by Eric Asher
“I’ve given you information to slay my kind,” Nixie said. “There is no greater trust one can offer.”
The minister frowned. To some degree, Nixie now understood the commoners’ comprehension only went so far. They’d become so proficient at killing each other that simply revealing the way in which one might be killed was nothing to them. It was just one more blade in a killing machine.
“We will take your words under advisement. Thank you again for your time today.”
Nixie nodded and studied the mostly empty chamber as she left. Towering golden curtains and paintings stretched from floor to ceiling, crowned by a balcony high above. She departed in silence, exiting the building and following the path to a pond with a bronze sculpture in the center. It looked something like a globe, but formed of men and creatures. Nixie didn’t pay it much mind as she slipped into the stagnant water and vanished into the cracks below.
She could have walked to the river, but this would be faster. The smell certainly wasn’t better, but soon enough, she reached freedom and rocketed through the waters.
* * *
Euphemia hadn’t been waiting long when the latch clicked open on a massive marble door at the end of the hall. A crack widened in the center between two doors, and Nixie slipped through. The crown sitting on her head gleamed almost as much as the water woven into the braid of hair beneath it. It was a subtle magic, but enough to have impressed upon the commoners she wasn’t one of them.
“My Queen,” Euphemia said. “All goes well?”
Nixie eyed Euphemia and stalked toward her. She paused at the foot of the stairs that led up to the ornamental throne, a far cry from the seat the water witches actually held in regard of royalty. This was more like something Nudd would prefer, gaudy and without purpose other than to make those around it feel small.
“Come,” Nixie said, and led the way behind the throne.
Euphemia followed her into the narrow passage. If one didn’t know there was another room hidden behind the textured wall, it would have been nearly impossible to detect.
Nixie deftly touched a faded pattern of runes before swiping a perfectly vertical line through the now-illuminated ward with her index finger.
Gears clicked and hissed in the door, and the textured wall ground in its tracks, revealing a space large enough for the water witches to easily slip through.
Euphemia took a deep breath and followed.
* * *
Nixie stared at the far table of artifacts resting in the throne room. She’d always known the stories, the rumors that when a queen took over, she’d inherit the relics of the forgotten ages. But this was beyond what she’d imagined. It would take months, if not years, to understand everything that waited in that hidden chamber.
Some things she’d recognized—legendary blades imbued with the power of the stone daggers, circlets, and bracelets that held soulstones of twisted abilities and could give strength beyond imagining. But other things she was unfamiliar with. In fact, all of her allies were. An old clock, something that looked like it would have been at home with the Antikythera shipwreck, a pile of shattered stones with runes etched into them, old bronze armor, and far more bizarre items graced the hall.
But there was only one thing Nixie was focused on now: the ancient gauntlet, tarnished with rigid joints until she slid it over her hand. Then, despite the worst of the wear, the gauntlet moved as silently as if it were her own flesh.
The door clicked closed behind Euphemia as stone met stone once more.
“Zola texted me as I was leaving the UN,” Nixie said, pulling a thin disc out of a pouch in her silver armor and leaning over the basin of water in the floor.
“Are you sure the Wasser-Münzen is safe?” Euphemia asked.
“I trust it more than the phone I had among those commoners,” Nixie said. “I don’t know much about their spying technology, but Damian has told me enough.”
They waited for a few short minutes before the disc pulsed and brightened. Whorls moved through the water, and it wasn’t long before another voice joined them in the chamber.
“Girl,” Zola rasped, her face forming in the basin of water. “If this wasn’t important, Ah’d be mighty annoyed. Ah’m standing in a pond right now.”
Nixie nodded at the old Cajun. “It is good to see you, my friend.”
Zola grunted in something like agreement. “Your meeting went well?”
“Relatively. But let me say I think it’s fortunate all of the countries in that room have lost access to their nuclear bombs.”
“Ah don’t doubt that. Ah don’t doubt that one bit. But it’s not all their bombs they’ve lost access to.”
“I know.”
“Did you convince them it was you who stopped Damian’s rampage?”
Just hearing his name sent a pang of loss through Nixie’s chest, and her teeth gnashed together before a flash of rage burned it away. “I did. They have no reason to believe otherwise.”
Zola’s image blurred as she inclined her head. “Good, good. Commoners who believe you’ve sacrificed something to save them are far more likely to listen to reason.”
“Why?” Euphemia asked, stepping closer to the basin.
Zola squinted. “Trust. Ah suppose that’s something you don’t have to deal with in your culture.”
“I would have agreed with you ten years ago,” Euphemia said. “But times have changed a great deal. Regardless, I have to tell you both what Hugh told me.”
“Vicky has the Heart,” Zola said.
“Y-yes,” Euphemia said.
Zola nodded.
“Vicky was in Quindaro?” Nixie asked with a frown. “Why?”
“For the Heart,” Euphemia said.
“Tell her the rest after we hang up this damn water phone,” Zola said.
“Water phone?” Euphemia asked.
Nixie grinned at the grumpy Cajun.
“Don’t go smiling just yet,” Zola said. “Ah’m afraid if we mean to save Damian, we’re going to need the Eye of Atlantis.”
Nixie froze. “How do you even know about the Eye?”
“An old ghost who knows more than he should.”
Koda, Nixie figured. If anyone knew as much about the lost city as the undines, it would be Koda and the Society of Flame. She nodded to Zola. “If that’s what it takes.”
“That’s not all it will take. Euphemia can fill you in on the rest, assuming Hugh told her.”
“He did.”
“Good,” Zola said. “Then find the Eye, or we might lose all three of them anyway. This war has more than two sides. Ah hope you both can see that. Nudd has unleashed the Eldritch on the commoners. Ah don’t know if we can stop him.” She looked away for a time before turning back to Nixie and Euphemia. “If this goes bad, we’re going to lose more than our friends.”
Zola’s image flickered and faded, and Nixie knew the old Cajun had broken the connection with the Wasser-Münzen. Nixie pulled her own disc out of the basin and slid it back into a pouch in her armor.
“What happened in Quindaro?”
So Euphemia told her of the Heart, the leviathan, and the monsters not seen around Kansas City in centuries. Dark things were walking the world of the commoners once more, and it was going to take a war to stop the machinations of the Mad King. The Eldritch things had appeared in more places than just those she’d heard about. It wasn’t good, but it might not be all bad.
Nixie stood stock still for a moment, her lips quivering for the blink of an eye before her stony façade settled into place again. “Then we have hope. We might be able to save all three of them.”
“It’s possible,” Euphemia said, “but at what cost?”
Nixie ran her fingertips over the back of the gauntlet on her right hand. “At any cost.”
“My Queen,” Euphemia said, hand on her heart as she bowed slightly to Nixie.
* * *
Nixie and Euphemia pored over the tanned maps of their old home.
“
I haven’t been back in over a century,” Nixie said, tapping the outer ring of Atlantis.
“A century?” Euphemia asked. “I haven’t been since it sank into the ocean.”
“I returned once, after the commoners’ Civil War ended. You know I always liked the forts at Old San Juan. The architecture always reminded me of the fortifications that once stood at the edges of Atlantis.”
“Was there much left?”
“Deep in the trench there was. But so close to the bottom there are a great many things that pose a danger.”
“If Zola knows about the Eye, and Nudd sent a leviathan to destroy the Heart of Quindaro, do you think he knows what we’re after?”
“Or he sent a leviathan to keep them from the Heart. Either way, it wouldn’t surprise me. He has to know it was one of us who took Damian into the Abyss. Gaia can’t act on her own, trapped as she is by Nudd’s compulsion.”
Euphemia cracked a humorless smile. “Glad to see something backfired on the bastard. But don’t you think it’s possible he sent something to seek out the Eye of Atlantis too?”
Nixie nodded. “I’d say it’s probable if the Eye survived the collapse of the city. I need to get into the ruins.”
“You need to speak to the undines, Nixie. They’re restless, and Lewena’s factions are still a threat.”
“I know.”
“Nixie—”
“I will handle them, Euphemia.”
Euphemia paused for a time. “My queen, don’t become the thing your people fear.”
Nixie knew Euphemia meant well, but she still bristled at the words. She nodded, hoping that would bring an end to the undine’s commentary for the time being. “Watch over things while I’m gone.” She ran a finger down the back of the gauntlet, bringing to life a webwork of golden runes.
“It’s not wise to walk the Abyss alone,” Euphemia said.
Nixie didn’t respond. Her fingers flowed across the gauntlet as if it was a pattern she’d always known, instead of one that seemed to have come to her when she took the throne. The warm glow of the hidden room faded, replaced by darkness and a momentary feeling of weightlessness. Nixie’s feet slammed down onto something solid, and a dim golden path stretched out before her in the blackness of the Abyss.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Abyss had always been a kind of forbidden place to the water witches, the center of many a story that served to warn even the most curious of them away. But every time Nixie set foot in it, she felt she had stepped past the bounds of the beliefs of the undines. There was something liberating there in the darkness, a chaos that lived and breathed outside her reality.
The first time she’d come here alone she was surprised to find herself walking on the same sort of path that had appeared when she’d been here with Gaia and Damian. Nixie had been in the Abyss before, long ago, but there had been no path to tread upon then. There had been only an empty darkness to fall through, until some creature or power ripped you out of it. Nixie glanced down at the gauntlet on her hand, its runes still glowing with golden light that was soon matched by the stars of the Abyss in the distance.
Her pace quickened, even as she eyed the monstrosities around her with some fascination. A few were simply leviathans—creatures familiar to the undines—deep dwellers who were known to savage ships and sailors alike. In that way, they were not so unlike the undines of old. But things were changing, the witches were changing, and it was in no small part thanks to Damian.
Nixie’s steps slowed as she passed a behemoth formed of nothing but eyeballs. Random orbs blinked lids that seem to retract fully behind them in slow motion. The pattern was mesmerizing, but Nixie had no clue what the thing was, or what danger it posed. But if there was one thing she understood about the Abyss, it was the simple fact everything here posed a danger. Even if you couldn’t see it at first, danger was there. Seeing those things made her wonder what she’d find when she caught up with Damian. How much time did he have left?
She left the towering multi-eyed creature behind, until she reached something she had never seen before, a fork in the golden path. When she’d been here with Gaia, and when she’d come alone, it hadn’t been there. Most of these creatures hadn’t been there either.
At the center of the crossroads sat of bizarre, grotesque vision. It was madness to look upon, random arms and legs and screaming mouths set into what appeared to be no more than a bulbous gray mass. But it was so littered with appendages, so coated in chaos, Nixie felt unsettled looking at it. But why here? Why was there a crossroads, a fork?
She couldn’t ponder the fact that long. The horrid cloud inched ever closer, and slowed as it was, the mass grew visibly larger. Without time to choose, she turned to the left. A moment before Nixie stepped onto that path, a voice echoed around her. “Not there. Never there.”
Nixie froze. Some of the golden stars floated down toward her, settling onto the outline of an ethereal woman glowing in gold.
“Gaia?” Nixie said. Gaia had been bound here by the Mad King, so why would she appear now? She responded to Damian, and it made some sense Vicky had been able to communicate with Gaia as she too was bound to him. But Nixie had no such tie. Gaia could as easily strike her down as offer her insight into which fork to take.
“I mean you no harm,” Gaia said, as if she’d read the thought from Nixie’s mind. “You are bonded to my master, and I am certain he would not see you harmed.”
Nixie frowned. “That sounds dangerously close to free will. Not that I would complain about any assistance you have to offer.”
Gaia inclined her head. “The right will lead you to Damian. The left to madness.”
Nixie didn’t have much reason not to trust Gaia. A Titan though she might have been, she was very much like an Old God, and Old Gods could be tricky on their best days. But Nixie had the gauntlet. She could flee from the Abyss with the stroke of one finger. That measure of safety, though it might not be enough to save her, bolstered her choice. She stepped to the right, and almost immediately the gray cloud of limbs and teeth and tongues vanished.
“You’ve heard the plan from Damian?” Gaia asked.
Nixie narrowed her eyes at Gaia. “I don’t understand what you mean. I haven’t heard anything from Damian.”
“From his extension. His soul.”
Then it clicked in Nixie’s mind. “You mean Vicky. Zola told me what they need. To transfer the blood knot? Do you think it will be enough?”
“Not on its own,” Gaia said.
“The Eye of Atlantis,” Nixie said.
“Yes. And are you ready to return to the places of your past? To face what trials may await you there?”
Nixie looked to the distance, nothing around them but blackness and pinpricks of golden light. “Is anyone ever really ready to go home?”
Gaia didn’t answer. Instead, she looked up at the towering shadow that suddenly appeared to the right of the path. Pressure threatened the back of Nixie’s eyes as she stared up at Damian’s form, clad in the mantle of Anubis. He once told her the reason Ezekiel’s form had been so grotesque, so fractured, was because he was not the true mantle bearer.
But now Damian was shot through with that same corruption. Something had changed. Whatever had happened to him in Falias had altered the mantle once more. The stories of Anubis said the god would judge the weight of a man’s heart against a feather. Perhaps in the joining of Hern that judgment had a poor outcome. Perhaps Anubis still judged men’s hearts, and had found the darkness inside.
The jackal-like mouth cracked open, fissures racing across the corners of the giant mouth. A black tongue sat inside, and the pressure of sadness behind Nixie’s eyes dried up in a rising fury.
“I’ll get you out of this,” Nixie said between gritted teeth. “I’ll get you out of this or we’ll all drown together.”
“Then you know what you must do,” Gaia said.
“You know what I seek in Atlantis?” Nixie asked. “You understand what it is? What it can
do?”
Gaia inclined her head. “The Eye has existed far longer than Atlantis did. Return to your city that once was, so the fate of our friend may at last be decided.”
Nixie turned back to Damian. To the monster he’d become. “I love you.” She ran two fingers across the back of the gauntlet, and in a heartbeat, the Abyss vanished around her.
Note from Eric R. Asher
Thank you for spending time with the misfits! I’m blown away by the fantastic reader response to this series, and am so grateful to you all. The next book of misadventures is called The Book of the Sea, and it’s available soon (or maybe now because I’m lazy about updating these things).
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Thanks for reading!
Eric
The Book of the Sea
The Vesik Series, book #11
By Eric R. Asher
Also by Eric R. Asher
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The Steamborn Trilogy:
Steamborn
Steamforged
Steamsworn
The Vesik Series:
(Recommended for Ages 17+)
Days Gone Bad
Wolves and the River of Stone
Winter’s Demon
This Broken World
Destroyer Rising
Rattle the Bones
Witch Queen’s War
Forgotten Ghosts
The Book of the Ghost
The Book of the Claw*
The Book of the Sea*
The Book of the Staff*
The Book of the Rune*
The Book of the Sails*