Golems were created to serve. When their defenseless master lost himself in the plains of a dying realm, their duty was to follow. Not to stay behind and wait. Not when I had promised to protect him.
I was going to save him.
The human had departed for Alunra, far in the south. But far meant little when distances were dictated by magic. I had already cut the ship's moorings and let it slowly steer toward the dry desert.
All that held me back was the crowd of monsters following me.
I had barely finished to explain the situation to them. The human they wanted gone before was now one of them that they wished to see rescued as well. But they would not follow, they could not. None would leave the oasis.
Nasse was staying among them. The fire lizard kept pace with the ship, looking at me sit on the edge and said nothing.
Ahead of him was the mammoth with his butterfly pageantry.
"Will you come back?" He asked. "The oasis will wait."
"I will. You all keep the peace of the oasis."
I could not help but turn my badger mask toward the lizard. After finally finding his paradise, of course Nasse would not leave it. To go back with me meant the risk to never come back. So our trade had ended.
Still I could feel the urge in his legs. Just old habits talking.
"Take care of Caline for me."
With that it felt like all had been said. I got up, touched the ropes and let the Parao gain speed. Past the last hills and toward the end of the oasis. Black patches of grass cracked under the keels.
Right then was when a menilis started to rush after me. The monster would not have caught me but, from the bridge, I slowed down to let her reach the nets. She climbed onboard.
"Kaele!" She called, saw me get down toward her. "Let me come with you!"
For all her shouts that cat-rat was actually fearful.
"I do not mind, but do you understand what journey this is?"
"I can't abandon the guardian of the oasis!" She forced for herself. "I watched you restore the statue, I did! So I will help you find your human and save the realm!"
I walked to her, crouched and put my hand on her head. She was forced to feel herself shaking like a leaf.
This one had been born in the oasis. A monster that knew nothing but that relatively quiet, sheltered life under the mana drain. She may have spoken the truth; she may have chosen to come only to answer the churn in her belly.
"You will die. You will never return."
"We all die one day!"
Well, we were already past the crumbled monoliths anyway. "Welcome aboard, Chipie." She was a coward but I already appreciated the company.
She didn't know what to do next, stood there looking around on her hind legs. I was going to show her the amenities but first, I got interrupted.
The low, mocking voice rose from the rocky desert under our ship.
"That little rodent will be of little help to you. Teach her well and she might serve as a toy to your future game. Sew her a dress, teach her to walk on two."
"Show yourself."
The wyvern obliged. Its skull emerged ahead, twenty meters past the Parao's bow. That meant his tail was trailing behind the stern underground.
He turned around and swam on his back. Stone warped around him under the effect of anti-magic.
His tail covered the tip of his bone muzzle.
"She is of more use to me than you!"
"On the contrary, dear friend. Your good feelings have cost you a blacksmith. And now you sail toward the plains of Alunra with nothing but clay plates on you."
I had survived worse than that.
"So let us deepen our truce. I will forge you better armors than any tamed woodlice could deliver, so you may pursue the wretched to the end of the realm."
"Wear your gear and trust your good will? I might as well ride in your jaw!"
"You should. I would carry you much faster than this wooden nut. But killing requires a certain decorum, I understand. And if my craft is not to your taste, I can teach you how foolish you truly are."
He raised an arm out of the ground, brought it from the ship's side toward the bow and let the claws hang downard.
"The humans faced the same problem as you. Relics that took years to hammer would break in mere minutes. So how did they circumvent that upsetting toll?"
And he chuckled.
"What if the armor never broke?"
Under his claws reality bent and distorted until the pieces appeared, iron plates coated in silver. The arms, the legs, the cuirass and helm. All pristine before my eyes.
He shook his paw and let the pieces fly and fall on the ship's deck. The menilis shrieked and retreated all the way back to the superstructure, her breath fast and short.
"This is the armor you wore during our little council. In doing so you made it, and yourself, atemporal. Every time it breaks, fetch it back, and realize you never needed those pests around you to begin with."
I picked one piece, expecting it to sear me. But down to the runes it was indeed the same plate that should have lain broken in a crate below deck.
Fetching it? He meant opening a portal through time?
And he made it sound so natural.
But what struck me most was how that beast knew such tricks as time and void magic, yet used almost none of it. Was he a titan toying with the realm? Or did something constrain him?
"And you expect this to excuse your perfidy?"
"Not at all, dear friend. I will let you to your hunt. And when you are done, that human slain, as you gorge yourself of his blood I want you to think of the next one. For all our disputes you are still an admirable assassin. It would be a shame to lose you. Stay well."
I watched him turn back and push ahead, then rise and let an invisible ceiling crack its bones. The dust flew over the sails, skimming them, dulling their color. Soon the wyvern was gone.
Behind me the stretched cat panicked.
"Who was that?! How come there can be such creatures left in the realm!"
I picked up a few iron plates and walked to the hatch. She came rushing to me.
"And what was that about slaying the human? You would not hurt Min-Seok, you are his friend!"
"It's not too late for you to turn back."
The oasis was already fading far behind, just small shapes on the horizon. She froze and started to rub her hands.
Cowardice had many trappings. It loathed danger in all shapes, be it beasts, be it poison or fear itself. A coward, therefore, as soon as the threat was gone, needed to believe himself brave. For that reason she stood indecisive on the deck.
I had to accept that the old, broken parts of the armor were gone. And so I put the new, older ones on the stand.
Then we sailed, throughout the immensity.
Dusk fell on us and refused to leave. With the aura of the oasis gone and no human onboard, the Parao was bleeding dry. But I was confident we would make it to Alunra before it ran aground.
Or really, I had by now taken it for granted that this vessel would survive any travel. It had endured the worst and survived, gone through droughts that should have turned it to a stone mound. What made it so resilient should have been a wonder.
One explanation would have been another source of mana.
Yet there was only me and that menilis who was living her adventure on the crossed masts. Chipie would climb and leap from one to the other, then run on the poles along the open sails. To her this was an obstacle course that she welcomed.
I killed the time in a different way.
If soulmate only pools mana, it does not change the balance. Veleter would not care about it. So why record and share the oasis' creed? If the entire realm was to adopt it, what would change?
She could hear me etch words on clay tablets from behind the door. I could write and erase, write and erase, but just kept my random thoughts in a pile at a corner of the cabin.
Mana is already pooled where monsters live. Adding anchors only dilutes what's left. So what is Veleter seeing, what am I missing?
Who knew! It was magic, I was almost to the point of just throwing my arms in the air and accepting it would do whatever.
But for however complex the realm was, it followed very simple, numerical rules. Like music, there was order to be found behind this chaos. I just had to let go of my petty perspective and see the bigger picture.
The monsters fight less. They starve more. All it does is harm monsters.
It weakens them.
Suddenly, it made so much sense.
I got up and started to engrave that sentence on the wooden walls. Once, twice, seven times and not stopping. It weakened them. Veleter wanted to weaken all monsters.
The bigger picture was that that worm was a void monster, barely existing at the edge of nothingness. Of course he wanted the realm as weak as possible! He thrived in it!
The wyvern had been right, we were being toyed with by a creature that wished to turn the realm into his heaven. Spread the mana around, weaken the beasts and expand his own reach until all looked like him.
"Why did I expect anything less?" I laughed, my head on the side against the wall.
Chipie was listening from the other side of the closed door and not daring to move, as if a motion would have me notice her presence. A bit late for that.
But I pretended she wasn't there and later, once we met on the deck, I pretended she hadn't been listening. Not that this monster could understand the twists and turns of an endless quest to save a realm from itself.
Because even Veleter was selfish and so was I.
We had been sailing for a long time now. Hours, days, maybe more, maybe less. Counting time was slowing us down and I needed to reach the human as fast as possible.
"Kaele! Quickly!"
Chipie had rushed back to the study to get me out. I followed her to the deck and watched the point her paw pointed at.
A patch of green grass in the middle of the dry desert.
"I just saw it! It may be a trace of Min-Seok!"
I shook my clay head: "It's a singularity."
She did not understand that word, so I explained the ebb and flow of magic, and how it could get locked in one place for a time. Like pooling water with two hands before letting go. A natural phenomenon, as rare as it was ephemeral.
"Let's go see it!" The menilis begged.
I turned the ship and brought us near it, then stopped. She hopped down and into the grass. Ironically, the human had showed her more magic than here but still, this was a marvel to her.
And then she turned to the bunnies hopping around in that grass. Just defenseless bunnies, without any den, with nowhere to go.
Her mouth began to drool.
"Eh, I can kill them, right?" She started to twitch. "It's fine if I kill them right? This is not the oasis, there is no peace to uphold so I can kill, right?"
"Isn't that why you came?"
That was me saying yes. She looked at me with ravenous eyes, heaved a bit in anticipation. So many preys so easy to catch, her monstrous mind was reeling from excitement.
Yet she stood there, hissing a bit, her head turning back and forth between me and her preys.
Her claws were starting to gash her legs.
"It's okay!" She lied. "It's okay, there will be other times!" There wouldn't. "We have to... we have to save a human!"
And she still couldn't move, rabid and desperate.