The magnificent staircase of silver luminescence, a bridge between a restored Marvash and the distant, sorrowful visage of Zarmin, pulsed with soft, internal light. It was an ethereal spectacle, a path forged by an impossible alchemy of humble soup and profound heartbreak. To the assembled thousands on the Sunlit Courtyard, it represented salvation, a prayer answered. To Barlas, it was merely an inconvenience, another obstacle between him and a proper conversation.
“Right. That’s settled then,” he grumbled, his voice startlingly loud in the sudden, reverent hush. He looked less like a god contemplating ascension and more like a man bracing himself for a particularly annoying errand. “She needs to eat something. Probably skipped meals for a while if she’s been… *brooding* like this.”
He stalked over to the simmering pot, which now emitted only a faint, earthy aroma. Ignoring the awe-struck gasps of the onlookers, Barlas found a stout, double-walled thermos he’d inexplicably acquired. He filled it with the now-cool, unadorned chicken soup, carefully sealing the lid. “Don’t want it getting cold,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “She always hated cold soup.”
With the thermos tucked securely under his arm, Barlas approached the base of the radiant ramp. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t even glance back at the sea of expectant faces. His gaze was fixed solely on the immense, sorrowful face of Zarmin, still shimmering above them, though her destructive tears had now become simply a gentle, silent cascade of light.
“Honestly, the drama,” he scoffed, taking the first step. The steps felt solid beneath his boot, warm and faintly humming. “Just eat your food and talk it out, Zarmin. We’re not getting any younger.”
Each step he took up the celestial path felt less like an ascent and more like an indignant march. He was going to deliver this soup, and he was going to make Zarmin listen. His resolve, born of deep-seated concern and a healthy dose of irritation, was a tangible force.
He had climbed perhaps a hundred steps when the first of them appeared. Not from Zarmin’s face, but from the swirling depths of the void that surrounded the luminous path, tendrils of inky darkness coalescing into grotesque shapes. They were hulking, amorphous things, with too many teeth and no discernible eyes, their forms rippling with what felt like concentrated anguish. They shrieked, a sound like grinding stone and forgotten grief, and lunged for him.
Barlas barely flinched. He squinted at the first one, a misshapen horror with claws like obsidian shards. “What in the world is *that*?” he demanded, as if addressing a particularly ill-behaved dog. “Is this part of your ‘act,’ Zarmin? Because it’s not funny. These things look like they haven’t been walked in ages.”
One of the dusk-beasts, emboldened by his apparent lack of fear, surged forward, its maw snapping inches from his face. Barlas, with a sigh of profound annoyance, reached into the pocket of his rather too-large tunic. He pulled out a rolled-up farming periodical, its cover depicting a crude illustration of Earth’s agricultural machinery, a relic from his previous life that had somehow made the trans-dimensional journey with him. He’d been meaning to read that article on advanced crop rotation.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Barlas unfurled the periodical with a sharp snap, then brought it down with a surprisingly loud *thwack* against the beast’s smoky flank. The hound recoiled, letting out a pitiful, wounded moan before dissolving into wisps of smoke.
[Divine Grace: The Banishing Scroll]
He gave the newsprint another irritated flick. “Honestly, Zarmin. Get a grip. You’re scaring the wildlife.”
The other void-fiends, momentarily stunned by the casual dismissal of their terrifying existence, hesitated. But their underlying programming, the pure, raw guilt and despair that fueled them, soon reasserted itself. A dozen more materialized, their shrieks growing louder, their forms more frantic as they closed in.
Barlas sighed, adjusting the thermos. “Can’t a man just deliver some soup in peace? Now move along, you mangy phantoms.” He began methodically swatting them away, each *thwack* of the newsprint a dull report that echoed strangely in the celestial void. Each contact made the beasts dissipate, sometimes with a whimper, sometimes with a frustrated snarl that dissolved into nothingness.
Below, on the Sunlit Courtyard, Dastan and Tala watched with breathless devotion. Tala gripped Dastan’s arm, nails digging into his mail. “He… he is striking down the manifestations of the Goddess’s sorrow with a… a printed parchment!”
Dastan, ever practical in his loyalty, nodded gravely. “A holy relic, no doubt. The Scroll of Untroubled Minds, perhaps. But he is alone. Our Lord requires aid, Princess.”
Before Tala could protest, Dastan, with a silent prayer to his unlikely deity, began his ascent. Tala, refusing to be left behind, followed close on his heels. They moved with a stealth born of reverence and desperation, clinging to the edges of the silver path, hoping to avoid Barlas’s attention and his inevitable scolding.
They caught up just as Barlas was dealing with a particularly persistent, multi-limbed specter. He swung the rolled booklet, but the thing was unusually swift, dodging the blow and lunging past him. Its target was clear: the figure now visible just a few paces behind Barlas.
“Tala!” Dastan roared, his voice cracking with sudden, primal fear. The phantom, its form now solidified into razor-sharp talons, was mere inches from the Princess, her breath trapped in her throat. Dastan didn’t think. He didn’t calculate. He simply moved.
Dastan drove his iron boots forward, throwing his bulk into the gap. He slammed into Tala, knocking her violently out of the phantom's path just as its claws swept through the air where her head had been a heartbeat before. The impact sent them both tumbling, Dastan’s armor scraping painfully against the shimmering starlight steps. The black shape, denied its target, shrieked in frustration, its form flickering violently as it prepared for another strike.
Barlas, who had been mid-swing with his booklet, froze. He spun around, glaring sharply. His gaze swept from the cowering Tala to the knight sprawled protectively over her, then to the snarling shade. A harsh scowl settled on his features.
“Dastan! Tala! What in the seven hells are you doing up here?!” he bellowed, his voice echoing with unprecedented force. “Did I not tell you to stay put? Are you *trying* to get yourselves hurt?!”
But the shade didn’t wait for an answer. It lunged again, its focus now solely on the two vulnerable humans. Barlas, his face contorted with a scowl that could curdle milk, didn’t even bother with the rolled booklet this time. He simply extended a hand, palm open, toward the charging monster. A silent, invisible force erupted from him, not a blast, but an absolute cessation of motion. The shadow-beast froze mid-air, its claws inches from Dastan’s exposed neck, its shriek dying into a choked gurgle.
Then, with a sound like ancient glass being crushed, the shade imploded, scattering into nothingness. Barlas then turned his furious gaze back to Dastan, who was now helping a dazed Tala to her feet.
“Are you two completely out of your minds?!” Barlas raged, marching towards them. “Do you have any idea how dangerous these things are? You could have been seriously hurt! Now get back down there!”
Dastan, despite the rebuke, felt a surge of triumph. He had done it. He had truly, selflessly, protected his Princess. He puffed out his chest, ready to defend their presence, when a tremor ran through the silver flight. Not a gentle hum, but a violent shiver.
Barlas, mid-scolding, stumbled. He looked down at the starlight beneath his feet, then up at Zarmin’s still-sorrowful face. A fresh flood of despair rolled down from her visage, a sudden surge of grief that resonated through the ethereal path.
The radiant bridge, once so solid and reassuring, began to crack. Fissures, like spiderwebs spun from pure darkness, spread rapidly across its surface. A low, groaning sound, like a mountain in distress, filled the void. The ground beneath their feet buckled, sending them lurching.
“Lord Barlas, the steps!” Dastan cried, his voice laced with genuine panic. The cracks widened, growing into gaping chasms of nothingness.
“Oh, *now* what?!” Barlas yelled, grabbing Tala and Dastan by their scruffs, pulling them close. “Zarmin, what are you doing?!”
But it was too late. With a final, earsplitting *CRACK*, the staircase vanished, dissolving into a million glittering motes of light that spun madly before winking out of existence. The solid path beneath them evaporated, plunging the trio into the abyss. They fell, screaming, into a literal, churning ocean of tears.