Jak Koke - The Edge of Chaos

“Not my friend,” she croaked. “Just-” She gave the hint of a shrug. “Just someone else from the Order.”

The Order? Duvan wondered. Beaugrat had also mentioned the Order. The Order of Blue Fire concerned itself with the running of charitable works in many cities and towns. It was headquartered in Ormpetarr, though, and held a comparable amount of power in the city to Tyrangal.

“And Beaugrat?” Duvan asked, retrieving his dagger from the dead mage. “Was he your friend? Was he part of the Order?”

“Order, yes,” she said. “But … not my friend.” Her breath came in shallow gasps. “He left me here to die alone.”

Duvan nodded. “He is a coward,” he said. “And you are not alone. I am here to bear witness to your passing. May you find something better on the other side.”

Her eyes showed deep gratitude as he cut her throat to relieve the pain. Or maybe he imagined it. He didn’t know what awaited her on the other side. But Duvan knew for certain that prolonging her pain was cruel, and contrary to what some people believed, he was never cruel.

He built a fire and burned the ranger’s body, first sifting through her belongings for things of value that might make his life a little more comfortable. She wouldn’t need them where she was going.

Duvan did not rush, but he wasted no time, for he didn’t want to be here if Beaugrat came back with friends. Somewhere on the periphery of his awareness, he was starting to realize that letting Beaugrat live had been a mistake. A big mistake.

The Order of Blue Fire was a powerful organization in Ormpetarr, and Duvan was now quite squarely on their hit list.

The night swirled around Gregor, spellplague traces flickering like blue and white ghosts. He couldn’t look directly at the remnants of spellplague-at the hell of chaos that was the core essence of that energy-without losing exacting control over his body.

The blue fire was pure and random violence, destruction in its most wild and primal form. For Gregor, whose entire life had been about achieving and maintaining control, such force in close proximity caused an uncontrollable nausea to flow through him. Vertigo teased the edges of his mind.

In the presence of Vraith and her entourage from the Order of Blue Fire, however, Gregor was determined not to show any outward signs of discomfort or fear. His invitation to be here, he realized, was more than a courtesy. He supplied a critical component to make this ritual possible, or so they hoped. But it was certainly clear that Vraith wanted him to agree to what they were doing, to support it, and perhaps even to devote his resources and those of the monastery to it.

Gregor was flattered by the attention, and if this ritual worked, the possibilities for containing spellplague across all of Faerun would make it all worth it. But his informal arrangement with Tyrangal would make working with Vraith risky He didn’t understand exactly why, but the two women-probably the two most powerful figures in Ormpetarr-did not get along.

Squinting to avoid swirling dust particles in the air, Gregor stood at a safe distance and watched Vraith perform the trial ritual. Even three hours after the sun had set, the wind was warm and fickle. It switched direction seemingly at random, kicking up sand and dirt in the process.

Gregor stood with a small group of observers, about thirty yards from the sharp drop-off that marked the border to the changelands. The sky above was dappled with high, gray clouds and darker spots where motes floated silently. The sky seemed positively serene compared to the ground, which Gregor felt could buckle and shake at any moment, and it was only the knowledge that the border had been stable for nearly a hundred years that allowed him to remain calm.

There was a veil of sorts at the cliff-an almost imperceptible translucent curtain that held the storm of spellplague in check. Vraith had told him that she’d been studying how the border worked, and how that magic might be manipulated-controlled even.

Vraith took the pilgrim volunteers and spaced them out evenly in a semicircle facing the border. Gregor counted nine of them, and each held a vial. His elixir would hopefully be able to help the pilgrims maintain the integrity of their bodies against the wild nature of the spellplague.

“Drink the elixir,” Vraith commanded, her voice like slate. “It will protect you.”

This would be her second trial, Vraith had claimed. The first one had failed because the blue fire killed the pilgrims before the ritual could be completed. Gregor hadn’t asked how they had died, those pilgrims, but he suspected that it had been fairly painful and gruesome.

The pilgrims who came back sick from their pilgrimage to the border of the Plaguewrought Land were only exposed to tiny amounts of spellplague-mere brushstrokes on the canvas of their souls. Many of those were ill for tendays and often didn’t survive even that much exposure.

Gregor did not understand the pilgrims who came to the Plaguewrought Land. Too often, they were unpredictable and driven by unquantifiable forces-it wasn’t logical or even comprehensible for them to risk the integrity of their bodies and their lives by purposefully seeking exposure to the spellplague in hopes of gaining a spellscar and the ability that went with it.

His spellscar had happened by accident. He had not sought it out, and it had nearly killed him. He understood the power that came with the spellscar-the incredible clarity and vision he now had with potions and alchemical concoctions. Still, he would counsel none of these fools to follow his path.

In front of him now, Vraith had started casting a complicated and powerful ritual. She held a small, bejeweled dagger in her hands, pressing its shimmering blue blade to the palms of each pilgrim to make small cuts.

“Join hands now,” she instructed. “Blood to blood, you will form a seamless entity.”

The pilgrims happily obliged. Under her spell, Gregor presumed, they would do almost anything.

“Now, take one step forward in unison.”

Fascination and dread welled inside Gregor as he watched the half-circle move toward the border veil. The pilgrims at either end of the arc nearly touched the spellplague that undulated like liquid fire on the other side of the veil.

Abruptly, wispy tendrils snaked out from Vraith’s chest like red-tinged fog. Standing outside the ring, the wizard’s eyes went milky, and her body swayed in rhythm to her chant. The red tendrils snaked through the pilgrims and wove them all together with their magic. Vraith sang in a language that Gregor did not know. Her voice rose and fell, rose and fell, and as she sang, the acrid odor of the Plague-wrought Land in summer swelled until Gregor felt he was going to retch. He clamped down on his gag reflex, using all his self-control to remain stoic and anchored.

The veil moved, then the swirling magic inside the border jumped to the nearest pilgrims. Like flames to tinder, the blue fire leaped from pilgrim to pilgrim, burning through their bodies. Their clothes evaporated. Their hair and skin glowed with translucent energy of the palest blue. Like the finest gauze, spidery and ethereal, the spellplague engulfed the semicircle of pilgrims.

The vision returned then, the vision he’d experienced when the spellplague had first come to him, haunting him like it always did. Gregor reached out for support as his head split in pain for a moment. The world vanished around him. Even the stench was gone.

In his vision, Gregor walked through a landscape of flat green fields covered at regular intervals by archways of blue fire. The spellplague was under perfect and exacting control, forming a lattice threadwork of geometric patterns through the flat, grassy plain.