The Winter Soul

  Yana's eyes opened, and so did her mind. She began to understand and grow on a molecular level. Her magic settled within her and she waited—waited and contemplated the Truthless Lie Tower. The three sides were the lie; they were the tower’s past. The center was the present and the truth. She knew it, but she didn’t fully understand it. If it was of the past, wasn’t it still the truth, just of a different time? Did time change truth into a lie? She physically shook her head, trying to clear it; she was making it too complicated.

  Without looking to the others, she spoke. “We’re going back in. I have an odd suspicion we will need to fight.”

  She pulled them all to her and they entered low, on the darkness side. Immediately, they were in a free fall, but this time Yana had greater control. With [Shadow Step], they moved to what she perceived to be the center of the side, and then her third eye opened again. The silvery runic tattoos shone in the darkness as they moved down her forehead to her neck and shoulders. Again, she pulled her familiars to her, and they spun as one. An opening appeared beneath them. They moved through the rift and found themselves at the bottom of what appeared to be the sand side.

  Sand perpetually moved around them, as if animals walked, slithered, and crawled beneath the surface. There was a high shelf of sand above their heads, holding like a sky of grit frozen in time. The sound of pouring and shifting sands surrounded them as if they had been buried alive in a vast, echoing chamber. This "sand side" was vast. Neither of them could see an end to it; either their senses could not stretch that far, or there simply was no end.

  Yana narrowed her eyes, her third eye staying round and wide. The runic tattoos glowed more brilliantly, and areas of the sand floor became illuminated. “Don’t walk on the marked spots; some are bottomless, and some are filled with great dangers.” Her voice was deep and ethereal. The others nodded in understanding, marking the danger zones in their minds.

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  They moved ahead in a zigzagging, curving way that even doubled back on itself from time to time, yet Yana did not try to leave the side. Tasha, in her usual impatience, finally grumbled after walking for a long while. “I thought it was at the center of the darkness side. Why are we walking the sand side?”

  Yana shook her head in disagreement. “This is not the sand side. I never moved us to the sand side. Don’t you remember? Sand and water touch the darkness. Why would I have to move to the center of the darkness to reach the sand? We are still within the side of darkness in the Truthless Lie Tower.”

  Tasha almost face-palmed while the others looked on in amazement. “Nothing is ever easy.”

  Just as Tasha spoke, the sands shifted and a large square opened before them. The sand began pouring into the open space. It was like someone had stepped on the trigger of a massive trap. They stood tense, ready for battle, and watched. Soon, the top of a spire could be seen in the distance. Buildings rose tall from the shifting sands until the top of a massive wall emerged. The sands began to quiet, and Yana pursed her lips.

  Before them stood a walled city of darkness. It sat upon the sands like a living shadow. It seemed to waver in the blinding light as if it shifted as the light shifted. Yana sensed the deep shadows within it—shadows intent on destruction, wild shadows, and mad shadows. These were shadows that had been imprisoned for eons. She felt their intent, their madness, and she smiled.

  “This is where the fight is. There are millions of shadows here. Wao, Sho, Pra, and Tapri—all the true sentient types, and all gone mad. Ready yourselves. And DD, you get over your aversion to [Void Step] here.”

  It was a command, and DD felt his soul shiver. Yana’s familiars were more her cohort than her servants, but in the end, she was always their mistress.

  There was a noise of chains clanking and metal clicking against metal. A bright light burst forth into the sands above them. The tower shook, and a drawbridge of darkness lowered before them. The intent, power, and madness from within the city rolled out over them like a physical wave. Yana and her familiars all readied themselves.

  The truth of the Truthless Lie Tower was that it was a devourer. It devoured shadow. But most sentient shadows were immortal beings; their forms could never die, but their souls, spirits, and minds could erode. The tower had consumed what it could over the eons and kept the husks to guard its treasures.

  Yana smiled. She was in a mood to pillage.