Shadow Slave

The First Seeker was dead… devoured by the same abominations it had created.

The abominations were dead, too.

Daeron of the Twilight Sea was gone. So was Cronos, the King of the River People.

Even the Great River was dead, its dwindling waters standing still. Silence and desolation ruled the Tomb of Ariel now, suffused with darkness.

The Time Slayer sailed across the empty dark void of the Tomb of Ariel, drawing closer and closer to the Estuary. In fact, Sunny judged that they should have already reached it — but there was nothing but silent darkness around them. No water, no mist, no treacherous currents…

He had been wondering how to find the heart of the Estuary without the Guiding Light, but it seemed like that would not pose a problem.

Ananke was at the helm of the ancient ship, its sails full of wind.

Unlike the Chain Breaker, the Time Slayer did not possess an inherent ability to fly — there was no sacred tree growing around its main mast, and no runic array to keep it in the vast expanse of the skies. Instead, it was able to fly because Ananke was channeling a Verse that allowed it to.

She had already been an experienced Shaper when they met in the Nightmare, and her skill as a sorceress seemed to have greatly developed since then. She could wield her Will now, too — so, it was not that surprising to see her masterfully keep the ancient ship afloat in the air.

It was still an amazing sight, though.

“We should reach the Ark soon.”

Sunny looked at her and finally asked the question that had been on his mind from the moment they met.

“How many people are left in that time fortress?”

Ananke remained silent for a moment, looking into the distance with a hint of melancholy in her beautiful eyes. Eventually, she said simply:

“None.”

She studied the bronze navigation tools arrayed in front of her on the deck of the Time Slayer and sighed.

“The Ark outlasted Verge, but in the end, it collapsed as well. Time doesn’t spare anyone, after all… everything falls to its tyranny. Even the gods could not escape their fate, so how could something created by mortals exist forever?”

Ananke shook her head.

“It felt like only a few years had passed, to us, but thousands of years must have flown past the Ark before its sorcery finally ran out. When we emerged, the Great River was entirely different. The Tomb of Ariel had become alien to us, and we needed to explore it like pioneers.”

Her expression dimmed.

“Of course, what we discovered was that it was not a place suited for human life anymore. It couldn’t sustain us. We were going to starve, just like the Defiled had starved… and worse than that, we weren’t the only ones who still dwelled in the Tomb of Ariel.”

Ananke grimaced.

“Everything has consequences, you see. Cronos broke the Great River to save the River People, but in doing so, he set in motion the events that would destroy the Ark one day — and doom the people he wanted to protect.”

She glanced at the vast emptiness that surrounded them.

“This used to be the Estuary… a place where the past flowed into the future. A timeless place. So, that was where Cronos and Daeron built the Ark. They used the nature of the Estuary to strengthen the sorcery that kept it hidden outside time, and tethered it to the waters of the Estuary. It was a brilliant design, truly. But…”

Her expression turned wistful.

“But the River was dead. Its waters were growing shallow. The distance between the future and the past was diminishing, and soon enough, the River began to dry up. It began from the Estuary, and once the Estuary dwindled, the Ark became unmoored. The sorcery that sustained it was left without a source, and we were left without a safe harbor.”

Ananke glanced at Sunny and Nephis.

“There were a lot of things we had to discover. The fate of the First Seeker and Verge, the shallow areas of the River, the desolation that left us without a source of sustenance… but most important of all, we discovered that the Defiled used to play an important role, as well.”

She shook her head.

“They held back the horrors that dwelled at the dawn of time, in the furthest reaches of the Great River. With the First Seeker gone, nothing deterred them from swimming upstream anymore. At the same, the length of the River greatly diminished, and the distance between what used to be the past and what used to be the future was not as vast as it had been before. So, the horrors of the distant future traveled downstream, as well.

Her smile turned a little dark.

“Even though the Defilement was gone, the River teemed with harrowing abominations. There was no shelter for us anywhere, and nothing for us to sustain ourselves with… not the entire population of the Ark, at least. Every day, we fought desperately for survival — and every day, salvation seemed more distant than before. We faced extinction… we were going to die, just like the rest of this dead world.”

Nepis spoke in a quiet tone:

“But, obviously, you did not die, Ananke.”

Ananke chuckled.

“Yes, that is true. And for a very simple reason, at that.”

She looked into the distance and sighed.

“It was because of Cronos — of what he told me before we parted for the last time. He said that if I endure long enough… if I stay alive long enough… then one day, the Children of Weaver will come, and bring salvation with them. And so, I endeavored to stay alive. I waited.”

Sunny and Nephis both remained silent, not knowing what to say.

Ananke, meanwhile, glanced ahead and smiled.

“Ah. Here it is… the Ark.”

They glanced forward, as well.

There, the bones of a colossal serpent floated in the emptiness. From afar, the great skeleton seemed like a flawlessly white ring that was contoured sharply against the boundless darkness…

Devouring its own tail…