Support my main contracted novel and winner of Writing Prompts #26 - The Legendary Mage!
Desolate Mage: A Legend Reborn!
https://www.webnovel.com/book/12013957905760805/Desolate-Mage%3A-A-Legend-Reborn!
* * * * *
Meanwhile; about 1 week before the events of the demon's planar portal; and 2 weeks after Lucius, Tamar and Dhrtarastra departed Urth...
[With dramatic and haunting oriental flute music in the background]
A long time (1 week) ago in a galaxy far, far away (really far)...
"Are you sure this is how we're supposed to solve this remnant dimension...?"
It was night-time in a foreign and strange world; two moons appearing in the sky. Yet, not so strange - the trees, rivers and people were pretty much the same as those on Urth.
Tamar was standing on a high precipice, overlooking a scenic view - a vast expanse of greenery, rolling hills; wide open plains and glistening, pure streams and rivers flowing over these to converge in a lake that stretched from horizon to horizon.
The moonlight reflecting off the surface of the lake was enchanting; and so were the red-haired woman and the silver-haired man standing beside her - the wind blowing through their hair and cloaks made for a heroic sight.
The silver-haired man coughed. Despite being old, he had a maturity and charm to his aged looks; lending to his attractiveness. He was handsome despite looking less than hale or healthy.
"Ahem... Yes, I'm sure. I've solved numerous like these before in my days." Lucius assured her.
"Hah! Haha! That's a good one! You? Phantom Thief Lucius, solving mysteries and remnant dimensions? Hahaha! You mean rob the adventurers right?!" Tamar laughed, at first sarcastically, then in earnest as she saw Lucius coughing again; and blushing in embarrassment - something he would normally never do; except among companions he had gone through pivotal experiences with.
Their sojourn through the planar portal at Endor, at the edges of the Endless Worlds had gone smoothly despite their delayed journey. They encountered several stray astral beasts, one after another - delaying them by nearly a week and a half.
It was a surprise to the hodgepodge band of companions when they arrived at the portal - and found it still open. The Heavenly Fate had definitely sensed it already... Yet it was not closed yet?
The moment they entered the portal, they were thrown into the recollections of someone named Yneth. Per Lucius' inference, this world was formed from her last wishes; a desire that she could not fulfil despite her power.
Yet also to his understanding, the amount of power needed to create an entire planet and ecosystem dozens of times larger than Urth would mean that Yneth had already transcended the limits of even the gods...
Which explained why the Heavenly Fate could not seal the portal... But also meant that they, merely ascendant creatures, would be snuffed out as easily as a flickering candle in front of a Category 10 Typhoon.
The portal closed the moment the three of them entered. There was no escape; not until they solved this worlds "puzzle".
* * * * *
Lucius paced back and forth as he thought about solution after solution, but ended discarding them one by one.
Finally, he spoke.
"We can only go along with the story flow and path of this world, wherever it may bring us."
Continuing quickly with this train of thought, he explained to his clueless audience (Tamar). "This kind of remnant world is formed because the consciousness of the creator's desire to pass on or confer something. It is looking for someone who can understand their heart, desires..."
Tamar looked at him, and waited. Then, irritated at the old man's penchant for dramatic pauses and posing, she threw a stone at him; which bounced off his handsome nose.
"And...?" She asked as Lucius showed her a wronged face in an attempt to gain her pity.
"...And search for someone they can trust to complete that desire." Lucius spoke reluctantly while rubbing his bleeding nose.
(Once I'm fully recovered, I'll show you!) Lucius touched his chest; a plain white bandage was affixed. It looked plain at least - it was bestowed and blessed with an ascendant being's blessing. A being that ascended without following the path of divinity.
He was thankful to Tamar; his treatment was also what had delayed their journey by 3 days. And the cost of the treatment was a favor from the ascendant being - equivalent to a life-saving chip.
When he asked her why she was willing to pay such a big price just for a gamble on a planar rift; she had answered: "A hunch."
(Just a hunch... But it turned out to be spot-on... A true transcender's remnant desires...)
[Dramatic and haunting background music changes to polka, performed on a reed flute]
"Quiet! Annoying! I'm thinking!" Tamar threw another stone, this time at the bald, blind man. Despite being blind, he tried to dodge, then thought against it and let the stone hit him on the forehead.
As blood trickled down Dhrtarastra's brow, he stopped playing on his flute and obediently stored it away.
(Phew...) If he had followed his instincts and dodged; she would have beat him up for the tiny act of avoidance... Beating him to within a hairs breadth of being an invalid... Just to satisfy her irritation...
(What a tyrant...) Dhrtarastra shivered at his close shave; but didn't dare to say anything in protest.
"Y'know it's really simple..." Dhrtarastra began to speak.
Lucius and Tamar looked at him, seeing if he had something useful to say for once.
"Well, the memory we were forced to watch made it obvious. Painfully obvious. We just need to, like, find a hidden clue, memory or item she's left behind for her daughter."
"..." Lucius and Tamar glared at him wordlessly, then ignored him and continued their discussion.
He sighed, as Tamar continued to think (uselessly) and Lucius insisted they just go with the flow and see what happens.
* * * * *
[Upon entering the planar rift outside Endor]
"Young ones... Welcome to my world... I hope you enjoy yourselves, and find my last wish..."
The voice faded from Lucius, Tamar and Dhrtarastra's inner consciousness. Then the scene around them turned from all black to one of a night sky over a village.
'Twas a cold moon that waxed as Liszt, her incandescent sister, began her 100-year fade into the umbra. The one, sparkling with life, relegated into oblivion. The other, cold, lifeless, yet far more alive. It would still be nearly 50 years before the zenith of one and nadir of the other was reached. But the cycle had begun anew.
As one waxed and the other waned, a pair of eyes watched. The eyes watching, the face to which they belonged seemingly reflecting the lunar sisters. Two eyes, one scarred but seeing, the other perfect but blind.
One face divided in two, one side hideous but complete, the other, once beautiful, now but a burnt husk.
Child of the moons, she was called, for she once drew on the powers of the lunar sisters. Perhaps a name furthest from the truth; yet still more fitting than any other.
Yneth knew - something was stirring this night, something old, older by far than Father Oak, than the mountains on which he stood rooted. Older even than the sisters who watched from above. She looked to the north that was forever directly under the cold moon.
She could almost see the creeping of winter from the north. Yneth tightened her thick woolen cloak around her; despite there being no wind; and herself being immune to the coldest dark-ice anyway. She remembered how it was told to misbehaving children, that old Ash lay waiting in the north. Some tales said he was sleeping; some said he was on vacation. Or maybe sleeping. Who knew with these tales?
"Brethren, sisters!" Further down, in the village, a voice roared, drawing her from her reverie. "Let us celebrate this new year! Let us give toast to a great harvest, and many hale children!"
A man's voice, belting out his annual speech. A good man, if a little dull. A man of enthusiasm, in a village where smiles rarely lit a face. A good man. Yneth returned to her thoughts, coughing as she stood more than 10 miles outside the village, yet hearing the words uttered inside.
"Aye!"
The men responded, with a spirit less than hearty, as the children scampered around, excited to be up this late into the night, their mothers too exhausted from work in the fields and the long hours of minding the children.
And their minds shaken by their worries.
It had been three poor harvests now, children often went hungry, parents without food at all. Rumours of famine, plague and war were on the lips of the few peddlers who dared ply their trade in the village of Two Moons.
"Tonight, this midnight, we pass from night into morning! Let us drink our fill and be merry till the dawn does come!" Cries of support broke out, slowly dying down into a subdued murmuring, the sounds of men not certain about what there was to celebrate, except celebration itself.
Tonight, a night of beginnings, the beginning of an end, the light's dusk, midnight's dawn.
In the midst of dark, a chill breeze broke any stillness, stilled any life. The end of winter, the beginning of spring. Yet it seemed the earth herself had forgotten her times and season, for such a breeze spoke of colder days to come. A cold spring. Colder even than the autumn.
Yneth's breath came out as mist, her tongue dry from the chill, her saliva long ago turned to ice crystals. She smiled wistfully as she thought about how she had once been strong and young, confident in her invincibility. Confidence in her beauty, in her powers as a tyrant and conqueror, undefeated and capable of toying with mortals and immortals alike.
Rising in power, in her pride, she had dared to challenge even the so-called "gods" of the earth - and prevailed. She had risen to what she thought was the pinnacle of the endless worlds - only to find herself alone. Empty and devoid of meaning. She held every power she could desire, everything was hers, and she had never tasted defeat, she had everything. Hadn't she?
Only to lose that everything to a man, young and dashing, the strongest of men, yet fragile as a babe before her slightest touch. Yet his fearlessness, his bravado, his heart so pure that it shone brighter than the sun; had done the impossible. For the first time, Yneth had faced utter defeat, utter failure. She had lost in ways inconceivable to her own self; Yneth, the heartless Grey One!...
Yneth, lost her heart to him.
She felt the skin on her right cheek begin to freeze over; the tears turning to frost in the chill winds. Her emotions were dead, as dead as he was. Yet perhaps that was why only her dead eye was crying, the tears frozen on her face. Tears of pain? Nostalgia? Or joy? She wasn't sure.
She laughed an emotionless laugh. Once, people would have said it was the most beautiful laugh. Now, they would just treat it as an old crone's cackle. Best not to dwell on the past, aye? Lest Ash of the bedtime stories devour ones future whilst one was not watching it.
Pah! She spat in her imagination at that thought. As if she believed in such. Even when she conquered the endless worlds and sat on her throne here on the planet Edon, there were no traces of this Ash. She would be the last one to believe in a myth, a fairy-tale. Entropy... 'twas but an old crone's tale!
Again Yneth cackled. She forgot - that was all she was now. An old crone devoid of any powers. One whose thoughts wandered; meandered back and forth, between the past, into the present and lost in the past again. Only, never to the future. It hurt too much to think about it.
Because, despite it all – she had found the most meaning in that greatest sorrow.
Her daughter. Despite her longing, she would never see her; for her child's happiness.
Who had won? Who had lost?
Perhaps she was the one who gained the most in the end.
I miss you.
* * * * *
And so as the hours passed and the bonfire turned to embers; the night was still but for the laughter of men drinking away their fears, the cackling of a crone, the innocence of children, and the wail of wind through the mountain passes.
And there, to the north, in the heart of winter, in the deepest of blackness, where the darkness of midnight would shine as noon - Ash slept.
Two slashes of insanity flicked open, where eyes would have been. Perhaps his wait was over.
* * * * *
"Got any ideas yet...?" A female voice asked as they were laying down in cosy tents for the night.
"...."
"...What?"
"...Didn't I just explain it earlier...?"
"Oh..."
Silence pervaded for a moment.
"So...? Any ideas yet...?"
"....." (Is there anything except swords, explosions and violence in that head of hers?!?)
Lucius sighed... Then felt a deep chill run up his spine as worry gripped him.
(Sam, oh Sam... Are you going to turn out like this brainless dragon someday...?)
"So...? No ideas?!? What did I even bring you for? Sigh..."
Lucius wept in frustration.
* * * * *
About an hour later, the red-haired woman was sleeping soundly.
But that night, Lucius could not sleep. The fire and anger in his belly at his annoying teammate didn't let him catch a wink of shut-eye.
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* * * * * FEEDBACK ON COVER * * * * *
Which cover do you prefer? Old one or New one? Caucasian Sam or Asian Sam?
Please decide for me!
I'm targeting to commission a new cover at 500k views; custom made from scratch!