204 — Book 4, Chapter 48 — Confrontation, Pt 2

The forest they stood in was lush and verdant, and the sunlight peeking through the canopy made it a picturesque sight indeed. This was significant because it should have felt dull and gray, thanks to the dark lord standing within it. A divine void sapped the color and life from the world.

If he looked very, very carefully, Cale could see a faint shimmer of dullness around the dreadshade—the dark lord's innate domain, no doubt, though it was pulled so tight that it had no impact on the world around him at all. Not even the grass beneath his feet had died, though it was probably vaguely unhealthier for having made contact with his boots.

Cale hadn't even known it was possible to restrain the divine void to that degree. He wondered at the practice that must have taken, and he wondered even more about its potential consequences. He was familiar enough with the nature of the Dark that he knew the ability to restrain it would not come without its dangers.

Whatever those dangers were, though, this man must have decided they were worth it.

The (guilty-looking, Cale noted, though not as guilty as he should have looked) dreadshade standing there in front of him was wearing a Trenchcoat of Disguise. Cale recognized it because he often made use of its less overbearing counterpart, the Coat of Disguise.

The differences between the two were entirely aesthetic. Both were produced by the same mad wizard that regularly made and deposited various articles of enchanted clothing into the dungeon beneath his wizard tower. Veilhoarder, his name was, or something along those lines? His enchanted clothes were replicated all throughout the Great Realms as a result, and his Disguise line of clothes had saved Cale's life countless times. Usually when the natural obfuscation of humanity wasn't quite enough to do the trick.

The enchantment was simple: when a Disguise-imbued item of clothing was worn, they would be perceived as a nondescript, unidentifiable individual whose presence was unremarkable unless they specifically called attention to themselves.

The one flaw they had was that anyone who had ever used a Veilhoarder original would be able to recognize another one in use. Cale, therefore, had no trouble seeing through the Trenchcoat's magic.

Well, that and he'd been sleeping in the same room as the only other dreadshade in the realm for as long as he'd attended Brightscale. It would have been embarrassing if he hadn't been able to recognize the rather unique sensation of primordial decay mana.

The dark lord seemed a little stupefied, presumably from being hit upside the head. "Ow," he said slowly, staring at Cale's hand as if he couldn't quite believe what Cale had done. Then he looked up to meet Cale's eyes, and something in him seemed to crumble.

He took off the trenchcoat.

The clothes he wore underneath were remarkably simple for a chosen of the Dark. Cale was used to bulky, intimidating black armor or ostentatious, expensive tailored clothes. Dark ones tended to develop something of an ego. But this dreadshade wore nothing more than an old tunic and some worn-looking trousers, and there was a deep exhaustion in him that Cale recognized and sympathized with, in spite of himself.

The moment he removed the trenchcoat, the weariness in his eyes became apparent. There was a tension in his shoulders that spoke of decades spent bearing some great burden, a slight tremble in his hands that came from some mixture of anger and despair and determination. Cale might have dismissed it had he not been so intimately familiar with that himself, but he had, and so he sighed and let his anger drain away.

"You know, then," the dreadshade murmured. He removed his gloves and hooked them at his belt, fumbling once or twice before he managed to secure them, and conjured for himself a small platform of earth to sit on. He glanced at Cale, then gestured, conjuring a second seat in front of him. "You may as well take a seat. My name is Kelegas Thornblight."

"Cale, although it seems you knew that already," Cale said, settling onto the makeshift chair.

"Your echo was most informative," Kelegas said. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, his eyes dimming slightly. "I had hoped to delay our meeting."

"Why?" Cale asked. "If you've talked to Echo, then you'll know—"

"That you want to help. Yes." Kelegas stared at Cale for a moment, then looked away. "You can't help me."

"You don't know that," Cale said. "You don't know what I can or can't do. You haven't even met me before now."

"But I have met Echo, and he agrees," Kelegas said, and Cale frowned, faltering. He doubted Echo would say any such thing, but the dark lord didn't seem like he was lying; if anything, he seemed sad. The look in his eyes said he'd thought this through a thousand times and saw no other option.

"Just tell me what you're trying to do, at least," Cale said.

Kelegas hesitated, but only for a moment. "Seems I have no other choice in the matter," he said, half-joking. "You seem the sort to pester me until you get your answers."

"Get a lot of those, do you?" Cale raised an eyebrow.

Though it was brief, there was a glimmer of amusement in Kelegas's eyes. "You have no idea," he said quietly, and for a moment he was remembering: the countless times he'd needed to sort out problems between his aberrations; his first encounters with Emline, who pestered him until he acknowledged that he had not, in fact, solved the problem of aberrant dental care, or any of the countless other problems she helped him solve properly; the three hundred and fifteen times Steve had knocked on his castle doors insisting he wanted to help, until Kelegas finally relented and allowed him to join.

Not that Cale knew any of this, of course. He recognized the reminiscence in Kelegas's eyes, though. "I might know more than you think," he said with a chuckle. His own memories were far older: they encompassed that era so long ago, when he had been the captain of his own worldship. Many mages had joined his crew only because they had been stubborn, tracking him across lives and realms just to understand who he was and what he did. And inevitably, when they understood, they insisted on joining so they could help.

It was the stubborn ones who shone the brightest, really. Dekarad, who had chased him until they were both captured and thrown into the torture chambers of the Misbegotten, who had insisted on asking his questions during the torture; Selessa, who had noticed him first when he was tracking the Council of Storms, then rescued him when he had accidentally gotten sealed into their Stormdrain; Mavau, who was not even a mage but an accountant.

There was quite the story behind that one. Cale had asked them for their help in tracking down a papertrail-imp, a sort of immaterial demon that existed only in accounting errors and bureaucratic fraud. Mavau had then used their skills to figure out where Cale's worldship was docked, and by the time he returned, they were already there, waiting for him. Something about how he'd need their help tracking down future paperwork-related anomalies, and how that was the most fun they'd ever had?

Anyway. There was a brief moment of connection between him and Kelegas, there, though Cale only caught some of the resonance between them.

"Perhaps you do understand," Kelegas said, studying him. He glanced down a moment later, unable to hold Cale's gaze. "I will tell you, but first... how is he doing? My son."

"He's fine," Cale said, and although he hadn't intended to say too much—they were still on opposite sides, after all—the hope in Kelegas's eyes and his eagerness to learn more got to him. "He's been studying healing magic, and he's doing a pretty good job of it."

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"Healing, hm? I suppose I should have known." Kelegas smiled faintly. "He's always been kind. It is good to know he has not lost that side of him."

"It was a near thing, for a bit," Cale said, watching the dark lord. "Brightscale wasn't easy on him, and he didn't have a father to teach him how to control his decay magic."

Kelegas grimaced. "I was afraid of that," he said. "You... taught him, then? In my stead?"

"I taught him for his own sake, I wasn't necessarily doing it for you," Cale said dryly. "But he can control it now, yes. He's also got a cool cloak to help him."

"Good. Good." Kelegas exhaled, though he didn't need to breathe. A habit he shared with his son, it seemed. "How do you think he would react, if he knew the plight of the aberrations? If he met them, face-to-face?"

"He'd want to help them," Cale said, his expression flickering briefly before he schooled it into something impassive. "He knows something of it already. All my apprentices do. I don't doubt they're all hoping there's a better way than war."

It was a probe more than an answer, and Kelegas knew it, judging from the way his features sharpened slightly. "There is not," he said, the words heavy. "Every realm is presented with a choice. You know this. It can belong either to the realmborn or to the Dark and its aberrations. It cannot belong to both."

"It can—"

"It cannot," Kelegas emphasized, and now there was a fire in his voice; he stood, something dark and terrifying and alien swimming in his eyes. Cale stared up at him and met his gaze without flinching. "The Dark has grown, and so has its anger. Perhaps long ago, it was possible, but no longer. Look at me, Cale Cadwell Cobbs. Do you not see the restraint I must have not to strike out at the realm? Do you not see how much I must resist, every second of every day, if I want my son to live in peace?

"And how much longer can I afford to hold back? I cannot do it forever. I was made responsible for the aberrations of Utelia, and I will not abandon them." Kelegas snapped a hand out and wrapped it around Cale's throat, lifting him several feet into the air. "Every moment you blessed-born crawl around in the realm and bask in its filth, my people suffer and die. The very realm rejects them! Am I to do nothing? Am I to hope for peace while we sit in our own decaying piece of the worl—"

Cale cast [Isolation].

This was, technically, something he'd been able to do long before the Gift had wrapped it up in the form of a spell and given it a description. He'd noticed it only after the Gift reconnected with him, sitting innocently in his spell list. Something about its integration with [Sourcefire] must have allowed it to interpret and condense even forms of magic it hadn't originally been able to work with...

There was something about that, actually, that was important. Cale filed away the thought.

[Isolation] was a simple piece of magic. Through the Gift, the magic took less mana and focus than it ordinarily would have. Prismatic mana erupted from him, making Kelegas flinch, and then it wrapped around them both in a veritable storm of power that took their slice of the realm and shunted it outside the veil.

Sort of like a miniature Black Vault, now that he thought about it. He wondered if the two magics were related in any way. Perhaps the Black Vault had been based on his magic, somehow?

Kelegas was staring at him, breathing heavily, but a bit of clarity was filtering back into his eyes. He was also still holding Cale by the throat.

Cale let out a polite cough. "Not that this isn't hot and all," he said, "but you're not going to be able to squeeze past my barrier, and this position probably isn't conducive for talking."

Kelegas let go of him like he'd been burned, which was a little insulting. Cale chose to believe it was more because he hadn't meant to do that than because he was offended by the insinuation.

"I'm—I'm sorry," the dark lord said, staring at his hand. When he looked up at Cale, his eyes were lost, strangely helpless. "It is—difficult to control myself, at times, when the Dark's influence leaks in—"

"Stop suppressing your divine void," Cale advised. "I've isolated us, so you're not going to be discovered or anything."

Kelegas's eyes widened slightly, and then he gave Cale a stiff, grateful nod. A moment later, the familiar feeling of the void washed out over both of them.

Kelegas straightened, his eyes a little colder. Backlash, Cale thought. The effect of long-term suppression of the void, most likely, though not as bad as it might have been if not for [Isolation]. That coldness combined with the anger of the Lesion would have been devastating indeed, but here and now, it helped Kelegas calm down.

"This is... an interesting spell," Kelegas said, looking around at the prismatic storm that left its center entirely undisturbed. He knelt down to touch the grass, and a momentary wonder flickered in his expression before the coldness reasserted itself. "It isolates you from the Abyss?"

"And the Great Realms," Cale said. "I thought you could use somewhere to let loose, so to speak. Or rather, a place where the Lesion's connection to you would be muted."

"That was wise," Kelegas said. "I apologize for my outburst."

"My answer to your question is no, by the way."

"...What?" Whatever Kelegas had expected Cale to say, it wasn't that, apparently. "What do you mean, no?"

"You asked if you're supposed to do nothing, and I said no," Cale said. "You're right. Things can't stand as they are."

"If this is some ploy to join me and betray me at the last moment—"

Cale snorted. "Please. I'm sure Echo has told you how it's gone all the other times I tried something like that."

Kelegas sat back down heavily. "What do you mean, then?" he asked, this time both cautious and hopeful; some of that coldness was already beginning to bleed away, though Cale wasn't sure if that was [Isolation] at work or something else.

"I mean exactly what I said," Cale said. "Things can't stand as they are. I've discovered a few things recently myself—the Nothing is getting heavier, and the Nothing is linked to the Dark, which is most likely why the Lesion's influence is growing..."

Cale took his time explaining some of what he'd learned, and Kelegas returned the favor by sharing some of the accumulated knowledge of the dark lords of Utelia. Cale left certain details out, of course, and he had no doubt Kelegas was doing the same. What Cale left out were mostly the details concerning what his magic was capable of and the way humanity might have been connected to it all.

Kelegas didn't need to know that much about him. Not when they weren't even certain allies yet. Same page or not, Kelegas struggled against the influence of the Lesion, and there was no guarantee he would remain as amenable after he returned to the range of its magic.

"If what you say is true, then the Great Realms as a whole may be doomed," Kelegas said quietly once he was done. He looked up at Cale, something in his expression bitter and resigned all at once. "The Nothing will not shrink. The Dark grows with every moment. It will pull apart even the Abyss, given enough time, and every realm will be caught in a cycle of aberrations and Darkness."

"You would think," Cale said, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on his makeshift seat. "But it's a little strange that we'd discover all of this now, don't you think? Feels almost like someone set things up this way."

Kelegas froze. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I doubt it's a coincidence that everything is coming to a head here and now, in a realm containing the corpse of a Monolith, a divine Gift that can handle even my mana, the last remnants of a dead cult, and who knows what else," Cale said. "Or that I have certain memories sealed. Or that you have certain memories sealed. Or that I just met a certain eldritch entity that knew who I was, even though she ruled before even the planting of Yggdrasil."

Kelegas blinked. "You met a what now?" he asked. Cale hadn't explained anything about the Bitter Path, and he didn't explain it now, either; he just waved away the question.

"Point is," he said, "it seems like we have roles we're supposed to play. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't like playing a role without knowing why, no matter how good the intention. So how about this? You keep playing your role, for now. Do what you were going to do. You're in disguise, so I assume you're not off killing innocents or anything. I'll keep playing my role, too. Maybe have some fun for a bit.

"But. You have aberrations that can explore the Endless Deep, don't you? Ones that can survive even the oceans of Utelia?" Cale grinned, eyes flashing with his usual wild fire. "I'm going to pay a visit to them sometime, and I'd appreciate it if you could get them to help me see what's at the bottom of the oceans. Send a letter or something."

Kelegas paused. "...And you will not interfere with my plans?"

"I mean, I can't promise that," Cale said, a little more seriously. "If those plans are going to hurt people, I'm going to help. But the reverse is true, too."

"That is sufficient," Kelegas said, and though he hid it well, there was a touch of relief in his voice. "I appreciate it."

"I also expect you to write a letter to Damien," Cale said, staring intently at Kelegas. "I don't know how much you want to explain, but you need to explain something. He'll want to see you."

"I don't want him to see me like this," Kelegas said quietly.

"Your choice," Cale said. "But that sounds like what you want."

He stood, and the barrier around them dissipated; Kelegas buckled slightly as he suppressed his void once again.

"Good talk," Cale said. "I hope the next one goes better."

With that, he disappeared back into the bloom.