Azhure’en Attacked by Elements

The Silvergrey Sea

Part Four: Elementals and Dragons

Azhure’en Attacked by Elements

* * *

Surprise and apprehension were difficult to hide, but Abram had been a member of this Byzantine order for long enough to pull it off.

The Albedo faced his brother Elect with equal aplomb. He bowed slightly. “My Brother Kokkinos. We’d like to see the Mercurius if she is available.”

“Alas, she is not in residence at the present. Perhaps I can assist?” Left unspoken the obvious subterfuge involved in the two of them getting here without giving any warning. Abram wondered, if it were the case that no warning was given, why the Kokkinos was here to head them off.

Abram knew they were busted. The illusion of propriety had to be played out, however. He remained silent, content to let his superiors duel it out, while he ran through a list of scenarios, looking for one that wouldn’t get both of them killed, or worse.

No luck, initially.

The farce continued. “I had a spot of trouble a while ago.”

The Red Elect raised an eyebrow. The meaning, ‘Really? I had no idea!’

“We were marooned on the Evanescents.”

“Those islands are forbidden to all, including we of the Order. What took you there, Brother?”

“I was on the trail of the Meraculus Mercurius.”

“That order is extinct.”

“So we thought.”

“I know you think it has returned or survived, but you are mistaken.”

‘Here we go,’ Abram thought.

“Someone has been carrying on their work. The evidence is as overwhelming as it is disturbing.”

“No. I think you’ll find you are greatly mistaken. No evidence will be found.”

The Red and the White locked gazes, then. The next few seconds might determine the fate of the whole Order.

Abram was unregarded which was likely why he noted the sound first. It was as out of place here in the center of power of the Order of Hermes as a crying infant would be in a monastery. It sounded for all the world like a creaky door opening, slowly.

It was otherwise so quiet in that huge space that the sound, though barely detectible, was definitely audible. Abram couldn’t determine from which direction it came, though. The noise’s resemblance to a creaky door lessened as the sound continued far past the point where an actual door would have been opened or closed fully.

It was coming from all directions.

“What’s that?” from the Albedo. It was getting louder.

The Kokkinos was already looking around. “Incursion. Someone is trying to breach the planet shield.”

“From where?” Abram asked, but both men were stalking toward the far side of the chamber. Abram followed.

The edges of the space were ill defined in the indirect blue light descending from above. The Elects became shadows in moments. Abram followed them into gloom.

Bright yellow light as a door opened.

“Display,” the Kokkinos said. The room they’d entered was filled with a translucent view of part of the perpetual gloom of Mercurius’s sky. A deep red patch brightened through orange to yellow and bright white at its center, like a wound in the clouds.

The sound of creaking continued rising in pitch and volume. A gesture from the Red Elect and the view changed position; the circle of the injury now looked like a membrane stretched in the center by whatever was trying to break through.

“What is it? Alive?” from the Albedo.

“Definitely.”

“How did anyone find us?” Abram asked.

“It may be an accidental occurrence,” Red, sounding doubtful. The odds were astronomically against such a thing, for the Hermetists who had made Mercurius long ago had been phenomenally skilled and transcendently paranoid. That someone had looked for Mercurius and successfully found it was hardly more likely, though.

“Can it get through?” White.

“I want to say, ‘no,’ but I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to find us in the first place.”

The membrane continued to stretch, the patch of red widening until the whole of the visible sky was coloured. The Kokkinos widened the field until Azhure’en occupied the left side of the visual.

The creaking became screaming. The three Hermetists watched in horror as the membrane representing the protection of the planet Mercurius tore. Faster than they could follow, the white dot hit the barrier protecting the Mother Lodge. Another alarm, this one shrill, began to sing. A tremor shook the room. The whole population of Azhure’en would have felt it and would be hearing the alarm, no matter in what iteration of the lodge they happened to be in.

As one, the three Hermetists headed out.

In moments, they were through a large, windowed embrasure and standing on a railless platform fifteen miles above the plain of Mercurius. Less than a third of that distance above them, the source of their terror was stretching the barrier protecting the Lodge itself.

Abram noted in passing that they had now passed from Bazziom to the residence of the Mercurius and thence out to the iteration of Azhure’en on Mercurius. He had known that all iterations of the Mother Lodge were directly accessible from the pentagonal pyramid atop the central spire but had never experienced it until now. The barrier that had enveloped him when he passed into the Bazziom iteration was gone, to his surprise. “What happens if that barrier surrounding the Mother Lodge tears?” he asked. Beyond, a gap in the clouds showed the blackness of empty space shrinking. Slowly, the tear in the barrier protecting Mercurius was healing.

“Azhure’en dies.” The Red Elect’s voice was hoarse. He was terrified. “And that which it imprisons is freed.” That was worse. No one wanted to contemplate what would happen were the White God freed. The Templars had died as an entity to contain it. Before it was defeated, the White God had ended their multi-Aion spanning empire and erased entire galaxies.

“What can we do?”

“What can be done is being done,” from the Kokkinos.

Indeed, it seemed that something was having an adverse effect on the would-be intruder. Its advance stalled and the barrier seemed to firm up. The alarm remained but grew quieter. Abram and the Albedo sighed in relief. The Kokkinos, it seemed, was not as optimistic. He seemed distracted. Abram noticed that he glanced behind them at irregular intervals.

“Were you expecting someone else, Brother?” Abram asked.

The Red Elect looked at him. “I thought the Mercurius would be involved, but I can’t sense her at all.”

The White Elect said, “You did say the Mercurius wasn’t in residence.”

“I lied, but she really is gone, now.” The look on the Red Elect’s face could only be described as ‘relief.’ He completed the picture of a man transformed by enveloping the Albedo in a bear hug and laughing.

Abram thought the look on his own face must resemble the White Elect: slack jawed shock.

After half-heartedly returning the embrace, the Albedo gently pried his fellow Elect off. “Owen, this begs an explanation.”

“Of course, of course. Come back in, brothers. Let’s be more comfortable.”

“What about—” Abram, who was first back through the glass wall, heard rapid footsteps, then saw a man—Drago! —who knocked him down. He heard shouts from the others and turned to see Harry’s client leap from the ledge.

Abram scrambled to his feet and moved to the edge, expecting to see the Hyborean falling to his death. Instead, it was to see him soaring toward the intruder.

The two met. There was a flash and both figures tumbled toward the ground on the inside of the still-intact barrier.

“Was that…?” from the White Elect.

“Yes,” answered Abram, “it was the Hyborean, Drago.”

The Kokkinos turned to look at them. “It seems explanations will be forthcoming from all parties.”

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, September 2026

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