Prologue
The old man raised his head to gaze upon the uneven land before him. Jagged rocks and boulders shone in the strong orange light of the setting sun: the seemingly endless desert of the Broken Lands lay just a few hundred feet to the south. The surface of the stone he was sitting on would have been scorching hot for any other person touching it, but not for him. The old man was used to this. The heat, the intruding sand, the blinding sun. It was all so familiar to him somehow. He had always preferred this side of the Breach.
He ran his fingers on the rough, boiling surface below him and remained seated even when three cloaked travelers approached. He repressed a chuckle when he saw wrought metal bands adorning the pitch black coats of the strangers. They must have been roasting themselves in the midday heat, dressed like that.
The figures moved swiftly among the rocks, and closed the distance between them and the old man in an instant. The wasteland around them was silent; completely cleansed of any sound of life. Only the wind howled over the Breach, but the huge gash in the earth was so distant one could only hear it if they knew what to listen to.
As the tallest of the three strangers spotted the old man sitting there alone, it stopped on its tracks for a heartbeat, then resumed its way twice as fast, leaving the other two behind. Its stride was fast, yet heavy, with broad shoulders barely undulating with each move.
The old man pushed himself off the rock and scratched his unshaven beard. It was hard to be impressed or intimidated by something he had already seen countless times in his life. The person approaching him was a warrior, no doubt about it. A fearless beast of a man that had most certainly earned himself a reputation in the Broken Lands. The old man had helped more warriors like that over to the Breach and back than he was able to remember. This one wasn’t certainly the one to make him cower.
The stranger stopped a few feet short of him. Strangely, even though the traveler wore that ridiculous metal-adorned cloak, it barely made any sound. The voice that spoke made the hair on the old man’s arm stiffen. A sound he had never heard in his life that shook his stomach and made him grip his staff even tighter.
“Are you the man named Twibald?” It was as if the earth itself around the stranger had spoken.
“I go by that name, yes.” It took him a tremendous effort to not take a step back. He took a deep breath instead and continued. “I must admit, you are dressed in quite a robe for the Broken Lands. Is that some kind of metal around your waist?”
“I was told the man named Twibald does not ask questions. That is the only reason we specifically asked for you and no one else. Has that changed?” The stranger raised his head only enough for the old man to make out the strong, square jawline of a shaven face.
Twibald tossed his staff into his other hand to mask his unease. He didn’t ask questions. Of course he didn’t ask questions. He never had! Those who didn’t mind their own business in the Broken Lands did not usually last long. Something was wrong with him today, but he couldn’t fully grasp what. The fellow was indeed scary, but Twibald had had to deal with clan leaders who drank their own daughter’s blood. Yet, there was something about this one…
“Kurdogan! Must you always be so hasty?” One of the other two travelers spoke up as they caught up. This man’s voice didn’t sound like the Seven Hells were about to break open. On the contrary, its surprising friendliness made the old man smile unconsciously. “We need him to cross the Breach one way or another. A couple of questions won’t make a difference.”
Kurdogan grunted, which felt like a smaller earthquake. Twibald wiped the smile off his face and pulled the hood lower on his head. He was starting to feel very uncomfortable. Whatever these three strangers were, he couldn’t wait to just be over with guiding them out of the Broken Lands.
“Do you have the payment?” The old man asked in pursuit of regaining his confidence and air of mysticism. “No payment, no crossing.”
The friendly figure stepped beside Kurdogan and waited. He barely reached the warrior’s shoulders, but his presence was of the same strength. The large man fumbled with the inside pockets of his cloak when he realized his companion was waiting for him.
Two pouches appeared in the man’s hand and were tossed to the ground between the travelers and Twibald. The soft howling of the wind picked up again, and the old man twitched his head to listen to the familiar sound. Something to help him take back control of the situation.
“The payment, as agreed.” The friendlier figure seemed to tilt his head slightly. “Is something wrong, Twibald? Is the amount not to your liking? Or perhaps is it the… delivery?”
The two black pouches lay ungracefully half-buried in the sand between them. Twibald would have had to walk closer and bend down to collect his payment. His payment! People usually knelt before him, all but begging him to help them cross the Breach. He’d never had to gather up his payment from the dirt.
Yet, he wanted to make the friendly stranger satisfied with him. Whoever the man was, he didn’t want to disappoint him. Twibald stepped forward and, leaning on his staff, struggled to pick up the pouches. His old spine creaked as he bent down and back up.
“Was this really necessary?”
The third voice was different, again. It was a woman’s, and it pierced through the old man’s chest and guts as he was about to straighten up. It wasn’t as terrifying and deep as Kurdogan’s, just cold. Ice cold and merciless.
The other two shifted slightly to the side to let the third stranger between them. She was roughly as tall as the friendly man; the hood of her cloak seemed to suck in the rays of the setting sun in a way that reminded Twibald of the matter the Void itself was made of.
“Enough idle chatting.” Kurdogan straightened himself even more, the metal board shifting on his waist without making the slightest sound. “Guide us out of these wretched lands, old man.”
“Of course, follow me.” Twibald nodded stiffly and turned around towards the Breach only after making a few steps with his eyes still on the travelers. He didn’t like them. He didn’t like them at all.
As they left the desert behind the pointy, broken rocks and boulders grew in size and Twibald had to slip his way through them following a sure path he had taken countless times before. Most paths led into a ravine, or trapped the unprepared travelers in passageways where one could barely turn around. Not Twibald, however. The old man knew exactly which routes to choose and which ones to avoid, so the four of them managed to make their way up a steady slope, away from the desert.
Twibald didn’t turn around once to check whether the three strangers were still following him. He knew they were even though he had hoped the sight of the now visible Breach would scare them away. Deep down he knew that was a silly thought; surely they needed so much more to be frightened.
The sun finally disappeared over the horizon to the west, leaving the land behind them in almost complete darkness. The only light was the deep red glow of the Breach ahead, constantly illuminating the northern border of the Broken Lands.
The Breach was now only a couple hundred feet in front of them. A deep gash splitting the earth itself blocked the travelers’ path and ran all the way to either side of the horizon. Few spells shattered the core of reality this much, but something drastic was needed to banish the followers of Yur Kana off the rich lands of the continent.
A spell that had been banned, then long forgotten in the centuries since.
Twibald stopped as soon as he ran out of rocks and boulders to use as cover. Only one last stretch of a gently sloping hillside separated them from the burning, bottomless abyss. On this last leg, the ground was black and oily; quick to trap the feet of careless vagabonds and never let them go.
A dirty skeleton of a short man lay almost at the edge of the slope, its hand outstretched northward. That fool did not even have the chance of looking down into the abyss, or across the Breach.
“Well? We don’t need to take a rest, Twibald. Carry on.” The woman’s dagger of a voice reached him. She didn’t even consider that maybe the old man needed to take a rest.
“We stop here.” Twibald said. When he felt the woman taking a deep breath to say something and Kurdogan stomping to close the distance, he added hastily: “This is the closest any wise man would go. We make our crossing from here.”
“Hah! Did that skeleton scare you, old man?” The warrior’s voice could have cracked the nearest boulder in half.
“That’s not it. It would be foolish for us to get any closer. The Breach itself is only a couple hundred paces wide, but there is no way to see the other side from the Broken Lands. If we would even make it to the edge of the abyss, the roaring flames would cover our vision and that vile smoke would crawl into our lungs. All of this while the Kingdom’s outposts on the other side can easily spot us and prepare to intercept us. No. We stop here. The closer I can get, the cheaper the cost of the portal will be, but only a fool would want to get closer than this.”
“If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you just insulted us and called us fools.” The second man’s voice was as friendly as ever. “But I heard you are more professional than that.”
“Stop toying with him.” The woman’s head moved around under her hood, probably to take in the view of the seemingly endless line of red flames coloring the bottom of the sky before them. “Let’s get this done.”
“Of course, my Lady.” Lady! The old man has not used that title for decades now. What was wrong with his head today?
Twibald fumbled with the first, smaller pouch in his hands. He carefully examined its contents after he poured them onto the flattest rock he could find nearby. An assortment of pieces of gold, metal, and uncut gems clinked together on the rough surface.
Twibald took his time to count the payment, then selected two bulks of metal and a sapphire shaped like a broken teardrop before shoving everything else back into the satchel. He was well aware of the cutting glare of the three travelers fixed to his back, but this time he managed to keep his composure and concentrate on the second, unopened pouch. Failing to correctly assess the quality and quantity of the payment had dire consequences when dealing with the Void.
As he picked up the second pouch, something wet sloshed inside. Twibald’s breath quickened. He knew what he had asked for, more or less, but he wasn’t sure what to expect from these three.
A severed hand dropped on the flat stone, blood dripping from the satchel next to it with a soft, but steady flow. Twibald’s eyes widened. The hand was delicate and fragile-looking. Skin as white as snow. This could have either been the hand of a woman or that of a child. No, it had to be a woman! Please let it be a woman…
“Is something the matter?” The woman stood closer to him than he remembered. “It is exactly what you required of us, is it not?”
“Yes, of course. It’s just… ah.” It had to be a woman.
“Get on with it, old man.” Kurdogan roared. “Stop wasting our time.”
“Patience.” Was all the woman said, but it was enough to silence the imposing warrior.
“Oh, come on, Izelia. Don’t spoil a man’s fun.” The friendly stranger sighed.
Izelia. So that was the woman’s name. Izelia and Kurdogan… the old man felt his mouth go dry. Those names were familiar somehow, but he couldn’t connect a meaning to them. Not yet.
Twibald focused on shutting out the strangers’ chattering and collected each part of the selected payment onto his palm. He picked up the severed hand last, stifling a grimace. He turned towards the gleaming Breach and closed his eyes.
A portal. He needed a portal that could transport four people to the other side of the abyss. He needed to recall a place not heavily guarded by Kingdom soldiers. There was a small valley hidden by a scarce line of oaks just north of Fort Golem that the old man liked to use to aid those who needed to leave the Broken Lands undetected.
The dark valley came to life in his head and, taking a deep breath, Twibald called upon the Void and focused the rush of power on the items in his hand. A cold shock ran down his arm and the air rushed out of his lungs. Something oozed in the back of his closed eyes, as if an unknown entity was scanning the old man’s body from top to bottom. It was a dreadful feeling. The Masters of Balance spent decades of their lives just getting used to not flinching when the Void measured them.
When Twibald opened his eyes again, the portal was there. An oval, as tall as a man, its surface covered in a purple substance that looked gaseous, liquid and solid at once. Inexperienced magicians sometimes incorrectly called it the Void, but Twibald knew this was only a weak, distilled version of the omnipresent entity.
The purple light was confined to a couple of feet around the hovering portal, so only the old man stood in its light, his protruding cheekbones and narrow nose giving him a skeletal look in the darkness of the night.
“Where will it lead us?” The woman, Izelia, asked. The three hooded figures still stood outside of the reach of the purple light.
“Across the Breach, as agreed--”
“Where, Twibald?” Izela tilted her head back just enough for the old man to see two eyes shimmering in an ice-blue light.
He forced himself not to step back from her, but only because that would have meant crossing the portal. “There… There is a shadowed valley about half a mile north of Fort Golem. The soldiers stationed at the Fort are only concerned with watching their southern wall, for obvious reasons. I’ve done this a lot of times already; there won’t be a problem.”
He rushed his words, eager to reassure the woman. Reassure her that he knew how to do the only thing he had been studying since he was a young lad in the House of Balance.
“This isn’t exactly what you’ve pledged to do in the House. Why wouldn’t you just lead us right into the holding cells of Fort Golem?” Izelia’s gaze held him in place this time.
From the corner of his eyes, Twibald caught the friendly man wanting to make half a step forward, but the woman’s smallest twitch of her hands stopped him. So she was the leader or, at least, she was the one holding his life in her hands right then.
“If… if my word is not enough, I can expand the offering to the Void and make one of you go through and back to check. But then I’ll need some more time and enough payment for two more trips through the portal.”
“Forget that.” Izelia said, and Kurdogan grunted. “Who said your word was not enough for me? Just give me your word.”
“Yes, of course.” Twibald wet his lips. “I promise you that--”
“Give. Me. Your. Word.” The four words swished through the air between them and pierced Twibald’s chest.
The old man yelped in pain; yet when he looked down there was no sign of an injury.
“I give you my word. You will not be caught - or killed - once you pass through the portal.” Something, or someone forced the old man to add the part about killing. It had to be Izelia, judging by… judging… judge…
“Izelia, the Judge.” Twibald’s voice was now but a hoarse whisper, his eyes wide open and unable to look away from the woman in the black cloak and piercing diamond blue eyes.
“So the man named Twibald knows. Yet he does nothing. How pitiful.” Kurdogan’s roaring laugh scrambled up the old man’s insides. “Too late to turn back now, old man. Let’s cross this damned Breach and be finally free of the Broken Lands.”
And with that, Kurdogan closed the distance to the old man in a flash and shoved him through the portal. The impact from the mountain of a man pushed the air out of Twibald’s lungs, but his mind did not register the hit. The shock of encountering the infamous generals of Yur Kana numbed his thoughts.
Izelia, the Judge. Arbiter of what was worthy enough to keep living. Then the large man could only be Kurdogan, the Eternal Warlord, the Worldkneeler. And the friendly stranger was Vanau. Vanau Honeytongue. Vanau the Backstabber.
The purple Void engulfed him. Rubbery substance crawled all over his body, covering every inch of him, outside and inside. Traveling through a portal was a terrifying experience for most people. Even the Masters of Balance often chose weeks of horseback riding over one short jump into nothingness.
Twibald couldn’t breathe. There was no air. But neither did he have lungs. Void crawled under his skin, through his skull, twirling in his organs. His whole body got briefly pulled apart, then pushed back together like a doll, mistreated by its owner. Yet, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it usually felt. The old man knew that once he fell out of the portal on the other side of the Breach, he would be side by side with three of the most feared magicians in the history of the world. Three generals that kept Yur Kana’s terrifying empire together.
And they would be free. Free of their eternal prison, banished behind the Breach that acted as a deadly lock. A lock impenetrable save by traveling through it using Void portals.
Every mage who was allowed through the Breach was severely monitored and followed. Instantly killed if caught telling the faintest lie. But not Twibald. He was the only Master of Balance who wanted to visit the Broken Lands, and few people argued with the Masters.They let him do what he wanted.
What he wanted was to collect rare materials for his rituals of Balance and test if he could create a portal through a strong magical barrier; such as the Breach.
What he did was set the world’s worst enemies free.
