“Good questions,” Amelia said. “I have answers for both, but to understand them, we need to do a little Planeswalking 101.” The small dragon sat back on her haunches, making herself comfortable on the spellworked seal like she was about to tell a story.
“There are uncountable millions of planes in our collective multiverse,” she began. “Some are enormous, like this one. Others are much, much smaller, but they’re all self-contained with their own magic, physics, and rules. Most of the time, these rules overlap with only a few minor differences. The rules of physics in particular appear to be universal. Alike or unalike, though, every plane is its own specificthing.A little universe all its own separated from everything else by a planar barrier, which is what I, as a Planeswalker, have to cut through whenever I want to walk between them.”
“I know that much,” Marci said impatiently. “You’re describing the principle behind all portal magic. Even we’ve figured that out.”
“Ah,” Amelia said, lifting her talon. “But what you modern mages haven’t rediscovered yet is that you can’t just cut the hole anywhere, because not all planes touch in all places. Imagine the multiverse as a room full of balloons. There are places where the balloons touch and places where the curves form gaps. Obviously, it’s not quite that simple since we’re working in multiple dimensions, but the basic idea of all Planeswalking is that you want to make your portal where you know your plane is touching the one you want to travel to. That’s why artifacts like the Kosmolabe are so incredibly cool. They show you where planes touch.”
“And where to cut through,” Marci said, nodding. “But what does this have to do with Nameless Ends?”
“I’m getting to that,” the dragon said. “Go back to that room full of balloons. Just as there are places where the surfaces touch, there are places where they don’t. Those bits of emptiness, the spaces between the curves of the planar barriers, are where the Nameless Ends reside. They’re what we in the business call ‘extraplanar beings,’ entities bigger and broader than anything we can imagine. They’re so huge and old and alien, no one I’ve spoken to on any plane knows where they came from, but they do all seem to be unique. They’ve all got their own goals and ways of doing things. Despite their diversity, though, all Nameless Ends perform the same function within the planar ecosystem: decomposition.”
“Decomposition,” Marci repeated slowly. “You mean they eat dead planes?”
“Dead, collapsing, on the brink.” Amelia shrugged. “You name it, they take care of it in their own way, and there are alot. I’ve never heard an exact number I believed, but the common saying is that there are as many Nameless Ends as there are ways for thingstoend. Each one’s got its own flavor: violent explosions, infinite expansion to point of collapse, the heat death of the universe, classic annihilation—you get the idea. But even though they can be wildly different, every Nameless End is called such because it represents a way the world can, andwill,end, which is why it’s cause for alarm that Algonquin has one.”
Marci clapped a hand over her mouth. “The Leviathan,” she said. “That’swhy no one knew where it came from, because it’s not from our world at all. It’s a Nameless End!” When Raven nodded, she leaned forward eagerly. “Do you know what kind of end it is?”
“Nope,” he said. “And seeing how there’s no waytoknow until it starts actually ending things, I don’t want to. I just want it gone.”
Marci was about to ask how to do that when Myron spoke over her.
“If the Leviathan is what you claim, why aren’t we already dead?” he asked. “That monster’s been at her side since the night magic returned. Possibly earlier, if your story about Algonquin calling for help is true. That’s a long time for something called a ‘Nameless End’ to hang around and not end things, especially given the way Algonquin treats it. She acts like it’s her pet, which is not how I’d expect a spirit to treat a supposed end of everything. For that matter, why would she call out to a monster like that in the first place? Whatever she’s guilty of, no one can doubt Algonquin’s dedication to her lakes. Presumably, a Nameless End would destroy those as well. Why would she risk that?”
He had a point there. “How did she even get a Nameless End?” Marci asked. “If he’s an extraplanar being, wouldn’t him being here inside our plane end the world?”
“It would,” Amelia said. “Ifhe were really inside. Thankfully, he’s not. At least not yet.” She pointed down at the shadow of the Leviathan staining the scrying circle. “I’m sure you’ve noticed how he always seems to be made of shadows. That’s because what we know as the Leviathan in this world is just a projection. A broadcast of a bit of his magic into our plane from the outside. If he wereactuallyhere, our world would already be toast, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But the trick with Nameless Ends is that they only ‘clean up’ planes that are already breaking apart. Before that point, the planar barrier keeps them out, like how a healthy cell wall keeps out viruses. This is a strong, stable plane. Normally, a Nameless End wouldn’t be able to slide so much as a tentacle through our barrier. With enough force, though, anything’s possible, and I’m afraid we had a breach.”
She tapped her claws on the crack in the stone seal, and Marci cursed. “The meteor.That’swhat was inside it, the alien magic Shiro was talking about. It was the Leviathan.”
“It was,” Raven confirmed. “Algonquin called out to it when the magic vanished. What she promised, I don’t know, but a thousand years later, the Leviathan came to collect, striking our planet hard enough to crack the Merlins’ seal and wake the spirits again.”
“That must be why none of the space agencies saw the meteor coming,” Marci said. “It didn’t come from space. It came from outside ourplane.”
“It also explains the mystery of how a physical space rock was capable of cracking the Merlins’ spell,” Myron admitted, despite clearly not wanting to. “It wasn’t a rock at all.”
“It was a piece of a Nameless End,” Raven finished. “Called here by Algonquin, and now we’re all in hot water.”
“But why now?” Myron pressed. “If it was in the meteor—”
“It was,” Raven said.
“Then why didn’t it kill us all sixty years ago?” the mage finished. “And why did it only send a piece? If this thing’s so huge, why didn’t it blast its way in?”
“Because itcan’t,” Amelia said. “I just told you, Nameless Ends only devour collapsed planes, and our plane isn’t in collapse. The only reason it was able to get anything through the planar barrier at all was because someone let it in. Probably Algonquin, given the whole ‘crying out in desperation’ story. Or maybe it just waited until it found a gap. Those do occur naturally sometimes. Either way, this plane is healthy enough that it was only able to get a tiny sliver of itself inside. If it wants to bring in the rest, someone on the inside has to help. Someone powerful, with enough magical weight to drag the rest of that thing’s body through the planar wall. Someone like Algonquin.”
“That’s why it woke her up,” Raven said, “and why it’s served her ever since. The Leviathan needs Algonquin to pull it the rest of the way inside so it can destroy our world.”
“But why would she do that?” Marci asked. “Destroying the world would mean destroying her lakes as well. Even Algonquin’s notthatcrazy.”
“Not yet,” Raven said. “But that’s only because she still hopes to turn things around. So long as there’s no Merlin to break this seal, she still has a chance of clamping the magical flow down to a level that stops the rise of the Mortal Spirits while leaving the rest of us intact. That’s her entire end goal. In her mind, the full return of magic is the end of the world. If that happens, shewillbe that crazy, and we’ll all be toast.”
Marci blew out a long breath. “I see what you mean. But if our survival depends on keeping Algonquin’s hopes up, we’ve got a problem, because she’s already lost. I’m the Merlin, not Myron.”
“You could repair the seal,” Myron suggested. “That would stop her.”
“I’m not going to screw over all of humanity, the Mortal Spirits,andAmelia’s shot at integrating dragons into our plane because Algonquin’s holding a gun to our heads,” Marci said angrily. “That’s extortion. We’ll just have to find another way to beat it.”
“I don’t think youcanbeat a Nameless End,” Raven said. “But that’s fine, because if we play our cards right, we won’t have to.”
