The Puppet of the Omnigods

(part). Field of Fear

Five riders trotted through the green sloping meadows of Northern Plains with the sharp-peaked towers of Kakhard-Toon disappearing behind their backs. The grass beneath their horses was wet and slippery, while the gentle birdsong of starlings had given way to a light pattering of rain. The agents pulled their hoods on as the first raindrops streaked down their faces, but the adepts of Kakhard-Toon didn’t react. Only the wild raincloud in the earring of Marina had slightly increased in size and displayed a much more thunderous shade.

All the way to the stela, O’Dreeaen studied the spontaneous waves of action emitted by each of the adepts. He could see they were more intense than his own, although still too weak to invoke any significant changes to nature. Only the spontaneous waves of Aneralt would conjure feeble fire sparkles and short-lived water jets, but even they were barely visible and had materialized only once in half an hour. O’Dreeaen knew these spontaneous waves of action emerged randomly in the heads of all event formers, just like spontaneous waves of information emerged in the heads of all mortals, bringing memories of the distant past, regular thoughts, or just some arbitrary ideas and visions.

‘Why do you wear these earrings?’ he asked at last, looking at the raining wild cloud at the bottom of Marina’s earring. The tiny element looked like a miniature copy of a real cloud, fixed rigidly half an inch below her earlobe. Its shape and shade were smoothly changing from transparent white to menacingly dark with bolts of lightning raging all over its surface. It looked rather enchanting, and it was little wonder so many mortals dreamed of acquiring one. ‘I’ve been told they don’t possess any special properties. Or do you wear them just to distinguish yourselves from neighboring event formers?’

‘It is a tradition,’ Aneralt replied, his head still madly shaking, which only reassured O’Dreeaen the adept was a lunatic. ‘It distinguishes us from the adepts of Snyorgaard and Meeriland, who wear bracelets and rings with a wild element in their gemstones. I don’t know how they manage to lock wild elements inside their stones though. You were misinformed about their properties, agent. Wild elements can be quite helpful to their thaumaturge masters. Mine often gives me flames when I most need them.’

‘Claudius told us that you thaumaturges can communicate with the spirits of nature. Could you do it now? Could you hear the spirits of rain – nixies?’ Grey-Hawk asked, his voice full of wonder.

‘No,’ the adept confessed, his pensive look wandering across the dark clouded sky. ‘The rain is too weak to invoke any significant number of nixies. But soon we might see some.’

Disappointed, Grey-Hawk didn’t ask any more questions, and Aneralt returned to his thoughts. The agents are extremely curious today. I wonder why, he thought, searching for the traces of the last informational storm: patterns left on the surfaces of the earth, stones, and trees that absorbed one set of informational waves and reflected the other, programming humans for particular thoughts and emotions. Unfortunately, they were all buried under thick wet grass. We should have gone for the track, he thought, smiling. Anyway, why did the professor take the edict so seriously, instead of persisting with talking with the king? Nobody had cared about these stelas since their creation in 497 AGM. Claudius and Stromgaard had erected them to hide some of the disclosed Izearoth items, retrieved after his death. Broken jewelry, strange polyhedron figurines, colorful pieces of glass – all unusual items found in the tower of the first true Kakhard were considered sacramental. Generations of thaumaturges had spent half a millennium trying to exploit their properties. But all in vain. The items didn’t even emit any waves of information. Izearoth must have left dummies. A greatly mystified hoax for the World of Thaumaturges, so longing for power and knowledge. But… he thought, that must have been a pretty good occupation for this bunch of idiots.

‘The professor suggested going through the Field of Fear, which will shorten the road to the stelas,’ he said at last, approaching the agents.

‘We were told to collect the items as quickly as possible. If the Field of Fear shortens the road, then we’ll take it,’ O’Dreeaen said indifferently. ‘As far as I remember, that field is a small glade – all that remains of the great Grim Wood. I’ve passed by it many times yet have never felt any aura of dread or panic. Humans like to spread silly fairy tales, thaumaturge, don’t they?’

Aneralt knew the agent was being cunning again, as an aura of terror hung over the enchanted field and beyond. ‘Sometimes men exaggerate. But this is not the case,’ he asserted. ‘Humans and some other creatures have been disappearing in those areas. That’s why travelers prefer to bypass it.’

‘I think with such great wizards as you and your friends, we have very little to worry about.’

‘Worrying is never good, O’Dreeaen, as it distracts from concentration,’ Aneralt replied, ignoring being called a wizard instead of a thaumaturge.

‘We don’t need thaumaturges to tell us that,’ the agent snapped coldly, jerking his reins away.

They didn’t meet any obstacles on their way to the first stela. The only anomaly they encountered was a shallow churning puddle of mud that formed in the middle of the track and ran parallel to the Field of Fear. It foamed and bubbled under the rain as if boiling from inside, while small clots of clay from its bottom rolled all over its surface like an animated element.

A few hours later they had reached the place. The stela was a huge basalt stone that glistened with shades of azure-silver and stretched dozens of feet upwards. It warped and deflected the greater part of the external waves, including the sunlight, which made it look extremely blurred and dim as if it was wrapped in a thick sheet of Maeridian leather. One single word was carved along its height – ՀՈՒՐ (‘hur’), meaning ‘crude fire’ in the language of Wonder Island. The letters were so densely impregnated with fire thaumaturgy that the glowing light of parasite fairies could be seen during the day. The entire field was buried in verdure, while a small circular area around the stela was scattered with slick medium-sized stones. Dozens of small greenish lizards were popping up, running toward the closest stone and unexpectedly disappearing into the gaps between the rocks.

‘I shall enter the stela alone,’ Aneralt spoke, turning to the agents. ‘Outside, there is an isolating barrier that wraps and deflects every sort of wave, which is why you can only unseal it from within.’

‘Do your job, Aneralt. We’ll wait for you here,’ O’Dreeaen said coldly, not looking at the adept. He was studying the blurred glow on the surface of the protruding stone which seemed to be rippling softly at the slightest disturbance.

Aneralt slid from his saddle and moved toward the stela. Up close, it seemed less blurry. Rather excited, he leaned against it, making a narrow entrance open at its foundation. He hurried inside, making the small entrance close behind his back. Aneralt found himself locked in a cold, pitch black chamber. The smooth, polished walls tapered into a circular cone that ended with a small round aperture. Single rays of light broke into the chamber but could barely disperse the darkness reigning inside.

Aneralt felt a strange wave of tranquility sparkling at his feet and rising up to the tips of his hair. Every single thought was washed from his head, and for a fleeting moment he even forgot the reason he had come. He felt as though he were an inseparable part of the chamber, ready to fly away if the slightest wind blew, or turn into a rippling puddle if it rained. The air he inhaled became part of himself, and the ground he stood upon was a continuation of his feet.

Isolation… he thought. The thoughts and the feelings of mortals are nullified here. Their informational waves of joy, fear and hate that circulate over the planet, pattering at our bodies and forcing our own fields and mental barriers to reorganize and counteract are gone. That’s why it is so pure. Like in outer space, he thought, breathing deeply, while caressing the walls of the chamber with trembling fingers.

He prepared the unsealing event in his head, ready to retrieve the relic from the depths of the rock. Dead silence gave way to a deafening whistle, and a mighty shock wave rushed through the adept to the top of the cone, shaking the entire complex. The chamber filled with purple fire flakes that shot from the aperture at the top, while similar flakes sparkled from inside his element mantle. The temperature inside rose and the stela began to melt like a candle.

The agents and the adepts of Kakhard-Toon who watched from outside saw a single flame shooting hundreds of feet up from the top of the stela. The whole place began to shimmer, changing in color from dim gray to dazzlingly white. The letters on the stone burned crimson, shooting sparks in every direction. The top of the complex erupted and trickles of lava dripped down on the wet green grass. From far away the stela looked like a blossoming fire element flower, dew pouring over its smooth edges.

The unsealing event was over. The huge flame began to subside, and the strange shimmering disappeared. The place was back to normal, except for the roof of the complex which was completely destroyed. Aneralt glanced at the hole at the top, where an old silver chain was floating. Forming another event, he made it fall into his palm and, held it up to his face. This was it. A relic of Izearoth. One of the very few that had ever been seen by a living mortal. It took Aneralt a moment to realize there was something else hanging on the chain. Barely visible, there was a small oval locket, made of the same wave-repelling alloy as the surface of the stela, only of a much purer compound. He tried to pierce its hazy veil, but the only thing he could make out was the red-gem head of a dragon with its tail curled into a shell.

So weird, he thought. Why make part of the relic blurred? Was it created that way by Izearoth? Or was it added by some other event former that erected the stela centuries later? Anyway. The item is ours. He hurried back to his friends.

‘Thaumaturge!’ said the astonished voice of O’Dreeaen, who looked at him as if he were a ghost. ‘What happened to your clothes?! And to your wild element – it blazes much stronger now!’ The two other adepts watched him with pure admiration, spellbound by the scattering non-patterned waves that sent an electrifying prickling sensation across their bodies, so similar to s****l excitement.

The higher magister’s hair, mantle, and even eyeballs glowed bright red, making him look like molten glass. ‘I’ve absorbed a dense trace of the fire thaumaturgy that the parasite fairies nourish upon. I can shake it off. And the wild element rages stronger because of the thaumaturgy I’ve just conjured. It will calm down by itself,’ he said. ‘The bracelet is ours; we can go back now.’

O’Dreeaen continued to watch the way Aneralt’s body gradually lost its glow. He finally answered, ‘You are right, we have no more business in here.’ He swung his horse toward the capital. Anaximan and Marina glanced at Aneralt, and, after the higher magister nodded to them, they all followed O’Dreeaen.

Two hours later they were back at the Field of Fear, which was different now. The opposite side of the trail had turned into a huge, stinking swamp, while the Field of Fear itself remained dry, as if there was no rain at all. The bubbling puddle of animated lumps of mud they had seen on their way to the stela was now smooth. To the right of it stood a cobalt; a huge ten-foot-tall stone sentinel with a spherical head and cylindrical limbs. In place of eyes, it had two black holes that dripped gray sand. Its head followed the riders as they trotted along the trail.

The wizards slid from their saddles and moved slowly in its direction.

‘What is this?!’ Anaximan exclaimed. ‘The lumps of mud we saw on our way to the stela could have been the result of the powerful aura blowing from the Field of Fear. But what on earth could have animated this?!’

‘This can’t be a natural spirit,’ Marina said. ‘The rain spirits are smaller than a human palm. Fire spirits are less than a foot tall, and air spirits and stone spirits are the size of big dwarves. But this is something… unbelievable!’

Both adepts glanced at Aneralt. He ignored them and started to pace around the cobalt, probing its field and informational trace. Nothing. As if it were a lonely soulless rock, carved by a crafty miraculous hand. The cobalt stared blankly at the Field of Fear, sand still dripping from its empty eye sockets. Aneralt jerked the hand of the cobalt a few times, but the creature didn’t react.

The royal agent whispered something in O’Dreeaen’s ear.

‘Grey-hawk says he doesn’t see animals anywhere,’ O’Dreeaen told the adepts. ‘Nor does he think the wind blows naturally from across the trail. What do you say?’

Aneralt was silent, but he didn’t feel anything extraordinary. There was a weak background signal coming from the wood, but fields and woods were usually full of auras and waves emitted by dryads, parasite fairies, and satyrs, reflected repeatedly at the trees as an echo. He looked back at the cobalt. ‘What the…’ he whispered, staring at a huge translucent whirlwind that was beginning to grow just above the stone spirit. For a split second he thought it was a wild element of air. But after turning to his wizard fellows, he realized none of them could see it. It seemed it was only perceivable for thaumaturges. A materialized event?!! he guessed, his jaw dropping in disbelief.

A materialized event hadn’t been seen for centuries, maybe even millennia. Very long ago, when an important event was anticipated by nature, it could generate the phenomenon as some sort of informational condensation, like water vapors condensed into clouds and clouds condensed into rain. When an event materialized, the information would gather and gather, until finally, just like a cloud growing so heavy it spills rain, the event would collapse, pouring a shower of information over the mortals. The miraculous phenomenon was registered continuously until the end of the second millennium BGM when the Supremes became much more active on the planet. Since then, it was only Them who invoked the most intensive informational storms across the planet, establishing the common informational background. The materialized events could still be created, but their number was rapidly decreasing. The vast majority of events were not natural anymore, but induced and provoked by Supremes, who polluted the space with their external thoughts and emotions. Since the Great Migration, which had started almost eight hundred years ago, there had been no more reports of the phenomenon, and the materialized event was quickly relegated into oblivion.

But today something had gone wrong. Aneralt could see it right in front of him – an unbelievably dense, translucent whirlwind of non-patterned waves, shooting fragments of information in every direction.

‘What are you staring at?’ O’Dreeaen snapped, glimpsing the mesmerized stare of the adept.

‘It’s a materialized event. Right above the cobalt,’ Aneralt mumbled, pointing into the empty air.

‘What?!’ Marina and Anaximan exclaimed at the same time.

‘No way!’ Anaximan said, feeling strange fluctuations propagating through the air. Unlike Aneralt, he couldn’t see the non-patterned waves of information with his eyes, nor could he comprehend them as the thaumaturge did.

‘I can feel them too,’ Marina whispered, her voice almost trembling with excitement. ‘These sparkling sensations inside my head! And we were laughed at in class when we said the phenomenon existed!’

‘What are you two talking about?’ O’Dreeaen seemed disoriented. ‘I am a natural wizard like you, but I don’t feel a damn thing!’

‘Because it’s difficult to comprehend, even for a fully-educated wizard!’ Anaximan exclaimed. ‘We perceive only the linear part of it, but the main information is stored in its nonlinearity. Gods, we have spent a full year trying to generate or detect a non-patterned signal. And Aneralt did it without even sweating!’

They don’t realize the seriousness of the situation, Aneralt thought, not sharing their enthusiasm. It didn’t materialize to entertain us. It’s… He finally felt some useful information emanating from the whirlwind. The silhouette of the relic he clutched in his hand, the Field of Fear they stood upon, and a whole army of strange creatures shimmering all over the field. No.

‘Anaximan,’ he whispered, handing him the chain he had found in the stela, ‘take this necklace and hurry to Magnus-Urbe.’

‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ O’Dreeaen snapped.

‘Go!’ Aneralt shouted at the adepts, ignoring the agent. The disciples didn’t need to be told twice. They galloped away.

‘Are you mad?!’ the agent shouted, moving menacingly toward Aneralt, while sending Grey-Hawk toward the fleeing adepts. ‘Why did you give him the damned thing?!’

Aneralt had just opened his mouth to explain, when an enormous wave of perturbation rippled through the air, shuddering the space and prickling their skin with electricity. The center of the field shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow, and strange anthropomorphic figures popped up all over the plain.

‘Leave,’ Aneralt demanded.

The chief of the Special League assessed finally the threat Aneralt had glimpsed in the dissipated materialized event. Gritting his teeth, he nodded, knowing he would never be able to repay him, and rode his horse away. Left alone, Aneralt turned back to the Field of Fear, which was now occupied with strange creatures. He could see they didn’t belong to any of the northern kingdoms, as they had neither earrings of element like him, nor bracelets or rings typical of the adepts of Snyorgaard and Meeriland. There was also no human among them, only two-legged bezoars and lizards, whose own fields animated a huge raging wild cloud over the Field of Fear. Ironically, its waters had finally saturated the Field of Fear with moisture.

The first waves of action appeared in the air and an entire bulk of chaotically moving particles rushed toward his friends. The deadly tornado uprooted and ground every trunk and boulder into chunks of formless matter. The power of the event was enormous, but Aneralt had already broken down the primitive linear waves that had conjured it, bringing inevitable drawbacks and flaws. The layers of the storm weren’t properly synchronized – they intersected and collided, diluting the mass, creating weak points all over the front.

The event formed in his head almost instantaneously. He changed the phase and speed vector of the tornado’s center a split second before it washed over his friends. For a few seconds Aneralt could only see the fragments of uprooted trees and stones, shooting in every direction. Once the tornado swept past, it revealed his friends unscathed as the wave swept right through them.

The adept exhaled and turned back to the enemies, whose monstrous faces were curved in mild surprise. The center of their line parted, and a half-rotted corpse strolled forward, a carpet of decayed vegetation left wherever he passed. His smooth white skull glowed pale green, but in the next second all parasite fairies fell lifeless to the ground.