A Casted Stone

His body was in uproar. Every neuron in Ol-Lozen’s mind rebelled as one against the hand grasping the hilt of the Tankbuster.

If I swing, I won’t live long enough to feel regret.

Daigay cocked her head, eyes alight with a crow’s ravenous hunger. “Come now, there’s no need for histrionics. I am not your enemy.” She restrung her clothing back into place, uncaring of the threat at odds with itself.

“You say you’re not a foe, but I’ve heard a lot about Quaqua and she doesn’t appear to have the interests of this world at heart.” He tried to draw up rage but nothing rose from his well of resolve save fear. A treacherous part of him still thought of the magus before him as Daigay.

“The best interests of this world are, and have always been, of chief import to me. Which is why I shared my secret with you.”

“Then explain this Empress I keep hearing about. You’re of her council.”

“Was of her council. Very important distinction there. Our Empress Attendant is also a visionary; and a warmonger, yes – a secret to no one – but also a visionary with the will to change.”

“Do you not hear the words leaving your mouth?”

“I do, and I emphasize every syllable.”

He circled around the edge of the barrier, maintaining the distance between him and the old woman. She mirrored his movements, playing his game. He stared her down over the firepit; she blinked freely.

“Our Empress Attendant, when she was but a lowly queen, desired an army powerful enough to conquer the scattered and inharmonious kingdoms. One unfaltering, unstoppable, invincible. I was tasked with providing her one.” She gestured out to the wide world with her hands. “The evidence of my efforts are plain in that I failed.”

Ol-Lozen balked. “The Incursion are your doing?”

“Feeruni’s former queen demanded this, not me. I only saw the wisdom in her vision, of a land united under one ruler to end the petty squabbles of lords and kings, all the knowledge from the far corners of the countries contained to one library, so I set about raising her army.”

“And made demons.”

“Demons, yes, but I did not make them from clay or flame. I’d appreciate if you’d stop playing the fool and consider the words I speak. They are demons in the same vein as Orkans, only stagnant and desiring nothing but the end of all things. We are as prey to them. In their worlds there are no slaves, no civilizations, no change, and no rest – only war. And their threat proved so great the queen had her wish fulfilled, in the end.”

Ol-Lozen’s head spun, and he believed it would soon burst. He stumbled over the stone bench. Daigay only watched him regain his footing, remaining at a distance instead of striking while she had the advantage. For a moment his heart whispered that perhaps she truly intended no harm, but the deception of her person crushed down any belief of that. A question played on his lips, and with dawning horror she smiled as if knowing what he’d ask, and would provide the answer he feared most receiving.

“Go on, Orkan. The burden of asking is yours, and I will give you that and more.”

“How do you know these things,” he grudgingly asked.

She raised her runed left hand. “Execution.” Shimmer like summer haze collected around the bandages of her right, unwinding that which ostensibly protected…

…and exposed an arm drenched in countless black runes layered so thickly the arm appeared made from another’s flesh. She rolled up the sleeve of her cloak, exposing the extensive knowledge decorating her knobby shoulder onward.

“Refinement,” she said, a note of pride in her voice.

“How many…” He whispered. “Just how many of us have you taken?”

A hand flashed into her cloak, and she withdrew a jar colored red by the wet, organic mass within, approaching the fire with clear intent. She raised the sunken ground with one hand, extinguished their flames with her other, dropped the jar in the kindling, and smashed it underfoot. A tendril of wet, writhing red tore out and spun itself into a circle of bloody script in the earth before liquifying, and Ol-Lozen was struck with unnerving familiarity of a night long past.

The runes then had been aesthetically pleasing; all flourish and curve. These ones now were jagged carvings like a monstrous talon had scratched them into the ground, and their unearthly light howled with the ferocity of night terrors. The creature was not summoned so much as it devoured the veil between worlds, emerging as a yolky mass of tendrils and scab. The root-like appendages extended into the arms and legs of a man-shape, and four yellow wings burst from its back, buzzing malevolence. Fear paralyzed Ol-Lozen’s will; fear of the magus; fear of the Incursion demon fully in his gaze. Daigay gazed upward at the creature she’d summoned, and exhaled a heavy sigh.

“Conflict is the millstone that enacts change. Without it we are stagnant.” She ran a hand along the summing circle’s barrier trapping the Incursion in a test tube.

“If anyone in that army knew half of what you’ve done,” he whispered, “they’d drag your body through the streets for entertainment.”

“Of that I have no doubt. But after tonight, I intend to buy myself into their favor. Or you will, rather.”

“And what twisted logic tells you I’ll obey anything aligning with your plans?”

“Because you, Ol-Lozen, will see the truth in my words, as will Mouse.” She turned to him, brow furrowed and serious. “Recall, do you, our time in Goldhome-In-The-Dell?”

“All too well,” he grunted.

“Remember what occurred before our terrible crash, when we were surrounded, and you dispatched several Incursion in the time it takes one to blink? Every head turned to you at once. Suddenly all Incursion were drawn to the greatest threat in that city, as if they all shared a single brain.” The one in the circle drew its head down to her level. Arms began to search around, attempting to find purchase within the magic. “If my theory on these creatures is correct, the brain exists in their home dimension. Obliterate that, and their threat to this world ceases.”

“A hive minded creature,” Ol-Lozen mused. He regarded the trapped beast over while it searched for escape. “Home dimension aside, would killing them not end the conflict you’ve praised?

“These creatures have been winning since the day our Riversworn cast them into this world. There’s no conflict with them, only prolonged bloodletting.”

“You posses a method of access into their dimension, I take it?”

She shook her head in the negative. “One ingress grows not far from here. You would need travel by land.” Shrugging, she added, “Or fly.”

“And if this plan of yours fails?”

“Do you intend to allow such?”

“There will be thousands of Incursion,” he said.

“Hundreds of thousands, but Mouse understands the basics of bending light to keep you both hidden and out of their eyes. A few hundred, if that, may need to be slain.”

He paused to consider her words, and thought of the young girl dreaming peacefully, unaware of the plans in motion. In the circle, the Incursion tapped against the barrier with its scabbed claws, and the thought of unthinkable numbers of the demons beating their wings in tandem drove a shiver up his back. “That you would thrust this on your own granddaughter,” he said.

“She was cast into this world, as were you, and together your ripples spell death to Incursion.”

He sighed, thinking it was a terrible idea, and that trusting a magus who’d been consistently deceiving him was idiotic in the extreme… but a great battle danced in his mind, one with glory to spare.

“I will do this.”

A grin widened across Daigay’s face, and the shimmering barrier around the two started to dissipate. When it had vanished completely, Ol-Lozen saw the Incursion’s head cock towards the magus, drawing down close to hers.

She opened her gullet, and a low, modulating croak spilled out. Before Ol-Lozen’s brain caught up she delivered a curt kick to the edge of the summoning circle, and that barrier shattered, freeing the demon to burn a path in the direction of the unsuspecting camp.

“Should you pursue it now, you may save a few.”

“Mouse is there. Sleeping.”

“Then you’d better get going. Soon they will all come, and there will be no going back.”