Curselock

Chapter 170: Urgency

The space within the barrier shook, a creeping chill assaulting the invisible wall. The size of a tavern’s foundation, the area within the barrier quickly turned into a singular safe haven against the outside elements. Red power mixed with the above clouds and rain, wafting thick flakes of bloody snow. Occasional clouds of thunder rang, but the howling wind ended.

Abruptly.

The abrupt lack of sound left a void in the ears of the group. Isobel was the only one who didn’t flinch, even the silken veiled Archon drifted with unease. Leland tried to say something but no words came out. He frowned, scowling at the Archon. Whether it looked back at him, no one knew.

“Can you allow him to speak?” Sybil asked the alien being.

A curtain of silk rose to Sybil. She reached out, causing both Leland and Isobel to lurch in apprehension. The silk touched her fingers, coming to rest like a scarf landing gently upon the ground after a sudden gale. She smiled at the being.

Leland felt his throat disarm. He instantly said, “We’re surrounded and they are doing something!”

While it wasn’t new news, the fact there were dozens of Sightless Eye cultists was cause for alarm. Isobel growled at the leader wearing trimmed robes, his words failing to breach the invisible barrier for all to hear. Still, it was apparent the man was chanting a spell or speaking a manifesto. Whatever the case, cold rolled in while the sky turned red.

The snow was a nice touch but overplayed in Isobel’s eyes. Which, when she thought about it, seemed quite weird. Primordial magic wasn’t supposed to chill it was supposed to disintegr—

“We all need to get home,” Sybil whispered like a nurse attending a death-bed patient. “Just tell us what to do and we’ll help the best we can.”

For a moment a hint of sapphire appeared below the silken veil. A glint of blue light caught both Leland and Sybil in the eye. A strangeness overcame the area within the barrier in that moment. Not so much a chill but rather a shiver. Stones fluttered up the air, each jagged and broken like lightning had struck a boulder.

Leland and Sybil watched the rocks rise higher and higher, eventually rising above the invisible barrier and angling with their sharp-end out like wasps on the prowl. A quick streak of sapphire appeared, enough of an immediate effect to blind both of them in sheer surprise. Its color lasted only a fraction of a heartbeat but in that moment, every single cultist died.

They crumbled lifelessly, each cultist surrounding the invisible barrier speared through the forehead with a rock-spike. A fleeting moment passed before bodies rained from the sky, each cultist dead .

Isobel hid her widened eyes. She wasn’t so much surprised at the fact the Archon killed their attackers, but because each cultist was killed in exactly the same way. Her way. She had killed dozens in their sprint toward the white beam eating the sky, and well, her aim was second to absolutely no one.

Well, apparently beside an Archon, that was.

Leland struggled with what to do next. Sybil was running out of time, who knew how much time she lost because she glowed earlier. Not to mention they were dealing with a being so far out of their understanding. Monsters, as Archons were widely believed to be, just didn’t interact with people. At least not positively…

But then again, he, Glenny, and Jude had interacted with Gelo and Floe quite well. Friendships had been made, forged really, and the mother and daughter duo were in fact, monsters. So, in the end, Leland went for it.

“Killing them only ended the immediate risk,” he said, his voice firm like how he imagined his father would speak in this situation. “Sybil here,” he put his hand on her shoulder again, “is running out of time to get home. We can help each other, right? We both need to get home quickly.”

Leland made an effort to look at the sky as he ended his little speech. There were more threats around than just the, now dead, cultists. The Clergy of Golden Lambs and all of their golden Vile Lord light still hung in the clouds, battling for dominance over the protectors of this land and the three Sky Dwarves.

The Archon turned, silken thread swaying with it. It “looked” toward the white beam cutting into the sky, more specifically the base of the spellwork. With a glimmer of blue, what was invisible now became visible. Below the beam was a foundation of stonework. Etchings and runes had been carved into the device, enough to explain that magic was afoot.

But what kind of magic, Leland didn’t know. At some point, in the moments after the device became visible, he had stepped past Sybil, standing more inline with the Archon. He leaned forward looking at the device in such a way that one might mistake him for a child, learning magic from watching his parents create small miracles.

That was what magic was in a way: miracles.

“I don’t recognize the script. Is this Ancient Script?”

The Archon floated toward the device. “No. We created it in terms of all, not limited.”

Leland frowned, stepping over as well. Soon the whole party surrounded the device. “It’s not ready, is it?”

“Two days,” it said, its voice faltering.

In that moment, Isobel and Leland saw the Archon the way Sybil described the being. A child. Neither of them knew why, but just from a few simple words, an impression was laid. Instinct maybe, but more primal, more inductive.

Standing there beside the Archon, Leland remembered just what an Archon was. A being of unexplainable knowledge, knowhow, and lacking in any emotion other than personal autonomy. They were experimenters, each and every one of them striving for some goal, some past instruction from their creator. Or, if the other theory was to be believed, they were beings of unimaginable intelligence looking for answers where others never would.

But standing there, Leland saw a possible third option. A combination of both theories. Golems created by a dead Lord for the sole purpose of finding perfection. And, well, after so many thousands of years, they may just have done that. Or at least garnered enough self-sentience to realize their creator was no longer leading them.

So, in the end, the Archon was a scared newborn child without unimaginable knowledge just looking to get home. And that home was through the Void.

“We can’t use this spell,” Leland muttered to himself, his stomach dropping to his feet.

He guessed they could try to commandeer the spellwork like the cultists, clergy, and the Graverenders were trying, but the ring of rock-spiked dead cultists swayed that notion. He shifted his eyes to the side as far as they would go, peering at the Archon while looking completely ahead. He was standing next to a child with magic to rival… well… maybe a Lord.

To that end, even if they were somehow able to kill the Archon, could he live with himself? Taking a child’s spellwork, their ticket home, just to serve his own goals?

No, no he could not. And he knew Sybil would agree with him. And even Isobel when he really thought about it. For as harsh as she was, she wouldn’t steal from a kid.

“What did you say?”

Leland didn’t know who asked it. The words came in one ear and set his mind in motion before leaving out the other ear. Two days for the Archon’s spell to complete. Could they hitch a ride? Maybe, but returning to wherever the Archons came from would be foolish. Could he study the spellwork and cast it himself? No, that would only waste time.

He needed a way through the Void. The obvious answer was to—

Isobel yanked him from his thoughts. “What! Did! You! Say!?”

Leland blinked a few times, finding Sybil and even the Archon looking at him. He swallowed. “I had hoped we could all be sent into the Void using the Archon’s spell. But that was a foolish idea.” He swallowed again. “Then I thought we could take the spell for ourselves. But, well, I can’t. I’m not a thief and I don’t think you are either. Studying is out of the question. So that only leaves the Void Lord herself.”

Isobel shifted through a variety of emotions, especially when Leland mentioned stealing from the incredibly powerful being standing directly beside them. Luckily the Archon didn’t seem to care or react. It just floated there silently, its veil still swaying in windless motion.

“A contract?” she asked. “Why haven’t you already petitioned the Void Lord!?”

All air left Leland’s lungs. The idea had come to him days ago. Who better to forge a contract to travel vast distances than with the Lord in charge of the area in-between locations? Well, no one. And that was precisely the problem. The Void Lord, as he understood, was an important Lord. And as he had come to learn, not all Lords were exactly friendly when he asked for portions of their power.

Some tried to sway him with insults and threats, others claimed too high of a price for their magic, some refused to even sit at the bargaining table, yet worst of all, were the Lords who pitied him and handed out concessions. The Lord of Gateways came to mind on that last one. She obviously goaded her brother into giving Leland more, all the while keeping her price far from reach.

Leland was, in the end, just a mortal. Sometimes a Lord had a problem he could solve, but even then, the truly powerful contracts were well beyond what he was capable of doing. Investigating a storm? Sure, Leland didn’t mind walking in the rain. Tell a bastion that they have a wormhole in their basement? Okay, that’s not too hard.

But when the requests became something far more dangerous or large-scale, there was very little he could do.

Maybe he could provide a gift to earn favor. But no Lord had a need for wild herbs or some leather or something. He had no beer and honey to gift, he had no sweeteners to elevate a potential contract.

As a group, he, Isobel, and Sybil had brainstormed ideas about Lords with the power of grand transportation. Unfortunately they couldn’t come up with many ideas, as they were not well versed in every Lord across the world. Other than the Vile Lords, Leland had attempted a contract with every one they had thought of. Except the Void Lord – a Lord he had a sweetener for.

Reflection King Harlon, Void Priest and Legacy, had told Leland of his Lord. He had explained that the Lord of the Void was a passionate person. She was Lord of a land so vast and so desolate all of the Realms, worlds, and Planes scattered throughout still categorized the Void as a void. A land of nothing, except all of known life.

Harlen had told Leland all the Void Lord would want to garner favor was a story and conversation.

Yet, that fact alone terrified Leland and led him to the reason he was hesitant to speak to the Lord of the Void.

Looking away from Isobel, and more importantly Sybil, Leland whispered, “Because I hoped there would be another way.”

Isobel growled, a clap of thunder echoing overhead. She gripped both of his shoulders, shaking him. “Not good enough,” she seethed.

Feeling his joints breaking under all of the shaking, Leland said, “I didn’t want to expunge that option until I knew where my pathway was leading me!”

“And where is that!?”

“Right here.”

He said it with the care of an adventurer. Someone who goes the distance for others to feel safe. He only saw Sybil in that moment, and her trust she had always provided him. His pathway wasn’t ending with a way for only him to get home, no it was ending exactly as he originally thought. A route through the Void, a grand teleport.

There was no heroics in his mind, in fact Leland still felt guilty about getting the group into this mess to begin with. If only he was a bit stronger, a bit smarter, then maybe he would have avoided all of this. Clearly that was not meant to be, but fortunately it was time to make it up.

A smirk befell Leland’s lips, somber and haunted. How long had he wished to step into his own path and save those around him? How many times did the people of his hometown measure him in terms of his parents? Everyday he had walked in their shadows until the day he received his Legacy.

It wasn’t what he originally wanted, the Lord of Magic was his first choice. But now? Now he was more than content with the Lord of Curses. The path of the Warlock, the pathway that led him to many adventures and the promise of “good” power. He was no Harbinger, he was no Legacy of a Vile Lord, despite whatever the halo meant.

Because, right now, he could prove all naysayers wrong. Why? Because he was about to save a princess.

“Be back before you know it,” Leland said, his eyes wide with delight.

Sybil had been right all along, he was no imposter. He was just a kid looking to do the world some good.

“Lord of the Void, I humbly wish to create a contract with you.”