It was a sullen morning, spent eating cold, spongy mushrooms under the faint light of Codex’s glow spell. Sakrattars thought of the delicious mushroom and spinach crepes that the household cook would make for him when he was a child—the mushrooms tender and mouth-wateringly savory, with crisped edges fried in lard. The meal before him now was nothing like that. The texture was strangely wet, squishing between his teeth with an unpleasant squelch, and had a bitter aftertaste that suggested the mushrooms had been harvested too early. Already unsettled by his anxiety-filled night, Sakrattars pushed the food away, uneaten, as his companions discussed their situation. Though faced with an array of, admittedly bad, options, there was only one that had any chance of success—they needed to find the Cryptaevium, by any means necessary.
After their disappointing breakfast, they went looking for Kagaa. As the village was arranged as much vertically as it was horizontally, Sakrattars and the others scanned up and down, side to side, at the kobolds scuttling over the condensation-soaked walls as they went about their business. After a fruitless search, Sakrattars pulled aside the most friendly-looking kobold he could find and asked where they could find the Chieftain. She pointed upwards, to a ledge far above, where Kagaa was engaged in an intense discussion with a few farmers. Each held a basket of the limp, soggy mushrooms, and were shaking their heads.
When called, Kagaa hastened down a huge stalactite, spiraling round and round its diameter. He joined them at its base, wiping the moisture off his clawed hands. “Hello again!” he chirped. “Did you have a good rest?”
Pretending they didn’t have aches and pains from sleeping on the cold stones, the party muttered some syllables of agreement. “Kagaa, uh, we have a big favor to ask,” Sakrattars began, skipping past formalities. He wasn’t skilled with diplomacy, so he hoped a direct approach would be the best one. “I know you don’t like it, but we need someone to show us to that place in the deep tunnels. The Cryptaevium. . .”
Kagaa jerked his head to the side, pointing his tympanic membrane at Sakrattars to better hear his words. “No. When our people go down there, they come back changed. You saw Dasri and her followers. I won’t lead my people into danger.”
“Then tell us the way,” Amale said. “Describe it to me, or Codex. We’ll go alone.”
Kagaa paused, his jaw working. “It’s too dangerous. There are many sleeping Hollow Ones, and the Voice. . . the Voice in the Deep is very strong there. No, you will have to stay, maybe find another way up to the surface?”
“I have failed to find an al-al-alternate route,” Codex said helpfully, briefly breaking from his role as impartial translator. “The gate system is the only solution, and we can only activate it at the Crypt-Cryptaevium.”
“See? There is no other way,” Sakrattars interjected.
“I’m sorry, but I cannot give you directions.” Kagaa hesitated. “It’s. . . it’s just not safe. . .”
Amale tilted his head as understanding came over him. “You don’t know the way, do you?”
Kagaa swallowed, his lizard-like tongue darting across his cheek as he struggled to find an explanation. Before he could work it out, the farmers he had been speaking with joined them, still bearing the baskets of mushrooms.
“Chief Kagaa, we need a solution,” one said. “This is the fourth failed crop in a row.”
“The water’s becoming fouled as well. I don’t think it’s replenishing from the spring anymore.”
Sakrattars pursed his lips in suspicion. Before Kagaa could protest, Codex translated the farmers’ words. Jo’s expression darkened and Amale’s ears flattened. Sensing the change in his companions’ demeanor, Leif tuned back into the conversation, confused and clueless.
“You’re trapped here too,” Amale stated.
Kagaa chittered, impatiently dismissing the farmers. “No one’s been to the lower tunnels since Dasri and her companions found their way to this ‘Cryptaevium’. Seeing what had happened to them, I forbade anyone else from going. But the Voice must have followed them back up here. My people hear its call, and more and more of us have responded.”
“You hear it? Now, too?” Kaja asked quietly.
“Always. Every waking and sleeping moment.” Kagaa sighed. “Our crops don’t grow here and we’re running out of water. More and more of our people are bowing to the Voice in the Deep. We face an impossible choice. To stay here is to die, but to return to our homelands in the Underdark is to lose ourselves to the Voice, down to the very last hatchling. ”
“Well then how fortunate it is for us that our paths should cross!” Leif declared, his spirited tone a sharp contrast to Kagaa’s grim words. “The solution to both our problems lay in the Deep.”
“But—how—”
“Take us to Dasri and we’ll make her guide us to the Cryptaevium. She already wants to. Then we’ll take care of whatever’s down there. Where there’s a Voice, there’s a Body—and bodies can be stomped flat.” Leif mimed a rather violent gesture, as if to drive the point home. “Then you get to go back to your homeland, and so do we. Win-win, right?”
“We don’t even know what the Voice is,” Kagaa protested. “I don’t know if it’s possible to fight it.”
“Eh, leave that part to us. We’ve gotten pretty good at squishing weird things,” Leif boasted. “Right, friends?” He glanced over his shoulder but only received skeptical looks back.
“What my companion is trying to say,” Sakrattars cut in smoothly, “is that we have experience facing a variety of enemies in combat. We’re confident that we can handle this one for you.” Sakrattars didn’t exactly enjoy being the party diplomat, but since Leif had so effortlessly outshined him, he was stubbornly eager to claw back some of his wounded pride—even if he had to lie a little. He wasn’t, in fact, confident. He wasn’t feeling confident at all, actually. But what other choice did they have?
Kagaa mulled over the offer, perhaps thinking the same thing as Sakrattars. Neither party could escape their fate. Leif was right: the solution for both lay in the Deep. “Alright,” Kagaa acquiesced. “We’ll take you to Dasri’s village, and into the lower tunnels. But you must promise to help us destroy the Voice.”
“We will,” Leif said, extending his hand. Detecting the movement, Kagaa clasped it in his own. It was a victory, but Sakrattars didn’t feel relieved. He looked to the others, but found no reassurance. Amale stroked Koa’s feathers quietly, while Jo remained unusually silent, her hardened expression unreadable.
“Let us go,” Kagaa said.
One by one, the companions peeled away to follow, until little Kaja stood alone and unnoticed, gripping the locket around her neck until her knuckles turned white. The whispers quieted and she startled, as if from a dream, then hurried to catch up.
*
*
After a long trek through the twisting, narrow tunnels, the party and their kobold escort emerged into the huge cavern that housed the cult of the Voice. The walls stretched above their heads in an arch that joined at the peak of the ceiling. Squinting in the dark, Sakrattars noticed that the formation wasn’t natural, rather the caverns had been meticulously carved to look this way. It reminded him of the temple of Aegis in Aurea—all that was missing were the flying buttresses and caryatids of armored angels. The temple proper, where Dasri and her followers presumably worshipped, was below the arch, assembled from shards of black stone arranged in a forest of columns draped with a roof of mushroom-cloth that billowed softly in a gentle draft.
Clustered along the walls of the cavern were several hovels and dank caves, pale, eyeless faces poking out in curiosity. Their nostrils flared and pulsed with the unusual scents, and a few sent out a series of whooping chirps to investigate further. Sakrattars shivered under the scrutiny. His gaze shifted to Kagaa and his warriors, who were likewise examining the situation. As they took in more information, their posture became rigid. It was clear that they hadn’t realized just how many of their brethren had gone to the other side.
The party stopped at the center of the village, under the ragged canopy. Waiting for them amid the pillars was Dasri. “Welcome. The Voice in the Deep told me you’d come,” she said calmly.
Kagaa growled. “Dasri. We need you to show us the way to the Cryptaevium.”
“You are not worthy to stand before the Voice, Chief Kagaa. He is disgusted at your lack of faith.”
“We wish to help our guests, and that’s all.”
Dasri turned her head to the side, pointing her tympanic membrane at the party, and waited for an explanation.
“I must help my ch-ch-charges return to the surface,” Codex said. “Only from the Cryptaevium will this be possible.”
By then, a crowd of sickly, malnourished kobolds had gathered to listen, some of them hissing or tittering in cruel glee at seeing Chief Kagaa reduced to begging for their help. Kagaa’s warriors grew tense, their hands closing around the handles of their stone daggers.
“We have never been inside this chamber you seek,” Dasri admitted. “We lacked the means to unlock the great door for, despite years of searching the city as the Voice commanded us, we never found a Hollow One like this.” She pointed a claw at Codex. “It can open doors, can it not?”
“That is my primary function, user Dasri,” Codex confirmed.
“Excellent. Then we will show you the way so you can open the Voice’s sanctum. As I said before, the Voice is especially interested in meeting you, little one,” Dasri said, her attention touching on Kaja. Kaja stiffened and Jo’s eyes narrowed. “But I have three conditions. You will swear to do whatever the Voice asks of you, and you will not bring harm to the Voice in any way.”
“Done,” Kagaa said firmly. The party echoed his agreement, none daring to comment on the conflict of interest. “That is two, what is the third?”
“On our return you will order your people to attend one sermon at our temple. You will listen to what we have to say, so that we may introduce you to the glory that is the Voice in the Deep.”
Though he had no intention of honoring this, or any of the other conditions, Kagaa agreed. “I have a condition as well, Dasri. You will allow myself and my warriors to go with you into the Deep,” he said. “I bring five warriors, you may bring five as well.”
“And why would I agree to that?”
“It’s the only way. Otherwise you get nothing at all.”
Dasri’s jaw twitched and she uttered a frustrated chirp. Kagaa secretly delighted at her consternation, knowing that he had cornered her. She had no choice but to agree.
As the mismatched group set off for the Deep, the tension was so thick the party could feel it in their bones. Leading the way was Dasri and her five chosen followers—not fighters, but monks, threadbare habits hanging loose on their emaciated frames. Close behind them were the companions, their apprehension growing with every step. Even Jo was beginning to show her nerves as the fell aura of the Deep wormed its way into her heart. Taking up the rear of the group, and similarly on edge, were Kagaa and his warriors. Each fingered their weapons as if they expected to be betrayed by Dasri’s cultists at any moment.
Emerging from a great crack in the cave wall, the party returned to the familiar, yet foreboding, halls of Ainchalez. Centuries of dust billowed at their feet as they turned corners and went through yawning doorways. The carvings on the walls grew steadily more intricate, and every intersection was now marked with a plinth. Some of the statues depicted Tura, their mythical founder. Others depicted orodmai soldiers or politicians. Still others were stylized representations of the constructs that defended the city. The kobolds were the most cautious of these types, giving them a wide berth even though these stone “Hollow Ones” were clearly inert.
The deeper they went, the more Sakrattars began to think that coming had been a mistake. It started with soft rustles in the silent distance, as if by the rubbing of clothes against armor. Then it escalated to the hollow metallic echo of clashing blades. A sudden bout of nausea squirmed through his gut. The screams were getting louder, more clear. Unbidden, Leif’s words came back to him: something bad happened here. Devastation, despair, terror, anguish, rage—the emotions were dripping down the walls like rivulets of blood from a wound.
Sakrattars was not the only one hearing ghosts in the dark. The whispers had followed Kaja down from the village, their power over her intensifying as they neared the Cryptaevium. She felt as if a great hand was holding her heart, crushing it slowly. The shadows deepened, and the grand columns began to look more like pine trees. The dust motes floating in the air reminded her of snowflakes. She heard the cries of her people in the far distance, echoing over the snow-draped mountains. She felt a heat on her back, that of a great fire burning as she fled. She shook her head quickly, and the visions evaporated. She was back in the ruined city. Wiping her eyes, she tried to focus, but soon felt the cool kiss of snow on her cheeks again. Something kept dragging her back there. It wouldn’t let her go.
As they turned a final corner, Codex chimed. “Congratulations, friends, we have re-re-reached our destination!”
Sakrattars now understood what Dasri and her followers had modeled their temple after. Before them was a long, wide causeway, the walls tall and arched at the peak of the ceiling. Statues of armored orodmai soldiers were lined up along the sides of the hall, exactly matching Codex’s description. At the end of the hall, so far away it was difficult to gauge its size, lay a gigantic bronze door. It was closed and undamaged. Sakrattars sighed. Finally, a place the invaders hadn’t gotten to. He hoped it meant that the portals within would still be operational.
Their footsteps echoed as they made their way down the promenade. Some of the statues had been knocked off their plinths and lay shattered on the floor, or had limbs or heads broken off. Huge metal spears were partially embedded in the stone walls. Mummified bodies lay where they had fallen, warriors in gleaming metal entwined with their black-clad enemies. In a corner, one of the invaders still clutched a bronze spear that had been thrust straight through his chest. Piles of broken constructs lay scattered among the dead, their metal bodies tarnished with dust and patina. Towering above them were spider-like crawlers, their rusted out legs supporting a central trunk crowned with huge mechanical crossbows, some still loaded with the very same spears as the ones lodged in the walls.
“Glad we didn’t have to face any of those,” Leif gulped. “Don’t think chainmail would have helped against that.”
“Mhm,” Sakrattars replied absently, his focus on the strange, circular designs painted on the walls. Unlike any of the art they had seen so far in Ainchalez, these were recklessly scrawled over existing reliefs—circles upon circles bisected by thin triangles. Sakrattars lightly touched the white paint and rubbed the grainy residue between his fingertips. The paint had been mixed with rock salt.
“Open the sanctum,” Dasri said piously. “Use the key.”
The companions all exchanged looks, then approached the massive door. Leif craned his neck up and whistled. “These elves don’t do anything halfway, do they?” he quipped, chuckling at his own joke when no one else did. The kobolds stayed behind but Dasri and her monks had begun to hum and click in rhythm, in what Sakrattars could only guess was reverent prayer. They had long desired to see what was behind this final door, to unlock the sanctum as the Voice had commanded them to. Straining against the effects of the Voice, Kagaa only managed a weak “be careful” before Sakrattars hesitantly placed Codex upon the interface.
Codex whirred in place for a few moments. “The door is unlocked,” he reported. “You may open it at your leisure.”
Leif eyed the door skeptically. “You’re joking.”
Jo grasped the handle and gave it an experimental tug. To her and everyone else’s surprise, the door swung open easily, the hinges so perfectly balanced that its weight meant nothing. With a last glance back at the kobolds—half of whom were praying, half of whom only looked worried—the party entered the Cryptaevium.
Instantly, Sakrattars’ hopes that the Cryptavium remained untouched were shattered. Despite having been locked, the room’s octagonal floor was littered with bodies—those of soldiers, invaders, metal guardians, robed orodmai, and even a zmaj mercenary. Scrawled haphazardly across the plated walls, over the array of complicated machines and mechanisms, and even upon the ceiling were the now-familiar circles and triangles in the bright white, salted paint.
“What in the world. . ?” Leif mused breathlessly.
Sakrattars approached the central console, gently avoiding the armored body of an orodmai soldier nearby. The mummy’s chest piece had been discarded and it still clutched the orange-metal blade of the sword pushed through its body. The soldier’s face was gaunt and stretched, their final expression warped. What had they witnessed before their death? Sakrattars swallowed, thoroughly unsettled. He tried to focus on the task at hand.
The central console was cylindrical, with raised ridges and concave channels radiating out from the interface exactly like the others Codex had used throughout their tour of Ainchalez. Only this time, there was already a metal sphere resting in the interface.
“Syntax! It’s m-m-me!” Codex called, despite Sakrattars shushing him. “Please lift the lockdown!” Codex’s words echoed into silence. “S-S-Syntax?”
Unable to restrain their curiosity any longer, the kobolds from both groups approached the door and peered inside, still unwilling to get too close. “Are you all right?” Kagaa asked nervously.
“O Voice in the Deep,” Dasri said, pushing past Kagaa and prostrating herself. “Your loyal servants have done as you asked. Please, bless us with your presence!”
Neither Syntax nor the Voice responded. The musty air hung heavy over the dead.
“User Sakrattars, please place me in the side console. Perhaps I can speak to Syntax through the Cryptaevium’s curatoria instead.”
Sakrattars did as he was asked, but a growing anxiety gnawed at his insides. “You will still be able to activate the portal, even without Syntax’s help, right?”
Codex didn’t answer. “Syntax? Please speak to me. It’s your friend, Co-Codex. . .” he pleaded quietly, over and over again.
Sakrattars turned back to the others, exchanging a look of uncertainty and distress. “Codex,” he started gingerly. “I don’t think—”
“Yes, it would seem that S-Syntax is offline,” Codex said. He was speaking in his normal voice again, but something about it was more melancholy and subdued. “Her core has been drained.”
“We can recharge her though, correct?” Sakrattars responded, trying to remain hopeful. “Like how you were recharged?”
“No, user Sakrattars. Lack of energy is not the problem. The spells and magical codes that form her have been drained away. There is no. . . I apologize, I am strug-struggling with the words. There is no. . .”
“Soul,” Jo finished solemnly. “Her soul has passed from this world.”
Sakrattars chewed his lip. He wasn’t sure he agreed with Jo. Could a construct even have a soul? Certainly Codex meant something else. Either way, the sinking weight on his shoulders was now threatening to crush him. “The portal, Codex,” he urged. But Jo placed a hand on his shoulder and shook her head, silencing him.
“Codex, what happened here?” she asked.
Magic flared across the consoles, activating rotating sigils and prism-like gems. “Accessing curatoria memory bank,” Codex hummed mechanically, an aura of powerful magic vibrating across his metal shell. “Alarm sounded after loss of last fortress to hostiles. Outer door breached by unknown me-means. Citizens evacuated to inner Ainchalez. Many casualties among civilians, soldiers, and guardians. Order to collapse entrances arrived too late, s-s-significant hostile elements already inside. Citizens and visitors are ordered to remain in their homes until the all-clear sounds.” Codex paused reflectively. “City-wide lockdown initiated from the Cryptaevium by g-gatekeeper designation ‘Syntax’.”
The companions listened in bleak silence. It was a story that they could have guessed from the state of the city, but was still difficult to hear.
“The f-f-final update to the curatoria is an impression from Syntax’s crystal lattice. Show impression?”
“Yes,” Sakrattars confirmed after a moment’s pause. A hum vibrated through the room and the hairs on the back of everyone’s necks prickled as magic surged through the Cryptaevium’s ancient mechanisms. Kaja suddenly flinched as if she had been struck, curling over and clutching her head. Jo reached out a worried hand but Kaja pushed it away stubbornly. Before anyone else could react, translucent images of shimmering magic coalesced around them into an echo of the past. . .
*
Stolen novel; please report.
*
The projected Cryptaevium was a bustle of activity. Monks clothed in yellow and orange were using everything from brushes to balled-up rags to hastily paint the circular patterns across the walls. Around the center console, the party was joined by the magical images of armored guards. Among the defenders was what could only be a zmaj, his slender body robed in dyed cloth and studded leather armor, his uniform matching that of the mummified body that lay at the companions’ feet. Like the other zmaj in Ainchalez, he lacked all draconic features—no horns, no tail, no scales. One of the elven soldiers placed Syntax in the central interface, then stood back to address his comrades in an unintelligible language. Codex clicked and the speech was changed to Imperial Common, though their lips no longer matched the words spoken.
“There, the recording has started,” the soldier said. His armor was dented, his face bruised and swollen. Behind him, the companions could see the mayhem erupting from the long hall leading to the Cryptaevium, could hear the loud shrieks of the firing crossbow guardians and the cries of the dying. The soldier clasped his hands to the small of his back and tried to stand tall. “My name is Marshal Vaye Heshala. I am acting commander of the armies of Ainchalez.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts before continuing. “Our forces have been routed by the armies of the Dark Ones. The entity calling itself the Ecstatic Despair is leading this assault. Though our soldiers and allies fought courageously, we have been driven back to the central causeway. I do not know what became of the citizens trapped on the upper levels. With the tunnels collapsed, I fear they will not be able to escape.
“Though we will die here today,” he said, his voice wavering as a lump formed in his throat, “the Ecstatic Despair won’t ever leave this place. It will pose no further threat to the world. May whoever finds this recording spare a thought for those who came before, and carry our stories with you when you leave.” He lowered his head to look at the small construct before him. “Okay, Syntax, you know what to do?”
“Affirmative, Marshal Heshala,” she said, her metallic voice lyrical yet strong. “You may proceed at your leisure.”
He nodded to the monks, before drawing his sword and joining the guards at the door. The monks began to hum a deep, sonorous tune, and one started singing.
Our kin was born amid the peaks,
Each clan, we lived alone.
We listen close when Tura speaks,
He tells us of our home.
With hammer’s fall and forge’s fire,
Great wonders, craft and cast,
For all this was Tura’s desire,
That we unite at last.
The companions could hear the sounds of distant battle, growing ever closer. “This is it, they’re here,” Marshal Heshala called out to the troops. The monks looked nervously at one another as the guards, including the constructs and the lone zmaj mercenary, readied their weapons and rushed out to join the distant battle in the causeway. “Don’t stop!” the Marshal commanded as he ran after them, pointing a finger toward the monks. “Don’t stop for anything!”
Haltingly at first, but gaining in confidence, the monks resumed their song.
By gods and mortals ever blessed,
We prosper well each day,
Here Tura and our fathers rest,
And our children laugh and play.
Crashes and screeching gears echoed through the halls outside. The guardian’s metallic voices bellowed threats and orders. This time, the monks never paused. The song changed tempo, becoming almost implacable.
With song and blade we forge our tale,
With steel and love we guard our vale.
None shall take what Tura gave,
None shall see his kin enslaved.
The cries of agony and screams of rage grew louder, and an ominous wind began to tug and buffet the monks’ robes as the enemy drew near. Raising their voices, the monks kept singing. A tear rolled down one’s cheek, glimmering in the ghostly light of the crystalline projection.
Dying hearths no longer ring with mirth.
The forge’s fire fades,
Our songs echo beneath the earth
Sung only by our shades.
Black-clad invaders rushed the room, sparring with the Marshal and the few soldiers who had been driven back to this final redoubt. As the battle burst into the Cryptaevium itself, the monks clasped hands. Tears flowed freely as their voices rang strong and clear.
Now only dead lie in these halls,
Their shroud, eternal night.
Tura weeps as Ainchalez falls,
Darkness devours light.
Their story complete, the monks pulled daggers from their belts just as the invaders fell upon them like a whirling storm. The zmaj mercenary spun away from an attack, cutting a black-clad soldier’s throat, only to be run through from behind. Both he and the soldier he had slain collapsed to the ground, their projected forms merging with their mummified bodies.
The masked warrior leading the charge into the Cryptaevium fought with preternatural skill, simultaneously slashing with his sword and summoning chains of shadow to bind and strangle his enemies. A damaged guardian lunged at him, but the warrior evaporated into shadow and re-formed behind the construct. He laughed as a blast of sorcerous shadow tore the guardian limb from limb.
Kaja watched the masked warrior with wide eyes, her pupils narrow slits. Her heart beat faster, the blood pounding in her ears. Deep within, her dragon’s spirit roared and thrashed against its mortal prison. “They’re Fallen,” she whispered, her mouth dry.
One by one the defenders and their assailants fell to the exact spot where their body now lay. Only the Marshal and the Fallen remained alive, dueling amid the carnage. Evaporating away from a powerful sword thrust, the Fallen reappeared above the Marshal, striking back with a sorcerous blast. The Marshal collapsed against one of the monks’ robed bodies. He tried to raise his sword, but the Fallen stomped his wrist, pinning it to the ground. Heshala cried out in pain. “You’ve lost, Marshal, accept it!” the Fallen cackled.
“Syntax!” Heshala coughed through bloody lips. “Now!”
The projection of the Cryptaevium shook as huge gears whirred in the walls. The great doors slammed shut, revealing the still-wet salt designs on its inner surface. “City-wide lockdown initiated,” Syntax said.
The Fallen’s surprise was all the Marshal needed. He pulled the dagger out of the dead monk’s hand and threw it. Distracted and unable to dodge, the dagger plunged into the Fallen’s throat. He clutched at it and staggered backwards, choking and gurgling. The Marshal struggled to his feet, transferring his sword to his unwounded hand. A single slash sent the Fallen’s body slumping to the floor, joining the real corpse that had seemed to be waiting for it all this time.
Marshal Heshala braced himself against the console, watching with resignation as a puddle of shadows pooled out of the Fallen’s body. “Very clever,” a fell voice growled from the darkness. “Very clever indeed, I’ll grant you that, Marshal Heshala.”
Heshala tried to grin, but coughed blood instead.
“Seems we’re at an impasse, here,” the voice continued as it flowed out to cover the walls. Soon the Marshal was standing in an inky void. “I need a host to remain on this plane, and you won’t last long either.”
“You’re right, I’ll grant you that,” Heshala said with a sneer, parroting the voice’s words.
“Then join me. Become my host,” the shadows swirled closer to Heshala. “Think about it. Think of the power you would gain. You could do anything. Immortality would be yours.” The shadows crept closer, whispering in Heshala’s ear. “Together, you and I will become greater than either of us alone.”
“Is that how you got him to agree?” Heshala asked, pointing at the dead Fallen with his sword.
The demon surged into a great mass of oily shadow, convulsing in the air high above Heshala. “You trapped us in here together, you idiot!” it seethed. “You will die in the dark, and all this will be pointless. Your people will be lost to history! What will it all have been for? Tell me!” It rapidly closed in on the Marshal, stopping an inch in front of his face. “Join with me, and we shall spend eternity together.”
Heshala swallowed a mouthful of blood and backed away from the shadowy tendrils. His projection stood directly over the mummified body slumped next to the central console. “I will happily spend eternity with you, Dark One,” Heshala rasped, “but neither of us will ever leave this room.” With a flick of the wrist, his chest piece fell to the floor. He placed his sword’s tip against the thin, sweat-stained tunic beneath.
“No! Stop!” the voice commanded, but it was too late. Heshala fell forward, gasping as the blade plunged through his own chest. He collapsed, shivering as his life quickly ebbed away.
The demon panicked, screaming in rage and fear as it railed against the walls. They held fast, as if forged of unbreakable steel. It tried to slip through the stone, through the metal, through the machinery, only for the burning, white paint to repel it back every time. “No, no, I won’t go back, not again, not like this!” After many minutes of desperate fury, it ceased in its fruitless efforts, swirling near the warded ceiling of the Cryptaevium. “Wait. . . there’s something. . . something still here,” it mused. “Yes. I see you down there.”
“I am not biological,” Syntax said, a twinge of anger filtering into her confidence. “I cannot be your host. You have lost, Ecstatic Despair.”
“No,” the demon said, “but you’ll keep me alive until another arrives.” With a tempestuous scream, the shadows surged downward and into Syntax’s metal shell. The projection flickered wildly like lightning in a storm.
“This is it!” Dasri exclaimed behind the companions. “The moment we’ve longed for. The Voice is here!”
Sakrattars’ eyes went wide, his blood running cold with the realization. “So the Voice in the Deep is. . .”
“A demon,” Kaja whispered.
Suddenly, all the magic in the room concentrated into a single point around Syntax’s inert body in the central console, swirling like water around a drain. A supernatural wind tore through the Cryptaevium, stinging faces and whipping clothes.
“Codex!” Sakrattars yelled desperately. “Stop the flow of magic! It’s still here! The Ecstatic Despair is still—”
Codex whirred from his place in the side console but it was clear that whatever was happening was far beyond his ability to control any longer. There was an explosion of magic as oily shadows billowed from the gaps in Syntax’s shell. The companions were knocked to the floor by the force, and the kobolds by the entrance pushed back into the causeway.
“Shut the door!” Leif cried, scrambling for purchase among the mummified bodies. But no matter how he struggled, it felt like something was pinning him down as the shadows took form above. “Kagaa! Shut the door!”
Recovering from his fall, Kagaa hesitated. “But you’ll—”
“Just do it!”
Kagaa set his jaw and clambered to his feet. Behind him, Dasri drew a stone dagger from her belt. “Betrayer!” she hissed. “You swore to obey the will of the Voice!” She lunged for him only for one of Kagaa’s warriors to cut off her attack. As the two factions came together in combat, Kagaa reached the door. He crashed his full weight against it and the heavy metal slid effortlessly shut, trapping the companions with the Voice in the Deep in the pitch darkness of the Cryptaevium.
The Voice, revived by the infusion of magic, wailed and slammed its tendrils against the warded walls and door. “Open it!” it demanded fiercely. Everyone, not just Kaja, could hear it speak—not just with one voice, but with many all blended together. “Open it now!” When no one obeyed, it surged downward in a swirling vortex, its blacker-than-black form nearly consuming the little light Codex was still providing.
Kaja fell to her knees, shivering as her dragon’s spirit thrashed and roared inside of her, desperate to fight the unbound demon before it. She clenched her fists and shut her eyes, biting into her lip so hard she tasted blood, as she struggled to keep the dragon contained. In her mind’s eye, she saw Leif’s terrified face as she pounced on him in Forgeheart. She felt the desire she had to hurt him, as the pain and rage supplanted her reason. If she let the dragon out now, she was scared of what she might do.
Sensing her turmoil, the Voice turned its attention on her. “Ah, the zmaj,” it said calmly, seductively. “My favorite little soldiers. You carry so much fear and guilt with you. Where did it come from?” It paused. “Ah, you hurt him. No need to be ashamed; that’s what zmaj do. No one can slit throats like you. Did you know that?”
Kaja brought her hands to her ears but she could still hear the Voice inside her head. She was vaguely aware of her companions, each trying to reorient themselves against the threat but seeming to move in slow motion. Time was warping. She fought against her dragon’s spirit harder.
“Hmm, that’s not all,” the Voice continued, the shadows inching closer to Kaja and lapping around her ankles. “You also ran away. Ran away from all your little friends. Too weak to fight for them and too scared to die with them. Fear drives everything you do, doesn’t it?”
Kaja shook her head back and forth, the burden of the demon’s words forcing its way into her deepest, darkest insecurities.
“I can fix that, you know. I am one of the most powerful beings who have ever lived. I have helped frightened little zmaj get all the power they want. You could do anything. You could protect your friends from anything. You’ll never be afraid again, you’ll never run away again. Wouldn’t that be nice? You just have to let me in. . .”
Memories flooded Kaja’s mind: Lucretia’s grief at the atrocities her demon made her commit, the tortured expression on the face of the Fallen who attacked them on their way to Barsicum, the cruel glee with which the Master of Hounds slayed her people that solstice night in the Skolka. She wouldn’t become like that. “No!” Kaja screamed. “I won’t!”
The facade of kindness immediately shattered and the Voice flared with rage. “Would you prefer to be a little weakling the rest of your life? A little crybaby?” it hissed. When Kaja held fast, it snarled. “Perhaps you need more direct convincing.” The shadows shifted and swirled around the Cryptaevium, surrounding the companions. Dozens of great, lidless eyes emerged from the darkness, each one a different size, a different color, with a different beast-like iris staring down at them.
All at once, time returned to normal. Leif struck a snapping tendril with his axe, only to watch his weapon pass impotently through. More tendrils emerged, wrapping around the companions’ arms, around their ankles, around their throats. Amale fired an arrow to no effect moments before a tendril curled around his waist and lifted him from the floor. Koa screeched in fury, diving and slashing in a futile attack against the darkness. Amale yelped as the tendril threw him hard against the door. Leif tried to rush to Amale’s side but was tripped by another tendril exploding from the floor and binding his ankle. It dragged him back and slammed him against the metal consoles like he was a ragdoll.
“Stop it! Stop hurting them!” Kaja cried.
“You can make it stop,” the Voice answered. “Let me in, or open the door!”
“. . .I-I won’t!”
In response, the demon sent out more tendrils. Sakrattars leapt back from the threat, bolts of fire shooting from his fingertips. Undeterred, the tendril grabbed him around the leg mid-air and yanked his balance out from under him, sending him crashing backwards onto the hard, metal floor. Jo tried to seize one of the tendrils but her hands passed right through the shadows. She braced herself for the counterstrike, dark blood seeping through her bandaged stomach with the strain. It wasn’t long before her strength buckled and the tendrils enveloped her.
Holding all four of her friends in its grasp, the Voice sneered at Kaja cruelly. “So, let me ask once more,” it said, all of its dozens of eyes trained on her. “Will you let me in?”
Tears streamed down Kaja’s face, her body numb and shaking from fighting against both the demon’s words and her inner dragon’s desires. She looked at each of her companions, still struggling in vain against the Voice. Seeing Leif’s terrified face brought that one memory to mind again. She was back at Forgeheart, her hand lifted, ready to tear out Leif’s throat as she had done to all those frightened orcs. She heard the tremble in Tordom’s voice as he yelled ‘you’re a monster!’ at her during their game of Shieldwall. She heard the other cubs mutter in frightened agreement.
You’re a monster. . . you’re a monster. . .
“I can give you the power to save them,” the Voice tempted.
Suddenly, there was a flash of silver light as ice rimed over the metal surfaces of the Cryptaevium. A great dragon’s head of magical hoarfrost materialized in the air above Kaja, uttering a sound that was half a roar, half the howl of a raging snowstorm. The shadows were repulsed backward, the Voice in the Deep completely losing its grip on the companions in its surprise. “Dragon magic!” it exclaimed in genuine confusion. “How do you have dragon magic? What are you?”
“A monster,” Kaja said softly. She let go, her body slumping limply to the floor. With a blinding flash of light, her spirit burst forth as an icy, ethereal dragon. Time slowed nearly to a stop, her friends frozen in terror and shock. Maybe they were afraid of her, and maybe they were right to be, but she wasn’t the one hurting them now. The Voice in the Deep was wrong: it couldn’t give her the power to save them, because she already had it.
Kaja slammed into the Voice, severing the tendrils that held her friends with her talons and tearing eyes from the demon with her jaws. The Voice recoiled with a shriek, surprised by the spirit dragon’s sudden appearance and utterly confused by the searing sensation of pain. It tried to retaliate, to choke the dragon, to break her neck, to rend her flesh, only for Kaja to rip more of its tendrils to shreds. Its remaining eyes began shifting and searching in all different directions, desperately seeking a way out. The Voice in the Deep—the Ecstatic Despair, conqueror of Ainchalez—was afraid.
Then it saw it. Dasri, one arm restrained by Kagaa, had managed to pull open the Cryptaevium door a sliver. With the painted seal broken, the Voice took the chance and surged through the crack with the force of a hurricane. Kaja snarled, following it through the door. She stayed on its tail as it passed through the causeway, up through the stone and through the mountain itself.
With a scream like a howling tempest, the demon crested the mountain top and high into the sky. Furious gray clouds gathered with unnatural speed. Lightning flashed and hail pummeled the peaks far below. Kaja watched as a bolt of lightning erupted among the clouds, slowly spreading out and out like a growing tree branch. The light illuminated the many eyes of the demon, some of which widened as Kaja caught up to it. She sank her fangs into it and curled her body around its amorphous form to block its escape. As Kaja’s spirit and the thrashing demon grappled in the sky, the black disc of an eclipse slid over the sun.
The Voice in the Deep was unlike Lucretia’s demon—it was larger, stronger, older. Kaja could sense that it was greatly weakened by its time trapped in the Cryptaevium, losing power as it clung to the edges of their world for millennia. Even though it had received an infusion of magic from Codex, it had used nearly all that power to materialize and attack her friends in an effort to gain her as its new host.
But none of that meant that the Voice in the Deep was helpless. In its struggle to get away, it used every trick it could muster: grappling Kaja with its tendrils and striking her with a solid mass of hardened clouds, summoning lightning bolts that cascaded across her ethereal scales, zig-zagging down into the mountain valleys in a vain attempt to lose her.
Kaja followed the Voice as it surged out of the canyon and burst into a swarm of shadowy birds. Screeching and swirling around her, they tore at her with their beaks and talons. Her jaws slammed shut on bird after bird, each one exploding into mist without deterring the rest. She slowed, cut in a thousand places, her life force dripping from the wounds like sparkling starlight.
It was then she noticed they didn’t seem to be in the skies above the Grayspurs any longer. On the ground far below stretched a city, unlike any Kaja had seen. Its domes and spires covered the land to the horizon, large enough to contain Aurea a hundred times over. Above, dragons soared and dodged through the sky, dueling with Dark Ones just as she was. Nearby, a demon exploded with a scream as it was banished from the world. But in another part of the sky, a demon shifted into the form of a great serpent, wrapping many times around an attacking dragon’s neck. With a sharp crack, it was over, the dragon’s body crashing into the towers far below.
Unable to comprehend what she was seeing, she turned away. Though the birds still swooped and cut at her, she saw a single bird at the edge of the flock who never came in to attack. It had four wings, not two; its eyeless face was turned inward, watching her. Kaja lunged and, though the bird shrieked and banked away, she caught one of its wings between her teeth. Her frost-coated tongue pulled it between her jaws, and with a many-voiced scream of terror, it was destroyed. The shadow birds vanished in an instant, exploding into puffs of black mist. The vision of the city and the battle below vanished, the Grayspur mountains once again coming into view. As the stormy skies cleared, Kaja’s weariness finally caught up with her and she felt herself being pulled back into the mountain, back to her body.
When she opened her eyes, she saw familiar faces looking down at her. There was no sign of the demon. Leif grinned and squeezed her arm in a silent show of thanks. Jo helped her move to a sitting position.
“You did it,” Leif said, still panting from the battle as they all were. He offered a hand to help her up but Jo slapped it away.
“Give her a moment,” she snapped. Leif laughed and nodded, sitting back with relief. Kaja’s eyes went wide, then softened. Her friends were safe, and she hadn’t hurt them. They weren’t looking at her in fear of what she was. She managed a few breathy laughs, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.
The door to the Cryptaevium yawned open. Outside, Kagaa and his warriors stood over Dasri and three of her followers, who had been bound with green fiber ropes. Her two other followers stood nearby, dazed and confused. Once the Voice had been silenced, some of Dasri’s cultists had regained their composure and helped Kagaa subdue the rest. Dasri herself, though, was wracked with grief, thumping her head against the dusty floor over and over. “It’s gone. . . it’s gone. . . you killed it, you traitors. . .” she moaned.
“Hush,” Kagaa growled. He and another warrior pulled her to her feet. As they prepared to leave, he turned back towards the visitors, giving them a nod. “And to you, my friends, you have our thanks. Because of what you’ve done, my people can return to the Underdark.” The party offered their own thanks, before the kobolds dragged Dasri and her followers away. The cult leader hissed and vowed vengeance all the way until they vanished into the gloom.
Sakrattars turned his attention back to the consoles. “Codex. . .” he started somberly.
“I understand now,” Codex said. “Syntax is gone, as are my creators. The entity must have lived off the magic in Syntax’s core, draining it little by little to keep itself alive, until there was nothing left,” he reasoned. “S-stand by. . . I am experiencing an error in my processes.”
“Grief,” Amale said quietly, his ears lowered. “It’s grief.”
“I am not capable of—”
Amale placed a paw on Codex’s cold metal shell.
Gears turned inside the tiny sphere as he processed this. After a few moments, Codex whirred. “The city wide lockdown has been lifted. Several exterior gates are still operational. If you place me in the gate’s interface, I shall choose one closest to the foot of the mountains.”
Once slotted into the interface, an archway on one of the walls crackled with arcane energy as a softly swirling whirlpool of orange light coalesced in its center. Like water growing still on the surface of a lake, the image of the other side became clear: the snowy peaks of the Grayspurs and beyond a great forest that could only be the Goldenwoods. The northern wilds of Aurelia were mere steps away.
One by one, the companions thanked Codex and said their goodbyes, then stepped through the portal until only Sakrattars was left. He paused before the gate. “Thank you, Codex. For everything.”
“Thank you, user Sakrattars, for car-carrying me all this way.”
“Once I leave, you’ll be all alone in here. Can’t we take you with us?”
“No. Gates to the outside will only remain open if a gatekeeper holds it open. The moment I am removed, the gate will close.” Codex clicked a few times as he thought it over. “Don’t be sad for me, Ainchalez is where I belong. But, if I may request a favor. . . please take Syntax with you. She never got to see the outside world. Please, p-place her somewhere she’d have liked to see. Somewhere beautiful.”
Sakrattars nodded and plucked Syntax’s body from the central console, gently wrapping her metal shell in the sleeve of his wizard’s robes. He placed his hand on Codex one final time. “Goodbye, Codex.” Then he stepped out of the portal and into the light of the setting sun.
Alone in the Cryptaevium, Codex wound down the flow of magic until the portal went dark. All fell into blackness, as it had been for millennia. “Goodbye. . . my friend,” he said softly.
*
*
The outer gate fell silent, Codex closing the portal from deep within the mountain below. The companions took a moment to relish the sun on their faces, and the view of Aurelia below them. Soon, the only trace of their passing were five sets of footprints in the snow, leading down the mountain. They had, however, left something behind.
Placed on a rock at the edge of the cliff, Syntax sat reflecting the sunset’s glow. Before her, the wide world stretched to the horizon.