Buried paths. “They’ve been looking for her everywhere.”
Woid leaned on the shadows as was his method and style, as on through the tunnels-under Serib followed Shay with a much greater strength than before - rested and fed. Luminously glowing mush-and-moss-weeds lit their path. The half of Serib’s hair that was curled into locks, she wrapped about her neck like a scarf. The other half of her head, bald against the moon last night, had somehow grown far too much for one evening into tight ringlets.
“Not quite everywhere.” Shay’s mask hid her smile. “Thank you for that.” Her dark boots pattered while Serib’s bare feet slapped and thudded through the tunnel deep.
“You set up the traps, I just made sure they’re all in order. There was one touch-and-go moment with some officer… had a big helmet on him… what was their name… anyway. That one’ll definitely come back.”
Serib never once heard Woid’s steps, though on he advanced with Serib and Shay completely baffling the former. The latter asked of him:
“You feeling any better?”
“Oh yes, I put all the notes on Panzjrah, just to get something back. An easy wager still scratches the itch but it's not how it used to be, this new age, what stakes are there really? What has anyone got to lose or gain? Still can’t get any sleep. That same dream. Could you…” he probed.
“It’s not good if you keep taking it.” She took a vial out of her harness.
“Look who’s talking! Even through mask and lenses I hear your eyes gurning.”
∞
“What was that?” Serib asked about the substance Shay had injected before and passed now to Woid.
“I thought you were asleep. I should ask you, actually.” Shay replied, referring to Serib’s eyes. At dinner, she remembered the girl's eyes flashing with electricity and here under Imirka her eyes were doing the same with more 'tiny lightning'.
“Can you tell me what you took?” she then thought of something more likely: “…or what you were given? And by who?”
“It’s shaman stuff, you wouldn’t understand. I’m on a trip in a trance - I needed to take it to get this far from my home, jumping from star to star, my spirit away from mind and body.”
Woid blurted: “Gurners, the pair of you.” as he slowly dripped the vial's contents into his tired and blinking eyes. He later kicked Serib from the shadows and when she yelled he laughed: “You seem body enough to me!”
∞
When Serib had finished chasing Woid without getting any closer to him, Shay spoke to the little shaman:
“Your sparkly eyes give away that you’re trancing or whatever it's called; that is why I’m asking. And your ‘shaman stuff’ is only alchemy and chemistry - it’s my specialty.”
“Thievery used to be another of her specialties.” Woid cackled, and Shay briefly revisited the topic with her boot to his shin knowing exactly where he'd be in the dark.
“Serib…” Shay began again as Woid hopped on one leg. “…did this Lay’d Payn of yours give you something? And you felt this weird afterward?”
“No - the salve was from my masters’ hut. He was planning a long trip into the sparkling darkness, he wanted to save me because - he thought - I’d been poisoned. But I just think differently to him. I see new hope, he sees old despair.”
∞
Sparkling darkness sounded like Space to Shay. She looked the girl over but found no symptoms of any poison or the like. She continued walking but with a slower pace as Serib said by her side:
“I was very sad and couldn’t get out of bed; because he’s old and old souls die.”
Shay’s heart froze as she listened, being reminded of the sofa at her shop and all it used to mean. Who once sat there together of an evening quiet. Serib fiddled with her left thumb as she shared:
“I gathered the strength to go and earn my first totem: Earth. During my trial at the spirits’ mountain peak I was visited by a dark spirit, and they told me if I wanted my master to live forever, I had to find Lay’d Payn. I took the salve from my master, and here I am. Spirit away from body.”
“Having found Lay’d Payn in between.” Shay concluded in a certain tone, not liking at all that this girl was being manipulated by larger forces.
“You softie.” Woid rolled his eyes at Shay. “How does that work, then?” he scrunched up his tired brow at Serib, addressing both of them. “She’s there isn’t she? You’re saying you drank something and ‘travelled’ from elsewhere - here?”
Shay tried to explain on her behalf, as Serib still thought Woid was ‘rubbish’:
“She is here with us and she isn’t.”
“Ah, of course.” He replied quickly.
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“A shaman’s spirit can split from their body, projecting itself elsewhere. The spirit and body apart, take on aspects of each other. Far apart, bleeding into each other. That’s how it was explained to me. Imagine a soul and their shadow.”
“Weird.” Woid thanked Shay in his own way despite her last example being particularly relevant to him.
“You’re weirder than me, you don’t even walk.” Serib sparked.
“You won’t be able to speak in The Club like that to anysoul. Everyone there thinks they’re coolest. That's what it's all about in the new age... what else is left?”
∞
Some while later Serib looked back, watching things not-there having heard the thud of different steps and other echoes. She was at a musty cross-section of tunnels all leading this-way and there, and she knew not which mouth was most threatening. Down one such path away from where Shay was walking, Serib stared intensely at the darkest part of the swallowing tunnel, her eyes alight with sparks.
“What do you see?” a guised voice whispered at her from the shadows.
“A lost spirit.” The little shaman smiled and hurried after to catch up with Shay and Woid.
∞
Far ahead, Woid was leaning by the side of a door that Shay was crouched beside; she was trying to figure out a way inside. The door had both metal and oaken elements to it, a basic keyhole and more advanced keypad demanding a code. Having once been one and now was the other.
“Are you members of this club? Really?” Serib accused them both. “Why are you breaking in?”
Shay being busy, Woid took the stage:
“This is… a rolling test, you could call it? Part of membership. The entrances change and hide often.”
“A test to see if you’re still cool?”
Woid quite enjoyed that, agreeing by repeating:
“To see if we’re still cool.”
Serib nearly took a step towards the door when Shay spoke very quietly, still eyeing up the door through her mask:
“Careful of that stone by your foot.”
The little shaman looked down to see a pebble-kind-of, crossed faintly with two streaks; one crimson and the other violet. It reminded her of Shay’s swords.
∞
After little effort the keypad flashed green as though to welcome their entry, and Shay crouched by the keyhole, fiddling with lockpicking tools. She was about to open the door when she nodded to Woid. He whispered so gently that Serib did not hear words, though such was the gesturing of his head while his hands hung asleep in fancy pockets, she knew he was ushering her out of the way:
“Here, kid.”
∞
She did so and the door opened, the sound creaking through the cavernous tunnels. Shay stood in the entryway, as arrows and knives flew at her from what darkness swirled ahead. She appeared not to move yet every weapon had missed, clattering to the ground or breaking off the tunnel walls. She walked slowly backwards baiting those ambushers into a trap of her own. The four attackers were dressed all in indigo robes and leathers rushing ahead, while Shay remained slow. Once the four of them were close to Shay and far from the door, Serib realised Woid was no longer next to her, but leaning casually in the tunnel beyond on the other side of the door.
∞
Panting after and with him, she pleaded:
“You aren’t going to help her?”
“She’s alright. Are you even watching?”
The stone Serib nearly touched before tumbled away from an attackers’ foot. Vile gas coughed and poured from it. This seemed to take care of two attackers, while the others met with Shay’s dual-swords. As one fell with their throat run-through, the other, their leg crippled by Shay, could not find her and kept turning anxiously around. From nowhere she stabbed them in the back. They looked down unable to move, at a sword sticking already through their stomach, blood still falling to the ground. Blood left them and toxins entered through the wounds and the rest was not for them to know.
“See? Nothing quite like a good umbra-step. Turn around and we’re already there in your shadow. Good for our friends, and foes know the rest.” Woid said, as Shay sheathed again her blades after cleaning them briefly, joining him and Serib. She closed the complicated door behind her.
“You can stop holding your breath, now.” Shay reassured, and Serib allowed herself a much-needed gasp.
∞
“You’re still cool, then!” Serib was quite in awe of Shay after this display. “Not sure about you, though - didn’t do anything.” She tried to get at Woid’s nerves.
“It used to be harder than this.” Shay replied. “I think they’re running out of ideas-fears.”
Some while walking on passed, until Serib had to ask:
“Do you always slur your words like that?”
“Since I was smaller than you.” Shay nodded. “Worse recently.”
She kept a concern to herself: that the young shaman had perhaps seen worse sights than slashed throats and stomachs opened. Would the new age of Greed be enough to do away with all we no longer need?
∞
Serib was quite confused after a longer while through the deep. Though the tunnels were under buildings and sloped now downwards for a while, the proportions and dimensions of things were strange to her; ceilings looked like floors and around the other way. Soon the end of the tunnel was no longer narrow but wide as a field, opening out onto a largely windowed place where glass twinkled and music played. Cutlery on plates. She thought after all this trekking downwards they would be below the world, but all the glittering sights she saw suggested they were above one.