Tales of the Dominia Cabal: Lucien
by RavenoftheBlack
Status: Public
Word Count: 7086

Steward’s Hall was an impossible and heavenly place. Like all of the Builder’s triumphs, it held an immaculate, almost frightening geometry, with ceilings, walls, and floors curving and twisting into one another with a subtlety that whispered of limitless genius. Few mortals on any plane, whether owned by the Cabal or still in the throes of chaos, could have possibly comprehended the sight of the opulent meeting hall.

Of course, fewer mortals still would ever have the opportunity to set eyes upon it in the first place. Steward’s Hall was a place of gods, not of mortals; of masters, not of servants; of those who gloried in the blessed light of the Spark, not of those who cowered in the darkness that was everything else. The Hall sat on no plane, but rather floated alone in the Blind Eternities. The mere fact that the walls refused to give in to the constant push of the æther from without was a testament to the Builder’s skill and power.

The only mortals who would ever set foot in this hallowed place were the honored spellsquires occasionally kept by the planeswalkers of the Dominia Cabal, and even they were a rarity here. Even the planeswalkers themselves rarely came to Steward’s Hall. The Cabal had countless strongholds across an impossible number of planes, but Steward’s Hall was something special. The Master himself commissioned its construction, and the Builder had toiled years to perfect it. It was the most important, the most secure, and the most revered of all the Cabal’s holdings.

Which made it all the more surprising that for this meeting, the Hall was just over half filled.

The Master had summoned everyone to the meeting. It was to have been a full conclave of the entire Cabal, and yet there were many absent, and the Master’s patience was running out. His displeasure rumbled through the walls and rattled the floor. Conath LocTieran looked around the assembly, a rare nervous feeling creeping into his mind. Next to him, Dathra LocTieran, his apprentice and centuries younger member of his clan, shook her head. They both noted, with surprise and concern, that the Builder was one of those who would be counted absent.

All three of the Master’s most trusted subservients were there. To his right sat Serana, his personal blacksmith, and to his left, the Falling Sun, beautiful and terrible as all of nature. Away from the massive table, standing against the curving wall, was Judgment, his face literally blank as he stared eyelessly at the others. To the Falling Sun’s left was the Chamberlain, alternating his glances between the Master and the rest of the table. Next to him sat Ouria, weaving her fingers into countless threads and knots, only to bring them back to some semblance of human digits and begin again. The Chamberlain’s other faithful officers, Souldrinker and the Sweeper, were nowhere to be seen.

To Serana’s right, the Mentalist sat with his eyes closed, his Taskmaster steadily drumming his thumb against the table as they waited. The Siren, who fell under the umbrella of the Mentalist’s authority, was also strangely absent. The Mender, along with her loyal devotees Ilyria and Linara, sat to their right, but Mother Wailer was gone. The General sat next to Ouria, but none of the General’s officers were in attendance. The Scientist was also absent, as were each of her servitors. The Historian and the Translator were both there, but not the Timeguard. The Huntsman rounded out the number of those had come, and he was sitting next to Conath, which added to the ancient artificer’s concerns.

“There is no more time to wait,” the Master’s voice cut through the hall. “We will begin.” The Master, on this occasion, had decided to appear as a shaft of golden light, and his voice seemed to come from everywhere at the same time. Still, the edge of annoyance lining it was as unmistakable as it would have been coming from a physical frame. "As enough of our time has already been wasted, we shall dispense with the formalities. Historian. Speak."

The Historian braced against the table and rose to stand. He was wearing the form of an extremely ancient man, which was precisely what he was. His face was lined with deep wrinkles, his hair was thin and grey, and he had a large, gaping hole where his right eye should have been. He looked around at those gathered there before clearing his throat to speak.

"As you know," he began slowly, "one of my tasks is to document the histories of the planes under our," he paused, deliberately, "supervision. As I'm certain you can all appreciate, this is a daunting task. As such, the Translator here," he indicated to his left, "has been an immeasurable help by travelling to many of our planes and doing a great deal of the primary research."

"Is there a point to this?" The Taskmaster interrupted. "We know your duties, Historian, and we have our own to attend to."

The light from the Master flared at the outburst, and the Taskmaster fell silent. The Chamberlain shot the Taskmaster a look that spoke a warning, and the Mentalist shook his head slightly. Finally, the Historian continued.

"The point is, the Translator discovered something on his recent sojourn to the plane of Pythdon that concerns the Cabal in a very real way." Murmurs broke out amongst those gathered, but the Historian spoke over them as he once again indicated toward his apprentice. "Thineaus?"

Thineaus stood up, a leather-bound book in his hands. He opened the book to a page marked by a thin blue strip of silk and began to speak. "There appears to be a new religion forming on the sun-baked plane of Pythdon. I hold in my hands a tome known as the Noltracas, the best translation for which is the 'New Truth.' The book is young, less than two decades, and yet many on Pythdon regard it as a sacred text."

"This is a problem, to be sure," the General interjected, "but surely not cause to summon us all here."

"I will decide when there is cause for us to gather," the Master warned, his voice shaking the Builder's carefully constructed walls. Conath LocTieran shuddered at the thought. The shaft of light did not move, but everyone gathered knew the Master turned his attention away from the General and back toward Thineaus. "Read the passage."

Thineaus nodded, and held up the Noltracas to read its lines. "’And there I walked, through scorching days and briefest nights, through the great desert known as Barakri. And on the fourth morning, I felt my weariness melt, and God descended upon me. And lo, I beheld Him as a line of great diamonds above, as wide as the sky itself’."

Silence descended on Steward's Hall. Everyone gathered there knew the weight of those words, and every one of them knew what they meant.

The Chamberlain coughed once. "There is only one known to us who takes such an ostentatious form, and only one who would dare name himself a god on a plane of the Cabal."

The others exchanged glances for a long moment before the General spoke, pronouncing the name each of them were thinking. "Lucien."

The Mender hung her head. "I had truly hoped we had seen the last of him after Belaroas."

"Not that one," the General said. "Lucien desires only two things: Power, and the subversion of the Cabal. We should have ended things on Belaroas."

"Doing so would have ended Belaroas herself," Ilyria pointed out.

"A small price," the General scoffed with a wave of the hand.

"You should not be so callous to those in our ward," the Mender interjected. "Their lives matter as much as ours do."

"Hardly," the Huntsman said. "And even so, not for nearly as long."

"I think you forget how useful the mortals can be, Huntsman," the Taskmaster noted. "Imagine trying to run the planes without them."

"Running the planes is your job," the Huntsman said dismissively. "I'll leave you to yours, and you leave me to mine."

"Had you done your job on Belaroas, we would not be having this conversation!" The Taskmaster retorted.

The Huntsman growled like a wild animal. "How dare you!"

"Calm yourself," the Mentalist interjected before turning to his functionary. "And please, Taskmaster, be civil." He turned back to glare at the Huntsman. "Though I must say he raises a fair point, Huntsman. Was it not you who was charged with destroying Lucien?"

The Huntsman rose to his feet, knocking his chair away as he did. "I fought that accursed 'walker for days! Rarely have I ever met a stronger opponent. And where were you as I battled our foe? Where were any of you?"

"I was calming the populace," the Mentalist said calmly. "So as to prevent the chaos and cacophony of your battle from shattering their already fragile minds."

"Let them shatter," the Huntsman continued. "Perhaps if I had not been forced to fight alone, Lucien would be dead now, and no further concern."

"If you cannot fulfill the duties for which you were brought into the Cabal," the Taskmaster said, an edge in his voice, "then perhaps you should be dismissed in favor of someone who can."

The Huntsman roared, and mana flared throughout the room. The Huntsman and the Taskmaster gathered their energies, and even Conath transformed into his drake form, although he knew he would be outmatched if either planeswalker turned their ire on him. Before things could get any worse, though, the Master's light exploded throughout Steward's Hall, and everyone immediately regained both their composure and their seats.

"This conversation is moot," the Master said, "and a waste of our time. Like so much else these days, it seems. Huntsman, you assured us before Belaroas that you could rid us of Lucien, and you failed. That is fact, and there is nothing more to it. Taskmaster, it is your place to organize the mortals, nothing else. Do not forget yourself and question the other members of the Cabal instead. Am I clear?"

Reluctantly, the Taskmaster and the Huntsman both nodded.

"Good," the Master continued. "The past is the past, and even we cannot alter it." The Historian twitched slightly at this comment, but no one said anything, and the Master continued. "We defeated Lucien at Belaroas, but we did not vanquish him. This time must be different. Lucien is more powerful than we had anticipated. This time, we will not underestimate him. General, you will go to Pythdon and see to this matter. Take with you my Falling Sun, as well as Linara of the Skyloom, for Lucien prefers to dwell in the clouds. Take also Conath and Dathra LocTieran, for if Lucien cannot be defeated, he must be imprisoned, and artifice may hold him where magic has not."

"And who else shall I take?" The General asked, looking first at the Huntsman and then at Judgment, still standing stoically against the wall.

For a long moment, silence dominated the room once more. Then finally, the Master spoke, his light pulsing with his words. "No one else. If five of our number cannot destroy one rogue planeswalker, then perhaps..." he trailed off, just for a moment, "perhaps new methods will have to be developed."

"I should be going," the Huntsman said. "Lucien escaped from me on Belaroas, he did not defeat me!"

"No," the Master said plainly. "You have failed against Lucien. I have no desire to watch you fail again. You will not go to Pythdon."

The Chamberlain gave the Huntsman a look similar to the one he had shot the Taskmaster, but it was different somehow, as if it spoke to some previous knowledge the two shared. A moment later, the look was gone, and the conversation rolled past it.

"What about Judgment?" the Mentalist asked. "Surely, his strength would be a great asset against our foe."

"No, Judgment..." the Master hesitated. "...stays with me."

The rest of the gathered Cabal looked at one another, the Master's words seeming to carry more weight than he intended. Eventually, the Master continued. "Go to Pythdon and finish this. Report back after Lucien is eradicated. Meeting adjourned."

Conath LocTieran materialized on Pythdon in his drake form, plummeting through the sky before unfolding his body and spreading his wings to catch the wind beneath them. His scales shimmered a cobalt blue in the bright Pythdon sun as he banked, allowing himself to slowly, lazily spiral down toward the meadow below. As he was circling, Conath felt the air around him ripple as another planeswalker tore through the æther and shot toward the ground in the form of a fiery meteor, spewing dirt and smoke into the sky from the impact. Had Conath been in his human body, he would have shaken his head at the impetuous General.

As Conath alighted on the ground, he transformed back into his simple, wild-haired human body, sensing no immediate danger in the meadow. Standing a short distance from the General’s crater, Conath could see the Falling Sun, her frame beautiful and feminine as she scanned the horizon. Next to her, the air shimmered and then ripped apart, as Linara of the Skyloom stepped onto the plane. In some ways, she was just as lovely as the Falling Sun, but much more eerie with her six arms and her shining eyes. Even after countless centuries as a planeswalker and seeing them, and himself, take strange and indescribable shapes, it was always those who looked nearly but not quite human that gave Conath a momentary pause.

The General hovered out of the crater, dusting off the dust and debris, just as Dathra landed next to Conath in the form of a large crane. She shifted back into her own red-headed human form just as the other three ‘walkers converged on their location. The meadow they were in was a wild one, vast and featureless, save for the impact crater that the General had just made. The flowers growing there were massive and untamed, dominating the landscape with innumerable shades of green and yellow. Most of the flowers grew two or three times the size of an average human, and the planeswalkers could only see as far as the General’s blast radius.

The General frowned. “Which way?”

Linara shrugged with two sets of arms. “It’s been ages since I have set foot on this plane. And I suspect Lucien will be a bit more subtle this time.”

The Falling Sun nodded. “The Translator said that Lucien is setting himself up as a god here. I think it would be wise if we searched first for civilization. The odds are they will either be loyal to this new god, or will know of his cult.”

“Which still begs the question of which way we go,” the General reminded her, annoyed.

Conath closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember when last the Cabal had come to Pythdon in force. He examined his mental map as he would a set of blueprints for the plane, as the Builder had taught him. After a moment, Conath opened his eyes and pointed in a direction that was mostly east. “That way.”

The General looked in the direction Conath had pointed. “Are you sure,” the General asked, uncertain.

Conath nodded. “There was once a village on the bank of the river there. Even if the village no longer exists, the river will, and that will lead us to someone.”

The General considered for a long moment, but eventually nodded. “Fine. Let’s go.”

The five planeswalkers moved through the towering flowers of the meadow at a brisk pace, and in almost total silence. The General took the lead, with the Falling Sun behind and Linara behind that. Conath and Dathra brought up the rear. Occasionally, Conath would attempt to speak with his kin, but Dathra seemed highly distracted as they walked, and not at all in the mood for conversation. She had a great deal of potential in artifice; both Conath and the Builder believed so. But she was significantly more emotional than they were, and often grew frustrated with the slow and methodical designs her masters prized. Conath suspected that she was merely annoyed at being sent on this errand when she could have been working in one of the labs, but he made a mental note to speak to her about it later, and about the importance of propriety in these situations.

Eventually, the planeswalkers broke free of the meadow and found themselves in cultivated grasslands, trimmed low by grazing livestock. As they crested a large hill, they caught sight of the river Conath had remembered winding its way into the distance. The village the artificer had remembered was no longer a mere village, but had grown into a sprawling city that spanned both banks of the river, connected by tall, arched bridges to allow the passage of small fishing and trading boats beneath them. With just a wave of the hand, the General ordered the others to make for the city.

At first, the city seemed like any other. Its population was split fairly evenly between human and Equan, a race of horsefolk who were the inverse of the centaur, with horse heads, hair-covered torsos, and human-like, bipedal legs. The planeswalkers received gawking glances in their direction, mostly owing to the six-armed Linara, but nobody made any move to approach them. In fact, everyone seemed to be in a pleasant and happy mood, enjoying various games and instruments on the streets. Even those who stared at Linara did so only momentarily before returning to some sort of revelry or another. It was a strange, but jovial, atmosphere.

It was Dathra who first noticed something was amiss, and she hurriedly gathered the others into a circle in the street to draw their attention to it.

“Have you noticed that no one is working?”

The other ‘walkers looked around. “That is odd,” Conath agreed.

The Falling Sun shrugged. “Perhaps it is some local holiday. Such things are allowed by the Cabal, you know.”

“I know,” Dathra acknowledged, “but don’t you find it strange that all of the shops are open, all of the market stalls set up, but no one is manning them?”

Again, the other ‘walkers looked around. Dathra was right. Linara pointed to a nearby building. “And look there. The paint is chipped and cracked, yet there is no sign of attempted repair.”

Conath nodded. “The streets, too. Roots and weeds are breaking through the cobblestone. You would think it would be attended to.”

“And no one was working the fields as we came in,” the Falling Sun added.

“I think it has been some time since anyone in this town as worked at anything,” Dathra said. “I wonder how they are getting their food.”

“Perhaps they are not,” Linara commented, gesturing to several nearby revelers at once. “Look how thin their mortal frames are.”

“Something is very wrong here,” the Falling Sun said. “These people are wasting away, and laughing as they do.”

The General scowled. “These are not the rules and the laws that the Taskmaster set for these people, that much is certain. We need to get to the bottom of this, although I suspect I can already guess.”

“What’s that?” Conath said, pointing to a small structure just off the main road. It was open-fronted, like a vendor's stall, but ornately decorated and painted. It looked new compared to the disrepair of the rest of the city.

“A shrine,” the General said, displeased.

“Not one of ours, though,” Conath said.

“No,” Linara agreed, closing her eyes. All six of her hands began working in an intricate pattern that the others could not discern. After a few short moments, her arms slumped and she opened her eyes. “But like ours, this shrine was built on the intersection of two leylines. Weak leylines, admittedly, but still, this shrine’s placement was no accident. Whoever built this has a strong understanding of the workings of this plane.”

Without a word, the General walked over to the shrine, examining its contents. It was a simple wooden structure with a small altar built into the center. Above the altar, suspended from two thin poles, was a diamond necklace. The General scowled as the others arrived.

“I think this removes all doubt,” the General said. “We need to find…”

“Welcome, pilgrims!” a voice interrupted. The planeswalkers turned around to see a tall, grey-haired Equan standing there, grinning and strumming some sort of lute or mandolin. “Have you come to revel in the glory of the Prism God?”

The planeswalkers glanced at one another before the General forced a disingenuous smile. “Perhaps you could help us with that. This is, of course, a lovely shrine, but tell me, does the Prism God have a temple in this city?”

“Ahh!” the Equan exclaimed, excitedly. “Devotees! Yes, pilgrims, yes! Of course, there’s a temple. Would you like me to take you there?”

“Yes,” the General answered simply.

Expecting more of a response, the Equan hesitated momentarily, then regained his composure, and walked off down the street, signaling for the ‘walkers to follow him. The horsefolk man led them through the town, and the scene never changed. Everyone in town seemed to be thoroughly distracted with games, sports, and song, and everything seemed to be falling apart. Their guide either didn’t notice, or didn’t care, as he skipped merrily through the streets, playing his happy tune. As they walked, Conath noticed that a number of the revelers had a copy of the Noltracas with them.

After a short walk, the Equan led the planeswalkers to a small veranda that opened into a simple dock on the riverbank. A single, idyllic vessel, little more than a small keelboat, was moored at the dock, with four crewman waiting pleasantly. Under the veranda, a single human woman stood facing the river. She was dressed in a grey robe, and wore a thick black veil over her eyes pulled tight against her face. She turned toward them as they entered, although Conath questioned whether or not she could see through the thick material.

“Greetings, oracle,” their Equan guide said with a flourished bow. “I have found these devotees who wish to worship at the temple.”

“Thank you, child,” the woman said with a slight bow. “I shall lead them from here.”

The Equan smiled and nodded, then turned back to the planeswalkers. “The Veiled Oracles will see to it you have everything you need, pilgrims. Be merry!”

Without another word, the horsefolk man skipped away, humming and playing to himself. The Veiled Oracle indicated toward the boat. “If you will please accompany me, travelers, I shall bring you to your destination.”

Without waiting for their response, the woman walked confidently onto the waiting boat, her veiled eyes apparently no detriment to her movement. One by one, the planeswalkers followed her until they had all boarded, at which point the crewman wordlessly pushed off. The boat floated down the river slowly, and no one spoke. It was a pleasant, if uneventful, trip. Whatever else might have been happening on Pythdon, it was a quiet and peaceful place, and the bright sun above could almost make the planeswalkers forget the severity of their mission.

At length, the boat came upon a bridge that spanned the divided halves of the city, the last bridge in town, by the look of it. The crewman maneuvered the boat over to the eastern bank and docked at a pier almost identical to the one they had boarded on from the western bank. Without a word to the travelers, the Veiled Oracle stepped from the boat onto the dock, and from there, into a second veranda. The planeswalkers followed, preparing themselves for whatever possible conflict would come about. The Veiled Oracle led them through the veranda and directly into the temple courtyard, which was dominated by a large fountain. A fountain which, tellingly, was ringed with diamonds around each of its three tiers.

The temple courtyard was surprisingly full. There were at least a dozen Veiled Oracles walking about, tending to the grounds in a way that the rest of the city seemed not to. There were also numerous groups of people, standing or sitting around laughing and playing. One group made primarily of humans were engaged in some sort of sport played with a large baton passed between players, while another group of Equans were playing vigorous and lively music on a variety of instruments. It was a bizarre, almost carnival atmosphere, made all the more strange by the stereotypical trappings of a somber and serious temple that surrounded them.

At the door to the temple itself, their guide stopped and turned around to face them. “So, you have come seeking the great Prism God, have you?”

“That’s right,” the General said. “We have one or two serious matters we would like to discuss with him.”

“I see,” the woman said, an edge entering her voice. “Very well. If you wish to stare into the eyes of a god, then behold these!”

The woman ripped aside her veil to reveal, in the sockets where her eyes should have been, two large, multi-faceted diamonds. The skin around her eyes was red and scarred, as if little care had been taken to place the gems. The diamonds caught the sunlight from above and flashed in the direction of the ‘walkers. They stood there for a long moment, before the General started to laugh.

“Did you really expect such a clandestine trick to work on ones such as we? Wherever you are, Lucien, you have not trained your slaves with enough care.”

The diamond-eyed priestess had only enough time to look shocked before the General conjured a massive, flaming sword, severing the fanatic in two with a single slice. Instantly, the temple courtyard was alive with magic, mana flaring to life and spells flying at the planeswalker from every Veiled Oracle and even many of the townsfolk. The General met spell for spell, and the air in the courtyard seemed to catch fire in the wake of the General’s sword. Conath and Linara summoned shields of metal and magic to shrug off the attacks of the mortals, and Dathra and the Falling Sun joined the melee, flinging fire and lightning at the opponents who could never hope to match the raw power of a planeswalker.

In minutes, the battle was over. Two of Conath’s conjured walls were destroyed, but apart from those easily replaceable artifacts, the zealots did little damage. The air in the temple courtyard was choked with foul-smelling smoke from the singed and seared corpses of the planeswalkers’ victims. One lone survivor, a diamond-eyed priestess mutilated by the General's fire, crawled toward them with the last measure of her strength. As she drew near, the General walked over to her, resting one boot on the mangled woman's forehead. She looked up at the planeswalker, and spat.

"Vengeance will be His!"

The General laughed. "You think I'm going to be beaten by one power-crazed Prism God? One of your intellect was probably not useful even before your defilement. But now? Now, you are of no use to the Dominia Cabal."

The General stomped, and Conath had to look away. He understood the necessity of what they did, but the brutality with which the General did it was not something Conath relished. The General turned around to speak to the other planeswalkers, but before words could be formed, the ground itself began to rumble beneath their feet. The temple was shaking itself apart, large stone slabs falling around the courtyard. The General broke into a wide grin and turned to face the temple.

"It's about time," the General muttered, before yelling loudly at the sky. "Lucien! The Dominia Cabal has come for you! This time, we end this!"

The temple exploded outward, forcing the planeswalkers to erect hasty shields to protect themselves from the debris. After the explosion came a spiral of glittering shapes, a veritable tornado of diamonds, each as large as a man's head, and then a man, and then a house. Each of the countless diamonds grew and expanded as they erupted out of the shattered temple, spinning faster and faster as they went. Finally, when the last one flew into the air, the cyclone seemed to stop, frozen in air for a long moment, before shooting outward from the center. When they stopped again, they had formed a single line of diamonds, each nearly as large as the temple had been. The line, as the Noltracas had described, was as wide as the sky.

As Lucien spoke, his voice was like thunder, and it seemed as though all of Pythdon shook. "The Cabal?" He said, laughing. "The would-be masters of all that is and ever shall be? Pathetic. Tell me, oh masters of this plane, when last did you venture here?"

"Enough talk, Lucien," the General howled.

"You are a child," Lucien chided. "You wish to take this plane from me merely because I took it, not because you desire it yourself. The Cabal is a single oak, jealous of its clearing, which chokes all others who take root there." Again, the gigantic line of diamonds stopped to laugh. "What fools you are to refuse to see how you rot away from the inside. I shall be most happy to prune these dead branches away."

From several of the gigantic gems that comprised Lucien, beams of pure, white light rained down on the ruined temple courtyard. The blasts of energy were powerful, and their impacts knocked each of the planeswalkers of the Cabal off their feet and hurdling to the ground. Instantly, the General countered, sending a barrage of fireballs so hot that the air rippled around them. When they struck a diamond, it merely spun around with the diamond next to it, and launched another of its light attacks. Several beams converged on the General at once, exploding into a tower of rubble and debris.

The other four 'walkers leapt into action immediately, throwing everything they had at Lucien. The Falling Sun launched bolts of lightning that cracked against the other planeswalker's diamond form with the force of an earthquake. Linara sent razor-sharp spears of ice propelled on brutal winds at the multi-faceted foe, chipping away at his chose body like glacial claws. Conath turned back into his drake form and Dathra into her crane, and both began summoning every manner of artificial soldier they could think of, from automated thopters to clockwork avians. Dathra sent an entire flock of her specialty, the triskelavus, to explode on impact. Each individual assault seemed to do little, but the cumulative effect seemed to stagger the strange 'walker.

Then Lucien collected himself. The sunlight passing through his diamonds intensified, and a cascade of light flooded the battlefield below him, not as concentrated beams of energy, but as a bewildering and blinding display. Suddenly, the decimated temple courtyard was overflowing with enemies, from soldiers and zealots to griffins and pegasi. The 'walkers of the Cabal responded immediately, hurling spells at anything that moved. Conath conjured a heavy ballista he had been tinkering with and willed it to fire on a particularly large knight bearing down on him. The ballista bolt passed straight through the man.

Conath's draconic eyes blinked once. "They're illusions," he muttered to himself in disbelief. "Lucien's light..." He was about to shout a warning to the others when one of Lucien's conjurations approached him, sword drawn. Conath ignored the creature and turned his neck toward the General. "They're..." he shouted before pain erupted in his side. Instinctively, Conath reeled away, whipping his tail out as he did, striking the attacker and sending him flying across the courtyard.

"So they're not all illusions," Conath grumbled. "Clever."

The battle raged on as the light continued to fall on them, filtered through Lucian and his magic above. His illusions were spectacular, flawless, and it was impossible to distinguish them from the true creatures he had summoned. And so the planeswalkers of the Dominia Cabal simply fought on, blasting and slashing at everything, the real and the imaginary. They summoned creatures from across the Multiverse to fight for them, creatures of size, and power, and strength. Fire burned the air, magic sundered the ground, and blood flew like snow in a blizzard, but eventually, the Cabal began to turn back their foes.

Then, in the bright sunlight above, Lucien glimmered again, and the battlefield seemed to change. Everything was brighter now, the broken and shattered stone of the courtyard morphing beneath the feet of the planeswalkers into polished white marble. This new surface reflected Lucien's light back up, and his creatures were suddenly larger, both the real and the illusion. And then, drifting downward from the sky, came five massive angels. Each one stood as tall as one of Lucien's diamonds, and each one carried a sword half again as tall as the angel. The planeswalkers of the Cabal turned to face the new threat, even more mana pouring into their minds and their frames.

The moment the angels touched the smooth marble ground, Lucien's light intensified to a blinding flash, and the planeswalkers were forced to look away. When they looked back, the angels were charging, moving almost too fast for Conath to follow them. He saw the General slash at one, and a moment later heard the angry and pained scream of Linara. The Falling Sun blasted one of the angels with a bolt of pure energy just as Dathra was sent hurdling through the air from some attack or another. But Dathra, in her crane form, recovered in midair, and flew straight at Conath, magma flying from her beak. Conath tried to twist away, but his surprise made him too slow, and his clanswoman's blast hit him full in the chest, sending him really. As he tried to recover, he saw her reel around at an angel who had nearly severed the crane's neck.

Suddenly, Conath realized something was very wrong. While trying to gather himself after the blast from Dathra, Conath summoned a large floating platform, a simple device he used while tinkering with larger contraptions. He sent the platform into the air, blocking as much of Lucien's light as he could manage. Although the light still filtered down around the edges and reflected up from the marble, Conath cast enough of the battlefield into shadow to disrupt Lucien's spell, if only for a moment. The images of the angels wavered, and through them, Conath could see the General and the Falling Sun, Linara and Dathra.

A moment later, Conath's platform was shattered apart, and the angels became angels again. Conath knew then the danger they were in. Lucien's illusions had grown strong since his meddling on Belaroas, and the light of the great Pythdon sun was fueling his nearly inexhaustible power. If the Cabal wanted to win, they needed to remove the source of Lucien's strength. Bellowing above the din of the battle, Conath called for the Falling Sun and Linara of the Skyloom, both masters of nature and the elements, to cloud the sky.

At first, they did not seem to heed. But then, after long, torturous moments, clouds began to form in the sky above Lucien. The clouds thickened and darkened, shutting off every point of light from the sun above, and making Lucien's diamonds grow dark. The battlefield quieted, and then thinned as Lucien's illusions faded into shadow, and only his few, true minions remained. The General glared up into the sky, furious.

"End this! Hit him with everything!"

But even before the mana of the planeswalkers flared to life, Lucien was drawing in light from his diamonds beyond the reach of the storm. The light travelled along his length from both directions, colliding in the center in a shower of sparks and light. Once again, the now-marble courtyard of the destroyed temple was crawling with Lucien's servants, both real and illusionary. Above the bewildering deceptions, Conath could hear the General roar, although it was impossible to discern the direction the noise came from.

"Fight back! Extend the storm! Destroy him!"

The planeswalkers fought on, trying every tactic and every trick they had learned over their ages-long lives. They tried to deflect, disrupt, or negate Lucien's relentless attacks, but his power seemed too vast to overcome. They unleashed hordes of their own loyal minions on his conjured armies, but Lucien always found a way to turn them against themselves. Conath didn't know how long they battled, or how many lives were lost beneath and beside them. He only knew that the planeswalkers of the Dominia Cabal were losing, and Lucien's power seemed to stretch on as far as he did, as wide as the sky itself.

Then, in a moment of clarity from Lucien's illusions, the planeswalkers gathered, and the General spoke in a low, chilling tone.

"Shatter the sky."

The words froze Conath down to his borrowed bones. He looked at the General, trying to display a look of shock on the face of his drake form. "What?" he asked, unbelieving.

The General stared at Conath, eyes aflame. "We cannot defeat Lucien with the sun overhead, and Pythdon days are weeks on other planes. We cannot win. We cannot run." The General turned to look at the Falling Sun and Linara, both masters of the sky. "Shatter it."

The Falling Sun said nothing. She merely cast her eyes downward, a certain sorrow mirrored within them. Linara of the Skyloom seemed frozen in place under the chill in the General's words.

"But, we can't!" Linara pleaded. "The people..."

"The people have forsaken the Cabal!" The General snapped. "If they can live without us, they can live without their precious sun. Let them live underground for all I care, just shatter that sky!"

"I do not think even we have that power," the Falling Sun offered. "Even for ones such as we, that is a great, and terrible, feat."

For just one, fleeting moment, an idea flashed across Conath's mind, but he immediately discarded it, and vowed silently never to speak of it to anyone. Moments later, his heart broke, as Dathra spoke the words he would not.

"We can get you that power," she said, confidently. "Remember, Conath, the Manafolds?"

With the eyes of the other 'walkers on him and the battle already beginning to swell again, Conath had no choice but to relent. "They are an experiment Dathra and I have been working on, a way to funnel mana from several sources into one. But we have never tested them in combat before, and..."

"They'll work," Dathra insisted, shooting Conath a glance. "They'll work."

The General nodded sharply. "Then do it."

Dathra nodded her crane head enthusiastically, and immediately began conjuring. The General and Conath were forced to turn their attention back to the battle, while the Falling Sun and Linara prepared themselves. It took Dathra LocTieran only a few scant moments before she brought the Manafolds into existence, even taking extra care to cover them with a thick metal canopy to protect them from Lucien's blasts. The diamond planeswalker seemed too busy to notice, however, and in minutes, everything was ready.

There were two Manafolds, each a seemingly innocent bundle of metal tubes and gems. One side of the contraption was comprised of six metal tubes open to the air, each inlaid with rows of tiny precious gems set into arcane patterns. Each tube was adorned in a different gem: agate, turquoise, amethyst, jasper, malachite, and flawlessly clear quartz. These chambers twisted inward, merging into a single barrel pointing out the opposite end. And the ends of both Manafolds were pointed toward one another, with Linara and the Falling Sun in between.

"What now?" The General yelled above the sounds of battle.

"Pour magic into that side!" Dathra yelled back. "As much as you can! We'll take this one!"

Dathra began funneling her mana into the device, and immediately it churned to life, absorbing, expanding, and magnifying her energy into something the other two could use. Reluctantly, Conath joined her. A short distance away, the General was doing the same, the magic so palpable that it contorted the air as it flew. In between, the supercharged mana found its way to Linara and the Falling Sun, and they channeled every last morsel of it into a spell that neither of them truly wanted to cast. But they were the Dominia Cabal. They were the hands of justice and fate. They were death.

For the rest of his existence, Conath LocTieran would never forget the sound of Pythdon's sky as it shattered. It would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life. The sun, the stars, the endless sky, all broke in a cosmic explosion that few living could have possibly comprehended. No natural light would ever shine down on Pythdon again. Countless lives, plants, animals, intelligent beings, all would scramble to survive, clawing over and through one another for what little was left to cling to. Most would fail. A few might, as the General noted, find refuge underground, yet even they might perish if Pythdon proved unable to survive without its sun or its sky. Conath almost wept. The General didn’t seem to care.

Above them, the diamonds that formed the strange body of Lucien screamed in rage, pain, and fear. Using the last reserves of mana he had, Lucien launched a final barrage of light at the planeswalkers of the Cabal. They shielded themselves from the volley, but it had merely been a diversion. When they looked upward again into the darkness, Lucien had fled into the æther, damaged, exhausted, and defeated. The General and Dathra howled in rage at their foe’s escape. Conath, Linara, and the Falling Sun fought back tears for a now-dying world. For a very long time, the planeswalkers stood in silence, staring at each other and the destruction they had wrought. Finally, though, the General shrugged, and stepped back into the Blind Eternities. One by one, the others followed, dreading the report they were going to have to make.

And behind them, they left Pythdon broken and shattered, a living wound in the body of the Multiverse, a casualty of a planeswalkers’ war.