by Ethan Proud
The son of Detrita shot Beatrice a look as if she wasn’t pulling her weight, which she was not. The young god yanked her firmly, nearly throwing her past him as if she weighed no more than a pebble and Capraega’s outstretched hand snatched nothing but air.
Mycorr and Beatrice passed the lines of feasting humans and the tables adorned with food and entered a widely spaced forest. Each of the trees shot hundreds of feet in the air and caterpillars the size of dogs crept up their trunks and bright yellow slugs meandered around their roots. The sunlight filtered in through the canopy and bathed the landscape in ethereal light that gave a faerie-like quality to the woods. Compared to the dark boughs that covered the foothills of the Coprinia and Windgall ranges, this was absolutely magical, not that Beatrice needed more magic in her life. Mycorr stooped at the base of a tree once they had put enough of a gap between them and the angry guardian, though for Beatrice it was too close for comfort. Capraega was bearing down on them from forty meters away.
“What are you doing?!” she exclaimed. “He’s right there!”
Mycorr didn’t answer her, but instead plunged his hands into the earth between two of the roots of a great tree and buried himself up to his forearms. Sweat beaded on his brow and he groaned as the ground stretched open as he flexed his shoulders and arms. A slit appeared in the ground and a swirling opaque substance rose from the gap he created.
“Jump in,” he said through gritted teeth and Beatrice took one look at the portal before staring back at the angry beast chasing them. She didn’t take her eyes off Capraega but sidestepped into the portal and took a leap of faith.
Chapter Five
Beatrice fell many feet before she landed heavily in something wet. She found herself treading water when her feet didn’t touch the bottom of the mire, except it wasn’t water. It was much thicker, and lukewarm. She paddled over to something floating and held onto it. It had the consistency of fat and was just as slimy. It sank a little when she grabbed it but was still buoyant enough to prevent her from sinking. A moment later Mycorr fell from the sky as well, which was a hazy purple, like a sunset through a veil of thick smoke.
The godling sank below the surface before popping up again, spluttering the thick fluid from his mouth. He swam over to Beatrice but did not grab a hold of her flotation device.
“Where are we? And is the guardian here just as foul?” she asked.
“We are not where I intended to go. I have not travelled the Underworld in many years,” he supplied, though he sidestepped her second question. Beatrice raised an eyebrow. He continued, “Fouler.”
“Where do we go now?” she asked, rather than wallow in the despair she felt in her gut.
“That way,” Mycorr said and pointed. He began swimming easily in the direction he indicated. Beatrice, having been raised in Northgate, was not a strong swimmer and moved from one island of safety to the next. Some of the objects she grabbed had little substance and broke apart in blebs when she seized them, and others were hard, white, and streaked with red or brown. Everything on this plane seemed oddly familiar, though she couldn’t place a finger on where she had experienced something similar. Wisps of fog swirled around bringing a myriad of smells, some of them pleasant and others not so much.
As they sloshed by for minutes, Beatrice felt fatigue grow in her arms when she noticed a thick black line on the horizon. It looked like a high cliff, pockmarked with many small clefts that would serve as handholds. She felt her heart sink when she thought of the climb ahead. She paddled behind Mycorr dutifully as he reached the ledge that would be their salvation from the lake. Beatrice reached the cliff and began trailing behind Mycorr. Her grip was tentative and she didn’t trust that she would not fall into the stew behind her. She clung to the wall that loomed above her, even though its zenith was only fifteen feet higher. She felt her heart leap from her belly into her throat as her esophagus constricted with fear. Sensing her trepidation, Mycorr looked down and extended a hand. Beatrice shook her head as she gulped. She didn’t trust her own footing enough to allow Mycorr to place her weight as well as his on his own slimy holds.
“It’s not that high, come on,” he ordered.
Taking a deep breath, Beatrice lifted herself up a little higher and began searching for another cleft to place a hand in.
“Trust your feet,” Mycorr said, though Beatrice did not find it helpful.
Beatrice toiled and sweated as she struggled with each grip, inching higher and higher until finally she felt the top and heaved herself onto a lip a mere eight feet wide. The other side of the cliff was many times the height that she had just climbed and not as sheer, but Beatrice felt every muscle in her body clench. At the base of the cliff she could see a faint orange glow.
“Must we go down that?” she asked Mycorr pleadingly.
“I’m afraid we must, look across.” Mycorr pointed across the great lake. The cliff surrounded the entire body of water, and steam rose from its surface. Now Beatrice knew where she had seen a similar sight.
“This is a cauldron,” she said hollowly.
“How astute of you,” Mycorr said dryly.
“And the chefs?” Beatrice inquired. Mycorr pointed again, though this time to the sky. Two-headed ravens the size of ships sailed through the sky, each with four feet instead of two. Their forelimbs held ladles and wooden spoons that were covered with bony knobs or eyes.
“Who is this feast for?” Beatrice asked, her curiosity momentarily overwhelming her fear.
“You just visited it,” Mycorr said. “This is the kitchen for the Welcoming Party of the First Plane of the Underworld.”
“Is this then the second plane?” Beatrice asked, thinking back on the asparagus which she had nearly consumed. Her thoughts switched to traversing the Underworld and if she had to navigate all seven peaks.
“No, we are between planes. We are in the fiber that binds the Underworld together.”
“Capraega cannot follow us here?” Beatrice asked as she stared at the bubbling surface of the stew, expecting the goat-demon to emerge at any moment.
“No, he is bound to his plane by the Fates. He must use spells or petition them in order to leave the first plane. He is tasked with welcoming the recently deceased,” Mycorr said, his eyes began searching for routes to down-climb from. “And he has no reason to come after us and step behind the curtain. We are safe here.”
“Then they are friendly?” the ex-secretary asked of the two-faced ravens.
“Safe from Capraega. They will eat us if given a chance,” the stoat-god said.
“What are they?”
“Children of Nipor. My half-siblings,” Mycorr said and swung a leg down off the ledge. “Follow me.”
Beatrice shook her head in a silent ‘no’.
“Yes,” Mycorr said steadily. His tone was firm but not harsh. His eyes glowed fiercely though and betrayed the levelness of his voice.
“I can’t. I am afraid of heights,” Beatrice protested.
Mycorr didn’t grace her with a response, but instead his skin rippled as his snout stretched and his teeth grew. Fur sprouted from every inch of his body and in mere seconds he was a weasel many times larger than normal. Fungal shelfs grew from his flanks and his breath reeked of decaying meat. Before Beatrice could run he swiped her up with a paw and gingerly snagged her up by the nape of her shirt. With her feet dangling over the precipice, Mycorr began carefully navigating the side of the cauldron. Beatrice tried not to scream out, and it helped that her blouse was wrapped tight around her chest and behind her shoulders, constricting her breathing. She covered her mouth with one hand and her eyes with the other. She felt herself drop several feet and heard Mycorr’s paws scrabbling for a moment before she was yanked back upwards as his feet found purchase. At this Beatrice did yelp.
She heard the familiar clucking of ravens above her and was concerned that they had been discovered, but she couldn’t take her hands off her eyes. Feathered wings rustled above her, but she felt no talon
s dig into her and Mycorr’s pace didn’t change.
The stoat’s legs bunched and its head bobbed for a moment, shaking Beatrice fretfully as Mycorr gauged the distance to the ground. Satisfied it wasn’t high enough to cause him injury, he kicked against the wall and sailed through the air as Beatrice screamed before he landed easily on the ground. He dropped her in an unceremonious pile as he shifted back to his humanoid form.
“You need to be quieter,” he admonished her with a grin. The expression was wiped from his face when a four-legged raven alighted on the ground behind him. Its beady eyes glowed with a hungry satisfaction as two heads cocked in unison. The devil-bird hopped forward and let out a raucous call, which was answered many times from above.
Chapter Six
The raven took another reproachful bounce towards the pair of interplanal travelers. Mycorr put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, but the bird still regarded him warily. It let out a hideous croak and two more of the beasts landed. Its companions flanked Mycorr, though none of them paid Beatrice any heed. The heads of one of the creatures nipped at Mycorr, who deftly dodged.
“Half-siblings are still family,” Mycorr said in good humor.
The six heads fell into a chorus of laughter. The first to land addressed the Son of Detrita.
“You are a half-breed, a mongrel. You should have been cast aside at birth,” the creature hissed, its pink wormlike tongue flapping in its mouth.
“As it were, Father is quite fond of my brother and I. He will not be pleased if you harm me. I am on a mission sanctioned by the Fates,” Mycorr warned, though he sounded less than sure.
“She is free to go, we have no quarrel with her,” the ringleader said before pointing a knobby and clawed finger at Mycorr. “But you are under no such protection.”
The raven lunged forward and scooped up Mycorr in its forelegs and held him tight. The devil-bird lifted its hostage to eye-level.
“If our father does love you as much as you say, then he will prevent us from doing any harm to you,” the raven threatened. Its dominant head spoke, while the other simply stared at Mycorr and made croaking and clicking sounds.
“You’ll want to go that way,” Mycorr said and jerked his head in the direction Beatrice should go. The bird holding him took off into the air. The second followed it, while the third waved to Beatrice before following its kin.
Feeling vulnerable, Beatrice watched as the forms of the ravens and Mycorr disappeared into the fog overhead. She couldn’t see the sky, nor could she see a cavern roof, and the ground expanded into the distance with no visible horizon. She wasn’t sure if she was above or below ground, or in some terrible inbetween. She found the direction her guide had pointed her in and sighed; it was impossible to differentiate it from any other direction she could face. In the distance she could see large objects lit by orange and red that flickered at their bases. She assumed that these were more cauldrons and that she would be seeing many more of the ravens that bore her chaperone skyward.
She considered attempting to rescue him, but she had no idea where the birds had gone once they had flown upwards. She would just get more lost. She hoped that Mycorr had the favor of his father.
***
Tears and snot ran down Beatrice’s face as she realized she was lost. She was certain she had walked as straight as possible, yet there were no landmarks and she could have been going in circles. Bird footprints littered the ground along with the offal of mammals.
In capitulation, Beatrice collapsed on the ground and her ribcage heaved in misery. She had lost her guide. She was trapped in the Underworld with nothing to comfort her other than the Fates’ cryptic prophesy. After a bout of tears lasting no more than five minutes, Beatrice sat up and wiped her eyes. Shakily she got up to her feet. She had held her pity-party and now it was over. She pointed her toes in the direction she had been going and tried to keep as straight a path as possible. As she carried on, she became aware of the sound of feathers and crooked feet some paces behind her. Having already heard the custodians of the dead assure Mycorr that she was not going to be harmed, she used all the will she could muster not to look back.
Chapter Seven
Landing in the nest with a brittle thump, Mycorr rolled to face his assailants. Three of his half-siblings perched in a semicircle around him, peering down from the mockery of a birds nest they had constructed. Bones and all manner of poisonous plants were woven together, yet no eggs were cradled among the boughs. Mycorr knew that its sole purpose was to keep the raven’s play things from escaping.
“I beg of you to reconsider…” he started before ducking the lashing beak of one of the birds. He dodged the first head but the second darted in and its sharp bill plucked Mycorr’s eye from the socket. Another bird came in and jabbed his kidneys and he collapsed in pain, holding his left hand up to keep the blood from oozing from the empty eye socket. Another fierce jab and he heard two of his ribs crack. He felt a clawed foot pin him to the ground and a moment later his knee ignited in pain as his patella was torn from his skin. Mycorr screamed and the birds alighted into the air, their laughter floating down to his writhing form below.
***
Whether it had been hours, days, or seconds, Mycorr couldn’t tell. He remained in the devil-raven’s nest, his arms tightly wrapped around his belly as he convulsed in the fetal position. He had been confident that his father would have prevented his siblings from doing him any harm... One of his legs stuck out lamely, while the other was pulled close to his chest. He had been abandoned.
Rustling feathers heralded the flight of his raven siblings. The nest creaked and bobbed upon its roost as his tormentors returned. They stank of grease and char.
“No sign of father yet?” one of the raven’s teased and its second head chuckled as if its other personality had made a great joke.
Mycorr didn’t deign to answer. Instead he shut his eyes and focused on blocking out the pain. He felt a rough shove from one of the talons and he was pushed uncomfortably against the bracken of the nest.
“I don’t think he’d mind if we ate him and just rid our father of him,” another bird chimed in. It hopped across the nest and bent an examining eye over Mycorr’s face. When Mycorr paid it no heed, the raven leaned in closer until its eyeball was pressed against the godling’s face. Mycorr still didn’t give the rise the creature wished so it pressed harder and the twigs beneath him cracked and snapped.
“We should do it piece by piece,” one of them cawed.
“I want his liver,” another slavered.
“Maybe that is where we should start?”
Mycorr felt claws tighten around his torso as he was lifted from the ground, his chest facing outwards. Mycorr stared at four faces and one of the ravens ran its tongue along its beak, a gesture that no bird should be able to do. The ravens squabbled for a moment, nipping at each other’s necks, rearing up on their hind legs, and beating their wings. The bird holding Mycorr grew tired and said, “Fine, I will have the first bite.”
Snaking one of its heads around its beak pressed against Mycorr’s ribs before he felt his cartilage pop and his spine was thrown out of place as the bird delved deeper, searching for his liver.
Realizing that Nipor wasn’t going to save him, Mycorr was filled with rage rather than pain. The bird holding him squawked in alarm and dropped him. Mycorr let out an ‘oomph’ as he dusted himself off and stood shakily to his feet. Thin white tendrils of hyphae ran from his open ribcage to the raven’s mouth, which still held a dark brown piece of liver. Its eyes grew wide as its feathers began to slough and the hyphae pulsed, siphoning the bird’s life force to heal Mycorr. The nude corvid’s skin grew taut and gaunt as its eyes bugged from its head and its pink tongue was rendered brittle and bleached before turning to ash. The demon’s footing became rickety before it collapsed on the ground and weakly tried to rise. Mycorr released his enemy before it had died in earnest, but it was too far for any chance of recovery. Carrion beetles began to swarm fr
om every nook and cranny of the nest before covering the raven who croaked out in protest, which simply opened up another orifice for the insects to invade.
Cracking his neck, Mycorr turned to the other ravens. They balked and scuttled away from him, becoming entangled in each other, falling in a pile of wings and legs. After consuming the soul of his half-sibling Mycorr was completely restored, though he had several nasty bruises along his back and ribs and beneath his now full eye socket.
Mycorr held up a hand for them to stop struggling. “A tit for tat. Our brother has suffered for his hubris, but you don’t need to as long as you pledge your allegiance to me and offer your services the next time I find myself here.”
“We swear, we swear!” the birds said, each head attempting to talk over the one next to it.
“However, I can’t stand talking animals,” Mycorr said and snapped his fingers. The ravens’ tongues were replaced with fungal blooms. The mycelium of the mushrooms travelled to the once demonic birds’ brains and wove their way in deep. The creatures stared at Mycorr with considerable less intelligence than they had before. He climbed onto one of their backs.
“If you don’t mind, I have a ward to find.”
Chapter Eight
The shiny metal badge stood in stark contrast to the muck that it rested in. Beatrice stooped to pick it up from the mire and wiped the dirt from it so she could read the letters embossed upon its surface. She almost dropped it when she saw the seal of Northgate on it and Sheriff. Recovering from her shock she turned her gaze to the fire in front of her where the four-armed, two-headed ravens were feeding it kindling, while above it a giant cauldron bubbled.
Swallowing hard, Beatrice hoped that she had interpreted this sign right. With a hesitant step she approached the pyre and felt that it gave off no warmth. Or at least any heat that she could detect. Wavering, she placed one foot into the pyre and still the conflagration did not singe her flesh. Another uneasy step, like a toddler learning to walk, and she was wreathed in flames. Gaining confidence, she strode into the center of the fire and realized that she might have made a mistake as her clothes and skin began to disintegrate. She tried to scream but no sound came out. A moment later her surroundings had morphed completely and she was no longer standing among ashes and smoke. Instead, she was standing beneath a starlit sky though each of the constellations were blinking eyes, not distant suns. The ground was soft and covered in healthy green grasses. She looked around in amazement and wondered what realm she was in. It clearly wasn’t her home plane. She spun around and came face to face with someone familiar.