guards from the Order of Blue Fire, all the carefully chosen pilgrim volunteers, and perhaps even the sham were watching from their hidden vantages, beyond the veil of the Plaguewrought Land.
Everyone was in place. The ritual could begin shortlythe ritual of borders.
Vraith stood at the edge of the world. On one side, a serene, sunny afternoon bathed a grassy field in bright yellow warmth, broken only by the shadows of a smattering of clouds and floating earth motes. Quiet and peaceful and ordinary.
One the other side, the world was ending. Behind the border veil that marked the edge of the Plaguewrought Land, everything was in upheaval.
The land beyond the veil was one of the few locations where the beloved wild magicthe anarchic, extra planar force that had changed Toril forever when it first tore asunder the rules and ways of magicwas constant and contained. Inside, unstable ground flowed at random up into the sky, or down, or sideways.
An ocean of blue firewhat the unenlightened masses called spellplague though it was only the remnant of that glorious eventsurged and pulsed behind the border veil. Though no match for the Spellplague that had struck Toril a hundred years ago, the blue fire promised power unbound by the laws of nature. Raw power.
And in betweenthe border. The veil that separated these two worlds seemed fragile and hardly up to the task of holding in the most powerful force in all Faerun, but it nonetheless managed. The border stretched up into the sky, like an undulating, prismatic curtaina translucent sheet blowing in a wind, covered in an oily sheen that reflected a rainbow of light.
Borders existed in all worldsedges of nature that formed the margins between darkness and light, between heat and cold, between order and chaos.
Between life and death.
And it is time to move this one, Vraith thought. Time to give the blue fire a little more room. Against the backdrop of the Plaguewrought Land, Vraith drew herself up and prepared to address the pilgrims who had been chosen for her first ritual. As an elf of diminutive build, Vraith had to work to maintain the aura of authority she commanded.
Whatever her size, they could not deny her magical prowess. That was her power. That was what she brought to the Order of Blue Fire and its secretive masters. This ritual would be her glorious ascension. Her rapture.
This endeavor’s success would not only be a triumph for her, but for all involved. For the volunteers, to be personally accompanied and baptized in the spellplague by one of the leaders of the Order of Blue Fire was an honor, to be sure. But no exposure to the spellplague was without risks. And when Vraith had explained the risks, these five pilgrims had seemed unconcerned. Perfect.
If all goes well, she thought, their devotion and commitment to the cause will be rewarded. Vraith knew that, for it had been promised by a sharn, a true prophet of the Blue Fire, that had come to Vraith in a dream.
Hadn’t it? Vraith was sure it had… in its oblique and awe-inspiring way.
“We are ready,” she said, raising her voice to an evangelical pitch. “Pilgrims, gather around me.” She spread her arms wide as if she would embrace them all.
The pilgrims approached, each garbed in simple white robes. They had been chosen for their devotion as well as their constitution, for this ritual would tax their physical endurance.
Vraith took each pilgrim one by one, placing them in a tight semicircle next to the border veil. She avoided looking at their faces as she arranged them. Their identities didn’t matter to Vraiththey were pieces in a game. Pawns, interchangeable and easy to lose for the greater good.
When each of the pilgrims was in position, an arm’s length apart, the five of them forming a tight half-circle with end points nearly touching the border veil, Vraith carefully unsheathed a ceremonial dagger from its jeweled scabbard. The dagger’s razor-sharp blade shimmered with blue magic. Beyond the semicircle stood the guard contingent, ready to keep the peace or fight any creatures that might appear.
“May the Blue Fire burn inside you, each one,” she said as she made a small incision in the palms of their hands, one by one. “May you find your rapture.”
Inside the veil, chaos ravaged the land. Outside, the mid-afternoon sun shone warm The sound of the surging plagueland was a muffled roar behind the veil, and the late-summer smell of the blue fire leaked through: decaying flesh and rotting oranges.
But the blue fire itself remained contained within. Like a caged beast, the spellplague remnants raged inside the Plaguewrought Land, its pale blue and white energy like sheets of gauzy lightning. Wild and alive, that power spoke to Commander Accordant Vraith, urging her to set it free of its bonds, for the blue fire would purge all of Faerun of its weak and frail. In the wake of the baptism by spellplague, only the chosen survived and were made stronger for it.
“Take the hand of the person next to you,” Vraith said. “Palm to palm so that you become bonded to each other through blooda single, unifying thread.”
The pilgrims complied, seemingly entranced.
A deep, throbbing ache resounded in Vraith’s sternum as her spellscar activated. The world shifted in front of her eyes, colors fading to red and black as tendrils of magic invisible to all but herselfsnaked forth from Vraith’s chest and touched the threads of the pilgrims’ souls, starkly evident now to her enlightened vision.
Vraith started the ritual, weaving the filaments of these souls into a new curtain, something matching the mesh of the border veil, her assistants brought forth powdered metals, bottles of swirling residuum, and dangerous salts that burst into flame as they came into contact with Vraith’s magic. It was a delicate and exhausting spell, lasting hours as she painstakingly crafted a new border and tied the souls of the pilgrims into the shifting, prismatic membrane that held back the blue fire.
Vraith rejoiced in her work, nudging the edge of chaos just a tiny bit. The plaguelands surged and crashed like an angry ocean of raw magic behind the veil, and now that raw, blue fire leaped from pilgrim to pilgrim:
Come on, Vraith thought. Hold fast.
But the life force of the pilgrims flared brightly and guttered out. Each unit lasted mere moments. Not enough time to finish the ritual. Not enough time for anything but burning and death.
Vraith felt, more than heard, the screams and terrified cries of agony as the pilgrims came apart, burned from the inside by the chaotic fire. As she came out of her casting trance, Vraith disentangled herself from the frayed threads of the spell she had woven. She recoiled as the border curtain collapsed back to its previous spot.
A wave of exhaustion weakened her knees, and as her spellscar diminished, the wind was knocked out of her. Struggling to breathe, she looked over the aftermath. What a failure!
At her feet, the remains of the pilgrims still smoked and smoldered. Inadequate* she thought, and weak! Vraith stepped away from the bodies and composed herself. After a minute her breath returned, and she yelled, “Get them out of my sight!” The venom in her voice surprised even Vraith.
As Jahin, the genasi wizard who currently served as captain of the guard, moved to obey her, Vraith took a few deep breaths. The noxious aroma of singed flesh coiled in the air, contaminating it. She needed to think. How had the ritual failed? It was the first test; some degree of failure was to be expected. But the deaths of all five pilgrims was catastrophic.
These pilgrims were too frail. The blue fire was discriminating of courseit would not spare just anyone. She couldn’t count, it seemed, on the pilgrims lasting long enough for the ritual to complete. If only there were a way to give them strength so that they could remain exposed to the blue fire a little longer without dying.
Vraith drew herself up and turned away from the remnants of the pilgrims. The entourage of Peacekeepersthe Order of Blue Fire militiawas busy cleaning up the smoking remains, but she didn’t have to oversee that. And as she walked toward her carriage, Vraith’s mind was already concentrating on the next test ritual, on how she would change things.
She turned to her assistant, Renfodan ebony-skinned human cleric in the pale blue robes of a Loremaster Accordant of the Order. His short, graying, black hair receded over his forehead, and cataracts dulled his brown eyes a little.
“We need to pay a visit to the monk,” she said.
Renfod arched his brows. “Brother Gregor?”
Vraith nodded. “He’s been working on something. The pilgrims whisper he has a potion that will grant them safe passage through the Plaguewrought Land.”
“Gregor hasn’t been eager to join the Order,” Renfod said.
