Into the Void

The Silvergrey Sea

Part Six: Storms

Into the Void

* * *

Though the thought made his gut churn, Abram knew he’d have to make the journey to Oerth himself. After a little thought, he decided to take Drago along with him.

The former Hyborean was a puzzle. As an avatar of one of the Hermetic Elements, he was crucial to the Manifestation. Despite this, his behaviour was not only friendly to the Order of Hermes but could only be understood as being violently opposed to the plan of the Sea God. The attack on the Erthe Woman may well have saved the Hermetists who Poseidon, or his cat’s paws had to know was actively opposed to their scheme.

Abram recalled Drago’s initial contact with Harry Tranker, as the latter had described it. It seemed he’d been an unwilling host to the Great Soul chosen to embody the warm, wet element. Why then was he still himself? Why had he not been completely transformed into a willing drone, as had Rayne Hermit?

Perhaps during their travels, the new Mercurius would ferret out answers. The Watr Man could be a powerful ally in the Order’s efforts to contain the other Elements and so foil the scheme of Poseidon to recreate the Pleroma.

Deciding to leave the Albedo to round up and return the surviving dragons, Abram left the Kokkinos to lead a guard to protect what remained of the Primal Matter and defend against the Sea God’s return. There might have been an Element or two here as well, but all doubted it.

The Silvergrey Sea continued to roil.

Having never seen or heard of a proper storm on the Sea, Abram was more than a little frightened by what he saw every time his gaze rose to the horizon. Wondering how far the unrest had spread, he collected Drago and made the preparations to journey to the home of humanity.

Officially, only the Mercurius could make Portals where none had been constructed. That was one of the powers of the Rod of Mercury. Abram was one of nine people that he knew of who had learned the trick of it without that artifact. Now was not the time to reveal that, for he knew that neither of the Elects was among that number. The anonymity of the other eight should be protected.

It should surprise no one that he knew the secret of invoking this power of the Rod of Mercury. He did not, but knowing how to make a Portal without it meant that he could fake it and leave none the wiser.

Just for show, the temporary Mercurius held the Rod in his right hand, upright by the center red section, intoned the required word for Oerth, and tilted the Rod forward to an angle of forty-five degrees. Then he mentally chanted the actual phrase to open the Portal.

A vortex spitting painfully bright scarlet light roared into existence. With a single glance back at Drago, Abram led the way through it.

* * *

…another Oerth.

One after the other, the two stepped onto flagstone paving in an antique city. Abram recognized it from descriptions as the city Prazhski.

Perfect.

“This is it,” Drago said. “Powerful artifact, that Rod is.”

“A gift of the Templars. It controls much of the Technomancy they created. What’s our first move?”

“Show me where all the action happened.”

Abram followed Drago through the ancient streets of this most Magickal of cites this Oerth had ever known. Not even Peos, the capital of Atalanté had boasted as many magi or as great the works of theurgy that had been performed here. Prazhski had had wizards who’d visited the worlds of the former Pleroma centuries before the Silvergrey Sea had manifested a shore on this world. In fact, many magicians had predicted the Sea’s advent decades before the event.

Abram was nervous being here and it had little to do with the presence of rogue Elements. He knew what had finally driven humanity from this world and was almost certain it was still here. Looking at this city, as pristine as it must have been in its heyday, any doubt he had shrank. He wanted to make their stay here brief enough they wouldn’t come to its attention.

Faint hope.

Something had upset the perfection of the city. As they wound through the new looking ancient streets, up ahead he saw something blocking the road. It was the remains of a building. As they approached, Abram corrected that to ‘buildings.’ The smell hit them a few minutes later. It wasn’t unlike cooking meat. Only wisps of smoke did they see.

The closer they got, though, the worse the scene and the smell. Drago leading, the pair were forced to climb piles of shattered brick and stone.

The newer smell was cooked dragon bits. Nothing about those white chunks looked appetizing. The dragons of Azhure’en were not made of meat, but stone. The baked remains of them looked more like burnt quartz than anything else. The odour became acrid. It made Abram’s sinuses burn.

It wasn’t until he got closer to another corpse that he realized the savory smell had been coming from human carcases.

The true horror awaited them when they topped the highest pile of rubble.

What looked to be several square blocks of cityscape had been cratered. Abram’s knowledge of the city was archival only, but a sinking feeling told him what had stood here. He asked anyway. “Drago, do you know what this used to be?”

“Where the middle of this hole is used to be a very old looking building with a double clock on one wall.”

“The Orloj.”

“Isn’t that the name of the clock in Glyph?”

“Yes. The Order of Hermes made it in homage to the original when constructing the Nonspace City.”

“Is it a Portal, too?”

“No. The clock in Glyph is just a UT chronometer.”

Drago looked like he doubted that but remained silent.

“What happened here before the blast?”

“The Erthe Woman made a Portal out of the clock.”

“I suspected as much. Ah! It is to weep.”

“Was this ‘Orloj’ special?”

Abram turned to him, not bothering to hide his tears. “It was the first Portal ever made.”

“The Templars were here, in the city?”

Abram nodded and dried his face with a cloth. “The Portal network was the result of the first contact between the fæ and mortals in history. It was during that meeting that the Templars first became aware of the Færie Doors and were inspired to make their own version. Building it, however, required engineering expertise the Templars did not possess. They scoured the multiverse throughout all of time looking for such technology. Not having a Portal network to help them, it was a long search. They finally found what they were looking for in their far future, on this Oerth Analogue,” pointing to the center of the crater. “The Orloj and its creator, Muklas Kadri, can be found on endless Oerth Analogues, but only here on this Oerth in this city of Prazhski was Muklas Kadri a mage and only this Kadri created a working Portal, the first ever. Almost three thousand years UT, it lasted and now it’s gone.”

“Surely Hermetists can remake it.”

“We have. A working copy is in Azhure’en. This—” Abram again pointed to the empty air above the pit—“was an irreplaceable piece of Pleromic history. Gone, now.” A heavy sigh. “No time for grieving. Let’s press on.” Knowing that it had been his decision that had ultimately destroyed the Orloj was worse than the realization he would now never see this great wonder with his own eyes.

Drago led them along the rubble to a street going the way he wanted and back down to an area clear of debris.

After some minutes, Abram asked, “Where are we going?”

“There.” Drago pointed to a structure that rather looked like a smaller version of Azhure’en. It surmounted a hill across a broad river. It was difficult to make out details in the late afternoon light. Something besides the low angled sun obscured the outlines of the structure. A shimmer in the air formed a bubble around it and the top of the hill.

“What—?” Drago was interrupted by the sound of wind.

The air darkened very rapidly. Abram saw blackness, not cloud-like at all, stream in from the horizon. “Mother of gods! It’s found us!”

Drago looked less than serene for the first time in Abram’s memory. “What?”

“The Void. The Spirit of the Aethyrs.” Over the tempest, he swore he could hear malevolent laughter.

“What can we—?” Darkness overtook them both before the Watr Man could finish.

—Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, October 2026

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