by Harry Nix
“Sorry... getting tortured to death is rough and takes time to shake off,” Ori said.
“If Rax isn’t dead already, we’ll get him for that and everything else he’s done,” I said.
“That was you who set off the Death?”
It was strange to think that of course he’d led us to the barrels of Death and been getting tortured simultaneously.
“We did. Little problem with that...” I said. I told him about what Isabel had found—Rax putting barrels of Death under Bron. We’d interrupted his evil plan, presumably to mass murder everyone and absorb their souls and suffering, but then done it ourselves.
“I rejected absorbing the souls. Not going to follow Rax,” I said.
Ori nodded.
“I did some asking around while I was in the Hells. Rax didn’t come up specifically but it has been noticed that demons and demonesses seem to go missing there. Those ones by the pool of blood might still be there. He draws on them, he still gets some power.”
I’d assumed the explosions had destroyed everything but maybe not. Rax was already powerful and if he hadn’t been killed I could see no reason he wouldn’t just let the mask slip entirely and take whatever power he could find. He had to know by now that the souls weren’t offered to him to claim. So he’d assume I’d absorbed them and was likely on my way back to kill him.
“Hey Ori, good to see you again, now with no bars between us,” Delicia said, opening the door and kneeling. She swept the ink demon up in her arms and squished him before putting him down.
“Come in, we have fried potatoes,” she said.
“I’m glad you escaped,” Ori said, heading inside.
She had a smear on ink on her cheek. I wiped it off with my thumb. Delicia reached up and took my hand. It was just us, standing in front of the cabin.
“Thank you, most seriously. I was his prisoner for far too long,” she said.
Anything I could say would be trite so I just nodded and then followed her inside.
Scarlet and Ori were already eating. They’d placed an upside down pot on Ori’s chair so he could properly reach the table. Sometimes he kicked his legs, making a dull clang.
We joined them and I filled my plate with hot chips and the salad, plus some of the pickled things. There was something like a gherkin but when I bit into it had a chili heat through it. There were shredded vegetables, like a kimchi and flat white discs of something crunchy that tasted like lemon.
The potato though, was potato. Salt and oil and damn good. Crispy and delicious.
We ate mostly in silence, anything spoken focused around the food. Delicia left the table halfway through and went to rummage in the cupboard again, returning with a bottle of red wine. There was only one cup we could find though, so she filled it and we took turns.
The wine was good but left that rough tannin feel in the mouth. It was perhaps on its way to being vinegar before too long but still, it had alcohol so it was good enough for Government work.
There wasn’t any more when I went to check, which I guess was for the best because I could feel the urge to just get drunk and put Bron and Rax out of my mind.
I did find a jar of apricot jam, which we ended up putting on slices of the tomato-watermelon hybrid and that passed for our dessert.
“What is this called, anyway?” I asked, holding up a slice.
“Tomato,” Delicia said.
“This is tomato? No, tomato is redder and not sweet like this,” I said.
There was a flicker then, like a ripple passing through the world and then suddenly I was holding a slice of red tomato with apricot jam on it. So were the others.
“Yuck, that doesn’t work at all,” Scarlet said, spitting hers on to her plate.
“Get better ideas Meow Meow,” Ori said.
“What the ink demon said,” Delicia added.
“What the literal fuck?”
I stood up, tomato slice in my hand wondering what the hells had just happened. Lucy had the previous hybrid in as tomato but then reset it after I’d corrected Delicia? Why do that?
“This is melon,” I said, holding my slice up.
The two girls and demon shared a glance.
“Uh, that’s tomato,” Ori finally said.
“It wasn’t tomato a minute ago. It was something else. It tasted sweet which is why it worked with jam on it,” I said.
I tossed my tomato on to my plate and ignored the looks I was getting.
“Is it called something else where you’re from?” Delicia asked.
“It’s a tomato, let’s just forget it. Something changed but apparently I’m the only one who can see it so moving on,” I said.
“Okaaaaay,” Scarlet said.
I moved my chair over closer to the fire and the others followed after a moment, things feeling a bit awkward again. Scarlet helped Ori with his chair.
“We need a plan to kill Rax. I keep thinking maybe he’s dead but he has got to be alive. We need a big showdown,” I said.
“Because this is a game?” Delicia asked.
“Yes, we have to... otherwise it’s unsatisfying,” I said. Okay, maybe I was a little pissed off by the tomato switch and not caring that I was taking this meta. The girl in the clouds, Lucy I guess, had felt benevolent, to a degree, so why push a glitch like changing what tomatoes tasted like? It was like I’d been pulled a little away from the world, reminding me that it wasn’t really a world at all.
The realization hit me a second later like a ton of bricks... or the ceiling of a collapsing tower.
I wanted this reality. I didn’t want to go back to... to that other place. Home was like a four-letter word now. My dingy apartment. The dripping shower the landlord refused to fix. My lack of girlfriend.
I’d been paid a signing bonus by Deep Dive and that would last for a few months but unless I could keep being paid, I’d be back slipping into poverty before long.
But my employers were a criminal gang. They had something that was astonishing, a revolutionary artificial intelligence and I couldn’t reason my way around to understanding why it was in a warehouse in the bad part of town and why they weren’t making themselves trillionaires with it.
I couldn’t figure out why they just wouldn’t put a bullet in my brain once I came out to make sure I’d keep my mouth shut.
The other world sucked but here I had a hot demoness, a hot pixie too, a brave ink demon and kickass magic spells. Sure, I’d been killed a few times and hurt but I had a purpose here. I’d gone from grinding spider fangs to fighting the big bad evil of the region. I had allies and friends like Isabel and Armando and that other world had nothing like it, not even a sliver.
I realized I was being watched so I forced myself to snap out of it. Okay, the Lubochenkos might kill me when I got out but I was in right now so I was going to go all the way.
“The spiders will be marching soon because that’s the plan. I can—”
I suddenly realized I hadn’t told anyone I could turn into a giant demon, a transformation wrought by falling in the lake and then coming face to face with presumably Lucy.
“I can transform now, just for an hour, into a ten-foot-tall demon with a tail. We can go to what is left of the palace, kill anyone remaining and free the demons by the lake, if they survived. If we find Rax along the way, we kill him too.”
“A ten-foot demon? Seriously?” Scarlet asked.
“After I fell in the blood.”
“So... ratio wise, did everything else scale up?” she asked and was promptly punched in the arm by Delicia.
“Scarlet!” the pixie said.
“What? I’m just... curious, is all.”
I hadn’t given it much thought but yeah, I guess everything had scaled up.
“It’s proportionate,” I said, giving Scarlet a wink.
“You hear that Delicia? It’s proportionate.”
“Yes, thank you,” Delicia said. It may have been the closeness of the fire but her cheeks seemed a little flushed
.
Ori cleared his throat to change the topic.
“The blood pool is still there. I’d split before we came out of the wall. After you went in the blood and Rax took Scarlet and me to the tower, I was left in the vent hiding. I went into the room to see if I could free the demons and saw the blue fire through the vents. The room survived.”
“How did you die then?” I asked, confused.
“One of those orange bastards survived too,” Ori said darkly.
I nearly laughed at the absurdity of it but managed to keep the smile off my face.
“That’s where Rax will be then. When we were bound he sometimes let thoughts slip. I knew he was planning mass death of some kind but didn’t have specifics. What he is craves domination. He hates someone called Lucy, and no it’s not that dog you owned,” Delicia said, turning to Scarlet.
“She was a good dog,” Scarlet said.
“She was. Rax is obsessed with this other Lucy. He thinks he’s in the battle for existence with her.”
Scarlet turned to me. “You said Lucy made the Nine Realms. And now Rax is obsessed with someone called Lucy.”
“That can’t be true, Euphoria made everything,” Delicia said.
“Or the Demoness did. Or one of the many other beings that makes such a claim,” Scarlet said.
“I don’t know...” Delicia said doubtfully.
“I don’t want to start a who-created-the-world argument... but yes, I think Lucy made the Nine Realms and for some reason Rax hates her I guess,” I said.
I couldn’t figure it out. Lucy was the Ai in charge. That meant she made Rax and gave him that motivation? What sense was there in that?
“I suppose it doesn’t matter if it’s Euphoria or the Demoness or this Lucy... Rax won’t stop unless he is stopped. I spent enough time with his thoughts to know that,” Delicia said.
We could have chased our tails on this but the original plan was still good—with the added bonus that I could transform now, plus we had a magic pixie. With any luck the fires had killed most of the guards and the mercenaries had fled.
We chewed it back and forth a little, like anyone facing a battle but I knew we’d be able to take Rax down.
Not to get to meta about it, but I was immortal here and so were Scarlet, Delicia and Ori.
Together we’d be a wrecking machine.
24
“Isabel,” I said, leaping out of the bush.
She yelped as she jumped, pulling a dagger.
“Ha, got you,” I said, waving my hands in the air.
“Okay, good sneak,” Isabel grumbled, putting the dagger away.
I’d spotted her on the edge of a clearing, not far away from the main army of spiders. Deciding to see if I had any stealth ability, the other stayed back in the forest while I crept up on her—and got close enough to attack if I’d wanted. I presumed I sucked at stealth so maybe it was unbalanced and overpowered? I resolved to sneak more, to test it out, once we got through this.
I waved to the others, who emerged from the forest. Isabel led us back to the Ebony, who’d taken command. There were maybe sixty spiders all up, which meant plenty had stayed behind. No children or young adults—just adult spiders. Some were scarred and missing limbs. I think a few I’d last seen as comatose that must have awoken. The spiders had gathered in groups of three and Ebony was going to each one, giving them instructions.
We still couldn’t see Bron but the column of smoke was now visible for miles.
Armando joined us while we waited for Ebony. She’d recovered quickly and seemed back to full strength.
“What happened with the Orc?” I asked.
“I ate him,” Armando said.
Isabel whacked her in the side.
“Okay fine, I stashed him in a cave I found. Put a big boulder in front of it. He’ll break out of the webs in four or five days give or take.”
“You sure? He’s not going to starve to death is he?” I asked.
“If he can’t get out by strength, which I don’t think will be a problem, then he’ll lose some weight and that’ll be enough to loosen the webs. We can go check on him but he might be free by then...”
I didn’t want to run into Gunther/Lel but I was glad they’d made it out.
Soon, Ebony approached us.
“The Summoner, back from the dead again to bring more death,” Ebony said. Maybe she meant it one way but it sure came out another. I decided to let it go.
“Did you scout Bron? How is it?” I asked.
“Bron is a hole in the ground. Most of the city is gone. What isn’t gone is on fire. The gates are destroyed and anyone left alive is fleeing, if they can get out. Rax’s guards are still there, killing who they can. Half the palace came down when the cliffs went too. It’s bad.”
I had to remind myself that this all would have happened anyway. Rax had placed the Death under Bron. It didn’t really make it easier to swallow.
“What’s our path to the palace? Forest and up the cliffs?”
“Nope. The forest is full of guards now, some fleeing, others killing. The path is the actual path—most of the barricades have been destroyed but there are still some in place. We go straight up it, a frontal attack.”
Ebony gathered up the spiders and then gave the signal to move out. There was no grand speech from her. The spiders were grim and determined. Talking with Armando along the way, they held the same view I did: if Rax wasn’t killed now he’d just come back later, stronger than ever.
We moved through the forest, sometimes coming across guards who were killed summarily.
Eventually we crested a hill and got our first good look at Bron.
It really was a hole in the ground. On fire.
Most of the city had collapsed as the tunnels underneath had given way. Some buildings were still standing on solid ground, but either burning or at risk as the flames crept from one building to the next. Smoke billowed, thick and black. The walls had mostly fallen but the citizens were still trying to get out via the gates, as that’s where the clear streets led. We could see the fighting in the distance as guards killed without mercy anyone who attempted to rush out. Two orcs were swinging clubs in crazed battle, getting pincushioned with arrows. As we watched, one fell and then the other.
“Keep moving,” Ebony called.
The nearer we came to the city the more refugees we came across. A woman, blackened with soot with half her clothes burned off staggering along mindlessly. A father with his baby bundled up and crying in hunger. A group of Hoppers, all brilliant yellow with sharpened barbs for hands, moving with their odd step and backward legs.
Those with any sense kept well clear of us. Others were too hurt, exhausted and burned to care or even know we were there.
We found plenty of dead. People collapsed against trees. A rabbit beside a log, blood staining its waistcoat, another one sitting beside it crying silent tears.
Thousands had died but thousands more were now refugees, displaced and wounded, running with what they could carry.
“Can they get to Socie?” I asked Scarlet.
“There is a canyon in the way and very few bridges across. A weather disruption too—it gets icy cold in the valley. Most will die,” she said.
With sick perfect timing a new notification rose up.
1000 more dead! Starvation, wounds and sickness have claimed more victims. Do you want to claim their souls?
I declined it and the prompt vanished.
We came across a child, a little girl maybe five years old crying beside her dead mother.
We marched on and my heart turned to ash, bitterness filling my mouth.
Soon we saw what remained on the palace and the road up from Bron. Part of the cliff had been destroyed, collapsing down to land on the city, exposing a warren of tunnels and rooms and part of the mine. The road had cracked and been heaved, rising and falling but still was the most direct route up. As the scouts had reported, most of the barricades were gone now but there we
re still at least three major ones intact and what guards hadn’t fled had regrouped there.
There seemed to be a standoff of sorts too. People had fought their way out of the city, killing the guards at the gate but were now gathered behind makeshift barricades of their own, unable to advance. The first barricade up the road had archers and siege crossbows. Every now and then an archer shot someone down who came out from the barricades or any refugee who attempted to flee the burning city.
The plan was the plan was the plan... until a man and women tried to make a run for it out the gate with their three children. Two arrows flew straight and true. The mother was dead before she hit the ground, the arrow through her eye. The father took it in the shoulder, twisting at the last moment but then dropped, unable to run. The three children, all under seven years old screamed and milled about and then more arrows rose up from the barricades.
I hit the transformation.
Bones cracked and my skin tore and healed and there was pain but not like the first time. There was a rage inside me and as my body shifted to a new form, it was like I connected to a volcano of fury.
I was running and roaring before the transformation was even complete, hurling a fireball at the archers who’d shot the family down. It hit one of the barricades and split it to pieces.
The ground shook as my weight increased, my body layering over in muscle and scale. I was aware of my staff shifting with me but it was stuck to my back, held magically in place. I wanted to use my claws to tear the guards to pieces.
I heard shouting, spiders, Scarlet, Ebony but their word were nonsensical. Why would I wait? My prey was here in front of me.
Arrows scored off my scales and a siege crossbow bolt tore through my ear but then I leaped, higher than I had ever before and came crashing down into the barricades. There were swords and guards and screaming but what I mostly remember is the blood and flesh. Chunks of bodies torn to pieces, ripping heads off, my mouth full of blood as I used my sharp teeth to destroy them utterly.
