Mirabel fluttered around Emilia’s head. “This is a stupid idea, even for you, mortal.”
“Then why not try to stop us?” Betsy kept her voice low enough that the people leading the Fel Slave wouldn’t hear.
“Eh. Stupid ideas are good learning experiences.” Swishing to and fro, with her finger on her lip, Mirabel added. “Besides, this is the opposite of boring.”
Emilia waved both of her companions off. She’d been studying the four hooded people. One of them, the man in front possessed a heavy build. His robe billowed around his body in a way that suggested mass. The man in the back walked with a gait that tickled the back of Emilia’s memory, like she’d seen someone who walked with a similar fashion before.
They moved slowly, anchored by the man they kept between them. With a new angle on the group, Emilia could see the chains around his neck and waist. The black metal chains shared a feature with the man’s robes: golden spider-like runes flickered and races along the links.
The odd part about their path was that nothing lay ahead of them, as if they were about to leave through the opposite end of the camp. “Where are they going?” Nothing lay before them, no tents or other visible structures.
Mirabel opened her mouth to answer, but Emilia and Betsy darted forward from their cover. They followed the near edge of the camp, staying just on the manicured side of the forest lest they lose themselves in the woods in the dark. “Bah, let’s just keep following them, der.” Mirabel sounded irritated with the girls, which was rare enough for the fairy for Emilia to look back at her.
“Are you coming or not?”
Mirabel floated in the air with her arms folded over her chest. “I’m trying to decide if I will get in more trouble if I let you go or if I turn around and go home.”
“Do what you want, but we’re going to explore with or without you.” The fairy took Emilia’s bait. Despite the darkness, Mirabel’s face darkened like her head was about to explode. She shook herself and zipped after Emilia.
“I’m not being left behind for exploring!” Mirabel landed on Emilia’s shoulder. “If we get caught, I’m telling them you fairy-napped me.”
“Okay, thanks.” Emilia tapped Mirabel gently on the head as Betsy hissed at them.
“Look!”
Following where Betsy pointed, Emilia saw a black spire rise from the soil at the distant edge of the camp. The very tip of the spire glowed with a faint green light. Golden runes, the twins of the runes about the captive Fel Slave twined over the spire and danced in an even more vigorous pattern through the black stone.
“Okay, you found the big secret, now it’s time to go home.”
An edge of fear sharped Mirabel’s voice, something Emilia had never heard from the fairy. The change in mannerism gave Emilia a moment’s pause. Then a green-lit doorway opened in the spire and the five people proceeded through it.
Less than a hundred yards away, Emilia experienced a sudden urge to to know what lay within, to understand the full extent of the risks she’d accepted about this place without knowing. She sprinted off with Mirabel clinging to her shoulder and Betsy lagging behind.
The pace Emilia managed was like her acute night and distance vision. In her life, she’d never run as fast as she did then. She hadn’t known herself capable of that incredible speed until that moment. Ahead of her, the green light from the entrance to the spire began to fade. Desperation pulled a feral burst of power from her legs. Energy flowed up through the soles of her shoes and fed her straining muscles with a blast of nitrous.
Skidding under the door, Emilia cleared the entrance moments before the entrance to the spire slid down behind her.
“Holy fucking shit, we’re in trouble now!” Mirabel’s voice squeaked loud enough Emilia expected the group of four escorts to hear them right away.
It took her ears several seconds to recover. Outside of the spire, crickets chirped, birds sang, and the wind played its own magical song through the trees. But inside of the spire, a constant drone set Emilia’s teeth on edge. After her hearing recovered, she relaxed. The drone had a dulling effect on sound, the only reason Mirabel had sounded so loud was that she shouted into Emilia’s ears. A few feet away and Emilia would not be able to hear the fairy.
Green light enveloped her, shining from every surface in the black spire. The stone itself was the same black Emilia had seen outside. But it lacked the gold tracing and the stone itself did not appear green to Emilia’s vision, as if the green light were a feature of the air itself. That light made Emilia’s skin crawl. It only took her a few seconds to realize that her connection to Cary had been dulled. She could still feel the demoness in the distance, but Cary had trouble pinpointing her location now.
“What is this light?”
Mirabel’s voice was quiet this time, drowned out by the constant hum. “These are the Shamir.” Emilia turned her head to find Mirabel waving her hand through the air. “On the plus side, they don’t consider us enemies.”
“What are Shamir and how do you know that?”
Mirabel’s voice dropped and her eyes lost focus. “One of the greatest Magicians in history, second only to Aaron and Melchizdek was Suleiman the Wise.” At the mention of the name, the green light intensified, the glow becoming strong enough that Emilia had to squint through it. Mirabel paused until the light faded again. “Legends say he subdued the Shamir and used them to build his temple using neither stone, nor tool of metal. Personally, I don’t think he subdued them…” The light faded even further, dulling beyond the point it started. “I think he just treated them like trusted friends and they responded in kind.”
“They?”
As if in response to Emilia’s question, a flurry of lights gathered before her. They glowed brighter than the surrounding air and formed the shape of a character in the air.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Yup, those are the Shamir for sure then.” Mirabel pointed to the character. “That’s Hebrew for ‘A,’ or rather Aleph. I think they’re saying ‘hi.’”
“Hello there! It’s… nice to meet you?” The lights dissipated at Emilia’s greeting. “What happened?”
Mirabel shrugged. “They don’t think like you and me. Maybe they’re shy? I don’t know. Honestly, I just exhausted my deep, master-level knowledge of the Shamir. The build things and were sometimes described as little green worms that ate stone.”
Emilia peered into the light, but didn’t respond to Mirabel. The full extent of the danger she’d put them in had settled onto her shoulders. “How do we get out of here?”
“Fucking mortals.” Mirabel flew off of Emilia’s shoulder and pointed into her face. “That would have been a really good question to ask yourself before you dashed in here like some kind of maniac. You even left Betsy behind!”
“Yeah, I didn’t mean to.” Emilia actually felt bad about that part.
“Bah, you plan like a fucking stone.”
Rather than ask what she meant by that, Emilia ignored Mirbel’s complaints and took stock of their position. The doorway behind them had shut and as far as she could tell, the hallway continued back the same direction. “Shit. There’s not even a door here. Let’s… go follow the Fel Slave.” Grumbling, Mirabel sat back down on Emilia’s shoulder and began a soft chant. “What are you doing?”
Mirabel continued the chant until magical energy covered Emilia, though she couldn’t say what the fairy had done. “I surrounded us with an illusion. At this point, I will get in as much trouble as you if they catch us. And I don’t want to have my head lopped off, thank you very much.”
Emilia forced herself to pretend Mirabel was exaggerating. Otherwise, she would have panicked and turned tail. “We can’t be seen, right?”
“Or heard, not outside of about a foot away. So if I fly off, don’t sprint away from me like a madwoman or they’ll see you. If we encounter anyone, just stay put and keep the movements to a minimum.”
Emilia wanted to ask more, but Mirabel sounded grumpy enough that she might yell at Emilia. “I wish we could find the Fel Slaves.” They were why she’d come to this place to begin with. Cary had never mentioned anything about enslaving Emilia’s will and the thought the demoness could do something like that to her made Emilia’s throat tighten. At the same time, a part of her assured her that Cary would never do something like that. Cary loved her, though the demoness had never admitted it. Then again, neither had Emilia. But what if the way she felt was a product of Cary’s mind control?
A shift in the stone broke Emilia’s line of thought. A few steps after she’d spoken a branch appeared in the tunnel off to the right. Lines of green light pulsed in the direction of the branch, like the floodlights in the plane that brought Emilia to Armenia. She followed the lights into a chamber wholly bereft of the green luminescence.
Black stone, with denser lines of green and gold covered this place to the point that without her previous view of the exterior of the spire or the vision granted her by her link to Cary, Emilia would have mistaken the stone for gold chased with bits of black.
Four people stood in front of an open creche. A figure, mummy-like and wrapped with the same black and gold fabric as his hood hung in the center of the creche. Emilia couldn’t understand the figures’ chanting, but she did make out the word, “Shamir,” amidst their chanting.
They concluded their chant and the creche slid shut, sealing the figure and his black wrapping behind the golden stone. The figures relaxed visibly, their postures sinking to the ground as they removed their hoods.
If not for Mirabel’s magic, Emilia would have been caught when she gasped. Boris and Joshua stood among the hooded figures, with the old Ogre-magi apparently leading. Clapping her hand over her mouth when he turned to look behind him, Boris tiled his head in the direction of Emilia and Mirabel. “What is that? Why did the door open?”
Rather than remain in place Emilia scurried out of the entrance, ready to explain herself when Boris reached out and touched the opened door. He closed his eyes and chanted in a strange tongue again. Once more, Emilia recognized “Shamir,” among his words. Looking back to the others, Boris said, “The Shamir opened a door, but I do not know why. Hmm.”
Joshua shrugged. “Only the Wise understood their ways fully. Ours is but to act as stewards to their power.”
Boris frowned at the human, but nodded after a second’s regard. “You are correct, Joshua. We are all shadows of his glory.”
“Should we check the other Fel Slaves, archmage?” One of the other magicians spoke up.
“Yes, we’d be fools not to while we are here.” Boris began his chanting before he turned away from the open door. It shut behind him, sealing the entrance without seam. When he reached the far side of the room, the walls melted away.
Again, Emilia had to clasp her hand over her mouth as dozens, then hundreds of figures appeared, all wrapped in black cloth. Distortion in the air suggested they lay behind some kind of glass wall or field, but Emilia hardly paid attention to that. She lost count of the figures as more and more streamed by like pages of an online book flicked away to the seeker’s destination.
Boris’s chanting ended and three final figures appeared. One of them was wrapped in the same all-black cloth as the other Fel Slaves had been, but the top of his or her head was exposed. Based on the black and gold rivulets dripping slowly from the crown, the wrapping was melting.
The second figure was wrapped in a pure white cloth, unblemished and unmarked. Unlike the others, the figure was not bound so tightly as to show their silhouette. Instead, they looked more like a cylinder that tapered at the top and bottom.
Boris stared at the final figure with a grumpy frown, the kind he turned on Emilia when she complained about her lessons. Wrapped like the other black-clad mummies this figure’s cloth was red. Black and gold lines covered the cloth, also like the others, but the person within writhed actively. Only when she noticed that did Emilia realize that none of the other figures had moved.
A solid minute passed while Boris studied the three figures. He lingered over the black-clad one who’s bonds melted slowly, but he devoted almost as much time to the other two.
“How long before the head is exposed, archmage?” the same strange magician posed the question as had asked about examining them in the first place.
“Hard to say. At least a century, probably longer.” Stroking his chin, Boris turned his gaze onto the questioner. “How goes the research?”
“Slowly, sir…” Boris wiped his hand over the walls where the Fel Slaves hung. The walls turned opaque and Emilia could no longer see them hanging there. An instant before the walls turned black again, she swore she saw the red-clad figure turn its head to look at her.
Emilia scrabbled back away from the walls and into the surface behind her.
“Stop it, you’re gonna mess up my illusion.” Mirabel hissed at Emilia, but terror had wrapped its fist around Emilia’s heart. That trapped person, monster, or being, had looked at her, through the magic Mirabel motioned and through the same transparent wall Boris acted so confident of.
“Please let me out of here…” Emilia’s words sounded desperate to her own ears, but her pulse shot into the red as Boris and Joshua both turned to look at her.
“What in name of every archangel?” The words left Joshua’s lips as the wall behind Emilia faded.
Magical chanting followed her down the hallway as she chased after the lights on the floor that Emilia was certain pointed the way out of the spire. Ignoring the chanting as best she could, she scrabbled on all fours as the green light faded and the black stone maw opened to allow her escape.
“Oh fuck…” Emilia repeated herself as she ran smack into Betsy, who’d been crouched outside.
“Em! What the hell?”
Mirabel shot between them, “less yacking and more fleeing! They’re coming you two idiots!”
Emilia grabbed Betsy in arms that had never once been strong enough to carry the other woman before and lifted her one handed. Mirabel screamed out a renewed chant and then directed their panicked flight out from the open and into the forest beyond.