Published at 14th of October 2023 4:59 pm

Chapter 39 The Gray

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Rustling in the bushes prompted Vanalath to go on alert, but when a tiny skeletal cat emerged and pranced up to Rellika, he relaxed. He’d almost forgotten about this scout the woman employed. He’d only seen it once, just before they assaulted the hunters by the Standing Stone.

The creature, constructed of bone and a black, metallic wire, climbed up onto Rellika’s shoulders. She then lifted two hands so that they rested in front of the cat.

“Did you see the door?” she asked.

The cat batted her right hand.

“Did it open during the correct time?”

It laid a paw on her right hand again.

“Did anything unexpected happen?”

Left this time. Rellika lowered her hands, satisfied.

“Very well. Scout along our path, Whiskers. Return either when you see something or at the same time tomorrow.”

The cat leapt off, scurrying back into the undergrowth.

“…a door?” questioned Vanalath.

“Yes. Whiskers has located our route into the mountains. You haven’t forgotten the plan, have you?”

“Of course not. The Men of Rock will provide us refuge, correct? You never explained beyond your cryptic little hints, however. We are to hide from the Enclave underground?”

“Where else would Men of Rock be?”

By her tone, it seemed Rellika was teasing him. Death hadn’t changed her much. Vanalath ignored the pointless babble and continued with his questions.

“What will we do for prey?” he asked. Even ghouls could starve.

“Meat abounds in these mountains,” she said, as if that explained everything.

He gave her a sideways look.

“We won’t be trapped underground for long,” she continued. “There are tunnels running all throughout the range, so once we’re down there, all we need to do is find another exit. The Enclave’s trackers won’t be able to follow us underground, as they cannot pass through the entrances. I doubt they even know they are entrances. After all, they don’t know the secret to opening them…” She trailed off, clearly expecting him to ask after the secret.

Vanalath considered her words without falling for her obvious bait. If there were a secret to opening these tunnels, he would learn it in time. There was no point in asking about it when he already knew she wouldn’t give a satisfying answer—he knew her well enough for that, at least. But if what she said were true, then they would soon hold a massive advantage over the Yaranians. They could emerge wherever they wished, falling upon the unsuspecting populace and vanishing before word reached their pursuers. One thing still bothered him, however.

“You said we must find another exit?”

Rellika, like a child who had been caught in a lie, smiled sheepishly, scratching her cheek. What happened to the warrior from earlier?

“Well… I may not be too familiar with the tunnel network beyond the immediate region. In fact, this door we’re heading to is the only one I know about.”

Of course. They were about to dive down into a tunnel network of indeterminable vastness, and they didn’t have so much as a map. Stifling a sigh, Vanalath turned his eyes forward. Well, with Orimo around, at least they wouldn’t get lost.

- - -

It seemed Rellika had totally abandoned her warrior persona, and was now humming a light tune as she skipped at the front of the procession alongside Orimo. Thankfully, the hunter did not join her in skipping. Vanalath didn’t think he could handle that.

He moved to the back of the column by his Peons, spending a moment to inspect their ranks. They were not moving nearly as fast as they had been before the plateau battle. Now, every spare ghoul was encumbered with luggage: bodies.

Ghouls staggered under the weight of other ghouls, of fresher corpses Rellika had preserved from the fight with Orimo’s hunters, and of griffons. The griffons were too heavy to be carried the traditional way, so mats had been fashioned by Orimo, using lengths of wood and fibers from the forest. They had to travel nearly a mile just to find some living trees to make the mats, but now five lesser ghouls, working in tandem, could drag along one of the smaller griffons. It took four evolved ghouls to drag one of the Bronzes, however. They were simply too massive. Vanalath tested it and found that he could just barely pull one of the biggest griffons, though he decided in the end to leave it to the others: one of the many perks of not being a slave.

The miasma had truly corrupted the region around the Cradle, though they were free of it now. Life buzzed all around, insects and birds alike ignorant of the death that marched in their wake. Well, the insects weren’t so ignorant as that. Though Rellika had preserved the bodies, the bugs still seemed quite fond of them. Rellika had stopped at one point once the cloud of bugs grew too large. After a minute of gathering herself, she chanted a few words in an unknown—but somehow familiar—tongue. A faint shimmer fell over the griffons, and the cloud of insects slowly dispersed. The exertion seemed to take a lot out of her, and she trudged back to the front of the line, clutching her head. She had recovered since then, judging by her current gait. Still, it seemed spellcasting wasn’t her forte, odd though it seemed for a necromancer. She was more accustomed to leaping on the backs of wild griffons in flight and striking them down with her sword than she was at casting a bug repellant spell.

Returning his attention to the luggage, he noted the single cart towed by two ghouls, filled with chests of Rellika’s belongings. On the cart lay—to no one’s surprise—another body. This one was neither griffon nor food. Small and shriveled, the man who once conducted the funeral rites of the Cradle lay there: the so-called undertaker. Rellika had wrapped him in a special cloth and placed him on the cart. It took some time for Vanalath to realize the cloth was his own burial shroud. The thought of it being wrapped around a corpse other than his own displeased him in a way he couldn’t quite articulate, though he assumed she had her reasons.

He eventually distracted himself by turning inward, practicing his new ability to see into the world of spirits. He frowned, grimacing, as he forced his consciousness to make the journey. After a few seconds of struggle, his mind spiraled away, though his physical body trudged on. When he emerged into the gray world, he noticed that he surfaced—as always—in the same place where he walked in the physical one. Though his spiritual form stood in place, he knew he still walked by Anamu and Kalaki in the real world. That suddenly seemed odd to him, though he was sure it hadn’t before. Were there two of him? How could he exist in multiple places at once?

He blinked, focusing, but… no. He was here. The body that marched on behind Rellika and the others was nothing more than an automaton. His perception of it was fuzzy, though as he studied it, he quickly found that it became more real to him. At the same time, his spirit body began to recede from his consciousness. Before he knew it, he was almost entirely back in his body. The change had been fast, not nearly as disconcerting as he felt it should be. He’d been in one world, and just by thinking about it, he was in another in the next instant.

A piece of him still remained in the gray world, peering forward through translucent, unmoving eyes. He wondered about this piece of him. Clearly, it wasn’t conscious, though if he told it to move, it would start walking forward sluggishly after a few seconds. He willed it to stop, and it did so. It was like a placeholder of himself, an empty shell.

He compared it to a painting. While his consciousness was in the physical world, his spiritual consciousness was faint: a simple picture hanging on the walls of his mind. There was an entire world—the physical one—around him, but if he wanted he could choose to look at the painting on the wall. If he did, the rest of the world would shrink around him until all that existed was the painting and a dim awareness of his own body. Like a critic dissecting a piece of art, the details in that picture seemed to pop out when he stared. He couldn’t help it; it was what happened when one inspected something closely.

Though it seemed a lengthy process, it was all too quick. The strange metaphor helped him make sense of it. After comparing his world-hopping ability to a painting, he became able to visualize it more easily. Despite being just a mental construct, the painting became real to him. The black and white picture was there, encapsulated in a simple iron frame.

But was hopping between the two world all he could do?

He focused on that painting, leaning forward carefully, forcing himself to step into the spirit world slowly. He moved—or rather, the world moved—the picture seeming to expand to the horizon of his vision as he stared. At the moment where it seemed the painting would swallow him, he stopped short, hands gripping the frame. Then, he stood on that frame, aware of both worlds but not fully present in either. He was a two-dimensional being at the center of two realities. The feeling made him distinctly uncomfortable. Both sides were sluggish to him now, his awareness of the worlds coming to him as if through a haze. But he could still see them both. Both bodies were his. Two halves, each less than the whole, but still one in the end.

With a flash of understanding, he realized how Conceptualization helped him here. In the physical world, the skill supplemented his spatial awareness, ensuring his surroundings were always accounted for, even when he might not be making a conscious effort. It was like a sixth sense, though that wasn’t truly the case: it simply gave him a stronger hold over his existing senses. This was enough, however. This frame—the boundary of real and unreal—should not exist. He shouldn’t be able to stand on it, yet he maintained his place here, torn between the two. Without Conceptualization—without this grasp over his own faculties that the skill allowed—he would only be able to experience one reality at a time. Traveling to the spirit world would make his physical body collapse, just as returning to the physical world would destroy his connection to the spiritual. There would have been no painting, no boundary at all.

He held his position here at the diverging realities, trying to grasp the nature of this place. It was a struggle, a precarious balance to maintain an equal connection to both bodies at once, but with his new understanding of himself, he maintained it for several minutes.

It was with remarkable clarity that he at last recognized the true nature of his skill.

[Skill increased]: <Conceptualization> (Lv.2) -> (Lv.3)

Vanalath fully entered the spirit world when he couldn’t stand the sensation of being torn at the seams any longer. The distressing feeling vanished as soon as he left the boundary, and he glanced back at the painting. It now showed a picture of the physical world. He diverted his attention before looking too deeply brought him back. He would explore that boundary later, but for now, a world infested with mystery demanded his attention. Where to start?

This place needed a name. Some way to differentiate real and unreal. The instant he thought that, a title appeared in his mind: the Gray. A glance around at the black and white world made it seem an apt title.

As he was training his consciousness on the boundary between worlds, his physical body had moved further and further away from his location in the Gray. Suddenly curious about something, he returned to the real world through the painting, then ejected himself from the Gray with an effort of will, severing the connection completely. All he did was imagine the painting vanishing, easily accomplished. As soon as it was gone, so too was his connection to the Gray.

He merged into his physical self seamlessly, two worlds becoming one. Glancing down, he marked his current location by a pattern of stones in the ground. He then created the painting anew with a simple effort of will. As he expected, when his Gray body formed and opened its eyes, it stood in the same place as his physical self: which was a completely different location from where he left it. His Gray self had effectively teleported away from its previous location, confirming that it would always form where his physical body stood. He wondered, if he maintained the painting, how far away his two bodies could get from each other? Was there a limit?

Just as he was preparing to run in the opposite direction of his body, another realization interrupted his train of thought.

Where was the griffon? His tamed spirit? He concentrated, searching for the tether that connected the two of them. After a moment he found it, noting that its weakness. It seemed thinner than it had been after its formation. It didn’t appear to be in danger of vanishing, but the diminished bond was noticeable. He tugged on it. After a second, he felt the response from the other end.

<Come here,> he ordered the spirit.

The bond soon started strengthening, and he knew the griffon had acknowledged the order. After a few minutes, the bond had returned to its former fullness. Its strength, he realized, was measured by distance. He glanced up, watching as the griffon’s massive, translucent form executed a graceful dive through a gap in the branches, landing beside him without a sound.

He allowed himself a tight grin of satisfaction. Then, he gave another order.

<Don’t get any further from me than you were just now.>

He didn’t know what would happen if that bond stretched too thin, after all. Her assent transmitted itself through the connection, and he returned to his experiments. To start with, he tried turning to the griffon and explicitly asking what she could do, but she didn’t understand the question. Their bond was a simple one, but if it were anything like the one he shared with his Peons, it should allow for relatively advanced communication. It was likely that the beast’s intelligence was the limiting factor here, rather than the bond itself. The griffon was intelligent in some ways, but almost inferior to ghouls in others.

What uses did this ghost have, then? She was solid here, but when there were no enemies, what good did that do?

He gave it some thought, realizing that perhaps she could be used—as a mount, if nothing else.

He walked up to the griffon, stumbling slightly on the approach when his leg hit something. Frowning, he glanced down, but saw nothing he could have tripped on. A few blades of grass poked through the unkempt path, but that was it. He forced the incident out of his mind, jumping onto the griffon, aiming for the length of her center torso, between the two pairs of wings. It seemed the best location to sit, as it would be the most stable in flight. He grasped a thick tuft of feathers in one hand and gripped with his legs, settling into a position that felt oddly natural. Then, he pointed in a direction and ordered her to fly.

The monster took off after a short running start. Her four wings spread out, and with one lazy beat, they rose above the treetops. Something felt off—wrong, as though this were too easy. He glanced down at the trees zipping by. Despite the evidence to the contrary, it didn’t seem as if he were moving at all. Why was that? It took a moment, but Vanalath realized the source of that phenomenon.

There wasn’t any air. He felt no resistance as they zipped along. Nothing blew his hair back, no refreshing breeze against his face. Everything was dead and still. It was a mystery to him how the spirit flew without air under her wings.

At first, the flight went well. He’d pointed her west, towards the tallest looking mountains. They flew freely, and Vanalath watched with a dispassionate interest as the trees below dwindled to specks. As they continued, he noted the surroundings growing dimmer, less distinct than they had been before. He glanced up, noting the lack of sun. But, then again, there had never been a sun, just that one spiral eye, glaring eternally. It had not dimmed.

After a minute of increasing darkness, he felt the first signs of resistance. It wasn’t that air had suddenly appeared, but something else. After two minutes, the resistance became a physical strain. It was like he was pushing against thousands of invisible spiderwebs, their cumulative strength increasing as each added onto the last until, finally, he knew he could go no further. The world now had blackened to something darker than night, and he was only able to make out two things: the griffon and the great eye. Glancing at his faintly glowing mount, he noted her strain. She flapped her wings, pushing against the same force he felt. The two of them were not progressing.

He gave the order to return. As the griffon turned her body, it seemed that they went back the way they came far faster. The force that had repelled them now aided them, pushing them into a gradually brightening sky until they were back where they had started.

He repeated this test several more times in different directions, with the same result each time. The sky would darken, resistance would increase, until he could go no further. Was this because he got too far from his physical body, or was it something else?

He had an idea, ordering the griffon to backtrack along the route he had taken in the physical world. This time they flew for longer. There was no darkening, no strange repelling pressure. The two of them soared over the trees to the plateau where they fought the griffons, and from there back to the Cradle. It took shockingly little time. His lips twitched with the driest hint of a smile as he realized that there was no way they could outrun the Gold if the monster decided to return with an army. Orimo’s decision to run would do them little good against beings that could move this fast.

He tore his mind away from deliberations on the Gold. He was here, at the Cradle, but this place was much further from his body than any of the other places he had gone. He quickly deduced why.

In the Gray, he was constrained to areas he had traveled in the real world, with perhaps ae leeway of a few miles before the darkness and resistance forced him to stop. Why? What wasthis place’s connection to the real world?

As he and his griffon spirit circled in the air over the valley, he considered further. What were the limitations here? Were there dangers? No other beings called this place home as far as he could tell. He imagined that once, the spirits of everyone he killed had been here, standing in the places where they died. He’d heard their hateful, accusatory voices; voices which had grown in strength the more he increased his Miasmic Sight. Rellika’s ritual a week ago dug those spirits out of him, recycling them to raise the corpses of Orimo’s hunters. Now, a single griffon and her rider flew alone over silent fields. The world was theirs alone.

He had the griffon land in one of the settlements, choosing the largest one: the fishing village by the lake. It was much the same as he remembered it. Houses rested on stilts, many with doors or windows destroyed by hungry ghouls. He walked through the settlement, taking a different route than he had in the past, investigating each house’s interior as he passed by. This served to confirm his suspicions. Everything was visible: things he’d never seen before, things he couldn’t have seen. The Gray wasn’t a reflection of his memories, that much was certain. He saw much that he’d never noticed during his quick trip here to round up soldiers for Rellika. Homes filled with broken things. Shattered pottery, flimsy makeshift weapons snapped in two, and…

Bodies. Corpses, lying cold and still. They were rare enough that it took several homes before Vanalath came across the first one. He hadn’t found it by the smell, as there were no scents that he could detect in this airless void. The first body had been in poor condition. The man’s skull was caved in, gray matter within scooped out by ravenous fingers. No spirit stood nearby. Perhaps, had he been the one to kill the man this would have been the case, but he had nothing to do with this individual.

There were others in other buildings: men and women with spines severed, necks twisted at extreme angles, or sporting ghastly head wounds. It took him a minute to realized that all these bodies were those who had been mauled too severely by their murderers to even reanimate as ghouls. Not even Rellika’s black ritual could do anything for these victims.

Vanalath knelt by the fifth body, that of a younger-looking woman. This one was face down and didn’t appear to be as badly mutilated as the others. He placed a hand on her shoulder to turn her over and get a better look at the cause of death, but found her body to be hard to the touch. It was nothing like flesh. Furthermore, she was shockingly heavy. With one hand, he couldn’t budge her. Even with both hands, he found a great deal of unexpected resistance. He got his legs under him and attempted to flip the body over, pulling to the point that his vision started to blur, but the only discernable impact was the flesh giving slightly under his pressure—but even the flesh didn’t give nearly as much as it should have. He felt like an infant trying to wake up an adult passed out in a drunken stupor. He stopped, staring at his hands, wondering if they were the cause of this. They looked much the same as always. His slender fingers slowly clenched into a fist, and he confirmed that he felt as strong as ever. It was as if someone had replaced this corpse before him with a marble statue.

After giving up, he walked to the house’s entrance. There, he paused by the door, which was barely attached to its frame by a few strands of twine. As a test, he placed a hand on it to shut it, only to find it to be as unyielding as the body was. He went to the shutters by the window, but those may as well have been solid rock. He then kicked at a few fragments of pottery on the ground, but they appeared to be bolted to the floor.

He jogged outside, testing other things. Pebbles scattered innocuously on the ground had the weight of large stones. Clothes hung out to dry by their long-dead owners may as well have been rippling sheets of lead. He glanced down once more at his hands, noting that though he was somewhat translucent here, he was still more solid than the griffon. If he held a hand against the sky, he could make out the prismatic colors of the great eye, shining through his flesh. Was his transience the thing causing his weakness?

He knelt by a patch of wilted grass on the side of the road, running his fingers through it. The blades were stiff, resistant. He pressed down on an individual stalk, and while it crumpled under his palm, it took far more pressure than it should have, like it was a metal wire instead of grass. It didn’t act like metal when he lifted his finger, slowly springing back into place just as the grass would normally move.

At least this explained how he tripped earlier. He probably brushed against a stalk of grass, unaware of its nature. Until now, he’d only walked visited the spirit world in areas devoid of vegetation, such as the hunter’s camp or the flat plateau. He hadn’t ever tried to move anything.

The Gray resisted him at every step. It didn’t want him changing it.

That led to the question: did altering this place change the physical realm? He immediately returned to his physical body, destroying the painting and severing his connection to the Gray so that he could return more quickly. He reformed his spirit body and began the experiment. First, he used his physical body to kick a rock. Through his spiritual eyes, he suddenly saw the stone, unprompted, go sailing away. After confirming that changing the physical world altered this one, he tried the reverse, crushing grass under his spiritual foot while observing the same patch of ground with his physical eyes.

The result was disappointing. He hadn’t truly expected the grass to flatten as if an invisible foot had trampled it, but he’d hoped something would happen. It didn’t so much as sway.

He was missing something. Was the Gray the one-way street it seemed to be? An inconsequential reflection of the real world? Did anything here matter? Perhaps it was simply a storage space for the spirits of those he killed; a place to make pacts. Or maybe it was more, and he just hadn’t found what.

The griffon landed beside him, silent as a whisper, folding her wings to its body. She’d caught up from where he’d left her at the Cradle. She followed his earlier commands to stay nearby. Good. He inspected this other mystery of his. He knew he could do more with the griffon. It wasn’t only his newfound instincts that told him this, it was the fragments of knowledge he’d gained from his time with Rellika that informed him. Spirits were raw ingredients. He simply had to find a recipe for this one.

He walked over to her carefully, watching for tripping hazards. His mind, running on some tangent, wondered if running into a thread of spider’s silk in this world would slice him in two. When he reached the spirit, he spoke to her.

<Your name will be Whisper.>

The name held no special significance for Vanalath beyond a means for him to differentiate the griffon, but her faint agreement registered through their bond in a pulse of—not happiness—but understanding.

Now to find that recipe.

[Skill obtained] <Riding> (Lv.0)

[Skill increased] <Riding> (Lv.0) -> (Lv.1)

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