Sam Bowring - Prophecy's Ruin

After that, the Old Magic had no longer worked. Instead each god created a new Well of his own, in his own domain, so that the souls of his people would go to him alone. With shadow and light thus divided, a creature could be born only of one or the other. Born of light returned to light in death, and born of shadow returned to shadow. Vyasinth had seen it as a violation of the natural order and, unlike the other minor gods, had refused to side with either Arkus or Assedrynn. As punishment they had banished her here, to Whisperwood; meanwhile, her people suffered greatly.

The Sprites weren’t like the luckier creatures of the land who had more easily survived the division of magic. The Zyvanix wasps, for example, had always built their hive cities in the arid plains of the north. Their neighbours, the Varenkai, were bronzed farmers, growing food under the sun in open fields. These were folk of the light, and Arkus had always been their god. The Varenkai’s pale cousins, the Arabodedas, lived by the sea in the cloudy south; here, deep water offered up food and life and icy winds drove their robust ships. There were the Vorthargs who dwelled in caves, and the Graka who lived in the storm-laden Bentemoth Mountains. These were all folk of shadows, and their god naturally became Assedrynn. They had made the transition quickly, instinctively.

The Sprites, however, were folk of the forest in whom Old Magic was strong – after all, trees keep their roots in shadow and leaves in the light, relying upon a balance of both. Robbed of balance, the Sprites had died in their multitudes. Only those living in Whisperwood survived, for with Vyasinth’s presence it became the only place in the world where Old Magic could still exist. The survivors weren’t many, and had been forced to interbreed with Varenkai, so their blood had thinned over generations. Soon there had been no true Sprites left, only half-breeds or less, beings who could survive outside Whisperwood. As they had spread out into the land, all vestiges of culture had been lost and no more souls returned to Lady Vyasinth and the Well that was Whisperwood.

In Mirrow, Vyasinth had sensed, for the first time in centuries, almost pure Sprite blood. She had decided it was time to rebuild; her sorrow finally replaced with purpose. She had called Mirrow to the wood, and time had even brought her a suitable mate. When Mirrow’s hair had turned blue with her pregnancy, Vyasinth had guessed that the child would be born special …and maybe she could even hope for more than simple rebuilding. Maybe she was to be delivered a champion.

It was then that she had decided to give Mirrow the Stone. She had never told her that it was special, created when the Great Well was broken, retrieved by Vyasinth before she was cast down into the world. It would make a fitting weapon for a blue-haired hero.

And yet others had discovered him too. Now, despite what they had promised her, Arkus and Assedrynn trespassed in her domain.

Battu’s consciousness dissolved from his body and melted down the sides of Skygrip Castle like black butter. He trickled down stairwells and spread over balconies, seeped through cracks and curled around doorways. Sometimes it was useful to travel so slowly and widely. With his awareness diffused, he gathered impressions of all that he touched. In his broadest moments he could feel the castle itself, as if he were a glove over an enormous hand.

Skygrip rose a league into the sky, a cyclopean tower of black stone. At the top rested a globe of rock twice the width of the tower that supported it, from which four stone spikes reached up to the sky. From between the spikes rose a thick stream of vapour like a slow-moving hurricane, feeding upwards into the Cloud. The Cloud, which covered all of Fenvarrow and kept it safe in shadow.

Skygrip had been built by Kryzante, the first Shadowdreamer. Legend said he had carved the castle from a single piece of rock, once called Mount Mokan. What power must he have possessed to shear the slopes from a mountain? To carve the tower and its sceptre peak, to hollow the corridors and caverns within? He must have had help from the gods , thought Battu. C urse their arbitrariness.

He reached the fortifications at the base of the castle and gathered himself together. From there he sped north over the mountain’s old foothills, through the capital city of Mankow in the blink of an eye, and out across the Ragga Plains. Beyond the ringlet of the five goblin cities he found the bulk of his gathering army. Thousands of soldiers marched the earth flat. Teams of engineers moved between smoking war engines. Battu was pleased by the convincing display – it looked very much as if he was preparing for war. The Throne of Kainordas could not help but take notice, even if he suspected it was nothing but an enormous diversion.

Onwards he travelled, to rockier lands. Here a fine mist hung suspended in the air and made the Stone Fields slick. Battu slipped easily through a cobweb of cracks, covering an expanse of nothing much but rock and twig, and came to rest at the edge of his realm.

The border divided the world into perfect halves, from east coast to west and further out to sea. Above Battu the Cloud ended, and during the day a wall of light fell unhindered to earth. The border was harder to see under the moon, but was there nonetheless – a darker line across the ground where the Cloud’s shadow fell.

Only a few shadow creatures made their homes this close to enemy lands. There were huge malformed moths, which sometimes crossed over in pursuit of the moon. There were quick and viscous shadowmanders – lizard-like things that hunted across the border. Battu noticed one now, a blood red flash that slipped from rocks and darted into Kainordas, becoming briefly visible as it wrestled a brown beetle. A second beetle scuttled away in alarm, and the mander leaped to kill it too – though it only brought one back to Fenvarrow to eat. It seemed that shadowmanders killed creatures of light more instinctively than hunger dictated. Battu admired them. If only they were bigger.

Other common but more pathetic denizens of the border were spirit creatures known as the Trapped. These were creatures once born of light, which were now consigned to a different life. Leftovers from the Shadowdreamer Assidax’s war, shaped by the constant panic of being so close to their homeland and yet unable to cross the threshold, they were the slightest of the undead. The best to be said about Assidax , thought Battu, is that she’d caused the enemy such heavy losses . Those who had been resurrected by her would never find their way to Arkus’s Great Well, even once their bodies had rotted off their souls. They were shadow creatures now, and they would go to Assedrynn.

The Trapped sensed Battu’s presence in the shadows and drifted clear of him. One made the mistake of flashing past and he seized it instinctively, as a cat would snatch a flashing object. The thing twisted pitifully in his ethereal grip.

Who were you?

The Trapped couldn’t remember. Its weakness filled Battu with disgust and he focused his power to destroy it. Somehow it felt what was coming and writhed eagerly. It wanted peace so desperately, it would gladly go to the Well of its ancient enemy. If Battu had been in his body, his stomach would have turned. He pushed the wretched thing away, denying it the mercy it sought, and it wailed soundlessly in despair.

Battu spread out along the border like oil on water, searching for a point of safe access into Kainordas. There was none to be found. Despite the storm in Whisperwood, here the skies were clear and the moon shone brightly. He didn’t dare travel into Kainordas on such a night. There was too much risk that a shadowline would break and cut him off from his journey home. He would have to rely on other eyes to know what went on in Whisperwood tonight. He sped along the border with another destination in mind.