Jackal Among Snakes

Entering into the Shadowlands, even changed by Anneliese’s rewriting of its fundamentals, stripped Argrave of countless things that he’d come to take for granted; fundamental aspects of being that helped qualify the world around him. He was the first to pass through the threshold, and once he did, several facets of several senses left him.

Color ceased to exist. There were only different iterations of white and black, and all in between. Or at least, so he thought—when Anneliese entered, he still saw her amber eyes gleaming brilliantly. He thought she might be unique in some capacity, but when the heroes of old followed after them, Argrave realized that the only color still remaining was that of one’s eyes.

It was more than color. A dull, stale odor constantly wafted into his nose. It resembled cardboard. It became difficult to distinguish the intensity of touch—no matter how tightly Argrave squeezed the staff in his hand, it felt as though he was only squeezing it lightly. It made it impossible to tell how heavy things were, or how much strength his muscles were exerting. No matter how tightly he pinched himself, the pain felt like a dull ache no harsher than gently pressing a finger against a bruise.

At the edge of his vision, that darkness that had warded them from entering the Shadowlands persisted without an end. It did not encroach, but nor did it retreat. Argrave called upon his blood magic, casting a spell that sent an expanding whirlwind of blood outward. It was a wave of blackness that set all it touched into colorless flames. The Shadowlands had a distinct presence, but the flames left behind an emptiness, an absence of presence. Anneliese raised her staff, both healing the wounds Argrave’s magic had caused himself and recreating the Shadowlands into a place they might be able to understand. Shards of light spread out like a storm of white petals, creating the land ahead.

Once it took shape, this place did look an area where people might be able to live were it not so far removed from the laws of their world. They stood in a field of white grass, every blade looking like it had been folded out of bleached paper and planted into gray dirt. Despite Argrave expecting he would need to face waves and waves of Shadowlanders, they were totally alone in this empty plain.

“Argrave—” Anneliese said, but her voice came out strangely. She touched her throat, then tried to speak again. “Something’s wrong with my voice.”

It sounded flat, emotionless. It had no pitch or tone—it was a constant thing, lacking variation.

“Yeah, I—” Argrave began, only to double-take. His voice… it sounded exactly as hers did, to the point where he was unable to realize that he was speaking. “It seems, even changed, this place follows fundamentally different laws from the world we left.”

Others tested their voices, one by one. They all sounded identical. It might’ve been a bit of a hack for creating a perfect choir if the voices didn’t sound so dead, so emotionless.

“We’ll need a way to distinguish our voices from one another,” Argrave decided, thinking of call signs for half a moment before dismissing the idea. “Our names will suffice. Say your name, then say ‘speaking.’ When you’ve finished, cap it off with ‘over.’”

“Our enemies could easily take advantage of that,” came a voice from out of sight.

“Argrave speaking, who’s speaking?” he countered. “I can’t see any enemies. We can deal with that when it happens. For now, say only what’s pertinent, and keep your eyes open to any and all strange noises. Over.”

As if responding to his call, Argrave heard a very distant sound echoing across these silent plains. He whipped his head over to see a shape emerging from the darkness. At first, it was difficult to discern its shape. But as it broke free from the outer boundary of the abyss, coming to stand upon the white field, its form became clear.

A horseman trotted forth, alone, a dark cloak billowing behind his shoulders. No wind blew, yet it flowed upward like smoke. Where the horse stepped, the gray dirt and white grass turned black, seeping and spreading across the world as thick drops of inks might spread across paper. Where the darkness took hold, mist rose upward, replacing the shadows Argrave had burned away.

Argrave didn’t hesitate in stepping forward, a spell at the front of his mind. If this was the beginning of an attack, he hoped to reveal all enemies hiding in the shadows before it began. Emboldened by his recent gains in power, he called upon an S-rank spell, using Blood Infusion to strengthen it with his blood.

Using his scepter as his medium, he thrust it forth and conjured a pillar of black fire that moved with the speed of a hawk. But he heard a rumbling bang that sounded like a huge drum had been struck. His spell veered upward, punching a hole in the darkness. It tore through the Shadowlands with little effort, vanishing into the distant horizon. Anneliese’s staff resonated, healing his wounds and replacing that which his magic burnt away.

The black horseman stood there, a sword that billowed darkness in his hand. It was obvious from his stance he had parried the spell with that alone. Anneliese’s translation of the Shadowlands took shape behind him, revealing a sheer cliff edge. It seemed they stood on a plateau of marble, the horseman on its edge. But as more and more of these lands took shape, something fell revealed itself.

Far behind the lone horseman, a gigantic draconic creature flew in place. It had one red eye where its mouth ought to be that peered upon them with malice, but it did not approach. It waited there fearlessly, even as the fire continued to pass by it. In the far distance, a towering black tower took shape, partially concealed by the translucent wings of the dragon. Unlike all else, the tower did not remain visible for long—darkness fell back upon it, just as the tide fell back upon the beach.

Argrave heard a voice from across the grassy plateau, echoing out to them in a fashion identical to how everyone else’s sounded.

“You are unwelcome,” the horseman told them, putting its sword back in its sheath. “Will you come as denial or acceptance? Will you come as pain or mercy?”

Everyone stirred uneasily, but Argrave was the first to respond. “I’ll not go gently into that good night. You might even say I’d rage against the dying of the light,” he said, feeling his humorous delivery of that line was somewhat stifled by the flatness this dimension imposed upon its residents.

“This place is only acceptance, and only mercy. If you’re here in defiance of that, it’s nothing less than you deserve.” It raised its head, and in that shadowy horseman’s face, he saw white eyes shining with life just as theirs did. It drew its sword once more, and dropped it into the ground. It sunk in, as if through water. Then, far behind it, the dragon craned its neck, roaring mightily through its eye in a dead tone intensified by the sheer volume of its call.

A gargantuan black hand reached up from the empty space below the marble plateau, grasping hold of the side as it pulled itself up. There, one of the nightmares that Argrave knew as the Shadowlanders revealed itself, crawling up. Argrave heard other noises below—a consistent rumble, not indicating either the weight or the speed of what was coming, only that it was.

The horseman turned around, sending its steed galloping forth right off the edge of the cliff. As it did, Argrave prepared a spell, shouting, “Argrave speaking. I’ll clear the surroundings, so duck!”

Mere moments after, trusting the ability of all those that came with him, he sent out another wave of blood-imbued wind that ate through the surroundings like nothing else, feeling only a dull ache of pain soon soothed by Anneliese’s part of their cycle of death and rebirth. The white grass plateau took shape around them. All around it, the monstrosities that had invaded the mortal realm since time immemorial crawled up, heeding the call of the dragon.

“Over,” Argrave finished once his spell was.

“Roland speaking,” one of the great human generals of the past began. “I used my A-rank ascension to mark the dragon and the horseman. They possess a lifeforce that I can track. Wherever they flee, I can follow. Over.”

“Anneliese speaking,” she said, slamming her staff down. “Raven was right. I can see bindings between all of the beings here. All of these creatures are bound in a web of servitude. The horseman was one of the highest ranked, but there is something above even him. What approaches us now are the lowest of their society. Over.”

“Mistislav speaking. The earth here is pliable via magic. Eighty-seven separate entities approach by ground. I’ll attempt to slow their approach by creating hindrances. Over.”

On and on declarations went, and in moments, the ambush turned into a non-issue as all contributed their own unique element to the fight. What had seemed a frightening prospective enemy seconds ago became a sluggish force exposed to the elements.

“Argrave speaking,” he said after a time. “After we have freedom of movement, we pursue the horseman, then follow him up the ladder using Anneliese’s [Truesight] ‘til we find the top dog of this place. But before that…” Argrave strode boldly ahead of them all, into this world of black and white, feeling a rumbling pain as he called upon the blood within his body. “I’m going to let loose. Over.”

All power had limits. Argrave felt it was time to test the boundaries of his and Anneliese’s. This was a suitable testing ground, it would seem. Once, a single one of these monsters had nearly overtaken the capital of Vasquer. Now, Argrave and Anneliese, together, might prove their equal.