Descendants of the Kings (Book 2)

Ch 45.2: Eldritch horrors

Beside her, Aedion reached into his own bag and pulled out a pouch. He opened it to reveal a glowing green stone. "Any idea as to what this is?"

Dandelion's features went ashen. His eyes widened, his bronze skin leeched of colour. "What have you brought here? This abomination, in my home."

Still, he reached forward and took the pouch, not touching the stone. He stared at it with a twitching expression before grabbing a pair of pincers and inspecting it.

"You've brought me a little piece of eldritch horror."

"What... is that?" Ella asked despite herself, knowing Dandelion should be answering unprompted. "I thought it was simply a demon-summoning tool."

"Demons." Dandelion shook his head. "People can be so dichotomous in their views. Good and bad, black and white. Their Gods are the right ones, the others are the false, untrue gods of the heretics."

"But these creatures are bad," Val insisted with a furrowed brow. "I am not here to debate gods, worship, and morality, but we can agree the wrachyd are bad, and these demons they summon are as well, right?"

"I never said otherwise," Dandelion waved a hand. "I simply said that people have a very limited notion as to where everything stands in the world. They fail to understand that there is so much to the fabric of this universe that we cannot possibly comprehend. They fail to understand everything in the middle. It goes above gods and monsters."

"What else is there?" Blaise questioned. "If demons and gods are not the only thing out there, what else is there?"

Dandelion sighed and stretched his hands out on the table. Before him, conjured by his magic, a sphere appeared, glowing in white.

"Our world is made of a thin fabric. Aether, cosmic energy, the power that hums in all living creatures and beings," he said, making the sphere full of tiny strings of light, like a tightly wound ball of yarn. "So much energy in our world, dispersed. So much more than the naked eye could ever see. The aether is there to wield and to use. To crack open and explore. Most can't," he inclined his head sardonically. "Humans are so blind to the aether, it's almost pitiful. But fae use it."

"Like when we lapse," Ella surmised. "We travel across the aether."

"One of the Aether's many uses," Dandelion agreed. "But what some can do with it would make lapsing and casting charms look like cheap parlour tricks."

"But what does that mean?" Val threw an exasperated hand up. "Everyone is so damn cryptic. I've had it up to here with the mystery. What the hell is this stone, and how are the wrachyd using it to summon these demons, eldritch horrors, whatever you want to call them!"

Blaise laid a hand on Val's arm with a small tut. Dandelion clicked his tongue. "I don't know whether to admire your straightforwardness or despair at your thickness."

"I mean to say that just as some fae and creatures can lapse through the aether, other beings can come in as well. Beings that are not from our plane of existence." He knocked a finger near the glowing stone. "This right here is a tool used to bring them over. A tether to control these creatures and allow them to inhabit our world."

Ella shivered. "So can they do that? Simply crack open our aether and enter?"

"Most can't. Our world is not compatible with theirs. But some cracks in the fabric of our universe allow it. There are ways of making those cracks," Dandelion said with a vicious smile. "There are so many horrible, ancient entities that would love to creep into our world and devour us whole. We would last but a second. Not even those silly demon hoards could hold them off."