-41 Years Later-

“Archmage Ambrose of Altgrove, Dean of the Last College and Patriarch of the noble House of Deneith.”

The Most High Priest sits alone in a throne room made for Five. The central seat, all gold and splendour, is worn where his hands rest. 

He speaks with ancient command, eyes burning with the divine light that crowns him.

And then a rare smile, once like the sun for power.

“Rise, old friend.”

He does not smile. He has not in some time, since last he came home.

He rises on knees that have aged and crumbled half a dozen times. He has seven tombs. 

He has secret tallies, in the depths of one of his lairs. He has no proof that the Clones die a little sooner each time. He has no proof that it is akin to an echo of an echo of an echo. He makes them from the body he was born with, powdered bone from that grim mausoleum of the Deneiths, far from the eyes of the Church. He makes them from the Cloned body when it is grey and ageing, raw pulsing flesh spilling blood in a nameless place, and never breathes a word to his love of it - and he has no proof that that is worse. It is... maddeningly unclear. 

Years of tireless labour over that most secret Spell of Necromancy. Countless cunning wards to hide his secret. 

He does not think there is another wizard in the world who could muster it. Certainly none alive. He does not know if he will be able to make it save his children, when their time comes, and come it will, and soon; they have their own magic, but it is not enough, not enough, the Last Enemy comes for them too. 

But it must have been solved. It must have been. Theirs is not the first world to end, even after Raikoth fell in flames. These few hundred rather good years, if you read your history greedily, snatching fragments of parchments from dragon hoards and the deep places, riddling ancient half-mad elves, these times are the rarity. And in the City there was hoarded knowledge of dreadful power, he knows, awful secrets; and before the City, who knew? Who knew what primordial horrors and their power dwelt still, etched on antique stones and buried in the nightmares of dead Things? 

He can almost taste it, sometimes. The Tenth Circle, or the Thirteenth. 

The True Dweomers. 

Rivers of gold, pearls from titans, miracles burned in ceaseless search of them - and he does not have them. 

He does not have the secret by which he and his might endure this storm, to raise up the coming world anew, to guard the Church in times to come. He is old, and long since has he made peace with the well-meaning men of the cloth and the book who would burn him for a witch; they are on his side, they are the world's only hope, for all that they are fools. He will preserve them. The Prophet's word would never lie dead with him. 

He inclines his head, and stands before Ophel expectantly.

The Church no longer has the privilege of choosing its allies fastidiously.

“All of you. Please, leave us.”

Guards, acolytes and priests file out of the room, each bowing in turn to the Voice of their god on earth.

The sacred doors shut behind them.

His Holiness rises, and walks forward on ancient feet. He reaches out and clasps the wizard’s hand between his own, in contravention of all etiquette.

Ophel’s touch is the warmth against ice.

“Thank you for answering my call.”

"Of course," he says blandly. 

He... doesn't remember quite how long it's been since he laid eyes on the elf last. 

His face is so... unchanged. Not young. 

Three hundred years, is it, since Ophel was born?

But that is the way of elves: he might pass on tomorrow. They are clear, crystalline, untarnished, brittle like glass. Like a relic in a museum. A butterfly pressed between pages. 

Perhaps once friendly questions would have risen to his lips, and he can recall them - how are you? What news? How fares Aistale? Are you all right? Do you still weep at night until sleep claims you? May I bottle your tears where they gather under holy stones and with them brew black brews- He cuts that thought off with smooth practice. 

It's all so... small, before the well of time, the chasm.

"What would you have of me?"

He sighs, lowering his head.

Time and space has changed before him, slowly, slowly, the tick of a second of eternity. Even the wizard does not carry the irreverent mirth of his youth. No, humans were not born to bear the burden of seven lifetimes.

It weighs on Ambrose like a stone. That much is clear. 

It is the lot of the Most High to live for his children before himself. Ophel will be the one to ask.

“Matters can wait a few minutes, can they not? Tell me of yourself. Of your family. In truth, it has been long since I have had the company of a friend.”

"I..."

The mad urge to tell Ophel everything rises up in him, and he quashes it. 

"... am well. My students have not yet begun to wear on me." He tries for a small smile. "My family - you remember my children? They... do well. Wizards of the Third Circle, in fact. They... they weary." The old familiar sense of hopelessness hovers over him. Why, why stand here and trade these foolish pleasantries while the sand trickles down through the hourglass? "They do better than I at watching over our House. There has not been such a Wizardly House, so many generations all together, in many years." His mind is still sharp - he has taken the time to memorise all the names of his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren. 

Ophel I'm a distant lord and a ghost and a stranger to them if not a horror and only my children really understand and they're dying-

He nods. “And Her Holiness, your wife? How does she fare?”

It has been some time since Galora left for the once-Free Cities. There has been no bad news, but no good news to come with it.

Ophel sits alone, most days, the keystone of the Hand.

He closes his eyes. "Perfect."

Perfect. She looks like she hasn't aged a day, like she just stepped out of their wedding portrait. She has grown older and wiser and stronger and never tired of the loss, wept at funerals and at births. 

She won't let him draw away from her. It's happened a few times... he thinks it's only a few times... not consciously, just - another hour's research, another lost and lonely hill, not coming home to dinner. She's always dragged him back. She hasn't lost patience for that either, not yet. 

He smiles softly, squeezing his hand one last time before letting go. Ambrose feels the absence of his touch like frost in the air.

“Good. Hold on tightly to one another.”

Ophel recognises that look in his friend’s eyes. Love. He has seen it before, on his own face, in the mirror before his wedding and in the polished stone of his husband’s tomb. 

That was a long time ago. He remembers that he loved one, once. A king. 

To business.

“I am afraid I have a favour I must ask of you, Ambrose.”

Indeed, of course he does. 

He does hold on. He holds on so tight it turns his knuckles white. 

"Speak, Ophel." His old friend's name tastes strange, a little bitter, on his lips. "And if it is within my power I will grant it."

The elf straightens nearly to his full height. The stained glass shines colours onto his face, rendering him otherworldly.

His voice is sombre as he speaks. Low and gravelly in a way it never used to be.

“I wish to speak truthfully, Ambrose, and in turn I hope that you will do the same. For any matter mentioned here today, I offer you immunity on confessional grounds; and if you so wish it, I offer you the promise of my silence outside these chambers, no matter how grave the secret.”

The Most High of Pelor has not before been known to strike discreet deals with wizards.

“What say you?”

Will Pelor respect that, he is wise enough not to say. He is wise enough not to simply blurt such things aloud any more. 

...He actually thinks that He will. 

But better to confirm. 

"A curious question. If I had any secret so grave as to keep it from you, I would fear some Heavenly force reading it written in your soul. Would Heaven too stay Its hand?"

…

“In this day and age, I am Its hand. You are Good of heart, Ambrose. The Heavens shall heed my advice, and will not strike down an ally.”

He regards him for a moment, unreadable.

”It would not be without reward for you.”

...

Isn't it strange, that he can simply... say it. 

But perhaps he has been building towards this day for some time. Around his second century, he began to endeavour to master a stranger art than wizardry, the art of solving problems before they became horrifying emergencies. And he has been searching, searching for so long. 

He breathes deeply. 

"I have been prolonging my life with Necromancy. Not... not the path of the lich. There was, a certain Spell, in ancient days, dangerous and difficult, by which the body might be renewed - I have made it work for myself, I think. I will not fade swiftly. But my children - Ophel, time is so, so short." He feels tears prick the corners of his eyes, and closes them. "I have searched, sought the True Dweomers of lost Raikoth and - it is as smoke through my fingers. Another decade, another two, perhaps, but-"

“I know.”

How long has he known, and not uttered a word? How long has he continued to welcome a Necromancer into his halls with open arms?

There is no hatred, no disappointment, not even a slap on the wrist. Ophel looks at him with… something like pity, something sad, something comforting.

“I know,” he repeats gently.

"I am, er, aware of the, er, dangers." He feels like a little boy in Taralda's office again, being scolded for some silly misbehaviour. He hasn't felt that way in - days, it was last Tuesday he thinks. "So far- it isn't nothing, but I think I'm safe."

The Most High frowns, but he does not pass judgement. 

“There are natural side-effects to such a spell, I assume.” He gently takes Ambrose’s chin, tilting it left and right, peering searchingly over his face. “What ails you?”

"...It's more the, er, study required."

He can nearly feel the way his flesh pulses and squirms with false life, overstuffed with vigour, sticky blood throbbing through rubbery globules of slithering fat and nameless tissues, porous secret bones oozing black humours-

"Some of the techniques are... strange. Need strange things. And... it's probably just my imagination, but... I think it's harder to feel like myself every time."

...

"I have seven graves."

He exhales softly.

“Your wife, does she know?”

"No," he says too quickly. It's difficult, difficult to keep a secret from Galora, harder still when she is your wife. 

But his every day - every moment calculated, that he spends near anything that could connect him to the great work - he has been so careful-

“You have died seven deaths alone. Seven times have you buried your corpse with your own hands.” He sighs, squeezing his shoulder. “Tell her, Ambrose. You isolate yourself prematurely.”

And he draws him into a hug.

...He leans into it, a little hesitantly. 

Ophel is so warm.

"And what of you, old friend?" The questions comes easily, now. 

…

He pulls away after some moments, his eyes so tired so tired–

“I… fear I find myself in a position where I require much from you. Information, guidance. A guard.”

Ophel turns and climbs the steps of his throne again, and sits down heavily upon it. He leans against the side, wearied, his fingertips pressed to his temple.

“There is something I have sought for many decades. Recently, I have received confirmation of its existence. I know that you have delved into ruins, and into the lost Arts. I know that you have learned much that should have stayed dead and forgotten.”

His Holiness turns the full force of his gaze upon the wizard.

“What do you know of the Desmoterion?”

He steels himself, and does not quail. 

The Dawnfather could reach down and with His hand shatter the mighty spells Ambrose has wrought to hide and guard his thoughts - but He probably won't. 

And is there really anything to lose now?

"...I thought it was a myth. Or a metaphor, maybe. I know one of your predecessors declared it blasphemy to speak of it - and then even that decree was scrubbed out of history. The Prison of Gods? The Forbidden City? How is that even possible - where is it - how can you lose a whole empire -"

The Most High raises a hand. His rings glimmer like stars.

“A band of adventurers seem to believe that they have found it. I need you to take me there, Ambrose.”

He's been here before, too. He's old enough not to trust his own assumptions. 

Spellweaving breaks that habit, too. Make the wrong assumption about what a new incantation does and you might not live to speak another.

"Found what?"

He levels him with a stare.

“The very place gods die.”

The Citadel is a deserted place, now. When they step through, they can catch a glimpse through a high window of the yoke of the heathen, parts of the town burned down and not rebuilt, still dark and lonesome. 

Their footsteps echo in high halls left barren, swirl up dust, crush gloomy cobwebs. 

There is a room here within a room within a room, and a forbidden passage like a cave, and a place so full of the dust of ages that it chokes. 

There is an arch of a curious make, unfamiliar, pitted, of grim stone. 

Through it lies-

-A windswept place under a foreign sun. 

The side of a mossy hill where strange insects whine, sun gleaming on purplish carapaces, crumbled marble like chalk under their feet. 

And below them a valley like a bowl, and the skeleton of a city that should not be. 

…

They stand there upon the cliff, looking down at the city lost to time.

Empires fall and civilisations crumble. Those toppled columns could once have been a temple. The rubble at the perimeter could once have been city walls. 

They are not the first mortals to have come here since this place was forgotten. There are disturbances in the dust. That is a good sign.

An old feeling begins to stir from its long slumber. His heart beats.

“This is the place.”

He murmurs an old old charm like a song.

"This place has known strange magic."

Like a veil, many times folded.

It unbalances him, sends a strange shiver up his spine. 

Closer to the centre, the city is more intact. 

This thoroughfare once, visible from their hill, was the Street of Gods. Hundreds and hundreds of temples clustered, foreign stones reassembled on foreign soil, huddled and crumbling like the bones of flocking birds. 

The tombs of deities. Foreign and heathen gods, both good and evil, forgotten. Laid to rest here, lining the path ahead like a parade.

The adrenaline floods his heart. He reaches up and clutches, only for a moment, only when his companion has turned away to peer at some ancient inscription.

There is little time to waste.

He walks.

"Incredible," he mutters. 

There are drifting whispers, of course, of old gods, dead gods. 

To see the city of them - dozens? hundreds? it confirms and disconfirms a hundred theories - to put it like that seems to diminish it, somehow.

 What is the true nature of the gods? How many of Them are there? What are They, really?

No mortal knows. 

Yet. 

He watches the Most High, very closely. 

Statuesque. Impossible to read.

He treads the straight path and does not falter. There is only one temple he seeks.

“There.”

Plain grey stone like castle walls. The door has long since rotted away, and the doorway sags around it.

There is little left here. Smashed statues and cracked altars. The idol of the goddess has been dragged away. 

Ancient red paint is daubed on the walls, illegible. 

From his sleeves he draws out a long thin scroll. 

"Ambrose's Perspicacious Palaeography."

𝐹𝑂𝑅 𝐻𝐸𝑅 𝑅𝐸𝐵𝐸𝐿𝐿𝐼𝑂𝑁 𝐴𝐺𝐴𝐼𝑁𝑆𝑇

𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝑅𝐼𝐺𝐻𝑇𝐹𝑈𝐿 𝐴𝑈𝑇𝐻𝑂𝑅𝐼𝑇𝑌

𝑂𝑁 𝐻𝐼𝐺𝐻

𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐿𝐼𝐺𝐻𝑇 𝐸𝑇𝐸𝑅𝑁𝐴𝐿

𝐺𝑅𝐸𝐴𝑇𝐸𝑆𝑇 𝐴𝑁𝐷 𝐸𝐿𝐷𝐸𝑆𝑇

𝑃𝐴𝐸𝐿𝑂𝑅 

𝑇𝐻𝑅𝑂𝑁𝐸 𝑂𝐹 𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝑊𝑂𝑅𝐿𝐷

𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐻𝐸𝐴𝑇𝐻𝐸𝑁 𝐺𝑂𝐷𝐷𝐸𝑆𝑆 𝐼𝑂𝑀𝐸𝐷𝐴𝐸

𝐼𝑆 𝑆𝐻𝐴𝐶𝐾𝐿𝐸𝐷 

𝐶𝐴𝑆𝑇 𝐼𝑁𝑇𝑂 𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐷𝐸𝑆𝑀𝑂𝑇𝐸𝑅𝐼𝑂𝑁

𝑂𝑁 𝐸𝐴𝑅𝑇𝐻 𝐴𝑆 𝐼𝑁 𝐻𝐸𝐴𝑉𝐸𝑁

“The rightful Authority?” He whispers, mutters to himself, but even quiet words desecrate the long-dead space. 

Greatest and eldest.

Something is wrong here. Something does not slot cleanly into his understanding of the worlds.

He is growing distracted. His treacherous heart grasps at other things, things beyond the mission.

Iomedae.

The Lord shackled Her.

But…

Pelor walks with him still, knowing his intent, knowing the blasphemies that take root even at the core of His Church, in Ophel’s own spirit, there is something missing here, there is something…

“Ambrose. Others walked here, only some days ago. Where did they go?”

It's not trivial, even for him, but he can find the trail. Two powerful wizards walked here. The stones whisper of a dreadful staff drenched in their blood. 

He leads Ophel to - 

A black and dreadful space below the ground. The dust of centuries shifts uneasily as they walk, Ambrose's wizard-fire light casting grim shadows on walls of archaic stone. 

Chambers on chambers, a labyrinth in stone - mere doors and corridors, spaces full of rot that might have been - what? kitchens? bedrooms? - and beyond them, the prisons or tombs of gods. 

Many of the rooms are empty; many have been smashed into dust, or collapsed, or burned out with fire. 

But some of them hold - 

Ancient and crumbling shrines. Cracked statues. Offering bowls full of sullen treasures Ophel will know better than to look at too long. 

And-

Dim whispers. Sights out of the corner of the eye. An eyeless woman with a hand and torch upraised in the dismal dark. A great pregnant mother-wolf, womb distended, bloodied ribs showing. 

Between them, they can thread their way through, not interacting with any of the... things down here, to find the trail of the adventurers. 

...Or they could investigate. 

That pull, that pull – his spirit urges him to stay as his feet go ahead, through the path of blasphemy and deconsecrated halls–

He is too old for adventure, now. Those who have replaced him are long gone from this place, and their tracks already fade into the dust.

There is too little time to waste.

Onwards. The wizard would do well to follow.

He does.

In time they come to a ruined chamber where great heaps of fallen stone clutter the floor.

There is a mass of twisted steel that might once have been a shrine, and a great stone chair like an unadorned throne, and amidst the rubble something burns like a yellow flame. 

A woman in what looks like gilded chainmail stands in the half-light, and says nothing.