"Reveal yourself, hag!"

Tenebres looked around the glade in a panic, listening with half an ear to Olivia's attempts to intimidate the lead hag. He noted the rot hag and legion hag that had emerged as well, blocking their ways out of the glade–short of running through the treeline, and potentially becoming separated by the magic of the glade.

"Oooh little knight, you don't want me to do that." The lead hag was still unseen, her voice emerging from a thick, shadow-choked tangle.

Something was wrong here. The itching on Tenebres's chest progressed into a deep burn, like an infection squirming under his skin, spreading out from the ring of his brand to the runed scars that covered his chest and arms.

Why weren't the hags attacking? They were outnumbered, but considering the powers supposedly available to three hags working together, even the nearly three-to-one odds the sentinels had in their favor would likely not be enough.

"Ellevesa," Cadence hissed, turning to face the rot hag that was blocking their exit.

Tenebres recognized the name as that of the rot hag that had masterminded the plague in Keystone.

"We're not afraid of you, hag," Olivia said. "Reveal yourself!"

"I forced you to flee once," Cadence said, "and that was when I was alone."

"You will not befoul my home, foul creatures!" Allid declared.

The three hags cackled in unison, and the force of the sound drove into Tenebres's ears like nails. Each of the three had their own peculiar and horrible voice–Ellevesa's laugh was like the burbling bubbles of a dying man's last breaths breaking the surface of a fetid swamp; the legion hag's was like a blade being dragged against a grindstone; the lead hag's was like the creaking of a gallows in the wind. Together, they created something greater than the sum of their parts, a psychic attack that had made both Allana and Allid's offsiders buckle under the assault. Cadence must've used a will Surge to stay on her feet, and apparently Olivia and Allid simply had the mental fortitude to withstand the assault.

"You are fools," the lead hag declared.

"Corpses to be," the legion hag agreed.

"I'll enjoy this," Ellevesa hissed.

"Thrice I say and done," Olivia barked, her voice a clarion clear foil to that of the hags. "Reveal yourself!"

The shadows at the edge of the glade seemed to stir, and Tenebres blinked in surprise. He had heard of the thrice command and its supposed influence over the hags–it was one of the few rules they followed, one of the only ways for humans or wraiths to have an advantage over the malicious outsiders. But Tenebres had never been sure if it was a mere myth or honest fact–and he certainly didn't expect Olivia to know such an obscure bit of lore.

"Oooh little knight…" the lead hag's voice dropped to a hiss. "You'll regret that."

Finally, like a man dropping a heavy burden, the shadows that had hid the first hag dropped away, revealing a form unlike any Tenebres had ever seen.

Every hag Tenebres had seen, heard of, or read about, were grotesqueries, their bodies supposedly reflections of their rotten souls. Far beyond any physical infirmity among humans, the hag's bodies were a reflection of their unnatural origin.

This hag, too, was uncanny, horrifying, but in a completely different way. Her body was shapely, beautiful–disturbingly so, considering what she was. However, it lacked any actual signifiers of biology or humanity. Her large, round breasts lacked any nipples; the flat plane of her stomach didn't have the divot of a belly button; her lusciously curved thighs had only flat space between them. Her skin was surreal, a blend of black and red that flowed even as Tenebres looked at it, moving in slow, hypnotic patterns, drawing the eye not just to her, but directing the gaze upwards, towards…

Horror.

Tenebres flinched away, and his scars immediately broke, small streams of blood covering his body as he jerked his eyes from the hag's face. It was indistinct in his head, its features impossible to call to mind, and even thinking of it-

Tenebres fell to his knees, and it was all he could do not to wretch.

He wasn't alone, either. Around him, he heard soft cries of shock, muffled sobs, muted wails, as his friends and Allid's alike collapsed, each overcome by a single look at the face of what could only be a void hag.

Only two figures remained standing. Cadence, having clearly drawn on her Soul Surge, her face drawn and soaked in sweat, had turned to face the void hag, lifting her sword in a gesture of defiance. And next to Tenebres, Dillen still stood, a soft scratching betraying that, of all things, the animist was drawing.

"Intriguing," the void hag creaked. "I see why this one perturbed you so, Ellevesa. But no matter her strength, I doubt she could take me alone, much less the three of us together. And this other one… Very intriguing. What are you drawing, child?"

Dillen didn't answer, and though Tenebres couldn't bear to look up, he heard the soft sound of Dillen's sketching become more erratic, more desperate.

"Very well… we will have plenty of time to talk. Come with me, children."

The offer came with an almost gravitational pull, as if sucking the young sentinels in towards the powerful hag. Tenebres felt his muscles clenching without his approval, his body following the commands of another-

"No."

Tenebres blinked, stunned, as somehow, the pull of the void hag's words broke, and Olivia forced her way to her feet. Her shield had vanished, returned to wherever it was astral weapons went when they were unneeded, and she had to bury her runeblade into the earth like a crutch to lever herself up, but she did it. She stood–and that made it easier for the rest of them to do the same, as if her resistance alone was weakening the imposing oppression of the hag's presence.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"You resist?" the legion hag asked, her shrill voice aghast.

"You must bow!" Ellevesa growled.

The void hag, though… she simply seemed amused. Tenebres still couldn't look at her face, but he could feel the hag's thoughts tainting the very air around them.

"How impressive," the powerful hag said. "Futile… but impressive all the same."

Olivia clenched her jaw so hard that Tenebres could hear the squeal of her teeth grinding against each other–but she somehow spoke anyway. "Not so much…" she said, her voice tight, each word forced. "My mind… the mind you're invading… is still connected with Lord Merrick… with the gifted back at that war camp. They'll be here... Very soon."

"What?" The two lesser hags squawked in harmonized surprise, and the amusement that had tinged the air suddenly seemed to recede.

"Are you telling the truth, child?"

"You know the worth of a knight's word, hag."

"Mmm… perhaps, perhaps. Very well." The void hag paused for a moment, the air in the glade changed again, an alien emotion now spreading through it, something that set Tenebres's teeth on edge and made his brand throb. Next to him, Dillen's sketching got more rapid, little more than crooked scratches now.

"It has never ceased to amaze me how few questions your kind asks, child. You are so busy congratulating yourself for destroying some pawns that you never wonder why you were allowed to find that camp. Why that fight went so well for you when your attempts to find myself and my sisters have never worked. Why you only ever find the weakest of our servants in this place."

"What are you saying?" Allid demanded.

"I need not explain myself, mewling child. Die ignorant."

The alien presence continued to intensify, strengthening until it was almost palpable.

"Something's wrong," Cadence said, echoing Tenebres's thoughts.

"No," the void hag said, "something is very, very right."

"Stop her!" Tenebres screamed.

Immediately, power flew at the void hag–boulders the size of a large man, jets of flame, enchanted arrows, plumes of poison gas, blades of solid air.

None of it mattered.

An instant before any of the attacks would've hit the void hag, everything shattered.

The glade was suddenly compressed, a dozen copies of the same space pressing together until the very reality around them couldn't stand it anymore. There was a wrenching sensation, a scream that Tenebres couldn't place, and the void hag sundered the very space they were standing, sending them flying in every dimension and direction.

Tenebres tried to marshal himself, to gather his thoughts, some inclination in the back of his head telling him that there should be something he can do about this–his gift had the same origin as the void hag, didn't it? Could he counter her somehow?–then horror and pain overwhelmed him and everything went black.

#

When Tenebres opened his eyes, he was in the nightmare city, the false Elliven, the place with the blood red sky, outside of the cracked obsidian wall of the dream city.

"Of course," Tenebres said. As always, he had a moment of disorientation, his memories of this place flooding back to him in the way they never did when he was awake. The half-remembered notions and broken images were filled out by entire conversations, scenes, sights, and even assumptions he had made, guesses based on his experiences in his place.

"This isn't a great time to be pulled here," Tenebres muttered.

"I know," the other him answered. Of course, the older, more weathered Tenebres was standing next to him. He looked different this time, infinitely sadder, more beaten down, distressed.

"You know when I came from?" Tenebres asked himself. It was their usual ritual to start by exchanging their respective origins.

"Of course I do," the elder Tenebres said. "I remember all of this clearly–just as you will."

"What?"

"Every time you've seen me, it's been an accident," the aged Tenebres explained. "Dream scrying is difficult at the best of times. I've spent years now trying to find you, me, at this moment, at this time, so I can tell you what I need to know."

"What?" Tenebres felt a headache somehow starting to throb in his head even in the dream.

"You'll get it one day," he told himself. "We're short on time. Look, this place, this city… it's not real, but it is. I've been sending you this dream, because it's the one I go to nearly every night. It exists in real life too, though, and you're going to be there soon."

"I don't know what any of that means–and I'm not going to remember any of this when I wake up anyways."

"You will, this time," the older Tenebres said. "I have an ability that'll make sure of it."

Tenebres opened his mouth–then everything wavered, the city around flickering in and out of focus like a candle starting to go out.

The other Tenebres wavered, his eyes closing–and then things solidified.

"No more questions," he told his younger self. "You'll wake up soon. Get to the Highcastle–that's the only way to go. The guard post is a trap."

"I don't-"

"BE QUIET AND LISTEN!"

The younger Tenebres blinked, and he retreated a step–but he stayed quiet.

"Get to Highcastle," the older Tenebres repeated. He continued with the litany of a man reading from a list long since memorized, as if he had rehearsed this moment over and over again. "Find the ritual circle. It's your only way back before it's too late. Trust Dillen, and he'll trust you. The hags have learned how to use the glades, stay away from them. And… And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't tell you more, that I can't do more."

The taller, leaner Tenebres darted a look around, and he took a few steps closer, until he was looming over his younger self. How had he grown half a foot in just a few years?

"But remember this, more than anything," Tenebres said. "Remember it: they're alive. They didn't die."

Everything flickered again, before Tenebres could say anything, and the older him stumbled away, bending over like he had been punched in the gut.

"Remember!" Tenebres screamed at himself even as he screamed back. "They didn't-"

You have glimpsed a piece of the truth. The Sage has offered you [the Gift of Dreams].

You cannot accept a third gift at this time. Reach Initiate with both of your gifts to open up your third gift slot.

#

Tenebres awoke. He opened his eyes, and though he knew what he would see, he still felt his heart sink.

He was awake now.

But he was still in the nightmare city.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.