Marcus blinked into wakefulness, briefly surprised to find he could blink, before an indescribable feeling of wrongness washed over him. Eyelids falling inwards, not held back by the eyes they were supposed to serve. Still held in rough shape by their muscles, but wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wro-
He grasped to the right, finding Elly's forearm by pure luck. He'd known she was there, her signature was unmistakable, but while he wasn't so familiar with her arm, he was pretty sure it didn't have a long, raw scar running over it.
Marcus pulled his hand back, startled out of his own panic. Elly snorted. "Good morning to you too. Another scar for the collection, don't worry about it. How are you feeling?"
"My eyelids keep falling inwards, it's horrific. Overall, though, there's a suspicious lack of pain. How long was I out?"
"About three hours. The Empire tried to push after you retreated, but with their elemental and its accompanying mage gone I dissuaded them of that course of action."
"Meaning?"
"I took my Life Enhanced war-bow and killed eleven officers, then they got into range of my other Life Enhanced warriors and they killed another hundred rank-and-file soldiers. Barry showed up briefly, and after his Demon Knight wiped out a hundred more they pulled back."
Marcus grunted, forcing himself to drink slowly after she handed him a glass of water. "How about the other fronts?"
He didn't see her grimace, but her pause was clear enough. "Bad. The Empire is fighting hard, and the Archmage actually deigned to be proactive. So far fifteen hundred of our men are dead, most of that from your own battle, with another three thousand wounded. The nobles' army was all but ignored, and failed to get into proper position, so they're still at full strength. I have plans for them."
"Alright," he replied, sinking back into what felt suspiciously like a proper bed. "Did you… see something when I fell unconscious?"
Elly's tone was curious as she spoke. "Like what?"
"Infinity. The distance between suns, celestial bodies finding balance around them. Moons stabilizing their orbits around barren worlds, the vast nothing between galaxies. How much nothing there is once you look at things with eyes a thousand times sharper than our own. How, if our perspective was to shrink or expand enough, there is mostly nothing. Nothing but space. Empty, void-filled space."
"I definitely didn't see that."
Marcus sighed. "Great. Blind, probably going insane and most definitely tired of laying in this bed. Help me up."
"Margaret said to keep you in be-"
"Up, woman. Up. I won't lie here cowering like a newborn while my army dies around us."
Elly huffed, strong hands wrapping around his shoulder. He suppressed a yelp as she deposited him on the floor, taking a moment to steady his balance, and turned to her. She hummed. "I thought you were blind."
"Your power shines more brightly than the sun. Now, I'm going to need new eyes. Good ones, preferably, but I'll settle for functional replacements. And my belief that I can in fact get new eyes is the only thing stopping me from freaking the fuck out, so kindly keep any doubts to yourself."
"You're the mighty mage," Elly replied, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I shrugged, by the way, and I guess I could guide you."
"Thank you kindly. And if you see a young mage, who is probably bald if she's alive at all, or an elemental shaped as a woman, please stab them for me. Violently."
Elly snorted again. "Sure. Lots of women around in places of power, these days."
"Are you arguing against equality?"
"No. Just something I've noticed."
Marcus grunted. "Take it up with statistical bias. Now where di- Ah, Margaret. Did you procure the eyes already?"
The woman with the presence of Margaret didn't seem pleased, going by how she was tapping her foot, though he had no idea if she actually had already found some eyes. His best healer was good, very good, but he'd also noticed a certain aversion to the more… crude applications of magic.
"You should be in bed," the healer finally said, tone stern. "Seventy percent of your body was badly burned, fifteen percent of it nearly carbonized, and the damage to your lungs was extensive. Not to mention the shock of loo-"
Marcus waved his hand. "Your objections are duly noted. Fortunately, my hair appears unharmed. Now, did you get the eyes?"
"An ocular transplant is a procedure that hasn't been performed by anyone but the Empire's most premier healers," she replied, sighing deeply. "Not that that is going to stop you. I'll have one of my apprentices find you two good eyes, which will probably have to come from different donors. How do you suggest dealing with the body's rejection after the procedure?"
He shrugged. "Not sure yet. The nerves can be forcefully connected with an overload of healing, which is going to hurt like a bitch, but even if my immune system starts attacking them in a few weeks, it will give us time."
Marcus paused when a ripple passed over his senses, tilting his head. Gretched activating their ritual, which meant the Empire was still harassing them with summons. Good that they found a way to boost its range with how split up the armies were.
Also a little suspicious the Archmage hadn't dealt with it. Marcus certainly would have, in the man's place.
Margaret left after a sigh, leaving him and Elly alone. Feeling regular people was harder, but it seemed that, for now, they were actually alone. Elly sighed. "You'll get your eyes back, then we can hunt that bitch together. Maybe win the war while we're at it."
"Sounds good. Any particular reason you're massaging my forearm?"
Her hand withdrew so fast he blinked, shuddering briefly at the utterly wrong sensation, and she coughed. "I wasn't."
"Lying to blind people is illegal. Is this an Elf thing? I met the likes of you in the School of Life, don't think I haven't."
"I am not an Elf," she replied dryly. Her tone was normal, but her presence seemed to be fluctuating. Almost like she was preparing to use Life Enhancement. "They told me you charged the Archmage, killed several hundred Imperial soldiers, then single-handedly disrupted a ritual that most likely would have wiped out all your men."
"Factually correct, though not nearly as clear-cut as that. Why does that make you want to massage my forearm?"
She coughed again, and she actually sounded embarrassed. "It's hot."
"You are an Elf," he accused, feeling a grin break over his face. "I knew it. I long suspected this, but now you have finally admitted the crime. Huzzah."
Her tone turned offended. "You have something against Elves?"
"Nope." He shrugged. "Good fighters, terrifying archers, too graceful to be mortal… Damn, you really are an Elf. And here I thought I was just making fun of you."
Elly huffed. "I can't believe I was briefly impressed by your actions."
"But you were, and there's no take-backsies in my Kingdom. Perks of being King."
"Can we move on?"
He grinned. "Not until my new eyes get here, no. But fine, tell me about your battle."
She perked up, and Marcus felt himself calm more as she gloated about her stalking skills.
REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK p^o^q REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK
"Those look weird," Elly said, patting her horse briefly. Marcus glanced at her, resisting the urge to rub his eyes. "I'm just saying. One blue and one brown, really?"
"Unless my body accepts them, which it has only a very small chance of doing, they won't last long. I'm just happy to see again, even if they itch."
"So what's the long term plan, then? Keep switching them out for new eyes?"
He shrugged. "Maybe. Won't be as hard as you'd think. But for now they're meant to ensure I can plan for the long term in the first place, and for that they'll serve. Are you sure this is gonna work?"
"It will," she replied, half turning as the last of their group arrived. Bognic was with them, sporting no visible injuries but tensing like he had. She noticed him glancing at the man, smiling not so kindly. "Bognic and I had a talk. He has been educated on the proper time and manner to submit his complaints. His excuses of serving a foreign King being difficult were rather paltry, as was his plea for forgiveness."
Marcus shrugged. "I'd mostly forgotten about him already, to be honest."
"Having your eyes replaced is somewhat more memorable than a grown man throwing a tantrum, fair enough. You asked about the plan, right? Just making conversation or having doubts?"
"Luring the Archmage this way is sound planning," he replied, shifting as Xathar nipped at Elly's horse. "And they still don't have any real answer to Life Enhancement bow fuckery, but we're removing ourselves from the main army. Trusting that the levies can hold two Legions worth of attention, that the elemental won't show up and burn thousands to death, that the Archmage himself won't just ignore us and go on a rampage."
Elly waved down at the grassy plain. "War is all about calculated risks. Plans built on the most certain uncertainty. But the Archmage is interested in us, in you, so for better or worse the man will come. As for everything else, well. We'll have to trust the people we've trained. Just because they aren't us doesn't mean they're flailing children."
Trust. Trust that general Pator and the commanders can fight the Legions on their own, that his mages could go head-to-head with their Imperial counterparts, trust that their entire military force doesn't get wiped out to the last, which would end the war no matter their own victory.
Down below, somewhere he should not be able to see but could view regardless, the armies were fighting. Levies smashing against two Imperial Legions, not doing much of anything at all. The Royal Mirranian Army marching to confront the remainder of the Empire, outnumbering them by forty percent but with far less powerful mages.
Without Marcus there to equal the playing field, there would be death. Death by fire, by rock and ice, and death by more exotic branches of magic. It was fortunate the Empire hadn't taken the best of the best, as Vess had recently confirmed.
Sending an Archmage, the Empress had apparently argued, was enough of an investment without supplying hundreds of their best mages alongside him.
And speaking of the Archmage, there he was. Not alone, not alone at all, but his usual guards seemed to be absent. No elemental, no apprentice or demons. Just mages and a number of Life Enhancement warriors, likely all the remaining ones in his army.
Elly's people had been going after them, apparently. Something about competitive pride.
A voice drifted over, and Marcus focused. The Archmage was speaking, a surprisingly complex matrix making it sound as if he was standing just a few feet away. "You have done well. Your army is well-trained, your mages tenacious and your will resolute. But I can no longer afford to be kind, and neither do I expect you to surrender. Prepare yourselves."
"You came to us," Marcus replied evenly, trusting the man would hear. "You can return home whenever you want."
The old man sighed, an odd sound to hear from so far away. "How I wish that was true. Fortune to the victor, King Marcus Sepsimus Lannoy."
Whatever spell the man was using died, and he glanced at Elly. She nodded minutely, hand not even twitching to the pair of bolts on her back, and he rolled his shoulder as the Archmage started walking forwards.
No commands needed to be given. No detailed plans needed to be laid out. Their guards moved to intercept the Archmage's own, a whole separate fight beginning and one he had little to do with, as he and Elly shared a final look.
The old man was fast. One moment he'd been walking, the next he was all but flying towards them, the very air manipulated in a masterful display of control. Marcus sliced down with an arc of infinitely thin space, Elly jumping twenty feet into the air like it was nothing.
Her sword glowed green as his arc forced the Archmage to the side, a blast of fire directing his movements downwards. Xathar promptly kicked the old man in the face before galloping away, which impacted a shield but seemed to briefly surprise the man, and Elly threw a knife at the man hard enough to shatter his outer defenses.
Space twisted and Marcus slammed down with his mace, a disrupting wave of magic speeding just slightly ahead of the blow. It weakened the man's second shield, though not enough to actually let the mace make contact with flesh. Marcus let go of the weapon as it turned to fire, unfolding space.
Elly arrived next to the man with a flash, sword piercing into his shields as the Archmage leaned to the side. A long knife appeared in the man's hand, flowing perfectly to deflect the attack as Marcus felt a spike of divination.
The man's shield recovered a moment later, split into a thousand scales, and Marcus grunted. Great. He'd used a weaker version to bait an attack, likely with the aim to get Elly close.
She seemed to realize that too, flipping away as the very air turned to mud. Slowing, crawling mud. Elly seemed to shine more brightly for a moment, outrunning the effect by a factor of seconds, but she wasn't caught.
Marcus threw an arcane fireball at the man, which was snuffed out with an idle wave, and the Archmage actually raised his eyebrow. Gave him a look that questioned Marcus' intelligence, twisting to the side immediately after.
The Mirranian-made, magical disruption knife impacted nothing but dirt, yet the Archmage seemed briefly startled. Still not quite used to what Life Enhancement could do in Elly's hands, and the man left out a grunt of pain.
A bolt had sliced through his shield like butter, impacting the shoulder and uncaring for the altered air. Elly had spent quite a few hours infusing that bolt with Life, and the Empire had been kind enough to inscribe them with very expertly laid disruption runes.
Then used them to try to kill Marcus, but still. They'd failed, and now the bolts were their own. Bolts that, evidently, could slice even through an Archmage's shield.
Marcus prepared to slice with another arc, Elly shifting her stance, and he aborted the attack. Yanked Elly away with a pair of telekinetic arms, a move she didn't question. Pulled back herself, stalking around the Archmage with a good amount of distance.
Understanding seemed to dawn in her eyes, and she grunted with annoyance. The Archmage had turned arrows to dust, last time, and while Elly's bolts flew significantly faster, the man hadn't even tried. Marcus' paranoia was justified when the Archmage calmly pulled the bolt from his shoulder, applying the contents of an opaque bottle as the projectile disintegrated.
Marcus suppressed a grimace, slicing down with another arc. Again it was evaded, and carefully so, but he had a plan. A plan that hadn't worked last time, but his understanding of spatial magic had grown in leaps and bounds over the last few weeks.
He pressed down with his will, and the Archmage stiffened. The man gestured towards him with a hand, the movement jerky, but Xathar was already moving. Evading the attack, which was turning the area he'd stood in into literal nothing, and still Marcus pressed.
The distance between the man's left and right side of his body increased by ten thousandths of an inch, something the Archmage clearly didn't feel but was greatly distressed by. Xathar's head vanished without fanfare, the body collapsing to the ground before slowly turning into pure energy, but Marcus had trained for that.
Well, not the specific scenario, but at having to suddenly and unexpectedly dismount. His concentration slipped for a split-second, which was enough for the Archmage to resist the change, but it took a lot of willpower.
Elly rushed forwards, gathering enough speed to force her way through the slowed area around the Archmage. The other bolt was in her hand, and Marcus dimly realized she'd actually thrown the first.
The second one was apparently going to be used as a knife, and as the Archmage's arm moved on its own she shifted to the side.
Nothing happened, but Marcus could feel the air vanish. She'd literally dodged an invisible, near-instant disintegration of matter, which was such bullshit he wasn't going to think about it further.
He went back to semi-successfully splitting the Archmage apart, but even before Elly reached him, the man was winning. Adapting to an attack he quite possibly had never faced before, the resistance growing stiffer by the moment. Then the man turned it around, forcing Marcus to let go of the working.
Elly rammed the bolt into the man's head, but too late. Vistus' hand rose up, slamming into her chin as the other jabbed into her side. Elly reeled backwards, not quite dropping her bolt but clearly surprised.
Marcus grasped it from her hand after space had shrunk, letting another wave of dispelling force roll over the Archmage's defenses. Again that nagging feeling he was missing something, but not acting at all wasn't an option either.
The bolt sliced through the man's weakened shield, divination rose and was subsequently delayed by a crucial second, and the rune-engraved steel tip came within inches of the man's temple.
Every molecule around the Archmage froze, Marcus' hand included, and he closed his spatial working out of reflex. Except it didn't snap him back towards his regular position, Vistus' nose leaking a small few droplets of blood as the man sighed.
Elly's eyes blazed with light, but not an inch of muscle moved. The Archmage spoke after another moment. "Seven. It requires seven matrices to do what I have just done. You should be proud. But I am also disappointed, Marcus. I had so hoped that you were what we needed. Risked everything by funding the invasion, going against the Empress' wishes, and all of it for nothing. This will be where we part ways, I think. May your soul find peace."
Disappointment? The man invaded his Kingdom, slaughtered his soldiers, and he was disappointed?!
Marcus felt the cold rise up through his stomach, the vast distance of space asserting itself inside his mind as death loomed close. A million miles traversed in an instant, gravity and time and space unfolding in his imagination.
The planet itself slowly turned under him, and as he looked down everything seemed so small. So peaceful. The sun was blazing with light, and there was no air or gravity or trees or rocks. Just himself, a blue marble and endless, endless space.
An old, familiar pain tried to assert itself, his—very most likely—last memory fatigue headache pounding behind his eyes, but here? Floating in nothing, removed from the chaos and noise of the world, it was nothing at all. Just another sensation, like the taste of water or the scratching of clothes.
But above all, there was peace. Peace in the fact there was no problem that couldn't be removed, no issue that couldn't be ran from. He'd learned long ago that there was no shame in running, no shame in ensuring there was another day to fight in. And here, well. What was there to fear from nothing?
The not-pain left, eventually, and he had no real idea how long he hovered there. Just watching the moon orbit around the planet, around and around and around. Continents passed by, one then two then three then four, and he couldn't tell which one was his own. Didn't care to tell, either.
Then it was over, and Marcus found himself back exactly where he'd left. His body was still frozen, his magic still overwhelmed by an Archmage no longer willing to humor him, and Elly was still blazing with a slowly growing haze of light.
But space, space was his. The Archmage's eyes widened with something between satisfaction and fear as Marcus resumed splitting the man in two, and this time his will couldn't quite stop Marcus' own. Vistus let go of his working, one hand snaking out to touch Elly's head.
"Stop, or I'll kill her," the Archmage warned, his expression turning into a grimace. Elly froze, now voluntarily where before it had been forced on her. Vistus ignored another few drops of blood leaking from his nose, tone turning to gravel. "Stop."
Marcus reluctantly halted, still feeling the itch to split the man in two. To rend and tear and butcher for what the Archmage had dared to do. But that wasn't him, and neither was it logical. He didn't quite stop the working, but the Archmage no longer looked like he was on the verge of fear-fueled murder. Elly grunted. "Fuck that. Kill him."
"Silence," Vistus barked, tone softening immediately after. "I don't want to kill either of you. Never have. If you promise not to attack, I'll order my army to stand down right now. We could save thousands."
Marcus shifted his stance. "Don't start moralizing me, Archmage. You came here, you started this, you opened a door that had been sealed shut for centuries. But fine, send your message. Elly?"
"If he, or the Legions, step one foot out of line, I'll assume he's full of shit and we attack," she replied, whistling a moment later. The sound echoed over the battle between their guards, one Marcus hadn't been paying attention to. Nine corpses on the floor, which made him grimace. Elly's people paused, confused, and the Archmage's men regrouped but didn't attack. "Tell the army to stand down if the Legions stand down."
Her soldier bowed, moving away to pass along the message, and Marcus saw the Archmage exhale. The man slowly, very slowly, removed his hand from her neck. "Thank you. We should talk."
"Why?" Marcus asked, slowly easing his own working a little further. "Finally going to tell me what you're actually doing here?"
Vistus grimaced. "Yes. Very smart, very gifted mages whose sole purpose in life is to predict the Dungeon say there will be another Dungeon Break within the next two years. The Sect of Wisdrog, a group of divination mages created by and named after Archmage Wisdrog, divined that the Empire will fall if we did not acquire another Archmage, and is still in grave danger even if we do."
"I'm not an Archmage," Marcus pointed out. "And trust me, if I had one, this war would have gone very differently indeed."
The Archmage snorted. "Maybe you weren't five minutes ago. But you saw something, something you can't explain, and now your spatial workings are nearly impossible for me to influence. I am sorry for the invasion, but Archmages aren't trained. They can only be awakened, and while you would have done so regardless, we don't have the time. None of us do."
"Because the Empire is going to die, and the Dungeon will destroy the continent."
"Yes."
Marcus sighed, unraveling his spatial matrix fully. "I don't trust you. I don't even see a reason to believe you. Talk."
The Archmage straightened, three cushioned seats rising from the dirt. A low table rose alongside it, and Marcus blinked when teacups filled with steaming tea formed from the wood. Elly hesitantly sat, clearly unsure of what to say, and Marcus sympathized.
Vistus took a seat, picking up his teacup as if they hadn't just tried very hard to kill one another, and Marcus heard distant sounds of battle slowly grinding to a halt. His own teacup rose from the table, as if the very wood was offering it, and the Archmage cleared his throat lightly. "Tea?"
Marcus hummed.
What the fuck.