He retraced his steps through the winding corridor, passing through open areas that had been water in his home dimension but were dangerous-looking pools of unfamiliar liquid here.
Water in your dimension is a semiliquid acid in Imphetos, the sword told him.
“So, avoid it,” Shinobu replied, his thoughts laced with sarcasm.
I do not know what effect it will have on you, material dweller, the sword responded. This is not a plane inhabited by your kind.
Shinobu frowned. “So it might be harmless?”
Yes . . . or it may dissolve you.
Disembodied voices drifted through the air. Some words Shinobu understood as human languages, while others were not. He heard tones of anguish and ecstasy, fear, threat, and confusion. Some voices just sounded . . . lost. He understood that sentiment.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and Shinobu dove into a roll without thinking. The instinct saved him.
Shinobu came to his feet and whipped the sword across his face. A creature that looked like a giant squid, but with three round eyes on either side of its elongated head, floated in the air in front of him. Its tentacles waved about its angular body, coiling, bending, flicking towards him.
Clyto, the sword imparted. Do not let it grab you, or it will draw you to its funnel and devour your soul.
“Wouldn’t want that.” Shinobu kept his stance defensive as he backed away from the thing. It watched him with those unblinking round eyes, all staring right at him, or rather, right into his eyes. There was an intelligence to that stare that the strider found unnerving.
Much like a squid would swim through water, the clyto rose higher into the air and swept down. It pulled up and flicked its tentacles at him.
Shinobu kept the appendages at bay with the sword in a constant dance of strike and dodge, attack and retreat. The tentacles were moving so fast he couldn’t tell if there were nine or nineteen. Calling upon a lifetime of training, the strider proved equal to the challenge. Shinobu’s speed and dexterity kept him from being grabbed, but to his surprise, he found his endurance to be augmented in this realm.
It is the nature of Imphetos, the sword imparted. Use it to survive but deny its allure.
“Noted.” Shinobu ducked under a grabbing tentacle and leaped into a backflip. When three more reached for him while he was midair, the strider expertly picked each appendage off. Though it was a simple flick of his wrist, the powerful blade sliced through the tentacles as though they were nothing.
The clyto responded with an anguished wail that sounded like a flat saw grinding across metal. It twitched and spasmed, turning about in the air as though something devoured it from the inside.
“A bit dramatic,” Shinobu thought.
It has learned the power of my bite.
Shinobu didn’t know whether to be relieved or unnerved by that.
Movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention. Given the nature of this Imphetos dimension, Shinobu didn’t bother to find out what it was. He turned and ran.
As more figures darted in and out of his periphery, he got a quick glimpse. More clyto.
You are surrounded. Wield me well.
“Thanks,” Shinobu said dryly.
A dozen clyto swam a circle about him, closing in with each pass. Shinobu was forced to stop and hold his ground. He held the sword at his side and watched the passing monsters, waiting for a target to get too close. The attack came without warning.
The farstrider ducked and struck out, leaped and twisted in the air. He found that his muscles never tired, his breathing never labored. He could jump higher as well. He needed all those advantages, for his speed remained the same in this realm. But Shinobu was already fast.
He killed three before the encircling clyto broke formation and backed off. They floated in the air, tentacles waving gently about their bodies as they studied him.
Shinobu dropped into a defensive stance and held the fiery blade in a reverse grip. “Your move.”
The clyto scattered.
“I . . . what was that?” Shinobu asked aloud. “Are they put off by a voice, or something?”
Clyto only give up when injured or killed . . .
“Or if something worse comes along,” Shinobu finished in his mind.
He heard the same screech as before, only this one sounded like a hundred of them all together in one terrible chorus.
The creature that descended from the dark green sky above might as well have been a hundred of the squid-monsters combined.
Shinobu cursed and took off in a full sprint. He snapped the blade into its sheath on his back and leaned forward. “Good thing I won’t get tired, here,” he thought.
You cannot outrun it, the sword replied.
“But I might make it there,” Shinobu thought, looking ahead to the mouth of another corridor. “No way it can fit in there . . .” he craned his neck back to watch the enormous clyto glide mockingly over his head and settle right in front of the mouth of the corridor.
They are intelligent.
“Wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t told me,” Shinobu said with a mental eye-roll. He kept running and drew the sword. It flared to life, blue flame dancing just above his hand. “You can hurt something that big?”
I can destroy far more durable adversaries, wielder.
Shinobu held the sentient weapon at his side and ran straight for the waiting monster. He’d need to sever as many tentacles as he could and keep moving. Hopefully he could inflict enough pain that it would retreat, or else he’d have to kill . . .
A black tentacle punched through the back of one of the enormous eyes of the clyto. Three more punched through its elongated body, and two more punched through the head. It let out a deafening scream that nearly buckled Shinobu’s knees.
“WwrrryyAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRR!”
That sound wasn’t the clyto.
The giant squid-monster’s screams cut off as the black tentacles ripped it apart.
Shinobu skidded to a stop and watched in horror as the black appendages savaged the clyto. Behind the falling pieces of what was left of the monster stood the hulking khazira. It was now black, with bits of white light snaking around its body. It looked even bigger, though nowhere as large as the behemoth it had just torn asunder.
“I think it’s really angry,” Shinobu thought.
There is not a word in your human tongue to fully define its rage, wielder.
For the first time in his life, Shinobu was at a loss. He knew he couldn’t kill that thing, but if it wouldn’t stop chasing him . . .
Run toward it and keep me in hand.
“What?” That was the last thing Shinobu wanted to do.
Do as I say, wielder, and trust in me.
Shinobu had no choice. He ran straight for the khazira, and the great beast waited for him. He tightened his grip on the sword, his only hope of survival.
The khazira roared again and whipped its tentacled fingers down on him.
The world shifted.
Shinobu stumbled into the corridor. The real corridor. “What . . .”
You ask that word a lot, wielder. Flee!
Shinobu did just that. A loud crash and the sound of crumbling stone announced the khazira’s arrival. “That was fast,” he said aloud.
It has adapted.
“How in the five hells do I get that thing off my back?”
The sword’s silence carried much weight.
Shinobu sheathed the sword and sprinted through the winding corridors, all too aware that despite his finely honed endurance, he couldn’t keep up this pace indefinitely; not in this world.
“Wvt wwwyyyyvt worrrvty zzzzyyeeeert yeeevvt.”
Shinobu felt a shiver down his spine. “I wish it would stop doing that.”
Tentacles slapped at his heels; the unintelligible words of the khazira drew closer. Thud thud thud THUD THUD THUD.
Shinobu drew the sword again. How could the thing move so fast? Surely it had to hunch
down in this corridor. Did it shrink its size accordingly?
White tentacles shot past him and overhead. Like spears, the appendages stabbed into the ceiling of the corridor.
Shinobu dove forward with a desperate shout, but the stone ceiling crumbled on top of him.
4
As soon as Shinobu crashed into the ground and realized he wasn’t dead, he scrambled to his feet and kept running. “Thanks for that.”
You are unhappy I intervened?
Shinobu’s clenched his teeth. “It’s not that.”
But you are unhappy, I can sense it. You are displeased I saved you from being crushed.
“I assure you I’m happy to be alive,” Shinobu explained. “It’s just a blow to the ego that I would have died under other circumstances.”
I have then diminished the arrogance in your self-perception, wielder?
Shinobu mentally sighed. “How about we leave it for if I find a way to survive this.”
That is wise. The khazira comes.
The hulking beast faded in and out of view in front of him. Shinobu kept running, hoping he could get by before it fully materialized.
The brute solidified once Shinobu was within a dozen feet. The strider dropped and slid between its legs. He swung the fiery blade as he passed through. The blade cut deep into the khazira’s leg, yet it didn’t sever the limb. Still, the khazira arched its back and let out a terrible bellow.
Shinobu rolled back to his feet and kept running.
Tentacles crash all about him, pounding the ground, the walls, the ceiling. Large rocks and chunks of stone fell apart all around him.
Keep me in hand . . .
“I know, I know,” Shinobu interrupted. “Trust in you.”
Yes. And trust in yourself. I am the key to the spectral realm of Imphetos and the material realm of your world. Use my power.
Shinobu came to a final juncture and turned right, down the final corridor leading to the surface. The khazira dogged his trail, unleashing its ferocity on the corridor behind him. His heart dropped into his stomach when he saw the wall standing between him and freedom. “No! That shouldn’t be here!”
Remember the nature of Imphetos, the sword said.
A mirror of the material world, but not an exact copy. He knew not how, but Shinobu willed the sword to return him to the material plane.
The world shifted around him, and he found himself running for the mouth of the corridor. Shinobu had never been happier to smell the fresh damp air of the rainy surface beyond.
He ran free of the corridor, out of the mountain, and into the world above. And he kept running.
The khazira burst out several heartbeats later. It leaped high into the air, and Shinobu knew it would crash down on him. He reentered the spectral realm without missing a step. The khazira appeared again, less than a dozen heartbeats later.
It pounded at his heels, swinging and slapping its tentacled fingers at Shinobu’s back. “Run forever or surrender to oblivion and rest, thief.”
Shinobu’s heart fluttered in his chest, and the pit of his stomach went cold at an unfamiliar feeling. Fear. “Did I just hear that right?”
Its words are decipherable in the spectral. The sword seemed just as surprised as Shinobu.
“All who take up the key shall cease to be.” The khazira’s baritone voice sounded as though it came through a funnel, directly into the strider’s ears. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand.
Shinobu crested a hillock and arrived in the midst of a pack of monsters that looked like jackals walking on two legs. They swung toward him, knuckles dragging the ground, wide maws hanging agape as they realized prey had stumbled upon them.
Shinobu killed two before they could attack, and kept going. The grayish-green monsters pursued, their hungry grunts urging the strider onward. When the grunts turned to terror, Shinobu knew what that meant.
One of the monsters crashed into the ground just beside Shinobu. He looked over his shoulder just as the khazira hurled another of the unfortunate things in his direction.
The strider shifted back to the material plane. Mere moments later the khazira hurled a tree at him, which he barely dodged. He still didn’t escape being splashed by mud and sand. Shinobu started uphill when a boulder crashed farther up and began rolling toward him. He shifted to the spectral.
The boulder faded from view as he passed through its image. Shinobu leaped left and right, avoiding lunging monsters and swiping claws. He used the sword to dispatch any threat that got close, but above all, he kept running.
Though the ground didn’t tremor at its steps, the strider heard the khazira behind him. He heard the screams of every spectral monster that either fled or was ripped apart. Bodies and body parts crashed all around him; tentacles tore up the ground behind him. When the khazira drew too near, Shinobu shifted back into the material plane.
He glanced over his shoulder just as he passed over another hill. The khazira was just materializing as he started down. Shinobu immediately shifted back into the spectral realm. He ran down the hill, but angled left toward a cluster of mounds with green mist seeping out of them.
Shinobu slipped behind one of the mounds and hid. He didn’t know what the mist was, but he hoped it was just some other random feature of this twisted world. He lay on the ground and waited, but nothing happened. When he remembered that footfalls couldn’t be heard in this dimension, Shinobu carefully peeked around the side.
The khazira stomped down the hill, swinging its torso left to right as it searched. Its tentacles retracted back into clawed fingers. The beast’s shoulders heaved, its claws repeatedly flexing into fists. Shinobu could feel the rage wafting off of the thing.
A gurgling squawk drew Shinobu’s gaze to the sky where he saw a saber-toothed, bat-winged horror flapping overhead. Unfortunately for the unsightly monster, it glided too close to the brute below.
The fingers on one of the khazira’s hands elongated to tentacles and it swung its arm up. The winged monster gave a squawk of surprise that quickly turned to desperation when the tentacles wrapped around one of its legs and squeezed. The khazira yanked the creature straight out of the sky.
Shinobu winced as the beast repeatedly slammed the monster to the ground in every direction. The khazira grabbed it with the hand that still had fingers, retracted the tentacles of its other hand, and tore the monster apart.
It arched its back and threw two pieces of the dead monster behind it as it roared to the green sky above. That was the strider’s final view of the beast as the enraged khazira faded from view, leaving a panting Shinobu staring wide-eyed while trying to settle his pounding heart.
Well done, the sword said. You have eluded it for now.
“For now?” Shinobu hesitantly rose, eyes darting this way and that. How would it know where to look for me?
Whenever you shift from your home dimension to this one, it will know. Whenever you use my true power, it will also know.
“True power?” Shinobu looked at the fiery blade in his hand and again, wondered if he should return it to its place in the wall of the chamber, now that he’d escaped that terrible monster. If the thing could only find him if he shifted planes or used the sword’s true power—whatever that meant—he could shift into the material plane and hopefully lose the khazira again, then return to the chamber and be rid of this burden.
You hold the key to many possibilities, wielder, the sword reminded him. A key such as I can be used not only to access a place, but also to free those who have been imprisoned.
Shinobu’s face tightened. Apparently the sword could access his deeply buried thoughts as well. “You’re crossing a line.”
It is not uncommon for a demon to find a way into your dimension and steal away a prisoner to torment. Alone, you could never find them, but with the key, you have a chance.
The sword’s choice of the word “them” wasn’t lost on the strider.
Shinobu walked down the hill, still casting his wary gl
ance about in case the khazira or some other weird and twisted monster found him. He stopped at the edge of a cliff that overlooked an enormous canyon.
Aika. Hironobu.
Just the thought of his older siblings threatened to tear his heart from his chest. His remaining family had resigned themselves to never seeing Aika and Hironobu again, accepting that they had likely been killed and taken.
Shinobu had never been able to make himself believe that. Aika and Hironobu’s skills eclipsed his own. No one would have gotten close to either of them, sleeping or awake. Aika would have feathered any would-be assassin with enough arrows to have the corpse looking like a pin cushion. Hironobu would have quickly cut any assailant apart.
There had been no signs of struggle, no blood, nothing damaged. There had been one clue: an unidentifiable scent in both homes. He thought again of the wise elder Hikaru. She had known what it was but said nothing. People thought the ancient woman had lost her wits, but Shinobu knew better. He remembered again her warning about demon trickery; about how one may have come to their dimension and taken his siblings. Was it simply to take victims to torture, or was something else at play? And why Shinobu’s siblings? The whole thing seemed too targeted.
He looked down at the fiery blade in his grasp and truly wondered for the first time if he’d found a way to locate and free Aika and Hironobu. The sword hadn’t lied when it said it was a key, but could he trust it? And what about the figure shrouded in green mist that had come to him in his dreams? It had hinted at a key to saving his siblings.
A feeling deep within pulled at him, interrupting his thoughts. Shinobu frowned. At first he thought it was the sword, but the weapon had gone silent in his mind. He looked out and watched another giant winged creature lazily flying across the canyon. The feeling was faint, but he felt as though it pulled him toward the northwest. A tiny spark lit deep inside his being. It wasn’t an explosive flare of power, but a subtle flicker, as though something had awakened.
Shinobu unconsciously turned to the northwest, and the pull grew stronger. Could it be Aika and Hironobu calling to him across the planes of existence for help now that he had found a way to reach them?
Unfettered III Page 55