Lost Anchorage - Going home

 

Ophelia died, but she did not end. Her body plunged from the parapet of the lighthouse, and as it hit the cold water of the sea a hundred feet below, her death was instant, but her fall had only begun. Her spirit, and that of her neverborn daughter, continued their plunge, deeper and deeper into the darkness of the Otherworld.

Their twin souls blazed like falling stars across that always-night sky, interrupting momentarily with their brilliance the forever, unmoving constellations of the stars-that-never-set.

And something noticed their fall. Something older then time, something that had floated in black oblivion since before the light of the first star, since before the beginning of creation. Something that was neither alive nor dead, but waiting. Something that craved light and warmth and life. 

There are many theories on the origins of the Atropal, the Unborn. Shards of gods that had almost been. Left over echoes of the song of creation. Shadows cast by the first dawn. Discarded miscreations of the great Creator. All just guesses and supposition. All that was actually known was that they were immensely powerful, not quite real, and that they lusted for life and light, and most importantly for substance and reality.

The twin comets of Ophelia and unborn Vangeline streaking across the sky represented opportunity for this being. A life ending, balanced on the knife edge of the transition to death. A life that had never been, caught on the boundary between being and unbeing. Potential ending and potential never started.  Like the Atropal itself. 

This realm runs on symmetry, sympathy and contagion. 

The creature stirred and reached out to Ophelia. The bargain it offered was simple. All that she had ever wanted. Power, agency, the ability to drive her own destiny. Restored life to her stillborn child. All she needed to do in return was grant the Atropal life in return. Not to destroy the world, or conquer it, no invasion of demons or ravening hellmouth, all it wanted was just to live. To borrow some of the life of the mother and child, life that was an eyeblink away from being lost anyway.

She accepted of course.

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Ophelia sat enthroned in darkness, a queen, on a parapet suspended in nothingness, hanging unsupported in dark emptiness and cold.  She had sat here for a long, long time. She had no idea how long, she had little sense of time anymore. Nothing ever happened here. She was surrounded by courtiers and servants, because some part of her thought that was right and natural, but they were entirely creatures of her will, they had no agency outside her desires. They never spoke, nor even moved less she willed it.  All was quiet and dark and cold. 

Early on she had occasionally left this place to journey through her dark domain, visit Darcy, but the longer she stayed here in the cold and the dark, the less desire she had to be anywhere else. 

She still remembered her mortal life but the memories were gradually fading as the centuries passed. Darcy, Annwyn, all the things that had enraged, terrified or saddened her seemed so far away and unimportant now. About the only thing that could reach her now was her daughter Vangeline, who still came to visit her regularly. So full of life she was, as she sat there on her stool by the throne, trilling on about her adventures in the light filled world above. 

Suddenly, something changed. The mirrors that were the only tenuous connection between this place and the rest of the universe flared briefly and strangers walked through them. Strangers. For the first time in a long age of the world, the thing that had once been Lady Ophelia stirred from her malaise and focused her attention on something new.

"Who comes here? Who disturbs my solitude?" 

"Oh look mom, it's Ricmo! He was the one I was telling you about! I played marbles with him and he is so amazingly good at marbles!"

Ricmo, ever smooth, winked, held up Vangeline's marble in one hand, then made it vanish and reapper in the other. Vangeline giggled.

Dakhir, more serious, answered the question posed. "My lady, forgive our intrusion, but we are here to rescue you".

Ophelia frowned. "Rescue? Why would I need rescue? I am not some wilting damsel in a story. I rule here.  I have everything I need here. Be gone."

Darcy spoke up. "Ophelia, my love, this is not rule, this is prisonment. This is not a place for you, nor our daughter. We must leave this dark place, together, as we always talked and wished".

Ophelia glared coldly at Darcy. Her emotions with regards to him were complex, and she had little appetite for complexity these days. 

"I do not wish to leave with you, not anymore, I have all I need here." She sat back in her throne, nonplussed, her ageless face smooth and beautiful and cold. 

" I have all I need" she reiterated. 

Radiant Lightbringer raised his head and spoke, slowly and simply as was his fashion. 

"All you need Lady? What of the light, of the sun? I too was entombed in darkness, and every moment of that time I missed his golden rays." And he spoke slowly and eloquently, about the warmth of the sun in the summertime, the glory of the sunrise, the sunlight on winter snow. And Ophelia listened and remembered days long past when she had walked under the sun and felt it's warmth on her skin.

"I do miss the sun" she said. "It is nothing but darkness here. But still, no, here I am a queen."

"What of the forests, my lady, do you remember the trees in springtime? said Whisperleaf. "The cool avenues of the great trees? The sound of the wind in the leaves? The cool springs and open meadows, the song of the birds greeting the morning?" And Ophelia listened and remembered days long past where she had walked in the forest and heard the birdsong. 

"I do miss the forest" she replied. "And the song of the birds. But still, no, here I make my own destiny. I am no longer a toy and pawn for wrinkled old men to move around a chessboard."

"But what of your daughter?" said Ricmo. "Is this really the home you want for her, here in this darkness? Marooned on this desolate island, her only companions the spirits of dead children? Think of all the wonders of the world that she could experience, the people, great cities, travel, adventure, would you deprive her of that"

Ricmo's words struck the hardest yet and Ophelia frowned. 

"I do want all those things for my daughter." she said. "But here I can protect her. Here no one will control her for their own purposes, or force her out of duty to set aside her own happiness, Or marry against her will."

Finally Dakhir spoke. "I will not speak of the wonders of the living world my lady, for my companions have spoken more eloquently then I, and with greater experience. But one thing I do know, the shadow lies. The shadow is false. It gives, only to take more away. It beguiles only to betray. The shadow is false. This power is false. It comes with strings that will bind your soul and that of your daughter. You must break free, now while there is still time." 

And Ophelia remembered a voice from long ago, and the promises it made. And the price it had asked for.

She hesitated, unsure, the cool façade of her face crumbling momentarily to reveal the torment and indecision below.

And that is when Freddy entered the fray.

Freddy liked modern music best, but that didn't mean he was ignorant of the older songs. He had trained under the best loremasters of the Valorian Ensemble, he knew the music of dozens of nations and could sing ancient melodies in a score of languages. And one of those nations was Annwyn. For while that nation may have vanished from the world, their songs and stories remained. While his companions had been talking,  Freddy had carefully selected an old old song, one that he hoped Ophelia would remember.

And now he sang it. He sang quietly, in the old Annish tongue with only his harp to accompany him. He sang of the island of Annwyn. Of the sun on the water, of the wind through the trees, the purple heather of the hills, songs of the birds, of love lost and most importantly, he sang of home.   And Ophelia listened and remembered days long past. She remembered home. And as she listened to the ancient melody a single diamond tear left a trail down her perfect cheek.

"I want to go home" she said simply, a quaver in her voice. And she stood up and left her throne behind her, and her dark kingdom, and took three steps toward the heroes and the portal back to the sunlit world

"NOOOOO" the great voice boomed across the still parapet. And from the shadows the Atropal rose.

 "You are mine! Your daughter is mine! Through her, I taste life at last! You will not leave!"

And from the shadows below, the Atropal rose.

It was huge, and grotesque. Like a misshapen embryo, the size of a house. And from it's head, clearly visible now, a long dark umbilical stretched out, binding it to the child Vangeline. 

Dakhir stared at the misshapen hulk, unafraid, and answered back. "You have no claim on the child. The child made no bargain with you." The Atropal screamed in rage.

The Sturg hadn't spoken of course during the conversation with Ophelia. He never spoke for one thing, and most of what was going on was a bit over his head. He liked the part about the birds though. He liked birds. And Freddy's song had been pretty.

But now the sitatiuion had clearly shifted from the talking "not Sturg's job" part to the killing part which most certainly was his forte. Moreover The Sturg was secretly fond of children and wasn't one to sit ideally by while some shadow monster tried to eat one.  

Quick as a striking serpent, his blade leapt from it's scabbard and  struck, not the Atropal, but at the umbilical connecting it to Vangeline.  

And the blade he struck with was Welkin, the sword of Andronicus. A paladin's sword, specifically forged and enchanted to be a bane to the undead. A weapon purpose made to be a brand against the shadow. 

The Sturg struck true.

The umbilical parted with a snap like cutting a string under tension. Both severed ends whipped around crazily like live wires spurting bright red arterial blood and two screams cut the air. The Atropal. And Vangeline. 

All was chaos and combat. The Atropal screamed crazily, striking out with cold and darkness, sucking the very life from the air around it, feeding off it. Freddy's songs turned many of the more dangerous attacks aside, his music a tenuous barrier protecting the party from the Atropal's sorcery. 

Dakhir threw hellfire, and Lightbringer brought down the very light of the sun into that dark place to combat the Unborn. Whisperleaf conjured great eagles to peck and harass the creature while Marus sent arrow after arrow into the abomination. Ozraeline struck again and again with her great scimitar.

And Ricmo completely ignored the monster and rushed to the side of his friend Vangeline, who was dying. Whatever sorcery had sustained the child these centuries and given her a shadow of the life that she had been robbed of, was fading away. The stub of the umbilical still attached to her was gushing her life blood on to the ground. 

Ricmo looked around helplessly. He was no healer, and Lightbringer was needed to set his light against the Atropal's darkness. In an attempt to at least slow the bleeding, Ricmo reached up and grabbed the stump of the umbilical that was gushing blood. And the umbilical, almost like an intelligent thing, latched on to his hand and attached to it. And faded away from sight.

The bleeding stopped, Vangeline's color returned. She sat up, restored.

Ricmo, confused, but never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, winked at her and entered the fray.

And eventually the Atropal fell. 

As the battered heroes accompanied by Ophelia, Darcy and Vangeline made their way across the Wood of Suicides, the entire landscape began to unravel around them. Deprived of the power that had been sustaining it, a piece at a time, it was collapsing into unformed darkness. 

Acting on intuition, they managed to reach the lighthouse, which was still whole. 

"This building is the lynchpin of the entire structure I think" remarked Whisperleaf. "It exists in all the manifestations we have seen. Perhaps it can lead us out"

Lightbringer led them to the topmost battlements where he lit the massive oil lamp with honest, normal oil from his pouch adding a prayer to the sun, And somehow, as the light spread, the lighthouse stairs grew upward, wrapping around the nimbus of light, up into the sky.

And leading them back to the town.

As Ophelia walked toward the quay and the ship that had long awaited her, the restless spirits of the town came to join her.  To the quay they came, silent as the fog, locking the doors behind them, taking ship at last for their long lost home.

As the ghostly ship vanished into the fog,  the heroes could hear Ophelia singing as she went.

And when the sun rose the next morning nothing remained of the town and the fortress, save a few old stones, and memories.