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    Ein closed his eyes and rubbed his temples as he drew in a deep breath. Sarien and Kax listened patiently as he recalled what happened during his long-awaited reunion with his wife.


    “They wore masks.”


    “Who?” Sarien asked.


    “All of them. Well, most of them.”


    Ein sat in silence for a moment, calming himself before continuing. “There were Slayers and Wayfarers both. I recognized your mother and went to embrace her, but she shied away.”


    “Why?” Sarien asked.


    “I don’t know,” his father admitted, shrugging. “She wore a mask and robes covering her, but I’d recognize her anywhere. It was not a hero’s welcome, I’ll tell you that much.”


    “How did you end up in a void?” Kax asked.


    “They put me in there, of course. One of the others ordered my death right there on the spot, but Anja argued for my imprisonment instead. She wouldn’t listen to a word I was saying, none of them would.”


    “Why would she act like that?” Sarien asked.


    Kax kicked at the obsidian dust, the remains of Wyndemir’s prison. “Why was she even here?”


    Tears formed and Ein rubbed his eyes furiously. “She must be their prisoner. Either that, or she’s infiltrated them to put an end to this madness!”


    His eyes widened. “Wyndemir! There were supposed to be Slayers and Wayfarers here to keep the Prime’s void stable after the Halvgudar escaped.” Ein’s voice rose until he was shouting, pointing at the raised platform where the obsidian cube used to stand.


    “Halvgudar?”


    Ein waved the question away. “Eld, Ocea, you know them. We have to find the released Prime and, and--”


    “Wyndemir is contained for now,” Sarien said.


    “What do you mean, contained?”


    “Your boy here stopped that mad creature from coming into Maydian,” Kax said, standing up on his tippy toes to put his arm around Sarien’s shoulders.


    “How?”


    Sarien showed Ein his gray flame.


    Ein’s eyes bulged. “What is that? What did you do?”


    “The white flame and the black combined when I tried to repel Wyndemir from Maydian. I think they were always meant to be one.”


    His father blinked several times.


    “One thing at a time, now,” Kax interjected. “Anja, one of the legendary heroes. Mother to my friend here. Your wife! Had you imprisoned in Wyndemir’s void? Why?”


    “Obviously, to save me.”


    “Save you?” Sarien asked.


    “If she hadn’t imprisoned me, the others would have killed me. I’m stronger than most, but not so strong I’d best five other Slayers working together.”


    “What were they doing here in the first place?” Sarien asked.


    “I assume it had to do with Wyndemir.”


    Sarien looked at the dust at his feet. Wyndemir’s former prison. Made sense.


    Ein reluctantly peeled his eyes from Sarien’s gray flame and looked to the raised platform. “Perhaps they were here to examine Wyndemir’s prison to see why it finally failed after all this time. Even with Eld and the rest gone, the prison should have held for much longer.”


    “I don’t think that’s it,” Kax said. “Not with a bunch of dead fellows by the gate.”


    Daisy barked.


    “Dead? Here?” Ein spun on his heel. “What did they look like?”


    “Like you or me. Only they wore tunics with those emblems, a black light on white background.”


    “Slayers,” Ein whispered, then he set his jaw. “We have to go see your mother, Sarien.”


    “We can’t.”


    “Can’t?”


    “There is something in the way. A blockage in the wayfaring, almost like a barrier.”


    “Then we’ll go to one of the other penitentiaries. The lesser ones assist in maintaining the stability of larger prisons like this one. We use the weaker offenders to hold the greater ones.”


    Ein gestured to the other cells. “That’s why we kept the Halvgudar here, close to Wyndemir’s void, to use their,” he gestured in the air, as if looking for a word, “weight in the world, if you will, to keep the Prime in check.”


    “What is Halvgudar?” Sarien asked.


    “It’s just our word for them. Demi-gods, roughly translated. They are created from the Prime’s essence, almost like children.”


    “So Wyndemir’s prison weakened when the other gods, sorry demi-gods, Eld, Ocea, Taera, and Anea escaped?”


    “It did.”


    “How did they end up in Maydian?”


    “Halvgudar can travel the wayfaring with ease. They are an integral part of our worlds, so they can travel freely. How they escaped is anyone’s guess. It shouldn’t have been possible. Then again, I didn’t think you could release someone once they’re imprisoned either.”


    Finally, Sarien was getting some straight answers. Too bad he couldn’t make heads or tails of them.


    “So, they really are like gods?”


    Ein shrugged. “You could argue that. What is a god? I’ve only ever seen them as troublemakers.”


    “You indicated that there are more than one Prime?”


    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    “There are.” Ein walked up and wrapped his arms around Sarien. “I promise I’ll teach you everything I know, and you need to tell me everything about that gray flame of yours, but for now, we need to leave.” He eyed Daisy but didn’t say anything about the dog.


    Kax got down on one knee and scratched behind Daisy’s ear. “Where is this other prison?”


    “It’s not exactly a place. Like here. A place outside a place, you could say.” Ein caught the skeptic looks from Sarien and Kax. “I’m not being obtuse on purpose, I promise! This isn’t my area of expertise, you see. I capture those who end up here. I don’t guard them.”


    Kax raised a brow. “Shouldn’t you know how your own prison system works?”


    Ein shrugged. “Didn’t pay attention to the boring parts. Doesn’t matter where these places are located, since we always needed Wayfarers to travel to them.”


    “You work together?”


    “The Wayfarers and the Slayers have always kept a solid alliance,” Ein intoned, as if reading from a dusty old book. “It’s time to leave. I’m afraid this might put your ability to the test, son.”


    “How do you mean?”


    “You don’t know where we need to go and I have no clue either.”


    Sarien considered the problem, and found a possible answer in his newfound, and deeper, understanding of the gray flame, and his own connection to the wayfaring.


    “You told us these prisons are connected to one another?”


    “That’s right.”


    “And there are several lesser prisons created to maintain this one?”


    “Right again,” Ein said, his eyes glittering. “Sounds like you have thought of something.”


    He heard a tinge of pride in his father’s words.


    “I think I can follow that connection to where we need to go.”


    The gray flame roared to life again in the palm of his hand, and Sarien closed his eyes to concentrate. Breathing in deep, he let his senses roam the massive chamber, and quest through the obsidian material imprisoning the poor souls within.


    Sarien sensed the power used to create the prison. He waded through the slaying that bound it all together and found strands of the wayfaring.


    He spotted one and soon began to see several, and then more still, until the whole room and the building turned bright enough to hurt his tightly clenched eyes. He realized that the wayfaring was used just as much as the slaying.


    Following the white strands, Sarien’s mind rose through the ceiling and up into the sky. Up and up, he followed. Faster and faster, he went. He saw thick trunks of wayfaring coursing through the universe, connecting everything in one way or the other. He marveled at the sight for a brief moment before tearing his gaze from the wonder to focus on the task at hand. By now, locating the sixteen lesser void prisons proved as easy as drawing breath.


    Reluctantly, Sarien pulled away from the wonder and opened his eyes.


    He couldn’t keep the awe out of his voice. “I saw it.”


    “Saw what?” Kax asked, stuffing something into his coat pocket.


    “Everything.”


    Ein gave him a knowing smile. “I’ve read accounts from some of the greatest Gatekeepers out there. They’re often the most powerful of Wayfarers, but something tells me you have them beat with that gray flame of yours.”


    “What I saw…I don’t think I can ever…” Sarien shook himself, refocusing. “Did you have a specific void in mind? I found them all.”


    “Any will do.”


    Sarien’s flame blossomed, and he reached through the wayfaring and touched their destination. With it firmly in hand, a gateway blinked open with no resistance. “That’s strange,” he said, looking through the opening.


    Ein stepped up to the gateway. “What is?”


    “In Maydian, just touching the wayfaring was a struggle, and opening a gateway nigh impossible.”


    “Anja had that problem too,” Ein said. “She thought it was the Wayfarers keeping Maydian suppressed. Makes sense it would be easier once you broke free of your home world.”


    “Are we going or what?” Kax asked, one foot through the gate.


    The three arrived at their destination by taking a single step. A single step that brought them into a world of chaos.


    With their backs to the smaller prison, they stood before what appeared to be an all-out war. Soldiers wearing the now familiar black-and-white emblem struggled against a horde of nightmare creatures. The soldiers were outnumbered and outmatched. It didn’t take a tactical mastermind to see how this would end.


    Men and women screamed as sharp claws and teeth dug into their flesh. They scrambled to protect the prison. Sarien knew it contained beings that could not be allowed to escape.


    Kax darted to the side and then leapt over the heads of the soldiers.


    Ein’s face was a mask of horrified surprise, but he gathered himself and bouts of flame leapt from his hands, crashing into the mass of monsters. Defenders looked back over their shoulders and rallied at the sight of Sarien’s father. A few Slayers fought alongside, holding up orbs of darkness that absorbed the surrounding light. The monsters brave or stupid enough to approach the Slayers fell limp to the ground as empty husks.


    A Slayer was killed when a winged beast swooped in and crashed into her, both of them dead instantly on impact.


    Gigantic, man-shaped creatures of undulating raw flesh advanced on the defenders, shrugging off Ein’s fire. They broke the defenders’ line and threatened to reach the closed gate before Kax appeared on the shoulder of one of the monsters in the vanguard. In the blink of an eye, its head dropped from its shoulders. Then another, and another, as the Eldian showed off his own astonishing prowess.


    Sarien lit his gray flame, stoking it from within until it blazed in the palms of both of his hands. The tremendous power he wielded caused the monsters pause before Sarien watched their eyes shimmer with purple and the fighting resumed.


    Defenders were cut down left and right, the lines overwhelmed by the sheer number of opponents. Gray fire billowed through the opening in their lines, consuming the creatures who dared stand against Sarien. He felt someone prod at his connection with the wayfaring and the void. It was nothing. A gnat trying to stymie a storm.


    Holding his gray flame, Sarien sensed Kax flitting between monsters and putting an end to each. He also sensed the Slayers among the defenders, and to Sarien’s surprise, he found more among the attackers. Slayers and Wayfarers alike.


    White light blasted at him from several points, but even together they could not hold him. More defenders fell, their inner selves burned away and trapped by Slayers hiding among the monsters.


    The gnats stopped buzzing around his flame, when they realized that they could not shake the foundation of his power. Instead, they used it against him.


    A gateway opened in front of him and Sarien watched helplessly as his attack was re-directed into a crowd of unsuspecting soldiers and two of the defending Slayers. They all perished before he could cut off his gray flame. His mind filled with their screams.


    Dizzy, Sarien took a half-step away from the fray. Something crashed into him with enough force that he lost his concentration. The gray flame withdrew.


    Pain lanced down the side of Sarien’s body, and he reflexively grabbed for the wound. His hand came away bloodied. When he finally managed to get up, he found Daisy standing between him and a lithe creature, not unlike a luison. The main difference was that it was larger and with a head reminding him of a flayed rooster.


    Daisy sat without moving, firmly between Sarien and his attacker. More monsters closed in, and Sarien desperately struggled to regain his focus enough to rekindle his gray flame.


    "No!” His father bellowed from somewhere, and suddenly Ein was by Sarien’s side, holding up both hands in front of him, palms forward. Fear and rage warred in his expression as wind whipped between his outstretched hands.


    Monsters kept coming, but they were met with a gale powerful enough to topple forests. The heaviest of the attackers stood fast, but all others were forced back. A few hurtled through the air. Those closest to Sarien were torn apart by the sheer force in Ein’s blast of wind. It was like something out of the stories told about Asmund the aeromancer.


    It wasn''t until that moment that Sarien finally saw his father for who he truly was, a man of legend.


    ”Are you hurt, son?"


    Hearing those words warmed Sarien. "I''m fine."


    He got to his feet and managed to remain standing, his gray flame returning to him.


    "We have to fall back. They will overwhelm us soon."


    "There are Wayfarers and Slayers among them," Sarien said, as Daisy trotted up beside them.


    Ein started them off toward the open gate. "I know. I saw."


    The monsters were regrouping and slowly making their way back across the field of battle. The few defenders still standing were hastily retreating.


    As they hastened toward the gate, it began to close. Inch by inch, the slab of obsidian black metal moved into place in a last-ditch effort to prolong the inevitable.


    With Sarien safely inside, Ein turned to an elderly man with a Slayer’s patch on his chest. "What is happening here? How are those monsters even in this place?”


    The older slayer, a man of medium height, gray hair, and straight of back frowned up at the taller and younger slayer like he was speaking out of turn.


    “Mind your tone. You know as well as the rest of us that there is only one way. Wayfarers. The treacherous white light has finally shown itself for what it truly is. A blight upon existence.”


    Behind them, the obsidian black gate slid closed, leaving a multitude of defenders, and Kax, trapped outside with the enemy.