by Chris Fox
“If we run into anything, don’t yell, manly or otherwise.” She drew even with him and made sure he was looking in her direction. That brought the light, of course, but she squinted at him anyway. “Our survival will depend on our ability to hide. I can teleport us. I can make us invisible. I can summon illusions to confuse pursuers. Stick close to me, and stay quiet. I will keep us safe.”
“No manly yells, got it.” Wes kept humming.
They travelled for a little over an hour before they reached the first bend. It wasn’t anything remarkable, just a slightly steeper grade that curved sharply around and back the way they’d come. There were subtle changes, though.
More debris littered the corridor, and some of the walls had collapsed inward. Often that was caused by some sort of rockslide, but they passed several instances where it appeared something had burrowed into the tunnel.
“Nara,” Wes called softly. He clicked his headlamp and the bright white light was replaced by a soft red beam. It would be much less visible from a distance, but it also turned everything around them into dim shapes. “Come take a look at this.”
Nara crept over to Wes, who’d dropped into a crouch. She joined him and squinted down at the ground where he was pointing. She couldn’t make out anything.
“One sec,” Wes whispered. He fished his pocket tablet out and used the screen to illuminate the ground. “See this?”
A meter-thick line wove back and forth through the dirt, in the direction they were going. Nara licked her lips. “That’s a big snake. Do you have any idea how old it is?”
“Nope,” he admittedly cheerfully. “I’m not a tracker or anything, just observant. If I had to guess I’d say it’s recent. Especially given the smell.”
Nara realized she couldn’t smell anything with her helmet on, and was immediately grateful. They’d encountered many incredible odors during their trip, and she wasn’t eager to discover another.
“We may as well press on. If we run into it, we’ll deal with it.” Nara started up the corridor, and Wes followed. The further they went, the more she realized Wes didn’t know the area as well as he’d claimed. He had an excellent sense of direction, and was great with maps, but it sounded like he had surprisingly little actual experience.
Nara reached into her void pocket and withdrew her staff. She carried it loosely in both hands, ready to cast if a threat presented itself. That kind of vigilance grew harder to maintain the further they went, especially as the hours passed. But she stubbornly kept her staff out. There was no telling when she’d need it.
The tunnel evened out into a long, straight line, though it continued to slope down. As they continued forward Nara could feel something above her and to the right. Something immensely powerful.
“What is it?” Wes asked. “Did you hear something?”
Nara pointed up and to the right. “Virkonna is right there. No more than three hundred meters away.” Being that close to a sleeping god was more than a little terrifying. After meeting Neith, and Drakkon, she had no illusions. A god could snuff them out with a thought.
“All the more reason to keep moving.” Wes started up the tunnel again.
She flew after him, then landed and started walking next to him. “That means in the next hour or two we should be far enough away from Virkonna for me to search for other signatures.”
Rocks clacked off each other as something moved in the distance. Something large. Nara moved instantly and settled her hand around Wes’s mouth. She pulled him gently against her armor with one arm, and hissed into his ear, “Don’t cry out.”
She pulled him gently into the shadows of a nearby pile of debris. Wes went limp in her grasp, his eyes wild as he raised a trembling hand and clicked his headlamp off. Nara sketched a quick fire sigil, and a flame appeared above that area of the tunnel.
A large scaled body reared up in the shadows, white scales glinting as an elongated head investigated the light. A forked tongue flicked out as the creature moved around the light. Its skin bulged and oozed in strange ways, and a thick, viscous fluid flowed from putrid sores all over its body.
Before she could see more, the snake’s head shot forward, and it swallowed the spell. They were plunged back into sudden darkness.
“That thing ate the spell. Think about what it will do to us,” Wes whispered fiercely. “We need to get out of here. Maybe we can creep back up the way we came. We can find another way.”
“Be quiet,” Nara hissed back. She thought quickly, more quickly than any normal human could manage.
The snake, whatever it was, had eaten the spell. That suggested it fed on magic, which matched everything she’d learned about primals. There had been similar snakes on Marid, though those were smaller, and a lot more timid. This thing was sick, whether from too much magic or something else she couldn’t say. But that hadn’t diminished its appetite. It wanted magic, which meant she understood how to motivate it.
She studied the cave. A forest of rocky stalagmites and stalactites broke up the room, making it difficult for something that large to move between them.
“Wes, you want me to tell Ismene that you’re a hero, right?” Nara whispered sweetly.
She couldn’t see his face well enough to make out his suspicion, but she heard it in his voice. “You’re going to ask me to do something stupid, aren’t you?”
She rested her hand on his arm. “Not that stupid. I’m going to make you glow, and all you have to do is run.”
“I was going to do that anyway,” he hissed back. “But I’d prefer not to paint a neon sign on my back.”
Nara squeezed his arm. With her spell armor she could have made it painful, but she didn’t. She made it firm, though. “Wes, I hired you to guide me down here. Are you seriously going to tell me you’re going to cut and run at the first hostile encounter?”
Wes froze. He was silent for a long moment. In the end his shoulders squared, and his pride seemed to win. “Okay, go ahead and magic me. I’ll hightail it back the way we came, and if the snake gets close I’ll try shooting it. But I don’t think my guns are going to be of much use against that thing. I doubt yours will either.”
“Just trust me, please.” Nara released him, and sketched a fire sigil. A tiny nimbus of flame surrounded the archeologist, casting wild shadows around them.
She knew he was right. Direct magic use against that creature would probably just feed the thing. If she were going to kill it, she’d have to use indirect means.
“Well?” Nara barked. “What are you waiting for? Move!” She did her very best to imitate Crewes, and apparently it worked.
The archeologist scampered away like a rabbit, darting between rocks as he picked a path back the way they’d come.
Nara spun to face the snake, its scales glittering in the distance. A large, glowing eye fixed on Wes’s retreating form. The snake slithered forward, crossing the ground with much greater speed than she’d anticipated.
She took a deep, slow breath. This would require absolute precision to pull off. She scanned the room, focusing on the stalactites dipping down from the ceiling. Several were large enough to weigh tons and all ended in sharp points. Perfect improvised weapons.
The snake slithered between them, weaving closer to Wes at an alarming rate. He began to shriek, and started scrambling up a large stalagmite. The snake exploded through several pillars as it sought Wes.
Nara slowly raised a hand as she judged the snake’s path. There, that one. She sketched a level three void bolt, and flung it at the base of a stalactite, right where it met the cavern ceiling. The bolt disintegrated rock, and a three meter spike of jagged rock came down on the snake.
It punched through the creature’s skull, pinning it to the ground. The snake began thrashing wildly, its tail knocking over pillars. Wes scrambled further away, barely dodging a frantic strike from the dying snake.
Finally, the thrashing ceased, and the light left its eyes.
“See,” Nara yelled, her voice booming
through the cavern. “I told you we’d be fine.”
Wes adjusted his spectacles and studiously avoided looking at her. “I won’t be fine until I change my underpants.”
36
Sisters
Frit wasn’t sure what to expect when she entered the circle of redwoods. The towering trees screened the little clearing from sight, offering a certain degree of privacy from prying eyes. Several women stood in that clearing, and every one could have been a sister.
The shade of flame differed slightly on each, but they had the same hair, though different styles. The same delicate features. All were female, of course. And every last one of them stood at exactly the same height. It was as if they’d been stamped from a mold. Perhaps they had been.
“Welcome, child,” Nebiat’s warm voice came from behind her and she turned to see the smiling dreadlord. She wore her human form, though Frit doubted that made her any less dangerous. Nebiat waved at the others to approach. “Thank you all for coming. You represent those brave enough to seek change for your kind. I approached others, but many were too frightened to risk their lives, as you all are.”
Frit tightened at that. She hadn’t agreed to risk her life, though she supposed the simple act of coming here was doing exactly that.
Nebiat gestured expansively, taking them all in. Her smile was warm and genuine. Frit mistrusted it, knowing the dreadlord could appear to be whatever she wished.
“Look at each other. For many, this is your first time seeing another Ifrit. Each of you was created by a Shayan house. You were captured as a primal essence, most likely drifting happily through the void. They dumped you off at the Heart of Krox to catalyze, then picked you up before the process completed. You were placed, in a nascent state, into a pattern inducer. An inducer that shaped you into exactly who and what they wished you to be.”
Frit looked around at her sisters, who were studying her with just as much curiosity. Even their clothing was similar, with a fire sigil on the collar. Only one other girl had void. Two girls wore swords, meaning they must be war mages.
“Even your names are a joke to them.” Nebiat frowned suddenly, and lowered her arms. “Please, introduce yourselves. Frit, would you begin please, child?”
Frit’s eyes widened as they all looked at her. She cleared her throat, and puffed out a bit of smoke. It hurt being the focus of so much attention, even the attention of her sisters. “I’m Frit. I serve Eros, up in the palace. That might sound fun, but it isn’t. It’s rotting, from the inside. I see terrible things every day.”
She glanced at the girl on her right, whose fiery eyes widened in alarm.
“I’m Ifra,” she managed. She seemed like she might say something else, but then looked to the next girl.
“Rita,” said the next girl.
“Frat.”
“Iff.”
Each name came like a blow, and in that moment Frit finally understood Nebiat’s goal. She was expertly guiding them to their own realizations—in this case, that their names were all plays on the word Ifrit. Their names were, literally, a joke to their masters.
“We can’t let them treat us this way,” Frit snapped. The other girls looked at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted horns. “You can’t tell me you enjoy living like this. Being their playthings.”
“Of course we hate it,” Ifra said. Frit turned to her, and the girl dropped her gaze immediately. Her voice fell to a near whisper. “It’s just that…what can we do?”
“That’s the real question, isn’t it?” Nebiat interjected smoothly. She wrapped a comforting arm around Ifra, seemingly untroubled by the smoldering heat. “You’ll have to decide. Together. As a group. I cannot choose for you, but if you need my help…I give it freely, with no price or reservation.”
Nebiat held up a slender rod. The black metal glinted in the sun, tantalizing. They all recognized it, of course. Nebiat handed the rod to Frit, and Frit accepted it. The others all stared at her as if seeing a promised savior.
Frit felt a fool. Nebiat was grooming her, she realized. She knew Frit had been given more freedom, and had developed a bit of a backbone. The rest of these girls were broken. They couldn’t lead. Frit could, and Nebiat knew it. That explained her interest.
The question was, how did Frit feel about that?
She looked to her sisters—her timid, frightened, sisters. They’d be used by Shaya, until they were used up. One by one, these girls would die fighting their wars. And for what? A life of slavery? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
Someone needed to do something. She needed to do something. Frit tightened both hands around the rod. “We can’t stay here. Living like this isn’t right. We’re sentient beings. We have thoughts, and dreams. We aren’t property.”
“What can we do?” Ifra asked. She’d been the only person brave enough to speak more than her name. She seemed to gather her courage. “We have the rod. We could leave right now. Go somewhere else, and live free.”
“But if we did that,” Frit pointed out, “it would leave the rest of our sisters here, enslaved. If we leave, I can promise you Eros will take it badly. He’ll increase security for every Ifrit, and they’ll all be punished for our actions.”
“What do you have in mind, child?” Nebiat folded her arms and watched Frit with intense interest.
Frit turned to Nebiat. “Nothing rash, that’s for sure. You all find other sisters, and convince them to escape. We get as many as we can. Then, if Nebiat will help us, we escape this world and never look back. But I don’t want to leave any sister behind who wants to go. Nebiat, will you help us?”
“Of course, child.” Nebiat nodded magnanimously. “You are family. I will give anything you ask. Simply name it.”
37
Fetch
Nara advanced up the corridor slowly. She crept along, her body plastered to the right wall. Wes moved a few meters ahead, slowly approaching a faint glow in the distance. It was the first light of any kind they’d seen, which made her immensely wary.
The first snake hadn’t been the largest they’d seen, and the sightings were becoming more numerous as they proceeded further underground. They’d passed far enough away from Virkonna that her signature no longer blotted out everything magical around them.
That had allowed Nara to spot another signature, which lay a good distance below them. Below them and in the direction of the glow. It pulsed quietly, much less powerful than Virkonna, but rhythmic and strong.
“What do you see?” She moved to within a meter of Wes.
The bespectacled archeologist peered around a rocky corner, his face illuminated by the glow. After so long in darkness, even that much light felt a blessing.
“Best you take a look.” Wes pulled back from the edge of the tunnel, and gestured for her to take his place.
Nara looked around the corner…into something at once terrifying and beautiful. Hundreds of snakes of various sizes slithered across the floor of a cavern that stretched kilometers into the distance. Fifty-meter-thick stalagmites stabbed up into the air, higher than Nara’s vantage. She could see holes bored in their rocky sides, and shapes moved inside those holes.
As she watched, a draconic face crept to the edge of one, and a white drake leapt out. It glided to the ground, where it seized one of the smaller snakes and hauled it up into the air. The snake wriggled in the drake’s grasp, powerless to escape.
A larger snake, this one at least a hundred meters long, reared up silently behind the drake. The snake lunged, and both the drake and the smaller snake disappeared down its gullet. The snake lowered itself silently to the ground, and slithered on as if nothing had happened.
“Do you have a plan to get through there?” Wes whispered.
He pressed against the back of her armor, and she gently pushed him back. Wes was what Pickus would call a stage-5 clinger.
“I might.” She continued to study the layout of the room. “Get out all your magical gear. Anything, any gadgets that can tap into arcane en
ergy.”
“I don’t have much.” Wes removed his battered pack and opened the flap. He rummaged around inside and withdrew several items.
The first was a pair of well-cared-for binoculars. They had a line of sigils drawn along the top, mostly fire and dream. He added a sheathed combat knife with no visible sigils, and a canteen with air, life, and water sigils all along the outer edge.
“I guess you could count these, too.” Wes reached into his duster and withdrew his golden pistols.
Before becoming a true mage, Nara had lived and breathed spellpistols. She’d loved hers, and knew how to handle them. Wes, sadly, did not. He fumbled with both, and nearly dropped the second one. He awkwardly dumped both into the pile.
“That’s everything I’ve got.” He looked up at her over his spectacles. “Now what?”
“Well, if you had to pick one of these objects to be expendable, which would it be?” Nara asked. She eyed each of them, and figured any would work for what she had in mind.
“Hmm. I’d get rid of the pistols, if that were possible. It isn’t though.” He heaved a regretful sigh. “They always come back.”
“What do you mean?” She asked. An idea had begun to germinate.
“Well, I didn’t choose to bond the pistols.” He picked one up and handed it to her. “They’re really powerful and all, but I’m not a warrior. I dress like someone in a holodrama, but that’s just to scare off toughs. It works a surprising amount of the time.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “I won’t tell you the whole story about how I found them, but the weapons pretty much fight for themselves. They drag me along for the ride.”
Nara accepted the pistol and inspected it carefully. She’d seen a great number of magic items, ranging from simple items like the binoculars all the way to a fully developed eldimagus like Ikadra. Nara put these pistols very nearly on Ikadra’s level in magical power.
The craftsmanship was unmistakable. Each pistol was a single piece of smooth golden metal, with a simple trigger guard and a curved grip. A sea of tiny runes lined the barrel, and Nara would have needed a magnifying glass and several days to catalogue them all.