Sevardin Harker. Solday, Pisces 10th, 12:07 AM. 2354 AA. Arroyo Athenaeum (Archives).
The sounds and emanations of battle grew louder as they approached the Restricted Section. Sev held up a hand as they reached the final row of shelves before the staircases leading down to the central column’s entrances. He crept to the shelves and peeked his head around them. Nearly a dozen amagia—Archivists in garish orange robes, Keepers in black—lay strewn about the small stone ‘courtyard’ between the stairs and the column’s base, now engulfed in flames.
Only two men were on their feet, both Archivists, clashing with an entity Sev didn’t recognize at first. It was legless and levitating, a knot of bones with four skeletal arms that ended in massive, clawed hands. A strand of spinal processes protruded from its coccyx like a tail, swishing in the air, and its skull-shaped head seemed to be unraveling in a symmetrical spiked pattern, resembling a crown.
Sev could tell from the amagias’ urdic pressure that most of them were still alive—though several appeared to be unconscious or bleeding out. The skeletal entity seemed to be toying with the two amagia who were still on their feet, batting them around and pricking them with its enormous claws, rather than trying to finish them off. And it seemed to be growing steadily larger. It’s feeding off their pain. Ponophage? Or something worse that was trapped in one of the restricted grimoires?
The egregore swiveled its skull to look directly at Sev with an empty socket, and a slow, rasping voice slid into his mind like an icepick:
“…Bottom percentile… I can’t afford to fail…”
As it said the last word, it ran a finger through one of the archivists’ torsos like a meat hook. The amagia, who was casting a spell, immediately went limp. The egregore lifted him twenty feet in the air, then contemptuously flung him back to the floor, killing him twice over in an instant. Fury and revulsion washed through Sev in a panic. The dry, desolate voice returned:
“…Feels like I’m cracking. My whole life, falling apart…”
Sev doubled back to the rest of his team.
“There’s some kind of phage blocking the entrance to the Pin. It’s powerful enough to speak telepathically. It’s killing anything that appears to be a threat and leaving the rest to bleed out.”
Thonis Stroud’s lip curled and he said:
“It’s an ankophage. A stress-eater.”
“How do you know?” Jecia asked.
“Calm yourselves and sense its presence,” Stroud said.
Sev closed his eyes and focused on the sensations of his wyrd. As it respired ether, he could feel something like a straw, faintly sucking at his soul, savoring the urgency in him.
“Even from here it is drawing strength from the panic,” Stroud continued. “They are a common threat, drawing on the fear of stray Archivists, and the more mundane anxiety of students. Typically they will use hit and run tactics, and distractions, preying on dread. When they become sufficiently large, however…” he shook his head. “They play with their food, only killing periodically to siphon strength from those in pain.”
“Other than trying to remain calm, how do we fight it?” Juel asked.
“How many amagia were there, Sevardin?” Stroud asked.
“About a dozen. Most of them are downed though.”
Stroud swore.
“The incapacitated amagia will act as batteries for it,” Jecia observed. “If you three can hold its attention, I can retrieve the wounded. Their relief should stunt its growth somewhat, right?”
Stroud nodded.
“Rescuing the wounded should be our top priority. Two of us should see to the rescue.”
“Juel and I will keep it busy,” Sev said. “Give us about a five second lead and then get our people out of there.”
The group shared a nod. Jecia and Stroud took up positions against the shelves. Sev gave a three count. Then Juel led their charge.
He projected a tower-shield shaped sheet of sorcery around the shaft of his lance as he rushed at the ankophage. Sev followed in his wake, flooding his flesh with energy to speed his approach and strengthen his right arm. When the phage swung one of its four, massive, clawed hands at Juel, Sev launched himself into the air. The phage redirected its reach, allowing Sevardin to run along its forearm, and bring his macuahuitl to bear against its massive, top right humerus.
There was a brilliant purple flash as the brute’s lead in Sev’s macuahuitl made contact with ectoplasmic flesh, accompanied by a tremendous crack. The bone snapped messily, and its entire upper right arm fell to the ground with a crash.
Sev landed triumphantly and assumed a guard position, invigorated by his devastating attack. But the phage didn’t immediately react. It merely inclined its crowned skull toward its broken stump. Its dry voice filled Sev’s head again, accompanied by a sensation of extreme tension. The stuff of knotted muscle and frayed nerves:
“…Another mistake. Got it wrong. Not going to pass. Need to pass or else I…”
The thing extended its stump toward Sev and fired a lance of bone at him. As the protrusion flew, it grew into another, fully-sized arm reinforced with ectoplasmic muscle and sinew.
Sev barely managed to block it with his macuahuitl. It was like trying to block a car crash with a cricket bat. The brute’s lead in the weapon dispersed the magical impact, but its physical bulk hit him hard enough to bruise his wyrd and give him whiplash. He shot backwards striking the outer shelves of the Pin’s spire and slumped to the ground.
At the same time, Juel dodged a frenzied assault from the phage’s three other three arms, which also steadily reinforced themselves with ectoplasmic flesh, even as they attacked. Get up. He’s buying you time, but he can’t hold out forever.
Sev pushed himself to his feet, coughing.
Christ. I’ve never seen an egregore grow flesh so quickly.
As Juel drew the creature’s attention toward the perimeter of the Pin, Sev drew in ether preparing a contract-like spell with mere sorcery. It will take longer and be less effective, but after our braid, the dregwhisps, and the naghastir, I only have three anima left.
Again, the thing’s voice whispered inside Sev’s mind. He was surprised to hear his own words skitter through his brain like a spider, along with other errant thoughts of stress:
“…Only three anima left…. Won’t make my deadline like this… Not fair… It’s favoritism…”
The creature seized Juel around the waist, and chucked him at Sevardin, just before he could finish preparing his spell. And it’s too late to ground it! Juel’s body struck him, Sev’s sorcery misfired, and electricity flooded both of their bodies.
As he jerked and shook in the current, Sev caught a glimpse of the egregore reaching back, preparing to smash them both flat—only to feel a violent ripple from Jecia’s wyrd against his own. The ankophage recoiled, its attack forestalled. Sev was too addled to grasp the precise nature of the spell. Whatever it was saved our lives though.
Stroud followed up by flinging a fan of knives into the thing’s flesh, drawing its attention away from Jecia in turn. It also bought Sev and Juel enough time to recover from the sorcerous misfire. Good thing I didn’t use an animus after all. He and Juel helped each other to their feet.
“We misread that,” Juel grunted.
“No shit,” Sev agreed.
Most egregores that managed to physically manifest in reality without relying on a host would spend all of their etheric energy building the most powerful corporeal form they could. Smarter entities might leave enough juice in reserve for some combat magic and small feats of recovery. They assumed that the monster was only capable of building a bony body because that was all the power it had.
But it deliberately left its body unfinished. I only chipped the tip of the iceberg. And after taking Sev’s initial bone-severing strike, the ankophage was taking them much more seriously.
Jecia and Stroud disappeared back into the shelves beyond the Pin, Jecia carrying one person, and Stroud cradling three, as if they were sacks of grain. Sev spied his macuahuitl a few yards away. But it’s made of brute’s lead, so I can’t pull it to me with sorcery. What do I do? How do we fight this?
The egregore turned its attention to one of the downed Archivists. He had passed out, either from blood loss or pain, but the phage picked up his body and casually tore his right arm and left leg off, as if it was peeling some fruit. The man shrieked awake, only to fall silent once more as his maimed body struck the floor. Sev felt agony and stress radiating from his body, while the phage greedily sucked at the sensations, growing stronger.
Think, goddammit!
“Down it!” Sev commanded Juel.
He raced through the negotiations for an earth contract—only two anima left—and fired it off, trusting Juel to make his gambit pay off. Sharpened ropes of stone erupted from the tiled floor, spearing the bones and hollows of the ankophage’s still-exposed ribcage.
Sure enough, a half second later, Juel completed a telekinetic contract, smashing the floating egregore from above with a column of directed gravity. Sev commanded the stone vines to thread through the egregore’s ribcage and bind its arms, lashing it to the ground with ever-tightening bands of solid rock.
It’s restrained! This is our only chance!
Juel and Sev rushed the bound egregore. Sev put on his black iron cestuses as he ran, and launched himself at the phage’s skull-like head, hailing it with blows. They channeled their wyrd in masterful concert, simultaneously strengthening and acceleratingtheir muscles, while smashing the phage’s body with short range bursts of kinetic sorcery. Each strike sent shards of ectoplasmic bone flying. We are going to end this now!
The phage retaliated by bombarding Sev’s brain with a chorus of desperate voices and emanations:
“…Going to fail… Oh god, it’s coming, I’m all alone and it’s coming… No make-up test this time. Bottom ten percent of the cohort… It hurts! Oh god, I’m dying, I’m dying alone, and it hurts so bad….”
The stress flooding Sev’s wyrd had agonizing physical weight. It’s directly funneling that dying amagia’s agony into my skull. His head felt like it had been seized by a vice and he momentarily had to break off his attack. That lapse alone was enough to allow the Ankophage to break free from his earth binding.
It flicked Sev with one of its massive pointer fingers, as if he were a flea. If his wyrd were not already enriched with the seductive, lethal momentum of exus, the impact would have been enough to crush his ribs and snap his neck. He was still stunned. His vision swam. The spire’s magical lighting developed strange coronas, while sweet voices hissed promises of power into his ears.
Juel drew all of his power into a desperate killing thrust at the phage’s head. The damn thing caught the head of his lance in its teeth mid-thrust.
Before Juel could react, the phage wrenched its head to the side violently, snapping the lance’s shaft in half. The weapon’s ruined enchantments exploded violently. Juel dropped to the ground. Then the phage scooped him up with its lower pair of arms, trapping his body in its hollowed ribcage. And then it started growing again.
Hazy ectoplasm appeared around Juel, coalescing into stands of viscera that wrapped around his arms, leg, waist, and throat. In a matter of seconds, a sheet of muscle grew over the phage’s ribs, completely trapping Juel in its body.
No. It can cannibalize his power now too.
The phage’s explosive growth continued, ending in two massive legs and a fleshy tail. Only its skull remained uncovered with flesh.
Stay cool. Just stay cool, get up, and get back in the fight.
But Sev could feel the etheric ripples from the phage’s energy boring into Juel’s wyrd. It had weaponized its stored stress into a sort of psychic drill, except there was no single point of intrusion or laws of physics to slow its boring rate. It was grinding Juel’s mind to dust. I need to stay calm. Choose my next move carefully. Hang on, Juel.
Jecia and Stroud had managed to evacuate eight of the surviving amagia, but as Stroud rushed to the aid of another wounded Keeper—Greene, her name was—the Ankophage popped her head beneath its massive foot.
No! God damn it!
The phage’s dry voice read Sev’s own thoughts back to him, dry and mocking:
“…Hang on. Stay cool. Just stay cool… Choose my next move carefully.”
Sev took in an enormous swell of ether with his wyrd and activated the cryonic animus in his left license with grand gestures. Just before he began negotiations, he started running, and narrowly dodged the blow he baited from the ankophage. He completed the spell mid-leap, aiming straight for the phage’s face.
It isn’t clever. It’s messy, rough work. But I think messy and rough is what we need right now.
The contract he cast was colloquially known as “The Shaft.” It summoned a jagged spire of ice roughly nine feet long and three feet wide before launching it with the force of a ballista. Normally it was siege magic. A ranged attack developed in an age when people were storming literal castles. But given how slippery he’s been, I think a point-blank shot is in order.
Sev jumped from his dash just as he finished the spell, placed both of his palms on the egregore’s head, and unleashed the spell. Cold sliced through Sev’s veins. The pain was so intense that it seemed to sever the nerve connections to his hands, instantly numbing them. But it was well worth it. The ice shaft decapitated the creature and smashed it against the floor.
The thing’s ribs buckled outward, as Juel’s wyrd burst through its chest. Strands of muscle fibers, nerves, and veins still linked his body to the egregore, but he thrashed with muscle and wyrd to free himself. Sev slashed at the viscera with his wyrd—mind and body swimming against the urges of exus—and managed to retrieve Juel from egregore’s body. His eyes were twitchy, tongue lolling, nostrils, ears, and mouth all bleeding.
“You’re good, man,” Sev assured him. “Your wyrd is still strong. You are strong.”
Juel couldn’t answer, but he managed to focus on Sevardin’s eyes and nodded shakily.
“Harker, get clear!!” Stroud shouted.
Sev scooped Juel in a fireman’s carry and jumped forward with as much strength as his aching muscles could abide. He narrowly dodged the egregore’s lower hand, which shattered the floor’s runic tiling. It still has strength to fight!?
Stroud rushed forward, putting himself between the creature, and Sevardin and Juel.
Sevardin scanned the perimeter of shelves lining the Pin, set Juel down, and spied Jecia emerging from a corridor. She scanned the base of the Pin for more survivors, but she and Stroud had already saved everybody they could.
As her eyes met Sev’s, relief flooded his wyrd. The implacable drumbeat of exus was muffled. Now we can fight it together. Even if Juel has to sit out and it’s only three against one, this thing doesn’t have a shot.
Jecia returned his smile—or tried to—but her expression was pained. Then she said something that Sev couldn’t make out. They joked that they didn’t need to actually speak or emanate any more to understand each other, but for some reason, her intended meaning eluded him.
Before either of them could react, a burning hunk of wood smashed into the shelf to her right, and its volumes ignited. The resulting explosion consumed Jecia and her wyrd. Fire, frozen shrapnel, and petrified roots erupted from the impact site, followed by a storm of secondary explosions that spread to consume the entire section of shelves in seconds.
“Jecia!” He called.
His brain rejected the scene, refusing to process what happened. She managed to guard herself. Didn’t she? Or is that hope talking? He still couldn’t feel her wyrd. Arcs of lightning snapped amidst the debris, and shadows danced amidst the unnaturally colored flames.
Exus guided Sev to use his final water animus. He didn’t realize he had negotiated the contract until his skin abruptly dried as all the ambient moisture in the air was sucked into a thick curtain of water above the impact zone. The deluge slammed against the blaze and Sevardin leaned on the spell with his own wyrd, trying to ground the volatile etheric currents.
“Jecia!!” He bellowed.
The water dispersed most of the errant magic. But I still don’t feel her. Sev took a step toward. He’d forgotten Juel, Stroud, and the ankophage. Time seemed to grow denser. The world itself was heavier, but his sense of self had evaporated.
Something sharp bit into Sev’s cheek, snapping him back to the present. One of Stroud’s knives. Sev hazily surveyed the scene, finding his giant friend laying against the base of the spire, bleeding and winded. Juel had managed to get to his knees, but he was still in shock.
Sevardin faced the ankophage—now more skeleton than flesh—which once again whispered his own words into his head:
“…Don’t feel her. …Didn’t she? Am I dreaming? …Hope talking…”
Sev barely had the presence of mind to resist the currents of magic threatening to take control of him. You need to fight. You need to fight, or everybody will die. You’ll find Jecia when the monster is dead.
Sevardin scanned the ground for his macuahuitl. I’ve only landed one blow with it, but it was enough to take its arm off. It can’t have much left. Not after everything we’ve hit it with. He finally spotted the weapon near the edge of the Pin.
The egregore followed his gaze, sensing the threat and moved to intercept him. Too late. Sevardin flashed forward accelerated by exus-infused sorcery. He reached the macuahuitl, snatched it off the ground, and parried the phage’s incoming claw in the space of a second. The only thing that protected him was the magical rebound from the thing’s ectoplasmic flesh against his magic-nullifying weapon.
It was growing desperate though. It followed up with a sidelong swipe that completely exhausted Sev’s urdic protection. He slipped further into exus, eyes now flickering with arcane symbols and feverish visions, and bolstered his wyrd again against the creature’s follow up. He leapt forward and hacked at the egregore’s ribcage with his Aztec weapon.
The phage pried him off its chest, threw him away and hit him with a stream of psychic magic, too dense and quick to counter. Again, Sev guarded his mind with his wyrd. Anguish and tension—the raw stuff of desperation—pressed in on Sev’s mind again. I’m gonna crack. The currents of magic flooding his wyrd entreated him: Claim your power. Surrender yourself to magic.
A bolt of lightning struck the thing’s shoulder and broke off its mental onslaught. Sev’s head gasped as it was freed from the psychic pressure, and he sank to his knees. He traced the ripple back to Juel.
“I’ve got you, Brother,” he wheezed.
He’s punch drunk. And unlike me, he’s lost all his momentum. He didn’t have the benefits of exus. Hell, he had nothing left. And in that second, Sev knew he was making a mistake. No. Something bad is going to happen.
But he couldn’t cry out in time. His legs were too weak to move. The phage spun before Juel could even begin his second spell. He cancelled his gestures and tried to duck beneath the blow, but its massive claw grazed his head, cleaving the front right of his forehead from the rest of his skull.
Juel’s urdic pressure imploded. His legs gave out mid-stride and he sagged backwards. Sev glimpsed what appeared to be a patch of brain, naked to the air. Juel’s eyes were blank before he hit the tiles. His mouth hung open, drooling blood.
He’s dead.
When Sevardin drew his next breath, it was like inhaling fire. The voices in his head promising him power rose to a crescendo. He looked at the phage, already moving to crush Juel with another attack.
Okay.
Sev stopped resisting.
You want me? He invited his wyrd to supplant his mind. You say you can give me power? Give me all you’ve got. He suddenly felt as though he were seeing the world through a long tunnel. Characters from arcane languages he did and did not recognize boiled over the last of his vision.Sev threw himself, wholeheartedly, into exus.
And he felt euphoric. Delirious and drunk on the rush of power that erased all the barriers between his wyrd and the raw fabric of creation.
Sev was something else. Jecia and Juel weren’t problems anymore.
Ha! Who are Jecia and Juel? Hahaha, yes! Oh yes. Why did I ever resist this? Why would anyone resist this? All this time… What a fool I’ve been! But that doesn’t matter anymore.
Because now we are here. And together we’ll burn it. We’ll burn it all.
— Thonis Stroud | 12:13 AM —
Thonis Stroud had seen amagia enter exus countless times. In training. In battle in the Archives. He had seen enough to assume the tales of people speaking in tongues, were simply that. He concluded that the reports of eyes weeping smoke and fire were fanciful hyperbole. Embellishments from bored writers who didn’t know what they were talking about.
And how wrong I was.
The world around the Pin grew darker. The flames on the collection growing dimmer without diminishing, and the runic lighting that had been installed along the spire popped in sequence, from the base of the Pin to the top. The only source of light in collection seemed to come from Sevardin Harker’s eyes.
Thonis couldn’t process what color they were. His mind defaulted to red, but the truth was, they burned with magic so potent that it cut through the Resting Laws of the visual spectrum effortlessly. The air around Sevardin shimmered, his wyrd sweltering like thermals in a desert.
The ankophage took a step back, confused by this development.
Yes. You’ve broken him. You’ve lost your source of stress. And now you have a devil to deal with.
Sev blinked forward. He seemed to distort the space from his position on the ground to a point in the air, just ahead of the egregore’s head. Then he waved his hand almost causally, cleaving the thing’s inscrutable skull at a diagonal with a plane of eye-searing, colorless energy.
The egregore recoiled, grabbing at its ruined head with its upper arms, and seizing Sevardin with its bottom two. Its fingers began to burn as soon as they tried to close around Sevardin. Its remaining flesh expanded, either boiling or growing with unchecked cancerous growth, before exploding in yellow ectoplasm. The caustic energies from Sevardin worked their way up the ankophage’s arms, consuming them like twin fuses. And when the waves of energy struck the egregore’s core body, another explosion blasted the egregore flat onto its back.
Sevardin made a grasping gesture with his left hand—his entire body appeared to be burning now—and unseen forces seized both of the egregore’s remaining arms at the wrists, pinning them together. Sevardin violently twisted his clenched fist, and tore both of the ankophage’s arms off at the elbow.
It started to flood all of its remaining energy into regenerating as Sevardin Harker levitated over its body.
“…This isn’t fair! That wasn’t on the test… This isn’t fair… I would have passed if…”
Sevardin began to fold his hands into a variety of gestures Stroud didn’t recognize. Each finger’s deliberate movement drew a fresh stripe of ectoplasmic blood from the egregore’s flesh. He began to accelerate, until the unseen gashes rained upon the egregore as fast as machinegun fire. After the creature was reduced to a pile of gore, he abruptly stopped and clenched his fists. When he opened his palms, the unmolested remainder of the egregore’s form exploded with fire that defied heat and color, finally destroying it.
At that moment, a quartet of archivists emerged from the rim around the Pin. They were students. Eighth years? My god, who calls eighth years in as cavalry? They’re lambs to bloody slaughter!
“Stay back! He’s too much for you!” Thonis shouted.
The Archivists obeyed, mercifully. Thonis ran to intercept Sevardin, who started floating toward the archivists with menace.
I can’t let him destroy the collection.
“Retreat and regroup! Try to douse the flames!” Stroud called.
Again, the archivists heeded his advice and withdrew into the shelves. Sevardin hung in the air in front of Thonis, smiling wickedly.
It’s up to you to stop him. God knows what other horrific entities are trapped in these old tomes. If you can knock him unconscious, the magic possession will be broken, and Sevardin’s body will be preserved. Thonis scowled. But he’s deeply possessed. He effortlessly eviscerated an egregore that downed over a dozen amagia. Far safer to contain or evade him until the constant influx of power burns him up. Hell, anything else would be a fool’s errand.
All you have to do is hold out and watch a dear friend die.
Thonis thought back to the many happy nights they had shared together at The Drowned Book. Recalled their consults and conversations. A morning jog shared with Juel. Small things. Important things.
A pity Thonis Stroud was born a fool and not a coward.
He raised his fists and bellowed, directing his emanations at the foreign floes of magic in Sevardin:
“Come, devil! I am your opponent!!”
