I spent an instant tossing and turning inside my own head, internal mechanisms stuttering.

Timesnatcher… did he…? Even then… he saw this?

Saw – no.

Heard… He heard this…

Grip… the brand?

I opened my eyes again as the murmurs died down, and found that the demon was close by, only one more bonfire between us. It had transformed on the edge of the firelight into a many-armed creature, coiled darkness personified: its two red eyes had now split into four, one pair atop the other, and it resembled a spider more than the feline form it had used till now.

It took the shape that best allowed it to assassinate its prey. It couldn’t sneak up on me – it had to stop my would-be killers from finishing the job. Its job. It had to intimidate them, or it wouldn’t get its chance; I’d already be dead.

A paradox that might work in my favour.

But it knew I was damaged. Mizelikon weren’t afforded a heavy presence in Materium; they moved quickly and lightly, but they weren’t very durable, and their attacks were similarly impaired. This disguise would balance that weakness, give it physical weight in exchange for some of its speed.

I could definitely use that to my advantage.

I sat up, and used my hands to move the big brick of stone that’d mashed my foot. Then, grimacing, I shifted my body across the rocks, the muscles that worked hauling on the ones that didn’t. I flopped like a fish, crawling and sliding across sharp teeth, little jagged crenellations that slashed at my skin, opening it in dozens of places as I headed for the nearest fire.

I found that pain no longer mattered. It was only one more fact, one more piece of sensory information being fed to my brain. It could be safely ignored, background noise. It could matter later, if there was a later. Agony was the path I’d chosen, right back with the Bone Ring and my first foray into this dangerous world. I’d walk the path. I’d come too far to turn back now.

The fire was almost directly between me and the dark shape. As I moved forwards it circled around me, staying out of the well-lit sphere – the darkmages all hurried to give us an ever-wider berth. I tried to keep the demon in my sights, but the fact it was placing itself behind me wasn’t exactly ideal –

And then when I was still six feet from the flames it lunged out into the illumination, a glossy black squid, going for my legs with a whole host of tendril-like coils. I saw its glistening, inky central body, its mushroom-shaped head, four crimson eyes fixed on me.

Then it had me, held me, finding and squeezing the pulped foot as though that could stop me.

The appendage was already basically nerveless. I screamed laughter, another involuntary reaction, even as I twisted myself free and resumed my slide towards the light-source – but it was no good. The other tendrils were fastening onto me with all the purchase their shadowy substance permitted them, latching onto my calves, knees, thighs –

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Three feet away. My outstretched arm covered most of that distance. The nearest brand, inches from my questing fingertips.

It pulled me back, and the jolt caused my face to connect with the ground – impacting on another sharp bit of stone, tearing a strip of skin off my forehead.

I couldn’t rise up properly, not without my busted elbow grinding my mind into unconsciousness, so I rolled over again, kicking out savagely, hoping to disrupt the demon’s grip… a futile gesture. The last gasp of my stubborn willpower, desperately lashing out in the hopes of making a change, something, anything that would stop me from being pulled in towards its central mass…

It pulled.

I did the only thing left.

“Buskbown!” I squealed.

Whatever it was in him that empowered him, it cut through time and space and the voids between the stars. He was too far from me to help but I saw him struggling to open his puffy eyes – trying to rise.

“Kas,” he choked, hands twitching, contorting.

Clockwatcher, not far from him, turned his way with a look of mingled fear and awe – Duskdown himself! – and aimed a lethal kick at his head –

Then Clockwatcher was lying next to him, dying, brained on the stones, and Rath was rising, already moving –

The mizelikon dragged me out of the firelight and into the shadow, taking on new aspects, limbs that were previously legs now changing, stiffening and narrowing, becoming blade-like tongues. Black thorns sprouted from every inch of their surfaces, piercing my skin –

Just as my friend threw a burning stick at the demon, the fiery end wheeling around to crack into one of its tendrils.

It recoiled, loosening its grip for an instant, and I put everything into reversing my motion, squeezing free, but I was snagged on its barbs in a dozen places.

Gnashing my teeth, I tracked the stick Rath had thrown and grabbed for it. The brand tumbled to the rocky ground next to me, and, not caring where and how I gripped it, knowing only that I had to do so tightly – I lifted it.

Drawing a mighty breath, I swung back the flaming end and hammered at the fiend with it.

Instantly I could see that the stick was taking more of a beating than the demon. I heard the blackened tip crack, charred pieces crumbling away.

The mizelikon’s spikes lacerated my lower legs – dark incisions, tendons tearing –

Three times, I pummelled its head with the brand – it snatched for it, then, and I did as I’d been told, all that time ago: I held on, held on for dear life –

I lasted less than three seconds. It might’ve been half-shadow, but it was an experienced assassin, an immortal creature of Mekesta. It knew what it was doing.

It tore the stick from my hand, leaving my elbow singing madly from the whiplash –

Now it lacerated my upper legs – blood flowing, rivers of it, off to join the Inceryad’s laughing streams, and I slid in it, ever closer to my killer –

Rathal was there on the mizelikon’s flank, wielding his own burning torch, yelling, failing to do anything but become entwined himself –

His battered face twisted in new agony.

I’m sorry, Rathal. I killed you too.

I raised my empty, ashen hand before my face, a primordial gesture of warding, devoid of all meaning and power – the barbs reached up, snagged my skin, the little sections of webbing between my fingers pierced and tugged at by its hooks –

The brand… the brand, the brand…

What did he mean, ‘grip the brand tightly’?

It’d seemed obvious, but how would he know that by hearing? They couldn’t see into Zyger. Unless I were to tell myself, aloud, to hold the brand more tightly… And then I’d only be saying it because he told me to say it, and he’d only know it because I was going to say it…

What use was the damn thing anyway? It’d broken! It was gone!

What am I missing?

Something he could hear…

Did mizelikon ever make a single sound?

Sounds…

What am I missing?

It was only as I repeated that crucial question to myself, looking up at my own tortured hand, that the final piece of the puzzle fell into place.

I knew what I had to do.

* * *