Soon enough we were lost within the mirror-range. Every few minutes, one of those ripples we saw would pass underfoot; the hard glass surface would shudder beneath us, then bulge one-and-half feet in a strange wave, moving always from east to west.

After an hour or so of walking, and perhaps every hour after that, Alator’s eyes gave a faint flash of yellow or gold, I assume firing off whatever passes for [Survivalism] in his alien body. When he did so, he realigned himself, pointed in a certain direction, and gave some reason for choosing it:

“Strike the surface, you’ll feel echoes come back to you. In time, your toes will be able to build images in your mind of the things your eyes miss.”

Or:

“Luckily, we still travel by the light of dawn — using the landmarks that we saw when we entered, we need nothing more than the shadows to orient ourselves.”

Each time I just gazed in awe and followed him.

I wonder how long I’ll have to travel these lands and learn these secrets before I get a level in [Survivalism], myself.

As full noon settled overhead, the twin suns raging down on us were reflected ten thousand times from every surface. Keeping my eyes shut to lashes was the only way I could keep moving, but at this point it became painful to keep them open even that much.

I staggered and missed a step and fell hard into a shard of the mirror-glass. Catching my fall, my left palm slid down the exposed edge and split open.

“Okay, that’s enough, let’s rest until the suns are more kind,” Alator said. I nodded, and we retreated to a safe-seeming place. I lay face-down on the ground with my arms over my head. My cheek where the orchard-folk arrow had pierced skin itched awfully in the heat, and the scratches over my arms where the tree had exploded from Old Mereth’s magic stung — I could still feel the ache from the impact. The glass cut on my palm had stopped bleeding, but my hand was stiff and I dared not make a fist fearing it’d reopen.

Statues stood high on plinths sporadically across the expanse. They were all made out of the same mirror-glass so that they looked like they had erupted from the ground fully-formed — perhaps they had. I could see the head of one over a mirror-ridge, and its hollow eyes peered back at me. I stuck my tongue out at it.

At that moment, there was an echoing, reverb-laden splash as, about twenty yards from us, a refracted mirage-like plume of semi-transparent mercury emerged from the unbroken surface. The mercury coalesced into a tall angelfish-shaped fiend with long, feathery fins which flapped like wings to keep it afloat.

Alator and I scrambled up and, hands on our brow, trying in vain to cover our eyes from the worst of the light, readied ourselves.

It hovered in the air, watching us. There was no enmity from it — in fact, it seemed quite peaceful. The translucent liquid-metal of its form moved and dripped from it, disappearing back into the clean surface of the glass, and its eyes, huge and lidless, watched us with curiosity. As it hovered, it emitted a pleasant high-pitched hum, and I saw that in front of its dorsal fin was a strange tube that sang like a musical instrument.

Then it suddenly opened its jaw, three hinges on each side, revealing lines of needle-like teeth and a whipping bony tongue, thorned and spiked. And with a massive push of its fins, it tore over the mirror towards us.

Analysis.

Fiend :

Mercurial Cichlid, Level 5

Stats :

Str 4, Dex 12, Con 2, Mnd 22

Attacks :

Needle Maw, Tongue Spear

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Loot :

Mercury Scale, Cichlid Flute

Weakness :

Repeated sharp cuts

XP :

44

Unthinking, I reached for my spear, realising I hadn’t recovered it from Akhur'shet when we’d escaped. Damn. As it rocketed towards us, I drew out the Bronze Dagger that I’d taken from the poor soul in Akhur'shet — of course I mean the attempted assassin — from my belt, instead — the only real weapon I had. Panicked, squinting against the pain of the light, I held the dagger out in front of me. Clutching the handle was painful with my hand, and I felt the cut bead blood. Wincing against the pain, I did a preparatory dip into the soft-flowing stream of my mind, finding it welcoming.

It reached us in two seconds. We both managed to jump aside to evade it, but it turned on a pivot, its wing-like fins brushing the ground and throwing its body around as if it moved underwater. Tumbling over, I turned to see the bony spear of its tongue quivering inside its open jaw.

Pumping [Vigour] through my body, I leapt again as the tongue shot out of its mouth like a boxer’s straight. Again, activating the improved Skill felt effortless. The fiend’s attack narrowly missed, hitting the ground and echoing a CRACK as the spear-tipped barb pierced the top few layers of the mirror-glass.

It flinched at the noise and its tongue withdrew slowly, reeled in by its liquid-metal insides. As it did, Alator hurled himself at it and, eyes flashing yellow, threw a lightning-fast punch.

With a dull splash of mercury, its side erupted for a moment, then coalesced as if by its own mental will. Undeterred, Alator followed up with a left hook to its underbelly and a right haymaker to its fin. Same effect; the body sloshed with the impact, then like liquid pouring in reverse-motion, reformed into itself.

Screwing up his face, Alator’s brows met in demonic rage.

The fish turned again at screaming speed, its jaw lined up with my companion’s face, and with a ripple of scales along its side, it SNAPPED its maw closed — on nothing; yellow-gold lit the fiend’s features as Alator jumped back. Then he made to jump forwards again.

“It’s not doing anything, Alator!”

With another burst of [Vigour] into my veins, I lunged for it and brought my dagger across my body. It rent a deep line and silently it shrunk away from the cut as if it was in pain.

Reaching into my pouch, I grabbed the Frostwaith Claw and threw it across the way. Alator caught it. The beastly angelfish turned to me.

“On both sides, we’ve got to keep cutting it!”

He moved instantly, stepping forwards with yellow smoke drifting from his eyes, and began a frantic onslaught. While it reeled from the impacts, I cut again and again from the other side, while I could. My hand was wet with dripping blood, so I had to grasp the hilt of the dagger ever tighter, and I strained against the true agony as my eyes pulsed against the brightness — probably missing every other slash — and kept fighting.

Caught so completely between two keen blades, it just twisted its body, the translucent mercury seeming to not be able to focus into a shape — keeping itself coherent absolutely took mental effort. Helplessly, we continued this attack for a while until it suddenly lashed out in its final death-throe:

For a moment, it steeled itself against Alator’s wrath and turned fully to me, its jaw wide open again and its tongue reeled in. The bone-spear vibrated in its mouth and burst out of its mouth towards me.

Another pump of [Vigour] sent fire through me and I spun my body on my waist like a top, but not fast enough. The spear cut across the Linothorax on my chest. As the Skill bloated the moment in my perception the attack felt slowed and for a moment I saw the armour stop the spear, but then the moment passed and sickening pain wracked me as it ripped open the stiff linen. Like a serrated barb, it tore through skin and lacerated flesh down to bone.

I yelled and wailed and fell to the ground. I saw Alator continue the attack, eyes glowing, face twisted into fury, until he had displaced so much of the liquid-metal that one swipe cut clean through. Large parts of the fish burst and turned fully into liquid and splashed onto the floor, where, just like the bits that had dripped off previously, it fully disappeared into the mirror’s surface. The rest of the carcass dropped with an echoing thud.

As it did, reality bled back into Alator’s mind and he glanced to see me on the floor, my chest torn open. Breathing was a struggle. This pain was something new — I thought of the pains I’d felt in my life; losing fingernails, almost drowning, stubbed toes, bitten tongue, black eye and split lip from a teenage brawl — BY JOVE this was a whole world of something new — a whole reality of sudden sharp and dull and rough torture.

“Talbot!” he slid over to my side and held my head in his hand.

I couldn’t take the strain in my eyes any more and shut them hard against the world. The pain in my chest spread to every inch of my body as if my heart thumped torment throughout me. He tore the useless Linothorax off me and, lifting me with one hand, tied the material tight around my chest. The sudden pressure felt like the barb’s first impact again, and I screamed out and my eyes flew open despite the anguish.

Alator was crouched over me, his hands outstretched.

“Not again — never again,” I heard his voice darkly tumble.

The golden filigree from his fingers glowed, and moved up his arms. His face moved through worry and fear to warped suffering.

Then, before he could go any further, there was another sick, heavy splashing sound of liquid metal in the distance, then another, then another, then another.