A violent wind of fire and ice swept over the bare ashen wasteland known as Mortix. Today was a day like none other. Since time immemorial this place had been a land of dread. Although the country was very rich in iron ore and sulfur, there was little else to speak of. There were a few sparsely populated villages and a gargantuan palace sized tower of obsidian and igneous, home to the Lord of Shadows, Setep.

Other than that, there was nothing to be spoken of for this area. The atmosphere was all but toxic to those who were not born there and vitality resources were limited greatly by the nuclear storms that ravaged the land. This had been a place of death for many thousands of years.

One dark sunless morning, a lone traveler appeared on the horizon. It was a strange thing to see visitors to this area. Since most citizens of this realm ate not of worldly foods, most who survived the trek lost their lives to the famine. Aside from the rarity of this occurrence, few people of this land cared.

Within this ancient country lay a place that no one went. It was a place where worlds beyond blurred and not even the mighty Setep would venture within. It appeared as a oasis within a small mountain valley. Everyone knew its location. It was only one of two notable landmarks within this forsaken place, right along side the towering shadow of the Gray Spire.

To see a traveler headed toward this area was strange. Most outlanders knew of this place’s bad reputation and stayed quite clear of it. However, this newcomer appeared to be headed in that direction specifically with an apparent sense of purpose. His name was Sanda and this was his charge.

As he walked the seemingly endless deserts of ash and dust, his thoughts began to wander. Who was it he had seen before… that woman? She looked no older than he, sixteen, maybe seventeen. Her midnight tresses flowed with the wind in a strange and backward fashion, gently caressing the ashen grey of her flawless supple skin. It was like something out of a dream. Who was he to say? Perhaps it was. One thing ate at him though. Her image simply would not leave him.

Everyday at dusk, regardless of his location at the time, he’d see her from afar. She would watch him in silence and he would do the same. It was a strange and surreal kind of arrangement they had. He had never spoken to her, nor she to him. They had never seen one another at a close distance, though his keen eyes would always pick up every little detail. While he couldn’t really speak for her, something told him it was likely the same in reverse. His thoughts turned again to the present.

The looming mass of that lone craggy mountain range drew ever nearer. This was his destination and what a marvel it was! Sanda could tell something was off however. It wasn’t really very hard either. The entire surrounding area could look normal for moment, however every so often it would twist and distort horribly. The local sky would then turn from the usual clouds of ash and smoke to a swirling vortex of purple, white and red before returning to normal but a few moments later. This cycle would then repeat erratically, anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours later.

His task was simple: seal dimensional tears such as this one. It was not a difficult task if one knew the proper procedures. This job was nothing new to him to be sure. He spent many countless years sealing up these time-space inconsistencies and he had been hardened to a certain extent by it.

It was not long before he stood before the entrance of his destination. However… it was nearly dusk, even if one couldn’t tell from the sky.

With a sigh and a weak grin, he stepping into the mountainous valley and began his trek to the oasis within its core. The strange thing about these time-space anomalies Sanda had observed was that they were never continuous. They activated for an unfixed amount of time at erratic intervals and basically sucked away any living creature in the area and teleported them to a random time-space, usually within the near-infinite vacuum of space some billion odd years in the future or past, though they could just as easily take you but a few steps away from the immediate area a few short moments before or after. It was a true Force of Chaos in this realm and Sanda was solely charged with exterminating it.

As Sanda neared the center of the valley, the oasis clear in sight, he saw her again; that pale beauty danced within and around him in a timeless flow of power and mystery. Her allure was as the cold whispers of Death, yet her eyes held the ever-glowing warmth of Life. It was a strange paradox Sanda lived in. His father and mother were as the Sky and the Earth, unimaginably dangerous yet serenely beautiful in a nearly perfect unison. They gave off a glow of their own, as did he. This young woman did as well, but it was a different kind of glow. Emanated from her was an endless spectrum of gold and sliver, mixing and reflecting like the Sun and the Moon as they rose and fell, even eclipsing one another from time-to-time. It captivated him and stole his gaze.

However, such a distraction proved unhealthy to Sanda’s mission. The girl vanished and the world around him bent and distorted. Everything was black and empty. What was this? No stars, no glare, no pressure. It was void, until…

All around him exploded in a spectacular bloom of light in total silence. Although far off, it came ever closer by the moment.

Focusing all of his consciousness on the oasis he had stood before but a moment ago, he closed his eyes and sealed off all of his primary senses. He vanished mere moments before the wave of explosive hydrogen consumed his previous position.

And there he was once more, standing within that desolate valley of ash and dust before one, lone oasis. The water looked rather foul too now that he took the time to investigate it. It was murky and purple and even seemed to give off some steam and bubbles on occasion. For a moment he contemplated upon whether what he saw was even water at all or if it was just unbelievably tainted. It looked more like some sort of acidic poison that sought to dissolve his flesh into rot.

His surroundings suddenly began to warp once more. Sanda rolled his eyes in a dramatically exaggerated manner and focused all of his mind and his spirit in the here and the now.

Even as everything twisted and warped horribly, Sanda remained wholly unaffected. He strode casually over toward the obviously tainted spring of what he supposed may have once been water and gazed into its depths. What he saw, he did not expect.

The murky fluid, though tainted, still suffered him a reflection. However it was not his reflection, but hers. It didn’t last long and few blinks later it was gone, replaced with his own as he remembered it. He ignored it however in favor of completing his current task. There would be plenty of time to ponder this strange revelation at a later time.

Sucking up his breath, he dove into the dark unknown with gusto. Down and down, he swam. This spring was unnaturally deep and was indeed poisoned as he had previously suspected. He was glad that such things scarcely affected him under normal circumstances.

Once he finally reached this ocean-deep fountain’s floor, the weight of everything above crushing down on him, he extracted his trusty bone dagger. Pulling back his arm, he swiftly brought the blade down on the hard basalt of the fountain’s floor and carved into it a pair of opposing right angles overlapping each other. Although sharp, it took a fair amount of time to cut into such hard rock. Once the shape was done, he finished it all off with a hard stab at the angles’ core.

The seal, now complete, began to glow. The opposing angles shined a blinding white, while the dot within the center became black as pitch. It sucked up what remaining light existed within the surrounding area, leaving only the white glowing chevron to be seen. Soon that too began to fade out. Once the last of its light had been absorbed, the darkness abruptly lifted.

The foul purple water became clear as crystal and certainly far less deep than before. As the amber-haired youth dragged himself from the water, he took a moment to admire his work. The entire valley looked worlds smaller now, although the sky above was still as black as ever. He doubted he could ever change that though. His job was now done and he could afford to rest. Sleep soon claimed him.

Hours later, he awoke. The sky was dark, but that was nothing new. The ground beneath him was ash and dust. That was nothing new either. The waters of the spring had been purified; an improvement. The young woman he always saw at dusk stood innocently above him. That was nice. The rocks has shifted a little and—wait, what?

Kneeling rather inconspicuously over him was the Woman of the Dusk, as he had named her. He knew not her real name. He had hadn’t even seen her up close before, yet there she was. She wore an enigmatic smile upon her face, but spoke not.

She was beautiful. Her long raven tresses did nothing to obscure her lovely facial features. She had a fairly high cheekbone and the structure of her eyes was slanted, giving one the subtle impression that she was a Cheshire feline in disguise. “My, my! What a very interesting role you have in the grand scheme of the universe, love.” Her voice was soft and musical, but it had a sharpness to it. It was the kind of sharpness that could cut someone if they weren’t too careful.

Seeing as this was the first time they’d ever spoken, Sanda decided to make the best first impression possible. Indeed, a startled cry and a comic flail must have been the perfect introduction from his point of view. Whether properly effective or not it didn’t fail to turn her smile into a slight smirk of amusement.

“Sooo,” she said, twirling her index finger around in a absent-minded whimsical fashion, “what brings you out to this unpleasant neck of the woods? It’s not often this place receives visitors and it’s not exactly like there weren’t more pleasant places for you to work your magic. Am I wrong?”

His voice failed him miserably. What could he say? He wasn’t really the social type, but he still felt an overwhelming urge say something, anything, at this moment. This was his chance to speak with her and we was wasting it!

He made a lame attempt to force something coherent from his vocal cords but the result was little more than a garbled mass of meaningless syllables. She suddenly rose. “Wait!” he called, his words finally serving him as they should. Even still, she turned and began to walk away.

“If you want me, you’ll have to catch me, dear.” She said, an evil grin twisting its way into her facial features. A small wink and a flicker later, she was gone. She had not at all disappeared however. He could still see her off in the distance, standing and staring at him. A few curses and twitch later, he was after her.

The chase seemed to go on forever. Each time he reached her, she would disappear and reappear far off on the horizon. It was infuriating!

Eventually they had left Mortix and entered Dasha, a land rich in mountains and forests. It was here that he finally caught her, gazing into a still pond in a clearing. “I’ve caught you now!” he declared triumphantly.

She smiled mysteriously at him. “Indeed, you have.” She said to him. There was a rather strange and surreal moment where the two simply stared at each other before the fade to black.

Syrus Magistus - ©2007