The Fate of Valeane

     She locked the door to her bedroom and began her preparations. She had four candles mounted on silver candelabras that she placed at each of the four corners of her bed. On her dresser, she took a pouch of herbs and incense and began to grind them with a pestle. When she was done, she cast a brief spell to light the mixture on fire and bring it to a gentle mixture that billowed fragrant smoke into the room. This was more the work of a witch of the Haunted Woods than the Faerie Queen, but contacting Semperia would force Fyora to walk paths that Faeries normally did not care to tread.

     The Dimensional Faerie, as she had become known, had devoted herself to policing the borders of reality much the same way that the Space Faerie Mira oversaw the cosmos beyond Neopia’s atmosphere. There were countless realities beyond Neopia, most filled with terrors and destructive entities, like the Creeping Shadows or the Wraiths.

     Semperia hadn’t been seen in Neopia since Terask’s failed coup. She had left the dimension entirely to walk the seams between worlds. Fyora held no animosity toward her for her part in the rebellion. Nearly all the Faeries that had sided with Terask had been offered amnesty following his defeat. The Faerie Queen was ever the peacemaker, and in her quest to tend her metaphorical garden she dared not lose even a single flower if she could help it.

     Fyora made a few circles of the room casting protective spells to strengthen existing wards and barriers. Although she did not intend to directly tear a hole in reality, her actions were likely to weaken its fabric in the immediate vicinity, and the last thing she wanted was to compound their problems by releasing more eldritch abominations. When her preparations were complete, Fyora lay down on the bed and attempted to relax, allowing the smell from the burning concoction to wash over her.

     Forms of psychic projection were rare and difficult types of magic to master. Few Faeries ever bothered due to the constant practice required. Fyora considered herself barely more than a novice in the art of creating an astral projection, yet for this task, she would need that and so much more.

     As she meditated deeply, Fyora allowed herself to slip out of her body, as a ghostly astral figure that hovered over her bed. It was all she could do to not jump in shock at the view of her still body lying below her, and ruin the spell entirely, but she managed to retain her cool. The easy part, at least, she had managed.

     The magic required to create a physical breach the fabric of reality was surprisingly low if directed properly, but such things were uncontrollable and destructive. And closing such a portal in the event of catastrophe required magical power many orders higher. But passing one’s mind beyond the limits of reality was much less fraught with peril. Both to the person casting the magic and the universe as a whole.

     Fyora herself had only attempted the magic once before. Few Faeries had even tried that many times. She reached out with her mind and focused on a patch of air in front of her bed, but tried to look past the air to the spaces in between the atoms, to the waveforms that made up the fabric of reality on which all things were built. When she felt she had enough of a grasp, she twisted the fabric, and feeling the tear open, dragged out an edge to form a slender slit. A hole in the wall of the astral plane.

     Fyora drifted closer to the tear, and then carefully eased herself through to the other side.

     The Void that greeted her on the other side was vast and oppressive. It was like hanging in space, if all the pinpricks of light from distant stars had been extinguished. Fyora felt so terribly alone and small in that place, as if her fragile light might wilt from the weight of it all bearing down on her. She could sense things out there in the darkness, both universes far beyond her own imagining but also creatures that reared and seethed in hatred. She dared not reach out to them, but even if she did the distances between seemed so impossibly vast as to be beyond her.

     Instead, she called out with her mind. A psychic signal that she hoped her sister would hear.

     Semperia! she called. It is Fyora! I have need of you! Find me! Please! Semperia!

     She felt the presence before she saw it. A sudden sense of something close by, of being examined in minuscule detail. The Void seemed to twist ahead of her, endless darkness turning into a solid form. A true, solid being. Not an astral projection like Fyora. For a brief moment the Faerie Queen feared she had summoned the attention of one of the awful things that lurked in the Void beyond, but then the colour bled into the form in front of her, and relief washed over Fyora’s face.

     The Faerie wore a grey dress that seemed to trail off into nothingness. Her wings were of pale lavender, her harsh face framed by long locks of grey and silver hair.

     “Fyora!?” she questioned. “What are you doing here?”

     Semperia! Fyora answered. I am so glad to have found you. There is something dire afoot.

     “This is about Valeane?” Semperia asked.

     You had the dream too? Fyora asked.

     How powerful Valeane’s anguish must be that her plea had reached even beyond the borders of reality.

     Valeane is in trouble, Fyora told her. But we fear that she is embroiled in something that could spell doom for us all if she falls. She faces a beast from beyond our reality. Far stronger than any Wraith or even the beast Drevni that we fought all those generations ago. We believe it is called Bal’Gammaron.

     Semperia’s cruel face twisted into a mixture of shock and fear.

     “She fights it?” she asked. “She has been fighting it all this time? And survives? You must be mistaken.”

     I would not come to you if I were mistaken, Semperia.

     “Bal’Gammaron can burn worlds in an instant, Fyora,” Semperia told her. “Valeane was a strong warrior but she would be as a Petpetpet before the storm. Where is the battle happening?”

     That, we do not yet know, Fyora explained. I have my agents searching for a rift that Valeane stepped into.

     Semperia turned away from Fyora, observing the distant shadowy worlds beyond the Faerie Queen’s comprehension.

     “Then they are not on Neopia,” she said more to herself. “Perhaps that is the key, he isn’t yet actualised. Some pocket dimension.”

     Can we count on your help? Fyora asked.

     Semperia turned back to Fyora as if she was an afterthought.

     “Yes,” she said. “I will try and find wherever they are hiding out here, but this place… it spirals on into the infinite. When you have located the rift in Neopia, call me. I will do my best to seal it.”

     With that, her form melted back into the endless dark of the Void and Fyora was alone once more. She turned and eased herself back through the needle-thin tear in reality, finding herself back in her chambers staring down at the sleeping form below her.

     Carefully, she traced a finger along the torn seam she had created to seal it back up, lest things leak through from the darkness to plague her dreams. Then, when she was done, she descended back towards her body and returned to the land of the waking.

     She woke back with a start, finding herself out of breath with the effort of what she had done, and strangely exhausted even though she had technically been asleep. But she was alive, and the universe had not collapsed in upon itself. Two plus points if ever she had heard them.

     ***

     Isobel was far more familiar with Meridell. The proximity to Faerieland, both pre and post-fall, and the historical ties between the two countries had made Lady Falmouth a regular visitor. Intelligence between the two had been shared freely, perhaps at times too freely in Isobel’s opinion. But Queen Fyora’s words were final on such matters and debate rarely yielded a change of heart.

     Once her ship was docked safely back in Tyrannia’s port she cast her spell and was whisked away, materialising in the town square outside of Meridell Castle. Her arrival, as in Altador, did not appear particularly remarkable to the people milling about the markets in the square. Magic was as common in those parts as it was in the golden city.

     Isobel straightened out her armour and crossed the drawbridge towards Meridell castle. The great portcullis remained securely fast and two Draik guards were posted as the vanguard outside. They stood to attention, recognising the pink armour of Faerieland even if they did not know Isobel’s face.

     “Lady Falmouth of Faerieland,” she announced herself. “I am on urgent business from Queen Fyora. I must have an audience with King Skarl as soon as possible.”

     Strictly speaking her opposite number in Meridell was a knight by the name of Sir Marcel, and Isobel mostly went through him. However, sometimes things could get lost in Meridell’s red tape, or flagged as less important than they actually were. Going straight to King Skarl would ensure this Princess Brigid would be found quickly and the diversion brought to a swift close.

     The guards on the gatehouse readily obliged and a message was sent forwards as the portcullis was raised. Isobel quickly made her way across the inner courtyard to the Keep, and there found a yellow Gelert waiting for her. He was Lazlo, the King’s chamberlain, and tended to see to such things as emergency audiences when the King was holding court. He had met Isobel many times, at least, so her face would open the right doors.

     “Lady Falmouth,” he addressed her with the customary bow. “The King is currently holding court, but I would be delighted to arrange an audience with you. Urgent news from Queen Fyora?”

     “Most urgent,” Isobel replied. “Though I do not imagine it will take long. As soon as you can fit me in, Lazlo, that would be wonderful.”

     The Gelert nodded and rushed off to juggle around the King’s schedule. Isobel was left waiting in the antechamber for only ten minutes or so before the King’s present petitioners left and she was allowed into the grand throne room. King Skarl sat on his throne at the other end of the vast white marble chamber, a thin red carpet the only splash of colour in the room besides Isobel, Skarl, and the attending guards.

     “Lady Isobel Falmouth of Faerieland!” the herald announced in a deep bellow. “Captain of the Knights Veiled, Marquess of Nimban Rock, Left Hand of Queen Fyora of Faerieland!”

     There was a short blast of the trumpets that normally accompanied a visiting dignitary from a foreign land. Isobel did not care for this pageantry. She worked in shadows, people announcing her ran counter to her instincts.

     “Lady Falmouth!” Skarl greeted her, stray crumbs from his lunch falling to his robes. “Lazlo tells me you come on urgent business.”

     “Most urgent,” Isobel repeated. “Queen Fyora believes the Battle Faerie Valeane is in peril, and that her doom may unleash a more terrible beast on this land than we have ever known. I seek a magical rift she was last seen entering, but the trail has gone cold due to the efforts of someone in the Meridell nobility. If you know of her, I beg you to supply me her location so that I may put this matter to rest.”

     She provided a deep bow to show reverence at her request.

     “Of course!” Skarl replied. “Speak the name and they will be brought before us!”

     Isobel smiled. She was right to come straight to the organ grinder.

     “Thank you, majesty,” Isobel said. “I seek a Princess Brigid.”

     Isobel knew at once she had said something wrong. She felt the guards along the walls collectively breath in. Skarl’s face fell from the jovial smile to a dead shock which in turn contorted into a look of pure rage.

     “You dare speak her name in these halls!?” he bellowed, slamming his fists against the armrests of his throne. “Guards! Guards! Take this interloper from my sight! I wish never to see her again!”

      To be continued…