221. Ascension Promontory

  The Upheavers rose, their new dawn lit only by the embers of Ash’s fireplace. Whether it be a biological clock or an inborn sense of purpose, some unseen force served as their synchronized [Tidewatch]. Time to rise and shine. Time to finish the climb, whether they were ready or not.

  Serac was especially unsure of her own readiness for the task. Her sleep had been welcome yet troubled, a far cry from the forced hibernations she’d enjoyed for a turn of the moon and more. The source of her dread gnawed at her still, no closer to resolution. Perhaps facing it was the only way forward.

  First, though, a bit of housekeeping for the road ahead. The Burden-boosting effects of [Glutton’s Last Meal] had worn off with the changing of the cycle. Nothing a little topping off couldn’t fix. Serac handed Renna a piece of tripe to do just that, but hesitated when it came to chowing down on it herself.

  What do you reckon, Trippy? Am I looking at ingesting a different consumable in the very near future?

  “If it’s the consumable I’m thinking of, it’s one that somewhat counteracts the penalties associated with [YOUR NAME]. And if what we discussed last night does indeed come to pass…”

  Serac needed no more convincing. She declined [Last Meal] for herself and instead managed her [Burden] the old-fashioned way, by shedding some of it and leaving it with a friend. And as the only party member unburdened by a valid visa, Oriole was the natural choice for Trinket mule. [The Frog in the Well] went from Serac’s belt to the straps on the tabbycat’s armor.

  [Burden: 48/38 -> 33/38]

  [Wayfarer Status Effect: HEAVY]

  Finally, before leaving the Hubstation altogether, Serac took a moment to note its designation. [Ascension Promontory]. Hard to get much more straightforward than that. Onward and upward.

  The party moved on, leaving their fellow meditators behind in their umber stillness. The obsidian steps ahead of the Hubstation rose steeper still, true to the Mount Meru tradition of saving the most arduous climbs for the top of the Realm.

  Incidentally, visibility improved with the sharper incline. Purple fog now rimmed a circular channel of clear morning air. The phenomenon had every sign of being an artificial effect. Perhaps in invitation; certainly in recognition of a Path hard-trod. Serac personally felt as though she was walking inside REVOLVER’s barrel, just waiting for the spark to fire off into the unknown.

  And then… just like that, they were there. The top of the Realm. Tidereign’s peak and all that lay hidden from its own people for an entire history and more.

  Ascension Promontory was a vast, circular platform, clearly artificial in design and nature. Where the steps leading up to it had been the same velvety obsidian that covered much of the city, the floor of the Promontory had been infused with glistening lotus-white—in recognition of the Path that continued ever heavenward. The rim of purple fog now expanded into a dome to encapsulate the ceremonial space, giving the illusion the whole place somehow floated in mid-air, sans support or suspension.

  It was an ancient people’s hubristic attempt to reach for the heavens via mechanical rather than Wayfaring means. Having fallen short of the direct source of the waterfall, however, they’d settled for a monument to commemorate their achievements as Wayfarers. A monument absent entirely of frills, save for a pair of enormous, weathered pillars just beyond the far edge of the dome. Said pillars slanted away from each other as they rose into the fog, as if whatever they held up required a V-shaped buttress. Either that, or they were the bases of…

  Antlers, Serac realized with a sharp intake of breath. The word ‘giant’ doesn’t even cut it. If these things really are just what’s visible of a whole pair of antlers hidden in the fog, then the ‘deer’ they belong to must be as big as the whole dang Realm! To Serac’s knowledge, only one entity fit the description—could accommodate and enfold such enormity unto itself. Which must mean…

  If Serac and her party had been the only arrivals to Ascension Promontory, they might’ve honed in on the mystery pillars and headed straight for them. But the at once startling yet inevitable fact was they weren’t alone. They were joined by souls both living and dead.

  A tableau of umber shades depicted an ancient people’s tragic and no doubt successful attempt at tearing themselves apart. Mrigas on one side of the dome, Tiryagas on the other. The shades were done kneeling to a foreign ruler. They now rose as armies to battle for supremacy over their homeland. On one fateful cycle when Day and Night split from each other forever more. The war an Immortal once tried to save its people from… by hiding halves of the Realm from one another.

  The Tiryaga army was led by figures familiar to Serac and her [Oathward] partner. A tabbycat in shining armor, astride a dragon surging with dusk-borne dreams. Hellebore ere’Pendragon led his Night-side comrades against the army of Day, which itself was ‘manned’ by Mriga colossi with stone bodies and mechanical joints—the mechs from Zacko’s and Oriole’s fantastical tale.

  Fearsome and heartbreaking as the tableau was, Serac forced herself to tear her eyes away. To instead face the living soul who yet awaited the Upheavers atop Ascension Promontory. One last gatekeeper before the Keeper.

  “I used to think Viceroy Enright had a special relationship with the Gloam. With the Keeper. Yet, evidently, he too had been just one of the herd, blinded and chained by his own oath.”

  Travertine aft’Nankervis stood at the far edge of the dome, back turned to the Upheavers as he gazed up into the purple fog—into the ‘V’ formed by the Keeper’s antlers. From a distance, he looked just like the Trav Serac knew: shoulders broad and back rigid, pious if a little awkward in bearing. Next to him, CROZIER stood straight up and down, it too unchanged in appearance. And yet…

  Stolen story; please report.

  Where are DLEE and ORD? Serac scanned the platform—the arena—to no avail. Her heart twinged with more nameless laments as she reckoned with her reunion with a Day-side friend and what it portended for the both of them.

  I can’t be fooled by appearances. This can’t be the same Trav I knew, by the simple fact of his being here at all. He’s found a way into the city behind the veils, from the ‘half’ of the Realm where such a feat should’ve been impossible.

  How, she might’ve gone on to ask. Yet, somehow, she had an inkling as to the answer, almost as surely as she’d known (feared) she’d find Trav here. A faceless face in the darkness. The fingerprints of a being that existed above the laws of the afterlife.

  “What are you saying, Trav?” The words tumbled out before she herself was ready for them. “What have you done with your oath that’s led you up this lonely path?”

  “Lonely?” The thing with Trav’s body scoffed with Trav’s rolling baritone. He kept his back turned as he went on, “On the contrary, Deacon, I’ve never been more connected, more fulfilled, more awake. For I’ve broken through the veils, to then look upon Tidereign’s true face. To the true callings we Day-siders have denied ourselves by allowing Night’s filth to muddy our light.”

  Serac flinched at the venom and intensity of Trav’s sermon. Somewhere beside her, Oriole tensed, fur on end.

  “Oh yeah?” Zacko cut in then, apparently unbothered by the peculiar introductions—or the lack thereof. “You’ve got my attention, Bonehead. Mind filling us in on this grand truth you arrived at? It’s just, from personal experience, people who talk like you have been nothing but wise, mindful, and well-adjusted.”

  The stranger’s voice failed to move Trav to face the group. He did oblige the Manusya with a response, all while keeping his gaze upon his Keeper.

  “Isn’t it obvious? What do you see before you? Clear and incontrovertible evidence that the Keeper of the Gloam—Tidereign’s one and only Realm Immortal for all time—is Mriga. I, and indeed all my brothers and sisters, have been complacent for far too long. Content with washing away the impurities that seep through the veils when, in fact, we should’ve been purging them at the source. The whole of the Realm is ours to claim and reform, one cat-infested hovel at a time.”

  “You better watch it!”

  The angry warning issued from Oriole, unable to contain himself any longer. Serac flinched again. Somehow, the meeting was going even worse than she’d feared. Far too soon, it’d reached its boiling point. For the youthful voice of a ginger tabbycat finally did move the loner Mriga into action.

  Travertine rounded on the Upheavers in a flash, seeming to swell in size and presence from the sheer force of his anger. The single motion transmitted itself across the dome, sending Serac’s horns aquiver. Somewhere beside her, Renna lowered her hood and reached for DREDGER’s handle.

  “You!” The deranged grin that spread across the man’s face and darkened his stag eyes told Serac all she needed to know. This wasn’t the Trav she knew. Something had changed—had broken inside him. She could only hope it wasn’t too late for repairs. The thing that shook with Trav’s anger now snarled with his hurt pride. “You. I know you. You have some nerve, showing your unworthy self ’neath the Keeper’s antlers.”

  Even in the midst of her tightest handwringing in recent memory, Serac managed to catch onto an anomaly. How does he know? THE PLEDGE should keep Oriole unsightable. And even if Trav did see a name, it should mean nothing to—

  It hit her like a nimble doe’s hind kick. She followed the crazed glint of Travertine’s eyes, tracing a straight line onto the ring on Oriole’s finger. THE PLEDGE did keep him hidden. Yet, at the same time, it announced exactly who he was—the cat burglar who’d unwittingly robbed a Mriga maiden from across the veils.

  “It was you.” The words escaped as a soft murmur before she was ready for them. “You intercepted Jasper’s letter, didn’t you? Switched it out with some nonsense note. Well, I guess it wasn’t complete nonsense. The answer was cloaked in shadows, as ugly as it turned out to be.”

  “Sharp as always, Deacon.” Travertine took no pleasure in the words, belting them out as a harsh remonstration. “I knew we’d make a master sleuth out of you yet. Well then, riddle me this, detective. What is a shepherd to do, when the herd he’d been faithfully protecting no longer needs him? When they’ve cast him out in favor of a shadow-cloaked deceiver bearing a fool’s dreams and false promises?”

  Serac didn’t understand. She understood perfectly. She smothered her own rising anger—at the pettiness and idiocy behind Travertine’s vendetta—instead choosing to meet him halfway.

  “Look.” She tried to exude as much calm authority as she could muster. No easy task at the best of times. All but impossible in the present circumstance. “All this letter-snatching and notes-passing across the veils—I think something’s been lost in translation. If we talk through this rationally, sharing everything we know about each half of the Realm, I’m sure we could set aside our differences. After that, we could even work together to—”

  “Work together?” Serac winced at Oriole’s untimely interruption. Politics and feelings always knew a way to rear their ugly heads, no matter how many (or few) brain cells filled said heads. “With him? After he called us Night-siders ‘filth’? I may be a neighborly Tiryaga, Serac, but even I have my—”

  “ENOUGH!”

  Travertine knocked the butt of a shepherd’s crook against the Promontory’s lotus-white surface, sending forth another shockwave along with an alien and ear-splitting ‘piinngg!’.

  “If you too choose to ignore me, Sister Edin,” Travertine barked, harsh yet resonant amidst the encroaching Gloam, “I’ll answer for you. The shepherd must hunt. To the end of the earth if need be. Vaulting over walls, tearing through veils, and parting the Gloaming mists in his wake. He must hunt until all that would threaten his herd has been exterminated, one cat burglar at a time!”

  The Cardinal’s face remained frozen in a deranged grin as he then raised CROZIER anew, now rippling with urgent, violent intent. Shadows melted over Travertine’s figure and indeed the entire purple-rimmed dome, as memories of an ancient war ceded to the desperate needs of the young, living, and forlorn.

  [Designation: TRAVERTINE aft’NANKERVIS—the Constant Hunter]

  [Aberrant Race: Paradox Incarnate]

  [Aberrant Class: Field Boss]

  [PRIMAL Instrument: CROZIER]

  [Beasts of Calling: DLEE and ORD]

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