Race Against the Waking Dream

The night sky blazed with countless stars, each radiating life and the very essence of creation. I had never witnessed such a sight, for all my life, the fog had smothered the heavens, a veil that made the world feel small and blind. But tonight, the veil was gone. The sight of a God stripped the shroud away, and what I beheld was not meant for mortal eyes.

The stars did not merely shine—they sang, their light threading through the air in thin, trembling chords. Constellations I had only seen in cracked murals at District 1 spread before me like living fire, burning paths across eternity. The air itself felt new, raw, alive, as if the heavens had just been born.

I could see my own mist coiling around me, silver and soft, and beyond it the endless fog, yet I saw through both as if they were glass. I wanted to reach into it, to grasp a star and bring it as a gift for Meris. But such thoughts felt sacrilegious under the gaze of infinity.

Two days and two nights had passed since I last moved a finger. I waited patiently for Sjakthar's trick to reveal itself. I searched for his shadows across miles without taking a single step. The sight of a God was not bound by flesh, as even when I stood still, my senses could run ahead like hounds.

I found no trace of his shadows or any glimmer of Winged Death's light. Still, I stood for two more days and two more nights, a statue of ice beneath a singing sky, not daring to flinch so as not to create the opening they might be waiting for, ready to face them again at any moment.

By the fourth day, I began questioning my actions. "Did you truly die, Sjakthar?" I asked, provoking him to face me again.

"Dead even in the grey, he commanded," the voices within me answered. Their echo moved through the emptiness of the Deep Abyss, where no life stirred even days after the battle, though the mist's corruption had been pressed down and stilled.

Still, I waited, two more days and two more nights, because Winged Death could have been patient too. He might have been watching for my guard to falter, to strike at the first tremor in my stillness. A fraction of a misplaced gesture could have exposed me.

Anyone who saw me would have taken me for a figure carved from winter, if not for the pale shapes moving within, trying to break free. When the seventh night ended, there was simply no sign of Winged Death.

Freedom, after so long, felt like a lie. This time, however, it seemed to be the truth. But that same freedom came at the cost of my own human form. I had become a being no sane person should ever lay their eyes upon, least of all those I loved and longed to see again. I was a cage of my own making.

When I returned to the frozen lands and the city of ice, I saw the extent of the damage. Within my mist, I felt the presence of forty-three Frostkin, much less than half of what we had before the battle. They were the survivors of a battle between gods.

Rogara lay unconscious from the damage and the strain I had put on her. Ciren tended her, and she was no longer in danger. Even so, much of our frozen city had been destroyed during my absence and the absence of most of the Frostkin.

Even the sculptors, Ciren and Miran, bore wounds that the cold had not yet healed. The defense of the ice city must have been fierce during our absence, considering that even they had to fight.

Under the sculptors' hands, the Frostkin's wounds would heal with time, but those we lost—brothers and sisters to them—would never return.

I had returned to lead them out of the Abyss, yet the ruin made it clear they needed time to recover and my presence was not required. After restoring strength to the mist, which had weakened during my absence, I departed the Abyss with my loyal companion, Hazeveil.

From my back, four tentacles unfurled. They manifested with an eerie creak of ice that deepened into a cavernous groan as they extended, reaching and spearing the stone beneath me, then the distant walls of the Deep Abyss. Those walls had suffered no wound while Sjakthar lived; now they bore my mark.

Like roots, each tentacle sprouted countless others the farther it stretched. They moved through Hazeveil as if through air. Then they lifted me in unison. Dozens of meters disappeared in moments as the ice drove into the walls, flexed, and pushed, each thrust propelling me higher.

Beasts gathered at the mouths of the upper caverns to watch and howl, but few dared to attack, even with my aura tightly compressed within me. At first, I thought there would be no resistance, but then I saw it.

A storm of wings that blotted out the sky ahead, a titanic flying crimson beast descending toward me in silence. Each feather gleamed like polished bone, streaked with veins of crimson that pulsed faintly as if alive. Dozens of wings folded and unfurled upon themselves, their movement almost hypnotic.

Its true body was hidden beneath the mantle of wings, a clever tactic that masked every line of attack. Once, I might have been deceived. Now I saw through it all; behind the wings, a rounded body with an elongated rib cage and a coiled neck was ready to lance forward. The lunge was its secret.

"Brave one, you serve a master who no longer exists. Follow him into the void." The grey voices said it, their resonance making the beast falter for a heartbeat. There was a violence in those tones that scraped the mind, yet this was a beast of the Abyss, one of Sjakthar's surviving champions, and it was used to such horrors.

It came, silent and fast.

Miles beneath me in the ice, one of my tentacles stirred. I felt it as clearly as a finger. It split, and a new branch formed, thick and honed to a killing edge. Then the newborn limb rose, lengthening in an instant, driving upward through the dark with a speed that tore sound apart. The ice roared and groaned as it yielded to the surge.

The beast tried to veer. Its wings flared, but the tentacle followed. Then impact.

The ice drove through feathers, shattered the mantle it wore, and punched into its armored belly. Once inside, the newborn limb branched again. A white storm breaking outward in a thousand directions, each spur finding purchase and splitting again and again. Segments of flesh tore free in clean, ringing sheets as the beast came apart around my growing cold.

It had been a brave attempt by what was once one of Sjakthar's warlocks, a host that likely kept the beasts inside it as Winged Death did, and it had stayed loyal even after its master's end.

Without Sjakthar, the beasts of the Abyss would come upon the world soon enough, few at first. The crimson ones would not continue the constant killing once their last followers were defeated.

***

The tentacles reached the surface long before I did. They tore through the last layers of the Abyss, piercing upward until they met light—real light—for the first time in what felt like centuries.

I followed through their senses first. I felt the warmth above them, the trembling weight of the wind, the pulse of a living sky. The sun hung high—too bright, too pure.

When at last I rose above the surface, the tentacles unfurled from the earth like colossal roots torn from another world. They lifted me with deliberate grace and gently lowered me to the ground as they spread across the open wound on the world's surface, the hole of District 3.

And then, my new limbs' purpose was fulfilled.

From horizon to horizon, the tentacles dissolved, not shattered or broken, but vanished, their substance unraveling into mist and drifting frost. For miles, the air rippled like heat over ice as the last traces turned to snow, falling softly to earth.

Then I saw Araksiun unshrouded by fog for the first time and many of its secrets lay open. Among them were the lies of Sjakthar. From the District 3 side that faced District 4, I could make out other routes to this same ground, paths that had been hidden under his shadow while he lived.

This time, however, I was in a hurry, so much so that I didn't stop to question the things I saw, such as the near-invisible ward that covered the whole city.

I feared what I would find on my return, perhaps a district gone. Human life was feeble, lasting at most a century, and the Abyss had erased my sense of time. The long sleep might have claimed everyone I knew and that was a claim I wouldn't be able to contest.

"Counting on you, bud," I said, surprised at how grave my voice had become. My cloak tugged at my wrist and as before, my vision dimmed. In that dimness, I saw only a fraction of the path ahead, a narrowed corridor that still stretched for miles.

The world folded like paper. Sound drained first, then color, until only the pressure remained and the prickle of mana racing through the seams of the cloak.

A mere step forward, and the cloak's shadows bent the distance. I spent more mana than an onyx beast could generate in weeks. Yet that single step carried me from one side of District 3's hole to the other, what I had failed to do for so long on the bridge.

Two more shadow-steps followed in quick sequence. Each dimmed the world as I crossed the Via Appia and came to District 2, my first proof that time had truly passed.

District 2 had always been large, several times the size of District 98 and now the Life Tree's dominion over the district was complete.

I knew the Life Tree had been strong, but I failed to guess how much. Now I felt its auric core, curiously a nearly ascended core like my own, its life aura covering the whole district as it claimed the land.

Sap-scent thickened the air. Leaves whispered without wind within its jungle. Under my bare feet, what was left of the road vibrated with a slow, patient heartbeat that matched the pulse in the trunks.

Calmly, I stepped into its aura and felt its gaze. "I seek only passage," I said, knowing that wherever its roots reached, this God would hear my voice.

Once, the Life Tree could have killed me if it so wished, but instead, it granted me a blessing for life magic and saved Meris. In turn, that left me no reason to harm it or contest its claim.

Humans had enslaved it once; it had been the district's cultivation artifact. Remembering that, I held my mist tight and kept even Hazeveil's shadows still, offering trust as it had offered me.

Roots had overtaken the Via Appia in District 2. They moved constantly, sawing and breaking stone, turning the soil into a jungle that would one day forget it had been touched by civilization. Before me, those same roots drew back, perhaps a gesture of acceptance or maybe a trap meant to lure me deeper into its realm.

"Thank you," I said, and I meant it. I chose to believe it was no trap. The Life Tree didn't wield lies, or at least I thought so.

No jungle beast challenged me, and I harmed none. My passage was slow but unbroken. The Life Tree was honorable, and at last the road delivered me to District 1, which quickly vanished before my eyes as shadow steps bent the distance yet again.

It was at District 100 that my heart stopped beating. My stay at District 100 had been short and met with spears and crossbow darts. I never blamed them for their fear and now to see it utterly destroyed stunned me.

A beast must have breached the ward. Worse, the air still held traces of light—old, very old, so faint only a God would notice after so long. Yet it was a light I had seen before.

It was the light of an Arrow of Pure Light, a shot from the Dawnbreak Bow. Whatever had broken District 100 had met its wielder—Tarin, or one of his descendants. It was that realization that stunned me.

To know District 100 might be Tarin's grave, maybe the last of the Elrods, my family.

***

My arrival at what was possibly the grave of the last wielder of the Dawnbreak Bow shattered my calm. I knew I should've stopped and investigated it, after all, Guile demanded its due. But my hurry only increased.

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Hazeveil felt my intention and dimmed the world for me. Moments later, I stood in District 99, facing the ward.

"Good, good, still standing," I muttered, relieved to know that at least not all districts were gone.

A few nearby beasts stirred at my sudden arrival, ebony beasts, not real threats, yet those that knew little of Guile or when to let a fight go.

"This… not… home." The voices scraped along my ice flesh. Hurtful tones for ears, enough to make the approaching ebony beasts stop in their tracks. Their ears bled; paws rose to shield their heads as they heard the chorus and stared at my exposed ice flesh, filled with the disembodied, all of them staring back.

Some thrashed, growling, while others simply went quiet—no howl, no movement, minds broken by a sight they should never have seen.

Those voices within me never stopped, even when they weren't speaking in the human tongue, whispers the wind caught and would carry, but I had grown used to ignoring them. Furthermore, after my ascension, I began to find comfort in them, like a sweet melody always playing in the background.

"Silence," I commanded, and they fell silent. Yet I knew not how long they would hold their cursed tongues.

The voices had spoken true. Knowing District 99 still stood was good, but my home lay in 98, and I wouldn't be able to truly breathe until I saw they were still alive.

Still, a question nagged at me.

Would the ward recognize me as human?

Calmly, slowly, I raised my hand and touched the ward, hovering along its edge before trying to push through.

Repulsion.

That was all I felt at the touch, like a magnetic field pushing me away, for the same ward that protected the districts against the beasts saw me now as a foe. I had expected as much, but the confirmation hurt all the same.

Using a bit of force, I felt that same repulsion weaken to a suggestion. I could breach it, though I also had expected as much.

My understanding of magic and the mana woven in front of me allowed me to see much. Breaching might be a difficult but feasible task for crimson, but trivial for any auric. Which I thought strange, considering these same wards had defended against beasts for thousands of years.

But I had no intention of breaching the ward and endangering those inside.

Hazeveil felt my pain, my wish to enter without harming the barrier that kept civilization alive, and my vision dimmed again. I hadn't pressed him for a shadow step, so I was surprised and a bit confused when it happened.

One step forward—no shadow step, as suspected. But when my next step touched the ward, the repulsion vanished, and it allowed me through. Hazeveil had hidden me from the ward itself.

"Thank you, bud," I said, feeling the tug at my wrist.

Though the ward didn't recognize me as human, I could still enter without breaching, and that was something. Honestly, I didn't expect to be able to enter ever again. Yet, that only brought the next issue.

My new body.

I hadn't been foolish enough to approach along one of the roads, and so far, my entrance hadn't been noticed by anyone, but within the ward, Hazeveil's power to hide me was limited, even though he drank mana from my core. I guessed the ward kept safeguards against shadows to prevent exactly what Hazeveil had just done.

At times like this, I missed Kara's ideas, missed hearing her voice and the quiet confirmation of my plans.

My first thought was to craft a vessel, a frost vessel using a crimson core, maybe even the auric one I had received, and control it from afar. I even considered taking a human vessel, as Markus had done: finding someone who didn't deserve to live and turning that person into a warlock.

Though a disturbing notion, I had done far worse to non-humans several times. But none of those options seemed good enough. A frost vessel would always be that, a vessel, one that surely would be feared more than welcomed.

As for wearing flesh that wasn't my own, I dared not walk among those I longed to see in the skin of someone else. They would surely think me disturbing if I dared as much.

Hazeveil felt my dread again. His confidence in the shadows had grown since the elf's blessing, and he seemed to want to show me something, as he didn't stop tugging at my wrist. "What is it?" I asked.

Upon my question, I felt the drain; he drank vast amounts of mana in mere moments, and I allowed it, wanting to see what he wished to show me.

In the next few moments, my face—translucent as glass and filled with countless horrors—began to change color. It took several minutes, but little by little it became less translucent and at last, less pale, resembling human skin. "What?" I gasped and touched my own face.

My fingers traced the skin, and all I felt was the same cold from before, the same rasping sensation of touching ice. It was a lie—an illusion. Hazeveil took in the light that touched us and gave it back to the world differently, altered, to show not the abomination I was, but an illusion of what I wished to be.

What people called sight was never truth, only the echo of light rebounding off matter. Hazeveil was whispering to that echo. He bent it as a bard bends a song, folding the light that struck me and sending it back reshaped. To every watching eye, he showed not what was there, but what the light was persuaded to remember.

"Have you been learning to lie with Sjakthar?" I jested. He replied by making the illusion vanish momentarily. "It was just a joke, a joke. I meant to say… thank you." I managed to say and the illusion returned.

Hazeveil was, and always would be, my greatest creation and companion.

Knowing I could enter the districts and that 98 stood so close, merely a few dozen miles through the Via Appia, made me doubt any of it was real. Perhaps I still wandered inside Sjakthar's last lie. Maybe the moment I reached for what I loved, the street would rot to pulp and the sky would fold shut.

"I need to reach District 98 quickly. Can you help me with that too?" I asked, but I felt no tug at my wrist.

It seemed Hazeveil could either maintain the illusion or use his other abilities, and I couldn't traverse District 99, leaving people mad wherever I walked. Running was an option, but I knew a faster way.

I called the ice.

Giant tentacles unfurled from my back, wider than wagons, bright and catching the light. I anchored them gently into the stone road, like a harpist touching strings. Each limb split into thinner ones that found purchase along the stone so as not to destroy or damage anything.

They came fast, with an eerie roar of creaking ice, easily attracting the attention of the unsuspecting people guarding the ward, some of whom had already been coming my way.

"A… a monster," a young guard breathed, sword wavering.

"BREACH!" another shouted.

"The earthquake, it was this thing," an older one said, not taking his eyes off me.

Hearing human voices after so long was almost sweet, if not for the fear braided through them. I lowered the ice, allowing them to see the small figure within: me. To let them know I was one of them, just in a hurry. "I seek only passage," I told them, the way I had told the tree.

The words came out with a pressure I hadn't known was there when I spoke. Several guards flinched. One even dropped to one knee, hands over his ears. Another stepped forward with a runic spear of some kind.

He wasn't the only one with such a weapon; many of them wielded them, and I could feel the mana within their armor too. These were Lucious' toys.

"The monster speaks," someone called from the rear. "Bring it down before it reaches the Obelisk."

Moving along the Via Appia would eventually bring me to their Obelisk; after all, the Via Appia connected to the center of every district and to the Obelisks themselves. So it made sense for them to think that was my target if I was truly a beast.

"I'm sorry," I said genuinely, this time holding back the pressure I hadn't known was there, even as the figures behind me vanished while the tentacles raced along the road.

Still, more and more warriors followed as people vanished from the streets, running from the invader. I hadn't expected such a reaction due to my hurry and honestly hoped they would forgive me, but I couldn't delay my run.

Mere minutes were all it took; I vanished from their district into the fog. District 98 was so close that I could see its ward standing. "I'm coming," I muttered, as if racing a dream about to end and drop me back into hell before the sweet conclusion.

***

Another calm day in District 98. Such calm would be a blessing if not for the fact that it was during these moments that the accumulated paperwork had to be dealt with, piles upon piles of petitions and requests waiting for the signature of the Great Overseer—me.

Ink bled along the edges of signatures, and the wax on the last seal still carried a faint scent of burned resin. Across my desk, the papers formed several towers that, more than once, I considered setting on fire.

Bip, bip, bip.

"Are you sure?" Leslo asked. He hovered near the desk, trying to convince me to perform the scheduled run to District 97.

It was scheduled to happen two days ago, but I delayed it after the earthquake. Araksiun was strong, its buildings sturdier still, but I couldn't ignore the unease, not after what happened to District 100.

Most likely, out there was a monstrosity wandering near our districts, of which we shouldn't attract its attention and instead stay within our wards, ready to protect and perhaps even reinforce our neighbors.

"Yes. Camilla will understand," I said, eyes still fixed on the same parchment I'd been staring at for the past half hour. "The next shipment can wait until the red alert ends."

Bip, bip, bip.

"But… Overseer Tarin, it's already been eight days without any signal or another tremor," he said. Worry lived in the corners of his face, worry for the contracts broken due to goods not being delivered in time. However, respect kept his voice soft.

"Forgive him, Great Overseer," Artemis said from somewhere higher than any sensible person should be while indoors.

I glanced up. She sat atop a tall shelf, a smirk tugging at her cheek.

I hadn't even realized when she entered, but at times, I didn't notice when people came through the door, and I suspected she hadn't used it at all. She had a habit of climbing tall structures like this.

"Too many hits to the head, this one," she continued. "When he was young, you should've seen him, he'd walk straight into walls if I dared take my eyes off him."

Bip, bip, bip.

"Dear sister," Leslo said, in the careful tone of a man trying to teach a cat to sit, "a polite lady does not climb furniture in front of the Great Overseer." He flicked a pencil at her. It spun once. Her dagger whispered. Two halves pattered to the rug.

"Hey. No weapons in here. Show some respect," Gustav said. He filled the doorway like a plugged breach. He had come about something else entirely and looked offended to find such chaos instead.

Bip, bip, bip.

Artemis was inconsequential at times—lowborn, mouthy, a magnet for sharp things. Still, her skill in the fog made all that forgivable, even to Gustav, who had never quite managed to discipline her as a chainrunner captain should.

Knock, knock.

"Wait," I tried to say to whoever was knocking once Gustav closed the door, but the person outside probably couldn't hear me over the noise the three were making.

"Great Overseer, this is the report you asked for, quite a nice hunt last week," said Lessa Rovind as she entered, delivering a report from the dining halls. I took it and skimmed through it quickly.

Bip, bip, bip.

"Yes, yes, very good. This should hold the rations till winter ends," I said, nodding in thanks.

"Sir, if I may ask—" she began, but someone else knocked at the door.

Bip, bip, bip.

I looked at Leslo, noticing the three of them still trying to catch Artemis in my office, which felt far too small with so many people inside. "Wait," I called to whoever was knocking, louder this time, then turned to the chaos-makers. "Can you all stop?"

The person at the door opened it anyway—something I should remember to start locking—clearly not having heard me under all the noise. "Sorry, Great Overseer," Artemis said, stopping in her tracks. The others nodded and did the same.

That was what I got for surrounding myself with chainrunners. No sane person survived the fog; I made a mental note to conduct some kind of psychological screening next time I chose advisors.

Bip, bip, bip.

"I can't even think with all this noise. Give me a moment of silence and I'll speak to each of you in order," I said, and finally achieved silence in my office.

…

Bip, bip, bip.

…

Bip, bip, bip.

…

Bip, bip, bip.

…

Except for that annoying sound that kept fraying my nerves, repeating over and over again.

Wait… what is this sound?

It had been playing for quite a while, though I couldn't recall when it started beneath all that noise. The others finally noticed it too—a strange, insistent bipping.

Bip, bip, bip.

Realization struck like a blade to the heart, driving the air from my lungs. I fumbled the device from my pocket. It was an emergency signal.

"Great Overseer?" Leslo asked, noticing where this sound was coming from.

"Emergency signal," I said, setting it on the table so they could all see, even Artemis, who had finally climbed down to peer over the edge.

When District 100 fell, nearly a decade ago, the first to warn us had been the Guardian, my dead brother's creation. An ice golem that had stood like a statue for years took one step, then another, and walked toward the neighboring ward. We followed, afraid it would turn its strength on the people there. It did not. It led us to the breach.

After that day, Lucious devised a new device, a rather expensive one that consumed five onyx cores and broke after each use, all to send a small message in seconds through the fog to another of its kind.

Because it was so expensive, only four were made, one for each district: 96, 97, 98, and 99. Each was to be used in a moment of dire need, and now, as I looked at the device, I saw the marker of District 99.

The message was short and simple, since the device didn't allow much.

"Monster in your way. Prepare for breach. Will send reinforcements once our ward integrity is confirmed."

Prepare for breach.

The words on the device were clear as I laid it on the table for everyone to see. That, at last, brought complete silence to the room and I found myself hoping the noise would return instead.

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