The sculptor Iris was seen in the great city of Qethsegol, tearing down her latest work, a statue of two lovers that had been erected in a public square.
One of her attendants called out in dismay, for this was the fourth sculpture that his master had demolished.
“Master, please! Why do you dismantle your own work?”
“My heart screams for want of another,” Iris responded, smashing the stone. “I cannot rid my mind of her.”
“Then show them the statue! Why destroy it?” the despairing student asked.
The sculptor shook her head, giving an eyeless smile.
“Love is not earned with trinkets, or works. It is not earned at all. Love happens, and if it does not happen, there is nothing you can do to make it so. There is no path where this love can be mine.”
“Then what is the statue for?” the despairing student said.
Iris looked down at the rubble.
“When a ship begins to sink, you bail water. When a heart begins to sink, you bail love. Behold, student, my attempts to avoid sinking.”
The student looked at the rubble, frowning.
“…Has it worked?”
Iris stared at the rubble for a long moment, before turning to the attendants.
“More clay. We start again.”
Accounts of Qethsegol
As Stinjul continued to erupt in chaos, the pair arrived at the edge of the Lasair home, a simple cottage sitting behind a wall in the West Quarter. The building was unassuming and unmarked, beyond a small plaque marking it as a Lasair property on the gate.
Dread creeped at the edge of Zelith’s mind at the sight, but she moved almost automatically to start picking the lock on the gate, silent for a moment before the silence was broken.
“What the hell are those?”
Zelith looked over to where Grey’s finger was pointed. From points in the air near the river, an opaque force like a heat mirage formed, before a sheet like a wall of ice began to form, descending around the West Quarter.
“Barrier walls,” Zelith said, frowning. “Something the mages set up for emergencies. To keep things…contained.”
She returned to the lock. Memories were coming unbidden to her mind, of a note of fire and smoke fifteen years before.
“…They dropped them during the fire. To contain it,” Zelith said, her voice tense. “To contain us. We were trying to cross over when it happened.”
She could remember the smoke, the screaming. The blood.
“A man tried to cross under as it dropped. The force vectors cut him in half.”
As the lock clicked, falling open, Zelith paused as she felt a familiar clawed hand on her shoulder.
“…Be careful,” Grey said after a moment, frowning as she strode up ahead of Zelith, carefully opening the front door.
The interior of the cottage was just as nondescript as the outside, beyond a staircase leading down at the back that was of more ornate stonework. A bed, a fireplace. The only sign of anybody living here was a small scalpel sitting on one of the counters, sitting next to a body that was likely once a crow before it was opened up.
Grey looked over as Zelith moved over to the counter, looking down at the raven before she reached out to the scalpel, picking it up and putting it in her pocket. The witchblood seemed lost in thought, and Grey couldn’t help but feel a powerful dread at the location they’d found themselves in.
“We find him,” Grey interjected, striding towards the stairs as she cracked her knuckles. “And we end this.”
Zelith’s blue orbs found some focus as she followed behind, looking down into the depths below the home. As the pair moved deeper down under the burned ruins of Stinjul, the smell of ash grew stronger. The dark tunnels below stood stark and foreboding, Zelith frowning as she peered into nothingness. No light to draw on.
“Come on, let’s…” Zelith said, turning to look at Grey only to find her suddenly absent. Looking around, Zelith heard the sound of grinding stones behind her, the staircase beginning to vanish as the wall itself seemed to engulf it, blocking off all light and leaving Zelith alone in the dark.
Breaths faster, arms clenched. For that moment in the dark, Zelith stood, barely five years old as the elderly Lasair gave her a dispassionate stare.
“Increased resilience against poison. But still effected. That dosage would have put a non-witchblood of your age into a coma fifteen minutes ago.“
Zelith’s fingers found stone, closing her eyes as she tried to focus on the spell, the feeling. Grey. She had to find the pull, then she’d be there. Just a few patterns and-
A hand grasped around hers, Zelith’s heart jumping into her throat as she tried to pull away.
“Don’t. Walls are seven-folded. No casting through or at them,” a quiet girl’s voice said from the dark. “Father is very protective.”
Zelith kept breathing heavily, slowly getting under control as she looked. In the faint glow of Zelith’s own eyes, she could see a girl, maybe fifteen, her hair tinted blue from the glow but clearly red. Zelith frowned, thinking back to her appointments, to the woman with greying red hair that had answered the door.
“What’s going on? Where’s your father?”
“In the center,” she replied. “It’s dangerous, what’s he’s doing. I don’t think he can handle it…and I’m scared.”
Zelith nodded, gritting her teeth.
“Can you lead me to the center?”
The little girl nodded, taking Zelith’s hand and beginning to lead her into the shadows.
Zelith, of course, didn’t notice what lurked outside the light. She didn’t see the insectoid legs or the three clawed hands, or the horns hidden behind an illusion. She only saw the dark, as the demon Esme Brightstone led her deeper into the labyrinth.
Grey paced through the dark, growling as she tried to find a path out. She didn’t get it entirely, but the moment they’d crossed into the dark below the stairs, it was like part of the wall had suddenly shot out and swallowed her. Now, she was trapped in a narrow passage, almost like an alley. It reeked of smoke, and as she dragged her claws along the walls, there was no purchase besides the narrow space between bricks.
With a snarl, Grey slammed a fist into the wall, sitting down as she tried to think of a way out. She wanted to break out, to shatter the bricks and escape, but there was no way she was strong enough. She hated it in places like this: even Zelith’s bedroom, that cramped cupboard she’d been forced into, had been enough to set her on edge.
As she kept thinking, tapping her foot, she paused as she heard a sound. It was like a rotten fruit hitting the ground, on the other end of the passage. Then, another. Splat. Splat.
As the sounds started to increase, Grey pulled a vial on her belt, throwing it at the wall where it collided and erupted into light, illuminating the space.
Something was bubbling out of the other end of the wall, like some kind of horrid wall of meat and blood, collecting at the bottom of the wall. As she looked at it, it began to writhe, teeth emerging as it kept growing, a horrible scream echoing out of its entire fleshy form as it started to slowly, painfully, grow closer towards her.
Her claws were out, but there was still no escape. This thing was going to fill the entire space, and it was getting faster. Her heart was like a beating drum, and no escapes or ways to fight out were coming.
As the light began to dim, slowly, Grey closed her eyes, laughing, as her thoughts turned to Zelith. The injured witchblood, alone now. Somewhere in the dark, just like her. It was a nice thought. As she sat, staring at the encroaching death, it was almost like she was back that first night. Frantic, stolen kisses in the night, Zelith teleporting them without a care to get back to the ship faster.
Teleport.
Grey began to stand, an idea coming to her. She’d seen Zelith do it countless times, but that was different from doing. She knew some Red Arts, and had been given an overview of the blue, but it wasn’t her field.
But there was nothing to lose now.
Closing her eyes again, Grey let her memories flow to Zelith, to her delicate fingers as she drew her patterns in the air. Her smile. That look of raw focus that came to her when she broke through her insecurities and acted.
Her heart ached, as she began to move her claws fingers in the air. Feeble, but present, dim blue lights began to flicker in space, a familiar pattern beginning to form as Grey held her breath, completing the spell.
Zelith gritted her teeth as the ornate doors swung open, immediately greeted by a tall, jet black obelisk, like a clawed bone sticking up from the earth. The sight dominated her entire focus as she stepped closer. There was a red growth along the entire structure, spreading across the ceiling like moss or fungus rapidly filling a space. Suspended in midair, strange white flashes rippled through the room, before flashing black and vanishing, over and over again, like strange frozen electricity in the air. The energy in the room was so intense Zelith could feel it in her bones, like the air itself was vibrating, threatening to shatter her.
“Wh…what is this?” Zelith said, taking another step closer. As she kept staring, another strange flash, closer this time. As Zelith stared inside, she could feel a flood in her mind, her vision wretched away.
A clockface, spinning rapidly, the hands groaning and bending.
A massive web of veins and blood, as thick across as a sewer.
An onyx blade hurtling through the air, impaling itself into a torso as a flash of gold filled the air.
Dragons and gods at war, over an ocean of mist and unformed land, no up, down, nothing but chaos and death.
The earth shaking, Zelith staring at herself, scarred and haunted, in the robes of the Lahrii University.
“I knew,” the girl’s voice said in Zelith’s ear, faint and almost unheard. “I knew I saw you. Unwitting architect. The one who opens the doorway.”
Clawed hands gripped onto Zelith’s shoulders as she saw more. Stars, thousands of them, glowing brighter and brighter, until there was nothing but searing, dominating white.
Before she could see more, there was a blue flash in the air, snapping Zelith’s attention back as she reeled, falling back only to hit something behind her. Something large, insectoid, clawed arms still gripping her shoulders.
As Grey appeared, freezing wind flowing into the space, the Sunvaar let out a low growl, eyes fixed on the demon behind Zelith.
“Get the fuck away from my Lily.”
Strike The Horizon 