Mark of the Fool

In his relatively short nineteen year life span, Alex Roth had seen a lot of darkness: both literal and metaphorical.

There was the dark of Alric during a winter night, when no flame burned to break the darkness. There was the pitch black within passagewaysin the Cave of the Traveller, only broken by his forceball light. There had been those dark spaces in the Ravener’s dungeons: unlit, leaving their mortal enemies blind.

But none compared to the dark now surrounding him and his group of companions.

Tenebrama’s darkness was so deep—like the bottom of the deepest well— that it seemed to drink the light of his memories, casting light images in dim shadow. The mass darksight magic—channelled by way of his aeld staff and cast through the spell—that he’d placed on the group was already doing its work, turning what would have been an impenetrable blackness into a strange colourless world in which they could at least see.

But even that magic had its limits.

Normally, the power of mass darksight empowered the eye to see through pitch black up to one hundred and twenty feet, but it would provide no colour, leaving the world in shades of greys.

And beyond that range? All would be shrouded with an absence of light.

But here, in this dark plane, it was more severe. The supernatural gloom was so thick that even the dark-dispelling magic struggled to pierce it, reducing visibility to merely sixty feet.

Alex shifted uncomfortably, his staff in hand, emotion drifting from it in waves. Fear. Trepidation. Anger.

Discomfort; two new crystalline blooms had formed in its branches after he’d infused it with mass darksight and invisibility, but the blooms shed no light. Invisibility magic sheathed the staff, the one who wielded it, and their companions.

As such—to Alex’s eyes—it seemed as though he was alone in the dark. He felt for the rope tied to his waist: a comforting tether. He and his companions were bound together by the thick rope: under invisibility and travelling in silence, it would have been a simple matter to get lost in the pitch black otherwise.

Still, the rope extending from his waist disappeared from sight a little more than a foot beyond his body, everyone tied to him was no longer visible.

It was lonely.

It was terrifying.

And he could feel rising anger pushing against his thoughts.

“You’re among friends,” he whispered. “You’re among people who support you. You’re calm. You’re not actually angry.”

His mind settled as the affirmations grounded him, and he took a deep breath.

He felt the rope grow taut.

It was time to move.

Up ahead near the front of his invisible group of teammates, the enormous Grimloch drifted forward under flight magic, cutting through the air as silently as he cut through the sea. His eyes—used to the lightless ocean depths—could pierce the dark without the aid of Alex’s magic, seeing farther as well.

His senses were well suited to dark realms: better than any of the other members of the party and—with Baelin’s directions in mind—it was the sharkman that they would rely on to guide their way.

“You are charged with destroying an ancient relic within Tenebrama which has the dubious name of the Fountain of Infinite Shadow,” the chancellor had informed them. “It channels the darkness of the realm into an obscuring illusion that hides its master’s greatest treasures. Your task is to free those treasures, which means: your mission will be to destroy this relic. It might be a simpler mission than your last, but only if you remain undiscovered.”

He had handed them a vague map and a list of landmarks. “The fountain is powered by a constant blood sacrifice fuelled by the deaths of countless demon and mortal slaves. The odour of fresh blood can be smelledhalfway across the plane.”

And that had been no exaggeration.

In the dark, the rusty tang oflife blood filled the air, biting Alex’s nostrils. Some of their group–excluding himself, Theresa, Hart, Thundar and Grimloch—wore Orbs of Air: without visibility, having use of their other senses was important in tracking their present location.

Grimloch-—his intense sense of smell for blood was sharper than any shark’s—could lead them through the dark, featureless, plane like a wolf to wounded prey.

‘And boy is it featureless,’ Alex thought.

There was only flat earth and black sand for as far as they could see…which in this case, was about sixty feet. No stones lay in their path. No wind caressed the air. All was silent, except for the sounds of monsters.

All around, he heard the sweep of wings in the air, the sound of beasts clashing with roars of rage, and the clamour of terrible violence. Their sounds were harsh and tumultuous, grating on Alex’s nerves in a way he knew was unnatural.

Again, the realm plagued his mind.

The air was frigid and—combined with the dark—made it seem like he was trapped alone in a chamber of shadow that held no colour. He could understand how one could go mad here, trapped in the cold, forced into silence because of hundreds of demons.

Thankfully, he had someone to talk to.

‘Claygon?’ He reached out to his golem mentally. ‘Are you alright?’

‘I am…father.’ Came the construct’s silent reply, though Alex could feel tension in the golem’s mental tone. Waves of emotion travelled between them, but no anger. ‘I feel…nothing from the wrath-field.’

‘Well, you’re lucky,’ Alex thought. ‘You weren’t affected by the terror-field either. Probably because your mind’s so…unique. I’m just glad to hear you’re alright.’

‘Are…you?’ Claygon thought. ‘I feel…anger from you, father.’

‘Why would you ask me that?’ Alex thought. ‘You think I can’t handle this? Come on, Claygon I made you, I—Wait, wait. Shit. Sorry. It’s the wrath-field.’

‘I…understand. I will…protect you.’

Another flash of anger boiled in the young wizard’s core.

Why would he need to be protected?

Because of the Mark? Was he some useless Fool that needed everyone to hold him like a baby? No, he was—

He stopped his train of thought, recognizing the alien emotion and letting it pass.

‘Yes, thank you for protecting me, Claygon,’ Alex thought. ‘I really appreciate it.’

He withdrew into his own mind, working on keeping himself calm.

‘Why does this seem so much harder than Ikharrash’s fortress?’ He thought. ‘The terror-field was unpleasant, but I could deal with it. I almost didn’t notice it for a good while. But this place? This is much tougher. Why the hells is it so tough? It’s making—Alex, you’re losing it again.’

With a slow deep breath, he calmed himself, making himself consider all the information he had. All the differences between this realm and the last. In silence, he mulled over the two realms in his mind, soon finding an answer.

In fact, most of the differences were literally clear.

‘The last realm was filled with stimulus: demons were everywhere, there was a thick jungle, flashing lightning and a fortress full of monsters… Here, we’re surrounded by coldness and darkness, overwhelmed by the smell of blood and the unnerving sounds of demons in the distance. There’s not much to distract you: you’re all alone with the demons in your mind.’

Shaking himself, he began tapping his arm as he floated along, guided by the rope. ‘Think. Keep yourself occupied. And hope to the Traveller that Thundar’s lessons can help everyone keep their heads—’

‘Watch out…father!’

Two forms hurtled from the darkness, locked in a deadly grip.

They crashed to the ground, spraying a cloud of black sand into the air as they tore at each other. Two pazuzite demons—overcome by rage—ripped and tore at each other some twelve feet away from Alex.

The din grew in the dark.

Suddenly, the sound of hundreds of wings flapping through the pitch-black overhead appeared, circling, swooping around with abandon. Demons called to each other in their many tongues, laughing and squawking, enjoying the fight. Some cheered the violence, while others bet souls, portions of food and others trinkets on who the winner would be.

He felt the rope slacken.

The group had stopped.

‘Shit,’ he thought, trying to control a spike of irritation. ‘We’re close, why’re we stopping, Grimloch?’

But there would be no answer for him.

These demons could almost hear a pin drop, and their sight was well adapted to the constant darkness: even a whisper at the wrong moment could give the team away.

And so Alex waited, fighting impatience, until a tug at his waist pulled him forward. As he followed, floating above the ground, a gaze seemed to pierce him from the right.

A crash came. Sand stung his face.

He wiped it away, barely resisting a gasp at what met his eyes.

A pazuzite demon was beside him, its hot, vile breath filling his nostrils. It was no more than a foot away—it could reach out and easily touch him—and it was looking right at him.

His mind whirled. His staff raged, eager for him to use its magic and strike at the demon. The creature had seen him, it had seen through his invisi—no wait.

It wasn’t looking at him.

It was looking through him.

On eggshells, the young wizard floated around the pazuzite; its eyes did not follow, remaining on the bloody fight between its kin. Alex sighed mentally, relief washed over him as he followed the rope’s pull. He kept an eye on the brawling demons, cursing silently as he watched them disappear into the darkness behind.

It had been a long while since he’d felt so helpless, and he didn’t like the feeling.

‘Keep calm,’ he thought. ‘Keep calm. Your feelings don’t matter. Think of the mission. Think about what you’re learning. The rope was a good idea, but you need to try and find other ways to communicate with the others when you can’t talk or see each other. That’s something to work on. That’s it! Problem-solving.That’s how you keep your mind occupied. You can problem-solve, just like you did before you came down here. It allowed you to come up with the little present you made for these demons.’

His hand fondly touched the satchel by his side as he thought about the last projects he’d tackled before coming down to Tenebrama. He’d worked on a couple of special ones right after the housewarming party.

The first was the armour he’d promised Khalik, now finished and being worn by the earth mage, unseen under the guise of invisibility. The second project, though?

It was a critical one—crafted for the sole purpose of devastating the demons’ relic without revealing their presence—and completed with material provided by the Heroes when they’d arrived that morning.

‘That’s right, you problem-solved for this,’ he remembered the hours he’d spent using the Mark to master aspects of the clockwork-craft needed for the device. ‘Let’s just hope all goes well.’

He clenched his jaw, eyes looking down at the spell-mark on his hand. ‘You’re not going to have a protective mark and a portal waiting for you when you come down to the hells again looking for the Traveller’s information. You might even be on your own; so keep the lessons you’re learning right now in mind.’

As he continued to drift forward, his mind slowly let go of anger, working on the communication problem instead. There had to be some spell out there that allowed thought-to-thought communication…and if there wasn’t…

What else could he do?

There were those communication devices that Professor Jules used. If he could get his hands on some of those…then perhaps…

‘No wait, we’d still have the same problem: we’d still have to speak into them,’ he thought. ‘Maybe—’

He flinched.

A tall spire of black rock loomed ahead.

It was the first landmark.

They were getting closer.

He pushed thoughts of communication aside.

It was time to concentrate.

What felt like hours had passed, though—in this place—it might have only been minutes. Floating through the endless dark, the group had passed thousands of demons, approaching a deepening odour of fresh blood.

Grimloch had guided them unerringly, slipping everyone past the landmarks Baelin had described. Alex was even more impressed with the sharkman’s skills.

At last, the rope went slack and—for the first time since they’d entered Tenebrama—Grimloch spoke.

“There’s no demons close to us. We’re about three hundred feet away. Alex, you can get it ready.”

“Gladly,” the young wizard whispered, digging into his satchel.

Tenebrama might have been dark, but it wouldn’t be that way for long.

Alex was holding a strange device, a hexagonal shape made of well-oiled springs and clockwork. From it, he could feel the thrum of chaos essence and another bit of magical material.

In his hands, he held the world’s first chaos-dungeon core explosive device.

Or, as Theresa had called it:

A Chaos Bomb.