The Search For Kathea, A Leap Into Celestial Secrets

 The Search For Kathea, A Leap Into Celestial Secrets

      Iriisii commands Reaper to recall all on the 'zombie' carrier except for her. It only takes a few minutes before she feels Rigmor trying to contact her.

     "Just what in the 'Hells of Oblivion' are you about to go and do? You know you cannot go alone, too much is riding on you to do that!"

     "And bringing anyone else could cause a paradox that would destroy everything before it even began."

     "You do not know that for certain!"

     "Messing with 'Time' is never a certainty, you know this. The more that I take increases the chance of a catastrophic mistake. A mistake that ends everything. I cannot risk that, you, the others, our children. I am sorry, but I cannot risk anyone else coming with me. As you have said, too much rides on it."

     "Don't you go twisting my words around on me!"

     "I just want you to see why this has to happen. You know, just as I do, that everything we have done up until now, has been set up for us to do. Everything must happen in a specific pattern for the outcome we all want."

     "I am not so sure this 'outcome' is worth the cost to us."

     "You also know that I sometimes have felt the same as you about this."

     "Yes, I do have to admit that, much as it pains me to do so."

     "And yet, I have guided us all through the traps and pitfalls that were placed in front of us. Trust me now, to do the same as I have done all along."

     "But you are walking straight into a trap, unlike all the others!"

     "Knowing of the existence of a trap is but the first step to avoiding it. Sometimes you cannot avoid it, but you can control when it springs. And so control your own reaction to it when it does. If I take control of the situation, then I can do what I must to avoid it, even if it seems that I cannot."

     "What are you saying?"

     "I will have allies there, allies that I know are willing to lay down their lives to aid my escape, in return for my promise to raise them later."

     "You mean the Dragons you raised in Middle Nirn."

     "Yes, they told me that they had all died to allow me to escape from a trap back in their time, a trap specifically for me. The only thing they asked for in return, was for me to raise them when I went back into my 'present'. And that I have already done, so I must go back to start the cycle or all will be for naught."

     "You know how much you infuriate me when you are right, but you also know how much I love you. So you had better not get stuck back there or I will be coming after you."

     "I promise I will return, and you will not have to come after me."

     "You had better. Now get on with it, before I change my mind and hitch a ride on your coattails. And make certain that whoever is doing this regrets ever letting the thought enter its demented brain."

     "Of that, you can be certain. I love you and all the others. With all of you waiting for me, how could I not move 'Time' itself to come back to you."

     "Just get it over with and come back, we still have much to do. And Kathea waits for us to rescue her."

     "You are right about that, give my love to all and reassure them I am coming back."

     "You had better come back, you had just better come back."

     Iriisii feels Rigmor cut the connection even as the tears started flowing down her face and did not want Iriisii to know that. 'I will come back, whatever it takes, I will come back.'

     She stands still and listens for the least sounds that she can hear. The only things that reach her are the creaks and groans of metal shifting from the stresses of space travel, in this case drifting on the solar currents. She hears no sounds of life, just the silence, the nearly unbroken silence that is sometimes louder than anything else. 'It is time. I have to do this, even though I wish it did not have to be.'

     She walks forward to the door into the Bridge, draws her katana, draws her will into the front of her mind. 'Time to make an entrance.' As she concentrates on the vibration within the metal in front of her. She sets her body's own vibration to match the door's rate perfectly and strides through as though it were smoke. 

     Entering, the room takes shape before her. She sees zombies standing still, not moving, and spots a figure hunched over another, laying on some kind of table set up toward one wall. She stays still, watching, listening with both ears and metaphysical senses. Trying to determine what the figure she is looking at, actually is.

     "Ah, you have arrived, good. I was expecting you to come bursting through the door like an avenging angel. But no matter, you are here now and that is all that means anything."

     She looks at him as he stands, he is tall, at least two feet taller than she is. His skin is unlike any other she has seen, not scaly, not hairy, or furry, not even smooth. In fact, she is not even certain it is truly skin, as she focuses her sight, just beneath the surface everything is moving.

     As he starts to turn around and face her, she notices his hands, he does not possess fingers, but rather small tentacles that perform the same function. She hears a sound that reminds her of horse hooves on stone as she looks at his feet and sees something similar there, not hooves but as hard as. His legs are very muscular, and as her eyes drift upward, she notices that he has no genitalia, at least nothing hanging out in view. His torso is also muscular, ridge after ridge of muscle reaching all the way up to his neck. But his face, his face is perfectly smooth, no mouth, just a round, slightly ridged hole with no visible teeth. There is no nose, not even slits for nostrils, and where his eyes would have been, is just a narrow band of tiny cilia slowly moving around. Then she sees the horns growing from behind his head, curling up, over, and around, framing his skull.

     "I see you are curious about me. I can certainly understand, my kind is not known here within your 'Creations'. We were brought here soon after these Creations were formed, to be servitors to the budding entities that would become Gods. That you have never seen my kind before should say something of our eventual fate."

     "Why are you here?"

     "You are of interest to those I and others like me serve. And so they have sent me here, first to find you, second to bring you to them."

     "And third?"

     "Third depends upon whether or not I am successful with the first and second. Third forces me to find a way to coerce you into meeting my masters."

     "And how would you go about doing that?"

     "By luring those close to you to me, then taking them back with me to meet my masters. Hopefully, you would follow in order to rescue them, if not, they would be converted and sent to bring you back with them. One way or another, you would make the journey."

     "And just who are your masters?"

     "They are the forebears of those who will become the 'Ideal Masters'. Those you have met in your visit to the 'Soul Cairn', or should I say, you met one aspect of them."

     "So the floating crystals are like an avatar of them?"

     "Close enough to the truth, yes. They acquire the souls that Necromancers use to fill soul gems and then barter those souls for power, spells, servants, whatever they desire, and provide enough souls to purchase such. The 'avatars' then send those souls on to the 'Ideal Masters'."

     "At least until they themselves become barter material."

     "Indeed, for whatever reason, it is the souls of those dark necromancers that they desire over all others."

     "And why would that be, if I may be so bold as to ask?"

     In answer, the figure waves his 'hands' toward the 'zombies'.

     Iriisii looks hard at them and extends her senses around one. It takes an effort of extreme will to keep from staggering backward and cringing at what she feels dwelling inside that shell of a body.   

     "These are not simple zombies are they?"

     "No, they are not. You have part of the answer you seek, but not all of it, not yet anyway."

     "What do you mean, I could feel the soul of a Necromancer inside that zombie. That is why they are so fast, so relentless, and not just shambling, rotting, corpses."

     "Yes, the souls do keep them together and enhance their abilities. But they are but 'caterpillars' on the way to becoming 'butterflies'."

     "Somehow I think I am not going to like where this is going."

     "Sadly, this is true."

     She looks back at the zombie she first looked at and gritting herself, dives in deeper to try and see what is meant. Her ancestral memories take in every detail that they can develop. Then they compare to Iriisii's memories of what she has already faced and begin extrapolating between the two. When they provide her with the answer she seeks, she cannot decide what she feels she must do. But one thing is for certain, there is far more going on here than she first thought. And although she wants to destroy this ship and everything in it, she knows she must get to the bottom of what it represents, and what if anything she will be allowed to do about it.

     "Good, good, you begin to see underneath the surface, what these truly are."

     "And you had a 'hand' in making them?"

     "No, they are beyond my capabilities to create. It is all I can do to maintain them and keep them stable. No, only my masters have the skill and understanding needed to create them, and guide them until they reach maturity when they will metamorphose."

     "And yet someone has attained some of them and is selling them here in my time. I am also not certain the customers are being informed as to what they actually are."

     "You speak of the metamorphosed, not the immature?"

     "Yes. I have encountered them personally on one world, and have had reliable information that the 'Dark Emperor' has taken one in his physical body. Quite a number of his followers found this out and when the conversion of his court began, they ran and came to me for protection, telling me what was going on. They said an agent had earlier come and sold him a number of vials, each containing a mature leech. If this plague is not stopped, the destruction will be massive as the coalition of Elders, Greaters, even some Outsiders are gathering to see if I can hold back the coming horde.

    If I can then they will take no action to carve out the 'lost' Realms from the Creations. If I cannot, then a mass exodus will occur, until all that remains within the Creations are these leeches, and then the Creations will fall into utter destruction."

     "This is most disheartening. This is not the purpose to which they were created."

     "Then enlighten me, what is the true purpose to which they have been created?"

     "Let me show you something."

     He goes to a large view screen and voice commands it.

     "Locate video surveillance from 'Quadrant 78X, Negative Axis 4, Timeline positive 27 local years from now."

     The video rolls through thousands of screens then slows and focuses on one, a video feed begins from that point.

     "The time in the video is twenty-seven years into the future. This is not our Creation, but a separate plane. In twenty-seven years' time, an incursion into our Creation will occur from this plane location. Watch and see what comes toward us."

     The world she sees looks familiar, and then she recognizes it as a series of nightmares she has been having. As she watches, she sees armies of unimaginable beings of elemental origins, she also sees giant 'ravers' like the three she had previously faced and others. All heading toward a gigantic portal, and behind all of this vast army, is two figures standing as the army passes them. One is a male, very tall, sharing features of several races, elves among them. But the aura surrounding him is one of utter despair, raging hatred, venomous envy, and a hungering desire for conquest and destruction. Next to him, stands a shadowed figure, about half his height.

Strangely she thinks she has seen this one before, as it steps into the firelight of the braziers on the viewing platform, she sees herself! 

     But this is not the Iriisii she knows herself to be, this has to be a caricature of some kind. But how to determine who or what 'she' actually is, and how to stop these events from happening.

     "You see the conundrum here."

     "What do I do to deal with this?"

     "It begins in the deep past, something happened to ignite the spark that fans the flames twenty-seven years in the future from now. You must go back and find out what happened. Then determine what can be done to deal with this either before it reaches the breakout point or afterward. I can only assume they have agents in place back then that will be waiting for you."

     "Who are you, really? You are not simply who you say you are if you are trying so hard to steer me toward correcting this."

     He bows to her, saying "one day you will know who I am. I look forward to that day, but until then I am not allowed to reveal who I am."

     "Why port these 'zombies' onto these ships, to destroy and 'turn' the innocents on board?"

     "Who said it was 'me' who did these things?"

     As he waved a hand over toward the figure he was leaning over when she first entered.

     "May I?"

     "Of course, he will no longer be a problem. But there are still a few others that are around. Take what time you need to investigate this ship. I am in no hurry."

     "Thank you."

     "You are as polite and even-tempered as I had been led to believe. Many others would have attacked immediately upon entering, not caring to find out the truth of what lay before their eyes unseeing, where you take the effort to see."

     "If I can assist you in this particular matter with these zombies, I will do so. They are an abomination to all who live, no matter which path you follow."

     Iriisii walks over to look at the supine figure. Not readily identifiable could be a member of any of thousands of races. Better to look for unusual features to narrow the list down. She examines the body thoroughly but does not find anything of consequence. "What about his clothes, possessions, anything he had on him that might set him apart from others?"

     'He' points over to a pile on a nearby bench.

     Iriisii goes over to it and carefully examines one item after another, looking over everything. Then near the bottom of the pile, she finds a chain and medallion. The metal is unfamiliar to her, but the image engraved on the face is one she thinks she has seen before.

     "I believe I have seen this image before, but I cannot quite remember what it means or where I remember it from."

     "Hmmm, I have an idea, if you would permit, put the medallion chain around your neck."

     Iriisii looks at it one more time, then raises it over her head. As it comes to a rest on her chest, it begins to glow.

     "I thought I saw something glowing on his chest but on you, it is like a beacon of light."

     "I...", it is then she feels the medallion connect with the last 'gift' Dettlaff gave her by setting it up for her to drink from his heart's blood. The medallion connects her to the zombies, as they all turn to her, awaiting instructions. She attempts to see just what this combination can do. She singles out one particular zombie and reaches out to it through the medallion. In a heartbeat, her awareness is enfolded within the zombie.

     She is now looking out of its eyes, hearing with its ears, smelling with its nose. She slowly moves its limbs watching the reaction time between her command and the zombie's response, which is near-instantaneous. The Outsider is watching with great interest. 

     "Your Necromantic power, though barely used is truly awesome to see in its intensity. I now know why so many have been watching you and how you develop and use your power. An unscrupulous Necromancer with your level of power would strike fear in the hearts and minds of every God or Goddess that came within sensing distance of you."

     "Now I remember, there was a wizard on the island of Wyrmstooth. He had taken residence within a barrow there to work on a spell to allow him to control Draugr."

     "I know not this word 'Draugr'."

     "It is a kind of undead on my world, close kin to these zombies, but they are reanimated by magic. We do have worse, called 'Liches', they are Necromancers who have voluntarily learned how to take their soul out of their body and store it in a 'Phylactery'. They cannot be totally destroyed unless their soul is freed from its Phylactery. I have only encountered a very few, one was a couple of thousand years old and his power was truly frightening. Luckily he had hardly any interest in what was happening in the world around where he chose to hide.

     Anyway, I was asked to assist the wizard in an experiment, I agreed since I and my companions needed to go deeper into the barrow. He ended up transferring my mind with the Draugr's mind, thus giving me control of the Draugr's body. In that way, I could move freely within the barrow and not be challenged by everything I met. I found the target I was asked to find, threw the switch, and the wizard stopped the spell. I returned to my body, the Draugr dropped into dust, and the barred gate stopping us was lifted. This medallion acts just like the spell that wizard was working on."

     "You do not think?"

     "No, I do not think so. Other groups were attempting to get the spell from him but were all unsuccessful. I think he could well take care of himself in that regard."

     "Why were you in the barrow in the first place?"

     "Tracking down a Dragon that was being more than a nuisance. Seems he was gathering warriors and mercenaries to himself, killing them, then using his necromancy to raise an army of undead zombies."

     "May I see the medallion? No, do not take it off, your power flowing through it has made the image clearer. I would like to see if I can identify it for you."

     He looks at it for a few seconds, raises his head, and reaches into his mind to search for anything like the image. After a minute, he opens his eyes and says, "that is a truly ancient medallion. It is called the 'Warlock's Amulet'. Its history is of both 'light' and 'dark', having been used by both in its long existence. I can think of no one more suited to wearing it than you. You will be able to call upon both sides of what it can do, and if you can learn to use both sides at the same time. Well, you would be nigh unstoppable, a force of magical nature to be both feared and respected."

     "I wonder...", and she looks over to the body she had just examined. It was like the Amulet anticipated her need and opened the last memories still within the body's brain, letting her see what she could.

     She sees the necromancer kneeling on the ship's deck, a dark roiling cloud hovering in front of him, then she hears, "master, what would you have of me?"

     "She approaches ahead of where you are, continue to chase this 'Praetor' in that direction. When you get there spread your zombies on all of the ships you see. When 'she' is occupied with dealing with the zombies, you are to abduct the one called 'Illyria', and bring her to me."          

      "But what of the 'Daughter'?"

      "If you get this Illyria, the 'Daughter' will find you. If you are in my presence when she finds you, you will live. If not, well, there will be nothing that can be done for you then. Just do not fail, something powerful has awakened in this Illyria and I want to know what and who she is. The two of them together, such dreams that would become reality. There might be enough power to bring back the Nightmare Gods from their deathly slumber. I can but have hope that such might become possible. I must go now, others require my assistance, do not fail me."

     The memory fades as her mind returns to her own body. She looks at the outsider and asks, "what do you know if anything of the 'Nightmare Gods'?"

     A look of unreasoning fear crosses his face, 'do not say that name again.' As he gestures with his 'fingers' a cool blue glow spreads across the room before fading.

     "Where did you hear of them?"

     "When I was in his last memories, he was talking to a dark cloud." She goes on to repeat the conversation, omitting the mention of the 'Nightmare Gods'. What can you tell me of how this fits together."

     "Who is this Illyria, he wanted?"

     "One of my wedded mates, an Aasimar as am I."

     "He said something had recently awakened within her?"

     "Shit! that could only be 'Desidarius'! But what could he want with her?"

     "Tell me all you know of her, everything! It could be vital to unraveling what is going on."

     Iriisii takes a huge risk, but something inside tells her this is of the utmost importance.

     So she tells him it would be much quicker if she shared her memories rather than trying to speak of it all. She extends a connection to him and once it is established she pushes all the memories of Desidarius to him.

     "Thank you for your trust. But how could all of this have gone on without the knowledge of it reaching the 'Illuminated Ones'. They should have known, intervened before it got to this point."

     "I think I may know the answer to that."

     "Tell me, please. Any lead to go with could help."

     "Sithis."

     'He' pauses a few seconds evaluating the information she has just dropped in his lap.

     "Of course, that slimy. He sits between the 'Illuminated Ones' and this Creation, only he could have kept the actions happening here from reaching them. But why?"

     "He wants these Creations destroyed and the 'Void' they occupy returned to him."

     "And so his involvement becomes apparent. He will have a heavy price to pay for this. He was warned the last time..."

     "WAIT! What last time? What are you talking about?"

     "No help for it now, your Creations are not the first to be created from the 'Void'."

     "There have been others before?"

     "Three times."

     "And he was involved in the destruction of them, then?"

     "Only the last one."

     "Then..., these other Gods that were mentioned, they were the ones who destroyed the first two?"

     "Yes, there was war after the second. They were 'killed' but as I am sure you now have a good understanding of Celestial Power. Their power was released to form new replacement entities that could grow into Gods."

     "And Sithis is one of those replacements?"

     "Yes."

     "But what about...Oh no!"

     "What? Tell me."

     "That is not dead, which can eternal lie. And with strange eons, even death may die."

     If it was possible for the blood to drain from 'his' face, it just did.

     "The final key. The time of 'Holy Ragnarok' comes at last."

     "Did you just say, 'Ragnarok'?"

     "What does the name mean to you?"

     "In the 'near' future, I and my daughter, Kallekiiraaz, are to begin the 'Jihad of Truth'. Our prophets will go out unto all the Realms announcing its coming, that all beings, mortal and immortal must choose where they stand, with Absolute Good, with Absolute Evil, or with The Balance. Then the Jihad begins, and the 'Dragon of War' will lead the Celestial Army of the Balance to battle."

     "You serve the Balance, do you not?"

     "Yes, I do. And I was first called by the Soul Hounds of the 'Mother of the Cosmos', the 'Dragon of War'."

     "And you have an army?"

     "Yes, it grows daily, races, worlds, entire Star Empires have declared fealty. And my efforts have extended into 'time' as well as 'space'. I can bridge dreams, visions, memories, with reality, until you cannot tell one from another. I have entered dreams, memories and changed the timestreams from within them. I have used temporal paradoxes as weapons. The last thing I did was to resurrect three hundred thirty Lyrium Dragons all at once, summoning their souls from the unfathomable depths of time."

     "Aye, that should have been made known to the Illuminated Ones. Those Dragons died at the end of the war that destroyed the second Creation. And now we both know where you have to go."