Path to the Void [Points of Light 1 - RPG fantasy]

1.08

Once I had control of my legs again, Jack and I stepped around the corpse of the spider and continued up the stairs. By then, the storm hovering over the temple had broken; the rumble of thunder reached even through the walls, and as we neared the top, we could also hear the rain pounding against the stone.

The last archway, at the top of the stairs, had no door; there were no signs that there had ever been a door at all. There was also no roof suspended over the columns arranged around the edge of the sanctum - the whole thing was open to the sky and the storm above, with a chill wind blowing between the columns. In spite of that, by the power of some magic, the region of floor within the circle of columns was perfectly dry. Raindrops didn't even fall below the tops of the columns, so if we had stepped out from beneath the archway, we would still have been perfectly dry.

Still, stepping out was hardly a thing I was eager to do, because the raindrops or lack thereof was only a small detail in comparison to the rest of what was atop that staircase. As Jack had said before, this was clearly the temple's primary altar, but altar was an inadequate word for it. Three steps led up to a stone platform, but it was not the small table that the word altar called to mind. It was a massive round, almost like the pedestal for a throne, except there was no throne or, indeed, anything else resting there.

What there was, floating a few feet above the ground as though waiting for us, was the spirit of lightning itself. It wasn't quite correct to call Vayesao a sphere of magical energy, although that was the approximate shape of the spirit; it was a gathering of bolts and electrical arcs, flicking and dancing around constantly, for the most part contained within a series of rings that shifted each shifted its axis slowly. A few trailing bolts connected the spirit to the temple around it; after the earlier encounter, I couldn't throw the mental image of a spider in its web.

And although the spirit had no eyes (or, indeed, any sort of distinctive features at all to indicate which way it was facing; perhaps spirits didn't do "facing" at all), I could feel its attention on us. I froze. Jack, moved by some awe or courage, stepped forward; their face showing no trace of fear, only a kind of wonder that looked on the precipice of revelation.

The spirit floated towards us, little fingers of lightning magic preceeding it. They swept across my face, tickling my cheek and sending my hair up with static even further, but they didn't carry anger, merely a kind of wariness. The spirit itself didn't make a sound, beyond the crackle of electricity; but I felt a question within those tendrils of magic, somewhere deep in the emptiness where my own magic might have been.

Why have you come? Are you the ones who opened the temple?

I hesitated, unsure of how to address the spirit; Jack, thankfully, spoke up quickly. "We're not with those people. We were trying to figure out what they were doing." Their voice had lost much of its joking quality, but Jack still beamed that grin at the spirit. That made me as nervous as anything.

But you travel with one of them. That tendril of thought-magic was directed at me, so when Jack opened their mouth, I held up a hand. I wanted - felt I had to - speak for myself on this one.

"With much respect," that seemed a safe way to address one of the great spirits, "I don't know anything about those people, except that my magic is like theirs. Trying to understand why that is is why we came to the temple." I dipped my head, slightly, and debated asking a question of my own. It couldn't hurt, could it? "Why is it that you say I'm one of them?"

You have a void of magic. I nodded my head; that much, I already knew. It was what that meant that I couldn't understand. Vayesao continued, sending the hairs on my arms - already standing upright - ripping as one of the spirit's electrical currents passed over me. It is those of the void who seek to gather together the spirits within vessels. Always, and as before.