Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  You’re letting the violence destroy you like a disease.

  Simith considered her words. He considered the poverty of his spirit, his heart pillaged by war. He suspected he knew part of his answer already. To save himself, he had to stop killing. But with death hovering on the horizon for so many, he didn’t know if it was possible to save anyone, least of all himself.

  Chapter Six

  When they reached the clearing Relle had described, every hair lifted on the back of Jessa’s neck. Beside her, Seshi cursed and Simith went utterly still.

  Outwardly, it was beautiful. Shimmering in the middle of the clearing a mirror-bright lake spread like a silver stain, ringed by grasses drowning in daisies. The white blossoms fluttered in the slow breeze like pale fingertips. The stars lingered in a pre-dawn sky above a cottage that floated at the center of the lake. This, too, was beautiful, with red stone walls and frosted glass windows, the front door a friendly oval that seemed to beckon visitors. Everything about it was lovely, a bejeweled mask hiding the monster that stared behind it.

  No birds sang here. No animals moved among the branches of neighboring trees. Indeed, the trees themselves seemed subdued, their leaves unmoving despite the breeze. None of their branches reached into the clearing, their canopies sheared off around the circular circumference of the area. Nothing of the forest touched any part of this place, and silence reigned like a living thing, ready to devour any who offended it.

  “Is that…house the way into the vale?” Jessa asked, her voice hushed.

  “It must be.” Simith drew closer to her. “Relle said it would be in the middle of the lake.”

  “She also said the lake wasn’t empty. Do we fly across? I don’t see a bridge.”

  “Ionia told me the magic here prohibits crossing by air. She said to use to use this.” He produced a compact mirror. Katie’s mirror, actually. She recognized the painted ponies on the back.

  “Daylight comes.” Seshi watched the sky. “If any further enemies trail us, I will lead them away. Otherwise, I await your return here beneath the trees.” Her gaze fell on Simith. “The battle begins tonight. I know not how long it will last.”

  How long they would survive, she meant, though she didn’t say it. Jessa wondered what it cost the trolls’ general to be here instead of among her people, fighting for their homeland.

  Simith acknowledged her words with a nod. “I will see it done.”

  Neither of them spoke as they made their way to the lake’s silent shores. The waters winked brightly, swirling with streaks of fiery color as dawn bludgeoned the sky. Simith regarded the house as he might a battlefield, his brow drawn low, his brown eyes hard. He appeared so unapproachable that it surprised her when without turning he gently took her hand.

  “I know you don’t wish to hear my regret, but I’m compelled to say it nonetheless,” he said, his voice stiff and formal, as it typically was when he felt troubled. “If we’d never met, you wouldn’t be here facing this. Your life wouldn’t be in danger, and yet,” finally he turned, his gaze no less intense as he regarded her, “I am glad to have known you, Jessa.”

  She eyed him sidelong. Crinkled her nose. “Are you expecting us to die in there?”

  He blinked. “What—No, I simply—”

  “Because that sounded like something you’d say before jumping on a grenade, and I’d rather you didn’t do that right now. I’m already really scared.”

  He tugged her closer, lifting their clasped hands between them. His face gentled. “I am also frightened, but I once had a friend and never told her what she meant to me. It’s not a mistake I wish to repeat.”

  She couldn’t help but smile, even here in this terrifying place. “I don’t regret meeting you either, Simith.” She patted his chest with her other hand. “But I’ll save the other things I want to tell you for afterward.”

  “Other things?” He lifted a brow. “What other things?”

  She shook her head. “No, no. After. Now, what do we need to do with the mirror?”

  Simith smiled faintly before facing to the water. He flipped open the mirror. “Ionia said there is a bridge here, but…” Without releasing her hand, he turned them around, lifting the mirror. “There.”

  In the compact mirror’s reflection, a narrow wooden bridge spanned from the shore to the house. Jessa glanced over her shoulder, but only the water rippled outside of the reflection.

  She did her best not to shudder. “I guess this means we have to walk backwards?”

  “So, it seems.”

  It was an eerie feeling to put her back to the house as they approached, nothing but sand and seaweed wavering beneath their feet. Jessa kept expecting the door to the house to fly open and release a horrible ghoul, or for some lake monster to rise from the murky bottom and chomp their legs. She was grateful Simith never let go of her hand.

  They’d reached the halfway point on the bridge when an arrow whizzed past Simith’s head. He yanked her down. Water gushed over her shoes, and she gasped. A shape stirred beneath the surface, a fanged mouth rising. Simith cursed, lifting the mirror he’d lowered to recapture the bridge’s reflection on its circular face. An invisible force buoyed their feet above the surface again.

  Simith shifted her behind him, handing her the mirror. “I must watch for the archer.” He drew his sword. “Move quickly toward the house.”

  In the distance, the clang of weapons and General Seshi’s battle roar from beneath the trees filled the air. With a trembling hand, Jessa held the reflection in Katie’s mirror and did her best not to trip over her feet in her hasty backpedal across the bridge. Graceful as he was, Simith never trod on her toes despite deflecting two more arrows with his blade.

  When they stepped off the lake under the house’s eaves, Jessa could feel no relief. Instead, a chill settled over her skin. Behind one window’s clouded glass, something moved.

  “Knock three times on the door.” Simith still watched the shoreline, his sword angled across his chest as his body shielded hers. Another arrow cracked over his blade. His wings twitched with frustration. “Come now, general,” he muttered. “Down this archer for us.”

  Pocketing the mirror, Jessa turned to the door. Made of simple, unadorned wood, its boards were filmed with a soft golden stain. It looked like a regular door. She didn’t want to touch it.

  Jessa rapped her knuckles three times on its surface. The door swung inward. A pale, vaporous wall of mist filled the threshold. It swirled and writhed as though a horde of bleached snakes moved just beneath the surface.

  Jessa licked her lips, trying to recall the words she and Simith had rehearsed on their way here last night.

  “I am Jessa of Skylark,” she said, her voice firm despite her quaking knees. “We seek a bargain with the lich of the Forgotten Vale.”

  “What are you, little one?” Its voice was a thousand voices squirming together, the question at once a demand, a plea, and a shriek.

  “I’m human,” she said, and there was nothing she could do about her shaking voice this time.

  “Human. Ah yes, a good world that was. Such pleasures I found there.” Jessa sensed its regard moving to Simith. “You bring with you a pixie?”

  “He and I both seek this bargain. We come together.”

  It paused. “Your offer is meager. A magicless creature and a butterfly with a sword. Hardly worth the games we could play.”

  Hunger radiated from the hive of voices. It baited. It wanted this, but only if she offered more of herself. Jessa’s mouth went completely dry. This was the moment she was supposed to proclaim she was a maker of verse, but her throat wouldn’t push the syllables into her mouth. Her body rebelled, and not only because she feared to draw its full attention to her, but because she didn’t believe it to be true. She was not a poet anymore. She did not provoke thought with words. That part of her was gone.

  Behind her, Simith grunted. A gash bled on his calf when she looked; the splinters of an arrow scattered at his feet. They cou
ldn’t stay here any longer.

  She turned back to the door. She might not be a writer, but she knew plenty of other writing. She didn’t let herself hesitate, forcing the verse off her tongue.

  “‘A dreadful darkness closes in

  On my bewildered mind;

  O let me suffer and not sin,

  Be tortured yet resigned.’”

  A layered sigh oozed from the churning mist, at once a death rattle, a moan, and an anguished whimper.

  “Sweet melancholic Bronte,” it breathed, surprising her by its recognition of the poet. “We have not heard her sorrowed verse in so long. Say more.”

  “Not until you strike a bargain with us.”

  A chortled hiss. “And what would you ask of me, precious mortal?”

  “The power to erase the true names of all pixies.”

  Its laughter slithered and scraped over her skin. “Now that would be a boon, wouldn’t it?”

  Jessa bolstered her nerve. “I can recite countless verses. Any that you’d like.”

  “Your own?” it purred. “Are you too a maker of verse?”

  Silence.

  “The scent is dim but there all the same. A pale perfume of midnight dreams and fractured heart.” A thin-fingered hand pressed against the misty barrier, grasping toward her, knuckles distending it outward like a membrane wall.

  Jessa took a hasty step backward. Her back met a solid weight. Simith. He faced the house and loomed reassuringly at her shoulder, his brown eyes scalpel sharp as he regarded the open doorway. He still had his sword drawn, but if he’d turned his back on the lake it could only mean Seshi had defeated the archer harassing them.

  “If you wish to play your games, then settle on the terms with us,” he said and cocked his head in a hint of mockery. “Unless you do not possess the power we need.”

  “The magic you seek is here within, darling butterfly,” it sang-screamed. “Very well. My challenge is thus: one of you must reach the center of my humble valley. Succeed, and you will find a house alike to this one. Stand upon the doorstep and I will give you the power you need to wipe away the pixie race’s true names.”

  “After which we are free to leave,” Simith pressed in a hard voice. “And you will not assault us in mind or body during the challenge.”

  “Of course. To depart my realm, you need only rename yourself, sweet pixie.”

  “That’s it? That’s all we have to do?” Jessa looked at Simith. He shook his head slightly without meeting her gaze.

  “It would be little amusement if the terms were so easy,” its chorused voice scolded. “Three poems must you speak, verse maker, upon my request. One of love, one of lust, one of loss. If you cannot reach your destination by the time you have finished them, then your challenge is lost.” It giggled. “And so are you.”

  Simith’s eyes turned to her. She saw the question there, mingled with the regret he’d confessed earlier. She hadn’t wanted to hear it then, but she appreciated it this time. Katie warned of a false sense of intimacy between them, yet it seemed cold-hearted to ignore how much they knew of each other. The measure of days didn’t apply. He understood what it cost her to face this, just as she knew what it cost him to ask it of her.

  “We agree to the terms of your challenge,” she said.

  The skeletal hand seeped back into its pale oblivion. “Then, come into my garden, verse maker.”

  Simith sheathed his blade and moved beside her. Without a word, their hands found each other; a network of fingers twined together. Jessa stared into the doorway. Would they ever reemerge from this place? Her legs went watery with fear.

  “Don’t let me go, okay?”

  “Never.”

  But as they stepped through the vaporous wall, icy cold slicked between her palm and Simith’s. Jessa gasped and fought to hold on to him, but it pried their hands apart.

  “Simith!” she cried. She reached for him, but he was already gone.

  Chapter Seven

  Jessa’s hand was cold against his. Around them, a white veil of mist shifted and spun, trailing ragged ends behind like the tattered hem of a frayed cloak. They advanced in the chilly stillness, their exhaled breath the only sound. At least his own. Simith didn’t hear Jessa’s. Was she holding it?

  He looked down at her, surprised to find her dark gaze steady on him, her face oddly expressionless.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’m frightened,” she said.

  Did she fear she would be unable to comply with the lich’s demand for verse, at odds as she was with the part of herself she treasured most? No, he didn’t think it was that, not when he recalled the determined set to her jaw outside the doorway. So fierce and lovely. His heart had nearly turned over in his chest.

  “We’ll get through this.” He squeezed her hand. “Together.”

  “You’ll stay by me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Always?” She tugged him to an abrupt halt.

  “What do you mean?” He faced her. “Is something wrong?”

  “Will you hold me?”

  Longing rose up in him, and he checked it firmly. “We ought to continue on,” he said gently. “The lich must be watching us. We can’t let down our guard.”

  “Please.”

  She might as well have used his true name. Simith surveyed the mist gathered around them, listened for any sound, any whisper of threat, and loosened his sword in its scabbard before turning back to Jessa.

  “A moment only,” he said. “It isn’t safe—”

  She pressed herself into the shelter of his body, and he lost whatever he’d meant to say. This was reckless, though a separate, elated part of him couldn’t resist it entirely. Keeping his eyes fixed on the mist, he wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head.

  It didn’t feel right, and not because he hadn’t yearned to hold her just like this. She didn’t feel right. Her ever-active hands were still at his waist. There was no life in them. Her hair no longer held the rich texture of dark blossoms where it touched his skin. It felt finer. She didn’t smell like the faint perfume of her expansive gardens. She didn’t smell like anything at all. Was it this place? Did it make them feel different even to each other?

  “Jessa—” He began but she pressed closer.

  “Comfort me.” A vulnerable plea.

  He relented with a sigh and let himself sink into the embrace, ignoring the uncomfortable way she fit against him.

  “If I asked you to stay, would you deny me?” she said.

  “Stay? What do you mean?”

  “Would you abandon me or would you keep me close forever?”

  He pulled back to look at her. Guileless black eyes returned his astonishment with a bland regard. Something was not right here. Danger pricked at his instincts. He shifted back. With startling speed, Jessa yanked one of his knives from his bandolier and shoved away from him.

  “What is going on?” he demanded. He froze in place when she jabbed the blade’s point into her chest. A crimson stain appeared on her garment.

  “Stop,” he choked. “Jessa, stop.”

  “Then answer. Would you deny me?”

  “Deny you what? I don’t understand.”

  Was the lich controlling her? But the agreement stipulated that it could not harm them physically nor take control of their minds.

  The blade sank in a little more. She grimaced with pain.

  “I would deny you nothing,” he said, his stomach cramped with fear. “There is no request you could make that I would refuse, Jessa.”

  He knew he shouldn’t say it. The vale belonged to the lich. It could hear every word that passed between them and would use the information to make them fail. Why would he admit something like this aloud? Then he realized.

  He was admitting it to himself.

  Jessa smiled, a waspish grin that made her look like someone he’d never met. “Well,” she sang, “aren’t you passionate?”

  Her skin
bleached white and dissolved in a boiling ripple of vapor while the lich’s laughter trilled and screeched in cascading echoes around him. A trick. An illusion. Jessa was never here. Panic crawled into his chest.

  “Jessa!” he roared, twisting one way, then another. Only pale walls greeted his gaze. “Where is she?”

  “Far more fun to keep you apart.” The gleeful chorus chased behind him as he sped through the fog. “Hold, hold, noble pixie. I will be generous and let you see her.”

  He halted. Not because he believed it, but rather that he knew he would never find her by running heedlessly.

  “Show her to me,” he ground out.

  “She is there,” it sweetly said behind him.

  He whirled around as a lane in the mist formed, sliding apart to reveal Jessa at the end of its long corridor. She stepped carefully with one hand out in front of her, fingertips blindly trailing back and forth as if she feared crashing into a wall. Simith shuddered with relief. He opened his mouth to call out to her, but stopped. Her lips moved. She was close enough to hear, yet the sound of her words never reached him.

  “A clever one, this verse maker,” the lich said, the word clever repeated in an unnerving multitude of susurrus. “More time has passed than you think, yet she speaks only her second poem. A long memory she has of long sonnets written by long-winded bards.”

  Simith ordered himself to calm. Jessa was fine. She was capable. She would tell him not to let this beast distract him from their task. She could only buy him a limited amount of time.

  He turned in the opposite direction, the way he’d been headed before the lich had dangled Jessa in front of him.

  “Do you care so little?” it hissed. “What games I shall play with her while you are out of reach.”

  He clenched his jaw and strode forward.

  “Let us make another bargain, you and I.” Its voice chased alongside him, the mist rippling like water disturbed by the wind. “One task, only one, and I will grant you the magic you need as well as your release.”