Vacant Throne

Clasping her hands together in front of her, Alyssa closed her eyes and concentrated. She could picture what she wanted. A nice, tight-fitting pair of sports sunglasses. Not goggles, but something that concealed her eyes fully even from the sides. And something that wouldn’t crack or chip easily.

Sunglasses. She had worn them tons of times, donning many different styles over her life. She knew what they looked like. Her mental picture was as perfect as could be.

Pulling her hands apart from each other slowly, she could feel something that hadn’t been there before. A hard lump, hot to the touch, but not quite hot enough to burn her skin. Like a cookie sheet that had been in the oven a few minutes prior, but was just barely able to be held steady while removing the cookies. Unfortunately, it was a lump. The fact that it was a lump told her that she had failed long before the process finished. Even still, Alyssa kept her eyes closed and continued to pull her hands apart until they were about a foot apart.

The lump settled into her hands. Its weight, which had barely felt like anything before, now felt almost as heavy as a bowling ball.

For a moment, Alyssa considered tossing it over her shoulder without even looking at her failure. But that wouldn’t help much. She wasn’t sure if discovering what she had done wrong would help at all, but at least seeing the result might give some clue. Instead of sending it off to join the others, Alyssa opened her eyes.

It looked like a crystal ball. A perfect sphere of clear glass. The exact kind of thing fortune tellers would have sitting on their purple-clothed tables at a carnival.

Aside from being glass, it really had nothing at all to do with sunglasses. The glass wasn’t even tinted. As far as she could tell, there was no metal or plastic in the ball. There was a glow deep within, but it wasn’t a magical glow as far as she could tell. She had seen videos on the internet of glassblowers and this looked just like molten glass straight from a furnace. It didn’t feel that hot, but perhaps the outside had formed first… as… she had pulled her hands apart? That didn’t make much sense, but she really couldn’t explain it otherwise.

It was definitely the most interesting failure she had created, but heavy and quite useless otherwise. Perhaps she could sell it back in Illuna for some quick cash, but that was about all it was worth. A paper weight.

Walking around the frozen marsh, Alyssa moved to the pile of other failures and gently set the glass ball down with the others. A similar ball of metal, though it felt hollow when she knocked against it. A flat strip of flexible metal that might actually come in handy for something. A rod of metal. A rod of glass. A few smaller balls of various materials. And a cancerous amalgam of plastic and… something that she couldn’t quite identify but leaked oily green nastiness all over her hands. She really hoped that one wasn’t toxic or radioactive.

Aside from that last one, which she really wasn’t sure what she should do with, nothing she could create could have more than one material. It seemed, anyway. Without sending the metal and glass off to a laboratory, she couldn’t be sure that they were a uniform substance. But this world didn’t have labs like that, so what she saw was as good as it got.

Even if she could only create one thing at a time, it wouldn’t be that bad. She could create lenses, frames, and even little screws for the joints all separately and simply assemble it all by hand. Unfortunately…

Shapes were another hard thing. She could change the shapes somewhat, as evidenced by her spheres, bars, rods, and strips of metal. Anything more complex than a cone seemed impossible, however. Or, at least, she had yet to succeed with anything that wasn’t a simple shape. Even bent or curved rod like what the ear pieces of glasses didn’t seem that easy. Spheres were the easiest and most common thing she had made.

Which she found extremely strange. It had been a very long time since Alyssa attended a math class. Back in high school would have been the last time. But as far as she knew, a cuboid was an extremely simple structure, mathematically. A sphere was not. A sphere had that whole pi thing to worry about. Then again, considering all the math that Tenebrael had put up on the whiteboard back on Earth, perhaps pi was as simple as two plus two to angelic magic.

Sighing, Alyssa leaned up against Izsha. The draken was still frozen, as was the rest of time. It had taken her a good thirty minutes to discover that, much like interacting with souls, she didn’t seem to need a verbal request to Tenebrael for this matter generation. Which was another strange thing. Souls were one thing that angels naturally interacted with. But even Tenebrael had verbalized her intent to summon fake bodies.

It really felt like there was some rule, some cosmic law that she was ignorant of that would have solved everything. But without Tenebrael here to ask, she had to simply continue fumbling around in the dark.

At least she had finally made something. The first sphere of metal had taken a good hour just to form. Perhaps she could create matter with interesting properties that armor and weapons could be crafted from, even if she couldn’t make a simple pair of sunglasses. She would have to speak with Brakkt and Irulon about fantastical adamantium or mithril or whatever they surely had here.

Unfortunately, creating material was well and good, but it didn’t solve the true issue. Alyssa doubted that Irulon wanted her soul shoved into a spherical lump of uniform flesh. Or a rod of flesh. Or really anything but a humanoid body.

Perhaps it was just practice that she needed. If that were the case, she had a feeling that she would be locking herself away as Irulon had done to practice for hours upon hours a day. But maybe Irulon would have some ideas as to how to improve quicker. Irulon had helped back in Teneville, after all.

And maybe Tenebrael would decide to show up and give some pointers.

For the time being…

It was probably time to get back to Illuna. After spending so much time working on the failed sunglasses, it was quite clear that Tenebrael was not about to return soon.

Glancing to the pile of failures, she wondered if she shouldn’t destroy those before leaving. At least the leaking one. The rest seemed fine. But if that was some radioactive or toxic substance… Tenebrael would cure her, probably. She doubted the same would be true for someone randomly happening across the junk pile.

The big question was how. Annihilator would work, but… Alyssa really needed to stop going to that spell as her first thought for everything. While it was true that it would solve nearly every problem she had come across, it would usually create a million problems in the process. Maybe with time stopped it wouldn’t actually destroy any land.

There was something strange with that, Alyssa had noticed. The marsh wasn’t nearly as… marshy as she would have expected. She wouldn’t say the ground was perfectly hard, but it wasn’t as soft as it should have been. And the water… She had gone over to the edge of the water upon first noticing the strangeness with the ground and ran the tip of her boot through it. It moved out of the way, but only barely. Like pushing through a bowl of honey.

But it did push through. Which meant Annihilator would probably cause some damage.

Instead, Alyssa pulled out several Fireball spells. They weren’t the most destructive things around, but they didn’t necessarily need to be. She really only wanted to burn up the leaking creation. The rest were just metal and glass and she really didn’t care if someone found them.

A ball of burning fire seemed to do the job well enough. Alyssa put four of them into the leaking material and the surrounding area before she was satisfied. Glad it hadn’t been more hardy, she moved over to Izsha. It was a bit awkward hopping on Izsha’s back while time was stopped. Normally the draken did move a bit to help Alyssa get on. She didn’t need the help as much as she used to, but it was still nice. Besides the missing assistance, Izsha was mid-jog, partially up in the air. That more than anything made the process awkward.

Not impossible. Just awkward.

Once on Izsha’s back, Alyssa clasped her hands together. For this one, Alyssa did think she would need a verbal request.

“Tenebrael,” she started. “I don’t know where you went, but leaving me in this stopped time is quite rude, is it not? It violates the natural order of things. Ophanim continue to spin. So too must time continue to turn.”

As with most usages of Tenebrael’s power, an almost holographic diagram of mathematical geometry expanded out before Alyssa’s hands. It grew larger as she spoke, weaving in more lines and forming Enochian script. It grew right up until she finished speaking. With a pulse of additional white-black magic, the pattern vanished.

Alyssa was ready for the lurch forward. It was a bit unpleasant, like her stomach had been left behind, but was otherwise not an issue. It was a good thing that Izsha wasn’t going much faster. It probably would have been even less pleasant.

As they rode forward, no one stopped to look behind them. Fela did sniff at the air a few times, glancing around as she did so, but she didn’t comment. After a few moments of riding forward, she seemed to ignore it. That was probably the fireball and residue, but she didn’t look over to Alyssa. And Alyssa didn’t call attention to what she had been doing. There just was no point. Especially not with Lueta and Worrik with them.

“I see,” Worrik said, tone somber.

Alyssa blinked twice, confused. “Sorry?”

“It’s fine. I expected it. Your condolences aren’t necessary.”

Alyssa blinked three times, trying to figure out what he was talking about and wondering if she should ask. With how serious he sounded, he must have been talking about something that meant a lot to him. Coming out and admitting that she had no idea what was going on would possibly hurt the tenuous rapport she had built up. Alyssa decided to keep her mouth shut and hope that the conversation, if that was what this counted as, moved on.

It didn’t. But it didn’t start up again either. Which Alyssa was also fine with.

Though Lueta kept glancing in her direction. Every other slither seemed to involve its head twisting around and those nuclear green eyes facing toward Alyssa. It took a few moments for her to realize what it was staring at. “Just a spell that helps me to see in the dark,” she said, not really caring to go in-depth on talking about Tenebrael. Lueta didn’t say anything, because it couldn’t talk, but it did nod. Since it stopped glancing back, she figured it accepted that as a good a reason as any for her suddenly glowing eyes.

They continued on. The draken and Lueta were making good time for all that they weren’t sprinting across the land. Alyssa didn’t do much in the way of directing their movements, trusting the draken to be able to follow their own scent back to the city.

Although it took a while, Illuna’s silhouette eventually popped up on the horizon, standing out only because of the rings that surrounded this planet. The morning was still a way off. Thankfully. It gave Alyssa a chance to direct Lueta back behind a hill hopefully without being seen by the city guards on watch. Martin would be extremely disappointed if she caused a panic for no good reason.

But reuniting Worrik and Rokien seemed like a pretty good reason even if it caused a minor panic.

Directing both Worrik and Lueta to remain hidden for the time being, Alyssa, Fela, and the draken headed off toward the monster camp. On the way to the city, she had been thinking about leaving Lueta behind, heading into camp with Worrik, and then coming back with Rokien just so the two could meet. But shortly before actually spotting the city, she had changed her mind. First and foremost, leaving Worrik with Lueta might help convince the giant snake that she didn’t have any ill intents. Secondly…

“Rokien,” Alyssa whispered, poking her head into one of the larger tents inside the camp. “Rokien?”

Her second call was a bit louder. It was that second call that got a disturbed snort in the darkness. It was nearly pitch black inside the tent, but Alyssa could still see the large form of Rokien rise up on his cot, silhouetted in the faint light Alyssa was letting in at the tent’s entrance. “Who is there?” he barked out.

“It’s me. Alyssa,” she said, adding her name just in case he was feeling a little too groggy to remember her by her voice.

His hand, which had been reaching for the axe on the floor, slowed. “Alyssa? What? I didn’t recognize you with your eyes like… What are you doing here?”

“I was out looking around outside Illuna and came across something you might find interesting.” Alyssa was deliberately being vague, not wanting to cause a loud scene this late into the night by mentioning his brother by name. She could only imagine that he would get a lot louder. Rightfully so, but not something she wanted him to do if they could help it.

“Now?” he said, slumping his shoulders. “It’s still dark out.”

“Observant, aren’t you? But seriously, you’ll want to come for this.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“Not a dangerous one.”

Despite the darkness, she could see him considering rolling over and going back to bed. It was a feeling that she could empathize with. How many times had she been woken up early in the morning for something she hadn’t wanted to do? But for this…

“Can I have a minute?”

“Yeah. Just meet me down at the southern side of the camp when you’re ready.”

Leaving him behind to take care of whatever he needed to take care of, Alyssa rejoined Fela and the draken. They were hanging out with a guard who wasn’t all that happy being disturbed this late in the morning. It wasn’t that he was sleeping or not paying attention to his job. Just the opposite. A bunch of monsters showing up out of nowhere was distracting him. And slightly unnerving him. As a regular guard of the camp, he wasn’t unused to monsters. It was the fact that Alyssa had shown up at all that was making him wonder if there wasn’t something to worry about. Normally, Alyssa would have been concerned about herself showing up unexpectedly as well. She was something of a harbinger of problems.

But tonight, she wasn’t approaching with problems.

Rokien showed up after a few moments, large axe in hand as if he were expecting trouble. Alyssa thought about telling him that it was unnecessary, but decided against it. It wouldn’t hurt anything and would probably make him feel safer. In the event that they did run into any trouble, it would certainly come in handy.

“Ready to go?”

“Go? Where are we going?”

“Just a short trip out of camp to meet up with someone.”

“Someone?”

“Nothing to worry about. I imagine you’ll be interested in meeting with them as well… You don’t have a problem with that, do you?” she said, adding the last part on with a look to the guard.

The guard just shrugged. “No orders to stop anyone from leaving.”

“Good.”

“He might not,” Rokien said, “but Alyssa… I do trust you—you haven’t given me a reason not to—but this is all… irregular.”

“Yeah. And I apologize for that. But… Well… let’s just get out of camp before I mention what this is really about.”

“Alright,” he said with only a small amount of resignation in his tone.

Though he moved with some trepidation, Rokien followed along. He moved on foot—the minotaur was just a little to large to ride on a draken, not that Musca would let him ride along at all. They were just not the right size for a giant. As such, the walk out to where Lueta and Worrik were took a bit of time. Much longer than it took to run into the camp.

Rokien, surprisingly enough, did not actually ask many questions on their walk. Looking at him in the light of the planet’s rings, Alyssa had to wonder if it was because of exhaustion. It was hard to tell from his facial expression, given is bovine anatomy, but his body language was one that screamed ‘I’m putting one foot in front of the other under great protest.’ That silent protest only grew as they started up the slope of the hill Lueta had hidden behind.

But once they crested the top, he froze. His brown eyes went from half-lidded to fully open. His axe landed on the hilltop with a hefty thud, but it wasn’t until he spotted his brother leaning against Lueta’s side that he actually made a noise.

It wasn’t speech. It wasn’t a bovine noise either. It was a deep and emotional “Ah!” that came from the back of his throat.

He stepped forward. One foot. Then the other. Hoof down. Hoof down. Each step was faster than the previous until he was practically sprinting down the hill. “Worrik!” he called out.

The other minotaur’s head snapped up. He took a step away from Lueta, but didn’t get much further before Rokien barreled into him. Rokien’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him into a tight hug. His arms moved up and down as if using his hands to make sure that Worrik wasn’t a figment of his imagination. Even though he was blind, Worrik quickly reciprocated, hugging him back just as tightly. Their heads knocked against each other. The long portion above their noses pressed against each other, pressing tightly. It was a visceral, emotional experience.

Alyssa watched from the top of the hill, smiling faintly. She didn’t go forward. She waved off Musca when Musca started down the hill. Fela, mindful of the overly large axe, picked it up and simply held it as she watched as well. It felt… good. Really good. Watching them reunite like this was worth any annoyance should Lueta be discovered so close to the city.

There was a bittersweet taste in her mouth though. Nothing to do with them. The situation reminded her that she might never have the same experience with her own brother. To begin with, they didn’t have that close of a relationship. She couldn’t even imagine grappling each other like that for a minute, let alone five. She had reunited with her mother, but even that hadn’t been quite so… intense. After a few minutes, it felt like business as usual.

Alyssa made a mental note to talk with her mother some before she left for Lyria.

But for now, Alyssa watched the minotaurs’ reunion in blissful silence.