Tiger saw another wooden building on the horizon. This one much smaller, with fewer lights to attract attention. He could have imagined something like that appearing at home, surrounded by the bush, just a normal little cottage. This in itself made him more wary. Was the world below reshaping itself to his fantasies of the world above as he had been warned it could do?

The path was straight. There was no way to walk around and avoid it, so he kept going forward until it was close enough to see the building's details, its small front porch with dusty decorate wire work adorning its modest railing, its sickly pale window frames.

A woman stood in front of the door, as if waiting to receive him. Her hair was the colour of dry sand, and her long, billowing dress a faded red.

"Yasmeen warned me you would be coming," she said, her voice deep, crackling at the edges. She waved an arm about, a weird welcoming gesture, but her sleeves covered her hands completely and she didn't move out of the way of the door.

"Is she here?" Tiger asked.

Through the dusty windows he was sure he saw the silhouette of a woman running. But who knew what that really meant?

"If she were would she talk to you?" the woman asked.

"Will you?"

She stepped to the side with a clicking sound and the door opened with a yawn. The inside of the building emitted a faint red glow. She shuffled backwards into it, smiling enigmatically. He stepped up and followed her inside.

The hallway was narrow, cluttered and dusty. Tiger itched to start cleaning. If there were only a broom nearby, he was sure he wouldn't be able to stop himself. He followed the woman to a small, plain room out the back of the building, that had no furniture but a wooden table with flaking varnish and a few shoddy, mismatched chairs. A man in armour – or possibly a lonely suit of armour pretending to be a man – stood in the corner. But no Yasmeen, no hint of the glamorous fortune teller he had met in the marketplace. Had she really been here or was it another trick?

He sat at one chair and the woman sat at the other.

"You must know what I'm searching for. Will you help me?" Tiger asked.

The woman grinned. "We have tried to get this dark jewel, too. But we haven't even been able to get past the pig woman and her army of disgusting swine. They eat and eat and eat everything that goes past when she lets them run free. They'll even eat each other."

Tiger placed his hands flat on the table, and hoped the woman opposite him would do the same. He didn't trust her hidden hands, veiled in that rusty fabric.

"Does she protect the lord of this world from those who would seek his treasures?"

The woman laughed, a short and bitter sound. "Whether she is loyal to the great lord of all this junk, or whether she just protects her own chunk of this land, who can say? Not I. I would not speak to what that monstrous women wants and feels."

She rolled her shoulders under her dress, but still her hands remained hidden. In the corner, the armour remained still.

"How far away is this person?"

The woman tilted her head. "Will you fight her?"

"I've fought strong immortals before. Such a thing is nothing new to me."

"Perhaps I should say that we should team up to get this jewel. Fight past the pig woman first, and share the lord's spoils with each other."

A faint breeze blew even more sand and dust into the room through the half open window. Only that alerted Tiger to there being a window at all, because outside was nothing but starless night, and the window panes looked like lines made with chalk.

Tiger pushed back his seat. "I would not share them with you."

"Or I could use you to fight her, and then I could get access to the lord himself, and only I would get to have his jewel, and all would bow down and worship me."

The woman stood up, tall and imperious, and her sleeves fell away from her arms and revealed claws. Tiger shoved himself back as she lunged, hitting the floor before she could swipe at his head. The chair hit the wall behind him. The room was too small for a decent fight.

She scuttled over the chair and crawled towards him. He kicked out at her head, trying to move under the table as he did so, but only kicked a table leg. She swiped at him, tearing open his clothes near the ankles. Behind him, the armour rustled. He scrambled back further, trying to get room to draw his sword.

The armour moved behind him, blocking his exit. In front of him, the scorpion woman had more visible limbs than when last he looked, and a sharp tail curving up behind the back of her dress. He grabbed at the sand on the floor and threw it at her face. She hissed and scuttled back. He scrambled up the side of the table instead and made for the window.

The armour struck out an arm, quicker than Tiger expected, and he deflected it with his elbow instead. He hurt, the blow a sharp warm shock to the bone. He had no time to nurse that hurt, the armour already recovering, the woman's movements making clacking noises behind him.

The window tore open with a shove and he lifted himself up and halfway through before she caught his boot. He kicked back at her and she fell back, scraping at his shoe. Tiger let himself fall right through the window and land on the other side, soft loose dirt and the roughness of elephant grass breaking his fall. It was a lawn, sparse as it was, fighting against the dryness of the elements. He stood, brushed himself off.

Inside the building, the scorpion woman clutched at her own face. The armour made awful metal scraping noises as it climbed over the window.

Tiger ran. He lifted himself over the hurdle of a wooden fence and ran some more.

The street narrowed. Behind him the wind picked up, turning the sweat running down his back cold. He was filthy and tired, hands coated in dust. But behind him the armour clanked on, and he could hear it catching up.

A bend in the path, two choices, equally narrow. The one on the right was pitch black but the one on the left had light and heat. It would probably be the wrong choice to choose the left, given all that had come before.

Behind him, the armour thudded close. Tiger drew his sword and swung into the movement of attacking it as it turned, his sword meeting another with a brilliant blue spark. The armour's sword met his every parry, every thrust. Its forceful movements forced him back.

Tiger could hear the faint squealing of pigs from the left path. It seemed he had no choice to meet this queen of pigs if he wanted to escape this current predicament. He turned and ran in, barely escaping the jab of the armour's weapon. The wind grew stronger, nearly lifting him off his feet. The armour followed him, the wind blowing it farther down the new tunnel. Even as it skidded down the path, one of its legs breaking off as it hit a black metal fence, it attacked him, again and again.

So Tiger leapt over the fence, striking from that position. Somehow, his sword got caught between the tines. The armour reached forward with its fist and Tiger hit it with his free arm, the armour breaking apart. Another strong wind blew it further down the tunnel. Tiger was stuck in place, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

And then the wind died down completely, and his back could feel the warmth of a nearby fire.

He turned, and saw yet another woman, undoubtedly the final dangerous woman he was supposed to fear. She was mildly dishevelled, her bodice half undone and her hair in disarray. Her face looked blotchy and slightly too pink, perhaps from the heat. He looked up, and the edges of the gabled roof of her strange cottage were decorated with a bizarre sculpture, a black metal odd to feasting swine. Grotesque. He looked back down at her, and swallowed in fear.

"I wasn't trying to break in," he said. "I didn't mean to get stuck."

"Oh, you poor thing," she said. Her voice was soft, breathy like she'd just woken up from a nap. "Let me free you from that monstrous fence."

She put one of her soft, warm, too pink hands on his and gently pulled him and his sword back.

"Come inside," she said. "You must be tired. I'll put the kettle on."

And he was so tired he couldn't help but follow.

*

What a turn of events for Rose, on her knees in front of Nathaniel again. But this time he wasn't standing soaked in her brother's blood.

"I have nothing to give you," he said.

"You know what you took from me."

He turned away, the pendant hung around his neck shining in the sickly light as he did so.

"I cannot give that power back," Nathaniel said. "Nor do I regret killing your brother."

Rose clenched her fists so hard that her nails pressed into her own palms, and bit her lip so she wouldn't cry. She was so angry, so angry. That pendant was hers and hers alone. She regretted ever letting Nathaniel touch it, or her.

"Did you come down here to find your brother's spirit?" he asked. The only hint of emotion was his raised eyebrow. Other than that, his face was still and his voice flat. She shook her head. "Because he isn't here. Wherever his soul went, it didn't pass by me."

"Dead is dead," she said.

"I can't give your power back, either." Nathaniel put a hand to the dark red jewel at the heart of the pendant. "There is almost none of it left in here."

"Just give me back the body I want!" she yelled. She could feel her eyes getting wet and grit her teeth against it, closing her eyes as she looked away from him.

She felt so hard and sharp, brittle in every angle of her body. She wanted that old softness back.

Nathaniel scoffed. "I do have power over transformation, but not like you once did. I do not think you would like what I could turn you into."

The sound of his soft footsteps alerted her that he was walking away. She scrambled to her feet, opening her eyes in spite of their dampness.

He turned right, and in the area beyond them were vulnerable human bodies, naked and damp. Their eyes looked confused, and their bodies looked cold and flabby. Soft, not sharp like she was. They stepped slowly into the waters. Some of them gained gills or scales, their bodies turning blue and green on one side. Some of them gained swan's wings where their arms once were, and the squawking noises they made sounded panicked.

"There," Nathaniel said, raising an arm to point to all this. "The new inhabitants stumbling into my world. Is this what you wanted to see?"

She stepped carefully, doing her best to avoid any of the wet trails across the rock.

"I want my pendant back. And my body. I wish I had never let you touch either."

He turned, and even though he stood in a patch of darkness she could see the dark gills in his neck and webbing on his ears that he hid so successfully in the upper world.

"Sometimes," he said, "I wish the same."

"Are you happy?" she asked. "Now that you've avenged the wife my brother stole from you?"

"He didn't just steal her," Nathaniel said, his voice like a cold knife. "He murdered her. And he ran from me for centuries, using your gift to hide his path and keeping you in the dark."

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

"But are you happy?"

"I have no desire to be happy. That was never part of my plan."

A portal opened in the wall, burning bright at its edges like the ones in the world above that liked to pull people from their home worlds, and a tall pale-skinned man in a dark coat stepped through. In his hands he held an umbrella, and the water that dripped from the top of the cave bounced off it, harmlessly. Where he stepped the ground turned dry.

"What do you want, my lord?" Nathaniel asked, turning to him.

"Are you busy, brother?" the strange man – undoubtedly the lord of the underworld – asked him.

"I do not acknowledge you as such."

The lord of the underworld smiled. "The time of the changeover approaches. I wanted to make sure the tremors hadn't damaged anything here."

"If there was damage, what would you care?" Nathaniel's voice was sharp, but he'd used that same tone to talk to Rose before he broke her heart. In all likelihood he wasn't capable of being fond without being mean.

"Decide now if you want to stay here when it happens, or get out like the spider women plan to do. This corner of the world will operate quite nicely even without you."

Nathaniel lowered his gaze and said nothing. The lord of the underworld stepped forward and tapped the pendant Nathaniel wore, and it resumed its old brilliant red glow, lighting up the cave.

"And let the lady have her jewellery back," the lord said, and laughed.

Nathaniel thrust an arm out and created another portal in the wall. "Go and leave me be."

Rose stood there, shivering in spite of the sudden heat.

Finally, Nathaniel took off her pendant. He crumpled it into his fist and looked straight at the glowing red jewel. "Fine, I'll give you back the body I want."

And when he raised it over her head, and her body turned back into the form she once chose, the relief was overwhelming.

*

Gus walked through the large, cavernous area, already regretting sending Simon away. The tunnel was too quiet, the only music his breath. Already he felt lonely.

He cut down a monster that looked like a great big cat, tiger-striped, but with the antlers of a deer and the height of an elephant. What a wondrous to meet and experience. What a waste to kill it. When he struck the killing blow he caught its eye and felt that it felt as he did. Such big, round, sad eyes. He walked up close to wipe away its tear, and stayed by it as the life left its form and it collapsed into the ground.

Another monster he fought to death after that, a strange, shimmering dark thing that looked like a dark cloud given the form of a tremendous lizard. And he felt equally sad after, equally lonely.

One monster after another, and nothing but sadness and loss. Was this how Simon felt for however many years he was keeping these monsters in check? No wonder he came on too strong when he saw someone he wanted as a friend. Gus almost wanted him back here to talk to. Almost. But the way he spoke and moved was too much, the sound of his voice like a punch to the chest, and Gus knew he wasn't ready yet for whatever shared destiny they would have.

He walked and walked, until the cave narrowed to the size of a person, and then he hunched over for his last few steps before he reached a small arch. He knelt down to get through.

On the other side was some kind of drinking establishment. Various dusty men sat about, downing what looked like beer.

A man behind the bar looked down and saw Gus and said, "Oh, it's you."

"It is me."

"Well, come up and have a drink. He won't be long."

"Ah, really?" Gus scratched at the back of his neck, embarrassed and feeling himself blush. And unsure why.

He scrambled to his feet and found himself a table to sit at. The barman slammed a large jug of something or other onto the table in front of him. It spilled over a little, red and foaming. Gus was almost curious enough to touch and taste it. Almost.

And then he waited. And he and the barman both knew who he was waiting for.

Was it like this for all of them? he wondered. Was Tiger going through something strange like this too on his part of the journey? Was Ada seeing strange things and meeting bizarrely alluring people? He didn't know whether to hope they were or weren't. But when he thought of them experiencing something like this, too, of them meeting new friends and experiencing interesting things he felt less alone. He felt like they were really there with him, and they were on a normal adventure.

He smiled a little and felt his face warm some more. And then he put one finger into the red splash on the table and drew a picture with it, a silly stick figure with a sword.

Slowly the room emptied out. The room grew hot, without the coldness emanating from those icy strangers. And then there was just Gus and the barman and that strange red drink.

Until, finally, the door jangled and opened, and the barman looked up and so did Gus. And Simon walked through, tall and terrifying, in a long dark coat and dark trousers. He wore a long dark scarf that Gus wanted to pull away from his neck; surely it was too hot. But Gus didn't move, and no words moved from his throat, he just sat and waited while Simon looked at him with those too dark eyes and walked forward.

Simon sat at the chair on the other side of the table, like he knew Gus had been waiting for him. Then he unwound his scarf and shook out his hair, like he knew Gus wanted him to do that, too.

"You're not drinking?" Simon asked. He dipped his fingers in the drink and then stuck them in his mouth, licking his fingers clean.

"Will I be stuck here if I do?"

"There's only one way to find out."

Simon dipped another finger in the glass and raised it to Gus's face, like a strange, wet offering.

Gus shook his head. "You know the answer. You don't need to toy with me."

"It's the time of changeover. Anything could happen. We could all leave tomorrow if this place wills it."

"Does that really happen? Does it all empty out, the lost souls going to a place even further beyond, and the immortal monstrous escaping to the world above?" It would answer so many questions Gus had about where the monsters that appeared above came from. But that would be too convenient. He wasn't sure he believed it.

"There are plenty who stay. Some even sleep through the changeover." He curled his sharp red lips into a wry smile. "It's just a change of caretaker, nothing more."

"And you want to leave. With me."

Simon's face lost that superior look, and he became like any vulnerable, dark eyed young man. "Yes. Very much. I dreamed of you. Didn't you dream of me too?"

"When did you last dream?" Gus asked.

Simon looked down and away. "Before I came down here."

Gus put a finger to the spill of drink on the table and then touched it to his tongue, just to taste. It tasted like ashes, just like Ada had warned. What a cruel fate to spend a life in this place, never tasting anything real.

"I dreamed of you," Gus said. "Off and on for 800 years. I dreamed of a lot of things. Very few dreams come true. I want that black gem and all its power. I don't know if I want to leave with you. Convince me."

Simon clicked his fingers and the world around them changed, though the table and chairs stayed with them, and so did the barman. Simon's clothes reinvented themselves until he was wearing something practical yet luxurious.

And then a cat leapt up onto the table. It was a mangy looking tabby, some of its fur missing in patches, and ribs showing through. But it butted itself against Simon's hand and started to purr even before he fully committed to patting it.

"Is this all you've got?" Gus asked. "I should rescue you because you like animals?"

A long, shiny snake started to wind its way around Simon's other arm, its scales shining emerald in the dark light. Simon smirked. "You already want to rescue me. Stop fighting it."

The barman lifted the snake from Simon's body as it started to slither across his shoulders. Perhaps he was a zookeeper instead.

"You had me fight beasts before this," Gus said.

"A duty we must all undertake down here. But the souls of animals and plants come down here, too. A great tree that was cut down by fools lives a second life in one of the great room's at the heart of this complex."

The cat, perhaps tired of licking Simon's bony fingers and bumping into the sharp ring on his left hand, jumped over the table and sauntered away. When Gus looked back at Simon his eyelashes were lowered, his smirk gone.

"Even if I were to rescue you from the loneliness you have down here," Gus said, "what then? You might be no less lonely upstairs where we suffer."

"I miss tasting things. I miss dreams and dreaming. I miss feeling a hand reached out in kindness."

"In my world you wouldn't be able to click your fingers and change into any clothes you like."

"Then you could dress me," Simon said, "and I would be your slave."

And Gus, caught for a brief moment in a faint ugly memory of the land he had escaped eight centuries ago, pushed his chair back and said, "No. Never would I allow that."

*

The queen of pigs had a warm little cottage, with all sorts of clutter leaning against the stone walls. A small fire burned in the front room and lit up all he could see of her little house. To one side was a kitchen, alarmingly messy. But she dragged him through a curtain and deposited him on her messy bed.

Even though she was small and soft to look at, she was surprisingly strong. Though it shouldn't have been a surprise.

"I'll be back in a moment," she said. "Don't fall asleep."

Tiger blinked up at her, a little confused.

It would be nice to get to sleep, and the idea of a nice, short rest almost pulled him all the way back down onto the bed, before he looked at himself and started to panic. He rose himself back to a seating position just before the curtain swooshed and she came back into the room, holding a steaming mug of something or other.

"Here," she said, holding it out.

Smelled like tea. He took the mug from her hands and drank. Tasted like absolutely nothing whatsoever.

"Rest," she said, and moved to sit next to him on the bed. "But don't let yourself sleep. I think that's how they get you."

"How they get you to stay?" he asked.

She nodded, her hair becoming more of a mess with the movement. "I think that's how I got stuck down here. I stumbled into a cave when I was... I'm not sure, it was so long ago, and then I fell asleep and I've never been able to get out."

He gave her a small sad smile, almost as pathetic as the small sad smile she was giving him. He didn't have the heart to tell her he and his friends had already slept in one of the earlier tunnels, and if that was the key to keeping them in the world below then they were already stuck.

His head was heavy. If he just leaned over, he might sink right through the floor. He lifted himself up, and tried to keep himself awake with questions.

"Why did you come down here in the first place?"

"Well, I was running, you see. Somebody chased me and, oh, the details are gone, it was so long ago, but I was so scared, just me and my cutest little pigs running down here. And then I was tired, and when I woke up I couldn't leave. And there keep being more pigs and someone has to take care of them."

"How long ago...?" He bit his lip, so sharp it hurt, as soon as it occurred to him that asking a very dangerous woman her age was probably a bad idea. Maybe he had an idea – though her hair was mostly dark blonde shading into light brown, there were pale strands that shone like polished wires, and her jawline wasn't as sharp as Ada's was. Then again, Ada was probably half this woman's weight. And it was hard to tell with immortals like them. Some of them, like Gus and Henry just stopped changing at a certain point in life and stayed looking the same until someone dispatched them from the world. Some, like Tiger himself, just found ageing slowed to a crawl, so you only noticed the changes if you tried very hard. Or if someone saw you once every fifty years, as he had with Leaf until he left the world.

She put a hand to her cheek and tapped her mouth. "Hmm. I have to be nearing 400 by now, and I was already a bit of an old maid."

"You aren't much older than me, then."

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"I came down with friends to find a dark jewel. Can you help?"

"I don't know if I can, but I can try. It is nearing the time of changeover, so you might end up getting it anyway. I think it would be a shame for you to be stuck down here forever, though. Maybe you should abandon this quest and let someone else have the dark jewel."

"It's not for me. It's for—" He wanted to say it was for a friend, but it wasn't really for Gus, it was for Gus's shitty sometimes boss.

"Well, in that case," she said, her smile spreading wider and lighting up her face, "your friend can find this jewel and you can escape when the changeover happens and not get stuck at all. Oh, I like that idea. Unless you don't think your friend should stay here, but I'm sure whoever that is he could do excellently. Or she? You know, this place doesn't discriminate. The ruler before this one was a lovely lady."

"The lord of this world has the gem?"

His heavy head slipped onto her soft shoulder, and he let it.

"Oh, of course," she said, moving to pat his hair. "It's his symbol of rule. He wouldn't be allowed power over the residents if he didn't have it, and he's kept it safe so long. The one before him, she kept it on a chain around her neck. I think she didn't leave until her wife and child had already passed on before her, you know? She got tired of the job then. They all do. The current lord is very nice, and he keeps it very secure, but he always seems so lonely. That's why the ground shakes."

"Where does he keep it?"

"Oh, well you see, I would love to tell you, really I would, but the words just won't come out of my mouth. You understand, I'm sure. But you'll know it when you see it."

His head slipped off her shoulder and he collapsed sideways onto the bed. His elbow hit something sharp and hard. He moved the sheets away to find what he hit and saw a frying pan hiding under her covers. Disgusting.

"I'm sorry, it's just that the fire makes you so warm and sleepy in here. But before it was there this place was as cold as death."

"I... I need to wash your dishes. I need to organise your kitchen. This is unacceptable."

She stood up and moved the curtain. "Oh, of course. If you want. It's always such a hassle for me, so if you would like to... I have always dreamed about someone helping me clean."

He grabbed the pan and marched into her small kitchen, eyeing the horrific pile of old dishes, all of them covered in dust. How many years had she let them pile up like that?

He found a wash cloth. She got him water. Then he set to work, scrubbing and scrubbing until he'd cleaned them all. And then he put them all away in the cupboard, and reorganised everything that had been hidden from view while he was there. She was even more of a mess than Gus could be.

"Do you want to clean yourself too?" she asked. "For the journey."

"For the journey?" he asked, his head full of wool. Already he struggled to remember why he came in there.

"You have to leave to get that jewel for your friend," she said, already dabbing at his face and his clothes with a soft towel.

"Of course. My quest."

Her smile was bright as she stroked his face and rearranged his hair. "Don't let yourself get stuck down here like me."

He nodded and took a step back. Then another. She turned him around and pushed him forward another step. And then he was out her front door, and the air was cooler though no more fresh. He breathed in and tried to remember Gus and Ada and what they were trying to do.

"I'll walk you out so you don't get lost," she said.

Then she raised her hand and her bodice did itself up neatly, and her hair put itself up in a complicated style, and a velvet dress in a dark pink that bordered on fuchsia flew out from her cottage and wrapped itself around her body. As did a staff and crown, which she caught with her left hand. The crown went on her head slightly off-centre, but even so, when she looked up at him, fully dressed and imperious, he felt a little impressed.

"This way," she said, marching him past the gate.

They walked deep into the dark. Beside her cottage the fence ran on and on, and though he couldn't see the army of swine she kept he could hear them, their grunting noises and the squelching sounds of mud beneath their feet like a threat. Pigs could be disgusting creatures, eating anything in sight if you let them. Even each other.

But Yasmeen had told him he would meet dangerous women and have to choose which one to trust. He was choosing this one.

"This is it," she said, as the road reached a bend, and the cave around them formed an arch. "From here the air is clear, and you can walk deep down until you find what you need."

He turned to look at her, so regal in front of him with her long, flowing sleeves.

"My name is Tiger. Can I have a name to remember you by?"

"You can call me Alice."

"I'll remember you, Alice!" He jogged forward, through the arch. "If I can get out of here I'll come back for you!"