by Ember Lane
“The women are here!” Grimble cried, and Lincoln redoubled his efforts.
The hobgoblins tried to retreat toward the doors, but Lincoln saw all four sets had now been firmly shut, each guarded by a fearsome looking dwarves. The swell of blurred gold slowed as the hobgoblins thinned to naught, and helmets were taken off, sweaty brows cuffed dry. Lincoln realized he’d—they’d—been snatched from the jaws of death. He slumped down on the altar, his legs giving way, and sat there trying to catch his breath.
A dwarf, closely resembling Griselda, approached them, sure-footed despite the hobgoblin guts littering the hall’s floor. Her horned helmet was tucked under her powerful arms; her leathers were covered in blood spatter, a thunderous expression gracing her easy looks.
“Are you two lost?” she barked up at Grimble and Ozmic. “This is no place for you two, let alone these feeble things.” She peered closer. “Are you pretending to be a shaman?”
Zenith smiled a dazzling grin. For someone who’d been entombed in a stone body for an age, he was remarkably well preserved. Lincoln discounted trying to dazzle anything; he decided to live with his look of utter relief. The shaman strode down and stood before the dwarven woman. It was then that Lincoln realized there were only ten of them. He looked at the heaps of bodies strewn in the aisles. While he knew that him and the four others had felled a few, maybe even a few dozen, there… Lincoln couldn’t quite believe his eyes. There were a hundreds of corpses. Zenith faced her.
“Not pretending,” he said. “I am Zenith. I am reborn. Your sister Griselda was among those who resurrected me.”
“A shaman…” the dwarf gasped, and fell to her knees. “Forgive me.”
“Forgive you?” Zenith asked.
“For questioning you.” She stood. “I am Raidrock. You must all turn around. You have strayed too deep. These caves are not for you.”
Grimble cleared his throat. “We seek passage to Texacolpo. It is a matter of utmost urgency that we get there with good speed.” Lincoln noticed his voice had a slight tremor to it. The rest of Rockraid’s troop had now gathered behind her, and he understood Grimble’s nerves—they were a fearsome bunch.
“No,” Rockraid said, and crossed her arms.
“We’ve got a tablet from Griselda,” Ozmic told her, jumping off the altar, fishing in his sack for her note.
“Two dwarves, a shaman back from the dead, and an overgrown glimp, what kind of a party is this?” Rockraid asked. The rest of her party started laughing, sneakily pointing at Lincoln, who began to inwardly curse Robert and his crazy crafting ideas. Ozmic gave her the tablet.
Her expression changed instantly.
“Ahhh, huh,” she said, pointing at a spot on the tablet and showing it to the dwarf next to her. “Ahhh, huh,” she muttered, looking up. “So, you’re Lincoln the Builder. Makes sense now.” Her stubby finger traced the words as she read them, the glimmer of a smile flickering over her face. She gave her companion another peek, who then laughed and pointed straight at Lincoln. Were it not for their precarious position, Lincoln decided he might well have let his anger rise.
Not likely! he thought, but he couldn’t help but stew a bit.
Congratulations! You have defeated a band of hobgoblins. Hobgoblins are attracted to magical items of all types. They are ferocious but not known for their intelligence. You are awarded 4000/4 XP for your contribution to the victory.
Lincoln blinked the notification away. He jumped off the altar, slid down the pile of hobgoblin guts and approached Rockraid. “Lincoln,” he said, and offered his hand. Rockraid took it, holding his gaze for just a second longer than necessary.
“So, you’re the one we fight for now? Quite the honor our sister has bestowed on you. Have you captured her heart?”
Lincoln dipped his head a little, shying away from her question. “No, nothing like that. She sees what we’re achieving, what we’re trying to create, and willingly gives to help us.”
“Mandrake resurrected, the shaman resurrected? Maybe we should abandon this dark life and aid your battle?”
“Griselda tells me the paladin and wraiths of Ruse keep you busy.”
“Tickle our flanks is all, not enough to cause us concern but enough to mean we have to be on our guard—they know exactly what they are doing.”
“Then all the while you’re down here holding your lines, I’m all the safer up there. For that, I thank you.”
Rockraid grunted and marched away. “Come, we have a ways to march to get to safety.”
“Staff!” Zenith shouted, pulling an azure-blue staff from the corpse of the fallen hobgoblin wizard. “Useful,” he shouted to Lincoln. “Lost mine somewhere, but I can work with it.”
Lincoln had already seen the shaman’s magic, seen its devastating effects. He wondered how powerful Zenith would be with a staff in hand.
“Water magic, blah!” Zenith said, and tossed it aside, sending a quick blast of his gold magic to fry the staff to a crisp. “Not my thing.”
“Why destroy it?” Lincoln asked, as they began to follow Rockraid’s party as they walked around the altar and toward the door at the end of the aisle.
“Tainted with magic from Ruse. To cleanse it would near enough destroy it and make it useless.”
“Unless you’re a Water Mage,” Flip pointed out, filling his sack with looted bronze.
Lincoln darted back to the altar and picked up his lantern’s pole, bringing out Dink and attaching her to it. He reasoned that with all the magic recently used in the room, hers was hardly liable to attract any more trouble. She glared out from the lantern, but he merely shrugged and draped the pole over his shoulder, picking up his pace and catching up with the rest of them.
Through the doors they came to a stone balcony overlooking a magical, black-rock shaft, glistening with flecks of gold, silver, and blue.
“Behold,” said Rockraid. “The marble forests of Arathnavey.”
Lincoln walked up to the ledge’s edge, seeing the true beauty of the shaft. It shimmered as though it was stitched with a thousand sequins that spiraled down the few hundred feet to a bed of glittering rock. Glimp’s light spilled down it, bringing it to vivid life, lighting up what passed for a magical, downward staircase. At the end of the steps, a rent in the shaft’s side signaled the entrance to the marble forest itself.
They followed the steps down the perilously slippery path, no more than a foot wide. Small streams cascaded from above; Dink’s light making the flow resemble liquid crystal. The steps were endless, beautiful, but deathly. No one spoke. All gazed around in wide-eyed wonder.
At its base, they had to pick their way through crystal shards that angled out from the rock, some merely shoulder height, some towering over them. Huge gems littered the narrow way, scattered like pebbles on a beach. Flip was truly busy, his sack bursting with looted pretties. The prince’s greed was relentless.
Lincoln felt like an ant picking a path through a vast geode. Its air was thick with water, humid beyond belief, the falling water misting, and formed tiny rivulets that flowed along their way.
From the shaft they entered Arathnavey, where the marble, granite, and crystal all molded together to give a true semblance of a stone forest. Lincoln understood why the dwarves would battle tooth and nail keep this place to themselves or die trying.
Hours must have passed, winding through that mystical place, and by then a luminous, blue stream wound its course with theirs until it drained into a glowing lake, shrouded with a glimmering ceiling like a night sky.
“Fiath’snomor,” Rockraid told him. “Our camp fer the night.”
They soon sat around a fire of glowing stones and ate white fish pulled from the lake itself. Rockraid’s troop said little to Lincoln, choosing the easier conversation of Grimble and Ozmic, one stealing away with the Prince of the Five Isles. Zenith was restless, unable to sit still, and so he wandered the lake’s shore and swam in its milky water.
“Is this the same river that they call Endin
gs?” Lincoln asked.
Rockraid grunted. “Hardly. This place exists—you can feel it, touch it. The Endings is on a different plain, it merely kisses our lands at sacred places like The Gilden Lode. No, this is not The Endings.”
“Then what is it?”
“It is my land. This is Fiath’snomor, and it is in the Arathnavey Forest that leads to the Mesculian Maze, and from there, dips farther to scoop under the Petreyen Seas and then beneath the land of the mutants. This is not The Endings, this is our battleground—this and deeper.”
They rested there for a while. It could have been an hour or a night. Flip was right; time had no meaning this far underground. When ready, though what signified ready and not was unclear, Rockraid called out, and a long boat appeared hugging the shore of the lake until it was abreast of them. She plucked Dink’s lantern from Lincoln’s pole and set her swinging from another at the boat’s stern, sitting there and bidding for Lincoln to join her.
“Do you understand this place? The complexities of this way are many—you must understand if you are to have a chance at leading.”
Lincoln settled back with her, noting Flip returning and Zenith settling right at the boat’s snubby prow. “The complexities are that there is no single battleground, no fixed border. It is a three-dimensional war.”
“Dimensional?” Rockraid questioned. “I don’t understand that. But I feel you know the issues. It is a land where you cannot see.” She pointed along the boat’s line. “See that drop we duck under? It’s a slab of granite five hundred feet high, a hundred feet wide. There could easily be a citadel hidden within it. Full of wraiths, paladin, banegrades—full of goblins and hobbers, or it could echo to the sound of our laughter.”
“Is it just you against the rest?” Lincoln asked—it seemed that Ruse’s side outnumbered the dwarves by quite some margin.
“Not exactly alone. There’s the Shinshin.”
Lincoln wondered if he truly wanted to know, but his mouth asked anyway. “What’s a Shinshin?”
“A tiny little being no higher than your knee. They’re mauve, blue, somewhere in between, ugly little creeps even by our standards. They’ve next to no neck, big bulbous noses, and hair in a crown like an old man’s bonnet. Shinshin—they’re quite fun really, and only wear a small cloth, a belt, and a sword. You don’t mess with the Shinshin, trust me.”
“Don’t mess with the Shinshin!” the other dwarves shouted.
“No higher than my knee?” They hardly seemed fearsome creatures, just by Rockraid’s descriptions. “So, tiny, little things are your only allies?”
Rockraid laughed. “They’re all we need. They’re everywhere, they see everything, but you’ll have to decide for yourself. We pass through one of their largest settlements, Cheroo.”
“You’re kidding, right,” said Lincoln. “Like the glimp thing. You’re kidding?” Rockraid didn’t reply.
The river wound on through the dark of the underground, only Dink’s light and its soft glow let Lincoln see farther than the boat’s limits. As they ventured along, he began to notice the rock became less…bulky, less sheer. Small bays were etched into the river’s side like little quaysides. One had a tiny boat tethered to it, and over the boat a soft, green light bloomed. As the river meandered around a vast pillar, the green bloomed farther, like a hanging mist. Much brighter by the river’s bank, the shining line lighting up their way.
“Shinyshrooms—the shinshin farm them,” Raidrock told him. “Apart from fish, insects, and rockworms, it’s about all there is to eat around here. At least, all that doesn’t try and kill you first. If you want a decent steak, you should hunt down a cavejumper. Now they’re feisty, but they’re tasty.”
“Shinyshroom soup it is,” Lincoln replied, leaning forward as they became enveloped farther in the moss-colored mist.
Dink’s light swirled around them as though trapped within their rocky way. Lincoln felt himself boiling up, the walls closing in on him. He felt strangely awake though, his senses heightened, his mind alive. The rocky sides receded, the green mist flattened, hanging at Lincoln’s shoulder height like an eerie fog. His now clearer vision revealed a plateau of shining green, then another back a little farther, and again until they were stacked high like a slate bank. Roots dangled down from the cavern’s ceiling, their thinnest tendrils diving into the green mist, searching out the river. The boat navigated through them, then turned, and the mist swirled revealing a river’s bank. They came to a stop in a tidy little bay.
The dwarves jumped out, stretching, flexing their muscles. Rockraid passed all the weapons up, and Zenith and Flip jumped out too. Lincoln hesitated for just a moment, breathing in, wondering why he felt so alive. He grabbed Dink. “You’re coming with me.” And hooked her on his pole.
“It’s the mist. Can I have some more food?” Dink’s high-pitched voice rang out in Lincoln’s mind. He looked into the lantern and saw her staring out, smiling.
“The mist’s making me…awake?”
“Adventurer’s minds are too attuned to the land to come down this far.”
“Too attuned?”
“You are linked to the land in a way that no others are. Beware going closer; you are too near the source.”
Lincoln began walking after the others. The green glow came from everywhere now, and he saw that it was more than just a dusty coating. He bent, reaching out to a small patch of it and ran his fingers through what resembled tiny mushrooms.
“Ouch!” he cried as a thousand little bites nibbled at him, and he snatched his hand back.
“You should be careful.”
Lincoln spun around, shaking his hand.
“They rarely break your skin.” The voice’s owner was tiny, coming up to Lincoln’s knee, a shinshin, no doubt, given its blue skin, balding head, and huge nose. Like Rockraid had told him, it was wearing nothing but a loincloth and a sword. “You’re falling behind the others. If you stray too far behind, you’ll get lost. Welcome to Cheroo,” it said, and skipped off.
Lincoln looked at his hand, small pinpricks of blood blooming on his fingers. “Guess I’ve got soft skin,” he said to himself, and sauntered off after the tiny little beastie.
“Why do the mushrooms bite?”
The shinshin looked around. “They’re hungry, why do you think?”
Ahead, Lincoln could hardly see Flip and Zenith, just their heads bobbing above the taller green fungus, the dwarves long swallowed by its height. The farther he walked on, the higher the mushrooms grew, until Lincoln was walking through a thick forest of luminous, green stalks. He trailed his hand along them, their spores coating his palms, their vicious mouths much higher. The fungus still grew taller, until it was towering over him, and the shinshin in front of him vanished, and he himself popped out into a clearing, seeing the little beastie in front of him.
Hundreds of tiny huts were dotted all over a dished ledge with a small pool in its center. Lincoln felt like a giant, like a god strolling in his own personal vale. “Where are the others?” he asked, searching around, trying to see them.
“Cheroo,” said the shinshin.
Lincoln began to get a bad feeling about it all. Their houses came up to his chest, strange little huts that angled out of the rock. He realized that they all faced a central spot and the whole of the village radiated out from it.
“Wait here,” the shinshin said, and he darted away, vanishing into a close by hut. His little head popped out. “Won’t be long, if you could just step into the center circle, that’d be great.” He ducked back down. Lincoln heard a crack ring out then another much fainter one, almost like a door being slammed shut and then a bolt being shot.
“Hmmm,” he muttered.
“Told you,” said Dink. “You’re nearly at the source.”
“The source of what?” Lincoln asked.
“Everything.”
Lincoln stepped into the circle’s center, and the true size of the shinshin settlement became clear. Hundreds, if not thousands of
huts radiated out. He spun around, trying to search out the others, trying to work out what he was supposed to do. The brush of a breeze on his cheek surprised him. It came from nowhere, yet was everywhere, and it began to swirl around him, buffeting him, pulling him around and around as it became immensely powerful. The huts blurred, the green of the fungus melding with it.
“Told you!” Dink’s words echoed in his mind.
Searching for a way out, he looked desperately around, but there was none; he was in the center of a maelstrom, the middle of a twister—again. Memories of Tanglewood came flying back to him. He screamed, but his words were drowned in the roar around him. Falling to his knees, he put Dink between his legs to protect her, to stop her getting swept away, and then clamped his hands to his head.
“I’d look up if I were you!”
Lincoln slowly craned his neck upward. The head of a scaled beast, a fearsome reptile that stared down at him with glowering golden eyes, capping the funnel’s green swirl. Lincoln instantly recognized it. It was the red dragon—the one from the pennant, from his banner. Curiosity filled its fiery eyes and smoke dribbled from its snout. The dragon’s head plunged down, close, so close to Lincoln’s head. He noticed the hubbub of the whirlwind had died down, yet the air still spun with the same ferocity.
“Who are you?” Lincoln shouted up.
“Mandrake.” The dragon’s deep voice sounded out, thrumming through him, resonating, making his very bones vibrate.
“What do you want?”
“Unity,” said the dragon. “You are Unity.”
Lincoln had heard that before. “Apparently,” he called up. “What does it mean?”
The vision of the dragon inclined its head. “Unity hides in Serenity. You must be bound or all else will fail.”
“What?”
“You might try and appear a little more intelligent,” Dink told him.
Lincoln mustered his willpower. “Are you in Serenity?”
“I guard Unity.”
