IGS #4, Chapter 48

Leonis

They encountered resistance on their third day out.

All joy was gone from the expedition. The nascent camaraderie, the humor around the campfires, the sense of hope and exhilaration.

What speared toward the Tomb of Sadness now was a crew of grim, focused Great Souls who were supremely aware of the cost they’d already paid. The cost they might yet pay. They kept double watch. Jova entombed the crippled Philosopher within a shell of thick rock during each sleep cycle with only a slender funnel emerging from the peak to allow air. Its cries were almost inaudible.

Almost.

But Leonis was surprised to find himself without empathy for the fiend’s plight. Even Xandera seemed inured to its pleas. It seemed to not feel pain, exactly, but distress over the fact that its body might not be consumed by other Silverines.

Nobody cared to interrogate it as to its absurd preoccupation.

He grew to hate the endless ravaged vistas of the Unfathom. What had once possessed an alien beauty now weighed heavily on his soul. The silver desert that ran toward the horizon, the jagged peaks, the roiling skies. It was inhuman. Their kind was not meant to live here. What at first appeared to be lakes always resolved themselves into pools of liquid metal or brackish ponds covered in oxidized minerals.

His instinct was to turn inward. To curse this Hell that had stolen Scorio away just as Leonis was re-awakening to his friendship. To grow somber, withdrawn, hard.

Always that instinct, to close down, to become silent, observant, apart.

But he fought it.

In part because Xandera’s pain and loss was more open than his own, her need so obvious that he couldn’t disdain her. He and Kelona took turns being close, holding her hand, or simply letting her lean against their side. She didn’t want words, but rather company, touch, to not be alone.

So Leonis gave that to her.

Nobody wanted to cook. Nobody wanted to clean camp. To roll up their precious few bedrolls, to think about rations. So Leonis did. He ensured that Kelona ate, for it turned out she’d rather give than receive, pleaded no appetite but would acquiesce when he stared her down.

Jova became remote, a stern figurehead at the front of her plinth, her gaze perpetually stormy. She sat apart. Leonis let her be.

Druanna became melancholic. Leonis intuited that on some level she blamed herself. She was the eldest, the most experienced. He argued with her briefly, putting aside his tact to remind her that there was nothing they could have done against such a sudden assault of so many Philosophers. And while he didn’t change her mind, he sensed her gratitude for his even trying.

Nyrix and Kuragin were… strange. He couldn’t fathom the exact nature of their relationship. At times Kuragin openly disdained Nyrix’s gestures of intimacy, would snap at the other man, sneer at him. Nyrix didn’t seem to mind. He persisted, and when it was time to sleep the pair would disappear behind rocks for privacy, only to return in silence to lay down together. Come morning Kuragin would rise as if there was nothing between him and Nyrix, and the cycle would begin again.

Strange. But Leonis knew neither man closely enough to ask, so he let it be.

Their crippled guide slowly lost its mind, its babblings growing more nonsensical, but always Jova was able to compel it to guide them toward the Tomb, at first through punishment, and then through promises of delivering it to its fellows so it could be eaten. Just as it began to completely break down, however, and spout little more than rhyming couplets, they ran into their first challenge.

Jova had taken to flying low and alongside Druanna’s eidolon, which ran without ever growing fatigued, Nyrix and Kuragin clasped to its side. Leonis, Xandera, and Kelona clustered at the back of the plinth, and together they raced across the Unfathom’s landscape.

Until the first set of Philosophers drifted into view, some twenty of them stretched out in a cordon. These reacted to their approach by clustering, the closest, a stag-horned figure of porcelain white striped with streaks of jet, extending a palm in the universal sign that they should halt.

Leonis saw Jova clench her jaw, consider blasting their way through, but then stopped as she was bid.

“Advancement is denied to all Great Souls!” called the stag-horned Philosopher. “We must be insisting that you turn back most promptly!”

“We’re headed to the Tomb of Sadness,” Jova responded. “That up ahead?”

The broken Philosopher at her feet burbled something about singing sand and melting clouds.

“We are forbidden from mention the Tomb by name or location!” trilled the Silverine. “It is absolutely not up ahead, as there is nothing beyond this point worth your interest or time! Turn back, or become an instrumental step in our ascension toward the light!”

“Here,” said Jova, and kicked the crippled Philosopher off the plinth. It tumbled down onto the sands. “I promised to deliver this to your kind. And you have my apologies.”

The stag-horned Philosopher quirked its head to one side. “For whatest do you be apologizing?”

“For this,” said Jova, and summoned the land to engulf the Silverines where they hovered.

Boulders erupted from beneath the shifting sands, dozens of them rising to come crashing together and squash the screeching Philosophers between them. Nyrix began loosing blazing white bolts of light as the eidolon charged, its scimitars swinging.

But Jova had the fight well in hand. Her boulders ground the Philosophers down, pulping them and chasing them across the sky. In moments they were dead.

“Let’s go,” said Jova, tone frigid, and the plinth surged past the eidolon to spear on toward the Tomb.

Leonis, gazing back, tracked the small, crushed forms of the Silverines until they were lost in the fog.

But more Philosophers awaited them.

Many more.

Jova cleared the next two groups, but when they hit a flock some fifty strong the battle became intense.

The Silverines no longer bothered to issue warnings. Instead they descended from above, their musical cries pitched to stun. Jova thrust her fist skyward, and her boulders and rocks flew up to meet them, but there were too many this time to be crushed in one go.

Leonis Ignited his Heart, but there wasn’t room on the plinth for him to summon his golden armor. Instead he manifested Nezzar in his fist and willed it to duplicate itself around the perimeter so as to aid his companions.

Nyrix leaped off the eidolon’s shoulder to land, crouch, and begin loosing bolts straight up into the plunging fiends, while Kuragin did the same and shifted into his hugely armored monstrous form. Druanna dropped down, scimitars appearing in her fists even as two more sets of arm emerged from her sides so that she became a mirror image of her own construct.

And the battle was on.

Jova did most of the damage. How could she not? She leaned into the battle, jaw clenched, willing the land to consume their foes. Boulders came crashing together, head-sized rocks flew whistling overhead to punch through torsos and shatter legs, while fist-sized rocks threshed in a great vortex that scoured the Silverines by the dozens.

But for the first time Leonis felt something different with his own power. Before, always, his Nezzar copies had felt pale and insignificant, the boost they gave his companions negligible.

Now, however, it felt as if wide channels had opened between his Heart and each revolving copy. He poured incandescent Bronze mana from his Heart into the distant clubs, and felt the network, the field of energy that they created grow brighter, more effective, more powerful.

He didn’t understand why. All that he understood was the need to aid his companions, to be of some utility even if he wasn’t the star of the battle. So much so that he sat down on the plinth, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes.

Before he’d always yearned to leap into combat, to prove his might, to be the shining center of the fight. Now? He was more than willing to cede that focus to the others. What he could do was empower them. Support them.

So he focused on his Nezzars. There were six. There had always been six. He’d never questioned it, but now he wondered: why? Even as he put all his attention into pouring his reservoir into his Heart and then into the clubs, he probed at the setup, at the channels, and wondered: could he do more?

Could he give more?

And he knew that he could.

He could give until his reservoir ran dry, his veins bled out, and both his hearts stopped beating.

When one had no worth beyond what would could give, then it was only through giving that one could matter.

So Leonis inhaled deeply, his large chest expanding as far as it could, and willed more power to flood through his Heart.

A seventh channel opened as a new Nezzar flickered into being. Sweat prickled his brow. He could visualize the field of power that was strung between the hovering clubs like a luminous cats cradle of burning Bronze. A seven-pointed star.

His reservoir had grown mightily as an Emberling, enhanced beyond its normal scope by all the treasures Praximar had plied him with. The one sole benefit of that patronage. He’d then condensed it back to its normal size so as to make Tomb Spark, and finally, with enormous effort, enhanced its reactivity so that Ignition became reflexive to make Flame Vault. It wasn’t the largest reservoir in existence—it paled in size compared to Scorio’s—but it was large enough now for him to remain in the battle, to empower his friends.

A dry, warm hand settled on his shoulder.

Xandera.

The touch grounded him further. He could give more.

An eighth channel opened

The Nezzar-field thrummed, and he could dimly sense the power sinking into his companions like water into parched earth. It didn’t matter if they were Pyre Ladies or Flame Vaults. All took the enhancement, and in his mind’s eye, they began to glow.

More.

It took effort to maintain an even flood of mana into his Heart, but all his training to make Dread Blaze proved invaluable here. Steadily he poured mana into the eight channels, and gave, and gave, and gave.

And then, suddenly, there was no need to give more.

His companions had ceased to fight.

With a gasp, Leonis realized that his reservoir was near emptied, and he opened his eyes as his Heart guttered.

Dead Silverines littered the ground around them.

But nobody was looking at the dead. They were all of them—Jova, Druanna, Kuragin, Nyrix, Kelona—all of them staring at him.

“What was that?” demanded Jova, tone harsh. “Did you just break into Dread Blaze?”

Before he could respond, Druanna shook her head. “He didn’t.”

“I…” He didn’t know what to say. “I just tried to help.”

“Help?” Nyrix laughed. “I’ve never felt so… awesome.”

Kuragin shifted back into his human form. Even his usual forbidding expression was now replaced with muted wonder. “Indeed. That was much appreciated.”

Jova’s glare became pensive, and then she pursed her lips and gave him a single approving nod.

Xandera squeezed Leonis’ shoulder and beamed at him, and he felt in turn a flutter in his chest, something affirming, something profound, something right, such that he couldn’t help but smile and pat her hand in turn.

“Let’s keep moving,” said Jova. “See how the mountain range curves ahead to form a wall blocking our path? I reckon the Tomb is hidden amongst those peaks.”

Everybody peered toward the horizon.

“That’s—what?” Nyrix squinted. “Twenty or so miles?”

“We should be able to cross it in a little over an hour,” agreed Druanna. “If we’re unimpeded.”

But they were.

The plain before them was thick with Philosophers. They hovered overhead in what looked like a trance, drifting as if with the wind, only to activate and swoop down as the crew came close. Worse, word seemed to spread, so that instead of awakening to their proximity, the Silverines further in began to move to attack with greater and greater rapidity.

“Don’t stop!” cried Jova as the sky began to darken with assailants. “Push on!”

Without her they would have died. Druanna might have found a way to extricate herself, safely ensconced within her eidolon’s storm of whirling blades, but everyone else? They would have been slaughtered.

Together, however, they pressed on. But the sheer number of Philosophers forced them to slow. And the Philosophers grew ever more durable, as if proximity to the Tomb reflected status and power.

The urge to remain wide-eyed and try to track every orbiting boulder, to follow every burning bolt, to call out warnings, was overwhelming.

But Leonis fought his instincts and once again sat upon the plinth. It took effort, but he released his fear. He had to trust in his friends. He had to let go. He unclenched his fists, straightened his spine, and once again expanded his perimeter of Nezzars.

Once more he began pouring mana into them, and through them, into his friends.

Six clubs at first, but now he knew he could do more. So he pushed to seven, and then, with some effort, eight.

And, paradoxically, he found that the more Nezzars he summoned, the less mana each required even as their individual output became more potent.

Xandera and Kelona stood guard over him, but Leonis became only distantly aware of their presence.

What he had to focus on was his mana control. He could pour too much into the clubs and briefly exalt his friends, but then he’d Gutter. No. What he needed to do was throttle the outflow so that just enough was fed into the network to keep it effective while maintaining as much in reserve as possible for longevity.

The battle, the screams, the shouts, faded away.

Leonis focused fiercely on his reservoir, his Heart, and the Nezzars. There were subtleties at play here that he’d never paid attention to before. The more equitable his mana distribution to each club, the less mana it needed. Before he’d just shove mana at them all irritably, not caring which got more as long as the network remained active, but now he found that elegance in activation and maintenance went further, far further, than brute force feeding them all as much mana as he could pour into the network.

Fascinating.

Eight clubs, eight streams. Leonis sank deeper into his focus. He could intuit which stream was drawing more than the others, gently tamp it down, which would then indicate another that was off balance. But each time the deviation was less.

And as he perfected the distribution, the amount of mana needed to maintain the network dropped off precipitously, allowing him longer to work on them.

Daring greatly, his mana expenditure lessened by half, he willed a ninth club to appear.

The channel opened and momentarily was glutted with too much mana. The other eight were thrown into disarray, and for a terrible second Leonis thought he’d lose the entire network as his mana distribution surged and ebbed.

But again he drew down, running his mind over each and exerting his control. His focus leaped from one to the next, adjusting, fine tuning, and then—all nine were blazing in harmony.

Fierce satisfaction filled him.

He’d done it.

A nine-pointed star, and the result was even more potent than he’d hoped for. The network wasn’t just pouring his power into the others at a 1:1 ratio; it was amplifying how much he shared by the number of clubs even as the amount needed overall dropped in turn.

He could sense that they were still moving, the plinth gliding forward even as Jova turned and pivoted and fought. The eidolon gleamed dully in his mind’s eye, perhaps some vestigial Heart Sense, but Druanna, Nyrix, and Kuragin blazed bright.

And all of them drank deeply from his network.

Could he…? Only a third of his reservoir remained, mostly Bronze and Iron.

He could.

Leonis inhaled deeply, held the breath, and focused tightly on his control. He wouldn’t just spring the next club into existence and adjust after. He’d plan, prepare, modulate, and then—

A tenth Nezzar blossomed into existence.

And something more.

A sense of an event horizon, a burgeoning perfection. Even as his mana flowed into the ten channels, quickly regulating and growing steady, he sensed how the ten-pointed star was closer to what it needed to be, but not there yet.

A momentous step up in power awaited him if he could just push himself a little further. But he was burning up. He could distantly feel the sweat pouring off of him. His breaths were coming in shallow gasps.

But his companions needed him.

He would not let them down.

Stilling his mind, banishing all awareness of his body, the battle, his doubts, his fears, Leonis honed in on the one thought: purpose was found in giving. Worth was reflected in the hearts of others. The only true strength was that of your community, and he would be its foundation.

He would rise.

He would overcome.

He would be what they needed him to be.

Leonis exhaled and willed an eleventh and twelfth club to appear.

As they did, the outflow of mana from his reservoir slowed to a trickle. A great bell tolled deep within his heart, caused his very being to resonate, and the Nezzar network burst into an entirely different category of power.

Where it had burned Bronze, it now blazed white, as if each channel were carved from the sun, and he its ever-immolating hub.

Power. This was power unlike anything he’d ever dreamed of. Power that he’d craved, but which now—yes—amused him. Amused him because it wasn’t his. He was its source, but it belonged to his companions. He was a vessel. A chalice. He was nothing, but in giving, he found purpose and apotheosis.

Yes.

In his mind’s eye, he felt his companions burn brighter, ever brighter, their own gifts amplified, their lethality magnified, heard their distant laughter of incredulity, of amazement.

Corpses rained down about them, and in the center of the chaos he sat, marveling at how simple it had always been to achieve this utility, this mastery, this might.

It had always been here, waiting for him.

But he’d never had the humility to see it.

But he saw it now.

The outflow of mana from his reservoir was down to the slenderest thread. He could maintain this output for days. For weeks. Each channel was as thin as a needle.

Each of the twelve channels was perfectly balanced.

His control over his mana had become total.

And then it all fell away.

The plinth, the Nezzar network, his companions, his calm and blazing Heart—all of it disappeared.

And Leonis found himself standing on a gray slate platform from whose edge arose a solitary freestanding portal, the void beyond starless and infinite.

The final door.

His Dread Blaze Trial.

Leonis smiled wryly. Of course. He strode forth with grim resolve toward the portal and into his last vision of his past.

He had to hurry.

His friends were waiting for him.