Wolf Awert - Ringwall's Doom

The Mage behind the shade must be so powerful, Nill thought. Amargreisfing’s bite cut deep into his innermost self. A spot right beneath his breastbone felt suddenly cold and then blew apart, making space for a lance-tip that froze all around it. The cold spread through his body and made his muscles rigid and his blood clot. His veins filled with ice and his tendons snapped, bones splintered, and above it all loomed the grasp for his self, the most central part of his consciousness. Nill knew the devouring cold. It was the Falundron’s poison that had changed him and his magic. It had robbed his aura of the five elemental colors and left the strange, opaque, milky-white wreath that had so scared Tiriwi.

Nill took the cold of the Other World inside himself, as he had done before. He had not fought it. How could he? He still lacked the necessary strength. But something had changed. He had learned that the cold was not just cold. It was also a part of the ancient magic. When darkness storms toward you, covering and devouring all, there is a moment when a new light is born. Nill waited for that one decisive moment.

“I AM!” Nill screamed with every fiber of his being. I stand, I stand in the light! his bones screamed back. Nill took ever more of the dark energy on and noticed that he had begun to falter. Time is not on my side. I can wait no longer . Nill buried his head in his opponent’s aura and now began to drain it into himself. A feeling of bursting fullness heralded the reversal. The magic of light and day, of height and hardness, of giving and speaking started anew with a tiny spark. It mended his bones and made the blood course through his veins and flow from his body, pushed by all the dark magic he had absorbed and that now transformed into light. A thunderbolt split the earth and a shining light tore apart the sphere before him, and Nill left behind an empty shell. He saw nothing, heard nothing and felt nothing. The last feeling of gratitude from a fading memory did not reach him. The slammed door of the Other World remained unheard. Nill stood lifeless under a sun that could not warm him. Then he crumpled. The darkness that now enveloped him had nothing in common with the dark magic. It was the thin veil of mercy that now lay across him and hid him from the world.

The shockwave of light and the shattered summoning shook great parts of the magical world and followed Amargreisfing into the Beyond. Bucyngaphos the Goat-Legged and Serp the Mighty paused their incomprehensible dealings and raised their ears. Urumir the shaman shook earth onto his fire and could not extinguish it, and in Ringwall a mage stared into the distance and realized for the first time that fear and anger could coalesce. The meeting chamber of the High Council was empty, but lights shot unseen across the Onyx and threw crackling sparks, and the old cracks were joined by new ones. Countless thin lines made the once-smooth surface look like the face of an old woman. But there was no hand there to feel it. Gnarlhand, Archmage of Earth, would have ever more difficulty in holding the stone together.

The sun rose slowly, reached its peak and continued its journey to the place beyond the horizon where it hid its light and refreshed its strength. Nill lay on the ground, hunched over and motionless. The ram circled around the lifeless body and eyed its surroundings warily. It grew restless, for it had a biting smell in its nose that came not from magic, but wild predators. A pack of leonpedons slunk around nearby, attracted by the thought of easy prey, but held off by the smell of burnt earth. Still they hesitated.

Their first attacks came as playful feints. They ran off and leapt in, then returned to the safety of the pack. With each feint they seemed to gain more confidence and nothing stood between them and Nill except the old ram, himself an easy target.

The ram had stopped circling and now stared into the falling sun. A mighty male roared and made a half-hearted lunge forward. It still hesitated, but this time it did not turn tail. It was only a few leaps away from the ram now. The next attack would strike true. The maned beast seemed to deliberate his next action when the ram stormed off. Its hooves beat the earth and its horned blow would have shattered the leonpedon’s shoulder had it not rolled to the side in the last second. The rest of the pack trembled. The burnt smell in the air, the scent of something foreign to them, and now their prey attacked their lead hunter. It was too much chaos for their world and they retreated hissing. Only their hunger stopped them from giving up.

The ram trotted back as though it knew no dangers in the world. It threw a contemptuous glance back at the leonpedons over its shoulder before returning to its combat stance and considering the male that now strode back and forth, its eyes on the ram. It was not prepared to run away.

Nill opened his eyes, perhaps just in time. Perhaps not – his ram did not look as though it felt inferior to the predators in any way. Which of the two unequal fighters would have kept the other hand would stay a mystery, for Nill raised an arm and threw a bolt of Metal at the leonpedons.

There was a slight hiss and a crackling noise. Several pathetic sparks bounced across the earth and flickered out. As weak as the spell was, it was enough to turn the beasts off their prey for good, and so they ran away as quickly as they had come. The only sound was the sporadic, disappointed roar of the male, until they were too far away. At last it was calm.

Burnt out and hollow, was Nill’s last thought before he fell back into the heavy sleep of exhaustion.

Only the next morning did Nill see the full extent of the havoc he had wrought. Starting from the point where he had fought Amargreisfing there was a gash in the land as far as the eye could see; the grass was burnt and the earth fractured. The neighboring hill had split. One half had sunk deep into the ground, the other had risen. The scar in the land had not yet come to rest. As he watched, stones and mud fell from the higher side into the hole, which slowly ran full of water.

Many generations later the folk would tell of two lovers who could not find each other. The legend says that the Lord of Light sought the Keeper of Darkness whom he had only seen fleetingly in the distance, and had sworn never to rest until he found her. Here he kept watch over the world as a cliff and never noticed that his beloved was always at his feet. Nothing is harder than taking the blindness from one who already sees, and no one is blinder than one in love. And so it took a special spell to bring the two together – but that is another story.

Nill knew nothing of the attraction this place would one day hold for future generations of people. The sun had already risen high in the sky.

He sniffed the air and turned his head this way and that, but there was nothing immediately unusual. But Nill was cautious. It would not be the first time that a second danger hid behind a more obvious first one.

“Send a cutthroat after an honorable warrior.” That was, as Brolok had informed him, one of the guidelines of the royal strategists. “A victor in honorable combat will not expect an assault to follow.” Nill had learned much from Brolok. He wished he was by his side, and if only as a strong shoulder to lean on.

Nill stood up with some difficulty. His legs were stiff and his muscles trembled; he had to fight to regain his strength. His eyes must have suffered from the attack too. At first Nill had assumed it was dusk, despite the position of the sun, for the world around him was darker than usual. But it was not the sun that had forgotten to shine. The plants’ auras had lost their light. Again and again black clouds passed over Nill’s eyes and removed all color. Everything in him hurt, and even the tiniest motion caused pain, yet even the pain was dulled. What would have been biting and searing agony was a mere throb. What should have broken and torn hung limp. Nill felt around his body to make sure everything was still there, so overwhelming was the feeling of emptiness, of insubstantiality.