Why? This was the question that kept repeating in Zoltan's mind ad infinitum.
Why—everything?
This grey void. It made no sense. Nothing did.
He didn't get tired. He felt no hunger.
Time didn't stop, but it became meaningless.
They were in nothing, but they weren't floating. He could walk for—for an imaginary unit of measurement—and he still found himself right next to the Silver Mage.
The old caster didn't sleep, but he wasn't awake, either.
Now and then, he'd ask who Zoltan was, but not where they were. That was one strange case of senility, he thought, until he realised he forgot what he was thinking about, too.
It was the void itself.
His old memories were also fading, but everything that happened inside?
Things reset.
Why did he end up here? Why did his master return now, and why didn't he kill him?
Well, why would he kill him in the first place? And what reason did he have to put him here?
If there was even a purpose for all this—
And, of course, if there was a way out?
"This place has incredible mana," the mage muttered when Zoltan already forgotten him. "It is so dense, yet it flows right through me. I can't use it to cast spells, but my staff is overflowing."
That was yet another mystery of this void, and the illusionist noticed it, too. But then he forgot.
"We could be floating in mana itself," he pointed out, though he didn't know where the thought came from. "It could be a dimensional pocket my old master created, waved out of mana."
Not that this brought him any closer to a solution.
Zoltan tried his best to remember the scripts he restored, but there were too many. He worked too fast ever since Konrad had left, and he wasn't trying to understand what he had read.
He only wanted to copy them. That stuck-up little noble could've bought those books.
Konrad would've made sense of them. Not him. This was too much for good 'ol Zoltan.
And now it felt like this all came back to bite him in the back.
"So we're in a bubble," the Silver Mage said.
Again, by the time he talked, the illusionist gasped in surprise, realising he wasn't alone.
"A bubble that messes with time, space, and with our brains, too," Zoltan agreed. He paced back and—no, he remained in the same place. He had a strange urge to scream.
The old wizard hummed, measuring him up and down—
Then levelled his poplar staff at him.
"We are part of the bubble," he claimed. "It adapts to us. Keeps us in place and our minds empty. So to burst that bubble, all I would have to do is—"
Zoltan didn't have time to become terrified—before it all ended in an unglorious coughing fit.
"Now, now, old man," the illusionist snapped, "did you want to kill me?!"
He would've taken a step towards him to seize that staff, but the space didn't allow it.
The same as when he tried to walk away from him, he couldn't approach, either.
He could only hope that the same strange rule would have applied to any magic they cast as well. Otherwise, that foolish old man might have gotten some funny ideas about him.
"Everyone knows that spatial magic needs an anchor," the Silver Mage gritted out.
His coughing ceased, but he couldn't stand straight without leaning against his staff.
"Do they now?" Zoltan asked, only to make sure the wizard didn't forget what he was trying to say. "So you think it's anchored to us, and if you kill me, that will set you free?"
A sound logic, if anything, but he'd rather not put it to the test.
"Then what? What would happen if the anchor broke? Where would you end up?"
The sorcerer didn't respond, and Zoltan suspected his mind already reset.
It did not.
"Back here," he muttered. "We're both anchors. And if the Mad Caster sends someone new here, they'd become one as well. If I'm right, then I was wrong. The only one who'd leave would be—"
***
"You," Konrad barked his orders," take point, and the rest will cover. Got to get very close to the enemy, but then, the spears will reach around you, and you'll be untouchable."
At least in theory. The axemen weren't fond of being at the front.
And neither the fog nor the swamp had sharp, straight edges.
They always had to guess how far they could go without getting stuck in the mud, testing every step. The enemy could have been five paces or fifty away. They heard them from miles.
Sound was the one thing that spread faster in this nasty weather than anything.
But it also kept tricking them.
What felt close might have been way out of reach. If he thought they were quiet and sneaky, they'd run into a well-prepared ambush. But his inverted shield wall had done its job well so far.
For losing three axemen, they neutralised at least fifteen ambushers in four groups.
Vargas might've wanted to slow them down using guerrilla tactics. But he also made it obvious that this was the way towards their main forces. Focusing on the centre was the right idea.
The question was—how far they could get before they'd bog down, or get flanked?
"Is it my eyes, or is the fog lifting?" Welf whispered, his voice raspy.
"It sticks to the thickets, but once we're out of here, it'll be too clear for my liking," Konrad claimed. The whole operation depended on remaining unseen. "Any news from Bor?"
"No messengers. But he doesn't have people to spare anyway."
He might've been too harsh on the tribesman.
Konrad gave him a single squad to cover both the southern and northern approaches.
Six spearmen scattered over half the marshes so they could concentrate the rest here. They could have been long overrun by now, with the enemy on their backs.
Or his gamble could have worked, and he'd go to sleep early.
No, wait, if he failed, he could rest even earlier.
'Keep your head in the game, Konny boy,' Lily's voice echoed as a warning. 'I sense something weird ahead on that path. Be ready to fight whatever it is.'
'I thought you were not helping,' Konrad reminded her, but clutched his sword harder.
'No, it doesn't belong to the tournament,' she claimed. 'If anything, I'd like you to come back.'
'What?'
He stumbled into something.
The fog that they had only discussed as thinning out became a wall around him.
"Welf?" he whispered, but the familiar echoes didn't respond. Neither did his friend. "Report."
He couldn't have wandered off that far. A second ago, he was still behind his tight formation.
The blacksmith was within arm's reach. Forget low visibility, he was completely blind.
'Um, Lily? What was that thing you mentioned?'
No reply. The silence was perfect inside and out of his head. A rare occasion that he would have celebrated at any other time. But now, he felt more lost than ever before.
The thoughts of sleep vanished, adrenaline flooding his system.
His senses prickled, his instincts had all his muscles coil, but—
There was nothing to fight. Nowhere to run.
Whatever he did, whoever he called, it was all but silence.
Everywhere he looked, it was grey.