by Rainy Kaye
I barely felt like myself anymore, barely believed this magic was mine.
Slowly, I rose to my feet, but the world shifted and swayed. Randall and Ever sank into a crouch as they darted toward me. Randall ushered me into the mine.
The group huddled together, breathing heavily, not speaking. Everyone seemed to need a moment to process what had just happened, and how closely we had all come to meeting our end.
I didn’t know what to say about the tentacle magic, so I didn’t mention it, and I hoped no one else would either. I had nothing to tell them.
The longer I thought about it, the more a deep chill settled inside me. No one else had used tentacle magic: not Sasmita, not the will-o-wisp children. Not even Joseph Stone.
The only people to wield this magic had been the ones who followed behind the dark witches and mages. The ones who had been up to something awful.
The evil ones.
So, what did that mean about me?
Randall squeezed my arm, as if he could read my mind, but I couldn’t imagine how he would have any idea what I was thinking. He barely seemed to follow along with my abilities on a good day; he was always so certain I could replicate a skill on whim, but I never knew how I did most of them in the first place. These were all new. I didn’t know what to think about them yet.
It wasn’t Randall’s fault he didn’t understand magic—he wasn’t born into it and, before now, had barely even seen any of it in action—but I didn’t have the energy or will to explain to him how deeply disturbing and…wrong…the tentacle magic had been. Not to mention, he wasn’t going to be convinced it was anything short of amazing, not when it had saved his life.
A squawking-screech brought me back to the present.
“Oh, no,” I muttered, peering past Randall, out of the mine.
The cockatrice, blood streaked down her side and neck, flapped her wings harder as she dived toward the mine entrance. She slammed into it, jutting her head through and rattling the mountain. Her body seemed to suck in and flatten as she pushed harder and, with a solid popping sound, shoved her way into the mine.
A shout lodged in my throat as the others around me turned and darted into the darkness, stifling cries. I scurried after them, Randall right beside me. The cockatrice stumbled toward us, snapping her head, and she picked up the pace until we were forced into nothingness.
Up ahead, a blue light flared. Sasmita held up her glowing hands like torches, leading the way deeper into the mine. The light flickered over the cockatrice, catching her bloody mangled form bobbing toward us, only a few yards away.
“Saf,” Sasmita called without looking back. “You’re going to have to take it down.”
My stomach clenched and the shadows swayed as my vision darkened. This was all too much. I didn’t want to wield tentacle magic, and I didn’t want to kill anything. Not even the dragon-bird chasing us. Despite being a monster, she was just doing what wild animals did. She was defending her home.
Or she was still under the command of the man who we had stolen the medallion from. Either way, I had fucked up by coming here. Now the cockatrice was going to have to pay the price unless I found another way to subdue it, to get it to back down.
My brain spun through options, and I prayed it landed on a good one, the winning one.
Knock it out.
I tripped into Paisley in front of me, and then turned toward the cockatrice.
Sasmita had stunned my brain at the hotel. Maybe I could manage a move similar to that, but harder. Make the cockatrice sleep for a while. I wasn’t quite sure how to pull that off, but I figured I would start with the pulse I had used on Winston and try to direct it from there. It would either stun the cockatrice or kill it.
We didn’t have many options at this point.
Randall slowed down, but I waved him on.
“I need room to work,” I said, voice hoarse. It wasn’t entirely untrue, but mostly, I wanted to do this alone.
Jaw clenched, he looked between me and the cockatrice and then back at me.
“Go,” I snapped.
He strode past me, out of my sight, but his footsteps slowed and then stopped. He was going to wait for me, regardless.
I could no longer tell if Randall was brave, or an idiot. Now that he had leapt over the side of the mountain onto this monster’s back, the answer had become more muddied.
We would have to discuss his antics later.
Swallowing hard, I sucked up my magic through my body, let it well up in me and gather in my hands. The cockatrice stumbled around, bumping into the walls. Blood coated her face and one of side of her body. Even if I did manage to only stun her to sleep, she might not live much longer. I didn’t have the first clue about how to heal injuries.
As the cockatrice staggered into reach, I thrusted my arms above me and grabbed her head. Magic sizzled and zapped from my palms, into the cockatrice’s temples, right before her eyes.
The cockatrice shrieked and reared back. My soles skimmed the ground and I let go, dropping into a crouch. The cockatrice swayed, screeching, and tried to flap her wings. The wings scraped the dirt walls. With a swing of her head, the cockatrice tried to turn in a half-circle. Her face rammed into the side of the tunnel. Its feet clawed at the ground, but she couldn’t move forward. Her body collapsed, her head coming to rest inches from me. She looked up at me, dark eyes strangely intelligent, strangely knowing before they slid closed. I turned away, but it was too late.
She had already made eye contact with me.
I waited, breathless, for something to happen. Maybe my skin would turn to stone. Maybe I would fall over dead.
After a few ticks, I relaxed a little. Either the cockatrice didn’t have that kind of power, or she had chosen not to use it for some reason.
Tentatively, I turned back to the cockatrice. Her body lay between light and shadow, and her chest moved slowly, evenly. Blood stained the ground under her and in a trail back toward the exit.
Randall came up behind me. “We have to go, Saf.”
I didn’t look back at him.
I wasn’t sure I had any thoughts, let alone any words.
He grazed my arm with his fingers, and I flinched.
“Maybe we could climb around it and head back out,” I said at length, though I didn’t give what I said any consideration. “She’s probably going to die.”
“There’s no way we can squeeze around that,” he said, always reasonable. “It nearly plugs the tunnel.”
He wasn’t wrong, but maybe he could mourn something for a change.
Without a word, I spun on my heel and stormed past him, in the direction Sasmita and the others had gone. Randall matched my pace, but I said nothing. All I had the energy, the brain power, the emotions left for was to keep walking forward, into whatever waited for us in the mine.
16
When we caught back up to the group, Paisley slowed her pace to keep only one step right in front of me. The tunnel was too narrow for us to walk side by side. Randall hung back.
“Is the cockatrice gone?” she asked, keeping an eye on Sasmita at the lead with her glowing blue magic wrapped around her hands.
I nodded stiffly. “I hope there’s another way out of this mine. Otherwise, we’ll have to look for anywhere the tunnel widens and drag the cockatrice so there’s room to walk around. What do you think the odds are?”
She made a long mm noise that sounded doubtful.
“Figures.” I sighed, reaching up to touch the dirt ceiling only inches above our heads. Dirt came loose, sprinkling down on us, and I shook my head to clear my face. “We probably should start thinking up a Plan B through Z.”
I didn’t mention that besides the obvious concerns, I was already worried about how we had left our most volatile companion on the road. We had to get back to Fiona, before someone hurt her—or vice versa.
“What’s the likelihood there’s another opening around here?” I asked.
Randall dragged his fingers along the wall. “Since w
e came through the side of the mountain, I’m going to guess there’s another adit somewhere. Otherwise, they mined from a sheer side of a cliff, headed into the mountain, instead of already being in the mountain and dug out. We should hit an incline soon that leads back toward the surface, and the original opening.”
I turned to blink at him. “You watched too many damn documentaries, you know that?”
“Okay, then—oh, crap, we’re all going to die,” he said, deadpan.
“That’s more like it,” I muttered. “I expect nothing less than complete terror.”
The ground rumbled, and I slammed my hand to the dirt wall. Around me, everyone fell back against the sides of the tunnel. Dirt toppled down from the ceiling and trickled in streams down the walls.
I snapped my head back to stare up at the ceiling. “That’s the necromancer. He’s nearby.”
“Or getting stronger,” Randall muttered. “Pulling up more magic.”
Every story I’d ever heard, even in brief, about the dangers of mines flashed through my head—about ten minutes too late. People died in abandoned mines all the time. Hell, they were a hazard to the people who dug them out.
“Fuck,” I said, but it was woefully inadequate.
As a group, we trudged onward, our feet thudding down the tunnel as we headed in the only direction we could go.
Hopefully, Randall was right. There had to be another adit somewhere. Another way out.
Even if there was, we still had to find it.
“What do you think this mine was used for?” Randall asked Paisley over my head. “Gold?”
“Probably silver,” she said. “It was all the rage back then in these parts. Haven Rock is over a hundred years old.”
“Which means this mine probably is, too,” I said. “The necromancer doesn’t have to waste effort on killing us. We’ll do it just fine ourselves.”
Randall reached over to pat my back a little and then stepped around me and joined Paisley to continue his riveting discussion about the history of pulling metal out of the earth. I’d had no idea he had so much in common with dwarves.
Up ahead, a few wooden poles stood up against the wall. Stretching out beyond them was a crisscross of vertical and horizontal beams.
I tapped the beams as I passed. Despite the age of the mine, the support still seemed to be solid. I couldn’t imagine anyone had come in here to do maintenance anytime this decade.
As we followed down the tunnel, a dark passage split off to the side. We slowed in turn as we passed, peering inside, but unanimously, and silently, concluded not to press our luck. There was nothing to be seen into the darkness without Sasmita’s light and she had already moved on.
I wove around the others to join her at the front. “What was back there?”
“Just more tunnel,” she said. “We’ll make a note to come back this way if we don’t find an opening soon.”
I nodded. “Best to march steadily toward our death.”
She flashed me a tired smile, and I slumped down as I trudged right behind her. We all needed sleep, food, a moment of peace.
None of that was happening anytime soon.
The tunnel began to widen. I reached up and felt around at the ceiling to verify it wasn’t an optical illusion or my vision impaired by strange gases leaking into the tunnel and slowly suffocating us. My hand touched air, and I had to stand on tiptoe to brush my fingertips on the ceiling.
Perhaps we could have gone back and tried tugging the cockatrice to here, but we had already gone so far and the risk was too great.
Ever onward.
The tunnel fanned out and arched upward until it opened into dark nothingness with no discernable sides or ceiling.
Dead ahead, a wooden bridge appeared, seeming to float in the darkness. My group and I clustered together a few yards away from the bridge.
Sasmita stepped forward, her blue lights intensifying. Little by little, she crept toward the bridge until she stood just before the entrance, her feet still on solid ground. Extinguishing one light, she gripped the bridge railing and leaned over the edge, extending her glowing hand.
She raised back upright, turning toward us. “It’s a chasm, probably where they pulled out the minerals. If Randall is right, then the other adit is likely on the other side.”
Everyone hesitated, glancing between the bridge and each other in the strange blue glow of Sasmita’s light.
Finally, April piped up. “I mean, it can’t be that dangerous, right? People wouldn’t have used it if it was.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Sasmita said, gazing down into the depths below. “At one point, they just used a series of ladders, sometimes so many that tired miners didn’t make it back up to the top when they were done for the day.”
“That’s reassuring,” Ever said with a sigh, and she shuffled over to wrap her arm around April’s shoulders and pull her closer. “The bridge is short, and I think if there wasn’t another adit, we’d be struggling for air by now.”
“That could be down the other tunnel,” Paisley said, looking over her shoulder at the direction we had come. “Maybe we should investigate our options.”
“Let’s take a poll,” Ever said, scanning the group. “Everyone who wants to go back and try the other tunnel?”
Everyone hesitated, as if waiting for the first one to make the decision.
Sasmita stepped one foot onto the bridge, testing it. The bridge did not move. She slid her other foot next to the first and then extended her arm, palm up, hand blazing blue fire.
I watched, lungs caught, eyes and back of my nose tingling as I expected the bridge to collapse and take her with it. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to be calm, to be rational.
She took another step.
“Uh, guys?” Her voice echoed around the room.
My heart all but exploded with terror. I darted forward, pushing through the group, but skidded to a halt just before the bridge. She waved me closer, not taking her eyes off the distance.
With a grimace, I crept onto the bridge, expecting it to sway, but it remained fixed. Part of me wished I could see the footing of the bridge, and the rest of me was glad I could not. Who knew what shape it would be in after being abandoned for so long.
“What did you see?” I whispered, leaning closer to her and peering as far as her flames illuminated.
On the other side of the bridge, something gold caught the light. It seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite make it out enough to place it. She took another step forward, and I followed her.
A gasp caught in my throat.
Propped up against the wall right before the next tunnel opening was a portrait nearly as tall as me. I couldn’t quite make out the features of the painting, but the gold frame and plaque gave it away.
“It’s the necromancer’s painting,” I said, even though I couldn’t imagine how it had gotten down here.
Had he moved it here? Why not just destroy it?
Regardless, we had been bestowed a wealth of good luck to stumble upon the portrait right here. Not that Haven Rock was that big; there weren’t a lot of places to keep a painting this size nearby.
Pushing aside the thoughts for now, I turned back to the group. “The portrait is over there. We’re going that way.”
With that, I steeled myself and, before I could think any further, marched across the bridge. I turned off my senses, refusing to feel if the structure swayed, refusing to even see where I was going. I just walked onward, letting the railing and dumb luck guide me to the other side.
When my soles touched dirt again, I nearly collapsed. I let out a pent-up breath, lungs aching, and took a moment to steady myself as the others crossed over to join me.
We stood in a group, staring at the portrait.
“What’s that, exactly?” Ever asked at length.
“It’s him,” I said, shuffling closer to Randall. “It’s his prison. We have to put him back in there. It’s the only thing that will contain him, as long
as we can get the portrait back to the vault, if we can ever find it.”
Ever raised an eyebrow but continued to stare at the portrait. “Repeat that?”
I wanted to come up with a good explanation, or at least something that reassured her I knew what I was talking about.
“I don’t know,” I said, deflating. “There are seven portraits of the worst witches and mages in history that somehow seal them in. It worked twice, so I’m guessing it’ll work a third time. It’s all we got.”
The last bit was particularly depressing, so I swatted it away.
Randall nodded and together, we stepped forward. I reached for the top of the portrait and he bent to grab the bottom. As he lifted it up, I pulled down, until the portrait rested on its side, and the plaque with his name came into view.
Uwe Visel.
Like Eliza Brown and Nikandros Remis, he had once been human.
I gestured to Sasmita. “After you.”
She hurried to the forefront and held up her lit hand.
Randall nodded for the others to follow her, and they scurried in a row down the tunnel. When April passed through, bringing up the rear, Randall pushed the portrait forward and I angled it through the narrow opening. Once it was in the tunnel, we worked together, him shoving the portrait along on its side and me, walking backwards, keeping it upright and kicking rocks out of the way.
“Hey, guys,” Sasmita said, her voice bouncing off the walls. “There’s something up here.”
“Is it going to try to eat us?” Randall called.
Sasmita didn’t reply as she followed the gentle curve of the tunnel up ahead and disappeared from view. Ever and her sisters traipsed after her, swallowed by the mine. Randall and I nudged the portrait to take the bend.
“Maybe it’s leftover dynamite,” I said. “Or a bear.”
He chuckled, releasing the portrait with one hand to wipe his forehead with his arm. As he looked down at the portrait, a somber expression flattened any humor.
“I have no idea how to lure the necromancer back into his cage,” he said.
“With cheese,” I said, raising my eyebrows, trying to keep the humor alive, but the attempt fizzled. I sighed, dropping my shoulders. “I don’t know, either. We’ll figure it out.”
