Page 8

“Mishtaan, how old are you?” she said.

“Ages beyond your years, hungry one.

I walked this planet before your kind developed enough sapience to give it a name.

Before the pale magic claimed the world.

Before the sun was red.”

“But the sun is no longer red, mishtaan,” she lied.

Silence.

“You have not left these tunnels since the lichtvallen, have you?”

“Lichtvallen is a human word.

You do not even understand that term which your kind created, pitiable human.

You blunder blindly through your existence.

When the sun grows dark, then will you know.

When the bells fall silent forever, then will your feeble kind begin to understand.

But then it will be too late.

Just as it grows too late for you now.”

“You hide in these hollows, do you?”

She watched the flicker of false flames on the curved tunnel walls.

“Perhaps you are not a genuine mishtaan after all, skulking in the dark like this.”

The flames flared, then vanished.

Silence.

Esterra gripped her blade before her and placed her back against the wall.

The air grew as bitterly cold as a knife’s edge, and still she heard nothing.

Then, much closer than before, the chopped voices whispered their reply from the darkness.

“My domain has changed shape, human.

But I remain sovereign.”

“Sovereign of what, a tunnel? Looks more like a cage, I’d say.”

Claws raked across the walls, seemingly just ahead.

Esterra’s sharp breath came in gasps.

She worried that she could not mask her fear, but channelling the emotions into her proud and mocking words seemed to work.

She hoped the creature could not discern the difference, cutoff as it was from the world and the humans that scampered and scurried across its wastes.

Breath hissed across her face, and she almost gagged.

Rank and rotten, the air reeked of death.

The mishtaan’s jaws creaked in the darkness before her face.

It was happy to play with its food.

Elder beasts such as these were not afraid of sundown or sunrise in the hollows.

The creature was not wrong when it said it held dominion here.

“Show me your glory, then, oh king,”

she whispered, sweat slicking the grip of her knife.

The subtle flickering returned, a false orange glow of campfires filling the cavern, emanating from nowhere and everywhere.

Esterra cowered down.

Over her loomed a twisted body.

Three giant heads, half human and half reptile, twisted on a single thin neck.

Elongated ribs had bent upwards and twisted together into a spiked collar around the neck.

Muscles rippled under the gaunt, infinitely wrinkled skin, an ocean of power beneath the albino surface.

The light ran slick across it, like grease over a hot skillet, dipped in and out of the crevices and folds only to appear again elsewhere with burning urgency. The faces leered at her through bulbous eyes milky with cataracts. One head stretched forward and opened its foul mouth with a sickening grin still pasted across it, and she saw two rows of crooked fangs, glistening and black. The stench of decaying flesh brought bile to Esterra’s throat. She forced it back down. Four spindly legs held the beast up, like a spider, and its short tail flicked back and forth with serpentine movements.

“Now do you see us, little human?”

one of the faces said, spittle pattering her cheek.

“Aye, I see you,”

she replied.

Her right arm flared with licht, and she lifted her glowing hand before her.

“Do you see this?”

The three heads screamed in unison, bursting one of Esterra’s eardrums.

She grit her teeth and clenched her glowing fingers around the demon’s throat, slashing with her blade at the same time.

Bloody steam hissed around her clawed fingers of light, and the heads shrieked in sudden pain.

The creature twisted and pushed away from her with its crooked limbs, breaking free with a great burst of strength.

It vanished into the darkness, shrieks fading like mist in the wind.

She forced the licht back into her arm, pushing back the raging need to hunt.

“Not now, you cursed filth.

You will not trick me into thinking you an ally.”

Her arm returned to its normal, desiccated state, falling limp to her side.

Wiping her bloodied dagger, she rose to her feet.

Sunset hung heavy over her mind.

Hollows were rarely safe.

Either the licht filled them, leading to the corruption of one’s body, or there was no licht at all.

The dry walls, the mishtaan, and the sharpness of the rocks all pointed to a fresh break in the stone of the hollow.

The words of a woman she had met in the Tract of Sleep filtered back to her through old memories.

“There are great powers in Verpace,”

the woman had told her, voice reeking of the drugged air of the tract.

“Light and shadow, and deeper magic within the land itself.

Hidden once upon a time, it has been torn up from the depths.

And so, even with your curse, you’ll find magics which are dangerous, vicious, and foul.

The forgotten war did not bring only the magic, but also the users of these magics.

Caracan, mishtaan, verpii, and favii, and the masters of all these.

And the hollows, aye, they hold these grey magics, these middling powers, even today.

“The hollows are unstable.

To think them any more sane than the tracts we dwell in would be foolish indeed.

No, the hollows change, every dawn and dusk.

New tunnels, new paths, new ways, particularly near the entrance.

Never the same, unless the licht should fill them.

The stones shift in these times, most especially near the entrance.

And I have heard the screams of those who did not escape in time, little Esterra. The screams, and the crunching of their bones as Verpace fed.”

Esterra shivered.

The Tract of Sleep was far behind her now, but those words were ever in her mind as she traversed the hollows.

She had been only seven years old.

Fresh from the City of Exiles, her father’s last words of advice still lingering in her battered little mind.

Esterra spat to the side.

They had been harsh, those first years.

Living like an animal, surviving the evils of the Exiles in their decrepit tracts, wallowing through the muck and filth and utter dreck that was humanity. Humans of vile nature and primitive humanity, ripping their living from others without hesitation. She had grown strong. Strong and cold, like the licht itself. She swore, blinking the tears out of her eyes. This was no time for weakness.

Esterra continued through the tunnels, her rekindled torch held high, her eyes scanning constantly, ears on edge, muscles tense with anticipation.

The stone was beginning to creak and crack now, and her heart beat with a sense of panic.

The mishtaan kept completely silent.

But the old magics were never to be insulted without retribution.

Verpace’s depths was the final refuge for the oldest of this world’s denizens, whose pride was rivalled only by that of the humans they preyed upon.

The creature could hide in the tunnels without being crushed, since its unknown magics ruled here.

But it would not rest until she was dead or escaped from the hollow. She had angered the demon, and it would do its utmost to hunt her down before she could make her escape. Its revenge must come before the sunset. It hungered for the killing blow.

As if reading her thoughts, eerie singing, no doubt stolen from the throats of previous victims, reverberated through the hollow.

The sun is setting, make haste, make haste!

Stones breakkk-k-k-k in vicious snaps, and we

Must rush on through this dark and barren waste

Run, my children, quickly we must flee

Esterra could not pinpoint the direction, and the two voices of the hellish heads ended the verse in a cackle of heated lust.

Yeah, but you mourn the loss of the third, you bastard , she thought.

She waved her torch about her, looking for telltale signs of the thing.

Nothing.

Firelight glimmered in a tunnel briefly, but was gone in a moment.

She thought it flickered again in one of the side crevices, just in the corner of her eye, yet when she turned to look, there was nothing.

Her senses mistook the flickering sparks of her torch for blind eyes. She swore under her breath.

Her dead arm, corrupted to the elbow, begged again for release.

Every fibre of her being wanted to unleash the hell that lay dormant there, to cut a path through to the exit.

But her mind, hard and cold, refused to bend to the persistent call.

I am my own mistress , she thought.

I serve neither the licht nor the mishtaan, no magic of this world or any other.

She clenched her jaw and moved on.

The licht’s insistence did not waver.

A vast cavern opened before her, and she felt a slight breeze.

From a ragged slash in the wall ahead, red evening light filtered into the chamber.

A hundred dark crevices lined the walls of the mishtaan’s nest.

Her boots crunched on the bones of various creatures.

The entire floor was carpeted with them.

She threw her torch into the middle of the cavern, immediately drawing her knife, turning on her feet, eyes wide.

The attack would come here, and quickly.

Silent as a snake, the mishtaan leapt.

But Esterra’s knife flashed out with equal swiftness, and slashed one of the skull-like faces open as she leapt back.

The creature hissed.

Deep red blood splashed down onto the bones covering the floor.

It hissed as the ancient magic within it contacted the material world.

Esterra smiled grimly.

The blood boiled along the edge of her blade as well, raising a terrible stink.

The demon sidled around her, blocking the exit from the hollow.

Its clawed feet brushed through the ashen bones, which lay many feet deep.

“We wouldn’t want our guest to leave yet,”

it hissed to itself.

“Why, the meal is almost ready.

A feisty one it is, too.”

The two surviving heads tittered at eachother.

The third hung limp from the neck, dripping gore.

Esterra shifted her feet, steadying the soles of her boots on the shifting bones.

Her left hand moved in a smooth defensive motion, ready for an attack from any angle.

Her right arm hung dead by her side, but it raged at her, demanding release.

“What, does it fear its own power?”

The mishtaan’s faces twisted into some horrid mimicry of feigned surprise, made all the more ugly due to the gaping wound.

“Maybe the human does know a little of higher things, then.”

It stepped from side to side, long legs clicking in arthritic rhythm.

“Your words mean nothing to me, mishtaan,”

Esterra growled.

“Unwise to discard wisdom gained before your little species crawled out of the pits, little human.

Knowledge birthed before well before your time, brought to light by your species mad pride and naivety.

What you call lichtvallen.

Ha, the confusion on your face is ironic, considering your fate.

Would it shock the little human to learn that we often hold long conversations with our guests?”

“You’re stalling for time,”

Stake said.

“Not at all, little human.

This is our domain, and the rocks will harm us not.

The walls obey only me.

The light and shadow hold no power here.

But we will waste no more time on foolish and deaf ears.

If you had survived this little journey, you would have walked an interesting path…”

its voices dropped low, and it hissed, “Esterra Stake”.

Esterra’s heart stopped, and she blinked. How…

The mishtaan leapt, its four appendages raking the air before its ghastly faces.

Esterra moved too late, and hot talons slashed through the meat of her left shoulder.

The impact sent her flying, smashing down into the decaying bones of her predecessors.

One of these sliced straight through her trousers and deep into her right hip.

She roared in anger and pain.

Her arm roared with her, and light flooded the chamber.

She growled a vicious snarl and hurled herself at the mishtaan.

Twin voices shrieked as the licht formed a trident.

Esterra slammed it forward, one of the prongs lancing through the bleeding face.

The light was blinding, a thousand suns of brightness piercing the dark, relentless.

Bone shattered, flinging shrapnel into her face.

The mishtaan kicked its clawed feet against her chest, kicking her back into the bone-strewn earth as it leapt backward, shrieking all the while.

A stream of blood-steam hung in its wake.

Esterra’s vision splintered into a thousand flashing lights. Her ribs felt broken, chest caved in, wounded and winded. Talons and limbs threw up piles of brittle bones, some hitting the ceiling high above. She swallowed, sucked in a breath, blinked twice, barely able to see, her senses confused. Left arm gripped around her abdomen, lungs screaming for a single breath, Esterra’s right arm continued to wreak havoc with the mishtaan. The licht had a life of its own. It lashed out viciously, turning from a trident into a whip. Licht and demon fought with the preternatural violence of ancient magics, wholly removed from the gasping woman lying in the middle. The clash of magics tore unnatural gashes through the sandstone about them. Esterra’s vision almost blacked out as she struggled for that one single breath. Finally it ripped its way into her lungs. Without hesitation, she began to pull the licht back into her right arm.

The struggle of licht and will was more difficult than ever before.

The scream of the licht roared in hatred of her resistance.

Even distracted as it was by its lust for the mishtaan’s death, the licht was overbearingly powerful.

The whip of light thrashed up through the bones and severed one the creature’s legs.

The shrieks made her ears ring.

The licht lopped off the two heads she had wounded with her knife.

Even as it did so, the magic fought a battle in Esterra’s soul for authority. She grit her teeth, the creaking sound drowned out by the flailing body of the demon among the bones of its victims. Her guttering torch lit the world in jaundiced yellow and deepest ebony. The mishtaan shrieked again, kicking out. A twisted human tibia spun into her wounded shoulder, and she swore.

I belong to me.

The licht withdrew into her, and her right arm lay dead and limp again.

She heard a swishing sound.

The long tail whipped around and cracked across her jaw and throat.

She choked on her own shattered breath, red and black phantom flooding her vision like clotted blood.

Her lungs demanded air.

She tried to swallow some down, finally managed a hacking gasp.

Her vision cleared, just in time to see the tail whipping back at her through the sea of bones. She ducked, sucked in another breath, then backed away. She needed space to catch her breath.

How is this thing not dead? The sole surviving head watched her, blood steaming on its pale cheek, black teeth glistening.

Even with two heads lopped off, a missing limb, and multiple licht-burned wounds across its body, she could tell that the thing was barely hurt.

It cackled at her.

She snarled back, but terror filled her soul, all the way to its very dregs.

The creature circled her, stumbling on three legs, claws raking through the remains below.

"This is the first time I have seen a human wield the licht.

But you don’t have any idea of what it is.

Fathomless human ignorance.

It is a wonder your kind still plague this world."

Damn it.

Just once more, for a moment.

She spun, a whip of pure light slashing across the chamber at the creature.

But she only nicked its tail as it retreated into the tunnels.

With the mishtaan’s absence, darkness filled the cavern, held back only by her burning arm.

She drew her bronze knife out of its leather sheath.

She placed the sharp curve of the blade to her right shoulder, at the joint of the bones.

The easiest place to sever the limb without the need to saw through any bone.

“Back down, you cursed shit,”

she growled.

The screaming licht silenced, but it did not retract.

“I’ll do it.”

She pressed the blade into her own flesh.

Fresh blood welled under the shining brass, and a thin trickle cut its way down through the dust on her bicep.

It met the licht, and hissed.

A sickening stench like burning flesh filled the chamber.

“Don’t think I won’t!”

The licht roared and vanished back into her arm.

Esterra collapsed, her desiccated skin tinged red, lifeless once again.

The light faded, leaving an afterimage burned across her vision, a picture of horror.

Esterra sighed a shuddering breath.

She had glimpsed the wreckage the licht had wrought on her arm just moments before the magic faded.

The licht had burned and twisted its way past the elbow.

The skin was dried out, the muscles warped and shrunken.

The elbow joint looked as twisted as the bones she found in lichtridden tracts.

It had spread.

The horror of her own body sometimes shook her to the very depths of her soul, sheer disgust threatening to overwhelm her.

The mutations were a curse, one that made her weaker and weaker, ever more reliant on the licht to save herself.

Light filled the room again, and there was the sound of claws on stone.

"Your time is up, Esterra Stake."

The stone about them creaked in answer.

The mishtaan had held back the change of dawn only so long as it chosen to do so, out of a sense of playfulness or cruelty, she did not know.

It had not expected a fight, but it did not mind.

Only, now it would trap her here, and kill her at its leisure.

It had no fear of the licht.

"So ends the wanderings of yet another insignificant."

She grabbed the closest skull and hurled it at the creature, at the same time throwing herself into a sprint for the exit.

The creature batted the skull aside and came after her.

She could feel claws gouging her back, black teeth sinking into her neck, a spike rammed through her still beating heart.

But she ran anyway, the terror of imminent death only spurring her on.

The stone shifted around her, beneath the bones, the walls cracking and moving, the ceiling lowering.

She ran harder.

The creature crashed after her, cackling madly, sending pulses of false light to confuse her, making the shadows dance, and creating sensations across her skin, affecting the nerves there so it seemed the thing fed on her already, even though she knew it could not be true, it must not be true.

Bones cracked beneath its clawed feet, a sharp percussion to its laughter.

Esterra sprinted for the glimmer of sunlight that filtered through the thin crevice ahead.

It grew thinner with each passing breath.

Esterra leapt at the last instant, threw herself between the grating stones.

A claw slashed through the edge of her tunic but it did not catch.

The laughter followed her, but she was through. She slammed into bushes, her face and chest bearing the brunt of the damage, then collapsed to the dirt. The hollow was gone, closed till the next day, or till the mishtaan decided to open it.

Grating sounds rumbled from the tawil before her, stone on stone, moving beneath the impassive surface.

She sat, chest heaving, listening to Verpace changing its paths.

They would change yet again at dawn.

It was how the world worked.

There was no rhyme or reason to its processes.

You either survived, or you didn’t.