“The Svenzar say it’s a road, but unlike any other,” Galiana said. “It increases your speed, and then that determines how fast your group will travel.”
Ancel could not begin to imagine what speed would take them to Torandil in a day with the Svenzar’s aid. The journey normally lasted two months or even longer with the winter storms.
“Imagine the shaft being like Materialization,” Galiana offered as if reading his confusion. “It’s a portal, but unlike Materializing, there is a physical distance between the two places that must be crossed. Similar to the Entosis, the shafts alters the passage of your time and movement when inside. However, unlike the Entosis, the Svenzar are able to increase or decrease the effect.”
Ancel couldn’t fathom the entire concept, but with all that he’d experienced, who was he to question the possibilities? He took a deep breath, inhaling crisp, cold air, and then nodded.
Within moments, they arrived at the edge of the charcoal road. High Shin Cantor called for a halt.
Halvor continued walking, leaving his counterparts behind until he stood alone upon the road. His body changed to the match its color, a deep black, and then like a mound of snow on a blistering day, his body began to melt, becoming one with the roadway. Although Ancel watched, he still found it difficult to believe what he was seeing. A moment more and the creature vanished.
Concerned murmurs abounded except from the Sven. An eerie silence accompanied them.
“Forward,” Cantor shouted. “Everyone onto the road.”
“What just happened,” Ancel asked of Ryne.
“Halvor has negated the effect of the road to ensure we are all together.”
“What happens when the effect returns?”
“Falling into a bottomless hole is the best way to describe it.”
Ancel was glad he hadn’t eaten much that afternoon. The way his stomach was clenching and unclenching, he would have probably spewed its contents. He glanced back to see the last of the Matii step onto the road.
“Everyone,” High Cantor called, “Nothing you see is real. Tell yourself that as many times as you need to.”
Waiting for further instructions, Ancel frowned when the man said nothing more. “What about the warning not to Forge,” he whispered.
“No need to mention it,” Ryne answered. “Of the people here, only you, the High Shin, and I could manage it once inside the zyphyl.”
“Brace yourself!” Cantor bellowed.
Ancel stiffened, squeezing every body part tight; his arms, fists, legs, neck, back, stomach, and still they were not enough. When he shot forward, his stomach leapt into his mouth. One moment, he was standing with Ryne, surrounded by Harval’s people and his Pathfinders, and the next he was touching the zyphyl’s surface, the Travelshaft a black maw. That one moment in between felt as if his body would tear itself apart.
He struck the zyphyl and stopped.
There was no sense of motion as he floated in the air. He was alone among a profound absence of light, absence of anything. The emptiness, almost tangible, begged him to reach out to it. His eyes were open, yet he saw nothing and smelled nothing.
The void stirred. It caressed him; its breath whispered along his skin. Abstract thoughts drifted aimlessly letting him know that within it, he still existed. So did the hammering of his heart.
Thump, thump thump, thump, thump thump. Faster and faster it beat. It was almost as if he held his heart next to his ear, its vibrations rippling through him, its rhythm thunder in his ears.
Bright pinpricks appeared all around him, thousands on thousands of them. They kept forming until they were a greater number than his mind could fathom. He noticed then that he moved and not they. It felt at first as if he drifted toward those lights, but as he drew closer, he saw that his speed defied all reason. With the realization, his body cried out from the rush, the jolt vibrating through his soul, stomach knotting as if he fell into a void. His mind cried tears that refused to leave his eyes. The lights grew from sparks into blinding white globes, and then into one continuous blurred line.
He stopped abruptly.
Ahead of him was a huge orb of blues, whites, greens, and browns, surrounded by deep, dark, emptiness populated by pinpricks. Slowly, familiarity came to him. Ancel recognized what it reminded him of: the nights when he would marvel at the moons traversing the night skies accompanied by stars.
He was looking upon a world from the outside looking in. Excited and scared all at once, his mouth opened. There was no one for his unasked question. No cold or heat suffused him, yet he shivered. He drifted down to the world’s surface, and as he did so, two moons circled it. In moments, he passed beyond them and into the pearly whites of clouds. They hung there, puffs of white smoke in different shapes and sizes suspended by nothing. The sun’s glow limned them in flaming hues, and for the first time, he felt its warmth. As he ventured below the clouds, he recognized where he was as compared to the many maps he’d seen.
Denestia.
He floated somewhere above Ostania.
With the thought, he zipped down toward a city, its buildings growing from tiny structures into towering edifices as they climbed the side of a mountain. A gigantic castle loomed below. He cried out when his speed did not slow. By reflex, he threw his hands up over his face as if they would protect him from crashing through brick and mortar. But when he struck, there was no impact; he passed through the walls as if they were air and appeared floating above a throne room.
Rot immediately assaulted his nostrils. He swept his gaze across the room. Several shadelings and a thin, reedy man in uniform held a woman captive, her clothes rags, her face a battered mask. Across from them, a younger uniformed man faced the king. The young soldier, he guessed a General of some sort, pointed at the king who wore black armor of interlocking plates. Behind the king, a boy and a girl, expressions filled with fear, huddled beside a man wreathed in black.
Ancel frowned, drawn to the soldier’s stance, to his hair, then to the woman and back again. His mouth fell open of its own volition.
Mother?
Da?
That would mean the king was Nerian. There was something else familiar about the Shadowbearer that he couldn’t quite place.
The children had to be his brother and sister. Anton and Celina.
Before Ancel could move, the world screamed. Svenzar and Sven tore a chasm in the floor. Materforging scoured the room.
The man wreathed in black near his siblings now held a sword, its blade dripping blood.
His father screamed.
Something whisked Ancel away.
He reappeared above a great tower. A Bastion, he knew at once. Soldiers massed in a field. On the battlements, his father cried while holding his mother. Galiana stood behind them.
Again, he was taken away.
He touched the ground in a field surrounded by familiar woods with the scents of home. The Greenleaf. In the distance, he saw the winery. Mother and Father tended the kinai. A howl broke the day’s silence, rolling across the plains. From the forest bounded several wraithwolves in long, loping strides. Ancel screamed and began running toward his parents but he knew he would be too late.
“I can give you the power you need.” A voice oozed into his mind.
He stopped in his tracks.
“The shade can sway these creatures. It is yours to command if you so wish it,” said another voice.
Gaiana’s face swam into his vision. “Remember nothing you see is real.”
“This isn’t real.” He yelled.
“Maybe it is or maybe it is not,” the first voice cooed. “All exists within the Planes of Existence. Every possibility. Will you let them die?”