Bel stalked a small serpent through the dried riverbed. A month prior the six pairs of legs, three sets of eyes, and body made of sand would have given her pause. Now, a month after meeting her second mother and the divine spirit of chaos, Dutcha, Bel had grown used to the bizarre spirits she left in her wake.
Bel placed her feet carefully with each step to avoid alerting the small spirit; she’d been wasting days trying to find one small enough to suit her needs and she didn’t want her patience to go to waste. Bel needed to catch one of spirits to heal the missing serpents that had been cut from her head. She felt diminished without the missing snakes. Incomplete. Broken.
Luckily for her, in the month since the goddess Kjar had killed the Dark Ravager and the destroyed his temple, Dutcha’s spirits had spread throughout the Golden Plains. They were now common enough that Bel could usually find one within a day of searching. Unfortunately, she had yet to master the lesser incorporation ability that Dutcha claimed was the key to replacing Bel’s missing head snakes.
Bel resisted the urge to run a hand along her scarred face or the bald half of her head. She clenched her jaw with determination; she was broken, but she would be made whole. She just needed to catch the sandy spirit serpent, then she would use it to heal herself.
Definitely. Maybe. Hopefully.
If only she could figure out how her ability was supposed to work. So far, Bel hadn’t been able to just grab a spirit and shove it onto her head. They fought her, fiercely struggling until Bel ran out of energy to power her ability. She had also tried bashing the annoying little things into submission first, but that didn’t work either.
Bel had learned that spirit never yielded, even to extreme violence. They just evaporated into smaller spirits if they became grievously injured, and the smaller parts of a spirit were frustratingly good at escaping. It was a perfect survival mechanism for a creature that didn’t perceive itself as a single, indivisible entity.
She was going to try a different approach this time. If she could grab the serpent quickly enough, perhaps it wouldn’t even know what was happening until she’d already succeeded. That was her hope.
Bel leaned forward with anticipation, her lone functional eye widening as she held her breath tightly in her throat…
Just a bit closer…
A buzzing came from one of her pockets. The arm-length sand serpent popped its head into the air. Its neck neatly split, forming four more heads so it could look in every direction. It only took a heartbeat for it to spot Bel and dive straight into the sand, disappearing like a fish into water faster than Bel could curse.
Orseis, Beth’s right hand woman and Bel’s assigned bodyguard and chaperone, covered her face with a wide sleeve and laughed, her tentacles writhing with mirth.
The tentacled woman finally tucked her tentacles back into her sleeves and got control over her giggles, but Bel could still see the amusement in her eyes. Her bizarre, w-shaped pupils were wide with excitement and Bel was certain that the girl was sporting a wide grin behind the veil that she used to obscure her face.
“It’s not funny,” Bel insisted.
“Sorry, sorry,” Orseis gasped, you were concentrating so hard that I thought your blood vessels would burst. You nearly leaped out of your own skin. It doesn’t help that the weird ability you’re using makes you look all fuzzy.”
Bel grunted in response. “I’m so sorry that you think my ability is weird. Dutcha told me to make my body more like a spirit, so that’s what I’m doing. My apologies for taking the life advice of a powerful spirit over yours.”
Bel poked a finger in Orseis’ direction. “You’re, what? Five years old?”
Orseis waved a pair of tentacles back. “Hey, I’m young, but I’m not that young. And cuttlefish mature faster than–”
Bel rolled her eyes and turned away for some privacy. She pulled a small stone with intricate filigree from her pocket and lifted it to her face. “Dammit James,” she hissed into it, “I need a way to turn this thing off so you can’t ruin my hunting. And what if I’m hiding from something in the Labyrinth and your stupid call stone starts buzzing?”
“That’s why we’re testing things now, sis,” James’ cheerful voice responded. His words were oddly muffled, but were surprising loud and clear for something coming from a rock. His talk of cell phones and distant communication had been a fantasy for so long that she had been taken completely by surprise when he had actually managed to replicate a part of his old world technology.
Mostly. It was still lacking in a couple of ways. For one, calls could only come from James to her, a deficiency that he didn’t seem particularly motivated to fix. Second, the power on her stone ran out in less than a minute. Finally, the stupid buzzing noise that it made and the lack of volume control made conversation unpleasant.
Actually, perhaps I should be thankful that calls only last for a minute.
Bel held the stone away from her ear, wincing at the volume of her brother’s excited voice.
“Speaking of testing,” she asked, “how is the fall defender?”
“Parachute,” James said slowly. “It’s a parachute.”
“Whatever you say, James.” Bel stuck out her tongue. She kept warning her brother to stop introducing new words into the language. Eventually, all of the older older, more conservative semi-humans were going to throw him into the ocean.
“The parachute is ready for testing. The silk they have access to here is fantastic, although I haven’t had a chance to try the finished product myself. I’ve been too busy doing the blood adaptation rituals with Daran so that we’re both ready to have children.”
Bel pushed the call stone away from her face. Baby-making was not on her short list of fun conversation topics. “We’ll come back right away to test out the fall protectors,” she responded quickly.
“We should keep stress testing the calls, Bel. No need to rush. Anyway, the adaptation process is really fascinating, and maybe one day you’ll want to–”
“Oh no, brother, I think the stone is fading.” Bel shoved the stone under some sand. “Can you still hear me, James? I don’t think I can hear you.”
Bel waited for several long heartbeats before breathing a sigh of relief and retrieving her stone.
“What’s up?” Orseis asked behind her.
Bel turned, surprised. She’d forgotten that she had an audience.
“Bel? Yeah, she’s right here. Don’t worry, she just dropped her call stone.”
Bel stared at her betrayer, shock rippling across her remaining snakes.
“Yeah,” Orseis trilled, “she would love to hear more about how you and Daran are going to make lots of cute little larva babies together.” Orseis offered her call stone to Bel with one of her dextrous tentacles. “Here you go.”
Bel glowered at the merciless girl. “Gee, thanks.”
“So anyway,” James began, ignoring Bel’s discomfort, “I remember that you asked why people didn’t just have children with multiple people, right? It turns out that the matchmaker’s adaptation rituals tune the couple’s bodies so that things work between them, but only between the two of them. So what we’re doing is…”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Bel grit her teeth. It’s only a minute. I can make it.
----------------------------------------
Bel peered down over the edge of the bridge. “That’s a long way down,” she muttered. Bel could barely make out the people on the small fishing boats that covered the lake at the bottom of the sheer-walled crater.
She took a step away from the edge, back to the group of what James was calling “beta testers.”
“You know, I’ve never asked why the sand doesn’t just fill this in,” she dissembled.
Daran’s antennae perked up, ever-eager to offer bits of trivia about the Golden Plains. “Oh, good question! First of all, the walls are made of rock.” James’ bride-to-be pointed at the walls on the opposite side of the crater, nearly three thousand strides from Bel. The vastness of the void in the sand never failed to stagger the young gorgon.
“See, it’s not sand all the way down. I’m surprised that you haven’t noticed before.” Daran’s antennae beat the air with excitement for a moment before she continued.
“Second, this is home to one of the oldest ant colonies in the Golden Plains. My cousins work nonstop to keep the paths clean and the lake at the bottom clear.”
“Like Hanti?” James asked.
“Eh…” Daran’s lips twisted. “Well, Hanti’s always been more interested in more martial pursuits. She normally manages the guards at the rim, watching out for the Dark Ravager’s followers.”
Daran scratched her abdomen with one of her ant legs. “Well, she used to. She was kind of upset that she didn’t have anything to do with getting rid of them, but hopefully the flying threats from Atmos and the occasional elf from Skotos will keep her satisfied. She’s been getting really worked up about the invasion of Satrap, too.”
Bel rubbed at the scarring around her missing left eye. Beth had done too good a job selling an invasion of Satrap to overthrow Technis’ priests and gain access to a large number of – potentially – reproductively compatible humans. “Speaking of fighting, was this entire thing really made during an epic battle?”
Bel looked up to the top of the circular pit, nearly twice as high as they were distant from the ground. It had taken them a couple of hours traversing a series of terrifying, rickety ladders and treacherous handholds to get down to their current position: a bridge that shortcut a few hundred strides where the great stone spiral ramp that wound down the entire crater was being repaired.
Of course they had used safety ropes on the way down. Now, though, Bel was going to jump off of the bridge and plummet the rest of the way with nothing to protect her except for a sheet of fabric.
“Stop stalling, sis,” James scolded.
“I’m not stalling,” she protested.
James pointed at the precipice. “Then climb over that railing and jump.”
Bel hugged herself tightly. “Yeah, I will, just… you tested this thing, right? There’s an alpha test that comes before the beta testing, right?” She craned her head to look at the lumpy pack that held one of her brother’s experimental parachutes.
James rolled his eyes. “Yes. We dropped a few with weights before a couple of people with wings gave them a go. Some people are already excited to use them to speed up crossing the crater. You’re lucky that the merchant’s consortium hasn’t already ripped these prototypes out of our hands.”
Bel looked out at the spiralling ramp that lead from the top of the crater to the bottom. The terrifying ladders and handholds could be used to bypass a turn around the rim go up or down a level, but crossing from one side to the other would require a half turn, which could take a good hour if you were walking uphill.
“I would have thought that getting up would be the bigger struggle,” she mused, “the parachutes only go down.”
“There’s plenty of value in dropping a heavy load from the top and letting it drift down. It only takes a single person to manage the descent,” James explained.
He pointed to the bottom of the outpost. “We’re building hot air balloons too. Flann has been trying out some designs. You’ll see them at the bottom.” He made a shooing gesture. “Now stop stalling and jump.”
A pat on her back drew Bel’s attention to Seth, the nearly silent scorpion boy. He nodded shyly and pointed to his own harness and parachute and making a claws-up gesture of confidence. She smiled weakly at his reassurance.
Bel didn’t want to jump, but the parachutes were necessary if she wanted to get below the Barrier and find a way back into Satrap. The vast caverns hiding in the Labyrinth were too deep to traverse with ropes, and the pillars that held up the world were fiercely guarded, both according to legend and their latest scouting reports. The parachute that James introduced really was the best way for her to quickly descend, and his hot air balloons were the only practical method to ascend again – either to escape or to get back into Satrap once she had slipped under the Barrier.
Bel breathed in deeply and relaxed her tense muscles. “Okay, here I go,” she declared. She stepped up to the edge of the long, wooden bridge and squeezed under a gap in the railing. She glanced at the bit of rope that was secured to her pack. Rather than catch her, it would pull her bag open and release the parachute during her practice runs. Beth, and apparently Seth, were already releasing the devices on their own, and soon they would be practicing jumps from the very top of the Outpost.
Bel tensed up as wind tugged on her body, but she finally stiffened her resolve and let herself topple over the edge. She screamed – but only a little bit – as she fell off of the bridge.
She drifted towards the center of the vast hole and away from the vertical walls of the artificial crater, her remaining four head snakes whipping about in the powerful updraft. Her armored skirt flipped upwards and she shrieked at the indignity. Then, with a snap of silk and a sudden jerk, she found herself forced fully upright as the parachute filled with air. Her descent slowed and Bel took a moment to gain control over her stomach.
She gazed up at the full fabric of the parachute for a moment before directing her attention back to the ground floor of the Outpost, spread out below her like one of her brother’s maps. She found the experience disorienting; like she was drifting downwards in the ocean, but her sight was clear and unobstructed in every direction. The incredible amount of movement threatened to overwhelm her, especially when a flock of small birds flitted past her like a school of fish.
She was overwhelmed and fascinated and a bit terrified all at once. Once her mind worked through the initial shock she couldn’t help but laugh at the experience.
The energetic waving of another person caught her attention; Seth was gliding around with far more grace and agility under his own silk parachute than she could manage with her own. His urgent pointing reminded her that she still had to guide herself to a landing before she scraped her face off on the rocky walls.
Bel looked down and spotted her target: a small barge that they’d placed in the middle of the lake. They had planned ahead: a landing in the water would be unpleasant, but mostly safe, assuming she quickly ditched her gear before it drowned her. Bel could see a safety team of fishy folk standing by as well.
She wanted to land on the barge though. Bel – and everyone else involved – had agreed that anyone going into the labyrinth would need to be able to control their landings well enough to do that much. If she missed, she would have to keep jumping until she could stick the landing regularly. She’d expected this part to be easy, but as she struggled to control her drifting body she realized that it wasn’t quite as simple a task as her brother had described.
Bel watched with dismay as her feet drifted past the barge. Instead of landing on the wooden surface, her feet skid over the water before she plunged through its surface. Bel took a deep breath before her head submerged, and was immediately weighted down by her parachute.
Thanks to her improved lung capacity she wasn’t in any immediate danger, but the rescue crew quickly came to her assistance anyway. In less than a minute they’d pulled her out of the water and onto the barge to the cheers of a nearby fishing vessel.
It was cold in the bottom of the Outpost since full sunlight only fell for a short time each day. Bel shivered as she glared up at the bridge where she’d jumped. “Think I can get up there and try again before the sun sets?” she asked.
Seth patted her back and gestured at the dripping fabric of her parachute.
Right. She had to learn maintenance and care as well. Great, she thought. She couldn’t wait for the hot air balloons to start working.
The loud laugh of a wily old fox caught her attention.
“Flann!” she yelled, “help me dry this out!”
Her friend, the elderly fox-kin who only came up to her waist, waved his cane and hobbled over to her.
“Why bother? You’re just gonna go in the drink again on your next try.”
Bel snorted at him. “I have to climb all the way back up. Unless I hurry, there won’t be a next try.”
Flann laughed. “Oh, you’ve got plenty of time.” He wiggled his bushy eyebrows. “At least if you’ll join me in my brand new hot air balloon.”
He gestured excitedly to Seth, who had successfully touched down in the center of the barge.
“Hurry up kiddos, going up is twice as fun as going down. And, thanks to the generous donations of our friendly neighborhood spider-folk, we’ll be riding comfy in silk slings the entire way!”
Flann scurried over to a pile of silk and gestured excitedly for Seth and Bel to help him out. He had them lift it up into the air several times, and when it was falling slowly back to the ground he thrust his hands underneath and created a small cone of flames.
Bel was worried that the old fox would simply burn their ride into ash, but the silk hemisphere retreated from the flames and puffed up like a loaf of fresh bread. Soon, the only things holding it down were Seth, Bel, and a large boulder that was rolled onto the carrying slings.
Flann slipped himself into a sling – which looked to Bel like a large, embarrassing diaper – and gestured for them to join him. Once they were all firmly tied into position, Seth rolled the boulder free with a grunt of effort. Bel’s breath caught in her throat as they slowly rose into the air.
“Wow!” she shouted with glee.
Now that she wasn’t hurtling towards her death she could enjoy the view. “This is fantastic!”
Flann nodded proudly, his hand sticking up as he continually fed a small flame to the balloon. “Yup! I was giving rides to some of the young’uns around town earlier. You shoulda seen their faces light up.”
He grinned from ear to ear, clearly proud to be part of something so exciting.
Bel smiled back. “So how do you steer?”
“Eh.” He shrugged. “We’re hopin’ to figure something out once we get into the caverns. Maybe bring some long poles and push away from the rocks.” He made a shoving moving with his cane.
Bel stared at him with narrowed eyes.
“Whoah, girl, don’t shoot the messenger! That was your brother’s idea!”