Last Life

Book 8: Chapter 20

SO, I THOUGHT... Here we are. We’re standing on the edge of the world, with an alien anomaly stretching from one horizon to the other about a hundred yards in front of us. The Great Bound, as the Lao people referred to it, seemed to consist of pure, unadulterated darkness. And our toad was taking us into that darkness.

The sky above us looked grim. The massive, low-hanging clouds, which were occasionally illuminated from within by sudden flashes of lightning, looked like gigantic appendages stretching from within the depths of the vast anomaly.

A light breeze was blowing constantly into our faces as we advanced; it almost felt like a timid attempt to dissuade us from taking such a bold step into the unknown.

The air was cold and humid. It felt like a downpour was about to start. All sounds had died away. And the resulting deathly silence was oppressive and all-enveloping.

Despite the fact that the flow had happened several days before, and the Barrier had been stationary ever since, I nevertheless had the distinct impression that it was about to surge forward at any moment and keep advancing until the border between worlds was erased for good.

Ever since waking up in this new world, I had always wondered: how often did people think about that possibility? After all, if the Shadow ever started to move and didn’t stop, many once-safe areas would quickly become so dangerous that only a handful of people could possibly survive in them. If that happened, it would no longer matter who was at war with whom, who had how much money, or who was sizing up the crown of Vestonia or Atalia or wherever for themselves... The Shadow would swallow all the money, all the armies, all the countries... And there would be nothing anyone could do to hide from it. Eventually, it would reach anyone who tried to run. There simply wouldn’t be any safe zones anymore — just like there weren’t any safe places within the countries that had existed prior to the anomaly’s arrival.

I looked around at the strykers standing next to me. Their faces were tense and focused. They had checked and re-checked their equipment several times already. Each of them had a good supply of lilac bruts and magical potions. Everything we were wearing, and everything we were bringing with us, had been crafted from Shadow materials. Without this precaution, the Great Bound would inevitably exact a price far greater than the cost of the Shadow materials themselves.

Chevalier Duval had informed me that the Barrier had moved away from Bone Grotto by quite some distance. That meant that we wouldn’t have to spend as much time inside the Barrier itself, where we would have to spend bruts to keep our magical shields active.

After all, strykers only needed their shields for the actual process of crossing the Great Bound. Once they were inside the Shadow, they could move around without shields. The Children of Strix, as they sometimes referred to themselves, were the only people whose energy systems could adapt to the anomaly without trying to kill them or modify their bodies in the process. They could breathe the air, drink the water, and subsist on whatever gifts the land was willing to share with them.

True, there were also people like me, who worked differently from both strykers and the ungifted. Numbers-wise, however, we were mere exceptions to the rules.

We spent the night before the crossing in a small grove, not far from the hill where Leo had killed the gigantic Shadow bear. We also created a small stash there in a secret place, where we left everything that we couldn’t (or didn’t want to) take into the Shadow with us.

My squire had borne his breakthrough with relative ease. First of all, breakthroughs at lower levels weren’t as painful as ones at higher levels, and second, Leo already had a stock of my finest potions in his possession when it happened. Plus, I shelled out the mana to give him a nice golden healing web. In the end, he was happy and full of energy by the very next morning. Only his decisive gaze and the faint black circles under his eyes served as signs that the man was a newly-minted medius, who had been so exhausted from battle the evening before that he couldn’t even walk on his own two feet.

I was already having mixed feelings whenever I thought about the previous day’s fight. On the one hand, I realized that as a stryker, Leo was going to have to undergo a trial like that at some point anyway. The decision to do it when and how he did had been his, and his alone. And I was genuinely happy for him.

On the other hand, though, the choice had been rash in the extreme, and he hadn’t given me any warning of his intention at all. Sure, every member of the unit seemed to regard Leo’s action as a heroic exploit, and every mage considered it their duty to come congratulate the kid. For my part, however, I promised to put him through a special course aimed at strengthening his self-discipline when we got back home.

The frightened look on the young man’s face when I said this made it pretty clear that he understood what I was getting at. He knew very well that I didn’t care about any of the strykers’ codes of honor, or the fact that they were essentially a separate caste in society. Basically, Leo knew he was in for some fun. Provided, of course, that he survived our trip into the Shadow first. I informed him of all this in a calm, matter-of-fact tone while I was patching up the microtears in his energy system.

As I stood there, frightening my young squire, a part of me knew that I was actually angry because, for just a second, Leo had made me feel a sense of total helplessness — a feeling that I hated with every fiber of my being. This feeling was actually part of the reason that I had been such a loner in my previous life. Once upon a time, Thais had been my only weakness, and sure enough, my enemies eventually managed to use her to manipulate me.

Just then, a palpable jolt from underground made me shift my feet instinctively and brought me back to my immediate reality. The jolt was pretty mild this time. In the middle of the night, however, the earth had practically been convulsing underneath us. At first, we thought it might be an ebb starting. Once day dawned, however, we were able to confirm that the Shadow — which had already swallowed the entire mountain range, including Bone Grotto — was still sitting in exactly the same place as before.

“Ready?” I asked as I glanced around at all my strykers.

Duval and his people looked tense and concentrated. As did Sigurd, Georg von Linz, and the other three “Savages” from his original group of five. Sure, this wasn’t the first time they were entering the Shadow, but every mage understood that crossing the Barrier was always a potentially fatal roll of the dice.

For Elsa Backer and me, this crossing would be our second, but for Leo, who was practically shaking with excitement, this meeting with the Barrier would be his first. Precisely for that reason, I ordered him to stay right next to me and not to venture away by even so much as a step.

A chorus of affirmative replies rang out in response to my question.

“Then let’s go!” I said as I took the first step, activating the lilac shield on my magical armor as I did so. The other strykers followed suit almost immediately.

With quick, decisive steps, we crossed the short patch of ground that separated us from the anomaly and plunged into the darkness.

When I stepped into the Barrier, the world around me seemed to disappear for just a moment. All the usual noises — wind, footsteps, breathing — seemed to dissolve into a thick, cold, and oppressive silence.

The air became thicker, too, until it was so dense I felt like I could actually feel it running through my fingers. The sudden transition seemed to freeze every muscle in my body in place. It reminded me of the feeling one gets while underwater — it was like a feeling weightlessness, palpable on all sides at once.

Space changed as well, becoming more elastic and flexible. My first few movements within the viscous fog felt like they were happening in slow motion. My pulse was louder, to the point where it boomed inside my head in a low echo. It was an oppressive feeling of isolation, as if I had fallen into a crack between two worlds, where time had no meaning (which, I suppose, I actually had). Just a moment after it had started, however, the feeling disappeared.

I switched to true vision and glanced around. Leo was walking next to me; true to my orders, he hadn’t strayed away from me at all. His body was shrouded in a purple forcefield.

The young man’s energy system was pulsing intensely due to the anxiety and excitement that were coursing through him. A little further on, the other members of the unit were advancing in a dense formation. The Barrier had accepted all of them, and it wasn’t trying to destroy them.

At that point, I turned my attention to my own energy system, and what I saw startled me. Prior to crossing the Barrier, my golden parasite had been behaving pretty calmly, but as soon as I stepped across the Great Bound, I found that my purple forcefield had changed considerably since my last trip to the Shadow. There were new golden elements in it that served to strengthen it and make it denser.

Given that, it was perhaps unsurprising that neither the Barrier nor the golden parasite tried to attack one another, as had happened whenever the parasite encountered black magic. Rather, they behaved like two predators that had long ago agreed on the boundaries between them and the rules for peaceful coexistence — each of them knew their place, and neither made any move that might upset the fragile balance.

On the one hand, this put me at ease, but on the other hand I couldn’t help feeling a little bit annoyed at the way the parasite didn’t reach out to me or take me into account at all. After all, I had thought that I was starting to get the upper hand on the beast.

To distract myself from these feelings of irritation, I decided to scan my equipment and the things I was carrying. My snake armor, my weapons, and my backpack and its contents were totally fine. The bruts were also right where I had left them.

I was especially relieved to see that the black crystals were still in good condition. After examining them, I realized that I had been worried for nothing. The Barrier’s magic hadn’t reacted to the presence of death magic at all. Previously, I had been worried about one particular question: could Hrimthurs walk through the Shadow with impunity, just like I could? It seemed I had just received my answer.

Finally, we emerged from the murky film and found ourselves at the foot of the huge mountain range we had earlier seen from a distance.

I was finally back... And once again, the world beyond the Barrier had greeted me with a discolored spectrum of faded color. I glanced up into the sky. It was completely covered by a single, enormous, slate-gray cloud, through which I could just barely make out the rays of the sun.

The landscape around us had changed slightly during the flow. Where there had once been a large field of overgrown grass, bushes, and short trees, the side of the mountain was now nothing but a vast expanse of naked, stony desert. The road had also disappeared entirely, just like the plants. This was normal in the aftermath of a flow. The Barrier’s magic destroyed all life in its path.

“Everybody okay?” I asked as I turned to face the row of mages who were following me. The question was basically rhetorical. A quick scan revealed that everybody had made it through the crossing intact.

Leo was looking around from side to side in a sort of awed trance, and responded only with a silent nod.

“Keep your shields up,” I said. “And keep your eyes peeled.”

I exchanged a glance with Sigurd and Georg. Those two were always on guard, ready for action at a moment’s notice. The other strykers raised their weapons and assumed a circular defensive formation.

I nodded at Leo, and Sigurd understood what I wanted without having to ask. I needed to focus all my attention on my senses; Sigurd would have to keep an eye on the kid for a minute.

With that, I turned to Chevalier Duval, who was looking around and scanning the area intently.

“Have you determined which way we need to go here, Monsieur?”

Never had Jean looked less like the smiley, deferential Chevalier who had once come to meet us at the border of the Margraviate. This version of Duval was concentrated and composed. He reminded me of a predatory bird.

The stryker with steppe ancestry turned and said something quietly to Duval, then pointed to the northeast. Duval nodded in reply, turned to me, and then pointed in the same direction as he said:

“That way.”

After a few hours, which our unit spent moving quickly along the base of the mountain range, we finally realized that our guides had chosen the right direction. The entrance to Bone Grotto appeared before us in all its glory. To be honest, though, we had gotten pretty lucky. Nothing interfered with us the entire time we were moving.

The entrance to the enormous cave known as Bone Grotto looked like the maw of some ancient, enormous monster that had been frozen in time. It was a huge chasm in the middle of a cliff face, framed with massive stalagmites and stalactites that looked like big bones jutting out from inside the mountain.

The off-white, porous limestone accumulations on the stones made them look like chewed-up bones, as if the earth itself had vomited out the skeletons of various prehistoric beasts. If nothing else, the imposing sight at least made it clear how the place had acquired its name.

After looking around at the amazement on our faces, Duval snickered and said:

“They say that if you search underground around here, you can find the actual remains of some of the giant beasts whose bones were swallowed by the magic of Strix.”

“Maybe that’s what the fanatics found?” Georg grunted as he craned his neck to study the natural phenomenon with intense interest. “Those bones would have filled to the brim with Shadow magic over the centuries. That would also explain all the wagons the Scarlets were sending back to Atalia.”

“How much gold would the guilds shell out for bones like that, I wonder?” Uwe, one of the “Savages,” couldn’t help interjecting.

“More than a hill of beans, I’ll bet...” Another “Savage” by the name of Aksel replied as he stroked his bushy red beard. “I bet it would definitely be enough to get me through at least three lifetimes...”

The closer we came to discovering the secrets of Bone Grotto and the underground caverns beneath it, the more frequently such conversations tended to crop up between the strykers. And their ideas about what kind of treasures might be waiting for us grew exponentially more fanciful every time.

“Heads up,” I said, hoping to nip yet another such conversation in the bud.

Once everyone quieted down, I continued:

“Since our guides have never been inside these caves, we’re basically going to have to feel our way through them. From here on, we’ll travel in the following order. Me and Chevalier Duval first, followed by Togrul and Molchun.”

I nodded to two of the strykers from Duval’s unit as I said this. Sure, they hadn’t been inside the place themselves, but they were still locals, and they definitely had more experience with Shadow Pass than the rest of us did.

“Then you,” I said with a glance at the three “Savages.” “Then you, Georg, Elsa, and Leo. Sigurd, you bring up the rear. Everybody ready? Then let’s go!”

* * *

We had been walking through a maze of long, twisting tunnels for several hours already. The rough stone surface of the tunnel walls was riven with deep cracks and covered with condensed droplets of water, and the pale, gray-brown light reflecting off it from our torches made it look like some sort of massive lichen that kept growing and growing, right in front of our eyes.

A muffled echo rang out with every step we took. If the Scarlets had left any traces behind, the Barrier had apparently destroyed them all. From time to time, the tunnels narrowed to such an extent that we had to squeeze between sharp rows of stone teeth, which had most likely been forced through the surface of the ground by the frequent earthquakes.

So far, everything was quiet, but the farther we went, the more clearly I started to sense the approach of something inexorable and destructive. And judging by the faces of my companions, I wasn’t the only one who was feeling this way.

More and more frequently, I would order the unit to halt, and then keep going on my own to check the area out before signalling the others to continue. During one of these little scouting missions, I discovered a large cavern with a small natural spring bubbling against its opposite wall. After examining it in true vision, then tasting the water, I determined that there was nothing dangerous in it, and that I could safely head back and bring the others to join me.

“Rest stop!” I commanded once the unit was assembled in the cave.

As everybody took sips of water and sat down to rest, I walked back over to the opposite wall of the cave. There were two tunnels leading out of the cave, so we would have to decide which one to take.

Alas, I didn’t even make it to the opening in time. A sudden underground jolt forced me to stop and turn around. Everyone else had already lept up onto their feet.

“Shields!” I shouted loudly.

And not a moment too soon. A curtain of sand sprinkled down onto us from the ceiling of the cavern, followed quickly by a rain of small stones. The strykers’ magical shields began to emit bright purple flashes. The cavern began to fill with thick clouds of dust.

And the next powerful jolt wasn’t long in coming either. It was much more powerful and prolonged than the first one.

With a deafening crack, the stalactite-studded stone vault above us began to shudder as dozens of big, black gouges rippled out across its surface. A heartbeat later, the first enormous stone icicle was already plummeting toward us.

“Everybody back!” I roared, but my scream was drowned out by the horrible thundering and cracking all around us.

I took off running and sped up as fast as I could. The terrestrial jolts just kept coming. The ground seemed to be dancing beneath our feet. Everything around us was enveloped in a thick cloud of rock dust. It seemed to be trying to seep into our eyes and settle in our lungs. Thankfully, our magical shields functioned as pretty effective filters.

At several points, I felt some enormously-powerful blows strike my shield and nearly knock me off my feet. The stalagmites crashed into the ground with enormous force and exploded, sending huge hunks of sharp limestone flying all over the place like shrapnel.

In true vision, I could see the lilac auras of my companions glowing dimly through the clouds of dust. One group of four energy systems was already close to the exit. Sigurd was already there; after all, it had been his job to make sure nobody attacked us from behind while we were inside the cavern. Leo and Elsa were nearby, as was Georg. A fifth energy system was running to join them. Judging by its shape and layout, it was probably Aksel.

In the blink of an eye, however, a huge gray shadow slammed down from above and swallowed the fifth runner. What had been an intact, bright-lilac energy system a mere second before suddenly turned into a shredded, pulsing, mutilated mess of lines and blotches.

I was moving in lunges and zigzags, dodging the shadows that kept falling from above. A few steps away from me, I noticed that another lilac aura was still smoldering, buried beneath a massive pile of stone shards.

Up ahead, I caught sight of Uwe, who was limping along as he carried his massive frame with his one intact leg. His energy structure was particularly distinctive, and I wouldn’t have confused it with anybody else’s.

“Watch out!” I shouted as I whipped a magical web into the air.

A shimmering, golden net suddenly appeared in the air above the big guy’s head. With a loud crack, another stone icicle exploded into a flurry of chunks and shrapnel.

I generated a Lesser Healing Web as I ran over to Uwe and literally shoved it into his energy system, then ducked to bring my shoulder up into the big man’s armpit and started dragging him toward the exit.

Just as I did so, a particularly powerful jolt shook the stone floor of the cavern. Another deafening cracking and rumbling sound filled the air. I glanced up at the ceiling. The vibration had rippled across the whole stone vault above us, sending a dense wave of huge stone slabs and razor-sharp shards hurtling down toward the ground.

I stopped abruptly and yanked Uwe toward me. He was already draped limply across my shoulders, and it seemed like he was about to pass out from the pain.

“Don’t you dare!” I growled. “You’ll die if you do!”

A lunge... Another lunge... I could hear thunderous crashes all around me.

Judging by the purple flashes that kept coming from Uwe’s armor, he was using the last ounces of his strength to maintain his concentration. Thankfully, he still had plenty of mana left in his bruts.

The supply of golden mana in my own reservoir, by contrast, was slowly starting to recede. I kept walking, creating another defensive web (this time, I didn’t even have to stop to do it). The golden parasite started squirming and fussing. But I didn’t care. I didn’t have time for any nonsense.

Another lunge... One more... We were almost there...

Suddenly, the stone beneath our feet seemed to stand on end. Spikes started erupting from the living rock, like huge, broken teeth in the mouth of some enormous underground monster. I jumped to the right. As I did so, I heard Uwe let out a stream of curses in Astlandic. One of the big stone teeth had slammed into his thigh. If it hadn’t been for his magical shield, the stryker would have been impaled like a bug on a display board.

I got hit too. A crushing blow to the back hit me like a battering ram, knocking me clean off my feet. Like two helpless little ragdolls, Uwe and I rolled across the floor a couple times and ended up plastered flat on our backs.

I didn’t get a chance to stand back up. The stone wave reached us before I could. The last thing I managed to do before the wall of stone chips rained down onto us was summon the largest clot of mana I had ever pulled from my reservoir, then use it to create a web. With so much energy flowing through it, the resulting net of light quickly expanded to many times its original size.

My heart was pounding inside my chest. Then, before my eyes, something unbelievable happened. Something that obviously hadn’t come from anywhere in the little werefox’s memories.

I managed to form something, and it wasn’t a magical shield. It was a full-on defensive dome that spread out to cover both me and Uwe.

The dome’s thick walls were composed of glowing golden ropes of magic, some of which stretched back into my reservoir. It was these ropes that absorbed the immense amount of physical damage that I found myself facing.

They flashed and flickered, but they didn’t disappear. The dome was being maintained by an uninterrupted flow of golden mana from my reservoir. Soon, it formed a hollow cavity beneath the pile of rock that had accumulated above us.

I could see Uwe’s pale face in the soft golden glow; he was lying right next to my shoulder. He was staring in awe at the thick cord of magic that extended out to the dome from within my chest. This pulsing golden conduit was the main artery that kept mana flowing into the dome. I could see a mix of anxiety and disbelief in Uwe’s wide-open eyes.

For the next few minutes, the earth kept shaking beneath us as more and more dull thuds boomed down onto the pile of stone above. But the dome held. True, I was burning mana like water in order to make it happen. The parasite made an attempt to assert its rights, so to speak, but I instinctively summoned all the rage and frustration in my soul and willed it to stop. And — miracle to end all miracles — it actually complied!

Finally, the ground beneath us stopped shaking, and a little while later I concluded that the rocks had stopped falling from the ceiling as well.

“Well,” I said in a hoarse voice as I turned to Uwe. “Let’s dig our way out of here. I’ll hold the dome up, you start taking apart that bank of rock over there. I can see light shining through.”

“Okay,” the stryker nodded as he inched his way over toward the spot I had indicated.

Uwe started digging with his bare hands, pushing rocks aside in both directions like a mole. I could tell that the Lesser Healing Web I had applied to his body had already started to work.

I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually I started to run dangerously low on mana. Just in time, however, we finally heard shouts from above.

“Your Lordship! Are you alive?!”

“Yes, we’re alive!” Uwe shouted with joy.

“You’re just in time, Duval!” I shouted with a smile.

“Sit tight! We’ll pull you out of there!” I heard someone shout from up above.

A flurry of activity erupted on the surface. I could hear other people’s voices mixed in with the hubbub. Apparently, Duval wasn’t the only survivor. I could only hope that Sigurd and the others had managed to escape the collapse as well.

Finally, the rocks blocking my view started to move aside until there was an opening big enough for me to squeeze through. I edged my way closer to it, gave Uwe a signal, and then cut off the flow of mana to the dome.

The stryker hurriedly ducked out through the opening, and I followed right behind him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw stone collapse into part of the small pocket where my dome had sheltered us.

Once Uwe’s legs disappeared through the opening in the rock, I used my arms and legs to push myself up through the hole after him. As soon as I could see out of the hole, I caught sight of three figures standing there waiting for us.

Duval, who had run over to help me with a big smile on his face, along with his stryker from the steppe and Molchun, who had helped Uwe get up onto his feet.

“Thank the gods you’re alive!” Duval exclaimed as he reached out to grasp my hand in his.

Instinctively, I extended my own hand. As Duval’s right hand clasped itself around mine, his left hand stretched forward toward a strap I had fastened around my shoulder. At the last second, however, it suddenly shifted and pressed itself against my neck. A single heartbeat later, I felt two nearly-simultaneous pangs of discomfort in my hand and my neck.

Something sharp sank into the skin in both places, and as soon as it did so I felt a sudden, icy cold begin to spread out across my neck and arm. The icy magical poison quickly began penetrating into my veins and energy channels, freezing them solid wherever it touched.

My muscles tensed up instinctively as a painful spasm seized my entire body. And meanwhile, the icy wave just seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into me. Magical ice was burning me from the inside: my neck and palm felt like they were covered in a thin film of ice, through which I could feel no more than a faint tingling.

The cold was spreading quickly and unstoppably. Every inhalation felt heavy and painful, as if the insides of my lungs were starting to crust over with an icy coating.

The golden parasite leapt into action and started trying to liquidate the intruder, but with so little mana in my system the process was catastrophically slow. My enemy had stuck me with an incredibly powerful toxin. Not a fatal one, though — one that was meant to paralyze. That meant they needed me alive.

I stared back at Duval. He wasn’t smiling anymore. In fact, his face seemed to have transformed completely. His eyes looked like two soulless shards of gray ice.

I quickly turned to look at Uwe. I tried to warn him, but I couldn’t get a single sound out of my throat. As I lay there helpless on the ground like an ice sculpture, the steppe stryker stepped silently behind the unsuspecting Uwe’s back, quietly drew his knife, and slit his throat, while Molchun rammed his own knife into the “Savage” stryker’s heart.

I tore my eyes off of Uwe’s body as it collapsed to the floor in its death convulsions and turned to look at Duval, who was standing there calmly, just watching to see how I would react. Not a single muscle on his face moved the entire time. There wasn’t so much as a drop of emotion in his eyes — just indifference and ice-cold emptiness. I recognized that detached look. Duval (or whoever the hell he really was) was a Seer, just like me.

Our eyes met.

And a single thought ran through my head... You should have killed me as soon as you got the chance.