A half dozen soldiers in dark armor hurtled balls of black fire toward Panir. He swept them aside with contempt and growled as he called upon his great reserves. One by one, the men in black armor imploded, crushed under an unseen weight. Only one of the void-cursed radicals stood between him and the formation array that was destroying the world.

  The ground shook violently with the final throes of his dying planet. Where there might have been a noon day sun to illuminate the landscape only a few days ago, there was only the darkness of the infinite void now, interrupted by flashes of chaotic lightning. Panir maintained an array of brilliant lights overhead to provide him with consistent light and announce his arrival.

  The leader of the void callers stepped up to meet him, hefting a massive spiked maul as darkness radiated from him like the void he worshiped. The man would have been a match for nearly any other, but Panir wasn't known as the Lightforge for no reason.

  The leader conjured a spear of inky black and hurtled it forward. The brute followed right behind, his maul wreathed in black fire. One of the lights overhead transformed into a solid sheet and slammed into the ground in front of Panir. The black spear shattered against it, and Panir set his teeth against pain that lanced through his mind.

  It wasn't the spear that hurt him, but his own conjuration. He spread his hands and painted a disc in the air with solid light, imbuing it with a terrible power that he could scarcely contain.

  The black maul destroyed his light shield, and Panir hurtled the spinning disc of light at the leader of the void callers.

  The man in dark armor split in half, cut cleanly in two by the forged light. Panir roared in anger, and each half of the dead leader was cast off the plateau. The plateau was finally freed from those cursed void-blessed radicals, but just because the last of the resistance was dead didn't mean the world wasn't about to end.

  Panir hurled himself toward the magical formation array. The plan had always been the same—stop the encroachment of the void by any means necessary. The simple fact that the sun had been consumed by the endless nothingness, leaving their planet in darkness for more than a day, didn't bode well for his last minute gambit.

  The formation was fiendishly complicated with pillars holding magical stones and lines of glowing sigils tracing the smooth stone ground between them. Panir's eyes traced out some patterns in the formation that he recogized. Lines of gathering and calling focused on an inscrutable symbol that could only be the end of all things. The radicals had called the void, and against all odds, it had answered. Perhaps he could reverse the formation, causing the void to retract from his home?

  He bellowed in rage, knowing that such a thing might have been possible if he'd found this formation two years ago, giving him time to study and experiment. Instead he and the leaders of his world had foolishly squandered their time. One by one, the stars vanished, and the world turned to war as each nation blamed each other for the impending calamity.

  As it stood, even if he was able to push back the void, he doubted the sun would miraculously return. Perhaps his struggle was meaningless. Perhaps he'd already lost.

  Even so, he had to do something.

  Lacking the materials to make proper formation adjustments, he cut his hand and took control of his blood as it flowed out. Through a simple manipulation of the magical essence that suffused his being, Panir shaped his own blood with deft skill, layering a set of interconnecting lines between the short pillars that composed the formation. He couldn't move the pillars. The only hope he had was to make use of the existing power gathering elements of the array and instead change the function.

  He focused his entire being on the concept of 'casting away,' hoping that he could force the void back if he managed a working formation. He allowed years of magical research and practice along with pure instinct, willpower, and gut feeling to guide his work.

  After a few lines, he noticed the lightning had stopped. He looked up, but there was nothing but darkness beyond his small constelation of lights. He hurled one of the bright balls of light into the sky, illuminating the entire area for hundreds of feet. When the ball was a few hundred feet above him, it vanished. The void was almost upon him.

  The ground had stopped shaking, and with another surge of power he sent out brilliant glowing chains in every direction. The glowing chains marked the distance away from him, and they ended three hundred feet in any direction from the formation. When he tried to extend them further, he felt the magic inside them vanish into nothingness. The void was here. This was perhaps the last piece of his world. Everyone and everything he'd ever known already consumed.

  Still, he frantically drew out new symbols as the links of his glowing chains were consumed, one by one. The void was scarcely twenty feet from the outer edges of the formation when he finally finished.

  Panir burned all of his accumulated power in a surge that left him dizzy and bleeding from his nose. He ignored the disorientation and forced his power into the formation. He held his breath as the power spread throughout the new symbols, and the formation began to glow with a steady white light. When the power reached the mysterious symbol of the void, Panir fell to his knees in dispair. The symbol drained all the power he'd used, leaving the array dark save the illumination of his magic chains. That was it. He had nothing left.

  The void consumed ever more of his magic chains. He closed his eyes and waited for what he hoped was a painless death.

  Moments of stillness passed, and when his death didn't come, he opened his eyes. His chains extended to the edge of the formation, where the void waited for him, but it had stopped its encroachment. At the center of the formation, there was a small shaft of light.

  Had it worked? Or had he simply trapped himself on an island floating alone in the eternal void? Either way, he had nothing to lose by investigating this new source of light. He had no power for anything else.

  He stood to investigate, but the brilliant light didn't wait for him. It speared upward in a pillar of brilliant light that seemed to cut through the void above him. It didn't illuminate anything around him, but it extended into infinity. Then it began to grow. Panir stepped back with a shocked expression, but he didn't have anywhere to go as the pillar of light spread out to encompass the entire formation.

  Blinding light and brilliant pain consumed him as the world went white, then black.

  * * *

  The pain returned first, but it receded in moments. Panir took a shuddering breath and dared open his eyes. He looked up at a dark sky filled with stars.

  "It worked?" his voice came out as a croak, like he'd just woken from a long slumber.

  He hadn't seen the stars in well over a year. Tears welled up in his eyes and he blinked them away, lest they obstruct his glorious view.

  He took a deep breath and noticed something new. The smell of grass and flowers. Panir sat up and found himself in a large garden instead of the barren desert plateau. Short bushes and cut grass surrounded him, indicating this was clearly a tended garden near some form of civilization. Larger leafy trees obscured any sight beyond the small clearing he found himself in. A path of crushed stone led from one end of the clearing to the other, and as he examined it, a man ran out from behind the trees on one side of the clearing.

  Pure joy blossomed in Panir's heart and he raised a hand in greeting, but the man just gave him a quick wave and carried on running. The man's rush made him nervous. What was the man running from? Was the void really gone?

  Panir stood up, expecting to feel some residual pain, but he felt nothing. His mana was still empty. Not surprising given the amount of power he'd forced into the formation at the end. Oddly, he didn't have the piercing headache that usually came with mana depletion. He had no doubt it would come if he didn't replenish himself soon.

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  Panir headed in the direction the man had come from, hoping to find the reason for the man's rush, but praying it wasn't due to the encroaching darkness. What he found at the end of the winding path perplexed and amazed him.

  Tall posts contained magical lamps that illuminated a wide street in an impressively steady light. The street was coated with a black substance that appeared as hard as stone but smoother than any cobble street he'd seen before. The lights too were brighter and steadier than any magical lamps he'd seen before.

  Then he saw the buildings. Tens or even hundreds of buildings rose three stories into the air, with some even higher. Steady magical lights illuminated windows throughout many of them. The cost of constructing these marvels and maintaining these steady magical lights must have been astronomical. He wasn't sure where he'd ended up. Given the infrastructure and wealth on display, he guessed it was the capital city of one of the member states of the Iron Empire.

  He needed to find some more people and get some answers. He needed to get back to the plateau and make sure the formation was completely shut down as well. After reporting back to his king, he needed to hunt down any remaining void calling radicals.

  Not seeing an obvious direction, Panir started up one of the streets that lead away from the large garden area. A few people walked the streets, but anyone he tried to approach seemed to hurry away from him.

  Noisy carriages of a make he'd never seen the like of before moved down the streets. They had lights of their own, and the number and speed of them boggled his mind for a moment. Was the Iron Empire really so much more advanced than his own home?

  Eventually he found himself in front of a breathtaking sight. A massive building was illuminated with more lights than he'd ever seen before. What's more, is that the front of the building seemed to be entirely made of incredibly clear and evenly molded glass panels. His only guess was that he'd found the seat of a king. No one else would live in such opulence.

  Still, the building was busy. The noisy carriages dropped off people at an entrance and people came and went in a steady stream. Panir headed toward the entrance, hoping to get the answers he needed.

  Inside there was a small atrium with plants and stairs leading upward. Even the king's palace back home wasn't so grand. The signs he saw both inside and outside of the building were in a language he'd never seen before, so he simply followed the stream of people back into what appeared to be a large waiting room.

  A dozen people sat in chairs around the room, and he was surprised that many of them looked ill. Perhaps the monarch here offered healing to those in need? That would be fortuitous, because Panir knew his mana depletion headache was right around the corner. A healing house would have mana crystals available, or even potions, though he frowned when he noticed his coin purse hadn't made it through the battle and his arrival in the Iron Empire.

  Panir waited in line with the newcomers, and when his turn at the reception desk came up, he strode forward confidently.

  "Good evening, sir. Can I get your name and date of birth?"

  Asking for a date of birth was unorthodox, but Panir didn't see any harm in it. Best not offend the locals.

  "Certainly, I am Panir Lightforge, born on the Eleventh of Waining Earth in the sixtieth year of the forty-fourth era."

  The woman looked up at him from her glowing magical slate and cocked an eyebrow.

  "Alright...How about an age instead. How old are you?"

  "Hmm," Panir said, doing the conversion to the Iron Empire's standard. He'd learned it in school, and his teachers were proved correct, he did need to know how to do the conversion some day. "Thirty-five, by the Iron Empire calendar."

  "Great..." she said, not sounding like she thought his age was great. He didn't mind.

  "And what brings you in tonight, Mr. Lightforge?"

  "Well, I need to know about the void. It seems to have gone, but I need to know what happened. Would you be able to get me into a meeting with your lord? Also, my mana reserves are quite barren, and a mana potion or two would not go amiss."

  The woman stared at him with her mouth open.

  "Is that too presumptuous? Mana crystals would be fine. I can gather from any grade you have available, I assure you. Perhaps if you have a focusing chamber I could just pop in for a minute?" he asked, hopefully glancing around.

  The woman pushed herself away from the desk, her chair having small wheels that allowed her to roll smoothly. Yet another marvel of modern innovation that Panir would need to explain to the king's crafters. The receptionist spoke with another woman in hushed tones and pointed at Panir. He waved and smiled at them when they looked over.

  They both returned and the second woman looked at the magic slate on the desk before turning to him.

  "Mr. Lightforge. Do you know that you're in a hospital?"

  "Hospital? Like a place of healing?"

  He'd heard the term before, but it was reserved for large houses of healing, and he'd never seen one before.

  "Yes...we just treat sick and injured people here. Are you sick?"

  Panir frowned.

  "No, but you don't offer mana recovery services?"

  The women shared a look.

  "No. If you're not sick, do you think you might be a danger to yourself or others?"

  Panir favored the woman with a wicked grin. "Oh yes. Any of those void callers will rue the day they crossed me."

  The woman shared another look and exchanged expressions Panir didn't quite catch.

  "Why don't you have a seat Mr. Lightforge? We'll find someone to help you out soon."

  He shrugged. "Thank you for the help. Ahh, I hate to bring it up so soon, but the void...do you know what happened?"

  "Probably best if you wait to be seen by the doctor."

  "Very well."

  Panir took a seat and inspected the people around him. For some reason, people were giving him strange looks. He admired the lights that ran along the ceiling. He couldn't feel a trace of magic from them. He had no idea how they'd managed such steady illumination with no magical waste.

  The receptionist spoke up and told him he wasn't allowed to climb on the furniture when he stood on the back of a chair to get a closer look at the lights. In his own kingdom, curiosity was something to be praised, but it seemed there were taboos he didn't know about in the Iron Empire. He sat to wait patiently before he got thrown out of the building or arrested. Idle curiosity could wait, he reminded himself. He needed answers.

  It was odd that people weren't talking about the void. After all, from their perspective it must have just consumed them all and spit them back out.

  He ruminated until a man in a blue uniform called him from a doorway. He led him back through a bright hallway past a dozen rooms before they arrived at a small platform on the floor.

  "Step on the scale please."

  "Hmm? This thing? What does it do?"

  "...It weighs you."

  "What for?"

  "Well, if we give you any medication, we need to know what dosage to give you, and a lot of that is based on weight."

  "Medication?"

  The man gave him a look he was quickly growing used to.

  "You know, like pills?"

  Panir's eyes lit up at the mention of pills.

  "Ahh, pills! Yes, very good."

  Perhaps they had mana recovery pills. Those would be even more efficient than a potion. He stepped onto the scale platform and the man in the blue uniform frowned, glancing back at him.

  "Ah, would you mind stepping off. I need to reset this."

  The man pushed something on the side after Panir stepped off, then after a moment stood on the device himself.

  "There we go, sorry about that. Step back on."

  Panir did so, and the man looked him up and down.

  "You're not carrying anything really heavy in your bathrobe, are you?"

  "In my robe? Well, I have this."

  Panir pulled out his obsidian staff. It was only two feet long, not really enough to call it a staff, but he refused to call it a mere rod or wand. He was glad to see it had completed the journey with him when his money had not. He didn't think it was heavy, though it did have some heft to it. He set it down and stepped back on the scale.

  The man shook his head and wrote down the number, then he took out a small magic slate and waved it in front of the scale.

  "Three hundred and twenty-eight pounds. I have to take a picture or the doctor isn't going to believe me. You must be all muscle."

  Panir shrugged. He was strong for a wizard, but nothing special.

  The man led him into a small room and put a cuff on his arm that squeezed it gently, then had him hold a small stick in his mouth. It was all very odd, but Panir went along with it to keep the process moving. He felt like he'd wasted too much time already.

  "Alright, the doctor will be with you in a minute."

  More waiting. He was starting to hate the Iron Empire. He was debating just trying his luck on the streets when an older man with a neatly trimmed beard and spectacles walked in.

  "Panir Lightforge?"

  "Yes?"

  "I'm Dr. Voigt," the man said extending a hand to shake. Panir did so and the man sat.

  "A pleasure to meet you. I must say, this is a majestic facility," Panir said. It couldn't hurt to butter the man up a little.

  "Thank you. We just recently remodeled. I'd like to talk to you a bit about what brought you in this evening. I have it noted here that you're looking for...mana crystals? Is that right?"

  "Well, if you don't have anything else, but some pills would be ideal, and a tonic or potion if you don't have pills. I'm honestly not picky, but I would like to avoid the impending headache."

  "I see. Tell me, Mr. Lightforge, have you been playing any games recently?"

  "Games? Hardly. I've not had much time for frivolity. That does bring me to my other question. I really need to find out what happened to the void. Do you remember it swallowing the world? What happened here, and how did the stars return to the sky?"

  The man wrote down notes as Panir spoke.

  "I don't know anything about a void, Mr. Lightforge. I'm a little concerned about you, however."

  Didn't know anything about the void? How was that possible? It was the only thing the entire world had been talking about for the better part of two years, since the stars began to vanish. Had the magic light sent him back in time? Perhaps some fickle god had sent him back to the point when the void callers began their mad mission, and only he could stop the future from coming again.

  Dr. Voigt continued when it was apparent that Panir was lost in thought.

  "You seem quite rational, but the things you've said make me worry that you're confusing fiction with reality, Mr. Lightforge."

  That brought his attention back to the older man, but Panir hadn't really heard his comment.

  "What year is it?"

  "Twenty twenty-four."

  Panir had no idea what that meant. He wasn't aware of another time keeping method in use by the Iron Empire, but perhaps they'd developed something new.

  "Do you know that in Ranish Imperial years, perhaps?"

  "Mr. Lightforge, do you know where you are?"