The Hydra basked in steaming water. Its three serpentine heads bobbed above the surface while all six eyes gazed absently forward. The huge body was out of sight, but as the heads stretched and yawned to reveal their fangs, a tail would sometimes lash from the deeps, wagging contentedly before falling once again into the lake.

They were deep underground. What little light there was came from bioluminescent fish writhing about the water. Their green and red and orange scales shimmered on the cavern ceiling. Occasionally one or another of the Hydra’s heads snapped a mouthful of rainbow up, before throwing back its neck and swallowing it whole. The turquoise scales down its neck glowed for a moment, before the lights sank back into the water, and the heads returned to relaxation.

Aletheia clutched her bow tightly. The mana in the air was too thin to feel. The Aether could not reach this subterranean place. What little energy she felt came only from her companions.

She stepped forward through the dark. She knew a spell to let her see even when there was no light at all, but she had not used it; she would need her magic elsewhere before the day was out.

The strip of solid ground was steep and lined with tiny stones that slipped and slid with each step. Aletheia walked softly to avoid an avalanche. When she came to the water’s brim, she ducked behind a large grill of stalactites and looked again at the Hydra.

Now two of its heads were submerged in the lake. One remained, barely alert.

It would never expect an attack in its own lair. Why would anyone bother coming so far out of her way, to kill a monster so terrible, when nothing stood to be gained?

Aletheia spotted the answer when the Hydra shifted. A glint of light along the creature’s ridged back. A hint of gold where everywhere else there was black and blue.

It was the grip of a sword. That was what stood to be gained.

She looked over her shoulder. From the shadow behind her emerged the shape of Trito.

He was enormous, armored, strong, and tall, but he moved with deft precision—and quickly. At his hip dangled a sword, and his hands held a leaf-bladed spear. He darted across the scree and came to Aletheia’s side.

He was an elf.

Then they both looked past the scree and at the shadow, waiting to see their final companion to emerge.

But they didn’t see. Instead, they heard.

It started with the clicking of pebbles. A few stones rolled down into the water, splashing quietly with sinking plops. Then there came a few more. And more.

Then the avalanche. Melitas tumbled and slid to the water.

He was the youngest of the three, still a teenager, and wore red and white robes. A dagger at his waist clinked and clacked the whole way down. When he’d finally come to a rest, more loose rocks rained down on his back.

The Hydra’s two submerged heads rose. In unison the three mouths opened. Six serpentine fangs bared.

Melitas had settled in shallow water. He’d been dazed for a moment, but now he pulled his head from the lake and looked to see what he had done.

He screamed. His hands raised, and Aletheia felt what little mana was in the air flash to nothingness around her as he began to cast a spell.

The Hydra raised its head.

Aletheia and Trito jumped into the open.

“Get back!” Aletheia shouted. She pulled an arrow from her quiver and nocked it, fingers finding the draw string.

Trito grabbed the young Melitas and tossed him back up the incline, sending more rocks raining to the water. Both of his hands tightened around the haft of his spear.

The Hydra hissed at the sight of two new intruders. Its slit snake eyes were dark as it moved, but it seemed to hesitate at the sight of Trito’s spear blade

Aletheia whispered a word in Regal.

A bright light appeared beside the Hydra’s head, and all the cavern was illuminated.

The creature was enormous. It had been farther away than Aletheia realized, but now she saw its scale against an elf, and she froze.

Even Trito would fit easily within its mouths. Its fangs were measured in feet.

She drew back the arrow on her bow. It was an Elven bow, and although to pull the string required strength, to hold it back took almost none at all. She aimed precisely for the Hydra’s leftmost eye.

All three heads struck out at Trito at the moment she loosed. The Hydra came down on him like a crashing mountain. The arrow hit the ridge of its brow and skipped harmlessly off into the lake behind it, and Trito jumped out of the strike of the middle mouth. The right mouth came down on him next; he danced around it, dodging it, and raised his spear.

He thrust the blade through the serpentine cheek, into the jaw, and a swell of green blood flooded down the haft of the spear. The head was thrown back as it hissed in agony, and the huge Hydra lifted the elf off the ground at the banks effortlessly as it retreated back into the deeper water.

Trito did not let go.

Aletheia nocked another arrow. She leaped into the lake until water came to her knees; it was hot, but it didn’t hurt yet.

The head with a spear through its cheek thrashed and roared. The other two went higher or lower, and they struck and bit at the dangling elf. He held the spear’s shaft with one hand as he rocked to dodge each bite, and he drew the sword from his side.

The blade bit back with each strike. Trito hit an eye and sent blood draining down the Hydra’s leftmost head. The middle head was slashed open around its snake nose, and when the beast recoiled in pain, he twisted himself up along the spear and jumped.

He landed on the Hydra’s back, grabbing a ridge to hold, and began hacking away at the long serpentine neck of the rightmost head.

Aletheia took her second shot. This time she waited for the perfect opening. Before the arrow took flight, she cast a spell over the steel head. She was hungry for magic and starved in this place, her spell of light had drained her already, but enough mana remained in her bloodstream to make the tip of the arrow flash red.

The moment it slipped from the bow, the shaft and feathers behind ignited in a steam of fire.

The leftmost head of the Hydra contorted over itself to grab the elf from its back. It could nearly reach, but Trito’s dexterity never faltered. He dodged to the side and hacked one last time at the rightmost neck, cutting three quarters of the way through; its head hissed like a tortured alligator, flailing in every direction as its green blood pooled in the water beneath it. The blade melted as it contacted the Hydra’s toxic blood.

At the apex of the chop, the head went limp, and it collapsed with a huge splash at Aletheia’s feet.

But when Trito pulled his sword free, he withdrew nothing but a sizzling handle. There was no blade left. The Hydra’s blood had destroyed it entirely.

The leftmost head took its opportunity. It bit at him, and he had nowhere to go.

Trito dived into the water to avoid the snapping jaws.

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Aletheia’s arrow hit the leftmost neck at that moment. At the impact, the shaft flashed. The leftmost head turned in Aletheia’s direction and roared.

The arrow exploded, and the Hydra was consumed in a fireball. The air in the cavern rushed to fuel the flame; Aletheia felt her skin bathed in heat and covered her eyes, and when she looked again, she saw the blackened neck of the creature.

The neck and head had been blown to pieces. The bleeding stump of the neck collapsed into the water beside the other half-severed neck, while its upper half and head rained down like hail around the lake.

Only the middle head was left. It screeched in fury, and all its wroth was on Aletheia. It pulled its head back; as she nocked her third arrow, the fangs bared, and a stream of putrescent slime struck her along her mail hauberk.

The chain sizzled and snapped. The lime-colored toxin ate through it like an ooze, like acid, and she had to leap to the side and for cover behind stalagmites near the shore as another shot passed her head.

In the water, Trito surfaced. He tried to climb up the Hydra’s enormous tail, but a single lash sent him flying halfway across the cavern.

“I’ll handle him!” Melitas cried. “Back to the depths, you chimeric fiend!”

“Get down!” Aletheia screamed, but the young man did not seem to hear—or care.

She shot two arrows quickly, without any enchantments, at the Hydra; one bit into its final neck, but the other skipped harmlessly off its scales.

The Hydra pulled itself from the water. Its whole body was revealed, its two enormous legs and the full length of its tail, as it closed in to crush the two humans with its feet. Another sizzling mouthful of acid missed Aletheia by an inch, and then all of its attention turned to Melitas.

He was casting another spell. He stood before the Hydra like a mouse confronting an elephant, unflinching and brave. He put his hands together to summon forth the Aether; his eyes, bright green, flashed orange, and in his hands appeared two balls of white fire. Within the flame crackled electricity.

He tossed them at the Hydra. One exploded against its rightmost severed neck, while the other hit it in the middle head. They erupted in crackling, blinding flares of light—

And the Hydra was burned. The smell of charred fish flooded the cavern. But that was all.

The middle mouth lowered to Melitas. It snapped down on his shoulder, barely missing his head, and he screamed as its fangs pierced his chest.

Aletheia dropped the bow and drew her sword. She said a quick enchantment over the blade and rushed ahead, and as the head lifted Melitas up to swallow him whole, she dragged the edge through its neck from below.

It let the young magician go and recoiled. Melitas toppled to the ground, sputtering and coughing and foaming at the mouth. A speck of blood got on Aletheia’s shoulder and burned through her cloak, but it wasn’t enough to harm her. Then she faced the Hydra’s head from the shallows.

The middle head wasn’t dead yet. It spit at her twice, then again, but now it was slow and imprecise, and she dodged each attack. It roared loud enough to shake the whole of the underground, like an earthquake had started around them, and Aletheia lowered her sword to parry its next attack.

She was not a tall woman. She felt tiny and weak before a creature of this size, and her last spell had drained her; she felt prickling sores forming up and down her arms. But she would not let it take Melitas.

Blood streamed from its neck. It spit at her again. This time she caught the acid on the flat of her sword, and the enchanted steel did not melt.

The Hydra took an enormous step toward her.

Trito appeared on its neck. In his right hand was the golden-handled sword, the blade that had been lodged in the Hydra’s back for a century.

He climbed to the Hydra’s head. By the time it had felt him, by the time it noticed he was back, it was too late.

Trito thrust the blade through its brain.

The whole of the great mass of the Hydra crashed down into the lake.

“Help me,” Aletheia said.

She pulled salves, potions, and bandages from backpack. The Hydra’s fangs hadn’t penetrated all the way through Melitas’ torso, but it was close. The wound was jagged and ugly. Magic could see it healed, but that was not the moment’s concern.

Melitas’ eyes were wide. His mouth open. Aletheia had propped him up—he was big and she was not, and it had not been easy—against a stalagmite. He chest heaved up and down.

The Hydra’s venom had entered his bloodstream.

The area around the wound was wiped down. A green salve was applied. Bandages were wrapped around his shoulder. His mouth opened and closed, but he said nothing. His vocal cords were paralyzed. Most of his muscles would be, too.

She poured a thick red potion down his mouth. It drained slowly, and she had to tilt his head back to get the mulch to flow into his throat.

A moment later he jolted, and his breathing slowed.

“Trito?” she asked.

The elf had only just walked ashore. His mail glistened in the magelight, He tossed his spear and the golden sword on the scree; his other sword, the sidearm used to kill the first head, was left abandoned and melted in the lake. But the other two were sharp and pristine as ever.

These were enchanted weapons. Like Aletheia’s.

Trito glanced at the young magician on the ground.

“What’s there to help with?” he said. “The Hydra’s bite is deadly.”

“I know a spell to cure it,” Aletheia said. But she glanced down at her forearms. When her sleeve was pulled up to her bicep, she saw bright green spots up and down her forearms.

The first signs of spellsickness. She had used too much of her body’s mana in the fight. Now her body had its say. It was like an allergic reaction, like the onset of anaphylaxis, from pushing herself too hard. It could easily be fatal.

But the elf was like a beacon of mana. A being of pure arcane energy, even down in this place.

“I need your Essence,” she said.

Trito shook his head. “He has made his decision. Fate will take its own course. He should not have come on this journey.”

“Then help me get him to the surface!” She couldn’t lift him alone. “Help me!”

But the elf wasn’t listening. He had turned back to the Hydra. Everywhere across the lake the water sizzled where it met green blood. The lower half of its body and tail had sunken deep, but the necks remained somewhat near the shore, along with the sole remaining head.

Trito waded into the water and dragged the creature ashore. Like it was trivial. With strength like a demon’s. When it was partway out of the lake, he began to cut off its remaining head with the golden sword, and he harvested it of its scales, eyes, and other natural reagents.

That was why the elf had come. Not for the sword. Not for any quest. Just for body parts.

Aletheia grit her teeth. But she turned her attention back to Melitas.

She tried to think of what to do. A fish from the lake—their mana would be trivial. The hydra was mundane. Melitas himself…

He hadn’t spent the magic in his veins yet. A magician was a battery, soaking in power from the Aether while on the surface, bleeding it away when casting spells, and although Melitas was young and inexperienced, he hadn’t wasted his Essence on his one spell.

Aletheia put a hand to his skin. The rashes along her arms grew more painful by the second. She felt hives in her mouth. But she focused, and she found the warm, invisible energy that radiated from all magicians, and she breathed it in. She drew it from his body and into hers.

She felt instantly reinvigorated, like she could cast any spell. That was good enough. The moment she felt herself full, she used Cure Poison. She took a splotch of Melitas’ blood onto her fingertips, stared at it, visualized the poison in each drop, and reached out with her will to purify it. She pulled the threads of mana in her imagination and banished that which was not welcome.

A mistake could turn his blood into water, or make it all boil. But now the risk was worth it.

Again the magic in her body left her. The rashes had stopped for a moment, but they began to spread again, and a wave of lethargy hit her.

But Melitas narrowed his eyes. His mouth finally closed. He shifted, slightly, and he said, “I killed the Hydra.”

“Did you see the effect my White Fire had?” Melitas said. “The whole monster fell to the ground!”

They were back in camp, in the fields of Veshod. The land was flat and covered in grass, with few trees and many swamps. The air was hot even long after sunset.

Aletheia had hauled Melitas, who was grievously injured still, all the way from the cave system. Now she finally set him down.

She took a deep breath. Mana flooded her lungs. Immaterial, yet sweet, delicious, and rejuvenating, like fresh, clean air after a year spent in a dungeon.

But the rashes on her arms hadn’t settled. She felt sick, like poison was flowing through her veins. Her very bloodstream stung. It would take days to recover, at least.

“I saw,” she whispered. She collapsed onto a tree stump nearby.

Trito lit their fire using flint and steel.

They sat for a while together in silence.

“Then why are you moping?” Melitas said. “We have the sword, don’t we? Trito has the sword?”

The elf pulled off his helmet. Like any elf he was beautiful beyond description. His hair was long and silver, his face sculpted like Old Kingdom statuary, and his complexion pallid and flawless. But his eyes were solid white—pupilless, severe.

Yet he smiled, and he nodded.

He had carried the sword wrapped in a cloth. Now he threw the cloth aside and tossed it beside the fire.

It glowed brightly in the light. Aletheia picked it up. Melitas would have beaten her to it, but he yelped in pain when he tried to move.

“So?” he asked. “What do you see?”

Aletheia looked the blade over. It was a long, curved, single-edged sword, with no cross guard, so that it looked almost like a giant kitchen knife. The grip was round and of solid gold, as was the pommel. The blade was blued steel—completely undamaged, even after years of being submerged in the Hydra’s acid.

“Is it true? Do they match?” Melitas said.

“I don’t know,” Aletheia said. “Let’s find out.”

On her belt was a bronze container, hanging like a canteen. She unhooked it and snapped it open. Within there was a simple block of gold. It wasn’t much bigger than the sword’s point, and she placed it on the ground.

A small hole was in its top.

She twirled the guardless sword once in her hand. Then she thrust it into the block of gold.

Veshod runes appeared up and down the blade. They glowed bright blue, on either side. Although Aletheia could not read this local script, she knew a spell that rendered it legible; the brief flash of mana in her body stun her welts and nearly made her throw up, but it did no more than that—up here, on the surface, there was more than enough mana in the air to power any spell she pleased.

She quickly read the text over.

“They match,” she said. “This is Ziroslava Bornimir’s sword.”

“What does it say?” Trito said, coming to stand.

Aletheia smiled despite her pain. “It says where to go next to find the Oak of Spring.”