Oltif flew through stone and earth at speeds few could manage even on the surface, her will and whispered words of power protecting her from sanding away skin. Two lightglobes, snapped into holders at her ankles, propelled her forward, while another globe hummed in front of her head, creating an airspace that collapsed behind her. I have to go faster. I can’t get caught.
She would be entering one of the Sidra’s most sacred places in moments, without invitation. It was a place reserved for kings, keepers, and Light Bringers. I’m not actually stepping on the soil, so I’m not technically breaking the law. That’s if I can get past the defenses.
The magic at the edge of the Sidran city of Ha’Freyne could be felt even miles away, repelling, distracting, pushing against her will. It buzzed in the scarred remnants of her right ear. She felt her trajectory curving. I hoped it wouldn’t be as strong, so deep. She poured her will into the three globes so they would carry her through. She locked them against influence so her course would continue even if she tried to stop them, even if she fell unconscious. Be straight and true. There’s no turning back now.
The buzzing in her ear became a whirlwind, a storm, crashing against her eardrum in waves. I’ve never heard such magic. Tendrils of frozen will prodded at her body, icy needles stabbed at her mind. It’s too much!
Oltif longed to turn. Every cell in her body screamed for her to abandon the course. It wasn’t dread, but a deep sense of wrongness. She begged the glass globes to turn, to let her stop. They ignored her. Her will faltered. The words of power fell from her mouth unanswered by the elements she controlled. Muscles failed, going limp as the full force of the ancient magic shut down nerve centers. Darkness spiraled around the edges of her vision, and her nose tingled with the numbness of impending unconsciousness. Her ear burned with countless ghostly screams.
Oltif slid to a halt as her protections sputtered out, sending dirt and sand crumbling over her. She coughed, clawing at earth and fighting the claustrophobia that warred within her. Even as tons of dirt threatened to crush her, the internal weight of the barrier faded.
A word of power sent the dark loam back, a thin shell of light holding death at bay. She curled up in the illumination, panting and shivering as the hum of the magic in her ear thinned to a high-pitched whine. Flashing Cadence, that hurt! How many souls had to die to make magic affect another’s will so?
Oltif shook off the chill on her heart and shot off once more, tunneling faster than ever beneath the red clover pathways and living ivory towers above, masking herself as much as possible. I may still get caught. There are powerful Sidra here.
She slowed, closing her eyes to let her will map out the Grove, dodging roots as thick as her torso while thin tendrils of her will searched through the rich soil for her prize. There! She spun through the earth and then stopped above the stone she’d dreamed of finding. She held her breath, pushing the shell of light outward. The globes flared, lighting the tiny cavern around her. She ran a hand through the loose soil beneath her, uncovering the glittering black that resembled obsidian. But you are so much more than that, aren’t you?
It was smaller than she’d imagined, the size of an Elinroll, a bite-sized sweet meant for festivals and marriages. She plucked it from the grips of Ealdar and held it close to her face, her breath stirring dust from its surface.
Her scarred ear buzzed once more with the introduction of powerful magic. It wasn’t coming from the stone. I am discovered! She clung to her prize and fought to stay under, her globes burning through weeks of stored sunlight and warmth, but they and her will were no match for her adversaries. Roots, rocks, and sand turned against her, pushing her to the surface. It must be a whole host of Light Bringers to counter my magic so easily.
Oltif popped from the soil like a cork on water, breaking free with an explosion of dirt and stone. She spoke the words of power to bring her to her feet as she spun to face whoever had pulled her from her task. Her lightglobes detached from metal clasps as soon as she landed, hovering to her sides and preparing for a fight. She gasped when she saw the beyond-black hand held out toward her. A fiery mane of red hair swirled with the wind of her arrival. He stood alone.
Taggers! She let her momentum fold her into a crouch and then a bow. Real fear ran through her for the first time since she’d decided to steal her way into the Grove. “I meant no trespass, Master Mage Taggers.”
“And yet you so willfully trespassed.” His voice thundered against her, augmented by his will. She sneaked a glance at the man she’d admired for years. He glared back, one eye smoldering an angry red-black, and the blue eye laughing. The thunder calmed. “And in a most impressive manner. Even the Dwaros don’t dig so fast. Why are you here?”
She dared a smile. “I needed something.”
He shook his head, his ebony eye leaving streaks across her vision when it moved. “What could you have possibly needed here, other than initiation to the Order? You have the skill, if not the restraint, but I suppose restraint can be taught.”
Oltif held out the stone. It seemed to burn in the embers of the dying day. “I came for this, a leftover piece of a god, frozen in time.”
He started at the sight of it, stumbling over his words. “W—what? Why? How?” He took a deep breath and found control. “I thought I destroyed all of that despicable mineral.”
“Not all.” Oltif caressed the stone with a finger. “I guessed there might be a piece or two left beneath the spot where Rho’s ingress was thwarted by our gods.”
“Why would you possibly want it? It’s disgusting!” He stepped toward her, his hand held out to take it from her.
The stone responded to Oltif’s will, dissolving into the skin of her palm, black lines stretching along her veins. Oh, Cadence, it burns! She gritted her teeth as she spoke. “I wanted it so I could apply to be your apprentice.”
He lunged at her, clawing at her hand. “Wait! What are you doing? Stop!”
Oltif could feel the tug of his will as dry fingers slid across her skin, but the stone was a part of her now. Even a will as strong as his could not directly affect her body without her permission. The skin of her right hand blackened, tingling as her cells absorbed the minerals. Her blood carried particles to her right eye, which embraced the strange material. She stared into the sad eyes of her hero as a perfect black ear sprouted from the scars she’d carried for so long. The pain subsided to a dull ache. “I’m like you now.”
Taggers shook her by the shoulders. “Stupid girl! You could have become my apprentice without disfiguring yourself.”
She smiled. “I was already disfigured.”
The anger in his face softened. He took her black hand in his flesh-toned one and rubbed at her altered skin. “You won’t be able to undo it. I’ve tried.”
“Undo it? I don’t want to undo it. Why would I?”
He whispered back, “Because we’re monsters. We carry pieces of death, pain, and emptiness in us. It’s ugly and vile in every way.”
“You really don’t see it?” She traced one of his shiny black veins with a fingertip. “This, here, is a reminder of victory, not death. You defeated Rho. You defeated his followers. You defeated the shadows they left behind. This is victory. When death came for you, you pushed the demon back.” She stared down at their clasped hands, her heartbeat loud in her chest. “It’s beautiful.”
Taggers blinked down at her. “I don’t know if you’re crazy or wise beyond your years.”
Oltif’s newly remade eye picked up the minute changes in his skin as blood pulsed and shifted inside him. I will learn what all of those mean, so I can read you. She nodded. “Both. You’ll learn to accept that as we work together.”
He let go of her hands and looked away. “I haven’t even accepted you as my apprentice. You are bold, aren’t you?”
“You will and I am.”
Taggers laughed. “Yes, I think I will, my impetuous young Light Bringer.”
She swallowed hard. “Light Bringer? I haven’t taken the trials.”
He waved a root back into the ground, smoothing out soil with muttered words of power. “You entered the Grove wielding light magic, some of it your own creation. That makes you an initiate, ready or not. You’re also a black-handed mage of Ealdar. Much like Rho’s mineral, the nickname sticks. You will never be just Oltif ever again.”
She jumped at the familiarity. “You know my name?”
He shrugged and pointed at the golden lightglobe that hovered over her head. “That told it to me years ago.” He turned and strode deeper into the Grove, disturbed soil returning to its place with each step, the warm buzz of his magic pleasant to her ear. “Your first lesson is to not use a lightglobe made by another mage while rocketing under the surface of enemy territory at the speed of sound.”
Oltif ran to catch up with him, the three glass globes trailing through the air behind her. “That’s how you found me?”
“A good mage always knows where his… or her… creations are.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I really hope this doesn’t become a legacy, mages painting their hands black a thousand years from now, or searching out hidden pieces of Rho in my name.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but Taggers stopped short, holding up a hand and hissing for silence. She started to protest, but then she felt it. A power flowed toward them from a thousand directions, through air and earth, piling upon itself, climbing into the sacred trees of the Grove, building, all without a warning sound in Oltif’s ear.
~
Light flared ahead, brighter than the setting sun. Oltif’s sensitive remade eye burned, brimming with tears, even as it picked through the light to reveal a redheaded woman stepping from the luminous ring. Oltif could see her, but not sense her in any other way.
The rift faded, but the woman continued to glow a faint blue, much like the trees of the Grove in the dimming light. The woman nodded to Taggers. “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s trouble in the abandoned home of our enemy.” Green-blue eyes turned on Oltif. “You’ll probably need your apprentice for this one.”
“How do you know…?” Oltif trailed off as the realization struck her, grabbing at Taggers’ arm. “The Spirit of Ealdar! She’s real?”
The woman laughed, vanished, and appeared at her side. “Of course I’m real, if not exactly a spirit. It’s a nickname someone gave me a few thousand years ago.” She shrugged. “Tags is right: they stick.” The woman vanished.
Oltif spun to find the spirit had moved again, leaning against a tree, a gauzy dress fluttering around her with more motion than the breeze warranted.
Taggers made introductions. “Oltif, meet Penny. Penny, meet Oltif, though it sounds like you were spying on us for a while, something I thought you were done with.”
Penny held up her index finger and thumb, close together. “Just a bit. It’s a hard habit to break.” She glanced back to Oltif. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Oltif could only shake her head as the sun set behind the distant cliffs where Ancients slept wrapped in iridescent wings. The twin moons clung to the horizon while silver leaves reflected their blue and green light.
“See, it’s fine.” Penny held up a hand to silence them both and gestured toward the fluttering leaves. “Shh, listen.” Tiny living threads imbedded in the bark caught the wind. Song flowed through and between the trees. The sound felt melancholy and sweet, sending Oltif’s mind adrift on the past. She rubbed her new onyx ear, thinking of all Rho’s defeat had cost them.
The three stood in silence for several minutes, the music of the Grove whispering warnings Oltif could sense, if not understand. Blue light coursed beneath the bark in time with each tree’s individual song. Oltif’s onyx eye picked up patterns and pulses she would have never noticed. “They talk to one another?” Her whisper broke the magic, ending the song abruptly.
“And to those who know how to listen.” Penny smiled, but there was no joy in it. She looked to Taggers. “You heard it?”
He swallowed, loud enough for Oltif to hear it. “Fear, coming from the North.”
Penny nodded, waving a hand in the air, where a map appeared. Oltif had to steady herself as the perspective shifted, flying over mountains, trees, and snow to a great castle made of ice. “Diresh left some nasty things behind in that citadel of hers. Something’s active. It has the trees worried.”
Oltif could still not sense Penny or the visual map. “How do you mask your magic so well?”
Penny looked at her, confusion lining her face. “What?” The spirit suddenly smiled. She split into two, each Penny wearing a new dress. These stepped to the side and split again. Four Pennies walked in a circular path around Oltif. “Oh, you mean stuff like this? It’s simple, really. It’s not magic.”
“What? It has to be?” Oltif watched as the Pennies met one another in their path, merging together into one again.
Taggers cocked his head at Penny. “I’m surprised you can still do things like that, though, considering…” He trailed off.
Penny picked it up for him. “Considering I’m no longer an ageless artificial intelligence existing as altered photons and directed soundwaves?”
“Yes, that.”
Oltif’s mouth fell open, but she didn’t ask the questions burning inside her.
Penny smiled at her. “It’s a long story, literally, and best held for another time. Let’s just say I was practically a spirit for about three thousand years. Now I’m corporeal. That’s simple, right?”
Oltif shook her head.
“Yeah, you’ll catch up, though. You’re clever, I can tell.” Penny winked at Oltif before pointing a finger at Taggers. “To answer you, though, I can still use my network, just not in the same way.” She sighed. “I’m in a tunnel under Landsfell with a device strapped to my face and a neural implant doing most of the work. It’s just not the same.”
Taggers took a step closer to Penny, like he might offer her some comfort, but he didn’t reach out. “Do you now miss what you were?”
“I do and I don’t. Being human is far more complex and messy than I ever imagined. Do you have any idea how inconvenient it is? I suppose you do. And don’t even get me started on how weird it is to use the bathroom!” She took a long breath before finishing. “Anyway, I came here for more pressing matters than my awkward transition.”
Taggers frowned, lines forming around his mouth. “What do you know?”
Penny zoomed in on the icy castle; red dots moved away from it in all directions. “I only know that what local wildlife there is in that frigid place has been fleeing the area. My sensors don’t go far into the Northern Wastes, and I can’t see everything all at once any more. I have to comb through the data the slow way.” She looked at Oltif. “I didn’t know you’d be here already, but I’m glad you came when you did.”
Taggers frowned deeper. “Sounds like you knew she was coming eventually?”
Penny traced a hand along Taggers’ jawline, not quite touching him. Oltif was beginning to understand that she could not touch him. “This world would have been lost without you, a hundred times over. I’m glad you survived the touch of Rho.”
Taggers closed his eyes. “You told her the mineral was here.”
Oltif shook her head. “No, it was an old man I met in the… oh.” She cut herself off as Penny melted into the man who had put Oltif on her current path. “It was you.”
“I’m not sure if I can forgive this one, Penny.” Taggers looked off into the Grove.
“You will someday. You need her, and she understands that that piece of Rho inside you is more than a stain. Trust me.” She stared at him until he finally looked her way, his face softening.
Oltif raised her unstained hand. “Um, sorry to interrupt, but how are we getting there?” She pointed at the delicate spires of ice that floated in the air beside Penny.
Penny jerked a thumb at Oltif. “Eager young pup, isn’t she. Reminds me of you a few years ago. First…” Penny flickered and appeared several feet away. “Damn these manual controls.” She flickered again and appeared right in front of Oltif, who jumped. “That’s better.” Penny peered into Oltif’s eyes.
This went on for several moments. Oltif tried not to shift under the gaze, but her nerves failed her and a tickling sensation rolled through her skin, raising goose flesh. She spoke out of the side of her mouth to Taggers. “What is she doing?”
He shrugged back. “I rarely know.”
“Shh! I’m fine-tuning your upgrades. You’ll need them.” At the same time that Penny spoke, a tight beam of sound that resembled a delicate whisper touched Oltif’s onyx ear. “I think you’ll be good for him. Keep him safe. He’s special.”
Oltif swallowed hard and nodded, uncomfortable under the unblinking blue-green eyes of the Spirit of Ealdar. “I will do my best.”
Penny leaned back, nodding with satisfaction. “I guess it’s about time we sent you both on your way. I’ve arranged for transportation.” She grimaced an apologetic glance at Taggers. “You won’t like it.”
Taggers sighed. “Dragons?”
Penny’s grimace deepened. “Worse, sorry.” She flickered and vanished, but her voice came from the air where she’d been. “Really, really sorry.”
A ball of crimson fire formed where she’d been, flames licking over one another in complex and intricate patterns. Oltif could feel no heat. She took two steps back anyway.
Taggers groaned next to her. “Oltif, meet Erastin, god of chaos. He likes entrances.”
A voice came from the flames. “Taggers, don’t ruin it. Let her enjoy it.” Thunder rolled and the fireball collapsed into a point of light that pulsed in blinding flashes as a figure appeared there in black and blood-red robes.
Oltif gasped, knelt and bowed, her head touching the ground.
Erastin put a hand on her shoulder. “As much as I appreciate the manners behind it, you never have to bow to me. Stand, little magelet.”
Taggers rolled his eyes, a hint of a smile playing across his lips. “You drew the short straw with your brother, then?”
Oltif stiffened as she stood up, half expecting Taggers to be struck dead for the familiar tone. But she found Erastin grinning.
Erastin feigned a pained look. “You wound me, Tags.” He touched over his heart. “It hurts right here.” The god leaned forward, his other hand extended. “It’s nice to see you, too.”
“Don’t you have to have a heart for it to hurt?” But Taggers gave the god his hand, wincing as the deity squeezed hard.
Erastin let go and turned his gaze to Oltif. “Ooooh, I do like the new look! It’s very Tags post-Rho.” He ran his hands down the black on his robes. “It’s also a slimming color.”
“Um, thank you.” Oltif didn’t know what else to say.
“So welcome. Ready?”
Taggers shook his head. “We need to gather supplies. I have some things in Ha’Freyne.” He glanced at Oltif. “But she’s going to need warmer clothing.”
Erastin snorted. “The question was a polite formality. I’m not coming back. If it didn’t indirectly involve Rho, I would have made you walk or fly one of those talking lizards Penny is so fond of. I might have even sent a blizzard your way just for fun.” He winked, grabbed them each by a wrist, and pulled them toward him.
Oltif felt the world spin as black and red flames curled around them, forming a fiery bubble. She felt a vague sensation of movement and a jerking stop. The shell of flame evaporated with an audible hiss that made Oltif’s ears pop. Erastin let go of her wrist and burst into bright flame, grinning as the wind took him away as flecks of ash. She shivered at the cold as snow fell from a dark sky, sticking to her eyelashes.
“He likes exits too.” Taggers growled, shaking his blackened fist at the dark sky. “I hate you!”
The god’s voice came from the icy wind. “You wish you could, but you don’t.”
“I’m trying awfully hard right now.”
“Head northwest. You’ll be fine.”
~
Taggers released his light globe. It hovered beside them, pulsing with waves of heat that pushed back the biting of the chill air but did not eliminate it. “We need to find shelter before night fully sets in and the temperature drops. We’ll die out here, even with our combined magic.”
Oltif looked up at the pitch-black sky, her breath a white cloud against it. “Night hasn’t set in? Are we at the citadel?”
“Close. We’re deep in the lands of the Sidra A’Tynine, the farthest north any human has gone.”
Oltif shivered. She’d seen the dark elves ride out of the Northern Wastes. She’d stood at Landsfell during the siege. She’d watched Rho tower over the city, a thousand obsidian arms waging destruction on all sides as waves of despair emanated from the god of darkness. She shivered harder. “The A’Tynine are dead.”
“Not all. Dispersed, broken, but not entirely gone.” He glanced around the bleak, snow-covered terrain, lit only by their globes. “There are other things to worry about. The Tyninians had allies.”
Oltif touched the blackened ear where a Sethki’s metallic claws had ripped away the original. “I know all too well.”
Twenty minutes of trudging through the knee-deep snow led them to a doorway, cut into the ice by masterful hands. Erastin hadn’t made them walk far. Oltif traced the beautiful designs in the crystal, feeling the sorrow, loss, and longing imbedded in the carvings. “Dwaro?”
Taggers nodded. “Slaves, forced to toil with ice and stone far from their homeland.” Taggers knelt, and Oltif could sense the tendrils of his will testing the doorway. She did the same, their magic intertwining as it searched for traps, both physical and magical.
Oltif found a spell woven into the roof of the cavern beyond. She severed the ties that would trigger it.
“Good work.” Taggers nodded his approval. “You missed this one, though.” His will held up a silvery thread of power that felt innocuous.
“That’s some form of lighting.” Then she saw it, a beam of light that would be invisible, but trigger alarms. “Clever.”
“Never underestimate the Sidra. They are inhumanly patient and wise, even the darker variety that once lived here.” He snipped the thread of magic with a whispered word and pushed the door open. It swung silently, on hinges made of ice. Just inside appeared two small packs with two coats draped against a stone beside them. “Thank you, Erastin.”
Oltif picked up the coat that looked like it had been tailored for her. “If he was going to give us supplies, why didn’t he give them to us when he dropped us off?”
“Because he’s kind of an ass. God of chaos and all. He grows on you, though.”
She slipped on the coat. It warmed with magic she couldn’t sense no matter how hard she pushed at it with her will. Her skin tingled with the happiness of heat. “Oh, he is so forgiven right now. I thought I’d never be warm again.”
Taggers stared down the ice corridor, lights deep within the crystallized water sparking to life at their presence. He began muttering words of power. Oltif could feel his will blazing through the building, mapping it out, searching for the problems that troubled the Grove. After a moment he turned, sagging at the expenditure. “I feel nothing.”
Oltif nodded. Her magic hadn’t gone as far as his, but she could find nothing wrong either. “That’s good, right?”
His face grew dim. “In my experience, no.”
~
Taggers slipped on his coat, rubbing hands over smooth fur. “Erastin has style. I think he made us wait for these just so we would appreciate them more. We’re here, well supplied, and relatively warm. We may as well explore. Stay alert.”
He slid his pack on and sauntered off down the intricately carved corridor, precious stones within the clear walls reflecting their light back as a thousand colors while fairy lights glimmered deep within the domed ice ceiling.
She followed, tripping over her feet as she stared at the majestic tunnels. The Sidra, even the Tynine, know how to build. Shimmering pools of light played out moving scenes on the path ahead as they walked. Battles waged, Rho rose from the void, Tyninians celebrated, the world fell before them, Rho consumed the stars as the Tyninians relished in the void left behind. “I’m glad that’s not how it happened, thank Cadence.” Oltif made the symbol of the first tree over her heart in homage to the god of sunlight.
“We came very close to that exact fate. Cadence and Elin almost lost.” Taggers then chuckled. “You should know he dislikes the symbols and worship. They both do.”
She ran to his side. “You know them too?”
“Yes.” He stared at a carving of the twin moons. “Her eyes really match the moons, one blue-gray and the other a stormy green, like the sky before a tornado. She’s kinder and wiser than you’d think, especially for someone so young.”
“Young?”
“Young and ageless. I hope you get to meet them someday. They’re hard to pin down and they don’t follow the same rules of time as we do. It’s far more complex than the scholars or priests make it out to be.”
“I’m starting to see that.” She thought of her brief moment with the god of chaos. “Erastin wasn’t what I expected.”
“He is surprising, that one.” Taggers slowed and put a finger to his lips to silence her next question. He pointed ahead.
Oltif reached out, whispering the words of power and feeling the energy leave her as she sent out tendrils to question the darkness ahead. She found nothing: pockets of pure nothing, actually, which was more disturbing than finding something. Holes appeared in her senses, points of darkness where her magic failed to find ice, stone, or even air. She pushed harder and found a deeper nothing. She hissed. “What in Elin’s all-seeing orbs is that?”
“No idea.” He shook his head. “Can’t be good.”
The walls ahead shuddered with movement that Oltif could see with her eyes, but not follow with her magic. Something the size of a wolf sprang from the darkened tunnel ahead and slammed into Taggers, sending him tumbling back along the glassy floor, chittering sounds echoing along icy walls.
~
Oltif ran toward her master, but staggered as something sliced at the back of her leg. She kicked out, blindly connecting with what felt like stone. A squealing came from behind, and a skittering of many legs moving away. She didn’t look back. Taggers was still in trouble.
A creature that resembled a beetle clung to his coat, slashing at his face, upheld arms, and chest with blue-black tentacles that looked sharp as obsidian. Oltif staggered to his side, dragging her numbing leg behind her, trying to ignore the smear of blood she could see out of the corner of her eye.
She grabbed at the beast on top of Taggers; her blackened fingers cracked through the steely exterior, muscles and tendons strengthened by the mineral in her veins and by the power of her will. She pulled, and the insectoid slammed into the ceiling, trailing ichor that burned Oltif’s skin where it landed.
The creature clung to the ceiling and cocked a head with too many eyes at her. The wound sparked like lightning and began to close.
Oltif staggered as an electrical pulse flowed through the ichor on her hand and she fell into an alien landscape of swirling gray and endless cold. A constant hunger ate at her, but there was no fear. She was a part of something larger, more important than just herself, something ancient, calculating, and beyond understanding. This great being kept her safe, connected to her countless cousins that clung together as a web in the darkness. Rho was her, and she was Rho.
Then Rho abandoned her, tearing his intellect, protection, and power away, leaving her alone, empty, and lost in the emptiness between worlds. Something slashed at her in the darkness. She spun, creating the eyes she would need to defend herself. Claws and teeth followed. She tore into her attacker, tasting his blood.
A flash of bright light brought her back to the icy tunnel. Someone was screaming, the sound harsh after the silence of the void. The beetle creature broke into shards of glass, raining down from the ceiling, one of Taggers’ light globes burning where it had been. The screaming didn’t stop. She blinked, wondering how the beetle could still scream after crumbling to dust. Taggers shook her, his face covered in blood and blackened burns, and she realized it was her screams she was hearing. She closed her mouth.
“You’re okay. It’s dead.”
Oltif swallowed, her throat raw. She felt her eyes go wide. “The others?”
He looked behind her. “Gone.” He pointed down at her lightglobes, attached to her boots. “Those kept them back long enough for them to see we could hurt them. I think they ran.” He took a deep breath and turned back to her. “The real question is what are they? They aren’t shadows, but they’re hurt by Cadence’s light.”
Oltif shivered, whispering the answer. “They’re the shattered pieces of a god.”
“What do you know?”
She shook her head. Words failed to describe where she had gone and what she had seen. Another scream bubbled up inside her, but she swallowed it and kept shaking her head until he got up and opened his pack.
~
Oltif sipped the tea Taggers had made after he’d melted down and boiled a chunk of the wall over his globe. Together they had managed to produce enough magic to seal the deepest of the gashes in her leg and on his face. The coat had protected his arms and chest.
Taggers then set a globe pulsing warmth and light between them, like a campfire. She grimaced at the waste of concentrated sunlight. “We should be saving that. Not much sun down here to charge them with.” It hurt to talk.
“My globes may surprise you.”
She arched an eyebrow and took a closer look, whispering words of power. She could sense energy pouring into it almost as fast as it went out. “How?”
He tried to smile, but the pink scar on his face puckered and he winced the smile away. It didn’t help that the beetle’s blood seemed to resist their magic. “The sun shines even when it is behind a cloud, even when it has one of the moons between us and it. It shines at night. So do the stars, the great red nebulae; even the empty spaces in the sky are full of light and life if you look close enough.”
“None of that explains how you’re recharging your globe in an ice cave under a ton of stone and snow in the middle of the night.”
He managed a half-smile. “I rarely get to talk about these things with anyone.”
She smiled back, hiding the pain in her leg. “You will never bore me with the science of magic.”
“Science of magic? I like that.” He sipped his own tea and held a hand out to the globe. His scar grew slightly paler. “The light we see is not the only way a star shines.”
Oltif shook her head. “Now I don’t understand.”
Taggers pulled a tiny globe from a pocket. He set it adrift on the air, letting it float over to her. “Look through that.”
Oltif complied, putting it to her onyx eye, closing the other to focus on the images through the glass. “What am I looking… oooooohhh!” The world on the other side of the globe swam with light. Some of it glowed in deep reds, others flew by in specks of blue light that were hard to follow and then were lost as they sped through ice and stone. Some flowed in undulating waves. She could see the nebula far above them, and countless stars. “What is this?”
“The song of the universe.” There was a seriousness to his voice. “Everything is alive. Everything sings, from the stars in the heavens to the tiniest fragment when you shatter a mote of dust into a hundred pieces. It is this song we manipulate with magic, pushing our will into it. We understand but a fraction.”
Oltif breathed in his words, staring at the magical dance of particles and energies she had not known existed, and admiring Taggers’ magic that pulled from a dozen of these energy sources at once. “I didn’t know I had so much left to learn.”
Taggers managed a laugh. “Really? You wanted to be my apprentice and thought I wouldn’t teach you anything?”
Oltif blushed, pulling the globe from her view with great hesitation. “I’m very good.”
Taggers shook his head, the globe hovering back to his palm. “Yes, you are. I’m better.” He slipped the glass ball into his cloak. “Can you tell me now what you saw when the creature was healing itself?”
Oltif nodded, fear constricting her heart. “I can try.” She sucked in a deep breath of the frosty air and rubbed at her leg with blackened fingers. “The pieces of Rho inside me seemed to connect with it. I was there, in the void. I touched a memory, felt what they felt, saw what they saw.” She paused.
Taggers slid closer to her, taking her hand. “Go on.”
Tears stung her eyes as she felt the terrible loss of Rho once more. “He left them behind, pouring his consciousness out of the void and abandoning the living cells of his body. They are him, but not him. They’re much like children left in the dark. They had no guidance. They had so little left. They had to fight to survive.”
“Did you see how many came through?”
“No, but there were millions of them left behind. I don’t know how many survived. Thousands? Hundreds?” She swallowed, her mouth bitter. “They fell to cannibalism and despair in the memory. Somehow they managed to reorganize.”
Taggers pulled away, stood, and paced back and forth in the icy tunnel, before slumping against a carved wall. “Well that’s far worse than anything I could have imagined. I should have known as soon as Erastin showed up that things had to be bad, but this?”
“Is it weird I feel sorry for them?”
“For Erastin?”
“I was talking about the obsidian beetles. Do we have a better name for them?”
Taggers shrugged. “You’re the one who got in their heads. What do they call themselves?”
“It wasn’t like they were using a language I know. They don’t think like we do. It was all electricity and patterns, visions and stunted emotions.”
“Rho’s nanites survived without him.” Taggers sank lower against the wall, as though partially deflated. “And found a way through after him.”
“What are nanites?”
“How do I explain nanites? Penny kept going on about microscopic machines, like I’d had any experience with microscopes or machines at the time.” He stopped and shrugged an apology to Oltif. “Sorry, I’m doing the same thing she did.”
“It seems you are.”
“Okay, nanites are like tiny lightglobes. You’ve made at least two of those. Think of ones small enough to flow through your veins, each one linked to the others by the energies I just showed you. That’s how they communicate, giving each other simple commands to follow. Does that make sense?”
Oltif nodded, even though she wasn’t sure.
“Good. Penny uses them as tools. The gods used them to create the races. The Dwaros still have them, guiding them through song to manipulate metal, stone” —he waved at the carved wall at his back— “and ice so perfectly.”
Oltif nodded. “I met a Dwaro once. She was full of sparkling living lights that danced to the sound of her voice. I knew they were part of her magic. I just assumed they were tiny earth spirits.”
Taggers put a hand to his chin. “As apt a description as any.”
Oltif felt her mind stretch as she absorbed the new perspectives and ideas. “So you’re saying Rho was like a giant Dwaro?”
His face scrunched up as he thought. “In a way. Imagine if your Dwaro friend were dropped into the void. She would use her tiny earth spirits to survive, singing for them to find a way to feed and sustain her. Each spirit would absorb a part of that realm, becoming one with it. They would grow, reproduce, find resources, do their best with what they could scavenge from the void. But what happens after a hundred years? After a thousand? After a million? What happens after both that Dwaro and her earth spirits have long ago gone mad?”
Oltif felt the blood drain from her face. “Oh my Cadence, are you telling me that Rho really was once a Dwaro? That’s horrible!”
“No, but something similar. A god born of darkness and despair, driven mad by millennia in the void, kept alive by endless generations of these minuscule living things.”
Oltif adjusted the pelt under her that kept the cold of the floor from creeping into her body. “So these beetles are full of millions of lightglobes with pieces of the void inside them?”
Taggers slid up the wall. “Yes. It also means we can’t rest. They are as bad as Rho. They’re driven by an insatiable hunger, yes?”
Oltif nodded. “It’s more than that. They want to be what they once were.”
Taggers closed his pack and slipped it on. “Ealdar has the resources to make that possible. They will hollow our world out like maggots would a corpse, and then move on to another world, and then another.”
~
The obsidian beetles ran before them, repelled by the light and warmth of their globes, turning to fight every few hundred paces, testing the limits of the magic of their pursuers. Each time they fought better, attacking from the sides, setting traps, hiding down side tunnels and waiting to flank their enemies. They’re learning. “Clever things.”
“What was that?” Taggers panted at her side. He’d healed most of the wounds inflicted by the first creature they’d encountered, but they’d been sprinting for hours through the tunnels, fighting often, guided by the scraping sound of glass limbs on ice and stone. They’d also had to backtrack several times when the path had dead-ended or the tunnels had collapsed due to neglect or sabotage.
“They’re smarter than they look. I think they’re setting a trap.”
“I know.” He leaned against a wall. “Not much we can do about it. They don’t have magic, but they are part of the void, so they’re hard to see.”
Oltif waved ahead. Her globe that hovered there sent out a spray of red light across the icy walls, floor, and ceiling, dots highlighting where each creature scurried. She smiled as his jaw dropped. “I’ve been teaching it to look for holes in perception and show them to us.” Hundreds of red dots appeared ahead, crawling around one large, red dot. She pointed. “What do you think that is?”
He managed a whistle. “The most discouraging thing I’ve seen all day. That would be the portal they’re coming through. Look.” More red dots appeared next to the large one, moving outward. “We have to hurry.”
Oltif fell silent. Her globes had more to learn if they were to survive the next half hour.
~
Oltif slashed at the beetle, the improved globe in her hand cracking its metallic shell, spraying the delicate carvings on the ceiling with black blood that hissed in the light. She kicked at another. It jumped to a far wall before her lightglobe could affect it. The creatures had tried to set an ambush, but Oltif’s display had given them a few minutes of warning, not that it was helping much. She willed her third globe out of its clasps and into the face of another beetle.
Tentacles rose to block her light, but she blazed it brighter and faster, slamming it through limbs that shattered and fell as ash. Taggers held off at least a dozen of the beetles, five globes spinning around him in a dance of light. Five of the demons fell before they turned and ran.
Oltif slumped to the cold ground. “They’re getting more desperate.”
Taggers slid next to her. “We’re close. They’ll defend in earnest if you make it to the portal, I’m sure of it.”
Oltif rolled her head into his shoulder. “That wasn’t in earnest? Cadence help us!”
“I wish he was here too.” He leaned into her. “Can you turn your display on again, just so we know what we’re getting into?”
She willed it on. A ball of squirming red light formed ahead as thousands of the beetles crawled over one another. “The chamber off to the right is full of them.”
“You can turn back now. I’d understand.” The hand he placed around her shoulder was gentle.
“Turn back?” Part of her wanted to run from this place. There was a hint of the connection with the beetles left. She could feel the hunger, the pain, the desires emanating from the creatures on the other side of the thick wall of ice and stone. “I’ve always wondered what the bards would rhyme with Oltif.” Her smile felt thin as paper as she whispered. “I won’t step back and watch my world fall. We go on.”
He squeezed. “Okay, then. We go in.”
She met his eyes. “Do we have a plan?”
He shook his head. “Half of one. Make a path to the portal. I’ll close it.” He shivered as skittering sounds came from the other side of the wall. “I think they’re trying to herd us to the entrance over there now, but we’re going through here.” He pointed to the wall where the red dots seemed farther away. “Are you ready?”
She nodded, swallowing her fear and turning off the display. It wouldn’t serve them any better than their own eyes on the far side.
He met her eyes, his unblinking. “Stay alive.”
“You, too. I have more to learn.”
~
The wall dissolved as the heat of their globes pulsed through it in a cone-shaped blast. Beetles rained down in front of the sudden doorway, their tentacles slashing at air. Some of the creatures shattered at the touch of their light, but not as many as would have hours before.
They’re learning to resist our light. Oltif followed Taggers in. Her mouth fell open. They’ve been busy.
Hundreds of the creatures anchored themselves into the great domed roof above them. Strings of beetles formed webs below those, dangling over the carved doorway on the far side of the room. The entrance from this side had surprised the horde, but the webs had already begun to shift their way and new webs sprouted from the floor to block the path toward the portal that breathed at the center of the room.
Oltif sprinted into the room, jumping down the terraced steps and kicking at beetles with her light-powered boots. They crumbled before her.
Taggers flew past, spinning through the air with a globe in each hand and more flying around him, webs of beetles falling in his wake. Oltif rocketed after him, willing herself to plow through the shattered remains of dying beetles. The horde pulled back and a path opened to the portal. “We’re going to make it!”
A chittering sound rolled through the room. The connection Oltif had with the creatures came back in force, sending her skidding against a hard ice terrace and half a dozen steely carapaces as her focus slipped. Dread crept into her heart as she bounced to a stop against a sharp limb. Blood dribbled past her onyx eye, but it could see through it. Tentacles slashed at her, slicing through skin and the thinner clothing over her legs. Warmth and hope leaked from her on all sides.
Taggers was there, standing over her, his globes flaring like fire in his hands. The beetles moved back, but not as far as they had before. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“We’re too late. She’s here.” Oltif rolled onto her back and pointed.
“Who?”
The portal flickered with blue lightning as a bulbous face full of eyes and clattering mandibles pushed through the rip in reality. “A queen. She’s what organized them and brought them here.”
The chittering sound deepened and grew more menacing. Taggers growled. “That doesn’t change anything. Listen. They’re scared.”
Oltif managed to sit up. She pulled back from the connection as far as she could, but it clung to her mind like an angry Daytha. “They’re not frightened. They’re cheering. She’s figuring out our magic.”
Taggers slammed one of his fiery globes into a beetle. Its shell cracked and it shot back, squealing in pain, but it didn’t shatter. He hit it again, and it split open, leaking ichor as it died. The blood drained from his face. “That makes this harder.” He spit after he turned to look at the queen. “Damn, she’s not coming fully through. I don’t know if I can close it with something spanning the gap between realms.”
Oltif could feel the queen working out how to counteract their magic. They had seconds left before the whole force of the horde would pounce. The mineral in her veins pulsed with the connection: a petrified piece of a god, an extension of his body, much like these poor beings, tiny earth spirits but mine aren’t as active. What made them different? It hit her. “I can seal it.”
“What?” Taggers reached down to her, but she shook her head.
“Stay alive,” she said to him as a way of goodbye, and burrowed beneath the ice, burning through almost all the power she had left. She exploded from the cavern floor just below the portal and plunged her hand into the queen, willing the connection to increase. This is going to hurt both of us. The queen screamed, teeth, claws, and glassy tentacles ripping into weak human flesh. Oltif screamed, too, and the beetles took up the cry, the sound shaking the domed room, sending chunks of ice raining down.
She fell into the patterns of the nanites, picking at the codes and waves, revealing their secrets. Rho left you behind for a reason. Her light globes winked out as she pulled all the power out of them. She didn’t need them any longer. She closed her eyes, welcoming the darkness, the joy of oblivion. Machines can be shut down. That makes you a weakness.
The queen froze mid-slash, tentacles hardening like stone around Oltif’s body, her hand locked inside the vile, solidifying body. Silence fell, followed by the deadly rain of obsidian beetles. They bounced off the tentacles that now protected her. Oltif slumped into the death-grip of the queen, blood trickling from a hundred wounds, cold pouring into her as the connection broke. She used the last bit of her will to sew the portal shut, using the queen’s body as both needle and thread.
Taggers’ face hovered into view. “You are insane… and a genius. Let’s get you out of there.”
Oltif smiled, sleepy and weak. “At least your next apprentice won’t have much trouble finding more of Rho’s body to make herself like you.” She coughed up blackened blood. “I’m just sad I didn’t get to enjoy being part of the story a little longer.”
Taggers slammed a globe into a tentacle, cracking the black stone. “You don’t get to quit that easily, Light Bringer.” He swung again, breaking off a chunk of the queen. “Erastin, we’ve cleaned up your mess. Don’t you let her die!”
Oltif was having trouble hearing him. The cold had passed and she felt warm. She tried to tell Taggers that it was okay, that she was happy, but her mouth didn’t work. Black spiraled in from the corners of her vision, and her body shook with the clang of glass against stone. She felt a vague sense of movement as a light grew closer, drawing her in. I’m ready.
Erastin’s voice came to her. I am not.
What?
Just listen to the mess your death would make.
The sound of Taggers pounding against the tentacles came to her ears, but distant and hollow. “I’ll climb up there and make you. Penny will help me do it, too! She’d enjoy it. And, if Cadence and Elin ever come back, they’ll be more than happy to…”
Erastin spoke to her again from the golden glow that surrounded her. I like Tags more than most, so his new girlfriend isn’t going to die just yet. You have much more to do anyway.
Oltif felt warmth flow through her. Can the dead blush? I’m his apprentice, not his girlf—
Shhh, child. I’m a tiny bit proud of you, a rare feeling, so enjoy it. I’m also not risking the headache our dear Tags might inflict on me. Do you truly want that in your life?
I do.
Then good luck to you. The golden glow faded back to black. You’ll need it.
“I’m telling you that no” —the tentacle over her neck crumpled, and gentle hands kept the stone from falling over her as they picked the pieces away— “place will be safe!”
Oltif realized she was hearing Taggers through her own ears once more. She smiled, leaning into the stone grasp of the dead queen. “As much as I appreciate you threatening the gods for me, I could use some help freeing my hand here, and I don’t feel like you’re giving it your whole attention.” Lightglobes flared as obsidian shattered to dust and ash. “That’s better.”
Charlie Pulsipher Biography
Charlie Pulsipher is a were-hamster and lemur enthusiast who lives in Saint George, Utah with his lovely wife and neurotic dog. He writes sci-fi and fantasy or some mix of the two when he isn’t sculpting steampunk dragons and dinosaurs out of cardboard. He’s written several books that do not smell like cheese, with the reviews to prove it. He also plans on surviving the inevitable zombie-pocalypse that will surely start when dust bunnies rise up against their vacuum cleaner masters.
Find him online at www.charliepulsipher.com