She pulled the door open, and the kobolds, all of them, darted back at the squeak of hinges. Magic rushed out around her, and she let the death aura roll over her, used it to turn that magic away, to be the oil around which the water flowed without dissolving it. “Ululenia, are you all right with this?”
“It . . . yes. For now.” Ululenia’s voice was strained. Desidora looked back and saw that Ululenia was leaning over, one hand shielding her forehead. “Let us hurry.”
The tunnel ahead was darker, which at first made no sense to Desidora. As she started down the path, though, the magic boiled around her, and she realized the truth. “The crystals fling out energy, some of it light. As we get closer to the purest sections, the magic is so strong that it overwhelms even that light.”
Something skittered in the walls, something with a voice between a giggle and the sound of a tin fork dropped onto a wooden table. “How do they live in this?” Ululenia said behind her.
“I’m not certain they live at all.” Desidora kept the magic safely at bay and kept moving. If not for her death magic, she would already have died.
The walls faded to blood red as they walked, and then a deep burgundy, and then, as Desidora began to fear they would be walking in darkness, she saw light ahead, blessedly normal white light from a glowlamp in a chamber in the distance.
“When this is over,” Ululenia muttered through gritted teeth, “I am going to ravish young Jerval.”
Desidora looked back. Ululenia’s face was flushed, and she squinted as she walked. “Do you need to go back?”
“I am fine.”
“You didn’t sound as though young Jerval would be choosing to enjoy your company of his own free will,” Desidora said very quietly.
“I am fine,” Ululenia hissed, “and he would be as well. He was more than willing. I was in his mind.”
“Yes, I know,” said Desidora. “Decadent dove. Erotic eggplant.”
Ululenia let out a long breath. “I am trying.”
Desidora turned back to the tunnel ahead. The kobolds scampered through the walls, making whatever strange noise they made. She put them out of her head and focused on listening up ahead. She thought she could hear something. Words, maybe.
She picked up her pace. The magic swirled around her as the ocean’s waves now, first pushing her back, then drawing her forward, lifting her and pulling at her ankles. She half expected sand to have buried her feet with each step.
The words had a cadence, a rhythm like a chant. It was familiar, and it took a moment, echoing off the tunnel walls, to make itself known to her. When it finally clicked in her mind, Desidora broke into a run.
“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is.”
Desidora had carried the magical warhammer Ghylspwr for months.
“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is.”
He had been a gift from the gods when she became a death priestess, an ally in her quest to stop the Glimmering Folk from returning to the world and one of the few friends who had trusted her even when she radiated the power of death.
“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is.”
And it had all been a lie. Desidora had been tricked with all the others, blind to her ally, her friend leading them astray as he brought his people back to rule the world.
She stepped out into the chamber at the end of the tunnel. It was circular, the walls glossy black crystal, and Dairy, wearing only a loincloth, lay chained to a crystal altar, unconscious as far as Desidora could see.
Standing over him was a golem controlled by Ghylspwr, who held the great warhammer up over Dairy’s helpless body.
“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is, Ghyl,” Desidora called out, and felt the cold black power of death coil around her. For a moment, it burned, and then she took that boiling ocean and pulled it into her, through her, and flung a bolt of jet-black fire that slammed the golem carrying Ghylspwr into the far wall. “Nobody will die while I watch.”
Indomitable Courteous “Icy” Fist avoided cursing, as he avoided strong intoxicants, defacing religious property, and eating the flesh of animals. He had not sworn oaths to this effect, as when he had sworn to commit no deliberate harm to a living creature, but the temple where he had trained had listed them as strong suggestions.
As such, he did not yell anything rude at Tern or Hessler as he spun through the air, flexing his body to roll with the shock wave of the immense explosion that Hessler’s magic had just triggered.
Upside down, still tumbling, he looked back to see a boulder flying at him from the rockslide that had started. This was a problem, as was the fact that he was perhaps fifty feet above the ground and would likely be landing on rocks.
He twisted, flexed, let the boulder come to him, caught it with both feet, and kicked off it and up, letting the boulder sail below him as he gained altitude. This carried him into the path of another boulder, but twisting in midair he let it whoosh past his back, close enough to graze his golden robes, and then into the path of a smaller rock sailing at his head.
He found the point of stress on the smaller rock, reached out with one cupped palm, and snapped his hand taut just before it would have smashed into his head. The stone shattered into dust, and the effort checked Icy’s momentum and stopped him from tumbling, which was excellent, because the spinning had made it hard for him to concentrate, and the next several seconds would benefit from as much concentration as Icy could muster.
No more rocks were sailing at him, and for one brief moment, Icy hung suspended in the air, at the apex of his leap from the boulder, looking down at what was now a sixty-foot drop.
With a breath of effort, Icy snapped his arms and legs out wide. As his golden robes flared out with them, his hands and feet caught the sleeves and hem and pulled them taut. As he began to fall, his robes billowed out like a great circular sail that caught the wind.
Icy rode the wind, his robes slowing his descent just enough to turn it from an absolute certainty of broken bones into something that a very well-trained man could, with skill and a little luck, roll away from with nothing more than a few bruises.
Icy was a very well-trained man. He hit the edge of the rockslide feetfirst, tucked into a roll that spread the impact across arm and shoulder and back as he came up to his feet, immediately leaped over a jagged boulder that would have dashed his brains out, parried a smaller rock as he twisted to the side, turned that into another roll, and came back to his feet atop a pile of rocks that he danced across with nimble little steps before leaping clear onto solid ground.
“Three tugs,” he said to himself in a tone that was not significantly far from cursing.
The rockslide had entered that precarious point where much of the great mass had settled into a stable position, but enough was still shifting and falling and sliding that none of it could really be called finished yet. As countless tons of rock had poured from the shattered canyon wall, the landscape of the area had shifted, and Icy looked around, trying to gauge where Tern and Hessler had been standing.
“Thief,” came a voice that sounded like a man speaking through a long tube, and a cloaked figure of about dwarven height hopped down from the rocks and landed before Icy.
Icy had barely caught any of the conversation between his teammates and the presumable trackers, as they had been down on the ground fifty feet below while he had been very quickly worming his way out of a collapsed tunnel at the time, but Tern had sounded alarmed.
“Your allies are likely buried under this rubble,” Icy said, “but may still be alive. The same applies to mine. If you care for them as I do mine, I suggest we search for them now and resolve this confrontation at a later time.”
“Thief dead,” said the dwarf-size figure, and now, having had a moment to recover, Icy listened past the strangeness of the voice and caught what else was wrong. He saw the figure’s cloak, miraculously free of dust despite the rockslide, even while Icy’s own golden robes were stained with glowing red grime.
Icy shut his eyes.
H
e felt the movement behind him, pivoted, and allowed the attack by the real tracker to hiss past him. It was not humanoid, whatever it was, and Icy heard the hiss and click of countless little legs scraping on the dirt.
Then the rocks cracked as the tracker struck them, its blow carrying it through the illusion it had projected. Icy opened his eyes and saw, for one moment, something akin to a scorpion with a body the size of a large dog and a strange lumpy tail with a great crystal stinger and a glowing sac beneath it.
Then the wall of rocks, disrupted by the impact of the scorpion creature, shifted with a gentle rumbling sigh and buried the creature under a pile of rubble.
Icy made sure that the creature was not immediately going to burst out and attack again, and then looked at the nearby trees. He spotted a group that looked familiar, albeit now surrounded by glowing rubble, and hopped up onto the rocks again.
“Tern!” he called. “Hessler!”
He looked and listened. For a long moment, there was nothing save the continued rumble and clatter as the remains of the rockslide sorted itself out around him.
Then he heard what sounded like a bell chime. Following the sound, he saw, in the air a few feet above the rubble, a glittering point of light like a tiny fallen star.
“I am coming!” Icy danced across the rubble, the stones sliding beneath his feet even as his light steps barely touched them. In seconds, he was there, standing atop an unfortunately large pile of rocks that might possibly have had an irregular hump underneath it. “One moment!”
He looked at the largest stone, found the point of stress and weakness, and shattered it with the palm of his hand. He shoved it aside, found another, and shattered that one as well. He swept the rubble away with the outside of his foot and broke another rock, and then another. When his body told him that even his disciplined strikes risked breaking his hand, he switched to kicks.
Finally, he struck past a stone and found something that was not more stone beneath. It was pink by the light of the glowing walls—likely white or pale blue by natural light—and looked like the foam that topped Tern’s immensely impractical kahva drinks. The consistency was like that of an old sea sponge, however, and Icy pushed at the porous surface, looking for points of weakness.
“Is it clear?” came Hessler’s voice by Icy’s ear, and he looked over to see another sparkling point of light.
“It is,” Icy called down.
“Stand back,” said Hessler’s illusionary voice, and Icy stepped away. A moment later, a thin cylinder of white-hot light burned through the foam, creating a clean circular cut. The circular section popped out like a cork from a wine bottle, and Icy reached down and pushed it aside, wincing as the still-hot foam burned his fingers.
Beneath the dome of spongy foam, Tern and Hessler huddled.
Icy reached in. “Three tugs,” he said gravely.
“See?” Tern said as Icy pulled her up. “Aren’t you glad we had that worked out beforehand?”
“Glad may be an oversimplification of my feelings on this matter.” Icy helped her to sit on the rocks, away from the increasingly foul-smelling burned foam, and then reached in for Hessler. “Excellent work with what I presume is some sort of alchemical material.”
“Yeah, I never thought it was useful for much, but you know, I have all these pockets, so it’s silly not to bring it.”
Icy pulled Hessler up. “What about the trackers?” the wizard asked.
“Buried, at least for now. But given your survival, we cannot discount the possibility of theirs.”
Hessler stretched his back, groaning. “Does that mean running?”
Icy smiled. “I am afraid so.”
Eight
THE GOLEM CARRYING Ghylspwr hit the wall hard, and Desidora swept into the room. Her dress had gone pitch black, and while the chamber was glossy black crystal lit only by a glowlamp shielded behind glass, there now appeared in the walls silver gargoyles and skulls that cackled silently as they looked in.
“Did you think I would not find you?” Desidora asked. She pulled the magic into and through her again, and another bolt of jet-black energy hissed across the room.
This time, Ghylspwr knocked the bolt aside. “Kutesosh gajair’is,” he warned.
“Save it.” Ordinarily, Desidora would have had to draw the power for a magical attack from a living soul. Here, surrounded by so much raw energy, all she had to do was endure a little pain. “You destroy the enemy.” She flung another bolt, and Ghylspwr batted it aside as well. “After all the times you said that, I never thought you meant me.”
Ghylspwr’s golem was back on its feet now. It was moving back toward Dairy, who still lay chained to the crystal altar. A golden staff with a hoop set upon its head stood planted at the foot of the altar. The hoop looked just large enough for Desidora to pass her head through it.
“Besyn larveth’is,” Ghylspwr said as Desidora gathered the magic again. He raised himself to bat it aside, but this time the jet-black bolt turned into coiling tendrils that snaked around the golem, writhing and twisting as they worked their way through its armored body.
“You protect the people.” Desidora smiled coldly as the tendrils tightened. “You used me, Ghyl. The gods used me, and this power used me, and I was okay, because you were there.” Crystal cracked as the tendrils tightened further. “But it was always a lie.” Stains of silver glyphs radiated from her feet, twining along the floor to make patterns of terrible power. They reached the altar and the strange staff with the hoop at the top, remaining surprisingly unchanged by Desidora’s aura. No matter. “And now you pay for it.”
“Kutesosh gajair’is!” Ghylspwr shouted, and the golem’s arm swung down. His shining platinum head struck the black tendrils and shattered them, and a wave of energy slammed back into Desidora, sending her sprawling.
“Ululenia!” Desidora had forgotten about the unicorn in her fury. She looked back and saw her crouched at the doorway, one hand on her head. “Help me!”
Ululenia pressed forward a step, then fell to her knees. “I cannot!”
“Besyn larveth’is,” Ghylspwr said sadly, and raised himself over Dairy’s unconscious head again.
“No!” Desidora flung another bolt of energy as she stood, for all the good it did. Ghylspwr knocked it aside.
Then he came down, slowly, gently, and tapped Dairy’s forehead.
The young man bucked, back arched, on the altar, and the chains holding him creaked.
Then he went limp.
The golden staff with the hoop at its head flared brilliant yellow, and then the blazing light coalesced into the space in the middle of the hoop. For a moment, a tiny perfect star shone in that point.
Then it exploded, a dazzling burst of light that sent Desidora to her knees. Everything was white, and then, as she blinked away the purple afterimages, she saw, blurry and vague, the golden hoop.
It was a gateway, now, with a shimmering surface of light covering its surface, like a mirror looking upon an impossible shining world.
First one, then several, and then in a rushing stream, motes of flickering energy leaped from the gateway, flitting out into the chamber and up to the crystal ceiling, where they disappeared.
“The ancients,” Desidora whispered.
“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,” Ghylspwr said to Desidora as the river of energy flowed from the golden hoop to the ceiling, twisting and snaking like a blazing reflection of the dark coils Desidora herself had created.
With a casual gesture, he struck the chains from Dairy’s body.
Then he stepped back, and energy coiled around him, and when it faded, Ghylspwr and the golem holding him had vanished.
“No!” Desidora fought back to her feet, gathered another bolt of darkness, and flung it at the golden hoop. It struck the portal squarely and did absolutely nothing. “Get back here, damn you!” Another bolt hissed out into the glowing river of the ancients, flaring and bouncing off some sort of barrier that kept their energy safe. “I will f
ind you, Ghyl! I swear by every damned god in this world and yours, I will find you!”
“Desidora.” She looked over at Ululenia’s voice. The unicorn was curled up on the floor now, trying to crawl into the room.
It was pathetic. If the unicorn had been stronger, Ghylspwr would not have finished his ritual, would not have escaped, would not—
“Dairy,” Ululenia croaked, and lifted a trembling finger.
Desidora looked at the young man, lifeless on the altar, and let the aura of death fall away.
“Yes,” she said, as the silver glyphs faded and her dress slowly lightened back to normal black, as opposed to the eye-hurting black it had been a moment ago. “Let me . . . let me see.”
It had been less than a minute, and there was no physical injury. If, if, if . . .
She pulled every bit of magic from the walls, even tried for the river that was the ancients, although whatever invisible barrier protected it kept her from drawing from them as well. She drew in more magic than she had used for the energy bolts, and it hurt, power blazing inside like a fire in her veins.
But pain meant that she was alive. Maybe today, it meant even more than that.
“I am a priest of Byn-kodar,” she said, letting the pain keep her focused as the ocean of energy threatened to pull her away. “I am death.” She stepped forward. It felt as though hooks tore at her with every step, the magic locking her in place. She placed a hand on Dairy’s forehead. “And as the priest of death, I say that it will not take you today, Rybindaris.”
She poured that power into him, into the naive young boy who had saved the world, into the innocent who had trusted all of them, into the virgin who had taken a dragon for a lover and helped stop a war.
For a moment, nothing happened, and she pushed, clamped her hand upon his forehead tighter like a fool as though that would somehow help. And deep inside, even though she was blind to the gods with the power of Byn-kodar upon her, she prayed, and it was not a faithful prayer of supplication but a damn you all, you owe me kind of prayer, the kind that comes before bargaining and tears, and a small desperate please.
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