Ixis - A Danuviél Saga (Chapters I

(What follows is a translation of historical materials found within the Archives of Linúvia, specifically from within the Library of Xilanthia, and it's many ice-cold tomes which tell the tale of Ixis and her kind, the Ixians, who reside on her plane of searing cold winds, and frequently cross the boundaries into other places that are linked materially with it's frozen tundra's and shattered mountains. This is an account from the earliest moments of the cosmic calendar, often colloquially referred to as 'All-Time' by the many races of the Planes...)

Volume I: 'A Heart Fractured 'Neath Her Own Hand

(Act I: Winter Born)

Chapter I
(Year: 7 CC)

As early as year four of the grand cosmic calendar, the four Illuthan crystals had seeded the cosmos with their dusts and come to settle upon the distant plane of Nasul, not yet ready to create eyes of their own, in the form of the Numviél. For a long while after they came to rest atop the mounds of newborn Nasul’s ashen wastes, the Dreaming Cosmos was silent and lifeless, illuminated only by the light of stars, and a curious flicker which seemed to grow in its intensity as time progressed. This flicker was a warning – the first sign of a schism forming between Lignal and Darlan, leading to the great dual at the dawn of all time remembered by those knowledgeable as the Dance of Light and Dark. From this chaos, many strange new places and energies came to be, but to a Dream bereft of life, bereft of conscious beings, none would be stranger than the first new winds to come into being since the Aulderiál. Aktal-Vulz, the lesser wind of warmth and life-giving nourishment, and Ixis, the lesser wind of frigid cold and quiet death.

It all started with a rivalry of seasons, of two new forms of being that would soon grow in number and power – the Linuviél, and the Danuviél…

Ixis first appeared from within the wake of Aktal’s movements, stalking his warmth through the depths of the starry places, moving between the material and the immaterial. She would wait for him to move across any given plane, watching as he bloomed green grasses and great archtrees with the help of Tal-Dannu – a Linuviél closely linked to his powers. Once he had begun proliferating across another plane, she would move in and destroy everything that the two of them had created, withering it all to bark and earth with the help of Saru-Cundil – Danuviél of time. This pattern would repeat until Tal-Dannu thought to return to newborn Galaed, the last plane she had seeded with life, hearing the cry of her creations and sensing something was amiss. Upon returning she had found that her green grasses were now covered in frigid snow, and all the leaves she had sewn across the forests of archtrees had withered and blown adrift. She returned to Aktal-Vulz and she told him what she had seen, what had become of their creations, and so Aktal chose to return as well, in hopes of restoring life.

Unfortunately, as he worked tirelessly to melt the ice and breathe life back into the earth, Ixis would find her first chance to strike. Her winds blew harder than they ever had before, forcing Aktal into the south of Galaed, and freezing the ground solid so that no life could be sewn into the earth again.

Aktal surrendered, and claimed the southern half, while Ixis claimed the northern half, biding time with the help of Saru-Cundil until Aktal was weak enough to be forced from the plane entirely. This first battle between the Linuviél and the Danuviél would eventually lead to the primordial Battle of the Nuviél – an extension of the Dance of Light and Dark; the Duel of Lignal and Darlan, the Lightstar and the Darkstar.

In her quiet northern solitude Ixis would first gain a form other than wind, a form which might stride upon two feet – upright and bipedal. She would be the first to attain such a state of being, and in watching her do so, those Linuviél and Danuviél who would bear witness took such forms, too.

“Saru,” she did snarl, standing atop her makeshift tower of ice, overlooking all of her newfound lands of barren cold. “Would this child of Lightstar know an ending one day, or would he blow eternal warmth no matter my attempts to end him?”

Saru stood beside her, a formless, ever-shifting being of shimmering light – ephemeral and almost non-existent. “Just as we are eternal,” he spoke, his voice fluctuating through tones, thousands in their variance, “so too are the children of Lightstar.”

Ixis scoffed and turned heel, a veil of freezing mist streaming away from her jagged edges and voluptuous curves. She jumped and became like wind, a blizzard quickly gathering and rushing past the spire of ice, over plains of frozen ground and forests of blackened trees, toward the glowing southern horizon where Aktal blew with confidence and compassion. Tal-Dannu was the first to notice her approach – a white wind coming at speed. She alerted Aktal and Aktal turned his focus once again, toward the dogged Danuviél of ice as she blew across the invisible boundary between north and south.

Their winds clashed as they had done hundreds of times before, only this time the force had been great enough to tear a hole in material reality, combining their powers of light and dark, warmth and cold, with the energies of the Anthaevra, causing a great storm to gather and flood the fields and forests. As they would both discover in that very moment, their powers of opposing force held great potential in creating new forms of material. Water had resulted from their conflict – Ixis had gained the upper hand. Her blizzard raged forth, rushing past Aktal and freezing the newly flooded plains and forests.

Tal-Dannu quickly fled the plane, escaping into the Anthaevral tear with Aktal close behind.

Ixis soared back to the top of her spire, landing with great force upon the pads of her feet, leaving a trail of water melting away from her. The warm winds of Aktal had left her weak, but the storm had left her pleasantly surprised. “How the Dreaming Mother continues to inspire such wonder,” she spoke to Saru-Cundil, his lingering, timeless shimmer watching the water as it continued to flood the plain from above.

“Indeed,” he spoke in his voice of a thousand tones. His flickering head turned to face the sky. “Listen… Do you hear the gales of the Netherwind?”

“Ueka?” She smiled, also looking toward the sky. “Yes, I hear him… He is close.”

“He must want to observe the discovery we have made here today, for it will surely further the charge of his disintegrating winds.”

Ixis closed her eyes and witnessed a vision granted to her by the Netherwind – a flicker of strange blue fire sweeping across the earth hidden beneath her ice, breaking it into much more simple states of matter, slowly, over the many ages yet to come. “This will be a slow ending,” she smiled, and turned to Saru.

“Slow endings are endings all the same.”

“Come,” Ixis walked to the center of the spire’s highest peak, her hands glowing with harsh white light. “I would like to show you something I’ve been considering.”

“Is it the fragment Anthia?” He replied, his form shifting as it walked beside her. “A power befitting the magnificence of your essence?”

“I dislike how easily you can look into the future, sometimes.” She pressed her hands together and pulled them apart, a miniscule shard of ice forming within the light. “…Does the process prove successful?”

“I have seen many futures where your attempts prove unsuccessful, and yet there are a great many more where you manage to achieve your goal.”

“I shall take that as good news,” she smiled, and smashed her palms together. “We cannot do this here, however. We must make an attempt amongst the Lightspaces, where we can put constant pressure on Aktal, and that rather annoying green nymph who chooses to protect him.”

“There are no futures where you win such a war, Ixis. The Dream will always turn between the shades of Lightstar and Darkstar,” said Saru.

“I’m sure it will,” Ixis shrugged, and tore open a hole in the space before her. “That doesn’t mean we cannot have our fun though, does it?” She stepped forwards and vanished into the silver-blue light, the tear closing as the form of Saru-Cundil flickered and disintegrated.

Ixis landed upon a shining lightbridge, narrow and long, looking out over the endless depths of silver-blue light surrounding her. From where she stood she could see the distant abyssal pockets of Far-Light, but she could see nothing more. The Anthaevra was vast, expanding outwards a great distance further than the Anthauvra, existing alongside material reality, only accessible to those who have gained knowledge of its tides of light and dark – an unseen universe which weaves between all things, made of energies that affect all things.

Until now they lay barren of life, barren of planes, but with the birth of the Linuviél and Danuviél, all would quickly change.

Just as it was with her material form, Ixis was the first to consider the idea of a plane she might call her permanent home, a place that her energies could eternally radiate away from, seeping out through the light of stars into the Anthauvra, carrying freezing winds across the planes. Her idea of a universe covered in ice would be the reality of the newborn material spaces, if only for a brief period. To achieve her ideal state of being for the Anthauvra, she considered what might happen if she meditated upon a crystal of ice, made of pure Anthaevral light, and combined with her essence of cold, allowing it to grow and grow until the stars had no choice but to funnel it’s freezing winds out into the material spaces. She remained upon the lightbridge and she focused all of her energy into a ball of freezing light.

“He will be considering the same,” came the voice of Saru-Cundil. “Lightstar children are only a shade removed from us in thought. In every future that you succeed, there exists a warm wind blowing from beneath the endless archforests of his guardian.”

“If we are endless,” she spoke, her voice low as she concentrated upon the swirling crystal of cold light, “then we are fit for endless combat. I see no better future than that.” The crystal left the space between her hands and drifted out into the Lightsea. It stopped, and began turning rapidly, collecting all the light surrounding it, growing in size with each and every turn. “Wish me luck,” she smiled, as streams of cold mist emanated from her hands and became part of the growing crystal.

“Luck is a fool’s concept,” Saru spoke, all of his many voices merging into one. “Only probability exists.”

“…And probability can be manipulated.”

The crystal had now grown into a plane of jagged ice, tangled and angular, its vast plateaus and sheer plummets into the Lightsea appearing to be few at first, increasing in number as the plane expanded to fill the vast space before them. Barren snow-filled wastes were built upon one arm of it’s layered fractal lands, mountains of solid ice on others, all of these arms branching out from a spherical centre, where a great spire stood alone – miniscule from the distance at which they observed, but colossal amongst the spires of it’s own domain.

Saru was impressed, inspired, eager to see what he might create by combining the Anthaevral light with his own temporal sorceries.

“Not since the glory of Darlan, when first I came to be, have I see a thing so magnificent,” spoke Ixis – enamoured, breathless. His winds could never hope to penetrate a land so cold, so dark.”

“A land fit for the bearer of ice…” Saru replied.

“…A land fit only for me, and the ones I would call my own.”

Saru turned to her, his form continuing to shift, the flicker made sharper by the presence of Anthaevral light. “You mean to create life, like the Elix race of Aksza…?”

“Yes, only my life will not be so spritely. They will be made to serve a purpose, fit for the coming battles.”

“You mean to fight Aktal so soon?” Saru asked.

“No…” She jumped to her feet and became like a blizzard once more. “I mean to settle my new home first. Then I shall hunt him down, and make sure he knows struggle. The winds of Lignal will never blow so freely again, I will make sure of it.”

III

The plane born of Ixis’ frigid soul floated gracefully in it’s place, a jagged, hostile and unforgiving idol dedicated to her own nature, her own disposition towards the greater cosmos surrounding – both the material, and the immaterial. To Ixis, it was not enough that cold death came upon the planes only once in their revolving cycles around their parent stars, nor was it enough that those planes might only be recipient of her hale and snow in the highest parts of their altitudes, for in these infant years too few of them span at such angles as to weaken the Anthaevral boundaries atop their jutting peaks, and those which did were far between. To be queen of the cold, and to not have a kingdom to rule over? Why, that was the ultimate insult to her majesty. And so she would begin to plot – against the order of life, against the warm winds of Lumbera, and his guardian nymph, crystal and green of soul and skin.

Her vision was born within the calmer snowdrifts of the plane’s central sphere, from which it’s eight arms extended outwards, radial in their symmetry – the barren regions that would become the six axis-lands of Xilanthia, their landscapes soon to be formed from the beating Heart of Winter, the Anthic Fragment.

Yes, the Anthic Fragment, the slither of soul-ice born of Ixis’ cold bosom, spiralling out into the Anthaevral Light-Sea like a dancing star of silver-blue, becoming a great tundra of fractal design as it twirled and grew substantial. It’s living presence could be felt by Ixis yet, pulsing from far beneath the spire she would call her ruling seat – Xilstice, the Tower of Winter. Rather than seek the Anthic Fragment outright however, she thought tofirst anoint her abode by grace of her presence, shifting back into the form of a billowing wind of creeping shards, quickly ascending upwards towards the jagged and pointed summit of Xilstice. Here she would observe the potential of the eight virgin axial lands, and begin twisting light and cold into matter she could look upon with pride.

Across the western axis the First-Cold would lay it’s claim, a land dominated by the infant winds of Ixis’ form, those birthed during her early pursuit of Aktal-Vulz, the very same ones which had eradicated half of all emerald life upon the plane of Galaed. With fervour they would bound and soar, a land all unto their own, where the Anthaevral tears were plentiful, and they could cross the threshold into the material Anthauvra with ease – coming and going, ebbing and flowing, sowing foul discord and strife. It was in these lands of milder cold that Ixis first discovered the living potential of the Anthic essence flowing all around her, and saw in her mind’s eye the depiction of a being as white as now and solid to the touch, adorned with a three pointed crown of jagged ice, two points extending outwards, and one point extending vertical. It marched through the blizzard of her mind, it’s right arm a serrated blade of permafrost, it’s left taking a circular shape that could protect it from harm.

This being, a product of her will, her want to instigate war upon the warm winds of Aktal, she would call Ixian – a seedling of her own soul, freezing cold and filled with all the spite of winter.

Ixis looked eastward and observed a hill, tall and proud, overlooking the flat expanse of this land, the Axis of First-Cold. She would climb that hill and she would meditate upon her desire for this Ixian, curved and alluring in form, deadly in function. She would meditate for thirty days and thirty nights, considering all the angles and the potentials of her new Anthic creation, ensuring her artistic vision was fully realized. At the end of those thirty days and thirty nights, the Ixian would come to be, a fully formed expression of her will, ready to be commanded and controlled.

In that moment, the war would begin in earnest. An army must be crafted, an army capable of bending in the many directions of her will.

In leading her sole Ixian across the wastes of Winterheart, Ixis found herself with room for thought and reflection. Ever since she had landed upon her newfound plane, consideration of Aktal and his guardian nymph had frequently arrested her mind. So to did the thought of her relationship with Saru-Cundil, the Darlanean spawn which knew and governed over the nuances of time – it’s meanings, it’s philosophies, it’s effects, and it’s domains. If there were two spawn of the light-star, Lignal, and two spawn of the dark-star, Darlan, then might there be more of each of their kind out there, waiting to be discovered?

A darkness had begun to take hold of the south-western axis of her plane, creeping upward from the depths of it’s downward tilt, toward the higher refractions of the upper Light-Sea. This darkness whispered sometimes, entering her thoughts, planting seeds of anger and malice. Ixis knew her place, she knew her role, but when this darkness spoke to her, her visions of frozen stars and planes of hail became twisted and jagged, appearing foul and abominable.

Was it another of her kind that was attempting to reach out, to speak to her though this creeping darkness?

She would investigate the spread of black ice later. For now, she needed to find a place where she could amass an army, a collective of Ixians so great, none could hope to stand against her. She would find that place just beyond the narrow chasms bulwarking the entrance to the southernmost axis of Xilanthia – lands she would name the Axis of Living-Cold. Lands her army would call their own.

“Thule,” Ixis spoke, as she passed into the fractured lands of the southern axis. It was a word imbued with sacred power, reminding her of the names of the four Auldérial winds – Ueka, Aksza, Oelsra, and Iszuvia. She considered it a word she might have been gifted as her birthright, an echo spoken to her by Darlan as she passed through her deep violet corona and came into being as a relentless torrent of ice – the first form Ixis had taken within the Aulternean spaces. And so it was that Ixis had gifted the name to her own children, as she looked upon a massive, protruding blade of ice jutting upward at an angle from the surface of the southern axis.

Origina Thule, citadel of the first living ice.

She gathered the winds between her hands and balled them together into a concentration of Anthic essence, allowing it to spiral around and around, becoming brighter as it reached it’s apex of potential. She slammed the ball of frozen light into the ground beneath her, and observed as a ripple of white dust sped across the surface of the plane, it’s mass building as it raced forth toward the great blade. It reach the protrusion’s feet and began to bounce, pulling towers high toward the Light-Sea, and weaving paths within their shadows. Ixis’s power of creation had now been proven three-fold – first in the creation of Xilanthia, second in the creation of the first Ixian, and now with the creation of Origina Thule. There could now be no doubt: The cosmos must be hers to seize and freeze, gifting the Netherwind a cosmos that he could eternally reduce to ruin. For this, all of this, was created in reverence of the sapphire fires of Ueka. If all of the stars were frozen in place, then their return to ruin would take that much longer and his true majesty would be known to all of her own kind, the kind of Lignal, and any other who existed amongst the stars.

Origina Thule, the crucible of her might.

It’s towers were impossibly tall, the surrounding pathways connected by exponentially increasing diversions, across the jutting aberration of land, from it’s feet to it’s furthest edges. When a pathway met a boundary it could not cross, such as a vertical drop or another tower, it bounced away and continued cracking forth in webbed weaves, spires growing from within the resulting spaces of ice that appeared between the weaving walkways – with each uneven connection made, a new spire would prevail against the Light-Sea above.

Ixis walked forth as the spires settled, deafening groans and grumbles echoing all around, emanating from their sides and their cores as they anchored into the ice and froze ever-solid, evermore. “I assume you can speak?” She asked the first ixian, as it followed close behind.

“Of course,” the ixian replied, humbled by the voice of her creator. “You created me in your image, after all.”

“Yes… I did, didn’t I?” Ixis smiled, stealing a triumphant breath of air, allowing it to saturate her heart. “You see this?” She asked, as turned in place, her arms stretched out wide. “This is yours – my gift to you, and all who will come to be like you in design. It will be the metropolis of ardent ice known henceforth as Origina Thule, white-hot to the touch, freezing to all who enter.”

“It is magnificent, your grace.” The ixian bowed her head in reverence. “But what am I to do with such incredible structures as these?”

Ixis, looked south, beyond the metropolis, and observed a single mountain of ice rising high above the entire axis. “First,” she said, as she looked upon it’s mist-laden and storm covered peak, “we will begin building you some company. After that, this place will become a bastion of might, a place where you and all of your sisters can eternally hone your skills in combat, ready for your patrols throughout the stars – ready to fight the one you were created to defeat.”

“Aktal, the foul wind of warmth…”

“That is right,” Ixis walked about the Ixian, stroking gently at her cheek as she looked upon her form of perfection – beautiful, alluring, deadly. “And thus, if you know of his name, you must know of your quest…”

“My quest… My quest is to snuff the warm winds of Aktal-Vulz, the spawn of light-star Lignal, and enact your freezing will throughout all corners of the hidden Light-Sea, and the starry sky it seeds.”

“Perfection, indeed…” Ixis whispered into her ear. “I think I will call you Xaevel. You will lead your coming sisters in their fight, disseminating my will and my orders for the rest of eternity.”

“It will be as you command,” Xaevel closed her eyes, and uttered in response. “When I’m through, all will know the indomitable power of the Anthic shard…”

VII

The Anthic Shard span in place, humming deep beneath Xilstice, winds of cold blowing forth from it’s turning, ascending from the depths of the plane and blowing across the central wastes. Those winds rushed past Ixis and Xaevel, solidifying the spires of Origina Thule, becoming a hurricane that would challenge the storms gathered around the distant mountaintop. Thunder would clash, and the entire plane would shake, as the two storms battled for dominion over the solitary peak. As the Anthic winds blew however, Ixis, once more, caught a glimpse of darkness surrounding the mountain. Was this the same darkness, the same black taint which coveted the ice of her south-western axis? She sprinted forwards and dove from the high clifftops of Origina Thule, becoming white wind, flying forth toward the mountain peak.

The darkness snarled at her approach. It enveloped the mountaintop even more tightly, claiming the peak as it’s own. Ixis held her arm forwards, it’s length becoming pointed, serrated. She cut through the black cloud and landed atop the peak, where a bright shade of light awaited her.

That shade turned, and she knew in that moment that she looked upon the spawn of Lignal.

She looked upon the warming wind of Aktal-Vulz....

o-o

Chapter II

(Year: 7 CC)

The Anthic Ice screamed as it fell to the scorching winds of Aktal, every single Ixian reduced to meltwater and dust in an instant, the great towers of Origina Thule withering and collapsing. Ixis knew not how the Warmwind had found her so easily, for her plane drifted in the darker depths of the Anthaevral Light-Sea, far beneath the brighter areas where she was certain the Warmwind had built it’s home – close to the greenhorn nymph that followed him so diligently. She had been atop the mountain south of Origina Thule when the rift opened though, and Aktal had come through, accompanied by his unbearable heat.

She’d only just begun building, now it felt as though everything was suddenly over. A blade appeared by her side, clattering as it fell from somewhere above, as cold as the rage she was feeling. She grabbed at it’s jagged handle and charged forwards, turning away from the strange sculpture of black she’d been kneeling at the feet of, when the great melt had begun. She grabbed it and became like a blizzard, rushing from the mountaintop, towards the emerald light spreading across the central plains of Winterheart, and out across the boundaries of each of the six axis. It was while moving through the sky that she first became suspicious of the light destroying her lands. It destroyed, and yet Aktal did not speak. There was only silence to accompany his quiet violence.

“You come here to destroy my home!” Ixis screamed, still in her form of hail and snow. “And yet you do not even speak, you do not attempt to face me yourself! Coward!” She rushed toward the light, breaking through the great barrier of warmth, it’s boundaries shattering like thin-tempered crystal, covering her, cutting at her, forcing her to change into to her weaker form against her will. She crashed into a space of dark, hurtling through the brittle ice and finding herself in a meadow of tall grass, green and bountiful. All around her the warm winds blew, cutting at her skin, forcing her attention toward the source of the violent gale – a tall shrine, wider at the bottom than it was at it’s peak. It stood above the emerald leaves of a thin woodland copse, dominating over the thick trunks and dense undershrub that surrounded it.

'You think yourself strong…'

“Who was that?” Asked Ixis, her skin bleeding cool water. “Speak, shard of Lignal. Do not make me hunt you… down…” The winds blew stronger now, chipping a great fragment of ice from her arm. She crawled forwards towards the shrine – towards the strange light that faded in and out of luminescence; a darkened shade of light that seemed to blink, drawing her towards it.

'Do not forget your sword, Mother of the Frigid Ones; of the northern depths of Abyssal Lumocea…'

Ixis looked down at the blade resting by her side and collected it with a renewed determination. She knew not how Aktal had constructed such a realm beneath her home, nor did she care. She only wanted him dead, his essence smashed and scattered across the Light-Sea. As she ruminated on his destruction the space flickered dark, for only a fraction of time, though long enough to cause Ixis to lose her bearings. The cold returned to her heart, her arm regenerating, appearing full once more.

'The black ice, she thought to herself. Why do I feel it watching again?'

More than watching, she looked down at her body and observed as the cold darkness spread across her chest, entangled veins of black frost, crawling up her arms and surrounding her eyes. Even as an immortal seed of the Dark Star, she’d never felt a power like it. It kissed and caressed as it criss-crossed and cracked. She descended upon the vine-choked palace of Aktal, wielding her might with a fierce and renewed vigour, the sickening blue sky turning and swaying all about her.

Ixis stood watching as the space beyond the shrine’s peak swirled, a black figure floating upright beyond the emerald winds, that same nervous feeling of blackened cold overcoming her again. She stepped forwards, and with the renewed power bestowed upon her, she lifted her sword and swung, tearing a wide arc of cold through the air. The barrier fell, the winds coming to an abrupt halt. She waited for the dust to settle, sparkling and scattering all the colours of the Auldérial. What awaited her beyond the winds she could scarcely believe. It was her own image, staring back from the centre of the vortex’ clearing – a depiction of herself before the black ice had taken over her body, when she felt weaker – when she felt quietly anxious and fearful, of the battle against Aktal that she knew must come. This vision brought her shame, at how she could have been so frightful before even raising her blade, for how could she hope to best her Lightstar equal, if she could not even best her own anxieties. Was this truly the reason for the Black Ice’s appearance? It projected the same energy, the same aura as Saru-Cundil. She now believed it to be a child of Darlan in it’s own right, here to show her the folly of her arrogance, of how it betrayed her inner weaknesses, and exposed her true fragility for her enemy to exploit.

“You see now…?” Spoke the imposter as it swayed gently towards her. “Third-born of my kin, do you truly know what it is to face your unseen darkness; the eater of potentials and futures? Do you truly think yourself immortal, able to withstand the harsh luminance of the brightest half of Mother Aulfrén’s soul?”

'Third-born?' Ixis thought to herself. 'If Saru, Uviél of Time came first, and she came after, would that not make her second-born? Unless…' “I am Ixis, second-born of Darlan, the darkest star of all – expression of Mother Aulfrén’s darkest ideals and wishes. I wish to know your name, strange being of shadow.”

“My name…?” The being flickered between forms – Ixis, to shadow, to a being of emerald glow; a depiction of Aktal, there can be no doubt. “I was born nameless, ejected from our creator’s corona at the very dawn of all…”

“Impossible,” said Ixis, approaching closer, her blade outstretched. “Saru-Cundil, Uviél of Time, was the first of all, for time’s mechanisms lay the foundation of all we are and know.”

“Saru the Formless, taker, and giver… He followed me out of the dark. It was I who came before all, and thus all falls beneath my everlasting dark, much as all of the Mother’s lightest half falls beneath the keeper of the garden of stars, the Merissic domain that spreads endlessly across the surface of the Anthaevral Light-Sea in which we dwell.” The black fog surrounding this umbral being swirled and coalesced around the wisp of it’s arm, stretching and sharpening, becoming a blade much like her own. The whole chamber exploded into an infinite space of emerald winds, the being’s body becoming the likeness of Aktal – or at least, the likeness she had envisioned within her own mind. “Now, will you take up arms, against that which you fear the most. Dare you seize the light of Emeraldine, or will you wither, and wash away in your own tides…?”

“I would rather burn within the corona of that foul abomination of light, than allow the Warmwind to be victorious!” The winds blew, burning hot, carrying green fragments of the emerald crystal towards her at speed. This being had become Aktal, somehow, some way – a child of the Darkstar, becoming like light. For it to take on such a form, the guise ripped directly from her own imaginings of her nemesis… It’s power must truly be near limitless; the closest she might ever come to conversing with her creator. She charged toward it, screaming furious and loud, fighting against the wind with everything she could muster. This fight would take every bit of her will, strength and determination, but she would not lose, for if she failed to best an imitation, even if this imitation was powerful beyond measure, then what hope would she stand against Aktal himself?

The cavern roared and turned asunder, falling to pieces as the two forces clashed, the emerald winds of shadow giving way to darkness, flickering intermittently between reality and fantasy. It pushed hard with all of it’s might, forcing Ixis through the chamber’s eastern wall, tearing it apart as though it were naught but a veil of mist. Her ejection from the changing space forced her to change into a gale of torrential wind, but stranger still, it revealed to her that she had not moved from the mountain south of Origina-Thule – she looked on as it was engulfed by black ice and fog, knowing that she’d been played for a fool. “What trickery is this?” Her baleful wind screamed.

“The treachery you hide within; a treachery turned inwards, formed of your darkest thoughts,” the darkness grumbled, becoming like a twisted limb of black, at least half the mountain in it’s length. “Third-born, you are further from her than I, but you could become more!” The limb shot straight for Ixis and knocked her back into her corporeal form again, sending her hurtling toward the ice below like a star fallen from beyond the Sea of Light. “Take my power! Seize it, Mother of Ice; protector of frigid realms and spaces!”

Ixis smashed into the ice south of the black mountain, sending whole chunks floating in all directions, some of them big enough to be called lands in their own right. These lands would come to rest in the spaces surrounding Xilanthia, as Ixis lay still, staring into the higher ocean planes of light, far above. “I will not be bested… So… Easily…!” She struggled, ascending rapidly from within the crater, the winds surrounding her becoming hard and jagged, like an arrow of frost, she hurtled forwards and threw herself into the mountain.

The shadow screamed, broken into thousands upon thousands of pieces; fragments of abyssal dark that would come to float across the Light-Sea. “Such power!” The voice of the being roared – the voice of her brother, she had come to understand. The shadow coalesced and gained it’s form. A form much like her own in height and stature, though bleeding wisps of shadow from upon it’s shoulders. It landed upon two feet with such grace, Ixis almost believed the whole act was pre-meditated, then with eyeless face of shimmering dark, it walked toward the space she had also come to land upon, a great trail of smoke, much the same as the rest of it in shade, extending and dissipating away from the rear of it’s head. It stood taller than her, imposing, with a body twice her own in it’s width. The sword in it’s hand shifted, more serrations cutting away from it’s edges. “Now… Finish me!”

Ixis’ cry was deafening, forming greater mountain peaks from the ice, trailing behind her as she moved and covering the whole plane in a barrage of hail and snow. It cut at the being, tore at his darkness – she had become something more now, she had taken a piece of her brother and she had made it her own; the darkness of her mind, subdued and seized, tempering as she moved forwards with each step of thunderous resolve. Her sword thrust true into the beings chest, forcing a disembodied, guttural cry to escape from him like a wind of nourishing beauty. He collapsed before her, covering her in his essence, drenching her in shadow-spatter from head to toe.

Her darkness had been devoured, bled dry as she drowned in it's outpouring.

“My name…” The being of shadow spoke, panting as he knelt at her feet, impaled upon her ice cold blade. “My name is Leundix, for it was uttered into my ear as I passed into this immaterial ocean of light.” The word gave life to Ixis, sealing the black ice like plated armour over her body. Surely it was a true word of Darlan, their dark star mother. Leundix grabbed at her blade and slowly pulled it from his chest. “You are the third of our kind so far, the second that I have come across…”

“Who else have you spoken to?” Ixis asked, helping the shadow onto his feet.

“Saru-Cundil was the first.” Leundix arms shifted, becoming spiny and pointed at their ends, great leathery membranes attaching them to his side – wings, in which to fly freely. “It was after your battle against the spawn of Lignal, once you’d departed for this place. He sought to return to his own plane, only to find it caught in a loop of never-ending destruction. I was that loop; in that moment, time did not move – a suffocating prospect, to a creature of temporal leanings.”

“Is this just something you do?” Ixis asked. “Do you go about testing any you find?”

“Only those who are like us. I do not know why, I only know that when I came into being, I understood. Through this understanding, my path was made clear.” He turned to face the brighter layers of the Light-Sea, a great distance above the plane of Xilanthia. “If a child of Lignal were to happen across me however, I would not be so kind. I would tear their mind asunder, and break their blinding body in two. It would be a moment, catastrophic and wonderful.”

“I have no doubt…” Ixis smiled wide, his words reassuring her completely; this was certainly a being of her own kind. “Do you have a home, also? Somewhere to call your own? I once noticed your essence covering the expanse of my south-western axis…”

“The abyss is present in all places, for all places are my own, in one way or another,” he turned to face the south-western axis, it’s dark peaks shimmering from a great distance away, jutting upon the thin horizon standing silently across the colossal divide of nothingness. “My true home rests within the darkest depths of the Light-Sea. In form, it is not quite so elaborate as this place, but it is malleable – ever-changing, ever-growing. Perhaps I could learn a thing or two from your constructions…”

“You mean all of those that are currently available?” Ixis sighed. “I still have much to create, though I feel a heavy force pulling at my essence, as though the will to create is there, but there is something on the other side refusing to reciprocate my desire. Our battle … It gave a spark of life, relinquishing the effects of my time fighting against Aktal, but it still wasn’t enough.”

Leundix looked down at her, studying her through eyeless gaze. “Your essence became manifest, did it not? I feel a presence not unlike your own, wailing from beneath this plane.”

Her eyes widened. “Anthia, the Anthic Shard…!” She exclaimed. “Of course, I never descended into the under-spire, never investigated it’s form for myself.”

“Then it seems as though a part of you remains incomplete. Perhaps you might descend into those twisted depths, and know the last shard of your being. Doubtless, you would fail in your fight against the Warmwind of Lignal without it.”

“Doubtless he would still feel my wrath, win or lose.”

“A curious notion, that you would settle for anything less than complete annihilation…”

“I would settle for no less, of course, however if the worst were to happen…” She imagined a moment where Aktal gained the upper hand, and blew her into oblivion. “If I were to forever cripple his essence, that would also sate my hunger for his ending.”

“Then you know what it is you must do,” Leundix jumped off of his feet, his wings arcing up and down as he hovered before her. “I will return to your south-western axis for now, and begin devising a plane of my own.”

“You’re welcome to stay for as long as you like,” Ixis forced her palms together, a scabbard fit for her blade of cold appearing between her palms as she pulled them apart. She fixed that scabbard to her side and sheathed her blade of black-ice, resolving to name it Leundic, in honour of their battle, and all that she had discovered about herself. “My home is your home.”

“Gratitude, given too freely,” Leundix flew higher, slowly becoming a scuff of black within the upper glow of the Light-Sea. “You should be careful, sister of mine,” he shouted back. “I seek others like us, for there are more waiting out there. I will bring you knowledge of their essence once I have found them, but you should not be too trusting in your manners.” He flew west, leaving Ixis alone at the foot of her newly created mountain peaks.

She looked to the Plains of Winterheart, at the very centre of Xilanthia, and began her long journey back to Xilstice, where the seed of her essence waited, far below. Along the way she would stop by Origina Thule, and instruct Xaevel on the nature of her solitary descent into the deepest recesses of their home.

III

On her journey northward, across the southernmost axis of her plane, Ixis thought on the words Leundix had spoken. It was true that, in the depths of her frigid and eternal soul, she secretly feared the warm winds of Aktal-Vulz, for how could she not? His very gusts could rend her asunder, destroy everything that she had built, and while he had not yet chosen to attack her most sacred of spaces, she believed it would only be a matter of time.

Reactiveness was simply not in her nature, she would rather attack first, if there was even a chance that she might be caught off guard. And so it was that she crossed the expanse of tundra she would soon come to call the Axis of Living Cold, where her idea of an army first came to be, beneath the strange and winding lights of the Light-Sea above.

“My Queen,” Xaevel spoke, as Ixis descended upon the tallest tower of Origina-Thule. “I am glad to see that you have returned safely. I felt your presence vanish, as the distant peak was enveloped in strange darkness.”

“That strange darkness was another of our kind,” Ixis said, misted cold still trailing off of her shimmering form. “He showed me what it would take to best the threat of warmer winds. I must travel to the heart of Xilanthia, and know the truth of the soul of our home.”

“You would seek an audience with the shard that bore me?” Xavel asked, wary of the journey that her Queen would have to take. “You would look upon the Anthic Fragment once more?”

“I would, brightest of my coming stars,” Ixis quietly returned, “for I have not looked upon my own heart of ice since the day I forged this plane from the light of the Anthaevra, and the most potent of my own desires. Would it be that I could take you with me, then I would do so, however I fear the journey might prove too dangerous, for my heart is guarded by storms of hail and mist, and watched over by creatures of my making who would not hesitate to turn on their own creator. Shortly, I will depart, but in the meantime I must ask you to tend to this great city, and the peak far to it’s south – the very same one from which I return…” Ixis placed a hand over her own chest, and pulled a thread of cold light from inside. The thread of light waved against the wind, turning steadfast as it froze. She hurtled it into the ground and took a single step back, the two of them watching as the fragment of ice grew tall, becoming a pillar, thin and tall. “From this,” Ixis said, as she turned to Xaevel, “you would consider a sisterhood, not unlike yourself in form. Touch this pillar of anthicite, and the structures of Origina-Thule will become whatever your mind desires.”

Xaevel was stricken with awe. Looking upon the pillar, she murmured with mouth agape: “Truly… I could create, just as you can create?”

“Only in this instance, and only for the moment,” Ixis smiled.

“My Queen… I have no words for the gratitude in which I feel. I promise not to let you down.”

“I have faith, Xaevel,” Ixis said as she became a wind of cold once more.

“And what of the mountain,” Xaevel shouted over the hurricane.

“Build me a forge, fit for weapons of coldest desolation.” And with those words she departed, bound for the depths below Xilstice Spire, where the Anthic Fragment, the beating heart of Xilanthia, awaited.

o-o

Chapter III

(Year: 7 C.C.)

The Spire Xilstice stood proud at the very centre of the wastes of Winterheart, visible from almost all of the twisted angles of the plane of Xilanthia. Though any drifting Anthaevral phantasms would be able to see it, as they floated through the Light-Sea, few would know of the labyrinth of shattered caverns that plummeted deep beneath it, reaching far into the very depths of the fractal plane. This hidden space was disordered, chaotic – it was the first of all Xilanthian spaces, harbouring many secrets spawned forth from Ixis’ innermost thoughts; her desires and her fears. Truly, even she did not know what she might find down there, moving through the uninviting dark, all she knew was her calling, and it beckoned from beneath her very feet; from beyond a narrow cavern of dark, the only entrance into, or out of, these strange spaces.

She approached the narrow hole in the wall of ice, squeezing herself in through it’s thin and crooked maw, and immediately knew a cold so tyrannical in it’s subduing presence, that even she, the bringer of ice, could barely tolerate it’s crushing grip. Overcome it she must though, as the lost and broken half of her soul waited at it’s distant source. Even now she could hear it whispering to her, pulling her in, begging to be made whole once more.

'You left me here, on the day you cast aside your convictions in pursuit of self-rule -- left me here to become everything that you are now failing to be…'

Ixis pulled her anthicite blade, the subtle note of twinkling footsteps pattering gently against the cold floor of the narrow cavern, moving closer as she walked. “Who goes there?” She asked. “This is my domain, being, I did not grant you access to my most sacred of spaces.”

“Sacred…? Sacred enough for you to have abandoned it, neglected it for so long?” The voice returned – her own voice. Was this the black-shade Leundix, playing tricks on her once more?

Ixis stretched her palm and conjured a ball of cold, white light. It bounced from her hand and levitated in the air, travelling alongside her. “Reveal yourself, Darlanshade,” she ordered, focusing on the path before her. Taking one single step more, the cavern began to shift, twisting and stretching, becoming a space wide-open yet labyrinthine – twisted chasms and tangled bridges into nothingness. The travelling light could barely illuminate the sudden expanse. She wondered if it might collapse once more, moving quickly over shard, and under the falling razor-ice.

“I am indeed a shade, for it is you who made it so,” the voice returned. Out of the crawling mist a figure did arrive, though it did not resemble Ixis in form. It was dithering, a specter that billowed with the blowing winds, translucent and ephemeral. The cold-compacted fog formed a veiled cloak around the being; that faceless, prowling being. It stopped before her, and extended a barely visible hand.

“Are you another concoction of my black-wind brother, the one who calls himself Leundix?” Ixis asked, refusing to take it’s hand.

“In some ways, yes,” the being spoke, it’s voice becoming like the hiss and hum of distant hurricanes. “When the black-wind forced you into his realm, an idea formed in you – a suspicion of what might have been occurring. That suspicion was heard by your heart; experienced in the very depths of your eternal soul. I am that idea, conjured to guide you through the terrible warmth of anxious fear that grows within, and threatens to stifle the powers granted by your dark and starry maker.”

With newfound eyes Ixis looked upon the being, understanding now from where it was born. In those brighter moments, when the winds of Aktal blew, and she looked upon Leundix in disguise, she feared that it might truly have been herself that was staring back – a version that had come before, in her earliest moments of life. She had reminisced then, only for a moment, but that moment of clarity had birthed the being which stood before her – the strength of her soul in living form, the part that had escaped her, when she had torn her heart asunder, and used it’s residual energies to seed the great plane she now called her home. Of course, all energy is finite, and what might have seemed residual then, while she was at the peak of her power, had become a necessary treasure, now that she had found herself incomplete. “And you would aid me in my forward struggle, while I seek to reclaim the fury and conviction that I have lost?” She asked.

“I am but a guide,” the specter returned. It raised both hands, lifting itself from off the floor, hovering gently before her. “Together, we would locate the strength that you have sacrificed, though I cannot aid you in the coming test. Only you can carve a path toward your hidden heart.”

Ixis looked at the anthicite blade in her hand, then observed the colossal cavern walls, ever-shifting, ever-splintering all around. “Then we should make haste,” she nodded, conviction in her eyes. “For without the strength of my severed soul, I would surely fail in my fight against Aktal. That cannot be so. That can never be so.”

The specter turned in place, drifting forwards into the dark. “Then we must make haste, for you are not yet ready to face the Bridge Warden, much less the coming Chambers of Ixodia.”

“Bridge Warden?” Ixis asked.

“Yes… Though I would mind your footing,” the specter returned, observing her sidelong. “Lest you fall before you have learned to fly.”

Over a great subterranean expanse Ixis and her guidedid walk, observing the plummeting shards of jagged ice as they reached from the half-light above, and pointed down into the darkness far below. From here, Ixis could make out the faintly tangling weave of bridges and platforms as they carved a path o’er the stygian depths beneath her, coming and going from places unexplored. “You said these chambers were of Ixodia…?” Ixis asked the specter, curious on the nature of the given name. “Is this another being of my soul’s creation?”

“No…Odia is eternal – a figment of all souls, connecting them throughout reaches of temporal spaces – the material, the immaterial, and everything that exists between.”

“Then why is it that I have not heard it’s name before, being a child of Darlan, the first of all stars?”

“Because it does not live, and knowledge of it’s existence is forbidden to all – all except the beings that live inside of it.” The specter turned to face her, and landed upon the icy pads of it’s feet. “This,” it gestured all about the chasm. “This is Odia – a fraction of the truth of it, but the truth nonetheless.”

Ixis looked into the darkness to her left, then far into the darkness to her right, black winds of warmth blowing, cutting at her skin. “I don’t understand,” said Ixis. “If this is Odia, then how did it come to be here, beneath the plane I created.”

“The surface of this plane, of our plane, is a reflection of your will, however everything that rests beneath it belongs to the intricacies of your soul, unseen and unheard. It is these intricacies that shape Odia’s realm; Odia’s own hidden depths. The wind you feel billowing? That is the wind of your nemesis, the Linuviél, Aktal-Vulz, and yet the darkness carried upon that wind belongs to Leundix, the shade who exemplified your weaknesses. See how they exist at once in here – how their energies movie freely together? That is Odia. This is Odia. It is your space within it’s realm.”

“Aktal exists inside of here, too?” Ixis drew her blade. “How could it be that Aktal exists beneath my own home?”

The specter walked toward Ixis, it’s form shifting, becoming misted and shrouded in fog. As the silvery fog separated, a horned being of emerald emerged, hair blowing in the wind, alluring in it’s subtle floral hues. “Do you recognize this form?” It laughed, it’s voice becoming lighter, more spritely.

“Tal-Dannu,” Ixis growled. She ran for the specter, plunging her blade forwards, following it through it’s body as she crashed to the ground.

“No,” the specter laughed, the fog of it’s guise shifting once more, becoming a perfect imitation of Ixis. “I am you – but I am also Tal-Dannu, the Lignalean, and Leundix, shadewing of abyssal spaces… I am a being of Odia, and thus I know the secrets of all.”

“So we are one and the same?” Ixis asked. “You claim that I am Tal-Dannu, and Tal-Dannu is Leundix…”

“And each of you are the others who are yet to come.” The specter offered Ixis it’s hand, lifting her back onto her feet. “Odia knows no conflict, it knows no boundaries, no divides… It is the soulspace of Mother Aulfrén, the Dreamer of All. Many in it’s form; many in it’s mind and soul.”

“So the Odian space of Tal-Dannu would be known as Talodia…”

“And the Odian space of Saru-Cundil would be known as Sarodia,” said the specter, offering her a gentle smile. “All are connected, in the mind of the Dreamer. You are beginning to understand.”

Ixis sheathed her blade and forged ahead, crossing the first of the bridges of Ixodia, toward a large door of black crystal – a bulwark protecting the first of her trials. And as for the spectre, well, she chose to continue onward in the form of Tal-Dannu, the emerald nymph that bothered Ixis so, for if Ixis could not concentrate while a pale imitation was present, then what hope would she have in besting the child of Lignal herself.

It giggled as Ixis forced open the crystal door, and descended down a great and winding staircase, further into the depths of her soulspace.

III

Through the crystal door, a fog so thick, so impenetrable that it seemed to linger in the back of Ixis’ throat awaited, tendrils of frozen ivy broken all across the ground. I know this place, she thought to herself. This is Galaed, the plane where Aktal and I first clashed. Of course, it wasn’t the plane itself, merely a representation of it – a feeling of a time and a place, dredged up from the depths of her mind. It was a microcosm of that great battle, the first of all her battles. Fitting that this chamber would be the first of her trials.

“This is your earliest memory,” said the specter. “Many years after you sprung forth from the shadowy corona of Darlan, and became what you are today, though likely only moments in your mind.”

Ixis looked all around, the stars shining high above her head, the ground crumbling beneath her feet in the strangest of ways. “What is this substance?” Ixis asked, brushing the crumbling brown dust off of the sole of her right foot.

“It is dirt,” said the specter, with a smile. “Dirt – or soil – is formed from the parts of a plane’s uppermost layers that are exposed to the cosmic winds of Ueka, the Netherwind. The very life-force of Tal-Dannu lives within it, grows from it, overcoming the decay that the sapphire wind exerts upon the materials surrounding it.”

Ixis looked down into the fog, and spotted a shimmering emerald branch sparkling from within this substance called soil. “How is it that life can spring, in the presence of Almighty Ueka’s destructive, changing winds?”

“This is the truth of Lignalean life, the beings known as Linuviél which grow in their number, even as we speak.” The specter reached down and brushed the dirt from around the branch of crawling ivy. “You see how it flourishes, even against your ever-present fog of freezing cold? It is evergreen – a product of Emeraldine.”

“Emeraldine?” Asked Ixis. She was confused, but she thought better of showing it. Instead, she chose to question minimally, and listen as the specter spoke free and constant.

“Not unlike your Anthic shard, it is the source of Tal-Dannu’s power – a direct link to the flourishing winds of Aktal-Vulz.”

“And it exists within her plane, I assume?”

“Indeed, though in a space that is difficult to reach.” The spectre stood, and stepped aside. “But there will be more to say on Emeraldine later. Right now, I want you to wither this emerald branch of life. If you cannot—”

“Don’t presume my inability,” interrupted Ixis. She knelt before the branch and placed her hand around it, crushing it, freezing it solid, burning cold vapour coursing through it’s form. She gripped tighter, and crushed the vine to dust.

“It’s certainly a start,” said the specter. “However…” it nodded toward the patch of earth where the branch had been protruding, forcing Ixis’ attention toward the rapidly regrowing stem. “It will take more than just a touch of cold to rid this chamber of Emeraldine’s presence.”

Ixis grew immediately frustrated. “How can it have sprung forth once more, and so quickly?”

“Remember, this vine is not really here, for these are your own inner chambers – your own private space inside the realm of Odia. You must affect change in yourself, if you want to affect change throughout these surroundings.” It knelt once more, waving the fog away. “Aktal-Vulz, and thus Tal-Dannu, and their crystal, Emeraldine, hold sway over your heart. If you are to best them in battle, then what do you believe you must do?”

“Riddles…” Ixis scoffed. “I have no time for riddles. Every moment I’m in here, Aktal grows stronger.”

“And every moment you spend considering his strength, makes him stronger still. You must reduce his hold over your mind and soul. Negate it, and you will also negate his strength, and power over you.”

“You want me to not consider Aktal, in order to best Aktal?”

“Of course,” smiled the specter, still donning the horned guise of Tal-Dannu. “Though it may not be quite as simple as that. Perhaps you would like to try again…”

Ixis reached forward and grasped the sapling once again. This time, she considered the words of the specter, wrapping her hand around it and closing her eyes, ridding her mind of the presence of Aktal and his naturous companion, allowing only the cold winds of her shattered heart to blow fill her icy veins. No sooner had she begun to concentrate on her visions of ice, than the fog within the room had begun to crystallize, chiming as it fell to the floor, covering the ground in crystal ice.

“A little better…” The specter smiled. “Though you are still less of a frigid wind down here, and more of a misted dew.”

“Specter, I forged a plane from my own will,” Ixis growled. “You will not refer to me as a misted dew again, do you hear me?”

The room began to warm and melt, a mild breeze filtering in from beyond the walls. “I know what you’re capable of,” the specter replied, scolding Ixis for her attempts at giving orders to a force such as itself. “Yet down here, you’re naught but a fragment of a much darker star, lost amongst all other potentials of light and dark. Now, try again.” The sapling grew larger now, forcing itself out of Ixis’ crushing grip. “Once more, caenwued of the Darkstar, if you cannot even beat the seed of a Dannunean archtree, then how can you expect to decimate an entire ocean of them?”

Ixis became incensed at those words. She stood, and with a swing in her step, she walked right over the sapling, crushing it beneath her foot. As she traipsed and sauntered toward the great and towering far-door, she spoke low, sombre, attempting to conceal her fury from the specter. “I’m finished with this place,” she said. “We’re moving on.”

“Not quite yet,” said the specter, but Ixis was resolute. She turned and raised her hands, unleashing a storm of ice and wind, freezing the ground solid, ripping great spires of solid ice from out of the ground. “I am done with this place! It is beneath me, specter. It is not worth any more of my precious time.”

The specter's gaze lingered on the arch of her furious brow for a moment, then turned to watch the sapling at her feet, as it shattered and turned to dust. “Much better.”

“Is that all you wanted from me?” Ixis shouted back at her, cold blood bringing her back to life. “You want an admission of indifference toward this nonsense?”

“…I said as much earlier, did I not?”

Ixis said nary a word. She turned and continued walking toward the far-door, ice erupting from the trail of her footsteps. “I trust there aren’t too many more of these chambers,” Ixis shouted back. “Because I’m not playing any more of your games, nor am I falling for any more of your tricks. Give me combat, or I will forge onwards myself.”

“Oh, I would not worry too much, there are certainly battles yet to come,” said the spectre, shedding it’s Dannunean form and becoming like a shroud of fog once more. “A tempest rages inside of you, after all. One that we are yet to temper…”

Archtrees. They awaited Ixis beyond the great far-door, taller than she could even begin to fathom, thousand-fold trunks and branches spreading outwards in every direction. A trick of the senses? Perhaps her sense of space and distance had been manipulated, by the specter that hounded her so. Every footstep taken was water traipsed, the ever-reaching lake of shallow darkness radiating the light of Lignal beneath it’s haunting mists. It was of no true concern to Ixis of course, for she could freeze the lake solid with the flick of her wrist. In fact, she would do just that, for the shallows weighed heavy upon her movement, grasping at her ankles and biting at her legs. Surely this water was not the melt of her home, for in it’s waves moved a force, far too warm. She knew that this, too, may be a thread knotted to Aktal, or his subservient nymph, and chose to heed the words of the Odian wraith. Paying the shallows no mind, she walked above them, and shaped them beneath her will.

“Is this place, too, an altar for Aktal’s Odian energies?” She spoke into the ever-space of tallest trees. She received nary a response. “Specter…?” She asked once more and turned, finding herself alone. Worse yet, the door she’d passed through only moments before had vanished, stranding her in this eternal space of fog-kissed waters.

“Raise your blade,” came a voice from the dark. Just as it was before, this voice sounded much like her own. She squinted, searching the dark between the trees. “Only two chambers remain beyond this one,” the voice continued. “Art thou ready to face the guardian of thine own heart?” A flash of energy swept past Ixis, cutting the colossal tree at her back in two. She dove to the left as it came crashing down beside her, catching and dragging on the surrounded arch-wood as it fell. The ground gave way, knocking her into a great and hollow space below. “Or wilt thou fail beneath thine own hand.”

“Trickster!” Ixis screamed into the dark surrounding, as she pulled herself back onto her feet. “You are nothing but another cowardly expression of Odia! Will you face me, or will you cower?”

A shadowy figure landed before her, black and shimmering mist drifting off of it in waves. It lifted it’s head and looked upon Ixis. “If I were to cower, then it is only by your nature,” it spoke, rushing forwards with blackened sword outstretched. “I am all of you! This is the form you cast aside, when you ceased your relentless pursuit of Aktal. This is everything you chose to tear away; everything you used to sculpt this fanciful plane.”

The two clashed blades, Ixis growling as the entity moved it’s face toward her own. “I created a home for our kind – a place where we could amass an army of Ixians! It was not through weakness that I chose to settle!” She forced the entity away. It began to shift in form, changing into a hurricane of freezing winds, cold enough to tear at even Ixis’ skin, much like the black winds of Leundix had done, atop the peak that would soon become her forge.

“I am thou,” the wind howled and hissed. “I know the secrets you carry, deep inside, for those secrets created me!” It began to shift in form again, adopting the form of a creature much greater than Ixis in size, moving forward on all four of it’s long and heavy limbs. “This is all that you could have been,” it howled. “All that you chose to throw away!”

“I threw nothing away!” Ixis shouted back, breaking into a sprint as the lumbering creature lurched forwards, black mist cascading from it’s jagged maw. “You are still a form in my possession – I will become you yet!” She jumped from her feet and became like a great and powerful storm, wrapping around and tearing at the entity, ripping spectral flesh from it’s ethereal bones, howling and screaming as she threw pieces of the beast in every direction. “You will not come into my home and speak of my weaknesses! I built this entire plane from the will of my own soul…!” She returned to her knowable form, wrapping her arms around the entity’s colossal maw, holding in with everything she had as it bucked and dashed about the cavern like black thunder. One snap, then another; the creature’s mouth began to tear at it’s corners. Ixis screamed bloody fury as the entity howled in agony. With an ear-crushing snap, it’s mouth tore in two. The creature fell limp and lifeless to the floor. “I am queen of this domain!” Ixis screamed at it’s lifeless corpse. “If others await me on the road ahead, then they too will know my fury!”

“Such impressive feats of searing cold strength,” came a whisper from the dark. “You are ready now. Step into the light, for your heart awaits you, in a space you have long forgotten.”

Ixis looked into the darkness before her, as she gathered her sword from off the floor, observing a tear in the cavern’s walls. A tall and narrow archway formed, made entirely of blinding white light. “More trickery?” Ixis laughed, wiping the shadow’s blood from off of her body. “Have you not yet learned your lesson?”

“By the Starwinds of Ishkari,” the voice whispered back. “I am Odia – I am the knower of all of life’s deepest secrets – the divisions of life you know, and the divisions of life you do not; the immaterial, and the material, though I profess that materiality is only relevant…” The door cracked open, sending shards of rock and ice hurtling towards Ixis. She raised her blade and diverted their trajectory. “It takes a great soul indeed, to overcome your final trial within these spaces.”

“My final trial?” Ixis asked. “But we’ve only just begun. I anticipated more from Odia, the supposed Greatest and Wisest of Aulfrén's creations.”

“Fear not, young seed of the Darkstar, for more trials await you outside of your realm. Yet without the coming test of your heart, you would fall upon those trials as dew falls downward beneath warmest winds.” A great wind gushed forth from the blinding space. “Now, face me. Let us test your might.”

Beyond the door of light there existed a twilight space, fractured and broken, reaching eternally in every observable direction. The only patches of visible ground were great and narrow bridges of ice which connected places Ixis knew not how to reach. Before her there extended one such narrow great-bridge, covered in blistering cold mist, leading to a crystalline object bound in twisted, evergreen ivy. She looked upon this eight-pointed crystal, peering straight through the circular hole at it’s centre, and she knew it to be the form of her shattered heart. Taking a step towards the aspect of her lost self, the mists began to part, beckoning a figure forth from within it’s embrace.

“Young seed of the Darkstar, I was there to witness the moment of your birth,” echoed the voice of Odia. “As the duel between the first stars entered it’s moment of greatest strife, each would consider all of their earliest potentials, scattering stars all across the Anthauvra, tearing holes in the space between, as they brought spectral rain to the swaddling Light-Sea you call your home.” The figure, twice as tall as Ixis with a heavy-set frame to match, carried themselves through the mist with heavy footsteps, their crystalline boots shattering virgin ice as they walked. “If you try to deceive me in our coming battle, I will know. If you try to break form and cover me in storms, I will tame you with naught but my sword…” They held their blade up, allowing Ixis to look upon it’s infinite beauty; it’s shimmer like that of newborn stars, and it’s hilt like that of formless shadow. “You carry a pale imitation of my Ediliat – the first of all blades, which came with me in the earliest moments of Aulfrén’s dream, for I am everything; I see, and know, everything. What I carry, you glimpsed in birth, and knew instinctively that it was the tool of champions.”

“You speak as though none could ever hope to conquer you,” Ixis said, her own blade Leundic outstretched also, as she walked to meet the Odia upon the frozen bridge. “And yet you invite me here, hoping to see my heart and soul tempered as one.”

“It is not hope that I carry for you,” Odia smirked. Their mouth rested beneath a pointed protrusion, the shape of a nose with no observable nostrils, which separated six diagonally slanting eyes of white, each of them glowing through the thick and heavy mist. Their skin was pale, not unlike her own, however where Ixis’ carried a tint of cold blue, Odia expressed a silvery colour that shone as bright as the flames of the Aulderiél winds – the four prime deities of their ilk; of her Darkstar creator’s ilk. “I care not if you fail on this day. Should you fall beneath the edge of Ediliat, then another would be born in your place, perhaps one less willing to tear her heart in two, in the vain pursuit of a kingdom to call her own.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Ixis growled. She charged toward Odia with one eye, and the tip of Leundic, trained on their chest. “If we’re to fight, then we fight. Words achieve nothing in my domain.”

“As you wish,” bowed Odia, their hair drifting in the gathering winds. “I bid you, and myself, a great and glorious battle to come.” They raised their sword at the exact moment Ixis came upon them, blocking her attack with fervour, and throwing her crashing to the ground.

Ixis rolled as Ediliat pierced the ice beside her face, using one hand to force herself back onto her feet. Clash after clash their blades sparked and clanged, the sounds of their battle triumphantly echoing through this near-silent space, all the while Ixis was forced to avoid the plummeting drop at each side of the bridge, as Odia ceaselessly drifted about her flank, forcing her closer to each edge with every spring in her step. “You mean to end me not beneath your own hand, but with aid from the depths that surround us,” she snarled. “I was right: you are a coward.”

“An ending is an ending,” Odia laughed, goading her ire. “It matters not how you fall, only that you are bested. It is a lesson you would do well to learn, young one.”

Odia was employing condescension, being dismissive toward her want for true glory. It made her all the more furious. She would not be bested by one who chose to stay such a beautiful example of a blade – either she fell upon it, or Odia would fall upon hers, there would be no other sort of death today.

“You are being deceived again,” came another voice upon the wind. Ixis heard it, though Odia seemed oblivious to it’s coming. Ixis charged screaming toward Odia, smashing into it with such force that it crashed backwards onto the cold, hard ground. “Know thyself,” came the whisper again. “You must see through his ruse, else you’ll fall to this madness for all eternity.” The voice emanated from the Anthic Fragment, the crystal heart of the plane, at the far-side of the frozen bridge. Ixis heeded it’s words, choosing not to respond, lest Odia began to realize it’s intrusions upon their moment.

“Tell me, Odia, the Great and Wise,” Ixis said, as she came to a halt with her back to the Anthic Fragment. “Why is it that you guard such a lesser space as this one, if you are to be in all places at once?”

“No space is lesser,” it replied, forcing it’s sword into the ice. Pausing briefly, and turning it’s attention toward the Anthic fragment, it smiled: “Pay no mind to the words of the ardent ice, for I indeed know that it speaks to you. Your heart would tell you all kinds of tales, if it wished itself bound to the prison you have made.”

“I disagree,” Ixis said. “You see, I never once considered this plane to be my prison, not until the words of another planted the seeds of doubt in my mind.” She turned her back on Odia, and approached the Anthic Shard, closing her eyes in concentration. As she grew closer, the twisted vines began to wither and unravel – Aktal would hold no dominion over her will any longer. He never had, in fact. All of this grand play was a ruse, just as the crystal had said, meant to demoralize her on her path toward greatness. She realized that now. “I’m impressed that you were able to trick me twice, Leundix.”

The spectre of Odia began to shudder, though it did not speak in response.

“My heart is my own, it has always been so. Your words; your sorceries… Abyssal, I believe you called them.” She placed her hand upon the Anthic Shard, letting it fill her with a cold so biting and feral, she almost fell to it’s savagery. “They risk ruling you, just as much as you seek to rule others through their influence.”

The gale began to blow harder now, the shifting specter laughing quietly to itself, it’s head turned toward the floor. “I must admit, I expected this guise to last a little longer…” Leundix stood, his silvery skin evaporating into the violent winds, giving way to shadow, and two great wings of dark. “What will you do, now that you’ve realized my ploy?” He asked. “Would you spare a fellow Danuviél? Could you find it in your frozen heart to do so?”

The imitation Ediliat gently rocked in place, loosening itself carefully from the ground, Ixis failing to notice it’s movement.

Ixis looked upon her own heart, believing herself a fool, in falling for such an elaborate act once again. “You told me my heart was trapped by the winds of Aktal,” she said, the energies she had lost flowing into her once more. “I believe you were almost correct – I lost a piece of myself when I created Xilanthia. I had forgotten about it, in truth, letting it stir in this place beneath Xilstice Spire. It was not through fear however, it was simply through neglect. I have neglected my own powers, neglected to care for myself, during my quest to establish a plane of my own.” The Anthic Shard began to glow white, blistering cold to the touch. “I believe that our fight will continue, for you are kin of my own, and there are lessons you are also yet to learn – lessons about trickery, and what punishments some will deliver in response to your ploys.”

“Then it is to be a battle to the end?” Leundix asked.

“Not to the end, no,” Ixis smiled, a seething anger restrained by the curl of her lips. Her whole body now glowed with fine patterns and cracks, as though the power she had recovered was almost too much for this form to conceal. “Just until you learn your lesson. It’s not a wise idea to come into the home of another, and begin manipulating their thoughts and designs – especially not the thoughts and designs of Ixis, Queen of the Cold.” She raised her hand, firing a jagged shard of ice right into Leundix’ shoulder, sending him reeling backwards across the bridge. “That ought to keep you grounded, lest you get any grand ideas of escaping.”

“I am one of your own!” Leundix shouted, grasping at the gaping wound in his shoulder. “You cannot…!”

“I know I cannot,” she laughed. “You will heal with time, just as I would – always existing, never-ending. That does’t mean I cannot enjoy myself for the moment.” With a glimmer of mischief in her eye, she thrust her hands together and pulled a great ball of energy from within, focusing it between her hands, uttering: “Anthia, I ask forgiveness for the neglect I have bestowed upon you. If you would find it in your infinite power to return to me, we would rule as one again.” The ball grew brighter. Leundix barely had the time to react, as it fired true from between her hands, splitting in two, becoming shards of jagged ice. They smashed into his chest and sent him reeling and screaming backwards, pinning him to the wall of this ever-reaching chasm space.

“This is futile,” Leundix growled. You may bring pain, but you cannot bring an end to me. I am infinite!”

“I told you, my brother – fellow seed of the glorious Darkstar,” she smiled, as she came upon him, her stride graceful and calm. “I do not wish to end you, merely to ensure that you never humiliate me again.” She pressed the tip of Leundic beneath his eye, forcing it slowly into the bone. “Now, I would ask you three questions. Either you give me the answers I seek, or I will take your eye from you. It would take many ages to return, and would should be a bothersome loss to you.”

“Gladly, would I answer,” Leundix hesitated. “For I do not wish to become blemished by one of my own kin.”

“Then you should have thought about that, before attempting to throw me off of my course.”

“It is in my nature to test,” Leundix said, swallowing the pain of her Danuviél blade forcing it’s way into the celestial bone of his cheek. “I know not why, I only know that I see the darkest shades of life, and I project those shades back onto observer. Either they break morale and succumb to their own fears, or they overcome them. For you to see what you saw…”

“It must have come from somewhere within,” Ixis thoughtfully replied. “Perhaps there is a modicum of fear that I hold towards the evergreen wind, however you said nothing about influencing my thoughts – such behaviour is not in your design.”

“It is considered behaviour, I profess. You are of my ilk, I wished to test your true power, for I know of only two others like us, yet you show the greatest promise of all – the potential to be ruler of our kind.”

“We have no ruler,” Ixis said. “We are one and all, singular, yet bound to the Darkstar in kind.”

The blade of Leundix continued to shake, coming looser with each of Ixis’ spoken words.

“But we could,” he said. “I exist apart from all, in the darkest depths of the Light-Sea, where non can truly reach, however up here you are likely to become greater in number.”

“Enough,” she interrupted, resisting his words. No doubt this was all another part of his trickery. “Now, my first question: Either you are instilled with energies linked to the great Creator, Mother Aulfrén, the most divine, or you have looked upon Oodia yourself. Where else might you have dreamed up such a disguise? Does this Odia truly exist? Where might I find him?”

“Odia indeed exists,” Leundix panted, the tip of the blade almost touching the underside of his blackened eye. “Reaching him is almost impossible however, you would have to slink between the light, entering the realms beyond the material and the immaterial. It was through such spaces I first came to be, before light truly existed as it does in this form.”

“And how might I slink between the material and the immaterial,” she asked. “What secrets would await me there?”

“The space is known as the Askuvra,” he said. The tip of the blade stopped piercing with his response. “None can enter it, not without a piece of each of our souls – both the children of the Lightstar, and the children of the Darkstar. The secrets that await there… They grow with each turn of the stars – a great filter, where all knowledge resides.”

“Then I shall make it a quest of my own, finding a path into such a place.” She forced the blade a little further inside. “Next question: What do you know of the Auldérial winds?”

Leundix began to squirm. It was the first time he’d known the bitter sensation of pain; woe that could only befall him at the hands of another of his cosmic standing. “Why do you ask?” He hesitated, grasping nervously at her hand.

“Because while I may not consider myself Queen of our kind, I do consider myself a protector of those above – Ueka, the Netherwind, being my charge.” She removed her blade from the side of Leundix’ face, turning her back upon him. A folly she would soon come to regret. “I’ve felt a shift in the Auldérial Winds, as though they blow weaker now. Something has happened to the Gale of Ruin, I know this to be true. My only question is—” The imitation Ediliat erupted from the ground as she turned to face him once more, plunging upwards through her back, it’s tip stopping at the very edge of Leundix’ own chest. She looked down, and gave a great sigh: “I can see you’re going to be more a pain in my side than I initially realized…” With one great arc of a swing, she cut the very tip of Leundic through Leundix’ skull, severing from jaw to brow, slicing his left eye in two, as she relieved it from his face.”

Leundix screamed in agony, jerking himself forwards through instinctual motion, tearing at his shoulder even further. He fell to the feet of Ixis, his arms attached to his shoulders only by narrow strings of spectral flesh. “Alsharal!” He screamed profanities, in the language of the stars. “Why?!I was merely protecting myself!”

“You’ll live yet,” Ixis laughed. She removed the imitation Ediliat from her cold and supple bare stomach, placing it by her side and fashioning a hip scabbard of ice from the air. Lifting a single foot, she pulled backwards, then slammed it into Leundix’ chest, forcing him onto his back. “Now, I have your blade, and soon I will have the knowledge which you hold…” She climbed atop him, straddling her waist over his, and she pressed the tip of Leundic against his other eye. He screamed in protest, but Ixis only smiled. “Are you going to try that again, brother of mine?”

“No!” Leundix panted. “By the power of Darlan, I promise never to touch your skin with my blade again!”

“No, that’s not good enough,” Ixis tickled the surface of his iris with the point of her blade. “Because I am a child of the Darkstar, too. I know what ploy comes next: you will promise never to touch me with your own blade, however that doesn’t mean you won’t ever attempt to with the blade of another.”

“I give you my word,” Leundix continued to pant. “No blades, no harm… I will retreat to my own lands and will only ever return if you seek aid.”

“That sounds utterly peaceful,” Ixis smiled back. “Because I am war; I am cold death, drifting upon the winds of eternity. If you ever…!”

“Never,” Leundix cried, rolling armless onto his side, writhing in pain. “Please, I do not know the resting place of the Auldérial. I only know that the Elixanuviél speak of their slumber. Ask them, they will guide you.”

Ixis observed his writhing and squirming, watching gleefully as pure abyssal essence pumped like mist from his body. “Okay,” she relented. “I trust your words – this time.”

“Th-Thank you, sister,” said Leundix. He dragged himself quickly away from her, resting his back against the wall.

“Oh, I wouldn’t get too comfortable,” she said, rising to her feet once more. With a quick swipe toward the floor, she gathered his severed eye and slammed it against the hilt of Leundic, merging the two celestial artefacts into one. “I find it more fitting now, having named this blade after you, back when I believed you were merely trying to help me on my journey…” She thrust the blade toward him, observing the crystallized eye as it began to shine a deep, crimson red. “You will trick me no more, for your eye is now mine. I would know, if ever you, or any of your ilk, approached under the guise of another again.” She grabbed him by the throat and dragged him toward the edge, throwing him off of the edge. “Now you will fly, or fall eternally while trying! Spread those wings and do not return – not until I call, if ever I should call.”

Leundix’ wings spread wide, covered in his ethereal blood, carrying him limping into the darkness of the cavernous ravine.

Ixis held her pale hand over her stomach, sealing the wound left by the imitation Ediliat with a burst of ice-cold light. She retrieved the blade from it’s makeshift scabbard, looking upon it as she recalled what Leundix had said, under the guise of the divine celestial, Odia. Could it be that there lingered some truth in his words – that the first of all blades, and indeed the untold inspiration of her own Leundic, a blade that began it’s life as naught but nameless, eternal ice, was Odian in origin? She knew that Leundix was a slave to the nature granted to him by their shared creator, the Darkstar Darlan, which made her believe that less thought may have gone into his words and actions than she might have initially considered.

Leundix was a clever spirit, such as were all under the strings of Darlan, but he was clearly impulsive. Could it be that he had granted her with such knowledge because it was knowledge he already possessed? She decided then, that before she took the fight back to Aktal and his nymph, she would embark on a sojourn, into the material spaces beyond, in search of traces of the one known as Odia, and the hidden place where the Auldérial had retreated into slumber.

“And what should I do with you?” She asked the Anthic Fragment, the shard of her heart. “You cannot remain here unprotected. I would be at a disadvantage – exposed to any who might come in search of my power while I am away.”

The Anthic Fragment whispered gently, a song that only she could hear. “Bring me the one known as Xaevel,” it chimed. “I would make her my protector. Upon this great bridge she would walk eternally, until bested by another who would seek out your heart.”

“Xaevel…?” Ixis quietly spoke. “Would you not have another? Perhaps I could create you a protector; a guardian fit for the vanguard purpose.”

“Nay,” Anthia chimed once more, her cadence like shards of ice falling upon cold water. “It must be one who already has dominion over your heart, for they alone would understand the importance of such a selfless duty.”

“Then it will be so,” Ixis reluctantly sighed. “I will return to the lands above, and send her to you immediately.” Anthia blew a gentle breeze, and Ixis knew that she was pleased. Turning to face the newly revealed gateway of light, one more question danced about her parting lips: “Anthia,” she started. “I know that you are merely a fragment of myself, but does your vast repository of hidden knowledge speak of the Netherwind’s whereabouts? Is it true that the four Auldérial have fallen into slumber?”

“All things turn about time,” formless Anthia said. “Winds come and go, gathering like great storms, and settling as gentle breezes…” A flash of a distant place appeared within Ixis’ mind – four altars, made of starry stone. Upon each of these altars rested flames of varying colours: one of ruby red, deep and impassioned; one the wizened colour of violet, speaking of boundless knowledge through only it’s gentle flicker; yet another was emerald green, the colour of the leaves of Tal-Dannu, imparting silent knowledge of what is yet to come, and what might have already been; and yet the last of those flames was a cold sapphire hue, the colour of emerging voids, and the old becoming new through the forces of chaos and disintegration. This flame, with it’s dancing embers of deep blue, was an expression of Ueka – she knew it through the foundations of her very being. “Follow the firstborn seed of the Lightstar, she who goes by the name of Merissien, tender to the starry fields above, for she will lead you to their graves.”

“A grave?” Ixis asked, knowing the word to be symbolic of death – the permanent ending all lesser beings would inevitably face. “You told me they were slumbering. You said nothing of their passing.”

“Formless Auldérial can never truly pass,” Anthia spoke. “They merely wither to the forms that I have shown to you, becoming fire from wind. Over aeons yet to come, they will awaken yet, just as they will return to embers once their journey across the cosmos comes to another end.”

“Fire from wind…?” Ixis began contemplating how she might act as guardian to naught but ember and flame. “Would these fires wither my form? Is there a way I might capture an ember for myself?”

“They will not scald, for their properties in flame, are much the same as their properties in gale,” said Anthia. “If you wish to take a keepsake, a handful of celestial cinders, then the glass of a newborn star will serve such a purpose, tempered in the blood of a Nuviél. It can be blood of thine own starry flesh, though be warned: thou must cut with a blade of thine own creation – thine scars would be permanent…”

“And how much of my blood would this require?” Ixis asked, prepared to eternally damage her form, if it meant keeping the expressions of the Auldérial close on her own plane.”

“Enough to fill a basin no wider than thine own hand, and deep enough to submerge the vessel completely.”

“Then it will be done,” Ixis solemnly swore. “I will send Xaevel without a moment’s delay. Once the flames have been discovered, and I have created a vault worthy of their presence, I will return to pay you tribute. Then, my siege of the plane of Aktal will begin…”

Anthia’s gales blew fiercely now, forcing Ixis away from her crystal form. “Go now, and return to me only when you have discovered the truth of your history. Knowing oneself is the key to harmony, and only in harmony can you hope to ascend to the form in which you truly aspire...”

(To be Continued in Vol. I; Act II, 'Into the Fire')

Matthew Knight's Other Worlds