[Second Era – Year 754 of the Divinity War; Hopron, near Orgwar’s prison]

  Moraithe looked out across all the morthel Ryvern had gathered. Watching them petrify in the sunlight. But something, another power shielded those in the shadows. Barthum. He was protecting them. So long as they remained hidden beneath the trees they would not petrify.

  Ryvern, or perhaps Soljiin, now stood, dripping wet. A hand reached out. Fingers closed. Suddenly a scathe lash, Throm’tor’s scathe lash, appeared in that hand, and at the other end, controlled by the lash, a living nightmare. A tiny morthel, the smallest he’d ever seen, bubbled and frothed as it strained against the lash. But the morthel did not petrify under the shadow of the trees.

  Suddenly, the sun began to darken, everything began to haze over.

  Moraithe looked out over the swamp. That haze overspread the land. It had to be some strange entanglement. “Soljiin, what are you doing now?” A crystalline haze floated around him, obscuring the trees, filling the world with a strangely glinting gray.

  “I am doing what heroes do. Saving them.”

  Suddenly a great mist began to swathe the land in shadow. He was reaching out to bring them all under Barthum’s shadow, the entire land. Yet it was no grand entanglement like the petrification bomb, this was only a local entanglement, all that Ryvern could do. All the chaos Soljiin could make him endure, though it may draw in enough entropy, enough chaos sickness to leave him in gibbering madness for ages.

  Suddenly Ryvern’s bearing changed. Abandoned, he collapsed and fell beneath the water.

  Moraithe splashed across to Ryvern, but the morthel remained lashed nearby.

  Moraithe would not let it stand. He reached out to that great mist, and to the sunlight still shining down from the sky. And he entangled the mist with the light, not merely a single entanglement. He sealed the entanglement to the mist so that the light would remain within the mist.

  Yet the mist still grew. Sparks of light made trails and eddies in the wind. Other morthel began to creep through the mist toward him. They hadn’t been petrified yet. Barthum still protected them.

  Suddenly, Ryvern erupted from the water—not human—some mountainous beast with six massive, shaggy legs towered over the forest. What had Ryvern just become? How? The scathe lash had vanished, yet the morthel had been left behind. And now the morthel leaped upon one of six massive feet. The gargantuan beast howled with rage and stamped. Splinters and spray splattering and crashing through the forest.

  Moraithe ran from the chaos and lifted his spyglass, seeking escape. Realization struck him. Ryvern had not become the beast. He had swapped places, fled to some distant, unfathomed world, leaving this monstrosity in his place.

  On impulse, Moraithe lifted his spyglass to the heavens. Struggling to trace the path. There was no telling how much trouble Ryvern could cause with both scathe lash and swapping power. Throm’tor had held little more power when he’d begun, and by the end, he’d nearly held the power to make the universe bow to him.

  The morthel was now consuming the beast's leg, though it rolled and thrashed through the trees like a fintin pup rolling in slumber-sod.

  But light was swirling in sparks with the wind. He reached out for that light, as if to grab it with his thoughts and the light responded. The beast let out a horrible beastly scream as the morthel crept up to its throat and swallowed its head.

  He summoned a brightness, somehow he was controlling the light he’d entangled with the mist, so he made the light shine bright. The other morthel fled from before that light, and the feeding morthel, fled with them, leaving Moraithe there with an angry, wounded, and thrashing beast.

  But Moraithe’s companions were waiting for him. And Saffrael and the drackmoor were still there, he’d felt them, the drackmoor pain. He would rescue them before he went after Ryvern.

  Moraithe lifted the spyglass, spinning the ring wildly to scan through the haze.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  There, he found the fortress and one of the wardens. Through the spyglass he fled, swapping places with the unfortunate warden.

  The water in his clothes had come along, his focus too frazzled to exclude it. He dripped and puddled on the stone floor, as he took his bearings.

  But there were still captives down there in the throne room. He could at least gather his companions and rescue them. Something felt too still, too peaceful. What was …?

  The drackmoor pain, where had it gone? Where was Saffrael? Where were the drackmoor? He could not feel them near. Had they been moved? Or had something happened to them? Only drackmoor caused each other pain. If she had lost one of her lives …

  If he could calm himself he could eventually find her by her revenescent. Wait, no, no he couldn’t. Not if that strange woman who claimed the revenescent had somehow taken it.

  Whose revenescent was that? He dare not intrude into it again to find out. But how? It had been Saffrael’s revenescent, he knew it. Could women trade revenescents, and if so why would they? Maybe that brunette stranger was the intruder. But how? Nothing made sense. Panic flitted through his heart and mind.

  Now there was only one way to find Saffrael. Her captor would know where she had been taken. Orgwar would know.

  He wandered down corridors littered with stone figures sideways upon the floor. Petrified golems.

  Where were his companions? Was everyone still waiting outside the throne room? He’d left without any explanation. Maybe they’d rescued the drackmoor already? Or maybe they’d failed.

  Moraithe rushed down, past the menagerie that filled the walls, over the bodies of petrified golems, to the throne room.

  Suddenly a warm feeling came over him, a feeling he hadn’t felt since losing his piece of Elithir. Then thoughts came into his mind, not a voice like Elithir used to send him. Just thoughts, like his own. Perhaps they were his own. The drackmoor have been rescued. Now you must entangle this moment with the Amnesia Bomb. Only that will stop the Severed from reclaiming them. Only that will stop Ryvern from wreaking havoc with the powers he has taken.

  What was he to do? Where had that thought come from? Could he obey some random thought like that? But the feeling that filled him made him certain it was more than an idle thought. Steeling himself, he reached out to that runic key that tied him across space and time to the Amnesia Bomb. And he entangled it here with this very moment.

  THE

  AMNESIA

  STORM

  STRUCK

  And with it, he struggled to hold to his memories. But amnesia storms, stole or distorted all that was most corrupt. If people had corrupted their powers they would lose them. If they had held them sacred those memories would be so much easier to hold.

  He’d noticed that in some places they had corrupted even language itself, twisting words to mean whatever suited them, the easier to lie and deceive. During the first storm, he’d tried to speak to such, but it seemed language itself had failed them. They resorted to drawing pictures in the dirt.

  Moraithe tried to focus his mind as the depth of this unmitigated disaster struck him. But that would not help him hold onto his memories. Calm. I must be relaxed.

  But it was easier thought than accomplished.

  The doors of the throne room had burst open, and the bodies of many of his companions were strewn about the ground, still breathing, still alive. Several captives even now came screaming past him. Saffrael was nowhere to be seen. Yet there was someone in there, someone he had sought. Someone he had come to bring to justice.

  Orgmar, yes, that was right. He strode to the door. A huge man stood before him, easily twice his size.

  “Ormar” Moraithe roared to the man, his foe. “Where is Saffrael?”

  “And who might that be?” There was no mockery in his voice.

  Moraithe strode forward, though the giant man loomed over him. “Tell me where you have sent her, Formar! Where is Saffrael?”

  “Who is Saffrael, and who is Formar?”

  “Do not feign that the Amnesia Storm has taken you already. You will tell me where you have sent Saffrael.”

  The giant man’s bearing changed, it seemed Soljiin had possessed this man just as he had Ryvern. “Saffrael is it? She is with her mother now.”

  “Soljiin, what are you doing here? Saffrael has no mother. She is one of the first, the self-made ones.” The self-made ones had brothers and sisters, as they called each other, after struggling and growing together from specks of will, but no mother.

  “She does now.” Soljiin laughed.

  “What have you done to her? Soljiin!”

  Just then a pain filled his senses with comfort. Somehow one of the drackmoor had returned. Could it be Saffrael?

  “I am Famar.” It seemed Soljiin had fled again. “Have you come to kill me?”

  Famar, that wasn’t his name before, was it? He couldn’t recall. Just how corrupt had this Famar become for his name to fail so quickly?

  “Kill you? Far worse,” Moraithe said. “I have come to make you live.”

  “Mockery is it?”

  “Only justice.” Moraithe stretched out his hand, still holding the entanglement to the Amnesia Bomb. “Now, Fanar. Justice shall be yours. I seal it upon you.” He reached out to the man, and with a touch, he flooded the entire strength of the Amnesia Bomb into the giant, the power of so much entropy shining momentarily through his robes.

  “I told you, I am Faneir.”

  Faneir? More corruption, as the Amnesia Storm raged. And—what was his name—Fane fell to his knees under Moraithe’s touch.

  Moraithe or whatever his name was tried to summon words to express one final thought, but all words had fled.