Chapter 8: The Siege Begins
Edwin looked into a pool of rippling infinity and found that it reflected back nothing but guilt. The mystic waters of his chamber’s fountain were meant to show Edwin whatever time he wanted, but today, they showed him only his mistakes, as if to maximize his regret. The Time Sage had not been honest with Jace Beleren. Yes, he had told him everything there was to know about the Hydrean and its dangers, about Dayn and his army, but he had lied about the Cult. Edwin had claimed to not know their true plans, but in fact was more aware of them than almost anyone within the Cult. Had he told Jace the real danger the Cult presented, the mind mage would have been gone from Terran in an instant.
Edwin had sent an innocent man, a stranger who did not even belong to this plane, to near certain death. And yet, Jace, however small his chances of survival were, was the plane’s only hope.
He tried for the sixth time today to reach out to the future, and for the sixth time that day, got no response. Edwin smashed his hands against the fountain in frustration. Just as it had been shortly before the Mending, his vision of the future was obscured, granting him only vague probabilities and chances of what could be. He could now only hope that Jace would find some way to defeat not only the force that had converted almost all of a planewide city into nature, but also a darkness that had been brewing since even before the Mending. He wished he could leave to help the poor man fight, but if he were to leave here, he’d have to stop channeling Zon’s protective field, and then all would be lost.
It had taken a while, but they had arrived. The elves of the Hydrean were finally here, staying just outside the limits of the Time Sage’s forcefield, more and more arriving every minute. The ranks of soldiers, scouts, and Exterminators behind Greziel had stood stalwart at the beginning, but now a few of them had started to shake. If the elves had all gathered here outside the forcefield, surely they were expecting something to happen to it. Why did they all look so sure they would be inside before long?
Most of Zon’s best fighters had been sent here, to the city’s North Gate, to defend against the brunt of the Hydrean’s assault, as they had amassed most of their forces here. They had been told to wait to attack until Benjamin himself gave the word, but their leader had still not arrived. Even the army’s steeds were beginning to stamp their hooves in apprehension.
Then, a clarion blast of noise pierced through the air, and an entourage of horses clad in shimmering white armor rode into view, some of their riders bearing flags while others held golden wind instruments. In the middle of them rode a tall, familiar figure, the crest of the Zon war falcon on his chest and a massive, glowing sword upon his back.
Benjamin, the Overlord of Zon had arrived at last. The Last City’s ruler scanned the crowd for a moment, his eyes showing that he had expected someone else to be here by now. Nikolai, Greziel thought with a sick taste in his mouth. Incredibly fast but always too blasted late.
The noise sounded off once more, and the leader of the Last City pointed towards the crowd of elves and beasts with his blade, the signal of a bloody initiation. Benjamin’s horse charged forward with the same courage that shone upon Benjamin’s face, and the rest of the army was quick to follow.
With a smile on his face, Greziel pulled the massive, metallic Sunchanneler off of his back. As he felt the familiar heat pour into its barrel, he cried out in exhilaration, and ran forward to fight for the city and the people he so loved.
Unknown Location Beneath Zon
Zira Three-Eyes stood upon a raised platform of black stone, a ceremonial crown of bloodstained bone planted upon her head, its centerpiece covering her forehead in place of her usual blindfold. She looked out at the crowd assembled before her, fingers tapping at her sides. She had always had stage fright.
“Loyal ones,” Zira began, “Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, God visited our mortal realm. We, the lowlifes and drunkards, the criminals and rejects, had been the ones to find her presence. We witnessed her power long before the Wellspring changed our world, and we even obtained an image of her likeness.”
With shaking, reverent hands, Zira opened a glass case to her right. With reverence, she lifted up the piece of parchment within, and held it up to where the entirety of the Cult could see it. Upon it was a drawing of a beautiful winged figure, holding a weapon that was rendered unidentifiable by the blotting of ink.
“It was many years ago when the first highpriest, the goblin Yvrin, found the corpses that Zepada had annihilated,” she continued. “Yvrin was spoken to by Zepada that night. Zepada told Yvrin her name and her promises to us, and Yvrin told the world. Zepada promised us that our belief would one day be rewarded by her return, the return that would ascend us to godhood. God now speaks to me, loyal ones, and she has shown me the path to her return. Zepada requires quite the red carpet, one painted by not just the blood of our enemies, but our own as well. Now, we have played both the Hydrean and the Last City beautifully into our hands. Now, we act, and we turn their conflict into utter chaos. Now, we revel in the bloodlust. Tonight, Zepada RETURNS TO OUR WORLD!”
The room erupted into frenzied cries and applause, and Zira could not help but add her own voice to the chorus. Soon her people would be ready to march into the daylight of Zon, at last showing their fangs to the world that had ignored them for so long. And not long after that, their glorious, winged leader would join them.
Borderwoods of Zon’s East Gate
The group of elves marched through the last stretch of the woods, their feet making no sound. No one knew these trees better than they did. As soon as they came upon a Zonite, they’d rip them to shreds and feed the remains to their beasts. Yes, no one knew the woods better than the elves.
In trees far above the elven forces, Amriel and his scouts waited. They probably think they have the home advantage here, thought the leader of the Expedition Unit. Wait until they find out just how much we scouts have found out about their little Wood.
As the elves marched into position, the scouts let themselves fall one by one off of the tree branches, diving into the crowd of elves below. Dozens of cords attached to their backs and wrapped around the tree branches, stopping their fall just above the ground, where each scout grabbed an elf and let the bungee cords pull them back up. A flash of swords and the elves were decapitated, their heads falling to the earth below. The crowd looked up in shock, and some of the elves began clambering up the tree’s branches.
Their forces were split now, and that mistake was realized far too late by the elves left on the ground. Leaves flew up from the ground around them, and up jumped several scouts, some armed with daggers and some with shortswords. The elves’ numbers were halved before they could even begin to react. When they did, though, they reacted with anger and passion behind every sword strike.
Scouts began to drop from the trees above, and the initial morale the Expedition Unit had gained from the ambush began to fade. “Bring this fight to the ground!” commanded Amriel. He bounded off the tree, and his scouts followed. What the elves below had thought were more scouts’ corpses falling from above turned out to be actual scouts raining from the skies above, swooping down with swords swinging.
It won’t be easy, Amriel thought, but we should be able to win this fight.
Jace Beleren raced through empty streets, mulling over all that Edwin had explained to him. The Time Sage had warned him of an elf named Dayn, a planeswalker who was the reason behind so much of Terran being covered in wilderness. The plane had once been a massive city, just like Ravnica, until an event known as the Wellspring, when Dayn had harnessed an explosion of green mana and destroyed most of the plane’s city, creating hydras and beasts from nothing. Apparently he was here to claim Zon, the last piece of civilization that had escaped destruction.
Edwin had also warned Jace about the hydra Dayn rode upon — Arkthus. The creature was as large as a small mountain, and just as hard to destroy. Jace wished that Edwin had let him know about that detail before he had made the decision to fight for Zon.
Edwin had told him to make his way to the North Gate of Zon, where he would find Benjamin. He could only hope that he would get there in time. To destress, Jace reached out to the minds of the people hiding in the houses around him. He felt anxiety and despair, yet he also found hope. He found awe at the bravery of Zon’s soldiers, and he felt love for husbands and wives who had been called to the fight.
And then, he found a familiar mind, one pained with great suffering. Sarev.
He looked to where the pain had come from, and saw a cobblestone tower to his right. Running to it, he threw it open and ran inside. He ran up the stairs, regretting not taking Gideon’s breathing lessons all the way. His telepathy led him into a short, narrow hallway, and into a room that appeared to be made for children to sleep in. There were two beds in the room, but only one was occupied. Sarev sat on the bed, rocking back and forth as she stared at Jace. To her left and right sat two children who could only be Sarev’s children, each of their gazes just as fixated on Jace. He reached out to the minds of the three tentatively, and was met with a tortured maze of pain and fear. Realizing that their minds had been attacked, Jace slowly worked apart the magic. The curse was a weak one, and it took Jace only a few minutes to undo it. Whoever had done this had not cared to cause lasting damage, which means there must have been some other motive.
Sarev did not speak immediately, but when she did, she ran and hugged Jace, thanking him profusely for undoing the horror surrounding the minds of her and her children. “Jace, there is something you must know,” she warned, her eyes wide. “The things that attacked me — I’m almost sure they were servants of the Cult. They were trying to find out where Edwin lives, and they forced me to tell them; you have to warn him as soon as you can.”
“Don’t worry,” Jace responded. “I won’t need to run.” He reached out to a mental link that he and Edwin had established before Jace had left for North Gate, and as easily as he could whisper into a nearby ear, he sent: “Edwin, the Cult is coming for you. I’m coming to you now — stay safe.”
Edwin was looking down at the fountain when he heard it. The noise was slight and short, as if it was not meant to be heard, but he had certainly noticed it. It had been metallic and rattling, almost like… chains.
Edwin’s heart filled with dread.
From the stairs leading down into the chamber floated a sardonic voice, taunting, “Oh, well, I guess you heard that, didn’t you, Mr. Sage? Can’t be helped then. Suppose I can just walk right in anyway, no need for sneaking, now.”
Zira. The Cult’s highpriest. Edwin had seen her in his visions, and although he did not know what she would be doing on this clouded day, he had witnessed her vile acts before through the fountain’s waters. She was not only devious, but powerful, and Edwin knew that if he was giving his power to the city’s forcefield, he may very well lose to her in combat.
“What do you want, witch?” Edwin barked. “There’s nothing here for you, the fight is at the walls.”
“Oh, we both know that’s a lie, don’t we, Eddy? I have many more eyes than just the ones on my face, all over the city, right under the noses of you and everyone you hold dear. How do you think I found you?” Zira jumped over the last few steps and came into clear view of Edwin, revealing the malicious smile resting upon her face. “Sarev may seem tough, but she broke rather easily.”
“If only I was lucky enough to deserve that title. My parents were very much together, they just didn’t want anything to do with me from the start.”
“If you’re only here to banter like a young child, Zira, I’m sure there are pubs in which you could spend your time much more efficiently.”
“Oooh, I love your snark, Mr. Sage. Let’s get to the point then, shall we?” Zira jumped into the air towards Edwin, the chains surrounding her flying out in every direction before extending and throwing themselves towards Edwin.
Thinking on his feet, Edwin threw a spell at the chains, slowing time in the small area of space they flew through, impeding their progress and causing Zira to fall back to the ground before her chains had come even close to hitting him. “Is that the best you’ve got?” Edwin sneered. Just as spoke the insult, a voice that was not of the chamber cut through his head — it was Jace, warning him about the Cult. “A little late, Jace,” he sent back. “Don’t come for me; I’ll be fine. My visions have made it very clear that you need to be at North Gate if we are to save Zon.” With that, Edwin severed the mental connection. He needed to focus.
“So that’s how you’re going to play it, then?” Zira seemed to like the challenge. She waved her hand in an arc, and the chains rose once again, spearing themselves at Edwin. He blasted off another slowing spell at the chains, but this time, they redirected themselves, moving out of the way of the spell and back at Edwin. He barely had time to put up defensive wards as the chains collided with him, and upon seeing how much they had damaged his wards, he realized he would not be able to last for very long against the highpriest. He started running; staying in one place would only make it easier for the highpriest to attack.
“On the run now, Edwin? We both know you can’t leave. Or at least, you don’t want to.” Zira attacked with her chains once more before continuing, “I know your secret. I know that you can leave this world whenever you want to, and I know that the Trailblazer can as well. Once I’m done with both of you, there will be no more Travellers on Zon’s side.”
So she doesn’t know about Jace, then? Edwin rolled out of the way of the chains this time, and inquired, “Who told you about… Travellers?”
This time Zira dashed towards Edwin, each of her chains striking out one after another. “Zepada, of course. She has spoken to me, told me all about you and your kind, and all about what you can do. I know that you were once much, much stronger. Her voice promises me that after I deal with you, she will give me powers far beyond those of even you Travellers.”
Using a combination of quick movements, wards, and spells, Edwin dodged chain after chain, and responded, “Zira. That voice is not Zepada. That voice is something far more powerful, a force that everyone on this world is going to come to fear if you let it out. It is lying to you, using you, for its own means. It has been planning every moment of this night since centuries ago.”
Zira seemed to pause for a second before she began attacking again, this time with even more fervor. “YOU LIAR!” she shouted. “Zepada has given me everything, and I’ll show you just where that everything has got me.” Her chains rose into the air once more, and Edwin once again found himself wondering if he, or even the plane of Terran as a whole, would make it through the night.
The fight was going shockingly well for the Last City. It seemed as if the elves had forgotten civilization’s might in the years since Edwin’s forcefield had created a temporary peace. The organized fighting tactics of Zon’s soldiers cut through the elves’ rowdy fervor with ease, every slain elf bolstering the soldiers’ morale further.
The soldiers around Benjamin fought with the most intensity, but farther away from Zon’s leader, the fight was far more even. Greziel had found himself separated from the rest of his unit, and was now surrounded by a tangle of menacing elves. They stayed a safe distance away from his Sunchanneler, as they had witnessed the destruction it had wrought upon their comrades, but they inched slowly closer. Suddenly, a particularly brave elf jumped from the crowd, bringing his club down upon Greziel’s Sunchanneler before the Exterminator had a chance to react. With their enemy disarmed, the ring of elves closed in.
But just as all seemed lost, a familiar blur cut through the front half of the elven circle, bringing them to the ground. As the blur slowed, it became evident it was humanoid in form for just a moment, before it accelerated again into a spinning wave of red and beige. In no time, half of the elves lay on the ground, and Nikolai stood before Greziel, handing him his Sunchanneler with a grimace on his face.
No words were shared between the two former friends as they began to fight. A burst of flame erupted from Greziel’s Sunchanneler, and with trained precision, Nikolai charged forward to take down any elves who were not already being charred.
As elves fell down all around them, Greziel looked up, although he immediately wished that he had not. The hydra that he gazed upon had some of its heads literally in the clouds, its necks each as thick as five trees tied together.
This battle was nowhere close to over.
On Top of North Gate’s Wall
Jace Beleren stood upon one of the many balconies connected to Zon’s wall, surveying the battle that raged below him. Reluctantly, he had listened to Edwin’s message and made his way to North Gate rather than to the Time Sage’s chamber, even through his frustration at having the mental connection cut.
Now that he was here, though, what was he supposed to do? Edwin had said that the only way for him to save Zon was by being here, but if he went into that bloody combat, he would die — he was an illusionist and telepath, not a soldier. Why, then, was he here?
A roar from above Jace tore his eyes to look at the sky. He could now see a massive hydra approaching the Last City, its necks writhing through open air.
“You can’t last for much longer, can you, Eddy?” Zira remarked.
She’s right, thought Edwin. My wards are completely run out — her next attack might be the end of me, and if I die, the forcefield goes with me. The barrier’s done for either way; she’s already won that much. I don’t have to go down with it. There’s still more that I can do for the City than just the forcefield.
As the chains slashed at him again, Edwin cut the channel of energy that he was pouring into the forcefield.
Time slowed to a crawl. Edwin felt a massive reservoir of power flow out of the city’s borders and into his body. His aged features changed in moments, his wrinkles smoothing, his muscles swelling, his silver hair changing into a brown shade with a streak of red. Even though he knew of the situation he had just put Zon into, Edwin smiled. It was good to be powerful again, even if it was still only a sliver of what he had possessed before the Mending.
Shock passed over Zira’s face for a moment, quickly becoming a smug grin. “Ah, so you realized the field was done for either way? Clever boy. I suppose I’ll be going now—”
“You’re not going anywhere,” said Edwin, and to either side of him, reality shifted, opening a portal to another time and age upon Terran. Bolts of lightning arced from the rifts, headed straight for the highpriest, but just before they reached her, the ground between the two fighters erupted, a massive, corpulent beast emerging from the hole, body-blocking the two lightning blasts.
Although Edwin could no longer see Zira, he heard her voice giggle, “See ya, Mr. Sage! Better luck next lifetime!”
The undead beast that had just entered Edwin’s chamber kept climbing, punching a hole through the ceiling layer and bringing its head to the surface of the Last City.
As if some invisible force had passed through them, every elf surrounding the city of Zon looked towards the massive hydra approaching the Last City. The hydra roared once more, and the elves’ heads turned slowly back towards the soldiers of Zon, a smile on every one of their faces. In unison, the elves charged, smaller hydras emerging from the Wood behind them.
