The Third Step: Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Ephemeral Rebirth flared to life within my mana-garden, and my soul lifted out of my body. It was strange, looking down on the ruined wreck of a body that I’d been born in, and even though I knew that the spellbound would produce a new one, I still felt something of a sense of loss. It had taken a lot of effort to look the way I had, and now it was nothing but fertilizer. 

I didn’t have long to think, however, as a golden spiraling tail reached out from within the asomatous and grabbed ahold of my currently body-less soul. It wrenched me in, and I found myself standing within the Flock’s mana-garden, a very smug feeling Dawn floating in the air next to me. 

“What did you… How did… Am I going to spawn a body inside of this world?” 

Even as I asked the last one, I could somewhat feel the answer. The power of the Ephemeral Rebirth that had set to work on crafting a new body for me had paused. At the same time, I could feel something very far away, calling for me, and I knew what it was. 

It was What Came Next.

Nobody, not even Orykson, knew what happened to souls when they died. They could linger on the mortal world for a short time. Their imprints could create ghosts and shades and revenants and all sorts of other things. But the soul itself, one it slipped into the hands of death, was unable to be brought back. No plying of raw power from the Death King, no clever trick of magic, nothing. Once a soul was gone from this world, it was gone forever. 

Knowing this, I expected for the call of What Came Next to be… bigger… somehow. Perhaps that wasn’t the right term, but it was the best thing that came to mind. I expected it to be more intense. A riptide that would sweep me off my metaphorical feet and pull me away. A reaper prepared to harvest me, with my soul as defenseless as a grain of wheat in a field before a farmer. An ocean of power that would make even the greatest of the Primes and the strongest of the Magi seem small and insignificant. 

The call to What Came Next was none of those things, and I realized that I’d always felt it. I’d simply never been able to hear it quite so clearly. It was like growing up in the city, subconsciously ignoring the sounds of the enchanted carriages, the intruder alarms in the far distance, the scuffling of feet as people walked around, only for that background noise to suddenly come into stark relief. 

No, the call of What Came Next was not a mighty force or a screaming wind. It was quiet and patient, and above all, it was constant.

It didn’t care if it didn’t take me today. Nothing could escape its grasp. Even when I reformed a body, it would be there. If I lived a thousand years, it would be there. If I lived to be ten times as old as the Storm King, it would still be there. If I lived until the solar energy reactions within the sun stopped, it would be there. 

It didn’t matter if it claimed me today, or if it had to wait until the universe itself died. In time, it would have me. It didn’t need to be strong or loud or tough or dangerous. It simply needed to wait. And the call of What Came Next was endlessly patient. 

And so, it didn’t care if Dawn’s magic pulled me within a soul and put a pause on the Ephemeral Rebirth, or that when I left the soul, said rebirth would begin. It didn’t give up, of course – it wouldn’t let me escape just because I wanted to, or some half-baked ideas. But nor would it cheat me of what I’d earned. 

Dawn smacked me in the back of the head with her tail, snapping me out of my funk, and I shook myself. 

“Huh? What?” 

Though I didn’t think she was physically capable of it, if Dawn could have rolled her eyes at me, I was confident that she would have. She grabbed my arm in her mouth and dove down, pushing through a thick layer of soil that made up the mana-garden, deeper and deeper. 

Then we emerged somewhere else. The second layer of the soul, which I’d heard called the Soulself. It was a vast cavern, deep below the mana-garden, spreading out past where my eyes could see. The roof of the cavern was intertwined with the foundations of the spells held above. I’d not explored the top layer of the mana-garden, but judging by the flickering veins of blue-purple light, I was guessing that the Flock’s spells appeared to be warped, dreamlike images.

Each of the veins, the foundations, seemed to crawl down from the ceiling and push their way through the walls of the caverns, then to the floor, where they met in the center, right below the exact center of the mana-garden. I looked up, and I could see the magic of the Arcanist’s Tower, the Authority that all spirits had, with sweeping spiral staircases that descended into the area that we were in now. They didn’t empty out all of the dirt, but it was enough to let me peek out and up. 

The stairs and veins of light all culminated in an orb of… not mist. I didn’t know what exactly it was. It was slightly translucent, it flowed like mist, and it felt almost like mana-water infused with the asomatous’ power, but at the same time, I could feel that I was distinctly missing something. 

The orb floated in the air within the cavern, and as I peered within, I felt that I could see a reflection of the Flock looking back at me. It looked like the Flock had when it was whole, but even more perfect. Every small blemish where the spirit’s mana-body hadn’t quite been held in the right shape, the faint warping in ectoplasm like glass, and the false-chitin’s lack of polish, all of them had been perfectly fixed. 

Dawn drew my attention away from the mists, and to the ceiling above it, where I could see rings set into the ceiling concentrically, each one a limitation on the spirit’s existence and free will.

And they were limits. Though the Intrinsic Limitation might be the only resonance enhancement that had the word ‘limit’ in it, and was the most overtly limiting, all of them imposed an effect on the will of the asomatous. The floating threads of the not-mist where the perfected Flock lay were trickling up into them, keeping them powered, and causing the entire mana-garden above to hum ever so slightly with resonance. 

The rings of script around the ceiling were… strange. They were written in text, but not text that I could read. I was so used to the monolinguistic spell translating things that I didn’t even know what to make of it. A moment later I realized that I’d seen text like it before, once, on the seal of the library. 

Dawn slid over to my disembodied soul and slid within, and my eyes began to glow gold as she fused into me. With her knowledge, the rings of script in the ceiling were suddenly decipherable, at least partially. I could put them in words, and part of me had to, but they were deeper than the words. No trick of language could avoid their meaning, but at the same time, their meaning might be entirely different, and even thinking about it too long caused me to develop a headache. That was especially annoying, seeing as I didn’t have a head right now. 

The Flock Hates Humanity. A Clarity of Purpose. The Flock hated humanity so deeply that it had become the spirit’s very driving purpose. Its hate was the thing that would define it.

The Flock Will Never Forgive. An Intrinsic Limitation. The Flock could not forgive humanity, or perhaps anyone, for their transgressions. For the mass killing of their birds and the plunder of the land.

The Flock Is Born Of Hate. An Origin of Power. The Flock was a spirit of emotion, and it had chosen to define it as the very origin of the spirit’s power. It had worked, clearly, but at the same time, I felt like there was something limiting about it, in a very different way than the others did. 

Perhaps limiting was the wrong word. Flawed might be better. And yet, I didn’t know why. 

I looked at Dawn. 

“Thank you. Though, it’s probably best we keep this ability of yours quiet. I’m fairly certain that if you managed to get information about the Storm King’s resonance enhancements, he’d kill us both, consequences or not.” 

She inclined her head, and sent me a message of fear of the Storm King. That was entirely rational, and I was honestly relieved she was able to recognize him as a threat. Then she slipped within my soul, and I began to eject from the Asomatous. 

I had what I needed. The Flock hated humans, it was born of hate, and it could not forgive. But none of its limitations stipulated that it had to kill people. Combined with the fact that it never pursued humans past the cordon, it suggested the spirit might be able to turn its hate to driving humans off, rather than only murder. 

Of course, even if I did manage to get it to promise that, there was no guarantee that it would obey me. It might turn its back on that promise the instant that the threat was gone. But that would be on the Flock, not me. 

My soul erupted out into the air, unnoticed by the asomatous. The Flock was pursuing the remaining uninjured arcanist of the cwn anwnn, lashing out with some of the black-purple energy waves. There were three spellbinder hounds playing backup to the arcanist, but the rest had been forced to flee into Dusk, who was holding a portal open, guarding it from the invasion of birds alongside Siobhan, while Kene worked on healing the injured pack. 

Energy rushed from my soul, erupting out into the air chaotically, and the Flock’s head whipped around to look, even as I finished forming and landed on the ground across from him. 

I felt amazing, better than I had at any point since the battle began. My mana was completely restored, and even then some, with the remainder of the power I’d had left over before the rebirth triggered added to the full mana-garden the rebirth provided. The strain in my spirit that had come from the time I’d been holding the flawed version of the Cwn Anwnn’s Hunt was wiped away, and my body was perfectly healthy and as strong as ever, like I’d never died, had a week of rest, and the ministrations of a group of healers. 

“You… How?!” the Flock shouted, spinning to launch itself at me. 

I teleported forward and slammed my head into the Flock’s head, beginning to cycle Mantle Dragonfire. Within my spirit, I felt Dawn’s spirit blaze to life, her mana joining my own. It was blown back, and I lashed out with a ball of Foxfyre, then teleported out of the way of one of its birds dive bomb attacks and slashed the back of the asomatous with my blademoss. 

I landed on the ground and slammed a palm into its back, injecting it with Foxthron, and then teleported in front of it to dodge another bird’s attack. In the instant the Flock was wresting its mana back under control, I kicked it in the chest, sending it flying back, where the Arcanist cwn anwnn leapt and caught one of its arms. Arthur erupted forward, joining the spellbinder hounds as they grabbed onto the other arm. Without legs, the spirit writhed and thrashed, slamming at the hounds with mental attacks, reaching for me as well. 

This time, I wasn’t exhausted, and the Flock was. With Arthur’s dominion flowing through me, and with Dawn’s own enhancement dominion empowering my placid mind spell, I broke through the attack without even losing concentration on my cycling, then teleported forward and raised my hand. Mantle Dragonfire and Tyrants Breath began to spark, Dawn fusing the two spells together into a greater whole, a feat I wasn’t aware she could even manage. Light exploded into the sky, ripping through the world around us. I swept the beam of power down, slicing through the sky with power enough that even my recently healed spirit started to protest and the Flock screamed. 

“No! I surrender! You can take anything you like from the nest, just don’t kill me! I will serve you! Anything! Just don’t kill me!”