Jestopher’s paws landed gently on the grass of another world. He breathed deeply, and the familiar scents of the Whisperwood filled his nostrils. He was home, and yet… it wasn’t quite right. Something was different. The shadows seemed deeper, the shapes more imposing. And yet they still looked the same. Maybe it was his imagination: his eyes hadn’t worked this well in years, perhaps he’d just forgotten what the forest really looked like. But no, it all felt somehow… darker, as if the world was bleeding.

He looked around the grove. It appeared much as he’d left it. There were even a few wolves left, and at their head, sitting on the rock he used to call his home… was that Teramon? Jestopher smiled. She’d been one of the most promising Chosen he’d ever met, and she deserved her own pack. It was small now, four adults and a couple children, but he had faith it would grow with time. That is, if there was still time left to grow. But he had no time to reminisce. He had to fix things, set the world right before it was too late, and in times like these there was only one wolf whose counsel he trusted.

The Blind Fall. Kolif’s cave. It had been a long time since Jestopher had set foot here, a long time since his feet had been set anywhere, really, but it felt much the same as it had on his last visit. Dark, damp, with the constant hum of distant water cascading through the rocks. Kolif had no need for light, of course, and once his eyes adjusted, Jestopher found he didn’t either. The walls seemed to have a faint glow to them. Strange. That hadn’t been there before.

He found Kolif deep in the cavern. She lay perfectly still on the floor, and only her soft breathing confirmed that she was asleep, not dead. He hesitated, unsure if he should wake her, but time was scarce. Besides, she’d sleep easier once the world had been saved. Waking the sleeping wolf, though, proved more difficult than he’d anticipated. He gently nuzzled her, but his snout passed right through her body. He let out a low whine, but she didn’t seem to hear. He howled. Nothing. It was like he wasn’t there, which, he had to concede, was at least somewhat true. He’d have to find another way. He’d head to Mourner’s Mount, seek guidance from his ancestors. He’d been hoping to avoid that place, but they were spirits too. Perhaps they’d be able to hear him. He turned to leave.

“...Jestopher?”

It had been quiet, a whisper from the edge of consciousness. But it was unmistakable, and it froze him in his tracks. “I’m here.”

“I called for you.”

“I know.”

“It’s been five passages, Jestopher. I called for you every day. I waited but you never answered.”

“I wasn’t there. I was… somewhere else. But I’m here now.”

“It’s too late.” Kolif rolled onto her paws and stood up. Her eyes were blind, but he could feel her staring at him, almost through him. “The waters are rising. Korrath will be underwater soon, and the rest of Ossia isn’t far behind. The Worldkin say the damage is too severe, they don’t know how to fix it.”

“Then we’ll figure it out. Together.”

“It’s too late. There’s nothing left to do.”

“There must be something.”

She shook her head. “Not anymore. I’ve tried, Jestopher. The Council has tried, but there is no way.”

“The wisest wolf I’ve ever known once told me there’s always a way. I didn’t believe her then, but I do now, and I need her to believe herself too.”

Kolif paused, deep in contemplation, and slowly her lips curled into the faintest of smiles. “You always did have a way with words, Wisefang.”

Jestopher sighed. “I’d hoped to leave that title behind when I died. Now will you help me?”

Kolif bowed her head slightly. “I suppose there’s no harm in it, but I don’t know what I can do. The Mourners turned to war the moment you passed. They won’t listen to a lone ascetic, not even Kolif the Blind.”

“Let them fight,” Jestopher shrugged. “The Mourners can’t help us anyway, not anymore. Whatever’s happening here goes far beyond their earthly conflicts. I need to know more about the rising waters.”

“I…” Kolif hesitated a moment. “I may know someone who can help.”

Jestopher stood on the shore, staring out across the violent waters. There had been no ships to take him: Kolif had tried, but the war had taken its toll on Milovic’s fleet, and the remaining vessels had been put toward evacuation, though no one was quite sure where they were evacuating to. The boats themselves, perhaps. At least, unlike Korrath, they could float. Besides, no ship the wolves could make would take him where he needed to go.

Kolif had gone to the Calling Hills to seek guidance from the ancestor spirits resting there. Jestopher had politely declined to join her. He’d offered some excuse about wanting to explore other options, but in truth he knew there were no other options. The shores had nothing to offer: Only the ancestors could guide him now. Still, the thought of approaching Mourner’s Mount sent shivers down his spine. After all, he was buried there.

A sudden noise shook him from his reverie, and he looked up to see a large wave cresting in front of him. Fear shot through his veins: It had been a long time since he’d been near the shores, but no denizen of Ossia forgot the terror of the waves. He desperately lept backwards, away from the deadly water, but it was too late. The wave crashed down on him, dragging him into… No. He stopped a second, assessed his condition. The wave had passed right through him. He was fine. The waters of Ossia seemed to hold no dangers for the dead. Perhaps the ancestors were showing him a new path, one only they knew how to walk. Cautiously, he stepped one paw into the surf, watched it come to rest peacefully above the rippling sea. Then he stepped another, and another, and soon he was standing on top of the water, the first wolf in thousands of years to touch the tides and live. In a sense, anyway, but it was good enough for his purposes. He turned to find Kolif, but there wasn’t time. Besides, if this was the ancestors’ guidance, she already knew. He turned back to the north, out into the heart of the ocean, and began to run.

Jestopher slowed to a halt. He’d lost track of time: The sun had risen and set more than once, but without a body to grow tired his journey across the sea had been swift. And now, it seemed, he had reached his destination: Rising up from the water was a massive curtain of fire, stretching as high as he could see. The Veil of Milor. The wall that divided the Worldkin from the world. If there were answers left, they lay beyond it.

Still, it was a daunting sight. Jestopher had heard tales, of course: not many Korrathi sailors made it this far north, but the few who had all came back with stories of the impossible flame that burned the sea. Jestopher always thought they were exaggerated, but now, standing in front of it himself, it was clear they’d been, if anything, understating the majesty of the Veil.

As he drew close, he watched what, for lack of a better word, he would have to describe as a ship sail through. In truth, it looked more like a large wooden bowl, wreathed in flames, and it moved with no regard for the flow of the tides. The ship drifted past him, but gave no indication that it had seen him, and then he was standing before the wall. Even as a spirit, he could feel the heat rolling off it, and he had to remind himself many times that he had no flesh left to burn. Slowly, with patience and care, he stepped through, and saw a world no mortal eyes had seen before.

There had always been rumors of what lay beyond the Veil, but the Milor that lay before Jestopher now was a thing of bizarre beauty unlike anything he could have imagined. The isle itself was criss-crossed with unnatural formations, lava flows cutting through rivers, massive arcs of lightning swirling aimlessly around pillars of shining metal. Mountains shot out of the ground, only to be carved up by monstrously powerful winds. There was no logic to it. As he watched, the landscape shifted, stones eroding in real time in the face of brutal, sourceless waves, and fires breaking out within storm clouds. And at the heart of it all, erupting through the chaos, was a massive, six-sided diamond, rising to a point hundreds of feet above the sea. That had to be it. The Crystalline Chamber, the seat of the Voice of the World. He strode across the landscape toward it, and tried to step through, but he was repelled. For the first time since he’d left his body behind, he felt a truly solid barrier, one his spirit could not pass.

Jestopher sat back on his haunches, momentarily defeated. Kolif had told him he must speak with the Voice, and yet they would not see him. No, that wasn’t quite right. He simply could not enter. Beings such as the Worldkin were mysterious and inscrutable, but he was in their home. He had come as an intruder and they had rejected him. He would instead have to try approaching as a friend. He placed a paw on the crystal’s surface, closed his eyes, and let out a low whine, a plea for an audience with the sovereigns of Milor. When he opened his eyes, he was inside the crystal, and his head was full of voices.

“Hello?”

“I’ve come to help. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Can you hear me?”

Silence.

“Then what can we do? There must be something left to do!”

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

“I don’t understand. What have I taken?”

“...What?”

Silence.

More silence.

In six-part unison, the Voice of the World answered Yes.

Jestopher stepped into the cave. It was exactly as the Worldkin had described it, once he’d been able to coax an explanation from them. There were no djinn this far down: he had passed the Frigid at the entrance, but they hadn’t seen him and they wouldn’t stop him. The room was empty save for a large stone wheel, or at least what must have been one at some point. Large pieces had been smashed off, as if it had been attacked by a troll, and the spindle in the center crackled with ungrounded mana.

It had to be done. There was no other way. He took a deep breath, and stepped toward the Wheel.

“Don’t touch that!”

He froze. There shouldn’t be anyone else down this far. He should have been alone. Slowly, he turned around, and was greeted by the sight of a deep blue-skinned djinn. She was tall, taller than any djinn he’d seen before, and her eyes… there was something off about her eyes. The pupils were tinged with red.

“I said get back!” she shouted, brandishing a knife. How could she see him? She shouldn’t be able to see him.

“Who are you?” He held his ground. The djinn dove, thrusting her knife forward, but the blade passed straight through her target without leaving a mark. She landed behind him, spun around, and dropped the knife.

“A spirit, eh? How clever. No matter, though…” And as she spoke her hands began to change, her fingers melting together into cruel, jagged blades. The shapeshifter, he recalled. Vella Voss. The Voice of the World had warned him about her. They’d said she would try to stop him. He couldn’t let her stop him.

“It’s not too late!” he cried, but Vella only smiled.

“No, but it will be soon.” She dove again, slashing wildly with her hand blades, and Jestopher felt a gash open in his side. He stared in disbelief: He had no body. How could she cut him?

“You have much to learn about planeswalkers, little wolf,” she sneered. “Too bad you won’t have the chance!” And suddenly she was a troll, taller than any denizen of Blackrock Jestopher had ever seen. Her head nearly scraped against the ceiling of the cavern, and her knuckles dragged ominously across the floor.

“You don’t have to do this!”

“No,” she grinned, “but I’m going to. That is, unless you can stop me. Can you stop me, little wolf?” Her massive fist collided hard with the side of his face, knocking him to the ground.

With all his strength, he pushed himself back to his feet. “Think of all the people who’ll die!”

Vella laughed. “Oh, believe me, I have.” With a powerful backhand, she sent Jestopher flying across the room. He slammed into the wall opposite the Wheel of Winds and crumpled to the ground.

“Is that all you’ve got?” she crowed, as she shrank back down into a new form, one Jestopher didn’t recognize. She stood tall still, with broad shoulders and an intense, aquamarine skin. A pair of small, rounded horns protruded from her scalp. Beneath them, her eyes were a solid red, as was her hair, and she was dressed in aged leather. Her ears were slightly pointed, her fingers strangely long, but most striking of all was the tail. It was pointed and blue, a lighter shade than the rest of her skin, and it curled wickedly behind her.

“Your world is ending, little wolf,” she sneered, “and there’s nothing you can do about it. You didn’t have to come back, you know: I gave you the gift of the Multiverse, and you chose to come die with your people. So brave, little wolf. So loyal. So… stupid.”

Jestopher tried to rise, but he had nothing left. Every fiber of his being was drained. She had won. Ossia was lost. With a monumental effort, he lifted his head off the ground and let out a howl, one last mourning call for the world he couldn’t save.

The cavern shook.

“Stop that!” Vella cried, lashing out and whipping him across the face with her tail. Jestopher howled again, and the walls rumbled. The world was listening, and it wasn’t ready to go down without a fight. “Stop that right now!” she shouted as she dove toward him, hands once again taking the form of blades, but the shaking floor made her lose her footing, and she tumbled to the ground in front of him. He howled again, and a large chunk of rock dislodged from the ceiling above her, tumbling down toward the shapeshifter’s prone body…

And stopped. It hung in the air above her, as if frozen in time.

“Are you alright?” a voice asked from behind Jestopher. It was soft, innocent. Help had arrived. Sri Hara must have sent a friend to assist him; he’d have to remember to thank the loxodon once this was all over. He tried to open his mouth to respond, to let his new ally know he was alright, but his lips refused to cooperate.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” the voice said, and a figure stepped forward into Jestopher’s view. She was small, a human child, with pale pink hair and bright green eyes. Around her neck hung a silver chain mounted with a smooth red stone that, in the dim light of the Cave of Wonders, seemed to glow with the brightness of the sun.

The girl walked forward to where Vella lay, sprawled out on the ground. “Granny says it’s time to come home.”

“Tell her I’m not finished!” Vella spat. “I can’t leave yet! I’m so close!”

The girl knelt down and placed a hand on Vella’s cheek. “Granny didn’t say to give you a choice.”

The boulder fell, shattering on the spot where, a moment earlier, Vella and the girl had been, but now there was no sign of them. The cavern was still shaking: The world had been pushed to its limits. The Wheel tottered on its mounting, cracking slightly more with each move. It was now or never. With all his might, Jestopher pushed himself to his feet, leaped into the center of the Wheel, and became Ossia.

There was no other way to describe the sensation. The arbors of Telimar, the jungles of Dragonroost, the open plains of Kemil and the imposing cliffs of Teth were a part of him, and he a part of them. He could feel the waves on Korrath’s shores, smell the stench of Epala’s fens. He felt himself flowing through the world, becoming one with the trees, the ground, and most importantly the water. His essence infused the archipelago, surrounding it as it surrounded him.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. His heart was giving out under the strain of the experience. No, that was corporeal thinking. Not his heart. The Tarcor, underneath Blackrock. The heart of the world. He brought his attention there, following along the degrading paths the Greenvine had left behind. He would have to learn to fix those soon, but for now that could wait. There were more pressing matters at hand.

After a few wrong turns, he found himself in the tar pits deep beneath the surface of the Isle of Death. He felt around for the Tarcor, but he couldn’t sense it. The witch, Narissa. She must have taken it: It seemed she’d caused more damage than the Worldkin had let on. Still, he could do this. He could fix it. If the world needed a heart, that’s what he would become.

Jestopher closed his eyes, focusing on the task at hand. What had the Voice told him? That it was like breathing? That sounded right. He inhaled deeply, and felt mana flow into the tar around him. He exhaled, and it flowed out to the corners of the Seal. Inhale, mana comes in. Exhale, it flows out to where it’s needed. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. It was working. The pain was subsiding, and the trembles were beginning to calm.

But something wasn’t right. The flow of mana felt off. Something was draining his power, shunting it off to where it didn’t belong, somewhere deep beneath the waves. Taking care not to lose the rhythm of his breathing, he followed the trail, lighting it up with mana on every exhale. It took him down, way down, until he found himself settled in the lowest caves of Chirom, miles below the surface.

He opened his eyes. The room was dimly lit by glowing runes carved into the walls. He knew this place. It was the Echoes, the anchor for the Tidepoint Seal. How did he know that? The Worldkin hadn’t told him, and yet… No, he didn’t know that. Not really. The Seal knew that, and he had become the Seal.

In the center of the room lay a figure, human-like but far from human. It was draped in dull black rags, and its skin hung loosely off its bones.

“Hello?” Jestopher called softly. The creature’s eyes shot open. They were jet-black and piercing, a stark contrast to its weak, defeated pose.

“Who’s there?” it asked, its voice thin and cracked.

“A friend,” Jestopher replied, his voice echoing strangely around the cave. “That is, if you’d like one. What are you doing here?”

“She trapped me! She’s going to kill me!”

“She was going to kill us all, but she’s gone now.”

“She’s… gone?”

“For now, at least.”

“Where did she go?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Can you free me?”

“I’m not sure.”

Jestopher closed his eyes again and focused. He saw the bonds that held the figure in place. It was a clever design: She had tied the Echoes around his heart, and any small mistake could stop it.

“It won’t be easy,” he said, “but I think I can do it.”

With extreme care, he began to untangle the web of energies. It was an unfamiliar process at first: he had no jaws to manipulate with, but if he focused his mind just right, he could loosen its grip. With surgical precision, he slowly unwound one knot, then another, until finally he pulled the last thread from around the creature’s heart.

He opened his eyes again, surveying the room. Nothing looked different, and yet everything felt… lighter, somehow, like a burden had been lifted. “That should do it.”

The creature slowly sat up. “Thank you,” it said, and the words sounded unfamiliar in its mouth. “I’ll be going now. I think I’ve had enough of this world.”

“Before you leave, may I ask your name?”

The creature was standing now, stretching its gaunt muscles for what must have been the first time in ages. “They call me Ulrexes.”

“Ulrexes…” Jestopher thought for a second. “Might I ask you a favor?”

“Jestopher!”

The call came from the edge of his hearing, but the voice was unmistakable. It had been over a month since he had joined with the Seal, and while he waited for Ulrexes to return, he had spent many a night listening to that voice. He followed it now, tracing the sound through the sinewy paths of the rejuvenating Greenvine, and slowly, he opened the eyes of the world.

In the grove of the Whisperstone, Kolif the Blind felt the winds change. “He is here.”

The ancient gargoyle beside her looked around quizzically. “I don’t see anything.”

“Neither do I, old friend. And yet, he is here.”

“Can I speak with him?”

“He does not speak, but he will listen.”

The gargoyle stepped forward with a quiet scraping sound of brittle rock. “Wisefang…” it began. “I am Pumik, ambassador of Teth. We never met in life, but I come before you now to say goodbye. I have spent many years in this stone, and it’s long past time I gave it back, but I couldn’t return until my work was complete. I find this hard to admit, but with your ascension, I believe it finally is. I’ve given everything for this world, and now I must leave it in your hands. I trust you understand the weight of that burden.”

Pumik raised its eyes and, though nothing changed, it could swear it saw the trees nod.

Behind the eyes of the Whisperstone, Jestopher couldn’t help but smile. He had never known Pumik, not truly, but he knew it to be an ally and a friend. Ossia owed much to the gargoyle’s stewardship, and its loss would be felt throughout the archipelago. Still, though, there was much work to do, and little time to mourn. There was much about the Seal he still didn’t understand, much that he might never understand, but for another day, the waters were still, and for that at least, he and all Ossia’s people could be grateful.