The temperature dropped precipitously, Eni's entire body going numb as all the warmth was leached from it. The marble beneath her creaked alarmingly, spider webs of cracks spreading as the stone gave way, and the air grew so cold it hurt to breathe. Her eyes were wide with horror as she reached out for Tin, the wolf rapidly approaching the dragon, and her legs flailed against the slick ground as she tried fruitlessly to get back on her feet. Rimes of frost formed on her outstretched fingers, stiffening the fine silk of her gloves, and Eni could see the milky ice thickening.
And then it boiled away.
She still felt unbearably cold, shivering as she managed to plant her staff into a split in the floor when the chill was suddenly incapable of going past her. It surrounded Eni, wrapped around her like a cloak pulled much too tight, and even as she desperately tried to fill her lungs waves of heat danced in the distance. Tin was almost a mirage, his lower body shimmering and distorted as his whip-sword blazed, and his war cry filled the chamber.
It didn't seem possible to have come from his chest, a wordless bark of unrestrained fury, and it echoed as he swung his flaming weapon. Neira didn't even attempt to dodge, the dragon remaining quite still as the blazing links struck her across the neck. Against any other opponent it would have been a decapitating blow, the force behind it so great that Eni could feel the vibrations in her chest as the blade made impact.
Sparks flew, the sound like an avalanche, and as Tin pulled his arm back Eni saw the dragon's neck was completely unmarked. Her stomach twisted, icy fingers pulling down at it, as she saw the flaming embers bounce across the room and realized that they weren't sparks.
The whip-sword had shattered.
She could only stand, completely numb, as a chevron landed near her feet, the piece of metal glowing red-hot and sizzling as it buried itself in the floor. She could hear others, their passage like arrows, and Zathos didn't budge an inch as several embedded themselves in the monster's flank. Tin was left holding a ruin, not much more than the hilt left in his paw, and Neira laughed.
"Come now," she said, her amused tone tempered with pure menace, "There are many wonders I have yet to show you, All-King."
Tin stood before her, tall and proud as his chest heaved with exertion, and he snarled his answer. "Not done with our conversation," he spat, and Neira smiled grimly.
The dragon casually moved one of her mighty limbs to the side with crushing strength and speed, Tin barely managing to dodge in time, and Eni's terror grew as she realized what she was seeing.
Neira was playing with him, her every blow carefully calculated to just barely miss. Her talons whistled through the air, Tin ducking and dodging as he desperately circled her, and Eni's fear began to give way to something else.
Her heart felt like the magma at the heart of Invermir itself, her blood boiling in her veins as anger took hold of her. Her vision throbbed with her pulse, the terrible chill clinging to her evaporating like morning fog. Eni had a moment of perfect clarity, her awareness straining beyond the limits of her mind, and she stopped holding it back. She staggered, reeling as her power burst free but still making no effort to pull it back, a savage pleasure filling her mind as she reached out.
She could feel everything, all the little imperfections in the ruined marble under her feet as familiar as her own paw, and all the subtle currents of the air were amazingly clear. The Dracrysts sang their own private songs, alternately harmonizing and growing dissonant as their complex notes unfolded. Their music filled Eni, passing through her, but at the center of the room there was something that almost drowned them out.
Neira was the sun blazing over a candle, an ocean next to a raindrop, and for all of Tin's strength he was barely anything. The wolf was a mote, weaving hypnotic patterns as he strained himself, grimly trying to get closer, and Eni could feel his growing exhaustion. She imagined her own magic as the crashing waves of the sea, allowing it to carry her along as she focused every fiber of her being on her target.
She could feel it building in her, her sense of her own body dissolving as the torrent raged. The floor under her feet trembled and shook, her ears full of the sound of stones rumbling apart, and—
Impatience is a vice, leveret.
The dragon's words struck Eni like a knife in the heart. She gasped with pain as her magic pulled itself back in, tendrils of power evaporating without her will to guide them. Her head throbbed with Neira's strength, the awful promise bearing with it an undeniable certainty. Eni staggered back, her mouth suddenly full of a bitterly metallic taste, and as spots of color danced in front of her eyes she was dimly aware that she must have bitten her tongue. The realization came sluggishly, all her thoughts moving slowly. She felt shattered, as though her entire being had been scattered like the fragments of a dropped glass, and the room spun around her.
She was falling, her knees as weak as jelly, and she caught a glimpse of Tin, still desperately trying to land a blow on Neira, but she knew it was hopeless. Despair welled up in her heart as she tried calling for him, trying to find something to say, but nothing came. She only spat out a mouthful of her own blood, the droplets an impossibly bright red as they spun through the air, but they didn't freeze.
Her fear and her anger had left her; there was no room in her heart for either, not as she slowly crumpled to the floor. She was utterly wrung out, her power feeling entirely consumed by her failure, and a shooting pain danced its way from the center of her head and down her back. Eni's staff hit the ground with a clatter an instant before she did, stars filling her vision as her jaw clacked shut. She had landed awkwardly on her left arm, not able to support her own weight, and her paw went numb. Her limb spasmed as she rolled herself over, not willing to look away from Tin and the battle he still tried to fight, but she went too far.
The chamber lurched around her as she found herself looking up at the burning glow of a Dracryst floating effortlessly above her head, neatly enshrouded by beautifully curving black cables, and Eni reached for it. She and Tin weren't alone, not by a long shot, and although she hadn't even been able to feel its presence she was certain it had to be there.
"Zathos?" Eni asked, the monster's name a weak mumble as her trembling fingers approached its unmoving body, "Please…"
She could barely hear the plaintive note in her own voice over the horrible sounds that filled her ears. Tin's heart was racing and his breathing was ragged, a terrible contrast to Neira's unyielding poise. The wolf would tire himself against her if something didn't change, and Eni squeezed her eyes shut as her fingertips met flesh as cold as death.
Help us.
She begged without speaking, the idea passing through her and into the statue-like form of the monster. Eni tried to blot everything else out, but the monster was so faint that it was barely present, completely overshadowed by the two mismatched combatants at the center of the room. A long moment passed, Eni's mind slowly quickening as she felt herself filling an eternal void, and at last an answer came.
"I cannot."
Zathos was standing before her, the only thing she could perceive in an endless expanse of darkness. The monster was illuminated by the dim glow of its eyes, the borders of its limbs hazy and dreamlike. Its voice was weaker than Eni could have ever imagined, lower than a whisper and somehow brimming with intense effort. "You can," Eni replied urgently, and she could feel some measure of her strength returning, her paw visible as she gestured.
She was burning with a cool and gentle fire, each strand of fur alive with it, and she felt herself brighten as she went on. "I can free you," she said, and even as she spoke she knew it was the truth.
Neira had given her the answer; Zathos was like a pail filled with water, left out in midwinter to freeze. Eni could feel how the monster's very essence had been twisted and solidified, locking it motionless, and she was sure she knew how to undo it. Zathos needed only to be reminded of what it was, able to take on any shape. Its form was intact, left to suffer a slow death, and Eni grabbed at the truth, trying to hold it in her mind.
"I cannot help you, Archivist," Zathos said, "My task was to plunder as many Dracrysts as possible using the All-King as a lure."
The monster cocked its head to the side, its four eyes blinking in harmony before it spoke again. "I am sorry," it said, and although its eerie voice remained faint Eni thought it wasn't lying.
"Eraxis would want you to help!" Eni blurted, allowing the words to flow out of her without thinking about them, "That's the Wright's name, isn't it? I saw her; she came to me."
Zathos had gone somehow even more still than usual, and Eni could dimly make out the whistling crack of Tin's reduced whip-sword. The wolf's heartbeat was gradually creeping back into her awareness, her connection to Zathos slowly disintegrating, and the monster spoke. "She would stand with you, were she here," Zathos said, each word less audible than the one that had come before it, "But she is not. I am only a tool."
"You're more than that!" Eni protested ferociously, "She… She would want you to think. To choose! And…"
She trailed off, her mind spinning as she tried to come up with some solution. Her vision was becoming oddly doubled, the shadow of Tin and Neira pressing against Zathos's form, and the Dracrysts were burning through the void like pinpricks.
"As many as possible," Eni said slowly, and even as her grip on Zathos failed her luminosity only grew stronger.
"As many as possible!" she repeated triumphantly, "Zathos, you don't have to bring them all to her; let me take one. Neira can't go after both of us at once, so your odds will be much better. And I promise, if Tin and I make it out, the Dracryst is yours."
She was thinking too quickly to worry about logistics; all she knew for sure about Zathos's master was that she stood against Neira, but that would have to be enough. The monster was silent for an eternity, seeming to fade slowly away, but even as Tin and his opponent grew sharper Zathos answered.
"An acceptable compromise," it said, and Eni's response was immediate.
"You are like water!" she cried, but the words didn't come in Circi or Jarku or Nihian.
They left her throat and her mind in Derkomai, pulling at her power as she let her will flow into the monster. Strange sigils burned through her mind, clumsy and crude compared to the elegant forms Neira commanded, but they did as she demanded. She could feel Zathos's body suddenly returning to what passed for life for the strange creature, flowing and reshaping itself even as her connection to its mind broke.
Her eyes snapped open to the chamber shaking around her, and Zathos's tendrils of flesh slowly tightened around the Dracrysts. All of its limbs burned and smoldered with their power, except for the one immediately above her head. It had knocked a sharp blow against the glowing orb that floated there, sending coruscating waves of light rippling through the air as it landed on Eni's chest. She had been prepared for it to sear her flesh, the way it had Zathos's, but nothing happened. She could feel its power; it thrummed with energy, calling out to her.
Iamata.
The name made her head throb, carrying with it visions of rivers that seemed too long to possibly be real. Water stretched endlessly forward, twisting and turning along the paths carved through the very surface of Aerodan, and Eni felt the dragon in each and every one of them. She was in every storm surge, in every current and eddy, and filled even the drops of rain that gave the rivers their headwaters. She was regal and ever-changing, flashes of scales like quicksilver and wings like thunderstorms impressing themselves upon Eni's mind, and it was only with great effort that she managed to put the Dracryst into her satchel.
Although it had seemed as large as her head when it had been floating, its central core couldn't have been any larger than her eye; it was simply surrounded by a beautiful glow more complex than the facets of any gem. Eni could have watched it raptly for hours, but as she closed her satchel she looked up.
The entire room was quaking, debris raining from the ceiling as the magnificent dome overhead cracked asunder, and Tin was still dodging Neira's blows. His right arm hung limply at his side, flopping as he kept trying to maneuver, but his face was fixed in an expression of pure determination. "Tin!" Eni cried, her voice cracking, "Hurry!"
For a single hopeless second Eni was sure he hadn't heard her, that he would press on with his futile attacks, but then he sprinted toward her even as Zathos pulled its body tightly together with unnerving speed, seven Dracrysts vanishing into its chest.
Neira's fury was terrible, the walls of the chamber splitting as she roared her displeasure. The sound was haunting, as awful as it was beautiful, and her eyes flashed as turned her mighty head toward Eni. All her blood froze in her veins as the dragon fixed her with her gaze; she was more than a hundred yards away and yet still felt far too close.
"Run if you must," the dragon intoned, Eni's lungs shaking with each word, "Nothing leaves Invermir without my assent."
Boulders of marble fell from the ceiling, each as large as a cottage, but not a single one hit Neira. Any that came too close simply shattered into powder, the fine particulate no more able to touch the dragon than the massive chunks of stone they had once been a part of. Eni swallowed her fear as Tin reached her, pulling her to her feet with his good arm and dragging her away from the dragon.
"Let us conclude our discourse, Vanargand," Neira said, her voice filled with absolute confidence even as she stood motionless with the weight of the mountain engulfing her.
Tin pulled Eni toward a crack that had opened in one of the walls; she had no idea where it led but that hardly mattered. Zathos had vanished through a different gap, the monster's bulk slithering through a space that should have been too small for it, and Eni wondered if she would ever get to keep her promise. The Dracryst wasn't heavy in her satchel; it felt almost weightless, or as though it had a negative weight, making it somehow easier to run.
She had scooped up her staff without thinking about it and was glad to have it; the path ahead was unrelentingly dark. Eni held the wooden stick in front of her, ducking when it clacked against the spots where the ceiling was low, but even without a guide Tin was keeping up a brutal pace. She could feel but not see the wolf at her side, the smell of his musk almost overwhelming as he panted for breath, hurrying them along the twisting passage.
"Are you alright?" she managed to ask, trying to take comfort in the solidity of his fingers entwined with hers.
"Fine," he managed, but Eni could hear a ragged edge of pain and weariness to the word, "Arm'll heal."
There was no confidence in his claim, and Eni knew why. His injuries knit themselves back together quickly, but not instantly, and they were living on borrowed time. "I'm sorry," Eni said as they raced on, "I… I tried to help, but…"
She trailed off, not wanting to make an excuse for her failure. Her absolute best had been nothing against a dragon, a feeble attempt that hadn't even distracted her for a second. Neira had dismissed her with casual ease, and Eni was sure that the dragon wasn't feigning her apparent lack of concern.
"You did," Tin said quietly, "Not just with the Dracrysts. I…"
He trailed off, and for a moment the only sounds were their exertions as they stumbled through the tunnel followed by a rumble deeper than any drum. "Felt you," Tin said at last, "Your power. It helped."
Despite herself, Eni felt a small ember of pleasure flicker to life in her heart before the reality of their situation could extinguish it. "Did you hurt her?" she asked, barely able to force out the question, and there was no hesitation when Tin answered.
"No."
They went on in silence for what could have been minutes or hours, Eni trying to come up with some last desperate idea to save them. Perhaps if she tried again she could bring Neira's fortress down on the dragon's head, burying her and her treasures with her. She could picture it in her head, a horde of knowledge inscribed in golden tomes and diamond slabs crushing the dragon with the help of millions of tons of solid rock, but then something changed so suddenly that Eni froze in place.
The dark tunnel they had been running through was gone, replaced with an enormous and wide open vault. Eni blinked in disbelief as she looked around; only moments before her staff had connected with the ceiling so firmly that her fingers still tingled with the force of the blow. But that seemed utterly impossible as she took in the room they had found themselves in. It stretched off in the distance in both directions, the ceiling hundreds of feet above a floor of polished tile. A warm and soothing glow filled the air, the previous darkness completely banished, and as far as Eni could see Neira's library surrounded her.
There were more volumes than she had even imagined, the collection dozens of times larger than the university's. Hundreds of millions or perhaps billions of golden books rested on shelves of burnished metal, the display awe-inspiring beyond imagining. There were golden tablets, nearly as tall as Eni herself was, densely inscribed with symbols unlike anything Eni had ever seen and standing proudly on display. Scrolls of Aurum Regia, thinner than parchment but tougher than steel, were stacked in cubbies like bottles of wine, and diamond slabs glittered in the light.
Can I destroy this?
Eni's own voice whispered in her ears, her heart sinking as she considered the lost knowledge on display. There were secrets from before the beginning of recorded history just waiting to be explored, she was certain. It would be the work of a dozen lifetimes to even grasp the full array of information just waiting for her, and Eni turned her head to look at Tin.
In the even illumination that filled the vault he looked especially ragged, his mane sticking out at awkward angles and his useless arm dangling limply at his side with a complete lack of his usual grace. She met his eyes and swallowed, steeling her resolve. "Come on," she said softly, "I think… I think I understand now."
She gripped his good paw in hers, striding forward purposefully as she tried to ignore the tantalizing volumes on display. "It's the way this place works," Eni said, her voice reverberating in the massive place, "It's… not an illusion, exactly. Invermir is just… whatever she wants it to be."
"Whatever she wants it to be," Eni's voice echoed back at her, louder than when she had spoken, "Do you know what you want?"
Eni's heart stuttered in her chest as words she had never spoken filled the air, ringing out clearly. Tin's eyes widened, the wolf's chest heaving, and Eni squeezed his paw tightly as she started running. Their footsteps were painfully loud in her ears, and as they raced onwards they stopped sounding like footsteps at all. They sounded like laughter, throaty and mocking, and Eni squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to blot out Neira's voice.
An exit, she told herself, We need a way out. Even as she thought the words, over and over, she couldn't defeat the creeping suspicion that her idea wouldn't work, that it hadn't been her own recollection of the dragon's hoard that had summoned the vault. Perhaps it had all been Neira, taunting her with what she could have if only she gave in to her whims, but Eni tried to banish the thought. "Help me, Tin," she whispered, "Think about us leaving."
She vaguely heard him make a wordless sound of acknowledgement, but even as the vicious sound of the dragon's amusement still refused to leave her ears Eni was focusing her imagination on something she had never seen before. She imagined a doorway, an elegant arch of Aurum Regis with a nearly organic curve, giving way to the craggy side of a mountain. It didn't matter that there was no such door; she pictured it with all her might, trying to hold onto the image as clearly as she possibly could. The air would be fresh and cold, whistling mournfully through the portal, and Eni could almost feel it against her fur as she urged her legs to keep moving.
The thought was all consuming, blotting out all else, and—
"Eni!" Tin cried, and she jerked to an ungainly stop as something grabbed the back of her robes.
She shrieked with terror, raw fear coursing through her veins as awful possibilities filled her mind, but opening her eyes she saw she hadn't been imagining a cool breeze. Tin had caught hold of her back, and it was only the wolf's strong arm that was keeping her from plummeting hundreds of feet down to the craggy rocks below. They were standing on a narrow ledge crusted with hard-packed snow, and as Eni slowly took a step back, her heart still racing, she realized that they were very nearly at the top of Mount Gwared.
The Circle stretched around them, cities and towns visible as twinkling lights underneath the starry sky. Vornstrom was like a carpet, closer than any other sign of life but still brilliantly illuminated. Smudges of fire and smoke marred the city's gleaming outer walls and sealed gates, but the damage didn't seem to have penetrated very far into Vornstrom's core. Lanterns and lamps still lit up neat networks of roads, and if Eni strained her hearing she almost imagined she could hear the voices of mammals raised in celebration.
She turned slowly, meeting Tin's gaze. "Thank you," she managed, and he only nodded.
He looked wearier than she had ever seen him, barely able to support himself, and she grabbed his paw. "I'll try again," she said fiercely, "I know I can do it."
Warm certainty flickered through her; as long as Tin was by her side anything seemed possible, and as he squeezed her fingers tightly she made no attempt to stop the smile that spread across her face. She took a deep breath, planting her feet firmly against the rocks as she steadied herself. She gently untangled her paw from Tin's and then brought hers together, wrapping them around her staff as she faced the peak of the mountain. Eni focused on the flow of air in and out of her lungs, trying to calm herself as she coaxed her power loose, and the ground began to rumble.
Eni's smile broadened into a fierce grin, savage triumph pulsing through her, and then she caught a glimpse of Tin's face. The wolf's features had collapsed, his ears folded flat against his head, and Eni realized that Gwared's motion was not her doing. The vibrations grew steadily worse, knocking her off her feet, and Tin slid clumsily down to her side as they both watched in wordless horror as stones slid down the severe peak. Low bass mutterings sounded forth from the heart of the mountain, so deep that Eni's eyes quivered in their sockets and her lungs felt like pudding, and they only grew louder, climbing up from the valley below.
And then Gwared exploded.
The force of it rocked Eni as she went momentarily deaf, her body flailing like a doll as plumes of smoke emerged from the missing peak. A chunk of the mountain larger than a dozen city blocks was simply gone, shattered with unimaginable power. Blazing streamers of molten stone, tracing white-hot contrails that turned a fiery red as they cooled, burst forth, and for an instant everything was as bright as day.
Searing tears filled Eni's eyes, the heat incredible even from a distance, and Gwared spewed torrents of lava, bubbling and sizzling as it evaporated the snow. The stars vanished as smoke blotted them out, bolts of lightning crackling through the dry air as the clouds above began to swirl. An eerie aurora, vividly blue and green, formed in the gaps between the churning cloud cover and in an instant the sky was entirely hidden.
Before it disappeared entirely, Eni caught a glimpse of something like an enormous rupture in the sky, a jagged wound of inky darkness surrounded by the swirling aurora, and a deep and foreboding sense filled her at the raw power on display. Even when it disappeared from view she could still feel it, pressing against her like a merciless glare, and Eni shuddered as the mountain raged on.
There was nothing left but its violence, its fury concealing the stars and the moon as well as the awful tear, and torrential rains began to fall, steam billowing away from the lava flows. The doorway they had left Invermir through came to a tall peak, and as Eni watched in numb terror lava began to flow around it, any hope of escape down the mountain disappearing as the superheated rock hissed like something alive.
Gwared showed no signs of stopping, an even deeper vibration emerging from its depths as fiery explosions of lava belched from its throat, but what emerged next made everything that had come earlier look utterly insignificant. A massive shape burst forth, trailing lava as it surfaced, and as Eni watched Neira spread her wings. Enormous droplets of melted rock came free as the dragon soared above them, her scales iridescent and gleaming in the reflected light of the volcano and the lightning.
Her eyes blazed and her mouth opened, exposing her terrible teeth as she spoke in a voice like thunder in an echo of her previous words. "Come, let us conclude our discourse," Neira said, and even as Eni looked around in desperation she knew the truth.
There was nowhere left to run.
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