Vigor Mortis

Chapter 37: The One Below All

More days pass, the wagon plodding along little by little as the islands float by overhead. We break free of the forests near the start of the seventh day, the horizon appearing surprisingly close. As it turns out, it is close; as we travel onward, it becomes clear that in front of us the island simply stops. Soon we’re at the edge, and I can’t help but rush ahead a little to look down. As I sprint closer and closer to the edge of Verdantop, an unease grips me. The unease turns to fear and the fear turns to terror as I approach the edge, some primal certainty that I am not to go stopping me in my tracks.

I wanna see, though. I creep forward, my instincts hesitantly allowing me so long as I take it slow. I get down on my hands and knees, crawling forward on the grassy cliff until I’m mere inches from the edge. Strong winds lick at my hair as I peek over the edge, heart hammering.

It’s sort of like looking up, except down. Dozens of islands float below us, peppering the sky. Rather than the yellow glow of above, however, thick, white clouds are the lowest thing in view. The mist is omnipresent below me, stretching as far as I can see in every direction. The biggest difference, of course, is the knowledge that I can’t fall into the sky, but I very much can fall here. For some reason, that changes everything. The sight takes my breath away.

“Ah, the mists are thick today,” Gladra says. I flail in surprise, almost slipping. She scared the crap out of me! I shouldn’t have let myself become that distracted.

“I-I guess so?” I stammer, looking up at her.

“A shame,” she comments. “Well, they’ll clear at some point on our trip. We’ll keep an eye out for you. It’s always an unforgettable experience to catch a glimpse of god.”

“Uh, yeah,” I answer. I’m not sure what else to say to her.

I keep staring out at the beautiful, flowing mists of white, freckled by colorful dots of land. From below, islands tend to look quite interesting, coming in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and kinds of rock. I like the reddish stones best personally; I’ve always wondered what life on those islands might be like. Is it the same as ours? Is it even scarier? Or are those lands as beautiful as their stone?

From above, however, there are even more things beautiful and different floating in the sky. I can almost see a city on one of the closer islands, their tall buildings constructed out of the side of a vast mountain. It’s little wonder our island is called Verdantop; we sure seem to have a lot more green than most of the places below us. Not that the forest is an appealing part of living here, but I’m sure it looks beautiful from above.

“You just gonna lie there staring over the edge all day?” Gladra asks.

I raise my eyebrows, looking at her with surprise.

“Can I?” I ask seriously. She laughs.

“The road travels close enough to the edge, so you can look out while we walk if you want. Make sure to keep up with us, though, and don’t fall.”

Right. Yeah. That… would be bad.

I follow the edge for a while, keeping my footing careful as I adjust to the terror of the potential drop. The road is about fifty yards inland, distant enough to not be a hazard but plenty close enough for me to keep an eye on while by the edge. Gladra seems inclined to walk close to me as I do so, which for once I’m grateful for. If I do fall, I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a trick to catch me. We walk for hours, but much like looking up, the scenery doesn’t change much as we look down. Eventually, another island passes under us— one that Verdantop is dropping into nighttime, which makes sense but isn’t something I’ve ever thought about before. Unfortunately, it ruins the view below, and I eventually meander back to the wagon and hop in.

“Did you have fun?” Penelope asks blandly.

“Yeah!” I say happily. “The view is awesome! You should go see when that other island gets out of the way!”

“Pass,” she answers. “I’ve been to the edge plenty of times, Vita. My grandfather often made a point of dragging us all to the cities he conquered to show off.”

“Oh, okay.”

I sit at the back of the wagon, legs kicking off the edge.

“What’s our plan for when we get to Litia?” I eventually ask.

“I figured that was fairly straightforward,” Penelope replies.

“Well, you have to pretend to be Penta the whole time, right? And I have to pretend to be Vitamin.”

“‘Penta’ spent the entire time in my head pretending to be me. It’s hardly going to set off alarm bells for me to act my usual self. That’s how Nawra work.”

“Oh. Well, I guess so.”

“What we really have to talk about is strategy when we get there. I doubt Remus is going to be the only one infected. It will take me a while to kill someone’s Nawra with my magic, but I can do it. It would be easier if I could just make a mass-plague, but…”

“Yeah, I know. Thank you for not.”

“Mmm,” Penelope grunts noncommittally. “If it looks as though we don’t have another way to save everyone, I will.”

Penta tenses. I sigh.

“Noted. We’ll find a way for it to not come to that.”

“You’re going to have to get good at using the Everfull discreetly, then. Which means don’t take it out around learned mages. If they’re any good they’ll spot a metal artifact immediately.”

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“Mana sight is a very basic metamancy spell, and one of the first spells any aspiring mage is taught,” she says, starting to lecture. “Predictably, it enables us to visualize the flows of mana around us. Metal is valuable not merely because it is a strong and rare material, although it does tend to be superior in quality to all but the greatest of monster hides. Metal is valuable because it passively draws in and channels mana. If a metamancer enchants a piece of wood, for instance, the enchantment will only last so long as the power the metamancer places in it lasts. But if they enchant a piece of metal, the magic will potentially last forever. When you pour from the Everfull, it will draw in tides of mana to replenish the spatial spell placed on it. Any mage watching will be able to spot that.”

“Okay,” I say, nodding. “Magic people can see metal stuff being used. Check. Shouldn’t I still practice being Vitamin, though?”

Penelope snorts.

“It’s been over seven days. The slime inside you was ten hours old when you killed it. No matter how you act, I don’t think it will come off as odd unless you’re outright caught trying to kill someone. And if they somehow check if you have a Nawra in you…”

“…Yeah, fair. You’re in more danger there than I am.”

“And I’m confident I’ll be fine.”

“It’ll make me feel better if we practice anyway,” I insist.

Penelope gives a long-suffering sigh.

“Fine.”

The pair of us spend a while trying to get in character which, true to her word, Penelope actually seems quite good at. She drops a bit of the acid and tunes up a bit of the depression and it works out quite well. Penta finds that assessment rather embarrassing, but struggles to deny its truth. I suggest Penelope try being a bit more upbeat as well, but she and Penta both say that they never acted that way in front of Remuslime. Just me.

That makes me smile a little.

On my end, I’m not quite sure what to do. Penelope keeps insisting that anything will probably be okay, since Vitamin would have presumably spent a lot more time in my body than she had in Remus’s at this point. I decide to keep up the same persona that I used with Remus the first time, though, partly because it feels safest and partly because it’s pretty fun.

“Hey, you two!” Gladra calls, knocking on the outside of the wagon. “The mists are clearing! Come see!”

Ooh! I hop off the back of the wagon immediately, rushing on over to the edge. My steps slow as I approach, fear and apprehension mixing as I get ever closer to the great drop. The island below us has passed. I stand next to Gladra, her aura calm so I can do so painlessly, and watch the swirling mists move.

“Did you know,” Gladra says slowly, “that from here, the mists are tens of thousands of miles away?”

I blink, turning to look up at her.

“How… far is that?” I ask.

She chuckles.

“Well, our island, from end to end at its longest point, is less than a thousand miles across. If I pushed you off the edge here, you might die of dehydration before ever reaching the mists. Assuming you don’t die by running into another island on the way, of course.”

I gulp. She points down.

“Things always seem smaller when they’re farther away, don’t they? Watch, Vita. See the world for the first time.”

The mists stretch in every direction, farther than I can see. Slowly, surely, they begin to thin, allowing me to catch glimpses of… something below them. A twisting presence briefly crests the top of the receding mists, reminding me of a snake slithering through grass. Although this snake is, apparently, larger than my entire island by several orders of magnitude.

More and more of these ‘snakes’ appear; brownish, blackish twists of flesh that writhe about the mists, cutting apart clouds so massive I know no words for anything to compare them to. Oh, how laughable it is to have thought my island a large place. More and more and more of the horrid, beautiful tendrils reveal themselves. I stare unblinking as the mists wash away entirely, revealing the mass underneath which may as well be infinite to my senses.

Beneath the mists, beneath the incomprehensible limbs, are the eyes of the Mistwatcher. A human eye larger than I could travel in a lifetime stares vacantly towards its zenith. The segmented eye of a dragonfly bulges around a collection of thin tendrils. A small eye of a goat— insofar, I suppose, as an eye dwarfing the largest islands in the sky could be small— seems to care not one whit as it gets rained on from above. Eyes upon eyes upon endless seas of eyes, all different sizes, colors, and shapes. Each is part of the same pulsing, writhing mass that forms the center of everything, stretching from horizon to unreachable horizon. It is impossible to look down and not see it, as despite the incomprehensible distance between us I can discern no edge to it, no end. Many of the eyes match creatures I know. Many more are so alien in structure that I can only guess whether they’re even eyes at all.

Out of all its countless eyes, one in particular catches my attention. An orb of pure red with a long black strip, tapered at the top and bottom, stretching down through its center like a cat’s pupil. I know this eye like I know myself. I’m not consciously aware of how long I stare as slowly, slowly, the dark pupil turns in its divine socket. For an agonizing eternity, I stare down and watch as it moves to stare back at me. I lock eyes with God and the weight of its gaze crushes my very soul. I can’t withstand it.

My shell shatters.