Rich Wulf - Rise of the Seventh Moon

Zamiel walked forward, looking up at the ancient, massive expressions with a strangely wistful expression. Some of them were almost familiar to him. He traced the fingers of one hand along a large rib protruding vertically from the earth. This place was at once comfortable and alien to him. Soon, all of this would end.

He felt a sense of dread and was bewildered by the feeling. For countless ages he had sought his destiny, but now that it was close at hand, he was strangely afraid. The prophet realized that had become too comfortable in this state of existence. He had almost come to enjoy the pursuit, the endless quest to complete himself. Now that victory was so near at hand, he was uncertain what to do.

The sound of shards of bone sliding against one another drew his attention. Zamiel chided himself once again for such pointless musings. He peered up at the shambling hulks lurching through the shadows beneath the bony towers. Their formless bodies oozed over the terrain, pushing showers of shattered bone in their wake. The earth itself softened and oozed out of their path. Dozens of bloodshot eyes and misshapen mouths gaped upon their putrid flesh. Rotten teeth chewed the air. A pitiful gibbering sound rose as they approached.

Zamiel winced, irritated at the sound. The gibbering tried to gain a foothold in his mind, to drive him mad. Zamiel ignored their feeble magic. Much like the bones, these creatures were oddly familiar to him. While the ancient remains inspired a sense of nostalgia, these mindless beasts simply disgusted him.

“This is all that remains of Khyber’s proud empire?” Zamiel said, deep voice echoing across the bony waste. “Where once a demon horde ruled this land, now only their mindless beasts lurch across the earth, seeking vermin to devour?”

The surging heaps of flesh moved toward the source of the voice. There were half a dozen of them, pushing one another out of the way in an effort to be the first to feed on this intruder. The prophet’s lip curled and his form flickered as he shifted back into the shape of a great copper dragon. The gibbering mouthers paused. Some fragment of their demented minds recognized the creature they now faced, and they were afraid.

Zamiel exhaled a cloud of boiling acid across the bleached path. The black liquid flowed over the aberrations, searing into their bizarre forms. Their gibbering changed to anguished shrieking, pitiful screaming, and finally-silence. In moments, the cloud dispersed. The creatures of Khyber had been reduced to smoking heaps of melted flesh. Zamiel returned to his human form and continued on his way, stepping carefully over their remains and paying them no further mind.

He explored for nearly an hour before finding what he sought. Zamiel occasionally heard more aberrations, hovering at the boundaries of perception. They gave him no more trouble, hurrying from his path each time he moved toward them. Even their simple minds now perceived the danger he represented, but they followed him nonetheless.

The prophet found what he sought near the center of the canyon, near a particularly large skull. Zamiel climbed onto its broad snout and seated himself between its gaping sockets. He extended one hand, reaching toward something in the air that only he could sense. There was nothing to see, nothing to smell, no obvious sign at all that this place was different from any other. Yet he knew this was it. His hand drew back sharply as he reached a certain point in space. He hissed and clasped his fingers as if he had burned himself.

Reality felt thin here. It was as if there was a wound in existence. Zamiel felt it, the tear between worlds left behind by the same ancient battle that created this graveyard. Zamiel grinned and folded his arms in his sleeves. He concentrated, extending his senses into the anomaly, probing, and sensing. He felt a terrible, shuddering pain deep within himself as the jagged boundaries between worlds sawed against his soul. He felt surging power, just out of reach. He felt a terrible, unknowable intelligence lurking just out of reach. The Timeless.

As Zamiel reached for that power, he felt it reach back toward him. He sensed that it did not comprehend what he was but that it wished to know. It wished no longer to be alone.

“Soon, my friend,” Zamiel whispered in a soothing voice. He knew the other could not hear, but it pleased him to say it.

Zamiel sensed the barrier between them, holding firm. But this time, he saw the cracks. It would not be long. He was almost strong enough. This was where everything had begun. This was where everything would end.

It was only a matter of time.

The Mourning Dawn soared across the night skies of Khorvaire, traveling as swiftly as she dared. For days they had sped across Breland without any pause, wasting no time in their pursuit. Tristam stared straight ahead, tense with impatience and worry. He knew that Marth now had nothing to lose. The changeling had no home to return to. From the way Marth had spoken earlier, Tristam suspected that he did not intend to survive his attack on Sharn. No doubt he would fly the Seventh Moon as swiftly as he dared-for she would never need to fly again. This was their last chance to stop him.

A shimmering haze was barely visible on the distant horizon. That would be the lights of Sharn, glowing in the night. Tristam hoped that they had moved swiftly enough. At one time, the Seventh Moon had been a much swifter ship than the Mourning Dawn over such long distances. With the Dying Sun ’s elemental now powering the ship, Tristam truly had no idea how quickly Marth could reach Sharn.

Perhaps Zed was right, and they had been foolish to keep the Legacy a secret for so long. Tristam’s thoughts drifted back to Nathyrr. Captain Draikus seemed an honorable man, though he obviously disliked Zed. Tristam wondered what might have happened between the two men, but that was irrelevant at the moment. The Thrane paladin had listened intently to Tristam’s story, then urged him to hurry to Sharn with the Silver Flame’s blessings. He had even volunteered his soldiers to assist them, but the Mourning Dawn could not fly as swiftly as she needed with a large crew.

Tristam’s greatest regret in telling Draikus of their quest was that he had not trusted anyone sooner. Marth had counted on the fact that by attacking Sharn, the paranoid rulers of the Five Nations would blame one another. Old fears and hatreds would ignite into violence. The peace of the last few years would swiftly be forgotten. If they had not struggled to keep the Legacy’s existence secret, Marth’s entire plan would have been impossible. Tristam cursed himself for his stupidity.

At least now there was a chance. Even if they failed, perhaps someone in Thrane would listen to Draikus. Maybe the war could still be avoided.

Aeven sat on the ship’s rail beside her figurehead, guiding the winds that drove them onward. Her eyes were closed in deep concentration. Shaimin d’Thuranni stood nearby. He leaned nonchalantly against the rail and watched her, as he did quite frequently since boarding the ship in Nathyrr. Tristam looked at him curiously.

“Of all the possibilities,” Shaimin said, “I never suspected a dryad.”

“What are you talking about?” Tristam asked.

The elf grinned. “When I was hunting you, I sensed powerful magic protecting this ship. My careful observations revealed little about its nature, so I simply avoided boarding the Mourning Dawn altogether. I would never have guessed that you bound a fey spirit to your vessel. Incredible.”

“Aeven is not bound,” Tristam said. “She remains here of her free will.”

“Don’t say anything else, Tristam,” Zed said. The inquisitive emerged on the deck, hands stuffed in his pockets, smoke curling from the tip of his pipe. He glared coldly at the assassin. “Don’t give him anything. Let him wonder.”