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--DRAMATIS PERSONAE—
Carina Goldstone, Logician of the 2nd Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, finally getting what she wanted
Cortland Finiron, Henry Blacksalve, and Vitt Secondson-Salvado, champions of Infinzel, want to bring back a souvenir
Issa Firstdot-Tuarez and Walton Tendersword, were warned this would be dangerous
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23 Harvesend, 61 AW
The Underneath
217 days until the next Granting
Carina had not foreseen any of this. The destroyed sconces, the trap Vitt had stumbled into, the young man’s face painted on the wall. All of these had come as surprises to her, even though she’d used her [Future Sight] periodically in the days prior to this foray. She had been focused on the results, not the journey to get there.
She knew that she would make it to the Ink.
And she knew what should happen after.
Those had been the important points to Carina. Knowing too much about the journey, she theorized, could have affected the result she wanted. She needed to act naturally. But now, she was as much in the dark about this strange denizen of the Underneath as her companions. Not a good look for the logician. She had wanted to convince these men that she was always a few steps ahead—that they could rely on her, with her pouches of tricks and trinkets, to always have an answer.
But she did not have an answer for Vitt’s question. The name Uicha de Orak meant nothing to her. Or, apparently, any of the others.
“What do you make of this?” Henry stood next to her, holding up his torch to better illuminate the drawing on the cavern wall.
She shook her head. “Could someone be living down here? A Garrison soldier with a screw loose?”
Even as Carina said this, the words felt flat. Every soldier of the Garrison was accounted for, and the layers of security around the Underneath would have been difficult for someone even with her skills to sneak through. Something down here—something from down here—had drawn this portrait.
“The king will want to know about this,” Cortland said.
“No shit,” Vitt replied, scratching his cheek where the sharpened scrounger legs had stabbed him. “He’ll want a hunting party.”
“We shouldn’t be in here,” Walton Tendersword muttered.
Carina glanced back at Walton, the young soldier lingering in the arched entryway, but said nothing. She had selected Walton precisely because of his strange report from the Underneath. A talking gargoyle. The way the Ink on her chest—the crimson flecks in particular—had sizzled upon reading his words. Where is mother? Carina loved a mystery. She would unwind this one, too, in time. But, at the moment, her focus was elsewhere.
The others had lost sight of the true purpose of this mission. The Ink pooled in the center of the room’s recessed floor. All of them distracted except for Isaa Firstdot-Tuarez, who stood next to Carina with her shield ready as if the drawing on the wall might come to life.
“The gods just leave it there like that?” she asked. “All that power? Like slop on the floor?”
As Issa spoke, Cortland tore his eyes away from the painting on the wall. He waved Carina forward. “Go on, then,” he said. “Do what we came here for. Go see the worm.”
The worm. Yes. The symbologist. Carina’s hands trembled briefly at the thought, but she didn’t think the others noticed her torch’s light flicker.
She handed her torch off to Issa and stepped toward the room’s center. “So, do I just… stick my hands in?”
Cortland shoved his hammer into the loop on his belt, sizing her up for a moment. He must have realized that she’d never done this before—not the way all the others had. “That’s right,” Cortland said. “The Ink will know where to go.”
Carina picked her way down the incline and crouched. She held her hands out and could feel the magnetic pull of the power. This was what she wanted, and yet she hesitated there with her hands poised over the Ink.
“Carina?” Henry had noticed her hesitation. “You alright?”
She nodded. How could she explain that her last experience receiving Ink had not been a pleasant one? They would have questions that she wasn't prepared to answer—she didn't even understand what she had experienced that first time. But it was far different from the encounters with the symbologist so often described in the literature collected by the Magelab or the Battle Library.
Well, there wasn't any turning back. The machinery of her ambitions had started running years ago; the gears wouldn't stop now, even for her. Pain along the way was a certainty she had come to accept.
She took a deep breath and dipped her fingers into the Ink. The viscous substance immediately responded to her touch. The Ink slithered across her fingers, up her sleeve, and pooled at her breastbone upon the symbol for logician. Carina held her hand to her heart, feeling the warmth, a fresh and undirected power nestled against her. Even though she already knew what symbol she wanted, Carina hadn't drawn it with chanic in advance. She wanted to see what would happen if she played by the rules.
The voice in her head made her flinch. Your power has grown, Carina Goldstone. Do you desire a consultation with the symbologist?
“Yes,” she whispered.
The transition was instantaneous.
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Wish Day, 1 New Summer, 61 AW.
The Magelab, North Continent.
300 days until the next Granting
To explain why Carina painted herself would’ve made her sound mad. Or, since it ended up working as she’d hoped, like a prophet. She always had an intuition about these things. Simple as that.
On the day the gods chose her, she'd been wearing a design in chanic, drawn carefully with her best brushes. Carina had studied the classes and skills that were available to champions. She knew what she would want, even though she suspected she wouldn’t have the necessary renown. Perhaps the restrictions set by the gods were malleable. Regardless, it was Wish Day and she sensed there could be an opening amongst Infinzel's champions. By painting herself, she thought she might attract the gods’ attention.
She had certainly done that.
At the Magelab, in trade for her stockpile of chanic, the archmages had granted her a provisionary membership and the use of a room in the servants’ quarters that consisted of a narrow bed, a desk, and a window that was too high to actually see out of. Carina laid on her cot with her hands folded neatly across her stomach and her ankles crossed. There wasn’t anything for her to do but wait. In the tower above, the champions of Magelab would be returning from the Granting—all of them intact—and would describe the results to their fellow mages. Carina had not been invited to attend. A banquet would follow—she could show her face at that, if she insisted—and all the servants were busy with preparations.
Stolen story; please report.
Thus, there was no one nearby to hear her scream.
The pain began at Carina's throat. The pyramidal symbol representing Infinzel started to boil. She grasped at her neck and had to yank her hands away from the heat. Bubbles of Ink and flesh popped beneath her fingers. Like liquid metal poured into a mold, the Ink from her neck hissed in searing rivulets down her sternum. Meanwhile, the lines of red chanic she’d painted on herself felt almost magnetized, sucking her Ink downward, while also applying a burrowing pressure to her bony chest, like a whirlpool had opened up inside her torso.
Her body bucked downward into the bed. Screaming, near mindless from the pain, she tried to wipe the chanic off her, ignoring the way her fingertips sizzled down to the bone from the heat.
Carina squeezed her eyes shut and the world slipped away. She found herself in a deep, deep darkness. A crushing weight bound her on all sides. Her mouth—still open to scream—filled with grit. Sand, she thought, that tasted like old bones. She had been buried alive.
But she was not alone. There was something else down there with her. Coiled around her like the tentacle of an octopus. The darkness changed, slowly, like a curtain rising, to a deep hue of crimson.
You use my power to play their game.
The voice that reached her in those airless depths did not have qualities of sound, but rather had the feeling of ancientness. It was not a voice that whispered or rumbled—it was a voice that spoke like mountains rose or oceans dried, across millennia. The words felt like they might split her apart.
I will grant your wish, small one. But even in your short lifespan, debts will come due.
And then it was done. Carina felt like a hawk released from under its hood. She shot upward, flying free.
She was back in her small bed. The pain was gone. There were no burns on her—no melted fingers or bubbling skin. Yanking open her shirt, Carina found the Ink of a champion, albeit flecked with red.
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23 Harvesend, 61 AW
Armistice Island, Center Sea
Carina felt warm sand beneath her fingers and let out a brief moan, anticipating a return to the pulverizing depths. But she could breathe; she hadn’t been reclaimed by that old power in the earth.
She sat in the middle of Infinzel’s training grounds, except the walls of the pyramidal city had been replaced by clean blue sky. Beyond the sands where she’d fought so many battles with Cortland, waves from the ocean rolled in. Where there should have been dummies for target practices, there were instead stone blocks chiseled with symbols of the gods. [Acuity+], [Assess], [Ritual of Knowledge], Carina’s eyes bounced greedily from rune to rune.
This was as it should be. The telepathic projection of Armistice that every champion visited, different every time, tailored to meet their needs. She had made it.
“Greetings, at last, Carina Goldstone,” said in a raspy, patient voice.
And there was the symbologist. The worm-like creature huddled in its ragged robes, a respectful distance away, directly beneath a block with the [Logician] symbol etched upon it.
“Symbologist, I’m grateful to meet you,” Carina said, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes.
“Yes,” the worm replied. “I imagine that is so.”
Carina had never told anyone about her experience when she received her Ink. That was not the kind of story one shared. And yet, based on its slightly scolding tone, she suspected the symbologist knew.
“You have been granted abilities beyond your renown,” the symbologist said, getting straight to business. “I have prepared some suggestions that might help you master them.”
Climbing to her feet, Carina took a second look at the runes arranged before her.
[Acuity+] – You process information at a higher rate of speed than humanly possible. Carina could imagine how that might help her work with [Future Sight]. She had lost a number of fights with Cortland because she was too slow in parsing potential short term outcomes.
[Ritual of Knowledge] – You have access to a ritual that will grant you preternatural understanding of a subject. Her heartbeat quickened at that, imagining all the ways she could dissect the inventions of King Cizco.
But, tempting as these were, Carina shook her head.
“Thank you, symbologist, but I already have something in mind,” she said.
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Carina returned to her body—and the cold darkness of the Underneath—with a smile. She had gotten what she wanted. The third renown. And the process had been painless.
At least, so far.
Behind her, Cortland grunted. “Smart choice,” he said, as he used [Assess] upon her.
“I need to be able to protect myself,” Carina replied. “I can’t have you always watching over me.”
She had chosen [Force Armor]. An aura of invisible resistance protects your body from attacks both physical and magical.
“A sweet moment, to see baby’s first steps,” Vitt said.
As her eyes readjusted to the torchlight, Carina realized that Vitt had crouched down directly opposite her. There was still Ink pooled on the floor, although Carina no longer felt the alluring pull of power from it. Without thinking, she dipped her index finger into the puddle, but nothing happened except that she stained her skin.
Vitt clucked his tongue. “Don’t get greedy now. Can’t use the same source twice.” He peered over her shoulder. “You’re sure you don’t want it, Henry? It’s your turn.”
Carina turned to regard the healer as he took an emphatic step backward, his hands up. “I’ve agreed to stick it out for this Granting,” he said, “but I still want to take the wash next year. I’ve had my fill of caverns and killing.”
“Not me,” purred Vitt.
He dipped his hands into the Ink and Carina watched, rapt, as the remainder of the liquid slithered across his hands and under his armor. She watched his face expectantly, waiting for his eyes to go blank as he took his own meeting with the symbologist. However, Vitt breathed out sharply through his nose and stood up.
“It wasn’t enough for tenth,” he said, lips curling over his teeth.
“I told you,” Cortland said. “It gets harder and harder.”
Scowling, Vitt’s eyes found Carina. “I hope coming down here was worth it.”
“It was,” she replied.
And it would be. There was more to come, she knew. Some necessary ugliness, as she thought of it. Any minute now, Vitt would flinch and say—
“They’re moving!”
Carina spun around. It wasn’t Vitt who had spoken, but Walton. He had his broadsword held out in front of him, ready to strike, his back pressed against the wall.
“Form up!” Cortland bellowed.
Quickly, they all snapped back to their positions and gathered around Walton. They returned to the T-shaped corridor just in time to see the gargoyles—the inanimate ones with their cores removed that they’d passed through on their way—arranging themselves in a straight line. The creatures moved ploddingly, without the animalistic power they were usually imbued with, and did not seem concerned at all with the champions. They created a barrier across the passage straight ahead, blocking the way forward, but leaving the way back open.
A glowing orb floated in the shadows beyond the gargoyles. Blue and crackling, Carina recognized it immediately as a core. Maybe more than one, actually—the arcane bundles that had powered the gargoyles now somehow fused together.
“Champions…”
The core wasn’t floating. It was being carried.
In the mixture of torchlight and azure glow, the creature was difficult to see, even as it inched toward its barrier of gargoyles. It stood on two legs, almost eight feet tall, although it was hunched as if ready to retreat at any moment. The thing's body was draped in the shiny black skins of peeled scroungers, like the creature had attempted to make some approximation of clothes or armor. Its limbs were thick and heavy as stone, alabaster white, run through with veins of shimmering ice. Great wings were folded against its back. Its face—hollow eyes and sharp beak—was just barely visible beneath a worm-skin hood. The thing had once been a gargoyle, Carina was sure of that much, but had grown far more advanced.
“I told them…” whispered Walton. “I told them it talked!”
“Where is mother?” the creature asked. Its words sounded like wind, high-pitched and scratchy, almost musical. Carina envisioned a collection of holes and hollows drilled into a gargoyle's snout that could have air pushed through them like a harmonica, approximating speech. How long could that have taken? When did it develop the desire and knowledge to build itself makeshift vocal chords?
“Here’s your fucking mother,” Vitt said, notching an arrow.
“Don’t!” Carina yelped, shoving his arm down. Vitt brushed her off easily, but didn’t raise his bow again. “It’s trying to communicate with us. We don’t need to attack it.”
Carina took a step around the others. She activated [Enthralled Defender] and tried to compel the talking gargoyle to act as her staunch protector—that would render the situation safer. But a greater magic rebuffed her ability. This creature was already under the sway of someone else. The bond was too powerful for Carina to break.
Even so, she edged around Cortland and continued her approach. She heard a warning growl in the hammer master’s throat, but he let her take the lead. As she suspected, the others took their cues from him.
“Who are you?” Carina asked the creature. “Who is your mother?”
“The Firstson,” the creature said, tapping its stone claws against its chest. “Mother is… mother.”
The creature cocked its head as if it didn’t understand how to better explain itself. As it did, Carina made out a new detail. It had painted the blackbird of Orvesis on the stone of its neck—sloppily done, not like the handiwork of the gods, but still an attempt to show allegiance.
“Hear that, Vitt?” Henry said. “That gargoyle outranks you.”
Carina knew her history well. She knew who had made these gargoyles. “Kayenna Vezz?” she asked the creature. “Is that who you mean?”
“Mother…” the Firstson repeated.
“She’s dead!” Cortland added, unhelpfully. “Dead for sixty-some years!”
The Firstson’s wings flexed and Carina hesitated, having reached the intersection of the passages. “Alive,” the gargoyle said. “Needs us.”
Carina glanced to her left, down the passage that they’d entered from. She had the sense of being in this very position before—and she had—in one of her visions of the future. So, this gargoyle was why she found herself here, slightly ahead of the others, as the first wafts of smoke coiled toward them.
It would happen now. Just as she knew it would.
Behind her, Carina heard Vitt take in a sharp breath. “Patricia’s dead,” he announced, referring to his summoned nightstalker. “Something’s coming…”
Carina nodded. Something was coming, indeed. She could see the glow from the tunnel they’d come from. A hellish shimmer. The Firstson must have sensed it, too, because it shied backward behind its wall of dormant gargoyles. As it did, Carina braced herself and activated [Force Armor].
A wall of fire filled the tunnel. The inferno crashed down upon them, engulfing them all.
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