Risen Chapter 34: The Vanishing

The High Market had been thrown into disarray, despite Roy and his newfound comrades’ efforts. Admittedly, his own contributions had not been much; not when compared to the likes of Katrina, whose very image he was sure would live on in the thugs’ nightmares. Even in his own, possibly. It wasn’t every day that he witnessed a woman that had fashioned her own bone into both weapon and armor. It might have been beautiful, in some roundabout way, if the bone hadn’t also been covered in the woman’s blood - courtesy of the injuries afflicted when it burst through her skin.

It really was somewhat disgusting.

No, Roy had simply done what he could to help. In the end, that had amounted to throwing his Risen into the faces of attackers, forcing them to hesitate when they might have followed through, giving his allies the opportunity to strike or defend. Some day, he was sure, he would be able to do more than that. Especially if, as he hoped, he gained another conduit.

Jack’s theory had held water, in his eyes. It wasn’t something new to him; almost everyone heard from someone that more tithes could result in receiving access to more conduits. It was just that it had never been conclusively proven. The Saviors were notoriously hard to contact these days, hidden away in the realms designed for them by Lapha, the Savior of Travel. Ever since Inath had been overtaken, even before Roy’s birth, they had retreated from the world at large. Only a rare few were summoned to meet them, granted a temporary conduit that allowed them access.

The end result being that there was much that the world - and especially those like Roy - didn’t know, and much more that they had likely forgotten.

The exact methods for earning a conduit was one of them, likely because nobody wanted to sacrifice bits of their life should they be wrong - or simply unfavored, even. They wanted to be lucky. They wanted to be blessed. They wanted life to be easy.

Roy had decided against that, chosen not to walk that route. Maybe that was folly. Maybe he would regret it, somewhere down the line, his life cut short and nothing to show for it.

Maybe not.

And so, he had simply done what he could to help in the fight, throwing his Risen at the enemy without concern for the way they were smashed and shattered, their lives carried away like words on the wind, effortlessly and easily.

Most of that life came back to him, filling the emptiness within him. Yet, some did not, leaving his life forever shortened.

By the time that the fight had reached near its end, the Spectral Guard had arrived. They roamed across the streets, working to put out the fires that had been set throughout the High Market, striving to stop the flames before they spread further.

And yet, it was too late for that.

From his vantage point, he could see what many could not. He could see the smoke that clouded the sky - not from the High Market, but from nearly everywhere else.

There was little use in stopping the flames here.

They could hardly spread.

After all, there was little more room to grow.

Still, there remained lives that could be salvaged from the flames, if not property.

Roy, through his dragonfly-self, watched as Markus stepped out from a nearby building - not the one that he had entered from, oddly enough. The man raised his gaze to the sky, his brow furrowing in consternation. He frowned - and then, just like that, he disappeared.

Roy piloted his Risen, turning its own gaze to meet what had gathered the strange man’s attention.

It was the smoke, he was sure. But there was smoke all around. What was different?

So, instead, it must have been where the smoke was.

The Barracks District.

Roy flitted his dragonfly-self’s wings, batting them at the air furiously. At the same time, he commanded his remaining Risen, reduced in number as they were, to follow. He, himself, was forced to stay. There was little that he could do in person, and he had a duty as a member of Katrina’s Killers to remain on site at the High Market. They were still on contract, after all.

It took him a little while to figure out where exactly he should be headed. Though the Barracks District was marred by spreading flames, there was one particular place that wasn’t - but that same place was the source of a deafening battle.

The HQ.

By the time he had arrived, the fortress-like construction was in chaos. Guards and criminals alike spread across the ground, downed in the midst of the battle. Despite that, there were far more injuries among the Guard than their attackers. With the armor and weapons that the Spectral Guard had on hand, particularly the pieces imported from Incantarin, it nearly strained belief.

Yet, the proof was there. It lay in the way that fragments of bone scattered across the courtyard, broken pieces shed from broken armor. It lay in the way that a ragtag group stood outside the doorway to the main entrance, Risen battering away at it while they watched. It lay in the way that nobody remained to stop them.

They were all gone - or all defeated.

In the end, the result was the same.

He half expected to see his own father amongst the unconscious guardsmen. Whether that was dread or hope, he couldn’t say for sure. A bit of both, most likely.

A woman stood among them, imperious in demeanor and striking in appearance, despite the mask that covered her entire face. Or, perhaps, because of it.

Instantly, he recognized the Gray Woman that Markus had described.

He wrestled with himself over what to do. An assault would be worthless; it would achieve nothing more than throwing the lives of his Risen away. Not with the numbers that he had on hand.

Not with the power that he held.

In the end, the need to make a choice was taken from him; stolen by the droning buzz that flooded the courtyard, pilfered by the press of Risen that clouded the sky. They poured from behind the walls of the Spectral Guard’s HQ, a teeming mass of unlife that resembled a force of nature more than anything else; unstoppable, unfathomable.

The swarm spilled down from above, some falling in on the gathered criminals like a merciless tide, while others formed a wall between them and the door that they had been assaulting.

It was almost more than he could fathom - even more so when, a minute later, that wall rippled. It twisted open, spitting out a masked figure.

One that, despite the mask, looked eerily familiar.

He was, after all, still wearing the same clothing as before.

It was Markus.

At the same time, it wasn’t the Markus that he knew. It wasn’t the one who was strange and baffling, yet kind and considerate - however poorly that sometimes came across.

No, this was a different Markus.

It was the same Markus that he had seen in the alley, only two nights ago. It was one who was powerful. It was one who was implacable. It was one who was deadly.

And, apparently, it was one who had been keeping secrets. He hadn’t mentioned anything so...noteworthy, about his powers.

A second horde of Risen, this one ground-bound, followed behind him, looping around his feet in little whorls that might have been fascinating were the implications not so terrifying.

The man held one of the Spectral Guard’s shock-rods in his hand. Roy had experienced the lightning that they could impart on more than one occasion - once out of curiosity, and another less willingly.

He stopped for some reason that Roy couldn’t make out; the droning buzz of the massive swarm died down for a moment. The other masked figure, the Gray Woman, stepped forward. For a moment, they stood just like that, caught in a conversation that Roy could not hear.

The conversation ended all too soon, and it seemed that it did not end with a peaceful resolution.

The swarm buzzed once more, throwing itself at the gathered figures. Yet, before they reached the Gray Woman, one of her own men touched her.

The air ripped; a void opened. They stepped through, disappearing a moment later. Roy recognized the ability, relatively rare as it was to see in a city like Dihaim. It was the main power of the Marked of Wayfaren, the nation founded by Lapha. Or, as they were often known, the Travelers.

Capable of crossing from one realm to the next, and even bringing others with them, they tended to be extremely migratory; filled with wanderlust and the desire to see the next horizon. The only real limitation was the necessity to have been somewhere before, to have created a hole through the realms that could light the path they required, creating a safe harbor in the dangerous world of the Other.

With their leader gone, Markus tore through her henchmen, bringing them down through overwhelming numbers and overwhelming force. For some, the swarm drowned their struggles in a tidal wave of corpses, hiding them from sight under their teeming mass. For others, repeated shocks of the rod were enough.

Regardless of how it happened, Markus and his overwhelming horde managed to do more than hold them back.

He appeared to have victory easily within his grasp.

The air ripped again; the man walked back out, alone. The Gray Woman had not returned with him.

The Wayfaren Marked pointed at Markus; a light flared from his shoulder. The world opened up, and Markus was pulled inside.

Markus vanished.

The swarm buzzed louder.

The air ripped behind the Wayfaren Marked again, the void peering outwards once more.

He, too, vanished.