Chapter 15 - Entering the Realm

Chapter Fifteen

On the far side of the Chasm, Anoreth Inár-Ádun climbed out of the gorge and stood on the western edge of the mainland. He turned with a look of sadness toward Illianor, now lost in the haze of late afternoon. He felt Dártan’s last breath and paused in prayer, tears flowing from His sapphire eyes. He looked in His hand, and He held a sharp rock He had grasped climbing out of the gorge. He squeezed as He cried, and drops of blood fell to the grass at His feet.

At last turning away from the chasm, Anoreth headed toward a great forest of dark trees. Behind Him, a dark shape climbed out of the Chasm and crept to the blood that had spilled on the grass. The creature was violet colored, and it drew a long curved knife from inside its cloak and traced a pentagram around the blood. It quickly clamored back over the edge of the cliff and out of sight.

Reaching the edge of the timber, Anoreth stopped and turned to look back at the edge of the Chasm. There, where a moment ago He had been standing, He saw a great spirit of shadow growing before Him. The shadow grew to a great height before diminishing until it manifested itself into living flesh. A feeble old man now stood before him, bowing with a look as if the Messiah had been expected. Then the old man approached, and walked past Anoreth and into the trees of the Great Wood, the very forest that had grown, centuries before, to block the Illuminar retreat. Anoreth followed the man.

Peering over the top edge of the Chasm, the tall violet creature that had drawn the pentagram in the soil had watched from his hiding place as the Illuminar had met with the old man. After they had gone into the Great Wood, the violet one climbed out of the Chasm and turned to look over the gorge. Eyes glowing with lavender light beneath black brows, the Nil’Ganash threw back his dark cloak and spread large, leathery wings, then launched himself into the canyon. He swooped down into the mists and dove far into the void, down to the shore of the raging western ocean, where he alighted.

He had hoped that since an Illuminar had crossed the strait, the barrier to Illianor had been lifted. He tried to fly westward over the grey waves, but he felt the force as strong as ever. I had always been so, since the forming of the canyon, save during the brief time when the Crystal Span had been in place. Only then, when Legion had walked that bridge, centuries earlier, had he been able to approach the far island of Illianor. But when the span had melted, dropping the Demon Lord and his army into the sea, the barrier force had snapped back, as if it had never been gone.

Undaunted by his inability to fly across, Legion tried wading into the white-foamed sea. When his feet entered the surf, roiling breakers began to swell and rage as if a sudden storm had brewed. The violet one was forced to take flight. Frustrated by his failure to cross, he climbed far above the rushing waters and flew back out of the Chasm and off to the east.