Jak Koke: The Edge of Chaos

A flare of incandescent blue appeared and was gone, leaving darkness in its wake.

A flicker of light played against Duvan’s closed eyelids. He turned and pressed his head into the burlap pillow. It could not be morning yet, and he didn’t want to wake up to another day of tilling the fields.

When we are twelve, he thought, Talfani and I will run away and live with the elves at Wildhome. But that was two summers away, and now he needed his sleep. Papa would make him work hard in the morning. A quick glance across the room to Talfani’s bed showed that she hadn’t stirred in her sleep. Even the worst thunderstorms didn’t wake her.

Another flash lit the night and cast sharp shadows on the walls of the small room he shared with his sister. Duvan slipped out of his low, wooden bed, instinctively checked the floor for scorpions, and went to the window. “Psst, ’Fani! Wake up! Something’s happening.”

Outside, the world was transformed. From the window, Duvan could see down the main road of the village. It was a moonless night, which would normally have been black as pitch, but there was a blue fire shimmering in the air.

Not just the air-in the ground too. Like a thin veil the color of spiderwebs, the fabric of the universe fluctuated in front of Duvan’s eyes. He’d seen this once before: spellplague.

The remnants of the ancient unraveling of magic, spellplague storms were random and cruel. Striking without judgment the innocent and guilty alike, spellplague destroyed good and evil, lawful and criminal, young, old, human, elf, even the great and monstrous. To some it gave great power and ability, but to most it destroyed mindlessly and without bias.

As he watched from the window, the gossamer knife flickered its way through the left side of the street, and in a moment the houses there were splayed open like cloven fruit. The earth rent in the rift created by the spellplague’s path, mud-brick and dirt flowing into the sky like an inverted waterfall of rock and trees and splintered wood, carrying people with it.

The earth shook around him, and he struggled to stay on his feet. But no sound came to Duvan’s ears. Outside, people screamed and cried out in pain and terror, their faces twisted in fear as they ran. But their screams came to his ears as if from a great distance, muffled and faint.

They’re all leaving, he thought. We need to get out too!

Abruptly, panic seized him and took hold of his limbs. He found himself running to the doorway. He had to get out!

“Talfani!” he yelled, and his own voice nearly broke his ears. She stirred in her bed.

“Duvan?” she mumbled. “What is it?”

He crossed the room and pushed aside the heavy blanket that served as a door. The imposing figure of his father met him there. “Thank the stars, you are all right,” he said, looking first at Duvan and then at Talfani.

“All right?” Talfani was out of bed now.

“Spellplague has struck the village,” Papa said. “Many lives are in danger, but you are safest here.” The worry lines around Papa’s olive-colored eyes deepened. “Stay here until I come for you.”

Duvan felt his heartbeat slow a little. His breathing evened. Papa would protect them.

“Duvan,” Papa said, “you are the elder-”

“Only by a quarter hour,” Talfani protested.

“True, sweetpea. Still, I am putting him in charge should anything happen.”

With a glance from Papa, Talfani bit back her retort.

“Duvan, you’re in charge. Take care of your sister until I return.”

Papa turned and slipped through the curtain, leaving only the smell of almonds and pipeweed.

“What do we do?” Talfani asked, and the tremble in her voice sent a chill through Duvan. Of the two of them, she was always the strong and defiant one.

“We wait,” he said, turning to look his twin in the eye. “We stay and we wait.”

And so they waited. They held each other against the upheaval when the ground ripped apart. They watched through the tiny window as the spellplague rampaged through their neighbors and the livestock running loose. They waited through the night and into the morning, breathing through their nightshirts when the dust in the air grew thick, and the metallic smell of blood pervaded everything around them.

Papa never came back.

By midday the storm seemed to have passed. No movement outside. No sign of anyone, and the spellplague appeared to have receded to small pockets.

Duvan heard Talfani’s stomach groan, and he realized that he was hungry too.

“I can’t hear anyone,” he said. “But my hearing is all messed up.”

“It’s gone quiet,” Talfani said, and tears welled in her eyes. “Earlier I was praying to Selune that the screaming would stop, and now it has. Now it has, and I’m more afraid.”

Duvan took her into his arms. Talfani was his same size-tall enough to rest her chin on his shoulder-and her hair was as black as his, her skin the same deep brown tone. His eyes were black, though, while hers were lighter, and rare-golden yellow-brown.

“Selune was not here tonight,” he said. “She did not hear your call. The screaming stopped for another reason.”

“I’m hungry,” she said. “And I miss Papa.”

“Me too, ’Fani. But I promised I would take care of you, and he said we should stay here.” For the time being, she nodded and accepted that answer.

“Want to play tiles?”

Talfani looked at him, puzzled and surprised.

“To pass the time while we wait.” They played for several hours, and no one came. It remained eerily still. Finally, they slept.

When he awoke, it was light again, and Talfani was in his bed next to him. His stomach was empty and growling. He nudged her. “We need food,” he said. “I’m going to go out and find some. You stay here.”

“No,” said Talfani faintly. “Don’t leave me alone.”

So he stayed that time, and the next time she slept too. He waited for another day until his hunger clawed at his gut. And because he didn’t want her to face what he suspected was outside the curtain of their room, he went when she was asleep.

“We need to eat,” he whispered to her, all serene and peaceful against her burlap pillow.

No response.

“I will come back soon.” He slipped from the bed and pulled on his sandals, then stepped to the doorway and pushed aside the heavy curtain.

Where before there had been hallway and the rest of their small house, now there was nothing but rubble and dirt, with sporadic patches of spellplague shimmering like will-o’-wisps among the destruction. Their bedroom stood alone, spared by the storm.

Duvan stood transfixed and uncomprehending. He took measured breaths, trying to fight down the panic. But it was his stomach that brought him back and reminded him of his need. He stepped through the doorway and caught one last glimpse of Talfani, sleeping and restful, before the curtain fell between them.

Commander Accordant Vraith suppressed a shiver of excitement. Everyone was here-her assistants and guards from the Order of Blue Fire, all the carefully chosen pilgrim volunteers, and perhaps even the sharn were watching from their hidden vantages, beyond the veil of the Plaguewrought Land.

Everyone was in place. The ritual could begin shortly-the ritual of borders.

Vraith stood at the edge of the world. On one side, a serene, sunny afternoon bathed a grassy field in bright yellow warmth, broken only by the shadows of a smattering of clouds and floating earth motes. Quiet and peaceful and ordinary.

One the other side, the world was ending. Behind the border veil that marked the edge of the Plaguewrought Land, everything was in upheaval. The land beyond the veil was one of the few locations where the beloved wild magic-the anarchic, extra planar force that had changed Toril forever when it first tore asunder the rules and ways of magic-was constant and contained. Inside, unstable ground flowed at random up into the sky, or down, or sideways.