Midnight in Canterbury Village. Every man, woman, and child in town was asleep and indoors. The surrounding farmland was dead still, waiting for dawn. Night animals were quiet, few and far between. The moon, high in the night sky, had shrunken to a faint sliver, failing to illuminate the street. Everyone and nothing living or non dared interrupt what was transpiring tonight.

At the top of the hill at the end of Elder Lane, the haunting of Winmoore Manor was alive again.

Soft light flickered in the highest window of the attic: red, then sickly blue. Whispers that sounded very nearly like children gathered, not coming from any direction in particular. The unnaturally still air suddenly rose and breathed into the old house from every direction. Windows shuddered just slightly. Quiet rivulets of mana rode along the ground, gathering in an eldritch moat around the edge of the property. If anyone had been awake, they would’ve heard a barely audible whine coming from the vicinity of the attic growing noisier and noisier, culminating in a hollow pop. Then, silence. Peaceful Silence once again. Save for one flickering candle lighting itself in the kitchen window, It would seem as though nothing unnatural had occurred here at all.

Beatrice, for all the oddities in her profession, had still not grown accustomed to being up and about at three o'clock in the morning. Her papery wings were not as fragile as they appeared, but they still felt stiff and weak. Hours prior, she’d been startled awake by her patron and, at his insistence, prepared him a light supper. The remains were all around her, large enough for her to lean against: three dainty cups of tea, not drunk so much as stirred around and made cold and bland. “That’s the only way I can taste it anymore.” He said. And yes, she knew, she knew. After well over a year under such unusual management, Beatrice had grown used to her patron’s eccentricities. But that didn’t mean she had to be accustomed to them.

She had finally banished the last remnants of sleep from her mind when a filthy, tattered grey Norfolk jacket fluttered past her like a ghost (quite a lot like a ghost, actually), large enough to suit someone of her stature as housing. She knew what this signified, and voiced her opinion.

“No. Settle down and stay a while.”

In response, the bright, musical voice of her patron rose into the room from every direction at once. “Nope! No can do; I’ve been here far, far too long.”

“You’ve been here three hours.”

“Well I wasn’t far.”

The coat took on the shape of a human - a slim young man, actually. Trinkets and small artifacts flew up from the nooks and crannies of the living room and circled the jacket, spiraling inward and drifting into its pockets.

“Excuse me? We were about as far from here as my inferior mortal mind can possibly imagine.”

A slim young man didn’t appear under the jacket. He was always there. His rusty hair was perfectly combed, down to every last hair. Or so it would seem. His eyes almost visibly sparkled with life, despite his unfortunate condition. The other elements of his attire seemed to solidify as soon as Beatrice focused on them. Scuffed shoes, plus-twos, light wool shirt, and the flat, lopsided cap that dropped out of the ceiling, landing gracefully atop his head.

“Well, by my not-quite-mortal reckoning, I wasn’t all that far away. There’s a warm, sunny patch in eternity called Pyrulea only two and a half infinities down from here. We’re practically neighbors.”

“You should still settle down. Stay a while! You keep an entire mansion tended - no, I keep an entire mansion tended to and you never stop and enjoy it.”

Beatrice gestured behind her. Nearly a month ago since her patron had last been home, and the only change to the environment was three cups full of cold tea on the credenza in the corner of the room.

“You need to rest.”

At this her patron’s smiling eyes broke and became cold and dim. Without turning to face her, he spoke softly.

“No, I don’t. Not ever. I’ll never need to rest again.”

As if to drive home the point he was making, his entire lower half slowly shimmered and grew transparent, then phased out altogether. A terribly awkward silence filled the room. Beatrice searched for something to say, some way to backpedal, but she found nothing, and for a time, the two of them stood in solemn silence.

“Pffffft.”

The ghost’s stony demeanor finally broke down, and his laughter broke through his closed mouth and overtook him, and soon he was rolling from side to side on the ground, shrieking with laughter. That one always got Beatrice. She always knew he was joking, but it still always got her.

Beatrice could only cross her arms and pout. “That’s not funny. You know I have to mind your feelings.” Shortly after his death, her patron had been terribly morose and impossible to cheer up. My life is over, he would say. And it was. Sort of. She supposed. It wasn’t until he started traveling that he managed to find his old self again. But Beatrice was still careful; she hadn’t liked seeing him like that.

The ghost calmed down and lay still on the floor. “I’m sorry, Beatrice. It won’t happen again.” It would.

He gathered himself again and stood. “I won’t be long this time.” He would.

Five prongs of light coalesced and rose over his head like a crown. “I’ll write letters!” He wouldn’t.

As the light opened and began to engulf him, the room shook. Pressure was building in the air around the figure. Over the rumbling and the noise, Beatrice shouted one last stern word toward him, in the most matronly tone she could muster. “Ren Winmoore! You remember to be careful and stay safe, alright?” Just before the final flash that would leave no trace of anyone behind, his voice shouted back. “I will! Goodbye!”

He wouldn’t.

Not up. Not down. Not forward. Out didn’t quite fit either, but it was close enough.

In one great surge of focus and want, Renn stepped out.

Everything dropped away from him - the manor, the village, the earth and sky and light and sound. Everything fell into a pit below him and ahead, a rolling sea of everythings opened their arms to the planeswalker. They reached for him. Pulled against him. Pick me. Be here. Meanwhile, the nothing nowhere at Ren’s back pushed on him. Be there. Be real. The pushing and pulling felt familiar to Ren. Comfortable. The Blind Eternities all around him wanted him so be somewhere solid and real, but he often liked to linger here, in between the real places. In real places, there were thoughts and feelings, and then there was flesh and blood. The two lived in separate fields by separate rules. In the Blind Eternities, the two lived together, in between the two concepts. After he died, an idea and a feeling was all Renn really was, even with the help of his magic. In the Blind Eternities, he felt real.

But he knew this was little more than cold comfort. After a short span of time (No telling how short; time didn’t bother to stay consistent out here.) Renn focused on a large, shady everything he knew by the name Ikass. It was a large place, and it had many quirks, mysteries, and secrets. But Ikass wasn’t exactly where Renn was headed. Somewhere on the surface of reality, Ikass had a little bud: a smaller plane dependent on its larger parent. Renn had heard its name a long time ago, from a fellow “tourist” named Illarion.

“It’s called Ariva. And if I were you, I wouldn’t go there. Not ever.”

How could he not take a look with a hook like that?

From a distance, most planes looked the same - maybe looked isn’t right. There was no looking out here so much as feeling. In fact, words fell short at describing anything that happened in between places. But words are all we have.

From a distance, most planes looked the same. Flat, round, and bare. Closer in, planes became distinct. The fabric of reality wasn’t uniform - there were scratches, ruffles, soft spots, pock marks, bruises and scars. Especially scars. Ikass in particular had just one wound on its surface: an old gash, not bleeding but not fully healed. The small flap of spacetime that had been torn away hadn’t detached itself entirely, but it was certainly far enough away to be isolated from its larger, older parent. This was Ren’s destination. This was Ariva.

New planeswalkers often have little control over the planes they land on, let alone where. But things got easier with time and practice, as always. Renn himself was particularly talented at “seeing” the inside of a plane, examining the layout and the environment, then carefully aiming for a particular spot in space he felt like being.Ariva was no different. It was small. Very small. All Renn could see was one solitary city, and at its edge was the edge of the plane itself. And the city wasn’t the only where. It was the only what. There were streets, but no carriages. There were houses, but no beds. There were markets, but no goods. Renn considered calling it a dead city, but that implied there was a sense of life that had departed. There was no hint that life had ever been here - that it was welcome here.

Ren Winmoore was not welcome here.

Who said that?

Ren had heard mind mages speaking in his head before. This wasn’t like that at all. Words and ideas weren’t entering his mind from outside and presenting themselves in his mind’s eye. Thoughts and feelings were simply turning up here, left behind by someone undetected, pretending to come from him. Little things. Not welcome. Not your place. Fear. Be quiet be quiet be quiet. The longer Renn looked and held his attention on this plane, the more thoughts found their way into his mind. And the more it seemed as he was looking, from outside in the Blind Eternities, the city was looking back at him. It wasn’t alive, but it was aware. It was aware of itself, aware of its place, and it was aware of Ren.

Ren decided he was satisfied with his look into this plane. And his decision definitely wasn’t helped along by how badly he was being spooked. And as he turned and left, the pull of the plane seemed to shudder. It grew stronger than it had been a second ago. This event, so unusual and more than a bit unsettling, gave the Planeswalker pause.

In that pause, the plane grabbed him. With both arms. And with all its strength, it dragged him inside.

“Where am I?”

Ren heard his own voice in his own nearly-real ears. It was a good question - where was he? He was not in pain. He felt he was standing on something flat and solid. He heard nothing. He was looking up - a flat, gray, uniform sky. Not exactly clouds, but something close, he was sure. Around him: buildings, roads, sidewalks, market stands. A city, obviously.

The plane-city under Ikass.

The memories and plans returned to the front of Ren’s mind. This was Ariva, and he was going to explore this place. Passing into a plane was almost always different. His initial disorientation didn’t really surprise him at this point. Better to just move on and start exploring.

Ariva was a quiet place. Oh, there were sounds, certainly, but nothing Renn wasn’t making himself - his shoes scuffing along the paved ground, the almost-audible ruffling of his clothes as he walked, and the nowhere-near audible air currents he made with every step he took. Aside from him, everything was settled in. The air was completely still. There was no source of light, though everything was well-illuminated. It was already apparent there were no people, but there were no animals, either. No insects. No tiny creatures. No grass or weeds popping up through the cobblestones. Renn got the feeling that this city was ancient beyond his reckoning. He may easily have been the first person to set foot here in centuries. But the passage of time had left the entire city untouched - like new. Unweathered. Everything was completely empty and unused, and in perfect order. And here he was, wrecking everything with his activity and his life and his movement. Go away. No, no, no, don’t leave.

Ren glanced around, thinking for a moment he had heard someone, before he remembered the notion was ludicrous. He appeared to be in the middle of a massive marketplace - there were stands and tents and semi-permanent structures all around him, counters and windows facing outward into the street in front of them. All the wide pathways circled around a many-tiered fountain at the center of the plaza, the structure itself as large as a cottage. Children loved to gather here and listen to stories and poems from the minstrels that would occasionally stop by looking for someone willing to pay for a song. In the middle distance between the fountain and the markets, crooks and cutpurses lingered and shifted, keeping a keen eye out for some fat merchant with a coinpurse too heavy for his delicate health. The city guard kept close watch on anyone who looked too suspicious, or who lingered too long when they clearly had nothing to shop for here. As was their duty - there would be peace and order in my city. If the dirty vagrant makes a move, cut him down.

What?

This market was empty. And if it ever held a single living soul or one lonely coin on the grounds in its lifetime, then it was a very long time ago. So what was all this daydreaming about children and criminals? What children? Renn was sure he was just thinking about something. Children, maybe.

Ren quietly held his palms against his temples in frustration. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He had a new plane to explore, so why not get exploring? At random, he chose a road leading out of the market and started walking down it, his form moving just a little faster than his legs should’ve been able to carry him: his normal walking pace.

At first, the city around him was incredibly boring - empty street after empty street after empty street, lined with empty building after empty building after empty building. Every path and structure was completely uniform. The architecture consisted of massive blank-faced stone monoliths, somewhat large blank-faced brick monoliths, and on occasion, a life-sized blank-faced marble statue of some or other hero or philosopher from a monotonous blank-faced history from another plane that Renn had never read and didn’t care to learn. Renn began to wonder, not for the first time, why he had even bothered to come here. And the whole time, there was someone following behind him at no less than fifty paces, watching everything he did. Or at least, that’s what it felt like. It was obvious there was absolutely no one in this entire city besides Renn himself, and if there was anyone following him, he would’ve easily sensed it. But there was still an unshakable feeling that he was being watched, as cliché as it sounded. It wasn’t a sensation that came from anywhere - he had no urge to hide his face or glance over his shoulder or double-check the dark windows of the buildings that hung over him. The feeling was just there. I can see you.

Ren patted his illusory face a few times, trying to get his mind clear and focused. He couldn’t concentrate, and he had no idea where he was. Where was the market he had arrived in? Renn glanced behind him, in the direction he had come from. The street grew narrow and ended in a dead end. Of course that made no sense, but his head was foggy. He had probably just gotten himself spun around. At random, he chose another road to travel and started walking again. And walking.

And walking.

After an intolerable span of time, somewhere between hours and days, Renn decided he was lost. Every street and building looked the same, and at this point, he was almost certain the turns and dead ends were moving when he wasn’t looking. On more than one occasion, he had spent several minutes wandering back and forth in a long alleyway with no exists, before an avenue presented itself that almost definitely wasn’t there before. Or maybe that was just Ren’s mind playing tricks on him. Nothing seemed coherent here - Ren’s brain was filled with cobwebs; he couldn’t concentrate. He needed to concentrate. He needed to… think. About something. Renn focused with all his effort -he felt weak- why was he still here? He could easily just planeswalk away. You will not leave. Stay.

Ren turned his attention to the child standing at his side. She didn’t speak, or even gesture. She stood and waited silently for Renn to say something.

“What do you want, little girl?”

The child did not react or even blink. Her mouth seemed to open on its own to speak, seemingly without knowledge or permission from the rest of her face.

“I’m scared.”

Ren kneeled until he was the same height as the child.

“What are you scared of, girl? This is the safest city in the world.”

“I’m not scared for me.”

Her mouth didn’t stop moving, but it did stop forming words. Her neck turned the rest of her head to face down the street. The remainder of her face remained oblivious. The road itself was perfectly straight, and continued into a pale sort of fog, where it was obscured beyond Ren’s perception. The next words came not from where the child’s mouth was, but where it had been just a moment ago.

“I’m scared for the king.”

Ren tried to stand, but he found he was already on his feet. The child remained at eye level, her gaze fixed on the end of the street.

“He’s sick, and he needs help.”

Doctors, clerics, surgeons, and all other flavors of healer slowly crawled out of the doors and windows in the buildings on either side of the couple, clumsily, like infants. Once outside, they clamored to their feet and shuffled down the street into the hazy distance.

The child’s voice stood in front of Ren, trying to hold his enfeebled attention.

“But no one can help him.”

Ren and the voice drew closer, until the voice was almost touching his face.

“You can help him.”

The voice came closer still. It pressed against Ren’s face, then his entire front. It laid over him like a heavy blanket, then started pulling him backward. Gently at first. Renn pressed forward, reaching out with his arms, until the blanket began to tear, uncovering his face. Renn was briefly blinded by the sudden light. As his eyes adjusted, the blanket quietly fluttered away, escaping before Renn could find out where it had gone.

When the light died away, A massive church rose up in from of Ren. Or maybe it was a palace. Three rows of steps poured out and away from the central building, spilling in the different directions like rivers, widening as they went. Each series of steps had three long landings, and each landing was connected to each other landing. The dimensions of the thing in front of Renn didn’t make sense. But the more he tried to focus on the structure of it all, the less he could see. Don’t look. Just go. At the top of the steps (or was it the back?), one massive golden dome stood perfectly still among the twisting, churning rivers of steps. You will go there. Without a second thought, or even total awareness of what he was doing, Renn began swimming upstream until he reached the dome.

At the top of the waterfall, Renn dropped out of the water, landing on the cold hard stone of the dome’s front pavilion, letting his eyes wander as he wrung himself dry. Symbols were etched into the walls all around him. Runes. Pictographs. The language wasn’t anything he had seen before, and the pictographs were vague and oddly proportioned. But the meanings were obvious. The history all around him was clear and plain.

A kingdom. A vast, wide kingdom. An empire. The empire spanned regions, continents, planes. Millions of people gathered together and answered to one man: a Planeswalker, whose only mentioned name in the text was Vasilias. He was benevolent. He was even-handed in his justice and fair in his compassion. There was prosperity under his unquestioned rule. There was order. There was peace. Always, more towns and cities and even countries joined the empire. And the people were cultured. They were happy. There was peace.

One day, a great plane at the center of the Multiverse shuddered and broke, then reassembled itself. But this plane was so hopelessly broken, to mend itself, it had to mend everything. And when the plane mended Vasilias, it took all his power away.

The planeswalker used to be very, very powerful and very, very wise. When the plane mended Vasilias and changed his spark, he was weak, old, and uncertain. Suddenly, he wasn’t strong enough to hold the empire together anymore. So it broke apart. More and more people forgot about the empire and they left. Entire planes completely expunged the empire from their lands and from their histories. Eventually, there was only one city left in the empire. So to make sure he wouldn’t lose it, the Planeswalker, still a powerful mage by any worldly standard, cast a potent, terrible spell. He put his soul in the city, where he and it would live forever. Vasilias became a lich.

But the city was empty now. And lonely. And Vasilias wanted to regain the empire he had lost. For a terribly long time, he waited. But eventually, another Planeswalker came into the city - a little ghost boy.

And there, the history ended. By the time Renn was finished reading, he found he’d wandered deep into the dome, until he was in a small room at the center of the structure. The room was completely bare, save for one throne at the center of the room, in which an ancient dried-up corpse was slumped. It had obviously been left there a long time - a thin sheen of dust coated the corpse’s golden armor, and the dry skin was so thin and tight along its bones, Renn was sure if he so much as touched it, the body would crumble into dust. Its teeth were exposed - to Ren, it looked like it was grinning.

A voice made itself apparent in Ren’s perception - not as a sound he could discern, so much as a series of ideas that presented themselves as words. The words and meanings found their way into his head from nowhere at all. The corpse never spoke or even moved, but it clearly came from him. It had to. Renn was certain.

The words were polite, even prim. But absolute.

“You are an honored guest in my palace. You will show proper respect and kneel before your monarch.”

The moment the words rose in Ren’s consciousness, he was nearly paralyzed with sudden fright he couldn’t explain. It took a tremendous effort for him to maintain the glamers that made up his body, but somehow, he managed to open his mouth.

“I don’t… I don’t think I should…”

“Kneel. Boy.”

Ren’s knees were on the floor.

“You know why you are here.”

Ren’s neck trembled, then nodded once. Twice.

“You will submit yourself to my will.”

Ren’s hands were on the floor. His body lay prostrate before the ancient husk of flesh.

For a moment, the unmitigated terror that filled Ren’s mind cleared away, if it didn’t subside, and he was aware of himself again. He wanted with all his heart to say “No,” or “I won’t,” and he came close, with a weak, shuddering nnnnn-n-n.

The room leapt to its feet and struck Renn across the brow. YOU WILL NOT DEFY ME, it thundered into his mind. The anger was palpable. Solid. It flooded into the room and lapped at Ren’s hands and knees. YOU WILL OBEY ME, the room shouted.

Nnn-nnnuh.

Defiance was all Renn could think of - it was all he could do. The corpse in the throne did not waver. To Ren’s eyes, the grinning teeth in the corpse’s face turned to a hard grimace. In his mind, the body leapt out of its throne and grabbed Renn around the throat. In his mind, the corpse throttled him and shouted orders of obedience. Renn desperately pawed through layer after layer of delirium, searching for reality.

When he finally found it, he broke and ran out of the room, as fast as his jacket could fly.

As his head grew clearer, Ren’s terror was magnified and sharpened.

The thick haze hanging over the city was buckling under the weight of the planeswalker’s mind. Every passing second, he was growing more aware of his surroundings. Mana surged from the ground around him and followed in a bright, colorful wake behind as he prepared to go far, far away from here. Already, he felt the rift opening before him, less in space and more in the skin of the plane itself. He was already several blocks from the palace, but Vasilias’ voice may have been coming from just over his shoulder.

“You can never understand what it feels like to be tread in and planeswalked along until you’ve been a plane. I am no plane. But my bond with my city is close enough.”

The trail of mana behind Renn stuttered and faded, losing large tongues of energy at a time.

“No one may enter or leave a plane without its express permission.”

The rift, so large and hopeful, collapsed and resealed in the span of a breath.

“You do not have my permission.”

The road ahead of Renn snapped shut as quickly and as silently as a guillotine. The road behind followed suit.

“Now stop this foolishness.”

Dark, shapeless things dripped up and out of the cracks in the road all around Ren, then immediately became sharp and drew toward him.

“Boy.”

The creatures around Renn - were they creatures at all?

The entities around Renn wasted no time closing in on him. In his experience, he found living, breathing creatures could rarely do him serious harm without the assistance of magic. But these were clearly not physical creatures. They were something made of darkness and pain - shades of some kind. The details didn’t matter; Renn needed countermeasures.

Vasilias could bar Ren’s own passage through the plane, but his mana bonds were as strong and clear as ever. A familiar stream of icy-hot red and blue mana flowed into his spirit as easily as a thought, and with a huge gesticulation and a line of total gibberish, his will became real.

This is more like it, Renn told himself. Finally, we get to do something I’m good at. The fear and helplessness Vasilias had forced onto him was dissolving and giving way to growing excitement and determination. He felt like himself.

And the hulking illusion defending him was in top form.

The being stood four meters tall without trying, faintly radiated soft blue light, and had as many arms and eyes as it felt it needed. And it was more than a match for all six shades. Two were slashing desperately at its lower limbs, three were climbing all along its body like monkeys while being plucked and torn at by several hands each, and one had found uncertain purchase on the beast’s shoulders, grappling with its last two arms while trying to reach its head. The writhing pile of ethereal limbs left the two planeswalkers with the opportunity to make a move, and Vasilias managed to move first.

Heiromantic runes traced themselves in the cobblestones along the street, and a ring of light began to coalesce at the feet of Ren’s beast. Renn only smirked. With a snap of his fingers, Vasilias’ ring sputtered, changed color, and the runes inverted. The two shades at the beast’s feet -the only things outside the ring- shattered like glass.

Vasilias responded with a quicker magic - one Renn knew he wouldn’t be able to turn aside as easily. A deep black wisp rushed down the road, swooping over the beast along with the shades left alive, dissolving them and carrying them into the hazy distance. From thin air, an entire platoon of real, physical soldiers turned a corner at the end of the street, rushing down the road to take their place. Their proportions were plainly human, but they were dressed head to toe in thick platemail. There was no telling for certain if there were even bodies in their suits. Renn almost scoffed, until he saw the arcs of eldritch electricity dancing over the tips of their spears. If they reached him, they might harm him.

Not a problem.

Ren struck a rigid stance in the middle of the road, and for just a few seconds, he stood still, staring down the troops thundering straight for him. Then, he shot both his fists out to his sides and began swinging them in broad circles, slowly at first. Vasilias asked aloud - “And what sophomoric trick is this, boy?”

In Ren’s response, there was light mirth and deadly conviction at once.

“This is the windmill!”

Without any further explanation, Renn continued twirling his arms until a healthy breeze arrived against his back. And as he spun his arms faster, the wind grew stronger. In seconds, the wind was too strong for the soldiers, who could only grab onto one another and stand their ground. After a few moments of howling wind, they were simply picked up off their feet and thrown into the air.

Ren’s massive unnatural gales were known for carrying everything they came across, but in this city, there was nothing to carry - no dirt, no dust, no little creatures, no scraps of this or shreds of that. All that moved visibly was Ren’s thrashing jacket and the soldiers in the air. They may as well have been flying away of their own accord. They may as well have been flying straight into the side of the chapel overlooking the street.

The chapel tower crumpled forward and dropped to the street below, casting clouds of debris and noise into the wind around it. The entire city shuddered and darkened. Vasilias’ soldiers who were still alive were dismissed and Renn let the wind die, only half-consciously. For several minutes, there was only silence.

Vasilias mourned as his precious thing lay broken on the road.

Ren’s next step was obvious to him. Without taking the time for gestures or silliness, he popped like a balloon. His jacket, the only part of him that was real, fluttered to the ground. His soul and spark dissipated and spread in every direction, leaving Vasilias to his grieving. But only for a moment.

All around the desecrated tower, stone began to crack and shift. Rooves split open like ripe nuts. Walls swelled outward until the weight on them broke them apart. Towers tumbled into one another. The streets buckled and folded. The only sign of recognition from Vasilias was a terribly frightened shrieking on the air.

Vasilias’ entire city was being torn apart and hacked at, and all he could do was scream.

Ren shouted in his own mind, where he knew the lich would hear: “Let me out, let me out, let me out, let me out.”

The shrieking quieted and died. But instead of surrendering and opening the way to the Blind Eternities, Vasilias spoke, not with his voice, or with his mind, but into the walls of the plane itself, where everyone would know they had been spoken. His words thundered into the light of the sky and the vibrations of the earth. They were everywhere. They were the color of rage.

Until this point, you were an obstacle. Now, you have chosen to be an enemy.

An intense light washed over the city, and Renn felt an incredible sense of pressure. A bright, sharp sound filled every corner of the plane, and the light pressed forward, threatening to crush him. Renn was caught in an incredibly powerful magical lockdown, and before he gave up completely, he considered to himself that maybe this time, he was somewhat outgunned.

When Renn was next aware of himself, he was back in the throne room, back in a human shape, and still under several layers of potent physical and mental restraints. A mortal mage would’ve been pulverized by their collective weight. For that matter, a mortal mage would never be able to conjure so many together against one target.

Before him, Vasilias’ corpse remained as still and lifeless as ever. Vasilias himself remained silent.

There was no fear in the room this time. There were no thoughts and feelings running through Ren’s mind, trying to trip him up. Vasilias apparently felt no need to announce his presence or impose on Ren’s emotions. For the first time since his arrival, Renn was merely left alone with his thoughts.

And there was more than enough fear in his thoughts already.

With every minute, Renn was losing more reason and gathering more desperation. With nothing left to do, he tried begging. He pleaded for his life, for mercy, for pity. “Why me?” he implored in his mind. “Why me?” To his surprise, Vasilias answered him, without anger or force.

“Do you recall what you felt when you first arrived in my city? You were in a fog because I made it so. And when I led you to my palace, I forced you to do as I wished. But when you chose to disobey me, there was nothing I could do. All you had to do was will it, and my hold over you was gone, completely.

My magic attacks and manipulates the bond between the mind and the body. But when there is no body, no link, I’m only making requests. I can ask your mind to slow down or to feel fear, but it only needs to wish to disobey me.

“Your condition is… unique. You are special, Mr. Winmoore. With your mind untethered by flesh and your soul and spark intact, you can do things no one else can do. You can go where no one else can go. But most importantly, you can have things done to you.

“We will be bonded, you and I. We will be made one. And while I remain here, bound to my city, you will be my ears, my eyes, and my arms in the myriad other places in Dominia. If I attempted this with anyone else, it would tear them apart. But you, a mage without flesh, may come out intact.

“I learned long ago that no one will bring order to the world but oneself. But if I still believed otherwise, I’d call you a godsend.”

One by one, the wards and tethers binding Renn snapped and dissipated. Each ring, glyph, and restricting cloud parted and drifted away in every direction. For a moment, nothing else moved in the room. Renn dared to twitch, then pushed the stakes to rising to his feet. Nothing impeded him. But all he could think to do was stand in place, glancing this way and that. He took a step - not toward anything at all; just forward. And again, nothing impeded him.

A minute passed.

Just barely enough time for Renn to remember he might planeswalk. Not enough time for him to consider trying it.

A presence touched him. From every direction, a vast, singular presence gathered at this one point in the throne room, and it pressed against the edges of his soul. Renn cried out in surprise, but the presence paid him no heed. Mana streamed into the room and became sharp - it pierced Ren’s surface from every angle at once, and the presence poured in like rushing water. It squeezed him and it stretched him and filled him with things that were not himself.

The pieces that were him rushed outward and dissolved into the presence all around him, until he lost track of what was him and what was not. The line between self and other was blurring.

Ren’s confusion and discomfort was drowned out by Vasilias’ overpowering will to control. Renn lost himself.

And he did not find himself again for a very long time.

In the round, squat plane of Ihn Gallad, on the warm, rocky grassland of Brighthearth, a figure walked alone. It had been walking for a very long time, and it would continue walking for longer yet. It did not stop to speak to the locals or to ask for directions. It only walked.

To those who saw it, the figure would’ve looked human. A young man, to be specific. The weathered Norfolk jacket he wore flicked gently when the wind blew, and if you listened closely, you would hear the metallic jangling of small trinkets. But not the rustle of cloth against cloth. He would not stop to talk if you were to call him, though he could if he chose to, and he might want to.

Deep in his mind, the boy argues with himself. And he argues with someone else. There are no voices or even words - only thoughts. Where are you taking me? That’s not important. I want to stop. You will continue. You can’t force me. I can and you know it perfectly well.

I want to rest. Let me stop.

No. You won’t. Not ever.

You will never rest again.