The Land of Broken Roads

-Help!- Socks said again, more insistently. -Hurry!-

“I don’t know what help I’ll be, but I’ll try my best,” said Dirt. He knelt and picked up the Home-staff, still in the shape of an arm brace, slipped it on, and patted it fondly. He’d ask her to change shapes later, when it was more convenient.

-Get on. We can’t find Father. And Sister is gone,­- said Socks. -We don’t know what to do.-

The pup turned around and Dirt used mana to jump on just in time to grab the harness for a run. Socks was certainly not wasting any time. Dirt hunkered down and Socks left at a full sprint. The rushing wind and sheer speed reminded him of flying with the elemental, which revived a physical memory of terror that he had to push down.

-Why are your fingertips sore? And your toes, too. What have you been doing with the trees?- asked Socks. He slowed slightly, but sped back up once he noticed.

“They had me try to learn to speak with an air elemental, a big one that I think is a mother of smaller winds. I’m getting the hang of it, but, well…” said Dirt. “We had a little misunderstanding that resulted in her lifting me into the sky and tossing me around. She thought I wanted to fly, perhaps. I’m still not sure. But anyway, it was cold up there and I wasn’t dressed, and the cold got to me. But it’s not bad. I’m fine.”

-It seems like every time you visit them, something horrible happens,- said Socks.

Dirt chuckled into Socks’ fur, enjoying the fact he could keep his eyes closed and not be terrified he was about to hit something and die. “It really does. But I still love them. I’m glad I went. I can’t wait to show you… Oh! Okay, don’t look at this. I want it to be a surprise. I have something really, really great to show you.” He did his best to lock away the disinterred city, all its handsome buildings and roads restored to their proper places. And in particular, he buried the memory of his hot bath so tightly he almost forgot about it himself. “You’re gonna love it.”

-I’m not in the mood to love anything right now. I am too worried.-

“Sorry. So what’s going on? Where are we going?”

-There’s an old place that Father said he hasn’t seen in a long time, and he said all sorts of old things are coming back now, like little Dirt from ancient days. So he decided to show us. He was in a good mood because his pups are strong. But then he disappeared. And so did Sister, who followed right after him.-

“What do you mean he disappeared? He ran away, or he fell in a hole, or something like that?”

-I mean just what I said,- snapped Socks. Then he felt chagrined for speaking sharply, but Dirt sent him a puff of reassurance. He understood perfectly; there was no need to explain.

Socks shared the rest with images instead of words. He saw Father from the pup’s perspective, slightly smaller but not by much. And Sister walking like all the other pups did—mostly following, but stepping this way or that to smell something interesting or look behind a rock. Sometimes ahead, sometimes rushing to catch up. But for now, she was only a few steps behind her sire, and was the closest.

The great black wolf stepped lightly between two square monoliths that guarded the entrance. Inside was a perfectly circular valley, nestled up in an expanse of sharp, rocky hills. A great wind went before him and threw several millennia’s worth of drifted sand and weeds into a towering cloud that drifted out of sight. Ripples of disturbed force spread like waves on water wherever anything larger than a mouse passed through the dome of faintest light that covered this place.

Father spoke to his children without words, sending pictures and scents and emotions instead. His voice sounded very different from Socks’ perspective. It was warm and strong and not the least threatening. The meaning was perfectly clear: HUMANS DID NOT BUILD THIS. OLDER CREATURES DID AND THEY WERE NO FRIENDS TO OUR KIND. BUT WE REMAIN AND THEY DO NOT. THEY WERE HUMAN SIZE, SO THIS PLACE IS SMALL.

It didn’t look small to Socks. It looked as big as a city, a great big circular one, with sections containing an exciting variety of things. The buildings were so old they hardly looked like buildings anymore, with solitary pillars of lichen-painted stone standing here and there, amongst piles of debris so decayed they might never have been part of anything at all.

Underneath it all, the roads were still intact. Or perhaps the entire city was built on a stone platform. Either way, it was more impressive than any of the human roads and might have put their fine buildings to shame if everything was all still standing. The decoration style was bizarre, with long, exact lines and curves tracing across great distances of unbroken roadway. The ground was all intact, one single piece.

Socks sniffed at the old dust and smelled traces of little mammals and birds, larval insects, and drifted leaves. Nothing big, though. Not even curious wolf.

THIS PLACE HASN’T BEEN ACTIVE FOR—

And then he was gone. Father vanished without a trace except a whiff of air that smelled like it came from somewhere else. Not even a scent of surprise left behind. Sister, in shock, stepped over to where he had been and disappeared as well.

Socks looked at his siblings—Brother, Brother, and Sister—and they were as stunned as he was.

-And that was what happened. I was the farthest away, so I told them to sit down and wait while I went to get my human. Only one of us should risk moving, and I was the only one with somewhere to go. We have tried to speak to Mother but she is resting now and does not hear us,- said Socks. -I came to get you because I don’t know what else to do.-

“I can’t imagine anything happening to Father that he didn’t want to have happen,” said Dirt.

-Me neither,- said Socks, his voice full of worry, which floated across a deeper cavern of quietly rumbling terror. Dirt recognized it. That’s what had been nagging at him earlier, that feeling.

They left the rest unsaid. Dirt sent puffs of encouragement to Socks, but they just made him feel worse, because neither of them truly had much hope. Instead, the idea of Father being gone sank in more and more, and the world became an empty, terrifying, hostile place.

It was a long run from there, a cold one through an icy wind that smelled like snow. Dirt stayed warm by staying down, his fingers dug into Socks’ fur. What few shaggy late-autumn leaves still clung to the trees and brush looked wilted now, wind-blown and tired. The grasses, once yellow and stiff, were gray and sagging.

Socks ran over high and rocky landscape, through hills and along the foothills of long mountains with crests of brown rock. Twice the pup became so distraught that he forgot to cycle mana and suddenly found himself too tired to run until he caught his breath, and no amount of affection from Dirt could fully soothe him.

Dusk arrived too quickly, but not before they arrived. Socks’ siblings sensed his coming and sent their worried greetings, just thoughts at first in the way of wolves, then adding words for Dirt’s benefit.

-YOU WERE GONE A LONG TIME-, said Brother.

-I’m back now, though,- replied Socks. He approached the two obsidian pillars, a material Dirt recognized but had never thought about before, and smelled the crosswind before stepping through the gap.

That gave Dirt just long enough to see the markings, which none of the wolves had cared enough to look at, including Socks. It might have been writing, but if it was, the script was ridiculous. Instead of nice, clean, separate lines to draw a letter, these markings were far too flowing, too flowery, like cursive that had gotten out of control. They swooped decoratively and had too many curves, too many stray dots and markings, all of which would make it hard to read or to carve them. But what they might have been instead, Dirt couldn’t guess.

From the outside, there wasn’t much else to see. The rocky hills rose steeply beside either pillar, quickly becoming taller than even Father, and the gap shimmered, like seeing through fog so faint that Dirt might not have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it.

Socks didn’t smell any approaching danger, so in they went. The inside was just as Socks had shown him, a city not quite as large as Ogena with its walls, but larger than Llovella. The stone inside wasn’t black obsidian like the entrance pillars—it was all a neutral gray, granite probably, dirty and lichen-covered with age.

Looking around, Dirt wasn’t convinced that anyone had ever lived here. Rough gray monoliths dotted the area, surrounded by piles of rubble and broken stone. It seemed more like a wasteland than a ruined city. Nothing even looked like a building anymore. The area was strangely dry, the air quiet and unmoving, and despite the chill wind just a moment before, it was warmer here. The sky was blue and barren overhead, sun already sunken past the ring of hills that comprised the horizon.

The most notable thing to see was the three other wolves, two the same shaggy gray as Socks, whom Dirt knew from his litter, and a blackening one twice their size, who was Brother. The three of them stood up, anxiously wagging their tails.

Dirt slid off Socks and walked back to the two obsidian pillars to take a closer look. He turned his gaze inward, onto his mana body.

Just as he suspected, something was happening with the pillars. They were an active working of magic, almost certainly tied to others around the perimeter; but what their precise purpose was, he couldn’t tell. Something about the air, that was part of it. Holding it steady and keeping it clean, which made sense. But still letting it… talk, maybe? Exchange something? With the air outside the dome.

That part of the spell probably anchored it into the pillars, and a carefully balanced array of sigils drew a perfect stream of power to keep it going. There were plenty of new ones, but the strangest thing about them was how they were only partially anchored in the stone. From what he knew, if you wanted a spell to stay there, you had to draw the whole thing and there was no way for it to gather any mana on its own. If Dirt could learn how this worked, then his bath would stay warm forever, all on its own!

Socks nudged him from behind and Dirt said, “Sorry. I was just trying to figure out what magic is happening here. How close do you think we can get to where Father and Sister disappeared without disappearing ourselves?”

The pup picked Dirt up with his mind and put him on his back, then headed toward the center of the circular town at a jog.

-WHAT CAN DIRT DO THAT WILL HELP?- asked the older male.

-We have nowhere else to go for help. We will see together if he can help at all,- said Socks.

-Do not disappear,- said Sister, sick to watch Socks risking everything by running around.

What could Dirt say to comfort any of them? They weren’t stupid. Dirt and Socks would be no match for anything that could surprise Father. But neither could they give in to despair, not until they saw a corpse.

He watched the lines on the street as they ran, long and perfect. Somehow, none of the ground had been damaged when everything else decayed. Dirt looked with his mana body, but if there was some great working to preserve it like the scrolls, it was too large or too distant for him to perceive.

No, if anything, the lines themselves looked more like the kind of enchantment he was familiar with, just on an outrageous scale. The entire city might be a spell. It might not even be a city at all. Maybe no one had ever lived here in the first place.

Although that didn’t make sense. They were clearly on a road, one very similar in width to any from the Sunset Empire. And those monoliths might have supported wooden constructions that decayed in the eons since they were abandoned. Who could tell? Was that gap a doorway? Socks wasn’t about to stop and let him poke around and think about it.

Dirt could believe, however, that it wasn’t a human place. It might not have occurred to him if Father hadn’t said so, but something about it seemed to repulse him. Something about how it was laid out, maybe. It bothered him, like a triangle with one corner not quite joined. He wished there was even a single statue to see what the creatures who built it looked like.

The spot where Father and Sister disappeared was on the far third of the circle, and along the way, they crossed the center of the city, an array of joining sigils decorating a great plaza. The creatures probably walked all over it with impunity, if the stone was still in such good shape even now. Father’s wind had cleaned all the dust out of the grooves and Dirt recognized a few sigils for direction. The spell here had no power in it, though. There was nothing to see with his mana body beyond the faint and subtle workings of regular physical existence.

They stopped at the edge of another plaza, this one square, with a clear area large enough for Father to lie down in. The stone was bare except a wide U shape and an indented border.

-Here. I think it was here,- said Socks. He sniffed around and told Dirt and his siblings what scents he found. Father, Sister, and the faintest hints of something else. Plants that Socks didn’t recognize, so faint he could only barely perceive them.

Dirt wondered if the wolves got turned into plants, but that wasn’t it. There weren’t any here. So where did that smell come from?

There were no other traces. No bones, blood, or fur. Not even a scent of pain or fear from Father or Sister.

Socks keened softly, his fear growing even more now that he found not a single clue what had happened. Dirt slid down again and the pup put a wall of mental force in front of him to keep his pet from taking even one step forward. Dirt patted Socks’ foreleg. He wasn’t going anywhere.

There was magic here. An enchantment, too large for Dirt to see all of it. Or even most of it. Just a few sigils joining a grand working to this spot. And most of those were only half-manifested and unreadable; the mana was weak and sputtering, exhausted and unable to renew itself.

Dirt told everyone, “My guess is, whatever happened probably took a very, very long time to charge up. Father might not have known this was here, or that it would do anything, if he wasn’t actively looking. It’s also possible he knew and did it on purpose. You should all be safe if you don’t step anywhere that has a symbol like this. You can come out if you want.”

The other pups gingerly stepped from where they’d been perched for hours, stretching and shaking their fur as they did. Once they were convinced nothing would happen, they visibly cheered up.

He and Socks looked at each other, and Dirt smiled and jerked his head in their direction. Socks left at a run to go comfort his siblings. They met in the plaza in the center and began licking each other’s snouts and rubbing their faces and shoulders together as if they had all escaped grave peril. Which they might have.

Dirt picked a line and followed it, wondering where it would end up. Only a few spaces over, which might have contained buildings, and he saw a partially-buried sigil. He tried lifting some of the shattered stone that covered it, but it was too heavy, even with mana strengthening his body.

Well, he just needed to get an idea what it did. Was Father still alive? Maybe he’d been carried somewhere like with root travel. Maybe he’d been shunted out of reality and into the void. Or something else entirely.

Dirt leaned down and touched the edge of the sigil with his finger and gave it a little puff of mana. It manifested in the magic world and Dirt recognized it. This sigil didn’t have its own specific function; it modified other sigils to lengthen their effects. Well, that was good. At least he didn’t start a fire seeing what it was.

It got dark before Dirt had much chance to trace the lines and figure out what the whole spell was for, and tracing the spell out under his little lights was rather slow. There was no moon yet, and the stars in the blackening sky didn’t do much for his vision they like did for the pups.

He considered stopping for the night, but the pups were too restless. They could still smell each other’s fear and it kept any of them from fully relaxing, or stopping being afraid. None of them wanted to face the night without getting any answers. Not in this place.

So Dirt did the only thing he could think of and started pumping mana into the spell. Nothing visible happened, but the world of magic ignited into a dazzling array of sigils and swirling magical combinations that sucked up power faster than he could provide it. It was easily as sophisticated as a full expression from the elemental.

“No one move for a bit. I’m trying to figure out what this does and I might accidentally turn it on,” Dirt told the pups.

The four of them froze and sent him wordless panic. He replied with a feeling of reassurance and said, “Don’t worry. I’m just looking. I won’t use it.”

They were not much reassured. Socks couldn’t help himself and padded silently over to stand right over Dirt, watching warily to make sure he didn’t do anything foolish. The other pups stayed away, which was probably wise.

He sighed and grit his teeth, then refocused. Okay, what was this for? He could only keep part of it going at a time, and he didn’t get to pick which part. That was a sigil for stone, one which had been modified and expanded in a way that probably meant a particular type of stone, or even a specific stone. Around that, sigils for motion and power, an array that might filter things out? It acted on air, and Dirt was pretty sure it excluded it. But not always—there was a reverse in there, if something else activated.

Dirt stood and hurried back over to the square plaza with the U shape in it. This was the center of it, and whatever the spell did happened here. Well, obviously. But not just here. He noticed the mana he fed in wasn’t draining out—it was being retained. The enchantment wanted to be full, but whatever powered it was too slow and anemic to do so quickly. At the imperceptible rate that the mana trickled in on its own… Well, Dirt had already guessed that part too.

Against his own better judgment, Socks provided the remaining mana the spell needed in a steady, monstrous flow, until finally Dirt could see the whole thing at once.

Just as he’d suspected, once it was fully powered, a connection formed that stretched far, far beyond sight. Which wasn’t that far in the dark, but that was all Dirt needed to be sure.

“It’s like root travel. It carries people somewhere else. But, I think only living things. And maybe their clothes. It’s hard to tell. Father probably drained almost all of its power and Sister emptied the rest. Anyone else who stepped here wouldn’t have gone anywhere,” said Dirt.

­-WHERE DID IT PUT HIM? IN THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA? INSIDE SOLID STONE? WHY CAN’T HE HEAR US?- said Brother, insistent and impatient because he was worried.

“I have no idea, but probably somewhere very, very far away. And I think that plant smell was because it replaced Father and Sister with the air on the other side. So not water, and not rock. They’re fine. I’m sure they’re alive. In fact, I’m certain,” said Dirt.

-When will they come back?- asked Sister.

-And why haven’t they already,- said Socks. ­-See, my human is useful.-

Dirt sat at the edge of the square plaza, just out of range of the spell. Socks sat beside him, hovering protectively to make sure Dirt didn’t get any ideas.

“I guess we should wait here for the night and see if they come back. I think if he wants to, Father can just power up the other side and it’ll bring him across.”

They were amenable to that and gathered nearby to lay down and rest. None of them wanted to get this close to the plaza, though, and Dirt couldn’t blame them. But he did know something that would help them feel better.

He stood and stepped out from under Socks. It was time to show off one of his new tricks. The pup lay down and blocked the road into the plaza, keeping a wary eye on him.

Dirt carefully hid his thoughts and lifted the rake from Socks’ harness with his mind. It floated down toward his hand and no sooner did Socks see it than he yelped in surprise and jumped all the way in the air, instinctively trying to get away. Dirt reached out to grab the rake, laughter forming in his throat.

Then Socks landed with three paws in the plaza. And vanished.