Cassy… if you put your mind to it, how long do you think it'd take you to create something like this tree? A week? A month? A brilliant immortal has spent years on this… have you never wondered why? I couldn't put it together until you just pushed your memories onto me. He told Mephisto. He told him he already knows about Earth… because he made it happen."