What lay beyond the strange statue chamber was a corridor much like the one that led to it, the walls elaborately patterned and the ceiling arched high overhead. The floor was sloped downward, the angle just barely perceptible as they continued on. The floor underfoot was textured metal, cool to the touch, but their steps made no sound as they headed for a dim light far off in the distance.
At first it was only a mote, smaller even than a firefly, and after what felt like at least an hour of walking it didn't seem to have gotten any closer. Just as Eni was beginning to fear that it never would, she was able to make out the borders of a gracefully arched doorway, one that became increasingly sharp until at last they were standing before it. There was a vast room waiting for them, one that was illuminated by something that almost put the statue room to shame.
Beyond the doorway, the angle of the floor increased sharply, steeply dropping off as it ran for perhaps three hundred feet before leveling out in front of a massive door of glittering gold metal. A strange sigil was etched on its surface, burning dimly, and it seemed to twist and throb as it filled Eni's vision. Meaning danced just beyond her awareness, a low and soothing hum filling Eni's ears that sounded almost like words. She turned her head away, blinking furiously, but the eerie symbol wasn't what had generated the light she had seen. Their way down was blocked by something.
It filled the space below them like water, forming a serene surface about twenty feet down the ramp, but it looked as light as vapor. Eni could see swirls and eddies rippling through the faintly phosphorescent substance, which glowed with a very familiar shade of blue.
The color was exactly the same as Tin's eyes.
The wolf's irises were like burnished discs, shimmering with reflected light as he stared at the obstacle. His muzzle twisted in a frown, the tip of his tail swaying slowly from side to side. "What is it?" Eni asked, the words barely a whisper.
She was trying not to look at the sigil, but the blue haze was hardly any more comforting; shapes formed and disappeared before Eni could recognize them. When Tin didn't answer, Zathos did.
"Innominate, Archivist," the monster said, blinking sequentially from left to right and then back again, "I have not previously perceived a comparable form of magic."
The substance beyond seemed to be both liquid and gas and yet neither, Eni's mind utterly unable to decide which it was more like. "Tin?" Eni prompted, but he was still walking forward, stopping less than a foot away from where the ramp became submerged before crouching with one arm extended.
Her heart pounded as she ran forward, horribly sure he was about to touch the seemingly intangible surface, but he only pointed at the sigil. "Derkomai," he said softly, "Means water."
The symbol seared itself into Eni's head as she stared at it, and all at once she understood. What they were looking at wasn't water in any form she had ever known. It was the potential to be water. The one symbol encompassed everything from ice to steam, the particulars depending on the precise form of the flowing lines that made up the sigil. There was an elegant beauty to it; Eni suddenly knew how it would change, but as it had been drawn it was imperfect. Incomplete. It specified nothing, and so the corridor had filled with something that belonged to no particular phase.
The realization filled her mind, blotting out her awareness before the strength of what they were facing, and Eni might have collapsed if Tin hadn't caught her. "I… I see it too," she murmured as the wolf gently set her well away from where the ramp plunged into the water, "It's…"
She swallowed, staring up into Tin's face. "Dangerous," Eni said, the word slipping out before she knew it was the one she was going to use.
Zathos stared at the sigil with all four of its eyes in unblinking contemplation, the enormous monster crouched near her side. "This is the only path forward," it said, and Eni nodded as she pulled her trident free from where she had nestled it across her satchel and stood up.
She advanced carefully, turning the weapon around so she was gripping it by the cold metal of the prongs, and hesitantly touched the end to the surface of the miasma. Eni kept her grip loose, half-afraid it would be suddenly jerked from her paws, but nothing happened. There was barely any resistance, the glowing blue eddies easily parting and almost caressing the shaft of the trident.
When she lifted the weapon out, drops of the odd substance came off the end, floating slowly back down to the surface and rejoining the whole. When her trident was clean, Eni stepped back, lifting it for a closer inspection. As far as she could tell there was no sign of damage; the haft actually looked cleaner, the dust of their travel scoured away to leave the weapon gleaming.
She offered it up for Tin's inspection and he sniffed at it, his nostrils flaring as he held his head close with his eyes closed. "Reeks," he said after a moment, "Don't know what'll happen when we touch it."
Memories of a skull hideously deformed by the growth of bone spurs filled Eni's mind and her mouth went dry as she considered the pool. It looked beautifully tranquil, but Eni could feel a buzzing murmur coming off of it, a sound that she wasn't hearing with her ears. "You must reach the Expectant Mother," Zathos said, "I will attempt to pass first."
A powerful but shameful sense of relief came over Eni as she watched Zathos, but it showed no signs of hesitation or fear. The creature advanced briskly on the miasmic flow of energy, its hulking form seeming to absorb all of the light cast onto it. When it had reached the edge, it came to a stop, lowering one of its mighty arms, and a single finger touched the surface.
The monster was always eerily still when it wasn't moving; it never breathed and rarely blinked. But somehow it was even more inactive than normal. Any sense of it being alive was utterly gone, as though the creature was made of stone, its eyes blankly fixed forward. Long seconds passed and Zathos remained where it was, motionless as swirling currents circled its outstretched finger.
"Zathos?" Eni asked, her voice cracking as she said the name, "Can you hear me?"
The creature didn't answer, frozen in place. Tin advanced on it, his feet making no noise against the floor, and he drew his whip-sword. The blade lashed out, barely managing to wrap around the thick trunk of the enormous being, and Tin pulled hard.
Zathos fell over backwards as the wolf neatly side-stepped out of the way, as nimble as a dancer. The monster toppled like a statue, completely rigid with one finger still outstretched. Despite the creature's enormous weight, the ground barely shook when it hit but ripples spread through the unearthly pool ahead of them, droplets silently splashing up before gently sinking back down.
Eni glanced at Tin, seeing the grim expression on his face, and then looked down at Zathos. The monster still hadn't moved, and when Eni held one paw out and hesitantly waved it in front of Zathos's eyes there was no reaction. Its pupils remained fixed in size even as Eni brought the lantern close, light dully reflecting off the strange irises. Eni set the lamp down, reaching out to touch Zathos, but the instant before her fingers made contact the monster suddenly sat up.
Eni jerked back with a yelp, nearly losing her balance, but Tin caught her with his tail and steadied her as they both watched the creature move. Tin was still holding his whip-sword, his grip on the weapon almost casual, but Eni could feel the tension in his body as Zathos stood and loomed above them. It blinked slowly, from its innermost eyes to its outermost eyes and then back again, and then focused on Eni and Tin.
"Zathos?" Eni asked, "What happened? Do you feel alright?"
"My consciousness… ceased," it replied, and a thread of fear ran down Eni's spine.
The monster's voice was as bland as ever, but its monotone had been interrupted by a pause for the very first time, a hesitation so slight that it would have been imperceptible in a mammal. "It… It killed you?" Eni asked, the words cold and heavy as they left her mouth.
It should have felt like a foolish question, considering that Zathos was aware and moving once again, but it felt the only one that fit the monster's terrible inertness.
"'Ceased,'" Zathos repeated, cocking its head to the side and smoothing the spikes that protruded from between its ears with one massive set of claws, "Is an approximation. There is no single word in Circi adequate to express the experience."
"Use more," Tin said quietly, his tone not quite harsh but far from gentle.
"My thinking stopped entirely, and yet stretched infinitely," Zathos replied, and the chill in Eni's back spread into her belly.
The monster had spoken so simply, but the horror of what it described required no further explanation. She could imagine being trapped in an unbroken eternity, a frozen wasteland that crushed any possibilities of change, and she felt herself trembling without being able to stop it. Eni's heart began beating wildly as she stared at the door at the bottom of the pool, so close and yet impossibly distant.
Tin stirred, his bare chest pressing against her arm as he moved slightly to consider Zathos. He was warm and solid, and Eni had to restrain herself from grabbing a hold of him. "You're a monster," Tin said, looking up into the creature's face, "Don't work the way we do."
"You are correct, All-King," Zathos agreed, "However, I will not be able to pass unaided."
The monster's eyes dispassionately looked at the vapor. "The experience has not had any adverse effects," it continued, "If you can drag my body through the door, there is a high probability that I will be able to recover once clear."
"Unless there's more past the door," Eni protested, "Or— Or what if the same thing that happened to you happens to Tin and me? If we get trapped…"
She swallowed hard, trying not to imagine starving slowly to death with each second lasting longer than all of recorded history, and Tin gently put one paw on her shoulder. "We have the rope from Altogar," he said softly, "Could tie it around my waist. You can pull me back if I pass out."
Eni was silent for a moment and he continued, his voice low and sympathetic, "Can let you know once I'm past the door. You don't have to follow. Could turn back or—"
"No."
Eni's voice was firm as she interrupted him, placing her paw atop his. "I'm seeing this through with you. All the way to the end," she said, and then she intertwined their fingers.
"Ai-daek en ya'alf hu ya'daek," she said solemnly, squeezing gently, and after a moment he nodded.
"Together, then," he said softly, "I'll test—"
"I'll test it. It has to be me," Eni said, and she felt as though there was a powerful fire glowing in her chest.
Her fear wasn't gone; her legs felt weak and her heart still pounded. But it no longer felt overwhelming, present but no longer controlling her. Tin opened his mouth to protest, but Eni plunged on. "You said it yourself," she continued, feeling her voice take on a lecturing tone familiar from hundreds of presentations, "Zathos's mind doesn't work like ours. Maybe that water won't have any effect on us. Maybe it'll do the same thing. Maybe… Maybe it'll be worse."
She heard a tremble in her words but forced herself to keep talking, knowing she had to go on or else never finish. "But speed has never been more important," Eni continued, "It has to be you who gets all the way to the Visitor."
She reached up and patted the side of Tin's muzzle, feeling surprised as a slow smile spread across her own. "I can't let anything happen to you," she finished.
"Eni," he said thickly, his features clouding over.
"You know I'm right," she said, pulling her paw away and straightening her jacket.
Tin appeared frozen in place, his eyes strangely bright, as she walked away. Her legs were numb and shaky as she knelt, beginning to reach out with one paw, and then the wolf called to her. "Remember the first thing I ever said to you?" he asked hoarsely.
Eni cast her mind back and laughed, the sound warm and genuine as it left her. It seemed to fill the strange chamber although it didn't echo off the walls, and even the mysterious pool seemed to pulse in time with it. She plunged her paw in, her fear completely gone.
The strange substance was pleasantly cool to the touch, her glove not even slightly damp as she swirled her fingers around. It felt far thicker than air but much lighter than regular water, seeming to tingle slightly as she moved her paw. "It's fine," she called back as she withdrew her wrist, "It doesn't do anything."
Tin remained silent, but she could see the relief written across his face as he nodded. It took a few precious minutes to get Zathos ready; the monster reformed itself into a sort of wide cylinder, allowing Eni to tie a rope to it. "The All-King will be able to more efficiently drag me through the door in this form," it said, and then allowed itself to plunge fully into the miasma.
It rolled briskly down the ramp, somewhat slower than it would have had there been nothing but air, and came to a rest against the door. As Eni had expected, the monster didn't move any further, and despite her own successful experiment Eni found herself suddenly anxious as she stared at the path forward. Tin offered her his paw and she gratefully took it, stepping closer and closer to the edge.
When her toes passed through the surface, she looked over at Tin, only to find that he had done the same thing; his eyes met hers and Eni smiled. She didn't want to see herself descending into the depths of the vapor, and so she kept looking at him even as she could feel a tingling sensation creep up her body. It didn't exactly hurt; it was almost like the pins and needles of a limb that had fallen asleep but gentler. She seemed to be getting lighter the more of her body that became covered, each step facing less resistance despite not seeming to have any buoyancy. Once the level had gotten up to her neck, however, a thought suddenly occurred to her.
"What happens when our heads go under?" she asked, and Tin stopped.
He considered the distance between them and the door and then looked back at her. "Ought to hold our breath," he said at last, and Eni nodded.
She began breathing in and out as deeply as she could, her vision seeming to sharpen as she prepared her lungs the same way she would before diving into the ocean around Siverets. Tin followed her example, and when she was ready she nudged him forward, feeling the misty substance coming up over her chin. She kept her eyes forward as she looked to the door, pressing onward as the substance covered her mouth and then her nose. They were hurrying, taking impossibly long and graceful strides, and then the substance came up over her eyes and—
It was no longer there.
The strange blue glow had vanished; everything ahead was sharp and clear. Eni still felt nearly weightless, her next bounding stride carrying her nearly six feet forward with Tin's paw still gripped in hers, and she relaxed. Whatever had happened to Zathos, the water clearly didn't affect mammals the same way. And it was water; the fact was suddenly obvious to her. It really was like diving in the ocean again, the salty waves warmed by the sun, and a contented smile spread across Eni's face.
The bottom of the sea was below her, murky where the light of day didn't quite reach, but she could still see the sand and rocks well enough. And the clams, of course; the Nihian Peninsula was home to the largest in all of Aerodan, so enormous that they dwarfed a normal hare. To Eni, the shells were usually just a bit bigger than her torso, glittering white where they weren't covered with barnacles.
But below her, Eni saw a clam so monstrously large that she doubted anyone had ever seen its like. It had to be at least twenty feet long and had a peculiar shape to it; rather than the graceful curved shape she would have expected it looked almost like a door. Not like the sorts of doors common to Siverets; it was like the style Eni had only ever seen in books about the Cradle, opening on hinges instead of sliding open. The shell showed every sign of age, rippled with rings of growth, and near the center was a strange mark that filled Eni with unease.
The scuffs and scrapes almost looked like a symbol of some kind, but not in any language Eni was familiar with; there was something about the way the lines came together that almost made them look unnatural. There could be no question that the clam was alive, though, its scalloped upper shell moving ever so slightly and revealing the vividly pink flesh of its soft interior. Eni hefted the knife she gripped in her right paw, a woven net in her left, and kicked herself deeper underwater. The closer she got to the bottom, however, the more wrong she felt. Eni paused, fluttering her arms and legs to hold her position; the elders had always said a good diver listened to what their body was telling them. Eni allowed her eyes to roam across her arms, her white fur moving gently in the subtle currents of the sea. Her knife was long, ending in a rounded tip perfect for prying open the shells of sea creatures, and the fine steel didn't have a speck of rust on it. Not that it would; she always scoured it before a dive.
Hadn't she?
Eni's preparations felt oddly dreamlike, but surely that was only because years of routine had blended one day into another. She shook her head, bubbles streaming from her nose, as she looked at her left paw. The tough and close-woven fibers of her net didn't show a single break or tear; she already had a pair of pearls nestled within it. They were a beautiful shade of blue, pale as a winter sky, and nearly as large as her eyes.
Eni's frown deepened as she looked down at herself, but of course she was the same as ever. Her chest was bare, her only clothes a lightweight fendoshi nearly the same shade of white as most of her fur. It hid the black pattern running down her belly where her legs came together, still securely knotted. The loincloth wouldn't have been appropriate to wear in the village, but bucks didn't dive for pearls and there would be none in the clam fields to see her.
Not that Eni had ever been spotted bare; she always kept a lightweight gown in her boat, and at the thought she felt something click into place. It was the shadow of the little vessel she was missing; it should have been anchored above her, but she couldn't even see a rope. A tinge of concern passed into her, but her lungs weren't even close to straining and so she spared a moment to lock the location of the giant clam in her mind before turning upward. The peculiar scratches on its shell wouldn't leave her mind even as Eni kicked her way to the surface, but the surface never came.
Eni's unease gave way to panic, her heart pounding at the impossibility. No matter how hard she paddled with her legs, freedom grew no nearer, the warmth of the sun and the fresh sea air tauntingly close. She strained furiously, desperately dropping her knife and her woven bag, and the netting passed before her field of view, the twin blue pearls staring at her like—
"Tin!" she cried, memories crashing back into her head like waves against the shore, but opening her mouth was a terrible mistake.
Water rushed in and she began to choke, her precious air leaving as the sky refused to get any closer. She tried to focus on her heartbeat, trying to center her thoughts, but all that filled her mind was the terrified certainty that she was going to drown in a memory. Eni gritted her teeth, her vision beginning to throb savagely at the edges, and she tore her gaze away from the distorted view above her. The door, she thought desperately, What matters is the door.
Every instinct in her body cried out in alarm as she turned away and began swimming for the giant clam that she knew wasn't a clam. It had to be more than a hundred and twenty feet down, a dive that would have been difficult even with her lungs full of air, but Eni grimly forced herself onward. I don't have to go back up, she thought, feeling almost giddy, and she squashed her fears.
Perhaps there would be nothing but more of the strange gas-like liquid, or liquid-like gas, on the other side of the door. Perhaps there would be something even worse, something that would make suffocating feel pleasant by comparison. But Eni ignored those thoughts, swimming with all the strength she remembered from her youth in Siverets, her strokes perfect and graceful as she forced her way to the clamshell.
Her sight began graying out along the edges, focusing down to a horrible sort of tunnel vision, as she reached the clam. Its shell was silky smooth to the touch, her fingers scrambling fruitlessly for purchase, her lungs burning abominably. The need to breathe was overwhelming, her chest feeling as though it was being compressed in a vice, but Eni managed to get her nails under one edge of the shell. She pulled with all her strength, straining mightily, and—
Nothing happened.
The clam was steadfastly real, its glossy surface solid to the touch as the vision refused to yield to the reality that Eni knew had to be before her. She glanced around, desperate for an option, but there was nothing nearby. The knife and the net she had held were long gone, vanishing into the depths, but in her heart she knew they wouldn't help.
She pounded on the shell in frustration, her lungs feeling ready to collapse in on themselves, and as her vision faded all she could see was the symbol etched into it. Eni reached out with one paw, touching a finger to it, and a last desperate hope seized her. She pressed down firmly with her nail, scratching at the surface as she tried to change it, willing with every fiber of her being for something to happen. The Derkomai sigil burned in her mind, the possibilities opening themselves up, and then it shifted.
The change was ever so slight, but the pressure in her chest suddenly let up. The water surrounding her seemed to be vanishing, dissolving as it began giving way. The warmth went with it, but the ocean floor was fading away. Eni expected to see the strange chamber under Vornstrom appear, but as snowflakes swirled about something else met her eyes.
It was only for an instant, a glimpse so brief she almost wasn't sure whether she had seen it or imagined it, but in that flash of time it was as real as anything she had ever seen. She was on the wall overlooking the Faceless Kings, the citadel to her back, and the city's defenders were gathered, a tight knot of mammals paying rapt attention to two who stood alone.
One was short and thin only by comparison to the other, who was so tall and so wide that he would have made anyone appear small, even someone as powerfully built as Aza. The tiger and King Renald were speaking to their combined troops, and although Eni couldn't make out the words she didn't need to. The pair were battered and bloody, their fine clothes in tatters, but they were proudly firm, their eyes fiery with purpose as they urged their soldiers on. Aza's fingers were dwarfed by the rhino's as they gripped in a gesture of unity that transcended nations, their arms raised in triumphant defiance.
Snow swirled about the parapets, clouds making the night an inky black, and—
"You did it," Tin's voice came.
Eni coughed as she opened her eyes, her head pounding miserably. Snowflakes swirled about, but there was no sky overhead, just a ceiling. She blinked groggily, feeling as though it couldn't possibly be real, but as she looked about she saw the unmistakable signs of reality. They were in front of the door at the bottom of the ramp, drifts of snow surrounding them. Tin was crouching above her, looking down into her face, and he offered her his arm to help her stand. Eni felt incredibly weak as she did, as though she had been wrung out like a rag, and her breath was visible before her as her feet crunched through snow. The massive doorway was open ever so slightly, and the Derkomai symbol etched into its surface was gone.
"Snow," Tin said, "Well done."
Eni was silent for a moment, looking up at him. She could see the massive and immobile form of Zathos, still before the door, and had a strange feeling of double vision. Had she climbed the monster to reach the sigil? It made no sense for her to have swum to it, but…
"It wasn't on purpose," Eni admitted, her voice raspy and weak as she shook her head, "Luck. I… I almost got lost in what I saw."
Tin was silent a moment, looking at her, and when he spoke again his voice was almost too soft to make out. "I did," he said, "Didn't mean to let go."
For the first time, it occurred to Eni why Tin hadn't shared her vision, and she hated the guilt she saw written across the wolf's face. "It's not your fault," she said, reaching out and grabbing his paw, "I think I did, too."
They stood for a moment in silence, the muscles in Tin's jaw working, and then he spoke. "You were wrong," he began slowly, "I do ne—"
"You were successful," Zathos interrupted suddenly, its vast bulk no longer motionless; it stood with its eyes swiveling about the room, "I am grateful."
There was almost something more to the words. They were spoken as flatly as ever, but Eni felt as though there might have been just a little more to them than usual, an emotion that was genuine no matter how muted it was. Tin nodded sharply in Eni's direction. "Thank her," he said bluntly, his face smoothing over as it grew serious, "Got to keep moving."
He turned, grasping the enormous metal door by its edge; it had no handle but that didn't appear to bother him. Tin pushed hard and the hinges swung freely, the door opening wide, and Eni gasped. The view ahead wasn't anything like any of the corridors or chambers they had passed through. There was no Aurum Regis decorating what came into sight; everything was made out of stone.
Although some rational, practical part of Eni's mind tried to quantify what she was seeing, she knew she couldn't. It appeared similar to the Sovereign Highway, but much wider, lined on either side with the crumbling ruins of a fortress in a style far older than anything Eni had ever seen. It was like seeing an infant portrait of a mammal she had only known as an adult; she was clearly looking at the progenitor of a dizzying array of architectural schools. The shapes were graceful but still somehow crude, lacking the refinement of millennia of further development.
But it was what illuminated the scene that truly gave Eni pause. The light was burning reds and yellows, coming up through gaps in the fortress and the road that led forward, making the air almost unbearably warm to breathe. "We're inside Gwared Mountain," Eni said, filled with disbelief, "And that's… It's…"
She pointed down, unable to finish the thought, but Zathos did as smoothly as though she had asked a question, the monster's face blankly emotionless.
"That is magma, Archivist."
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