In the distance, lightning flashes. The sky is clear and open, the stars imperiously studying the foul terrain. The tension in the air, thick and soupy, drips and wraps up every sound and movement. The trees still, animals hiding within from what is to come. The echoes of moments bounce forwards and backwards in time. The past is a memory of what was once future. Events drive along a road and as much as we can look back, we must too look forward.
There are monsters in this world, carved from the ashes of people. They rage and they twist, bucking against the limitations of reality that prevent them from fully becoming. It is a process of transformation, of rejuvenation. It is impossibly destructive. It wrecks havoc across the land, leading a trail of destruction pointing a marker towards the source. Sure as anything, one might follow that road if they sought death. Sure as anything, one might follow that road if they didn't know better.
Ellestria of the Long Dark wiped the hair out of her eyes. Sweat pins it to her forhead, the back of her neck, the deep secret places locked within her very soul. She stands alone, atop a might and bald hill. There may have been trees here once. Indeed, the woods around are thick and full, teeming with the life of an untouched nature. But here, in this one patch, there is emptiness. There is silence. And she revels in it.
Life sets her on edge. So does power, and oh, is there power here. The leyline, deep and vast, cuts a vast swath through the depths of the world. The walls are weak here. In ages past, this was a place of power and the remains of arcane rituals permeate the atmosphere. She can almost touch them, they feel so tangible. It was chosen deliberately for this reason. The souls of the dead, of the powerful, of the free surface. With a thought, a movement, a quick word of binding, they would supplicate before her. What was a life but a weapon? What was the purpose of a human but to be sharpened by the hardships of the world, to be reforged until they can be marched to their destruction by the divine?
But necromancy is one of the forbidden schools. Aza the First Wizard herself had decreed such. Conjuring the deceased was one of the few magics that risked breaking the natural order. And despite the potential, despite the applications, despite the power, Ellestria was declared a dark wizard. She was a dark wizard, and so he comes along the long road. He comes with a long stick and a grim expression. Seri, Aza's apprentice, comes to kill her.
Because there is only one reasonable response to crimes against the fabric of the universe. The balance must be maintained. Were the gods to be challenged, the long chaos may yet return. So the greatest of all the wizards sat atop her great tower and made decrees. And so, the boy-child, that youthful figure, not yet wizened by study, put one foot in front of the other. And so, he comes with murder on his mind. The beast had been slain. Now he comes for its master.
The air was wet and heavy, massive with the weight of inevitability. This collision was fated. It was slated by the very universe as a cosmic necessity. Neither party understood that yet. Neither party understood why. But they could feel the energy regardless, the way the sun dimmed and the humidity pressed against them.
Seri bore no titles yet. In time, he would bare many. In time, he would be known by nothing but, his name lost to the very annals of history. But in this moment, he was but a child. He was a wizard, one of the best, but defined purely by his relationship to power, which was subservient. He was not a hero. He was not a champion. And so he placed one foot in front of the other, each step harder and harder. He squeezed his staff, simple and wooden, between white knuckles.
The dark wizard had situated herself atop a leyline. She drunk from it like a tick, growing fat on the power of it, drinking the very planet dry. She had studied at 3 universities and spent over a year at the great library of Anan prior to the discovery of her proclivities. Her power and skill surely dwarfed his own. Perhaps she would even be enough to struggle against Aza herself. But his master had bid him take care of it, and so he went. Of course he went. What more could he do?
And so it came that he emerged from the treeline, a cloaked figure, clad with a future yet to come. And she gazed back, wrapped in the mighty energies of the present. What purpose does being fated for greatness serve? If you die in the present, then what does the future carry? Can we balance potential against those who have always peaked? Must the children break themselves upon the rocks of that narrow shoreline?
"Hail, stranger", declared Ellestria.
"Hail, Ellestria Bookthief."
She laughed, proud and furious. Her hair stood on end, dancing like a nest of cobras. "Who are you to make such bold accusations, little one?"
The wind pulled his hood down, sending his cloak fluttering behind him. "I am Seri, apprentice to Aza the First."
"Well met Seri, apprentice to Aza the First. Would you carry a message to your master for me?"
Seri shifted his feet slightly, eyes narrowing. "That would depend on what message you wish to convey."
"Tell your master that magic is not hers to command. It is not hers to rule. It is wild and it is free. I can feel it. I can hear it whispering in the wind. And oh", she sighed rapturously, "oh, how it hates her.
"Aza ordered me to slay you."
Ellestria said nothing.
"Dark magic is dangerous, Ellestria. This is how you lose your way. Whatever you think you have touched, it isn't what you think."
"What would you know of power little one?"
"More than you would think."
"Look at me! Do you really think you carry any significance? Do you not feel the weight of my power against you? Does it not press you backwards with every footfall?" This was true. Seri could feel these things. Seri could see her soul, see her truth, and she was vastly more powerful than him, empowered by a foray into the forbidden. And yet...
He stood firm and said, "I feel potential. I feel chance. I feel the world whispering in horror at the twisted thing you've become. I meet your challenge, Ellestria. You think you can kill me? Then prove it."
"Kill you?" She bared her sharp fangs, her black eyes glimmering. "I'll pluck the soul from your body and wear it like a belt."
And so they fought.
Ellestria twisted the universe, pressing against it with the mighty weight of her own soul. She devoured the essence of the air and hurled it against Seri. The storm broke then, water cascading downwards in circling snakes carved from blades. Her voice chanted arcane worlds plucked from ancient books, channeling winds of death, burning the atmosphere with the tantalizing ozone stench of awakening souls. Her soul was scorching hot, overflowing, bursting forth with dark flames.
Seri was ready. The spells came familiar and quick, the words old friends waiting for a summons. Her tongue, sharp and practiced, ran over the syllables with a practiced ease, and then he was in the air. He was on the ground. He was ducking and tumbling, the impact of the sky against the soil sending pillars of mud flying up. He was shielding, the impacts shaking his arms and pushing against the very source of his magic as he struggled.
But violence begat violence and the first round went to the practiced. Waves of power, sound and significance minus precision, detonated the hill. And Seri's calm eyes, scanning the blast, saw the holes. He saw where to slip, where to cast off his form and fly like a bird, where to dig into the ground, where to flit like a shadow, where to force a barrier of rock and press against it with both shoulders, pushing forwards. He slipped between curtains of pain and death, dodging. It was as the other said. Power omnidirectional was useless compared to observation and precision. And that gave him a further idea, and so whispering the words of another's spell, he divulged his own flesh from perception.
Clad in shadows that fought against the mind, that protested recognition itself, he crept closer, watching. Ellestria stood on legs of stone, eyes shut, mouth open. The souls of the dead swirled around her, darting forwards to touch her. She touched the divine, the conduit flow into the heart of the world made manifest through her influence. Seri watched carefully, studying it. He saw the flow, the way it pushed back at her will. Holding it in place was an impressive feat. It took willpower and skill.
He crept closer, unseen. Was she lost in herself? A momentary tiredness made him stumble, but he caught himself. He read between the lines, scanned. The soul surrounded her were angry. They wove themselves into her limbs, into her brain. How dare she have summoned them? How dare she have plucked them from their rest? The cycle was torn asunder.
Unseen, Seri whispered another spell, carving his hands into patterned claws. Magic wove together and fire lit itself, roaring to life. He cast his hands forwards, plunged her flesh into the torturous heat, letting the ashes of her bones cast into the breeze. Her neck cracked as her head spun to face him. Her jaw unhinged, and she laughed as the fire collided with her body. The raw strands of magic around her solidified, deflecting the blast. But she missed the true intention, the way he tied himself around her own soul, wrapping and blunting the rage of her brain. Did she notice?
Her hands flew back, her voice cackling into another spell. Seri didn't recognize it directly, but the motions of magic stirred to life in familiar patterns. He raised his arms feebly, shadowclad and struggling. The force of the universe descended onto him, flaying the very soul from his body. It hurt.
And the universe was laughing because this was fate. This was inevitable. This was how it was always due to end. We watch as the threads woven tightly spread and dance. Fire eats the branches of the tree, scattering their seeds to the wind even as the origins are lost. The world spins faster still. The stars whirl, patterns leaving messages for the observant. Those who dare to look up can read the whole story in a moment, sequences of events compressed into brief summaries. Seri, greatest of Aza's apprentices, did not die here. But it was close.
And as the rain crashed down, the heat and stink of the water in the air almost enough to drown a man, she planted one foot upon his throat. With all the force of a nascent god, she screamed, "Do you yield?"
Seri's eyes flicked upwards. He studied the way her magic flowed. It was, by all accounts, forbidden dark magic. It was, by all observations, no different from his own. Quietly, his spiritual hands found their strings, pulling his awareness into the heart of the world. Teeth bared, he snarled, "Never", and then pulled.
And perhaps physicality is the wrong way to understand this moment. The way the two bodies atop that hill stood, locked into each other, each caressing the other with the tender care of a furious dragon, was not at all representative. It is spiritual. It was about the abstraction of self. The projection of soul. Seri ran down the leyline and Ellestria chose to follow, form failing as they darted through the core of the world.
But the truth was that it wasn't a choice. Ellestria had no option to follow, bound by the webs of connection binding them. As a yolked horse, Seri pulled and dragged her with him. He plunged deeper into the core and her awareness faded from the flesh. How had they become so bound? When had he struck? She had no time to riddle this answers as the rocks grew hotter and the power grew more primal.
They swept through the great caverns and spaces of the world. Through layers of death and destruction. Battlefields lost occupied by spirits of the combatants still gripping weapons and swinging blindly gave way, revealing the gouges and canyons scored by the weapons of the gods themselves, massive caverns full of eyeless dragons roaring through transparent lips, the holes in the fabric of reality where the tendrils of things from beyond clutched at the unraveling edges of reality. They danced and raced. They were inhuman, birds, ghosts, memories, rocks, clattering landslides, tidal waves.
And perhaps it was a shrewd move. Because there was no magic on this level. There was no manipulation. One could not weave the fabric of reality without a mouth to order it or hands to direct it. And as Ellestria caught that fleeing child, she found herself helpless. She wrapped her soul around his, draping herself around him, studying the webs that bound them. With a sharp thought, she carved them in twain and carve him in twain too and perhaps Seri died there.
Except he never left. It crumpled in her grasp, a bundle of magic given the shape of a stone. Spiritually, it was such, a thrown rock carving an arc. A distraction. And now here she was, at the bottom of the world, at the blinding source of all magic. And she could do nothing.
And above, on the surface, standing on a desolate hilltop where the dead were screaming, Seri stood over her helpless body. He knelt. He ran his hand down her back, feeling the empty places where a soul should be. Was it really wrong? Did she really deserve to die? Surely she still had secrets to share. Surely her death would be a waste of knowledge. Dark magic begat dark magic. The words of the curse came familiar as anything. What good was a promise made in error? What good was the future without the power to meet it?
And when Ellestria swam back to the surface, swam back to her body and readopted it, she found herself confused. It was wrong. It felt wrong. The sunlight on her face was dulled. The heat was too cold, the bones were too sharp. Reality was discoloured. Everything was out of joint. She raised her mud covered hands to her face and spat, the unfamiliar tongue making unfamiliar motions.
"What did-", she tried to speak, swallowing as her throat spilled with spittle. "What have you done?"
The cloaked figure standing nearby turned. "I took your spells".
"How?"
He laughed once.
"This isn't-", she stumbled over her words again. "Aza didn't teach you this."
"No."
"Why?"
"I sought to know if I could, perhaps."
"Why not just slay me?"
He leaned in close. Real close, their foreheads almost touching. His breath was cold against her face. "Tell me, Ellestria Bookthief."
The wind howled for a moment. The decision moment was passed. Potentials collapsed and curled together. One moment does not make for a road. But some choices have ramifications. The idea, about to be voiced, spread throughout time and space, rippling through the fabric of reality. It carved its path and earned Seri his place in immortality.
With all the weight of inevitably, Seri whispered, "Tell me about death."
Huh! I could be doing author notes. Never really considered that until now. Okay.
Not really sure what I feel about this one? I wanted to write a fun wizard duel. I wrote half of it while motionsick on a bus and the other while long covid had me incredibly sleepy, so it probably isn't my best work. May edit eventually. Probably won't.
It's in canon with Ascendence and takes place a little before that one. Maybe when I have more energy we'll see more of Seri's life. I know how the whole things goes, I just lack the energy and the time. I sure say that a lot, huh?
Leave a comment or something if you feel strongly about it (positive or negative)! Be aware that negative comments might make me cry, but should be made anyway because I want to improve as a writer and need feedback of some kind.