"One way or another."
The warrior edged back from the shore. "Please, as quickly as you can. The existence of my people hangs in the balance."
"So does ours," Blays said. "Gladdic, want to lend me a hand?"
The two of them ran down the bank to the right. Dante's heel had blistered from running in wet boots and he used the blood there to summon the shadows and send them down through the cold depths of the water. Ether glared to his right. Something screamed. It wasn't human, but nor was it from any animal that he had ever heard.
He could only feel part of it, but the plug of stone felt more solidly placed than the first one. He went to work dissolving the stone along its rim. As he began, Artag dashed away to join Blays and Gladdic. Dante shot a glance to his right. In the channel between the two hills, the fish had breached the surface and were swimming in place beside each other. Meanwhile, the silhouette-like creatures on the next island over were jumping from the back of one fish to the next like scaly stepping-stones—and then flinging themselves at Gladdic and Blays. The pair looked to be holding them off, but even in the brief instance Dante saw them, they were forced back a step by the sheer numbers. Artag roared and ran into the fray, stabbing at the enemies' shadowy flanks with the chitinous blades that extended from his bracers.
Dante pumped more and more nether into the plug of stone that lay beneath the lake, working straight down. He still hadn't come to the end of the plug when he came to the end of his range: there was yet more rock beneath him, but he couldn't do a thing about it. It was beyond his reach.
"How's it going?" Blays hollered. "Tell me you're almost done!"
Dante risked another glance. Artag was, at that moment, being pulled down by three of the creatures, stabbing at them as he fell; Gladdic reached out his hand, fingers glowing. Throat going tight, Dante moved sideways through the rock instead, removing as much as he could in the hopes the weight of the water would crack whatever remained of the plug lower down. But the plug didn't budge.
His mind raced. What could he even do? Run along the shore in the hopes he'd find a spot where the plug didn't run so deep? Throw bolts of nether down through the water to try to smash through the bottom? Even if that could work—and he doubted he would be remotely capable of hitting the same spot when he could neither see nor feel it—Blays and the others would be overwhelmed long before he was done. The only way to break through the stone was to get closer to it. And he was already at the very edge of the water. There was nowhere else to go.
Except, of course, that wasn't strictly true.
He ran several steps back from the lake, then sent the nether directly below his feet—and shoveled the earth away to all sides. He lowered himself ten feet, the air filled with the scent of wet dirt, rain pounding down into the hole. He'd only been in it for a moment but water was already puddling around his feet. He groped down for the lake bed and found a part of the plug he hadn't been able to feel before. He dissolved all he could get to. Still not deep enough.
He shifted focus back to the hole he was standing in, lowering himself ten feet more, then twenty. A plume of water shot from the wall and right into his chest and he patched it over with smooth stone. It was still filling up beneath him, though, and falling in from above, and as he sent his mind winging back to the bottom of the lake, he wondered if he was about to be so engrossed in his work that he wouldn't realize he was about to take a breath of water until he was already doing so.
It was there. The bottom of the plug. He bashed the rock apart, sending boulders tumbling away into whatever depths lay below it, then ripped into more of it on both sides. There was now a hole straight through it, meaning the water must be starting to drain, but he needed the whole thing to fall. That wasn't happening yet. He withdrew from the plug and—
Felt the entire thing slide loose and begin to fall past where he could still sense it.
He shoved his focus into the ground underfoot and threw it upwards as fast as he could, sending himself flying toward the overcast light. He was flung bodily from the hole along with several buckets of mud and water.
"Run!" he screamed. "To the highest ground you can!"
He scrambled upslope so fast he fell, continuing on hands and knees. With a deafening hiss, the lake began to drop. Lights were flashing down by the shore where Blays and the others still were, but mist was shooting up from the crashing lake and Dante couldn't make out what was going on. As the water sucked down into the abyss, a raging cataract flowed down the channel between their hill and the next one over, sweeping away all of the fish and most of the indistinct creatures. The ground was rumbling so hard it started to slide out from beneath him. He solidified it enough to climb another ten feet higher.
Now reasonably sure he wasn't about to be drowned or mudslided, he got to his feet and ran parallel across the slope toward where he'd last seen the others. Between the mist and the thunder of the river, he couldn't see a damn thing and could barely hear himself yell their names. Then all three stumbled into view, running uphill, looking both spooked and invigorated.
"Good job," Blays said. "Of course, you could never have done it if we hadn't been holding off the army of monsters."
"Yes, it turns out it's easier to get things done when there's more than one of us." Dante turned to gaze into the fog and the lake, which was sinking even as it was being fed by a dozen channels of water. "This is working, right, Artag? Tell me that it's working."
The warrior grinned for one of the first times that Dante had seen. "It is working, and it is beautiful. Soon all of the lands will be dry, no matter how much it keeps raining."
"But there's so much water. Even if the Navel opens to the biggest cavern I've ever seen, it won't be enough to hold all of it."
Artag went dead sober. "Oh, but it doesn't lead to a cavern. It leads down to hell."
Blays chuckled, then did a double-take. "Wait, you're serious?"
"Where else do you think all the foul beasts here come from?"
Dante was ready to correct him, but a sudden dam of trees and debris was assembling itself in the makeshift river, and it felt like a good idea to ascend to higher ground. The rain was easing off again, as if they'd dealt some dire blow to Nolost's strength. Either that, or he'd decided it was a waste of his resources to keep flooding the place when it was just going to drain into the depths.
The dam washed away, trees and silt sucked down the Navel. It had only been a few minutes but the water level was already dropping: just as Artag had said, once they'd cleared the Great Navel, all the others that fed into it would drain as well. As they caught their breath and let the world calm down around them, Artag brought the shadows to him to heal a few wounds hidden beneath his armor.
Dante nodded at this. "I didn't know you could do that."
Artag glanced up. "All Cleansers can, if only to an extent."
"Cleanser? Is that what you are?" He waited for Artag to nod the affirmative. "So what is it that you're cleansing?"
"Our land. So that some day, it will be safe for my people to walk through again." He took a look at the sky. "The storm is dying. If you are not too tired, we should continue directly to the Fountain while the enemy is no longer hindering our every step."
Dante agreed to do so after a little more rest. The water level continued to fall; the channels feeding the Navel calmed from thunderous torrents to steady rivers. As the four of them got up to go, they looked down at the Navel and gawked.
"What the?" Blays said. The waters at its middle swirled redly. "Is it…bleeding?"
"It is not the Great Navel that bleeds," Artag declared. "It is all the monsters that have just been fed to it."
Hearing this made Dante happier than ever to be on their way away from it. As soon as the geography allowed, Artag bent course to the south. The higher valleys already held no more than puddles, and between the reemergence of so much land and the lack of rain trying to beat them into the mud, their progress was much faster. Animals emerged cau
tiously to sniff at the wreckage and paw about for food. Dante had never seen the likes of most of them, but they at least resembled species that he had seen before.
Artag kept vague about how long the trip ahead of them would take. So it came as a welcome surprise when he declared just a few hours later that they had come to the Fountain.
Blays set his hands on his hips. "Is it that puddle over there, then? Or maybe those muddy trees? Either way, I have to say it's a little less grand than I was expecting."
Artag gave him a severe look. "Do not say any such thing. It is a sight of pure wonder. Enough to make your body sick with awe."
"I am sure that I will righteously vomit at the sight of it. Which means it's not actually here, is it?"
"It is just beneath us. Within the undertunnels."
He brought them to a castle-sized lump of ruddy rock with a large crack knocked in its base. He entered, waiting for Gladdic to light the way with ether before leading them down a spiraling ramp of stone. At once, the air became so stuffed with the scent of wet iron Dante could taste it on his mouth. They plodded downward for several hundred feet before the ramp flattened out and opened into a huge cavern.
As always when he entered a vast, open space, Dante was seized by the instinct to come to a stop. But even though Artag seemed to be quite familiar with the place, the warrior did the same.
"Oh." His voice couldn't find any hold in the empty air.
Blays rubbed the back of his head. "Why do I have the feeling I'm about to vomit in disappointment instead?"
Dante spun on Artag. "Do not tell me what you're about to tell me."
"I am afraid so." The warrior let his arms hang at his sides. "The Fountain, it's…gone."
22
"Gone?" Dante walked forward a few steps. "What do you mean it's gone? How does a monument of its scale just go missing?"
"Well," Artag said, "because that is what it does sometimes. The Fountain moves, and the Cantag follow."
Dante tried to keep his head from exploding. "So where is it now?"
"I don't know. But since it has moved, the other Cleansers will have been hunting for it. Our best hope of finding someone who knows where it went will be at Larcarn."
"Larcarn?"
"The only city of the Cantag."
"You only have one city? Why?"
"Because it is much easier to defend one than many. After the last day, you have seen how much we must defend ourselves against."
"But if your defenses break down even a single time, that means you're all dead."
The Cleanser stared at him, grappling with some internal decision. "There is only one city—but we always maintain a second settlement. It is much smaller, and so secret even I do not know where it is. More than once, the city has fallen, and the hidden village was all that was left of us. But from it we have always rebuilt."
Before leaving, they poked around a bit to make sure the Fountain hadn't just shifted to the next cavern over. The site was completely empty, though, with the lingering scent of the iron the only hint that the Fountain had ever been there. They trudged back up into what little remained of the daylight. Dante soon lost track of which direction Artag was bringing them.
Blays eyed the clouds, which had stopped raining altogether. "So the Fountain just sort of wanders off sometimes, does it? Er…how?"
"I thought you were experts and loremasters regarding it and other objects like it," Artag said.
"We are. Relatively speaking. But let's just say our lessons have been on the hasty side. We've been in something of a hurry, you know."
"It has a will of its own. This is something you will soon learn for yourself. But first, to Larcarn."
~
They kept walking after night fell—Artag assured them it was safer than dawdling about until the storm and its attendant creatures returned—but had to sleep eventually, and made camp in a small cave Artag knew of. The morning was colder from all the water still drying from the land and mist hung over the forests. Artag brought them back into the undertunnels and through a series of twists and turns Dante had no hope of following. After the fifth or sixth secret passage their guide had taken them through, Gladdic's ether glittered across a solid wall of dark iron.
Artag approached it and set his hand upon it. Shadows passed from his fingers into the metal. He stepped back.
Water dripped in the distance. It was so silent that when Dante shifted he was able to hear every rustle of his cloak. With a soft groan, a hidden door opened in the wall of metal.
Behind it lay an open chamber—and another wall. Artag approached it and sent a few shadows into it as well. Dante wasn't surprised when a door opened in it in response, nor when it turned out there was more space and a third wall behind the second.
Artag placed his hand upon it, then glanced at the three of them. "As long as you are with me, you will be under my protection. Do not stray from me, then, nor betray my hospitality."
He didn't open the door until all three of them verbally acknowledged this. Light glowed from the other side. Dante couldn't see what was generating it, but it was steady like a torchstone, not flickering like a candle or torch. A causeway ran before them, buffered by dark waters on both sides.
"Do not fall in," Artag said.
The causeway was wide enough that Dante hadn't been worried about that possibility, but now he couldn't stop thinking about it. As they walked along it, he sent a trace of ether into the water, outlining the long, sleek shapes lurking within it.
Another wall rose on the other side of the water. It was also made of iron, but instead of running from floor to ceiling, it stood sternum-high. A fortification. This was confirmed by the bunch of soldiers who rose from behind it as the four visitors approached.
Several of the men turned and jogged off deeper into the cavern. Others stayed to watch. One came forward. Compared to the elaborate arms and armor of Artag, his axe and iron-studded leathers looked downright plain.
"Waran Artag?" The soldier's first word wasn't translated by the talisman, yet Dante somehow knew that it was the formal title of the Cleansers. "We were afraid you all must have died in the storm!"
"Not only did we survive it—we stopped it." He gestured behind himself. "And these are the ones who did most of the work."
The soldiers tried to ask him many questions, but he brushed past them and the fortifications. Past the iron walls, a path led to an even larger cavern awash in soft white, blue, and green lights. People were moving about in the plazas between large round structures that looked to have been carved right out of the cavern floor. The space was mostly left open, though, with most of the houses set into the walls of the chamber.
Low plants grew to either side of the path, purple things with thick "leaves," if you could call them that. Dante tried to fix them in his mind as best he could so he could draw them later. It was only two hundred yards or so between the fortifications and the city proper, yet they still hadn't reached the closest plaza when a phalanx of people headed toward them at an aggressive jog.
Blays' hand wandered near his belt. "Tell me that's just an extremely enthusiastic welcoming party?"
"It is," Artag said. "They are the redgen. Pay them no mind."
Dante brought a few shadows to his hand anyway. The crowd hurried toward them like chickens following a farmer around to be fed. They were dressed in shapeless gray clothes and while Artag was as tall as Blays and visibly heavier, the redgen were small enough that Dante initially took them for adolescents. Their hair was kept short and they were all thin enough that Dante had a hard time telling the men from the women. Their skin was much paler than Artag's as well, with only a faint hint of gray to it. As they flocked around him, grinning up at him stupidly and making cooing noises, Dante couldn't help being reminded of the Blighted.
Artag didn't so much as break stride, but the redgen went to work with the deftness of a swarm, removing one piece of his armor after another. Others replaced it with fine clothes. T
hey worked with such swift skill that he was completely changed by the time they came to the first plaza. The redgen scurried away with his equipment, cooing to each other as they went.
"Er," Blays said. "What was that about?"
"I have been in the wilds for some time," Artag said. "My effects are in need of maintenance and repair."
"By those…ah…people?"
"Of course not. They are the redgen. They lack the intellect for anything more than simple labor."
"Where do they come from? Foreign slaves?"
"They are of the Cantag. That is why they are so happy to serve us. Do you not have servants? You are great lords, surely you do not fritter away your most valuable time on every minor task!"
"We have servants too," Dante said. "But you can't tell they're servants just by looking at them."
"Except by what they wear," Blays said.
"Well, yes."
"And the way they talk."
"Most times."
"And some of them just sort of have a look to them, you know?"
Townsfolk crossed this way and that—there didn't look to be any commerce taking place, at least not out in the open, but everyone sure looked busy enough—and as Artag strode onward, a great many turned to him in wonder, calling his name and coating him with questions.
He ignored them all until an old woman carrying a small bag stopped to look up at him. "Waran Artag. When this is over, will we be able to see the sun again?"
"No," he said. "It is not safe." Seeing the expression on her face, he rocked to a stop and placed his hand on her shoulder. "It is not safe for us to live there. But if we weather the current storm, I will ask the Sovereign to bring us to the surface so that we can see the world we have fought for, and will one day return to."
Her eyes shimmered with moisture. She closed them and stepped away.
Dante had thought Larcarn might be just the one cavern, but Artag brought them through a series of open gates to a second chamber. Despite his complete unfamiliarity with the architecture and its arrangement within this new cavern, Dante immediately pegged the bearing of the handful of guards there as the kind you only found in palaces. And the palace Artag brought them to was of an older and most straightforward type: a brutal slab meant not to impress its visitors, but to keep out its enemies. Its five towers were hewn of solid iron and embedded in the cavern wall.
The Twelve Plagues (The Cycle of Galand Book 7) Page 35