Their hands reached out to touch the polished script. Shining silver against the ebony face of the stone, it seemed to glow faintly, pulsing brighter as they drew near.
Eden strode forward confidently, reaching toward the stone with no trace of hesitation. She knew very well how dangerous magic could be in the wrong hands, but this was an artifact, not a hobgoblin, and she had never known an object to wield malicious magic. In any case, she had been studying shielding spells of late, and felt well equipped to deal with any danger that might present itself.
As her hand touched the stone's dark surface, the silver script flashed brightly. Luminescent symbols poured from the stone face, swirling up and around her. Suddenly, the symbols hesitated, floating in mid air. Eden watched them curiously, and when they drew no closer, she concentrated, weaving a hair-fine thread of magic and reaching out with it, probing at the symbols. With a snap and a shock, as though she had brushed her fingers across a lightning bolt, her probe recoiled and unraveled, leaving a part of her mind raw and stinging. Eden scowled, and symbols around her quivered. It looked as though they tried to pull away, but were forced back toward her, twitching in the air and making little jumps back and forth. With a small frown, Eden concentrated, gathering her mana.
At once, the symbols ceased their trembling and plunged toward her. Eyes widening in surprise, Eden formed the mana into a shield spell - but she was too late. The symbols sank through her half-formed shield like stones through soft mud, wrapping themselves around her and settling into her flesh. But the shield had had some effect. Eden did not lose consciousness. The world around her darkened, and she felt her mind and body tear away from each other, like a bandage ripped from a partially scabbed scrape, but across an unfathomable, infinite area inside her skull. She tried to scream, but the only sound was a soft sigh as her body collapsed to the ground. In her mind, the scream was a raw, echoing screech that seemed to go on for an eternity.
It was over in the blink of an eye. She stood, trembling, upon nothing but blackness, surrounded by a sea of stars. She blinked back tears that were not there, realized that she had no eyes to blink. Looking down, she saw nothing - no body supported her head - and with that she realized she had not moved her head to look down. In fact, she had no head to move. Instead, her attention had somehow refocused in another direction. The thought made her queasy. She felt something close to panic, hanging in the midst of nothing with no body or form, but with no heart to race, no breath to catch, and no palms to sweat, the sensation felt hollow.
"It's because you left your body behind, ya know?" The high, musical voice came from behind her, and she whipped around to see the source of it. As she was, however, she did not turn; her attention inverted, flowing back through itself to look behind her, like a shirt turned inside out. Eden felt nauseous with the thought - then realized how silly it was to feel nauseous without a stomach, and the feeling ceased. “Most people don’t know that when they come here, so they picture themselves with a body. But you saw, so you didn’t.”
There, sitting on a boulder and swinging her feet like a child, was a slim girl. She slouched, chin cupped in palms and elbows propped on knees, watching Eden (or the spot where she would be, had she had a body) with a tiny smirk on her face. By her smooth features, she could not be much older than Eden, perhaps the same age. But her hair, tucked neatly into a puffy cap, was white where it fell in short, silky pigtails at the back. Her eyes were as narrow as the rest of her was slender, with bright red irises that stood out against her pale skin and clashed with the white of her blue-sleeved coat.
“Who-? what-? how? …why do you have a body then?” Eden stammered, trying to ask all of her questions at once.
The girl’s smirk deepened. “You’re here because the Stone brought you here. Of course, you’re not really here at all, you’re still there, so it didn't really bring you anywhere, but you think you’re here, and that’s all that matters, really.” She giggled then, a musical sound like tiny bells stirred by the wind. “As for why I have a body, I do because I think I do. Things are what you make of them, here.” She hopped down from the rock, which vanished behind her. Around her feet, grasses dotted with tiny purple flowers sprang out of nothing. “Here, you can be anything you want,” she said, her voice deepening at the end as she suddenly grew to twice her original size, her clothing fading from a close-fitting white coat and short black skirt to a fur-lined vest and snug trousers. Her cap vanished, and her white hair shortened and blushed into a close-cropped, spiky red, even as her skin darkened to a glowing bronze. “Well, almost anything,” she continued in her deep, resonant voice. Suddenly, she was a slender, white-haired girl again. With a small frown, she continued. “Actually, we can only take the shapes of the things that we are.” With that, the smirk returned and her red eyes sparkled as though she had just told a grand joke.
“I don’t understand,” Eden said. “What is this place?”
“Look around! It should be obvious, especially to you, smarty pants.” Eden looked around her, still a jarring sensation with no head to turn, but all she saw were stars. “No, silly, look closer!” She focused on a small cluster of stars, and suddenly she could see. They were all linked by gossamer threads, like a tiny constellation. Threads and stars alike pulsed and flickered in time with each other. “Good, now look farther away.” She pulled her focus back, and she saw that nearly all the individual stars were part of some larger web; only a few stood alone. Everywhere she looked, she saw invisible filaments connecting the stars, forming constellations big and small. Each constellation was a different color, but every star in each constellation was the same. “Faaaartherrrrrrr.” She pulled back even more, and at first she couldn’t tell what she was seeing. It looked like enormous jellyfish or giant, transparent slugs. Membranous sacs, filled and glittering with webs of stars, sprawled across the space. Some were close and tight, others had thin tentacles reaching out and between and around the others. As she watched, bits of them broke off and merged with others. Some split in two, and the pieces drifted away from each other. Some seemed to pop, the border around them vanishing, and the clusters of stars within drifted through the space, alone.
“They’re all connected…”
“Yes! That’s why you’re here, smart one.” Eden still watched the churning, glittering masses, but she could see the girl before her, too, still wearing a smirk.
Suddenly a thought occurred to her. “Why are you here?” she asked the girl. “There’s no one else around; why is it just you and me?”
The smirk disappeared. “Well… technically it’s not ‘you and me.’ I don’t know how to explain it.” The girl frowned then, and stuck out her lip in a pout. “And I shouldn‘t have to! You already know the answers, or I wouldn’t be telling them to you!”
“I don’t understand-“ but the girl cut her off.
“You can be so dense sometimes! We don’t have time for this. He’s coming! Now get a hold of yourself and put on a body! Do you want him to see us like this?”
“Who’s coming? How do I-? Wait, what’s your name, anyway?”
The smirk returned, almost a grin now, and she arched one eyebrow coyly. “I’m Nede.” The way she pronounced it was strange - two syllables, short at the beginning, higher and longer at the end. Comprehension dawned on her, and she refocused her attention above and behind the two of them, somehow looking down at herself and the girl. Sure enough, she saw a glowing nimbus surrounding each of them - a different shade than all the other stars around them, but they two were the same – and an imperceptible line connecting them. Threads like the finest spiderwebs trailed away from them to other nearby stars. “Finally! You got it, now put on your body. He’ll be here any second!”
She focused, and her point of view returned to where her eyes would be. She hesitated. “Uh, how do I…?”
Nede blinked. “Really? Sometimes I think you’re not as smart as you are, ya know that? Just concentrate. Like this.” Suddenly Nede changed. Her skin darkened to a light tan as dark blond spread across her hair. Her eyes widened, becoming large, lavender pools in a face that was somewhat rounder than before. Even her clothing changed, becoming a ruffled black skirt with a lavender bodice and big red bow. Eden looked at herself, as clear as if she stood before a mirror.
“I think I see,” she said. “All I have to do is… Yes, only… in reverse, I think…” The last came out in a higher, more melodious voice than she was used to. She looked down at herself and saw pale skin, slender legs under a short black skirt, and high-topped white boots. She pushed back a baggy white cap that slid down her forehead. “This isn’t right.”
Nede laughed, a rich sound coming from Eden’s vocal cords. “You dummy! You made yourself me! I guess that’s fair, since I’m you. And I guess this will work just as well. Here!”
She blinked, and she was looking at Nede again. Nede, who was looking down at her boots, as she had just been. Eden looked down at her own feet, and saw a patch of grass and purple flowers around them. She smiled. “That was a neat trick. You must teach me sometime.”
“If I know it, you know it!” she quipped, a broad grin spreading across her face.
“You got the shoes wrong, though.” Eden’s height dropped as two inches of heel disappeared from her shoes. Nede laughed, and Eden joined in, but the sound was cut short as they both felt a sharp tug.
“He’s here.”
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Their hands reached out to touch the polished script. Shining silver against the ebony face of the stone, it seemed to glow faintly, pulsing brighter as they drew near.
A tingle crept across Digory's hand and up his arm. Gently, humming rhythmically, it seeped into his flesh and warmed him. Delighted, he tried to turn and see if his friends experienced the same sensation, but he found himself unable to move except to draw closer to the stone. As his fingers made contact with the cool, metallic writing, the glow around the stone flickered and pulsed, gaining intensity. With a bright flash, the silvery script leapt from the stone, circling around his arms and chest and settling there for a moment before sinking into his tough Giant's hide. The humming stopped. Everything stopped. Time seemed to stand still as a tingle swept across him, pulsing like a dream beat and leaving numbness in its wake. His vison dimmed, fading to black.
When he opened his eyes, he looked out across a vast sea of stars. He stood on nothing, but he neither fell nor felt as though he were floating. Something flashed at the corner of his eye and he turned, spotting one star that glittered brighter than the rest. He stared, a grin spreading across his face, as the star grew larger. No, not larger. Closer.
As the star approached, an image formed in his head, a vision of a slender man, tall for a human, clad in a lavender robe. He held a longbow, unstrung and propped casually against his shoulder. All around him lay tools of various trades: a large, heavy hammer that could only have been used for blacksmithing; a leather bag filled with tiny saws and awls, knives and clamps and other things; a sewing kit and a bundle of fresh herbs tied with twine. Behind the man, a large window looked out on a field of long, verdant grasses, swaying in gentle breeze. The star was nearly upon him now, and Digory saw that the image inside his head was inside the star, too, but misty and dim, as though he looked through a foggy window into another place. The star approached, the image cleared, and the man looked up at him with clear, blue eyes.
The star, now hovering before him, loomed twice his considerable size and glowed like the noonday sun. He reached out toward it, and the man inside looked up at his hand. A voice boomed suddenly, echoing as though it came from inside his head and all around him at the same time. He jumped at the sound, looking frantically for the source of the voice. He saw the man in the star do the same.
"Do you join the Noxx?" It came as a question, but somehow it wasn't a question at all. There was only one answer he could give.
"Yes," he replied simply. He was not really surprised to hear the man echo his affirmation. Digory turned back to face the star, and the man turned toward him, mirroring his movements.
"Then come into the Night and be transformed." Again, that booming voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The image before him rippled like the surface of a pond stirred by the flap of a butterfly's wings. "You are not alone, and you are not One. Join us as you are, as you were, and as you will be. Join us as you are, every where that you are."
The star's glow began to change then, dimming and changing hue like the setting of the sun. The surface rippled again, and suddenly he could see another star beyond it - or within it, or perhaps surrounding it, it was impossible to tell - and in that star was a pointy-eared girl with silvery eyes. As one, the three reached out. Their hands touched as the nimbus surrounding them - all three of them now, as though each had been inside their own star all along - dimmed to a faint indigo glow. Darkness sprung from their point of contact, flashing, if darkness could be said to flash, and blinding them.
Once more numbness enveloped Digory. He could see nothing, could feel nothing except their clasped hands. Then even that feeling dwindled.
He awoke with a start. He did not recall falling asleep, but it must have been some time ago - the last light of sunset streamed in through the window of his cottage. Yawning deeply, he stood to light a lamp, then cursed under his breath as his longbow fell to the floor, knocking a bundle of herbs from the table. He bent to pick up the herbs - and stopped. For an instant, he had caught his reflection in the blade of a knife laying on the table. Instead of his own face, he thought he had seen a broad, bearded face looking back at him.
"Keep it together, Dylan," he chided himself. "Next you'll be jumping at mongeese and running from aardvarks!" He chuckled and stood to light the lamp.
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Their hands reached out to touch the polished script. Shining silver against the ebony face of the stone, it seemed to glow faintly, pulsing brighter as they drew near.
As a child, Xiero had often played alone, exploring the canyons that ran through the foothills not far from his home, sometimes finding hollows or caves in the rock face. Once, he had followed a tiny stream up into the hills and found a shadowed pool cupped within the steep walls of a ravine. The pool was fed by a waterfall, cascading down from a stone outcrop far above. He had fallen asleep watching the water foam and froth at the bottom of the falls, rising mist creating miniature rainbows in the sunlight. What he remembered most about that day, however, was starting awake as his hand, which had gripped his bow loosely, propping it up against the wall behind him, fell to his side and into an ant hill. In seconds, tiny insects had swarmed over him, tickling at first, but then stinging as they bit him. It had burned like fire for the rest of the day, and it was a week before he could draw his bow again.
Now, as he stepped forward, a similar sensation flowed from his fingertips across his hand, spreading up his arm as he moved closer, seeming to pulse in time with the silver glow from the stone. At first it tingled, as though miniscule ants crawled across his skin, but then it deepened, penetrating into the flesh of his arm, down to the bone. His skin prickled as every hair tried to stand on end. Eyes widening with surprise and dread, he tried to draw back - and found that he couldn't. The tingle sharpened, beginning to sting and burn like vinegar poured over a cut as he struggled to pull himself away from the stone. He willed himself to move back, strained with the effort of it, but he was no longer in control. Barely supressing panic, he watched as his hand crept inexorably forward, closing the distance between his fingers and the stone's smooth surface.
Brilliant light flared from the script, solidifying into symbols that rose from the polished silver and wrapped themselves around Xiero, settling into his skin like luminous metallic tattoos. The burn intensified. His whole body thrummed with energy, resonating, modulating to match the pitch and rhythm of some unheard and ancient song. His vision dimmed, closing in from the sides like a dark tunnel. As blackness enveloped him, all sensation ceased.
Xiero opened his eyes and looked around. All around him was blackness broken by countless glittering points of light. It seemed as though he floated in a perfectly clear night sky, stretching infinitely in every direction. He stood on nothing, though it felt as solid as stone beneath his feet. As he looked, turning and trying to take in the vastness of whatever place this was, he noticed that a scattered handful of stars were somehow different. They felt brighter, more distinct, than the others. As he focused on one of them, it seemed like it drew nearer, and a dim image formed in his mind - a boy, dressed all in yellow and gold, a bow held in one hand as the other reached for an arrow - then disappeared like a pricked bubble as a voice boomed inside his head.
"Do you join the Noxx?" That wasn't what the voice said. The words were different somehow, but his mind gave them meaning. Awed at the power of the voice, Xiero struggled to reply. He had no idea what the question meant, but the tone of the voice was insistent, almost demanding.
"No," he finally managed. He did not know what Noxx meant, but he was sure, from the pain he had felt and the oddness of this place, that he wanted no part of it. "Wha-" he started to ask, but was cut off.
"Go then, daywalker." The voice, booming like thunder to begin with, seemed suddenly to echo inside his head, reverberating like a drum beat in a cave, gaining intensity. Around him, the stars began to vibrate and shake. He couldn't think, couldn't hear his own thoughts over the sound in his head. He grasped his head in his hands, trying to block out a cacaphony that came from within. It felt as though his head would burst. Even so, he was dimly aware of a few stars that stood still as all the others tilted and whirled crazily in the black, the same handful that he noticed before. The one that had seemed like it drifted toward him drew nearer still, and he imagined he could see a pair of eyes, shining yellow-gold against the dark. The rumble in his skull peaked in intensity and he fell to his knees, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head in pain. Then all was black.
He woke with a start. Morning sunlight fell on dew-soaked grass, glittering like diamonds. He sat up carefully, putting a hand to his head, leaning back against a crumbling stone wall. As he moved, bits of gray flaked from his hands and arms. Patterns were scrawled there, looking like they were painted on with a crust of ash. He brushed at it and it came off easily.
Xiero stood up and looked around. It was a beautiful day, sunny and clear with a gentle breeze. Vaguely, he recalled having been somewhere else, somewhere dark, but he pushed the thought away. He had a dream, perhaps - maybe a nightmare, at that - but certainly nothing worth dwelling on. Gathering his belongings, he set out to the south. Town should be that way, if he remembered correctly. He strode to the edge of the clearing, and by the time he reached the path through the woods, all memory of last nights's journey, the stone, and the dark place were gone.
In his eagerness to return to town, Xiero paid no mind to the dilapidated wall he had leaned against. He didn't see piles of rubble beyond the wall, nor did he find a stairway hidden amongst the debris. He didn't even feel the eyes of those who watched him go.
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She woke with a start, eyes popping open but seeing nothing but a dark gray haze. Scrambling to her feet, she looked around and noticed the cause of her temporary blindness - a thick fog covered the ground where she had slept. Thick, opaque, but not damp. Above her, a thin crescent cast pale moonlight through the treetops, throwing shifting shadows and glimmering motes across the mist around her.
She felt a strong urge to move, to leave this forest behind her. Stooping to pick up her feathered, broad-brimmed hat, she suddenly remembered her companions. The fog was too thick to see where they lie, and the dim, wavering light did little to help her search. She stumbled over a thick root and crashed to the ground. Sitting up and brushing dirt from her hands, she nearly screamed when the root reached out to grab her ankle.
A huge shadow rose from the fog, and the girl let out a startled yelp as she kicked her foot free and jumped to her feet.
"Eden, is that you?" The voice, muffled only slightly by the dense fog, was deep and rumbling, reminiscent of an avalanche cascading down a mountain slope. An errant moonbeam illuminated a face that could have been carved from a boulder. A large boulder.
Eden let out a sigh of relief and her voice shook only once as she addressed her giant companion. "Digory, you great lummox! You scared me half to death! What are you doing jumping out of the shadows like that!" She paused only to brush the leaves and pine needles from her dress before planting her fists on her hips, glaring up at him as he rose.
"Sorry, Miss," he said with only a hint of sarcasm. "You should be careful, stumbling around in the dark like that. Where is everyone? I feel like we should be moving."
Both turned their heads at the sound of muffled footsteps approaching. It was still dark, almost black, but they had no trouble picking out the yellow cloak of their friend Xiero. "The others are gone," he said as he strode up to them, "I've looked everywhere, but I can't find them. We should move on. They'll find their way."
They nodded agreement and turned as one to the north. They could all feel it now, a gentle tug pulling them northward, like strings tied around their middles. Out of the corner of her eye, Eden thought she could almost see the cords, glimmering like gossamer threads, leading away into the hills. Surely it was a trick of the light, mere moon shadows. Through the night they walked, until the sky lightened to the gray light of false dawn. The pull seemed to intensify then, gaining an urgency that seemed to hum within them.
At last, they reached a wide clearing. There, standing against a rough stone outcropping that was twice again as tall as Digory, was a smooth black obelisk, its polished sides broken by engraved script shining silver in the pre-dawn light. She should see the threads clearly now. Thin, translucent, and insubstantial, but pulling them just as surely as if they were ropes. Slowly, they stepped toward the stone.
They reached out their hands to touch the polished script.
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