Nivenmage

The Man In Chains

Tyril walked noiselessly along the twinkling corridor having left the last remains of her friends and her connection to the Living Realm behind. Myca had been left in the diaphonous folds of the omnisphere while she watched. Tyril had stared at him but in the end she had betrayed him, just as she now betrayed the grotesque statues of Nedann and Velu by walking on. Her feeling was gone, her friends seemed so distant, and her eyes were dry. She walked, and the walls listened to her steps and threw them back at her to eventually coordinate with her heartbeat and become a deathly rhythm. The rhythm drove her and nothing else.

The corridor was unnaturally straight. It pierced the Ath-Daomold like an arrow through the shadows and came out behind that cloak into an inferno. She could feel the heat long before she reached it, the heat of a fire stronger that Nedann had ever produced. It was a Fierim flame, Essen, but she had never seen the like of it. At the end of the corridor there was a wall of flame, flowing sideways like a radiant river.

As she approached she realised it was not a wall but a column of fire. The corridor ended with a cave, perfecty round, with a collosal pillar of fire at its center. The pillar turned constantly, bringing to Tyril's mind the image of a flaming tornado. The heat was unbarable, she held her breath as she stepped into the cave and a smell of singed hair came to her.

Even as she stood there she remembered, as if from a past life, the Regent Hedrel talking to her in the King's dome in Kalindon, telling her that Nevean blood was resistant to Fierim spells. She knew instinctively that only a Nevean could to enter that cave. Even so her skin screamed in pain.

She no longer cared; they were all dead. Myca, Velu... Nedann. He had fought against Renegen at her side. Now he was gone. Why shouldn't she die too? That misery, combined will some small twinge of curiosity made her step forward. She had to know what hid behind that fiery veil. She had to see what could be worth the lives of her friends. She walked into it without further thought.

Her screaming skin was accompanied by a scream in her brain, in every limb. Pain. Pain everyhwhere, and still she was numb. She floated in a moment, running through the Omnisphere, looking behind here to see Myca's face for the last time, looking ahead to see Velu crying, then to see Nedann skewered on a gargoyle's spear, frozen forever. She wished that those imaged could disappear but they didn't. Instead the pain stopped, the heat dissapated, the ringing in her ears faded away, and she came out into the eye of the tornado.

The tempest raged around her. The fire spiralled up into the ceiling of the cave but the floor was cold. The haphazzard flames cracked all around her, and licked at her. The sound was tremendous.

She opened her eyes to look for her treasure; the prize that would make her understand. What she saw was a man. He had the body of a Daghym with pale skin. He looked ethereal, ghostly, and had large white-feathered wings – now scorched and blackened by the heat – folded behind him. He was chained to the ground with glowing white cords, made of Fabric in a way Tyril had never seen before.

The ghost was on his knees, his head was bowed like that of a prisoner, deprived of hope for a lifetime, a thousand lifetimes. How long had he been here? She didn't dare make a sound to wake him; the man looked like Death itself.

"Nevenym" He said suddenly, and slowly lifted his head to look at her. He moved like an old man with stiff limbs but his face and chest were youthful and muscular, still shimmering in that strange way. Tyril couldn't speak.

"No, you're a child." He said. "Did you come to torment me?"

"I..." She stammered. "Who are you?"