Torjen ll: The Search For Andross

Jason stood at the rail, unable to move. Jiffra quickly climbed over to the other side, placed a hand on Jason's shoulder as if to comfort the man, then fell backward, still holding onto the human. Both of them fell, their anchors covered with water as it rushed around the two of them. Jason tried to scream but it was cut short by water swarming around, blocking off all air. He tried to flail and punch Jiffra in the face but the water slowed him. It was his idea, Jiffra thought as he held his breath. I suppose he only liked the theory. The two knights sank almost too fast for them to see anything except the other knights far below. Jason calmed after a moment, pausing to look around, expecting the waters to turn black and dim without light. But they didn't dim. The light remained the same shade the farther they kept going. The pressure likewise did not increase, only their distance from their beloved air. After a few moments, Jason twisted sideways and saw something amazing, something that only one Upperworldian had ever seen; one who was, of course, only about twenty feet below them with an anchor about his waist as well. What he saw was a home beneath the surface of Upperworld, which rested upon Upperworld's own foundations. Below the waters, a few hundred feet deep, a rocky island arose, somehow floating within the water, both above it and below it. On and near that island there slept, rested and swam a small colony of fish-people, the meager populace of the Merpeople. Their skin was a greenish-blue, with scales and enormous, white eyes, as if their eyes were covered with some translucent skin to allow them sight. Their ears were shaped strangely, growing sharply up like an elf's but also sharply down. Jason could not see the tiny claws or webbing on each hand but he knew from his readings that they were there. Yet nothing stuck out of their appearance more than the enormous, scaled tails that had replaced their legs, pulsing and beating, propelling them through the water with unimaginable quickness. The island on which they lounged was beautiful, covered in most places by strange, underwater moss that grew green and rampant upon everything. The rock had been carved and shaped, now containing large towers, enormous domes and statues of their kind. The statues, like the species, lacked any hair on their bodies and possessed flattened noses, sometimes barely anything at all. There were great forests of blue algae, where drifted loving couples in courting circles. Around the entire island darted hardened-looking Mermen, heavily muscled and each carrying a twisted, hook-like object. Those are their weapons, Jason thought. He had read of how Merpeople engaged in wars, using those hooks to tear holes in the keels of boats and drag the sailors down to what he now knew to be this island. After about a dozen seconds, the island soared above him and Jason found himself even further from Upperworld. The island remained locked in place, as if held by some invisible force. That's the force that supports us, Jason said, thinking of his home. That's why our continents have never fallen off the edge. That magic - or is it something else? - is holding them all there. Jason now began to realize just how little air he had in his lungs and he began thrashing around, choking, about to start inhaling water in his panic. Jiffra rushed up to try and calm him but it was of no use. Jiffra was also beginning to feel the effects of drowning. Jiffra looked down and saw Bryok also squirming and struggling with the rope around his waist. But Lokua was not; in fact, the Lowerworldian was actually completely still and, for a second, Jiffra feared he had left them. Seconds later, the elf saw the wizard calming down, still sinking but slowing his motions down to almost a complete stop. His fears grew and multiplied as he now saw in his imagination the futility of their mission and the pointless loss of their bones. A moment afterward, Jason stopped moving and Jiffra looked up at him. He was surprised to find that the human was still alive but almost hypnotized by what he was looking at; his eyes were wide and unblinking. Jiffra turned his eyes in the same direction of the others and saw what they saw, and he understood the reason the others were calming. And what he saw calmed him, too. They had sunk far below the level of the Merpeople and now caught sight of the true magic of Upperworld, possibly the true magic of all the world. Far distant, at the point that Jiffra instinctively knew to be the exact center of Upperworld, a bright light shone out, piercing the eyes of the knights and filling each of them with a strong warmth, a feeling of contentment and…life. Each no longer felt the need for air, for that strange luminescence was sustaining them, preventing them from meeting with the cold force that otherwise would have claimed them. The light was distant at first, barely a single point on the brink of their threshold of sight, but it quickly grew, as if rushing toward them. It soon enveloped them completely, granting them an awareness as of dreams but as real as night and day. Power shot through their veins, doing away with mortality and weakness, cleansing the knights, purging them of any and all wounds. Memories charged and released themselves in bursts, specialized memories of events in connection with this force. As Jiffra stared, he remembered the flames that had enveloped the Pillar of Stone, he remembered that warm buzzing around the Pillar of Wood and he felt, once again, that intense existence from when they had convened with the Torjen. And lastly, he remembered holding hands in a jungle, watching vines encompass a tree, mastering a magic almost wholly unknown.