Chapter 8-236: A Fateful Moment at the Gate (1/2)

This time we actually came right into their harbor visibly, riding over the rough surface of the sea. The wave action was considerable weakened by Wards over the harbor and a design that shunted most of the wave action clockwise, to be spent sending endless volumes over the edge of the sea to be recycled.

The sentries noticed us a bit late, and there wasn’t much they could do to stop us regardless. The chain across the entry area we simply rode right over, pulling right into the harbor, and we rode a Ward-ramp up to the island proper as we headed for the gates to the Road.

Alarms and horns were going off, but they really couldn’t compete with our speed and the surprise of our arrival. We rode right on by startled soldiers and workers towards the gates, and I just waved my hand at the closed doors to force them to unbind and open themselves in a creaking of wood and iron hinges.

The soldiers on guard were scrambling for their bows and things, gaping at us as we headed out past them, stopping right on the edge of the continent, where the void and the road began.

“<Wait! Wait, please!>”

An older woman was trying to hurry after us, silver hair striping a long black mane, her olive skin a bit pale from the lack of sunlight, even here on the rim of their world. She didn’t look like she had much hope of stopping us, but when Sleipner hove to, her dark eyes brightened, and she ran after us as urgently as she could.

When she got up close to us, she had to pause to catch her breath, but it didn’t hide the severe, eager light in her eyes.

“<Who are you? Where did you come from?>” She was looking over Sleipner in astonishment, her eyes going wide when the unicorn’s spirit turned to look at her calmly, and she realized that the curved spiral horn jutting out from the front of the cycle was exactly that.

“You should learn to speak Human.” She blinked as she heard words she understood perfectly without use of magic, despite never having heard them before.

I eyed her blue-green Aura, unsurprising for a world like this, and considered my options as I pulled out a Holo-crystal with a Permanent Illusion programmed into it. I held it out to her. “It will play when you put magic into it. A Cantrip will be small, higher Valences will make it larger. It will teach you the genetic language of Humans.”

She stared at me, the crystal in my hand whose magic was obvious to her eyes, and considered for only a moment before stepping forwards to take it.

I gently clasped her fingers, and drew her forward. She only resisted a moment as I brought the back of her hand up to my lips, and kissed it gently. Silver magic sparkled and swirled, and I let her go.

“We will be speaking,” I winked at her, and the Teleport went off, turning us into a silver streak of light that blurred and shot off down the long sparkling road into infinity.

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“Elder Gihassa! What did they say?! What did they give you?” a sharp voice demanded. Elder Compignio, the stuck-up lazy slob constantly bemoaning his exile at the outpost, and far too pragmatic to dare come down and speak to the alien visitors on their magical machine, was huffing towards her. Several soldiers were trailing after him, not bothering to hide the relief behind their expressions.

Gihassa looked at the silver crescent on the back of her hand, the bright lights of the stars there, and the knowledge and lore that had flowed out of them as clearly and purely as if she had spent thousands of hours researching it all.

Knowledge of the history of a world called Terra, and lore of the Planes and gods far beyond anything that could possibly have existed on this world.

And The Map!

She stared out at this road of airless death, stretching out for fifteen hundred kilometers; she could tell the distance precisely, and see where it met the South Pole of the planet.

She could see the valley high in the ice at the bottom of the world, which contained the whole continent of Hyperborea.

She could see the full extent of her world, its edges and size, with an accuracy that shook her to her bones. A route around the world, a route around the land, and then a route into, over, and across the land...

She could see cities and places that were nothing but legends and stories, coming from so far away, laid bare with searing accuracy.

She could see the unbelievably vast, vaster world beyond, her homeworld possibly a mere chunk carven from it sometime in the ancient past, sitting there in a void contained within a small valley of that world.

She could see cities that held more people than possibly every single kingdom and village on this entire world together.

She could see the black clouds of the Shroudzones, dotted here and there about that world.

She could see that black cloud at the center of her own was gone now, the ominous harbinger of the grey Haze that had rolled across the entire world... and had done so on that unreachable world beyond, as well.

She... she could see that she was very, very small...