As the sun crested the oblate plain in front of them, the scrubland and scuttle bush gave way to a boundless flatland, arid and repulsive. The ground was a lattice of fissures in the desiccated red earth, with only the occasional jagged obsidian rocks to break up the monotony.
Behind them, the black trail of smoke from the World’s End Inn was a mere trickle that dissipated into the clear sky. Ahead, a lone mountain loomed, its base distorted by the haze of heat. From this distance, it was impossible to tell how tall it was, but the peak belched ash and smoke continually into the sky where it churned into ominous dark clouds that sparkled with lightning.
The sun was savage here, the heat unbearable. Reave would occasionally wave his arm of frost, summoning a cool breeze that would provide temporary relief, but always the oppressive hotness returned.
After a few days, Charlie had perfected the method of using his finger as a squeegee to mop the sweat from his forehead, flicking it to the dusty earth that swallowed the moisture greedily.
The nights were shockingly cold, and the two extremes made the journey miserable. Nate felt as if he were always wearing too much or too little clothing. Damp clothes, whether warm or cold, chaffed and irritated his skin.
As the days dragged on, the obsidian stones grew more numerous and larger, until they were soon traveling over craggy hills made of sharp black glass. More than once, their clackers would slip, threatening to toss one of them down where they would be cut to ribbons on the razor-sharp stone.
They could hear and feel the low rumble of the furnace now, the giant volcano that overshadowed them. Charlie became dizzy each time he gazed at its incomprehensible size, so he had taken to concentrating on the back of his hands, griping tightly to his clacker’s shell to ensure he didn’t fall to his death.
That would be a terrible way to go, impaled on volcanic glass. He could practically hear how his friends would mock him endlessly in the afterlife. “Good ol’ Chuck, a man as dumb as the rocks that killed him.”
They crested a particularly tall, obsidian hill, and pulled their clackers up short. The hill dropped steeply into a pit about the size of a football field, and roughly as deep. The walls sank sharply, with jagged outcroppings like ten-foot-long spears pointed upward. A descent would be hopelessly impossible; they would have to make their way around the bladed crater.
Deep within the pit was something Sam struggled to fathom. An enormous crucifix had been erected; it stood twice as tall as the mead hall in Edgebreak where they had attended the wedding celebration what seemed like ages ago. Each beam was a bundle of tree trunks that had been bound with iron chains as wide as Sam.
Nailed to the cross was a dragon. Each arm and leg had been skewered with a lance in multiple places to support the beast’s enormous weight. Its wings had been pinned as well, like the insect displays Sam had been captivated by at the Natural History Museum as a child. Its scales were a shimmery vermillion, of such intense color it nearly hurt to look at. Blood the color of cobalt had drained from the wounds, but had since dried to the texture of tar.
Two additional lances under its jaw held its long neck in place. The gruesome display was equal parts horrifying and awe inspiring. Who or what could have done this to such a terrifying beast?
Alianna drew her spear which sparked to life.
“What is it?” Hicket said, hefting his own sword from his back.
The captain did not speak, but simply pointed. Kneeling atop the crucifix were two small figures dressed in filthy gray robes.
“Who are they?” Nate asked.
“Tigeltuk and Nikinevin,” Alianna answered, as if those names held any meaning for Nate.
Before Nate could ask for clarification, the air was rent with a mournful cry. The two women atop the crucifix tore at their skin and pulled their hair as they wailed and screamed in agony. Though there were only two figures atop the rood, it sure sounded to him like dozens of voices were howling in anguish.
“We should leave this place,” Hicket said. Alianna nodded once, her eyes glued to the two women perched above the dragon.
They cautiously began to withdraw from the scene, when an old woman’s voice screeched from below. “Captain Alianna Stormbow! Was this numen slain by your blow?” Her frenzied voice reverberated off the volcanic glass that surrounded the valley. She sounded inhuman, her roar like some bizarre miscegenation between a crow’s shriek and a goat’s yowl.
Alianna’s grip tightened on her spear. “We both know I hold no love for dragonkin, Nikinevin, but I honor the dead. Even my enemies deserve better than this.”
There was an uneasy moment of silence; the air filled with a palpable sense of menace and rage, as if the fury of these two women radiated from their bodies like light from the sun, and hung heavy in the air. Sam shifted uncomfortably on her clacker. She had never seen Alianna so tense. Beads of sweat formed on Captain Stormbow’s forehead. Was she scared?
The two figures stood and held their palms up. Slowly, their bodies rose and floated toward them.
“Speak nothing of our quest,” Alianna hissed. Her eyes fell on Nate. “In fact, it might be best if you don’t speak at all.”
As they approached, Charlie could see that one of them was beautiful beyond description; her lips full, her eyes shone and held his gaze in a way he couldn’t quite explain to himself. Her body was strong and supple, noticeable even beneath her ill-fitting and filthy gray robes - alluring in a way that made Charlie’s mouth dry up and his skin flush.
Gri scowled, and hefted her axe.
The other was the complete opposite, a bent and twisted crone with thin, stringy hair, milky eyes, and a face that looked like it had been drawn left-handed. Her muddled frame and wrinkled, translucent skin didn’t look a day younger than two hundred years old.
“Well, what have we here, my pet? Soldiers of sunlight upset?” the beautiful woman cooed.
The old crone hovered near Sam, sniffing her hair. “Yes, dear Tigeltuk, so it would seem. Though these three believe this world a dream.”
“What is it you want from us, servants of the gray?” Alianna said. “Surely your vision tells you we had nothing to do with what happened here.”
Tigeltuk smoothly wafted over to Alianna, her body perpendicular to the ground. “Yes, my love, of that we have no doubt. The dragon blood stain would bear you out. We shall find the murderers, wherever they be. We shall extract our vengeance with odious glee.”
“Then why are they here, in ruin and waste? Pilgrims or settlers, can their path be traced?” Nikinevin’s boney fingers ran along Nate’s jawline. It took all his self-control not to shudder in revulsion.
Tigeltuk’s eyes washed over Charlie, who stared intently at his hands. “These three children are strangers, sent by a star. We’ve never seen champions quite so bizarre.”
Nikinevin now grasped Nate’s cheeks with both hands, her body drifting idly up behind her as she inverted in the air. Nate couldn’t look away from the madness he saw in her eyes. “A prophecy, they heard. This, their fraught journey spurred.”
Tigeltuk’s laughter was somehow attractive and repulsive in equal measure, like some forbidden, unholy music. “But prophets are vague, a fitting epithet. They’ve misunderstood since the very outset.”
“What do you mean misunderstood?” Sam asked.
“It would be unwise to give heed to the words of witches,” Alianna said through a clenched jaw. “Their words are lies and riddles meant to sow confusion and doubt.”
Nikinevin made a sound not unlike a cat being strangled, and if not for her grin, Charlie would never have known she was laughing. “Neither faith nor doubt can grow on fallow ground. Shall we pierce Stormbow’s heart to see what is found?”
Tigeltuk began to lazily circle them, her arms and legs folded in a meditative pose. “Horror and despair and dread are her fate. Discipline will fail her rage to ablate.”
Nikinevin joined in circling the group, though her meditative pose was the inverse of her sister’s. They began to speak in unison.
“A journey is doomed when the first step is wrong. Though intentions be pure, suffering will prolong. The mad prophet’s tune struck a dissonant note. Accord is what matters, despite what he wrote. Do not look for salvation at the end of the blood. For a trickle can never be the source of a flood.”
The two witches began to rotate faster as they spoke. The air swirled around them as they flew higher and higher.
“The harmony you seek must be found within. Only then will your journey truly begin. The Aether is more than the day and the night. For darkness exists only without the light. Chaos and order are not an inversion. Two sides of a coin, a simple reversion. The path set ahead of you will not bring you peace. Only in symmetry will misery decrease. You must heed our warning, our clarion call. Your choice shall determine the end of us all. When her blood has been spilt, the storm shall abate. Then seek us out and we shall speak of your fate.”
They now spun so fast in the air they were merely a blurred circle of gray to their eyes. All of them could sense their power, and with a slow, creeping dread Sam understood Alianna’s fear. The Conclave of Flame and Salt she could understand. They were almost simple in their evil clarity. But these were something else entirely. They seemed less human, and more like some interpretation of what a human should be, as if their bodies were merely a mask hiding some unspeakable, unknowable power that couldn’t be contained in a physical form. She shuddered to think of what she would see if the mask was removed.
The air at the center of the witches began to crackle and pop with fire that sputter and exploded. A brilliant jet of flame descended like a tornado, consuming the crucifix and the dragon, turning them to ash.
Nate covered his face to shield it from the heat. With another tooth-rattling crack, the two witches disappeared. The cyclone of flame spun out into the ground, leaving a glowing circle of spun glass at the bottom of the pit.
“Well, that was something,” Nate said quietly.
They continued their journey in a disquieted silence. Days bled together, forming weeks of dry misery and desiccated conversation.
After what felt like an eternity, a black monolith finally reared above the hazed horizon. The structure was quite large, at least eight stories tall as near as Nate could tell from this distance, each wall fifty yards long. Above the structure, a brilliant white stone hovered in the air, misshapen like a meteor, with jagged bulges and shadowed pits across its surface.
The strange stone, which must have been at least fifty feet in diameter, continuously belched a stream of white sand from its depths, as if it were a titanic sponge filled with alabaster powder being wrung out.
The white sand collected at the top of the building, forming a loosely piled pyramid on the roof. But as new sand poured and slid down the sides, it didn’t spill over the edge, but instead hit some kind of invisible barrier of heat, where it melted and blackened and fused with the solid black monolith, slowly growing its height. It was the oddest form of construction Nate had ever seen, and was both dreadfully inefficient and needlessly convoluted.
Alianna dismounted her clacker, and motioned for the others to do the same. Charlie struggled to the ground, mostly falling with a heavy thud. Nate grabbed his hand, yanking him to his feet. Charlie now wore Gri’s iron chain necklace cinched around his waist. Nate grabbed the end and rattled it.
“Another gift from your not-so-secret admirer?”
Charlie blushed and shrugged. “My belt broke. Seemed like a good solution, unless you’re interested in my pants falling down and everyone getting a good look at Peter, Paul, and Larry.”
The Forbidden Library was a perfect square. Unlike the obsidian they had been clambering over for the past weeks, the black stone was matte, as if it was less a color and more a complete void, made all the more noticeable in the oppressive desert sun.
Alianna turned to Reave, who walked to the wall and placed his flaming hand on it. The ground rumbled and, with a thick gasp, a gigantic door swung inward.
“We’re just going to walk into the box of doom?” Charlie asked as everyone began pulling torches from their packs, which Reave lit with a flick of his wrist.
“Do you have a better idea?” Sam asked.
“Maybe trying to figure out what this actually is, and if it’ll kill us before we waltz right in?”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
Charlie pursed his lips. “I’m not going in there.”
“What? Why not?”
“Maybe there’s not a reason. Maybe I just don’t want to.”
Nate smirked. “I thought you weren’t afraid of the dark anymore.”
“I’m not afraid of the dark,” Charlie said more defensively than he meant to.
“That’s not the most convincing denial there, Charlie.”
Sam grinned at Nate. “He’s afraid of the dark?”
“Yup. Was really bad in elementary school. His parents showed him the movie Gremlins at a wildly inappropriate age, and for years, he had to sleep with a night light on.”
“I’m learning so many exciting and new details about your character defects, Charlie,” Sam beamed at him. “What’s next, you secretly moderate an internet forum dedicated to Hello Kitty fan fiction and your mom is a potato?”
“I’m not afraid of the dark!” Charlie insisted.
“Gri no go in dark place either,” Gri said. “Big evil here.”
“Come to think of it, he might still have to sleep with a night light on,” Nate said.
“Oh, Charlie,” Sam said in mock sympathy. “You poor, poor thing.”
“I’m not afraid of the dark!” he shouted. Taking a few deep breaths, he calmed himself. “I’m afraid of what is IN the dark. Which is perfectly rational.”
“If you say so.”
Charlie stood, inert, puzzled by why they weren’t taking him more seriously.
“I’m not joking. I’m not going in there.”
“We believe you, Charlie,” Nate said. “We just don’t care.”
“You’re welcome to stay here with the Clackers and Gri in the insufferable heat,” Sam said with a wink.
Charlie’s eyes darted between the chittering beetles that made his skin crawl, the sultry barbarian who was attempting to wink at him but seemed unable to close only one of her eyes at a time, and the yawning darkness ahead.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
He sighed heavily. “Well, you called my bluff. I’m in.”
Gri kicked the dry sand in disappointment as they stepped into the inky blackness. They walked in darkness for what felt like ages. Normally, this would have bothered Nate, knowing that the interior of this building was far larger than the exterior. But he had grown accustomed to the strangeness of this world, and was mostly just grateful to be out of the sun.
The path before them did not twist nor turn, and the walls did not reflect their torchlight. Only by reaching out and brushing the cool stone with their fingers could they tell there was anything there. The oppressive silence was only interrupted by the scuffing sounds of their boots and the quiet ring of their armor.
They all froze as the air thickened, filled with an unseen menace that made their skin itch, which weighed heavily on their souls as if gravity had doubled. A rasping chorus of voices swirled around them, coming from every direction and whispering hoarsely as they spoke.
“Wherefore hast thou entered the Forbidden Library?”
“The Oracle of Horthax told us the knowledge we seek can be found here,” Reave answered. “We have taken this pilgrimage pursuing answers. Will you help us, Chaos Librarian?”
The voices laughed, setting the hairs on Nate’s arm on end.
“Know ye not that knowledge is power?” the voices coalesced in the blackness in front of them. “Power which cometh with a price? The universal balance shall not be robbed, nor the fates mocked. Who amongst thee shall pay the toll?”
From the blackness stepped a creature of nightmare. A burbling mass of eyes and shapeless limbs, body parts that defied logic and reason, sinew and bone that twitched and danced as it moved toward them. The creature wore a mirrored mask, one that took the shape of a man whose face was twisted in unbearable agony and sorrow, his features gnarled and contorted. Its neck was a tangle of ropey black tentacles that stretched nearly four feet to its head.
Everyone but Alianna reflexively stepped back in terror. Alianna stepped forward, placing herself between the group and this strange creature.
“We will have answers to our questions, beast.” She drew her spear which crackled to life. “One way or another.”
The beast’s head tilted slowly to the side as it regarded her. It then began to laugh, a sound similar to a bear choking on a bag of marbles.
Sam gripped her weapon as Alianna’s jaw tightened.
The laughter subsided, and the beast approached. A black and red robe materialized out of thin air around the creature, hiding its grisly form, leaving only the long roped neck and mask in view.
It towered over Alianna by several feet as it glowered down on her. She glared back at the beast, undaunted. Sam felt a distinct sense of panic rise from the pit of her stomach, climbing her spine to the back of her neck. She wanted nothing more than to turn and run, to flee from the presence of this abomination. Glancing at Nate’s pallid, panicked face, she could see he was having a similar internal struggle.
“Very well. You have been duly warned. Follow me,” the beast said, before turning abruptly to the left and entering a swirling portal that appeared from nowhere.
They all breathed a sigh of relief as they entered a long hallway, and the oppressive atmosphere relented.
“I guess now we know why this is called the Forbidden Library,” Sam said. “What with the super evil monsters running the place. Their staff meetings must be insane.”
Charlie grinned. “That’s not the worst of it. With a neck like that, imagine how much time it would have to think about its mistake if it stepped in quicksand.”
The walls were made of a black marble, inlayed with swirls of iron gray. But they at least reflected the light from the many torches set in sconces that lined both walls. Every five feet, there was a small domed chevet, where a strange mechanical creature sat.
The clockwork creations had a vaguely humanoid head, with a pair of unblinking gem eyes that glowed a soft orange. Their torso was round, made of a polished silver. The constant rattle of gears and sound of mechanical snapping came from inside its body. Ten thin, delicate arms sprouted from its midsection, each ending in a hand with two fingers and a thumb, like some mechanical daddy long-legs.
Each of these automatons wrote endlessly in a large number of books simultaneously, their hands moving with impressive speed and elegance, dipping their long quills into bottles of ink as they wrote a stream of words.
Sam approached one of the creatures, and began to read aloud as it wrote.
“The child walks with a limp to her mother, and pulls at the tattered hemp dress to get her attention. Her mother looks down at her, as the girl’s baby brother continues to suckle at her breast. ‘What is it, my dear?’ the mother says, her voice disinterested. ‘Mama, the goat has a black coat.’ Her mother stares in exhaustion at the straw ceiling of their hut. ‘Yes, dear,’ the mother answers with little enthusiasm. ‘Mama?’ the child says, oblivious to her mother’s fatigue. ‘Thomas said that his father is a humanitarian. Is that like a vegetarian, but they only eat other humans?’ The mother sighs and wonders why this child was not taken with consumption like the others in the village last winter. The mother does not yet realize she is again pregnant, and will soon bear another son.”
Sam’s voice trailed off. “What is this?”
The beast stopped and turned to her. Its voice bubbled and popped as it spoke. “Do not disturb the labor of the clockwork librarians. Their task is to record the whole of history as it unfolds.”
“So this story it’s writing, this is happening somewhere right now?”
The creature nodded a single time.
“But why record something so pointless as a child annoying her mother?”
“Only through the lens of history that thou canst identify which details are unimportant, and which are meaningful. Thus we seek to record all, that we might understand all.”
“Wait, so you record everything?” Charlie asked in horror.
The creature nodded.
“Like, everything, everything?”
“Verily. Everything. Even the time that thou didst wave at a stranger in the fish market at Whitespire who wast waving at their friend standing behind thee.”
“We should burn this place to the ground…”
The creature laughed its revolting laugh. Charlie shuddered.
The ground rumbled and lurched. It felt as if they were in an elevator that descended briefly.
“What was that?” Sam asked, bracing herself against the cold stone wall. “An earthquake?”
“Another floor hath been added to the unending compendium.”
“That doesn’t really clear things up.”
“It wasn’t an earthquake,” Hicket said. “There are no behemoth ghosts in this area.”
Charlie stared blankly at Hicket for a moment. “Behemoth ghosts?”
Hicket seemed equally confused by Charlie’s stupidity. “Yes. The giant ghosts of warriors long dead who cause the earth to shake. They are not known to be found in this part of the world.”
“You think earthquakes are caused by giant ghosts?”
“Everyone knows earthquakes are caused by giant ghosts.” Hicket smiled condescendingly at Charlie.
“Earthquakes are caused by tectonic plate movement.”
“What?”
“Underneath the earth, there are giant shelves of stone - tectonic plates - that are constantly moving and pressing against one another as they float on the molten core of the planet. Wherever those plates meet, the friction and pressure causes earthquakes.”
Hicket shook his head sadly. “Those are the made-up words of a madman.”
“No, it’s what causes earthquakes.”
“Tell me,” Hicket said. “Which sounds more reasonable given everything you have seen in our world: Ghosts? Or some unseen, magical, moving underground plates floating on a river of fire?”
Charlie thought for a moment. “Well, when you put it that way…”
Alianna cleared her throat. “Tell us, Chaos Librarian, will we find the answers we seek within these books?”
“Nay, Captain Stormbow. Only the Archivist shall have the answers ye seek.”
“But we haven’t even asked our question,” Nate said.
Sam stared at him blankly. Nate hated that. She did it whenever he said something obviously stupid.
“What? How could it know?”
“Good question, Nate. How could the creature that we just learned literally has a written record of everything we’ve said or done know what we are coming here to ask?”
“Well, I guess I didn’t want to assume anything.”
Sam patted him on the head like a parent would comfort a child. “That’s okay. You’re definitely a shoe-in to get that advanced degree in holistic therapy I know you’ve been eyeballing, you juiced orange.”
“How are you still alive?” Hag asked, flitting past Nate’s ear. “In Sparta, they would have tossed you off a mountain top without giving it a second thought.”
“Thank you, Hag,” Nate grumbled as they continued down the hallway, which curved inward in a spiral shape. They walked for hours, the bend of the hallway becoming more pronounced as they traveled, until it abruptly ended as it yawned open into a circular room with a high domed ceiling.
At the center of the room was a black bubble, its surface joggled and pulsed rhythmically. Their guide extended a long, four-jointed arm from the center of its robes, and traced a sigil onto its surface. The rune blazed a bright red, and the bubble popped, revealing a spiral of flat, silver plates that floated in the air, forming a sort of staircase that led down into an endless world of shadow.
As they descended, the sound of their boots on the silver structure rang and echoed through the vast room. Nate’s head swam as he peered over the edge. Their torchlight did not reach the walls of the enormous structure, nor could they see how deep it went as the stairs spiraled out of sight.
As they shuffled down the steps, there was a nearly imperceptible change, as if the stairs were flatting out, or they were walking forward instead of down, and then suddenly they were climbing the stairs instead of descending them, though Nate was uncertain how that was possible.
All sense of direction and gravity seemed to change in the blackness. The path twisted and rotated, yet he felt his feet held firmly on each step. Looking ahead, he could see Alianna nearly perpendicular to him, yet when he reached where she was, nothing was amiss.
They finally ascended to a silver platform in the shape of a pentagon. Five silver bowls floated five feet off the platform, one at each of the points of the pentagram. The Chaos Librarian extended its limb once more, and a blood red light shot from its twisted hand to each of the bowls, which burst into flame, sending jets of crimson fire several feet into the air.
“Behold, the Archivist,” the Librarian said, gazing upward.
Sam’s mind reeled. Floating above them, illuminated by the bloody flames was a swirling mass of wet, inky-black flesh. The burburing jumble of thew was unfixed in form; its maddening instability defied reason, defied any attempt to understand its evolving anatomy and unstable function.
It was, at one moment, an amalgam of an octopod and goat - though not wholly either. The next it was a melange of an expanding web of ropey flesh and branching horns. Great eyes swelled and disappeared, flesh roiled and dissolved. A slavering, fanged maw would snap, only to be replaced by a coil of putrid tentacles that slurped across its surface.
The only constant was a churning flash of color, if it could be called a color. The same hue that, with sickening realization, Nate recalled seeing in the falling star that had brought them to this cursed land ran along the ridges and gaps that continually manifest along the Archivist’s body. It hurt to look at, yet he couldn’t look away.
“For what purpose have you come?” a thunderous voice echoed through the room, so loud Charlie could feel it vibrating in his chest. The sound was repulsively inhuman.
Nate’s hands shook, and he sank to his knees. He couldn’t explain why, but the terror and madness he felt looking up at this creature was more than his mind could bear. He was faintly aware of Sam weeping. He glanced at her and, in horror saw, tears of thick blood trickling down her face. Their ears rang as the pressure in the room dropped.
“We seek the name and location of the heir of Brenius the Divine,” Reave shouted, his voice distended and choked from the effort.
“Are you certain you wish me to show you this?”
Charlie tumbled to the ground next to Nate, his muscles twitching uncontrollably. Sam turned her mind inward, forcing herself to focus on the feeling of the Aether. She heard Hicket scream as he pushed past her and fled down the stairs.
“Yes,” Reave said, his voice and body strained with the effort.
“So be it.”
A thread of inky flesh shot from the creature’s body, engulfing Reave’s head. He gasped and gagged as the organic material sunk into his temples, boring into his skull, which swelled and bloated.
“By the Aether,” he screamed. “I see her. I see her!”
“Where?” Alianna bellowed. “Tell us where she is, Reave.”
Reave’s body jolted and jerked. “Her name is Meralda,” he shouted, his body writhing. He began to scream. Nate tried to stand, but pitched forward, his knees buckling. He began to crawl toward Reave as Alianna collapsed.
Charlie saw Hag looking down at him, an expression of concern on his insectoid face.
“Meralda Redthorne,” Reave gasped. Several loud pops could be heard as his limbs twisted, his joints dislocating.
“Where can we find her?” Alianna shouted. Grasping Reave’s robes she placed a hand on his chest. “You must tell us where she is, Reave.”
Nate reached Reave, and pulled himself next to Alianna. She glanced at him in shock. He closed his eyes, and began to will whatever amount of energy he could summon into Reave. He felt a familiar warmth, dulled by the horrifying presence that floated above him, swell within his chest. It cascaded down his arm and into Reave.
Reave’s mouth gapped wide, his jaw cracked and dislocated on the right side. His mouth distended, and his tongue hung loose. “Silvermoore,” he gasped. “On the edge of Hollowbone Lake.”
“Release him!” Alianna shouted. The thick rope of flesh released Reave, and all three collapsed to the ground. Reave’s body steamed, his limbs a tangled mess, his joints bent in the wrong way.
As the presence of the Archivist receded, so did the oppressive madness. Sam crawled to Charlie, her trembling hands patting him, searching for injuries. “You okay?”
“Not even remotely,” Charlie said before leaning over and vomiting off the edge of the platform. The bile and partially digested food disappeared into the shadows below, and the splatter of it hitting the ground didn’t come for several seconds.
“Cool,” Charlie said weakly as he rolled onto his back. “I hope that landed on a librarian.”
Sam was drenched with sweat, her hair clung to her forehead. Her breathing was heavy and uneven, but she seemed to have fared better than her friends.
“Alianna,” she said, stumbling toward Captain Stormbow and the broken form of Reave. “Are you alright?”
Sam had to avert her eyes from the broken body of Reave, whose gasping, short breaths belied the agony he was in. He resembled a crumpled piece of paper in human form. Nate lay next to them, seemingly unable to control any of his limbs.
“Can you heal him?” Sam asked.
Alianna’s grim expression answered her question.
“Find her,” Reave gasped, his speech distorted by his broken body. “Meralda Redthorne. Silvermoore.” He repeated the information over and over like a mantra, his voice becoming weaker, his words increasingly unintelligible. His desperate gasps began to slow, until, finally, a sigh rattled deep in his throat, and he was still.
Slowly, strength and feeling returned to Nate’s limbs, which tingled and burned like the handful of times he had managed to fall asleep on his hand, leaving it numb and dead.
Wordlessly, he helped Alianna heft Reave’s mangled corpse, and the two of them reverently carried him back along the twisting path of stairs.
As they exited the black building, Hicket stood sheepishly near Gri. He moved to help carry Reave’s body, but Alianna gave him a withering stare of such intensity that he froze in place.
“I… I’m sorry, I-” he stammered.
“These three children showed more courage than my second in command,” Alianna hissed at him. “Coward.”
Hicket winced at the word, and stepped back as if he’d been slapped across the face.
Gri ran to Charlie, hugging him enthusiastically. “Gri happy soft man okay.”
Charlie blushed, but hugged Gri back. “Thanks, Gri. I’m glad you’re okay too.”
“Never again Gri refuse to enter evil place. Gri feel deep shame. Maybe Gri could helped friend Reave.”
“There wasn’t anything any of us could have done.”
Together, Nate and Alianna wrapped Reave’s body in a white canvas tarp. Reave’s clacker approached the body, its two long antenna tapping along his face and chest. It then collapsed to the ground, shivering and clicking next to the body of its master.
“I guess we’re going to Silvermoore now?” Sam said.
“Oh, wonderful! Silvermoore!” the puppet-Henry-Potter said, while dancing and clapping his arms, his wooden limbs rattling like dried reeds.
“I’m getting awfully tired of these fetch quests,” Charlie grumbled.
Nate clapped his friend on the back. “We know where the hand of Brenius is, and now we know where the heir is. Only two errands left and we’re done.”
After some coaxing, Nate and Alianna were able to get Reave’s body onto his clacker.
“We will honor him tonight,” Alianna said. “But I want to get as far from this place with the remaining light as we can.”
They rode south, back the way they had come, following Nate’s map. It was inexpressibly frustrating to realize they had been less than a day’s travel from Silvermoor five weeks prior.
“I’m beginning to understand why Tolkien included so much travel in the Lord of the Rings,” Sam said. “You kinda take for granted being able to hop on a plane and be somewhere in a few hours.”
That night, under a thicket of stars, Hicket oversaw setting up camp while Alianna began building a pyre from the scant brambles and scrub brush in the lifeless wild. Nate helped as best he could, gathering an armful of tumbleweeds that had been caught by the wind in a jagged stone crevice.
A chill wind cut across the desolate landscape. They stood wordlessly over Reave’s body. A somber mood had muted their more sarcastic impulses. Even Hag was subdued, fluttering near Charlie’s shoulder.
Alianna lit the fire. They stood, a silent congregation to witness the bright flames lick the dry branches that cracked and popped. The dry desert wood caught quickly and, soon, Reave was engulfed in a roaring blaze.
Alianna held out her hand, and the heavy tomes that Reave carried in his pack floated to her outstretched hand. She turned to Nate, and held them out to him.
He didn’t move to take them, but raised his eyebrows. Nate was dumbfounded. Did she really want him to take Reave’s spellbooks? Alianna hated him, had been nothing but condescending and insulting. She held his gaze, and nodded a single time. He took the books from her hand.
In an uncharacteristic moment of kindness, Alianna briefly put a hand on Nate’s shoulder, before turning back to the fire to continue their wordless vigil.
Nate studied his friend’s faces. They were harder now. Being in the place, seeing so much death and sorrow and misery, seeing people they cared for die. It was taking a toll on them.
As the flames died to embers, they each lingered in silence for a time. Alianna and Hicket both left for their tents, while the Henry Potter puppet wandered off into the darkness.
It was Gri who finally broke their reverie. “Gri very sorry Reave die.”
“We all are, Gri,” Sam said.
“Many good soldier die.” She stood, flexing her enormous muscles in the cold night air. “Gri hope it worth it.”
She stalked off, her gaze lingering on Charlie, who pointedly avoided her eyes.
The three friends remained near the smoldering coals. Hag perched atop Charlie’s head, gripping his hair like reins.
Nate gazed at the stars, still so strange and foreign, filled with constellations and stars vastly different from the ones he had studied as an obsessive elementary school kid.
He cleared his throat. “Looking up at the stars really makes you feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things.”
Sam nudged him with her shoulder. “It should, you haven’t accomplished much of anything.”
“That’s not true,” Hag said. “Remember when he killed Gadium?”
Nate ignored the barb. “Haven’t you ever stared vastness of the night sky, the blackness between the stars, and realized that in the face of an expanding universe and the sheer scale of existence, both known and unknown, that you are nothing? Haven’t you had the knowledge of your utter and complete meaninglessness and powerlessness slowly grow in the back of your mind like a pit of fear until it threatens to swallow you whole?”
Sam blinked a couple of times. “No, not really.”
Nate pursed his lips. “Yeah… me neither.”
“You’re a weird dude, Nate,” Charlie said, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “That’s why we like you.”
“I’m going to sleep,” Sam said, stretching her stiff limbs.
“Me too,” Charlie said. “Another month of riding on those ghastly clackers, I’m going to rest my chaffed thighs as much as possible.”
“You coming?” Sam asked.
Nate shook his head. “I’m not tired yet.”
Sam nodded, and then gave Nate a hug. Nate became acutely aware of the warmth of her body, his cheeks flushed as he wrapped his arms around her.
Sam nuzzled her face into Nate’s chest. She inhaled his musky scent, her stomach fluttering.
The hug lingered, both comforted by the close presence of the other, yet both keenly aware of the building attraction between them. Finally, Sam released Nate, smiling up at him.
Charlie stood uncomfortably close, grinning from ear to ear.
“What?” Nate said defensively.
“Nothing,” Charlie said, still grinning like an idiot.
Sam and Charlie disappeared into the indigo landscape. The broken moon crested the Furnace, which continued to rumble ominously in the distance, belching ash and flame into the night sky.
Sleep did not come quickly for Nate, his mind and body equally aflame and disconcerted by his confused interactions with Sam.