Hermetists Enter the Lists

The Silvergrey Sea

Part Five: The Best Laid Plans

Hermetists Enter the Lists

* * *

…another Oerth.

Breaking through the deep indigo cloud into the darkening storm over the Oerth city of Prazhski, the Erthe Woman spotted the cathedral at the heart of the maelstrom. Behind her, the Watr Man, Drago, shouted, “This is Oerth, isn’t it?”

She was on the point of asking how he could know that but thought better of it. He had been one of the Great Souls, as had she; likely he had lived here once, as well. She settled for a simple yes. Diving down toward the cathedral below, the Erthe Woman led the rage of dragons in a spiral, cocooning the structure in a hurricane of snapping, leathery wings.

“What happens now?”

“We await the coming of the last two Elements from inside.”

No sooner said than revealed. The western doors of the cathedral opened with a boom audible even through the storm. Out came a brilliant blue-white, fuzzy-edged sphere of light. At its center, barely discernable, was the naked figure of the Fyre Child. Toward the bottom of the corona floating just above the ground, was the somewhat tattered figure of Harry Tranker. He was slightly hunched over; he might have been unconscious.

They began to rise, moving to the center of the vortex. Once there, the shape of the rage’s flight began to change. It lifted and slowly formed a sphere centered on the pair. Together in formation, the Elements rose until they hovered well above the city.

Booming over the sound of the dragons, the voice of Fyre said, “To the Orloj!”

The Prazhski Orloj.

Since its construction, it had been a wonder of the world. Since a shore of the Silvergrey Sea had first touched Oerth long ago, it had become something much, much more. With the tidal retreat of the Sea, the power locked in that mechanism had been lost to all those who hadn’t been able to find the one and only analogue of Oerth where it resided.

Now, the purpose for which it had been made would finally be fulfilled.

The Elements were floating over the building which contained the astronomical clock. A note—as of a crystal chime—sounded. It was pure and so sweet, it brought tears to the Erthe Woman’s eyes. In its wake, all other sounds diminished, returning only when its long decay had almost entirely faded.

The Orloj rose, breaking free of its stone prison. Thousands of bright metal parts fountained up into the ball of spiralling flesh. A complex dance shimmied the components of what had been a mere mechanical representation of the local heavens into something of more cosmic import. Someone with an intimate knowledge of the geometry of the Thirty Aions would have recognized the shifting patterns as describing a journey through the multifarious dimensions of Greater Reality toward a particular place.

As the dance continued, bits of the destination began to impose themselves on the space within the dancing cloud. These sections grew and started to merge. Soon, it was almost possible to see the whole of where the Portal—the first of its kind, predating even the first efforts of the Templars—led: a spot in the Silvergrey Sea that included a part of the Evanescents. The Erthe Woman noted, with satisfaction, that the mountainous pillar of the Primal Matter was present and still growing.

Then she saw the Hermetists.

Dozens, it looked to be, rushing away from, or actually climbing down the mass of the Primal Matter.

“Move! Now!” the Erthe Woman shouted. Whatever they were doing, it had to be bad news for the Manifestation. They had to be stopped. Too slowly for comfort, the rage began to move through the not-quite-open Portal. The Watr Man was among the first through. The Erthe Woman intended to follow as quickly as possible.

Just ahead of her, the Fyre Child dragging the still unconscious-looking private eye was just at the juncture between planes when the ice mountain exploded.

Shards of Primal Matter blasted through the partially open gate like shotgun pellets. Drakes shrieked as their bodies were assaulted. Several dropped from the sky as wings were lace-curtained or ripped entirely off. A dozen closest to the opening were completely shredded. The Fyre Child vanished in a fog of synthetic flesh.

A concussive wave followed the explosion, scattering the remaining dragons. The Erthe Woman lost all sense of direction and was barely able to hang on to her mount as it was blown, howling, from the source of the disaster.

When the beast finally regained control of its flight, the landscape looked nothing like the ancient city she had arrived in with such hope so short a time ago. Scanning the horizon yielded no clue to her whereabouts.

To the horror of the event just past was added the despairing realization that she was lost on a dead world without the means to find her way home.

—Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, September 2026

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Gideon is a freethinker, free expression absolutist, intersectionalist, and a proud child of the Enlightenment. He lives and works on the Pacific Coast.

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