Aven stepped inside, closed the door, and took a seat. He held up his hands in a show of peace and smiled at the two enemies before him. “Well, here I am. What would you like to talk about?”

  “You’re a remarkably foolish person,” Mensikhana remarked. “If Sergrud were here, you would already be dead. It is only by good fortune that we are here and he is not. Thus, you have a chance to live.”

  Aven chuckled, “A fool rushes to death without reason. When death is on either side, running to meet one death head on isn’t foolishness.”

  A gesture from Mensikhana, and Teja lowered the knife from Esharah’s throat.

  Esharah slumped forward and spoke, “This doesn’t have to end in violence. Mensikhana, your people fight the voidspawn. So do we-”

  “You have already said as much,” Mensikhana’s gaze remained on Aven. “That is why I am speaking with Aven instead of having Teja kill him.” She turned back to Aven, “I have seen grazik before - what your people call voidtouched. You...are not like them. I have seen warriors driven mad at the touch of black blood. Yet you retain your mind. That is all the more fearful. Our songs speak of one like you, one who could speak and wear the mask of a sane man while filled with the void’s blood. That warrior...was the ruin of a dozen tribes and hundreds of lives.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m like that one,” Aven said. It stood to reason that those of the northlands would fight voidspawn and have their local legends. “I can’t speak to your legends. I only know who I am.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Aven Arvanius, son of Elesmara Genthus, who injected me with black blood from the time I was a child,” Aven said. “Son of Gaius prax Arvanius who recruited me to be a killer and tried to kill me for not wielding my blade as he wished. Captain of the Hellfrost Legion, sworn to fight the voidspawn.” He looked into the ogress’ eyes. “And who are you?”

  “Mensikhana, Mindspeaker of the Kvormskaja,” she replied.

  Esharah’s eyes widened as if realizing something, “Wait...Sergrud called your tribe ‘Rocksmashers’.”

  “That is the humans’ name for us,” A note of irritation entered Mensikhana’s inner voice. “Sergrud conquered the Hravast first and used their name for us. I corrected him, but...he did not listen.”

  “But that doesn’t mean rock-smashers,” Esharah said.

  “Correct, It means ‘ones who crush shells’. The shells of the abyssal creatures. We have fought them for generations. We know them. And the ones who have become as them, who have lost their minds to their touch.”

  Aven nodded, “Then you understand the danger of the Void. The risk it presents to the entire world. Why is Sergrud trying to conquer this valley, then? What good could that possibly do in fighting the voidspawn?”

  The Mindspeaker glared, “Your empire encourages the abyss. Seeks to use it. You yourself are a manifestation of that. Your body itself is made of black blood, yes? That is an abomination. An empire that creates such things-”

  “Now hold on,” Aven said. “The empire didn’t make my body. I’m an abomination of my own making, not the Empire’s. Give credit where it is due.”

  “It matters not. You are not the only being the empire has corrupted with the void. I’ve seen the twisted hounds that your empire has created with voidblood!”

  “Blackhounds, you mean,” Aven said. “They’re just dogs. Bigger, stronger, a bit more intelligent. Loyal to a fault. You saw Blackeye, after Sergrud killed her, yeah? Her owner is still pissed at that. You interrogated Shevi. You should have seen her memories of Blackeye. She wasn’t an abomination. She was just a dog.”

  Mensikhana looked as if she was about to argue, but Aven heard no mental reply. Instead, she looked to Teja, seeking aid.

  The black-furred felin shrugged, “Don’t ask me. You’re the one with all the visions.”

  “Visions?” Aven asked.

  “I have seen into the void,” Mensikhana looked pained at Teja’s conspicuous lack of aid. “If anyone had seen what I have seen, they would not dare meddle with it. Yet your people have turned their minds towards that end.”

  Aven’s heart quickened, “You’ve seen the voidspawn beneath the void too.”

  A pause.

  “Esharah...claims that you were immersed in a voidpit for two weeks.”

  “That’s right,” Aven said.

  “I showed you my memories,” Esharah said. “You know I wasn’t lying.”

  “Yet what you showed me is impossible. I looked into the void for less than a minute, and my mind nearly broke.”

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  “Then look at my memories,” Aven said. “Let’s compare notes.”

  Another glance at Teja.

  “You’re the one who wanted to have this conversation,” Teja looked positively bored, leaning against the post next to Esharah and twirling her dagger. “I said we should just kill the dezar. Don’t look at me for advice. If you want to see this through, go ahead. Or we can just kill them.” The last bit was a growl.

  “Can you?” Aven challenged.

  Teja smiled. And winked. Why did so many women seem so joyful at the thought of killing him?

  Mensikhana glanced back and forth between Aven and Teja for a few moments, then shook her head and turned back to Aven. “If I am to trust you, then I must see.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Esharah?”

  Two minds joined with Aven’s, the familiar presence of Esharah and the alien one of Mensikhana, joining deeper with Aven’s than before. The ogress could speak and listen to thoughts; Esharah could tap into emotions. Together, they joined their three minds closer than Aven had ever felt. The tent disappeared as they delved into Aven’s mind.

  A familiar place, just as Aven experienced the inside of his own head when deep in the Battle Mind’s simulations. A hall of mirrors showing memories. Or perhaps rooms where the scenes played out as if acted upon a stage. Difficult to truly put into tangible form.

  Strange to have visitors here. Esharah and now Mensikhana’s mental presences had become familiar, but now, all joined together in his mind, they all seemed more real. More solid. The voices stronger.

  Almost immediately, Mensikhana paused, “Your mind...it is...fractured. in pieces.”

  “Oh, right,” Aven said, mentally gesturing to a couple of the pieces currently held in reserve. Rooms not alive with motion and imagery but frozen as shadows. “I suppose that’s where I’m keeping my fear. And that one is a bit of grief. Just tucked away until a better time to process them.”

  “You...cut off pieces of your own mind?”

  “Kill them, occasionally,” Aven shrugged. “I learned the Battle Mind long before I mastered the void.”

  “And it might well be the more monstrous part,” Esharah noted.

  “Maybe,” Aven said cheerfully. “Now, we have a memory to visit, yes?”

  Aven drew up the memory, splitting it off as its own fragment with the Battle Mind. Shining like a broken mirror shard, reflecting all Aven’s time in the void. He reached out to it, but paused before touching.

  “Esharah, I never showed you this,” Aven said.

  “No, you didn’t,” Esharah agreed.

  “It’s not a fun experience.”

  “I’d still like to see it,” Esharah said. “Both to help Mensikhana understand...and to see for myself what we’re really fighting.”

  Discomfort pulsed from Mensikhana. Trepidation. She knew what lay within the void. And she was beginning to believe that Aven did too.

  “Let’s rip off the bandage,” Aven grasped the mirror shard, and they dove into the memory.

  * * *

  Once again, Aven was falling into void. Descending into that pulsing, swallowing darkness and emptiness. The whispers surrounded him, own thoughts echoed in the nothing.

  “It...it’s real,” Mensikhana gasped, shuddering in their connection. “This is the void. You...you were here...for that long?”

  “Didn’t have a choice,” Aven swam deeper into the void. Lower. He felt his limbs begin to dissolve. Saw that guard dissolve as well. Old Sir Nasty! Aven had almost forgotten about the bastard. He’d have to show Janaya this memory sometime; she’d surely have a laugh over his fate. Shared schadenfreude aside, they weren’t here merely to sight-see. Sir Nasty wasn’t what they were here to see. There were better monsters to gawk at.

  Esharah said nothing, only pulsed awe as Aven descended. Mensikhana, for her part, felt as if the ogress was clinging to Aven for dear life, mind gripping his like a vice and panic stirring.

  Down, lower down. The sensations of his limbs crumbling, vanishing into the void. It hadn’t hurt at the time, and Aven still felt no pain, but the sensation gave both Esharah and Mensikhana quite a bit of distress, so he tried not to dwell on that.

  “This...this is what happens to those in the void too long,” Mensikhana’s voice shook as if about to break into sobs. “I’ve...I’ve seen it. Those who fell in and could not get out in time, flesh stripped away, limbs dissolved into nothingness. Yet...yet you have a body still. How?”

  “Wait and see,” Aven said.

  Closer. Closer to the bottom of the voidpit and that hairline crack in reality. It was time. The moment of truth.

  Mensikhana’s breath quickened.

  “We can stop,” Esharah said gently.

  “No,” Mensikhana hissed. “Keep...keep going.”

  Aven pressed his eye to the crack.

  They saw the truth.

  The abyss beneath the world. A single glimpse of darkness revealing everything. The hatred beneath the world that longed to devour everything. Rage at the abomination of life, longing for the cold and darkness before terrible light pierced the beautiful gloom.

  Voidspawn writhed in the abyss, hungering for life. To destroy the madness that asserted itself upon the pure and beautiful void. Deathsingers rang out their voices, heralding the coming endless night. Singing of the greater ones to come. Closer now, closer every day to the End-

  Mensikhana screamed, and Aven tore their minds away.

  “You...you saw it...” the ogress mindspeaker sobbed. “You saw the truth! You know! You know!”

  Aven’s own eyes were watering, “Yes. Yes, I saw.”

  Mensikhana wailed, a sound that would have been incoherent to Aven’s ears, had it been a physical sound.

  Esharah was silent. Her presence seemed to fade, as if she were half withdrawn. Perhaps too horrified to remain in the connection. When she at last spoke, her voice came painfully soft, “You...you saw all that...and you chose to return? You chose to come back and fight against that?”

  “Of course I did,” Aven replied, feeling as if the question were the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. “What else would I have done? Just die?”

  “Death seems almost mercy compared to fighting against that,” Esharah whispered, presence returning in full.

  “Death is not mercy,” Aven said grimly. The thought was far too comforting to be true. All those Aven had killed...never had it been an act of mercy.

  For a moment, the air hung heavy with the weight of what they’d seen.

  “Overwhelming, isn’t it?”

  A new voice came. That’s right. Now was the time when Aven saw the face of the goddess within the Void. The goddess wearing Mother’s face.

  Yet Aven turned within the darkness, the face he saw was different. It was still Mother’s. And it was another face. No...two others. Not shifting between the three faces or side by side. Nor a combination of them. Just simply all at once. One face. And three faces. However the hell that worked. Mother’s face, that of an ogre, and...

  Was that Vestra?

  “Overwhelming indeed,” three voices spoke at once from the goddess with a face both one and three. “Even the second time.”

  Mensikhana’s breath caught. Aven felt her shock as his own. This was just a memory. It couldn’t differ from what Aven remembered. And yet-

  “My goddess,” Mensikhana whispered.

  “At last, we can speak again, my child,” the goddess said.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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