The Dreamer makes her move

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Time unknown

Whisper looked about in confusion.

There was nothing anywhere around him. He stood on no floor, and perceived no sky. There were no walls, or objects of any kind. Just a bright, overbearing whiteness, in every direction, for as far as his eyes could see. He had expected a river, according to the legends of this world. Or oblivion, that would have worked as well. But this? This felt like he’d stepped between worlds and got caught on something half-way.

Or was this…nowhere? The mythical source of all creation, where he’d encounter his perception of the Ultimate, the person he respected the most? The Abyrrus had wished he would fade into ‘nothing’. Somehow Whisper doubted this is what the demon meant, but if it staved off damnation in the Shadowfel for a while, he supposed he could deal with it. But ‘nothing’ was a fate for Lord William Bregan – and he didn’t feel like he was William again.

Of course, being stuck in ‘nowhere’ seemed like the kind of poetic justice his former friends in the Little Warriors guild might just come up with for him. Yes…come to think of it, perhaps if he was still Whisper, he shouldn’t be so surprised at being here. After several centuries of being stuck here alone, he’d probably go quite mad, which would be some taste of the future that awaited Nathrael.

In the meantime, though, he could explore. There were faint flashes of reality beneath him, like he was walking on a clear, still pond and watching fish swim below. He could see Elanora. And he could see something…dark. Spreading from the north-east. Some contagion that brought to mind his old master, and his desires to bring everything up to his level.

Whisper felt revulsion at the thought, which surprised him. He clearly wasn’t under Nathrael’s sway any more. His instinct when faced with this blight seemed entirely his own. In fact, the more he thought about Nathrael’s preachings, about the inevitability of his rise, his own perfection, the more they felt off. Being honest with himself, those teachings felt like the ramblings of a madman. So maybe now he wasn’t Nathrael’s puppet. But he still didn’t think of himself as William.

So who was he?

He pondered this as he watched war break out across Elanora. He could see Wintergreen, and his old apprentice, Breac, spring into action. So whatever he had done had not been a death-blow to the guild, at least. He suppressed another incomprehensible instinct. Relief that he had not done as much damage as he feared. And he raised his eyes, and looked about at his level.

There was a figure standing there. She wasn’t watching, but she was moving swiftly towards him. Was this to be the ‘voice of the ultimate’? The personification of everything he admired and respected in reality?

“No,” Whisper gasped in despair. “Oh, no. No, this has got to be some kind of joke.”

“If it is, you’re playing it on yourself,” Rhillaine replied.

She was standing alone, Her broad-brimmed hat tilted down to obscure Her eyes, as She wrote endlessly in that book of Hers. Scritch-stratch. Stracht-scritch. Over and over. The sound set Whisper’s teeth on edge. Just like it always had.

“What are you doing here?” Whisper demanded. “I never even liked you!”

“But you always respected me. The choices I had to make, day by day. Impossible choices, with no right answers. You knew you would make them the same way. And even if some part of you hated yourself for that, you still respected the cold necessity. The choices still had to be made. Without fear, or favor, but desperately clinging to humility, acknowledging that whatever we did, people would die, and that the answers we would come up with were not the only possible ‘right’ answers, just the best we could do at the time…”

“Stop.” Whisper was…demanding? Begging? A little of both.

Stritch-scratch. Scratch-scritch.

So this was the ultimate existence at the heart of reality? It felt like a headmaster’s office. Whisper hated headmasters almost as much as he hated offices.

“Then leave,” Rhillaine suggested simply. “I’m not keeping you here.”

“Leave to where? There’s no door.”

“Then I guess you’re not ready to leave yet, are you?”

Whisper looked about. There was nothing behind Rhillaine, or behind himself. The whiteness stretched out to eternity. “If I left, where would I be? Where would I go?”

“Either back,” Rhillaine answered. “Or on. If you went back, you’d find a very different Elanora to the world you left. The Guild has fallen. Wintergreen and Sunfist are building it out of the wreckage you left them.”

“…Fallen?”

“Or you could go on, to the Silent Queen, and face judgement for the mess you made.”

Whisper’s eyes narrowed. “Judgement? Most of the people I killed, I did while possessed by an agent of Nathrael. I had no agency of my own.”

“You did at Lanzsig,” Rhillaine pointed out. “Nathrael struck you through your pride. We placed great power in you, and trusted you to guard that power, and instead of doing so you opened yourself to someone who offered you mere glory.”

“I did what you couldn’t bring yourself to do!” Whisper retorted. “I saved people you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, because you were so busy writing history you couldn’t bring yourself to be a part of it.”

“And here it comes. The legendary ego of Lord William Bregan.”

“My ego?” Whisper protested. “What of yours? Writing away in your book as your guild burns? Do they mean that little to you…”

“You of all people know the book is a mask. We all have our little ways of staying sane through the centuries. The Little Warriors mean everything to me.”

“You left the people of Lanzsig to die! If not for me, the Abyrrus would have destroyed every one of them!”

“Huh? No, they wouldn’t!” Rhillaine exclaimed. “Ser Knight and I were already on our way when you intervened.”

There was no air here. Whisper had no body beyond what he subconsciously imagined for himself. But there was a sudden pressure in his chest, like being violently stepped on. “Why…what do you mean?”

Rhillaine sighed pensively at having to explain what, to Her, was plain and obvious. “Did you think I abandoned Elanora? I did not. None of my friends did. We sent the Little Warriors abroad, so we could concentrate on our homeworld. Our efforts often went unnoticed and unrecorded, because we weren’t seeking recognition. We were trying to teach our world it could survive without us, so we wouldn’t have to keep choosing between worlds facing death-from-beyond and our own home. This is why Reason has been working in secret with those mercenaries in Jence. She’s trying to turn that pack of frost-bitten thugs and wannabe tyrants into a guild of heroes. But while she was doing that, Wintergreen, Gus, Ser Knight and I were buying her time by protecting Elanora. So yes, I was well aware of the impending doom of the people of Lanszig, and Ser Knight and I were minutes away from teleporting there when you decided to drop by instead!”

Whisper swayed on his feet, shocked beyond all reckoning. “I never knew.”

“You never asked. You never looked. You didn’t want to know.”

Stritch-scratch. Scratch-scritch.

“I made a mistake,” Whisper admitted. “But I meant well!”

“Oh, that’s a great sentiment,” Rhillaine said sardonically. “Let’s go carve that on Ser Knight’s memorial. ‘William Bregan meant well.’”

“But you say I could go back. I could still fix this…”

“You can’t fix this, Whisper. You’ve failed the guild, your friends, your oath, Damien, everything the Little Warriors stand for.”

“Then why would I ever go back…”

“BECAUSE THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU!!!”

Rhillaine’s head snapped up, finally showing Her eyes from beneath the brim of Her hat. They were blazing with a frustration barely contained. They were also wet with tears.

“I…” Whisper stammered. “I didn’t say it was…”

With a flick of the feather in Her pen, Rhillaine brushed a tear out of Her eye, dropped Her head and hurriedly resumed writing. “You’re here to choose for yourself, Whisper. Rest, or live. But if you can’t convince me you can put your ego to the side, I won’t show you how to get back. I won’t make the mistake of trusting you with knowledge you’re not ready for again.”

Still reeling from Rhillaine’s revelations, Whisper looked about for something else to focus on. The war in Elanora was continuing to play out below him. Something about the Little Warriors seemed odd to him, though. Breac wasn’t commanding a squad, he was ordering about multiple teams of adventurers, battalions of local troops levied from the surrounding world. But that was the problem. Other than Breac Sunfist, everyone was local.

“Where are our allies?” Whisper asked.

“Cut off,” Rhillaine shrugged. “The World Tree is dead. Wintergreen is left with a seedling to work with. So their shield tokens are useless.”

The guild cut off from the multiverse…Whisper could scarcely believe it. Were they even Little Warriors anymore?

“So the guild fell, did it?” Whisper asked. “Nathrael won?”

“No, the Little Warriors ‘won’, if you want to call it that,” Rhillaine explained. “Nathrael was killed. Which was a great victory, he won’t be able to rewrite reality as he hoped. But there is precious little lift to rebuild the guild from.”

“Wait. What did you mean by Ser Knight’s…memorial?”

“He gave his life to fortify the tree against Nathrael’s assault and buy me time. Which worked, to a point.”

Their man-at-arms was dead. Another impossible thing made real.

“Where’s Gus?” he asked. “Noxala? Boon? Alvyn?”

Stritch-scratch.

“Rhillaine? Where’s Polina?!?

“Reason’s alive,” she answered quickly. “I’ll give you that much. When we realized Nathrael’s demons were using our own teleportation circle against us, she helped me destroy it. Then I teleported her to Jence. Against her will, I’ll add for the record. She was to be my contingency plan, in case Ruby Wintergreen didn’t survive. Thankfully, it’s a contingency I haven’t had to use. Not yet.”

He began to comprehend the enormity of the task facing Breac and Ruby Wintergreen. The amount they would have to do themselves. Because everyone else they’d relied on was gone.

And here he was, arguing with Rhillaine over who’s ego was at fault. He wasn’t just a failed hero. He was a hypocrite.

With that realization, Whisper’s ego finally shattered.

“I’m sorry,” he cried. “How can I atone?”

Scratch-scritch.

“I don’t think this is about atonement anymore, Whisper. If you go back, it can’t be for the sake of your own legacy. Your pride has all but destroyed us. You must learn to focus on them, and what they need.”

“I could remake their shield tokens.”

“Or Damien Ironbrand could reinvent them,” Rhillaine pointed out. “If you think that’s going to take him long, you clearly don’t know the man very well. Try again.”

What else would they need? Resources, certainly. But cut off from the multiverse, they’d have to scavenge about Elanora itself. And while they did this, their allies out there faced all their old foes, no doubt emboldened by the Little Warriors’ absence.

“I can buy them time,” Whisper offered. “I can protect our friends off-world, while they rebuild in Elanora.”

“Without the World Tree, only a god or an Abyrrus could possibly navigate the madness between the worlds,” Rhillaine explained. “You are neither. You’ll need to face your parasite in the Nightmare and take its powers as your own, something no one has ever succeeded in doing. But you can do this. Nathrael taught you how. So that works…what else?”

“I can tell my story. They can’t make the same mistakes I made.”

“Reason could do that. But she has plenty else to do,” Rhillaine admitted. “Perhaps your story is better told through your own words. Anything else?”

“No, unless I dare to get personally involved, which I’m loathe to do again given how badly that went last time…”

Whisper thought of who might replace him. Charles was gone. Was a spymaster even going to be a priority for Wintergreen in these early days? Even her own role, enforcing the oath, would have to be put by the wayside.

The oath…

“I can enforce the oath,” Whisper gasped in realization. “An infernal contract. It might just work.”

Scritch-scra… The pen stopped.

“That’s ridiculous,” Rhillaine snapped. “This isn’t wisdom, it’s just your ego all over again! You can’t control them, Whisper!”

“It’s not control,” Whisper explained. “It’s a play for time. The contract will mean nothing in practice. Anyone who violates Damien’s oath that badly is damned anyway. But by using an infernal contract, I place the oath front and center in the minds of all would-be new recruits. Those who join for the wrong reasons, for glory, for power and wealth – we’ve always accepted them anyway, taking it on faith that they’ll learn to be heroes and Little Warriors in time. And where that faith was broken, the Wintergreen sisters intervened.

Well now, Ruby can’t intervene. She’s too busy. But if the oath were binding by contract, it might just be enough for some of those boneheads to stop and think about what they’re doing. At least long enough for someone to talk sense into them. At the very least, it helps discourage them from making my mistakes, or guides them to try to learn from it, instead of storming off in a huff like I did.”

Rhillaine pursed Her lips. “Maybe I was hasty. There may be some merit to this plan. But it’s unworkable. A contract that binds anyone who takes a verbal oath? Only Auxum could possibly write something like that, and he’d never…oh.”

Whisper arced an eyebrow. “Do you see it now? William Bregan is gone, I no longer even think of myself as him. You’re right, Auxum would never teach William how to do this. But me?”

“Maybe.” She bit the side of Her lip. “How confident are you?”

“You tell me, Dreamer. Can this plan work?”

Rhillaine began rapidly turning pages in Her book – past where She was writing, into the blank pages. She closed Her eyes, and Whisper could see something roiling under Her eyelids for a moment. Then She sighed.

“It’s possible, but at cost,” She reported.

“I’ll pay it…”

“Not to you.” And She told him, of what would be required of the eldest child of his old friend Prius, a young halfling woman whom the guild had grown to love very much…

Poor Miko Tanner.

“I can’t ask that of her,” Whisper protested.

“You don’t have to. It’s her choice to make, and she’s already accepted – on the understanding that the future can be changed.”

“Can it?” Whisper asked desperately.

The sound of their conversation was becoming indistinct, as if distilled through echo upon echo in a chamber impossibly vast, and the light of the world around them was growing too bright to perceive anything through it. But Whisper still heard clearly Rhillaine’s final response.

“You tell me…Changebringer.”

*************

Dreamworld

0.4.5 after Guildfall.

Pain. It was all he felt at first. Then a blinding light. Something was pulling away from him, some outer protective shell.

He was in the dreamworld. Above him stood the Shadow Mother, distracted by something. Not a great sign, given her role was first and foremost to hold back the Nightmare. They were in the middle of a battle, again, in front of the Nightmare Gate itself. There were several guild agents fighting something around him, but he had little time for introductions. There was a much more familiar presence below him.

His dark self. His opposite. The Abyrrus who had turned his mind against itself, stolen his identity for its own. It still called itself Whisper. If he wanted that name reclaimed, he would have to deal with this…parasite. It was currently pinned to the floor by a Little Warrior, a brown-furred minotaur. He kept a careful eye on the dark one, preparing to counter any spell cast, but for the moment it seemed too stunned to offer much resistance.

“You can’t kill him any more than he could kill me,” he advised the minotaur. “Grab him. Bind him. Shut his mouth, and bring him to the gate.”

With that, he began carefully stepping away towards the Nightmare Gate, as the Shadow Mother regathered herself and focused on keeping the gate closed once more. The dark one was mentally thrashing in his grip, but he smothered any attempt it made to cast any spell.

Then he felt the air grow still, and his efforts got substantially easier as the dream fell silent. Ah, so his old apprentice Breac Sunfist was here! He turned and gave the dwarf an approving nod, and together they staggered recasting Silence zones to escort this minotaur, step by step, towards the gate, allowing his dark self no options but to be pulled along.

As the battle fell quiet and the Little Warriors stood victorious, they finally reached the gate. Whisper grabbed his dark self by the collar, pulling him face-to-face. He couldn’t resist one last taunt before he took this thing that had tormented him on one final journey, back to the hell that had spawned it.

“What?” he asked it. “What? What did you think was going to happen? Did you think Nathrael was the only one who could rewrite fate? That’s always been the weakness of your kind, Abyrrus. A lack of imagination!”

And with that, he rocked back on his heels and spun, pulling both of them through the Nightmare Gate.

 

This, Whisper admitted, may have been a terrible mistake.

His other half no longer writhed in his grasp. It held him back, cackling in triumph, as the energies of the Abyss lashed at his mind and threatened to tear it asunder. And behind that grin, behind the insanity of those piercing blue eyes, he saw his old friend, his old foe. Nathrael was laughing at him out of his own twin. And as he laughed, the Nightmare twisted into vision, showing him the timelines that awaited everyone he loved.

He saw the guild fall. He saw Gus and Boon thrown out into the multiverse. He saw Jaspier, and Noxala and Jade, and who could tell how many others grasped by ribbons of ink, tendrils of Nathrael’s will, and crushed within them. He saw Abal fall to madness within the nightmare. He saw the Vultures return triumphant. He saw the blight spreading, and the war…

…and it’s possibilities. The Conclave ascendant. And the Little Warriors ascendant. And they all led to the same end.

“Don’t you see, old friend?” Nathrael mocked him. “I’ve already won. It doesn’t matter how the war turns out. That’s the point – NOW THEY KNOW HOW. The blight will show them how to create a world without conflict. Once they see a glimpse, they won’t be able to resist building it, they cannot help themselves in their desire to control every outcome. Because in their heart of hearts, they all know they’re already just like me.”

Wait…was this it? Was this hollow old argument all Nathrael had to show him?

Whisper saw the ends of the roads through time converge. Sooner or later, the blight would be set loose in the multiverse, saving everything, controlling everything. All will be one, and one will be all. But the dream was false. He could see that so clearly now, it was a wonder his former self had ever been taken in by Nathrael’s lies. Once again, it seemed the Sin Writer was insistent that the only paths through time that existed were the ones of his own creation.

It was…pathetic.

“So, when the Little Warriors killed you,” Whisper asked, “that was you ‘winning’, was it?”

“THEY NEVER KILLED ME AND THEY NEVER WILL!”

Whisper couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Do you know what I think? I think Rhillaine saw my downfall. And she saw I’d return to learn from my mistakes. So she’s let the Blight War happen to highlight exactly what that mistake was – not that I tried to save everyone. But that I insisted on doing so on my terms, my way, no consultation, not even asking anyone what ‘saving’ them really meant. And now that I see my mistake for what it was, your downfall is assured. Because if some poor, dumb fool like me can see it, it is inevitable that the likes of Ruby Wintergreen and Miko Tanner will see it also. They probably already do.”

He reached out and grabbed his dark opposite by either side of its head, and locked its gaze with his own.

“Don’t you see, old friend?” Whisper mocked the Sin Writer. “You say you’ve won, but you’ve already lost. Yes – there will be Little Warriors who fall to greed, and fear, and mere pride, who abandon Damien’s vision. But for every one of them, there are hundreds of children ready to learn from them to take their place. Those are the timelines you refuse to see. Behind this guild is another generation. And another, and another, and on distant worlds, in distant cities, young folk dream of taking up arms – but never to join you. They all dream of beating you. Not to take your place, but to make you irrelevant. They’ve already killed you once. And one day, they will beat you so badly you will be forgotten forever.

Because they’re nothing like you. And now, neither am I.”

His dark opposite screamed with rage and morphed into a horned, goat-like face, vast beyond imagining, and that black flaming crown blazed and pulled at his very soul. But Whisper ignored it. It was a desperate bluff from a creature out of other options. Whisper saw the terror in his twin’s eyes as it realized what was about to happen.

“I’ve served you long enough,” Whisper grated through clenched teeth. “It is time you served me in turn.” He braced his mind, pulling from every mental reserve he knew he had, and cast the strongest enchantment he had ever cast.

His twin screamed, this time in agony and despair. And now it was Whisper who laughed…

**************

Dingaford

0.4.12 after Guildfall

And he woke, to utter darkness.

He had created it instinctively. Someone familiar had called him back. The only voices he could hear were unfamiliar, though. Shouts of mad panic, the thuds of heavy crossbows being unleashed, the pressure of destructive magic that felt mentally like a high-pitch scream of the air. The smell of soot and fire – always it had to be fire. And was that a gunpowder-driven pistol? What kind of maniac would use one of them here?

He looked about himself. Back in the old Dingaford theatre. Of course, he had died here as his dark opposite, he could even vaguely recall the memory. He quickly rose to his feet, darting about the battle. He couldn’t yet tell friend from foe, so he refrained from interfering and climbed one of the old palisades on the walls to get a better view, but it seemed one side had got the upper hand. Some woman twisted with what looked like dark druidic mutations had been beaten into the stone floor and decapitated, and with her defeat the rest of her forces seemed to lose focus.

He let the darkness dissipate. The victors looked about in confusion before one of their member, a red-haired elf who’s mind seemed oddly familiar, pointed up at him. Was that Breac Sunfist? Why was his old apprentice in the form of a wood elf? He looked ridiculous.

“Who are you?” a Tabaxi asked. She held a rapier and carried a pistol at her hip. He pulled a name from her head - Jinx Velvetpaw, she called herself.  “Are you William? Or are you Whisper?”

He knew the answer. He was Whisper. But it was just a name. Her better question was her first one. Who, exactly, was he now?

“That,” he replied as honestly as he could, “I think, remains to be seen.”

And with that, he grasped his cloak. It did nothing. The guild members who had killed him had taken his Cloak of the Mountebank, and Breac had buried him in a plain one. Bother. He loved that cloak. So he grasped their minds instead, clouded them, and in their eyes he disappeared. In reality, he simply walked away.

There was little point talking to them further until he had a better answer for Jinx.

Who was he? A dim thought began to grow from a fragment of memory. It would take time to blossom. But for now the seed of thought was taking its shape. What had Rhillaine called him?

He was Whisper. He was what Nathrael should have been all along, and would have been if he hadn’t fallen to his own pride.

He was the Changebringer.

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Nov 6, 2024 07:20 by scout

#MIKODIDNOTHINGWRONG