Chương 119: The First Real Wall

Carrion Basin lived up to its name. The land was not red. It was chewed. Hills of dead flesh stretched beneath a low sky, stitched to black roots, pierced by pools where bones floated far too white. The conduits from Velkar-Morne opened into a damp valley in the southeast of the demonic continent, between the first overgrowths of the Maws Gardens and the low roads leading toward the Fleshworks. Here, even the air felt swallowed, digested, and spat back out. Elyra pressed a cloth over her nose.

Lumeï did not come out from under her cloak.

"I want to go back to a forest," the spirit murmured.

"Even a cursed forest. Even a forest that insults travelers. Anything but this." Zayn walked down the slope without answering. His boots sank slightly into the soft ground. At every step, the earth made a wet sound. The black scythe rested on his shoulder, the skull turned toward the pools.

"It's almost cozy," it said. Elyra shot back, "Your definition of cozy is criminal."

"Thank you." Zayn raised a hand. Silence. Something moved beneath a pool of brown liquid ahead of them. Not one monster. Several. Shapes slowly rose to the surface, covered in a transparent membrane. They had incomplete faces, arms too long, and small red cores beating in their chests. The system appeared briefly. [Stabilized organic subjects.] [Estimated soul-force: 44–52.] Zayn sighed.

"She's wasting our time." The scythe snickered.

"Maybe she's sharpening your appetite." The subjects charged. Zayn entered the first one like a black line. The scythe opened its chest, then Time in Ruin finished off the sutures before they could close again. Elyra projected three blades of light, severing the second one's legs. Zayn stepped over it, drove the scythe into its core, and tore it out. The third tried to go around Elyra.

Lumeï burst out in the form of a fox of light, bit into its shadow, and the creature stumbled just long enough for Zayn to take its head off. Zayn's collarbone pulsed. This time the notification came after the fight, not during it. [Downfall of Envy: partial absorption.] [Soul-force absorbed: +4.] [Current soul-force: 165 → 169.] Zayn watched the bodies liquefy.

"Still not enough." Elyra wiped her blade.

"If you think every enemy has to feed you, you'll end up exactly like her." The scythe turned its skull toward the princess.

"What a refined insult." Zayn did not answer. He was looking beyond the pools. There, between two organic hills, a door was opening. Not a stone door. A jaw. Enormous. Embedded in the side of the valley, with teeth as tall as columns and a black throat descending toward the Maws Gardens. A figure waited above it. Voragna. Not a projection this time. The system appeared before Zayn even lifted his head. The letters trembled slightly. [Demon General detected.] [Domain: Gluttony.] [Estimated soul-force: 238.] Elyra felt her breath lock in her chest. Even without a window, she understood the gap. This was nothing like the monsters from the hothouses. It was not even like the elven king when his body had been collapsing. This was power settled in its own domain. Stable. Vast. Hungry. Voragna descended along a living wall as if the flesh of the world moved aside for her feet. Her body was almost beautiful. That was what made it horrific. Every movement seemed chosen to reassure before devouring.

Her mouth smiled softly, but around her the air twisted, as if invisible things wanted to enter her. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"238," Zayn murmured. Elyra looked at him.

"What?" He smiled.

"Her soul-force." She paled.

"You can't beat her now." Voragna laughed from the slope.

"What a clever little light. Keep her, candidate. Things that tell the truth before the pain arrives are rare." Zayn lifted the scythe.

"You have Elvarin."

"No." She answered without hesitation. That surprised Elyra almost more than if she had lied. Voragna placed a hand on the giant jaw.

"I had Elvarin. I tasted his work. I took what interested me. Then he was moved." Zayn stood still.

"Where?"

"Farther than your current hunger." The scythe growled. Voragna smiled.

"There. Very good. You're learning." Elyra understood before Zayn answered.

"You don't want to kill him."

"Not yet." Voragna looked at the princess with almost tender curiosity.

"The Throne opened the succession. Every General felt it. Each of us will decide how to answer. We may kill him, buy him, test him, seduce him, exhaust him, force him upward... or wait for him to kill enough things to become useful." She turned her red eyes toward Zayn.

"I want to know whether he can grow without being swallowed by his own growth." Zayn asked, "And if I refuse your test?" Voragna pointed at the small elven lights enclosed in Elyra's sphere.

"Then you can leave." The valley contracted. Pain ran through the elven lights. Elyra dropped to her knees. Lumeï screamed. Zayn did not move right away. But his hand tightened around the scythe. Voragna continued,"The remnants you tore away from the relay are not free. Fragments of their bindings are still in my pools, in my hothouses, in my beasts. If you leave without cutting the source, they will slowly decay." Elyra looked up at Zayn. She did not need to speak. He understood.

Voragna had just given him the choice Cassiel had promised. Not Elvarin. Not yet. Something he had already taken. Something Elyra was holding. Something the world wanted to take back. The nameless thing inside him scratched harder.

"Where?" he asked. Voragna smiled.

"Maws Gardens. At the heart of the gardens, I planted a mother-organ. It stabilizes stolen spiritual remains. Destroy it, and the fragments your princess carries will stop being pulled toward me." Elyra murmured, "And the trap?" Voragna laughed.

"That is the trap." Zayn smiled back.

"Good." Voragna stepped down one pace farther. Her pressure crashed over them. Even the scythe seemed heavier.

"Be careful, candidate. Just because I'm letting you in does not mean I want to see you come out whole." Zayn walked beneath the first teeth of the giant maw.

"Get in line." Voragna tilted her head.

"Pardon?"

"Ghelkar wants to own me. Vhur wants to test me. The mirrors want to understand me. The marsh probably wants to watch me rot. You want to eat me." He passed beneath the first row of towering teeth.

"Get in line." The scythe burst out laughing. Voragna watched him enter. Then, for the first time, her smile lost something. Not confidence. Simplicity. She murmured,"Maybe you didn't just come into my belly." Her eyes shone.

"Maybe the continent just swallowed another one." Far away, in the human kingdom, Maelor placed a red stone on the map. The stone represented Voragna. Then he placed six more. Ghelkar. Nhaless. Vhur. Morvessa. Lyséa. Vaelthor. And the Throne at the center. Elias looked at the arrangement without speaking. Ivara, behind him, murmured, "All above two hundred?" Maelor answered, "Minimum." Garron Tels whistled between his teeth.

"We're going to die with a lot of prestige." Jonah asked, "And you?" Maelor did not answer right away. The room fell silent. Then the archmage said,"I can stop one of them from crossing our walls. Maybe two, if the world is very generous and I have no intention of surviving cleanly." He looked up at the heroes.

"But I cannot walk alone across their continent, face their domains, their armies, their traps, their servants, then return to defend the capital. That is why you exist here." Lena lowered her eyes. Elias asked, "Then why have they never invaded us all together?" Maelor gave him a cold smile.

"Because they hate each other more naturally than they breathe." Ivara added, "The succession divides them. A continent of potential kings does not easily become an army." Maelor nodded.

"And because they know that if they advance separately, I am waiting for them." A heavy silence followed. Not glorious. Strategic. Terrifying. Mira looked at the map.

"But now?" Maelor placed one final black stone in the center, on the Throne.

"Now, an unexpected candidate has just forced the continent to look at itself." Nahr, from the shadows, spoke for the first time in a while.

"The demonic human." His voice was dry. Empty. Maelor did not correct him.

"Yes." Nahr stared at the black stone.

"Then we have to leave before he becomes more than a candidate." Maelor looked at the seven stones around the Throne. Then at the route Zayn was likely taking toward the Maws Gardens.

"We are already late." Maws Gardens had nothing of a garden about it. Or rather, it did. That was what made it unbearable. There were paths. Arches. Pools. Flowers. But each flower had a mouth. Each arch was made of ribs. Each pool held a substance where closed eyes floated, and the paths themselves pulsed beneath their feet. Zayn walked ahead. Elyra followed, one hand on the luminous sphere. The elven lights trembled more and more strongly. Somewhere at the center, the mother-organ was calling them.

Not out of malice. Out of function. That was worse. Voragna did not even need to hate what she used. She absorbed it into a system. At the turn of one path, a creature knelt waiting for them. Not enormous. Almost human. A thin body covered in pearly skin, with an open belly where red flowers grew. Its face had no eyes, but it was smiling. The system appeared. [Guardian of the Maws Gardens.] [Estimated soul-force: 88.] Elyra tensed.

"That one is stronger." Zayn rotated the scythe in his hand.

"Finally." The guardian opened its belly. The flowers sang. Elyra's sphere began to vibrate. The elven lights were being pulled toward it. Elyra cried out and held them back with her light. Zayn charged. The guardian did not move. The flowers spat voices. Not words. Laughter. Crying. Prayers. Last breaths. Zayn stopped for a fraction of a second. A child's voice passed among the others. Not Narek. Not exactly. But close enough that Wrath burned along his forearm. The scythe appeared heavier in his hand.

The guardian leapt. Far too fast. It struck Zayn in the stomach and hurled him against an arch of ribs. The structure exploded. Teeth burst from the ground and snapped shut around his left arm. Elyra threw a blade of light. The guardian opened its mouth. It swallowed the light. Then smiled.

"Of course," Lumeï whispered.

"Even light is food here." Zayn tore his arm free from the teeth, leaving skin behind. The guardian came at him again. This time, Zayn did not strike the head. He struck the garden. Time in Ruin spread across the ground beneath their feet. The nearest flowers wilted. The teeth yellowed. The pools developed a gray skin over their surfaces. The guardian staggered. Its body was tied to the garden. Zayn smiled.

"There." The scythe sliced through one flower in its belly. One voice went out. Then another. Then a third. Elyra shouted, "Be careful with the fragments!" Zayn did not answer. He cut the flowers, not the lights. Time in Ruin aged the roots holding them. Elyra's light pulled in the opposite direction. The guardian screamed. At last. Its belly snapped shut violently, crushing certain flowers to keep them from being freed. Zayn saw the gesture. Not defense. Confiscation. Mine, said the body. Hers, said the domain.

Nobody's, answered something inside him. The nameless thing scratched again. Almost hard enough to bleed. Zayn drove the scythe into the guardian's chest, then laid his bare hand against its open belly.

"Give them back." The words came out before he meant them to. Elyra looked at him. The guardian tried to recoil. Zayn tightened his grip.

"Give them back." Time in Ruin passed through the roots. Gluttony deciphered the biological structure. Envy drank in the fragments of force breaking off from it. The guardian decomposed from the inside out. [Guardian of the Maws Gardens defeated.] [Soul-force absorbed: +8.] [Current soul-force: 169 → 177.] The remaining flowers opened. Dozens of tiny lights escaped them, some too weak to last even a second. Elyra received them in silent tears, while Lumeï wrapped them in a gentle light.

Zayn remained standing before the guardian's corpse. His fist still clenched. The scythe murmured,"You said give them back."

"I know."

"That wasn't for Elvarin." Zayn looked at the lights in Elyra's arms. Then looked away.

"Move." At the center of the Maws Gardens, the mother-organ was beating harder. Voragna was waiting for them. Not yet to die. Not yet to be defeated. But to see whether, in her own domain, a candidate for the Throne could learn to take without merely devouring. And somewhere, very far away at the center of the continent, the Black Throne beat once. Like a heart that had just liked the sound of a word. Give them back.