by Simon Archer
It was just as exhilarating of an experience this time as it was the first, maybe more so. For one thing, Shikun was now focused on a goal, and so she was flapping with all her might. With her full speed, the wind ripped past us, and the rolling Sola fields were a multi-colored rush below us, a wondrous tapestry of a world. That on its own turned the flight into a flood of motion that thrilled my senses.
For the other, well, it was a good hour-and-a-half in which I had a strikingly beautiful Amazon of a dragon-woman holding me tight. Her breasts pressed against my back, and the heat of her internal flames warmed me to the depths of my soul. I reveled simply being close to her, and even though we couldn’t talk over the roaring wind, I felt happy to be with her.
However, I could still talk to Libritas, wind or not, and there was one wrinkle in our mission I need to consult her about.
“So, I know I talked a good game back there,” I sent to the Brand, “but how do we deal with Karthas? All I know is what I saw in the snippets I pulled from Shikun, that he’s supposedly the Brand of Discipline or something like that, but past that…” My mental voice trailed off at that, not sure what else to add.
“Unlike some of the Brands we will face in our quest, William, Karthas has little power on his own,” Libritas explained, her husky voice as clear as day despite the roaring wind. “Before his corruption, Karthas was a bastion of focus, self-actualization, and ordered thought. Now, he is simply a torturer, enforcing his warped sense of discipline through torture and violence. His power is in his influence on others… and there are none left for him to influence.”
I nodded slowly. Already, the dark, overgrown woods of the Tanglethread loomed ahead. “I understand. Yet another reason why the Weaver would want to get the hell out of here before we came for him. He’s got no one else to push in our way. Is there any way to, well, fix Karthas?”
There was a brief pause before Lib answered. “Not directly. Those that first forged us are long since gone, and with them, the mystical arts needed to undo the corruption of the Brands.” Her tone was somber and measured, but she perked up a little as she continued. “However, it is the steel that contains my old friends that twists them. Shattering the corrupted Brands will release their virtuous spirits, and perhaps in time, we can rediscover the forges that once created us and use them to craft new, pure receptacles for my wayward brothers and sisters.”
“I guess it boils down to everything else so far in this adventure,” I mused with a smile on my lips. “It comes down to hope, hope for the present and hope for the future.”
Libritas warmed at my side. “Indeed, William. We fight for hope, the genesis of all good things in Etria, and with you leading the way, I think we will succeed.”
I took a deep breath as Shikun’s silvery wings flared wide, slowing us down to make a proper descent towards the edges of the Tanglethread Forest. “Save the praise until after we win this, Lib… but thanks for the pep talk all the same.”
“I have faith, William Tyler, and we shall leave it at that.” Those were Lib’s final words on the subject as I got my first clear look at the forest the ettercap tribes called home.
While the Treison had been a primeval forest of wonder, something that encapsulated all that was awe-inspiring about Etria, the Tanglethread was something… darker. Unlike the wild array of flora on display in my dryad’s home, the trees here were more uniform, some strange mix of stout oaks and twisted willows. Their trunks were black, gnarled things, bent like old crones, and their branches spread out like clawed hands. Those hands wove together to form an all-encompassing canopy, their dark green leaves almost as black as the trunks. What few gaps there were that dared to let the light of the twin suns in was filled with thick, white webbing.
In fact, that webbing clogged many of the open paths I could see between the trees. No doubt the work of the ettercap tribes, it was obvious that this was the first of many tricks and traps we would encounter on our way. As for the earth itself, there was a general upward slope as the forest expanded to the west, and the hills became increasingly larger, forming hollows and valleys to navigate as well.
Shikun set me down gently before landing behind me, and as she stepped to my side, her fiery wings folded tight to her back. I glanced over to her with a smile before gesturing out to the twisted woods spread out in front of us.
“Looks like this will be a hell of a bug hunt,” I said before tilting my head towards the dragon-girl. “Or it would be if you weren’t here.”
This smile was the biggest one I had seen on her face yet, so broad that lit up her face to be brighter than one of the suns. “I will do my very best, William of Upland.” She turned her golden gaze to the imposing forest, silvery flames licking at her lips as she pointed a talon toward a little gully mostly hidden by an exceptionally large tree. “There is the start of the quickest path to his inner sanctum. Just…” Shikun took in a quick breath that made her chest swell, something that stirred more than my heart. “I know there are traps that the Weaver hid even from me, ones he has no doubt armed to cover his escape.”
There was a shadow of her self-doubt that lingered in those words, but I cut that off with a bright smile of my own. “Don’t worry, Shikun. With your help, there’s nothing that he can throw at us that we can’t get through.”
Shikun blinked once at that, and I could practically see the doubt melt away as her brow smoothed out under her horns. Before I could blink, she swept me up in a thankful embrace, and I could do nothing less than hug her back. After a moment in each other’s arms, we pulled apart reluctantly. The clock was ticking, and we had a spider to snare.
Then, with a singular purpose, Shikun and I turned toward the gully and, hand-in-hand, we rushed forward toward the entrance to the Weaver’s lair.
25
The hidden gully led through tangled roots and shrouds of thick webbing to go deeper into the forest, and before long, Shikun led us through a hollow formed by the roots of a massive tree in a hillside. It had no doubt started as a natural gap in the earth, but it was clearly dug out and drastically expanded. Dried wooden braces supported a hard-packed ceiling, and the winding tunnel descended into utter blackness.
As if that would even slow us down. I drew Libritas to shine her golden light forward, while Shikun ripped a thick branch off one of the trees, wrapped it in webbing, and lit it with a little puff of fire, and what I thought I had seen before was now made plain. While her dragon-fire had been red-orange when we first clashed, it was now the same silvery color as her wings.
Neither of us questioned it, not with time being such a critical factor, and we simply plunged on into the depths. I let Shikun take the lead, confident in both the knowledge she had and her dragon-like durability to deal with the dangers we didn’t know about, while I kept my eyes peeled and my ears open for anything.
Even with our two twinkling gold and silver lights, the gloom still tried to encroach on us as we descended into the bowels of the forest. Time began to lose any real sense of meaning, a feeling of disconnection I was used to from my own experiences in spelunking with Sir Thorpe, and what lay beyond our sphere of light was a shadowy abyss of the unknown. Thank God I wasn’t the least bit claustrophobic, or else the tight tunnels would have made me go crazy.
Shikun deftly led us past tripwires, deadfalls, and misdirecting switchbacks of all kinds. I had to admit that I was impressed by the multitude of traps the ettercaps had improvised to work in these earthen tunnels. That was only the tip of the iceberg, as I discovered when, a short time into our descent, the dug-out passage turned into a tunnel of worked stone.
“Now we must step very carefully,” Shikun whispered over her shoulder. “I doubt any of the remnants of the Weaver’s tribe will stand in our way, but the traps grow far thicker from here on out.”
I patted her on the shoulder, careful not to stick my hand into the flickering flames of her wings. “Understood. We’ve got this.”
She nodded her horned head and turn
ed forward to keep going, only for a loud click to ring out through the tunnel as soon as she took that first step.
“Wyrm-fire,” the dragon-girl muttered just as the wall on both sides of the tunnel launched forward to crush her flat.
Well, it would have, if she hadn’t immediately braced herself, foot talons digging into the stone as she threw out both arms to her sides. There was a tremendous cracking of stone as the walls crashed into her open palms, and instead of being smashed into paste, Shikun roared and held the crushing rock at bay.
But she wouldn’t be able to hold it for long. It only took a glance for me to see the strangely advanced pistons that drove the crushing walls, made of actual metal, something rare to see so far here in Etria. A split-second later, as Shikun’s form shivered under the strain, I had the answer.
“Hold on, Shikun!” I called out as I thrust Libritas right into the metal piston, summoning up all her heat as I did so. The Brand of Freedom blazed with golden light as her runic tip flared white-hot before it struck dead center. She melted through as my strength pushed Lib through to the other side. As I yanked the Brand free, a viscous black fluid flooded out of the melted hole, and almost immediately, the wall’s constant press began to slacken.
Shikun, noticing the slackening of pressure on her left, let out a cry as she shifted her stance, turning so that she could plant both hands against the right wall. Digging in both feet and adding bracing with her tail against the stony floor, she not only managed to hold her ground but even push back a little against the hydraulic force.
Not that she had to hold out for much longer because I spun around and brought Libritas around to pierce the other piston as well. As soon as I ripped through that, a fresh gout of whatever it was the Weaver used for hydraulic fluid sprayed out, covering the floor and walls with stick black goop. With the rest of the pressure gone, Shikun let out one last roar and slammed the wall back into place with a resounding thwump.
We both stood there for a moment to catch our breath, and the moment we did so, Shikun looked over at me from where she still had her hands pressed into the wall, a blush on her cheeks and a downward cast in her eyes.
“I… uh… that was one the Weaver didn’t tell me about,” she said sheepishly.
I laughed, as much out of relief than anything else. “It’s okay. We’re both fine.” I glanced over at the opposite wall where her handprints were gouged into the stone. “Just remind me never to get you really angry.”
Shikun’s blush intensified as she rubbed the back of her neck. “Oh, well, okay, but… I would never hurt you, William. I swear it.”
“I know.” With a pat on her shoulder and a smile, I gestured ahead with Libritas. “Now, let’s keep going.”
She nodded fiercely, relit her torch, and led onward.
True to what Shikun said, no matter how deep we went into this ancient labyrinth, there was no sign of any more ettercaps. Not even a scrap of discarded food, a piece of errant webbing, or the clack of their chitinous feet. Also true to what she said, the number and complexity of the traps multiplied three-fold. Now that we had found one special surprise the Weaver had for us, I was on high alert now, and even though it slowed us down a hair, our renewed caution saved us from four more devious devices that might have killed either one or both of us.
We were in those gloomy tunnels for, well, I wasn’t sure how long. Though I never felt lost with Shikun’s confident guidance, the constant tension and need for vigilance fatigued both of us, and by the time we came out of the tight, endless tunnels into the only real chamber we had come across so far, I was surprisingly tired.
“We are almost there,” the dragon-girl whispered as she held her torch out into the room to try to shed some light upon it. “Beyond this antechamber is the Weaver’s personal sanctuary where he…” Her form stiffened as painful memories rushed through her mind. “... disciplines his slaves and stores his treasures. I don’t know how Amalthea made her way down to us with her size, I can only assume that there is another exit.”
“So, he’s not cornered,” I mused. “I think we can also assume that there’s going to be at least one secret trap here you don’t know about. I mean, it’s evil overlord 101, right?”
Shikun glanced back at me with a curious look. “I… suppose so?”
“Don’t worry, it’s a reference from the Uplands.” I took in a deep breath and nodded. “Well, let’s not keep him waiting.” With that, I stepped up next to the dragon-girl and added Libritas’s radiance to the burning torch in an effort to get a better idea of what was going to try to kill us.
In the amplified light, I could make out the extent of the vaulted chamber. Compared to the tunnels, it was immense, but really, it wasn’t even a dozen yards on a side, and from what I could see, this had once been a catacomb of some kind. The time-worn walls to both sides were covered with deep rectangular niches, the kind one would store corpses in, and I could just make out worn-down runes etched into the stone. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was the same script that was carved in the portal arch that brought Reggie and me to Etria. The tunnel we were still standing in looked to be the only entrance, and the only exit was ahead, a pair of ten-foot-tall metal doors that stood closed directly across from us.
I immediately thought it was suspicious that the floor of the chamber was sloped shallowly to form a sort of bowl, but try as I might, I didn’t see any kind of trigger for traps. No obvious pressure plates, no tripwires, no odd rays of light, nothing.
“I don’t see anything,” I admitted after a moment.
“Neither do I,” Shikun agreed, then sniffed the air. “And I smell nothing unusual either.” A thoughtful frown played across her face, her furrowed brow making her horns rise up on her head. “Perhaps there isn’t a trap here?”
“No, there is,” I assured her as I cracked my neck and got ready. “I can feel it, but I bet he’s a cheeky bastard and has it on some special trigger or the like.”
And, as if on cue, a slab of stone slammed down a good two yards behind us, sending a rush of wind and dust as it sealed the chamber off. As it turns out, it was literally on cue, because a hissing, clicking voice echoed through the room a split-second later.
“Welcome to my inner sanctum, Brand-wielder, and thank you for bringing back my wayward bitch of a slave with you,” the Weaver said, his voice carried to us by what I could only assume was some ancient magic. “The moment you broke all three of her brands, I knew you would be here, and soon… so I decided to wait for you to arrive so I could personally ensure your demise.”
Neither Shikun nor I wasted a moment. Before the Weaver was half-way through his spiel, we charged across the room towards the door. Shikun launched herself through the space with one mighty beat of her wings while I broke into a sprint. I was only a few steps behind her when she let out a roar and slammed her shoulder into the doors.
Now, I’d seen Shikun already hold back crushing stone walls, tear Petra’s bronzewood tree apart with her bare hands, and carry my two-hundred-plus pounds of bulk for over an hour of pedal-to-the-metal flying. I expected she would simply tear the doors off their hinges with one shoulder barge or at least badly dent one of the two panels.
So, I was at least as surprised as she was when she hit the door and simply bounced off it with a tremendous clanging sound… but I wasn’t so surprised that I couldn’t brace my legs and catch her. I skidded back an inch or two, but I managed to keep Shikun from going ass over teakettle back the length of the room.
“You okay?” I asked as I set her back on her feet.
“Yes, the only bruise is to my pride, what little of it I have,” Shikun grumbled as she rubbed her shoulder.
“Ah, yes,” the Weaver continued, completely nonplussed. “As you may have guessed, Uplander, these chambers predate even the rise of the Brands. The metal of that door was forged by the ancients, and the runes on the stone reinforce their strength as well.”
Alarm bells rang in my head then. If t
here was magic protecting the stone, why did it look as worn as it did?
“Shikun, try to slag the door,” I said, even though I didn’t expect it would do any good as I turned to the nearest wall. “Lib, can you make sense of these runes?”
The dragon-girl nodded as she sucked in a deep breath. As she unleashed a cone of silver flames that washed over the metal door, Libritas pulsed as she sent into my mind.
“I can, William, but it will take a few moments for me to decipher them all. They are in rather shoddy condition.”
“Oh, clever, not that it will help,” the Weaver taunted.
He might have been right because that’s when the distinct sound of grinding gears echoed through the room from two of the niches, one on each wall. A split-second later, that was followed by what I at first thought was the rushing of water. What gushed out of those niches wasn’t water though, unless water was thick, cloudy, and hissed and smoked the moment it struck stone.
“I understand the process of dissolution is intensely painful, but if it means anything to you, it will not destroy Libritas.” The Weaver let out a series of clicking chuckles. “I will ensure she has a good home with Karthas and me when you are gone. Consider it a family reunion, softskin!”
I pressed myself against the wall, away from the acid-spewing niche near me, while Shikun did the same by the unmelted door. While quite a bit of the goopy substance was being pumped in, the acid’s tendency to stick to the walls and floors meant we had a few moments before Shikun would be forced to fly us both above it to stay safe. Of course, that would only postpone our inevitable death if we didn’t figure out something fast.
The dragon-girl looked at me with growing panic. “I am invulnerable to many things, but not this, William.”
“I’ll figure this out,” I said, almost like a mantra. “I’ll figure this out.”
A few things hit me at once. The doors weren’t going to budge, that much was clear… but the stone walls? It was the runes that were making them strong, the Weaver said as much, but not indestructible, or else the acid wouldn’t be reacting to it. If we could do something about the runes, weaken the stone, Shikun could maybe rip through the hinges of the door… or maybe we could block off the acid spouts with hunks of rock and back up the pipes.