by Alec Hutson
That feeling – of a terrible pressure lifting as she expelled what had been suffocating her – was the closest she could come to describing what it was like when the bone amulet settled against her skin. She had been drowning, then wrenched from the depths. The fog that had settled over her thoughts since this cursed place had appeared on the horizon had lifted almost immediately. She was whole again, untainted by the evil of this place.
Despite this, she still felt some trepidation when they finally stood on the threshold of the great door. Its size defied all reason – why would anyone bother creating an entrance so vast? Was there actually something so large that this door had been necessary? It soared a thousand span high, at least, and she suspected that the tiny shapes turning gyres far up where the doorway merged with the rock of the mountain were the same great northern falcons the Skein had kept as hunting birds in Nes Vaneth.
The scale of the Burrow’s entrance was not the only reason it was so unnerving. She could see no hinges on the great doors, and everywhere she looked the stone was as smooth and unblemished as if it were freshly hewn. Yet this place was many thousands of years old, she’d heard Alyanna say, older than the oldest of the holdfasts.
The sun had risen further as they ascended, and the threshold of the entrance was almost perfectly demarcated by the unnaturally straight shadow of the lintel high above. They hesitated before crossing this line. A tunnel stretched away, and it seemed to dwindle in front of them before finally terminating in a tiny circle of hazy light. Cho Lin couldn’t tear her eyes from the unseen depths, imagining the Betrayers crouched in the darkness waiting to ambush them as they passed. She held tight to the Nothing, her fingers curled around the hilt of the black knife.
The shadows suddenly fled as the sorceress summoned a roiling sphere of pale wizardlight, revealing the walls that had been hidden; they were as smooth and featureless as the doors, bereft of cracks or ornamentation.
The floor, though, was very different. Straight, shallow channels were incised into the stone, wide enough for a man to walk down, as if water had once flowed through this vast antechamber. And the paths between were inlaid with spiraling designs made of smooth black and white stones. Every dozen paces or so a glistening dark gem was set at the center of one of these strange arrangements.
As they crept down the passage, she watched the sorceress sidelong. Cho Lin’s thoughts had been so muddled earlier that she hadn’t been able to truly consider what the demon shapechanger had claimed in the confusion of the battle’s aftermath. She’d been shocked to see it there, her tormentor, wrapped in chains and near death. The monster had said Alyanna had been responsible for her father’s death? That the sorceress had been trying to protect the Betrayers by murdering her father? No. That was impossible. She had seen the ashes in the snow. Alyanna was not an ally of the children – she was trying to destroy them. The nature of demons was to lie, to sow discord. And yet . . .
Cho Lin shook her head to banish these thoughts. She had to be completely focused.
They had traversed about half the length of this long entranceway when Alyanna’s wizardlight suddenly sputtered and went out. Cho Lin tensed, drawing the black knife, her awareness sharpening as she seized the Nothing. But no demons lunged from the darkness, and after a moment the pale ball of light swelled again.
“What happened?” Keilan asked.
“I don’t know,” Alyanna replied. She sounded perfectly calm, which Cho Lin suspected meant that she was actually quite unnerved.
“Then you didn’t intend to do that?”
“No. My sorcery simply . . . failed, for a moment.”
That unsettled Cho Lin. “Does such a thing happen often?”
“It does not,” Alyanna replied with a trace of irritability. “Keilan, summon your wizardlight. Let us see if that happens again.”
Keilan nodded and his own wizardlight appeared. While the sorceress’s sphere was smooth and unblemished, his rippled with crackling energy, and Cho Lin could see the concentration in his face necessary for maintaining the spell. He had nowhere near the same mastery as Alyanna.
They continued on, the illuminated doorway ahead of them swelling larger. It looked like one of the curved moon gates that were popular in the gardens of her homeland. They had nearly reached it when again they were plunged into darkness, both wizardlights extinguished simultaneously. Keilan let out a surprised gasp when his sorcery fizzled.
“It was just gone,” he murmured as Alyanna crafted a new wizardlight.
“There are strange forces surging here,” the sorceress said. “Leaking through from the Void . . . and perhaps elsewhere. There was once speculation that the Ancients persist in several different realms of existence at once, and the rules of this world might not be the only ones that hold sway here. Whatever it is, our power is being disrupted. We must be cautious.” She started forward again, then turned back to Keilan. “Set your ward, Keilan. If it falters, remake it when you can. I do not know what we will find within.”
They had their sorcery, and Cho Lin had the Nothing within the Self. For the last hundred paces before they arrived at the doorway, she kept her mind empty except for the mantra of Red Fang. The self my nothing, the self my nothing . . . Whatever awaited them, she would be ready.
It was not what she expected. Alyanna was first through the rounded doorway, preceded by her wizardlight. Cho Lin followed close behind, brandishing the black knife, and she nearly collided with the sorceress, who had suddenly halted.
“By all the dead gods,” Alyanna breathed, awed by the immensity of what lay before them.
They stood on a ledge overlooking a vast cavern. No, not a cavern – it seemed like the entirety of the Burrow had been purposefully hollowed, as the walls stretching away from either side of them were unnaturally smooth. How high the space soared Cho Lin couldn’t see, as the ceiling was lost to the darkness. It was almost like looking up at the sky on a starless night, such was the immensity. The light they’d seen earlier came from a softly glowing mist blanketing the floor far below them. It roiled like it was being blown about by a wind she could not feel. And half-submerged in this luminous fog was a stone city, the likes of which she had never seen before. There were no towers, or rooftops, or any other kind of structure that she had encountered on her travels. Most of the buildings were featureless stone spheres of various sizes, the tops of their curving domes emerging from the mist like bubbles on a witch’s cauldron. In the distance she could vaguely see that the far wall rising up over this subterranean city was a different color, a sort of grayish white.
“That is where we need to go,” Alyanna said, pointing across the sweeping expanse of the city spread below them.
“How do you know?” Cho Lin asked.
“That’s a glacier, isn’t it?” Keilan said, stepping to the edge of the ledge and peering at the distant discolored wall.
“It’s not ice,” Alyanna said softly. Then she cocked her head to one side, her eyes narrowing. “Listen.”
Cho Lin concentrated. Yes; there was a sound rising up from below. Some kind of steady, rhythmic pounding. Now that she noticed it, her whole body seemed to be pulsing in time to that deep cadence. “Drums? Someone has seen us?”
The sorceress shook her head. “No.” She pursed her lips, crouching beside where Keilan stood and peering over the edge. “Ah!” she exclaimed. “There are holds cut into the rock here. Perhaps from when the Min-Ceruthans first breached this place. We can climb down that way.”
“Why don’t you just fly?” Keilan asked.
“You saw what happened to our wizardlight,” Alyanna replied, already swinging over the side and lowering herself until her feet found something to stand on. “What if my sorcery fails mid-flight?”
“Wait,” Cho Lin said, unnerved by the sea of churning mist and what could be hiding within its depths. “What is that sound?”
Alya
nna paused her descent, looking back up at Cho Lin. “The heartbeat of a god, Shan.” She indicated the far wall with her chin. “And that is its flesh. It’s where we must go to find the Chosen.”
Keilan had never known he had a fear of heights, but he had also never clung to the side of a sheer rock wall far above a dead city. The holds that had been cut into the stone were easy to grasp, and there were small ledges as well for his feet, but still he had to pretend that he was not one missed step away from plunging to his death, or he might have frozen, unable to continue. As it was, his hands were growing disconcertingly slick, and he had to keep wiping them on his furs when he reached down for the next hold. He wished they could have used the chavenix, but Alyanna had made it clear she wasn’t sure if the disc would be affected by the strange sorcerous currents that had earlier extinguished their wizardlights.
Cho Lin had insisted she precede him down the wall, and she must have sensed his nervousness, as she kept talking to him soothingly as they descended. If the foothold was shallower than the others, she told him. If the handholds were spaced farther than usual, she let him know. The Shan sounded perfectly calm, as if she was used to scaling such dizzying heights.
“Think of nothing except the feel of the stone under your fingers and toes,” she said, her words floating up from below. “Make sure your grip is sure before you step down again. Are you doing all right?”
“Yes,” he replied, fighting to keep his voice steady.
“Good. We are almost halfway.”
That was meant to cheer him, he knew, but instead Keilan’s heart fell. He hadn’t looked down since starting this descent, and he had kept his spirits up by imagining that they were nearing the bottom.
He breathed out slowly and gingerly lowered his leg, searching for the next ledge.
A sound came from beneath them, and before Keilan could catch himself, he glanced down. He saw Cho Lin, right below him, and beyond her was Alyanna, and far, far beneath the sorceress was the swirling, glowing mist, its surface broken by the rounded tops of the stone city’s buildings.
And something else. His attention was drawn to a patch of mist roiling more fiercely than the rest, as if stirred by something within . . .
A black shape erupted from the depths, great wings churning the mist.
“Hold to the rock!” Cho Lin screamed, and he tore his gaze from the rising creature. He clung as tightly as he could to the wall, his cheek pressed against the stone.
Keilan expected a piercing shriek as the thing surged higher, but it kept so silent that he could hear the leathery flap of its wings. He whimpered, the strength draining from his arms and legs. Then he was buffeted by winds as it passed him, and something hard struck his shoulder. Pain lanced down his arm, and his fingers slipped from the hold. He was falling; Keilan screamed as the emptiness closed around him.
A hand seized his wrist and his plunge was abruptly arrested, though his momentum sent him swinging hard into the wall. Pain erupted in his face and shoulder, and his vision was consumed with flashes of light. When these cleared a moment later, he glanced up, dazed. Cho Lin was hanging from the wall by one hand; with the other she had grabbed his wrist. Through the fog of his thoughts, Keilan struggled to understand how his weight hadn’t torn her from the wall and sent them both plummeting.
“Find a grip on the wall,” Cho Lin said, and though her face was calm he could hear the strain in her voice.
Keilan scrabbled for purchase with his free hand, his feet scraping stone as they sought for a ledge. A moment later he found one, and he immediately saw the relief in her face as his weight vanished.
“Are you ready for me to let go?”
“Yes.” He pressed his forehead to the stone, his head still ringing. The thought of what had almost happened was seeping into his consciousness, and his stomach felt like it was full of ice.
“What was that thing?” he called up, not quite ready yet to continue the descent.
“I don’t know,” Cho Lin said. “It looked like a snake with wings. A big snake. The tip of its tail struck your shoulder as it went by.”
Keilan peered past Cho Lin into the darkness obscuring the ceiling. Would that thing come swooping down to try and knock them off again? His hands were shaking now, and it took all his willpower to make them stop.
Alyanna seemed to hear his thoughts. “Hurry, Keilan,” the sorceress called up from below. “You’re in the middle now. If that thing returns, it will go for the Shan, not you.”
He guessed he was supposed to find comfort in that, but he knew he couldn’t grab Cho Lin if she came tumbling past.
“I’ll be fine,” the Shan said. “I promise. Just keep moving.”
The flying creature did not reappear, and after what seemed like an eternity the first tongues of cool mist licked his exposed skin, making his hands even slicker than they already were. Soon he was enveloped entirely, and Cho Lin was just a hazy dark shape above him. He couldn’t help but imagine other creatures lurking in the fog, waiting to strike, but he did not hear the stirring of wings. His arms and fingers were burning, and he couldn’t imagine having to pull himself back up the same way.
“I’m at the bottom.” The sorceress’s voice was muffled, but Keilan knew she wasn’t too far ahead of him, and he felt a great swell of relief.
He glanced down after descending a bit farther and there she was, her beautiful upturned face emerging from the mist.
“That must have been terrifying for you,” she said when he finally stood on solid ground again, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder as he stumbled slightly. “I saw you fall. The Shan is stronger than she looks.”
“I almost died,” Keilan said shakily.
“Oh, no. I was prepared to catch you with sorcery.”
Keilan scowled. “Why not tell me that?”
Alyanna chuckled at his evident annoyance. “Because there was a chance my sorcery would fail, as our wizardlights did in the entrance hall. Also, I wanted to test your mettle. Both of you.”
Cho Lin had almost reached the bottom as well, and she dropped the last few span, landing lightly. She must have heard what Alyanna said, as she snorted.
“You need not worry about me, sorceress,” she said, then jerked her head towards Keilan. “Or him. He made that climb without your sorcery or my training. Your only concern should be finding the Betrayers.”
Rubbing his aching arms, Keilan turned away from the sorceress and the Shan. The thick mist obscured their surroundings, but he saw dark shapes looming out of the gloom – the buildings he had seen from above, he assumed. Some were small and completely shrouded by the mist, but others were surprisingly large, as big as the gatehouses of the great cities he had passed through in his travels. The rock beneath his boots was not like the cave where the Dymorians had hidden after their defeat; the ground here was made of interlocking stones that had been smoothed and leveled. It looked like one of the main thoroughfares in Vis or Lyr, though fashioned by stonemasons of even more exquisite skill.
“What is this place?” Keilan asked, peering into the mist.
Alyanna came to stand beside him. “A relic from before the age of man. Built by creatures that have long since vanished.”
Keilan thought back to his lessons with his grandmother, reclining on a faded velvet couch while she explained how the millstone of time had ground countless other races to dust.
“What happened to them?” Keilan asked.
Alyanna shrugged. “Who knows? But I have some theories as to why they built this place.”
“And those are?” Cho Lin said, appearing next to Keilan.
“They feared the Ancient would wake, just as we do now. Perhaps they also worshipped it as a god. Or maybe they wished to mine the strange energies that swirl around the beast. It seems to infringe upon other realities, and something of those places leaks through. First and foremos
t, though, they must have known that if it woke, their world would end. So they constructed this city here, and filled it with their most powerful sorcerers, to soothe the Worm back to sleep when it threatened to wake.”
“Are there dangers here?” Cho Lin asked, her hand on the hilt of one of her swords.
“I would expect so,” Alyanna said, and Keilan felt her strengthening the weave of her ward. “But I have no idea what they might be.”
“Which way?” Keilan asked, and Alyanna let out a long breath.
“That way?” the sorceress replied, gesturing vaguely into the glowing murk. “I tried to get a sense of the way we should go before we descended into the mist, but I must confess I don’t think I’ll be able to guide us perfectly.”
“To the Worm,” Keilan said, remembering the great wall of white flesh.
“Yes.”
He sighed, straightening his shoulders. “Let us be off, then.”
The stone city reminded him of the lichyard in Theris. There was no sign that it had ever been inhabited by the living; he peered inside the rounded doorways of one of the spherical buildings and found it completely empty, without any sort of furniture or other fragments of everyday life, the walls bereft of design or decoration. A ramp without a railing or balustrade spiraled higher onto a second story, but neither Alyanna nor Cho Lin seemed interested in exploring this place, and so he pulled himself away from the abandoned structure and hurried to keep up with them as they pushed onward through the luminescent mist.
Aside from the buildings, there were a few other oddities that they encountered. At the confluence of several streets, a sculpture had been erected – it looked like a great stone tree, its empty branches covered in thorns. Curled around the base of the trunk was a great centipede, and for a moment Keilan thought it was part of the statue as well. Then the centipede lifted its head drowsily, fixed its slitted yellow eyes on them, and clacked a warning with its serrated mandibles. Keilan felt sorcery surge in Alyanna, but before she could weave an attack the centipede uncoiled itself from the tree and slithered off into the mist.
