Sevenscape 1: The End of Story

by ~Cilin-Hopchurch

“What is wrong with your eyes?!” My Master cried as he flung me to the floor. I do not blame him though. I was being stupid.

“Leave me Ode. Join the rest of the Seers and find a place to hide. Once the battle dies down, those fools outside will probably take pity on you." He smiled down at me. "I'm sure you'll be okay."

It was one of the most confounding things about my Master. One moment I would hear madness in his voice, the next it would be compassion.

“I'm sorry, Your Majesty but I will not do that. My place is by your side.” I picked myself up and try to smile but as always it doesn’t come. He’s was looking the other way anyway.

I peered out over the shattered balcony. The courtyard below was blazing. Black smoke from the alchemists’ fire was mixing with the white smoke of burning wood. Everything here was made of wood, for stone is so rare in this Scape.

My masters’ army was shattered, the last remnant of the humans who had flocked to his banner were making a concerted last stand in the surrounding city. But the young hero, Merrosworth, had broken in and he and his comrades were fighting their way through the towers remaining guards. As far as they were concerned the battle was still not won. But I am a Seer, and I knew my Master was fated to die this day.

“It’s the eyes, they’re the key. All your eyes are wrong!” He yelled into the open air, sending out another burst of anger fuelled fire from the Pacion wound around his right arm. “They’re so deep and, and, and wrong! I know it. I feel it. It’s like I can see your soul by looking into them. It’s not right!” More fire rained down on the battlefield below. White hot, it burned through the Grand Alliance troops. Elves, Men, Berren and Demioun screamed.

“Why!” My Master screamed at the sky. “Why have I been so stupid? I burnt those villages? Why? To set an example to corpses? Of course that would bring the armies of the Scape to my door. So I built an army with no one alive to feed it. How was I so stupid?”

My Master collapsed to the floor and began to sob. I didn’t know what to do. My first thought was to try and comfort him, but I knew he hated contact with anyone from this Scape. Still, he had touched my head for a moment to comfort me once. It is the only human contact I can remember that didn’t hurt me, even if he had drawn away from me as if he had been touching acid.

I placed my hand on the shoulder of his armour. After a moment he looked up at me. He looked thoroughly lost. “Ode? Is that you? God I’m glad to see you, I thought I was alone. Can you believe he’s coming to kill me?”

“Yes” I said, for I had been the first to see that future.

“Its just I get these head aches whenever… I look at that.”

He jumped to his feet almost knocking me down and gestured wildly at the thing in the centre of his wooden throne room. It was the Soul Opal. It was twice the height of a man and gave off a distressing amber glow. It contained the All-Queen, ruler of the Scape of Myrsgaurd. She hovered within the gems’ too-smooth surface as if she were sleeping standing up; waiting for the touch of her one true love to awaken her.

“Why do I have this? Why did I spend so long trying to break it open? Sure she’s pretty but I could find prettier. I could summon prettier. I could build prettier. Why my obsession with marrying her? I was kidding myself into thinking it would legitimise my claim to the throne. What does that even mean?!” The wooden beams which made up the walls and the ceiling of the throne room began to shake; such was the power in his voice. All I could do was stare at the floor and let him talk.

“I am an evil despot, or so I say. Why did I think that I needed to legitimise anything?” he paused for a moment and came across a new thought to anger him. “And why do I call myself evil? What kind of pathetic madman does that?”

I had nothing to add. I was lost. Sometimes he would talk like this. He would speak of things which I didn’t understand; strange, far away things.

“Your Majesty, maybe you should prepare for battle. The ordained hero will be here very soon. If you wish to have any chance against him you must be ready.”

He pulled his gaze from the Opal and turned to me slowly. “Yes, you are right. He will be here soon. I will face him in single combat and show-”. He screamed and clutched his head, blood began to trickle from his nose and he fell to his knees. What was happening to my Master? Even in a life mostly devoid of hope I had never felt so helpless.

“No.” He spoke, his voice taking on a terrible weight as his entire manner seemed to reform in an instant. “That is how I die.” He stood again, purpose in his shallow eyes once more. “I see it now. God how stupid I have been. I'm sorry Ode. I'm sorry for every cruelty I have ever visited upon you.”

I want to forgive him but I do not know how. He had given me more than any other person ever had. His scorn and temper had been a fair price to pay for the world he had shown me.

“I die fighting Alquin Merrosworth on this day. That is how it happens. It is the final prophecy, the one which will herald the end of all ancient prophecies. I need to think. My mind is changing I can feel it. It seems that in every moment that passes I become more aware of what I can do to win. If I can just think…”

I can hear the sound of violence outside the door, the throne guards were fighting with someone. They were loyal, Master swordsmen and specially picked for the task. But I know that they will soon be dead.

“What do I have Ode? What do I have?” My Master implored. I knew there wasn’t anything that could save him but I listed them anyway.

“You have the Opal” I replied. He rolled his eyes and threw his arms up.

“That thing is useless. It’s just a bauble. A box with a treasure in which could never be mine. What else?”

“You have nothing else, just myself and the Pacion.” I said raising a hand to point to the device on his left arm. It was a gaudy thing. It contained within it the Sixty Six Gems of Mind. Using it a man could turn any component of the Psyche, or indeed any emotion, into power. It was the most marvellous magical device ever created, and no other Heart Twister or Empath had ever come close to matching the simple power this device could give a normal man. And my Master was no normal man.

“You’re right. I have used this only as a weapon. Thrown anger and hatred at my foes. What a wretched being I am. What wonders I could achieve with this, if only I had stopped to think. There must be a way to…”

The door burst open. We were out of time.

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“They’re getting desperate Alquin” Leyran yelled over the noise of battle. There were few guards left now. Those remaining seemed to just be gritting there teeth and preparing to die.

Alquin was currently crossing swords with a giant brute in the black and gold armour the Throne-Guards wore. Leyran was just trying to keep the last few Wreal from him. Their battle dress far removed from the guards, all dirty leathers and cobbled together armour.

Alquin circled the brute, armed with the Breal’sweard and the brute armed with a far larger, double handed sword. The blades smashed against each other, the Breal’sweard somehow blocking the larger mans strike and taking most of the weight from the attack. Sparks flew as Alquin pushed back the blade. Surprised fear blossomed on the larger mans face as he had to take a step backwards. He pushed against his adversary with renewed vigour. But the Breal’sweard pushed back.

It was over in a second. The great sword shattered with a burst of sparks and shrapnel. It carried on and cut the Throne Guard in two. Their champion bested, the Wreal fled. It took Leyran and Alquin another minute to finish off the other guards.

“That was… tiring” Alquin said panting

“Nonsense, I trained you to do more than this. Come on, you still have to save my sister.” Leyran offered his hand to Alquin who was bent double, trying desperately to breathe through the exertion

“How come you’re never this exhausted, you’ve come as far as I have?” Alquin said.

“Ah yes, but I have been carrying a much lighter load. Maybe we will be able to relax once you slay His Majesty in there.” Leyran said, nodding towards the thrown room.

Alquin brought himself up to his full height. “Right, once more into the breach my friend?”

“Yes I…” Leyran was cut off as noises of the Wreal came from down the hall way. “Damn them, they come again. Don’t they know when they’re beat? I’ll hold them off; you go and finish this fight. Once I’m done here I’ll head straight to the dungeon pens to free the other prisoners”

“But I...”

“Go. Get the girl, slay the bad guy, do what you were born to do. I’ll see you at the victory party. Go!” He yelled. As Alquin turned Leyran knew he was lying to the boy. But he couldn’t have predicted how.

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“Your reign ends here ‘Your Majesty’” He emphasised my Masters’ title in a strange way. I didn’t like it.

My Master straightened up to face His death. He was tall and long limbed, the dark greys of his armour wrapped tightly to his frame. Any one who looked at him could see he was no man of this Scape, or perhaps any other. Lit by the light of the Soul Opal he cast a terrifying figure and I backed away despite myself.

“So, we meet one last time Alquin. You, the one ordained to kill me. Here and now. I don’t suppose you would like to turn around and walk away right now, as an experiment in pre-determinism?”

Alquin raised his sword and walked hesitantly forward. I could tell from his expression that he found my Masters request as strange as I did.

“I could run away you know,” my Master continued, “take on wings of fear and flee this place. Jump right out the window. But we both know that would end somewhere far from here, with you finding me and killing me in some cave somewhere. Miles from home...” His voice took on an odd quality, as if it was coming far away. Was my master remembering a shred of memory from his long forgotten homeland?

“Enough of this.” Alquin shouted. The two of them began to pace, both possessing the well practice footing of expert combatants. “If you are to run, then run! If you are to fight, then fight! Why waste time now with these incomprehensible musings? Know that I came here to slay you beast. I know that you are no man of this Scape, or any other in nature. You are a Demon, a thing in human form. And if the Ancients wrote that I slay you then I take on their task gladly.”

I could not listen to any more of this. Putting all the emotion I could manage into my voice, which was not much because I am small and unskilled with its use, I cried “No!”, into the Throne room. The words hung in the air for moments. The young hero looked at me with pity in his face; and my Master? Who could say? Though he glanced at me it was as if his mind was barely here, his eyes darting, as if he was reading some invisible script.

“Did you think the sight of this child you have enslaved would stay my hand Monster? How contemptible you are.” He took his gaze back to my Master, hate filling his eyes once again.

“I control no ones fate but my own Alquin. I could not even influence yours.” Master snapped back suddenly. The full force of his mirror-like gaze falling on the hero, rage burning in his empty eyes. Alquin seemed to falter for a moment in direct contact with that sad, strange gaze.

“I threw you into the endless vortex. Scattered you to the furthest reaches of the Scapes. Made you trek from one end of the Sevenscapes to another. Why? Why did I not just kill you when I had you at my mercy that day? It makes my skull creak in pain just thinking about it.” He stepped forwards and brought the Pacion up in a guard stance. My Master fought with only his left arm, and was worth an army.

Rather than back away Alquin raised his mystical sword. Its light burned in all six of my senses.

They stood there for a moment more in tableau. On one side, power, magic, experience and strength. On the other, Destiny, love and determination. It would be thrilling if I did not already know the end.

My Master sighed and spoke once more “To destiny I say this: If you want me then claim me. And to you I say: Come here and die!”

My master lunged forward with his clawed hand. So fast, I needed to look into the almost-future to see it more clearly. My foresight was clearer than my eyesight had ever been. The impact was blocked in a blinding flash of light by the Hero, muscles straining against the terrible presence of my Master.

He pulled his sword free of my Masters grasping hand, sparks flying from where the two eldritch devices made contact. He swung back, aiming for my Masters’ right arm. Master turned on the spot, knocking the blade aside easily. “Confusion, be my ally!” he yelled.

A dozen dancing flecks of light fell from the palm of the Pacion. Instantly beginning to swirl round Alcuin’s head. The hero let out a yell, swinging his sword wildly at the lights. As I watched, I felt a strange, dizzy feeling in my head, so much so I had to avert my eyes as my sight began to swim. Those lights were horrible.

Alquin swung his sword randomly, through more luck than judgement he managed to keep my Master at bay with those wild strokes. Just as it looked like Master found an opening Alquin rallied and seemed to focus on his adversary. The lights scattered in all directions as the glow from Alquin’s sword intensified. He smashed my masters attacks away easily, catching a piece of masters armour chest armour. A glancing blow from a blade such as that would have been a mortal blow to anyone less powerful than my Master. A shallow cut had opened in his chest, but no pain registered in his features. Just a grim determination.

“Focus, the first of the sword Masters skills. Your sword rewards you I see.” Said my master. Alquin didn’t reply, instead he attacked again.

Keeping his silhouette as small as possible, my Master blocked the blows with the Pacion, the minor movements he used belied the skill which was needed to time them. The speed of the sword strokes became faster and faster pushing my Master back towards the balcony. Taking the sword in both hands Alquin brought down in a mighty blow, striking the Pacion with a force which looked like it might shatter the device. A flash of blinding light lit up the gloom filled room and caused myself and the hero to squint, though I could see a moment into the future clearly, my Master struggling to pick himself up from the floor. As my mundane vision cleared he, struggling to hold his arm straight, yelled “Deception, Blind my foe.”

Dark red light poured from the palm of the device, matched a second later by the light now coming from the heroes eye. His sword arm became limp suddenly; the tip of the sword struck the floor.

Holding his left arm and wincing in pain, my Master dragged himself to his feet. “I have locked him in a victory trance, he is defenceless. But it is not enough. If I try to kill him now he will snap out of the trance and kill me at the final possible moment.”

I looked at the hero, a smile twitched on his face as his mind played through his victory celebrations. Though I could see also the growing concern that what he was seeing was falsehood

“This is true” I spoke “It is the way of things.”

“Not where I come from” My Master called and brought his weapon up, lifting his left arm with his right. “Doubt, Tear Him Apart!”

A dozen tiny orbs of teeth and darkness fell from the Pacion, snapping at the air they flew towards the stricken hero. For a moment, I almost believe they would tear the young man apart as he stood there, slack jawed and dumbfounded. But that couldn’t be. The moment before they made it to him, the dark red light fled from his eyes. His mind restored to the present, he firmly gripped the handle of his sword again.

With a display of swordsmanship unequalled, he spilt every one of the snapping thing in half with a precision strike to each.

“Hatred, Cut him down!” Shimmering blades of air and malice sailed soundlessly through the space between them. Alquin swayed past each one with the certainty of a dream-walker. They came again and again, and Alquin dodged each one. Four in a second. Five. The strain showed on my Masters’ face as he reached inside himself to fuel the Pacion. But every time he seemed to corner his foe, an expert slash of blade, glowing brighter now, cut the air-blades in half.

“Envy!” my Master cried, spitting blood. The command words tearing themselves out of his mouth. “Take His treasure!”

Chains with grasping claws reached out across the gap, even as the Hate still flew.

Mist-like, they wound around the hilt of Alquin’s sword and pulled. For a moment, their strength jarred the young hero, Cuts appearing on his arms and legs as air-blades passed by too closely.

Alquin pulled back against them with all his might. Fate pulled with him. The mist chains strained and snapped. Melting back to nothingness.

My Master fell to his knees, as he fell, the barrage of Hate finally tailed off. He collapsed, exhausted.

“No” He choked, Punching the floor, enraged by his own weakness, “just a little more, I can find away around him. I have to think…”

“It’s over Majesty” Alquin closed the distance between them with a few short strides. I ran to be at my Masters’ side, my short legs seeming to fail me in even this simple task.

“I will not gloat over this.” Said Alquin, the gravity of situation falling on him.

I made it to my Master’s side, he moved to push me away, but I managed to get myself between him and the Hero. I held my staff in an untrained combat stance. Alquin stopped. Unsure of how to proceed.

“No. Ode. Do not be foolish. You know what will happen.” Master spoke. His voice was more human than I had ever heard.

“But Master…” I felt tears swirling beneath my eyes. How long had it been since I had cried?

“Tell me what happens here.” He said, rising to come face to face with his foe as he moved me aside.

“You are k-killed” I managed, through the haze of unfamiliar emotion. “It is the final prophecy. It will bring the new age. An age of freedom in this and the other six Scapes.”

“Yes. I see it to now. It will be glorious.” His attention seemed to pull away again. As if he could see further than I ever could. “You. Young hero boy. You kill me and release your love from her captivity. My destiny and yours are linked as one. Is this the destiny you accept?”

A moment stretched on. Alquin seemed to be taken aback by this question coming now. He rallied quickly. “I accept it. I embrace it. It is all I was born for.” He said. His voice held more certainty than I thought a man could possess.

Master smiled a sad smile and with a look of total abandon on his face cried out, in a voice which shook the rafters “Then come and take it! Match my destiny with yours!”

Master brought the Pacion up with blinding speed. Faster than I had ever seen him move. Alquin was faster. The sword moved forward in a simple thrust. Striking the centre of my Master’s chest and carried on going as if he wasn’t there. The open palm of the Pacion struck Alquin with brutal force. Light flashed.

For a moment, both men stood still, Killing blows halted by each others flesh. Two sets of eyes staring. A like only in determination

Master swayed first. He began to fall. I watched the life drain out of him. His knees buckled and for a brief moment, the only thing that kept him up was the sword through his heart.

Then he said something. A final miracle which I would marvel at for the rest of my life.

“Hope. Open the path”.

The Pacion shone like the sun. And as I turned away I clutched my head and cried. Not in sorrow but in pain. I felt it in my sixth sense like a knife wound, a tearing as my Masters’ soul left his body. It was the feeling of destiny ending.

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As Ode watched the hero picked himself up from the floor. His enemy’s last attack had almost killed him. He may have lost consciousness but he had no way of knowing how long for. The hero staggered over to claim his prize.

With his touch the Opal shuddered visibly. Cracks appearing in its too perfect surface. They spread quickly, each one tiny yet together they sundered the giant stone to its core. With a final flash of yellow light the stone broke, its’ thousand pieces falling to the floor unceremoniously.

And there she was before him. Standing upright and serene. He stepped forward hesitantly to great his love. The only witness was the child who had been a slave to His Majesty. He thought it right that only innocent eyes were to witness this perfect moment.

She stood before him, a jewel more beautiful than any gemstone. Her eyes opened slowly, as if from a dream. She gazed at him and smiled a familiar smile. “It is good to see you again, my love.” She reached up and touched his cheek, her touch dulling the pain of his many injuries.

They kissed. The story was over.

And if you the kind of person who is happy with this then stop reading here, right now. But know that some people are never happy when a story ends. Especially those who never had a chance.

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The crowd cheered as he raised the Breal’sweard high, its blade catching the sun as it tentatively shone through the gaps in the quickly parting clouds. The hero and the queen were standing on a plinth in the Ebony Towers’ courtyard, in place of a toppled statue of His Majesty.

The gathered soldiers shouted their love for their queen and their hero in a wordless chorus. None took any notice of the child who had came with them out of the castle, assuming just another person rescued.

Alquin, the hero, stepped forward and raised his sword to the crowd, doubling the volume of their cries of victory.

“My friends, it is over. We are now free. Free to make our own decisions! Free from the cruel hands of fate. What ever comes next, will be of our own making.”  His voice cut easily through the crowds.

With a slight smile on his face, he turned back to his queen and with a fluid motion which made the crowd silent instantly, and without any hesitation he drove the Breal’sweard through her abdomen.

He never forgot the look on her face.

He closed his eyes and somersaulted backwards into the crowd. It parted as he landed from his impossible jump, his sword already moving he decapitated to dumbstruck soldiers as he touched the ground. He turned to see a man, a general he knew well, drawing his sword. He dropped the Breal’sweard and grabbed the man’s arm as he drew his sword from his scabbard. He pushed the Generals arm back with inhuman strength driving the sword into his stomach. He punched the next man in line with his left hand and bones broke as he fell backwards. He twisted into a spin kick, striking another soldiers hastily raised shield. It dented under the impact and flung the soldier backwards. He span on the spot to see all the enraged faces around him. He smiled at the thrill of it all.

“Stop!” voice called, full of power and stern rage. “Alquin! What has happened to you?” The soldiers parted to reveal the speaker. It was Drealise Wandermoor, in the shimmering, multicoloured battledress of a Spectral Mage. “My friend, what evils have been worked to bring you to this?”

‘Alquin’ reached down and retrieved the Breal’sweard and holding it in his left hand he pointed it at the mage. “Maybe this will answer all your questions. Spite! Break my enemy’s toys!” The sword twisted in his hand and with the sound like Hellgates creaking it shattered, firing shards of singed metal in all directions in a horrid spray of light and blood, though none seemed to touch the man who had done this.

As men fell with shards burning into them, the wizard stepped forward, horror ruling his world. From bloodied lips he spoke. “It’s you! You won. Impossible! You were supposed to die!”

“I did die” The man spat as he threw the sword hilt to the ground. “But not in the way destiny meant me to. I can still hear it scream. I found a way into this young hero, all I had to do was dive into these eyes of yours.” He stepped forward locking Wandermoor in his gaze. The wizard stepped back from the fallen heroes’ hollow, reflective eyes. “No more explanations light mage, you will not be here to tell others anyway.”

He moved towards the wizard as soldiers moved to bar his way. As their spears stabbed into him and their swords hack at him he laughed, tearing himself free and smashing each one of them back with already bloody hands. He laughed as he jumped over their heads, landed, broke a neck or smashed an elbow into a helmeted head. He cried out in joy as he moved, pulling blades from his flesh by the hilt and throwing them recklessly into the crowd. He smashed aside balls of brightly coloured lights and leapt towards the wizard who threw them, as hundreds of men tried to push into the courtyard to find out what was going on.

Even as another spell took form on the Wizards lips the hero drove his bare hand into the mans chest and tore it out again, the light faded as he turned his back to the crowd

He leapt to the plinth where the queen still lay, Ode was standing over her. “Pride! Renew my form.” His body shimmered as it was reworked, clothes twisted into new armour, hair shortened and skin paled. Muscles slimmed, height was added and wounds were closed. The Pacion pushed itself from it hiding place beneath the flesh of his arm. His Majesty stood renewed.

“Stand close Ode. I'm going to finish this quickly”. The small child moved to cling to his cloak tail.

Power began to build around him as the soldiers below began to scramble towards him. Arrows were notched but they were too slow.

He felt something claw at his leg. The queen lay in a pool of blood. She looked up at him from tear filled eyes. Deep, beautiful eyes. She pleaded. “You can’t…”

He looked down at her. Something akin to sadness in his face. “I'm sorry. But I can.” He looked to the sky and cried out, as the army closed the final few steps to him. “Triumph! Herald my Victory!”

Bright, blinding light bloomed from his gauntlet. It carried on up to the heavens and hung in an unnatural pillar for just a second, then exploded outwards, burning the sight from anyone who gazed upon it. It obliterated almost every soldier in the courtyard in an instant. All others soon fled.

I told you to stop.

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As he emerged, bloody but triumphant from the slave pens on the opposite side of the fortress from the explosion, Leyran saw the light in the sky and a fear crept over him. He knew in an instant his student had somehow failed. He knew that his sister, the All-Queen was dead. And the only reason for that could be that he had failed Alquin. Taking up his axes once more he turned towards the light source and walked towards his destiny.

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Abee’rysin was a Smoke Witch, and she soared upon it now. She glided high above the Ebony tower and watched in horror as the events below unfolded. The city of Zrentprasel burned below her. A bastion of evil had been ruined for sure, but what she saw now rivalled all the evils which had ever been spawned from that cursed place.

His Majesty had been reborn from the very person sent to kill him. She fought the urge to throw the last of her power into a final attack for the possibility of killing him when he was still becoming used to his new form. But she knew it was pointless. Now she only had one priority, the survival of herself and the one she loved.

She extended herself into the smoke around her, it took her only a moment to appraise the entire battlefield. She found Leyran instantly and she knew he shared her sense of failure. She flew to him as fast as she could.

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Leyran took slow but certain steps forward. He knew he would have to kill His Majesty now. Maybe the prophecy had been misleading; maybe it was not Alquin who was to do it but some other warrior, maybe…

The impact of the witch knocked him of his feet.

“Don’t go!” She shouted as she barrelled him to the ground, before he had even realised what had happened. She had tears streaming down her face and her thin arms wrapped round him with surprising strength.

“Abee? What is happening?” he said as he pulled her off him as he rose to his feet.

“You said we would run away together. After this battle. You promised!” The pain in her voice was easy to here. She clung to his blood stained battle gear and drew herself close, sobbing.

“The battle isn’t over yet Abee. The tyrant still lives. I swore an oath to my sister that I would…” He trailed off as she shrieked and fell to her knees, still clinging to his armour, her long brown hair hiding her face but he knew what had happened. And he wouldn’t make her tell him, for it would hurt her so. “She’s dead. Alquin too.”

“I saw it through the smoke.” She whispered, as he slid to join her in the mud. For an unknowable length of time he simply held his forehead to hers and was quiet.

Finally he broke the silence “What are we to do now?” He said, ever knowing they were still surrounded by the enemy.

She locked eyes with him. Hers were frighteningly deep and brown, full of sadness and certainty. “We have to run”.

He nodded to her. “We will fly then, back to Sternholm and find allies to come back here. I will fulfil my oath. Raise an army of thieves and mercenaries if I have to. I will avenge my sister.”

“No my love, that’s not far enough. We must run further, through different paths and mazes. Come with me to the Journey Stones we will hide our selves in the darkest, most far away places, safe from His Majesty. Hide with me behind a cloak of obscurity and boredom, just as we dreamed. On another Scape, far from my Coven and your oaths. Let someone else be the hero for once.”

At that he froze and straightened, all emotion fleeing from his face. “I let someone else be the hero this time. It should have been I that slayed the Demon, I who went to save my sister, whom I was born to protect. I will not make such mistakes again.” He stood again, purpose filling his tired limbs he made to go back to the battle at the front of the Tower.

She rose behind him, here grey and black robe now mostly dirt brown. She raised her hand to grab for him, to stop him from running back to battle. Away from her. Words failed her and in that instant she knew what to do and reached into her hip bag.

She closed the distance he had put between them, grabbed his shoulder and span him round, as he opened his mouth to argue she kissed him. The kiss was so cold and bitter it almost broke her heart all over again, yet to pull away would have hurt all the more. She ran her fingers through his hair; it was dark, with just a hint of grey.

Finally she stepped away. Her deep brown eyes filled with tears she touched her hand to his cheek and whispered “Find me.”  And as she drew her hand away she added “Forgive me.” He opened his mouth to question her but it was too late for that. As she turned away from him he found himself unable to speak, as the words were carried away. He raised his hand and saw it turning to mist before his eyes. There was no pain as the Travellers’ Seed she’d placed in his hair began to take effect.

He made to move towards her, though with every movement he shook free more of himself, as he was buffeted by ethereal winds. The last thing he saw was the world blurring, though his vision was perfect, he watched the one he loved shimmer like a mirage and vanish. He tried to mouth something to her but the words were lost, for it was too late for even that.

She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. She swayed on her feet for a moment, staggered and then rose into the smoke filled skies.

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All Smoke Witches have two faces. They are only allowed to show their private faces to their loved ones and their public visage is terrifying. As she settled upon the ash stained battlefield once again she wiped the tears from her eyes and called the smoke to her. It wove towards her in soot grey ribbons and flowed over her face and beneath her robes. Her pale face was replaced with a dark grey mask, obscuring her individuality like snow upon a village.

She then began to walk towards the anguished battle cries of the last of her armies. As she moved, smoke marked her trail, her outline blurred as pieces of her ash covering fell off and flew away upon the breeze even as more smoke flowed to cover her skin and clothes in monochrome. Her face a mask of cold determination she walked towards the man who she knew would be hunting her.

When they met, the ash motes fell around them like snow, drawn to scene as if aware they were witnessing history.

“You took your time smoke-girl.” The dark lord who had claimed a good friend of hers as host mocked as he shook blood from his hands.

They stood amidst a scene of devastation as the bodies of dead soldiers of half a dozen species smouldered around them. The few brave soldiers who had run towards the blast of light which had marked His ascension had been brutally put down.

“You should not have burnt my countrymen, Majesty.” She said, her voice a stern and harsh, a match to her appearance.

“Heh” he laughed as if a thought had just occurred to him “What’s the lesser crime? To kill two men or one woman? To kill ten men or one child? To kill one man to save a loved one or a million to save a million strong country I love? Truly, this is the essence of things.” He said, purposefully misquoting an old proverb of the Smoke Witches.

“Do not think to mock me to provoke me into rash action, know now I am as angry as I can ever be.”

“I'm not mocking you smoke watcher. I simply know your ways. When I first arrived here, I spent a good amount of time reading about all your magic’s. You look into smoke for answers, for currents and trends and fore-warning. You look into the past and use it to predict the future and I think you know what I should do next even though you cannot put words to the minutia.”

“I know what you will try to do and I know you will bring destruction to the Scapes on a scale I can barely imagine. And devastation is almost all I ever imagine. The smoke shouts your praise in every wisp. It breaths of a future full of hope and joy at the funeral pyres to come.”

“I would have thought you would be as happy as your clouds are.” He said, in genuine amused curiosity.

“I am the master, not the smoke. I will force it to stop you even as it weeps for your demise.”

He smiled a half smile and took up his fighting stance, the Pacion raised. “Then there is nothing else to say. You can have the first move.”

The ash which made up her covering began to agitate. Patches all over her body began to glow like embers as parts of her clothes seemed to burn away and back again. The wind fell to nothing as the glow appeared on the ground around them, in and around the corpses of the dead.

With cold grey murder in her eyes she fixed him with a stare and repeated. “You should not have burned my countrymen.”

The smoke shifted and so did the corpses. Embers glowing in there half burnt frames as they squirmed in the black grey ash and reached for their discarded weapons. Heat melted armour clung to charcoal skeletons as they stood, a hundred or so strong they made the air smell of revenge and death. Few were complete, but where flesh failed the ash filled in. Men and elf and horses and flicklizards and all manner of other things coalesced into new and disturbing hybrids, all with glowing orange eyes and soot black features

He nodded approvingly before darting towards the woman before her risen warriors could close the gap. She ran to meet him, her outline blurring as if her every movement was stirring her form.

“Resentment cast b…” His words caught in his throat as soot formed in his lungs; he choked as she came into striking range. A kick flew up from under her robe, the bulky material seeming to part like clouds giving her surprising freedom of movement. Her leg, coloured with grey soot like the rest of her, glowed with burning embers at the points it made contact with his blocking arm. His flesh was scorched and hers seemed to crumble like a burning log, only to be renewed as more of the creeping ash flowed into her wounds. She punched him, hard in the jaw with a burning hand but as she drew back for another attack he moved far faster, sending his right arm up in an unseeable movement he grasped her throat. He dug his fingers in and squeezed with cruelly controlled strength and her neck crumbled beneath his fingers. She fell to the floor defeated.

As she continued to break up like a dying fire her head shattered as it hit the floor, her face never showing anything but certainty.

He stared at the dust in his hand for a moment before looking around at the gathered mass of ruined soldiery. As he stared at their blackened, hate filled faces he couldn’t help but admire what the Smoke Witch had just done. She would be miles, possibly even Scapes away by now.

As the crowd of dead things roared a furnace roar, he spat the rapidly departing soot from his throat. “Anticipation, heighten my senses.” He said offhandedly as the Pacion gave a green glow. He breathed deeply and then dived into the crowd of monsters with reckless abandon.