Rich Wulf - Flight of the Dying Sun

“Perhaps,” Pherris said, “but I trust Ashrem d’Cannith’s work and I trust you. There is no safer ship, no finer artificer to maintain her.”

“I appreciate the confidence, Pherris,” Tristam said. “I only hope that I prove worthy of it.”

“See that you do, Master Xain,” the captain said with a chuckle.

Seren laughed at the captain’s ceaseless good humor, but her laughter trailed away when she saw Aeven’s emerald eyes. She followed the dryad’s inscrutable gaze, fixed on the eastern sky. On the distant horizon, blue sky gave way to an endless line of dead, gray mist.

The Mournland was waiting for them.

For two days they had soared through the mists. Tristam spent as much time as he could at the ship’s rail, staring down at the Mournland, trying to understand how magic could unleash such destruction upon the world. Seren was always close beside him, her hand covering his own when his thoughts were bleakest. It was strange. She always knew how he was feeling. Tristam was comforted by the thought, but also afraid.

The closer they drew to the end of their quest, the more Tristam knew that he was changing, and not for the better. In the last few weeks he had become colder, more pragmatic, more manipulative-more like Dalan. Tristam knew, on some level, that he had ignored Omax’s injuries so that he could spend more time studying Kiris’s journal. He knew that he had risked their lives flying the Karia Naille into the Fellmaw. He had hidden the full truth of his visions-that the Prophecy had depicted him in Marth’s role as the conqueror. Now he led them on a course into the Mournland, uncertain if the risk was worth the gain he had promised. Could Seren see the changes that had come over him? Could he become the person he used to be, the simple boy that only wanted to perfect his skills and impress his teacher? Could he avoid the fate the Prophecy had promised?

There was no way to know until the Legacy was out of his life forever.

From this altitude Tristam found that the Mournland hardly even looked real. After two days of flying through the mists, he still could not comprehend that the land below actually existed. There was no sun, just a sickly shimmering mist that painted the land in eternal twilight. The earth was scorched dry and blasted white. Withered trees clawed vainly at a sun they could not see. Battlefields remained strewn with the bodies of unburied dead, untouched by decay since the Day of Mourning. Bizarre creatures scuttled across the earth, sometimes pausing to stare up at the Mourning Dawn ’s burning elemental ring with baleful eyes.

Some towns remained entirely intact, though bereft of life. Others were ruined in strange and random ways. Houses were cracked like eggshells with their contents strewn in the streets. Skeletal ruins burned with yellow flames that would not die. In one town, nothing remained but a flat glassy plain, etched with elongated blast shadows in the shapes of houses. In the larger cities, eerie lights indicated the presence of life. Pherris steered Mourning Dawn in a wide berth around these places, content not to know what had taken up residence there.

For all of these strange sights, the smell was even more disturbing. The Mournland smelled strangely … clean. There was no cloying smell of vegetation, no smoke from human settlements, no scent of rain on the air. The only scent was the crackling aroma of raw magic. It burned Tristam’s senses and tingled on his skin. The power of this place suffused Tristam, energizing him and sickening him. He felt the urge to call upon his infusions, to draw upon the Mournland’s wild energy to fuel his creations. It was like a siren’s song. He shook his head to clear away the urge to descend into his laboratory and noticed a flicker in the mists far below, like the wake a swift vessel left through still water.

“What are those lights?” Ijaac asked, startling Tristam and drawing his attention back to the present. The artificer hadn’t realized quite how lost in reverie he was. The dwarf stood well away from the ship’s rail, pointing at something on the land below. A line of faint blue lights was just barely visible through the mists, evenly spaced in a line that stretched off in the distance toward Metrol, tracing a path beside the River Melandor.

“Conductor stones,” Tristam answered, clearing his throat roughly. “It’s a lightning rail track.”

“How can the coaches still run here?” the dwarf asked, surprised.

“They don’t,” Tristam replied. “They’ve tried to run coaches through the Mournland, and they never get far. The line is broken in too many places, though theoretically you could still run a coach over the parts that remain intact. The stones are powered by their own self-perpetuating enchantments. I’ve heard that some of the people that live out here use improvised coaches to travel across the wasteland.”

“People?” Ijaac asked, shocked. “Who would want to live in a dead place like this?”

“Some would,” Omax said. The warforged rose from the corner where he knelt in meditation and joined them. “It is said that there is a warforged nation in the mists. Warforged who cannot find their place in the mortal lands come here, seeking a godlike figure known as the Lord of Blades.”

Tristam looked at Omax curiously. “You’ve never told me that before, Omax.”

“There was no reason for you to know,” Omax said. “He calls to those warforged who seek something more, who are desperate to create a world where they can become something more than slaves, monsters, or tools.”

“Has the Lord of Blades called to you, Omax?” Seren asked.

The warforged nodded. “I have been called,” he said, voice tinged with faint regret. “I have not answered. I will not find my place in the world by setting myself apart from it.” The warforged’s shining eyes searched the mists for something the others could not see.

“The sky is turning blue again,” Seren said, looking to the eastern horizon.

“We’re very close to the far border of the Mournland,” Omax answered. He sounded grateful for the change in subject. “The mists part not far beyond Metrol, taking us back into the Talenta Plains.”

There was a flap of wings from above, and Blizzard landed on the deck, depositing his exhilarated rider beside them. Gerith’s hair was a wild mess and he grinned broadly as he snatched his goggles away. He spoke excitedly, the words a tangled, unintelligible mess.

“Master Snowshale, we can’t understand a single word,” Pherris said, looking at the gnome suspiciously. “Try that again, but breathe this time.”

“This … place … is … wonderful!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands together excitedly. “So many strange things to see!” His excitement died off quickly when he caught sight of Dalan emerging from his cabin, looking down with disapproval.

“I’m glad the corpse of my homeland provides you with such amusement, Gerith,” Dalan said dourly.

“I mean it’s wonderful except for all the tragedy and everything,” Gerith amended quickly. “It truly is an amazing place, like nothing else I’ve ever seen!”

“And we can be thankful for that,” Dalan said. “Report.”

“Metrol is just a few miles ahead,” Gerith said. “At least I’m guessing it’s Metrol, from the size of it. It’s amazing. Buildings are rooted up and stacked on one another like blocks. Streets just go right up into the sky and …” The halfling gestured, stacking his hands one each other erratically to attempt to describe what he had seen. “And they just stop! It’s like something out of a dream. And there’s magic in the streets.”

“How poetic,” Dalan said, arching an eyebrow.