Chasing The Eternals

[Fez_The_Kid]

Closed to Mordelain.

“Are you all right, sir?”

The rumpled carpet of a grassy plain around him rose and descended, at the crest of each yellow slope were pinnacles of rock, standing like the sky’s supporting pillars. The grandest of them was half a dozen paces ahead, a shapeless statue -- on its surface etched what seemed like ancient runes -- thrust into the night sky.

Several galaxies overhead stippled the heavens, spreading their color across the horizon as the residue of a now past galactic storm. Only recently it had passed, where what yet remained stirred slowly in its wake. Galaxies, stars, and planets -- all of sizes which dwarfed his world’s sun. Whether he was in Paradise, or Hell-- I am clueless. Perhaps neither.

“Yeah, I'm fine.” Anubis rose, dusting specter grime from his greatcoat. “Wish there had been another way. Can't they come up with something less risky than a portal?”

“Such are the laws of magic, sir,” the initial speaker said. His voice was inhuman, tone that of a sage, as old as time could permit. He looked at Anubis in a wide-eyed stare, fierce eyes shining gold in the gloom. He added, “Mr. Ralem should be able to see you now.”

“Thanks, Plague. Now all that's left to do is wait." The Salvarian turned. The natural lawn wavered under the warm, evening breeze, smelling of something not unfamiliar to him. Plague should be able to recognize it. “Know that smell?”

“Fear of your opponent, aye.” If Plague could have smiled, he would have now--but all he had that passed for a mouth was his golden beak. Still, somehow like any humanoid he managed to utter the common tongue. “That is sage. Also commonly found in the plains of your homeland.” The faint jesting tone he’d just worn was now gone, almost as if he had been disturbed. “May I ask something, sir?”

Anubis eyed him. “Go ahead.”

“Why are you doing this?” he questioned, head slightly tilted to the side.

Here we go again … “Perfecting my passion,” Anubis said, “thanks for asking.”

Plague opened his beak to say something, but shut it again. “Your opponent is close. I sense them at the gates of this dimension. Till we meet again, sir.”

Upon his master’s nod the eagle beat its sable wings and ascended with a caw--a farewell--disappearing behind the top of the close-by stone pillar. Anubis glanced at the horizon. Till we meet again.

The young Salvarian lay a hand on the hilt of his sword, eyes narrowed as he studied the surrounding plain in the dead of night. “Damn, who knew?”-- he said, tone rising with impatience-- That I'd be vulnerable like this.

[Mordelain]

Sister of the Sand. Mother of the Sun. Daughter of the Desert. Myriad names for a childless matriarch. Here, though, in sunny border courtyards of war, she was nobody. She was no more than another soulless artisan peddling death and frivolous and unimportant rivalries.

It was this anonymity, after centuries of being hunted into exile, that Mordelain Saythrou admired most about Radasanth’s fighting pits. To be nobody in a sea of nobodies; a priceless opportunity. She found it welcoming despite the carnal revelry and abhorrent nature of the gambling that accompanied it.

“Can you see him?” she asked. Her naked feet caressed the grass growing wild at the foot of the central obelisk of rock. The runes cast shadows on her back.

With their backs to their opponent they were out of sight and thus, as Suresh reminded his daughter, unable to see whoever advanced towards them. Undeterred, the il’Jhain prodded Suresh in the ribs, prompting him to sneak around the rock formation to peer out across the plain.

Whilst she waited, she continued counting the needle like formations that broke the horizon ahead. The wind on her cheeks, cold, but to her, a cool reprieve from Fallieni hardship proved invigorating. Clad in tight fitting black silk, with hair as red as the sun’s fire, Mordelain was a striking figure amidst the primal reality of the Citadel’s illusory world. Though beautiful without, she felt murderous and wicked within.

“Is it some sort of…,” Suresh returned to his daughter’s side, red faced beneath his traditional, bellowing robes, “knight?”

“Why are you asking me?” she replied. She chuckled light hearted.

“Yes. A knight. Armoured. He seems all high and mighty.” The merchant leant against the rock, the rough surface welcoming as a support for his less than agile bulk. His part to play, he hoped, was done.

Mordelain pictured her opponent.

“Let’s try the bait and switch.” She broke into a confident stride and came out from behind the obelisk to her opponent’s right. The midnight coif of the moon struck her, casting her fiery features in umbra light.

She pictured Suresh’s confused expression as she waved coyly to the man emerging through a whir and a crackle – a portal, no doubt, that would be significant for a reason she could not surmise. She stopped when the distance between them was three hundred feet.

“Hello!” she cried, tone unthreatening, smile broad. “I am Mordelain. You are?”

[Fez_The_Kid]

Anubis’ sword hissed in its sheath and glistened briefly under the runes’ stirring light. His heel dug into the dirt, eyes fixed on the newcomer that had so abruptly made an appearance. She stood, face enclosed in flame-red locks, a wave of hair as fierce as a rising blaze. She was clad in black, a perfect opportunity for camouflage in the dead of night--except her bright complexion was not in her favor, not in the hours of darkness at least. She gestured a wave-- a simple wave, but it could be arranged sorcery. My own doom. Can’t trust her; she’s my opponent, after all.

“Anubis--” he said, tone nonchalant, “--Anubis of Skavia.” He stood poised, sword stock-still in his gauntleted grasp. “Pleasure.”

The wind had started to pick up on speed, kicking up a whiff of dust and sage from the grassland. He glanced over and behind her. A sickle moon emerged, slicing its way between clouds like a god’s scimitar. Watch me, Bladesinger. You’ve wagered that I’d lose this battle … and here I stand to prove you wrong. Watch and learn. The Salvarian smiled inwardly, returning to eye the dame before him. Something told him that her looks had not betrayed her true age, but to him, he realized that the world was too uncanny for her not to be well over a century old.

Maybe even older, he suspected, eyes narrowed on her.

A sorcerous hum broke through the silence, the call of the stone pinnacles across the plain. The runes covering them had begun to glow like tattoos, setting a myriad of colors in the battleground. Presence in worlds so arcane and mysterious ever made him long for an entrance to the Citadel, and at times that reason alone bested the tower’s very purpose.

But that was never his intention of coming here; he had a fight to get into. She’s too far, I can’t hope to land a hit with that distance between us. “So…” he said, the indifference in his voice not failing to betray what little sarcasm he intended to bear. “Any one ever tell you that they would rather shag a crone?” he questioned, grinning wryly, “because I would.”

Merka Ralem, Anubis’ companion, had put out his coin on a quite dangerous gamble.

[Mordelain]

“When you see one you’re welcome to try,” Mordelain replied. Her tone, dry and uninviting, betrayed her annoyance at the childish insult.

She arched her feet and swayed on the balls of her feet. Her eyes, radiant in the sunlight scrutinised the landscape. The obelisks were curse and blessing alike, and she weighed up the options available to her.

“Allow me to educate you on the value of experience.” Her mind made up, she focussed on a rocky outcrop to her opponent’s left, two hundred feet away, and vanished.

Distance, ever her sword and shield alike, would prove ineffective if she allowed mere words to cloud her mind. She and Suresh had a stratagem. No matter how events transpired, no matter the words exchanged, she had to follow it. Falling into the Void, that strange world of unfolds between worlds, she floated weightlessly and in absolute silence. An aeon passed. Another flew by.

“We need to work on her showmanship…,” Suresh muttered, watching her daughter planes walk from his vantage point to their opponent’s right. Despite his weight, and his innocuous choice of robe colour, sunlight and theatrics afforded him invisibility from the knight’s gaze. He darted across a clearing to his next destination, buttocks clenched, thighs wobbling.

Mordelain re-appeared a second after fading from view. She stood on top of the obelisk in a neutral stance. Her arms were by her sides and her smile maniacal. Her tunic, a fusion of Bedouin garb and Tama fabric danced with light. It was an imposing sight, even if she was ‘ancient’.

“How do you get up here then, young ‘whippersnapper’?” she asked, mocking the youth by imitating an elderly woman walking doddering with a cane.

[Fez_The_Kid]

Raw adrenaline raced in the Salvarian’s veins, heart beating thick in his chest. Teleportation… the youth realized, shifting into a fighting posture, sword cocked in both gauntleted hands. Should the redhead use her abilities shrewdly, if she was astute, Mordelain would, he considered, very quickly end this fight. Teleportation was an ability bested only by time-traveling, and both he’d thought were fallacious -- impossible to carry out. But look what I stumbled upon! A teleporting sorceress, or a conjurer-- Hell, I don’t know what I am.

Anubis panically chanced to recall what his mentor would advise him against teleporting opponents, and as he twisted, nailed to the spot, he realized--the man had told him naught. Shit!

Plague watched from above the glowing stone pinnacle. Sighing, the eagle glanced over to the newcomer, a quite obscure redhead standing a few hundred paces ahead. What is he waiting for? the eagle thought, the pinions of his sable wings glowing in colors that had been set by the monolith he stood atop. Isn’t he going to?--

The eagle, cut off, watched the woman vanish, and he, as the air about him stirred, perilously realized-- she’s teleporting here! I need to get away! Now! Cawing his anxiety, Plague beat his wings and leaped off the summit. Something pulled him in his effort of getting away-- the teleportation’s warping effect, I reckon! Regardless, the eagle prevailed, winging into the night sky.

Anubis sagged his shoulders. You’re an idiot, Plague… and I thought you’d left this god-forsaken dimension altogether. Should teach you to stay the hell away when I’m in the middle of a fight. He looked up.

Mordelain stood upon the rune-covered obelisk, ominous and foreboding, a silhouette that looked like an excess of the rock’s perfect precifice. She remained, like a mannequin staring and feeding his growing fear in the process. The Salvarian felt ice chilling his heart, his gold-eyed gaze unwavering from his opponent.

Anubis scowled. He hated teleporting opponents. No, they terrified him. Teleportation-users were any swordsman’s nemesis--and he was no different. They appear. Then disappear. They mangle with your mind, make you question your own sanity. Never faced an opponent like her. C’mon, Anubis, grow a damned backbone. Can’t afford to be scared of her.

Behind the Salvarian’s frown hid a morose smile. Anubis sheathed his sword at her snide remark. His hand, after depositing the sword in its scabbard, did not return to his side--rather, it fumbled over his back and felt for another object.

Anubis felt wood and, gripping the object strapped to his back, pulled it over his shoulder. The straps loosened, revealing an oak crossbow the length of his forearm. The groove had been loaded, he recalled, the iron-head menacingly glinting in the stirring light. The swordsman--as he shut an eye, held his breath--cocked the weapon, aiming for the woman’s right. He didn’t intend to wound her. Not yet. I need you unscathed. For now.

"I won't," he sneered. "But this will."

The string loosened.

[Mordelain]

One word echoed in Mordelain’s mind as the bolt flew from the crossbow. Touché. The all too familiar click of the firing mechanism, followed by a deep thud reminiscent of thunder. It was irony, bound in the pathetic fallacy of an idyllic night turning stormy. The clouds enshrouded the piercing moon in mystery. The obelisks, now blackened spires on a bleak backdrop reminded the il’Jhain of tombstones.

Fortunately for the plane walker, her stupidity was often rewarded with the aeon old progeny of her people. The Void, for once, called on her. She felt herself slip away, with no control over her abilities, as adrenaline and bile churned in her stomach. A sway of stars, a weakened knee, and then she was gone.

Seeing an opportunity the merchant Suresh stepped out from behind the obelisk to the knight’s right. Ninety degrees angle, pistol cocked, and targeting goggles pulled down over his eyes.

“Call that a gun?” he bellowed.

The crossbow had not been the signal the father daughter duo intended, but he was ever the opportunist. He rattled off a barrage of shots, each a charged glass of Nirrakal, green and crimson, and fiery as the sun. His aim, though not the best, ensured that none of the bullets were going to hit anything. They were, as intended, a distraction to allow Mordelain a safe return.

She re-appeared, after a ten mile hike through deserts a million miles away, and bedraggled and muddied. She leapt from the rock, and charged.

[Fez_The_Kid]

Death thundered in the swordsman’s ear as he staggered to the left, off from the sound's fountainhead. A bolt of raw adrenaline shot through his veins, his face as pale as the crescent moon overhead. Lurching sideways, he tumbled. Anubis planted a gauntleted hand on the ground as he eyed what--or rather, who-- had tried shooting him.

A set of goggles measured him with a chilling glare, gleaming briefly in the moonlight. Its wearer stood but a few paces away. Something stuck out from his hand, a gun, cocked at the swordsman, its muzzle spewing a thick column of colorless smoke. Thayne’s balls, who the hell is he? Anubis then realized, lifting both brows, that the sorceress had been only diverting his attention to present an opening, ripe for exploitation by the bespectacled geezer. Shit, she’s clever.

Anubis rose to his hands and knees, gaze unwavering from the robed one. Wait, where’d she--

Chance answered the Salvarian’s question as a once absent figure reappeared above the rock, leaped off and charged at him rising. Anubis cursed. He chanced to meet the onslaught, leaving his new opponent a golden opportunity to ready the gun’s chamber for what would have otherwise been a mortal shot.

You better be watching, elf!

The blade watching over the back of his shoulder seemed to leap out of its sheath and settle in his grip on its own, where he’d rose into a charging dash to match the redhead’s onslaught. A few arm spans separating them, they neared each other. Anubis finished on his right foot--his leather mocassin firmly stamping the dirt--and pirouetted. The Salvarian watched the iron blade swivel with him to connect with the sorceress’ flank.

[Mordelain]

If Mordelain had learned anything since her part to play in the Vhadya, it was allies mattered. Only through forging friendships and undoing the wrath of enemies could you survive, and prosper, in the harsh desert climate of her new home. Fallien had forced her to learn this lesson in a brutal and efficient manner. She had clawed her way over dunes and squabbled for scraps on the docks to earn the trust of others.

Here, she had no such difficulties. Her opponent already trusted her. Perhaps he trusted the falsehood of the Citadel, the truth that no true ill would befall them here. All the same, he was playing by the rules. She had made it clear from the onset that she had no such intentions. His stoic movements, finessed stance, and well-timed and accurate blow on her defended flank all told of his chivalry and honesty. The Tama smirked.

“That was my father,” she growled.

The clash of her kukri, reverse grip affording her robust defence filled the arena. She wavered, her sleight frame ill at ease against the bulwark of her opponent’s form. She clenched her teeth and tensed every muscle in her body. A fight. Titanic clash. A sunrise amidst a bleak backdrop of false promises.

“Careful not to piss him off.”

Warning given, and letting him push into her Mordelain disappeared. The mortal blow passed through her, and she re-appeared in her element – surprise and shock, to spiral the silver blade into his brutish face.

[Fez_The_Kid]

Silver met iron in a discordant symphony, rattling through the Salvarian’s bones like a shocking tremor. The sorceress had managed to put her blade in time to block the swing, the metals connecting with a harsh clank that chimed in his ears. Anubis found himself inches away from his opponent’s face, their gazes locked as the space separating them was filled with the crossing of their blades.

Shit. She’s definitely fast, probably faster than I am. Anubis bared his teeth as his body trembled under the burden of his opponent. For a woman her size, the sorceress had the strength of a burly chap, and here, it showed. Can’t rely on speed alone. No… I need a plan. A bead of sweat leaked by his brow-- And now.

Nevertheless, Anubis was unsurprised by her disclosure. Whoever the robed one was, he’d reckoned that they were interlinked, with blood or with exchanged acquaintance. The former guess had been revealed to be accurate, more or less, as the old man stood, observing. Or so I pray. If the man decides to join the fun--I’m doomed.

Anubis tried to register her second remark, but there was no time to reply--no time for thought itself--for he felt her falter, weaken; and as he’d presumed--she vanished. The youth involuntarily pushed his blade into the air, regained his footing and rose to his full height, shoulders heaving as he puffed. This fucking teleportation again.

Only then he realized that he had been duped, as she reappeared at the spot, her blade in full swing, nearing his face like the hideous maw of a lycanthrope. The swordsman bent back and downwards in full effort to avoid its ruining impact. He, although had timed his move too late, managed to evade the most of it as the blade’s edge went brushing against his forehead.

Blood sprayed.

Wincing, the swordsman stifled a cry as the pain shot across the width of his head. Like a growing explosion, feeding upon its own blasts. But a warrior could not afford to dwell on his wounds, especially when the enemy’s blade a hairbreadth off. Still in a bent position, the swordsman pivoted, turning to face the ground marked red by his own blood, and thrusted his foot to connect with the sorceress’ jaw.

[Mordelain]

Though first blood was Mordelain’s claim, righteous rebuke was her opponent’s. The look of surprise on her face as his boot took the wind from her lungs and the beauty from her face would make Suresh a happy man for days to come. She stumbled back, the smell of blood – thankfully not hers, thick like smoke in her nostrils.

Her head span. She fell sideways, her weapon swift abandoned for the promise of a less than fateful landing and the sudden jolt up her arms as she landed on her palms. Her conditioning prevented her from giving in and meeting the ground. For that, at least, she could be thankful. For the immense pain, like fire burning through paraffin made her roar with barely contained rage.

Weakened, the plane walker felt herself let go of the reigns of her talents. She fell into the void for a final time. Away, and thus free, she hung in the midnight sky of nowhere. She looked down at desert landscapes and windswept heaths, like ripped tapestries trailing past with glimpses of worlds in worlds in worlds. The silence was the most frightening aspect of the void, and it drowned all screams and all thoughts that dared crop up in the Tama’s head.

Tumbling, after what seemed like an age, she re-appeared on Althanas. Two seconds had transpired. She was twenty feet in front of her opponent. Her chin was red, with black blemished forming around her eyes. She conjured the partisan into a dual-handed grip and span it with such finesse the Bedouin people that taught her the style smiled down on her from heaven.

“Enough small talk.”

Finding her feet, Mordelain Saythrou entered a charge with every intent on plunging the partisan’s barbed tip into the knight’s cruel heart. Red hair trailed. Eyes danced with fire. Naked feet skimmed over battered ground.

[Fez_The_Kid]

The youth’s heel found its mark on his opponent’s chin, delivering a blow that sent the sorceress a good three paces back. As she recovered, Anubis retired in a wobbling stagger. The swordsman, though undermined, managed to muster strength and find a foothold. Anubis straightened to his full height, levelling his opponent a sullen glare.

An ear-splitting war cry spewed from a piqued Mordelain, resultant frustration by her earlier misstep. Anubis’ body tensed, expecting the redhead to rush him while he stood, nailed to the spot. But the plane-walker merely vanished within a span of a blink. The youth sighed. This is so... Anubis readied his weapon. One-sided.

Twenty feet ahead the bare-foot woman appeared, her face a bruised mess. She opened her palms in a way as if holding a spear. A shaft materialized in the sorceress’ grip, revealing a conjured halberd. Anubis narrowed his eyes. No. That’s a partisan, he thought, sheathing his blade as he held out his arms in turn.

The muffled footfall of the sorceress grew closer as sparks sputtered between the swordsman’s gauntlets, the conception of his own magical handiwork. The clank of metal sounded as a chain formed in his grasp. The string was fiery, stretching six feet and glowing blazing red in the gloom. Approaching with undying bloodlust, the dame had but ten paces to cover before she could thrust her partisan.

Wise choice of words, woman, he smirked.

Anubis called on his inborn talents, a divine touch to his being that would launch him at a pace rivaling sound. Agility readied, the youth broke into a dash, closing in on his opponent twice as fast as the time just passed. The barbed partisan cocked, seeking to anchor in his flesh. Eyes on the approaching spearhead, Anubis ducked to level the woman’s knees, casting his sorcerous chain at her ankles.

The hurl had two objectives: to manacle the redhead, and to render her feet aflame.