The access hatch opened soundlessly. A metal ladder was attached to the wall and disappeared into the darkness below.

“Are we going to be able to see down there?” Kax asked, stretching his neck, trying to get a better look.

“There are torches in a box at the bottom,” Bjorn said. They’d spent the past hour navigating the streets of Tyralien to get as close as possible to the entrance into the tunnels that would put them close to whatever haunted the tunnels.

Refugees from around the kingdom huddled in masses on the streets. It was not a pretty sight. Or smell, for that matter. The weapons they carried seem to make the poor wretches keep their distance, and for that, Sarien was glad. There was nothing he could do to help anyone at the moment. Hopefully, they’d accomplish their goal in the underground tunnels and allow for food to be transported into the city again.

Several children looked on in wide-eyed astonishment at the open hatch, but they all kept their distance as Heylien climbed down first. Lana followed, and then Kax. Sarien entered last, leaving Bjorn alone on the surface.

Climbing down with his new spear wasn’t easy, even with the leather bag strapped around the ends to keep the sharp bits from biting into him by accident. The end of the spear he received from the quartermaster had a spike attacked to each side for sweeping attacks. The haft was metal but crafted expertly to be light and easy to maneuver. Kax assured him it was a masterfully made. A new knife hung from his belt as well, another present from Mohalim. Apparently, everyone should carry one. Lana had nodded in approval and he hadn’t wanted to offend the smith by refusing the gift.

The blacksmith handed a sword over to Kax as well. Another short sword, but a little longer than the obsidian one. Sarien wasn’t sure what he felt about Mohalim’s request that he return to him after they save the city. There was a strange gleam in the blacksmith’s eyes, much like Madge’s, only less maniacal. Sarien knew Mohalim wanted him to craft more of the slayer imbued weapons, but he made no promises to the old man.

Sarien’s feet hid solid stone.

“Good!” Bjorn yelled. “The torches should be right there.”

“Here they are!” Lana yelled back up. She lit it and held it up so Bjorn could see. “You can close the hatch now!”

“Good luck!” Bjorn closed the hatch and cutting off any light from the outside. The torch didn’t provide much, so Sarien brought forth his white flame to light the way.

“Your magic is pretty handy,” Kax said, pointing at it with his already drawn obsidian blade. “Mind if we try something?”

“What?” Sarien asked suspiciously.

Kax drew the other blade, holding both out in front of him. “It connects with things, right? Maybe we can combine both my old blade and new one together?”

“I don’t know,” Sarien said, then gasped as Kax thrust both blades forward without waiting for a proper reply.

Kax stared back at him, then his expression turned somber. “Please, Sarien,” he said. “You gave me this gift,” he moved the black blade, “and it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. The perfect weapon. Only, it’s incomplete by itself. They need to be a pair.”

“What do you mean?” Sarien asked.

“Two small knives. It was all I could grab when they broke into our home. I was just a child. My parents were unarmed and they just stood there in shock. I stepped between them but they just kicked me away. There was nothing I could do, you see?” Kax’s eyes glimmered in the torchlight

“I’m so sorry—” Sarien began, but Kax kept speaking.

“They laughed at me when they cut my parents down. Laughed! The guards finally came, but it was too late for my parents. If only my weapons had been better, I could have stopped them. It’s my fault they’re gone, Sarien. Don’t you see?”

Sarien shook his head. “Kax, it’s not your—”

“Please!”

“Yes,” Sarien said. “I’ll help you.”

Tears streamed down Kax’s face and he held out both swords. “Thank you.”

At first, the white flame pulled back from the black metal, but then Sarien focused, and power surged. The white flame billowed. It enveloped both swords and then burst downward to touch Kax’s hands.

Kax’s mouth dropped open in a wordless cry. Sarien shuddered and forced the white flame to return, reining it in like he was heaving on a rope with his mind. He knew that the lack of control over his own powers would have serious consequences one day. And, as he watched both blades turn a dull gray before a pitch black, he wondered if perhaps it already had.

Kax’s scream redoubled as he held out both hands. The tips of his fingers were black as the darkest night.

Sarien lost control of his white flame and it winked out, the torchlight casting wild shadows across Kax’s face as his scream turned to a throaty laugh.

“What the wind blasted shores did you do?” Lana asked, her eyes widening at Kax’s darkened hands.

“I didn’t do anything!” Sarien protested.

Kax chuckled, “Thank you, dear friend.”

Sarien’s stomach soured. He reached out to take the swords from Kax.

“You’ll give them back, right?” Kax asked.

“I promise.”

Sarien took the swords and closed his eyes, calling to them with the black flame. They were empty. He felt no presence in either sword. What of the bandit he’d trapped in there?

He handed the swords back and grabbed Kax’s hand.

“What are you doing?” Kax asked.

Sarien focused. “Hold on.” He prodded Kax with a small black flame in his hand but found nothing. At least he hadn’t transferred the bandit into his friend somehow. Sarien switched his hand to his left and stoked the white flame instead. This time, he sensed something. A connection running from, or perhaps to Kax into a dark void. He had no clue what that meant.

“So?” Kax asked.

Sarien let the hand go and stepped back, shaking his head in confusion. “There’s something, but I don’t know.”

“Well, I feel great!” Kax shouted, grinning and lifting the swords above his head.

A sound emerged from the tunnel. Kax laughed and disappeared, his feet slapping against the cold stone the last sound they heard as he was swallowed by the shadows.

Sarien, Lana, and Heylien stood there, dumbfounded.

“Kax! What are you doing?” Heylien yelled.

Sarien followed, no less confused than the other two. He emerged into the main tunnel to find Kax fighting a creature born out of nightmares.

The entirety of the tunnel was clogged shut by a hulking mass of undulating tentacles. Kax jumped with impressive speed to dodge a tentacle swinging for his legs. He laughed and cut downward while still in the air, slicing deep enough into its flesh that it lost control of the limb. The main mass made a sucking noise from somewhere that reminded Sarien of a whine.

“Watch out!” Lana yelled, throwing daggers. Two ended up in a tentacle and did little harm, but one flew right at the moist looking mass blocking the tunnel. It slid right, and the whine came back again. The creature shuddered violently and to Sarien’s surprise, more tentacles shot forward. They varied in size and length, but each of them looked to be moving independently, thrusting forward at Kax while swiping for Lana.

Heylien was pulled off his feet as a tentacle slithered around his ankles. He dropped his bow and screamed as it started pulling him toward the main body.

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Sarien extinguished his white flame to thrust his spear into the appendage that had grabbed hold of Heylien again and again, but the piercing thrusts didn’t faze the monstrous beast. Heylien sat up and stabbed at it with a knife, but it was impossible to make any headway in cutting himself free while dodging the other tentacles.

Kax flew in from Sarien’s side, spinning and laughing as his longer sword arced downward. It cut one thick tentacle clean off, and Sarien thought he saw a miniscule black spark on the blade as it drove through both the monster and the stone beneath it.

“Use your flame!” Kax yelled, hurrying back to stand next to Lana as they parried and fought together.

Heylien kicked free of the end of the tentacle still wrapped around his ankle and scurried backwards on his hands and heels until he found his bow. He stood and began a rhythmic firing of arrows right into the fleshy middle of the monster.

The creature whined as each arrow disappeared into it, and Sarien couldn’t help but stare as arrow after arrow struck true with such speed that Heylien’s hands moved as if in a blur. The tentacles grew frantic, thrashing back and forth and slapping into the walls and shaking the ground below their feet. Loose stone began to fall.

“It’s going to bring the whole storming tunnel down!” Lana shouted.

Sarien collected himself, his spear held in front of him just as Slakt had taught him. Black flames billowed forth from his hands and arms, wrapping themselves around the haft and then the tip. The entire spear was occluded in its entirety by the dark flames.

Sarien gave it more of his power, draining the already dark tunnel of what little light the torch guttering on the floor cast.

He screamed and rushed forward. A tentacle brushed his side, but he kept the spear pointed toward the monster. Four quick steps, then a thrust. He felt his weapon bore into the monster’s flesh, ripping as it went. Once it was far enough inside, Sarien heaved, swinging it to the left and cutting through its body.

The beast screeched, a high-pitched sound that rang through his ears. Despite the dark tunnel, he knew the spear would turn obsidian black. The same color of Kax’s fingers.

“Did you get it?” Kax asked in the darkness.

“It’s dead,” Sarien said, panting. He collected himself and bought forth his white light, illuminating the tunnel. Lana sat against the wall bandaging her leg with the help of Heylien, while Kax walked back and forth, swinging his swords, his body still vibrating with unspent energy.

When Sarien illuminated the tunnel in light, Kax turned to him and pointed with his sword. “Are you sure it’s dead?”

Sarien peered down at the floor of the tunnel. There was a grate in the floor. An open grate. He cursed. He couldn’t see the monster, but he could hear a sucking noise and a low whine.

Sarien sighed. “It isn’t dead. I can hear it down there.”

Lana stood, testing her weight on the injured leg. She winced a little but could walk. “The way they described it, I thought it would be bigger.”

“Perhaps we did not see its whole body,” Heylien suggested.

“Scorched ass!” Kax said, giggling. “That was its hand or something?”

Heylien shrugged. “Could be.”

“Kax, how are you feeling?” Sarien asked.

“You sound manic,” Lana added.

Kax sheathed both swords and stood still for a short moment, considering. Then he spun on his heel and raised his arms over his heads in a strange pirouette. “I’ve got all this energy flowing through me, and I feel faster, stronger. Invincible!”

“But your hand,” Sarien said. He couldn’t help looking at them. The contrast between his normal skin tone and the black tips of his fingers was even starker in the cold light of Sarien’s white flame.

Kax held up a hand, fingers splayed. “Oh this?” He shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt. And hey, the sword doesn’t talk to me anymore. That’s good, right?”

“I guess,” Sarien said. He didn’t like how his power affected Kax. There was much he didn’t know, didn’t understand. He hoped that would all change once he found his father.

Talc, Trym, or whatever his real name was, would have answers. Both Heradion and Mohalim knew more than what they were saying, and both hinted at Sarien’s father being the key that would unlock the treasure trove of knowledge Sarien needed. “Let’s hurry and find it.”

Lana limped stiffly, favoring one leg over the other. “Which way?” She pointed past the grate. “We won’t fit. I don’t know how that creature slithered through such a small space.”

Heylien pointed into the dark tunnel, past the reach of Sarien’s light. “Based on the map, it will take us closer to where sightings of the monster were reported. Perhaps, it has a lair in the area.”

“That sounds like as good a plan as any,” Sarien said, setting off at the front, holding up his left hand to let the white, cold light spread throughout the dark tunnel. In his right, he held his spear. As he expected, his weapon had turned dark like all the others imbued with his black flame, only this time there was no voice coming from it, no sense of a trapped consciousness screaming in terror. This time, it hadn’t been enough to destroy the monster.

Sarien pondered the significance of that emptiness as they carefully made their way through the dark. The water system must have been shut off for some time, because the tunnels were entirely dry, even the lower middle part where he figured the stream would rush once the blockage was gone.

Their boots against the stone floor the only sound in the empty space beneath the city. It was easy to lose track of time in the darkness and for all Sarien knew either minutes or hours had passed since they first entered the tunnels.

Lana grabbed Sarien’s sleeve and he stopped and turned to see her pointing ahead, into the dark.

“What?” Sarien whispered. It felt wrong to speak out loud in such a silent place.

“Look!” she hissed. They’d walked past numerous side tunnels, all of them either leading away in the darkness or coming to an abrupt end with a grate. Up ahead, just past the light of his white flame, one of those side tunnels wasn’t empty. Sarien narrowed his eyes. A shape stood there, half hidden by the wall.

“Is that a person?” he asked.

Heylien notched an arrow to his bow. “Can you increase the light a little?” His voice was low, almost a growl.

Sarien concentrated. His flame grew, and the light brightened, revealing a man wearing the Tyriu soldier’s uniform. The soldier stepped back and disappeared into a side tunnel.

“Wait!” Lana shouted, limping to catch up.

“For fire’s sake!” Heylien yelled, hurrying after. “Be careful, Lana!”

Both of them stood unmoving when Sarien caught up with the light, Kax close behind him. The side tunnel stopped at a dead end.

“Where did he go?” Sarien asked.

“I don’t know,” Lana whispered. “He was right here.”

“He couldn’t have fit through the grate,” Heylien said.

Kax walked up to it and tried pushing between the wide-set metal bars, but even he was too large. “Nah. No way that he would have been able to. He looked bigger than me.” He turned his back to the grate and the darkness beyond. “So, what are we thinking? Ghost?”

“Don’t say that!” Lana barked. They all looked at her, and she fidgeted a little. “What? It’s storming obvious, isn’t it? You don’t mess with ghosts!”

“You believe in ghosts?” Heylien asked, frowning.

The reddening in Lana’s cheeks was answer enough, but she snapped, “You don’t?”

Sarien turned away from the short side passageway, angling his light to the main tunnel. “Let’s continue. My father has to be down here somewhere. He came to destroy this thing, after all.”

“Good thing it wasn’t your father’s ghost we saw,” Kax joked, but then realized what he’d just said. “Sorry, Sarien. Didn’t mean to imply.”

“It’s fine. He won’t be dead.”

The tunnels felt endless. When the main passageway split in two, they followed it left on Heylien’s recommendation. He was the only one who studied the map.

“Should have brought the map,” Kax grumbled as they turned.

A moment later, Sarien stopped. “Hold on.” The faint flickering of his white flame had changed a little, almost like it was caught in a slight breeze.

“Why is it doing that?” Lana asked.

Inside Sarien, a faint thrumming resonated. It was so gentle he hadn’t noticed it before. “We’re going the right way,” he said. “There’s a gate.”

“Always a gate,” Kax groaned. “Why can’t these awesome beasts ever be native to our world? Maydian is boring.” He thought for a moment, then turned to Sarien. “When this is all over, we should explore some other worlds. Together!”

“We’ll see.”

“Weren’t you talking of going to the dark continent at some point?” Heylien asked Kax.

“Yeah, but I figure it will just be more of the same, just a little different. I didn’t even get to see Rhinerien!”

“You can’t be serious for a single moment, can you?” Lana asked, turning away Kax in disgust. “Sarien, does that mean you can close this gateway too?”

“Hey! I can be serious!” Kax interjected. “I just choose not to be. Most of the time, anyway!”

“I should be able to close it once we get near enough,” Sarien replied to Lana, both ignoring Kax’s outburst. “Perhaps we can find some way to push that creature through it before that happens, so we don’t have to fight it again.”

“Hey,” Heylien said. “There’s more of them.”

Three soldiers stood before them, unmoving.

“Behind us!” Lana yelled.

Sarien spun and saw another four from where the group had come. “Do you think these are the soldiers who disappeared that Syster told us about?”

“Has to be,” Heylien said, raising his bow. “We are not here to hurt you!”

“You’re sending mixed messages with that bow,” Kax said.

“Are you hurt?” Lana asked, raising her voice.

“There’s something wrong with them,” Sarien whispered. “I don’t like this.”

The soldiers stood, gently swaying. Their heads hung low, faces hidden in shadow. A twang sounded from Heylien’s bow and the leftmost soldier in front of them jerked as an arrow struck him in the leg. The soldier raised his head. Cold dread washed over Sarien as a dead man’s eyes stared back at him. There was no sign of life, no trace of consciousness.

“What are they?” Lana gasped. The two other soldiers near them up raised their heads too, and all three swayed back and forth in unison.

“Look at their chests!” Kax yelled. It was hard to make out, but it looked like each of them had something embedded in their chest, or through them.

“What is that?” Sarien asked.

“Tentacles!” Lana yelled. “That thing is using them as puppets!”

Sarien saw shadowed limbs behind the dead soldiers as they moved closer. A tentacle had punched through each of them.

Kax swore. “They’re coming from behind too!”

“It’s controlling them, look!” Heylien yelled, firing another arrow. This one struck the middle one up front, right in the face, but it didn’t flinch. All three of soldiers brandished their swords. Their movements were jerky and disjointed. “My arrows aren’t doing anything!”

“Attack the tentacles behind them!” Lana yelled. She ran off toward the soldiers and jumped to hurtle in the air past them all the while carrying the burning torch.

“I’ll take the ones behind us!” Kax shouted. He drew his swords.

“I’ll help him. You go with her,” Heylien said, running to catch up with Kax.

Sarien hurried after Lana. When he caught up with the aeromancer, all he could do was stare as she twirled through the air effortlessly and slid across the floor to deliver cuts to the tentacles while avoiding feeble attacks from the dead soldiers.

One of the dead soldiers came close to striking her, but the soldier’s sword arm changed its trajectory in the last moment, causing him to miss. Had she just pushed it away with wind?

Sarien shook his head and ran in to help. What he saw when the light stretched further into the tunnel, he nearly stopped in horror at the sight of multitude of the dead. Not just soldiers, but farmers, laborers, the poor and homeless.

How long had this monster lurked down in the tunnels, collecting bodies?