Darkness shrouded the cloister as the cadre of reliquary hunters picked their way through the ruins in a tight circle meant to avoid the Shackled and bring them to the gantry. Thousands of stars twinkled in the firmament, Solo sank towards the horizon, and a pair of her other children dotted the night sky. The Shackled did not notice Ilia and her crew. The rubble-strewn grounds of the ruins required most of Ilia’s concentration to avoid putting a foot wrong, but in the occasional furtive glance back towards the inhabited dwelling, she saw no one emerge.
Sooner than expected her crew stood panting in the exposed narthex, leaning on the gantry and peering into the cellar below. Any physical exertion was difficult in the void breathers, and Ilia’s chest burned from the simple task of loping across the broken ground. Simon’s goggles were fogged, but his tail wagged in good spirits and he made no effort to remove his mask.
He must sense the danger, Ilia thought.
Gearbox studied the crane mechanism, his own machinery running smoothly now that they had left behind the arctic cold.
“It’s mechanized, made to run on a boiler,” Gearbox’s whisper was clear and unencumbered. For reasons no one understood, the golem did not require a breather despite possessing no magical abilities outside of his batteries.
“Can we operate it manually?” was Ilia’s muffled reply.
Gearbox studied the ropes and pulleys a moment longer before nodding. “Aput disconnect that coupling from the flywheel piston there, be ready to take the weight of the platform.”
Aput freed a pair of cotter pins from their housing. The platform dropped and the Ankhim’s muscles tensed as the weight of the wood was transferred from metal machine to mortal muscle.
“Can you manage it?” Ilia asked.
Aput nodded. It was difficult to discern honesty through the mask, but Ilia trusted the Ankhim to know his own capabilities.
“Heaviest first,” Ilia said, “so the rest of us can help. Masak that means you.”
The rest of the crew took up positions on the rope behind Aput. His twin stepped gingerly onto the platform and they began to lower it. The rope ran through a block and tackle before curving over a large pulley. Masak’s head and shoulders still protruded from the hole, when the pulley squealed, echoing off the stone of the ruined cloister. The whole party froze. Ilia’s hands burned with the effort of holding the coarse rope. As one, they turned toward where the Shackled were housed.
“No one move,” Ilia hissed.
The front door of the hut opened, emitting a rectangle of orange firelight into the courtyard. A figure moved into the doorway, casting a long shadow. Ilia did not know how well Shackled could see in the dark. She perceived nothing beneath the figure’s large cowl. From this distance it appeared as a stocky humanoid, but Ilia knew better. She had seen them move, running on all fours like a wolf. She had seen the horrible way that void magic had broken and disfigured their bodies. There was little humanity left in them. They were creatures of a wrathful, imprisoned god.
She watched with bated breath as the figure’s head moved side to side. Its movements reminded her of Simon and Ilia realized she did not know anything about their sense of smell. Her hands were full, so she could not make the sign of the ring, but she said a prayer to the Nine that there was no wind to carry their scent southward toward the creature.
Iila was satisfied that nothing was amiss as the Shackled returned inside, shutting the door behind him. The crew exhaled and began once more to lower Masak into the catacombs below the ruined cloister. Gearbox greased the pulley’s axle with some of his own supply before they hoisted the platform back up and lowered the golem into the ground. The pulley stayed silent for the rest of their work.
Masak, Coraline, Gearbox, Ilia, and Simon stood in a narrow, stone hallway twenty feet below the surface. With Masak at the head, they made their way cautiously toward the interior of the cloister. When they were far enough into the structure that it would not be seen emanating from the gantry opening, Ilia lit her lantern. The sudden flare of light sent rats skittering and crickets leaping away. A collapsed tunnel curved to the left leaving them with a single direction to go–straight ahead.
Their path sloped downward. In the darkness, water dripped an irregular beat. Ilia’s chest tightened. It was perhaps a figment of her imagination, but the passageway seemed to narrow as they descended. Ilia considered calling a halt. They had traversed too far and too deep. They were probably on the far edge of the ruins by now. Perhaps they had missed a turn or a concealed passage. Ilia swallowed, the sound echoed inside her breather as she tried not to think about the tons and tons of earth pressing down upon them from above.
When fear had almost overwhelmed good sense, and she was ready to call an about face, relic be damned, the pathway opened into an expansive, barrel-vaulted cellar.
Not a cellar, Ilia realized a moment later, an ossuary.
The room was rectangular and niches full of bones covered the long walls except where identical doors stood shut in the middle of each. The niches were mostly full, meaning that to Ilia’s best guess, a few thousand clerics of Corendar had been buried down here over the millennia. In the flickering light of her lamp, Ilia could make out deep relief carvings on the far wall, but the details were too distant for her to recognize the scene. The floor was muddy and numerous clawed footprints indicated the Shackled had made several trips into this room. Although the void breather filtered out most smells, Ilia could imagine the room smelling of death and decay. Beside her Simon whined. She scritched his ears over the mask straps.
“Check those doors,” Ilia said, her voice echoing despite the mask. After the silence of their journey, everyone flinched at her command. Both doors were locked with heavy chains and padlocks as big as Masak’s two fists.
“Any ideas?” Gearbox asked.
Ilia thought for a moment, “The dampener automatically oscillates through various power phases depending on the amount of ambient void particulate in the system, correct?”
“Ah,” Gearbox said, “I see.”
“See what?” Coraline asked.
“We can use the dampener like a divining rod,” Ilia explained. “We can deploy it here in the entryway for a baseline reading and then move it around the room to see if it jumps into a higher register.”
“It will at least get us in the neighborhood,” Masak said, lowering the crate from his back and prying it open. The wooden lid cracked, echoing through the room and up the passageway. Everyone waited as the sound died, but nothing else filled the expanding silence. Ilia sent Coraline back up the passageway to inform Aput of their status. They got back to work.
While Gearbox and Masak deployed the void dampener, Ilia wandered through the ossuary toward the relief carvings at the far end of the room. A pair of studded iron doors stood bolted at the center of the wall flanked by a portrait of Solo on the right, Corendar on the left. Both were dressed in ornate wedding regalia that had at one time been studded with precious metals and rare stones. Those had been picked away by thieves and treasure hunters over the years, leaving dimples where artisans had once affixed their settings.
The Nine moons, the Children of Solo, orbited the goddess’s pregnant belly, and she wore a crown of rings. In one hand she held the Sun Scepter, the other reached over the door toward Corendar. He in turn reached for her, their fingers interlacing above the arched doorway. In his other hand he held his nine-pointed flail. Flecks of red and gold paint were still visible on his tunic, and the symbol of infinity was emblazoned upon his forehead. Pillars rose from his head like points of a crown, fluted with ionic capitals.
Those capitals along with the deep relief, and the carvings’ location on Gaash so far distant from Seniphet suggested to Ilia that these were late Yazerite, probably from Period IIB. Many imagined reliquary hunters as upjumped thieves. While there was some truth to that, Ilia reflected, much of their time was spent in libraries, reading, researching, and learning. Many of the artifacts her mother sent them after were either Sojourner or Late Yazerite.
A throbbing pulse vibrated the floor as Gearbox started the dampener. The machine settled into a dull thrum as her two crewmen began to take preliminary readings. Calendar’s relief distracted Ilia. It took her a moment to place the difference, but when she did, she felt stupid for not recognizing it earlier. Corendar did not have a beard. Ilia climbed up to get a closer look. The god sat upon a throne upheld by hundreds of supplicants bearing all manner of expressions. The relief carving was deep enough that Ilia could climb it like a ladder, and soon she was ten feet up the wall, face to face with the stony visage of the old god of chaos.
Sure enough, his beard had been chiseled away and a new layer of stone placed over it, then carved to match. The god’s face was clean shaven and he wore a stone torque with the symbols of the seals of Basalt emblazoned upon its ends. Someone had updated this carving after Kade overthrew him.
Why would they bother? Ilia wondered. Why come here and alter an ancient underground relief deep beneath a ruined cloister?
Ilia grew excited to see that Masak and Gearbox were approaching with the dampener. It didn’t look like much. A black cube two feet by two feet on a heavy, wooden tripod. Amethyst dials glowed on one side. The entire apparatus clicked like the hands of a clock. The frequency of the clicks increased as the two men drew nearer to the relief.
“What are you doing up there?” Gearbox asked. He set the dampener down near the double doors.
“This carving is wrong,” Ilia said.
“What do you mean?”
“Look! No beard.”
Gearbox peered up, “Indeed.”
“What?” Masak asked, his confusion apparent.
“Late Yazerite depictions of Corendar show him bearded, but this was altered after the god’s imprisonment. It shows him restrained. Look at this torque with the seals of Basalt. There is also this chain across one shoulder. That isn’t traditional either.”
“Those aren’t the seals of Basalt,” Gearbox said.
“What do you mean?” Ilia asked, “of course they are.”
“No, the Moon Seals, Planar Seals, and Universal Modalities, were written in Middle Yazerim, so that the gods were sure the dominant culture could read them.”
“Then these are their Avernian counterparts,” Ilia insisted.
“Similar,” Gearbox said, and Ilia could hear the smile in his metal voice, “but that’s not the language of Solo’s children, that’s Journeyman, the language of the Sojourner’s.”
“You read Journeyman?” Ilia was flabbergasted.
“You don’t?” Gearbox’s blue eyes glowed with amusement.
“What does it say?”
“I can’t read the finer details from here. Describe them to me.”
Ilia looked back at the carvings at the ends of the torque. They were inlaid with stone, she realized. It was a black stone like obsidian thieves’ glass, but instead of reflecting light it seemed to gobble it up, as if darkness emanated from the inlay.
Could it be malignite? Ilia wondered with excitement.
“The left one looks like a bird, but with three wings and a—”
Before Ilia could finish her description, Coraline burst into the room panting hard. She had lost her void breather, and she was bleeding from numerous shallow cuts.
“Shack—” she bent double, hands on her knees.
“What?” Masak pressed.
Coraline sucked in air.
“Speak, woman,” Ilia ordered.
“Shackled,” Coraline gasped, “they’ve found us. Aput is dead. They’re coming.”
The four of them looked at each other in horror. Simon growled through the mask. All at once, Ilia could hear the guttural chittering moans of the Shackled echoing throughout the ossuary. Then Coraline was tossed aside like a sheaf of wheat and half a dozen Shackled bounded into the room, cowls thrown back, their hideous, deformed faces contorted in bloodlust and rage.
Without waiting for orders, Masak freed his quarterstaff from his belt and charged the snarling creatures.
“Find the key,” he yelled over his shoulder before bowling into the closest opponent. Ilia watched in horror as three of them threatened to overwhelm the arctic Ankhim. Masak lashed out with his staff catching the closest one in its gibbering maw. Blood, saliva, and rotten teeth burst from its jagged mouth. It yelped, falling back. Masak spun the staff to block the swing of a second Shackled as it attempted to cleave the Ankhim’s head from his shoulders with a rusty longsword. Masak snarled as the third Shackled got behind him and sank his teeth into the Ankhim’s shoulder.
At the scream of pain from Masak, Simon shook off his mask and charged into the fray, barking and snarling.
“No, Simon!” Ilia shouted. She knew the creature’s blood would kill Simon even if he managed to bring it down. Coraline realized the danger too, for she leapt to her feet, blades gleaming and jumped into the fray.
We’re trapped in here, Ilia thought.
She yelped as something grabbed her ankle from below. She started to kick it away before she realized it was Gearbox trying to get her attention.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“The symbols, tell me the symbols. If we can find the Shard Key perhaps we can get out of here.”
It took Ilia a moment to realize what he was asking. “What? How?”
“Keys open doors. We’re going to need a different one than we came in.”
Ilia nodded. It was still a feat to tear her eyes away from the ringing battle in the ossuary and back to the dark glyphs.
“It’s a bird with three wings, no two wings, and one foot is drawn up near its head.”
“Ankat,” Gearbox called up to her. Two of the Shackled had made it past the vanguard and were circling the golem, snarling and gnashing their broken teeth.
“What does it mean?”
“By itself–” Gearbox dodged a swiping claw, “any number of things.”
“Like what?”
“Tell me the other,” Gearbox shouted. One of the Shackled charged Gearbox. There were too many of them. More than Ilia thought the abandoned granary could hold. In one smooth motion, Gearbox drew his scimitar and sliced the creature in half from hip to shoulder. Its strident scream made Ilia want to cover her ears, and she nearly pitched backward off the wall. Steaming, black blood splattered Gearbox’s breastplate and the acid hissed as it ate away at the metal. Across the room, Coraline was beginning to glow from her chest as the void particulate burned her alive from within. Ilia swallowed hard. The acolyte was in excruciating pain, but she battled on, sai flashing as she stabbed one of the Shackled over and over until it fell backward into the passageway.
“Ilia, hurry,” Gearbox shouted.
Ilia turned her attention back to the relief. The second symbol was weathered making certain aspects of it difficult to interpret.
“It’s a circle with three lines through it,” she called.
Gearbox ducked under slashing claws, “vertical or horizontal?”
“Horizontal, wavy lines.”
Gearbox danced backward as another Shackled charged him, “Boros.”
“What does Ankat Boros mean?”
“I have no idea,” Gearbox stabbed the Shackled. It let out a pitiful yowl like a mutilated animal. But a smile played across its gruesome face, part-human, part-jackal. The skin had rotted through, exposing broken teeth and bleeding gums. Ilia’s stomach roiled with the realization that the Shackled’s tongue had been torn from his body.
“Are you sure the first symbol is Ankat?” Gearbox asked, pressing the attack.
“How would I know?”
“What’s it look like?”
“I told you, a tall bird. Two wings, one foot raised above its head.”
Gearbox parried, “Could it be a man?”
Ilia studied the rune. “Yes! It’s a man, not a bird, a winged man…in a noose.”
The injured Shackled tackled Gearbox to the ground, saliva dripping onto the golem’s faceplate. “Auda,” he called up to her, “audaboros.”
“What’s it mean?”
Gearbox curled his knees to his stomach, placing his feet on the Shackled’s chest. He kicked hard and the beast stumbled backwards. The golem scuttled to his feet. “It’s still nonsense, it means something like voice of the wind, wind song, box of wind, I don’t know.”
Ilia racked her brain. Coraline sprayed bloody sputum on her attacker across the room, as coughing racked her body. Masak and Simon stood back to tail, each bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts. Masak could not put his full weight on his left leg and his sword was pocked with dimples from the monsters’ acidic blood. Two more Shackled circled Gearbox. Her crew would die whether they won the fight or not.
Wind box, box of wind, Ilia grew excited, voice box! Throat!
She climbed a bit higher to get a better look at Corendar’s mouth. His lips were pressed tight together, but Ilia thought she could make out a hairline fracture between the two. She tried to force her fingers into the crack and pull down. Nothing moved. She pressed the stone all around Corendar’s mouth. Nothing budged.She lowered herself back to the torque and pushed against the symbols. Her trials were rewarded by a low grinding sound. Above her, Corendar’s mouth slid open. Around her the sounds of battle ceased as the Shackled realized what was happening. In unison they abandoned their fights and sprinted for Ilia.
Ilia stuck her hand inside Corendar’s mouth. She felt bugs, cobwebs, and many-legged critters skittering across the flesh of her arm. Normally this would have repulsed her, but four angry Shackled focused her mind. She groped wildly in the space within, searching for anything that might help her. Her fingers touched cold metal, but she couldn’t quite grab it. She shoved her arm in to the shoulder and grasped the object. The stone teeth of the imprisoned father of the gods cut her forearm. She pulled the relic free. She laughed and held up the key, triumphant. Then a pair of clawed hands grasped her ankles and wrenched her from her perch.
She hit the ground hard on her back, the wind driven from her. The key skittered across the floor, before disappearing into a muddy puddle. The Shackled were on her, butv Ilia’s training took over. The kukri at her belt was in her hand before she realized what she was doing. She jabbed the curved blade into the creature’s abdomen and pulled up toward its chin. The flesh of its face was mere inches from hers and covered in bloody pustules that dripped burning blood onto her breather. Its teeth were filed and it took all her strength with her offhand to keep the bony blades from tearing into her throat.
The creature screamed as she disemboweled it with the kukri and pushed it off of her. It died clutching at its entrails. Ilia had to move fast. In moments, the creature’s blood would dissolve her leather armor and leave third degree burns on her skin. She rolled onto her stomach and pointed towards the puddle.
“Simon, retrieve,” the dog broke off its attack and scampered for the puddle. He stuck his snout into the murky water and emerged moments later with the key clenched between his canines.
“Masak, get the dampener. Gearbox the door,” Ilia shouted through her mask as she jumped to her feet and backed toward the door. The double doors at the base of the relief were not locked and Gearbox threw himself against the resistance of their ancient, rusted hinges. Masak charged toward them, scooping up the dampener mid-run. He let out a heart-rending cry as he charged through the Shackled like a hound through frightened ducks, Coraline close on his heels. Ilia and Masak threw their weight against the door as Coraline tried to hold the Shackled at bay, her sais a whirl of flashing steel.
The door opened enough that they could slip through one at a time. With Coraline stabbing haphazardly through the shrinking gap, they managed to close the door behind them. Coraline’s glowing lungs and Gearbox’s eyes were the only light. The Shackled thumped against the other side of the door and Ilia could hear everyone’s heavy breathing.
“Do you have it?” the voice was Coraline’s.
“I do,” Ilia said.
A torch flared to light in Masak’s fist. It looked small in his massive hand. They stood in a square room, five meters to a side with no obvious exit. Ilia turned to Coraline and gasped. Runnels of skin, like beads of sweat, ran down her face. Her left eye had popped like an undercooked egg, the sclera dripping from her chin. Blood seeped from her pores and from a deep gash across her stomach. The woman would not live much longer.
How had she fought on this long? Ilia wondered, pulling off her own mask.
“Here put this on,” Ilia said, “it might not be too late.”
Neither woman could secure the breather to Coraline’s face. Her skin was tacky and they couldn’t get a seal. Ilia could feel her own body temperature rising as she breathed in the unfiltered void particulate. Coraline slumped to the floor, her body making an emetic sloshing noise. Ilia removed the breather and knelt before the acolyte.
“It was thanks to you and your early warning that we were able to secure the Shard Key,” Ilia said, ignoring the fact that they were still trapped. This dying woman did not have time for pessimism. “I underestimated your bravery, Coraline. I will secure a place for you in the Hall of Martyrs when we return. Nine blessings be upon you daughter of Rostovka.”
She finished and looked to Coraline for approval, but the woman was already dead. Ilia bit back tears and a frustrated scream.
“How do we get out of here?” Gearbox’s voice yanked her back to the present. Ilia masked her distress at Coraline’s gruesome appearance behind the mantle of command.
“The Key,” she said. What was it about the key? Oh yeah. “Open the dampener, we need to secure it.”
Masak offered her the device, but the dials were no longer glowing. Before Ilia could open the lid, she knew the void dampener was broken. “It’s no use, we’ll have to risk carrying the Key out in the open.”
Masak growled and hurled the expensive equipment against one wall where it shattered into myriad metal and ceramic pieces. Tears glinted in his eyes. Ilia placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Aput will be honored in the Hall right beside Coraline,” Ilia said, “I promise.”
“We have to return to the monastery first,” Masak complained.
“I may have a solution for that,” Gearbox said. He was standing next to another carving, a great circle with intricate edging. This one was much shallower and cruder than the depiction of the gods’ marriage in the ossuary.
“What kind of relief is that?” Ilia asked.
“The relief that comes with getting us out of here,” Gearbox said.
“Jokes? Really? Now?”
“It’s not a relief, it’s a gate.”
“A gate?”
“It’s called an Adhaesian Gate. Its position is fixed.”
“How do we open it?”
Gearbox pointed to the top of the circle where the voussoir featured a distinct keyhole. Ilia scrambled forward, leaving Masak to hold the door closed. Gearbox boosted her up and she fitted the Shard Key into the lock and turned. The gate hummed to life. Its stone surface transmuted into shimmery purple blackness. It was unlike any gate Ilia had ever seen. Usually, the gates were blue and green at the edges from the astral and aetherial magic that created them, and revealed a distant starfield. This one was swirling dark nothingness, a hole in the fabric of the World System.
“Where does it go?” Ilia asked.
Gearbox shrugged, “Does it matter?”
Ilia supposed it did not. “Simon, on me,” she called and leapt through the spinning portal.
The moment they emerged from the Adhaesian gate, Gearbox collapsed in a heap of metal, stone, and wood. The familiar blue glow of his batteries was gone. Masak breathed heavily beside her. Simon whimpered, a faint phosphorescence emanating from his chest cavity as the void particulate wreaked havoc.
“Gearbox, Gearbox, wake up,” Ilia shook the unconscious golem. When he did not respond, she took a screwdriver from her belt and began to open his back panel to check for damage.
“Your friend will not work here.”
Ilia spun toward the unfamiliar voice, brandishing the screwdriver overhand. When she saw the monster standing behind them, she dropped the makeshift weapon. The creature was the height of a dragon, but there the resemblance ended. From toe to shoulder she was two meters tall, and her neck added another meter, arcing so that the woman’s gaunt gray face hovered over Ilia. She could see each vertebra through the tattered skin of the creature’s neck. They clicked as the creature moved her head in a serpentine fashion.
“Who are you?” Ilia demanded, finding her voice at last.
The creature smiled, revealing elongated canines and too many teeth. “I have many names, but you may call me Tia.” The creature’s voice featured disparate tones creating eerie, complex chords.
“Where are we?”
Tia gestured wide with slender arms as if the answer were obvious. Her flesh hung loose, her muscles riddled with maggots.
Was this woman some kind of Shackled? Ilia wondered. She felt her gorge rise and fought against the pressure. She followed the creature’s gesture to the landscape around them.
They stood in a broken, rocky realm. Geysers of steam erupted at random intervals, and Ilia could feel the ground tremble as if a giant engine rumbled beneath them. The sky was black, devoid of any celestial body, while soft yellow light emanated from crystals embedded in the rock.
“This is Basalt,” Ilia said, recognizing it from descriptions during her studies at the monastery.
“It is,” Tia said.
Ilia risked a glance behind her to see the Adhaesian gate still spinning its fuliginous infinity. “Why doesn’t the golem work?”
“We are cut off from most magic here in this prison of Kade’s design. The golem’s spinners are useless. Fear not, if you leave this place, he will reboot and revive. The same cannot be said of your other companions, I’m afraid.” She delivered this news in a voice so musical and reassuring that Ilia struggled to absorb it.
“Simon!” Ilia cried, dropping to her knees to comfort the afflicted mastiff. Tia’s if was not lost on her despite her anguish.
“He is dying of exposure to void particulate. He will not worsen here, nor will he heal.”
Ilia looked at Masak, who leaned heavily on his quarterstaff. The Ankhim’s chalk white skin displayed myriad burns from the blood of the Shackled, and deep claw marks on his left abdomen bled freely. Masak’s chest rose and fell with slow deliberation. Her two remaining companions clung to life, but would not expire as long as they stayed in Basalt. To leave would be death for them.
“You are Ilia Vanguard,” Tia said. Ilia looked up, stunned to be recognized. “You are the daughter of Isaiah Vanguard, are you not?”
“I am Ilia Rostovka.” She stood. She would not die on her knees. “I am a hunt leader of the Reliquarists.”
Tia chuckled, a derisive sequence of major chords. “You are too young to be a hunt leader.”
“My maternal grandmother is Aika Saat, master of Mellibor, the River of Time.”
If Ilia expected the creature to be impressed, she was disappointed. Tia snorted. Delicate wisps of smoke rose from her reptilian nostrils and twisted around her face. “You are a dutiful grandchild, I see.”
“I am.” Ilia’s voice shook.
“You are older than you look.”
“What are you?” Ilia hated discussing her lineage, and it unnerved her how much this denizen of Basalt knew.
Tia raised her head and spread her arms wide, and tattered membranous wings which Ilia had not noticed spread behind them.
“Are you some kind of Seraph?”
“No, child, no,” Tia laughed, “I am a lich dragon.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“I am one of a kind.” Tia brought her face close to Ilia’s. It took every ounce of Ilia’s resolve not to recoil. Tia’s breath reeked of dry rot and decay. Maggots wriggled between her numerous teeth.
“What do you intend to do with us?”
“Do with you? You are trespassing here.”
“We fled the Shackled. This gate was our only way out.”
“This gate connects to the Daronic Cloister on Gaash and can only be opened by a Shard Key.”
“I know that now.”
“Clever girl to find such a key.”
“Is there a way out of here?”
Tia gestured toward the whirling portal behind them.
“I cannot go back. The Shackled will kill us.”
“I see.” Tia curled her neck to scratch her chin with a bony finger. “I can help with that.”
“Why would you do that?” Every fiber of Ilia’s being sensed a trap, but she did not think that she could avoid springing it upon herself and her companions given their desperate situation.
“I am dying,” Tia said.
“Everyone does, the Celestial Codex says even the gods will eventually whither and decay.”
“Ah, so you’ve read your Codex like a good little hunter, wonderful. I do not object to death. My life has been a long one, and the last centuries trapped here with Corendar were beyond tedious. The comatose lack conversational skills.”
“What do you want, then?”
“What any dying creature concerns itself with.” When Ilia did not answer, Tia gave an exasperated sigh. “Legacy.”
“What kind of legacy can a lich dragon have? Do you mean to leave this place?”
“Would that I could, but alas, no. It is not that simple. Basalt’s seals prevent me from walking through that gate. The magical stasis that encapsulates Basalt keeps me alive, though my other half died long ago.”
Ilia tried to imagine Tia with a spouse but could not. “Another lich dragon?”
“You aren’t listening, child. One lich dragon per realm by divine decree.”
“You had a partner?”
“An inadequate word, but it will do. One lich dragon, one necromancer.”
“Your partner was Jaspyr Qwell?”
“No, child, my mage lived and died well before Qwell. He sought me out but never found me.”
“How old are you?”
“My full name is Eltiamazadan Vaxoridi.”
Ilia reeled, “Vaxoridi?”
“You know it? It was my maiden name.”
“Anyone who has studied the Yazerite Empire knows that name. Crassnor Vaxoridi was the general who conquered Xys for the Yazerite king before Crassnor’s wife killed him for infidelity. That lead to the first Yaziri Civil War.”
“Crassnor was my older brother,” Tia smiled.
“That would make you—”
“Four thousand eight hundred and seventy-three.”
“That’s impossible.”
“The World System is vast and full of unexpected wonders. You would be wise to learn more before you deem things impossible.”
“What does any of this have to do with me? With your legacy?”
“There must be another lich dragon.”
Ilia stepped away, aghast. “No, absolutely not.”
Masak stepped forward, staff raised, though it clearly pained him, to defend Ilia. “No way, beast. Kill us or let us go and be done with it.”
In her fascination with the lich dragon, Ilia had forgotten Masak standing stoic and wounded behind her. Glancing at him now, she could see the pain of his wounds written deep in his eyes along with fathomless grief. Aput was dead, and even if they managed to get out of here and tend Masak’s wounds before he shared his brother’s fate, his heart and soul would never be whole.
“You don’t like what you see?” Tia smirked and a cluster of maggots dripped from her jaw. “No, child, you must be from dragon stock to accept this gift, to bond the next lich dragon.”
“None of us are dragons, I don’t understand.”
“One lich dragon, one necromancer.”
“So you said,” Ilia grew frustrated, “but Jaspyr Qwell is long dead.”
“Ilia,” Tia clicked a blackened tongue. “You are smarter than this.”
Ilia reeled as the implication struck here all at once. “No!” she cried, taking a step backward.
“Yes, child. You will be the necromancer and you will create the next lich dragon.”
“I will not,” Ilia said.
“Then your friends will all die.”
Ilia swallowed hard. “I wield no magic.”
“That is irrelevant to my purpose.”
What was she willing to trade for her hunter’s lives? Her friend’s lives? The stories of Qwell’s depravity were legendary among the Hunters. Two hundred years ago, the Rostovka monks had left their isolated monastery and joined forces with armies from across the World System to defeat him. I cannot become that.
“I took an oath,” Ilia said, “when I became a Hunter to root out the forces of chaos and death. I should kill you.”
Tia chuckled, grating mixolydian chords, and bared her chest. “You may try, child of Mellibor.”
Ilia took a long dagger from her belt, and held it in a sweaty hand, testing its weight. Tia pulled aside her tattered cloak to reveal a shriveled gray breast dangling limply below where her heart sat in her chest.
Ilia stepped forward. Dagger held out before her. She tried to imagine driving the blade deep into that hoary, suppurating skin.
“Why do you deny yourself?,” Tia said.
“What do you mean?”
“I have watched you these years, child of Mellibor. I know what you want.”
“How is that possible?” The dagger trembled in Ilia’s hand.
“You meditate and summon flames to heat you in the chill, but you dream of power. The power to challenge both your divine mother and your void-touched father.”
“You can’t know that.” Ilia was trembling now.
“It is obvious, child. You spout your lineage like a shield, but you feel it as chains. I offer you the ability to rival both of your parents. Together.”
To her horror, this idea appealed to Ilia, and this flustered her. She lowered her knife. “I should let you die.” But her tone betrayed her.
“If I die, you will all die, too. Return through that gate and your noble dog dies of void particulate exposure. Your Ankhim friend will succumb to his many wounds. Maybe you and that metal toy will cut through the remaining Shackled, maybe you won’t. Is that what you want, to be the sole survivor of your hunter’s troupe? To return to Rostovka without the key, your crew lost? Still powerless and inadequate? Could you live with yourself, then? Maybe the Shackled kill you. Maybe your grief drives your own hand. I do not care. I offer you the power to save yourself and your friends,” Tia paused, her eyes on Masak, “Even those you thought lost.” Her gaze fixed Ilia again. “You will wield power over the dead.”
“How does that help you?”
“You will make it possible for me to bear my son. Once born, he will require a host, a Xiamentarisia. You will secure that bond for him.”
“A dragon?”
Tia nodded, her vertebrae creaking.
“A willing dragon?”
“Are moral quandaries suddenly plaguing the mercenary?”
“I’m a hunter.”
“I see little difference,” Tia said.
“Do it,” Masak suddenly begged from behind her. “If it will save Aput. Please, Ilia.”
The pain in Masak’s voice battered her resolve. Simon whined, his tail thumping the stony ground, his green sweater bloodied. Ilia sighed. Even her dog had succumbed to the lich dragon’s offer.
“You will be great,” Tia said. “Think of it. Death will come to claim you and your friends, but you will exert dominion over it. You will take death by the throat and bend it to your will.”
“At what cost?” Ilia pressed.
“What is eternal life worth to you?”
“Enough riddles, dragon.” Ilia grew angry. “Speak plainly or we all die here in Basalt. Even you. Djinnar take your legacy.” Ilia expected the creature to be angry, but Tia’s face broke into a wide grin.
“You have some backbone in you, child. I worried you were already defeated. That is good. Mastery over death has its price, true, but the investment pays dividends. Think of your father. You envy Isaiah Vanguard, the mighty void mage, his power. You could put him to shame. Your visits to Mellibor would no longer steal life from your limbs. You could claim Rostovka Monastery as your own, make it a great power in the World System to rival the Society of Astrologia itself. Command the Shackled. Raise the dead. Ride my offspring as your mount. In time, you could be unstoppable. You could cast down the usurper god and free Corendar.”
A realization crashed into Ilia. “I would owe my allegiance to Corendar, imprisoned God of Chaos.”
“Yes,” Tia’s voice was soft, a papery hiss. “Bend the knee to the Father of the World System, take this power, and save your friends. With command of the Shackled, you can return through that gate and walk out of the Daronic cloister unmolested. In fact, take the cloister as your own, raise it up, build your army, concentrate your power, and aid the return of our lord.”
“Please, Ilia,” Masak said, “for Aput.”
Ilia knew Masak’s grief clouded his judgment, but she was not certain her own was trustworthy at this moment. The thought of so much power made her fingers and toes tingle.
“I should not do this,” Ilia said.
“Ilia,” Masak’s voice cracked.
Tia spoke over him, her face coming to rest inches from Ilia’s, “Don’t be a fool child. This power is offered once an epoch. You are the daughter of a demigod and a powerful mage. Assume your rightful place in the pantheon of power. Is loyalty to Corendar so terrible a price to pay?”
“I have sworn allegiance to the Rostovka monastery and to safeguarding the World System from rogue and powerful magicks. I cannot break one oath to make another.”
“What of Coraline’s oath? Of Aput’s? How will you fulfill your promises to them? You cannot enshrine them in your precious Hall of Martyrs if you do not return home.”
“My mother will see we are properly honored.”
“Your mother,” Tia clicked her forked tongue. “your mother is a fool and a coward.”
“My mother is the daughter of Aika Saat, you will show some respect, dragon.”
A delicate pause followed, then Tia threw her head back, its serpentine motions making Ilia queasy. Tia’s laughter sounded like two harps playing arpeggios, each slightly off from the metronome.
“Enough!” Ilia said, “show some respect.”
Tia’s face hardened, laugh lines replaced by a firm grimace. She slapped Ilia so hard, she fell sideways, cracking her head against the rough rocks. Ilia’s vision swam and tears of pain stung her eyes.
“I am done with you, child.” Tia’s voice dropped to a low growl, “you want to talk about respect? You stand in Basalt, on the threshold of the house of the true God of Chaos, before Eltiamazadan Vaxoridi, the most powerful dragon in the World System, and you lecture me on respect. I offer you power beyond your wildest imaginations, which you spurn. You spit in the face of Corendar, you petulant child.”
Ilia pushed herself up, where she swayed unsteadily on weak knees. “Kill me and exact the full retribution of the hunters. We will ensure you never leave Basalt, that Corendar never leaves Basalt, that the legacy of the lich dragon dies with you.” Ilia spat bloody phlegm to emphasize her point. Then she closed her eyes and waited for Tia’s fatal blow to end her life.
No such blow came. When Ilia finally opened her eyes once more, Tia was watching her with something akin to sadness etched upon her ancient face.
“You force my hand child.” Faster than Ilia thought possible, Tia sprang toward Masak, claws and teeth rending flesh and bone. Masak did not have time to cry out before his mangled corpse smacked wetly against the ground, entrails spilling from his exposed belly.
“No!” Ilia cried as Tia rounded on Simon. Ilia placed herself between the dragon and the dog. “Please, no!” she cried.
“You could have prevented this, child. Their deaths are your choice. Accept my offer and undo these murders. Bring your friends back to you. Save your precious monastery.”
“What do you mean save the monastery?”
“Ah,” Tia flowed toward her, “Did I not mention it earlier? The Shackled are laying siege to Rostovka as we speak. Your mother has mustered an ample defense, but the Shackled are many…and persistent. Bend the knee, take command, and call them off.”
“I can’t,” Ilia said. But even as she said this she knew she would. She dropped to her knees before Simon, burying her face and hands in the bloodstained green wool of his sweater. Tia must have sensed Ilia’s resolve breaking because she said nothing, only waited. Ilia felt the slow beat of Simon’s heart, as the void particulate infected his body. She inhaled deeply and turned to face the wretched dragon. She prostrated herself before the antique creature, her forehead pressed hard against the cold stone.
“I swear,” Ilia said, “I offer service to Corendar, the true God of Chaos.”
“Excellent, child. You have made the right choice.”
Ilia stood, “Call them off. End the siege at Rostovka.”
“Soon, child. Soon.” Tia crooned. The dragon reached a clawed hand into her own chest cavity. There was a crunch, followed by a rich squelching sound. Tia withdrew her hand and offered forth a fistful of stone shards glistening with crimson blood. “Swallow these. One each day for two weeks. Then your transformation will be complete. If you fail to finish, whether from pain or change of heart, you will die.”
“What are they?”
“Malignite pieces suffused with the aether rich blood of a lich dragon. Take of my body and eat, child.”
Ilia cautiously accepted the stone shards.
“Eat,” Tia encouraged.
Ilia picked up one of the jagged pieces, Tia’s blood staining her fingers. Without preamble, she popped it into her mouth and swallowed.
