The Column of Ash [Epic Fantasy]

Emalia was dying. She'd had enough experience with the sensation to make such a guess, after all.

The Corruption slushed in her veins like tar and melting candle wax, thick and caustic. It was fortunate they had horses, as walking for long periods had become difficult, and so she spent most of the day slumped over her reins. She was always tired. Always worn through as if her very being was becoming threadbare. Little motheaten holes exposed to the elements, dilapidating. Sovina worried over her constantly, even trying to keep up an optimistic façade to help with her spirits. But Emalia felt burdened with despair and desperation. No other emotion seemed possible.

Is this what Daecinus dealt with? she wondered, scanning the mountainous countryside and, instead of wonder and excitement, feeling only gloom and anguish at the sights. He was Corrupted for some time. He even took off his own arm to be rid of it when it came back. She would do so herself if she could. It was the worst kind of sickness. The most wasting of diseases.

And in the end, something terrible would happen: she could be turned into a Dead creature, hungering for Souls, at the very least.

They had made decent time, however, passing the distant Kremya Ruin days ago. It was not very visible from where they had been, tucked in the foothills of the mountain range. Still, like in the Sinking Cities, she could almost feel the death leaking off it. Radiating from it. That was where those terrible Greyskins had come from, almost animal-like in their speed and intellect. She shivered at the memory, then felt cold for real when a sharp breeze rushed through, piercing her as if an arrow. The chill never quite left, of course. That was the Corruption doing its work.

Earlier this morning, they had navigated a wide river, passing through the most shallow stretch on horseback, once more climbing the mountains. Fewer trees, bushes, and grasses covered the stony ground. Wildlife itself seemed muted. All signs suggested they were getting close. Hazek's Fields were nearing, and soon, they would be within the sprawling stretch of permanent death that was once Daecinus's home.

They rode in silence through the rest of the day. Sovina was focused on speed and safety, Protis was scouting, and Emalia just felt empty.

Hours slipped by. She barely noticed, drifting.

It was dusk when they made camp under a rocky overhand with a small fire between them and the outside darkness. They didn't have much wood, and so the flames would not last all night, but it was not so cold that they needed it. Not normally, anyway. Emalia shivered even with her hand near the flickering blaze.

She ate bread rations numbly, staring off, thinking. "We can't scout anymore. We don't have the luxury," Emalia said after a while, voice almost a whisper of itself.

"I know." Sovina sounded strangled. "We'll just have to trust her."

"I don't have much longer, Sovina."

"Don't say that."

"I know it. I feel so cold."

Sovina knelt beside her and held her tight. "You'll be alright. We'll fix this."

"I just wish I weren't so weak," Emalia muttered. "This always happens to me. Our weak point."

"You're not a trained warrior, but that does not make you weak. You are strong. So strong… And you need to keep fighting…"

She realized Sovina was holding back tears during her pauses. Emalia held her hand. "You are right. We will reach Maecia in time, and she will help."

"And you need to keep fighting to get there, you hear me? No surrendering, no giving in. Because the Em I know doesn't give in, does she?"

"Not often, sometimes detrimentally." She smiled. "Petulant and stubborn, I believe Smychnik used to say." Her smile faded. It had been some time since she thought of her old teacher. He had betrayed the Column, promising the secrets of its past to the rebels. He had died to the Soulborne. Was that fit punishment, or did she mourn him still? Could she do both?

"In the morning, we'll be close," Sovina whispered, holding her hand. "Very close."

"Don't worry. I will be alright. Just a while further, as you say."

"Good. We still have a quiet cabin to retire to after this is all done."

It was something Sovina had spoken of before. However, they both knew it wouldn't happen, not with what Emalia had experienced in Novakrayu and speaking to the people, not with Daecinus's plan, and most of all, not with Emalia's temperament. She would never stop throwing herself in situations like these, trying to help, encountering complications, dealing with them as they arise… But in a way, it felt right, and she was okay with it. As long as, in the future, she wasn't attacked by Gresyskins spreading Corruption again.

She slept soon after with Sovina holding her. Though she tried to drift away somewhat peacefully, she couldn't shake the feeling that something loomed in the darkness just beyond her sight, possibly incorporeal but certainly there. A nightmare manifest.

They did not reach the Grand Observatory the next day, but Protis did feel something shift in the air. It spoke in that raspy, half-dead voice of a certain unease. It could feel like Sorcery was a temperature change, and what they were walking into was a severe cold plunge.

Over a week from civilization, when she was half alive, clinging to the saddle, eyelids heavy and bones like sandpaper upon her shifting muscles, they spotted the dipping mountainside, the tall structure standing out like a beacon. Behind it, the endless stretch of Hazek's Fields—of Pethya. I should banish that name from my mind. Hazek's Fields is a construction of the Column to cover their atrocities. She sighed and tried to sit tall. Was she beholden to such guilt over a history of lies and corruption? How could she be? But if not her, then who? Few truly led the Column, as most were mere extensions of it. Leaving was not only the safest thing but the most ethical thing. The Column was a lost cause, a false prophet, and Emalia had to begin anew. Novakrayu showed her that.

"Em," Sovina said, voice sharp.

Emalia blinked and sat up. She had nearly slid off the saddle.

"Do you need to rest? We're getting close."

"No, I can manage," she replied, steeling herself. Gods, why did it always feel like something was about to reach out and grab her? She cast a look around just to be sure. Nothing. "A little longer. Yes, I can manage it."

The mountains descended, air less thin than before, but bleakness overtook them. Nothing grew here. No grass, no trees, not even lichen or moss under rocks. It was deader than the northern plains above the Sinking Cities. And, except for the wind, it was eerily quiet. With no animals to speak of, the ambiance of even the mountainside had chirps of birds and rustling of mammals in the thin brush. But here? Quiet as the Nova catacombs.

"Eerie," she muttered.

"Protis," Sovina called out, "keep a tight perimeter."

The Soulborne stepped closer to stay within twenty paces of them, black eyes squinting all about for enemies.

"Should we use the Artifacts?" she asked Sovina.

"We want her to find us and bring us in. Sneaking up on her seems risky."

Emalia nodded. "Okay." We talked about this already, didn't we?

She felt her companion's gaze upon her. A worrisome one, likely.

They had to reach the Observatory. They had to.

But it took hours. Each foot in the dead world felt wrong. Each minute under the oddly thinned sun in the dry, cold world chilled her further. As if the Corruption was egged on.

They reached the hillside where the Grand Observatory sat—a grand stone tower almost as wide as it was tall. Ancient and time-worn, it could have seemed almost abandoned if not for the wagon she saw out before the entrance. No signs of people. But there were Dead.

Oh yes, she could see them now.

Protis did first, shoulders bunching in violent readiness, and she followed its stare to the far side, where a group of Greyskins loped across the ground toward them.

"Maecia is a Sorcerer," Emalia found herself saying. "She will have creations like Daecinus's own."

"I don't like it." Sovina unsheathed her blade and held it to her side, sitting firmly upon her mount, looking like a druzhina.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"If she has humans delivering things, then they wouldn't let roaming Dead near this place. They have to be hers."

Ultimately, she was right, for when the Greyskin creatures neared, they slowed, surrounding the three of them. Remarkable opposite to Protis, in a way, for the Soulborne stood like a man, wearing armor and carrying an axe, where these Dead stalked, sometimes on all fours, more like wolves than men.

"We come for Maecia!" Sovina shouted at them. "We know her brother, Daecinus. She'll want to speak to us!"

One stepped closer, eliciting a growl from Protis that made Emalia's hair stand on end. The Greyskin looked at the Soulborne and cocked its head, taking another step. Before she could do anything, Protis rushed forward and bashed it aside with a massive fist. Next to each other, she noticed just how large Protis had grown from its initial creation. The Greyskins were slightly taller than a man but broad and hunched down, animalistic. Protis, on the other hand, was well over seven feet at this point, and even though the other Dead were strong, Protis had crafted muscle in thick knots all across its body, tensing and twitching beneath its pale skin.

The Greyskin growled but retreated oddly. A show of dominance?

"Maecia," Sovina said, "take us to her. Please."

The Greyskins loped away toward the Observatory, so they brought her horses about to follow. It was amazing that their mounts hadn't run, but then, most horses in Merkenia were exposed at least somewhat to Dead; otherwise, they'd be useless. And so, forward they went, Sovina ready for battle, Protis leading the way with a posture equally violent, and Emalia doing her best to stay conscious and alert. It did not take long to reach the building. She recalled Daecinus's tale of the attack and looked about along the way, spotting a slight scorch spot along the hillside where the ground was scarred and blackened as if by some kind of ethereal fire. She looked up to find the balcony where he and Maecia were subdued but had already passed it, nearing the front. There were large open doors, revealing a dark interior antechamber some fifteen paces long and five wide. The stone walls were covered in precise, beautiful carvings of a tale. They entered, and she looked at it as they passed, stumbled, then caught by Sovina.

"Em?" she asked.

"Just tired." Emalia tried offering a small, though it felt weak and dishonest.

She wanted to stay and observe the relief sculpture, but Sovina hauled her along. The Greyskin opened the door leading into the Grand Observatory, and the sight truly took her breath away. The room was as large as the tsar's hall and far taller. It was laid out like a cylinder, with a central platform that rested upon the stone floor beneath a magnificent ceiling of a complex weaving of bronze rings and sweeping segments that reminded her of a delicate mechanism of ancient artifice she'd read about in the Column tomes. A true Sorcerous Wonder beyond those she'd seen broken and turned to Ruin.

But the Grand Observatory was not empty. There were men inside—not Pethyans, with grey skin and odd eyes, but Merkenian natives, if she had to place them. Five of them. They watched her party enter with open suspicion and hostility. They were also armed with hand weapons tucked in belts or sheathed at their sides. Sovina detached herself with a muttered apology and stood before Emalia, hand on her saber, other gripping the collar of her mail shirt near her helmet. She would buckle it before a fight started, never one to risk it falling off. Protis, of course, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sovina, axehead on the floor, handle in its hands, staring out. But not at the men. The Soulborne looked past them toward one who stood behind upon the central platform.

Maecia.

Tall, powerful, with long pale hair, not quite Demetria's silver, but greyer, more mature. She had Daecinus's red eyes and sharp, imperial features. She commanded attention there in a dress of fine wool—oddly, not silk, as Daecinus often spoke of as being the Sorcerer's garb—layered with a tunic in the commoner's fashion. It was not the apparel of a boyar but that of a well-off merchant. Odd. Nevertheless, she didn't need fineries to draw the eye, exuding confidence and competence like a dangerous warrior's implicit threats. Or like the fear inspired by a Greyskin's presence. It also did not hurt that she was adorned with bronze, silver, ivory, and gold jewelry, Emalia guessed were Artifacts.

Maecia frowned at Protis, arms crossed, and said in a hard, uncompromising voice reminiscent of Daecinus's own, "So, he's not only fallen for the Vasians' trap but dabbled in further High Soul Sorcery? What even are you, creature? And where is my fool of a brother?"

Emalia blinked, stunned. She tottered there, unsure of what to say, but it was Sovina who spoke for them, "We need your help. We're friends of Daecinus—"

"And where is he?" Her disapproving expression turned even grimmer. "If that man has crossed the sea…"

"He's not here. We are. But that doesn't matter now; she's Corrupted and needs your assistance!"

"Sovina," Emalia muttered. "Diplomatic."

"Then you beseech her."

Maecia waved her hand dismissively. "You've come far, obviously with a different original intent based upon those Artifacts in your saddlebags. Yes, I can sense them. Only effective if worn with a Soul to feed from." Her face scrunched up in disgust, then dissipated into impatience as she nodded to them. "Come forth."

Sovina took Emalia's arm and helped her past the wary men. They parted for her, no longer with hands near their weapons, but still not quite relaxed. Protis lurked behind, still distracted or in some similar state. She couldn't observe the creature, now out of her line of sight, as she hobbled up to Maecia with Sovina's help.

Up close, she was even taller, perhaps eye-to-eye with an average man. She was not thin and narrow-boned as Daecinus and Demetria were, but muscled, like Sovina. It only made her more intimidating.

Maecia reached out and placed a hand on Emalia's throat, fingers pressed firmly against her flesh, though not painfully. "Hm." It was a sound of displeasure. The Greyskin that led them in loped forward and stopped beside Emalia. It took all she had not to jerk away. Its movement seemed to draw Protis up as well, standing behind her protectively. If there was one reassuring thing about this situation, it was that she had both Sovina and Protis there to look out for her. Her thinking was broken by a sudden pain in her core. It felt like she was being attacked with Sorcery.

Sovina hissed out, "What are you doing?"

"Helping her, child. Do not draw that blade."

Before Emalia could collapse to the ground in writhing agony, it was gone, and she was left gasping, sweating, eyes wild with frantic fright and surprise. "What was that?" she asked, falling back into Sovina's grasp.

The Greyskin beside her shuttered and fell, the veins beneath its hide-like skin blackened and pulsing. It twitched and then stopped moving, dead.

"Unfortunate." Maecia sighed and turned to look at Protis. "Soulborne, then? I shouldn't be surprised. He would try to make do with the Low blockage to forge something more independent and of greater efficiency in expenditure. Yet you, creature, are odd, even so. You remind me of him. As if a piece of him is within you. An unfortunate abomination of a High Soul."

Emalia focused on her core, on that feeling of cold dread. It was gone. By all the gods, it was truly gone! "How did you do that? I've never seen anyone do that… even Daecinus."

"Is it not obvious?" Maecia's brow rose at her. "I have years of experience my brother lacks. It would be foolish to consider him the paragon of Sorcery if something so lofty could be attributed to this cursed ability."

"Well, he took on the Souls from me, but—"

"What Souls?"

Emalia looked away. "The priests."

"Those lying cowards used you, then? And he was foolish enough to try to handle them himself?" She shook her head and, for a moment, bore an expression of fear. "But he lives? He is well?"

Unstable, intense, but still herself, I hope. Emalia nodded, and Maecia's concern faded. "He is. And… Demetria is back."

"Of course. If he is alive, then he would go to the Column no matter what anyone could say to resurrect her. I feared this outcome. It means our end is coming, and the priests will seek to annihilate the remainder of our people. There is not much time left. The work must continue."

"What work?" she asked, amazed that she felt almost back to normal so quickly. Just how powerful is she? "Are you rebuilding the Grand Observatory for use once again? How will that help?"

"It is of no matter to you." She waved to the men and they quickly resumed hauling and preparing one of those bronze rings for assembly above. "How did you know about my location and activities?" Maecia asked. "Were you behind my shipment's disappearance? And my men's deaths? We found one with half his mind lost in madness from a talking Greyskin's attack."

Emalia didn't know what to say to that; fortunately, perhaps, Protis answered for her. "I smelled Death and sought answers. They resisted me."

"A shame. You truly are like your creator." She turned from Protis to Emalia and Sovina. "Where is my brother? You did not answer my question."

"Not here," Sovina said.

"Do not toy with me, child. Where is he?"

"He's in New Petha."

Maecia cursed under her breath and turned from them, hands clenched tight behind her back, whitening further with the pressure. "And what is he doing there?"

"Preparing it for war," Emalia answered. "Vasia will come for them, as you suspected, and he intends to take the offensive. While I am not a proponent of such violence, I think it may be necessary here—"

"I care not for your equivocations," Maecia snapped. "Whatever his intentions, it will only lead to ruin when everything is already so fragile! Curse him! And now his minions seek out my work, thinking to sabotage what I've worked so hard to fix? I will not have it."

"It's not so sinister! I—"

"You may remain here for the time being. If you were anyone else, I might kill you here and now for your intrusion. But you come in ignorance, clearly unaware of what you threaten. Try and leave, however, and you will receive no such mercy from me. Too much is at stake here."

"Don't threaten us," Sovina growled. "We come in peace, and we'll leave in peace."

Maecia raised her chin, eyes narrowed. "You mistake your position for one of strength, child."

Emalia was stunned once more. Why were things collapsing so fast? Damnations, how could this happen? "We aren't your enemies, Maecia. We just wanted to see what was happening here. We thought the worst and were concerned! Let us help. We can be on the same side."

She scoffed mirthlessly. "The same side? It matters not where you place yourselves. Your loyalty to my brother is sufficient to warrant concern. I will not take chances with betrayal. Not anymore." With that, she walked away from them, seemingly done with the conversation.

Emalia stared after her, confused at the change of events yet relieved at her curing of Corruption. If only she hadn't been touched by that foul Greyskin, none of this would have happened. As Sovina tried and failed to pursue Maecia, warded off by a Greyskin stalking the interior, Emalia turned her attention to something she could solve: the Observatory itself. Maecia spoke vaguely, yes, but there were pieces there to put together. She assumed Emalia would tell Daecinus what she saw, at the very least, and that would be enough to cause a problem. Something deep divided the two of them. He'd not spoken much of Maecia, but one thing he did mention stuck with Emalia and was confirmed now: the woman's hate of Sorcery.

As Protis and Sovina stood on guard, Emalia stared upward at those complex, almost ornate bronze workings and realized something with a start. She referred to this age's Sorcerous instability, Daecinus noticed as a Low blockage. The Low fuels Sorcery while the High, mostly unreachable, connects us to the Souls' intelligence and sentience… The realization plummeted her stomach with a strange fear. One of dawning dread, almost. Maecia knew the source of it.

She knew.

Did the Wonder hum with Sorcery? Did it prickle her skin and turn the air cold, or was it her imagination? Just a residue of the past?

And more, was there a greater reason for her leaving Daecinus in the Sinking City beyond his draw to the Crown of the Column, thus bringing about the priests' return? Did she leave him there so she could pursue this without his interference? A greater calling?

Was Maecia behind the weakening of Sorcery? And more, was this project aimed at blocking it entirely?