Rini led them through another hallway, down a flight of stairs, and through a series of adjoined rooms, each more lavish than the last. Sadea grumbled all the while, clutching her head. She reeked of alcohol, and she stumbled more than once, with Raksha having to pull her to her feet each time.
“Carry me,” she demanded, after the third time she tripped over a doorstep of lacquered wood.
“No. You stink.”
“Yeah? You’re dumb!” Sadea knocked over an ornate copper sculpture in the middle of what seemed to be one of a dozen reception halls they’d already walked through. “What kind of man turns down a chance to hold a luscious beauty in his arms?”
“One who doesn’t want alcoholic sweat smeared all over his freshly cleaned clothes.” He pulled her up again, seizing a fistful of her scarf to do so. “Come on. The Yagyu spy is leaving us behind.”
“No.” Sadea pointed at Rini, who was standing in front of a set of heavy curtains embroidered with gold threads. “I think she’s brought us to our destination.”
“Not quite yet,” Rini said, as they walked closer. She swept the curtain aside to reveal yet another jade pillar and a golden windowframe with crystal panes. His senses honed to brittle clarity with suspicion, Raksha spotted it immediately: a small copper disc, pinned to the jade pillar with a black nail. It was placed so inconspicuously no casual observer, such as a cleaning serf, would notice it.
“Huh,” Sadea said as she squinted at the disc. “Interesting. Shadow sorcery. That’s rare.”
“It is! So handy, too. Alright, we’ve all got to be touching for this enchantment to work.” Rini reached out and put her arm through Raksha’s. Her floral perfume wafted to his nostrils, and he fought an urge to recoil from her touch. He still remembered the pain and suffering the Yagyu had wreaked on him with an operative wearing a floral scent. Of course, Rini’s perfume smelled nothing like the pheromone cloud he’d been drugged with, all those years ago.
But had it been that many years? Raksha blinked. Two, maybe three years had passed since his mad dash across provincial borders with Maki and Daichi in tow. It was so easy to lose track of time, especially when each day passed so aimlessly and so futilely. He briefly wondered how the siblings were and even considered asking Rini about them. Surely she had to know, since they were all Yagyu, right?
He quashed that thought. Maki and Daichi were fine, or they were dead, sacrificed in one deceitful mission or another in typical Yagyu fashion. In either case, there was nothing he could do for them now, and he didn’t need to give Rini anything she might use as potential leverage.
“Ooh,” Rini whispered, leaning her body close against his. “That glare you’re giving me is giving me the chills. In ways both good and deliciously bad.”
Before Raksha could peel the Yagyu operative away, Sadea stumbled forward and wrapped her arms around both of them. “Group hug!”
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The stench of her alcoholic sweat drowned out Rini’s perfume, and even as Raksha wrinkled his nose, he chuckled inwardly at the sight of Rini leaning away from Sadea’s brow and dry-gagging.
“Ugh, you don’t have to stand so close,” Rini grumbled as she worked one of her hands free from Sadea’s embrace and reached for the copper disc pinned to the jade pillar. She pressed her index finger against it and chanted, “we endure.”
And suddenly, everything went dark. Raksha flinched, but Sadea grabbed him by the collar.
“We’re traveling through a Shadow Tunnel. Hold still, or you might get booted out to who-knows-where instead of our destination,” she said.
“I… I don’t like this,” Raksha replied, his heart pounding. “Why can’t all sorcery be simple like yours?”
“Aww, that’s so sweet of you, dummy. It’s so nice that you appreciate me for… wait.” Sadea’s voice hardened. “Was that a compliment or an insult, calling my lightning simple?”
Raksha didn’t reply. He felt rushing wind against his face, even though every one of his senses, bolstered by the Conflagration, told him he wasn’t moving. Whispers echoed just within the edge of his hearing.
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Hate you. Tear your eyes out. Eat them. Make them mine. Hate you. Tear your eyes out. Eat them. Make them mine, they seemed to say.
“Uhm.” Rini’s voice chimed up. “Something’s wrong. We should have arrived by now. The journey doesn’t usually take longer than a heartbeat or two, even with a dozen travelers or more.”
Sadea’s grip on Raksha’s collar tightened. “It’s your aegis, dummy! It’s so metaphysically antithetical to Shadow sorcery that it’s unraveling the enchantment. Turn it off, or turn it down, at least a little!”
Raksha frantically brought the Conflagration down to the Second Solar Gate. The rushing wind against his face died down, and the whispers faded away.
And then suddenly, there was light again. Raksha blinked. They were standing in what appeared to be a massive vacant warehouse with permacrete walls. As his vision refocused itself, he realized that the warehouse wasn’t quite vacant at all. Ten sleeping rolls were scattered across the floor, along with a collection of various bags and knapsacks.
The owners of the equipment stepped forward, and Raksha immediately recognized the warleader that had been holding back the tide of corpses in front of the mortuary.
“Hello there,” Avitus Balbinus greeted them. “Sounds like it’s been quite a night for you.”
“Nothing that wasn’t too unexpected, Balbinus,” Rini said, all traces of flippant simpering gone from her voice, replaced with brisk military efficiency. “Report.”
“Yes, Great Lady. My warband is ready to move at a moment’s notice. Casimir has the psi-link on standby, to be activated at your earliest convenience.” The warleader gestured to a small steel stool, atop which stood a mirror, held upright by a simple fold-out wooden backing.
A slender man with gray hair was standing beside the mirror. He wore dark combat fatigues and webbing, and he had a rifle slung across his back. Raksha’s eyes snapped to the short carbon staff in his hands. Another sorcerer, then.
“Should I get started, Great Lady?” the mercenary asked.
Rini nodded. “You might as well. We’d better update Leona as soon as possible.”
Sadea was still clinging to Raksha, her forehead against his chest. Or rather, she was leaning her entire bodyweight on him, as if he were some inanimate wall or pillar.
“Hey, stand by yourself. Stop leaning on me like that,” he said, trying to push the dead weight of her body away.
“But that’s the only thing you’re good for,” she mumbled, flailing her arms in protest. Eventually, Raksha managed to tuck her against a wall, whereupon she slid down onto her rump and assumed the shape of something between a heap and a pile.
Raksha sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. If Avitus was here with his warband, that could only mean one thing. He’d deliberately refused to look in her direction all this time, but he finally gritted his teeth and returned her regard.
Mingyu stood amidst a trio of other mercenaries, her eyes ablaze with murderlust. She wore a battered suit of leather armor over dark combat fatigues. Instead of combat webbing, she had a sword belt. Raksha supposed he should feel relieved that her blade was still in its sheath rather than in her hands.
The Stammerers were obviously here to provide support for Raksha and Sadea, but with Mingyu among their ranks, Raksha wasn’t sure just how tactically sound that decision was. The last thing he needed to deal with while fighting mutants was to look out for a sword seeking his spine.
“Hey, Mingyu,” a man standing beside her said. He wore a long coat of some shiny, purple-black synthetic fabric. His hair, dyed green and purple at its ends, was greased back along his skull, making him look as if he were constantly facing a windy gale. “The love of your life has finally deigned to look at you.”
“If you don’t want to lose your hand, Xiao Yao, you will take it off my shoulder and shut your mouth,” Mingyu hissed.
Xiao Yao complied, chuckling as he did so. He walked over to Raksha. “I am Xiao Yao of the Myriad Winds. Good to finally meet you, Destroyer’s apprentice.”
“Yeah, sure. Likewise. I’m Raksha of the Conflagration,” Raksha replied, giving him a nod. Xiao Yao was another martial scientist in the Stammerers’ ranks. Hopefully, he’d be professional enough to keep Mingyu in check.
“The Conflagration?” Xiao Yao asked. “Shouldn’t it be the Stormbringer, the Path that the Destroyer used to bring all of martial society to its knees?”
“No.” Raksha turned away, ending the discussion.
“Wait. Something’s wrong,” Casimir said. The sorcerer raised his staff and pointed it at Raksha. No, not at him. He was pointing it at the wall from which Raksha, Sadea, and Rini had emerged.
Raksha spun on his heel, ripping Steelbreaker into his grasp. A copper disc had been nailed to the permacrete wall in a similar fashion to the one on the jade pillar. But underneath the disc, a shadowy oval had materialized. Raksha immediately recognized it as a dimensional rift, though it seemed slightly different from the one the mortuary demon had conjured.
“The Shadow Tunnel didn’t close properly behind you!” Casimir shouted. “Something’s coming through!”
Countless eyes appeared within the rift, all bloodshot and recognizably human. The whispers Raksha had heard in the Shadow Tunnel started up again.
Hate you. Tear your eyes out. Eat them. Make them mine. Hate you. Tear your eyes out. Eat them. Make them mine.
There had been another copper disc pinned to the wall. It split in half and fell into pieces on either side of the black nail that had been in its center. A cluster of dark tentacles slid from the rift, dripping shadows like ink from a brush.
“Open fire!” Avitus ordered, raising his battle rifle and squeezing off a three-round burst. The rest of his warriors with firearms followed suit a heartbeat later, hammering the entity emerging from the rift with gunfire.
Raksha pushed the Conflagration to the Fifth Solar Gate, letting it burn at its hottest. He dived at Sadea, snatched her up, and rolled away just before a cluster of tentacles lashed into the permacrete floor on which she’d been slumped.
The tentacles pursued, streaking after them more quickly than Raksha had anticipated. Surging to his feet, he raised Steelbreaker and prepared to meet the shadowy appendages with its edge.
Mingyu dashed in then, sword raised and aegis ablaze.
She struck.