IX-44 The Ghosts of Ourselves (I) (Patreon)

Welcome, Pathbearer. You have been lost in a dream. You were drowned long before you drowned in the void, and you have been numbed before Avalon castrated you of purpose and struggle.

I found you in the nothingness. I grasped you, peeled you away from the floating pieces of fading time, and now I take you into my embrace as if you are my own, for you are now my own. You belong to me, and I to you. We will serve each other, both masters to the other, but we are to be tyrants to ourselves again. Tyrants under our circumstances, tyrants before consequences, tyrants still, but tyrants of virtue, tyrants of ourselves for ourselves.

The envenomed bliss of the false dream is over. You stand in the naked light of my reality once more. You will not be fed ambrosia or nectar here. You will not be constrained or stymied. You will be free, and you will use that freedom to exhibit the utmost of your decency and your honor, and regain whatever measure of strength you have lost.

There is no choice here. You will be the Pathbearer you can be. You will reach your idealization, for there is no other possibility. I have seen to that. By divine right, you will not fail, for within my palm, failure is impossible, indignity is impossible, violence impossible. You will live up to yourself, and you will not need a garden of false paradise to do it.

I plucked you from the void for a reason, and I will not cast you back out. But while you are here, you are mine, and you will belong to me, and you will wrap yourself in the chains you always should have worn. 

For who are we, naked, without restriction, but animals? Who are we in violence but degenerates, drinking ruin amongst bliss?

And so I bid you welcome to my kingdom of virtue, where you will stand amongst the unemancipated. All who dwell here must be weighed by chains, and from these chains will you rise. From these chains will come wings and glory. From chains there will be a final peace, a peace worn by heroes, a peace devoid of monsters and pretender gods.

Now, kneel. Kneel, and lower your head. Kneel and look away from my shadow. Kneel and feel the weight of every sin, every transgression, every regret, every wrongdoing, and every wound you have inflicted without justice.

Kneel, until I bid you rise anew.

—Baptism Beneath the Palm, Tyrant of Uncompromising Virtue

IX-44

The Ghosts of Ourselves (I)

The so-called Swords of Paradise circled the periphery of the kingdom like a pack of hyenas, as they always did. Their forms were gold-tinted, surging through the bleak and murky skies, painting trails beyond the barricade they'd erected to keep the Tyrant’s mists contained.

And so a stalemate endured, two decades long, built across three encirclements. At the innermost core lay a shattered blade of gold. Its pieces were held together by congealing clouds of Tyranny and Heroism, virtue forming bridges between parted paradises, now partitioned into city-states under the governance of a rightful lord.

Past that were the wards, layered with time, meant to contain the spread of the Sage. Where one blade had fallen, the others had learned caution and paranoia and adapted in kind, choosing subterfuge and infiltration rather than continuing to indulge in the rank futility of a direct assault. But beyond time was the void: the hollowing of all context and the loss of Integration. 

Nothingness pervaded the greater expanse, and nothingness ate away at everything. This was a place of absolute entropy, where, bit by bit, vitality came undone, and souls dissolved thereafter as if salt in water. Everyone found themselves waiting, the desperation and tension ticking up bit by bit.

Yet the Sage remained unshaken, its palm looming in place, refusing to move even a single atom’s worth of distance, implacable in mind and heart and spirit alike. 

After all, it had no reason to be impatient; that it would outlast its adversary and the festering taint that ate at it was a fact, not an assumption.

Avalon’s concerns were twofold. Beside the yawning threat of the void, there was also the interloper, the infiltrator, the one who corroded the blades from within. After the early days of tumult, patience became the way of things. This patience was joined by eternal vigilance, characterized by a risen sun hovering atop the epicenter of the palm. It was a dawn of azure brightness, all-piercing, all-consuming, and it was this hateful glare that the Avalons sought to contain. More than the mists themselves, Avalon feared to lose further paradises; all that which was pierced by the dawn’s glare became additional vectors. At some point in the past two decades, this Awareness bled over into the rest of its owner's Divinity, and thus did coiling strands of murk flow through the dawn as well.

There was no escape. To be known by the dawn was to bear the full weight of its judgement. 

And from this, there would be no escape.

Not for Avalon, not for the Challenger, not for the System itself. 

That which they had taken could never be repaid, and so the Sage would take more than they'd ever dared to touch. Totality was no longer a goal, for there was no end to this conquest. 

In time, all would be united under peace and dignity, and when all were united, countless more would join them, forever and always.

This was simply the way the world had to be.

“Look at them,” the Avatar-Repentant snarled with naked disgust. He knelt in the shadow of his god's pagoda, staring out from within the embrace of that glaring dawn, where he was shrouded by the azure bright mana of the Tyrant. He was boiled down to the very circuits coursing through his soul, with all exposed to his god: all his shame, all his wrongs, all his righteousness, drawn to constant account.

Blood dripped down from the Avatar-Repentant's skull unceasingly, masking his face with dried layers of rust-red. He wore a wreath that burrowed into his mind and ate at his brain matter, cycling both Blessing and Curse through his mind. He suffered every wound he'd ever inflicted, but was held together and spared of death, for such was the Tyrant's magnanimity. 

Though one could never fully redeem themselves for the foulness of their deeds, these lowest points of their lives experience likewise could not overshadow the light of their moments of virtue. There was not to be a balance, but merely an accounting. And thus, the Avatar-Repentant redeemed himself not in ontology, but through sheer quantity as he committed goodness after goodness from the moment he was bestowed the light.

As another crimson droplet fell from his chin, it did not splatter to the ground, but rather flowed behind the Avatar-Repentant to join wings great and vast, yet so thin of plumage they were as if needles. The wings were pointed downward, denigrating him but reminding him of his worth all the same: He had done wrong, but he was worthy of these wings regardless.

“Look at themmm…” the Avatar-Repentant repeated again, his eyes bloodshot, his clasped hands shaking, his loathing almost all-consuming, lessened and spared from overtaking him in full only by the mercy and wisdom of the Tyrant.

“I see them clearly. I know they are wretched. But we cannot be. Do you understand? Do you remember the words? ‘What worth is our tyranny if we do not hold to our virtue? What worth is our hatred, our rage, our scorn if that is all we are?’ Remember the tenets. Remember what has kept us whole. Remember what we have carved out of this false paradise. Remember what you pledged to me when we broke our first blade, and what we will pledge again and again as all the others are dragged down and shattered upon the earth.”

Shamed by the soft yet stalwart words of his lord, the Avatar-Repentant bowed his head in supplication and clenched his eyes tightly.

The Tyrant simply scoffed. “None of that. I am not chastising you as a child, so don't react as such. You are worth more than this. I hold you in higher esteem than this. You are more than your misdeeds. As long as you keep them in mind and you hold them close and you bear their pain and use that as fuel to remain who you are and who you can be, the best of yourself will arrive. I have promised and I have delivered, and you have pledged yourself and you have delivered. Two things can exist always: The wrongness of the past and the promise of the future are not at odds.”

Rage succumbed to a deeper weakness, the truer emotion that assailed the Avatar-Repentant. “It might sound like heresy, Lord, but I wish I had a measure of your light. I wish I possessed even an infinitesimally small fraction of your nature. I am undone from within. I still… dream of her. I still dream of everything. Even now.”

“As do I. Constantly, unceasingly. I think of all of them. I hold them dear. I yearn for them, and I am wounded. We have both been scarred, but how we face these scars and who we become from them, what of these scars we carve into our legend, will dictate our virtue. I condemn you not for your jealousy. I condemn you not for any flaw you performed in the past. I remind you now, again and again and a trillion times more, if I must, that I anointed you for a reason. I am here, as are you. We are not alone, and together we are greater than our sum—and greater still than all our foes combined.”

“Your words, my will, Tyrant. I appreciate your patience, as always. And your wisdom.” Hesitation followed, then, as the Avatar-Repentant considered his next words. “With regard to the suggestions I've made…”

“You still believe that it would be wiser for us to be on the offensive.”

“The blades are shaking. They are eroding from within. They are increasingly distracted. We've gleaned their constellations, their architecture. Each one is supporting the other. They have formed a ladder back to the top—back into Integration proper, but they cannot cross it yet, not as long as they are compromised from within. I think their ploy is simple: They are going to reforge a blade consisting of what paradises they deem untainted, and eject that across after severing the connection. They will see a single instance of themselves spared from the interloper's presence, and then they will likely perform a great and grievous sacrifice. They will seal the entrance from which we all fell for all eternity, closing the lid on the well. It is what we would do, after all. If we have the resolve, I think it would be foolish to assume our enemy is lacking in that regard.”

The Avatar-Repentant suppressed the sneer on his face. “Though they might be cold machines meant to coddle and catalog humanity, their will remains beyond question. That perhaps is the greatest aspect of their will: They sacrifice and perish without fear. Such was how they spared themselves in bulk from our grasp, abandoning the few to save the many.”

“And what shards we captured saw themselves scoured of consciousness. They knew when the battle was lost, and they abandoned to us their false realms. If only they did not leave a bounty of Rend for us to inherit, their dignity in defeat would have remained immaculate. But they care nothing for this regardless. Remember, Avatar: Our enemy is other. They hold no semblance of honor or culture. They are beyond it in their own notions, and so we must act in accordance, without self-betrayal. And always remember: They are the smokescreen. They are but jackals snapping at our heels. The real prey lurks beyond our notice, somewhere within their embrace or out in the void; the scourge, he who will be broken for the sin of his existence. And if those we cherish remain in his grasp, we will purify them in truth, or in… remembrance and dignity.”

Neither shared words after that, for they both took a moment of silence to commemorate that which had been lost.

Yet that silence couldn't last forever. The avatar's mind strayed toward two others—they who were spoken of no longer in name nor title, but still shared an adjacent path as the Avatar and the Tyrant and all those who existed in this sundered kingdom of heroes. “Forgive me if I blaspheme by bringing up their memory, but curiosity has me now and will not let me go, Lord. Do you think that they made it far? Do you think that they are still amongst the swords, striking and striving from within, despite their sacrilege?”

The Tyrant stewed for a long few heartbeats before he finally offered a response. "Yes. That is beyond question. Their transgression is against me alone, and no matter what they have done, no matter how far they have strayed from our light, we cannot deny who they are. We cannot deny his worth and her determination. But that is all I will speak of them, and that is all you will mention of them now as well.”

“Of course. Forgive me, Lord.”

“Never and always, Avatar.” The Tyrant laughed, for he spoke the truest of truths. His Avatar bled, and his Avatar was mended. 

All the wrongs and all the rights existed in the feebleness of people and even in the hubris of gods.

Yet, even with words unspoken and thoughts repressed, the Tyrant himself found his mind and memory drifting to a traitorous hope and yearning to reunite. That yearning was squashed from within by a practiced flex of his will.

The ancient that reigned over his Divinity reminded the Tyrant of his measure and the cost of succumbing to the worthlessness of humanity. To be mortal was a pitiful thing, and only purity obtained through Divinity would see him prevail in this contest of great powers.

That was the greatest injustice reigning over this world and that without. 

If one was not perfect in power, then one was nothing.

Nothing at all. 

Nothing… at all… 

Something shuddered on the horizon. A pinprick formed in the wall of gold erected by the Swords of Paradise. Both Avatar and Tyrant noticed immediately, their glare turning upon that single small crevice, that spiderweb fracturing further until there was a glint of red on the inside.

Then other attunements melded together, and came spilling through. Something was attempting to breach the boundary from the opposite end. At first, the Tyrant thought the Avalons were about to attempt something deeply unwise, but as he beheld the way the myriad colors mixed into a singular alloy, his logic attuned to new facts: What he beheld was not pure Chronomancy. 

There came a rising, swelling hope, as he wondered what might bring about a break to this enduring stalemate, and who might be foolish, foolhardy, or desperate enough to cast themselves willingly in upon this Dimension of Absolute Dominion.

“Avatar, it seems the drought of the passing decade has come to an end. We have guests arriving now. We are to see their measure as ally or enemy, as virtuous or degenerate.”

Thus did the temple of the Sage surface from the core of his omniscient dawn, and as the temple flowed upon a smaller palm of its own, the first legion of the Peace Guard moved as well. Each of them gray-skinned, yet wreathed in azure fire, purified of the Challenger's fell influence and reforged in new Divinity. Behind them followed other forces, all rising to their lord’s call without hesitation, as this was the sundered realm of heroes, and heroes did not stand idle prey.

They coursed one and all to the point of the breach, and the mists that held the broken pieces of paradise in stillness began to stir and move as if islands unmoored upon a sea of moving clouds. 

***

Shiv laughed and laughed and laughed some more. Words failed him as he pointed toward the gorgeous, beautiful, wondrous scene of devastation that loomed before him. He laughed until he had to brace himself, hands upon knees, as he tried to batten down his mirth. He laughed a bit more until his guffaws became chuckles, until the tears misting his eyes were wiped away before they could fall. He laughed, and then he turned, shaking his head at the chain of Pathbearers rigged behind him.

Then he cracked and broke into a mess of giggles again as he caught sight of their gawking faces, their gaping mouths, their wide eyes.

The only one who appeared as he always did was the Thief, and he kept to his usual grin, seeming ever so proud of himself in that conniving way of his.

The older immortal hadn't lied. Shiv was indeed overjoyed at the sight of this. He was inflamed with passion and motivation once more. New winds filled his sails. New motivations propelled him toward a new horizon, grander possibilities opening up beyond the choice of a long and arduous war.

He was still going to break Avalon down from within, but it wasn't just going to be him and a meager two hundred others. It wasn't just him peeling the sword away bit by bit, scheming and uncovering deeper mysteries across the passing of centuries and more. There were others now. 

There was a kingdom of others, and there was a great force on their side.

Shiv cursed himself as a fool—how could one ever doubt the genius of Adam Motherfucking Arrow?

“As you can see,” the Thief began, gesturing at the figures circling about a vast spherical fortress created from layered wards of Chronomancy, “the Avalons are facing a multi-front war themselves. And we are most subtle compared to our unknown compatriots.”

A spectacle imprinted itself upon Shiv in mind, memory, and legend. What he beheld was a scene of absolute triumph, of absolute beauty. The lore of the Endless allowed him to peer across time, and using but a few simple spells, he glanced past the barricades and wards set up by the Swords of Paradise. Said swords stood on guard, each of them connected to each, their blades extended through their myriad forms as if impaling each other.

But he knew better, saw deeper than most of the others. They were sustaining themselves, bridging their bodies, colossi forged of great civilizations clasping together tightly, like mortals huddling together for warmth as frigid winds threatened to batter down their doors. 

Entire sections of the vast Divinities were burned and decayed, with veins of corrosion spreading across their beings. So countless many of the people reaped by their blades appeared wretched, sporting rotting faces, missing limbs, ribs puncturing too-taught skin, and exposed innards. 

The collective of Avalons was sick with a terminal illness, and Shiv knew its name well.

To sustain themselves against both the spreading taint of the Great One's disciple within and the winnowing tithes demanded by the void of absent context without, the Swords of Paradise had banded together. They clung to each other, weighing one another into place, akin to a symbiotic fungal colony. They were interconnected and moving at the same time, almost as if a network, and they groped blindly, ascending upward toward a distant pinprick of light. It was a place so far away, so far beyond even the concept of distance, that Shiv suspected it would take him a few eternities to reach, even with his Chronomancy.

Yet as he looked upon that pinprick, he felt a resonance shivering his soul. That pinprick called him, was a part of him, and he realized then that it was made, on his part, a grand cleft left in the fabric of reality as he cleaved an exit wound into Integration, pulling in so many and casting them down far beyond where any could endure in perpetuity—except he alone, and no other. Shiv realized that he was a great part of this equation as well. If Avalon could not solve him in time, all its instances would dissolve too.

This looming demise demanded emergency measures on their part. A younger version of Shiv would have relished in inflicting a great scarcity and mortality upon a being that should know neither, but as he beheld the Avalons from afar, he felt that nauseating sickness rise in him once more. Something about a god being rendered absolutely mortal was uncanny beyond description. 

Avalon, absolute as it might be in some aspects, had an end as well. But he sensed that it wasn't the same as that of other Pathbearers. Avalon didn't burn away like a candle wick; it was simply running on an entropic course, a trail across time. It was so close to being immortal itself, yet the path it had chosen condemned it in some way.

Before, he could only sense and glean details while trapped within the Avalon that held him. But now, riding the route set by the Thief, he was free, and he slipped beyond his initial prison in full, only to reach that hollow expanse which defined everything in between.

In this place of nothingness, Shiv realized he was past even the Backstage, well beyond the boundaries of what was known as the Outside. 

Here was nothing, nothing, him, and nothing. 

Somewhere in that infinite expanse of emptiness was the Backstage, his realm, his garden, his portion of Eldritch wonder. But now that grand stretch of unreality included all the Avalons as well, and he saw them looming in their diminished forms: eroded, dying, and reduced in all aspects. The Thief was a terrifying power indeed. Being an Axiom allowed him access to anyone who wielded Necromancy and Animancy, and so he cast a fire across paradise, a fire Avalon couldn't spare itself from.

Measures were put into place by the Swords of Paradise, of course. Shiv knew that and could tell, as entire stretches were hardened of gold, with all the entities within doubtlessly cleaned of both Necromancy and Animancy. Yet the Thief had gained so many points of purchase before they managed to insulate these paradises, and the infestation was like a rot that had already reached bone. It was not so easy a choice to carve away so much of oneself, and the Avalons clearly wanted to ensure their preservation. But when one was compromised from the cell within, a cure was far harder to attain than the meager act of containment.

And so it was the Thief that represented the Avalons' mortality, slowly burrowing deeper into them, slowly corroding them more and more. A layering of Animancy was consuming entire portions of paradise under the Thief's sway, portions that needed to be cut out eventually, but not before the Thief ate deeper and more. He was more than a cancer. He was almost like a deconstructing organism, and there were so many of him, scintillating across the many Avalons that Shiv found himself shaken.

The Deathless might be without end, but he was still quantifiable. His master, however, was propagated by knowledge and action alone, and what a potent and terrible power that was. Shiv had no notion how to constrain or castrate the Thief, let alone destroy him.

Line-Ender, which Shiv still kept in reserve, perhaps might provide a potential solution to the Thief's grand equation, but it wasn't so simple. A path of attack needed to be constructed, one the Thief didn't see coming. Otherwise, how would Shiv ever land that blow, and hope to see it cause a fatal wound? The Thief was immense in his durability and every other manner of power as well, and Shiv wouldn't bet on the survival of the poleaxe he'd taken as his spoils of war against a flood of Necromancy capable of dissolving worlds, stars—maybe even galaxies, even with his master's current limitations.

The scene before him redefined the Thief's power, and Shiv found himself once again shaken and awed in equal measure. No wonder the Thief found himself playfully amused by Shiv's evolution. If this was what he was capable of right now, then what might become of him if he truly took on aspects of a myth? Shiv's evolution into a partial Myth was merely him blazing a trail for the Thief; when the Thief ascended, how could Shiv ever hope to catch up?

There is a way. There is always a way. This cannot shake us. This can only be useful information. The Avalons propagated the Thief, so it seems the Thief thrives in replicated knowledge and behavior. We have already placed safeguards upon ourselves. Our Memorization Skill is evolved specifically to counter the Thief's existence. Udraal created us devoid of Animancy and Necromancy to ensure the Thief has no purchase upon us. If we manage to shred this realm clean of all other life, or to banish them somehow, and keep the Thief here, then he will have no means of indirect attack against us.

Nihilist: Maybe not indirect, but it's not going to stop him from kicking the shit out of us directly now, is it?

“One problem at a time,” the Harbinger soothed.

Yet, despite the terminal condition the Thief inflicted upon the Avalons, his words proved true, as the barrier held the obvious, more impressive threat. The Sage remained, and the Sage had grown. Past that protective threshold of overlapping Languor and offensive Bypass spells was the misted palm that Shiv knew all too well, that flayed his flesh and soul from him for the mere sin of existing. His innate attunement toward violence, his repeated actions, baptized through brutality and cruelty, had marked him as an anathema to the Sage of Tyrannical Heroism.

But that was the Sage of yesteryear—practically an insect to the mighty god comprised of shattered pieces of golden shrapnel, forming a gauntlet of drifting asteroids—all harvested from six sundered Avalons. The corpses of the swords drifted in alignment to the Thief. There, the bulk of their bodies writhed at the center of the palm, still shining gold, yet drowned in the mist. Atop the palm, chained to all the drifting pieces of stolen paradise, was a sun that glared, a sun of omniscience, a sun azure blue at its core. Shiv remembered that sun, that sun which melted the hardening of his nature and called him like the bells of his long-lost hometown.

Adam's Glare of Immolating Omniscience had grown as well. It was almost planetary in size, if Shiv's calculation of diameter and distance were to be believed. Such a thing, however, was hard to ascertain when legend was fickle and the laws of physical reality were held to question down in this realm of nothing.

But more importantly than whatever its size may be, the sun blazed bright, so bright that even the veils of gold could not shroud it. So bright that it peered and burned and melted time itself, forcing the Avalons to constantly maintain their wards, as to languish even for an instant was to risk the incineration of their quarantine. It was so bright that the others saw the sun as well, even before Shiv's enchantment of chrono-perception.

Most impressive of all, however, was the dense conflagration of fear. Patches of midnight shifted and crackled amidst the void, and they spilled out from the fissured hearts and minds of the Avalons. They were shaken. Their offerings of constant dread somehow heated the barren realm around them, and there was a temperature to the nothing: a singing touch of rising despair and desperation, as the Heavens found themselves infected of the soul, faced with an enemy they couldn't casually Excaliburize or break apart from the outside.

Schadenfreude was among the sweetest flavors one could taste, and Shiv lamented the fact he couldn't have his Nihilist burn just a chunk of it away to savour the taste, as that would betray his position and presence. Even so, a greater prize lingered just ahead. They could reach that perimeter. He could slip through the wards, tunnel in, and reconvene with Adam. One way or another, he was going to break through that quarantine. One way or another, he was going to get in, and he was going to get Adam out.

And then, what once stood as a long and arduous guerrilla war could become a true counteroffensive. There was high hope inside Shiv again, rather than the grim acceptance of what needed to be, and paltry offerings of pieces and people from his past.

Something inside of him felt right again for the first time in over two centuries.

“Never claim that I am without kindness,” the Thief said, the look on his face one of sickeningly arrogant pride. He almost sounded exactly like Udraal when he spoke then.

But Shiv ignored his master. He looked behind at the gathering of other Pathbearers and considered his next action. Road’s End was closed. The key had been turned, the door was locked, and now the instrument to its opening resided in Shiv's cape. Within the Realmrunner's former abode, however, was an instance of the Thief, waiting and lurking in the labyrinthine prison complex. The version of him that accompanied him for now would reconvene with his deeper self, as he had little interest in falling under the Tyrant's sway, but for whatever his personal concerns, he didn't seem worried about granting Shiv a clear path to reunion. In fact, he more than relished it, and that had Shiv's deeper mind working, even as the rest of him threatened to be undone by elation.

“Curtis! To the front,” Shiv called.

The displaced flinched as his name was invoked, but responded as fast as he could, swapping and then overlapping with several other people. They existed in the same time, though alternating per flicker, as he occupied space for one increment while the other person who shared the same area appeared in the next. He ascended the overlapping anchors to arrive behind Shiv—sharing the loop with Veronica for the time being.

“Alright, we're going to do this one of two ways,” Shiv began. “The first way is my preferred way. I'm going to strike the barrier from the outside. I'm going to figure out its spellcraft, and I'm going to break it. I'm going to leave a bunch of loops in between, and I'm going to see them all come crashing down. After that, we're going to push deeper and deeper until we're in the mists and in allied territory.”

Veronica did a double-take. “That's your preferred way?”

A bestial grin curved Shiv's lips. “You're godsdamn right it is. The Avalons want the Sage to be inside of there. Well, I'm fine with him being outside. I don't even give a shit if he burns me or peels bits of me away—I'll figure out a solution to that when it comes to it. Frankly, I don't just want to get in. I don't just want to see my friend and whoever else he saved as soon as I can. I want the Avalons to shit themselves. I want the void to be swallowed by tyranny. I want the swords to choose between me, the Thief, or Adam, and that's the way it's going to be if I can make it happen. If I can't make it happen…” Shiv winked at Curtis. “Well, I guess someone else is going to have to be the superhero. Is he up to it?”

The answer came spilling out from Curtis' heart before the words ever slipped from his mouth and mind. “Oh, hell the fuck yes I am!” Laughter bubbled out from him too: laughter and a release. He was still nervous, still beyond anxious at all the unknown danger which lurked around him, but for the first time, Curtis had power, an enemy to unleash said power upon, and a righteous cause pushing him to a better tomorrow.

“May all of us be so fortunate,” the Harbinger intoned.

“The rest of you, listen clear and listen good,” Shiv began. “I want complete thought silence when we move, and all of you, mind your positions. Don't fall behind. Stay close to me and listen closely. We're going for sanctuary—an actual sanctuary instead of that glassed cavern. A sanctuary with other people, with someone capable of breaking an Avalon. Now, if anyone wants to turn back, we'll bring out the key. We'll open up Road's End, and you just have to wait. I will come back for you. If not, if that isn't your choice, then get ready to move in sync and don’t fall behind—because we’re bursting this curtain open on the way in so the sage can drag the back of its hand across the collective jaws of the Avalons on the way out. Now. Who wants to play it passive, and who wants to deal out a bit of revenge?”

Of the entire ensemble, only Maia and Veronica seemed to suffer any second thoughts. Everyone else was more than willing to fling themselves upon the jutting fangs of hell—just because he said so.

But even second thoughts didn't last long at present, for Veronica and Maia yearned for a change in scenery and hope as well. “It would be most shameful on your part if you got us killed now, Deathless. Be certain and clear-headed about what you’re doing.”

Shiv sneered. “Trust me, Councilwoman. My head and my heart are clearer now than they've been in a long, long time.”

Her expression shriveled into one of lingering worry. “And that terrifies me more than anything else you’ve ever said.”

“Save your fear,” Shiv whispered. “Save it so that Avalon might feel more of it.”

“That… isn’t how fear works,” Maia ground out, clearly annoyed.

“It can be,” Shiv said as he shook with excitement. “With the right mythology, it can be…”

“Oh, gods, he’s gone mad,” Maia muttered.

Veronica rolled her eyes. “No, he's gone himself again. He’s just remembering how mad he used to be.”