Chapter 36

“Let’s bring it here,” Veylan said, peering toward the brightest of the four lanterns. “It is best to enter the gate with your Anima at its full capacity.” He was hunched over, wispy strands of hair dangling over his face. Pyre noticed etchings on the ground that looked like calculations yet done with symbols he’d never seen before.

“Yes, a final chance to recover. I was just about to say the same thing,” the Shepherd said as he gestured the Unclaimed forward. “Please, sit.”

“We’re meditating?” Balefor asked, glancing around the plateau.

“Yes and no,” the Shepherd told them as Ronark and Tallow brought the lantern into place.

The light intensified as it settled, its glow thickening around it.

Sura lowered herself onto her knees without ceremony, spine straight, eyes already unfocused. Irix remained standing nearby, her presence marked by a low, almost subsonic vibration that Pyre felt more than heard.

“You might as well get comfortable,” Sura told the three Unclaimed. “We could be here for a while.”

“Let’s hope it’s not a week this time,” Ronark told her.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Tallow told him.

“Like hell it wasn’t.”

“What about the Gray Souls?” Marrowsven asked the Shepherd as Ronark and Tallow fell into a familiar back-and-forth. She glanced toward the sloping edges of the plateau, where the crystalline ground dropped away into darkness.

“They won’t come here,” the Shepherd said. “Not with this.”

He set his pack down and drew out a cube the size of a clenched fist. Its surface was smooth and dull, etched with seams that barely caught the lantern light.

The Shepherd brought it toward the lantern, and seams split. Stone gears unfolded from within, clicking into place with deliberate precision. The cube rose and began to spin, slowly at first, then faster, tracing a wide orbit around the plateau.

“What’s that?” Pyre asked, watching as a curl of Anima tightened around the rotating cube.

“A relic,” the Shepherd told him quickly. “These are the sorts of things we look for on the landmasses out in the Deep Nether, things from the First Realm. If we’re lucky, we find them. Interpreting what the treasure may do is a bit harder, but Veylan is good at that, and I’m aware of many of these objects by now.”

Balefor sat, folding his legs with a grunt, and looked up at the Shepherd standing beside the lantern Ronark and Tallow had just positioned. “What can we expect when it collapses?”

“Your question should be about the Deep Nether,” the Shepherd said, “but I suppose my answer will cover that as well. One of the things you should know—”

“Actually,” Veylan said, stepping forward with his monocular already raised, “if you don’t mind, I have some things to show you.”

“Do you?” the Shepherd asked. “In that case—”

“Yes,” Sura said, rising smoothly to her feet. “I’ll take it from here.”

Ronark laughed behind her. Instead of joining the others, he moved to the opposite edge of the plateau. Tallow settled back into his cat form and followed the dwarf, tail flicking lazily as if nothing about this situation concerned him.

“Realms can come down in a variety of ways,” Sura said, both hands tucked in her vest pockets now. “I’ve seen them completely shatter, leaving us to pick through the pieces in the dark. I’ve also seen parts of them crash down, not unlike some of the fragments you’ve seen scattered through the Forlorn Plains.”

“Ah, I was wondering about those,” Balefor said.

“We can explore if we get a chance. You’ll notice them the moment we get there that previous ones look like glaciers pushing out of the Deep Nether.” Her gaze shifted to Pyre. “Your realm was likely similar to this, considering you were able to see Gaius and you were still temporarily operating there.”

“What about the cathedral that appeared?” Pyre asked, recalling how it had grown out of the ground.

“That, I can’t answer,” Sura said. “But I can tell you that strange things happen in the Deep Nether, that the physical law you are used to can shift, and that much of it will make more sense when we get there.”

“Do we have a general idea of the time between the gate opening and the realm collapsing?” Marrowsven asked.

“No,” Sura said. “But we know we’ll be in the vicinity.”

“That should certainly make things interesting,” Balefor said as he leaned back. “And it explains why it would become an all-out war.”

Sura took a few paces away from the lantern and stopped. “That’s how it usually works out. The pantheons war against one another; at the same time, the factions fight it out. It is a chaos unlike any you’ll ever see.”

“And Deep Nether,” Pyre asked. “Didn’t you say it was completely dark?”

“It is,” Sura replied. “But lanterns and other things—glowing land formations, lingering Anima—give off enough light. You’ll be able to see, though it won’t feel familiar. That works in our favor if we have time to look around, which we should once we reach the Deep Nether. When realms begin to fall, wars draw attention outward.” She paused, letting that settle. “That’s when things are missed. This is our chance to find what’s been overlooked.” Her voice hardened slightly. “But we have to be careful.”

“Because of other factions?” Pyre asked.

“Yes, that.” Sura turned and looked out into the vast, lightless distance beyond the plateau. “But something else as well. There are scavengers in the Deep Nether—shadowyrms and scavels. Perhaps worse things, including factions that operate out there, depending on where we emerge.”

“There are factions out there?” Pyre asked.

“Yes, most notably, the Synod of Yore and the Red Juris. But more likely, we’ll encounter monsters, the most common of which are shadowyrms, which vary in size and can tear through what remains of fallen realms to create their nests. You’ll see dust and stone suspended in the air when we reach the Deep Nether. That’s usually a sign that they have been through. It has a way of lingering.”

“And the scavels?” Marrowsven asked. “What are those?”

“Think of them as crow-like vultures that operate as a single unit until they separate,” Irix told the three.

“Yes,” Sura said. “Massive carrion birds that often appear after conflict.”

“Don’t forget the bloody mirthbeasts,” Ronark called over to them, the dwarf clearly listening to her explanation.

Sura took it from there. “Mirthbeasts are pack animals, known for shrieking cries that sound almost like laughter from an asylum. While the others are wrapped in shadow, you can see the mirthbeasts’ teeth when they charge. They look like they’re smiling.” She paused, letting that settle. “Luckily,” she added, “they aren’t large. Not like the shadowyrms and certainly not like the scavels.”

“Good to know,” Balefor said with a low chuckle. “We should be expecting a fight before the fight.”

“Correct.” Sura pointed past the far edge of the plateau, toward Veylan and the Shepherd standing near an Anima lantern, their silhouettes cut sharp against the void. “Once it opens and we cross, expect chaos. These scavengers don’t know what we are, but they know a feeding call when they hear it. We, and the lanterns, are their food source.”

“They will rush the gate,” Irix added, “which is why it’s important that we be ready to defend ourselves. If this is like any of my other trips to the Deep Nether, it will start that way, then things may relax a bit, giving us an opportunity to collect ourselves and explore. It will soon pick back up again once the realm collapse starts, only this time, there will be other factions in the mix as well.”

Pyre nodded, the weight of something uncomfortably familiar settling in. The Devourers storming the gates. Farreach burning. Everyone pushing back with whatever they had left.

Only now, he thought, we have better weapons.

He looked around the plateau at the Unmoored, steady and prepared. From there, he turned to Balefor, planted like a bulwark, and Marrowsven, loose and ready, eyes tracking Sura with practiced calm.

Now, we stand an actual chance.

The lantern’s glow deepened abruptly, its light thickening, bright enough to cast hard shadows across the stone. The cube spinning around the plateau accelerated, its gears whirring softly.

Ronark clapped his hands together. “Perfect timing!”

Pyre felt a tightness bloom in his chest, sudden and unfamiliar, as though something unseen had hooked into him and pulled.

Beyond them, Veylan lowered his monocular and turned. “It has begun.”

The air ahead of the plateau crackled. At first it was little more than distortion, a shimmer that bent the darkness inward.

Then the sound came, a low, grinding resonance that reminded Pyre of stone being dragged across stone, layered with a faint, distant hum. The distortion tightened, pulling into itself until a circular fissure tore open, edges burning pale.

It tugged at Pyre’s senses the same way the Font did, a pressure behind the eyes, a subtle insistence that promised both power and annihilation.

As the gate stabilized, Pyre glanced to his right and felt his stomach drop.

Another gate is forming in the distance, he thought, not able to see what faction had approached it.

The Shepherd lifted a hand as the spinning cube snapped back into his palm, its gears locking with a final click.

Ronark rose to his feet, and Tallow flowed out of his cat form, growing taller, broader, fire tracing lazy arcs along his shoulders as he rolled his neck. One by one, the others took their place in front of the gate, directly behind the Shepherd.

The three Unclaimed followed suit.

“One final thing,” the Shepherd said, his gaze passing from Balefor to Marrowsven and finally landing on Pyre. “Beyond this point, there is no turning back. I should have said it earlier, but it would have mattered little—stay close.” He faced the gate, its light caught in his eyes. “The war draws near.”