by Evan Currie
Merlin twisted, glaring at him. “You lie.”
“No need for lies. Ibilian was one of us,” Brokkr answered. “We were tasked with blunting the circles’ invasion of this universe . . . Sadly, they outmaneuvered us. None of us saw the plague coming . . . It was smarter than the circles usually manage.”
Merlin seethed for a moment but settled back. “It was an unusual act, given their later tactical . . . limitations.”
“Yes . . . we never figured out who planned that one,” Brokkr admitted. “It was brilliant, though. Completely redirected vast amounts of resources from the war effort and allowed them to take this universe—one of the Nine Pillars of Creation, no less—for themselves with almost no losses . . . by their standards, of course.”
Merlin frowned. “Nine Pillars?”
“Extradimensional metaphysics are slightly deep for discussing here and now,” Brokkr said firmly. “Do you know where my brother is?”
Merlin blinked at the change but quickly accessed that information and frowned.
“He has joined Elan on her mission,” Merlin said.
“Odd. Neither of us are the mission sort,” Brokkr said, grumbling slightly.
“It seems like the demoness in charge here . . .”
“Herself?” Brokkr hissed. “What about that bitch?”
“She took Jolinr from the midst of battle, apparently back to her lair,” Merlin answered, much to Brokkr’s growing alarm. “Since Elan was already heading that way, albeit via a circuitous route, your brother has joined her on her mission.”
“Damn.” Brokkr swept up his axe. “Can you lead me to them?”
Merlin examined him for a moment.
“Please,” the short man said seriously, no hint of sarcasm in his tone.
“Very well. Follow my directions,” Merlin said finally, sounding much put out as he did.
“That’ll be fine.”
*****
Elan was covered in dirt and muck and slime she’d rather not think about as she moved to climb out of the sewers she’d had to navigate to get to the last flood control mechanism, but the job was done, and they were now only a short distance from the tower and the end of both tasks that remained on the board.
“We should have come straight,” she said to Sindri as she stepped up beside the short man, who, somehow, was mostly clean.
“No point,” he told her. “Saving Jol does us little good if we all die because the elder arrive. He’s a big boy. He can survive on his own for a while.”
“What if he can’t?” she demanded through clenched teeth.
“Then he can’t . . . and we mourn him, avenge him, and move on,” Sindri said wearily, then shrugged. “Possibly not in that order.”
The two were moving quickly now, though not quite running, through the streets as they headed for the center of the demon city and the core of its demon control. With all the rioting out and around, it was surprisingly quiet as they approached the tower. Few of the demons in the area bothered to even glance at them as they passed, seemingly under the assumption that they had to be alright if they were this deep in the city.
The great doors at the base of the tower were open as they passed through unchallenged, causing Sindri to snort.
“It can’t be this easy, can it?” Elan asked, beginning to get nervous. She would have preferred straight up fighting over the tension of not knowing when an attack might come.
“Arrogance is a common demonic trait,” Sindri said, “though not limited to them by any means. That said, no, it won’t be this easy. There are few guards here because only the truly insane would beard Herself in her own lair, girl. She’s a Third Circle, the deadliest demon on this world, and she has little fear of us.”
“Then we’ll have to teach her, won’t we?” Elan asked mildly as they continued to walk.
That earned her another snort.
“I suppose we shall.”
Elan swallowed. “I’m going for the controls.”
“Aye.” Sindri nodded. “I’ll go up. If he’s here, he’ll be on the top floor . . . her suite.”
“When I’m done,” Elan said, “if you’re not down, I’m coming up to get you.”
“Don’t be foolish. If I’m not down, I’m dead, and so is Jol,” Sindri snapped. “Do your job and get out of here. This isn’t yours to worry about.”
“If you’re not down, I’m coming up after you,” she repeated as she split off. “Get used to it.”
Sindri watched her walk away, laughing softly.
“Crazy little girl.”
He came to a stop at one of the tower’s elevators and stared at the doors for a moment before stepping up and then through as they opened to admit him.
“Top floor,” he ordered as they closed.
Good luck, child.
*****
Jol grunted as he was slammed into the wall, slowly starting to slide down it before Ser’Goth hammered into the wall on either side of him, cracking the marble alongside his head as she pressed her face in close to his bloody and bruised visage.
“Oh, poor boy can’t take it?” she asked, her tone breathy as she grinned at him. “I always knew you’d end this way, poor, poor Jol. It’s destiny.”
He flinched away as she kissed him, then stepped back and backhanded him off the wall and across the room. He hit the floor in a roll that turned into a slide, stopping abruptly as he struck a wall with a hollow thud. Surprisingly, Jol didn’t think he’d broken any bones that time, though he wasn’t sure if he could tell with any reliability.
He painfully pushed against the ground, struggling to his knees, and then planted one foot down so he could shakily stand up.
Ser’Goth watched, amused as her former pet and current prey stood on unsteady legs and held out bloodied fists in front of him as though he were actually going to fight.
“So strong,” she said, hitting him with her aura enough to make him hesitate as she flashed in beside him, circling around as she traced a line over his shoulder and neck with one finger. “So stupid.”
From behind she struck him, sending him face-first into the marble floor and skidding some distance away while she rolled her eyes.
“You’re so hopeless, Jol, love . . .” she drawled. “Still unable to hold back your baser instinctual weakness. You’re nothing but food, and you really should have learned that by now. It’s a pity, honestly . . . because I would love to have seen what sort of demon you made after a few centuries of the change.”
“You’re one crazy bitch. You know that, I assume?”
Ser’Goth spun around, startled to find a short human standing in the doorway to her suite, a surprisingly large axe in his hand. She recognized him after a second, and her eyes lit up with that recognition.
“You!” she said, genuinely pleased. “Excellent. Thank you ever so much for not making me hunt you down. I’ve been curious about you for a little while now. Former rebel, I assume?”
The man laughed. “Oh, ye have no clue, do you?”
Ser’Goth frowned.
This wasn’t proceeding as she might have expected, but then she hadn’t expected to be confronted in her own suite except on her own terms either. It was when his axe began to glow that she realized that she wasn’t dealing with some run-of-the-mill human.
“Rune blade,” she hissed, eyes darting to where Jol was still lying on the ground.
This was the second runic weapon she’d encountered in rather little time, and she was getting aggravated at what were normally tools of the demons’ trade, albeit rare ones, showing up on the other side.
“You’re going to die slowly,” she said as she stalked closer to the axe wielder, drawing her blade from her hip, “begging for death, unless you tell me where you acquired that axe.”
The man laughed at her.
Laughed!
“The answer to that would just burn you right up,” he told her, “but let’s see if you’re worth answering. My money says . . . you ain’t.”
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Ser’Goth snarled, bringing her sword up fast, and charged.
*****
The metal thump of the staff was followed swiftly by a softer, meatier thump of a body hitting the floor as Elan continued into what had once been a primary control room for the entire city.
She proceeded immediately to a wall panel on the far side and wrenched it open, exposing more of the circuitry she had spent the past several hours modifying in ways that would have horrified the original designers to no end.
“What now?” she hissed softly.
“You’ll have to make a physical connection across the following circuits,” Merlin answered, highlighting the areas in her vision. “Once these hard lines have been drawn, I can alter the coding to do what is required.”
“Why couldn’t you do that before this?” Elan asked as she worked.
“Because no one is quite so foolish as to completely entrust something like this city to a purely software-based system,” Merlin told her. “Coding can be breached and altered from a distance. Hard lines must be altered on-site, which makes them much more secure.”
“We’ve done it easily enough,” she muttered, bypassing a circuit.
“Perhaps, but each time we did, a new alarm was created,” Merlin said. “At its height, those alarms would have brought an army of security and maintenance people down on each of the modifications within minutes. Today . . . well, the demons don’t monitor alarms.”
“Lucky for us,” Elan mumbled, finishing her task. “Done.”
“Good. I will alter the system now,” Merlin told her. “Time to move.”
“Are they down yet?” she asked tensely.
“Elan . . .”
“Merlin, are they down?”
Merlin sighed. “No.”
She nodded determinedly. “Alright, I’m going up.”
“There is no time for this,” Merlin growled as she headed for the elevators.
“If the summoning circle opens . . . flood the city,” she ordered, “whether I’m still here or not.”
*****
Axe and sword clashed, throwing out sparks and blinding flashes of light as the two mystical blades met in opposition.
Ser’Goth glowered down at the little man who was grinning too widely back at her. The smile unnerved her greatly. It seemed as if he had no fears at all, no sense of the threat he was under. It made her wonder just who she was dealing with, but to find that out, she would first have to separate the fool from his toy and then take him apart a piece at a time until he talked.
She broke contact, then swiped down at the little bastard, but he was already rolling clear. The height difference was doubly irritating, and she found herself constantly misjudging and swinging over the little bastard’s head!
“Hold still, you mangy pest!” she snarled, stomping after him, throwing cutting swings as he evaded.
“I’ll go with . . . no to that,” he told her, dodging back several more times before swinging up to block and deflect her blade off with his axe, driving it into the floor and holding it there as he kicked into her legs.
Ser’Goth snarled but kept her leg from buckling and backhanded the little man away.
He hit in a skidding slide, flipping over his shoulder as she lunged after him, and barely made it back to his feet in time to block the next strike.
“Luck like yours should be against all universal laws,” she snarled.
“Since when does your kind care about universal laws?”
Ser’Goth hissed, throwing a flurry of blows at the little man, driving him back step after step as he struggled to block, until she succeeded in driving him into one of the little trophies she kept of earlier conquests. The display tangled up his legs, driving him back to the ground, and she stood over him for a moment as she lifted her blade high.
“One piece at a time, little man,” she growled, swinging at his splayed-out legs.
The blade flashed down, a streak of greenish white magic in its wake, and slammed into a flash of silver white that, in turn, froze it in place.
Ser’Goth howled in rage, eyes following the staff up from where it had blocked her blade to the girl holding it in place. Piercing blue eyes looked back at her, gleaming with barely suppressed power.
“You!” Ser’Goth hissed. “Why. Won’t. You. Die?”
The blonde girl-child just smiled sweetly at her.
“Sorry, I don’t answer to demons . . . especially not hags like you.”
*****
Elan smiled as the demon screamed in rage.
“Hag!” The demoness was outraged. “Hag? You filthy little urchin, what would you know of beauty?”
Elan shrugged, bracing her staff on the floor to keep the leverage of the sword off Sindri while the little man scrambled out from under it.
“I know you clearly don’t have it,” she said blithely. “Have your little minions been lying to you?”
The demoness screamed, drawing her blade back as she snarled.
“Enough of this!” she bellowed, finally giving up on her desire to deal with Jolinr and his new friends personally. “Guards!”
Elan tilted her head to one side, then the other, as she noticed motion in her peripheral vision.
Not good. I thought she was alone . . .
Four figures flickered into being, one at each of the walls, spears tipped with thick blades already in hand.
“Kill these impertinent pieces of filth,” the demoness snarled, waving at Sindri and Elan, who both fell back and shifted to keep all four of the newcomers in their sights.
“Well, this could have gone better,” Sindri said dryly.
“Really?” Elan asked. “You don’t say.”
“Oh, do Shut up.” Sindri grumbled as he got himself ready.
The guards converged on them steadily, marching in lockstep as the demoness stepped back and watched with a gleeful expression.
“You’ve done so much,” she laughed. “Bled and sacrificed, no doubt. Caused me no end of trouble . . . and for what? You fail. Look behind you.”
Elan’s eyes narrowed, but she risked a glance behind her to where a large window overlooked the city. Beyond it, nestled deep in the cluster of buildings, she could see a deep red glow beginning to arise.
“The elder are come,” Ser’Goth announced. “The summoning has begun.”
Elan tensed, her knuckles white around the staff . . . and then she relaxed.
“Merlin,” she said, shocking the demoness into silence by the mention of the name alone. “Do it.”
There was a pause, but then Merlin’s voice reverberated through the room from all sides.
“It is done.”
A shudder went through the building, then another, and two more, and then again . . . and for a moment that seemed to be all.
“What did you just do?” Ser’Goth demanded, eyes wide as she looked about. “What did you do?”
Elan didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to as the floor suddenly tilted, and everyone in the room had to struggle to stay standing up.
They looked out the windows, and they could all see the raging white water of the ocean as it began to rush into the city, the streets vanishing below the rising tide as the entire city tilted into the sea.
*****
People screamed as the floor beneath them shifted, threatening to spill them to the ground.
Merlin remained fixed in place, watching over the people as they were steered into the transport system as quickly as he could manage.
“Do not panic!” he called as calmly as he could project. “The doors will hold. Proceed to transport as you’ve been instructed, stay calm, and everything will be fine.”
While he was guiding the people, part of his focus was elsewhere.
Mapping alternate evacuation points . . .
Merlin searched all available assets, looking for ways the others could escape the city, even as it went down. There were few potential routes, sadly, but there were some.
He located Brokkr, who was already at the tower, and linked into the closest open communications system.
“Brokkr, the city is going to sink,” Merlin said, surprised slightly by how little sadness he felt about that.
“Yeah, I sort of got that. What happened?” the little man snapped, still heading for the elevator.
“The summoning was complete. Elan gave the order to initiate,” Merlin said.
Brokkr chuckled, amused by it all. A child with the guts to make a call like that was rare enough, but one who actually had the sense to do so at the correct time . . . that was one for the books.
“She’d have made a good combat elite,” he said, nodding.
“She would indeed. I have been plotting alternate egress points,” Merlin said.
“Have one for me?”
“Indeed. Do not go to the top floor. Instead . . .”
Brokkr listened closely as the elemental intelligence spoke.
Chapter 27
Elan twisted as the demon lunged at her, evading as he tried to skewer her with the polearm he wielded, snapping her own staff out and clipping his knee on the edge of the ever increasing angle of the floor. His leg buckled under the stress, and as he toppled, she danced over the sweep of the polearm and spun, whipping the staff around until it cracked into his skull and sent him spinning on his way.
The angle of the floor wasn’t extreme yet, but it felt worse somehow than it seemed to be. She wasn’t sure, but Elan suspected that the building was twisting under the strain, and the top floor was somehow falling faster than the rest.
She didn’t know why she thought that—it seemed a strange thought to her—but she was certain of only one thing . . . they needed to get out of there before the strain became too much.
Or before the ocean swallows us whole. Either option seems horrible.
“This is bad!” Sindri shouted.
Elan cast him an incredulous look. “Really? I wouldn’t have guessed!”
“Is this really the time for teenage sarcasm?” he countered, blocking a strike from one of the demonic guards.
