Chapter 4 – Part 1

TIME IS BUT A STREAM I GO A-FISHING IN

In a place where time has no meaning, at a time that never existed.

The world ran riot in Delegado’s ears, his mind, through his pores. He saw sound, heard vision, felt change, sweated seconds, breathed minutes, fell forever, and never moved.

Get control of yourself, you are one with the natural world, the half-orc told himself. You can feel, see, you can –

“Trust your senses, son,” Bartemain told him. Delegado was barely nine years of age, hunting in the Shadow Marches.

“It makes no difference now,” the woman said. She looked a lot like her aunt, Pienna, even with blood running down her face from her ruined eyes. Artificer’s tools fell from her hands as she begged Delegado to find what she needed. But Delegado was an old man, with white hair, and racked with a withering cough that came with advanced age.

Time ran unfettered. It was a river that had overrun its banks, falling where it might, be it forward, backwards, or both.

“I’m in Xoriat,” Delegado said aloud. The Gatekeepers told the children that if they were bad they would end up there, a place of eternal mental pain, where nature would never give succor.

“No you aren’t, not yet, anyway,” came a voice. The voice belonged to a fiend, with glowing eyes, the one who had tricked him, tried to –

Teeth bared, he fired the arrow. It traveled years, miles, forever, then hit even before he fired it, scorching the fiend who called itself Captain.

“Don’t do it!” the fiend said. “If you shoot I won’t be able to –” The fiend died, peppered with arrows. The fiend stood over the hypnotized half-orc, and brought its sword down viciously. The fiend threw Delegado off of the boat, and they both fell to shreds of nothingness.

NO, Delegado thought. I. WILL. BE. He closed his eyes, and then opened them. Whatever he saw, had to be sight. If he saw sound, he would ignore it.

The ship came into view. He saw the wooden planks beneath his feet, but he could feel no waves. He looked up, and then regretted it. There was no sky, no ocean, there was nothing. Seeing nothing was…disturbing to the mind. He forced his gaze downward, to what was real.

“For now,” called the fiend. Raising his eyes just slightly, Delegado could see the Captain slumped on the deck. The fiend had skin like iron, but the magical arrows had gotten through somewhat, and several of them had cast forth flame, lightning, or other energy when they hit. “We barely exist, we are elsewhere, in a non-space that is shrinking. You have to put your bow down, not shoot, let me rescue us with the Crimson Ship’s power! But you have to not shoot!”

Delegado regarded the thing. A fiend. One of the ones who had tortured his father, Bartemain. Who had nearly killed Ois and Orphan. Who could change its appearance.

Who could do mind-tricks with its eyes.

The half-orc raised the bow and drew.