Editor’s Note: Continued from Bindle Zine Autumn 2025. Previously posted parts can be found at https://bindlezine.com/coterminous
We continue in silence for quite some time. There is something in the air, or maybe it is the air itself. It is heavy, hazy, like breathing smoke. I can feel the pressure in my head. My ears feel funny. The ambient noise is muffled, and I can see it affecting everyone, with the exception of Meresinea and Crozley. I am able to power through it with great effort thanks to my arts, regaining my senses and clarity. There is a parting in the canopy above up ahead, and we can just barely make out the Xenolith. Had our view not been completely obscured it would dominate the skyline. The grand mountain of the gods is surrounded by a canyon known as the Terminus Terrarum, but we will not be going that far. The Wolds grow just near the edge, and Lovren’s Hallow marks that final line before the brink.
In her attempt to navigate the brush, Vespine flies into a web, ripping it from its foundations and narrowly avoiding the grasp of the giant spider that wove it. A small battle between the two ensues. The arachnid’s thorax is tough as bone, and each leg is shaped like a stiletto knife and just as deadly. Vespine deftly dodges the assault, but her sword is unable to inflict any damage. But the insect is no match for Brune’s club. When he smashed the bug it leaves a sticky puddle of goo on the ground, and the smell is enough to make even Vore and Urcus retch. Vespine starts hacking then, but not from the smell. She was having trouble breathing. The toxic effects of the web have sickened her. Tala took her little friend into her hands, delivering her to Meresinea. The Quintess is able to treat her, but the poison is strong, and Vespine needs to rest. The sorceress says a prayer upon completing the triage.
“The goddess sleeps, and she dreams of an undying world liberated from pain and violence,” the sorceress prays. “A world free of harm and sickness, strife and dissolution. So sleep now my little bug, be free of this ailment, for it is not your time to perish.” She induces slumber using a soporific compound, so the little woman snoozes the rest of the way in Crozley’s hood.
“Muscles feel like stone,” Vore moans. “Can not walk.”
“Scales are heavy,” Brune whines.
“Fur itches,” cries Urcus. “Place is not right.”
“My eyes are burning,” Tala weeps.
“This is a place of pain,” says Crozley. “What you are feeling is a warning. The entrance shouldn’t be far.”
“Strong energies here,” Meresinea says worriedly. “I can feel it vibrating in my blood. I will have to dose myself with a defensive compound before tending to you all.”
“Cane, how are you holding up?” I ask.
“Head hurts,” he strains, “mouth hurts… teeth hurt… but I am still with you.”
“Good, because it looks like we are here.”
The vestiges of a pair of once supreme cenotaphs mark the entrance to Lovren’s Hallow. Its absentee occupant erected it in life as a place of rest and reflection for when the time came for more permanent residence beneath its foundation, as even gods must face the end. A massive weeping hemlock is before us, covering most of the entrance to the lair. Draped upon its leaves are long funerary palls intricately woven with crimson, violet, and indigo cloth with gold embroidery. The Hallow is finally before us, a tumorous hill of overgrowth latching onto the forest, obscuring the canyon that surrounds the Xenolith. Still, the cave entrance that leads into its depths is more welcoming than what lies beyond. Thankfully we won’t be adding the abandoned mountain of the gods to our trip. But, on the list of the most unwelcoming places in Coterminous, Lovren’s Hallow is the top destination not to tread.
Meresinea chugs one of her potions and goes to work tending to our people. They are all exhausted, but still holding up. I can see that optimistic countenance Meresinea normally sports fading however, and right now the confidence she displayed in the fight and in our debate is needed. I hate to admit it to myself but if we are going in all hands need to be strong enough to wield their weapons. It doesn’t seem good though.
“Everyone alright?”
“We are hurting, Seirath,” Urcus speaks with great difficulty, as though moving his jaw was excruciating for him.
“Need drugs,” Tala says weakly.
Brune is in the middle of a coughing fit, “What wrong with us?”
“This place… does not like us,” Vore hacks.
“There are some places that most are not allowed to be,” Crozley gently places the slumbering Vespine in Tala’s lap. “And places that most don’t want to be. Myself included.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, “You aren’t coming?”
“No.” Crozley sits on a rock and begins to methodically pack his pipe in slow, deliberate fashion.
“Does it cost to ask why not?” I say, angrily, “you, me, and Meresinea are the only ones capable of going forward.”
“No charge,” he says, lighting the pipe. “I am standing down partly out of respect, partly to watch over my wards.”
“Partly cowardice?”
“I was meant to lead, you are meant to retrieve.”
“I don’t recall that being a stipulation.”
“You should read the fine print.”
“Nothing was written.”
“You have me there,” chuckles Crozley. “I love verbal agreements, because you can change them on the fly.”
“Fine. I don’t have time for this,” I say. “Cane, are you up for being a third?”
“I can try. I can’t promise I will be much help if we run into anything though. But it is just dust and bones right?”
“And much history,” Crozley adds.
“We sent the Harrowed reeling,” Meresinea says, “doubt they will be back, right?”
“We guard entrance,” Vore groans.
“No back attacks,” Brune adds.
“You can all barely stand,” I say.
“They will have nothing to worry about with me here,” says Crozley.
“Least you can do,” Meresinea and I speak in unison.
“What if there are Lykros in there?” Urcus asks. “You will be outnumbered, yes?”
“What if he is still in there?” Tala quivers.
“I’ve been outnumbered before,” I reply, then look to Meresinea. “And he is definitely still in there. An undying world, right?”
“Have you fought a Lykros before?” She asks.
“I… can’t remember.” A sharp pain creeps up from the base of my brainstem and shoots up through the rest of my skull. Time for another pellet. Could be my last. “But I just fought a Preceptor, as did we all. Just remember the third eye, and that goes for all of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“When Lovren created the Lykros he gave them an extra eye. It was another reason why they were so difficult to take down during the calamity.”
“He created his own army of gods,” Crozley says. “Not something his fellow Preceptors approved of. But it made them more effective during the Interfection. It was the main reason he was asked to destroy them after their purpose was fulfilled.”
I light a burner, “so if there is a throng of them inside, we will literally be fighting a bunch of gods.”
“Such is the risk we were all willing to take,” Crozley answers. “The price being paid justifies it.”
“We? You aren’t even coming.”
“Seirath,” Crozley sighs, “the Wolds are many things. Prison to Shriven and his Harrowed. Shelter for the exiled species. Refuge for endangered clades. Lovren’s living tomb, and the site of his banishment. Above all it is a holy place to the Preceptors, a place of reflection and quiet. It is bound to these titles, and those that reside here are bound to it. I choose not to follow you out of respect not just of these qualities, but by a similar bond. Lovren is remembered by most as a villain, and by few as just and fair. He was not without his honor in the earliest days, and spared many of my people from the chaos of the cull. It was Lovren that stayed the hands of Sarkanis during the Chimaeraus’ defeat. The former unleashed his Vovin to quell the latter’s rebellion. When the Chimaeraus was defeated, Lovren convinced the Concilium to allow him a seat as a Conciliar. As a Chimera I will remember this, and honor it, and I will not cross that threshold.”
I shook my head, “Then he brought the calamity upon the world. How could you still be keen on honoring him?”
“We were spared the fires,” answers Crozley. “Many of us are very good at hiding.”
“Well then you can hide here, and watch over your people,” I say. “Cane, you stay and back him up. Meresinea, looks like it’s just me and you.”
“Mm, been waiting to get you alone this whole time.”
“Just be ready.”
“Of course. I am all yours.”
“Perhaps you will be, when we are finished here.”
We proceed, and we can hear Crozley crooning as we push through the vegetation and begin our descent. “Yon they went to where dark things wallow, Thither to places that wither and hollow, Yarely they descended into Lovren’s Hallow. There they find a garden of ash and bone, an alter where no light will follow, and the dead god sits alone.”
Meresinea and I enter the Hallow and speak at length as we maneuver through a long stone corridor. It is wide and high, easy to move through, but dark. The sorceress guides the way with an augury of light in the form of a small wisp that hovers around us.
“Too bright?” she asks. “I can adjust this.”
“Perhaps. Not much to see up ahead anyway, looks like it goes on for a while. How are you pulling off that little trick? Another piece of your hair, or one of those glowing bugs?”
“An eye actually. Bit of a beginner’s trick, but one that remains useful for everyone that practices such craft throughout their career. Just a simple augury that requires the eye of any creature that can see in the dark, and the focus to execute it, of course.”
“Focus?”
“We students of augury need mediums such as compounds and expendables to use our abilities.”
“Expendables?”
“Higher end techniques require sacrifice, mostly any of the big three: Carnes, Sanguis, Ossium, or flesh, blood and bone respectively. These sacrifices are self inflicted and or harvested, which make for very risky but very powerful spells. Not something I use often. I am not keen on spilling my own blood, burning my skin, or breaking a bone to defend myself. I have wonderful hair so I will stick with that.”
“And if you go bald?”
“I’m a conjurer too, Seirath. I can grow and change it at will.”
“Through sacrifices not of your own?”
“If you are alluding to ritual sacrifice, then no. I don’t involve myself with such practices. Powerful yes, but abominable. Besides, that is another aspect of Augury, and even still I stick with the more alchemical side of it.”
“And that includes tearing out some little critter’s eye?”
“Funny, but the dog was already dead. Figure I would get some uses out of the eyes before they rotted away completely.”
“So this conjury thing in different then?”
“Conjury is about channeling the natural world through our bodies, which acts as a sort of beacon. With the encephala acting as an organic array, we focus the energies from the environment and then project them from our corporeal vessel. Fulmination is the most common skill. Conjurer’s are masters of the body, in fact, and as such we are like batteries for these magics. If we feel ill we can heal ourselves by tapping directly into our immune system. Couple of wrinkles? No problem. Hair loss? We just have to want it and we get it. Leads to a much longer life.”
“And those little prayers to your goddess? That have anything to do with it all?”
“Ula gave the hominids the gift of these magics.” She says in reverence. “We must be eternally grateful for them, diligent in their application, and responsible in their use. They who perform heinous acts or rituals need not apply.”
“Scindo is similar,” I say, hand on my blade. “The mind channels, the body projects, the sword is our medium. These elements comprise our soul, and with that we harness the very spirit of the Totality.”
“You touched on this before, but I want more.”
“You said you were no stranger to the concept, but to really know it, and to really achieve senescence, you have to be a practitioner of the noetic arts. Scindo is derivative, but the biggest component. It is the end result of our meditation, one of them anyway, but a gift from the drift, a reward from the roam, as we say.”
“In Threnus, we know the Totality as a binary framework of creation. The Immensity of space time, and the Continuum of existence and reality.”
“It is known by different names in different cultures, understood in varying degrees by different peoples. But it is known by all. It is an energy, a presence all around us, ebbing and flowing through us. You can see it in the night sky, even in the city lights, a gorgeous maroon and crimson nebula that cradles our planet.”
“I am swooning, go on.”
“A scar of genesis, the ancient blood of the cosmos, the after birth of creation. Not just a spectacle in the sky, but a force with immeasurable power. This is the Senescence. It permeates existence, guiding all individual will into one communal focus. We contemplate this presence, and our own in relation to it, meditate and draw these energies in, then become one with it. We can predict the flow states of the world, alter the currents of our reality in the moment, wielding time and space itself.”
Meresinea caresses my arm, “Now you have me anxious.”
“It does make intimacy outstanding, especially if you can get your partner to tap in properly. It’s like screwing in the stars.”
“I would love to take you up on that.”
I smile, “I’ll oblige as soon as we are done here. But like all abilities it becomes taxing. The meditation and concentration can affect the mind. Drifting too long can get you lost, even drive you mad. There is a reason the unknown should remain unknowable. There are certain aspects of the Totality that we are not meant to understand. Roaming around where we are not wanted is forbidden.”
She placed a hand on my shoulder and we stopped for a moment. “Wait a second, you said you had memory issues. Have you been hitting the senescence too hard you think? Or not enough?”
“I… I don’t know. I try not to think about it.”
“I know people back home that could probably help you with that. The Eidetics of Threnus all make for excellent doctors.”
“Yeah, the Psycren. Not interested. Threnus isn’t exactly on my list of priorities as it is.”
She sighs, “I don’t understand what you all have against it.”
“Not exactly easy for us provincial types to get in, is it?”
“Well maybe not so much for Crozley’s lot, but those with special skills and the proper references could be guaranteed entry.”
“You going to be my sponsor?”
“I could most certainly get you the working visitor rights. That’s more than half the battle on the path to citizenship.”
“I guess I will think about that. Not like I don’t have the money to travel or sustain myself as is, and after this job it will be even easier.”
“This is your last mission then?”
“I left my unit recently, and Ulric has been easing my transition out of the Concordance. Took a nasty hit to the head, far as I know. Hence the meds. Things haven’t been right for a while. Still capable, sure, it hasn’t affected my performance. But I have been anxious, my mood is off. It was time to quit anyway. I requested a discharge, and Ulric granted it, but I still do freelance work for him. This being one such mission.”
“Still considered an asset are you?”
“Of course. No one really quits, but I have done enough for him where he has extended an indefinite formality. Guess you could say I am quasi-retired.”
“And your team?”
“They didn’t take it well. Still probably think I’ll come back. That was the only thing left on bad terms.”
“But with Ulric in your corner, what does it matter?”
“I could care less. Priorities shift, and it is time to find my own way.”
“You hear that?” Meresinea asks suddenly. “Sounds like a waterfall.”
The cavernous hall opens up into a dome shaped cave. It is full of lush flora and thick vines of ivy and vegetation that cover the walls. The underground garden is sustained by a spring fed by two water falls that pour forth from a sunlit hole in the ceiling. It was the most light we have seen in the Wolds, and we stand there in observance for a moment. Meresinea is in awe, stepping forward into a shallow section of water that surround an island of soil and rock that is home for various species of botanicals. She extends an arm and runs her hands through the flowers. Petals of midnight blue and dark violet, red and gold stamen filaments, and white and black flecked pistils.
“Far as caves go, this is actually quite lovely,” I say.
“A natural garden grotto,” she exclaims, “How gorgeous!”
“Not so natural. This garden is tended to, you can tell by the trimmings on the vines. Nothing this beautiful grows without weeding.”
“These flowers…,” she says in a daze, “they smell wonderful! What are they? I have to take samples. Imagine the potential!”
“Funereal flowers, more like. This is a grave after all. Supposed to be anyway.”
I take a step and hear a crunch under my boot. I reach down and sift through the flowers and dirt. Scoffing from lack of surprise, I extricate the remnants of what looks to be a jawbone. I can’t tell if it is human, but there are bits and pieces of remains all around, some turning to dust when I pick them up.
I present her with my findings. “Considering the fertilizer, no wonder they are thriving. This isn’t a garden, Meresinea, it’s a cemetery.”
“Powdered bones are also useful to my craft. This is a sorceress’ playground.”
“Or a killing ground.”
“You are so morbid.”
“You can harvest to your heart’s content after we get what we came for. I rather not rouse any ghosts while we are stopping to smell the flowers.”
She giggles, “I suppose that is where we need to go then?” She points toward the center of the garden at a sepulchral alter amongst the flowers. It sits within a dilapidated mausoleum built into the rock, an open antechamber almost swallowed by the vines. The rays of the sun reflect off the surfaces of the temple that still retain their shine, but the stone architecture is mostly muted and worn from time. Meresinea laughs hysterically. “I guess the flowers mask the smell of the rotting god within, yeah?”
The air in here is different, but familiar. The same heavy air that I felt before we entered. “That smell is very similar to the one outside. It’s in the air. I think these flowers are causing a reaction with the chimera. Hey, what is wrong with you?”
“I don’t know,” she chuckles. “Seirath, there is something in the air! The flowers smell so good don’t they?”
“Are your spells wearing off?”
She chortles, “I think so! Uh oh, right?!”
“Then take something!” I growl.
“I am running low but there is no guarantee I can counteract this! Ha! Uhh, I think the pollen, uh, haha! I think it gave our friends an allergic reaction, but it must be different for humans. But how are you not feeling this? Are you not human? Crozley seemed fine too.”
“I can’t speak for Crozely, maybe he was so drugged up on colubrine it didn’t get to him. I’m always half in and half out of the drift, so I can resist.”
She removes a vial of medicine but then promptly tosses it in the water. “Oops! I didn’t want to do that! Or did I? Something told me to do it. Or was it me? Was it that voice? Did you hear that? Seirath, I am scared, or at least I think I am!”
“You need to relax, Meresinea. Calm down.”
“Don’t you feel it? Don’t you hear it? That is the voice of the ages. A voice with the wisdom of the Totality! Can you not hear it? It’s so funny!” She begins to dance, falling into my arms and trying to force me to move with her. “Am I drifting too? I am! I am roaming amongst the stars with you, I am noetic! I am senescent with the old mind! Do you really not hear that?”
I can see the panic in her eyes, but her expression is one of hysterical glee. “I don’t hear a fucking thing.”
She laughs again, “Oh such language! The only fucking that needs to happen is between you and me. Come on, right here, on the bones. Love me on the ashes of all those that came here before us.”
“Ok, I’ve had enough.” I reached into my coat and present her with a syringe.
“You gonna poke me with that little thing, Seirath?” She can barely breath through her laughing. “I was expecting more from the likes of you. Take it out, I want to see, I want to feel it inside me.”
“Listen to me, if you can.” I grab her behind the neck and pull her close, trying to stabilize her drunken sway. “I don’t have anything like whatever you used to resist the enchantments, but this should do well enough.” I abruptly stick her with the needle and plunge.
“What is it? Is it fun? Oh my, that’s warm…” Her muscles begin to relax, her face slowly sinks, and her eyes glass over.
“Liquid naganine,” I answer. “Courtesy of Mister Crozley. Strong stuff.” I lower her to the ground, “it will keep you asleep but you won’t overdose… hopefully.”
“Wait…wait…where are you going? Play with me!”
“Don’t fight it.” I cradle her, remove one of her larger satchels, and rest her head upon it.
“I want to keep you sedated and safe while I finish this job.”
“I… can… help.”
“No, you can’t. There are strong energies here, bad ones. You aren’t meant to proceed.”
“Fine,” she yawns. “My, this feels great. Time to sleep then. I will just lay here with the flowers and bones. Come back with that sword and you’ve definitely earned a night with me. What a story this will make.”
“Hopefully we are toward the end of it.”
Continued in our next issue!