271, 2/2

Killzone rose from his tub, gathering his body back to his normal shape, because someone was in his living room—

Erick was in his living room.

Right down there, several meters away, stood the Apparent King, the Wizard of Benevolence. Erick Flatt.

Killzone had not always been intimidated by Erick. Back when the guy was making rainstorms in Spur, before Last Shadow’s Feast, Erick and Jane had been a valuable archmage asset and a fantastic soldier. They were both a lot more than that these days. Erick had done what Killzone had never thought possible; he had ended the threat of Shades. And then he had gone a step beyond, and turned them into… Allies.

Though they would never be allies to Killzone. Not really.

And yet, Al was a Shade now, and Al had been a friend for many centuries. Though Al had needed to adopt several different guises to remain in Spur, he had done it well enough. And now Al was a piece of slag… And also a Shade. A slagging Shade.

Everything was different.

Everything was wrong.

Killzone had wanted to kill the Shades for… for too many reasons to count. He was mostly past that anger, though. Now, he was just listless. Sure, the Blue Corps had been able to take him in, but now what? Erick had solved the problem of the Red, too… for now. There weren’t even any more Claws to fight.

And now, the real war was beyond Killzone. Way too far beyond.

… Killzone got out of his tub anyway and then headed downstairs, taking his time.

He entered his own living room, saying, “Hello, Erick.”

Erick smiled like he usually did, but he had those Melemizargo-horns out and he was every bit as tall as Killzone was right now, so his smile was not nearly as kindly as he imagined it to be. “Hello, Killzone.” And then his smile faltered. “Why are you living in this tiny apartment at the edge of Anhelia’s Kendrithyst?”

Killzone looked around. He had a house at the top of a spire, yes, at the edge of ‘Queen’ Anhelia’s Kendrithyst, yes, and though it was small, it was actually prime territory. The walls were opaque with some minor spellwork and the windows opened out on a vast vista of bright red and purple kendrithyst crystal towers. Killzone had five whole rooms here in the city. That was a lot? It was a lot.

Not as much as some, but Killzone was far, far beyond the need for opulence.

Killzone leveled his eyebrows at Erick, saying, “It’s better than Forward Base. I like it?”

Erick paused.

Killzone waited.

And then Erick said, “Well! I just came by to say hello, and now I’m stepping away.”

And then he did exactly that.

Poof!

Gone!

Killzone stood in his living room for a long while, wondering what that was all about.

It wasn’t like Killzone had other things to do, so he could take some time to just think for a while.

Hours later, Killzone still couldn’t figure out what Erick had been on about—

Anger suddenly crept in to Killzone’s mind like an unwelcome guest, knocking over thoughts and dirtying the carpets with their feet, and showing Killzone how bad he had let the place become.

Killzone sighed, muttering, “I used to be involved in ten thousand plots and never had time to think like this at all.” … And then he was really angry. He furrowed his brow, and looked down at his empty hands. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

Where did his fire go?

He had had a goal, and then Erick had taken that away from him, and now Erick took away his peace and quiet?

What the fuck?

And now Killzone was angry.

The first thing he did was check his [Ward]s, and yeah, they were all still intact. Even the anti-[Gate] [Ward]s and runic webs were still fully functional. Of course Erick could just slip through those without anyone being able to tell him otherwise! Fucking Wizards, fuck.

Killzone stormed out of his house, took to the sky, and stepped all the way into Spur.

He landed in Silverite’s office just in time to catch her walking in the door.

Silverite paused in the doorway. She was carrying papers. “What occurs?”

“Erick was in my house today.”

Silverite paused longer. And then she shut the door and activated the protections of her office, sealing them and their words inside, and preventing all [Scry]ing. They were the same protections as inside Killzone’s house, so a slag lot of good they’d do her if Erick was looking this way. If the Blue Corps were looking this way these protections also wouldn’t do shit. Those [Infinite Imaging] tables were… Well. They were amazing. Killzone wished he would have had one centuries ago…

And now Killzone’s thoughts were multiplying like they used to, back when he actually had things to think about.

Silverite set down her papers on her desk and asked, “Okay?”

Killzone frowned. “Just ‘okay’? What’s he up to, Silverite?”

“I have several guesses. Do you want to know my largest one? It has to do with Stratagold.”

Killzone almost walked out of the room. Instead, he solidified himself. “Tell me.”

Silverite said, “Solomon and those [Silver Heart] charms are only part of the real work that Erick and his repro are doing, and that work is happening in Stratagold. It doesn’t have an official name that I know of, but we’ve gotten leaks here and there, mostly from Anhelia. There are a lot of rumors in the Knowledge Mage circles. A lot of them are calling it the Un-Sundering Project…”

Killzone felt his entire being vibrate as he listened to Silverite speak of the impossible.

For the first time in centuries, his memories of Chernom felt some way other than regret.

He felt hope.

– – – –

Erick had no real idea what he had done, exactly, when he saw Killzone rush out of his house and head right to Silverite. The big guy disappeared into a Privacy bubble with the Mayor, and after a while, he went back to Kendrithyst and directly through the Geode Gate Network located by the Blue Corps. He went down to Stratagold.

Killzone never went to Stratagold.

What had happened there? No idea. Erick had some guesses. He left those guesses for other people to work out, because Killzone went right to the Anti-Red Project —which was going by many names these days— and he met with Solomon, and they settled in for a long talk.

Erick went to the archive room of House Benevolence.

According to some paperwork on powerful people that the House kept around, and which Erick had another, deeper look at, Killzone had been mostly listless, exactly as Erick had known him to be, but a few of the deeper, different reports had labeled him as ‘completely without direction at all’. That was a mite more serious than ‘listless’. Erick dug deep into the backlogs of that happening, to see a few different letters from Silverite, when she had invited him to various gatherings here and there, and how he had needed to forgo some of those for this or that reason. In two of those letters, she had specifically named Killzone as looking forward to seeing him… but Erick recalled one of those gatherings, and the guy had been distant the whole time.

… Had Erick been too busy —or too deep in the throes of [Onward]— to notice a brewing problem? To notice a friend who had needed help?

Yes, he had.

Shit.

And now Killzone was rapidly on the move, due to some Fate Magic cast by someone far outside of Veird, using powers that were beyond the Script… Wait. No. That was wrong. Those Ultimate Quests in the Core, which Nothanganathor had claimed credit for, were Fate Magic.

Rozeta had erased those Quests and rewrote them a while ago, calling upon the full weight of the Relevant Entities to rewrite them with her. And then she did that.

But the original ones had had no Red in them at all. Which was weird. Nothanganathor was either lying about making those Ultimate Quests, or he had claimed credit in a distant sort of way, or he was capable of doing things outside of Malevolence. Erick believed all three options were true, in their own way.

As for current-day Fate Magics, Phagar was doing Fate Magics to ensure Veird’s future, and he had even invited Erick over to learn some of that. Erick’s Lightning Path was already Fateful, and it had been enough to let him ignore actual Fate Magics for a while, but now Lionshard had worked Fate Magic on Veird from far, far away…

Hmm.

Erick put the archives back together, slipping reports and otherwise back under Privacy magics.

It was time to learn more about Fate Magic; to understand it himself from a godly perspective, and to also understand how such outside forces could possibly work such deep magics on a land that should have been protected.

It was a… relatively easy thing to accept that someone as Ascended as Lionshard could work magics on the entirety of Veird, from so far away and removed. It was also easy to accept that Nothanganathor could work Fate Magic at the beginning of the Script.

But could Nothanganathor work Fate Magic on Veird right now?

Erick imagined that answer as ‘Yes’ simply due to how Malevolence had been eating side realities, and yet, he hoped he was wrong about that.

– – – –

“Yes; Nothanganathor is working Fate upon Veird, purely due to acting from a larger realm; that’s how all the strongest Fate Magic is done, but that is not the whole story at all.” Phagar continued, “We’re still alive, and the future is looking better than it was. If there was a worrying development, I would have alerted people. As it is, for right now, Nothanganathor is looking at us, and waiting. From his perspective, he has already won.”

Erick had stopped in at the Grand Unified Church in Candlepoint, and gone to the Hall of Gods in the back. He wasn’t one step into the hallway before he found the hallway changing, and the space ahead transforming into a fractal geometry, with the floor made of stained glass. It was still the Hall of Gods, but it was not that place at all. As Erick stepped fully into the godly domain he left the church behind, and now he was here, with Phagar, in the God of the End and Time’s domain. Phagar, as always, looked like the person who he was talking with, which was Erick in this case, but a bit greyer around his shadows.

Erick took in what Phagar said, thought for a moment, then he furrowed his brow, and said, “He’s fattening us up for something.” Erick connected a few very distant dots, making extrapolations along the way, “It’s like when he claimed to ‘let me continue’ after we made Yggdrasil… He wants to become an ultimate god, taking everything everyone makes and claiming it for his own power, in order to spread that power outward and grab even more power. He’s not in any rush, but he will try to crush us if we go outside of his parameters, and yet, of course we can go out of his parameters, and we do that all the time. So what specific thing is he fattening us up for?” Erick looked to Phagar. “The reverse-Sundering magics that Solomon is pioneering?”

Phagar waved a hand to the side, and the fractal Hall of Gods shifted into ten thousand different reflections of Elsewhere, and of here, in this changing Veird.

It was a tapestry of possibility.

In one image lay Veird, hovering in the expanse of space with several bite-like crunches taken out of its shells, carving all the way through to the Old Surface and the Underworld to the Core, which was gone. The planet looked dead, and yet, as the image shifted, it revealed the land of Fenrir behind Veird, and Fenrir was awash in light and life and blue water and green land and so many different sunlights, like moons, spinning around the outside of Fenrir. The dead husk of Veird was just one planet in a gridwork of sunlights that surrounded the entire surface of Fenrir. Erick imagined being a person on the surface of Fenrir, looking out at the stars, and up at Veird’s onion-like corpse up there in the heavens, instead of the usual sunlights that roamed the land.

In other images Veird survived, whole and intact, and Fenrir was broken and falling apart, but people from Veird went out all the time to salvage what remained and fix what they could. It was a slow process. Fenrir was already looking inhabited in several locations, though, like motes of color on wide, black expanses, so they were having some success.

Other images had Red forests growing everywhere, both on Veird and inside Fenrir, to gaze upon the Shadowed Sun, where Nothanganathor’s body almost fully enveloped the entire surface. He was a backlit snake wrapping the entire illuminated thing; much larger than he was right now.

Those Red images were most of the images.

There was only one image where the sun inside Fenrir was Full Dark, and looked more like a black hole than anything else. In that space, in that place, there lay a Gate into the Dark Universe. The light surrounding that black hole was iridescent white, and that light shone down on the inside of Fenrir, on lands filled with people. Cities and forests and oceans stretched everywhere. It was the most beautiful thing that Erick had ever seen.

Phagar spoke, “In the majority of futures, Nothanganathor wins. He has too many ways to win and we have too few major resources. And yet… There are ways for us to win. Most recently —as in today— one truly good future has appeared.”

Phagar expanded the fractal vision of the Perfect Outcome of this war, and Erick saw a remade Grand Wizard’s Tower at the very center upon which all the rest came next. He saw himself seated at a round table, and over there was Solomon and Destiny, their chairs closer together than the rest. The other people in the other seats were less clear.

But in one chair, Erick saw something… weird.

Killzone sat in that chair, and yet, he did not. The image flickered. The image solidified. When it solidified, it did so in parts, with bits of the big black orcol-shaped man’s body stitching into place, like someone was taking a platinum needle and platinum thread and sticking the man down. Killzone spoke in his southern drawl, all happy about whatever it was they were discussing. Erick couldn’t tell what the discussion was about, and sometimes Killzone almost wiffed away, like a tattered bit of cloth not able to hang on anymore. When that Killzone vanished, platinum Fate Magic stuck him back down into place before he could fully escape this Fate.

Erick saw what was happening, and he said to Phagar, “We’re not supposed to say his name, otherwise he will Ascend to godhood, and that’s not nearly as nice here as it is in the Painted Cosmology.”

Phagar looked at Erick, judging his words. He found those words acceptable. He nodded. “Very well, then I’ll keep this Fated Future to myself.” He turned back to the fractal image of the Grand Wizard’s Tower conclave. “This is where ‘Tom’ is putting his Fate Magic to work. Do you understand what is happening here?”

“Rather sure it’s about forcing an effect that is so far distant that it might not even happen, in a version of Veird that is accessible to outsiders.” Erick said, “That has implications about the sanctity of the Script and other things… Too many to take them all at face value, I think.”

“That’s the gist of it.” Phagar said, “You can’t see it in this small picture, but if we expand our glance…”

Phagar expanded the picture, and Erick witnessed a version of Veird wreathed in platinum glows. The Grand Wizard’s Tower was stitched onto the world through platinum workings. The entire world spun around the axis of Yggdrasil, who had platinum roots connecting to his different bodies, located on different parts of the planet. Here and there, upon Fenrir’s much larger surface, Platinum lines glinted in the deepest of oceans, and inside the strongest of storms.

Lionshard’s spellwork wrapped the entire Good Path of Veird and Fenrir.

‘Stitching’ Killzone into place in a seat at the Grand Wizard’s Tower was just one small aspect of the much greater magic happening all around.

“Holy shit,” Erick muttered.

“Yes. You can see that ‘Tom’s magic is much, much larger than just Killzone.” Phagar said, “That friend you made in Margleknot is some friend, Erick, and yet I get the impression that this is just something that he is doing on a whim. Or at least the magics he’s guiding upon this section of Infinity are not nearly as tight as they could be. It’s all very loose.”

Phagar expanded the image again, this time into a few different side realities.

Those platinum threads on the bigger picture extended out into side realities, where they met ruinous Red magics… and kinda just hung there. The Red tried to eat at the Platinum, but it got nowhere at all.

Lionshard’s image of the Good Path remained strong.

And yet, if Lionshard wanted, he could have stitched a whole Good Path between the current Veird and that other Veird, couldn’t he? The fact that Erick could only see bare threads instead of a full tapestry-road on the Good Veird leading outward meant that… Yeah. The Good End lay there, but it was not fully present.

That was…

That was good, actually. Self determination was important.

Erick smiled at that, feeling his heart soar in his chest. “Tom’s a good guy— Technically neutral, I think. But overall good.” Erick scanned the fractal images. “So how does the current Veird connect to this one?”

“There is no proper road. We have to get there ourselves.” Phagar moved the images around, bringing up an image of a Ruined Red Veird on the left, and the Platinum Veird on the right. Erick’s stomach dropped as he saw that comparison, and a moment later, Phagar confirmed Erick’s fears, saying, “Our current Path is on the left.”

“… That’s some distance between the two, isn’t it.”

“And that’s where we come in.” Phagar dismissed the images, and they were back in the fractal Hall of Gods, but there was a nice little bench sitting to the side, in a spot of sunlight, on a riverside. The river glittered in front of the bench, filled with possibilities, and Phagar gestured to the sitting spot. “Let’s talk about the best ways to use Fate Magic, and compare them to what you currently do with your Lightning Path.”

Erick had come here for a Fate Magic lesson, so he sat down on the bench beside Phagar, and listened.

Phagar said, “The first thing to learn about proper Fate Magic is not to get hung up on the details. What Tom is doing is setting a distant, achievable goal. What your Lightning Path does is help you make the best decisions for the near future. Tom directs the river itself. You direct a boat upon the river.

“As a boat, you can see rather far ahead, and you can even direct your own path.”

The riverside turned into a small boat, with Erick sitting in the driver’s seat, looking ahead, as the river expanded from horizon to horizon. Red Rapids curled here and there on the world-wide river, and Erick saw his Lightning Path curl around the danger. He moved the wheel of the boat left, and avoided a rock he hadn’t seen until it was right there in front of him. The rock hadn’t been Red, but it had still been there.

Phagar sat in the passenger’s seat, saying, “Most people only get life rafts.”

Erick saw as Killzone, Jane, Solomon, and others, appeared on the horizon-spanning river, all of them clinging on to floating logs, or wooden rings, or an inflatable pool chair with a tiny oar in his hands, in Solomon’s case. All of them made it through their own Red Rapids okay, though wetter than they had been before they went through the Red, sputtering and clambering to stay afloat. Some of the others, the people Erick did not know, got swallowed by the Red Rapids.

Mog, the Guildmaster of Spur, vanished under the Red.

She was not the only one lost to the River of Time.

Erick felt his heart go out to her. He asked, “Could we pluck her out, this way? I am a Paradox Wizard, after all.”

“This is simply one incorrect representation of the world, so it’s not close enough to a true oversight to allow you to pluck someone out of time. Some people have found success with this sort of visualization of time, though I find it rather too simple to get anything real done.” Phagar said, “Also, you’re a boat right now, but you could be so much more than that.” Phagar waved a hand. “You could learn to travel through Time itself.”

The boat grew wings and the river-ocean dropped away, becoming so much more than that.

Erick could move the boat all around the river, moving backward, against the flow, if he wanted.

Each ribbon of water passing through the river was a person, an individual worldline, all flowing together toward the uncertain future. Each worldline began from the eddies and flows of other worldlines, and ended in a dispersion, into the creations of others. If they were lucky, they caused a lot of ripples and tangles and creations, but sometimes people dropped away into the Red, leaving a rip at the fabric of the ocean. Sometimes a worldline flowed from the beginning to the end of the river-ocean, avoiding all the Red, or other, simpler ends; those were the immortals, tangling with other worldlines and adjusting the river-ocean in small movements here and there.

Most worldlines were relatively short.

Phagar said, “This scenario is useful for seeing the future that Tom envisioned, and the current Path that Nothanganathor has carved for us.”

Far ahead, in the future, the river-ocean changed.

Erick saw a Platinum ocean over there, beyond the horizon. All the ocean was threaded with platinum Fate.

But between here and that platinum horizon lay mountains of Red Lightning, jutting up from the ocean. The ocean died when it reached those mountains, and that which did not die, went around. Some of the worldlines in the water ate away at the Red, but there was too much Red to ever fully erode.

The boat sailed in the sky over the worldlines of Veird, and Erick watched it all flow by. He did not see where this current ocean connected to the platinum horizon at all. The Platinum Horizon lay beyond a crescent of Red.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Erick said, “Nothanganathor is determining the flow of the river itself, just like Tom, but differently.”

Phagar began, “Time Magic and Fate Magic have a way of getting complicated, fast, and rapidly flowing out of control, therefore forging an end-goal is just as important as threading all current difficulties. For some, forging an end-goal is like making a light on the distant horizon. This is what your friend Tom did. This creates the most variable sort of future, and is by far the hardest to counter. That is why, even though the river is diverted by the Red, the Platinum Horizon is still out there.”

Erick suddenly connected a few disparate points. “Nothanganathor is just like me; working on the near-future— Or I’m just like him, for Benevolence goes wide and counteracts a great deal. He doesn’t have a Malevolent Sky, does he? He’s a leviathan. He has a Malevolent Ocean.”

Phagar smiled. “I believe so.”

Less sure, Erick continued, “And he can’t do end-goal forging?”

“Hmm… There’s some nuance to that, but broadly, yes.” Phagar said, “When you made Benevolence, you worked it to point toward endless good horizons, so your Lightning Path can alter on a whim and aim at a different good horizon. This is how Benevolence works for you, and for other accomplished users of that Element. Bad ends are easily navigated for Benevolence.

“When Nothanganathor made Malevolence, he aimed at a horizon that led him toward becoming God of Dark Magic, so while he could move around as he wanted on the ocean, he only ever had one direction to aim for. He’s spent ten thousand years going after this goal, Erick. He’s close, and he even has control over the space of this final battle. That territorial control —that Authority— is why he is able to direct Veird so well. There is still hope, but it’s a difficult path ahead.” Phagar looked to the Platinum Horizon, past the Red Tidal Mountains… And then he looked further. “But many paths simply end in Red.”

Far, far beyond the Platinum Horizon lay the end of the ocean, where everything turned to Red.

Erick realized, “Ah. We can’t sit back and build and build until we think we’re ready. We have to act now, because he’s also growing stronger with every passing minute.”

“We have some time, but not an eternity.” Phagar looked to Erick. “Time enough to decide on a Fate for Veird. Do you want to accept the fate that Tom has written for us? Or shall we forge our own?”

Erick found his answer truly easy to say, “I’m fine with Tom’s image of the future. The problem is that we can’t head directly in that direction, because the Red has trapped that way forward, so we need to have enough True Wizards to burst through those Red Mountains. The reverse-Sundering magics will help a lot. Figuring out ways to make individuals immune to being wiped away by the Red, and taking the fight to Nothanganathor himself, will do more.” Erick said, “What I want most from Fate Magic is to figure out how to send out a soldier and know that they’ll be able to come back home. Can we do that?”

Phagar said, “There are ways to ensure that a person dies on a certain date. If you set that date far, far in the future, then causality warps to ensure that happens. That is the extreme case, though, and such a magic would not work well against Nothanganathor due to him seeing those enchantments. He would subvert such people with Frozen Time, or other such maladies.” Phagar said, “Simple plans often fail in the face of overwhelming and correct strategy.”

Erick tensed. He chuckled nervously. “Ah… ha…” And then he added, “We need to focus on making people immune to him, and to learn how to fight as True Wizards to have a chance against him. Let’s fill out those seats of that Grand Wizard’s Tower. Killzone is one. Sitnakov could be another, according to what I heard.” Erick began, “I’m not sure about Kiri, but she could be…”

They spoke for a few hours.

When Erick left, he did not leave with so much of a plan, but he did have a rather well-rounded strategy, and a new appreciation for Fate Magic.

– – – –

Solomon sat down across from Leeanne Fieldfallow, who had the professional designation of ‘Knowledge Mage #Charme-B-789’. She had been looked at simply because her official Knowledge Mage number was the same as Veird’s Layer number, and now she was here, because some things were almost like Fate, it seemed.

Leeanne was a mousy woman, of brown hair and brown eyes. Those brown eyes went wide as she looked at Solomon, in the flesh, recognizing what was happening even before Solomon said anything. She gaped, and then tears started rolling.

Leeanne whispered, “This is a real thing. I’m really getting approved.”

“Yes, this is happening, and yes, you got approved,” Solomon said, spreading papers across the table between them.

Leeanne sobbed hard for a good half a minute before she came back to herself.

Solomon nodded, then he continued, “I know you’ve been kicked around by all the vetting processes, but I’m going to kick you around some more, so you know what you’re in for. This is a finicky process. It works better if you can make it work. That means people heading into the process with full knowledge of what is happening, and full knowledge of how to make it happen better, make it work better. You’ve gone through the interviews and the vettings and we think you have the capability.”

Leeanne wiped away tears.