Am I ready, Janak?
Vir touched his cuirass, inside which was the piece of paper where he’d jotted down the locations of the primordial chambers.
He honestly couldn’t say if he was. He didn’t feel ready. Thankfully, he didn’t need to be. With his ability to stabilize Ash Tears, and Ashani’s ability to create Gates, Mahādi was no longer the unreachable place it had always been. He could come and go as he wished.
And he would. He’d take his time and explore every nook and cranny of this vast city. He’d unravel its secrets, and he’d uncover his destiny. But that was for later.
There was something far more important that must be done first.
Catching up with an old and dear friend.
Vir followed Ashani back to Janak’s home, retracing familiar steps, and reacquainting himself with the neighborhood of black towers he’d lived among during his time here.
“Jog your memory?” Ashani asked, seeing him gaze at the various buildings.
“Very much so,” Vir replied. “My time here felt so short, but I actually spent over a month.”
“While you learned to refill my prana core, yes,” Ashani said.
“How is your energy?” Vir asked, worrying she might have run low. That she’d sought him out to prevent her body from shutting down.
“Fine!” she replied. “With my current rate of consumption, I should last for another few millennia.”
Vir laughed.
Ashani gave him a quizzical look. “Did I say something amusing?”
“Oh, no. Just that I was stupid to worry. I’ve… I’ve missed you, Ashani,” Vir said as a deluge of emotions drowned him.
“As have I, Vir. Though I admit, for me, it is as though I saw you only days ago. The amount of time I’ve been active these past years has been quite minimal.”
“I suppose that’s a good way to prevent loneliness,” Vir replied, averting his eyes. “I’ve regretted leaving you behind ever since that day, you know? I hated that I was powerless to resist. That it’d be so long before I could return.”
“It’s not so bad, really. ’Tis a quiet life, most times. Punctuated by spots of excitement. I find it quite pleasant, actually.”
Vir stopped walking. “No, you don’t,” he said softly.
Ashani halted as well. “No, I suppose I don’t. But we make the best of what we have, don’t we?” she said with a small smile. That it contained no hint of sadness or regret only made Vir want to tell her more.
That he had the power to save her. That she could come back with him.
Except, he couldn’t. Because while Vir had stabilized Ash Tears, he had no idea if his power allowed Ashani to walk through her gates. Vir didn’t understand Imperium long-forgotten magic, which was as ancient as it was advanced.
He didn’t dare plant the idea in her head until he’d confirmed the ability for himself. To get her hopes up, only to betray them… He couldn’t do that. Not to a cherished friend.
“He must have missed them,” Vir said, watching Shan bolt away with his brothers and sisters, who’d swarmed him the moment they’d neared Janak’s home.
“He had you,” Ashani replied. “And he knew he’d be reunited. If not now, eventually.”
“He couldn’t have known that when he followed after me,” Vir said. “For all he knew, he’d never see you again. If you’d told me this morning that I’d be in Mahādi in the afternoon, I’d have called you a liar.”
“And yet, here you are.”
“Here we are,” Vir admitted, still reeling from the sequence of events that led him here.
“Sometimes, all that matters is a person’s character. Good people shift reality. Of that, I am certain,” Ashani said. It sounded to Vir as though she was talking about someone specific, but he couldn’t be sure.
“I’m afraid little has changed since you last saw the place,” Ashani said, leading him inside.
Vir chuckled. “I’d be more surprised if it had, with you being in hibernation. In fact, isn’t this place exactly the same as it was millennia ago?”
The abode was just as Vir remembered it, with a small living space, Ashani’s bedchambers, and stairs that led down to Janak’s basement lab. Vir definitely wanted to inspect that more thoroughly later.
“Other than a few small things—amenities for the wolves when we need to shelter in here—yes,” Ashani replied.
“It’s so strange,” Vir said. “It’s like walking back through time to the Age of Gods, while simultaneously jumping forward in advancement.”
Once more, Vir was reminded of the unfathomable heights the Prime Imperium had reached, and once more, he wished for the world to regain it, however far off that dream might be.
“I imagine it must be quite the novel experience for you. For me, it’s all I’ve ever known. Will… Will you be here long?” Ashani asked, glancing at him briefly before looking down at the ground.
“As long as you’d like, Ashani,” Vir replied. “I have to return to the Demon Realm in a few hours, but with how much faster time flows here, I imagine I have a couple of weeks, at the very least.”
“Excellent news!” Ashani said, clapping her hands together. “Then let us change locations. We have so much to catch up on. Where have you been? What friends have you made along the way? Tell me everything.”
Vir couldn’t help but chuckle. “You know? I feel like we’ve had this conversation before. Back when I first arrived.”
“We did. And what I learned has amazed me ever since.”
“Don’t worry,” Vir said with a soft smile. “I’ll tell you as much as you want to know. Just bring me some warm water, first? Quite a bit of it, if you don’t mind.”
He prepared himself for a monologue… And braced for a very sore throat.
108
REUNION (PART TWO)
The sore throat never happened, mainly thanks to the pranites that worked tirelessly to fix Vir’s body—a luxury he’d still not quite grown accustomed to.
Unlike the tall skyscraper where Vir had first told Ashani of the outside world, this time, she’d taken him to another spot—a location on the very outskirts of the city.
The Mahādi Realm’s periphery was… bizarre, to say the least. Its land extended in all directions, yet where the city itself had buildings, all that remained outside was a wasteland of nothingness, ravaged by lightning and covered in soot. Nothing grew there. It was a perfectly flat, infinite expanse devoid of any features.
“I once ventured out, soon after the fall, millennia ago,” Ashani narrated, gazing wistfully off into the distance. “After three full days of travel, I happened upon another city. I have no words for my excitement at the time—perhaps others were alive. Perhaps some had survived the Fall. Maybe we could rebuild, together…”
“I assume it was abandoned?”
“As abandoned as Mahādi,” Ashani said wryly. “The buildings became more and more familiar as I drew closer, and a sense of wrongness assaulted me. It wasn’t another city at all. It was Mahādi. I thought I may have gotten turned around, but no. I approached from the opposite end of the city from which I’d departed. ’Tis as if this realm is its own, tiny globe, and I’d traversed it to end back where I’d started.”
“I think I can relate,” Vir said, thinking back to his time in the Ash.
“Oh?” Ashani asked with a raised brow. “You encountered a similar phenomenon?”
“Think so, yeah,” Vir replied. “Cirayus and I would often wander through the Ash for days, only to come across the same landmarks we’d already passed. It’s why no demon has ever mapped the Ash. It changes, for one, but even if it didn’t, it seems like reality is somehow broken inside, making navigation nearly impossible without an Artifact.”
Once again, Vir had to wonder how Artifacts designed to cross the Ash came into being. There had been only a single realm before the fall, and after, who had survived to create such things?