Everything was quiet in the mist-filled forest, save for the muted thumping of feet on the mossy ground. Conversation had been choked off by a few days of stressful travel – the constant pursuit from Clark’s not-birds had seen to that. The gorgon with the borken arm that Bel had aided – Manipule, she remined herself – was testing the ground in front of them with a long stick. A few more broken bones and a missing hand had taught them to not trust their footing for fear of pitfalls and ambush predators.
The chill in the moist air settled uncomfortably against her skin, so Bel quietly warmed her hands by slowly destabilizing the bonds in the air around them. She’d been practicing her ability as she tried to better understand her the other abilities that Lempo had to offer, and perhaps give her some insights into her divine mother’s thinking.
Bel sighed as she thought of events she’d gotten swept up in. Everyone called Lempo the goddess of change and upheaval, which made it sound like she was a rip things apart and smash them kind of goddess. From the way she pushed Bel in different differections but still left the details to her, Bel thought that Lempo was far more subtle than most people thought.
Bel lifted her hand to observe the subtle heat ripples that were barely visible – the only indication that she was using an ability. The ability didn’t work through brute force, like Flann’s fiery abilities. Instead, she thought it was slightly altering chances that something in the air fell apart, which somehow resulted in the release of heat.
Bel thought back to her encounter with the scratte’s on the magma-filled third layer; they obvious had a tendency towards creating havoc and invading things even without Lempo’s presence. She had simply found a way to point that tendency in a way that aligned with Bel’s next obstacle – and perhaps she had pointed Bel in the same direction as the Scrattes as well. The goddess found things that were at an inflection point and gave them a tiny nudge. Then: boom! Change.
Of course, some of Lempo’s other abilities are more direct. Bel was once again tempted to take the disintegration ray, the star of the enticing ability twinkling enticingly in her mind’s eye. No. Bad gorgon. If you think that’s powerful, just wait and see what else she’ll give you.
Bel lifted her hand and produced more heat, beating back the chill of the misty forest that they hoped would baffle Clark’s not-birds.
Another hand reached out and grabbed Bel’s, and she looked up to see a grinning Manipule.
“Warm,” she explained, using one of the few English words that she’d learned. She squeezed Bel’s fingers and smiled again. Bel smiled awkwardly back, not really sure how to react to the other gorgon. She had a tendency to get overly friendly, especially when Cress wasn’t around.
Sure, she had come to her rescue after their rough landing, but with Sangfroid slinging stones at everything Manipule had never been in an real danger. Despite that, the other gorgon constantly showered Bel with thanks and attention, giving her the first cut of cooked meat, making her tea from scavenged plants, and just generally always being around. Maybe this is normal for her. James would call her clingy.
Bel frowned at the word. She’d heard James use it when talking about people from his homeland, but she had never personally met a clingy person.
“Whatcha brooding about?” Orseis asked. “Is it because Cress and everyone else with wings is always out scouting while you’re stuck walking with the rest of us?”
Bel turned towards her companion, but Manipule kept walking hand in hand, uncaring that Bel wasn’t responding to her. Can I let go of her hand? Or would that be rude?
“Well, I do still want my wings, but I was thinking about James,” Bel deflected.
Orseis nodded knowingly. “Still mad that he won’t talk to you until we get away from Clark, huh? Because of that signal strangulation stuff?”
“Signal triangulation,” Bel corrected. “And no, don’t ask, I don’t know how it works. But he thinks that if Martinus could tap into our communications then Clark can do it too.”
Orseis waved her spear through the air. “I say we just figure out where he is and go fight. Better than having the not-birds stir up every sleeping beast we come across.”
Bel’s lips pressed into a thin line. “He has been getting more aggravating. Clark probably wants to wear us down before he attacks, so we’re all too tired to fight.”
She glanced around at the other gorgons who were carefully picking their way through the forest, arduously poking the thick carpet of moss with walking sticks to be sure it was safe. All of the gorgons moved without complaint, but Bel could see fatigue wearing on them: the drooping eyes, the lack of conversation, the occasional stumble. All of them except for Fortuit’s guards, Escalope and Sangfroid.
Cress had explained that, in order to become a guard for someone like Fortuit, they had to advance far enough as a gorgon to gain an ability that made their body immortal. Not unkillable, apparently, but no longer subject to mortal problems, like the need to sleep or breath. It was almost enough to make Bel decide to skip growing wings and save her core capacity for that instead. Not that those long term plans had anything to do with their current problems.
“I wish he’d just show himself,” she grumbled. “We don’t even know how strong he is.”
“You’ve been advancing your core, right?” Orseis asked. “Any chance you’ve gotten something good that can kill that guy instantly?”
“Well…” Bel sighed. “I have abilities that I’m sure could kill him, but I think he’s been around for a long time. I’m sure he won’t just walk into an attack.”
Bel felt at all of the free strokes in her cores. The way her essence rushed around made her feel strong and invigorated. She clamped down on that feeling, reminding herself that, whatever she had, Clark had more.
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“I’ve been saving my strokes so I can better use the abilities that I’ve got,” she finally replied. “The only new ability I’ve taken is the one to kill pathogens, and I only took that because everyone got sick.” She shuddered at the thought of half the gorgons clutching at their stomachs, their snakes drooping sadly over their shoulders as their puked out their guts.
Orseis snorted. “What a waste. You’d think they hadn’t travelled before.”
“They haven’t,” Bel insisted. “Most of them worked in food processing – you know, freezing and preserving meat, cleaning and maintaining equipment – I would have thought that you could appreciate that.”
“Sure,” Orseis retorted, “but why didn’t they learn to clean food?”
Bel shrugged. “Cress said that wasn’t their job.”
She glanced at Manipule, so instantly grinned back. Bel smiled awkwardly and looked away again.
“Well, they’re the people who volunteered to help. Beggars can’t be choosers, you know. Unless you want to walk back to the city and see if that big walking lizard would like to come instead?” Bel scolded.
“No, no, I guess these gorgons are fine,” Orseis relented. “Fortuit’s guards are pretty tough at least.”
Bel opened her mouth to respond, but the soft flutter of wings announced the scouting group’s return.
Cress landed in the middle of their group and another pair of gorgons landed to her side. The moment she touched down Manipule quickly dropped Bel’s hand and quickly poked at the ground, suddenly absorbed in her task. Cress’ eyebrows pinched together when she glanced in their direction, but she quickly refocused on her job as group leader, explaining her findings to the rest of the gorgons in their underworld tongue.
Bel tapped her foot and Orseis passed her spear along her suckers as they waited for Cress to explain things to them. She looked to Fortuit, hoping that the egg-mother would offer a faster translation, but instead she was going to the gorgons and collecting their blood again. There was always a ritual soaking of her clay vessel any time they were about to do something dangerous, so Bel could tell that Cress’ news was gloomy.
“There is a huge cloud of the not-birds,” Cress finally explained, her arms held wide. “We can see the Pillar from the edge of the forest, but Clark but be standing between us and our goal.”
“Finally,” Orseis declared, stabbing the air with her spear, “time to teach that guy a lesson.”
“He made Crystal,” Bel reminded her tentacled companion for the hundredth time. “And he’s been wearing us down the same as I did to Nebamon’s group. He’s clever – we shouldn’t underestimate him.”
Cress shrugged and pulled the heavy maul from her back. “But what else can we do? We aim to take Technis’ land from him, right? Defeating Clark will be our first step along that path.”
Bel glanced at the rest of the gorgons. “And everyone is willing to die for that?”
Cress nodded. “So long as Honored Fortuit survives, we will survive through the next generation.” She brightened suddenly, energetically swinging her maul through the air. “And that’s why we gorgons should take risks! We’ll beat down our foes with endless tides of determination! This is our way!”
Bel’s lips twitch at the answer. Well, I guess that I can’t say she’s wrong.
“Nebamon is supposed to be leaving Olympos though, at least according to Martinus. You could just wait.”
Cress snorted. “Do you really believe he would abandon his land here? No, I know how greedy, self-styled godlings like him think: he’ll want it all.”
“Well… that may be true.”
Cress nodded. “Okay then. You’ve told us everything you know about Technis’ servants, so we’re as ready as we can be. Let’s head out.”
The magnificently-winged gorgon turned towards the group, said a few words, heft her maul into the air, and led them forward.
Forward – but slowly. The gorgons poked at the ground with renewed vigor, even more wary of traps, and Cress and the other two flyers stayed below the treetops so they wouldn’t give the group’s movements away too early. It took them nearly an hour to make it the couple thousand steps to the end of the treeline. Bel was a sweaty mess from the tension by then, and, with how moist her hands had gotten, she was glad that she wouldn’t have to wield any weapon more complicated than a rock.
Cress beckoned everyone forward – except for Fortuit and her guards, who always lingered behind the ground – and lead them up a small hill. She pointed to a dark cloud of not-birds in the distance. As she opened her mouth to speak, the hill rumbled, spilling gorgons down its sides. What had appeared to be rocks hinged upwards and toothy, lamprey-like creatures emerged from underneath, suckering their flexible mouths onto several gorgons. They tore through flesh with a sick, squelching noise and dragged their victims, kicking and screaming, back under the surface of the hill.
Cress and the two other winged gorgons took to the air to avoid falling, but the trees around them came alive and swatted at the flyers with their limbs. Bel felt her guts freeze in terror when she saw an explosion of feathers, followed by a wave of ashamed relief when she saw that Cress was still in the air and it had been one of the other gorgons who had been reduced to a pitiful, broken thing and dragged under by one of the voracious lampreys.
Bel was helpless to help as she struggled against the shaking ground, angrily scratching with her metallic nails at the hard surface under a thin layer of damp soil. Orseis plunged her divine spear through the surprisingly tough rock and whipped out her tentacles, latching onto Bel, Manipule, and another nearby gorgon. The young girl strained and pulled the three of them back to her anchored position.
The person-sized lampreys, perhaps sensing their resistance, burst out of every nearby rock, whipping their blind, tooth filled faces in Orseis’ direction.
Manipule and the other gorgon let Orseis wrap tentacles around their waists, leaving their hands free to freeze the creatures before they could latch their tooth-filled maws onto any exposed flesh. Bel reduced to first lamprey to goop with a reflexive liquid shockwave, but when she tried to drive an attack through the ground itself to blow the rocks away she felt an enormous resistance pushing back.
“The ground,” she shouted, “it’s alive!”
Her words were wasted – Orseis couldn’t do anything but hold on and Cress was too far away and too busy dodging tree limbs to hear. Bel craned her head around to locate Fortuit and her powerful guards, but they were being assaulted by a slow, steady stream of not-birds that were clearly only meant to delay their aid.
Bel scowled and turned her focus to her snakes. The rock felt tough, maybe even too much for her to melt through with Sparky. Roots, though, were made to find a way through rock. Bel mixed spirits with Flora and the flowery plant serpent melted into Bel’s body.
Her feet grew tendril-like roots that dug into the soft soil beneath her feet and immediately spread out to find a way through the tough, rocky layer. Her body became thick and her skin bark-like, impervious to the small, sharp teeth of the lampreys. She idly swatted a pair that tried to latch on to her, ripping out their essence as she dug deeper with her roots. Bel poured more energy into her assault as she saw several more gorgons dragged away or mauled on the spot. Her multi-pronged search grew angry and frantic as her roots massed against the hard, outer shell of the hill, and she shouted with angry exultation when she finally penetrated the exterior and reached the soft flesh underneath.
The entire hill rocked precariously at her intrusion, and a large head at the end of a serpentine body as thick around as two people with extended arms rose into view. Its beaked mouth opened and the creature roared – and then a second head rose into view from the other side of the hill.
Bel realized that they weren’t standing on a hill at all; they were on a giant, two-headed turtle that was out to kill them.