by J. R. Ford
Ana said, “Between my height and experience, I’m the least likely to get hit.”
“You’re also our MVP,” I said. “If I get got, whatever, but if you do, we’re probably done for.”
“Relax. My hard head is protection enough.”
She wouldn’t budge. We put the caps on. Heather’s hair stuck out around her ears and neck.
We reached Riyaasat within a quarter hour. It loomed atop a hill, the walls thirty feet high, though the hill had begun to swallow it. The circuitry of the stone was only visible as a gleam, no vibrant blue. The entire place had an oppressive dread about it.
“Something isn’t right,” Ana said.
“It’s the holes in the ground,” I said. She peered, shading her eyes, and saw what I did: patches of darkness pockmarked the hill, each three feet across. My companions looked as uneasy as I felt.
“We should turn back,” I said, but Ana shook her head.
“We’ve come this far and not seen a fermid all day. This hill is probably abandoned.”
“I’m not so sure,” I muttered, but Ana was already pressing ahead, sloshing through a wide stream that crossed the road. “Hey, wait! Shouldn’t we scout it out?”
“The longer we wait, the greater the chance a fermid shows up. Come on!”
One day, I’ll learn not just to do whatever a pretty girl tells me to. Probably.
Drawing my sword dispelled some of my trepidation. Regardless of my infatuation, the cause was just. My sixteen years of passivity had passed. How admirable.
A quick tap from my other hand indicated eight people were watching. Maybe some of my old gaming buddies had caught wind that I was about to get myself killed by ants.
We followed her across the stream and up the hill, keeping well clear of the holes. Ana reached the gates, presumably once a majestic portal of iron and hardwood, now decayed and askew. She shimmied through, and I followed.
The reception was pitch dark. The light crawling in from the opening only illuminated clutter on the rippled stone floor.
Heather ducked in after us, her footfall making me jump. “Sorry,” she muttered. I blushed, but I doubted anyone noticed in the gloom.
“Ugh,” Ana said. “Smells like piss. You have the lantern in your pack, Pav?”
I knelt by the light and rummaged for the lantern, then tried striking a spark with the flint and firesteel. Two attempts later the tinder caught, and from there it was easy to light the wick. I shook the tinder out and closed the lantern door.
It didn’t reveal much, but I could feel my eyes adjusting to the dark. The foyer was built like a death trap, with barricades lining the path forward and windows above on either side to give archers vantage over attackers. I could see nothing beyond the dark gap of those windows or through the doorway ahead.
Ana began poking around. “Nothing interesting,” she said. “Let’s go. Pav?”
I stood frozen, listening, trying to confirm if the faint clinking of carapace on stone I sensed was reality or frightened imagination.
“Pav?” Ana repeated, and I started moving. My knuckles ached.
She proceeded through the doorway and darkness consumed her. I followed, and the lantern light showed a corridor leading further into the castle. Doorways yawned on both sides. Ana didn’t hesitate to enter the first on the left.
I raised the lantern high. A few beds lined the walls, their mattresses torn, straw strewn around. Solid wooden chests rested at the foot of each, while wardrobes and wooden weapon racks occupied wall space between beds. Polearms and swords had rusted red. Darkness enveloped the far end of the long room.
Heather clung close behind me. Ana inspected a chest, then stomped on the lock. The smash of rotten wood splintering resonated through the room.
“Quiet,” Heather whispered. Ana had the grace to look sheepish, especially as the chest was empty. Skittering again tickled the edge of my hearing. I hoped it was my imagination. My eyes strained against the dark, but the curtain would not be pierced. I steeled my will and walked forward.
“Pav,” Heather said, but I kept going. The soft patter — I was convinced now of its reality. My lantern revealed more beds, more weapons…and a hole burrowed through the stone in the corner of the room. The hair on my neck shot up, and my breath caught in my throat. The patter grew louder…louder… My arms were lead, and my feet were pinned to the floor. My eyes remained fixed on that darkness, waiting for something to emerge.
“Hey, check this out,” Ana said, from a thousand miles away.
“Guys,” Heather said, soft but crystal clear despite that deafening clinking. “Guys!”
I couldn’t turn, couldn’t think. My eyes held to that hole as tightly as my hand on my sword.
“Pav!” Ana shouted. I couldn’t move. Any second now…the scraping rang in my ears, seeming to come from everywhere. “Above!”
That one word turned my bones to jelly. I looked up in time to see a fermid leaping down from a tunnel in the ceiling. The darkness behind its mandibles loomed worse than any darkness before. I couldn’t scream, only collapse.
Crash, and blackness swallowed us. Pain stabbed through my legs, and a heavy weight pinned my body. Thunk. Lightning flashed, blinding, accompanied by deafening thunder. Something was shuddering on top of me — the fermid’s death throes. Push away, wriggle out…something was behind me!
I curled into a ball, cringing in fear and pain. The acid would come any moment…but instead, a pat.
I looked up. Another pat, on the forehead now. “Pav?” Heather asked, her voice a patting arm’s length away.
“What’s going on?” I gasped. Pain raked at my legs.
“It’s dead, I think,” Ana said. The room reeked of burnt hair and urine. “Pav, where’s the lantern?”
“I dropped it.”
The sound of scuffling. “Found it. Feels like it survived. Let me take it back to the entrance so I can see what I’m doing.”
“Don’t leave us,” Heather said. “What if more of them show up?”
“Right. Come on, you two. Pav, can you walk?”
“Don’t know,” I said. My voice was miniscule in that infinite darkness. I blinked repeatedly, trying to clear my eyes from that bright flash, and noticed a soft blue glow from somewhere behind me.
Heather helped me up. Pain clawed at me, the sharp pain of a flesh wound. A couple of stable if agonizing steps told me I could walk well enough. Heather put a supportive arm around me as we shuffled back to the entrance. Ana led the way, hefting a sword not unlike the one she’d brought. The only difference was that the blade was engraved with luminescent blue circuitry, slowly dimming, but still bright enough for us to navigate by.
“Where did you get that sword?” Heather asked. Her voice wavered. “Was that what caused the lightning flash?”
“It caught my eye, on one of the weapon racks. I hit the fermid and poof! Fried it. I got a notification, too: ‘Acquired Lightning Blade: +100’!”
“Like Edwin’s whip then,” I said.
“Ugh, don’t remind me of that prick.”
The light spilling from the gate illuminated long gashes along the outside of my thighs. Those claws were evidently tough enough to carve stone. If the fermid had landed differently, my femurs would’ve been dust.
Ana struggled to light the lantern as Heather helped me treat my wounds. Which, of course, involved removing my trousers. Heather kept her eyes down the entire time. I blushed, suddenly very conscious of the forest of black hair along my inner thighs. If my family were watching, whatever, but these two?
The wounds were bloody, and Heather hesitant with the antiseptic. “I can do it, if you don’t like blood,” I mumbled with what wits still worked.
“It’s not that,” she said. The antiseptic burned, or maybe that was just the feeling of a girl touching me. She reached in awkwardly to wrap bandages.
Ana looked over and laughed. “Don’t be shy, Heather. It’s just legs. Nothing you haven’t seen at the beac
h a million times.”
Now Heather reddened. “It’s just…I never…and not many people go to the same beach I do…”
“Here,” Ana said, shoving her the lantern and shimmying over to me. Give me the ants, please, rather than this. I shriveled like a hypocrite.
Ana must’ve noticed me cringing. “Even you, Pav? You act like you’ve never had two beautiful women bandage your combat wounds before.”
“Only Jacques and my friend Farrukh. Neither were as gentle…” Quick glance at each of them. My passivity had passed. “Nor as beautiful.”
Immediate regret. What had I been thinking? Heather was intensely preoccupied with the lantern. Ana laughed as she constricted the bandage. “That was almost smooth! There’s hope for you yet.”
Was that a compliment? Either way, she was right. My lungs pumped hope like elating helium.
Ana tied the bandage off and put a hand on my knee. “For real, you okay? That was some scare you had.”
My legs throbbed against her handiwork, the sensation comforting. I was alive. Better, two women outside my family had laid hands on me, despite my horrible flirting attempt. Her touch was like fire. “I’m good. Let’s keep going.”
“Heather? What, one glimpse of Pav undressing and your hands are shaking so bad you can’t light it?”
“It’s harder than it looks,” I said, trying to save her some face.
“Give it here,” Ana said, and fiddled around for a minute. I pulled up my tattered trousers and looked over at Heather. She jerked her head away. Strange, how my legs still throbbed when all my blood was in my face. “Come on…aha! Got it!”
“Not as easy as you might think,” I said, trying to recover my composure.
“Only because you dropped and nearly broke it! Let’s go.”
This time Ana beelined for the end of the corridor, barely glancing into adjacent rooms. “Lounge…dining room…kitchen…”
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“That room was the soldiers’ barracks, but Pradeep was the lord of this castle. We need to find his quarters, and they’re probably upstairs. I just want to make sure there aren’t any more fermids around here, or any more lightning swords.”
“Didn’t the one that attacked me come from upstairs?” I asked.
“Yeah, which means it’s probably empty now.”
I doubted her reasoning, but she had the lightning sword, which meant I wasn’t going to stray far. Stairs rose at the end of the corridor. Ana took them two at a time. I struggled up after, my fresh wounds flaring. Heather stayed by my side, presumably in case I fell.
“Hey,” Ana said, and like trained dogs, we hurried after her. The lantern light revealed a spacious room with a bed, desk, and even a bookshelf. A massive fireplace engulfed one wall, and a dining table racked with bottles and condiments stretched before it. Along the other wall, a tapestry hung. A ladder rose from the far side to a trapdoor in the ceiling; there were no other entrances to the room, and no ominous holes. Ana said, “Look for journals, weapons, anything interesting.” She began ransacking the wardrobe, eyeing at the chest at the foot of the bed.
I checked out the bookshelf, which was mainly stocked with real-world novels. Above the bed, an embroidered sign hung: “Top off the defenses.” Was that some obscure creed or just a bedtime reminder?
“I found something!” Heather said. She stood over the desk, squinting at papers in her hands. “Bring that lantern over.”
Ana looked forlornly at the chest but obeyed. “What is it?”
“Post,” Heather said. “‘Dear Brother… Sincerely, Vedanth Lokesh, Lord of the Vale’!”
“The warlock of the west,” I breathed. My eyes flew across the paper, but Heather was a step ahead.
“‘I truly am sorry about the condition of Geeta, but the blame cannot rest at my feet. It’s only my job, after all. But I will take pity upon you. Her Amulet of Reverse Transformation alone won’t be enough: you must either slay the Mollusking or find a Nullifier. You may call upon me at the Durg, though how you will manage to get her here, I leave up to you.’”
There was a small portrait on the desk of a clean-shaven Indian man smiling, with his arm around a pretty woman. Pradeep and Geeta.
“Sounds promising,” Ana said.
After a second, Heather put the letter in her pack. “I also found these,” a pewter flask with a lightning bolt symbol etched into the side and a gold amulet with a sunstone setting. “‘Acquired Amulet of Reverse Transformation: +100’!”
“The amulet from the letter,” I said, “and?”
Heather unscrewed the flask. A little blue light leaked out, the same as was imbued into Bluehearth’s walls, the same as was missing from the walls of this fortress. It smelled sour. “Storm mana,” Heather said.
“Should we drink it?” Ana asked.
“Maybe as a last resort,” Heather said ominously.
That pulled me from the excitement of discovery. We were still in a horrible ant dungeon.
“Is it possible that it could be the Storm’s Breath?” Ana asked.
I thought about it. We had no idea what the Storm’s Breath looked like. I’d envisioned a little storm cloud in a bottle.
“We can find out later,” I said. “We should go. There may be more fermids.”
Ana and Heather fell silent, listening. I heard it too. The skittering of fermids.
“Out, now!” Ana said, but before she’d taken two steps toward the stairwell, three fermids emerged. Ana shouted and charged, swinging her Lightning Blade. The flash of her strike gleamed on my rapier as I rushed after. The first jittered with electrocution, but as Ana struggled to wrench free her vibrating sword, the second lunged. Ana weaved back, leaving her new sword and drawing her old. I stabbed at the one which had attacked her, but trepidation slowed me. My thrust deflected off carapace, and I ended up face to face with the beast. At least I got its attention.
Bad idea. It lowered its head and slammed into me, sending me crashing into the dining table. Bottles shattered, but my padded cap softened the impact. Some oil splashed down the back of my neck and shirt. The fermid turned around.
I sat dazed. Ana was doing her best to lunge for the joins in their armor, but I could see her reluctance, wary of spurting acid. Her figure danced in the dim lantern light. Where was Heather? Over there, chugging the mystery potion, her face illuminated in cold hues.
I staggered up, gritting teeth against pain in my ribs. Ana retreated, her new sword still unrecovered, though the fermid in which it was embedded had ceased vibrating.
“What did it do?” I shouted at Heather, who was still drinking. After a moment, instead of answering, she dashed for a button on a wall.
The room exploded in light. I blinked away ghosts, and realized a chandelier hanging in the middle of the room shone with the now-familiar blue light.
The fermids were unfazed. One went for Ana, the other for Heather.
Not again. I limped over, intersecting its path. As my inevitable end approached, I thrust. My rapier scratched along exoskeleton and caught a chink in the thorax. I ducked the acid, but the fermid’s momentum meant I had to release the sword or else have my finger torn off.
It kept going right past me, regardless of the wound. Toward Heather.
She had the wisdom not to stand her ground, instead rushing for the ladder at the back of the room. She surged up and twisted the ring in the trapdoor with an outstretched hand. It creaked as it swung down. She scrambled up, away from the fermid snapping at her ankles. A moment later, warm daylight cascaded down, a stark contrast to the chill blue glow of the chandelier.
The fermid would not be dissuaded. It began clawing at the ladder, trying to figure out the best way to ascend. I rushed over. No reaction. I withdrew my sword and took my time to aim, then thrust my rapier deep into an eye. The impact on the carapace from the inside sent a jolt up my arm. I careened away from the acid spray, then watched as it convulsed in its death throes.
> A notification flashed, but I was busy sheltering under the table. Too late, I remembered my companion. “Ana, acid!”
Ana was deep into a lunge, fending off the remaining fermid. She heard my cry but had only an instant to glance at the shuddering corpse of the one I’d slain. Then she dove forward, toward her opponent. The corpse exploded with pop and sizzle, but the final fermid shielded Ana from the acid. She regained her feet, shoved away from her opponent, and returned to her defensive stance.
Three more fermids clambered from the stairwell. Quick math: four is greater than two. “Ladder!”
I raced for it and started climbing without a second thought. Only nearing the top did I look back for Ana. Her face was stone determination as she danced around the four monsters. “Ana!” I reminded her, then I was gone. There was a dark crawlspace above the ceiling, and a few feet later, another trapdoor leading to the stone roof. Heather clasped my hand and helped me up. I rolled into the crawlspace and leaned my torso down the trapdoor.
Ana sprang onto the ladder a second later, still fending off the monsters with her sword. She spared a glance upward, then leapt. One fermid, seeing its quarry slip away, reared onto its four hind legs and clamped its mandibles around Ana’s boot.
She didn’t cry out, merely smacked into the ladder and thrashed for footing. She looked down, then looked up, and reached for my arm. Our hands clasped, both hot and sweaty and slippery. I felt arms around my waist, heaving me up, as I hauled with what muscle I had. Like pulling on a boulder. I clasped my wrist with my other hand, and Ana reached up as well. The muscles of her forearm trembled. At last, with a sudden burst, she was free, and pushed up with her legs as we reeled her in. She rolled beside me with a gasp. Heather tackled the trapdoor closed and twisted the latch.
Ana’s boot was gone, and red spots bloodied her sock. “You good?” I asked.
“Yeah. Just had to get my foot out of its grip.” Her face and words were taut with pain. Then she wrinkled her nose. “You smell awful.”
“I just saved you, and you’re insulting me?” I sniffed. I did smell like…something.
Heather leaned over for a whiff. “Black vinegar,” she said, without a hint of doubt. Ana and I looked at her with incredulity. She looked at us as if we were simpletons. “Do you not have Chinese takeaway in America?”
