A magician’s staff was not nearly so convenient to carry underground. The mineshafts that extended from the opposite side of the cave were unmistakably dwarf-sized: broad and short and left as they were carved, without regard for the comfort of human-sized navigators. Both the top gem and wooden base of Eris’ staff dragged, snagged, and caught on the walls, as did her head, which often collided with an unseen support beams.
She did not account tall stature and femininity as a combination conferring many disadvantages. This was a notable one.
Kauom proceeded easily and Robur, lithe and not tall for his reduced age, was not slowed much. Still they went together cautiously. Paths diverged, forcing them to choose one direction over another at random; dead ends forced them back, and thus the process repeated for at least an hour.
“This is beginning to feel familiar,” mused Eris as discomfort mounted.
“You should feel lucky, witch. Not many outsiders grace the mineshafts of the Dwarves,” Kauom said.
“I am positively blessed for the opportunity to crawl through these wonderful tunnels.”
“Exactly.”
“In fact,” she cut in, “I have been in a mine like this before. A Manastone mine near Kaimas, run by a dwarf named Erkent. That is where I encountered the Manawyrm.”
“In a mine?”
“In a cave discovered by miners.”
Robur spoke next: “Do you think another Manawyrm may be here?”
Eris glanced at a seam of ore that shined brightly in their light, which had since been moved to a torch. A small sliver of whiteish gold yet to be extracted. Arkwi ore.
“There is no Manastone here for it to bathe in,” she said. “But there are other manner of abominations which dwell below ground.”
They reached a point that terminated in a ladder leading up.
“This is not right,” Eris continued, growing frustrated, “we are seeking what caused the kobolds to flee from the earth. We are going the wrong way.”
They doubled back to try another tunnel. After some minutes of silence Robur continued,
“Do you know much about Arkwi metal, Kauom?”
“Do I know much about Arkwi metal? I’m a stonemason!” he snapped back.
“…do you?”
“Of course not!”
“Nothing?”
He growled. “Nothing more than any other dwarf. Don’t you know about Arkwi?”
“No,” Robur said flatly.
“Oh. Well. It’s hard as iron. Ductile like gold. The word means ‘white steel.’ It was one of the Stonemother’s many gifts to the People Under the Mountain—she gave us the secrets to smelt Arkwi in our manaforges, us and no one else.”
“Is it magical?”
“Who cares?”
Robur shrugged, falling silent. Eris, for her part, did not care—at least not very much. She doubted they would find anything interesting at this rate. She was also confident in her ability to tell any lie she desired to the Mayor now the bulk of the kobolds were dispatched. The longer her thighs burned and neck ached as she crouched through these shafts, the more amenable she became to the avenue of manipulation. The fate of this town interested her very little.
Presently they found another ladder. This led down. It wasn’t far from the cave where the kobolds were confronted, but a preponderance of paths had seen them overlook it until this moment. They descended, then followed another tunnel several hundred feet as it snaked into the earth.
This shaft was newer. Brilliant, sparkling gold reflected back into Eris’ eyes. Unmined veins of white steel shined against torchlight like crystal mirrors on the walls and ceiling. Squat and uncomfortable as she was, she still stopped to admire their beauty, even as her companions bypassed her. This ‘Arkwi’ was like staring into gemstones and gold both at once. She ran her finger across an exposed line…
The unrefined metal blistered with heat. She realized only too late, swearing and pulling her finger away with a burn.
“What is it?” Robur said. He rushed back to her.
She took a moment to recover. The flesh on her fingertip reddened. “It seems such beauty does not come without its price.”
“Nothing comes without a price, witch!” Kauom called down the shaft.
Kauom’s presence demonstrated that to her all too well. She sighed, gave one last look to the Arkwi, then proceeded deeper into the mine.
----------------------------------------
What could be said in favor of the dwarves was that they were at least uniform in their tunneling. No such praise could be leveled at the kobolds. The point at which one shaft breached into another was unmissable. From clean, rectangular, well-carved stone pathways to ugly, uneven, poorly-crafted tunnels. They appeared barely navigable.
“Are we going in?” Kauom said. The ‘path’ forward looked something like a squirrel’s burrow, in which any sensible person might expect to find a snake come summertime.
“We do not need to,” Eris reminded him.
“You’re playing a risky game, telling lies like that. What if he doesn’t believe you? What if word gets out we cheated him—it will eventually. What then?”
“Then I will quake in my sandals at the thought Mayor Uttaruom is pursuant to me! However would I sleep at night, with merely four thousand of his coins for comfort?”
“Bah,” he said. “Lying is dirty business. I’d sooner turn to banditry—that’s honest work.”
“We could always take the money from him by force.”
Kauom contemplated this for a moment, then shook his head. “And get the Rangers on our backs. None of this is worth the risk of not getting paid in the first place. No. We’ve done half the job. We finish it.”
“You presume the risk to our coinpurses parallels the risk to our wellbeing,” Eris said.
“For four thousand drachmae I’d risk my mother’s beard,” Kauom said. He growled again. “The three of us killed a sal ampau pakware salamo luwoku, with our hands tied behind our backs. We can…handle this.”
He didn’t sound convinced, but paranoia and cowardice were not to be conflated. For the price the Mayor had named Eris felt confident Kauom would have the courage of a dragonslayer. He would also check beneath each rock for drakes all along the way, just in case.
“And we would be keeping the people of Akancar safe,” Robur added.
“Yeah. That too.”
“Very well,” Eris conceded. For her part she not strongly believe what she argued; she merely wished to be combative. Still, as ever she didn’t want to give the impression that she was open to reason. “I will confess I have grown curious what we might find. Will you lead the way, or shall I?”
“You can make your own light. I can’t carry a torch in there, the flame’ll lick us whenever we try to crawl.”
“I’ll go first,” Robur said.
“By all means,” Eris said.
So Robur went first into the kobold tunnels. They were like navigating earthen esophagi: stoney strictures so narrow in places that inhalation was required to squeeze through. That Kauom fit at all was a miracle. He came last in their order, and the noise of his armor scraping against the walls reminded Eris of their first springtime adventure together, of the long, dark, sideways journey through the breach in the cave’s walls to the Archon’s Vault. This was markedly less pleasant.
A miasma of decay hung in the air. Often they stopped to climb over some rock that proved too large or dense to tunnel through, or crawl beneath some other, or choose between two paths at random. Worst of all: every step of the way they were haunted by the beauty of more Arwki in small veins along the walls, which required constant cognizance to avoid collision.
Eris had covered herself more thoroughly for this expedition than their previous due to the advancing season, but she still was bruised, cut, and torn across her torso and arms by the time the shafts broadened.
There they found another cave. This was the lair, or one of many. A place kobolds had been living. Nests were excavated into alcoves. Shards of shells covered the ground. A tundra of animal bones. Fish were the particular favorite of the creatures, it seemed. From this cave were countless more paths, tunnels, corridors, and the natural egress of the cave itself through the earth.
“I see nothing yet to be afraid of,” Eris said. A wave of frustration hit her. “We are wasting our time.”
“Perhaps it was here before but has fled now,” Robur said.
“How convenient,” Eris scoffed. “Are you content, dwarf, or must we stumble about in these tunnels until we starve?”
“Look,” Kauom said. He pointed at one of the cave’s walls. She extinguished their light, not yet transferred back to a torch, and let darkness overtake them; she looked in the direction as instructed. At the bottom of a gentle slope, through the closed jaws of stalactites and stalagmites, came a glow of orange. Like dawn at the end of a mineshaft, only down instead of up.
She lit another torch and handed it to Robur.
“Proceed,” she gestured.
They walked quickly, in silence, through the cave, which while no less treacherous than the kobold-carved tunnels at least compensated in some measure with spaciousness. The cave system was uneven and for half the trip their perspective of their destination obscured by pillars of rock. By the time they saw it once more, the orange glow was gone. The cave twisted off in another direction, into darkness.
Eris darted up. She peeked around the corner.
Orange again. Moving, retreating from them. Not quickly. Flickering shadows rolled against the passageway, like the black shapes cast against a ballroom’s walls during a dance.
It vanished.
Kauom exhaled. He stood behind her. “What in all the underground was that?” he said.
“A provocateur,” Eris said at length. “Come.”
She led them again through the tunnel. This was less cluttered, more navigable. Soon they reached the bend. With a gesture Eris extinguished Robur’s torch, for here they wouldn’t need the light: a furnace’s glow illuminated the cave clearly, with an almost domestic warmth, but such feelings were banished quickly when she glanced around the corner once more.
The thing before her—for it wasn’t a beast, nor creature, nor even a construct—reminded her of nothing except descriptions of the terrible swamp lizards which dwelt in the lands of Akkan. It had four short limbs and a long tail and a jaw that tapered like the blade of a sword, but all the details of its appearance were obfuscated by shadow, for its scales were black—and everything between oozed magma. When it walked its movement was slow and it exposed its belly, and Eris saw fire as bright as a lantern from beneath, bubbling like molten metal, kept in place by nothing at all. Although its tail was long it was hardly larger than a human overall.
It lumbered some steps forward before stopping at a large seam of Arkwi on the cave’s floor. There, already resting beside it, curled in a ball, was another thing; it uncoiled itself like a cat, appraising the new arrival, before returning to its rest. Then the second thing collapsed beside it. Basking in the heat of the white metal. Withdrawing into itself.
Blocking the path forward.
The cave darkened significantly with their undersides concealed.
“What are they?” Kauom whispered.
Eris stared. She opened her mouth, ready to make a suggestion, when all her bones shook:
Pure Ones.
“Not now,” she whispered.
Their eternal lives are more beautiful than its. I will not permit it to murder them. It shall be stopped.
She shook her head, chasing the invading thoughts away as she always had before.
“What do you mean not now? We have to know what it is to kill it!” Kauom said.
“I was not talking to you!” Eris snapped.
“Fire seems like it will be ineffective,” Robur said.
“Agreed,” Kauom said.
There were too many voices in her head. Eris tried to concentrate. Clenching her jaw. “Be quiet! Let me think!”
Think though she did, no ideas came. She was too distracted.
“The elements can be awakened like the undead,” Robur suggested after a time.
The elements. Yes, the elements. What had the Wyrm said? Pure Ones. Revelation flooded into her mind, snapping her back into focus. “They are beings of fire and earth, given life with the aether—elementals,” she said.
“How do we kill them?” Kauom said.
It would not dare!
A moment of thought. An elemental was something like a demon, and she recalled her encounter with the predator in the tower through the portal to Seneria. Draining it with her staff had weakened it.
“They can tapped of their mana.”
Robur frowned in the darkness. “An elemental has a great deal of Essence to absorb…”
She hit her staff on the ground, a gentle reminder that she was now equipped like a great mage. “I am prepared for this.”
“There might be more of them,” Kauom said. He stared at the two still coiled across the cave.
“Then you had best keep your crossbow loaded,” Eris said. With that she stood.
She felt the aura of the elementals as she drew nearer. They were natural magical phenomena—freaks of the aether, not created by some deliberate act of will on the part of a magician or demon. That made them easy to dispel, though their magic would be wild and dangerous to handle.
They sensed her, too. Halfway on her approach to their resting place the second elemental uncoiled itself in the blink of an eye, faster than a striking rattlesnake. She could feel the heat and smell the sulfur when its mouth opened. Where might have been a forked tongue was instead a jet of flame. She lowered her staff, and realizing only now the boldness of her plan, began channeling mana from the elemental’s direction, letting it flood into her body, filling up the gem atop her staff—
No more!
The muscles on legs contracted and her staff loosened in her grip. She dropped involuntarily to the ground, yelping in pain. The elemental rushed toward her. The second elemental, more lethargic, had risen by now; its eyes were on Kauom.
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The first went for Eris with its mouth—but the fire within was dead. She had tapped it, partially, as signified by the heightened glow of the staff’s gem, and it was now diminished. She hit the elemental with her staff’s haft through the pain and focused, clearing her mind, and in an instant all the tension in her muscles was banished. She focused again on channeling energy to her staff. The elemental lurched back in her direction. It swiped at her with a stubby arm, but its fires were its main offensive weapon, and every second they grew dimmer.
Tapping mana from a demon was not unlike pulling pure energy from a Manastone, or directly from the aether itself. But the wild magic that animated an elemental was different, as different as carbonated Rytusian cider from a smooth Kathar wine. She felt its crackling through her veins. The empowerment still felt like energy, yet no more like mana from the aether than a spot of sunlight on a bare arm was like a jolt of static electricity. But it was a good pain.
Soon the elemental slowed, then stopped altogether. The fire on its belly went out. It went limp.
The gem atop her staff glowed brilliant red. Within the stone crackled streaks of violet.
The second elemental was not so easily dealt with. Kauom shot it in the head, blasting away a chunk of its skull, revealing only fire beneath. In response Robur let slip a gust of frost from his fingertips. Steam rose instantly; the cold did little against the exterior. Soon the elemental was at Kauom. It tackled him to the ground. Flame overtook him. His beard was singed by fire. His head turned forward and back. He had a dagger in his hand which he punched against the beast’s molten belly, but it was swallowed whole and his fingers burned after the first stab.
Robur tried a tap of his own. He lowered a hand to the spine of the elemental and withdrew a breath of mana. Eris saw violet and red streaks of mana pulled into the air, but they crackled with electricity, and the sparks bit at Robur and shocked him and knocked him backward.
Eris caught him before he fell. Unable to think of anything else, she presented her staff to him. “Frost!” she yelled.
They both took hold of it, then conjured cold together, focusing on the open fire exposed by the hole in the elemental’s skull, releasing the wild mana stored within the gem—
Not frost but pure snow poured out from the top of the gem. The hot air of the cave froze over instantly. The molten belly of the elemental turned white. Its fires died after a minute of hard freezing, and Kauom was freed, if somewhat frigid.
Dwarves were not a flammable people. He was fine. His clothes were ruined, however. “Damn magma lizards!” he swore.
He shot another bolt into the fallen elemental’s head. The stone shattered at the force of the mighty arbalest.
The gem was drained once again.
It will pay for these murders.
Your attempts on my life have led to nothing, wyrm, she thought back.
It is clear now that it must be stopped, no matter the cost.
She ignored it. Robur relit his torch. “That was very dangerous. We are lucky the captured Essence of the first elemental obeyed our commands—”
“Luck had little to do with it,” Eris said. Her heart pounded, breath fast, and she pulled her hair back from out of her eyes.
“Are we finished?” he said after a pause.
“What else could be down here? We must be!” Kauom said.
Eris glanced farther down the cave. The tunnels, still lined with Arkwi veins, ran down into the darkness—and there she saw another orange glow.
“I think not,” she said.
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The cave system was full of uneven ground and tight passageways. No human was meant to traverse this place. She wondered how many miles they were from Akancar now, below ground and across it. She steeled herself for whatever was to come.
They scurried together up a series of ledges before they finally reached the next egress, the next source of light. This was much brighter. Past a column of rock they saw a cavern covered with Arkwi ore, exposed everywhere on the walls, on the floor, hanging like chandelier glass from the ceiling. In small quantities it had some luminescence, but so much together like this twinkled like a clear night sky blessed by a full moon—a blood moon, a full moon tinged by fire.
Eris felt something. A jolt of the wild arcane. She pressed inside the cavern.
Loose chunks of Arkwi ore littered the slanted, uneven ground of the cavern. Like some miner had come to this place only to discard what he had extracted. It was the most beautiful, most dangerous midden Eris had ever seen.
A sudden draft caught her hair from behind.
Sparks danced across the ground. Flames coalesced in droplets throughout the cavern. A twisting inferno swept from one wall to the next, suffocating Eris, forcing her backward. She heard nothing but roaring and rushing in her ears. No sound at all but the clamor of a hurricane. And then—
The ore on the ground rose.
Levitating into the air. Assembling itself into the shape of an ogre. Not even sheets of metal, not bones of steel, but uneven, jagged, unrefined pieces of crystal and rock lined with Arkwi ore; that was the carapace of the elemental that materialized in the cavern.
The toes on a foot first, then the arch of the heel, followed by a gap, the ankle, next the knee; it was like a suit of metal armor, where the man within had skin that burned and his plates were made of glistening rock instead of steel. Soon the entire shape of a man congealed, looking down at the party, almost in judgement, ten feet tall, bent over to fit in the cavern.
“What is that?” Kauom whispered.
“An infernal,” Eris said, staring.
He is a Great Pure One. Leave his domain!
“Can you drain it like the others?” Kauom said.
Eris nodded.
“Perhaps we had best leave—” Robur said.
“For four thousand, we drain it!” Kauom said.
The infernal moved. It knelt down, lowering its head to Eris. She presented her staff. This was more dangerous. An infernal, a greater fire elemental, was like a demon, impossible to decipher in its caprice. But with her party’s assistance she could still tap its Essence—
He shall not be its next victim!
Two burning violet eyes on the infernal’s featureless Arkwi ore head appraised Eris. Calculating, as if considering what it wanted from humans.
Eris exhaled…
Her cloak ignited. A small trace of flame at the bottom of its fur lining.
She lowered her staff and inhaled.
An explosion hotter than the sun followed. The blaze of the infernal expanded tenfold, rising, so bright it was blinding. It opened its mouth and breathed out a wave of flame in Eris’ direction. She jumped away, holding her staff level still, continuing to breathe in, channeling the magic into herself. It roared in fury, the fires between its plating dimming somewhat, and it lashed out senselessly with its enormous arms. Robur dodged, but only just. The ground shook. It stumbled in her direction but she stepped aside easily: so long as she drained it of its Essence, it seemed confused, disoriented. The magic that channeled into her staff was hot, crackling, burning bright, and her gem was filled not red but nearly pure violet, but still its glow was like that of pure lava—
No!
It swept its hand in a chop sideways and a jet of flame shot out toward her and Kauom. They both ducked onto the ground. They landed on a vein of Arkwi and were burned, but avoided immolation. Eris slipped out of her cloak.
“What do I do?” Kauom shouted as he ran in circles.
“Destroy the stone! Shoot it when ‘tis weakened!” Eris shouted.
She focused in again. Raw energy flooded her veins.
Desist, mortal!
Robur tried frost. He was growing tired, but it seemed to at least distract the elemental, unused to the sensation of cold—however momentary. Its focus turned to him. Then Kauom shot. The arbalest blew away a large chunk of the infernal’s shoulder, staggering it backwards and putting out a tenth of its fire, but it soon returned its attention to the fight. It went for Robur and he ran cover.
The gem reached its maximum charge. The infernal dimmed again.
Enough!
The staff slipped from her grasp. Her hand seized.
It ends now! It is mine; and if it dies, then so it is just; its mortal existence is insignificant compared to the Pure Ones it destroys!
Her vision, flaring with flashes of red and orange fire, went all white, then black. She screamed in pain, but no words came out. She felt spasms erupting in every muscle all throughout her body: every inch of her being contracted in protest, bringing her to the ground. All her skin went numb.
“Eris!” Robur cried out.
Her eyes opened—but she did not open her eyes. The Manawyrm did.
She saw Robur rush to her side, only to be swept away by a blast of wind full of flame. She saw Kauom reload, then call out to her. She felt her knees bend as she reached down to retrieve her staff, and of course she felt the convulsions in her arms and legs and back as she did so, so cripplingly painful that she couldn’t stand, yet stand she did anyway—because something else was in control and it cared not for pain.
Then she heard the words that issued from her own mouth. The words that echoed with both her voice, and the voice of the Manawyrm:
“Lay down its arms or be annihilated!”
Kauom turned, shocked, and pointed his arbalest in her direction, clearly not thinking; he dodged out of the way of another blast of fire. There was hardly time to talk. When the infernal swept at him with an arm, then kicked with a leg, he dodged out of the way and fired near its heart. The blow did tremendous damage, the arbalest was a powerful tool, blasting away like an explosive at the elemental's chest and revealing the core beneath its breast—
“Enough!”
Even through the pain and numbness Eris felt the tingling of a spell being prepared. The rising, almost sexual thrill of mana stored, about to be released. The violet storm within her staff turned into a tempest, gathering for just a moment more. And then…
A projection of blue lightning released. It shot forward from the gem, draining it to emptiness once again. The release was so strong, so immense, so powerful that it formed a single streak in the air that held for seconds. Crackling thunder followed. Deafening, loosening rocks overhead and sending showers of stone into Eris’ hair.
Kauom was hit by the full blast in the side. His arm was seared off instantly—vaporized, disintegrated. A hole tore in his torso. He toppled to the ground, smoking, injured badly. His arbalest dropped.
The infernal recovered.
Closer to Kauom, it went for him first, not caring that he was now prone. It kicked him with its Arkwi ore foot, then stepped on his chest. Eris watched, unable to do anything, as it lowered all its weight onto him, crushing his ribs, and letting forth a gust of fire that was too much for even a dwarf to withstand.
Kauom screamed. But even as his screams stopped, his arm and legs continued to flail on the ground, continued to fight back, until finally they fought on no more.
Robur tackled Eris to the ground.
She didn’t feel but only saw the brawl that ensued, as Robur, his eyes now trailing green with the Supernal Vision, pinned her down and pulled her staff away; and her own arms, as she flailed against him, kicking him, slapping him, biting at him.
“Desist!” she heard herself say again. Robur took the beating she gave him—the beating the Manawyrm gave him, for she was in control of nothing—and tore off her gauntlet. Eris was bigger than him, but her new puppeteer was inexperienced with her body, poor at manipulating its muscles under duress; once her gauntlet was in his grasp, he grabbed her staff, lowered it to her heart, and closed his eyes.
The spasms all stopped in an instant. Suddenly she could breathe again. Think again. It was no longer that her body wouldn’t move, but that she couldn’t move—the pain was too much, too sore everywhere. She gasped, coughing terribly, on the ground; she felt drained and useless, like a sick child.
Robur stood over her with her staff. Once again the gem was charged, this time with pure red energy.
The infernal finished with Kauom. He was a flattened, blackened pile of cinders. Robur used the staff to freeze the infernal’s legs, draining it all the way, then once it was empty he began siphoning off the abomination’s essence as before. But without his two party members to keep the creature distracted, even a diminished state was sufficient to take on one wizard. The infernal lumbered in his direction, swiping at him. He jumped backward, but not quite far enough—the infernal grabbed the staff from his hands and pulled it away.
Its huge, fiery, stubby, stony fingers grabbed the gem. They tightened until it fractured. Shards of red stone rained down on them. Then, with what remained of the staff, the beautiful, mana-etched staff, it swiped at him like a club.
Robur rolled away, forced back toward Eris. It struck at him again with its weapon; he dived to the side, but this time, Eris was in the path of collision. She tried to squirm for cover, but the haft came down on her left leg in a focused blow, smashing it, smashing her ankle.
She screamed.
Robur used all the rest of his own Essence to let loose a massive burst of wind. Maybe he only meant to stagger the infernal back, but it was a brilliant move, because for a brief moment the flame between the Arkwi stone flesh of the infernal blew out, and the elemental stumbled backward, inert—dazed and unable to act.
He used that time wisely. He ran to Eris and put his arm around her shoulder. He had to lift her upright, and once she stood she leaned on him all the way as they scurried out into the cave network, back out toward the kobold tunnels.
The infernal did not stay inert for long. A gust of immolating wind resuscitated it moments later.
It followed.
Thunderous footsteps echoed behind them. They pursued their own shadows as they fled. She felt nothing in her leg but numbness now, and when she put pressure on her heel she could do nothing but collapsed under her own weight. But Robur propped her up, never letting her go, a hand around her shoulder. She was exhausted but still she hopped after him, dragging her left leg past pillars of stone and columns of weeping rock.
They squeezed through another formation of stalactites and stalagmites that narrowed into top and bottom teeth. On the way in it hadn’t seemed so difficult to traverse; now it seemed an impossibility. But Robur pulled her through, and soon they were safely to where no creature of the infernal’s size could pursue them, back where they fought the first elementals.
They panted. Caught their breaths. Robur conjured a flame in his hand to use as a light.
The frost and snow and water (from contact with the elemental’s fire) from their battle was all gone by now. All that remained was the faint sign of aethereal residue on the ground, a sign that a powerful spell was cast here.
“Oh no,” Robur said.
The elemental which Eris had drained with her staff opened its eyes. Jets of fire streaked up its skull.
Robur still held her Spellward gauntlet. Eris grabbed it from him and put it back on. “Go!” she yelled, pushing him forward, and together they limped back up through the caves.
But the elemental resuscitated itself. Slowly at first, giving them a head-start, but before long all its body was glowing with lava once again, and it slithered after them.
She didn’t look over her shoulder. She couldn’t hear its footsteps. But she saw the light it cast, the jagged shadows of all the cracks and crooked crenulations in front of her. They tripped more than once in their flight, and when it came to tight squeezes Eris found it nearly impossible to keep going. Yet Robur stayed with her. He always helped her, wordlessly, through—even as the elemental gained ground.
They arrived back in the kobold lair. Robur’s head craned to each tunnel entrance.
“Which is the way?” he said.
Eris shook her head. She looked between each but couldn’t remember. They all looked the same now.
A hiss like the crackling of fire. The elemental drew near.
Robur chose one tunnel at random. He pulled her inside. The confines within were so narrow that she had to crawl, which proved beneficial, because she could use her hands and good leg to pull and push herself instead of walking. This wasn’t the right way, but by the time they realized it was too late: the elemental had caught up.
It scurried after them into the tunnel like a wolf into a rabbit’s den. It threw itself recklessly inside, and rather than content itself with one of Eris’ legs it crawled up to grab her by the throat. She felt an immense heat on her back and rolled over and there the elemental was, like an alligator atop her, no space at all between their bodies. She scrambled to avoid being overtaken by the open lava pit of its unarmored stomach. It put both front legs on her shoulders and pinned her down. Robur came back to help, kicking it in the head, but his boots did nothing to deter it, nor did a cursory frost spell—and by now his Essence was exhausted.
A tongue of fire licked against her cheek. A jaw of Arkwi ore closed around her neck—
She shoved her hand into the elemental’s mouth. Her right hand, which she had just slipped back into her own Spellward gauntlet. It lurched in surprise at the attack as the fires of its Essence were subdued by the gauntlet’s enchantment. Then she drew wild mana from that Essence itself, as much as she could, channeling it directly into frost and water, forcing through any pain. It was recovering by now, trying to bury her, to tackle her, to subsume her with the fires of its chest, but like the infernal after Robur’s burst of wind, for a brief moment the elemental’s spark of life went out. It went limp atop her.
She pulled away. She and Robur both. Frantically, like the frightened children they were. They turned right, then left, then right two more times. When they came to a tunnel upward that looked like an abandoned lift, they spent two hours scaling it, just to be certain they would reach heights where no elemental could pursue them.
Then they emerged back in a Dwarven mineshaft. There they wandered like blind cattle in search of fields to graze for an eternity, until finally they reached a ladder up, and finally they found a path to the surface. Every step of the way was torture. But they made it out.
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There were many egresses to Akancar like the one they used. Open mines in the side of the hills used by miners centuries passed. They emerged late at night while the rain still came down hard, and in the darkness they could see the town. They made their camp in the shaft’s exit, where they had cover from the elements.
Eris had some of their provisions in her pack. They managed to start a fire and eat dried meat, their only meal that day. After so much walking the pain in her ankle became extraordinary, but she was determined to make no show of weakness before this boy. So she gritted her teeth and only yelped in pain when she moved.
“It was speaking to you,” Robur said. It was very late, after dinner, but neither of them could sleep. “We should have been more cautious.”
“You do not need to harangue me,” Eris said. “I am full aware…of what has happened.”
Her eyes closed. She saw clearly behind her lids the moment where ‘her’ spell hit Kauom. She remembered the feeling of ecstasy when such power was released. She remembered the destruction it wrought against his body. Yet she had not cast that spell. Robur knew that, surely. Did Kauom? What had he thought before he died? Would he…hold it against her?
What a silly question. Obviously she did not care. And yet…
She saw the moment again anyway.
“Had it threatened us before?” Robur asked.
Eris stared out at the falling rain. She shook her head. “No. I did not think it would do something so….stupid.”
She put her head in her hands. She hadn’t been averse to leaving Kauom to die, but to kill him herself, after so many months together, in such a petty betrayal—even she would be haunted by the memory of his expression. But he was just a dwarf. A dwarf was replaceable. She would have traded his life a dozen times over, for her staff.
It was for her staff that she choked back a tear. Not of sorrow, but of frustration. She screamed in anger, hitting her hands against the ground, falling against her bedroll, then collapsing from the pain of her broken leg. A Magister’s staff. An ancient staff, as old as the language she spoke. It had been hers. And now—now it was gone, and she had no one to blame but herself. No one to blame except that she made a deal with a creature she could not control as well as she thought she could.
The Manawyrm had to die. But for now, she felt pitiful and small and useless against forces far greater than herself. Rarely ever had she felt such profound despair.
“How long will it be gone?” she said, now staring at the wall. She felt numb.
“I can’t say, but—I had to use your staff, and take off your gauntlet, because its Essence is growing closer to yours.”
She knew where this line of questioning led. She knew what happened next. But in that moment of pain and misery, Eris saw something clearly. She saw that life itself was, perhaps, even more important than power, for power meant nothing if she never felt the deliciousness of its exercise. She saw that some conditions were so severe that they could forever disrupt her plans and send her life off course. So she decided that a temporary evil was necessary for the long-term good of her ascendancy to the ranks of the greatest magicians who had ever lived: she would have to take Robur’s manashunt.
“You can…brew your potion for me?” she said quietly. The words stung worse than her leg. She felt utterly humiliated. This, somehow, was even worse than losing control of her body—or was it just the same?
Robur nodded. “I only need a few more things. Are you certain?”
“Do you wish to make me grovel?” She spat the words at him.
“You were very opposed to the idea—”
“And still I am! I am also opposed to having my leg amputated, but if ‘tis covered in rot and gangrene, better that than the alternative.”
He fell silent for a time. He infuriated her. Eris could cultivate deliberate enigma for an eternity and still come nowhere near the indecipherability of Robur’s hound-like altruistic loyalty. It made her sick—and sicker still that she was grateful for it. That she would be dead twice over now, at least, were it not for his charity, she was all too aware. There was no greater signal of her weakness than that. It was a sign in her face as detestable as it was unavoidable, and it made her angry whenever she gave it thought.
He spoke again. “Do you think we should return to the Mayor? Perhaps he might give us a partial reward?”
“I think we are better off if we never set foot in Akancar again,” she replied. “Now leave me be. I wish to sleep.”
He didn’t say anything after that, but then that was just the point. Of course she couldn’t sleep. Not even in the Archon’s purple-sheeted bed would she have found rest that night. She spent eight hours longing for dawn, and when it came she damned it for coming too early, for now she knew it was time to give up and rise without rest. And when she did, she realized now the rain had turned to snowfall, and she realized they were in for a winter worse than any fall, and she regretted ever leaving Rook that night in Rytus.