Gastores had grown accustomed to the rhythmic motion of the striding machine. After riding in it for what he was sure had been multiple days its segmented motion felt no more remarkable than walking.
Similarly unperturbing were the sounds of the weapons firing, driving off yet another pocket of hostile creatures. Sulis had become masterful in her control of the bizarre vehicle, and since descending down past the levels the Formorians infested she had rarely needed any assistance in securing their passage.
It was a wonder to him that she had figured out anything of the obtuse designs and mechanisms of the striding, snake-like golem, yet Sulis was discovering more about its operation all the time. She had even turned to the magic of her eclogue to circumvent what she referred to as ‘barriers’ within the golem, presumably designed to prevent enemies from taking control of the machine, or extracting the information buried within it.
Just a few hours past she had found some sort of… miniature picture of part of the Underworld, stored in the crystal devices of the control chamber. She was determined to find more, and to unravel the secrets both of the enemy’s technology, and their territory.
All the while she both steered the walker and fought off hostile or incautious monsters which strayed into their path.
It amazed Gastores that she could tackle so many challenges at once, and it irritated him that there was nothing he could do to help.
The other occupants of the golem’s innards seemed quite happy with the arrangement however. They continued their conversations without concern as the machine gently rocked along – Sulis would inform them if the hazards outside were too much for her to handle, and in the meantime there was nothing they could do but wait.
The weapons had fallen silent for some minutes when there was another, odder disturbance.
Conversations trailed off or faltered and heads turned, as though the speakers had heard something Gastores couldn’t, something which troubled many in the walker.
At his side, Ripides looked as confused as he felt.
“Did anyone else feel that?” Sulis asked over the voice relay.
Berenike pressed a tiny metal disk on the wall beside her in the chamber, which Sulis had pointed out to them the last time she left the control chamber. The harpy had to use the point of her clawed fingertip to work it. It activated with a soft click, and Berenike spoke awkwardly into the small gemstone beside it, covered by a metal grill, affirming to their pilot that she had.
“It was far off, but powerful, even though the rock,” she added.
Others in the cramped compartment of the walking golem chimed in with agreement, mostly those with a strong sensitivity to mana, Gastores noticed.
They were on the trail of the strange shockwave which had nearly buried them alive not long ago, but there had been no further signs of whatever caused it. At least until now.
“Is it the same mana? It was too far off to get much feel for it, but it seemed different to me,” Berenike went on.
“Not the same, but too powerful to ignore,” Sulis answered. “I’m stopping while I analyze it.”
With Berenike’s agreement the steps of their giant metal beast came to a halt, and the panels opened to allow the occupants out.
There was nowhere to go of course, and it was dangerous to stray from the group in the hot, humid and hostile Underworld depths, but Gastores appreciated the chance to spread his six sore limbs and stretch his back without elbowing Ripides in the eye or stepping on a harpy tail. One had to be very careful indeed with harpy tails – if you pricked yourself on their spike and they were surprised or shocked enough they just might envenom you by accident.
Freed of such concerns, Gastores took a short walk away from the group to sit by a tiny stream trickling down through the rocks at the edge of the tunnel, enjoying the way the waters bounced off each in turn, and admiring the glowing leaves and tiny blinking mushrooms that clustered around the steaming moisture.
The flow reminded him of the waterfalls that fell down the sides of Grand Chasm, writ small.
His parents might well be back at work farming erdroot by now, and Petrino would probably be hard at work learning at the forge – and wondering where his big brother had gone to. It still felt like a betrayal to leave the child, after how frightened he’d been, but nor could he abandon the captain.
If there was any chance Captain Encheiro was alive, he had to find her. It was his fault she was taken. He’d abandoned her once already.
Then they diverted to investigate some sort of natural disaster or secret weapon. It had been his idea, but both Encheiro and home felt further away than ever as they crawled ever deeper into the unknown bowels of the Underworld.
Now they’d picked up yet another strange signal, and they were stopped once more while Sulis compared measurements from the golem to figure out what it all meant.
He gave a long sigh.
“Is our situation that grim, Gastores?” Berenike asked him.
He hadn’t heard the Valkyrie approaching. Not for the first time Gastores considered that he wasn’t really much of a guardsman.
By contrast, his new captain was also even more skilled than Encheiro. It made him wonder why she seemed to place such value in his ideas. He might be smart enough, and probably too imaginative, but Sulis exceeded him in intellect and knowledge, and the Valkyries had a wealth of experience he lacked.
“No! I just… I was thinking about everyone… who got taken at Chasm….”
He felt a powerful, compact hand grip his shoulder.
“I know not everyone was happy about changing course after the shockwave,” Berenike answered quietly. “But you were right – we couldn’t ignore it. We had to investigate something that powerful and dangerous, or there might not even be a Grand Chasm for them to go back to.”
“I just… I hope we’ll be able to find them after this,” he said quietly. “The enemy already had a big head start, and now this is another delay, maybe even another diversion….”
“If it’s up to me we will. You’re not the only one with someone to rescue. And Sulis is keeping track of our route – we can pick up the enemy’s trail again easily.”
He couldn’t see her face, but he heard the determined smile.
“With luck this new flare will give us a clue too,” she added.
“Suppose it does, what are we going to do about it? We can’t destroy a monster able to create shockwaves like that,” he muttered.
There was a sulky tone to his voice – as though the world itself were being quite unreasonable.
Berenike gave a laugh, and Gastores looked over his shoulder at her. She met his eye with resolute confidence.
“You assume it’s a monster, but we have no idea yet. Besides, you never know what you’re capable of until you try, Gastores. You’ve figured out plenty of solutions to save this rescue already, maybe you’ll come up with another.”
~~~
Their new captive had been secured… after a fashion. Ivaldi doubted that the designers of the great ore press in Chamber Hreidmar’s dock had ever imagined it would be used in quite that manner. Nor could the forgers of the colossal counterweights which operated the doors have conceived of their being put to such unconventional purpose.
He had feared the process could prove fatal, even for a creature as study as Safkhet, however it had proved oddly effective, so supposed human not even coming to as she was being ‘restrained’. With the resulting layered slab of metal loaded aboard the crawler they had at last gotten under way.
As they journeyed back up out of the magma table Ivaldi and his assistants had turned their attention from the practicalities of managing their captive to the question of the odd inscribed gemstone, and the mysteries surrounding ‘human’ girl who’d carried it.
Captain Beyla and Uldmar’s team were eager for answers.
“Was this the source of the shockwave?” Beyla suggested, leaning forward to peer into the depths of the glimmering cube atop the table.
Ivaldi shook his head.
“Like a normal gemstone it does contain a great deal of essence, more in fact, but, well, it’s nowhere near that kind of level. It’s also a very different signal. We’re sure now it’s Dweomer in design, but the pattern is incredibly complex, more so than anything we’ve found before. Even the most advanced of their golems seem like nothing but carefully carved metalwork compared to this. It’s really quite a marvel – there are thousands, perhaps even millions of layers of some sort of mana circulation system etched inside the gem, all interwoven in 3 dimensions – I can’t even count them all you know, they get so dense towards the centre that any analysis is far beyond what we can do here with the primitive equipment on a crawler.”
Looking up from the moving trails of mana within the object, Beyla gave the Chief Aulogemscire an unimpressed glance. He had the presence of mind to look embarrassed.
“Uh, not that the crawler itself is primitive, Captain, far from it, your facilities, er, just aren’t designed for, you know, analysis of advanced aulogemscis. If that’s even what this is.”
The captain nodded, giving him a playful smirk.
At his side, his assistants shared a glance, Hylli looking almost confused that Ivaldi had managed to take the foot out of his mouth all by himself for once.
“And the girl, she wasn’t the source either?” Beyla queried. “She was certainly putting out enough power when we fought in the mine. It’s hard to believe she came out of Vitrgraf by coincidence either, just as we were arriving to investigate the shockwave.”
“We don’t believe she was the source, no. It’s as you say of course, she was there at the time, and she… well she has an upsetting amount of some sort of mana inside her… it’s really quite unsettling you know, it makes my teeth hurt…. Uh, there are trace similarities between her essence and secondary signals we detected during the event too, but she’s definitely not responsible for the main release. Our, well, that is to say my working theory is that she must have set off some sort of dormant Dweomer technology, something they were working on before The Fall.”
“So the shockwave was indeed caused by this ‘human’?” Uldmar asked.
“We… think so, yes. It does seem the most likely explanation after all.”
“I don’t wish to consider only what is likely, Chief Aulogemscire. What is possible?”
His tone was as demanding as ever, but Uldmar was at least being civil.
It was Hylli who answered him.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“It’s also possible that it was a creature from far beneath even Vitrgraf, some sort of primordial Kajatora, even more monstrous than the ones killed in the mine. It could also be unrelated to either, a third cause which triggered these other anomalous events. We can’t be certain of anything when we’re dealing with entirely unknown phenomena like these.”
Uldmar nodded at her, and Ivaldi even thought he caught a slight smile on the young nobleman’s face. For the first time it occurred to him that to most men Hylli would probably be considered very pretty, with her long, slender nose and her radiant sapphire smile.
As he was so thinking she turned that smile on him.
“Isn’t that right, Chief?” she asked.
“Uh, y-yes, it’s as you say. Whatever happened, we do think she was close enough that she must know something.”
“What it knows will mean nothing if we can’t extract the information.” Hlesey spoke bitterly. “I see no reason why this monstrosity would be truthful with us, even if we are to presume that the beast has the wit and learning required to comprehend whatever it may have observed.”
After travelling with him for a time Ivaldi had come to find the verbal flourishes and overinflated ego of Hlesey even more of a trial than the sharp tongue and harsh attitude of Uldmar, but he did his best to answer all the same. Having talked them into sparing her life, he was responsible for Safkhet now.
“I know it’s, um… sort of hard to believe… but at least mentally she really does seem to be, well, something like a human. She spoke to me, and to the Varangians at Grand Chasm, and she understood me when I told her to surrender.”
“It collapsed right after the Chief made it spit up the cube, right?” asked one of the crawler’s officers, who had missed out on the action of the battle. “And like you said, it does hold a revolting amount of energy. Maybe it had to give up, because it lost its power source? I don’t see what else it was doing swallowing this thing. If it was human wouldn’t it choke? Humans breathe air, right?”
“I wondered the same thing,” Hylli admitted, with a bashful expression. “About the cube, that is. I’m not really an expert on humans. But the device seems to be self-contained. We can’t detect any essence moving between it and the captive.”
“Any sign of this ‘Safkhet’ running out of mana since their separation?” Beyla asked.
Ivaldi gave a mirthless, unpleasant smile at the awkward question.
“Well, uh… she actually… if anything she seems to have more now, than when she started, you know… leaking….”
He’d expected Uldmar’s glare, but even so he shied away from the nobleman’s eye.
“And just exactly how much stronger has she become, while sleeping off her exertions in our hold and polluting our crawler with her essence?” Uldmar queried, looking disgusted. “Has she regained the strength she had when she attacked us?”
Ivaldi hesitated. The Pharyes had an imprecise sense of mana, and so relied on tools for accurate or detailed information. It had taken him some hours to convince himself that the measurements they were giving him were accurate.
“She has… um… well, you see, she-”
“Don’t dither,” Uldmar snapped. “Just answer the question, Chief Aulogemscire.”
“She passed it hours ago,” Ivaldi blurted out.
Seeing the reddening features of the young lord he rather wished he’d dithered a little longer, but it was too late for that.
Hlesey and Idavoll exchanged alarmed mutterings, but Uldmar hushed them both.
“Ivaldi,” he said, with a note of disbelief in his voice. “If the… ‘girl’… has already recovered her full strength, how can the essence coming from the hold still be increasing?”
He hesitated once more to answer, but seeing the expressions arrayed about him, he bent to the pressure.
“Well... the thing is that… I, uh… don’t think she fought us at her full supernatural strength.”
The faces were a mixture of outrage and horror – wounded pride and fearful realization.
“She was already badly wounded of course, as we know,” he went on, when no-one spoke up. “So, well, it’s not really so strange to think that she’d also used up most of her mana fighting the kajatora before she reached us, is it?”
Hlesey and Idavoll exchanged a pointed look, perhaps recalling the suffocating, drowning weight and depth of power their enemy had exerted… then trying to imaging that being only a portion of her capabilities.
“Then… just how much stronger is she going to get?!” Idavoll demanded.
Ivaldi had no answers for her.
“I believe, Chief Aulogemscire,” Uldmar spoke, through gritted teeth, “that we will need our Skidbladnir repaired before she wakes.”
“We’re doing all we can,” Hylli assured him. “But some of the damage will have to wait until we reach Northastr. The compression cylinders for example, they-”
“Fine,” Uldmar spoke over her. “Until our arrival increase the guard. We shall keep half our combat-ready Skidbladnir in the hold at all times, on watch.”
Ivaldi swallowed, seeing his opportunity but hesitating as there was a lull in the flow of the meeting.
Uldmar looked towards him expectantly.
“It seems you have more to say, but I believe I’ve already made clear that we will not be returning to the Deephold until we can be certain we have the captive contained.”
“Ah!” he straightened, fumbling with his hands as he spoke. “It’s not that. I mean, it’s not about where we’re heading that is.”
“Out with it then.”
Ivaldi felt a momentary flare of irritation at the demeaning manor of the nobleman. He had hoped that Uldmar’s attitude might improve after the aulogemscire’s contribution to the battle. It was not good saying that of course.
“Well… I thought… I mean to say I think that, uh, we should try talking to her again. She can speak after all, and we might be able to learn a lot from her. It could also be the best way to make sure she doesn’t try to break free or cause trouble. Whatever this gemstone may be, she was willing to be captured to protect it, so there’s no reason she shouldn’t, uh, stay captured, to make sure nothing happens to it.”
Uldmar’s answering look combined exasperation with a strange expression that might even have been respect.
~~~
Pursuing the new signal had put them on a shallower path for the past ‘day’, if one could call a cycle of rest, eating and riding through the perpetual twilight as such.
Their new, shallower trajectory was a welcome change of course from the sharper descent towards the source of the original shockwave. Better yet, there was now a weak but steady signal from the anomalous source they had detected, which they were gradually closing in on.
Of course, should the origin of the essence prove unrelated to the shockwave they might yet need to seek the far deeper original source – the results of Sulis’ analysis had proven interesting, but unclear on the question. She described the new signal as having a similar pattern to the ‘undertones’ of the shockwave, despite the main release of power from the first event being entirely different.
Debate on what that could mean had been short-lived. The release, though closer and far weaker than the shockwave had been, was still distant enough that none aboard the golem could identify it, forcing them to rely on the measurements of the machine, and Sulis’ operation of it. The naiad couldn’t be sure from looking at the information their ride had recorded either, but what she was certain of was that the two events were connected.
Many mages with the group had agreed that it was hard to believe that two such similar events could be produced by unrelated effects in such close proximity to one another.
Gastores took their word for that. Magic was entirely beyond him. So were the workings of their commandeered golem. In both he could only trust in Sulis’ expertise.
The young naiad had yet to let them down.
It occurred to Gastores to wonder for the first time just how old Sulis actually was. It felt like they were of a similar age, but there was so much to her that was still an enticing mystery to him. For all he knew, naiads might live a thousand years. To her, he might seem like a mere child, an amusing distraction in the long, winding path of her life….
“See, Gas is worried too.”
Ripides nodded sagaciously as he spoke, ruffling Gastores’ blond, scruffy hair.
“What? How did you know?” Gastores asked, bewildered.
“Well you’re the smart one, right?” the other responded, smirking. “Even I felt the heat, last time we was out of the walker.”
“What?”
Ripides rolled his eye, and Berenike gave a chuckle from across the compartment.
“Seems like you were worrying about something else entirely,” she observed. “But I’m concerned about the heat outside.”
“Oh, right,” he said vaguely, his thoughts returning to the matters at hand only reluctantly. “It’s probably because we’re getting closer to the deep fires.”
“Deep… fires?” Berenike asked, looking skeptical.
Gastores grinned, cheered by the opportunity to relate his tale, his large central eye looking over at the Valkyrie with a twinkle.
“Yeah, I didn’t believe it at first either, but Sulis explained it to me. Beneath even the Underworld there are eternally burning fires, which even the rivers can’t douse. That’s why water bubbling up to the surface is hot sometimes, and why the whole Underworld doesn’t just get flooded.”
“You sure about that?” Patch asked. “Never seen smoke or nothing coming up. Could be she was pulling your tail.”
“Ah, but ogres don’t have tails,” Ripides pointed out, grinning.
“Well harpies do, and I’m not convinced you aren’t pulling mine now,” Nefret said, looking amused.
Gastores felt a certain irritation that they didn’t believe him – and indirectly were thus doubting Sulis – but the conversation moved on while he was busy nursing the grievance.
There was little to do but talk most of their waking hours, save for the odd trip outside to collect food.
The next opportunity to stretch sore legs, wag tails and spread wings came to the team early however, as the walker came to a halt early.
“Take a look outside.”
Sulis’ voice, usually so harmonious despite her terseness, sounded strained as she spoke through the walls of the golem. It was enough to put Gastores on edge, but he trusted her not to just throw them into danger needlessly.
Disgorged through the panels she opened for them, the party found themselves assaulted by heat unlike anything Gastores had ever felt before. The air was so warm and dry it felt painful to breathe.
The explanation lay ahead, across the towering cave.
At the far end, the ground rose up like a subterranean hill, rock bursting through the mossy carpet of blue-glowing plant-life. Nothing seemed to survive around the pinnacle of the stone peak, but that wasn’t strange – it was far too hot there. So hot in fact, that even the stone seemed somehow to have melted.
Glowing material oozed out through holes in the hilltop like weeping blood from wounds. It dried at the edges to form accreted scabs, but the bulk trailed lazily down the slopes, incinerating plants and scarring long grooves.
In a rare occurrence, Sulis emerged from the head of the golem to join the disturbed rescuers in peering up at the glowing-hot flows.
For a moment he wondered at the beautiful aura which seemed to surround and envelop her powerful and voluptuous body, but the ogre realized it was a veil of water; some sort of spell to protect her from the heat and the unpleasant dryness of the air.
No-one else seemed to have noticed – everyone was focused on the less beautiful but equally imposing sight for which they’d stopped.
“By Arva,” Patch cursed, “what is that stuff, Sulis?”
“Probably the stone swum by the relatives of the Awatora.”
“But how can stone move like that? How can it be so hot it melts like ice?!” Nefret asked, looking out at the spectacle aghast.
“I believe this is what the spirits refer to as the fire in the depths of the world,” the naiad said.
There was a tone of alarm to her words, which made Gastores’ eyebrow tingle uneasily.
“You’re saying Gastores was telling the truth? But how can any fire burn even solid rock?!” Nefret asked.
“Everything burns if you get it hot enough,” Berenike said. “The Stormqueen’s lightning, for example… it can melt rock like this. They call the result ‘lava’. It’s far hotter than any flame.”
Somehow the idea that a creature with the power of the Stormqueen was lurking beneath them did little to soothe the team, but Gastores could see there was something more to Sulis’ worries.
“You didn’t stop here just to show us this, did you?” he asked.
“No,” was her simple response. “The readings from the golem are why I stopped.”
The hesitation to go on prompted Berenike to ask. “What readings?”
“Of the path ahead,” the naiad said gravely. “The mana signature is getting stronger, but there are many pockets of molten stone in between.”
“Can we get through?” Berenike asked.
“For now….”
It was rare to hear such a hesitant tone from Sulis.
Gastores looked back at her, and found she had moved closer to him. Almost without thought his hand closed over her elegant smaller one. The water felt cool in the hot air, but what refreshed him more was the toothy grin she flashed up at him.
“Gastores is right, we have to try,” she said, in answer to his unspoken thought. “But if this… lava… gets too dense, we might have to stop.”
“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” Gastores said, giving her an encouraging smile of his own.
~~~
Floating near weightlessly was the ideal rest.
I’d not slept in so comfortable a bed in what felt like years. Nor could I recall feeling so thoroughly rested and refreshed.
I suspected I was lying on my front, yet there was no excess pressure on my breasts. The bed seemed to perfectly enclose me, conforming to my curves and spreading my weight so I felt light as a feather, warm and snug, without being too hot.
Faintly at the back of my mind I recalled that I had been much too hot recently. Perhaps the apartment heating had been acting up again. I’d better call maintenance after getting up, I concluded.
But no, that didn’t make sense.
That place… that world, they were things I’d left behind forever. Those weren’t the memories of my life. Even my body felt wrong in them. I didn’t have curves – or breasts – when I lived in that apartment, did I? I hadn’t worn flowing dresses or had my hair long, and I’d never smiled when I caught sight of my reflection.
Yet it was impossible to imagine myself differently. I could picture another figure, more angular, more ‘male’, but that wasn’t me. It never had been really. It was just a cage that trapped me. The final layer in the prison that the world had created around me.
I smiled as I remembered my escape.
Coming to Arcadia. Discovering my true self. Meeting Aellope and the Harpies. Learning to accept who I was, and being blessed with the form to match.
There had been hard times too of course, and many challenges, but it had all worked out in the end, hadn’t it? I was back in the Eyrie, and Ael and I were best friends again.
There was a strange rocking sensation I couldn’t quite make sense of, but how else to explain this marvelously comfy bed?
I tried to turn over, certain I would see the beautiful sunlight pouring in through the window, and perhaps see Agytha, trying to rouse me for breakfast in the hall.
Instead I felt my body tense against some sort of barrier.
What had felt wondrously soft and snug was now hard, unyielding against any reasonable force.
For an absurd moment I thought my handmaidens were playing a joke on me, but even pushing with strength enough to move them both I couldn’t so much as wiggle my fingers.
A horrible memory returned to me, of my encounter with the barrier in the Underworld.
I realized too, that I had no memory of actually returning to the surface, or indeed of reconciliation with Ael.
In fact, the last thing I remembered was escaping the Golden Sepulchre with Echo, only to run into atrocious hordes of monsters in an abandoned mine.
A Pharyes mine.
My eyes snapped open.
In front of me I could see a grey metal surface, around a foot away at a guess. Judging by gravity it must be a floor, and given how everything seemed to move as one, it must be the floor of some vehicle.
I groaned as I realized the truth.
I was a prisoner, being transported by her captors.
“You’re finally awake.”