FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Eri had always been a tiny town perched on the rough edge of a shattered mountain. No one lived there completely by choice amongst the ramshackle buildings and the thick layers of dirty amber earth that clung like a second skin to everything. There was no distinction between residents, not when the storms from surrounding mountain range would kick up dust so think you couldn't see yourself through it. Only the mines kept the place alive, digging into the heart of a mountain long broken from wars, time and the shifting earth below. It was backwards, oppressive and a form of Hell on earth. It was where I was from.

None of us there really believed the gaunt man from the valley below us. Normally, they came up here to barter for ore and gems, perhaps with a bit of food or clothing. Eri couldn't sustain its existence alone and the gaunt man knew that. He came with promises of a different life. Of something new that would turn Eri into something more than the dirtball it was. He smiled just a little too broadly; spoke so smoothly, no one thought to question what they were seeing in his pale, outstretched hand.

"A piece of the Weave." He said, eyes glimmering in the dust choked sunlight. "A force itself. This alone could turn your barren patch fruitful, drive those storms from the edges of your town. Let you claim this as something more than a muddy patch!"

Everything that could be offered was thrust onto him. Gold, iron, gemstones of every hue; we only though of how tiresome existence had been. How we wished to be anywhere else but here. He knew our desperation, our desires, our fears and feasted on them like a king. His pack full and his eyes shining with a sinister glimmer, he nodded to us all before plunging the Shard into the center of town.

Everyone stood with held breath, locked to where they were as a dazzling display of light and color began to flood the area. The ground began to shudder, the sky began to crack and all around us it seemed as if the world was unmaking itself. Hundreds screamed and ran, some fell to their knees and prayed. Turning towards the traveler, his hand hovering just above where he had thrust the crystal, I saw him. I watched as he looked into my eyes, a now fanged smile spreading impossibly wide as he hissed.

"Run, little creatures ... run."

I could not move as those eyes stayed on me, I was only ripped from that spot when my mother snatched me up and began to run down the hill. Still, I knew those eyes were upon me. Even when there was no sign of the stranger anymore and the thick, blackened sludge of the mudslides tumbled after us with blinding speed. It engulfed my mother like a voracious beast, the force throwing me lose from her arms as I watched her panic stricken face disappear beneath the onslaught. Her arms outstretched until even her calloused hands vanished into a slimy oblivion. Behind a rock, watching the mud flow around me and staring in numb fear into an unfeeling sky, I could still feel those eyes upon me.

After that, Eri was no more. The mountain was no more. The Rupture was all that remained of my home. The Shard, if that was even what it was, fed on the latent destruction. Echoes of all the mountain had borne, eruptions and landslides from all throughout the ages, flared it to life and sent ripples across the Weave itself. Latent forces, long forgotten and locked away sprung anew. A world barely able to hold itself together was ripped apart by forces ancient and alien.

Of course, life adapts. It goes on. Most of those at Eri never existed beyond their last breath. The rest of us were herded around, some to tell what had happened and some to be examined for its effects. None had been touched by the Weave since before the mountains stood. Now we had been bathed in it. Those who were cut open suffered the worst of it. Falling into the hands of greedy merchants or covetous nobles; divvied up in the hopes that their fragment would grant some boon, understanding or control over the Weave. The children, like me, were herded from town to town like cattle. Some were taken away to homes and fell silent. Others escaped into the woods and whispers of savage creatures, twisted by the Weave-touched, were said to walk the paths now.

I was, as nothing. No signs of the Weave were on me. No seared flesh in ancient patterns; nor wisdom beyond my years. Small, silent and ordinary I was and as years passed, so I remained. Orphanages gave way to boarding houses and the promise of family gave way to the question of gold. I had no skills, barely any teaching and no one to take me in. I lived on charity at the street corner or the kindness of those who had meals and a roof to share. I watched, apart, as the world came down from its tragedy and slowly came together.

First amongst the Laws were the Practices. The Weave was a powerful force; pure creativity that suffused everything. To understand it, the Practices were formed. Each one touched on an aspect of the Weave and bound those who sought its teachings to their understanding. Once a Practice had become yours, the others were barred. No one person would be allowed to have such breadth of knowledge. Such was the dictate of the Laws and no one wished to break them for fear of what happened at Eri.

Second among the Laws were the Forbidden. The Weave had great power and some aspects were deemed too dangerous. Chief among those was the art of Transmutation, the changing of things. Too easily used to manipulate, it along with Illusion and Necromancy were Practices punishable by death. No tomes were written about them, no schools would be raised to spread their teachings. From the forgotten they came and to the forgotten they would return.

Perhaps it was because of where I lived, how I barely existed that I came to know of these things. Lingering on the edge of cities, watching with eyes that no one wished to look upon; I learned more in my time on the street than any tiny schoolhouse room or dusty book could have provided. Though, it was of little use to know such things when hunger consumes you. It was because of this, however, that I learned of a man to be put to death.

He was a noble, before being stripped of his title, with a house on the edge of town; a collector of things rare and valuable, as most nobles are. He was tiny whip of a man, with a rat-like nose and a desire to rise above his station. His thin neck was set to be snapped at the end of a noose for the attempted murder of a rival. Some exotic poison in their food, or hidden creature to feed its venom into the rival, I had heard. None of this was as much interest to me as the fact that his house was empty and far enough from the watch to catch a night's sleep uninterrupted.

I stole away in the night, haggard and worn, to the iron gate before the noble's house. Though guards stood watch at the fore, none were at the rear as I scrambled my way over and onto the lush lawn below. Oh such heaven, to feel soft earth beneath me rather than hard. I almost took to slumbering there, beneath a thick oak tree, contented enough. However, a belly full of food and the promise of silken sheets was too sweet a deal. I would sit in a cell for a week, maybe two, for my troubles but a night of feeling like a person again would be worth it.

I managed to force the kitchen window with a fallen branch and wedged it open wide. Stumbling through, I slipped as me foot tried to gain purchase on the basin and tumbled to the clay floor below. My body ached but I pulled myself aloft and gained my bearings. Before me, the room was near pitch black. Some moon and starlight streamed through the window, enough for me to see the soft glow of a smooth stone inset in the wall. Brushing my fingers along it, the sputtering of five lamps bathed the room in soft, amber light.

The Weave's eruptions lead to a renaissance in the world. With such forces at their command, many began to realize the potential of their application. Smokeless torches, doors locked with a word and even unseen guards to turn away would be burglars now stood in market stalls by the fresh fish and plump tomatoes. No noble would be bothered with ash and soot if they could fill their home with sunlight at any time of the way. While I'd often heard of such things, I had not seen them in practice. The light, however, quickly became a distant memory as my eyes lit on the counters and cupboards around me. Salted meat, fresh bread, sweet apples and juicy plums as far as the dim light could reveal. I feasted on it all, uncaring of the consequences beyond quieting my belly.

I staggered from the kitchen like a drunken man, clutching my swollen belly and whimpering as my calloused feet brushed against the fine rugs that lined the floor. My life could have been forfeit from this little adventure and I would still die a happy man. That in mind, I wandered about the house, hand clutching the first fresh fruit I had tasted in years. This house was a palace; rooms upon rooms each more lavishly decorated than the last. As I continued to feast upon the sweet flesh of plums and apricots, I stumbled throughout. Of the greatest curiosity to be was a small, oaken door beneath the stair. Untouched by the guardsmen and quite plain in its look, it both stood out and seemed completely forgettable at the same time. I'd heard of such things, locks that dissuade the robber through disinterest, though I was surprised to see through such a thing. Regardless, as long as the spell held, that could mean a place for me to hide away; somewhere quiet and safe from the streets and guards and the cold.

Dropping a plum or two, my juice soaked hand fell to the handle and I pulled the door open. A straight set of stairs disappeared into the darkness below and a smile cross my lips. Scooping up my lost spoils, I took two steps down and swiftly shut the door tight. My hand even fell to the lock and twisted it with a click. Giddiness once again bubbled to the fore. I could perhaps live here for weeks or months if I was careful and quiet!

Groping around my hand fell to another smooth stone and the hallway was bathed in light. The stairs seemed to lead down an impossibly far distance before reaching a far more humble study. Humble for a noble at least. Desk and chairs were set around the room with books stacked thick in the rich, mahogany shelves. No food that I could see, though there was a small closet with some clothes and tools and another room to serve as a sort of chamber pot. I laughed that nobles thought so little of magic now that they would wipe their asses with it rather than deign to use what was provided to the rest of us. It seemed clear that one would spend a considerable amount of time in this room and not want to be disturbed. I knew well from my life that a hungry belly can keep all other thoughts at bay, so figured there must be a pantry somewhere.

I set my bounty of fruit in a large, empty bowl on one of the smaller tables and proceeded to remove my garments. If I was intending to stay here, I refused to cling only to survival. I washed myself in the basin, a wave of my hand produced clear, clean water to cleanse years on the street from my face and hands. I scrubbed the filth from myself as best I could and threw my old clothes into pile on the cold tile floor. After pulling a robe and some slippers from the closet, I faced my reflection in the mirror. It was the first time I had seen myself outside of a muddy puddle or in a window in ages. Creases and lines dotted my face all over. My hands, even cleansed, were dark and calloused. It reminded me that just as before, this could only be a respite; a brief sojourn before life would break down that charmed door and throw me back out into the gutter. Looking away I shook my head of these thoughts. The duration didn't matter. I had found comfort and serenity. Given the chance I would die a happy man down here.

I took to exploring quickly. A hiding place if I were discovered would be best and knowing the room was paramount. That and if I could not steal up the stairs to wrest scraps from the kitchen should someone else come to live here, I would need to find some way of providing for myself. Behind the main part of the study was a bookcase that seemed, out of place. The tomes upon it, as I reached to touch them, were not books at all but carved wood. Reaching to the space on the side, I found a small recess that I pressed with a click. The bookcase swung loose from the wall and parted as if it were a door to reveal a chamber beyond.

Much smaller than the study and lined with barrels upon barrels, a singular item drew my gaze almost immediately. A pedestal, broad and carved from smooth marble, and atop it an opened book. I drew closer, reaching out to touch the pages and glancing along the words. The letters had been easy enough for me to learn but the whole sounds, the words themselves always seemed muddled up. Running my finger along a phrase, I tried to make sense of it. My mouth moved slowly with each letter, stumbling over the speech as if my tongue were bound. At the final word, I felt a shiver as if a rush of cold air flooded the room from some unseen crack and turned to look down the hall.

"You ran just far enough, little one."

He stood there, those eyes locked on me has they had been so many years ago. That sense of being watched, being followed rushed back to me and filled all those hazy memories with a sharp clarity. He had been the reason ... for all of it. It was his intention. Just like this room, he cloaked me in obscurity so that I would rot just enough. It was not enough to lose my family, my home ... he needed me to stay in the streets. Glancing back to the book, the letters were clear now, the writing comprehensible. He drove my tongue, my finger to summon him here.

That fanged smile spread across his face once more, parting his cheeks just a little further than they should. "You awaken. Ooo, such a prize I knew I had in you. The other ones, they might just as easily have gotten it but you, my little precious gutter snipe." His hand brushed along my cheek softly, "you exceeded my wildest hopes and dreams."

With a single thrust of his hand, he pushed past the robe, past my flesh and bone and reached inside me to grasp something. It had always been there, I felt as those thin, bony hands closed around it. That was where the Weave had touched me; so far beneath my skin that none could see. A sharp pull and I felt it break free from somewhere inside, my body convulsing for a moment as if her had ripped out my still beating heart.

Still wet with my blood, he held it between thumb and forefinger; a perfectly cut jewel. It looked like the shard he had brought only cut by a masters hand. It glistened in the dim light, perfect and unblemished even beneath the steady drip of my life's blood. My hand fell to my chest as I felt the rapidly expanding warmth cross my chest. Thick and syrupy, pulled my hand away covered in murky crimson.

"About that. Sorry." He smiled again, "these sorts of things don't come loose easy. Maybe have pulled or twisted a little too much. No worries though, you did your part."

Coughing as I fell to my knees, "what ... what part in this, you monster!"

"Holding my little, perfect precious here. A single, solid sliver of the Weave. Oh, what I had was close, so very close but it was not enough. Wrested it from some dusty cave. It was only attuned, could only resonate with the Weave. What it couldn't do is rip it asunder."

"who ... what ..." The room began to spin around me.

"Who? Why, I am Chaos. The Unmaker. The Upheval. The End." He punctuated the last word with a dark, echoing tone. "And what, what could I possibly want with this? Why, to unravel the Weave itself. To set the world alight so I can watch it burn amongst the stars! Why, did you have another intended purpose?" His laughter pealed through the hallways, sharp and biting like a hundred tiny stings. "You, who didn't even know such a thing grew inside you? You, who burgled a house to have a morsel to eat?" My throat tensed as I felt his hand close around it. "Tell me, gutter snipe, do you need the tree once you have harvested the fruit? Can you cut the flank from a cow and expect it to live?" Gurgling, between blood and air, I tried to speak or scream as the hand closed tighter around my neck.

"You are just another, stupid, pitiful fool like the man who lived here. Tampering with things you do not understand. Bumbling through the richness around you to try to hide the fact that you ARE NOTHING!" Spittle sprayed across my face as he screamed the last words. "This," he held the crystal inches from my eyes, "is the true power. The power to make and unmake, to change and destroy. You were just the meat vessel it needed to grow. You think you can do anything?" He laughed and threw me bodily back onto the pedestal, shattering it and sending me and the book tumbling to the ground.

Slumped against the broken shards, the book lay open in my lap, pools of crimson rapidly spreading across the pages. Unable to move, my eyes remained upon those pages as words, all the words were spread out before me. This was a tome of change, a forbidden work of Transmutation. I understood now, could see it clearly where I couldn't before. My gaze drew upward to the shard and the covetous hands that held it and then back down to the page.

This was how he could survive down here. With a few words he could turn water into wine or wood into roast. Even the air could condense into sweet honey; and a jewel into dust. As before, my mouth moved slowly, burbles of breath pushing through the blood in my throat. Each letter, just like before. Each word, just like before. Drawing closer and closer to the end, my eyes shot up to the jewel.

He turned to me, eyes wide with fear. The same expression I had seen in my mother's gaze. The sense that there was no turning back, there was no escape. That the world he knew was to be unmade. The final syllable fell from my lips and in a moment, the gemstone flew apart into glistening shards. The force threw him down the hall and against the far door as the dust glistened and sparkled there, hung silently in the air for a moment. I would die, I thought, but he would not have his prize. I drew one more breath, forcing air into my bloodied lungs with a choking gasp. The glistening dust before me shuddered and shivered, swirling for a moment before slipping past my lips and down, down inside me. Like sand, it dug into my neck and cut into my lungs leaving me shocked and shuddering until my eyes flew open once more.

He had gathered himself from the floor, scrambling towards me when I noticed the gossamer strands all around him. They danced from my fingertips and wafted in an unseen breeze all around me. I could see the weave itself, its warp and weft, and most of all, I could see the way to twist it. Plunging my hand into my chest, I grabbed the hidden threads and twisted them tight once more. A few coughs of blood fell from my lips as my lungs once again took in clean air. I could feel each tiny crystal from the shard pulsing through my veins and drawing on it, I pulled myself to my feet.

"No. NO. NONONONONNONONONONOONONONN!" His mouth began to move without thought, without action. Fear had both hands around his throat and I loved it.

"You want change. You want unmaking?" My hands flew out to the threads around him, around myself and around anywhere I could grasp. I took a hold of every spin I could and lashed them around him. "Then change what you are, unmake your form. I release you from the torment of your wholeness, of your understanding. This world won't burn! It will change!"

I tore his form across a thousand threads, a million threads, I could not count them all. Every ounce of what he was, I drove to the farthest corners of the weave until only the tiniest resonance remained. The shard within me flared to life and with all the remaining echoes of Eri and those that had died, I bound Chaos so far into the weave it could not feel the resonance of its closest neighbor; and in that instant, I felt the shard burn out of me.

When I awoke, I was where I remembered. The robes were clean of my blood, the room was undisturbed. Even the tome had returned to its proper place. I pulled myself to my feet, stumbling back into the study and once more to the water basin. I drank deeply, my throat parched, and turned my head upwards. With a start, I noticed that two things had changed. One, I looked as though I had never seen the street. My skin was smooth and without blemish. The callouses had faded from my fingertips and my once twisted and yellow teeth were now straight and clean. Even the rags I had worn were no longer. Second, in the center of my forehead, was a perfectly smooth gemstone. Cool to the touch and quite impossible to remove, it was a curious sight indeed. I grabbed a sleeping cap from the closet and quickly covered it from view.

Seeing what I had seen, I found myself unwilling to stay another day within these walls. I gathered up what I could, wrapping books and clothes in a tablecloth, and set to the stairs before I stopped. Glancing back down towards the tome, I felt a draw. It had helped to save me and I knew what was contained within could still unmake the world. I bit my lip and rushed back down, securing it in my bundle. Perhaps there was a charm to undo my latest accouterment. I rushed back up the stairs and in my haste to leave, burst out the front door. That was when I witnessed my next shock.

Two guards spun to face me as I exited, their eyes both a jade green with a jagged pupil running through the middle. Thick orange fur, cut through with black stripes, framed their broad faces and wide, pink noses as their clawed hands reached to the weapons at their hips. Long, thin tails lashed behind them in agitation and alert as they called out to me.

"Trespasser! Halt in the name of the law!"

The guards were exotic beasts, indeed all four that I could see were striped animals standing and walking like, like people. Chaos had changed the world and in my ignorance, I did not know how much of a change it would be. My thoughts flashed through, to the book, to the jail and finally to escape. To simply leap into the sky and vanish.

The gem upon my head flared to life, glowing even through the thick velvet of my cap. I felt a wave rush over me, my head thrown back as my whole body seemed to shudder and shift. Ripping from my back a giant pair of membranous and scaled wings fluttered to an enormous span. Deep blue scales spread across my arms like a rash. My knees buckled and twisted as thick, sharp talons burst from my slippers. My own tail sprung thick and powerful from my haunches as with a final cry, my lips and face curled and shifted into a wedge-shaped reptilian muzzle. The guard drew back, muttering to themselves as I finally came back to my senses. I looked to each, to the tatters of clothing around me, to my bundle and finally to the sky. A crooked smile crossed my lips as with a crouch, I propelled myself upwards and into the clouds beyond. I was now finally free.