by Ember Lane
Quaiyl navigated them through the darkness. The river’s quiet burble was strangely comforting. Merl became lost in his endless passage. His eyelids grew heavy. Gloomy pressed into him, the dog’s splutter and draw in time with Merl’s heartbeat.
Just as the monotony of their dark journey threatened to pull him into sleep, Merl heard it again. It wasn’t the groaning the dying soldier had been so scared of but the grinding that had plagued them before—the one that had shattered the still and crumbled the bridge. It resonated through the rock, showering them in ancient dust.
Their boat began to pitch and roll as the river stirred. Scree fell, strafing them with waves of stone. A grinding scream filled the small tunnel. Merl held the gunwales as the boat was buffeted from all sides. A fierce crack just in front sent splinters of wood spraying in Merl’s face, an oar shattered against the tunnel’s side. A funnel of light appeared, then grew quickly as Quaiyl drew the remaining oar in and stopped fighting the river’s current.
They spilled into a small cavern. A camp sat on one bank. Merl shielded his eyes against the vivid glow of the flames. Barked shouts rang out, their stunned panic reaching above the mountain’s groan. Arrows whizzed into the water, and others thudded into the keel. Soldiers scrambled into hastily decided positions, pointing and cursing at them.
A great crack nigh split the cavern in two. The floor tilted, then fell back. The river itself jumped, white water washing along it in a great wave. The soldiers cowered down. Archers flattened to the floor. All dove for cover. More scree dropped into the boat, and then the ground itself erupted. Stone exploded out, zipping across the small cavern, shattering against its walls and ripping through Daemon Mercer’s men.
Quaiyl moved seamlessly. He rolled, gathering up Gloomy Joe and Merl without losing momentum and rolled them over the gunwales and underwater. The Origin swam with the flow, but they were tossed and turned by raging water, then soon separated. Merl grabbed and clung onto Gloomy, kicking out while he tried to force them both toward the river’s bank. He gained purchase on its stony bed, and with one great lunge he powered them up onto its bank, though instantly regretting his position right next to the enemy camp. But they were all scrambling backward, headed toward a distant tunnel. The fear painting their faces confused Merl for an instant, but it soon dawned on him that they probably weren’t scared of him and Gloomy.
He turned, ever so slowly.
The great groaning had stopped now. It was replaced with a terrible silence, that in turn was shattered by a single, ear-splitting thump. Merl rocked on his feet as his terror reached new heights. He gasped, dropped Gloomy, and covered his mouth.
Quite what the beast was, he had no clue. He’d heard tell of golems rising from the ground, great beasts made of mud or slurry, clay figures fashioned by hags that drew magic from the soil itself, or stone ogres that supposedly roamed the caverns under Three Face and No Face Mountain. He guessed this was one of them, all of them combined, or something infinitely more terrible. It stood twenty feet tall and had shoulders as wide as a pair of barn doors. Its body was formed of crushed rocks. A single boulder-sized head sat of a slab of stone that formed its shoulders. Its hands resembled shovels.
The roar that came from it emanated from within the beast itself. Like Quaiyl, it had no mouth, no eyes, and no nose, but when it thumped one fist into the flat of its palm it sounded like the very mountain would collapse around them. Quaiyl stood on the opposite bank. A Mercer archer lay close to Merl, his leg ruined, flattened by a boulder.
“Help,” he cried, though it was little more than a hopeful whimper.
The golem thumped toward the archer, not stopping, not bending, just stamping down and flattening the injured man. Blood splattered out, soaking Merl like he’d been splashed by a sluice bucket from an upstairs window. The golem turned toward him, and though it had no eyes he felt its stony gaze stop his heart. Gloomy Joe yelped and maneuvered himself between Merl’s legs. A rush of heroism filled Merl’s heart as his dog cowered behind him. He faced the stone golem, ready, though he wasn’t quite sure for what. He had his cleaver, katana, and wakizashi, but their blades would do him no favors against blunting stone.
Quaiyl dove into the river, tearing through the current to get to Merl, but the golem thumped forward again and Merl shoved Gloomy Joe back as he too retreated. Soon pressed against the cavern’s wall, they could back away no farther. Quaiyl surfaced, springing straight up and leaping at the golem, who merely swatted him away without a hint of effort.
In desperation, and out of options, Merl summoned his guardians and damned the consequence. Twenty spears, twenty swords, and ten archers popped into being. They formed up in front of Merl. The archers ran to a point a little way off, their arrows nocked then flying at the golem, seeking out any weakness in the stone beast. They fell uselessly, deflecting off its stone skin. The spearmen tried next, surrounding the golem and poking at its legs and feet. The golem bent low and swept its arm in an arc, clearing the spearmen with ease. It stomped forward as his swordsmen charged in. They ran about, ducking and weaving, trying to get a strike in. Some of the spears recovered and began harrying from a distance, and the archer’s bows kept singing in useless defiance.
Unaffected by all, the golem advanced, closing the gap on Merl and Gloomy Joe. It faltered, just a little, just the hint of a stagger. A spearman had wedged his spear in its knee joint, stopping it from closing all the way.
“There!” Merl yelled. “There! Stop it moving.”
With a glimmer of hope, Merl darted to one side. He slid along the wall, hoping Gloomy was following. The constructs wedged more spears in the golem’s knee joints. Quaiyl burst back out of the river and circled behind the beast and running at it. He used the wedged spears to spring upward and reach the golem’s shoulders. Merl equipped his trusty cleaver. The golem swept its hands around, clearing more spearmen and howling with rage. The construct archers began aiming at its joints—its only weak spots. Quaiyl had his arms around its head, trying in vain to twist it around and snap its neck. Merl darted toward the golem’s side. It roared a great bellow. Chopping the cleaver repeatedly into the back of its ankles, Merl was rewarded with mere puffs of dust, but he didn’t stop hacking away. The golem howled. The cavern groaned. More rocks and scree fizzed down.
Merl hacked and hacked until his arm cried out in pain. The golem kicked backwards, catching him in the gut, but as it bent its leg, so it opened its joint, and the construct spearmen wedged more spears in. Merl shot away, gasping, at least two ribs cracked or worse, and landed with a rolling tumble. He forced himself up but immediately collapsed, then tried again, rising unsteadily on his feet.
Quaiyl hung on as the golem tried to unseat him. The construct swords began striking at the golem’s ankles, following Merl’s earlier valiant efforts. The stone beast reached up to try and unseat Quaiyl, and as it did it overbalanced and fell to the ground. Merl staggered forward, wincing with pain. He slammed his cleaver down on the golem’s throat, but it bounced off, vibrating all the way to his shoulder. Quaiyl dragged him away, and the swords and spears fell on the beast. The golem’s resonant cry ripped apart the cavern’s ceiling and caused a great tear to zigzag through it. Merl tried to stand, tried to end the terrible creation. The golem, however, had already bellowed its last roar, and became still. Just as Merl sighed with relief, he heard a twang, then a thwack, and was spun around as it hit him. His shoulder exploded in pain. Hot blood filled his armor.
Quaiyl sprinted towards Merl as more arrows zipped past. The construct lifted Merl over his shoulder setting him down on the other side of the dead golem. Merl forced himself to sit but couldn’t do any more as blood dribbled out of him. He heard the guardians forming up, heard the screams from Daemon Mercer’s men, and then he heard the sounds of a swift, brutal battle. Merl tried to ignore the pain as unwelcome words invaded his mind. He attempted to focus on the battle, but a familiar voice sounded out.
“You have defeated the stone golem.
The Land of the Crescent Moon thanks you and rewards you with fifty gold and one hundred experience points. You may loot the body.”
Merl pushed himself up, but sank down, tried again, and finally stood. Giddiness took hold, like he was standing on a precipice. More text invaded his head, scrolling down in a blur, making him even dizzier. It cycled so fast he couldn’t even attempt to make it out. An oblong pip flashed brown in his mind, blinking and distracting him. Merl steadied, waiting for the spoken words to follow, but no explanation came. Then, a strange sensation rippled through him. The feeling was so intense that, despite the chaos all around him, he smiled in rapture.
His whole body warmed. The arrow eased itself out from his shoulders, and his shattered bones knitted themselves together. Merl cried out, but not in pain—in surprise at the absence of it. He began to feel renewed, revitalized, somehow whole. It was the exact feeling he’d had in the Firthing Forest. Strength flooded into him. It was unfathomable. He could see no reason behind it, barring the mysterious text and flashing pip in his mind’s eye. He equipped his katana, ready to join the battle, but the fight was over, the battle done. All Daemon Mercer’s men lay dead, though in truth there hadn’t been that many left in the first place. Their willingness to die at the hands of his remaining constructs told Merl how much they feared either the dreadnails or the dormerbeast—whatever they were.
Merl reached down and gave Gloomy Joe a stroke. “Don’t worry, Gloomy, we’ll get out of here.” Though whether he was comforting the dog or himself was another matter.
Suddenly, the golem shimmered. It glowed with a silver aura, turning to dust and leaving a simple chain hovering above it. An emerald amulet embedded in a pendent hung from the chain, spinning and glinting bright in the waning firelight. Merl took it. This time the voice in his mind relayed the text as it scrolled across his vision.
“The Eye of Serenity. 1lb. Gold drop—plus twenty percent. Health regeneration—plus one per second. Weapon damage—plus fifteen percent. Wisp attraction—plus twenty percent.”
Merl shrugged, put it on, and tucked it under his armor. As he did, the brown panel in his mind slid across his vision, and the necklace slotted itself in the top right square.
The bloody arrow lay at his feet, and though he hadn’t seen it coming, he was well aware that he’d had nothing to block it even if he had. He couldn’t rely on Quaiyl to always be there, since the construct was usually busy with his own slaughtering. Merl needed a shield and rooted around the devastated cavern until he found an old wood and bronze one partly buried under a pile of cinder and ash. Slipping it out and thrusting his arm through the straps, he tried blocking a few imaginary arrows. Once he was satisfied, he unequipped it, and it slotted into his inventory. Now immune to the goriness of looting the dead soldiers, he rooted out and stowed three knives, a few bronze coins, two more strikes, and an old, clay pipe in his wrist band.
That done, he turned to Quaiyl and said, “What’s next?”
As usual, Quaiyl offered nothing, but remained facing the archway the attack had come from. Merl turned slowly, looking over the mangled bodies and through it. The walls of the tunnel beyond were smooth, and fifty yards away, an iron basket held a glowing bowl. At first, Merl didn’t quite believe what he was seeing. He inched towards it. A stone-flagged floor led away, curving slightly, cloaking the tunnel’s end in mystery.
“We’re… somewhere,” Merl said. “Definitely somewhere. But where is the question.”
He squeezed his eyes shut to strain his ears but could hear nothing besides the sound he always heard when he cupped them: a hollow noise—a noise he now knew sounded like the sea.
Of the fifty constructs he’d had, all the archers had survived, along with fifteen of the twenty swordsmen and twelve of the spearmen. Merl had options. He could keep all of his constructs, or some, or none. All would settle his nerves, but mean they sacrificed stealth, although there was little stealth in walking down a lit tunnel. Some was the second option, and some was as good as none but as visible as all, so that wasn’t actually an option. None was, on the surface, foolish, yet it might allow them to creep though the underground construction, whatever it was. As guardians took a mere clap of his hands to appear, Merl erred toward dismissing them, though he thanked them before he did.
“Right, just us three again,” he said, somewhat pleased.
Merl stepped over into the tunnel.
Swirling energy smashed into his brain, instantly scrambling his mind to a vortex of confusion. He sank to his knees, hands pressing against his ears. A long, low, moaning groan seeped through his fingers, shifting to a ragged scream that propelled the kaleidoscope of his thoughts into a whirlwind of color. He tried to scream, to plead for help, but his jaw was locked shut, the battle within his mind his and his alone. The texts manifested themselves, then blurred and juddered as they too were sucked into the whipping vortex. Visions of his past life flicked up, then cascaded down into a mass of roiling color. Merl prostrated himself before the power that invaded him, and in that moment of complete capitulation he lost all his recently gained valor.
A vision came to him: a tall, skeletal being cloaked in wisps of black rags. Intense eyes stared out from a hood’s dark shadows, a power so strong its connection to Merl might well have been tempered steel. Merl recognized it for a dreadnail, but one infinitely more powerful than the last.
He was sucked into its maelstrom of futlility, throttled by his own weakness, and left begging on the edge of hopelessness. But then, when nothing but desolation was left, one word came to him, and it formed the smallest thought, his own thought, and the first seed of his resistance.
Merl growled, “No,” and then he growled it again and again, his voice rising every time he repeated it. He kept on saying it until the word became tangible, until he could grab hold of it, wrap his clawing fingers around it, and stop himself from drowning in his own thoughts. He saw Portius, and he suddenly understood. The dreadnail was stripping him of his memory, it was gathering information on his friends to exact its terrible revenge. It now knew Portius, then Gwen appeared, then Sarah-Ann, and then Billy, which caused Merl to growl some more. He pulled himself free, squeezing down the pain that threatened to engulf him as he slowly fought back. He fought for the girls and any that might be left in Morgan Mount, for Billy, Gloomy Joe, Frank, and Desmelda. He fought for Mushroom.
A hand grabbed him, easing him up. His arm was pulled over Quaiyl’s shoulder. Merl gasped. The fragile seed of his precious will now germinating into bloody-minded determination. He snapped his eyes shut in a grand gesture. Enough was enough. Merl focused, drew on his will, and arrested his fall into submission.
“No!” he cried again. “No!” He ground his teeth, and he locked his limp legs.
Merl straightened, but the effort was too much. He switched his resolute attention back to the invader within, stopping the twister in his mind, calming the groaning wind invading his ears, and shutting all out. He tried to think of Portius, Billy, Gloomy Joe, of anywhere his love had recently fallen and then been spread, but none stayed glued in his mind.
None save for one.
A vision of his ale-soaked father came and went. It morphed into a different man: a man that had wetted his brow while a fever-ravaged Merl lay in bed. A man that played hide and seek and ran through the fields with him. One who sat with Billy and him and told them tales—tales of the adventures of a great and brave knight that had once shared a table with a wise and just lord. Merl pictured his father, his true father, and drew from that man’s incredible courage. He screamed a defiant “No!” And power surged through him from previously hidden depths. Merl fought the bastard dreadnail—a duel of wills, and Merl evicted the dreadnail from his head and slammed his mind shut.
Merl repulsed the remnants of the dreadnail’s dire mind, resisting more probing inquiries while building a fragile wall between it and the beast. But then a new pulse beat at his brain’s door. Tiredness seeped through its cracks and seams
, and Merl knew another beast had come for him, and it announced itself as a dormerbeast. Waves of apathy instantly washed over Merl.
“Get me out of here,” Merl croaked and slipped to the ground. “Get me out of here fast.”
Quaiyl grabbed him hard and pulled him up, then tossed him over his shoulder. The Origin picked up Gloomy Joe too and then jogged down the hall, quickening its pace until the lanterns blurred by. It sped through stunned soldiers, too fast for them to draw their steel. It darted past by the time their jaws had dropped. The sounds of their feeble pursuit grew. Barked shouts called ahead. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled.
The dormerbeast attacked again, pummeling Merl’s mind with languid thoughts. Quaiyl’s legs slowed, and Merl sensed The Origin was being affected by his thoughts and the invasion in his mind. Somehow, the beast had found their link and was attacking Quaiyl through it. He sensed Quaiyl’s detached desperation, his need to get to a door. He struggled against the construct’s hold and rolled himself off Quaiyl’s shoulder. Merl fell to the floor just as they reached the tunnel’s end.
Merl got up. They’d entered a new, square room, its low ceiling pressed down on him. A huge presence neared. Its mind spiraled like a corkscrew boring into Merl’s brain. Another one neared. This one breathed sleep, long billowing sleep, the promise of rest. Merl staggered. He remembered his true dad’s tales, not a pretender’s dreams. The shining knight always won. Light vanquished dark. Sometimes by the slimmest margin, though always through grim determination. Merl carried his true dad’s grit. He pulled at Quaiyl. He called for Gloomy Joe, and he shut the dread beasts out of his mind.
The three of them ran. They ran across the room. Quaiyl launched himself at a door, his foot out as he sailed through the air. The door shattered into a million splinters. Quaiyl landed, barely breaking his stride.
Maddened shouts rolled toward them in an avalanche of hatred. Merl, Quaiyl and Gloomy jumped the first of a set of steps in front of them. Within three bounds they’d landed by the first turn, whipped around its great stone pillar and were headed up the next brief flight. The thump of bootsteps followed, the clink of swords so great it sounded like a demon’s orchestra. Merl’s courage was now absolute, his determination complete. But no matter how fast they ran, their pursuers matched them step for step, clearly driven by a fear so great they defied their own limits. Quaiyl held back. He paused and let Merl and Gloomy past before following hot on their heels.
