Chapter 18 - Weaver

When Rugr returned to the camp, the air crackled with unspoken questions. Everyone rose as one.

“What’s happening?” Will demanded.

Rugr’s gaze locked onto Maya. “I need you.” Maya blinked, the singular pronoun resonating. Not

we. I. A shift in their dynamic.

She was already moving, reaching for her pack. “Alright.”

Jack stepped forward, his curiosity a tangible force. “I’m coming too.”

Rugr hesitated, his gaze flickered between them, then a curt nod. “Stay back. Stay quiet.”

Will’s arms crossed, a familiar frustration etching his features. “And me?”

Before Rugr could answer, Thespis scrambled up, his anxiety palpable. “If Will’s going, I’m going. No way I’m staying here alone with… that.” He gestured vaguely towards Bug Bug.

Rugr exhaled a frustrated breath, a low growl swallowed by a sigh.

“Will, stay with Thespis.”

“Babysitting duty, as always,” Will muttered, shooting a pointed glare at Thespis’s retreating form. “Lucky me.”

They descended into the passage, the cool stone a tangible weight around them.

Maya fell into step beside Rugr. “What’s going on?” she pressed.

“They’re… communicating,” Rugr said slowly, the word feeling inadequate for the spectacle he’d witnessed. “Trying to, at least.”

“How?”

“An archaic tongue. A twisted root of Demana, perhaps, eroded by time and distance. I caught fragments. But mostly… it isn’t words.”

“Then what is it?”

Rugr’s jaw tightened. “Magic. Emotion raw and unfiltered. Memory given form. Images that burn themselves into the mind. Like it’s using the very fabric of the weave to speak.”

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Maya’s pace didn’t falter, but a thrill, edged with apprehension, quickened her pulse.

“That’s… extraordinary.”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

They rounded a bend, the faint luminescence of the barrier growing stronger.

Rugr paused, a brief, searching glance at Maya. “One more thing.”

“What?” “She called Kleo…Kullo’s daughter.”

Maya stopped dead, the breath catching in her throat. “Kullo,” she repeated, the name a weight of legend. “As in the Kullo? The progenitor of the Demana?”

“That Kullo.”

“I thought… that was just myth.”

Rugr’s expression remained unreadable, a mask of ancient knowledge.

“Aye,” he said, his voice low. “So did I.”

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The passage narrowed, then widened abruptly—and there it was. The barrier. It defied Maya’s expectations. It didn’t stand as a solid defense, but pulsed with a soft, internal rhythm—it breathed.

Threads of Kleo’s Kull magic wove through it, undeniably hers, yet intertwined within that structure was something else—older than memory, alien in its essence, patient as stone—like a silent predator had made its lair within a familiar web.

The creature stood on the far side—tall, impossibly still, its form vaguely female yet profoundly different. A primal unease prickled Maya’s skin at the mere sight of it. Jack shifted beside her, a nervous energy radiating from him. Rugr remained silent, his gaze fixed.

But it was the surface of the barrier that stole Maya’s breath and silenced the questions forming on her lips. Because the creature was painting upon it.

Not with pigment, not with ink, but with raw magic. Shaping the shimmering mana as if it were pliable thought.

Maya gasped, a sound of pure astonishment. “Oh my gods… it’s a Weaver.”

Jack blinked, his confusion evident. “A what?”

Maya’s eyes remained glued to the unfolding spectacle.

“From Kull lore. A being capable of shaping unformed mana, giving it substance, translating energy into meaning—altering the very contours of reality.”

Jack’s gaze darted between Maya and Rugr, seeking confirmation.

“Is that… good?”

Maya didn’t answer immediately, because the implications were far more complex than simple good or bad. It was beautiful in a way that transcended understanding. And terrifying in its alien power. And for the first time in a long time—a chilling vulnerability settled over Maya. She felt insignificant.

Jack stared at the glowing surface of the barrier, his usual bravado momentarily eclipsed by awe. It was magic, undeniably. But it was also … something beyond his comprehension.

This was language made visible—this was storytelling woven in light. Not clumsy words, static pages, or even captured images. This was raw thought and memory given artistic form. History unfolding as pure luminescence.

Jack’s throat felt suddenly dry, a primal instinct kicking in.

Because—gods help him—it didn’t feel entirely alien at all. It felt like something Kleo could do. Something that resonated with the edges of her burgeoning power.

He glanced at her, standing so still before the otherworldly being. Her hair flowed around her shoulders, her expression focused, yet strangely… open, receptive. And for the first time, a profound realization struck him, sharp and quiet as a falling stone:

This is the nascent form of who she will become. Not wholly human. Not entirely Demana. Something… else. Something that brushed against the edges of the transcendent.

Something utterly, breathtakingly incomprehensible.