by Demi Harper
With a splintering crack, Bruce broke the yoke. The badger barreled toward the safety of the bank and kept running once he reached the other side, his wet fur stained with blood. I saw Pan break away from the other children to run after him, chased by Emrys, and I knew Bruce was in safe hands.
Bruce’s breakout had left a long crack down the front of the outer frame, and the chariot was filling with water. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if not for the emberfox. She’d been huddled behind the ark this entire time, and I’d forgotten she was even there. Recognizing the danger, Gneil lifted her up and placed her carefully on the chariot’s outer frame, the highest point. But another crack, this time from the footboard, warned that more damage had been done than I first thought. The chariot began to list to one side, and Gneil was forced to focus on holding on to the ark, which threatened to slide completely into the water.
“Pyra!”
His fear apparently forgotten, Benin waded into the stream, heading straight for the beleaguered chariot. The emberfox perched atop the ark, baring her teeth at the water below and barking with every violent shift of the chariot.
“Take the water away,” the mage was muttering.
He wasn’t the only one fixed on saving a loved one. Abandoning her position on the bank, General Hoppit sprinted to where the first wagons had been brought further inland. With a few practiced movements, she unyoked Steelpaw from his wagon, swung herself up onto his back and the pair of them charged into the water. She called out instructions to her captains, Serene and Magnus, who began relaying orders to the warriors. Those in the water converged on the panicking badgers, forming protective circles around the animals, while those on the bank loaded stonebows and strung shortbows, scrambling up onto the scattered rocks in hopes the increased elevation would let them better spot our attackers.
The scouts joined them, led by Longshank, who strode fearlessly back into the water, armed not with his hunter’s stonebow but a warrior’s spear.
The warriors already protecting the chariot held their ground, though some of them were chest-deep in water. They were clearly terrified, but Ris’kin’s presence kept them steady. The acolytes who’d reached the shore were whimpering, and the children on the far bank, though they’d been herded well away from the water, were screaming and wailing at the sight of blood.
The air crackled with energy. Everything felt suddenly heavy, slow, like the pregnant pause before a storm. Benin was standing just upstream from the chariot. His feet were planted firmly, and his hands were held out in front of him. Arcane energy wove itself around his dancing fingers, blue-white sparks one moment, tendrils of flame the next.
“You do know that summoning lightning will likely fry us all, right?” I called to him.
The mage grunted. Bekkit replied for him. “There will be no frying. Watch.”
“There’s no time—”
The air shimmered in front of Benin. He grunted again, sweat pouring down his face as he focused his energy on the swirling circle appearing before him.
With an enormous effort, he pulled one hand away from the spell and pointed it to the side, at the grassy bank we’d just left. Another circle appeared there, hovering a few inches above the ground.
“Now?” he gasped.
“Now!” said Bekkit.
The fingers on both Benin’s hands splayed wide, and suddenly the floating circle was spewing water onto our former campsite. The one in front of Benin—and in front of the chariot—was a shimmering silver void.
“A portal?!” Ket and I both exclaimed.
The river still ran on either side of the portal as usual, but the magical field it emitted meant the space directly behind it was no longer subject to the current. As the water began to drain away, its depth dropping dramatically, I started to see shapes flopping in the shallow puddle that remained.
One of the shapes tried to lunge at Hoppit, who was now helping Gneil lift the ark down from the stranded chariot. Quick as a striking tree-viper, Longshank thrust his spear into the creature and lifted it from the water for all to see.
The warriors recoiled from the toothy fish, gripping their weapons more tightly as they escorted Gneil and Hoppit to the shore, avoiding the deepest puddles and flopping shapes. Longshank made to follow them, but another beached fangfin threw itself at him, and razor teeth—perhaps the very teeth that had already torn apart two gnomes this day—closed around his leg.
The hunter glared down at the fish, much larger than the others. Its crimson eye stared balefully up at the hunter as it gnawed futilely on his wooden leg. He jabbed his spear through its eye and twisted. It fell still, its teeth still clamped around his prosthetic calf. Longshank tried to pry it off with the end of his spear, but it held fast. Grumbling, he began to limp to shore, dragging the heavy fish behind him.
“I can’t hold this thing open much longer!” Benin warned through gritted teeth. The circles were looking rougher around the edges than they had before, as though the magic sustaining them was beginning to fray.
The emberfox had bounded along the muddy ground and clambered up to Benin’s shoulder. Longshank was well on his way to shore, accompanied by his dead hitchhiker. Hoppit had already climbed up onto the far bank and was helping Gneil up as well. The pair of them reached down together to pull the ark up after them. Ris’kin lifting it up from underneath, while Sir Fura offered chattering encouragement from further up the bank.
A thunderous crack rent the air. When I looked back at the portals, they were edged with fire.
“Let go!” Bekkit urged. “You have to let go! You’re almost dry!” I knew he wasn’t referring to the absence of water.
“I can’t!”
The mage’s voice shook. Not even when he’d been lost in tunnels following the death of his teammate Lila had he sounded so scared.
“The fire does not control you. You control the fire,” Bekkit was saying. “You must re-balance the elements, otherwise it cannot end!”
The circles spun faster, the orange flames taking on a blue tinge. Tongues of flame licked the air as the portals began to roar and groan, as though struggling to contain a force much greater than they were meant to hold.
“Control it, Benin!” Ket cried. “You’re going to burn out. Don’t let that happen! You can’t!”
My heart broke a little bit at the helplessness in her voice. I’d heard it before, a long time ago, when I’d almost used all my mana on Observe. It was the way she herself had been destroyed as a Core, and I knew she’d never come back from watching it happen to someone else, even though there was nothing she could do here.
Though his hands were still raised toward the portals, Benin dropped to his knees, red-stained water soaking into his crimson pyromancer’s robes.
Then the emberfox barked. Swirling lines of fire passed between her and the mage on whose shoulder she clung. The orange tendrils passed through and into him in a way that was reassuringly familiar; I’d seen the same thing happen with my gem countless times, except in my case it had been neutral mana rather than fire essence.
“No!” Bekkit shouted.
The portals began to stabilize. The chaotic fire around their edges subsided, and the surface returned to its original shimmering silver. Yet Bekkit’s distress pulsed across our bond like a fresh burn.
“What have you done?” he whispered.
His face drawn, Benin stared at him blankly. “We bonded. We finally bonded. She stopped me from burning out. She saved me!”
“You added fire to fire,” Bekkit countered. “You enforced the other elements’ compliance rather than instigating balance. Opposing forces will always fight back when subdued rather than negotiated with!”
“What do you m—”
The portals flared orange. Then the roaring I’d heard earlier was back. The spinning circles grew wider, blue-gray swirls now bordering them like waves. Longshank glanced up at the portal in front of the abandoned chariot and immediately began limping more quickly toward t
he shore. Gneil gawked at it for a moment, then Hoppit elbowed him and the pair returned to trying to haul the ark up the bank. She called for aid and a couple of nearby warriors scurried over to help.
Benin gasped. Then the portal in front of him imploded. A torrent of water poured from the space the circle had occupied, crashing white waves looking for a moment like white horses determined to trample everything in front of them.
The mage surged to his feet and threw himself to the side, lifting the emberfox above his head with the last strength in his arms. The torrent smashed into the chariot, breaking it into pieces and carrying it away. It spread out and caught Longshank as well, the hunter managing to yell before he was swept under.
I registered a distressed cry from the bank. My high cleric was staring down at the rushing water, held back from diving in by the tribe’s general. Both were staring at the ark, which was now bobbing away from them with the current. A white-foamed wave battered the holy box, dislodging the lid. It tipped to one side; I caught a glimmer of purple, and then everything went black.
Fifty-Two
Uldrazir
Zerin / Corey
The sound of rushing water engulfed me, but it was soon swallowed by silence. I could see and hear nothing.
Then blue-green light tinged the darkness. I was no longer floating on nothingness, but standing in front of a door. It was hewn from some sort of black bone gilded with silver, and was carved with angular depictions of a woman and a spider. In my night-skinned fingers was a knife.
Unbidden, my hand twisted the dagger in the lock, and the door eased open with a quiet snick.
Just like that, everything clicked into place. The lingering confusion about who I was, where I was, was gone, replaced only with the certainty that this was me, and I’d been here before.
I stood back and nodded at the black-robed figure across the street. The roachlights on the cavern ceiling were too dim to illuminate his features—nighttime in the subterranean city of Uldrazir was scarcely brighter than the Netherdark itself—but I recognized him anyway. night elf darkvision is, after all, second to none.
After a brief nod to acknowledge my signal, the robed man—Draykon, I remembered, one of my oldest, and, let’s face it, only friends—gestured to the other figures who shared the shadows with him. Their knives gleamed dully in the darkness. One by one, they crept across to the manse and slipped through the now-open door.
Everything was going exactly to plan…
… for now.
Yes, I remembered this night. I couldn’t recall exactly how it had ended, but since I seemed to be re-living it through my former self’s very eyes, I suspected I’d find out very soon.
The High Priest’s manse was designed for show, not security. Breaking in had been almost embarrassingly easy. Furthermore, the silence from within suggested he employed no guards, or any other sort of staff who might actually fight back.
Is the man really so arrogant as to believe he’s untouchable?
I allowed myself a silent, humorless laugh at the irony of my former self’s own arrogance.
My patron had insisted the high priest was crucial to tonight’s ritual, and so here we were. If anyone caught us, it would be a short trip to a long drop—specifically, the Convicts’ Gorge—for me and everyone else involved.
But none of that would matter for much longer. Soon, I would be a god. A god!
My patron—Melakor, he called himself, I remembered now—hadn’t specified what tonight’s ritual would entail, other than that it required the blood of the high priest. I wasn’t too worried. I’d come to trust him; Melakor had given valuable advice over the past few months, and demonstrated extraordinary power of his own, all of which had led to tonight.
As the last of the knife-bearers crossed the threshold, the two figures bringing up the procession’s rear halted. Moving with the deadly grace of a cave panther, Draykon padded to my side and squeezed my shoulder reassuringly before following our underlings into the manse.
The second figure remained where she was, arms folded, a frown creasing her forehead. “‘Are you sure about this?”’ she asked for what I knew was the fifth or sixth time.
Khazla didn’t quite share my faith in my patron, asserting on several occasions that he was about as trustworthy as a tapeworm. To be fair, I could understand her suspicions.
When I’d first found Melakor six months ago—all five inches or so of him—even I had my doubts about him. But while his modus operandi wasn’t exactly conventional, that could only be a good thing given my lack of success using more established methods of my kind.
It’s not like I hadn’t tried other ways. Traditional ways. For years I’d toiled, fourth son of a minor noble family, scrabbling against my parents’ oppressive disappointment since the very hour of my birth, when I was narrowly spared the traditional ritual sacrifice of every fourth child. The knife had been about to drop when a messenger had delivered news of the timely (or untimely, depending on whom you asked) death of my eldest brother in the Blood Wars.
Despite that impromptu and life-saving promotion to the position of third child, the younger me had proved disappointingly inept beneath my family’s grudging tutelage. As I grew older, and increasingly unlikely to excel at the traditional night elf ways of gaining influence—political intrigue, verbal sparring, backstabbing of both the metaphorical and literal kind—my parents had done the only reasonable thing they could think of: given me to the Temple of Arachnia, Spider Goddess of the Nightfolk.
There, I labored for almost a decade as a lowly acolyte, fuming at the injustice—silently, of course. The high priest’s gilded scepter came down hard on those who complained aloud about their lot in life, especially when he judged serving the goddess to be the highest of callings despite our positions as glorified caretakers of her temple.
Khazla and Draykon had already found themselves in the same position just a few weeks prior to my own induction into the temple, though they’d come from slightly humbler beginnings—the son of a commoner mage and the daughter of a dust-rat—and therefore (one might argue) deserved their ignoble fate much more than I.
But we were each outcasts in our own way—had literally been cast out by those who were meant to protect if not cherish us—and the three of us soon discovered that when we stuck together, survival was less a possibility than it was a guarantee. Better yet, we didn’t just have to survive; we could also live, despite the best efforts of the other acolytes to grind us down.
Still, it was a hard, miserable existence. Until now.
A few months ago, myself and some of the other acolytes were entrusted with restoring and categorizing the contents of the ancient crypts that spread across multiple floors beneath the temple. Some of the deeper tombs had lain untouched for centuries, and simply unearthing their contents had been no small task in itself. Traps, pitfalls, vermin, and other hidden dangers had made the work as treacherous as it was difficult, though it’d at least kept things interesting.
We found the vault sometime during the third week. By that time we’d all seen (and swept, polished or repaired) enough mummified corpses, shrunken heads, organ jars, cursed weapons, and articulated skeletons of long-extinct beasts, that I no longer batted an eyelid at the idea of opening ominous-looking sarcophagi, yet something about this vault was different.
It was guarded by three consecutive doors, each forged from a different metal, none of which I recognized. Only the inner door was closed, so we could see that each door was as thick as the length of my forearm, and each was carved with runes and rough images that warned of something dreadful inside.
Even more disturbing was the fact that the final door swung open slowly at my approach, seemingly of its own accord, while we were all arguing in hushed whispers about how in the hells we were meant to use the custodian’s keys to open a vault door with no keyhole.
Perhaps most disturbing of all were the marks on the inside of that innermost door. Deep gouges, growing fainter to
wards the bottom, as though whatever had made them had begun to lose strength the longer it struggled to get out.
From where I stood in the doorway—the others had dared me to investigate and then hung back themselves, the cowards—I thought I could see the pale gleam of bones further in, though the shadows were too deep even for a night elf’s eyes to fully penetrate.
As though sleepwalking, I took several steps across the threshold of the vault without even realizing I’d moved. My oddly dreamlike state meant I only noticed too late as my fellow acolytes—somewhat predictably, I realized in hindsight—hefted the heavy outer door closed behind me, plunging me into utter, complete darkness.
No; not complete darkness. As I stared around, wild-eyed, I saw several humped shapes, and realized with growing horror that they were in fact enormous desiccated bodies, faintly illuminated by a strange purplish light coming from the depths of the vault. Their strange, twisted, alien hybrid forms put me in the mind of the creatures said to roam the Netherdark beyond the city limits.
Those monsters generally avoided the main city of Uldrazir, strung as it was with blue-green roachlights: alchemical globes crafted to mimic the phosphorescent glow of the rock-roaches that, for reasons scholars could only guess at, acted as a natural deterrent against some of the Netherdark’s nastiest predators. But there were no roachlights here; only that strange purple radiance. If any of these monsters remained alive, I could measure the remainder of my life in minutes.
I stood frozen there for some time. The heavy silence of the vault was oppressive, broken only by the thudding of my heartbeat in my ears and the scuffling sounds from outside as Khazla and Draykon fought against our brothers and sisters to let me out; yet every muffled shout, every scratch and scrape, seemed to echo and create the illusion that the sleeping corpses were waking up.
