Chapter Text
The wind shrieked in his ears as En hurtled like a stone flung from a slingshot. He thought his joints and ligaments were close to popping as his entire body whipped around endless twists, turns, and circles. Lights and sounds blared at him from every direction, making bile climb into his throat even as he tried so hard to block them out. And yet, he could not resist the urge to peer through squeezed eyelids.
He seemed to be flying at an unimaginable speed through a whirling vortex of ensorcelled space. Just beyond earshot, he heard a girl whooping and yodeling in a tireless paroxysm of delight. For a second, the boy almost feared that her throat would explode.
They made a sharp turn to the left, and En cried out as a blast of smoke and flame flew into their trajectory. It reeked of soot and a substance that someone other than the hapless servant-boy would call sulfur, and his eyes watered even as he only pried it slightly open. A voice followed it, great and booming, and he quickly cupped his ears from the volume and malice it carried.
"There you are! Turn back and die, you witch!" it screamed. The sound of some gigantic blade being heaved into the air echoed through the vortex even as they flew past it, screeching like millions of birds of prey taking flight at the same time.
The girl—who was, of course, the Aspect of Twilight—blew a raspberry and cackled, clutching her stomach as she floated into En's view.
"Isn't this fun?" she yelled at the top of her lungs. For the fear of belching out the meager scraps of food he ate, En kept his mouth shut.
"This won't take long. We're taking a more roundabout route so we could get a little further from what's happening down there. Blink and it's over!"
To a mere mortal like En, it took way more than a single blink before they finally approached another portal. He waved his limbs helplessly as he careened upward. But at last, he crashed into the snow, feeling something hard and unyielding underneath. The boy almost sighed his voice box out as he thanked the few lucky stars he had. Who knows what would happen to him had he fallen deeper?
He heard the portal woosh out of existence as a light pair of feet plopped on the snow beside him.
"Ta-da~!" Zoe proclaimed. "Now this is a good spot!"
En pushed himself upward with a huff. What did she mean by a good spot?
The boy blinked as he studied his surroundings, fear trickling from his chest down to his toes and fingertips. Wherever they landed, it seemed to be way higher up Targon than the trek took him a few minutes ago. Or were they hours?
He heard the girl hiss at him a few feet away. Following the sound, he saw her wave him to a spot close to the edge of the mountainside.
"It's still going. You might want to look."
He didn't respond, though he did drag himself up, trudging the thick layer of frost that enveloped the black stone. As Zoe sidled away from him, he peered over the edge.
There was a ponderous sea of dark clouds that shrouded the view. This confirmed in his mind that they were indeed at the further end of the mountain's steep spire, sending a jolt through his back that loosened his jaw slack.
Yet even as it appeared impenetrable, the unmistakable sound of roaring and fire blowing rose through the heights, followed by bright flashes of gold and purple.
Several thoughts darted through his brain. What happened to the captives? How about the warriors and the Lunari? Old Lady Tamra was probably nothing but ash at this point, but did the others survive somehow?
Who cares? You're alone now.
The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. But then, he felt relieved. At this point, he did not question the ominous turning of his emotions.
"Oh right," Zoe said, picking at her nails. "Congratulations! You're the lucky person who made it."
What?
"Wh-what do you mean?" En sputtered.
"I mean, you were chosen to keep going."
The boy fell to his knees, sinking into the snow. Though from his view, he sank much deeper into it.
"But why?" he gasped.
The girl walked closer to him, her hair somehow staying afloat in the still air. She tapped her lips with a finger, her brow and mouth scrunched up in thought.
"Hmm. I... don't know. The Big Ones didn't really say much on who to pick."
The boy gritted his teeth and clenched his fists tight by his sides. He ignored the pain from his bruises, which was becoming more bearable after passing many days.
"Pick?!" he spat, his voice cracking as his throat twisted in anger.
"Yeah~" Zoe drawled. "They just told me to pick, and you seemed like the only one who had his wits about him. Everyone else was either busy fighting or running like headless chickens."
The lazy tone permeating her words stoked the flames in En's gut. He stood and whipped his around, throwing a furious look her way.
"Then you saved me on a whim! This is all a game to you!" he lashed out.
Zoe lifted her hands and backed away from the boy. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, this isn't a game. It's serious business. Big business! Really big for me, anyway," she concluded with a wave of her hand.
En fumed in response, stomping his way down the path and away from the summit. This piqued the Aspect's curiosity, and she flew closer to him, doing a flashy backstroke through empty space.
"So that's it?" she piped. "You'll just go down?"
"Anything to get away from you," En replied sharply. "You and your...kind!"
Zoe shrugged. "Suit yourself! But how do you plan to get past the Firebrand, huh?"
At this, his steps slowed to a halt. He did not have a single idea how to stay out of that... thing's sight, much less how to survive an encounter.
His head was spinning. Even in the empty air of the dimming sky, he felt like gigantic walls were drawing closer to him, shuttering the smallest bit of open space out of his reach. A great dragon barred the way out of freedom in the plains below, and behind him...
Was the mountain.
No, that's not quite right.
He was on the mountain.
Everything was the mountain.
He was stuck in its unbreakable embrace, unable to steer away from the path that it carved ever upwards to its summit.
He heard it laugh.
"Why?! Why me?!" he cried as he fell to his face. "I didn't want any of this. So what did I do to deserve it? I only answered a few questions and shared some stories. And now, I'm facing death on all sides. Whether I go up, go down, or stay still, I will die. And for what?!"
Zoe simply stuck her hands to her hips and huffed. "We are so not gonna do this," she muttered.
She reached down and grabbed the boy's shoulder. With the force of her magic, she pulled him up to his feet, causing him to yelp through the tears that were cascading down his face.
"To be honest, I don't know for what," she said, making air quotes with her fingers. "And I don't care! This is a big errand given to me, and I'm doing it now since I just got some free time."
She drew closer, dropping her voice to a whisper. "If you care so much about knowing why, like some boring, unimaginative, lame adult, why not find out by going up?"
En's eyes widened. "Did you hear what I just said? I'll just die!"
"And did you hear what you said?" the Aspect shot back, poking his chest. "You'll die either way. So you might as well make the most of it! If you're lucky, you might even Ascend!"
The boy simply pulled at his hair, floundering in frustration and fear. When was this going to end?
As he stomped into the snow, he felt something hard strike him once more. He hissed as his instep flared with pain, drawing it up with his hands. The sensation kept him from noticing that the skin of his feet felt dry and stiff.
"Huh. Wonder what's down there?" Zoe pondered allowed. She did not waste a second to kneel and dig through the spot where En thrust his foot. It took her half a minute of digging, but eventually, she shoved aside enough snow to see something poke out of the layers of snow.
Despite himself, the boy drew close to see what was there.
"Eugh, gross!" Zoe squealed, jerking away while gagging aloud.
En did not have time to agree. As his vision focused on the thing poking out of the snow, it overpowered whatever grip he had on himself. It was as if a choking mist suddenly appeared and clogged every inch of his airway.
He heard the girl say something, but the sound was muffled and distant. But moments later, he would piece together that she actually said, "So that's what it looks like."
It was a face. Shrunken, black, and pockmarked by blotches of deep-seated ice, yet recognizably human. Bands of yellowed shone dully across the shut eyes. On one side, it was flanked by an arm that belonged to another judging from its angle. On the other was a different face. Both were similar in the condition of their form and the expressions that sealed them.
They were the faces of those that hovered between realization and oblivion, the clarity of life and the obfuscating silence of death. The old lady had that face before she rose and called the dragon to breathe fire on her. The poor servant who bashed her brains out had it too. Even poor Mistress Mirdan wore it as she tired from her death throes in the fire.
The odd voice in his mind chuckled. Too bad for them, I guess.
As he ran and screamed, not knowing the direction of his flight away from the scene, he thought about the people those faces belonged to. He wondered what threats, promises, or stories led them to this lonely demise on the last leagues of Targon. Were they captives sent to their doom as well? Did they come up in the hopes of divining the mysteries of the summit? Did they climb because they wanted to, or did someone else force them to take the ascent?
He examined these thoughts and examined them again, turning them side to side, inside and out, until he was way beyond sight of the aspect of Twilight, further than the Firebrand raging below, further from the village and the fields at the feet of the mountain, further from freedom.
Up, up, up he ran.
The cold was seeping deeper into his flesh. He could feel it as his clothes ruffled in the wind made by his running. But he did not stop.
Minutes then hours passed. Up he went still.
Was he still screaming? Maybe he screamed so loud that his eardrums popped.
Whatever. Up he went.
The top of the mountain slowly drifted towards him as his feet kept hammering against the snow.
He did not notice that it was getting shallow. He was too busy running.
He kept at it. Up, up, up.
Until he slipped and fell on his face again, and his eyes drew shut.
He did not know when he woke and stood up. He was walking now. His legs felt heavy, but he kept to his course.
Up, up, up he went,
Into the summit.
Numb.
The word jostled his tired brain as he continued the ascent. It had been several minutes (perhaps an hour has passed already) since he ran away. Away from the faces in the rock wall, the avalanche, the Firebrand, the ambush, the chain of prisoners.
Away from home.
What home? jeered the voice in his head. And by the way, you may mean several hours actually.
Not that En could tell. From the whole league he traversed onward, the sky seemed unchanged, stuck forever in a gradient of deep purple that gradually faded to pink as it drew closer to...
Whatever was at the furthest tip of the mountain.
It was strange. Many days ago, this odd voice in his head started as something formless or nebulous, simply the thrill of mist and air dancing softly in the shadowy spaces of his head. But it had taken a new form now, one of a small, defiant spark, almost as if it was slowly being kindled by the mounting torrent of anger, fear, anguish, and terror that surrounded him at every moment.
He supposed that he could call it a friend. There was no one else around him at the moment, and all the people who accompanied him before either eager to leave him to his death or drowning in their own cesspool of misery. Besides, it had been kind and jovial to him, cracking jokes even if they were at inopportune times, pointing out the good in whatever situation he was stuck in, and even goading him, chiding him to continue instead of laying down to die.
Dying. He was beyond the point of worrying about it now. The summit was a stone's throw away on the staired path. Through blurry eyes, he noticed the towering spires of crystal that arched from where they rose before straightening like blades into the sky.
In the space they encircled, there was a plain platform of polished stone that shimmered softly with the light of distant stars. Before he stepped into, the boy looked back down the path he walked for a long time. Every few steps had blotches of black fluid caked on the surface in the shape of a heel. With apprehension tightening his chest, he lifted his left foot to inspect it.
It was black and cracking, a mixture of red and yellowish fluid seeping through. Even in the still air of the summit, the reek oozing from it made his head swim.
Before he knew it, black splotches dotted his field of vision, and his head slammed into the platform of rock.
Everything was quiet. Was he dead? The thought somehow didn't rouse the same feelings he had earlier in his grim pilgrimage.
What was he thinking? That he would be greeted with fanfare and acclaim once he set foot upon the highest point of Targon by high, noble beings arrayed in blinding cosmic light? That he would be suffused by the power of the stars, bearing the might of one of the many Celestials to bring justice and thwart evil? That he would somehow make the folk of the mountain, the Solari, Lunari, and all the other tribes, cower in submission, enacting some kind of divine retribution that would make all the horror and pain he experienced worthwhile?
And what this talk of dispelling falsehoods and enlightenment? Of revealing and participating in some great tale? He should have known that ever since he took the first step up the mountain, he was destined for a long, slow, dreary death. Cold, alone, forgotten on the cruel tip of Mount Targon.
Targon, the Holy Mountain. That alone inspired worship and fear. That alone held might and wonder above the petty mortals that dotted its landscape.
The moment he was born on it, he was good as dead.
As he sank into silence, he wondered where that spark went.
"Up."
He stirred. This must be some guardian spirit or warden in the afterlife. It's definitely not some memory from his days in Kanek's home.
"Good," he thought to himself. "I hope he's nice. I will need a good introduction to this afterlife stuff."
"Up!"
The voice that spoke the command boomed with authority. The shroud of sleep that clung to the boy was quickly shaken off by its strength.
He shot up from the stone floor, ignoring how the flesh of his instep and heel continued to break apart from the movement.
The thing that summoned him from slumber was gigantic. It had the shape of a man, its whole body from head to toe made of purple crystal powdered by stardust. A great protrusion extended from one side of the head to the other, forming something akin to a headdress or crown befitting its towering form. Vast fillets of glimmering gold formed bands around its wrists, its waist, and its collarbone. And in its left hand, it held an enormous halberd made with the same materials as its own body.
En stood in its shadow, and he shrunk under its weight.
"Trespassers will be punished," the thing said after a long silence.
"I-I'm sorry," stammered the boy. "I will, I will turn back now."
To his fright, the thing swung the ponderous halberd then pointed it at him. Had it stopped a few inches off, En would have been crushed.
"Let the Arbiter examine you first. You have touched the sacred stone. My judgment shall decide if you have defiled it, mortal."
En quailed. "No, please. Please, I was forced to go here. I will turn back as soon as you ask me, too. Please forgive me!"
Then the Arbiter stood to its full height, further darkening the horizon around him. "The mountain shall decide that," it said from the heights with an undeniable sound of finality. En could only shield his eyes as it lifted its ponderous weapon and dropped it down his way.
When he opened them once more, he found himself in a void of stars. He recognized the sight at once as the scene from the dream he had on the eve of the assault on the village, the moment before everything went to ruin.
But this time, instead of growing in a bone-shattering crescendo, the stars gave way instead to a small orb of green and blue. Had he traveled more, he would have roughly estimated the thing to be all of Runeterra from the vantage point of someone looking at it in the emptiness of space.
The orb shivered slightly, thrumming with a soft music. It started plaintively, a small, unassuming melody that floated timidly into the silence around it. Then, bit by bit, the sound grew as a different melody joined it, twining about, circling back, then dropping out of earshot, only to burst out again with yet another melody. The sound of it was like the coming together of strings, horns, and woodwind instruments, amassing together into a theme of quiet wonder.
Suddenly, he felt movement beside him. He gasped as he turned, greeted by the sight of the fair and wondrous shapes of creatures made of starlight. "Celestials?" he whispered in his head.
The beings did not pay him any mind, fixing their attention solely on the orb and its music. They bent and whispered to each other, saying things that En could not understand. But from the sound of it, he thought they were brimming with excitement at the new thing they were all gathering for.
From the right, he saw one of them lift a finger into the distance, drawing the eyes of its companions who in turn exclaimed in surprise. It did not take long for him to discover what it was pointing to as the flank of a great dragon rushed into view. The beast's face was proud, yet it too seemed interested, or at least amused, by the thing unfolding in front of them.
At that moment, the music from the orb stilled. Quiet began to seep back into the void, and En felt a part of him feeling dismayed at the loss. But then, a single note rang out, as high as furthest point of the firmament yet as deep as the abyss of the ocean.
A bright light wiped his view of everything away. Then it splintered into a shower of sparks that shifted from one color to another. En realized that they were forming images that seemed to move as the colors changed.
Amazed, he moved closer to them. One showed a great city in a valley surrounded by swards of green, like a cut diamond rising out of a sea of emerald. But as he peered into it, the image shattered as shades of red and black filled it. The city was on fire, pillars of smoke rising from every inch of it, and its proud walls were collapsing as voices cried out in anguish.
Suddenly, he was looking at a different image, this time of a distant shore painted purple by the sunset. A ways ahead of the bars of sand were great trees that formed bewildering shapes, shaped perhaps by some hidden power in the land itself. But some of them shook as flames climbed and leaped from one canopy to another. The sound of battle rang underneath the boughs, and it too was drowned out by the heaving and roaring of great steel engines that trampled on every living thing caught in their advance.
Then, he was looking into a great expanse of sand and stone. Dark clouds stirred in the horizon as numerous battalions of gold-panoplied soldiers formed ranks. They looked grimly at the gathering darkness as if they anticipated some great ruination followed under its shade.
A great, unearthly roar rent the clouds about, and there was the noise of a great onrush of wind. En blinked and found himself peering into a giant, cavernous crevasse. Strange shapes dotted the bottom, looking like ogres or hulking beasts encrusted in ice. Yet the boy felt the presence of greater beasts still, slumbering deep below but with eyes open, staring with ancient, unquenchable hunger at the world above.
Once again, his view flew from place to place. He caught snatches of an island foundering under a grey, choking mist, of great shanties teetering at the edge of yawning jaws that swam up from the depths, of one city roiling and bubbling in malice at another above it, of troops marching ever forward, crushing the weak and wailing with cruel blades and heavy boots.
And finally, after this long parade of things beyond his ken, his sight was suddenly drawn by a great force unto a great ridge of rising spires and walls of rock that rose like the backs of titans, towering one over the other. Yet one stood way above them all, its head veiled by a canopy of white clouds and piercing the heavens.
It was Mount Targon as he imagined it. Except, not quite. From his view in the image, it looked like a meager strip of stone, no more sturdy than a blade of grass pointing upward. Instead of the bright tapestry of stars, the sky around it was tinted red, and here and there were small bursts of golden light that flashed against the mountain's surface, making it look frailer still.
Far above it came the piercing cry of a humongous beast, which was joined by the sound of more cries, fainter than the first yet no less fierce. Then the view was suddenly dwarfed by an enormous dragon, the same one he was before. This time, it had a great golden crown upon its head, and its face shone red with anger as its vast azure body twisted into view.
As it perched its colossal claws upon the very summit, bands of light shot up and smote at its flesh, like an ethereal defense against its advance. But the dragon only roared with glee, perhaps even laughing at this weak attempt at warding and protection.
It raised its gargantuan head and let loose another ululation of hate. In answer, a great shower of rumbling, falling stars streaked the empty sky, hurtling straight to Targon with irresistible speed.
He felt the first one strike the rock as the impact shook the air around him. More followed, forming an avalanche of blasting fire that smote the mountain into a sparkling, molten mass.
A star fell right into En's face, searing his frostbitten flesh and scattering his bones. He could only gasp at the sensation of his entire body being ripped apart to the smallest particle. And yet, to his astonishment, his form held against the great force.
He felt himself bathing in a shower of light, filling in the cracks of his skeleton with liquid warmth and reforming every vein, fiber, and sinew with shimmering thread.
His clothes faded to ash as the evening sky wrapped itself around his body, cooling the fire that cascaded over him. Tears formed in his eyes. He had almost what warmth felt like after the arduous trek up the mountain. Now, it was melting, its proud laughter silenced under the thunder and lightning of the great meteor shower, and he melted with it, molding himself into something new, something stronger than even the mountain's roots.
Content, he shut his eyelids. They fused close as new eyes grew out of his hands and his forehead.
And then he opened them.
The halberd exploded in the Arbiter's hand as it reeled back in shock, sending tremors down the summit. The trespasser's form had completely changed, radiating at once a blinding light and a swallowing darkness. He was robed in midnight blue instead of red, and it was trimmed with a fine thread of golden gems in different sizes, like a procession of planets moving through the stretching expanse of space.
The towering being steadied itself and prostrated into the ground. Then it spoke softly, saying "Welcome, Seer of the Great Beyond, Aspect of Vision."
The trespasser answered, "No need to be so formal, noble Arbiter. I'm afraid we will have to dismiss you from your current duties."
"Why so?" the Arbiter inquired.
"Just for a while. We will be more expecting more soon, and the process will have to be done with more speed. But do not worry! I will see to that."
The great being simply dropped its head further in response. Turning in place, the Aspect of Vision fixed himself on an image of the Firebrand rampaging below the clouds. He suddenly blinked out of existence, only to reappear in the spot he envisioned. The beast's rampage seemed to be long over, and the snow boiled in steaming puddles as charred bodies littered the ground, joining the other teeming corpses below.
He examined each one, poring over ruined features and matching them with the ones he still remembered from what now felt like a lifetime ago.
Just out of hearing, he caught the shuffling of tired feet. He looked up and saw a single woman who teetered dangerously from one side to another as she walked. Her clothes were black from burning, and where they clung tightly to her skin, they gave way to bubbling flesh. Her face was stuck in a grimace of pain, one eye seared shut as the surface around it looked like charcoal.
It jolted with fear upon seeing him. The woman fell on her face as words in a hoarse voice bubbled forth from her twisted lips, "Mercy, mercy, please! Have mercy on me!"
"That you will have, woman," the Aspect of Vision answered.
The woman stilled, her head shooting up as she strained her good eye into his face. "En?" she said. "Is that you? It doesn't look like you at all!"
He said nothing as the woman struggled to her feet and ambled towards him, jerking in pain at her burns and other injuries.
"Is it? Could it really be you? Then, you made it!" she cried in exhilaration, her voice cracking. "This must be what she meant, what Old Lady Tamra saw in her visions, what the Aspect of Twilight promised. You have come to bring change, En!"
"Who are you?" the Aspect of Vision replied, not listening to the string of sentences the woman said.
The woman looked taken aback. "Don't you remember? Your memories may be unclear after the change, but surely you know me? It's Huma, the servant-girl, your companion! You must recognize me!"
"Huma," he said gingerly, turning the name around his head. Then a smile tugged at his lips. "Of course, Huma! It's you!"
Huma nodded her head vigorously as her face twisted in a smile. The Aspect of Vision then placed a hand on her shoulder. She squirmed, a burn flaring in protest at the touch.
"Of course, you were my friend! And yes, I suppose I am what those people you're yammering about meant. At least, I hope so."
He paused, then said, "Well, would you like to do me a favor."
Huma's good eye widened. "Anything for one of the Ascended. It would be an honor!"
"Good," replied the Aspect silkily. "That's the right answer."
Something streaked across the woman's face. But before she could respond, she suddenly found herself hanging in the air. The mountain was several leagues away from where she hung helplessly on the grip of the boy she called En.
"I'm about to tell a little story, see. A story about many things I saw before I came here. And like a good storyteller, I would like every one of my listeners to be told beforehand about my arrival. That was what all those visions you were talking about were meant to do right?"
Huma simply shrieked, saying "What are you doing? Why did you bring me here?"
"Are you paying attention?" the Aspect pressed onward. "I need someone to warn everyone else that I'm coming. As my friend, I hope to get this little favor out of you."
Then his voice dropped quieter. "Not that it matters, since I'll get it anyway."
A surge of power ran down his arm and into the hand clutching Huma's shoulder. It blazed alight, quickly covering her whole body in flames as she screamed.
Then, as if dropping a pebble into a stream, he loosened his grip.
Some of the village-folk would tell their neighbors about the strange sight they saw at dawn. They said that a strange star fell from the sky, drawing much closer to the mountain than any other that fell before.
The Aspect turned his thought to the rest of Runeterra. He pondered the number of people who will have to listen to his story and wondered what they would do in response. Will they believe him? Or will they rise up in arms and destroy him? Not that they could do anything to end him of course. No mortal instruments can slay the star-knit flesh without great power or the machinations of fate.
He shrugged. They will have to listen if they want to live. Otherwise, they would either wait for the dark end to consume them or die at his hand. That all depends on what they do. Unlike the hilariously narrow-minded Solari and Lunari, or any of the pitiful cultists of Twilight, he caught small bits of vision of the great story of all things. And he will expound them to all who would see and hear, whether they will or will not accept.
He only saw glimpses, but they were enough.
That was going to be their problem.