Gwen rolled through the elevator doors, her whole attention taken up by trying to ignore the woman behind her. If Mary denied her now, she would fall apart.
As we always do when she does.
The doors closed behind her, and in an instant her surroundings changed. No longer encased in the faux-wood paneling of elevator number two, she rolled along a flat, nearly featureless plain. Grey, sourceless light illuminated everything, enabling her to see without blinding her. For a moment, shapes and colors escaped her, nothing made sense. She teetered on the edge of madness.
A whispered word, an application of will, and a descendant of Pey’s translator forced everything to swim into focus. In the distance, so far away it was only visible due to the warped nature of the space, a grey-white wall of scales ringed the edges of the world. Turning her head, Gwen saw the wall extended fully around where she sat now. Directly behind her, the elevator doors stood half shut, one of her crutches lodged in between them.
Gwen swore quietly, making another scan of her surroundings. A small collection of shapes became suddenly, preternaturally clear, and she stopped her search. She had found what she was looking for. Thirteen pedestals stood in a ring. On each pedestal, a female form lay quietly. All but one were dressed in cheer costumes made to look like suits. The last was Ms. Williams, her suit the real thing rather than a durable facsimile. Within the ring, two figures stood. One Gwen had last seen fleeing from battle with Mr. Roberts’ knife in his eye. The other was a woman, her face stretched in a way Gwen always associated with face lifts. Her beauty hadn’t so much faded as been stretched over too long a time, leaving her looking thin and brittle.
Her voice, when she spoke, bore no signs of decrepitude. “Aeric, I will need you to balance the power flows while I am working. I will be tying your life force to that balance; if you fail to keep it flowing smoothly, you will die. Painfully.”
“Yes, Lady. That I might aid you better, may I ask what you will be doing?”
Morgan’s features were stretched, but still capable of a sardonic smile. “Since you can’t act against me in this, certainly. I’ll be de-petrifying Jormungandr. Once I’ve unfrozen him, we’ll release him through the gate and let the World Serpent reap our harvest for us.”
Gwen froze a moment in sheer terror. Her gaze flickered involuntarily from the pair in the pedestals to the scaled wall. Scanning along the wall, she finally found what she was looking for just beyond the pedestals. A head, foreshortened by the angle and made small by distance. A single eye, open, glazed over, petrified.
What have you gotten us into, child?
Listening to the murmurs of the two as they wandered through the plinths daubing some vile concoction onto the cheerleaders, Gwen painstakingly set the locks on her chair, extended the braces, folded out the laptop desks, and opened all her hidden compartments. As she did the last, she heard Morgan’s voice raised in mocking laughter.
“Of course not, you fool. Sacrificing one virgin and expending some effort, I could wake the serpent. With four sacrifices, I can wake the serpent and direct his course with no risk whatsoever. I demanded all twelve and the old woman because I believe in being thorough. They have a phrase for it now: ‘multiple redundant backups’. I could almost wish we didn’t need to leave. There are so many things that seem like they might be worth saving.
“Still, that’s not my concern. Whichever ones are left I’ll suspend and drain on arrival in your keep. I can’t have your kin pouncing on me when we arrive, can I?”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“No, Lady.”
“Good. Now, bring out the knives.”
Will you sit here silent, again, as your pawns are sacrificed to destroy the world? Coward.
Gwen didn’t even hear the voice, really. Her preparations were as complete as she could make them. She keyed up the incantation that would draw power for her, desperate for something that would allow her to stop what was happening. She blinked in the sudden influx of power; wherever she was, energy was plentiful, if difficult to tap. It flowed into her, through her, and pooled in parts of her. Casting her gaze outward, she saw it was the same in each of the girls on their pedestals. The same was true of Ms. Williams.
She looked at the tangled web of power around Morgan and Aeric. Before she had time to register the complexity and depth of that web, she knew she had made a mistake. Morgan knew she was there. The element of surprise was gone.
***
Startled, Morgan looked up from her work preparing the sacrifice. Someone was scrying on her.
Long ago she’d orchestrated pogroms against the remaining magi in the world. All that remained were a few religions based on the old knowledge. None of them had the talent, none of them understood the old ways as more than myth. There were no magi left, save herself and her son.
But someone was scrying on her. Tapping her connection to Aeric, because there was no reason to use her own power unless she had to, she traced the magic back to her enemy. For the second time in as many breaths, she blinked in surprise. Whoever this mage was, she was here in the pocket of unreality where Morgan was preparing her ritual. A whispered word and the source of the scrying became clear.
It was a day for laughing, it seemed. Morgan laughed again; the ‘mage’ scrying on her was one of the children they had been toying with. Unless Morgan missed her guess, it was the one Loki had gone scurrying to Greatfather about. Morgan examined the youngling through her own scrying. She was young, although there was something… a spirit, bound to her. Not unusual for magi, although Morgan had eradicated any such about herself long ago. That spirit might also account for the strange feel of strength in the girl.
Morgan shrugged. Her first reaction had been surprise and no little fear at the sudden appearance of a mage. Now that she had seen her foe, her fear dissipated. The girl whispered a few words and simple physical shields sprang up. Morgan paused to consider them. Very clever; they reinforced the physical rather than standing alone. Still, there were no defenses on the girl's mind, except perhaps that spirit.
Morgan sighed her disappointment and frustration. The frustration came from the interruption, the disappointment that it wasn’t even a challenging interruption. Her hand came up, she spoke a word of command, and a ball of midnight swirled between her fingers. Ready, she called out to taunt the young mage.
“Begone, stripling. I am not in need of an apprentice.”
The girl’s voice was soft, yet it carried through the unreal domain. “I am here to stop you, Morgan.”
“You wish to die then? So be it. I give you a taste of what awaits your world. Wallow now in the horror of Despair!”
With that, Morgan made a throwing gesture and willed the spell into action. The black spell flashed across the distance to the cripple, morphing and twisting as it flew. It hit her shields and, for a moment, slowed. The girl’s eyes went wide as tendrils of blackness seeped through her shields like rot seeping through a cellar. The moment they trickled through, they lashed out toward the girl, striking her in her eyes, her ears, her nostrils. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, and the bulk of the spell slipped into her.
Morgan watched dispassionately as the girl folded, clutching at her belly, her shoulders twitching with sobs. The spell was a potent one with soft civilized modern mortals. Their lives contained so little true tragedy. The girl probably thought failing to get her chosen clothing even registered on a meaningful scale of loss.
“What a waste. She seemed to have some potential too. Go collect her, Aeric. Perhaps I’ll take what’s left of her along. She’s small, perhaps she’ll travel well.”
When he didn’t reply, Morgan looked to him, a sharp rebuke on her lips. It died unspoken when she realized the entire exchange had been powered by his already depleted energies. Shaking her head, she dismissed the active drain with a gesture. Aeric’s teeth unclenched, his eyes opened to slits, and he lifted himself up to his knees. She buried her hand in his hair and wrenched him to his feet.
“Now go. Get the girl. Take your time. I’ll be preparing to wake the World Serpent.”