3 An Old Memory

22.01.2022

The Hermit felt a nauseating sense of tension the moment he reached what should have been an impassable path in the tunnels. As long as he could remember this passage and all beyond had been collapsed. One of the few dark spots of his vast mental map of the ancient tunnels. More than once he had asked to be allowed to clear these collapsed parts, if anything for a sense of completion, but he had been denied. This one was right below Treva, and Yoctotyr, the Custodian of Earth, had feared further structural instability should they temper with the collapsed structure causing damages to the city above.

But now the massive boulders were moved, shifted far enough apart to create a passage, just large enough for a man to pass through. Like it’s always been like that. The unfamiliar passage leading into darkness was staring back at him as he stood there, wasting valuable time, but taken by the most unsettling feeling.

He didn’t want to go there.

No human had done this, to clear this path humans and wizards alike would have to use either heavy machinery and time or a huge amount of magic. Neither would have gone unnoticed by him. And even then it wouldn’t have created a passage like this. This must have been chaos magic, the only known force to manipulate matter like this, to just adjust boulders having to weigh tons into forming a small stable passage as if it’s been like this since they fell.

The Hermit felt it in the air too. Now that he finally knew – finally had accepted what it was – he could feel the chaos in the air – and he also felt that he had lost any connection to the rest of him. He had felt this before. The distortion was absolute.

He should consider himself monumentally unlucky to have run into this thrice now – maybe even four times if he believed his own theories about Funnix. After the Battle of Funnix the fear of the First Circle had been the spread of this terrible spell. But as it turned out, as far as Ravalor knew, encountering it had been surprisingly rare since then.

However, even with the limited data they had, there had only ever been three different kinds of effect observed with these disruption barriers. The Hermit raised his hands and let a bright spark explode before him, one with the left, one with the right. He gave both hands a little shake and dropped them again. So no local magic disruption nor a physical barrier like first observed at the battle of Funnix. But his connection to Mezchinhar and the rest of himself was completely cut off.

Danger was so clearly right in front of him, a place he didn’t know what it was but of great and terrible importance – he should go back, call for help, but he had no time for it, he felt it. He was terrified of dying again like this – to vanish into the void, leaving another mystery for him to never know about. But he had no choice. He had no time! At least he knew the rest of him were already taking action and would hurry once they realised what was happening.

And so he entered the passage.

The stone around him ached slightly while he passed the small path, but it stayed stable. Only when his arms brushed against the stone a few small pebbles and dust fell to the ground.

The air was stiff as he entered a part of the tunnels that had been sealed off from any fresh air for at least two thousand years. But even more so, it smelled sharp. Like ozone tingling in the air before thunder would strike. And now he was walking straight towards it.

He could hear it before he saw it. A faint crackling in the air.

Then light in front of him. He did not dare to stop.

Till the very moment he involuntarily froze in his steps.

Standing in the archway leading into a gigantic hall.

And the world was slowed to a crawl in his perception.

The massive amount of magic and chaos sizzled in the air was fusing with the tense static of the bound between dimensions being stretched unimaginably thin.

It was a rift space! He had read about them, learned all that was to learn and how dangerous they were – he had thought it to be a random interest he had stumbled over – but now that felt untrue. Ridiculous even. Like it should have been obvious to him.

The bright light emitting from the centre of the hall was erratic and blinding, coming from a massive portal that was not yet opened but soon ready to. It was an ugly and old thing – built only for purpose and function. Lines and cables ran from it into the hall like parasitic vines corrupting the ancient space around it.

And before it, hunched over the consoles that undoubtedly controlled the portal, the figure of a man – a wizard – with his back towards him, but Ravalor already knew who it was.

“Zenozarax.”

He had not thought he would be able to speak, and yet his voice was firm and clear in the chaos around him.

The other wizard turned around, abruptly, taken by surprise, and the manic grin that had been on his face fell, leaving nothing but agast shock to see him. It was just a brief moment before his face softened into a gentle smile that was unsettlingly more than it was calming. Zenozarax’ gaze was seemingly looking straight through him as he took off the multi lensed goggles that manually filtered out the intense unnatural light from the rift space without having to tamper with their own perception and hung them on his belt. His motions were slow, almost dreamlike. And for a moment he had to wonder if the other wizard really saw him.

“Ravalor...”

For a moment they weren’t here. Not exactly. For that moment, there was no war, no portal, nothing. Then something in Zenozarax’ face shifted, twitched, it was as if he finally realised that it was indeed Ravalor standing here before him. That he was real, and right here.

“You’re still here.” Zenozarax indeed concluded, he whispered with a light frown on his face and his words were barely audible over the chaos. He wasn’t really speaking to him, sounding almost wonderingly as he continued. “I think I knew that... But you should have left this cursed place...” The light frown drew deeper, for a moment he was even turning away as if he had already forgotten about Ravalor again.

But whatever the reason for this odd behavior, they didn’t have time for it.

“Zenozarax–“

“I loved this earth once,” Zenozarax said seemingly unprompted, looking at the sparkling portal. “But I can’t feel that anymore. ... Can you?” A brief pause, his shoulders dropped a little.

“I–’’ Ravalor fell silent before finding an answer. He had liked this planet. It was a home for him. The tower had been. And yet he hadn’t thought about Earth with anything but bitterness for centuries, feeling trapped by its pull, unable to leave. Maybe Zenozarax knew that, and he didn’t seem to expect him to answer anyway. Maybe it didn’t matter.

“For a while, I was thinking I should never have come here. Maybe then we wouldn’t have found the cursed hammer… and nothing of this would have turned out this way. But I don’t think that’s how that works. Time doesn’t care about one wizard. One planet. And the hammer would have found its companion, one way or another. They always do...” Zenozarax’ hand lingered on his hip, where a cold magical glow engulfed his fingers.

Ravalor understood very well that the wizard before him was far from stable. He knew Zenozarax, better than any other wizard in his life (or so he had thought once). He knew his emotions, the ecstatic moments of joy, the bursting waves of passion, the fits of anger, even the deep spells of melancholy. This wasn’t any of that. This felt dangerous.

His own consciousness had been stricken with the guilt of knowing Zenozarax being held on Charon. Trapped in solitude and silence, poked and prodded, observed and watched. An experience made torturing by design, to act as bait, to draw any other part of him out should they still exist. A cruel fate. But it had been that or death.

And he had feared his state of mind as he heard of his escape. Worrying how centuries left to solitude and his own anger would have sharpened the hatred already present in his old friend.

Now that fear turned out to be the truth of reality.

“Zenozarax, what are you doing?” he asked carefully, making a slow step forward. He sensed the danger emitting from the portal like a vortex of doom. And he felt like he had seen it before. Felt all of this before.

He took another step and suddenly, Zenozarax’s eyes focused back on him, suddenly he was fully there again, raising his hand and within a split second Ravalor managed to react just quick enough before the blast of magic could have hit him and instead it exploded against his ward. The magical shield sizzled and broke down, Ravalor’s hands were gleaming with magic, a hard frown on his face that betrayed the shock of Zenozarax actually having attacked him.

But he understood that this had been merely a warning shot. The Hermit knew he couldn’t fight him, not alone and under these circumstances. He stood no chance, and if Zenozarax would want to kill him, he could with ease. The Warrior would have fought him nevertheless, but the Hermit could not.

“Go,” Zenozarax said, his voice low and threatening. “Leave this universe now because there won’t be anything left of it once I’m done with it.“

“Why?”

A grin twitched on Zenozarax’ face. But there was nothing happy about it. It was an infuriated grimace distorting his features. “Why?” Now it was Zenozarax making a step forward and Ravalor backed off in turn. “After you let me rot in that frozen hell, you ask me why?!” Another blast shattered against his ward, it barely held. For the first time in his life he had to ward off magic of a wizard impossibly more powerful than himself, and he knew he couldn’t stand against it.

“They would have killed you!” Ravalor pressed through his teeth, the chaos was making his thoughts spin; he could barely think straight.

“They should have!” Zenozarax’ words followed another blast that was warded off, overloading the shield and it broke again in a shower of light, Ravalor gasped but was blasted with a second shot before he could react. The burst of magic threw him backwards and his back hit against the wall. The pain the attack caused to flare up in his artificial nerves paled in comparison to that in his heart. Before he could have fallen to his knees, a bright spark of light and darkness appeared right before him and he was grabbed hard at his collar, pulled back up and slammed back against the wall.

His head was dizzy from the magical blast, energy sizzled on his body, his eyes were flickering as he tried to piece himself back into working order. And in his clearing vision, he stared straight into Zenozarax’ eyes.

Zenozarax’ grip around the top of his robe was hard, pressing against his throat. Raging anger had drawn his face into a horrible mask of hate.

And for a terrible moment, a fear flashed through his mind, the clear and inevitable fact that Zenozarax was about to kill him. It felt so horribly familiar that he felt sick to his stomach.

“Zenozarax... Don’t–” He swallowed hard, “– you don’t have to–” and his voice failed him.

The anger in the other’s face turned desperate, almost confused for a moment, frustrated as his grip trembled. And beneath the anger in his eyes was immeasurable pain.

“I don’t want to kill you, Ravalor. I couldn’t bear doing so, not again. Don’t make me, don’t try to stop me now.” Zenozarax’ voice was bitter, begging him, pleading, his grip hardened, and Ravalor swallowed painfully. To hear it confirmed what he had always feared, and the desperate reluctance of Zenozarax now to kill just a mere part of him, all proof of memories he had so desperately tried to remember – but he had no time to think about that. The portal behind Zenozarax seemed to become louder to him, brighter and more threatening. Ravalor understood that he was trying to summon something from the other side, from hell, clawing to come into time. He felt it to be powerful and horrible.

“Stop you doing what? Zenozarax, what are you doing?” he again asked carefully, and his words would have been gentle if he wouldn’t feel the desperate haste of time running out.

“I’ll burn this whole universe to the ground and every cursed wizard within it,” Zenozarax answered with an unsteady tremble in his voice, the grasp against his throat got harder for a moment. “So leave! Or you will be one of them!” Then Ravalor was violently thrown aside, a hard magical blast threw him back and he crashed onto the ground. Feverishly he scrambled to get up again, fighting against the aching of his own body.

“Why?! Why do all these people have to die?”

“It’s not about them, Ravalor! It’s never been about them, you know that!”

“But they are still part of it! You want your revenge and I understand that – but, you have to stop! This will achieve nothing!” his own voice broke, his throat was hurting. He couldn’t remember the last time he had to even come close to raising his voice.

To his surprise, Zenozarax seemed to pause, only for a moment – and yet it felt fleeting, like the calm before the storm. “You’re probably right. There is a certain futility in this. Just the same old fight.” Zenozarax admitted, his words turning downright thoughtful. “I had a chance, back there. To end it and change everything. Free all of us.” Zenozarax looked at him regretfully. There was no hate or anger in that moment. Not towards him. Just regret. The air crackled around them and Zenozarax turned towards the light as if he just was reminded of what he was doing.

“I will take this infested universe away from them. This blasted earth that is so dear to them because of that lords forsaken hammer! It has to burn.” Then he looked back at him, his face hardened as the energy sizzling around them became louder. Whatever emotion and regret there had been before was all gone. His expression became cold, merciless, and unrecognisable to Ravalor.

“Go, Ravalor!” Zenozarax now almost shouted against the swirling chaos in the air, the manic gleam had returned to his eyes. “Run and don’t turn back! Save yourself! And save your pity, they won’t care about that!”

For one breath Ravalor met Zenozarax’ gaze, for another breath he let the regret and grief tear him apart knowing he could not reason with Zenozarax, that Zenozarax needed to be stopped, and that he had to be the one to make it so. Then he saw Zenozarax raise his hand again and Ravalor turned on his heels. And he ran.

The wirlling of the portal grew distant, the echo of his steps louder in the ancient tunnels, his ragged breath in his lungs, he almost stumbled in his haste, his heart was hammering in his chest before he focused his mind and every artificial function of his body slowed to a crawl till his heartbeat stopped outright. All his focus and energy turned to only what needed to be done now as from a thousand and one options rushing through his mind, weighted and calculated so quickly it made him feel feverish, he realised only one would be even possible in this short amount of time.

He passed the small passage made in the rubble, his cloak clung to a sharp rock but he just tore himself free, tearing the smooth fabric.

And he ran more.

Until finally, he wasn’t alone anymore.

I need help!

And he needed to act right now.

Still running, he feverishly reached out to the Northman whom he knew was partaking at the battle at Mars.

There was barely any time left.

The Wizard and Stargazer had reached the main node of Mezhestvo via the designated portpoints as he was the first to see the distorted memories of the Hermit coming back to him and he felt an ice-cold sense of panic wash over him, a mere moment later he saw the aghast shock in the Stargazers face too.

What reached them was nothing but a shattered and fragmented set of images and thoughts, but they spoke of the Hermit’s panic and desperation too clearly, his urgent cry for help. And above all that – the knowledge that it truly was Zenozarax. It had been mere minutes and yet the extent and weight of this revelation sent a nauseating sense of reunification shock through his mind. Almost it left him paralyzed and just barely he managed to tear himself out of that haze by ignoring all the implications.

Quickly he grabbed the petrified Stargazer, the wide sprawling hall lay in bright inviting light as they rushed down the portpoint. More than one wizard on their leisurely stroll through the main node was shooting them a concerned look. They always did that when the Wizard appeared with the Stargazer, but today more so than ever as he was making a scene by his mere haste. More food for the whispers behind his back he was sure, but right now, the Wizard simply couldn’t care less about that.

The Warrior abruptly rose up the very same moment the Kingmaker froze. He felt that same cold wave rush over him the Wizard experienced, but as he looked up, the Warrior had already opened a portal and disappeared, not allowing himself another moment of hesitation in fear that he had already waited too long.

The Hermit almost fell over a rough piece of cut stone that for over two thousand years he had known to avoid, but right at this moment, he didn’t. The chaos in the air had grown, and while he had escaped the complete disruption at its centre, undoubtedly deliberately caused by Zenozarax himself to not be disrupted at his dreadful plan, it was growing and he still felt his connection to the others being spread thin. He barely saw them. Nor could he really focus on them.

Then he reached the small cavern he had made his home and his heart ached in relief when he saw the Warrior appearing right in that moment through a portal.

They were one wizard, and yet they had always been as far apart as two parts could be. They rarely saw eye to eye, and while the Warrior never openly mocked him, not as the Kingmaker would, the Hermit knew that the Warrior’s more calm and efficient outlook clashed with his chosen way of life more often than not. The Hermit understood the frustration because they were the same, there was a part of him too that hated that he had been stuck here. That couldn’t stand staying in these tunnels, waiting for something, unable to leave for reasons that were not more than a feeling or an impression. But he had to.

And now he finally thought he knew why. That what happened now was a direct consequence of that why. Just that this knowledge wasn’t very comforting.

The Warrior asked him what he needed him to do. And so he told him. Nothing more than the cold efficiency in the stoic face – what needed to be done was clear to both of them.

For a second he thought about two dwarven boys, probably not yet back home. Wandering through the darkness of the tunnels, unaware of the horror blooming not far from them. In his imagination they were unburdened, maybe even laughing – unaware that in a few minutes they and everything they knew and loved would die. It was a brief moment in which the intense pain in his heart threatened to tear his resolve to pieces – but then he took a deep breath, letting that same stoic calm he saw in the Warrior’s face embrace his mind. There was no other way.

There was something terrible on the other side of that portal about to be set free. A terrifying entity of utter destruction that would rip through this universe till there was nothing left of it.

It needed to be stopped.

The Wizard and Stargazer reached the front of the security node and the respective pathfinder designated to manage incoming requests and forward information looked at him with slightly raised brows.

The Wizard allowed himself just one breath to try to sort his thoughts out in fear his words would be a mere scrambled mess should he speak now.

“It’s Zenozarax,” he almost forgot to connect to the input panel to transmit the chaos wizard’s clear identification code, so the other wizard would even know what he was talking about or whom. Despite giving the pathfinder all he knew via the connection way faster than he could speak he still quickly continued, “He’s on earth, Trigamena cluster–” Through the connection, he transmitted the whole identification address of that specific planet, galaxy, cluster and universe and didn’t stop talking. “–he’s trying to open a rift space portal, summoning something– a curse, construct –!” he said feverishly, trying to add urgency to the matter by actually saying it while he tried to wrap his shattered memories and impressions into words.

The look on the pathfinder’s face barely changed, only adding a slight frown as he evaluated the information Ravalor had just given him, estimating the severity of the threat. His hands were connected to the work panel and softly shone as he read the information Ravalor had just given him. He was taken seriously, but no more than any other wizard. It was impossible to say what that wizard was doing with the information or to whom he was sending them.

“Right now!” he added urgently. “The Grandmaster and Custodian have to be made aware – please, they need to–”

The Wizard fell silent, he felt his heart beat hard in his chest as he heard the Stargazer’s voice behind him.

“No…”

And remembered the very reason for it too. For a brief moment, he closed his eyes, letting the regret wash over himself. He knew what he was about to do, what he had set in motion. The destruction of Earth was imminent. But it was the only way. It had to be done to save the rest of that universe.

Then he quickly said, “That earth will be destroyed momentarily, you need to tell them right now! They have no time left! The rift-space will explode!”

Finally, the other wizard seemed to acknowledge the severity of the threat and got up. “Wait here!” and he disappeared through another portal.

The Wizard turned around just to meet the horrified eyes of the Stargazer.

“They can’t do that.”

And the Wizard felt the sting of pain as the Stargazer so blatantly dissociated himself from whom he was. As he couldn’t accept what he was about to do, using a “they” that did not refer to any of his own parts.

“He has to be stopped, there is no time left,” the Wizard repeated what echoed in the Hermit’s memories, the Warrior’s now too.

Neither of them paid the other wizards around them any attention. The patrolling warriors gave them suspicious looks, the wizards just glancing at them judgmentally. But Ravalor didn’t notice any of that.

Both the Wizard and the Stargazer fell somberly silent as the Warrior emerged from the disruptive chaos that had torn through their connection, allowing them to see him clearly again, to see what he saw, and know what he knew.

And they knew it before they saw it.

The Hermit fell silent in their mind. And mere moments later the memory of earth exploding into an uncontrollable vortex of light and colours just as the Warrior had seen it.

And then, unexpectedly, the Warrior vanished from their consciousness as well. His last memories reached them, a portal being opened, to lead him through the vortex. And then – nothing.

Within the span of seconds two parts of him had disappeared. The horrifying silence where they should be made it hard for the Wizard to even think straight.

He didn’t know what was happening, barely what had happened, and not where the Warrior was, but he was still alive. He knew that as clearly as he knew that the Hermit was dead.

Despite his own confusion he somehow managed to step closer to the Stargazer, taking him by his shoulders. He was shaken, an utterly lost sense of grief in his eyes.

“It’s going to be okay.” He heard himself say. And nothing that was left of him really believed it.

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