“How so?” Balthazar asked.
“I would be interested to know how real this construct actually is,” Darius said.
“It felt as real as the world of time and substance.”
“More to the point, how detailed is his re-creation? How faithfully has he rebuilt the world?”
“Ahh …” Balthazar said, realization lighting up his face. “A proxy world.”
“If it’s actually a creation rather than an illusion, the implications are staggering,” Darius said.
“I don’t understand,” Alexander said.
“Of course you don’t,” Malachi scoffed.
“It may be that Siduri has in fact created another world,” Darius said, “a world where he can do and be as he wills because it is entirely his creation.”
“That may explain how he was able to travel into the netherworld in the first place,” Balthazar said. “Theoretically, in a world that was his creation, he could simply step into the aether and then open a portal to the netherworld, provided the assumption is correct, that he has omnipotence within his creation.”
“Did you see any limitations to the environment while you were there?” Darius asked.
“Not that I recall,” Alexander said, “but I had other things on my mind at the time.”
“Understandable,” Darius said. “I suspect that you would find a less than complete world if you did some exploring within his construct.”
Alexander nodded to himself, thinking about his magic. He’d reached a point where further advancement required him to take real risks, yet the potential gains could easily prove to be the decisive factor in the entire war. He had no choice but to make the attempt, even though the idea of becoming lost in the firmament was terrifying.
“Thank you,” he said as he stood up. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“One other thing,” Balthazar said. “Luminessence may have the power to destroy the Nether Gate, though I believe it would destroy the staff in the process.”
Alexander sat back down.
“If the staff were thrust into the portal while it was open, I believe that both items would be destroyed. Light and dark cannot coexist in the same place at the same time … the rules of reality won’t allow it.”
“Huh … that is good news.”
He walked away from the table and opened his eyes to find Lita sitting nearby, waiting for him to return. She cast her healing spell on his leg again, putting him into a deep sleep for another six hours. When he woke, he felt good enough to get out of bed, provided he had his cane. He frowned when he realized how familiar it felt in his hand. He’d spent much of his time on the dragon isle leaning on his cane; now he needed it again, though he suspected his leg would be much better by the following morning. Lita’s healing magic wasn’t fast, but it did work.
He went to his magic circle and sat down with some effort, crossing his legs gingerly and grimacing at the pain.
Jack frowned questioningly. “I thought the door had to be open for you to go anywhere.”
Alexander paused, weighing how much he wanted to tell his friends, knowing that they would object if they had any idea what he was considering, but deciding that they deserved to know.
“I had a new magical experience when I was a prisoner. The Babachenko poisoned me with a venom that caused extreme pain, so much pain that I began to lose my grip on reality and started involuntarily slipping into the firmament. But when I did, the collar would start choking me, bringing me back, only to slip away again, until I thought I was dying. Then something unexpected happened. I found myself in the firmament-physically.”
Jataan’s eyes went a little wide. Lita gasped. Chloe spun into existence, then disappeared again.
“The Babachenko confirmed it for me with one of his divination spells. I actually vanished from the world of time and substance for several minutes, leaving my slave collar behind, and then reappeared back in my cell.
“The sovereigns have suggested some exercises to help me better understand what happened and learn to control it … but they’re dangerous.”
“How so, Lord Reishi?” Jataan asked.
“The first involves me deliberately scattering my mind into the firmament.”
“You’ll die,” Lita said.
“That is my understanding as well, Lord Reishi,” Jataan said. “I urge you to reconsider.”
“Just out of curiosity,” Jack said, “what happened while you were in the firmament?”
Everyone looked at the bard.
He shrugged. “Alexander wouldn’t be considering this unless he had good reason, and I suspect that his experience in the firmament has something to do with that.”
Alexander nodded, quietly grateful to Jack for giving him an opportunity to introduce Siduri and explain his part in the history of the world without revealing the existence of the blood of the earth. He felt a nagging sense of guilt about misleading his friends and a squirming sort of frustration in his belly at having to remember the lies he’d told so far just so he could keep them straight. How deceivers went through life telling one lie after the next without their guts constantly being tied in a knot was a mystery to him.
“I met someone there.”
“In the firmament?” Jack asked.
“Yes,” Alexander said.
He spent nearly an hour explaining everything he could about Siduri, his history and the nature of his power, while carefully omitting any reference to the blood of the earth. His friends sat silently, listening with rapt attention to his account. Even Jack was at a loss for words when he finished.
“I need Siduri’s help to master this new talent and the only way I know to reach him is to get lost in the firmament.”
“What if you can’t get back?” Jack asked.
Alexander shrugged.
“You’ll die, that’s what,” Anja said. “And with us trapped in here.”
“You do have a point there,” Alexander said. “Honestly, I wouldn’t know how to scatter my mind into the firmament anyway. I think I’ll need the help of the fortress island wards to do that and I can’t get there with the door closed.”
“So what’s your plan then?” Jack asked.
“Actually, I’m not quite sure. My relationship with the firmament seems to be changing and I want to explore that a bit.”
He closed his eyes and quieted his mind. He could see the worry on his friends faces and in their colors before he slipped into the firmament. Rather than try to go anywhere or see anything, he chose to delve into the depths of the firmament itself. It was a struggle at first, his mind resisting, hints of panic dancing on the edge of his awareness, yet he pressed on, willing himself deeper into the ocean of creation, beneath the surface where reality happened.
The deeper he went, the quieter it got, the song of creation fading away and leaving only stillness and solitude. As he pushed further, he began to slough off many of his worldly concerns, his cares and worries becoming trivial and ephemeral in the face of such vast, untapped creative potential. Piece by piece, Alexander lost himself in the firmament, until there was nothing left but the witness, detached and unconcerned, aloof, yet fully aware.
There he found a kind of duality. A sense of immense isolation permeated his being, offering sensations of peace and belonging so fulfilling that he couldn’t imagine ever letting them go, while at the same time he felt a profound connection to all life everywhere, a kinship like nothing he’d ever felt before, a oneness that subtly shifted his understanding of reality.
In that place of deep quiet, Alexander was content to rest, floating serenely. Time and substance were no longer his concern. They’d become abstract concepts in the face of the void, the quiet emptiness from which all things of substance were born and to which all things of substance would return. In that place, seeing reality as a whole, his worldly concerns seemed like distant dreams, fleeting and illusory.
He had found peace.
But then the peace was interrupted by a faint cry for help. Distant, yet insistent, a voice that should have been familiar called out for his help. Like remembrance of a dream, the source of the voice came to him: it was Chloe. As if a scrap of his personality snapped into place, he remembered who she was and what she meant to him.