There was a cage. In that cage, there was a beast. All she could do was hiss, all she would do was scrape and lacerate. A creature not even conscious of her will to kill.
Because as far as the realm was concerned, she had died long ago.
Her black chitin forced against the bar. She was lashing out at my arm. I caressed that sharp head and let her exhaust herself on my plates. She was too weak to do anything.
She didn't know it but a human was onboard the ship and so her cage was brimming with magic. Yet her body remained ravenous. Even the stones would change shape and still, she would remain the same, so stubbornly.
On the deck above, the human had come out of his cabin.
He hurried to the hatch, walked down a few steps and saw me crouched in that narrow step at the bow.
"Kaele, come up!" And with excitement: "There is an island in the clouds!"
Great. You go explore it. It was probably a wonderful place.
He looked at my arm and finally noticed the bars and the sharp legs stretched past them to strike me. That startled him.
"This was on the ship the whole time?!" Was his final reaction. "How can it not be hostile!?"
"Can you see her name?"
The human had a system. That old craft was as deceiving as it was dangerous, but it could offer surprises. Like seeing the name of everyone.
"No..." The teenager admitted. "It's just question marks."
I got up: "Then she is nothing."
And I walked back up to the ship's deck. He followed suit, a bit confused.
"What do you mean, nothing? It's right there! Why do you have to make everything sound mystical and stuff?"
Found the island. It was starboard and already behind. He had probably seen it from his cabin. One flick of the fingers and the two wheels on the bridge veered in unison. It felt like nothing glad to the gravity glyph but we were banking hard.
"It's not mystical, just dark magic. She is nothing, that's all that's left of her."
"Well then who was she?"
"I can't remember."
What part of nothing! Did people not get? Just the shape of her was more than the realm would have allowed. Hence the name dark magic. The art of the forbidden.
He had already reported his attention to the approaching island.
Admittedly there was little left of it: just more clouds forming the silhouette of what had been one of the floating lands from better days. Clouds forming the fields and hills, the forests. Clouds shaping the fences and houses, the windmills.
It had probably been a very peaceful place where humans pretended to harvest.
The human was already at the hull's edge, waiting impatiently for the Parao to sail close enough and stop against what used to have been a dock. We were, ironically, about the size of ancient fishing boats.
He jumped off and my featherweight spell failed. No matter, his feet still held on the white ground. Probably another gift from his system.
No, actually, that white ground was turning back to wood. That thrilled him, to see the island take life wherever he walked.
"I am going to explore!"
The boy waved off and ran ahead. A trail of planks and gravel, and grass and dirt remained behind.
I stayed onboard. The last crew member, Nasse, came and lay down near me.
"You are not going with him?" He asked.
"I have seen enough places for a lifetime."
The fire lizard yawned, stretched and curled up. We still had armors to rebuild but for now, the both of us were content to just wait.
Exploring the entire island would take more time than the human had. He was running around, touching the low stone walls and enjoying their emergence, the lichen left between the rocks and with them the freshness of a high altitude.
There was a hamlet where the dirt path turned into smooth tiles branching to spread out houses. Well, to him they looked like manors.
He entered one, ran in the hallway and discovered a humble living room with only two chimneys, a few tables, carpets and trophies on the walls, a dozen chests he wanted to open only to see clothes and silverware, and cupboards filled with relics.
A small fountain between the fireplaces mounted the statue of a griffin.
"Wow! You have a name! What kind of statue gets a name?"
All I could really perceive were the vibrations afar, dampened by the clouds that still dominated the island. But even without seeing it myself I could guess. They had bred runners for the races and this one was the farmer's pride.
After wasting his time all the way to the attic, the human was ready to leave when he noticed the basement's door. One of three doors but, details. He got curious. Maybe he felt the smell of old wine rising from the old stones.
So he went down and indeed, there were the racks full of bottles and the barrels. The press. The fountains.
Then there was a another adjacent room still mostly made of clouds, that would have otherwise been completely dark. He approached it, wondering what those small mounds depicted.
He approached one with his hand. Walked back immediately.
Around him the entire basement had turned to embers.
The whole house in frozen flames, burning and burning in a false heat and acrid smoke that failed to choke yet blinded everything. Up the stairs, through the hallway and he found the door, pushed the furnace and felt it crumble into ashes.
Everywhere he had walked, all the parts he had revealed had turned into an inferno.
Any place he walked on now was revealing more cinders. What place he hadn't, still covered in clouds, turned grey then black and started to rumble.
What was there even to say? The island was long gone. Crashed somewhere on the ground or obliterated during the few months the humans had to face extinction. If this place had records, I didn't need to read them.
Those flames had not been caused by the mana drought. Humans fighting humans in a time of confusion.
I jumped off ship, onto the now burning dock. Soon this whole memory would collapse in turn, so the teenager really could not stay there.
He was coming back by himself, hurrying out of the hamlet a few fields away.
He slowed down, then stopped. His eyes on the ground.
I felt it too. The realm warping from below.
The gigantic skull of a wyvern burst through the hamlet and let out a silent shriek. Reality bent, choking the flames, wiping the embers. The clouds started to swirl, full of lighting.
That monster's ribs had emerged barely twenty meters away from the boy.
I had rushed for him. Haste! Arrived in moments, only to see that skeletal beast lower its head and quietly bring up its only wing. It wanted to talk.
"Stay back!" I warned the human.
"Yeah no kidding!"
"Calisle!" My badger mask turned to the giant. "We have a truce!"
"Indeed we do, good friend." His mocking tone rolled over the crackling storm. "And I have come to discuss its terms. Should your lamb return to its pen? Or do you wish to use that cattle for bargain?"
"You!" The boy accused. "You are the one who burned the island!"
The monster barely gave him a glance.
"The realm truly is cruel and now Veleter has made the first move. We are both prisoners of his words, reduced to puppets in the cosmic dance that plays out. Who knew truth could be so sharp... I cannot exact my revenge and you have to stray from your game."
"You are deluded. I serve humans and I will end the mana drain."
"And yet, you lured a new prey!" The monster chuckled. "Make all the excuses you want, but be wiser than to let Veleter lead you so freely. Shall we resume our feud, shall we bow to a worm? I propose a third path."
I braced for it.
In truth I had nothing to gain by working with that monster. He was only a sore loser forced to cater to his foes now that his little crusade had ended in a whimper.
"A compromise, if you will. Help me kill all humans and in exchange, I will spare one. I will help your little lamb survive the drake's gift. In exchange for their haven I will offer him immortality."
I had not even processed what he had just said and already decided against it.
Every part of my soft clay urged against it.
And how would he even achieve that?! I had tried everything, there was no beating the mana drain! The loss of magic inevitably reached the threshold under which a human could not survive. I had studied pretty much every art the realm had to offer and found nothing!
"You doubt me?" The wyvern mocked. "And yet, the proof is before your eyes. Here is good will: anti-magic has more than enough to sustain that wretch."
I had already tried that!
"And the conduit you need is talking to you. Let vengeance fall on those who abandoned the realm and I shall lay my life for that fiend. Now tell me, assassin, is letting your prey live appealing to you?"
"You... are offering to die?" I tried to follow.
The wyvern lowered into the clouds, enough so that its skull would stop towering above us and instead would have the chin nearly at our heads' height.
Magically speaking, his words made sense. If I could turn his body into a conduit, I could turn anti-magic into an infinite source for the human and defy the mana drain that way.
But there was no way to accomplish that, not unless the human wanted to become his puppet.
But if he died, his body would become that reliable conduit...
"Nobody cares for the realm, dear friend." It said and extended a claw toward my head. "Not you nor me. Why should you care about a haven you wouldn't be able to draw from anymore? It might as well not exist. Does that frustrate the killer, or was there any truth to your ramblings?"
"You want me to help legions die for one human?!" I rejected him outright. "Ridiculous!"
"Ah! Ah ah ah, how you please me dear friend! I knew the assassin would speak louder! A truce it is, let us travel together! Try and change the balance and if you tire, let us talk more."
I expected him to rise and crumble to dust, as was his habit, but the skeletal wyvern plunged instead and flew under us, through the clouds, to circle below the ship. How it could fly at all, let alone with just one wing, was a secret for anti-magic.
We had to depart as well. During this conversation the island had all but broken to pieces. It relived its final moments, cracked and burst into magma jets.
So we were back onboard. Nasse asked no question, went to the ropes and got the Parao moving again.
I sat on the hull's edge, the roaring rocks breaking below at the keel.
The teenager sat nearby.
I had already told him enough. The cycle. The mana drain. The time he had left. But of course, the wyvern had to have been a surprise.
"So, that Calisle, I take it you two are not friends?" I was not reacting. "Look. I can go home. I really can! I'm just staying a bit longer, that's all! And if I can help your world somehow, I will! I really mean it you know? So whatever that mumbo jumbo was, just forget it! Just rely on me!"
I turned may clay golem head toward him. The badger mask faced his bright smile.
"Your system says I am hostile."
And as he protested, and made a whole scene about what valiant knight I was, what with my coated silver and all, I could not hear is words anymore than he could mine.
I had told him not to rely on the system. But now, because I hoped it was true, because I had to believe he could go back...
Well that meant the system was right.