Date: February 21, 543 After the Fall of Zandra the Dishonorable
The silence that fell over the platform was heavy, crushing, like water at a great depth. White dust from the disintegrating Heralds slowly settled onto the black stone, and in that ghostly light, the survivors seemed like shadows frozen between life and death.
Datuk dropped to his knees beside Sobra. His axe slipped from his hand and clanged dully against the stone, but the dwarf paid it no mind. He looked only at the bear. His friend. His brother. The one who had walked with him through so many battles, so many roads, so many losses.
"Sobra," he said quietly. "We won. Do you hear me? We did it."
There was no answer.
Sobra lay on his side, his flanks rising and falling so rarely, so faintly, that at times Datuk thought they would simply stop. The blood from the stumps of his hind legs had ceased to flow—not because the wounds had closed, but because there was almost no blood left in his body. The silvery stripes on his fur, once bright and pulsing with life, had dimmed and were fading one after another, like stars at dawn.
Datuk reached out and touched the blood-matted fur. It was warm. Still warm. But with every beat of his heart, that warmth seeped away, slipping through his fingers like water through sand. He felt the life leaving his friend's body. Slowly. Inexorably. And there was nothing he could do.
"You're tough," he whispered, and his voice cracked. "You've always been tough. Remember that time at the lake when you almost drowned? When you decided it was better to catch fish with your paw than a rod?"
He smiled weakly, just the corners of his mouth. The memory surfaced on its own, vivid and painfully sharp. A summer day, water cold even in the heat. Sobra, cannonballing into the lake with a huge splash, then trying to catch fish with his claws like the cub he once was.
"I nearly went to the bottom myself trying to pull you out," Datuk continued, stroking Sobra's scruff. "And when you climbed out, you shook yourself off and came over to hug me. Face full of muck and some tiny fish. It took me an hour to scrub you clean. You resisted, snorted, but still kept leaning into me."
Sobra didn't move. Only his ears twitched slightly—maybe at the sound of a familiar voice, maybe from the last impulses of dying nerves, or maybe Datuk just imagined it. He didn't know. But he kept talking, because silence was unbearable.
"Remember how we wandered into the wolves' territory? They almost ate us. If your father hadn't charged in just in time, we'd be feeding the wolves in that thicket right now. Your father growled at me so fiercely I thought he'd devour me himself. And you just licked his nose. And he left. Just left. Because you willed it so. You always knew how to make beasts obey."
He paused for a moment. A lump sat in his throat, impossible to swallow. Datuk gulped, clenched his jaw, forcing himself to hold on.
"I couldn't protect you," he said, and for the first time, bitterness crept into his voice. "I should have been beside you. With you. Not on another platform. Forgive me, brother. Forgive me. I promised your parents you'd return. I promised myself you'd be safe. And look how it ended."
Sobra opened his eyes.
Amber, once so bright and alive, they were now clouded, veiled by the departing life. His pupils were dilated, unfocused. But he was looking toward Datuk. He heard him. He always heard.
The bear tried to lift his head, to nuzzle his friend's shoulder as he had done a thousand times before. A dry nose, warm breath, a familiar gesture that said more than any words ever could. But the strength was gone. Only a weak, almost silent exhale escaped his maw, and his head fell helplessly back onto the stone.
But it was an answer. The last one.
"Don't go," Datuk whispered, and his voice broke.
He leaned forward, pressed his forehead to the bear's cold nose, and closed his eyes.
"I will destroy this Tree, Sobra," he said, raising his head. His voice turned as hard as the steel of his axe. Not a drop of weakness remained. Only cold, icy resolve. "I won't leave one stone upon another. I will cut down every root. I will crush every guardian. Every Herald. I will tear this Tree out by the roots, even if I have to burn myself to ashes in the process."
He clenched his fist until his knuckles turned white.
"And then I will return to the outskirts of Krag-Mhor. To your parents. And I will accept their punishment. For failing to protect you. For leading you into this place. For the fact that you'll remain here, in this cursed white wasteland, instead of returning to the forest where you were born."
Sobra looked at him. His murky amber eyes suddenly flared one last time—faint, barely noticeable, but Datuk saw it. And he heard it. The bear made a sound. Not a growl, not a huff—a short, guttural sigh, like a goodbye.
And then his eyes closed.
The silvery stripes on his fur, which had been glimmering with a dull, dying light all this time, went out one by one. The fur turned grey, lifeless. His chest stopped rising.
Datuk did not cry. He sat motionless, his hand on Sobra's scruff, staring at his still body. His breathing was steady, deep, and only the fine tremor in his fingers betrayed what was happening inside.
"I won't leave you here," he said quietly. "You're going home. Even dead. I will carry you to Krag-Mhor on my own shoulders if I have to."
---
Ulvia and Rosh stood by the wall, a few steps away from Datuk and Sobra. They didn't interfere. They understood.
Rosh sat on a stone, his back against the black wall, and his face—what was left of it—was as pale as the white sand. Blood from the wound where his lower jaw had been was still oozing, though slower now—the regeneration was beginning its work, but the damage was too severe to heal quickly. He held one hand near his chin, his mismatched eyes—one green, one brown—tracking Ulvia as she searched through her bag.
"Don't move," she said, pulling out a vial of herbal tincture and clean bandages. "I'll tend to your wounds. You've lost a lot of blood."
Rosh didn't answer. He couldn't. He just nodded—short, barely perceptible.
Ulvia knelt beside him. Her hands, so cold and frosty just a short while ago, now trembled with exhaustion. The ice on her left arm had long since melted, and the vine, living and green, pulsed again with silvery veins—weakly, but steadily.
She gently touched his face, wiping away the dried blood with a damp cloth. Rosh froze, enduring the pain. His fingers curled into fists, but he made no sound.
"The bone won't regenerate quickly," Ulvia said, applying the bandage. "But you'll survive. The regeneration will handle it. You just need time."
She glanced toward Datuk. The dwarf sat on his knees beside Sobra, his back straight, but there was such weight in that upright posture that Ulvia's heart clenched.
"He won't leave him here," she said quietly.
Rosh followed her gaze and slowly shook his head.
They knew. Datuk wouldn't abandon Sobra. Not even dead. Even if he had to carry him on his back across the entire white world, through the labyrinth, across the wastelands, through the gates of the Tree itself.
Ulvia finished bandaging Rosh's wounds and leaned back against the wall. She closed her eyes. She was drained. Her left arm, the living vine, pulsed faintly, and the silvery veins on it had dimmed. The frost plant she'd used in battle had taken a lot of her strength.
"What do we do now?" she asked without opening her eyes.
"We walk," Datuk answered, rising.
He approached Sobra, leaned down, and with a grunt of exertion, heaved the bear onto his shoulders. Sobra was massive—even now, his body weighed more than a full-grown dwarf. But Datuk didn't complain. He just stood there, bent under the weight, his legs enhanced by Skopid trembling with the strain.
"We move," he repeated.
Ulvia helped Rosh to his feet. He leaned on her shoulder, swaying, but he stood. His mismatched eyes regarded Datuk with respect—or something that passed for respect in these solitary creatures.
They moved toward the exit. The black walls of the labyrinth parted before them, revealing a straight, wide passage. The labyrinth was no longer trying to confuse them. It was leading them to the exit—perhaps because their trial was over, perhaps because it operated by its own rules, for its own reasons.
They walked in silence. Datuk's steps were heavy, his breath a ragged rasp from his chest, but he carried his burden and did not stop.
Ahead, at the end of the corridor, a white light dawned. The closer they got, the brighter it became. Ulvia squinted, Rosh squeezed his eyes shut, and Datuk simply walked forward, not looking around.
They emerged from the labyrinth. The white world greeted them with its familiar silence. The sand, the rocks, the sky—it was all the same as before, but now it felt alien, unreal.
Datuk lowered Sobra onto the sand—carefully, almost tenderly. He knelt beside him and looked at him.
"Sobra," he said quietly.
There was no answer. Only the white light, only a wind that had never been there before stirring Datuk's hair. Only a silence that held nothing but emptiness.
"I'll bring you home," said Datuk. "I promise."
He had already risen to continue when a figure began to materialize ahead, on the edge of the white wasteland, right out of thin air.
White. Luminous. Not like the Heralds—not threatening, not oppressive. Serene.
She wasn't walking—she was appearing, like morning mist, like a mirage in the desert. Silvery hair streamed behind her back, her white dress swayed though there was no wind. Her eyes were white—no pupils, no irises—but in their depths, in that infinite whiteness, there was no emptiness. Only tranquility.
Datuk froze. Ulvia raised her left hand, ready to attack. Rosh tried to form his fingers into a pattern, but his strength failed him.
The girl didn't move. She simply stood there, looking at them with her white eyes.
"Who are you?" Datuk asked, his voice low and hoarse.
The girl didn't answer.