The Tempered Schism twisted the world, like cloth held tight in a great fist. Silenos had felt the sensation before. Last time, it had come from the malignant magic of an Entity. This time was no less disconcerting, however much he knew that it was for his own benefit.

  Once more, Silenos was reminded how petty his magic truly was as reality caved in around him, melted down and dissipated. Gravity rescinded its hold on him, light fled from his vicinity, and sound became a distant memory as reason itself was delegated to mere abstraction. He turned, or would have if something so constant as direction remained with any substance, and found Adonis nowhere in sight.

  It passed of course, insofar as anything could be described as passing in such a nothing-space. Silenos felt solidity beneath him, grunting as his mind slowly plodded through the tedium of restoring order to chaos. Around him was a realm of pure madness, beyond description. Geometry was a liquid thing, chronology outright fluid. The air hummed and pulsated like musculature, while the ground seemed to retreat from his feet in fear. Far beyond him lay a crest of mountains that rumbled and ran like melting ice, their shapes changing by the moment.

  Silenos scoured the protean landscape for any sign of his former apprentice, and found Adonis soon enough. The man was gathering his own bearings, examining something high above. Silenos followed his gaze.

  Only rarely would a Named of House Shaiagrazni feel true awe, and Silenos decided he did not care for the novelty. Far above him- cosmically far- were great masses moving in slow arcs across the skies. Behind them was a crimson space, not quite atmosphere, not quite vacuum, and through it the great serpentine shapes coiled and shifted along. Each was of a size more common to features of geography than living things. Perhaps unsurprising, for none was truly living. The Entities had not noticed him, Silenos suspected that was the only reason he still lived.

  Silently, he made his way over to Adonis’ side and kept his magic ready. He was already in war-form, having made sure to change his shape well in advance of the transit.

  “We are in the Shallow Depths.” Adonis told him, without needing to be asked. “I can tell by the density of magic in the air.”

  It was no great surprise, Silenos had studied the arcane for too long to have any illusions that a single area of the Depths would fail to defy any expectations built around physical reality.

  “Then let us hurry.” He suggested. “I would be done with this sooner rather than later.”

  The two of them moved swiftly; Silenos propelled by the great musculature and efficient strands of his war-form, Adonis by his own ability to empower his motions. Kinetics, powerful magic which, employed at his level, was similar in effect to the Vigour of the New World, albeit requiring constant focus to remain active.

  It was nonetheless difficult to gauge distance in any part of the Depths, even ones as “shallow”, low in magic and grounded in reality, as these. Silenos found his war-form covering a dozen feet per pound, crossing terrain so fast that a single minute ought to have carried him kilometres. And yet, examining the trail behind him, he would see only a few dozen metres in his wake. At other times, a mere few steps would seem to take him halfway to the horizon.

  Space, as was the case with all things here, could not be relied upon. He had to remind himself of that. When one found oneself in the Depths, rationality was irrational.

  The greatest concern was keeping a constant distance between himself and Adonis. Any Shaiagrazni was loathe to rely upon another, but so too would they do so if the alternative was destruction. Silenos had rebuilt some small measures of his previous countermeasures against death, and yet he had no guarantee they would function were he to perish here.

  Indeed, even if they did, he knew for a fact there were Entities not countable among the greater of their kind which could bypass such things. Far better not to take the risk. And so he and his former apprentice guarded one another, forced to huddle like apes around a shared fire.

  Here their magic availed them nothing, save each breaths. They were neither of them a Dark Lord, not in the Depths. Mere plankton beneath the waves.

  Though they were far from alone in that distinction, most Entities would fall under such a category too. More than once Silenos and Adonis found themselves impeded by a particularly aggressive being of magic, and forced to defend one another. Silenos’ newly-made cannons spat kinesis and flame, ripping into the enemies more through will than physics. Adonis found similar success with his great mace, fighting with several times Galukar’s prowess and reminding Silenos why, even with his new Vigour-enhanced war-form, he could not afford to take the caster lightly.

  Either of them would have perished in such skirmishes, assailed several times by foes with the numbers to advantage them. With both their powers combined, the Shaiagraznies just barely weathered their challenges.

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  But not without wounds.

  ***

  Silenos roared as the Entity reached for him. It was a towering thing, in the way that mountains were. Thin and tentacled almost like one of his own grotesqueries, though every inch of it was, following a cursory examination with his Fleshcrafting, composed of semi-congealed menstrual blood.

  This substance did not impede it in the slightest, and he felt an impossible strength tighten about his body. The limbs of his war-form locked, armour plating doing as much to resist the Entity as musculature. Neither was enough, not even together. Creaking and groaning ran through Silenos’ magnificent body as it was tested by a pressure to rival planetary cores, and surrendered.

  It was then that Adonis freed him.

  The mace came down hard, and from it emerged a burst of omni-directional energy which ran through semi-solid blood to blast it apart. Silenos fell, beat broken wings to right himself and focused on repairing them even as he dropped towards the ground. He aimed, fired, struck the Entity near its midsection and watched his projectile blast apart.

  One advantage to his cannon’s ludicrous velocity, closing in on four times the speed of sound, was that at such speeds its projectiles behaved almost like liquids themselves, dispersing as they passed through the Entity. Silenos focused on that fact, let it carry his will and magic into tearing a hole half the size of his war-form in it. By the time he’d stabilised himself in the air, it was already closing up.

  Silenos bit back his frustration. Battling Entities was never a specialty of his- those rare few among House Shaiagrazni who were regularly called on to do so were invariably masters of more than his ability and experience. He knew, intellectually, that only magic and will could wound one. That their forms were immaterial to them, mere constructs held together by alien cognition and power.

  To see it demonstrated, to find his attack foiled by a simple refusal on its target’s behalf to obey the laws of physical matter, was another entirely. Silenos Shaiagrazni felt fear for the first time in a long time.

  Then he buried it, for he had work to do. And none would deny his glorious will.

  He conjured his blasting-oil as he let himself glide downwards, catching non-existent air upon his broken wings and using absent gravity to aid in his descent. The Entity attacked with great spurts of clotting blood flung from its own body, and Silenos evaded them as best he could. Two caught him- sizzling as they ate into keratin plate and steamed into the air.

  Entities enjoyed acid, he had learned that much from his time in the Shallow Depths, and they enjoyed physical contact even more. Silenos saw its tendrils reaching for another grab just before he propelled his hastily-made explosive. It detonated in the centre of one great limb, ripping it into a cloud of bloody vapour and earning him another few precious moments. Adonis was not so lucky as that.

  Though stronger, faster and more durable, he lacked Silenos’ options of versatility and range. His body was quickly being encased in the Entity’s bloody substance, compressed just as Silenos’ own was. For one moment Silenos considered ignoring him, focusing on offence. He banished the thought. Even Adonis could not withstand the crushing grip he’d felt for more than a few moments.

  Shadestuff erupted from him, screaming into the air in greater volumes than he had ever produced it before. The not-matter came easier, here, in its own home, and rained down onto the Entity’s limb to…Do nothing.

  Silenos felt true shock take him, just before another limb struck him from the sky.

  He landed hard, blood solidifying around him, pressure resuming. Silenos had moments to think. He forced his thoughts to connect with the Entity, Fleshcrafting mastery letting him seep his will into the gory body it had made.

  Compared to this thing, Silenos’ magic was as a candle before the bonfire. But a candle was still something. This was not an Old Power, one of the true Deep Things lurking in this realm. It was a mindless, dull, pitiable creature near the bottom rung in the ladder of its kind. It lacked true sapience, he thought, and perhaps even sentience at that. Silenos wrestled it for control just long enough to find whatever passed for its will.

  Then he attacked that instead. If nothing else, the strategy was unexpected. It may well have been impossible, had his arcane vision- Entity gifted, ironically- not permitted him to locate the nexus of consciousness conducting this pillar of destruction. Soon Silenos’ thoughts were hitting it like a ram, scattering its control. The limb broke apart around him, and he burst out through the slackened liquid before it could reform.

  This time, he didn’t waste his chance.

  Silenos fired, and fired again. The acts of reloading his weapon felt unnecessary, intuitively wasteful, and yet he focused upon them more than anything else. He cast great sheets of burning fluid out to adhere against the Entity’s body and char the blood black, shattered planes of carbonized matter with shots from his cannon, dumped blasting oil down like some aerial bomber.

  All of it was an assault calculated for utmost efficiency, and through that calculation Silenos focused every screed of his cognition. He ran the figures through his head, agonized over the logic of it, and maintained the mental link between himself and his target. Let it drown as he forced an ocean of physical logic into its throat.

  The exhaustion came on him like it never had before, near-endless mana supplies suddenly rendered pitiably finite. And yet the results came quicker still.

  Adonis carved his way from the Entity’s grip, smashed apart limbs, and Silenos felt his will mingling with the air in almost as pervasive a way as his own. The Entity slowly weakened, grew sluggish, began withdrawing. It had been only four seconds since its attack begun, and between it, Silenos and Adonis almost a thousand motions had been exchanged. At that very moment Silenos’ regeneration finished.

  Instantly, he swooped down to flee. Adonis did not need calling to follow suit. They had never possessed the means to kill this enemy, not if they both exhausted themselves to death in the effort. It was a humbling reminder of where they were, and what they were dealing with.

  As the plankton, Silenos considered himself satisfied to have merely evaded their attacker. Even if it was, in the end, nothing more than a marginally larger microbe. They continued tearing through the Shallow Depths, their search now more pressing than ever before.

  But their mana exhausted by more than half in only that briefest of periods. Silenos’ fear re-emerged, just as strong as ever.