It took a long pull from his flask to settle Roland's mind, and to recall the ritual for contacting the Eva'scarra.
To say the Eva'scarra were dangerous was like saying an active volcano was hot. They existed in the Nether Never; a plane, or dimension, which was all twisting shadows and mirror images. Somewhere between life and death, darkness and light. The beings of the Nether Never hoarded knowledge like dragons did treasure, and the Eva'scarra were at the top of the knowledge chain. They would occasionally share that knowledge with the outside world, but they always demanded a steep price. And the Eva'scarra rarely revealed what that cost would be until it was far too late to turn back.
Roland walked along the pathway leading out of the city, stepping off it and as soon as the sentries were out of sight. He needed to find the perfect location to begin the ritual. Seclusion was key, as what he was about to do was not strictly legal.
He stepped into a ring of trees far outside the city and began the laborious process of setting up a projection ring. The ring was a magical circle that would afford him far more protection than the sphere he'd used the first time he'd sought the Eva'scarra. He sent up a scything ring of wind with a simple hand gesture. The blade clipped and tossed leaf and limb away clearing a perfect circle in the canopy above. He was more prepared this time. He had to be. The last time, his visit to the Nether Never had almost cost him his life.
......
15 years ago
Roland had squeaked by his final course and at long last graduated from the School of Prestidigitation, Experimentation, Linguistics, and Learning. The day-long ceremony had been held at the Mage Tower of Enkate; the female half of the twin gods of magic. He'd once been the most promising of the apprentices, but after enduring the trying years he'd barely graduated. He looked haggard and drawn, as would become his usual appearance, but he didn't yet have the slump of the downtrodden in his shoulders. Today he was finally free of the academy and its taskmasters. Free of the ever-watchful professors, free to have a single moment to himself. The thought gave him his first glimpse of happiness in a long time.
The constant studying, at the behest of his demanding mentors, in combination with his strange ability to remember every spell he heard or read, had placed a lofty burden on his young mind. The constant dull headache had evolved into a throbbing migraine over this last year, and he had yet to find anything that could help him cope.
But fortunately, he had a plan. And now that he was free of scrutinizing gazes he could finally put it into action. He'd come across some information on an ancient race called the Eva'scarra who possessed immeasurable wisdom. While researching his, as Talazar described it, "mediocre" final presentation Roland was able to sneak a few texts from the library and learn more about them. He had cobbled the pieces and excerpts together until he finally figured out how to reach them, and he planned to do exactly that. Despite the cryptic warning messages he'd read.
Roland walked the streets of Raxal heading towards the outskirts of the city seeking an abandoned building. He would need complete isolation to attempt communication as far reaching as the Nether Never. The sun was well past its apex when he spotted a suitable two-story building far enough away from prying eyes. The roof was slumped and thick vines of ivy had claimed the walls, encircled the building, and were slowly pulling it apart brick by brick. A treetop was blooming out from the center of the roof, its thick trunk disappearing into the building below. No one would bother him here.
Roland roamed around the outside of the building and slipped into the alleyway behind it. He strolled up towards the back door and found it to be unlocked. After a quick glance over his shoulder confirming he was alone, he stepped inside.
As soon as he heard the door shut behind him Roland dropped the locking bar and sprang into action. He rushed forward shoving all of the furniture, paper, and bric-a-brac that was strewn about the floor out of the way. Once done, he strode over to the tree in the center of the room. He called up an anchoring spell with muted flashes of blue light a thick coil of ghostly pale rope lashed itself around the tree and his waist. It would be his only way back from the Nether Never so he double and triple checked that it was secure. When he stopped touching it, the rope faded from sight, but he still felt it around his waist.
Finally going to be free of this Abyss, this pain. He thought.
As the last rays of the sun filtered through the hole in the ceiling and the interior settled into the shades of twilight, he had a brief moment of doubt. He questioned if he could go through with this, there was more at stake than just his life. The Eva'scarra claimed souls as well as flesh. Another crippling throb at his temple quickly banished his doubts and steadied his resolve. He had to stop the pain.
As a final ward against the unknowns of the Nether Never Roland cast a sphere of protection around himself. The softly glowing white aura would serve as both a shield and a supply of breathable air, should he need it. With his preparations complete he cast the spell sending himself to the Nether Never.
The sensation was difficult for him to describe or recall. One second, he was sitting in the shop chanting the end of the incantation, and the next nothing. Not the faint breeze that had been blowing through the cracks in the old building. Nor the bustle of the city outside his hidey-hole. There was no sound at all. All he felt was a penetrating sense of wrongness.
The air was too thin. The silence too absolute.
Everything was like an oily shadow fading in and out of existence. Outlines of buildings blurred and shades of people walked around him, flew over his head, melded with the surroundings. He was standing in the middle of a street as near as he could tell, or at least a poor reflection on one. As he watched transfixed, he realized the shadows were moving in time with his heartbeat. Or his heart was beating in time with the shadows. The bodies of the beings around him were twisted reflections of those back on Paragore, and the longer Roland watched them the more unnerved he became. He could feel bile rising in the back of his throat until he had to avert his gaze.
With a deep breath, he drew in more power, bolstering his nerve as well as his defenses. Reinvigorated he sought out his quarry, examining every shadow and shimmer until he could separate it from the whole of the street. Some of the shades, attracted by the surge of power, broke away from the crowd becoming more solid as they approached. There was no proper description Roland could conceive of to compare them too. They were a mass of writhing shapes and sounds always changing and shifting. Save for the eyes. Those twin slits were a myriad of color, swirling in hypnotic maddening patterns. Roland had to shut his own eyes from their assault.
That was when the voices came.
They began as little more than faint echoes. Then the sounds grew louder and louder until the voices were shouting inside his head. They promised things to the fledgling mage. Secret things that only in his darkest moments had he wished for. Dreams and desires that he'd buried so deep, and were so sinister, that he had never dared to voice them aloud. And to get all those sweet promises he only had to do was lower his shield, to let them in. He dug his fingers into his palms until blood welled out between his clenched fist. The pain helped to keep him from succumbing and gave him clarity. Snapping open his eyes he roared out in defiance.
"I seek audience with the Eva'scarra! Show yourselves!" Roland shouted. The conviction behind his words manifested into rippling waves that pushed back the shadow beasts and their deranged eyes.
A dim rumble in the distance replaced the momentary silence. It built and compounded on itself until Roland could feel the pressure in his chest. He clapped his hands over his ears to defend himself as the reverberating sound washed over him. The dull gray horizon shimmered like a mirage in the desert heat. A spider web of cracks appeared in the sky, fragmenting it into a swirling kaleidoscope of colors. He felt pulled towards the horizon with no way to stop it, so he concentrated on the sphere of protection. Time lost all meaning under the visual and auditory assault, seconds, or perhaps hours, later he found himself in the audience of a nightmare. The Eva'scarra had answered his call.
Terrible beauty reared up before him, surrounded him, and filled his vision. He couldn't shut it out. Even when he closed his eyes, it persisted and permeated his mind. His heart hammered wildly in his chest. Sweat trickled down from his brow as incredible pressure built up around him. Roland suddenly felt like an insignificant speck sealed in a bottle, and all this malignant presence had to do was find a crack to break inside. At some point, his nose had begun to bleed.
Roland couldn't tell where the head of this creature was. It was fluid, shifting and swirling about before his eyes like the smoke of a fire. Roland got the impression of a hand closing its grip around his sanctuary before a whisper prodded at his mind. It was more intense than the maddening eyes had felt, and its false promises were amplified a thousand-fold.
"Who seeks audience with the Eva'scarra?" Every word was laced with unholy vows, promises of power, and earthly desires. It was as if two voices were speaking at once, one right behind the first. The promises were a soft seductive whisper echoing in Roland's mind, while the dominant voice was harsh, almost painful to hear. It was a struggle for him to speak, his head felt muddled and his tongue thick.
"Roland Altaeus, Mage of Paragore. I seek knowledge to rid myself of my curse. I've come to deal." Roanld said, trying to force conviction into his terrified voice. He wasn't certain, but something told him there was laughter in the reply.
"Roland Altaeus seeks our knowledge; seeks a cure. Roland Altaeus isn't cursed. Isn't sick. Isn't tainted." The voice, or voices, replied. Beneath the voice was an echo laced with the promise of honeyed pleasures.
"Then a way to free myself of my burden," Roland shot back, knowing the whispers were lies, knowing that if he let his thoughts linger on those promises would be death. He could only press on, "I cannot live like this. With all these spells and arcane knowledge filling my mind, threatening to break it at any moment. If there is no cure, then I seek a way to store my knowledge outside of my body."
There was a pause in the movements and Roland felt something caress over his mind like a thumb rubbing a worry stone. A wave of nausea followed the sensation.
"Phylactery, repository, Janari. Yes. We will give Roland Altaeus what he asks." Malice, hunger, need came with the words of the Eva'scarra.
"And? What is it that you want in return?" Roland asked.
Poisonous, caustic chittering poured into him. He put his hands against the side of his head and had to fight to suppress a scream of pain. The feeling of the thumb running over his mind intensified.
"We will give Roland Altaeus what he asks."
Roland had been too focused on the intrusions. His concentration wavered for a fraction of a second, but that was enough. Above him a thin tendril of shadow snaked into his protective sphere, instantly spreading like a virus.
Cracks started at the top of his shield. Roland snapped his head up at the sound of cracking glass, a look of horror etched into his features. The sphere flickered and dimmed as the darkness spread. Another tendril, this one of purest white, joined the first and latched itself onto the top of Roland's head. The young mage could feel knowledge being siphoned from his mind as spell after spell disappeared. Roland felt a glorious moment's relief before he realized they were pulling much more than just knowledge arcana from him. Memories, feelings, the very core of what made him, all was being sucked away. And they left behind madness. Horrible, unyielding madness.
There was a hiss of fury and triumph as the two voices congealed into one, then everything went dark.
Roland wasn't sure how it happened. He had curled in on himself trying to fight off the assault of the Eva'scarra, but what felt like the next moment he woke up in a cell.
"Finally awake?" Asked a sonorous voice.
The voice cut through the fevered haze of Roland's nightmare and brought reality into focus. He sat up slowly and looked out from behind the bars. Bars! He let out a groan as the pounding in his head made itself known. He'd failed.
Sitting there with a notebook in hand was a minotaur. Though this was the shortest minotaur by far that he'd ever seen. He stood but couldn't have been more than five feet tall. His brown fur glinted in the torchlight as he leaned against the bars of Roland's cell.
"Where am I?" Roland asked.
"You are in the Iron Prison of Raxal, soon to be on trial for using forbidden magic. My name is Ban'Koliath and I am your appointed lawyour." Ban'Kolaith replied.
......
Roland wanted to numb himself with alcohol, but the risk was too great. He couldn't afford to mess this up, he couldn't let her sacrifice be in vain. So, he fought the throbbing pain and began the complex chant that would take him from this realm to the Nether Never. To an audience with the Eva'scarra.