Their lunch was eaten at an outdoor restaurant thick with people and the mouth-watering scent of smoked meat. Era and Gabriel sat at a small wooden bench, each feasting on their sandwich of choice (Gabriel’s was a greasy roast beef smothered in gravy; Era preferred thinly-sliced chicken). Even though I have no clue where to go from here, Era thought, things seem a lot better now with a full stomach and a little support.
They spent the rest of the day walking through the city, trading tales of their exploits while each had been separated. Era got a stern lecture on the importance of planning ahead from Gabriel, and Gabriel shared stories of odd folks he’d seen in the marketplace while he was selling his potion stock, including Crisilla and Jarred’s chance encounter. At the mention of Crisilla, Era immediately perked up; he was happy that she cared, but at the same time, he felt bad for making her worry needlessly.
“She’ll be fine,” Gabriel assured him. “If we’re going to be here a while, we can send them a letter and let them know you’re okay.”
“That would be wonderful,” Era said enthusiastically, searching around his satchel for a piece of paper with one hand and clutching his staff in the other. “Let’s do just that.”
“Alright then. As soon as we get—”
“Get what, Gabriel?” He paused a moment; something didn’t seem right. “Gabriel?”
The bustle of the city, including Gabriel’s voice, had suddenly gone silent. Era froze as a feeling of immense dread crawled up his spine, and he locked his eyes where they were, too afraid to look up at what he might see.
Eventually he allowed his eyes to wander the slightest bit. The very moment his eyes shifted, so did the world around him, the brick path he saw through the edge of his vision suddenly gone and replaced by an unsettling grey void. Breaking out in a cold sweat, he slowly looked up and around. To his horror, he was completely and utterly alone.
Nothing. Era reeled in confusion and terror. There is nothing here.
“Gabriel.” His voice started off as a whisper, growing louder and more panicked with every syllable. “Gabriel, please. Someone. Crisilla, Jarred, Gabriel, someone, please answer me!!” He ran. It didn’t matter where he ran, he just had to run, had to search, had to find someone.
“M-My… name…” He trembled so badly, it was hard for him even to say the words, but his inner voice was too muddled to form the sentence he needed. “My name is Eravisté… I ask… please… for—”
He was cut off by a searing, rending pain that shot through his entire body, and the scream that erupted from his throat cut through the silence like a hellish wave. He fell to his knees, spasming violently and gripping his staff for what little support it gave him. He whimpered as tears fell freely from his wide-open eyes, and Era was too shocked and scared to even think.
Minutes passed. Tiny, passing thoughts flitted through his mind, and eventually he was able to move again without fearing whatever sort of power had felled him before. He shuddered violently, looking up to the non-sky and choking back his own fear. “Death… please…”
“You cry out for death? Really, I’d thought you above such things.”
Gasping, Era whipped his head around, searching desperately for the voice’s source.
“Do quit that, you’ll make me dizzy.”
“Where are you!? Please, show yourself, I’ll do anything…” he pleaded desperately.
Almost instantly, a figure materialized before him. A man dressed in ornate black-and-gold robes stood several meters ahead of Era, smirking at him through a curtain of greasy brown hair.
“Well then, ‘Era’… that is what you’re calling yourself now, right, Era?” In a flash, he sat himself down into a relaxed cross-legged position as he spoke. “You know, I’ve always wondered what you looked like without the air of nobility about you. It’s as pathetic an image as I thought it would be.”
“Who are… what are you saying? Please, I don’t… this makes no sense, where are we?”
“Is that genuine confusion in your voice? I’ll have to assume so; you never were a very good liar.” He scooted forward, close enough for Era to feel the man’s breath on his face. “You don’t even remember your own name, eh? What have you been doing these last three years?”
“Three years…?” Era’s heart raced; despite the man’s obvious hostility, he refused to let the opportunity to learn more about himself slip. “I’ve really been gone three years? And… I’m from here! And noble!? Please, please tell me more! Anything!!”
“I’m not telling you a damn thing, you raving lunatic!!” The man’s entire demeanor changed in an instant; his smirk became a roar without missing a beat, and madness gleamed in his eyes. “By what right do I owe you anything, you disgusting, usurping, piddling little mad-mage!!” He breathed heavily and stared Era down fiercely, who immediately backed off in defense.
“I… I didn’t…” he whimpered. “Sir, I remember… I remember nothing, if I caused you any harm, I—”
“Oh, now he wants to apologize!” the man announced to an imaginary audience, shooting to his feet and spreading his arms wide for a crowd that wasn’t there. “Will you just look at that!”
“Who are you talking to?” Era whispered incredulously.
“Everyone! No one! All the denizens of all the planes, look at them all, staring right at you! Right at me!” He grinned wide, spinning around and gesticulating wildly. “Such a tale of tragedy and woe, of betrayal and politics, such a story we have to weave! Why, I should have been a bard!”
His expression rapidly shifted once again, and he was squatting before Era in a flash, their noses half an inch away. “And thanks to you, I almost was.” His tone was dark, his glare icy, until he shot back up to his feet as if nothing had happened. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was almost a bard, a sniveling little street performer who had to sell himself – like a tease, like a whore – just to get by! But that didn’t happen, oh no.” He snapped his face back around to look at Era. “And it’s all thanks to you.”
“What did you… do instead?” Era asked timidly.
“I am the one asking the questions around here!!” the man roared, and Era immediately backed off again, whimpering quietly.
“And now look at where we are,” the man said, his tone normal and his posture still, “Hanging in an artificial limbo. You never did utilize your talents to their full extent, you poor thing. And just look at what I can do because I dared to take the extra step?”
He waved an arm, and a scene appeared before them of a picturesque forest with a river flowing through it. “I can be anywhere.”
Era shivered again, but fear was not the cause this time; the man had made them both appear to be on top of a mountain. “I can do anything.”
The scene changed again; they were inside a stone building, and when Era looked around, he gasped, clapping a hand to his mouth. The man was gone; in his place was Era, an Era wearing elaborate mage robes and that had a stoic demeanor. Era looked into the man’s eyes, his own eyes; they were no longer gold, but instead a shocking shade of violet-blue. When he spoke, it was Era’s voice that he spoke with: “I can be anyone.”
Era started to run forward…
“—to an inn, I’ll help you write it,” said Gabriel. The void was gone. Era was still digging through his satchel for parchment. Gabriel stood beside him. Nothing had changed, nothing was different, but Era felt like his whole world had just been torn apart and pieced back together.
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