Undermind

Standing beneath the high stone column, Saskia peered into eternity. Atop the pillar, an ouroboros; a frozen flame. They called to her. He called to her.

For some, this worldseed was a source of life everlasting. Not her. All she would find here was an ending. And that was okay. She felt the inevitability of her fate not as a weight around her neck, but as a pair of amber wings, bearing her aloft.

Rising on warm currents, she drifted up the column, and stepped out onto the wide platform at its apex. It ended in a stone platform, bathed in the ethereal light of the suspended flame.

He was waiting for her there, as she’d known he would be. The Primordial sat cross-legged in the air, head bowed, eyes closed. In his lap he held a dragon’s egg. Behind him floated a crystal sphere. Inside the sphere lay the sleeping form of Sarthea. Trapped by her own vassal, she was little more than a battery now, powering the greed and ambition of one who considered himself a god.

But as Saskia drifted closer to the sphere, and peered through the opaque surface, it wasn’t Sarthea’s face that came into view.

It was her own face.

The Primordial’s eyes snapped open. They were cerulean blue in the light of the worldseed; twin skies, eager to swallow her up.

“I know you’re watching, demon,” he said. “If you wish to face me, I await you here in the Hall of Eternity.”

On the day of reckoning, Saskia awoke feeling as if her head had been through a blender. Harsh light stabbed into her eyes, streaming through the gaps between Iscaragraithe’s ribs. Her throat was dry, and it hurt to swallow. Her body ached—except for her arm and the side of her torso that had already been overtaken by the corruption. Those were simply numb.

This wasn’t the first time she’d felt as if she was dying—not on Earth, and not on Arbor Mundi. But this might be the first time she actually followed through with it. On Earth, a world-spanning anti-magic field had been slowly killing her. Okael’s Bane was more targetted, and much more potent. The result was roughly the same, though: her mind and body were being slowly ravaged by something inimical to her kind.

“You’re in pain,” said Nuille, frowning up at her.

“A little,” said Saskia. When Nuille’s frown deepened, she admitted, “More than a little, actually.”

Trolls had a high pain tolerance, and she’d frequently been able to ignore the screams of tortured nerve endings, but this was something else. This was something her regeneration couldn’t counter, and her body knew it.

“Let me see what I can do. Lie back down, please.”

Nuille pressed a softly glowing hand to Saskia’s forehead. A cool, soothing sensation spread from her touch. Slowly, her agonlings slithered into the shadows, and a welcome numbness spread across her right side. Her head felt a bit fuzzy, but the throbbing pain had subsided there as well.

“That’s much better,” said Saskia. “Thank you.”

“I wish I could do more for you,” said Nuille. “If we had more time…”

“It’s okay. I’ve come to terms with it. And besides, death isn’t that big of an inconvenience for my kind, or so I’ve heard.”

Garrain had a conflicted look in his eyes as he watched the two of them. “It occurs to me that I have never apologised for all the pain I caused you in our earliest encounters,” he said. “I realise now that you did nothing to provoke my wrath. I was so certain you were the monster you appeared to be. But I couldn’t have been further from the truth. You are the best of us. This world will be greatly diminished without you in it. And so, although this comes far too late, and seems entirely insufficient, I…apologise.”

Saskia blinked in surprise, momentarily at a loss for words. Who was this person, and what had he done with Garrain?

Letting out a soft chuckle, Nuille poked Garrain in the chest. “There! Was that so hard, ardonis?”

“Indeed it was,” said Garrain sombrely. “One of the most difficult things I have ever done.”

Saskia exchanged a look with Nuille, then she snorted out a laugh as well. “Water under the bridge, my friend.”

Garrain looked at her blankly.

“Another Earth saying,” said Saskia. “It means, in a roundabout way, I forgive you. Although forgiveness goes both ways. I haven’t always been kind to you. Maybe you deserved some of what I put you through—”

“Aye,” said Ruhildi, butting in. “He did.”

“—but I hope you’ll accept my apology as well.”

“Of course I will,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Because there have been quite enough sorries going around lately. I’m done feeling sorry for myself, and I expect you to do the same. We have work to do. Primordials to subdue. Old gods to rescue. Eggs to…” She frowned. “I can’t think of anything else that rhymes in English.”

“Stew?” suggested Ruhildi.

Saskia snorted at the look on the druids’ faces. “No. Nononono, there will be no stewed eggs today.”

Rover Dog’s tummy rumbled. They all turned to him.

“Stewing is for meat,” he said. “Eggs should be fried, or eaten raw.”

Laughter was infectious. As their conversation turned increasingly demented, the laughter spread. Soon, even Baldreg had a smile on his face, and Zarie and Kveld were clutching at each other to keep from rolling off their seats. Not that those two needed any excuses to clutch one another.

Saskia watched and listened, content to just drink in the warmth and camaraderie. If she could take only one memory of her friends with her, it would be this one.

In a way, knowing her time was limited gave her something of an advantage. She had nothing to lose. And Xonroth…Xonroth had everything. He’d been alive when the world was young, and if she didn’t stop him, he would be here when it ended.

By his actions, he’d demonstrated that he cared nothing for the people of this world. The Primordial had been the one calling the shots for months, and she hadn’t even realised it. He, not Abellion, was behind the dragon attacks on Grongarg and Lumium. Abellion might have done the same—or maybe not. Now, she would never know, because Xonroth had removed Abellion from the equation.

There were no fire dragons waiting for them outside the Hall of Eternity. No defenders at all, as far as she could see. This surprised and worried her. She’d been expecting a non-stop battle from the moment of their arrival. Despite having lost most of his dragons, she was pretty sure the Primordial could have assembled more of a perimeter defence than this. So why hadn’t he?

One by one, the storm dragons began to offload their passengers outside the tunnel leading to the Primordial’s sanctum. It wasn’t the biggest army ever assembled, but every one of them was her vassal—even the frostlings, whose bonds she’d had to reform individually, following the death of their queen. Having her entire army connected to her would greatly improve their level of coordination, but more importantly, it would give them some protection against being assimilated by their enemy mid-battle.

Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this wouldn’t be enough. Her most powerful allies, the storm dragons, wouldn’t fit through the tunnel. So unless she found a way to lure Xonroth out here—fat chance of that—the dragons would have to sit out the battle.

“I don’t like this,” said Baldreg, echoing her thoughts. “He is so certain he can defeat us inside that he makes no attempt to keep us out?”

“He wants me to come to him,” said Saskia.

“So we’re just going to do as he intends us to do?” said Velandir.

“I don’t see any other way to end this,” said Saskia. “Do you?”

Actually, there were other ways. She and Ruhildi could teleport inside, bypassing any traps he might have laid for them. But then they’d be alone in there against who-knew-what. Similarly, she could have brought a much smaller strike team under cover of Velandir’s web of shadows. But again, such a small group would likely be overwhelmed once they revealed themselves.

“We could just wait him out, yes?” suggested Zarie.

“I don’t have much time left,” said Saskia. “And honestly, compared to Xonroth, neither do you. He’s immortal. He could literally wait for everyone to die of old age—except Rover Dog and Ithanius.”

“Our nestling cannot wait,” said Garrain. “We go in today.”

And that, it seemed, was that. Kidnapped eggs aside, if it were anyone else but Xonroth in there, the stoneshapers could collapse the one and only entrance, sealing him inside. But Xonroth had the power of a stoneshaper himself, so he could just dig his way out. And he had the power of a dreamer, which would let him manipulate people on the outside, and make more Chosen without ever leaving his cosy lair.

“It’s time, everyone,” said Saskia, turning to her army. “I hope you don’t expect a stirring monologue, because I don’t have one prepared, and my brain is mush. Let’s just get this done.”

She took a step into the tunnel—and teetered, feeling a wave of dizziness sweep over her. Rover Dog took hold of her good arm, steadying her. Ruhildi laid a hand against her leg. Her dwarven friend may be too small to lend physical support, but as ever, she was a comforting presence.

Please don’t faint. Please don’t faint. Just keep it together a little longer.

By all rights, she shouldn’t be standing, much less heading into battle. It was idiocy. And yet she had a vital role to play in the final battle—and not just as their leader. She had to be here.

Saskia forced herself to take a step, and then another. Just one step at a time. She could do this.

Her army poured through the tunnel ahead of her, and the air filled with the sound of duanum boots clattering against stone. Several voices took up a dwarven battle chant, until Baldreg bellowed at them to shut up before they brought the ceiling down on their heads.

The ceiling didn’t come down on their heads. Instead, the entire tunnel began to contract around them. They saw the attack telegraphed in their shared oracle interface moments before it hit, but there was little they could do to prepare. There had been no hint as to the nature of the threat, other than the fact that it was going to hit everywhere.

“Everyone, gather close!” shouted Kveld. “Stoneshapers, push!”

Before she had time to process what was going on, the encroaching walls ceased their inward movement around her. Ruhildi, at her side, held them at bay. Ahead, Kveld and several other stoneshapers were doing the same. Bloodcurdling shrieks sounded behind her, followed by a rolling, grinding sound. Dozens of mirrors on her oracle interface shattered.

Saskia swallowed. Anyone who hadn’t been near a stoneshaper…well, she didn’t want to think about what had just happened to them.

They pushed forward through the tunnel as the walls flexed and undulated around them, held back by only by the will of a handful of her vassals. The worst moment came when they opened up the tunnel in front of them, and walked past the mangled remains of their comrades. Miraculously, Queen Vask and several other trolls who had been caught in the leading edge of the attack had survived. A combination of their duanum armour and natural toughness and regeneration had saved them.

Only after they’d stepped past the grisly sight did Saskia work up the courage to do a tally of who they’d lost. There were dozens of names—most of them not close acquaintances, thank dogs—but one of them hurt more than the others.

Yasmithe. Her death left Garrain and Nuille as the last surviving greenhands in the entire world. Her life, and many others, snuffed out in an instant, without even a chance to fight back.

After the crushing walls came lava traps. The ground began to billow steam, and within seconds turned into a roiling river of death. Forewarned by a telegraphed area-of-effect indicator, the frostlings froze the magma before it reached them, while Kveld and the other stoneshapers held the sagging walls and ceiling at bay.

No-one died this time. Now they were all on edge, though, waiting for the next unpleasant surprise to hit them in the face.

But it wasn’t their faces that came under fire. It was their minds. The most insidious assault, their tormentor had saved for last.

One moment, Saskia was stepping through a tunnel of rock. The next, she was surrounded by walls of flesh and putrid slime. The stench hit her a moment later, and she reeled back, almost falling on her butt into a pool of flesh-eating stomach acid.

The hand gripping her elbow kept her on her feet. It was no longer Rover Dog’s hand, but that of a pustulent creature, oozing filth from every crevice. She yelped and tried to pull away, but its grip held firm.

A burbling growl issued from its lips, sending a cloud of noxious fumes billowing into her face.

“Princess?” said Rover Dog’s voice in her head. “Is that you?” His voice coincided with the movement of the creature’s lips, though the sound was coming through their shared voice link, not her ears.

Oh. Oh.

Saskia forced her breathing to calm. Of course this was all fake; nothing but an artifice conjured up by their tormentor. She was still standing in the tunnel. Rover Dog was still holding her arm. He just didn’t look like Rover Dog. Her other friends were nowhere in sight, but she knew they were still there too.

Looking through his eyes, she found herself staring in horrified fascination at a hairy figure with a bulging belly. This was her, she realised, as he was currently seeing her. In his eyes, she was naked, her boobs were gone, and between her legs…

Wow, she thought. So he thinks I look like a guy now. Could be worse, I suppose. I could look like a slime monster.

“It’s still me,” she reassured him. “What you’re seeing isn’t real. I don’t actually have a huge—”

“Where did everyone go?” asked Zarie, speaking through their voice link. “By sea and sky, they are all…oh no. Stay back, you teensy ice-monsters!”

“Bonnie, I’m so sorry,” said Baldreg, sounding distraught. “I had to do it. If there were any other way…”

“You can’t torment me with Nadi’s visage, Primordial,” growled Ruhildi. “We avenged her already. I ken she’s at peace in the Halls Beyond.”

“Calm down, everyone.” Saskia broadcast her voice to all of her vassals at once. “It’s just an illusion. We’re still in the tunnel.”

“Tell that to this bastard skarakh attacking me!” said Velandir.

“Indeed, some of us are fighting for our lives, here—oh.” Ithanius’s voice sounded suddenly sheepish. “Sorry, Velandir.”

“’Tis an illusion, alright,” said Ruhildi. “My stone sense is detecting walls I can’t see.”

“Okay, good,” said Saskia. “Stoneshapers, keep your magic firmly on those walls. We don’t want them crushing us while we’re tripping balls.”

“Aye, already doing…” muttered Kveld.

“If we can’t trust what our sense are showing us, how are we supposed to fight him?” asked Garrain.

That, thought Saskia, is a very good question.

This wasn’t like the other tricks Xonroth had pulled. It fundamentally rigged the battle in his favour. They might throw every spell they had at him, only to find they’d slaughtered one of their own. It was an untenable situation. She needed to find a way to counter the effect.

She was an oracle. Her magic already allowed her to see beyond what her normal senses showed her. Surely there was a way to see through illusions, and with the help of her undermind, share that ability with her friends and allies.

Her undermind!

The idea landed like a thunderbolt to the brain. Her undermind had fooled her once before—tricking her into absorbing all the arlium on Fireflower Isle. If it could do the reverse: messing with her senses to project reality over the illusion…

Okay, Your Eldritchness, she thought. I know you’re listening. You know what we need. This may be the last request I ever make on this world. So would you please, please, please lend us a helping hand? In return, I promise to be a good little troll, and go quietly into the between as soon as the battle is over.

It wasn’t much of a peace offering. She was going to die anyway, so her undermind would get its way regardless. But maybe, just maybe, it had learned the value of diplomacy. Making her happy would be in its best interests in the long term…

And just like that, the fleshy walls wavered, returning to shuddering stone. She and Rover Dog were no longer alone. And he was no longer a slime monster. The relief on her friends’ faces was palpable.

“Tada!” she said. “You can thank me—or rather, it—later. Now let’s get back to work.”

Several minutes later, they emerged from the tunnel—and found themselves facing a wall of angry branches and thrashing vines. A splash of murky liquid fell on them, flung from tree catapults lurking in the shadows.

“Get back!” she shouted.

Reacting instantly, Zarie and Renia brought up a barrier of air to deflect the…whatever it was. They weren’t quite fast enough.

First one, then another troll fell to the ground, bellowing in agony. Shoots of green sprang from their flesh in a spray of blood. In moments, the trolls stopped twitching, but the plants that had taken root in them continued to grow, coalescing into writhing masses of thorny vines, snapping and jerking and reaching for her retreating army.

Saskia eyed the newly-formed plant monsters in sickened fascination. Could Garrain and Nuille do that?

As if answering her silent question, the two greenhands stepped to the fore, magic coiling about them, almost visible in its intensity.

The plant monsters flew back, as if punted by giant boots. As they landed, they came apart, fragmenting into flopping, twitching things that gradually went still.

At the same time, the trees nearest the tunnel exit ceased their aggressive branch-waving, and formed into columns around Garrain.

Beyond that, the forest seethed with activity. And it wasn’t just the trees that had turned against them. Screeching, buzzing swarms tore angry spirals through the air. Pillars of fire rose up across the cavern like sinuous towers. Dark shapes oozed across the flame-lit ceiling.

“I am not impressed,” said Rover Dog, eyeing the spectacle disdainfully. “Primordial is drunk on so much power. He has lost all subtlety.”

“Impressive or not, we need to get past all of that,” said Saskia. “If we just ignore those flame towers, I imagine they’ll reach down and swat us, or shoot fireballs, or something. Frostling tempests, think you can deal with them?”

A storm of chitters answered her request.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Nuille, dragon up. That flamethrower breath of yours will be our best defence against those swarms.”

Without a word, Nuille shifted into her fire dragon form, and took off. A moment later, she was already searing a flock of small winged lizards out of the air.

Saskia turned back to her army. “Now, about those awakened trees—”

She didn’t get time to finish what she was saying, because one of the shadowy things on the ceiling chose that moment to drop down in their midst.

Saskia had no idea what kind of magic had produced this thing, but it clearly wasn’t natural. Up close, it looked like a giant blob of tar. A tarball. Zipping forward with terrifying speed, the tarball guzzled up everything in its path—including entire trees. Inexplicably, her bad pun radar was tingling something fierce. She had no idea why. Whatever the pun was, it must be one only her nerdiest friends on Earth would appreciate. Anyhow, puns weren’t what she should be worrying right now, because giant tar monster. As it consumed its surroundings, the creature grew. And grew. And kept growing until it towered over them.

A writhing pseudopod shot out of the blob, reaching for Garrain. He sliced it off with a casual flick of his blade, even as he stepped aside. Then he lunged forward, plunging Trowbane deep into the blob itself.

It made no sign of having felt the strike. Another pseudopod emerged, and Garrain leapt back. He raised his glaive—and faltered, with a deep frown creeping across his face.

The tip of his blade was gone, leaving just a stub of pale metal attached to the shaft.

“Back away!” he shouted. “Don’t let it touch you!”

“Weapons won’t cut it, so how do we kill it?” asked Vask.

“Let me try,” said Velandir. “I’ve never come across anything I couldn’t cut.”

She didn’t see the shadowmaster until the moment he struck, slicing into the tarball from the side. His shadowblade sunk deep, and came away intact. The wound closed instantly. Velandir spun away, slicing at a pseudopod that erupted from its body. The appendage flopped onto the ground, but the creature simply rolled over it, absorbing it back into its amorphous body.

Ice crept across the surface of the tarball, courtesy of a trio of frostlings who skittered out of the tunnel. The creature shot a pseudopod at them, and they hopped away. Freezing it didn’t seem to have slowed it down at all.

Saskia peered at the creature, trying to figure out how they could possibly deal with it. Would fire work? Turn a giant tar monster in to a giant flaming tar monster…? Nope. Bad idea.

What about her wild magic? Trouble was, she didn’t know what, precisely, to make her wild magic do, let alone how to do it. Banish summoned creatures, perhaps? But had this thing been summoned?

She opened up her medical interface and inspected the blob. To her surprise, she discovered that it did, in fact, have internal organs—and even a brain, of sorts, located in a bump on its top side.

“There!” she pointed. “You need to hit that spot.”

Baldreg stepped forward, raised his crossbow, and fired a single shot. Not an explosive shot, thank dogs. Just a normal crossbow bolt.

The tarball shuddered, sagged—and shrank. It kept shrinking until there was nothing left.

“Alright, let’s move out,” she said. “Garrain, Nuille, you’re on tree defence. Frostling tempests, see if you can deal with the closest flame tower. Landbound frostlings, keep an eye out for more lava traps. Everyone else, try to stay behind the tempests’ barriers.”

Their progress through the forest was slow at first, until the greenhands were able to turn more of the awakened trees to their side. More tarballs fell from the ceiling, but Velandir and Baldreg and dozens of archers made short work of them.

Over the next hill, the frostling tempests swarmed around one of the flame towers, which predictably began to shoot huge jets of fire at them as soon as they drew near. The nimble critters darted out of the way, and slowly the fire began to subside, driven back by a relentless barrage of hail and sleet.

As her army pushed ever closer to the pillar at the centre of the Hall of Eternity, Saskia couldn’t shake the feeling that this all felt a little too easy; a little too convenient. Or perhaps those weren’t the right words, given that people had died getting them here. But the fact remained, Xonroth could have sent every tarball to attack them all at once. Or smothered the entire cavern in fire. Or done any number of other things that might have decimated her army.

But he hadn’t. The way these creatures came at them one or two at a time felt…more like a video game than anything else. Only a video game boss would be so stupid as to sit around waiting for the adventurers to come to him, while sending a trickle of lackeys to attack them one or two at a time. Any competent villain with the Primordial’s level of power would bring the entire cavern down on them, all at once.

Unless he was luring them into a less defensible position, where he could have them surrounded…

Saskia’s eyes narrowed as she glanced about the cavern. It may have been her imagination, but those other flame towers seemed to have shifted. The tarballs on the ceiling were gathering in a loose circle overhead.

“Things are about to get a bit dicey,” she warned.

There wasn’t really anywhere they could go to be safe. If they backed into a wall, the wall itself could be turned against them. All they had was their magic and martial strength. She could only hope it would be—oh crap.

Every tarball dropped from the ceiling at once, landing amidst the thrashing trees, whose movement seemed to have multiplied manifold in intensity. The buzzing storm of bugs and beasts drove at Nuille with ever-increasing ferocity. The remaining pillars of fire hopped like Slinkies across the intervening distance, and were suddenly looming all too close. The ground trembled. Stormclouds gathered.

From the shadows of the forest stepped three figures. Saskia recognised them instantly. Ondite, Tulpa and Burinold. Chosen, all of them, and swathed in coils of light and shadow.

“Well shit,” said Velandir. He vanished, and to her surprise, Saskia saw that her own body had faded from sight as well, along with Rover Dog’s—the latter of whom was the only thing holding her up at this point. “Let’s get you to the Primordial. I don’t think even he can reliably see through my web of shadows.”

Saskia swallowed, as she realised what he was suggesting. “No. Absolutely not. I’m not abandoning—”

“Go, Sashki,” said Ruhildi. “We will be alright. Do as we planned, and some of us will live. But if you get tied down here in an unending battle…”

They were right, Saskia realised. Even if they defeated this wave of monsters and magic, Xonroth could just summon more. The only way to end this was to neutralise him. And she couldn’t do that from here.

“Thank you,” she said. “All of you. If we don’t get to speak again, know that it has been an honour.”

“Give him a blade to the heart for me,” said Garrain. “And keep our daughter safe.”

“I will,” said Saskia.

Saskia cast one last look over her ragged army, already bracing themselves against the oncoming storm, as Rover Dog half-dragged, half-carried her through a small gap Garrain had opened up between the flailing trees.

Their journey to the central pillar went unopposed, while Saskia kept her mind’s eye fixed on the battle unfolding behind her, and she wept and cheered and hoped and despaired at what she saw.

They halted at the base of the column, gazing up at the looming wall of stone. It would be a daunting climb—if they were to climb it. Saskia was in no state to do that. Just as well, then, that she didn’t have to.

Rover Dog tugged at an unseen lever on the back of her duanum armour. She heard a scraping sound, followed by a swish.

“Okay then, here we go,” she said. “Hold on tight, both of you.”

Her companions drew close, with Velandir gripping her legs, and Rover Dog putting his arms around her neck. Something stirred between them.

She rolled her eyes at Rover Dog. “Even now you’re thinking of that?”

“Always, princess,” he said.

Doing her best to put that out of her mind, Saskia focussed her mind on two points in space behind and a little above her, willing a certain…reaction to occur.

And then they were rising. Slowly, at first, and with gathering speed. As they rose, they wavered into sight. Saskia glanced back at dull grey wings spread wide behind her. They looked and felt more than a little ungainly. Aerodynamics and aesthetics had been an afterthought in their construction. They were essentially just duanum containers. It was what was inside those containers that was lifting her off the ground.

Arlium.

When heated to a sufficient temperature, arlium not only became lighter than air. It acquired true anti-gravity properties, allowing a relatively small volume of the substance to lift much heavier objects. They hadn’t managed to build or repair one of the Ulugmiri Empire’s self-sustaining arlium engines, but in this instance they didn’t need one. Because Saskia herself had mastery over arlium. She could heat and cool it with just a thought.

So no, these things strapped to her back weren’t wings in the usual sense. But that’s what they felt like to her.

Wings of arlium, bearing them to their date with eternity.