Because I can can can!
Using the last of my allotted skips this weekend, and will post the final chapter of the writing challenge on December 31st. Of course, the story isn’t over just because I completed the writing challenge, so I will continue to write and post weekly until it is. It’s getting close though!
Merry Christmas!
I lay panting heavily from adrenaline as I stared at the rocks that had almost crushed me. I could hear Lexie coughing from the dust that still swirled in the air around us, and I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that she was okay, and that I was okay. Glancing up, I could see Peter nervously skittering in circles around the girl, making alarmed clacking noises, obviously in high alert and searching for any sign of danger. Good spider, I thought.
I heard someone shifting rocks nearby, grunting in exertion, and I sat up. It was Lyre. “What are you doing?” I asked, confused.
He paused, staring back at me with a dazed expression on his face. “Cassandra…” he said.
“Is she trapped there?” I said, standing to hurry over in case he needed help shifting rocks off her, but I didn’t see any signs of her.
Lyre frowned. “I don’t know.”
I stared at the piled boulders that completely blocked off the area where we had all just been fighting for our lives moments before. “I don’t think we’re going to make it through that way,” I said. Lyre continued to stare at the rocks. “I’m sure she’s fine,” I added after a moment, not entirely sure what else I could say.
“Oh good. You’re alive,” I heard a voice say behind us, and I twisted around to see Raella approach from the dark passage. Her expression was grim as her yellow eyes glinted in the light of my magic. She looked over the boulders and sighed. “Let us attempt the compass spell.”
“Will it work with only us?” I asked.
She nodded. “Just barely, but it won’t be as accurate. With only myself to cast, there will be no… depth? But we’ll get a general idea of direction at least.”
I nodded. Lexie and I followed Raella’s instructions, standing where she indicated, and then she cast the familiar compass spell. The glow flowed around us, and a small circle appeared between us. A single, very bright light flashed on one side of it.
I stared at the single flashing dot of light, feeling something like dread close around my heart. “Why is there only one?” I asked. “Shouldn’t there be three? One for Cassandra, one for Asterollan, and one for Peyton?”
“Asterollan was not summoned, so he would not appear regardless,” Raella said, though that was only part of the answer I was looking for. I glanced uneasily over at Lyre, who stared at the dot as Raella allowed the spell to fade.
“There should still have been two of them,” Lexie said very quietly. I felt suddenly nauseous. The girl stared at where the circle had been and shifted her weight uneasily and Peter trilled softly at her distress. Her arms were crossed and she was covered in a fine layer of dust that made her look almost deathly pale. Looking for something to do, I started to pat some of the dust out of her hair and clothes.
Raella had her finger to her chin as she often did when she was thinking. So either Cassandra or Peyton had survived, but not both. I wondered briefly if Cassandra had been crushed by the rocks, if that was why Lyre was in so much shock. For some reason, my brain did not want to consider the possibility that the dot was not Peyton. Peyton had so much main character energy that I couldn’t even begin to consider her being dead. Lexie began to bat my hands away, looking annoyed at my fussing, and I backed away.
“What’s the plan?” I asked Raella.
She looked a little startled for a moment, but then nodded decisively, her expression settling on determination. “We’ll continue along this passage, and any time we hit a crossroads or an offshoot, we’ll cast the spell again and choose the path that takes us closest to our companion. Perhaps the tunnels meet further on somewhere.” I flinched at the word companion. Non-plural. Fuck.
“And if we run into a dead end?” I asked.
“Then we’ll think of another plan. Let’s not put more trouble in our path than we already have to deal with.” She turned and began to walk further into the tunnels, reaching for her magic and summoning the globules of light that I had seen her use to read with before. She allowed her hold of magic to drop, and the globes of light floated around her and ahead of her, lighting the passage.
Lexie sighed and followed along behind her. I glanced back at Lyre, who was staring back at the boulders. “Come on,” I told him.
He nodded and silently started walking ahead of me. Peter and I followed.
It was quiet for a long time while we walked until Lexie asked, “What do you think happened to the others? All those dwarven soldiers? And Chase and Greyjon and Zolambi? And that nerdy scholar what’s-his-face?”
I frowned, and morbidly began a mental count of how many dwarves I’d personally seen crushed by rocks or killed by Underlings. I hadn’t seen any of our other companions bite it at least. “I think just the cavernous area in the crossroads caved in. If they made it to the other passages, they’re likely fine,” I said.
Lexie shivered.
We continued until we came to a split in the path, where Raella cast the compass spell again. For a moment, I held my breath, silently hoping to see two dots appear in the softly glowing circle, but there was just one again. I let out my breath in a deep sigh of disappointment, and glanced over at Lyre. He stared at the dot with a faintly determined look on his face, like he absolutely believed that it was Cassandra, and for the first time I considered that maybe it was. Maybe Peyton was dead. The very thought felt like a punch to the gut, and hurt a lot more than I had thought it would. To distract myself, I turned toward the path that led closest to the indicated direction and started to walk down it before anyone else did.
“Do you think there are any Underlings watching us?” Lexie asked after a while.
“I don’t believe so,” Raella said. “There are so few of us they would have surely attacked.”
“That’s very reassuring,” I grumbled, casting my eyes up to the ceiling of the passage we were in. I noticed that one of the globules of light that Raella was controlling shifted up toward the ceiling slowly after Lexie’s question, helping to illuminate the shadows and crevices so that we’d be able to spot anything if it approached from above.
Our journey through the tunnels continued in that way for a long time, in a strange quiet and calm. Lexie was subdued from the cave in, and the remaining three of us had never been big conversationalists. We stopped when Raella told us it was time to rest, and took turns at watch through the night. Halfway through the next day, as we approached a fork in the path, Raella motioned for us to stop and allowed her globes of light to blink out of existence. She motioned for us to press ourselves against the walls of the tunnel and whispered, “Let go of your power.”
For several tense moments, we stood in complete darkness. “Raella, why…” Lexie started, but Raella shushed her. I strained my ears and held my breath, attempting to hear what had her concerned. From somewhere ahead of us I heard a low keening call that echoed down the tunnel. It was utterly inhuman and sent a shiver traveling down my spine and raised goosebumps along my skin. “Is that… them?” Lexie whispered.
“I believe so. Stay still and stay quiet for a moment,” Raella murmured back. Another similar call trilled in answer to the first, and then the cries continued, growing fainter as the creatures moved further away. Once they were distant enough, we cast the compass spell again. Raella frowned down the passage ahead of us, in the direction the blinking light was indicating from the spell. “I think that’s the way the Underlings were going,” she said quietly.
I sighed at her words. Of course it is, I thought to myself, but I didn’t say anything out loud. We continued down the passage.
At some point it grew lighter inside the cavern and we were able to drop all our sources of magical light. Raella touched the side of the tunnel curiously, her fingers coming away with a faint luminescence clinging to them. “It’s like some kind of moss,” she said. I frowned and placed my hand on the side of the tunnels, noting that it was quite damp through this area. I wondered where the water was coming from, and realized I could hear it faintly dripping and trickling from somewhere within the cave.
It was probably a good thing that we were no longer lit up, because around the next corner the passage opened up into a cavern. I could hear the screeching cries of the Underlings as we approached the edge of the passage, peaking out at what lay out ahead of us. I heard Raella gasp in shock, and Lexie, her voice low and awed, whispered, “Did they build that city?”
Because it was a city – a massive one, set on the edge of an underground lake. It was lit bright with low greens and blues from bioluminescent plants, but also with bright white strips of lights – electricity. I realized with a start that it was technology of a sort that was way beyond anything we had seen so far in this world. “What is that sound?” Lyre asked quietly as he tried to comprehend what he was looking at. I paused, wondering if he meant the calls of the Underlings in the city below, before I realized I could hear the faint hum of something electric. As we watched, a strip of light leading down a tunnel near the city grew brighter and the hum grew louder, and a platform hovering above the light strip slid into sight and disappeared amongst the buildings.
I realized there were more lights from above and looked up to see that there were more structures on the ceiling. They were simpler than the city below, rounded stone domiciles with circles of lights on their roofs (floors?). I could see Underlings moving in and out of them and crawling along the ceiling and the walls of the cavern. I could see more Underlings moving in the city below.
I gripped Lexie and Raella’s arms and pulled them back into the passage. “Please don’t tell me we have to go through that.”
“Such an amazing display of actual culture that we never even knew…” Raella was muttering. I snapped my fingers in front of her face and her eyes focused on me, her expression annoyed. “Stop that,” she commanded and I sighed and repeated my question. We cast the compass spell to see which way we needed to go.
To my relief, the blinking light did not lead directly to the city – instead it focused on the side of the cavern, on the far side of the cavern along the wall that we were already on, which was less populated. I wondered if there was another passage that way. “So how are we going to handle this?” I asked.
“Stay low,” Raella said. “I know it’s bright through here, but don’t do anything to draw attention to us, such as reaching for your magic. I think the light sources we’re used to are still brighter than theirs, so we would stand out. We’ll follow the wall until we reach that side and then try to find another passage or a place where we can hide and cast the compass spell again to determine if we’re moving out of this cavern or… or back into it.”
We kept to her plan, hugging the wall on the side of the cavern we were on and hiding behind any rocks or boulders we came across. When we reached the other side, we were lucky enough to find a side passage, hardly more than a crevice in the wall. I frowned as Raella pushed through the opening, feeling mildly claustrophobic watching the tight fit. Once she was on the other side she called back, “It opens more down here. Come through.”
Lexie and Lyre followed her next as I turned and glanced around, making sure nothing was moving towards us. Then I followed them down with Peter pushing along behind me, feeling the rocks scraping against me. I barely fit, and was terrified I was going to get stuck for a moment. I could feel Peter nudging me along with his head, and I finally stumbled through, losing my balance, and falling to my knees. Lyre helped me up as the spider clicked in alarm at my fall, waving its legs in the air as it emerged from the passage.
Raella cast the compass spell again. I groaned loudly as I realized the blinking dot was pointing back into the cavern. “We have to go back in there?” Lexie said in a shrill whisper as she began to comprehend what we were seeing. “Do you think they’ve been captured?”
I sighed and ran a hand over my face. “Yeah. That’s probably what it means,” I grumbled. Lyre had shifted back toward the tight space that we had crawled through and was staring back out into the cavern. Lexie stared at me, her jaw hanging open. We stood silently for a moment, tensely considering our options. “Should we rest for now?” I asked.
“What if they get moved further into the city while we’re sleeping? We’ll never be able to find them. There’s no way we could just sneak down into all of that. We’d be captured immediately.” Lyre shook his head, frowning as he spoke.
Raella suddenly tilted her head and said, “Drop your magic and stay quiet, I hear something from further down the passage.” We all immediately dropped into a crouch and let go of our magic, plunging ourselves into darkness. I could feel Peter nudge at my leg and placed a hand on his body as I listened intently, trying to catch what Raella had heard. After several moments I realized I could hear voices.
More importantly, I realized they were familiar voices. I stood up and moved forward, reaching for my magic so that I would be illuminated and saying, “It’s us!”
A line of fire bloomed into existence moving straight towards me. At the end of it, I could see the barely illuminated and shocked face of Chase. I stumbled back from the flame arrow, throwing my hands up to defend myself as Raella threw a barrier in front of me. She motioned with her hands as the fire hit the barrier and instead of deflecting the spell, the barrier shifted around it and seemed to swallow the flames, snuffing them out of existence quietly. Raella grimaced as the barrier dropped, and in a loud whisper said, “That could have alerted the Underlings to our presence.”
“Raella?” Chase whispered back. As she moved forward, I could see that Zolambi was with her, looking extraordinarily relieved to see us. They also had several shorter forms with them – dwarven soldiers, and Jon Umberling. “You’re alive!” Chase said, moving forward to hug Raella.
“We thought that we may have failed the entire world,” Zolambi said after he had greeted us. Raella awkwardly patted Chase on the back as she attempted to extricate herself from the girl’s hug. Zolambi’s eyes flitted over our small group, and his lips thinned in a grimace. “I take it you’ve been casting the compass spell?” he asked.
Raella nodded. “Please, lower your voices. If you wish to see why, just look out into that cavern.” Raella gestured toward the crevice we had crawled through. Zolambi frowned in curiosity and moved forward to look. I could hear him gasp at what he saw. “With you here, we might be able to get a more accurate read with the spell, which will help us immensely for what we are about to do.”
“They’re in there?” Zolambi said, his tone grim as he took in how many Underlings existed in the cavern.
We positioned ourselves for the spell and it was cast one more time. The circle flared into life between us, and I saw that with more people to cast it, the dot had shifted back into a figure, much like how we had glimpsed Cassandra before when we had first come to this world. I frowned in confusion at the jumble of limbs and features and realized with a start that the figures of light showed two people, so close in proximity that they overlapped and jumbled in the circle.
Cassandra and Peyton were both alive, I realized, and I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
No chapter this week!
The next chapter will be posted December 17.
The tension was palpable as we walked. Even Jon Umberling had stopped chattering and grown quiet as we descended further through the tunnels, his glasses flashing in the lights we carried as he kept his head lifted to stare at the ceiling. The soldiers were all wary as well, and the collected anxiety was catching amongst the rest of us. I walked arm in arm with Lyre, who was constantly glowing, holding tight to his magic in preparation for anything. The silence was eerie, with the sounds of our footsteps and the rustling of our gear being the only noise. Whenever anyone did talk, they kept their voices low, and the whispers echoed in an unsettling way. Peter stayed close to Lucas, almost like a dog at heel, and made soft clicking noises.
It was hard to tell the time of day from underground, but Raella said that we left Gno’s temple late in the afternoon, so it felt like we were making camp very soon after leaving. When we made camp for the night, some of the tension released, and some of the soldiers began to converse amongst themselves a little less quietly, though all of it was still very subdued. I don’t think anyone slept well that night, even though it seemingly remained quiet and calm.
Despite that calmness, in the morning things became even more subdued and tense. Even before Captain Kaphryn approached, our group could tell that something was wrong from the murmurs and nervousness of the soldiers. Captain Kaphryn approached Raella to quietly tell her that at least three of her men had disappeared in the night. “We suspect that more of us will get picked off through the day,” she said, her face grim. “You’ll be safer in the center, but make sure you stay together in groups of two or three and report immediately if anyone goes missing.”
Greyjon looked at the Captain in surprise. “We didn’t hear anything last night.”
Kaphryn nodded. “Neither did we,” she said as she moved away from us, and the displeasure was clear in her voice.
Greyjon frowned but nodded and we were allowed to choose our assigned partners. Lexie immediately gripped Lucas’s arm, and he grimaced at her as Peter happily trilled. “Okay, that’s one grouping. Peyton, stay close to me and Raella.” He glanced over at where Lyre and I were practically attached at the hip and grinned. “I assume you two will keep an eye on each other?” I nodded.
“We’ll keep an eye on our scholar,” Chase said, pulling on Zolambi’s sleeve and ruffling Jon’s hair so that his glasses went slightly askew. Jon straightened his glasses and frowned at her, his face mildly flushed.
Greyjon glanced over at Asterollan. “You can’t continue to brood by your lonesome. Choose a grouping.”
Asterollan clapped a hand onto my shoulder. “I’ll keep an eye on the lovebirds,” he said, his tone light and teasing. I smiled at him.
“Okay, everyone stays close. Don’t go anywhere alone. Make mental notes to check for your partners at regular intervals. If someone is out of your sight for even a second, say something.”
“What if we have to pee?” Lexie asked curiously.
Lucas sighed and planted his face in his palm. “You should have chosen Peyton as your partner,” he grumbled, frowning at the girl through his fingers.
Greyjon looked annoyed. “We can readjust the groups if we need to,” he said.
“The spider can watch us pee,” Lucas said, sounding equally annoyed. “Or we can decide on pee partners as we walk. It looks like we’re about to start moving.”
“What if we have to poop?” Lexie whispered as the soldiers ahead of us began to move, and we gathered ourselves and followed after.
“Nobody is waiting for you to poop. Wear a diaper,” Lucas whispered back.
“Ewww,” Lexie commented dramatically.
I chuckled as she continued to pester him with other scenarios as we walked, marveling at how he acted like a big brother to her. Every couple of minutes I would swivel my head around to look at Asterollan, who was trailing behind Lyre and me. Finally, I said, “Maybe you should walk ahead of us so we can keep an eye on you.”
He looked a little startled at the suggestion, but compliantly moved to walk ahead of us. I found myself staring at the back of his head as we walked, absent minded and tense and waiting for something to happen. I kept reminding myself to breathe. I’m sure my nervousness was quite obvious, because Lyre kept squeezing my hand in reassurance.
Late in the morning as we reached a larger, almost cavernous section of the tunnel that opened into a crossroad that split three ways. there was a commotion behind us and we all stopped as Captain Kaphryn moved from the forward position and went to investigate the issue. Soon she was moving back through the ranks, quietly ordering the soldiers to arm themselves and form a protective circle around us. She didn’t shout the orders, and actually sounded quite calm, but her face was pale and her eyes kept darting around, checking the walls and the ceiling. Glancing up, I could see that our dim lights didn’t reach that high. As she walked past us, Greyjon grabbed her shoulder. “What happened?” he asked.
“Several more of my men have disappeared from the rear. The Underlings are picking us off.” She moved on to pass her orders towards the soldiers at the front as we each looked around at each other. Lexie paled and looked significantly less amused, kneeling to pet Peter, who was making soft clicking noises, its many eyes glittering in the lights. Several of us began to shift into a tighter grouping. I could hear Peyton gasp suddenly, saying, “I can hear their minds. They’re so close. They’re everywhere.” I twisted my head, trying to spot what she could sense.
As the soldiers moved in to surround us and form a protective barrier, several of us lit up, glowing with our magic. Asterollan also reached for his magic, and the significantly brighter glow of his power lit up the stretch of tunnels that we were in like a miniature sun. I heard Jon gasp in terror, and looked over to see that his head was tilted back to stare at the ceiling.
And then I saw movement out of the corner of my eyes as shapes began to drop from above. I heard Peter screech, an inhumanly loud sound, and watched the spider spread its front legs wide, taking a defensive posture over Lexie. Then I heard soldiers screaming and shouting as a fierce battle erupted around us.
Something thumped to the ground next to me from above, and I turned to face it. A figure seemed to unfurl and loomed over me, humanoid in shape, but much taller, and I gaped at it, feeling for a moment like everything was moving in slow motion. It was thin, all wiry muscle and almost translucently pale grey flesh. It had an almost perfectly round head with no discernable eyes or nose. What it did have were long, pointed ears, even longer than those of the elves, that swept back and around the head, and a large mouth filled with rows of needle-sharp teeth. I stared at the teeth in shock, almost too distracted to see it pull its thin, elongated arms up to grab me until the sight of its many fingered hands and long sharp nails loomed into my vision, reaching for my face. Suddenly time seemed to speed up as I screamed, and felt Lyre’s arms tug me back and out of the creature’s reach as Asterollan’s new fiery blade sliced through the thing like paper, causing it to let loose a high-pitched squeal of pain.
I clapped my hands over my ears as several other Underlings squealed in response to the death cry, and looked around at the surrounding chaos. I could see that Raella had summoned a barrier over Chase and Jon, and was focusing on it as Chase focused on striking out with small blasts of fire at any of the creatures dropping from above. I could see that Greyjon and Peyton had moved to help some of the soldiers toward the forward position, both brightly glowing with their magic and using various spells as they swung their swords.
Asterollan dashed past me, and I could see that he was rushing to help the rear defense, where Zolambi had already moved to assist, glowing brightly from the magic he wielded.
Looking up I could see there were many more of the Underlings crawling across the ceiling of the tunnels, so many that they formed a writhing mass of pale flesh. The sight made my skin crawl, and without thinking I reached for my magic, hearing the faint crackle of the electricity that arced across the glow that sprung up around me.
I reached my hands up and unleashed as much lightning as I could summon, bright bolts of plasma jumping across the ceiling and arcing from body to body, causing the creatures above to stiffen and seize and scream and fall. For a moment the sounds of battle seemed to fade away as many of the dwarven soldiers on the ground stared up at the crackling display in shock and the subsequent rain of bodies. I could feel Lyre grip my shoulder tight, shouting, “No! Nothing big! You’ll bring the entire tunnel down on us!”
I gasped and released the spell and my magic, but realized the damage had already been done. The tunnels shook around us and along with the bodies of the Underlings I had killed, rocks were starting to tumble as well, and I could hear a different kind of shouting take hold as everyone and everything nearby screamed and scrambled to avoid the falling rocks and the quickly crumbling tunnel. I felt Lyre pushing me forward at a run, felt the guilt swallow me as I watched a nearby handful of dwarven soldiers crushed by a massive boulder.
Lyre stumbled somewhere behind me, shouting my name. My heart felt suddenly crushed as I turned around, trying to squint through the dust or hear his voice through the cacophony. I shouted for him, trying to stumble back toward where I had lost him, when something bright hit me. Strong arms wrapped around me and lifted me, pushing me forward just as more rocks crashed down where I had been standing.
I gasped and closed my eyes and felt myself hit the ground. The light vanished. I lay on the ground, breathing heavily, trying to organize my scattered thoughts. I could hear rocks shifting and settling, the last gasps of the cave in I had caused. I could hear shouting – distant and muffled – and the weird shrill screams of the Underlings, some not as muffled. I could hear someone else breathing heavily nearby.
I opened my eyes but found that I was in complete darkness, so I reached for my magic to light up the area I was in. I could see some dust still settling, swirling in the air. Looking around, the first person I spotted was Peyton. She leaned heavily on her sword, her hair a disheveled mess. As the glow from my magic lit up the area, she shifted forward and leaned down next to another figure – Captain Kaphryn, who was groaning as she shifted herself into a sitting position. Then Peyton dropped down next to another figure – Greyjon, I realized after a moment.
I glanced behind me at the rocks that blocked the tunnels where we had been standing moments before, and spotted a mess of familiar golden curls. I stumbled over to Asterollan’s prone form and realized he was half buried and unconscious, with blood dripping down his face. I started to frantically work on pulling the rocks off him, tossing them to the side. I don’t know how long I worked, but I felt myself getting sweaty, and could feel hot tears streaking down my face. This had all been my fault. We were underground. I should have realized… I tried to push thoughts of Lyre out of my head as I worked to free Asterollan.
Kaphryn and Peyton joined me after a few moments, also working to shift the rocks. When we had him freed enough, Peyton gripped his shoulders and pulled him free. I fell to my knees, clapped my hands on either side of his face, and lit up like a beacon, pouring as much of my power into healing him as I could as I whispered his name over and over.
For a frighteningly long moment there didn’t seem to be any change. And then a slight frown creased his brow and he groaned, and I collapsed onto his chest, sobbing. Asterollan sat up and wrapped his arms around me.
I looked up at Peyton. “Greyjon?” I asked, not really wanting to voice the rest of the sentence.
She stared back at me, and very briefly shook her head.
I gaped at her, and avoided looking over at where his body lay. “This is all my fault,” I gasped after a moment, feeling sick to my stomach.
“It is,” she said simply.
I pulled away from Asterollan, feeling awful. I hadn’t really expected to be reassured, but hearing confirmation of my guilt felt a stab to the heart. I closed my eyes and took three deep breaths. As I did, I heard her grunt and fall forward.
I opened my eyes in time to see several pale, thin humanoid figures approaching us. One of them was holding a hand up, a strange tendril of light and shadow flowing between a crystal it held and Peyton, who had fallen forward on her knees. She looked strained, and as she lifted her head I watched as a dark spot formed on her forehead and spread across her face.
Asterollan was standing, reaching for his magic as he shouted, “She’s being tethered!”
Gasping, I started to stand, but a strange sensation gripped me, causing me to fall forward onto my hands and knees. I could hear Asterollan and Kaphryn also crying out and shouting. It felt sudden and sharp and focused in my chest, like a sudden thump, like a large bird had gone hurtling straight into my chest at full speed. And then I felt a burning sensation spread across the skin of my forehead and I screamed.
When the pain died down, I opened my eyes to find complete darkness. I could hear Peyton and Asterollan gasping nearby, and Kaphryn groaning and struggling, and the sounds of footsteps all around us. I attempted to reach for my magic so that I could have light, but nothing happened. I could still sense my power, but it was like I couldn’t reach it.
Something began to glow very nearby. Almost like a torch, but it was a light bioluminescent blue-green, and very dim – but by that very pale light, I could see the wide toothy smiles of the Underlings that had captured us.
I had never considered myself the sort of person to faint in terror before that moment. But everything – my terror, my panic, my guilt and sadness – became so overwhelming that I felt like I was going to have an actual heart attack. My senses shut down, I felt my vision blur, and felt the world fade away.
Raella was upset when she heard about how each of us had met with our gods. She seemed to take it personally, as though she should have been invited to join us when we communed with them. Which would have been impossible since it all happened in separate rooms at the same time, but that didn’t stop her anger. She sat us all down and interviewed us on our interactions, taking copious notes and asking a million questions, especially needling us to remember the details exactly as we experienced them.
It was interesting to hear about each of their experiences. T’Keran had greeted Cassandra in total darkness, allowing the full power of a thunderstorm to build and crash around her, whereas Cenastrum had greeted Asterollan in a plane of bright blinding light, with an overwhelming voice that had reverberated in the very air around him. T’Keran had explained Shadawn’s powers to Cassandra and had insisted that they break the seal and destroy him. Cenastrum had done much the same, and gifted Asterollan with the sword I had seen him pointing at Peyton. At Raella’s request, he summoned and dismissed it several times, something that he could manage without grasping for his magic.
Myrapen was the only other god that had mentioned giving all of their powers and diminishing, and I wondered if that meant that Cenastrum and T’Keran actually reserved some power for themselves. Lexie’s interview was shortest – she had stepped into a plane of fire and Myrapen had greeted her and given her the last vestiges of her power, stating that she kept nothing to maintain her. She asked the girl to relight the eternal flame on the island we had visited once we were done destroying Shadawn.
Only my god had revealed their origins as beings from another world that had ascended to godhood. As I described everything that I saw and had learned, Raella made little gasps of excitement and scribbled furiously in her notes. It was very distracting, but also kind of amusing to watch.
She was also upset to know that Peyton had kept her dreams of Shadawn a secret, though her excitement over everything else she learned far outweighed her anger about that. “I wish you had told me,” she kept repeating. “Perhaps we could have worked out a way to block his influence. And you’ve just lived with your magic being blocked this whole time!”
Peyton sat, frowning at the ground, looking sufficiently chastised. After a moment, Raella added, “I am impressed that you’ve been turning him down this entire time though. Tell me about these dreams.” It had started as a voice, Peyton explained, back when we were still at the University, but sometime after we left and before we had reached the canyons, she had started to see him in her dreams. He had approached her, impressed with her strengths and abilities, and tried to convince her to be his first Chosen.
“At first I had hoped that I could somehow learn more about him by pretending to be interested. That was about the time that my magic became inaccessible.”
Raella nodded. “Cenastrum must have been observing the entire time. So he did have reason to believe you might join Shadawn’s cause.”
Peyton nodded and sighed. “To an outside observer, yes. It would have looked like I was ready to work with him. And in the end, I didn’t even learn that much about him. I didn’t even know his name until I heard Asterollan shouting it at me.”
“Well, we cannot change the past. But perhaps we can appeal to Cenastrum to lift the block. We need you at your full power.” Raella frowned, shuffling the notes she had been taking. “We’ll need everyone at their best if we’re really going to fight Shadawn.”
“So you’re not against us breaking the seal?” I asked.
“It isn’t the wisest plan,” she noted. “After all, what happens if Shadawn kills one of you in battle before we perform the seal? We need four graces for the seal to work.”
“Do we though? I mean, if the gods have pumped so much divine energy into us, maybe three will be enough,” I argued. She sighed, not looking entirely convinced. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want Peyton to die. I don’t want Lexie to die.”
“What about me?” Cassandra groused from where she was sitting on her bedroll, listening in to everything as well.
“Right, not you too. Nor, strangely, the backup battery.” Cassandra raised an eyebrow at my comment and glanced over at Asterollan, who had taken to brooding in a corner since our confrontation in the front hall. “I want to be able to survive this. I want to fight so that we can live.”
Raella sighed again. “There is also the matter of the rest of us here. We can go and help you fight Shadawn, but I don’t think we’re as powerful as any of you now, and if one of us dies, we also lose the ability to seal Shadawn. After all, we’re the ones that cast the spell.”
I frowned, crossing my arms as I considered that. “Could we learn this spell and cast it on ourselves? Or does someone else have to cast the spell at us?”
Raella narrowed her eyes, bringing her finger up to her chin as she considered that. “That may be an option.” She glanced over at where Chase and Jon were working at cataloguing some of the tomes they were finding. “I will admit that I am reluctant to bring one of the University’s finest young minds into a deadly battle.” After a moment she gave a brief nod as though her mind were made up. “I will put my mind to this and find a way for you to cast the spell yourself. It is better to have multiple contingencies in place, after all, if we are to do this.”
I was a little surprised that she was willing to even give us the chance to fight. I was almost certain that she would shoot the idea down immediately. “Thank you, Raella,” I said.
“Yes, well,” she said, her tone slightly huffy as she looked embarrassed by my sincerity. “We should all get some rest. We’ve still got to get to the seal. It’s at least two more days of travel, maybe three depending on how much pushback we get from these Underlings everyone fears.”
I nodded and settled in for the evening, but couldn’t sleep. I was comfortable enough with Peter nestled in beside me, but the memory of the verdant jungle stayed with me. Meeting my god face to face and all the information that had been thrown at us during and after kept my mind buzzing. Because of that, I heard Peyton when she rose and ventured out into the front hall. I sat up, staring after her, and heard Peter trill a soft query at my movement. Then I stood to follow her. I stopped just inside the partially closed doorway and watched her stare up at the statue of Gno as though she were in a trance.
As I watched, the All Seeing Eye blinked like it was no longer made of stone, and I found myself gripping the edge of the door tight in my hands.
“I heard you calling,” Peyton said, her voice soft.
“I know the truth in your heart,” a voice whispered back – it sounded like the rustling of dry paper, and it was hard to pinpoint exactly where it came from. I shivered. The cloak of the statue seemed to shift, as though brushed by a breeze. “Cenastrum shows no pity and no remorse, but I know that truth is not simple, not a matter of black and white justice. I would not punish a curious mind.”
Peyton was silent for a long moment, staring into the eye as it blinked again. She seemed a lot calmer than I would have felt staring into the thing. “Were the Wryseans working for Shadawn? Because he never mentioned them,” she said. “Or was it an actual god, wanting freedom?”
“It was Holtrin,” the voice whispered. “He is not pleased to have been locked away for so long. Few of us are. We long to touch the world, to shape it again, to watch…”
Peyton shook her head, her long coppery hair glinting in the dim light. “Wouldn’t killing us release Shadawn and allow him to destroy everything?”
“There are those of us that believe Shadawn is an imposter that will be easily disposed of.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think we have not learned from history. Few do, even amongst gods.” The eye narrowed and seemed to drift down closer to Peyton, studying her. “I will remove the blocks that Cenastrum has placed on you. I grant you my power, and I grant you my gifts. You will act as my Chosen.”
Peyton stared into the eye, unflinching, and once again I found myself respecting her resolve. “What gifts will you grant me?”
“Knowledge,” the voice whispered, drawing out the word. “The being known as Lucas Kearney will strike the death blow. He has been granted that ability. But he can only do it once, and the timing must be perfect. You will know when the time is right. You will guide him.”
“Lucas?” Peyton said. For a moment I shifted uneasily thinking she had seen me, but I realized she was only responding to Gno’s statement.
“As my Chosen, you must learn to master thought, for all thoughts will flow to you. Clear your mind, and compose yourself. You have a short deadline for mastery. But I will put my trust in you, and grant you my power.” Peyton lit up suddenly, grasping at the magic she hadn’t been able to touch since Cenastrum had blocked her abilities. The light around her didn’t look significantly different, beyond being a little more sepia toned.
In a blink, the eye was back in place above the book, and the statue’s robes were still again. It was silent. And then Peyton said, “Lucas?” again, and turned to stare directly at me. I was startled, seeing that her eyes glowed vividly in a bright purplish hue – and a third glowing eye appeared, hovering immediately in front of her forehead – the All Seeing Eye. She dropped her magic, and the eerie glow of her eyes dropped, and the floating eye disappeared as well.
I stepped out from behind the door, nervously running a hand through my hair. “Sorry, I saw you get up and…” I mumbled, starting to explain. But Peyton was staring at me hard, her eyes wide in shock.
“I can hear your thoughts,” she said softly.
“Oh?” I paused for a moment, and realized that aligned pretty well with what Gno had said he would gift to her. Don’t think about how beautiful she is! my mind screamed at me, but it screamed it pretty loud and clear and I knew instantly that she heard from the faint flush that rose along her cheeks and the slightly amused smile that pulled at her lips. “Well, fuck,” I said, and turned around to go back to bed. Peter trilled happily as I settled back into my bedroll.
Having decided there was no need to keep secrets anymore, Peyton told Raella what had happened immediately upon waking the next morning. Raella seemed frustrated to have missed something that she may have been able to easily witness, and set about interviewing both Peyton and me about what had happened in the night. We also tested the limits of Peyton’s mind reading abilities – apparently the ability was omnipresent, like Asterollan’s truth compulsion, but not deep. “It seems to have a range,” she said thoughtfully. “I can’t really hear what the soldiers out front are thinking. And it’s nothing too invasive. It seems to be surface level thoughts.” She frowned, glancing around at us. “Some of the thoughts are in your own voices, but other thoughts… like whoever has Axel F stuck in their head right now…”
“Oh. Sorry,” Lexie said, grinning sheepishly.
“What is Axel F?” Raella asked, frowning at the two of them.
“It’s a really catchy song,” Lexie said.
Peyton grinned and nodded. “It is pretty good.”
Raella set about teaching us the modified sealing spell as well, though she insisted that we do it without reaching for our magic. Even without any true power behind it, I could feel something like a strange pull, as though something inside of myself was made of metal and something outside of myself was a powerful magnet. The sensation gave me a headache, and I felt slightly nauseous. Then I got to sit and watch the others learn the spell, and could figure out the moment that they mastered it when their faces paled and they rubbed at their temples.
Watching Lexie practice made me feel a bit sick to my stomach. I glanced around and found Asterollan, who was sitting further back from the group, and tapped him on the shoulder awkwardly. “Could I talk to you in private for a bit?”
He raised an eyebrow at me, but nodded and followed as I pulled him back behind some shelves out of sight. “What is it?” he asked as I nervously shifted my weight from foot to foot, unsure of how to voice my concern.
“You can’t just be a backup battery,” I finally said. He was much shorter than me, and in the cramped space behind the shelves I felt like I was unnecessarily towering over him. I hunched my shoulders as I spoke, not wanting to seem like a bully, although in all likelihood he was a lot more capable of kicking my ass despite the height difference. “Lexie can’t die. She’s just a kid. If this all goes sideways and we have to sacrifice ourselves… it just shouldn’t be her.”
Asterollan gave me an appraising look and nodded. “You’re right.” I had expected a little more pushback, and he must have read the surprise in my face, because he suddenly looked annoyed. “Do you really think I’m so dishonorable I’d say that a child must die?”
“I mean… maybe?”
Asterollan gave me a flat stare, his lips thinning slightly in a grimace. “I will do the right thing, Lucas. You needn’t have asked.” I nodded as he walked away, feeling a bit awkward but also relieved. At least Lexie would be safe. Stepping out from behind the shelves, I could see Peyton smiling at me, and flushed, feeling a little annoyed that there couldn’t be secrets around her. A strange series of emotions flickered across her face before she flushed deeply and looked somewhat sheepish, and avoided making eye contact the rest of the morning. It left me feeling a little bad, like somehow it was all my fault. I focused on keeping Axel F running through my head instead.
Late in the afternoon, after we were sure we had all mastered the sealing spell and after Raella had compiled all the notes she could wish, we prepared to leave. Raella, Jon and Chase packed up several crates of books that were in good enough shape to transport and set them in the front hallway, and Raella also stored all the notes she had taken at the temple in with them. Their plan was to improvise a cart of some sort to haul them back on the return trip. There was something kind of compelling about the idea – the idea of returning. We’d only be coming back if we survived. And to do that we had to destroy a wannabe god. And when we did return, what would our lives be then?
With no way to return home, we’d have to build new lives in this world. Find out how we wanted to live, and what we wanted to do. I knew that my first course of action would be traveling far to the north and finding the heart tree that my god had told me about. I had a promise to fulfill there. But what would I do then? I wondered if I would continue the course of my life – Lucas Kearney, accountant in a fantasy land. Certainly someone needed a treasurer or bookkeeper. Or maybe I would try do something completely different with my life. Learn to do something else. Learn to be someone else.
As we started walking away from the temple of the god of knowledge, I glanced back and could just barely see the crates inside the door, waiting for us to return. I promised myself I’d read one of those books when I got back.
As I turned to face the path ahead, I caught sight of Peyton flashing a knowing grin at me, and I flushed deeply and focused on clearing my mind again.
mehryment 