by Adam Witcher
21
Everything was awash in purple and blue. Isaac could not tell which way was up or down. Gravity seemed to pull him in every direction at once. He squeezed Saldana’s dagger tightly in his right hand, knowing that whatever happened, it was the key to his survival.
He ran the fingertips of his left hand across the slimy, leathery tentacle that was wrapped around him. Its suckers explored him as if searching for something. He held his satchel tight and made sure the latch was secure. When it was, he slashed at the tentacle and it loosened its grip.
From the surrounding chaos, he heard the cries of his companions. There was something else in the din too—anxious, breathy growls. Suddenly he was released from the tentacle’s grip and thrown against a hard, flat surface. There were three more thuds as the others were tossed beside him.
They were in a long, dark tunnel that seemed underground. The only light came from torches on the walls, which flickered eerily and cast long shadows. When the others attacked the tentacles, the appendages retreated into holes in the ceiling, which were then plugged by shifting bricks.
Isaac, Rhotha, Aerin, and Edwin were not, however, alone in the chamber.
Cages ran against the blank walls—dozens of them. Inside were the most grotesque creatures that Isaac had ever seen. They were mutant conglomerations of parts both humanoid and insectile.
The one nearest him grabbed at his cage’s bars with ordinary hands and arms that ran back to a torso that was segmented like that of a centipede. Dozens of tiny legs ran up and down his skinny body. His eyes had morphed into compound monstrosities, and he seemed to be looking at everything all at once. His lips and mouth were ordinary, and his ears pointed upward slightly.
The creature said something that Isaac couldn’t make out until it was repeated: “Kill… me…”
Beside him, a woman with a fully elven head stretched downward into the body of a hairy tarantula. She was crammed in the cage with hardly enough room to move. Her head sat in the center of her body, the eight legs arranged around it with radial symmetry. She said nothing, instead gawked at him and waggled a bulbous tongue back and forth.
The many other cages contained strange hybrids, all of them so hideous and horrifying that Isaac nearly retched looking at them.
“What the fuck are those things?” Rhotha asked, putting a hand over her mouth.
Isaac wasn’t sure if she meant the caged monsters or the tentacles. Not that he could explain either.
Edwin knelt and vomited all over the ground. Aerin looked around with wide eyes, more fascinated than disgusted.
“Looks like you haven’t been the only one learning transfiguration, Edwin,” she said.
“These aren’t—” Isaac began.
“The elves he took,” she said, meeting his gaze. “Who else?”
“But why?” Isaac cried.
“My gods,” she said. “I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. He wasn’t powerful enough to fight us in our own realm yet. He needed minions, so he made them.”
“These things can’t fight us,” Rhotha said. “I’m not sure they can even stand up on their own.”
“Maybe that’s why they’re caged up here,” Isaac said.
The horrible mutants got more and more riled up, shaking bars, screeching as loud as their malformed lungs would allow. At the far end of the chamber, where the torchlight could not illuminate, they heard a sound like a shifting lock on a door. Then several heavy footsteps.
A torch then illuminated the source of the sound. It highlighted Scorpius’s huge silhouette. More humanoid than his creations, he started moving toward them with lumbering steps. His stinger waved over his head as if excited to strike. His triangular face displayed a malicious grin and thinly veiled rage.
“I see you’ve met my rejects,” said Scorpius. “You pests did away with my finest models.”
“Those… things that attacked my village,” Rhotha said to the others. “Those were elves?”
“Not anymore,” Scorpius said with a laugh. “I made sure of that. But now I’ll need to have my revenge for your senseless murder of my companions.”
“You’re not going to kill us,” Isaac said simply.
The others looked at him but said nothing.
“Is that so?” Scorpius asked. “And why wouldn’t I?”
“You’d have already done it,” he replied. “I know you can create those energy blasts with your tail. So, do it, blow us away. Kill us right now.”
“Isaac,” Edwin whispered. “What are you doing?”
“Trust me,” he replied.
Scorpius grimaced. “In good time. You’ve created quite a lot of trouble for me, Saldana’s plaything. I want to savor the experience of killing you.”
There was a great booming sound from somewhere outside the dungeon, like an earthquake that only lasted a moment. Everyone stopped what they were doing, including Scorpius. A few seconds later, there was another. Isaac couldn’t help but note something unexpected in Scorpius’s expression—nervousness.
He glanced around the chamber. There were so many mutated elves, and they’d already killed many of the successfully transformed ones in Barbaros and on the way here. How many elves had been taken?
There were several more of the booming sounds, and Isaac remembered what he’d seen during his first trip to Tenebromar. Those titanic figures wandering aimlessly, unconcerned by his presence.
“Scorpius,” said Isaac. “How long until you merge our realms? The anticipation is killing me.”
“You won’t have to wait much longer,” Scorpius said. “It sounds like the time has almost come.”
“Okay,” Isaac said. “Do it. Merge our realms. Kill us.”
Isaac cupped a hand to his mouth and whispered to his companions, “he’s bluffing.”
Scorpius only stopped and glared at them. He looked to be searching for the right words.
Isaac grinned, gaining confidence by the minute. “Or did you need something from us first?”
Another pause. Two more enormous thuds from outside.
“How much do you have?” Scorpius asked, his voice strained.
“How much what do we have? Lives?” Isaac asked. “Four. Should be easy. One blast from that tail of yours and we’re gone.”
“Isaac.” Rhotha said.
He nudged her.
“You know what I mean,” Scorpius said. “How many gems?”
“What’s that Scorpius?” Isaac asked. “You need our phantasm gems?”
“Damn you. Hand them over!”
“And if you blasted us, you’d destroy them, wouldn’t you? And let me guess, the mayor didn’t give you enough to finish merging the dimensions.”
“Give them to me!” Scorpius said, rushing forward. “Now!”
“Maybe you should have let them sacrifice me, after all.”
Isaac quickly reached into his bag and pulled out the largest chunk of phantasm gem he could grasp. He held it up in his left hand with Saldana’s dagger in his right, pointed at it.
“Come any closer and I’m destroying it,” Isaac said.
Scorpius halted.
“Now that’s more like it,” Isaac said. “Those big boys outside are expecting quite a show, aren’t they?”
Scorpius said nothing. Isaac turned proudly to his companions, grinning. They nodded in understanding.
“Let me guess,” Rhotha said. “You’re the runt of the litter. I know how that feels, trust me. You want to prove yourself to those things outside, don’t you? Want to prove what a big strong monster you are? Well maybe we’ll just destroy the gems ourselves. Then nobody can use them.”
Scorpius still remained silent.
“You wouldn’t,” Scorpius said. “You need them too. I’ve seen you using them.”
“Do we?” Isaac turned to his companions and shrugged. “Rhotha, Aerin, conjure some weapons.”
The women grabbed small gem pieces and summoned their axe and dagger.
“Actually,” Isaac said. “I think we’re all set. Looks like we can destroy the rest.”
The monstrous man’s gaze twisted into something sadistic and insane. Isaac’s confidence faltered. He felt a bead of sweat drip down the nape of his neck, but he did his best to maintain his composure. If Scorpius noticed his nervousness, he made no sign of it.
“No!” Scorpius charged them again.
Isaac dropped the large gem back into his satchel and replaced it with a smaller one. Holding it up to make sure Scorpius could see, he dug the tip of his blade into it. It sunk in, and the blue light flickered and disappeared. Wisps of smoke flowed out when he retracted the dagger. Now it was little more than a rock.
Scorpius halted his advance. He bit his grey lip with jagged teeth, seemingly unsure how to proceed.
“Get some gems out,” he said to the others.
The ladies did so, holding their phantom weapons ready for destruction. Rhotha handed a small one to Edwin, who forged his sword arms once again.
Scorpius shook with rage. Outside the dungeon, there were two more enormous thuds. Isaac was surer than ever of what he was hearing: footsteps.
“Fine!” Scorpius yelled. “You want to do this the hard way? You can plead your case to the elders! They’ll squash you like the bugs you are, then pluck the gems from the bottoms of their feet.”
Like the bugs we are, Isaac thought. Interesting choice of words.
There was a brief silence where Scorpius awaited their response.
“Okay,” Isaac said, calling the bluff. “Let’s do it the hard way.”
Scorpius screamed, his tail growing long and stiff. He pointed it to a wall of the chamber, and a purple glow emanated from the tip. With another cry, he unleashed a blast of blinding light into the wall.
Isaac staggered backward, disoriented by the blast. The dungeon shook. When the light and dust cleared, natural light streamed in. The monstrous elves shrieked and writhed in their cages. A few of them were destroyed by the blast, their cages piles of melted steel and the remains of mutant flesh. The opening Scorpius left behind was about ten feet tall and wide, more than enough room for him to move through. He did so, cackling maniacally as he exited the dungeon.
Just outside, the desolate landscape Isaac knew all too well greeted them. Jagged cliffs, dusty plains, and little else.
Little else beyond the enormous feet, that was. Though he couldn’t see higher than their ankles, the elders stood, patient and still, around the dungeon. He was surprised to see that their feet looked mostly humanoid in shape. They were, however, coated in a hard layer of carapace that made him shudder as he imagined the rest of them.
Outside, Scorpius looked upward and shouted something to the elders, but Isaac could not make it out. There was displeasure in his expression. He pointed furiously at Isaac, but nothing seemed to happen.
Isaac led the group past the cages and outside. “Come on!”
Without meaning to, he halted once the three elders were in full view.
The giants were almost unfathomably large. Now standing closer to their humanoid feet, he realized they were nearly the size of the dungeon he’d just escaped. Their carapace encrusted ankles stretched upward into legs like a cricket’s—long and narrow until they reached a hard-angled knee, which led up into thick, hard thighs. Where bellies would be, they had what looked like naturally plated armor that went up their entire torso. Spindly arms waved outward all along it. Their heads were shaped like eggs, with compound eyes bugging out from the top. They seemed to gaze in all directions with a light bluish glow.
It was difficult to make out their other facial features, but they had gaping, dark mouths, where mandibles that must have been twenty or more feet long jutted outward. Their heads were topped with antennae that dangled half the length of their bodies.
“Crush them!” Scorpius boomed.
The elders did nothing. They stood in a triangle around Scorpius, who stomped on the ground in fury. He turned back to Isaac and the others.
“Fine, if they will not crush you, I’ll do it myself. You are pathetically weak.”
“If we’re so weak,” Isaac said, “why are you begging mommy and daddy for help?”
“Why you insufferable—” Scorpius cut himself off by charging up an energy blast in his tail and shooting it at Isaac. If Rhotha hadn’t shoved him out of the way, Isaac would have been obliterated. While the blast rocketed off behind him and destroyed another section of the dungeon, he lay on the ground for a moment, trying to regain his nerve.
“Scorpius,” he said, “do you have any idea how many phantasm gems I have in this satchel you almost just destroyed?”
The truth was, he didn’t have all that many left, and he had no idea the number Scorpius would need to merge the realms, but there was no reason to tell him that.
Scorpius didn’t respond. His eyes were now clouded with so much rage that he didn’t appear to be thinking straight. The tip of his tail glowed again, and he crouched, ready to attack.
“Fine,” he said. “You all won’t hand the gems over? I’ll take them myself.”
He charged Isaac, tail outstretched before him. Isaac stumbled backward, not expecting the sudden attack. He grabbed a small gem from his bag and formed a bow, then pulled back the string and launched an arrow as quickly as he could. The spectral arrow struck Scorpius in the thigh, and he stopped abruptly, looking at the wound. He shuddered, and his eyes rolled back into his head. Isaac took the opportunity to launch another, this one carefully aimed at Scorpius’s stinger. It grazed the tail.
“What…” Scorpius said. “What is this weapon?”
There was so much shock in his expression that it seemed to temporarily override his pain.
“Phantasm gems can do more than you might think.”
“Gods,” he said. “That power…”
Scorpius shook his head and regained his composure. Rage resumed, and so did his attack. Rather than run, Isaac charged right back, when the two came close to colliding, he feigned a move to the right, but then jumped left. Scorpius fell for the ruse, his stinger piercing the air where Isaac would have been.
Scorpius screamed in frustration, then stopped again. From the pouch around his waist, he drew a glowing phantasm gem of his own. He stared at it, as if deciding whether or not to use it.
Aerin, Rhotha, and Edwin all seemed torn in their attention between Scorpius and the elders.
“Attack him!” Isaac shouted, shaking them from their stupor.
When he turned back to his foe, Scorpius had already made his decision. The gem glowed brightly, and the ground split open in various spots all around them. More tentacles emerged, wriggling horribly and reaching out with suction cups. Isaac launched arrows at a couple, but he had to turn back to Scorpius when the beast charged again. His stinger lit up, and Isaac narrowly dodged another blast. The purple energy fried several of the emerging tentacles, but Scorpius didn’t seem to care. Even the monster’s eyes glowed a faint purple now. They were tinged with madness once again. His concern about destroying the gems was fading rapidly.
“Hold off these tentacles!” Isaac said, an idea forming in his mind. “I’ll take Scorpius.”
There were maybe two dozen tentacles, but judging from the still-splitting ground, more were coming. They weren’t particularly quick or deadly, but the real danger was falling into one of their fissures. Gods knew what horrors awaited anyone unlucky enough to plunge into those depths. Rhotha slashed at the tentacles with her axe, cutting them in two repeatedly. They still wriggled even when severed. Though clearly terrified, Edwin fought with his sword arms.
If he survives this, Isaac thought, he really needs to get more creative with that ability.
Aerin slashed at a tentacle with her dagger and nodded at Isaac. Above them, the titans still stood and did nothing.
Were they even paying attention?
Rhotha hooked one of the tentacles with her axe and ran back toward the dungeon with it. With Scor
pius temporarily distracted, Isaac watched for a moment, wondering if she would drag the appendage’s owner out of its hiding place. To his surprise, she did manage to pull it out, but there was nothing on the other side of it. It was just a tentacle—a disgusting analogue to a giant earthworm.
Scorpius threw the used gem into one of the tentacles’ crevices and turned back to Isaac. With his teammates distracted, Isaac faced him one-on-one. A few tentacles tried to grab him, but he dodged them easily. Scorpius’s beam, however, would not be so easy.
The man-beast charged his stinger again, the tip growing a bright purple. He was getting reckless. Isaac wasted no time; he ran and lunged at Scorpius with his dagger, slicing a shallow gash into the monster’s midsection. His foe barely seemed to notice the wound, but he whipped his head as Isaac passed him by. The look of insanity in his eyes only seemed to be growing. The stinger’s blast shot off into the sky, but he brought it back around and jabbed the razor-sharp end into Isaac’s shoulder.
The pain was blinding and all-encompassing. His vision flashed white and he screamed. He felt his torso shaking with the cry, but the sound was lost somewhere in the void. With it were the gasps of his companions.
When he could see and hear again, the stinger was still stuck in his shoulder. With a shaking hand, he tried to pull it out, but even the slightest nudge sent pain shooting through his body again.
Scorpius grinned. “Hand over the gems and I’ll pull it out,” he said. “I’ll still kill you, but at least I’ll end the pain.”
His hand still trembling, Isaac reached toward his bag. His mind spun in circles; his palm sweated uncontrollably. No part of him wanted to give Scorpius more power, but the animalistic part of his brain was so desperate for relief that he didn’t care about anything else. Struggling to open the satchel, he fumbled for a moment while Scorpius growled.
“Isaac,” Rhotha said. “Don’t do it! This will all be for nothing.”
He glanced toward his companions. Despite their weak opponents, they were becoming overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Edwin and Aerin stood back to back, slashing at foe after wriggling foe. Each time one of the tentacles wrapped around one of them, the other cut it away as quickly as possible. Piles of lifeless appendages lay around them. As they worked, Rhotha rushed around with her axe, swinging brutally at any that tried to make their way toward Isaac. Most of the tentacles seemed to understand that if they were to get to Isaac, they’d have to go through her first.