[Beastborne: Tower of Blight] Chapter 39

Everyone screamed, flying into the next chamber. Even Shadowmachi hiding in Val’s armor let out one long, howling, “Ko–maaaaa-chiiiiii!”

For one horrifying moment, Hal had thought they were being sucked out into the vacuum of space. It was cold. Wind rushed around him. They were tossed up into the air, and his vision was filled with stars against the pitiless black expanse.

Then he hit the ground and rolled as he had practiced many times, tucking into a somersault to bleed off the momentum and then tapping golem and disara essence for speed and strength to pop up onto his feet.

The others weren’t so lucky.

Hal took Vorax off his shoulders and spread the mimic out like a large leather bag, using him to catch Val, then Elaise.

Once they were set down, the remains of their campfire came next, burning flickering logs and coals streaking through the night like shooting stars.

They managed to catch the rest of their group and avoid getting pelted in the face with red-hot coals, but they still had no idea where they were.

Hal looked around. It was night. They were on some sort of grassy hill by the looks of it, with ridges and folds running out of sight.

Cycling his essences around until Hal found a form of vision that allowed him to see better in the dark–notably disara essence–Hal was stricken by how similar these hills were.

Though he couldn’t see the full spectrum of color he was used to, the landscape rolled away from this particular hill in a series of smaller hills and ridges, with calm valleys tucked between some of the taller hills.

The whole place looked like somebody had taken a sheet of dark green velvet and then pinched it in several places to create a patchwork of folds and clefts.

“I’m sure I’ve seen this place before,” Hal said, rubbing his chin.

“It’s California,” Val said in awe. Her voice was small and brittle. “This looks just like the area around Sonoma.”

That’s where I know it from!

Not that Hal had ever been, but he’d seen the gorgeous sunset drive videos, the drone footage, and of course all the social media pictures of happy sunny California.

They seemed to always crop up around the gray rainy season, which was almost all the time aside from the few bright spots between May and August.

“Machi likes,” she said, poking her shadowy head out of Val’s armor.

“What is kalee-fornee-uh?” Elaise asked, looking around. “It is much too warm for the Shiverglades.”

“Nice, happy place from various Earths,” Shadowmachi eagerly explained, then continued in a deeper, more severe tone. “Lacks the winter hellscape the Shiverglades has such a boner for.”

Though it was colder than Hal would have normally associated with the golden state, it was practically balmy compared to the Shiverglades.

“Would be great place to Brew,” the pobul added. Her shadowy fur rippled like congealed darkness.

As they stood and dusted themselves off, the sky began to lighten. The first golden rays of dawn spread out over the hills and peeked over the taller mountains to the east.

Hal squinted against the brightness, tensing and ready to fight, but there were no monsters.

This was Earth. Somehow.

“Hold on, why are we here?” Val asked slowly. “Why did the Tower send us here? Or how, for that matter?”

“I am uncertain if we are still within the confines of the Tower,” Elaise admitted, hand on the hilt of her greatsword.

“–there we will place homes,” a familiar voice said.

All eyes snapped to the flickering figures, like candles in the wind, that appeared some distance ahead, higher up on the same hill. Two young men were walking, their images vanishing and reappearing at random. Even through the distance and the years, Hal could make out both men.

Rinbast, he would know anywhere. The man had his face, and as young as he was, he looked even more like Hal, though his face was clean shaven. A look Hal had never liked very much.

Recognizing Rinbast, Shadowmachi made a grumpy noise. It gave him some solace that she could tell the difference between him and Rinbast. She might not be the smartest soul aeder, but she had insightful instinct, even while umbral projecting.

It was Hal’s worst fear he would become just as horrible as the Founder Rinbast.

The other man with his proud bearing and hawkish nose was clearly the late Archmage, many years younger.

Elaise gripped her sword tighter, but Hal shook his head. “They are not here. I don’t think this is anything but a memory. An echo.”

Hal took off at a jog, but even still it was a struggle to catch up to the pair as they walked, disappeared, then reappeared on another hill a hundred yards away.

He was only able to get snippets and pieces of their conversation until they finally stopped at a gorgeous stretch of land that reached out and ended in a series of cliffs that overlooked the sea.

Hal didn’t know how far they had traveled, but it felt like many miles. His lungs burned and his legs felt like hot tar, but the morning light glinting off the great blue Pacific made it all worthwhile somehow.

“This is where we will start,” Rinbast said, motioning around. He looked Hal’s age, maybe even younger somehow. And Hirash looked hardly old enough to hold a wand, much less use it properly.

“As you wish, Founder,” Hirash intoned respectfully.

Rinbast raised a brow at that but didn’t stop him. Even as young as he was, Hal could detect the arrogance that would only grow as the man got older.

Val snarled next to him. Before Hal could say anything, she leaped through Rinbast’s form and crashed into the dirt on the other side. Komachi–Shadowmachi that is–groaned and grumbled at her.

“Sorry,” Val said, sitting up and staring at the man she clearly hated. Though which she hated more, Hal couldn’t say.

Shadowmachi squeaked softly and held onto Val’s hand. Some kind of energy passed between them, and some of Val’s tiredness in her eyes faded away. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Can you do it?” Rinbast asked. “For the good of all our people, this will be a new beginning. Tell me the cost and I will pay it. Aldim, with its ruinous weather and strange lands, can be made better.”

Hirash looked all around him. “I agree, this place is quite nice. The hills will pose a problem. And the ocean… well, the Galaen Sea is far to the south and is quite cold. If we were to put this place there… it would not survive.”

Rinbast snorted. “What about on the ruins of Mornheim? We could clear the corruption. It might not be exactly like this, but we could probably get a bit of a Bay Area with cold foggy morning and cool days without all this heat.”

“No, it isn’t California at all,” Hal said, feeling an overwhelming sense of hollowness. Despite the balmy weather, a fierce cold seeped into his chest.

“Figures,” Shadowmachi muttered. “Rather be adventurin’ in that. But noo, Machi gotta be freezin’ muh rump off all the time.”

“It is… what Rinbast was trying to turn Fallmark into,” Hal said, staring at the landscape. “He wanted to bring a piece of Earth, perhaps his favorite place, to Aldim. Terraform it somehow.”

“Clearly he abandoned that,” Val said bitterly. “Some conviction.”

Elaise shook her head. “The only great shifts in the lands have been for ill. The Sinking was bad enough, and he would wish to make a paradise of a land already blessed with fertile valleys and deep rivers? What madness is that?”

Hal looked over as Rinbast and Hirash flickered from hilltop to hilltop, pointing and conversing. He let them go. He understood enough.

“He was… lonely,” Hal said, looking out at the sea with dawn’s golden light at his back. “He wanted a piece of home, even if it cost him dearly. Just something that he could feel a connection to instead of… instead of the world that he got.”

Val frowned at Hal, but she didn’t say anything more.

The rest of the party caught up to them. “What’re we going to do here? There are no monsters, no puzzles that I can see,” Elaise told him, hands on her hips as if somehow this was Hal’s fault.

“Are we trapped?” Robas asked, looking around.

Hal shook his head. “I think somehow we got into an area that we shouldn’t have. Somewhere that the Shadesblight hadn’t been able to completely take over. Maybe this is… like a rest area, or a good dream that Hirash had. Something even the Shadesblight couldn’t corrupt.”

“Ah, so it is a piece of the original Archmage’s Tower?” Robas said, his eyes brightening. “Interesting.”

“There is power in hope,” Elaise said. She lifted her furs and pointed to the swirled painted pattern on her muscular abdomen.

Val’s eyebrows shot up, as did Hal’s.

“Also power in Chonk,” Shadowmachi added. “Pobul Chonk, that is. What you got goin’ on there ain’t Chonk but THICC. With two c’s.”

Val was mortified by Komachi’s antics, whereas Hal was considerably more resilient to her crassness.

“These signify hope,” Elaise said, pointing to the body paint. “It is how we defy the Shadesblight. These markings help us to recall the goodness in the world despite the state of things. Hope is the only thing the Shadesblight cannot take. It is the last bastion against the corruption destroying our lands.”

Elaise, of course, ignored Komachi. Though she did reach out and pat her shadowy head. The pobul chirped happily.

“So you’re saying that, once upon a time, Hirash and Rinbast had the same dream of making something beautiful,” Hal said. “I wonder what happened?”

“Rinbast happened,” Val told him bitterly, her lips twisting into a frown. “Whatever good he wanted to do, he let that part of himself die a long time before I met him.” She looked around wistfully. “I had a friend from high school that went to college around here. She loved it, always sent me pictures. I’d go and visit sometimes…”

Val laughed. “She always talked about becoming a big music sensation, but that she wasn’t going to give in to the mandatory sexiness that was always shoved down womens’ throats. I wonder whatever happened to her. Tabby was incredibly talented.”

“Could probably find out,” Shadowmachi offered. “When you get outta here.”

The Beastborne looked down at her. “How?”

“Tons of ways,” she said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. “Pobul mail goes far and fast. There’s the Emporium too. Also, Machi got a ph–”

Hal was interested in hearing this too. “Wait, are you saying I could have sent mail to my friends back on Earth?”

Shadowmachi gave Hal a very wary look. He had often been treated to the bombastic side-eye that Komachi was so good at, but this was a unique version. One that looked doubly odd on her shadowy form.

“Feel like maybe I’m not the right one to… point out certain things about your past,” she said with unusual carefulness.

Hal looked out over the ocean. “Yeah, I’ll just wait until another Kindred drops by for a chat, shall I? Maybe Midarian will come along and give me more spoilers for shows that came out since I was gone. I still haven’t seen the second season of Loki.”

Shadowmachi seemed uncomfortable. “I could try,” she finally said. “It’ll just work different for… you.”

“Ah, I don’t mean anything by it, Komachi. It’s fine. I left Earth, I’m sure it’s doing a-okay without me. My friends probably forgot about me. It wasn’t like I had that many after dropping out of college.”

She made a non-committal noise. “You… I doubt you were forgotten.” She scratched her belly nervously.

Val watched the exchange with increasing interest, as if she were picking up on something Hal couldn’t.

Despite umbral projecting, the pobul was somehow getting sweaty.

Val pulled her hand away and stared at the black dots of water all over her palm. With a shrug, she wiped it off on her pant leg and then sat down. “Might as well take advantage of the rest while we can.”

Before Hal could ask what she meant, Val had stretched out on the top of the hillside with her hands laced behind her head and shut her eyes.

She was snoring almost immediately.