The Great Pandemonium: Nobilitas Obligat

Part V. Trespasser (cont.)

Part V. Trespasser (cont.)

Stepping through the mirror was like falling through the ice of a frozen river and finding himself swept away in the current rushing beneath the placid surface. Whatever magic had enchanted the beastly thing, it drug Drystan along a torrent of freezing white nothingness until it vomited him out into a howling storm of ice and snow like a discarded sack of kitchen trimmings.

His ears ringing, he clawed his way to his feet and found himself utterly alone in a field of stark whites and clear blues. While it looked like it was snowing quite fiercely, he never felt a snowflake touch his skin. Still, cold bit through his flesh into his bones and his breath left his nose and mouth in puffs of white frost that was almost immediately whisked away in one direction or another by ever-shifting breezes that remained although the gale he had first felt disappeared.

All around him there were snow-covered mounds like large gopher hills. Dusting off the nearest one he found himself staring at the frozen corpse of a man. Or at least something shaped like a man. His open, lifeless eyes were a pale fire-orange color, almost the same shade which Sacha's eyes had been glowing as she and Coord carved their path through the killing field at the keep. Ears, flattened against his head, flowed upwards and away from his jaw and became one with his mane of braided white-gold hair.

Backing away from the frozen body he looked up as Sacha had told him to. The sky was a still white shade littered with clouds of blue and gray, fading into a forlorn violet color at the horizon line. Turning around to face the opposite horizon he saw what she had meant about the tree being impossible to miss.

Branches coated in frost and snow, an ash tree of impossible size rose from amidst a ravaged cityscape. Its branches reached out and touched the limits of the City itself, arcing up into the sky and stretching out beyond the clouds. As Drystan followed the trunk upwards he saw a blue and green orb hanging in the sky, twice the size as Eral's own moons. With a start he realized that it was Eral, spinning silently in the sky seemingly suspended there by the very tips of the ash tree that stretched out and tickled its clouds with its furthest branches.

Overwhelmed with the sight he sat down hard on the ground, feeling the cold pull him towards the snow and whisper to him to close his eyes. He could feel his heart slowing as the blood left his arms and legs and yet he could not force himself to look away from the tree or his own world suspended above it.

It's so beautiful from this far away, he mused as he thought he felt a smile form on his numb face. No one would bother fighting over land if they could see how much of it there is...

Drystan had a sudden desire to lay down and go to sleep when he heard Coord's voice echo in his thoughts. Eral will suffer the fate the Malefor deigned for the City, and all souls will burn at his feet.

Pulling his coat tightly around his shoulders he scrambled to his feet once again and set off at a run towards the ash tree. He ignored everything else around him, and there were more snow-covered mounds than he would have been able to accurately count, anyway. Everything in the City lay blanketed in snow and ice; even the flags flying from poles he passed were stiff and unmoving.

Before it had been frozen the City of Daeis must have been a magnificent place. Even though it was all now rendered in white and blue he could just feel that there were brilliant colors beneath the dead winter shell that encased it. Every step he took he could feel something pulling at him, telling him to simply sit down and take in everything around him. Quiet, subtle whispers and promises of peaceful relaxation, like a lullaby beckoning him to sleep. Each time when he began to consider it a good idea he heard Coord's words stating the fate of Eral should the crazy Oratio reach his destination. It goaded him on and let him ignore the offerings of the cold.