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SHATTERED GODS BOX SET

BOOKS 1-3

CHRIS FOX

CHRIS FOX WRITES LLC

Copyright © 2021 by Chris Fox
All rights reserved.
 CONTENTS

Note to the Reader

Map of Hasra
Lands of the West

I. Shattered Gods
Prologue
1. Xal
2. Elias Manor
3. The Warrens
4. Sacrifices
Interlude I - Tissa
5. Prices
6. The Chit
7. The Call
8. Conscripted
Interlude II - Li
9. Dec
10. Pleasant Surprise
11. Larger World
Interlude III - Macha
12. Bloody Feet
13. Bandages
14. Jun
15. Spider Mountain
Interlude IV - Li
16. Final Training
17. Wasps
18. Bears
19. Last Stand
Interlude V - Li
20. Spiteful Sacrifices
21. Falling
22. Breakfast
23. The Palace
24. Opulence
Interlude VI - Erik
25. Audience
26. The Testing
27. The Induction
28. The Temple of Celeste
29. Dreams
Interlude VII - Macha
30. Archetype Selection
31. The Assessment
32. Spellcasting & Magic
33. Catalysts
34. History
35. Lunch
36. Tactics & Strategy
37. Combat Training
Interlude VIII - Tissa
38. A Board of My Own
39. Freeday
40. Training
41. The Eight Trials
Interlude IX - Imperator Desidria
42. The Pit
43. The Cage
44. The Crowd
45. Manaforge
Interlude X - Tissa
46. Remedial Trials
47. Wake the Arena
48. Spiced Rum
49. The Primus
Interlude XI - Lucretia
50. Convalescing
51. The Fall of Ark Elias
52. The Mirror
53. Home
54. Forbidden Knowledge
Interlude XII - Macha
55. Tourney
56. Wealth
57. Kem Ball
58. Final Preparations
Interlude XIII - Erik
59. The Reactor
60. Sedjet
61. Rising Temperatures
Interlude XIV - Tissa
 62. Duel
63. Consequences
64. Graduation
65. Dreams
66. Debts Paid
Epilogue
II. Fomori Invasion
Prologue
1. Twang
2. Pass the Rat
3. Dullahan
Interlude I - Erik
4. Inferno
5. Diadem of Fury
Interlude II - Desidria
6. Safety
7. Fomori Invasion
Interlude III - Caw
8. Entitled Nobles
9. Reunion
Interlude IV - Lucretia
10. Dreams
11. The Call
Interlude V - Tissa
12. Pagodas
13. Stances
Interlude VI - Ephram
14. Mogui
15. Lunch
Interlude VII - Caw
16. Innate Spells
17. The Mountain
Interlude VIII - Ephram
18. Shu
19. Mentor
Interlude IX - Niu
20. Give Up?
21. Surprises
Interlude X - Li
22. Choices
23. Rewards and Prices
Interlude XI - Caw
24. Hasty Goodbyes
25. Changing Attitudes
Interlude XI - Vhala
26. Hospitality
27. Khwezi Is Crazy
Interlude XII - Ephram
28. Bunks
29. Training
Interlude XIII - Thandres
30. Scabbard
31. The Sands
32. Illusions
Interlude XIV - Lucretia
33. Accidental Victory
34. Intentional Victory
Interlude XV - Ephram
35. Enemy of My Enemy
36. The Soultaker
Interlude XVI - Ephram
37. Demons
38. Leadership
Interlude XVII - Ephram
39. Debts Repaid
40. The Fortune of Lakshmi
Interlude XVIII - Tissa
41. Arena Blessing
42. Griffins
Interlude XIX - Balora
43. Waypoint
44. Valys
45. Ducius
Interlude XX - Erik
46. Lukas
47. Dunk the Ducius
Interlude XXI - Ephram
48. Lady Shulk
49. Sofia
Interlude XXII - Lucretia
50. The Siege of Lakeshore
51. Final Exam
Interlude XXIII - Caw
52. Breathless
53. Mutually Assured Destruction
 Interlude XXIV - Ephram
54. The Hammer of Reevanthara
55. Titans
Interlude XXV - Lucretia
56. Shael
57. Burdens of Leadership
58. Teophilus
Interlude XXVI - Macha
59. To War
60. Nemain
Interlude XXVII - Macha
61. Audience
62. Demoncakes
63. Prices Paid
Interlude XXVIII - Lucretia
64. The Plan
65. Contact With the Enemy
Interlude XXIX - Tissa
66. For the Prince of Demons
67. Consequences
Interlude XXX - Erik
Epilogue
III. God of the Sands
Prologue
1. Gateway
2. Round Up
Interlude I - Saghir
3. Grand Melee
4. God-souled
Interlude II - Saghir
5. Valerius
6. Rusha
Interlude III - Saghir
7. Discarded
8. The Mark
9. Making Friends
Interlude IV - Saghir
10. March of Death
11. Evolution
Interlude V - Zaro
12. Prophecy
13. Consequences
Interlude VI - Saghir
14. Montague Begins
15. Mina
Interlude VII - Saghir
16. Breakfast
17. Covenant
18. Riddles
Interlude VIII - Magnus
19. Al Mawt
20. Champion
Interlude IX - Zaro
21. Abn Bila Dam
22. Na'Elfen
23. Allies
Interlude X - Caw
24. Dragon
25. Needs
Interlude XI - Sabinia
26. Montague Ends
27. Planning
Interlude XII - Saghir
28. Zarathustra
29. Waves
Interlude XIII - Magnus
30. Collar
31. The Tomb of Zoroaster
Interlude XIV - Sabinia
32. Tiamat & Shivan
Interlude XV - Magnus
33. Loxclyn
34. The White Necromancer
Interlude XVI - Magnus
35. The Infinite Army
36. Kodachine
Interlude XVII - Brim
37. The Shadowed Cleft
38. Straight Answers
Interlude XVIII - Magnus
39. Wed the Flame
40. Almukhtar
Interlude XIX - Magnus
41. Mandala
42. Legacy
 Interlude XX - Saghir
43. God of the Sands
44. Allies
Interlude XXI - Magnus
45. Scryed
46. Changes
Interlude XXII - Gronde
47. Choices
48. Consequences
Interlude XXIII - Saghir
49. True God of the Sands
50. Departures
Epilogue - The Stewards

Note to the Reader

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 BOOK I

SHATTERED GODS
 PROLOGUE

P rincess Li of House Calmora could not have been more miserable.

Even the icy wind provided no balm as the airship sliced through the
cloudless sky toward the mightiest city in the world.
It carried her from her home upon the celestial mountain, and from her
family, away from looming threats she should have been there to help them
face. She’d been excited about the prospect of another term at the Imperial
Academy, but now that it was actually happening?
Staying home and defending the mountain from the mighty wyrm
Khonsu and his get sounded much more attractive. Yet her family needed
warriors and leaders, and she had a duty to become both. She must master
all the Hasrans could teach while earning their respect anew for her people,
as every scion must each generation.
Hasra was powerful and arrogant and if not reminded, tended to bully
whichever vassal it felt the weakest at the moment. That hadn’t ever been
Calmora, and she wasn’t going to be the first in her line to allow it to
happen.
“Are you all right, little one?” Bumut’s shaggy form moved to the prow
of the airship next to her and rested on the metal railing, despite the crust of
ice. The hulking troll smiled into the headwind, focused on their destination
in the distance. “You see the capital there? Shining. Welcoming us. Past
those mountains, that small range.”
Li frowned then. She’d poured over every map in her father’s
collection, and it included the topography between Calmora and Hasra.
She’d studied the trip she was to take with exacting care and remained
positive that there had been no mountain range in this location. Only forests
and the Hasran plains outside the outer wall itself.
“Captain Bumut!” a deep-throated troll boomed from the crow’s nest.
The sailor only bore one horn, the other no doubt broken in some fight.
“Three flyers. Coming fast from below.”
Bumut’s enchanted eye glowed with fiery sigils as the leather-faced troll
peered in the direction his crew had indicated. Li remained unconcerned
until Bumut’s expression tightened. She had never seen her protector
worried before. Not like this.
“What is it?” She peered in the direction the mighty sky sailor had been
looking, but without the aid of fire magic could not pierce the darkness.
“Three drake riders.” Bumut withdrew a heavy mace from his belt. “It
will come to a fight. Prepare yourself. Swiftly. I believe they are here for
you.”
Li moved to the center of the ship’s deck near the base of the
feathersteel mast carrying their enchanted sails. High above, the purple
moon, the moon of dream, watched over them. Chaos. Unpredictability.
Below, just off the horizon, sat the white moon, the moon of spirit. Death. It
may have meant nothing, but her mother had taught her to seek meaning in
celestial movements.
Four troll warriors moved to flank her with the cabin wall to their backs.
Each wore black iron mail, though the fact that it had been forged from
enchanted alloys likely belied the heavy part. They moved unencumbered,
while further augmenting impressive hides with magical metal.
 A screech broke the night from less than forty meters away, far closer
than Li suspected the drakes could approach without being detected. The
long, lithe serpent streaked toward them, its dusky brown scales gleaming
in the night as the wingbeats heralded its arrival.
The rider atop the saddle held a long spear, which Li supposed might
have been better than a stave. She’d rather face a lance than a mage and
their spells, any day.
The drake sucked in a lungful of night wind, and Li’s eyes widened. She
dropped prone even as she screamed her warning. “It’s going to breathe!”
A river of green acid broke over the four troll warriors, and the kinetic
force knocked them to the deck even as the sizzling liquid clung to their
bodies. Their thick white hair fell away in clumps, and deep booming
screams came from the troll who’d borne the worst of it. Their armor had
done nothing to save them.
The armored rider leapt from the drake’s back and hurled his spear at
one of the trolls, who’d dropped their shield to wipe away the acid. The
weapon punched through the sailor’s throat and carried him to the railing,
where the troll stumbled, then toppled soundlessly over the side.
The helmeted rider then drew a sword belted at his waist and ended a
screaming troll with a single brutal chop.
A second drake streaked over the deck and breathed, and this time Li
could not dodge as the caustic liquid washed over her. Acid clung to her
parka, but she whirled her hand and the winds answered, whisking it off the
slick material before much damage could be inflicted.
The two surviving warriors were not so fortunate, and both took the full
blast of acid. Before they could even fall, the third drake passed above and
added its own fury.
Had their ship been constructed from wood it would have already begun
breaking apart, but the feathersteel shrugged off the attacks and protected
the vulnerable reactor below decks.
 A glance showed that Bumut and three more troll sailors still stood their
ground, each now holding a round shield nearly as large as they were. They
would be prepared for the next pass from the drakes.
That left the rider who’d landed on the deck with his blade, which he’d
have not done were he anything less than a master swordsman. Li extended
a hand and summoned her staff from the void pocket sewn into the cuff of
her parka.
The space between universes opened and vomited a four-foot
feathersteel bar into her palm, the drake-hide wrappings a familiar comfort.
“You!” She advanced on the helmeted warrior as she spun the slender
silver staff, the sigils etched across its surface glowing with power as the air
magic within the weapon surged, adding to her own. “You came for me?
Then come and take me.”
At seventeen she was the second youngest duelist to ever win the solo
arena tourney in Calmora. Her mother had trained her with the bow, and her
father with the blade and stave. Bumut had taught her to fight with her
hands, elbows, and knees. She could not call herself living weapon yet, but
Li stood ready for this battle.
The drake rider stalked forward across the deck, all power and no
finesse in that heavy plate. His blade was twice as thick as her staff and
would be difficult to parry. The throw with the spear said this man knew
battle, and if she closed within range, he’d end her with those powerful
blows.
Right now her staff afforded her a bit more reach, but only a bit. She
needed to keep him off balance until more of the crew could rally. A dozen
more hearty warriors slept below decks.
The drake rider advanced, face obscured behind that armored helm, then
launched a two-handed chop. Li vaulted backward and rolled to her feet
well out of reach as the blade thunked into the deck where she’d been
standing. The rider yanked his weapon loose and pursued until her back
pressed against Bumut’s cabin.
He lunged again and she rolled away, this time over to the railing. Each
time his blade came closer, and she couldn’t avoid him forever. But then she
didn’t have to.
She rose into a defensive stance and beckoned at the rider. Acid boiled
in the background as another drake streaked by, but she ignored it.
Something exploded deep within the airship, and they began losing altitude.
That she could not ignore. The deck canted wildly, but she shifted with it,
having sky sailed many times.
The rider also reacted well, but Li noticed that he had no immediate
handholds near him. As the deck tilted further she summoned a tendril of
air and wrapped the translucent appendage around his right ankle, where
his weight rested. She yanked for all she was worth, and the rider tumbled
to the deck and began to slide along the slick surface.
Li thrust her hand forward and concentrated, and the wind obeyed. A
solid wall shoved the heavily armored warrior down the slick deck, and
when he slammed into the railing it was with too much force, and he
toppled wordlessly over the side.
By now the deck had canted far enough that she could see over the side
as well, and they were coming down fast over the mountains. The rider
slammed into a distant boulder on the snow-covered slope, the impact
swallowed by the wind. She was grateful she wasn’t close enough to
observe details.
Another rider landed on the deck, and she turned to engage him just as
Bumut flattened the poor fool with a single blow from his massive mace,
the head as large as a man’s torso. The troll’s one-handed attacks were more
lethal than those most humans could deliver with two.
The last rider and the drakes winged off into the night. Bumut cupped
his mouth and yelled in her direction, “They were a distraction. The real
threat must have been below deck.”
Li grabbed the handle to Bumut’s quarters for balance as the deck
continued to tilt. Black smoke billowed from the hold, telling the tale of the
fires within. She had no idea what had happened, but the result was clear.
They were going to crash on that mountain spinning up at them.
“Inside!” Bumut pointed at the door Li already clung to. “Take shelter
on the bed. Go!”
The airship picked up speed as the sail suddenly tore off and flapped
away, and then they began to tumble. The spin started slowly enough that Li
was able to reach the cabin. She wrapped tendrils around the door, the bed,
and the far wall, then pulled herself atop the bed, which was built into the
cabin floor.
Through the small round windows on either side of the cabin, she
watched the spin build, and with every revolution, the darkened mountain
loomed larger. Trees became clear, as well as snow and individual boulders.
Li closed her eyes to combat the vertigo and prayed that the ancient
Elentian engineering might be equal to the impact.
The screech and groan of tearing metal drowned out all sound, and she
bit down hard on her tongue as the impact slammed her down into the bed.
If not for that soft landing she didn’t know how she’d have fared.
Then the ship began to roll, and they tumbled down a long, steep slope.
Their passage slowed as the occasional tree scraped their hull, but it was
long moments before the Tavren’s Triumph came to rest against an
enormous boulder about midway down the mountain.
“Li?” Bumut’s voice boomed through the door, then a moment later it
opened and the armored sailor ducked inside. “Thank the smiling lady,
you’re all right. I haven’t been below, but no one else on the surface
survived the impact. Grab what you can carry. Food. Drink. Blankets. We
move now or not at all.”
 Bumut was already sifting through his belongings, picking up the things
that he thought useful and adding them to a pack by the door. Li’s pack still
lay in her own cabin. She darted to the doorway and realized that part of the
ship had been crushed by the boulder they’d come to rest against. All of her
things were gone, except what she carried. She would have nothing this
term…if she survived.
She darted back inside and fetched a sack of scrolls from next to the
desk. Then she began stuffing loaves of bread, wheels of cheese, and the
occasional pastry into the bag, wincing as the sugar stained the priceless
parchment. Better stained than lost. The temple would understand.
Li slung the pack over her shoulder and darted after her mentor into the
chill night. He vaulted the ruined railing and began sprinting up the
mountain toward the closest tree line. She leapt after, sucking in quick
breaths as she fought against the thick snows. The cold ate through her
boots, reminding her of home.
They did not stop running even once the towering pines surrounded
them, and Li’s breath came in short, pained gasps from the unexpected
exertion. The bag tugged at her, mercilessly, but she refused to drop so
much as a scroll. Knowledge was to be revered and preserved, at all costs.
So much had already been lost.
“Up that ridge, and then we can stop. In that cave.” Bumut had paused
ahead, his massive fingers splayed against the trunk of a pine.
Li nodded grimly and followed the furrow in the snow made by
Bumut’s passage as they briefly left the trees. The light of the dream moon
made the land red and dim, and she longed to summon a magical light. Too
dangerous, she knew.
She couldn’t ask the questions building in her mind. What had happened
below decks? Who or what had destroyed the reactor and caused them to
crash? Reactors were priceless. Airships could be rebuilt. Reactors could
not. All that just to kill her? There had to be more to it.
 Bumut finally crested the ridge. The shaggy troll did not pause, but
rather increased his pace, lumbering through the snow until he reached a
wide cave at the crest of the ridge. A similar cave lay on the other side of
the ridge, and she wagered they connected somewhere within the mountain.
“Inside.” Bumut beckoned her and Li obliged.
She dragged the pack behind her, unable to lift it any longer. Speed
she’d drilled in. Endurance she’d cultivated. Strength? Not so much yet.
That needed to be remedied. This was humiliating.
An eternity later she entered the cave behind Bumut and noted the moist
ichor along the rocks. Disgusting. Some sort of fungus? The stench was
awful. Still, shelter was shelter. She scanned the ground until she found a
relatively clean spot and deposited the pack.
Li shored it up into something like a proper chair back, and sat
crosslegged and rested against the scrolls. She’d carried them. They could
carry her for a bit.
“We are safe, I think. For now.” Bumut moved to sit at the fire. “Dawn
will be upon us soon, and whoever those riders were, they do not wish to be
seen this close to the capital in the light of day. It should be safe for you to
carry us upon the winds to the outer wall, at least, if that is not presuming
too much, Princess.”
“It is not. My magic is at the ready if it is needed.” She pulled her knees
to her parka and in a few moments, stopped shivering entirely. This place
wasn’t nearly so cold as home, especially now that they were out of the
wind. “Why did they do this? And who are they, do you think?”
Bumut settled against the wall between her and the cave entrance. As
the bulky troll settled, a low whooshing came from deep within the
mountain and reeked of sulfur and worse things.
The troll bared a pair of tusks as if to fight. “This place is an active
volcano, and I believe we are in a lava tube. We are not safe. We should not
sleep. Perhaps we tarry only until the sun is fully up.”
 A violent tremor toppled the scrolls onto Li, and she strained to keep
them from falling into a puddle of the awful mold, or whatever the goo was.
Many moments later, the tremor abruptly ceased, and she laboriously forced
the bag back into the spot where she’d originally set it.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t wait.” Bumut peered through the doorway, down
the slope. “Predawn is here. And this place is not safe. If you use your
magic we can be airborne and away.”
Li nodded wearily but didn’t rise. “I need rest, Bumut. Just a few
minutes. That hike taxed me. You trained me to fight in comfortable places,
not run up mountainsides in the snow.”
“Then I have failed you in that way.” Bumut pushed past her, and all of
a sudden her pillow vanished as he seized the scrolls and hefted them.
“Carry yourself and I will carry these. As to who attacked us? I cannot
speculate, but someone does not wish you to reach Hasra alive and wants to
weaken the Calmoran navy in the process.”
Li didn’t have the faintest idea which of mother’s enemies would most
wish her dead and be foolish enough to attempt this. “Whoever it is, risks
the imperial flame readers. They will be discovered and killed. Just as soon
as we reach the capital.”
Bumut shrugged uncomfortably and strode from the cave. He paused
outside to wait for her, and she followed. He didn’t move far, just down the
ridge to the tree line. They were out of sight, but able to survey the forests
around them for miles.
The spirit moon had set, and the dream moon touched the western
horizon. The sun already stained the east a ruddy red and would be upon
them soon. Whether Bumut wished it or no, that meant the prudent course
was to rest until the sun well and truly rose.
Li rested her back against a tree and tried to calm her breathing. She’d
genuinely thought herself in shape, but none of her training had prepared
her for tromping in the woods under burden. Why had no one mentioned
carrying heavy things as being requisite to attending the Imperial
Academy?
The mountain rumbled, and the rumble became a full quake. Li tumbled
to the ground but grabbed a root of the tree she’d been sheltering beneath.
Bumut toppled to his back and clattered down the slope until he came to
rest against the bole of a pine forty or fifty paces away.
Li almost released her grip and went to him, but another earthquake
came, this one far more violent. The entire mountain shifted and heaved and
looked as if an entire peak were collapsing to the west.
Only the peak didn’t collapse, and it wasn’t a peak. An arachnid leg
extended from the main mountain and stabbed into the soft forest below.
Another leg emerged, and another, and then the main body of the mountain,
the part she and Bumut clung to, thrust hundreds of cubits further up into
the sky.
Flame burst in the air behind her, and she turned in time to see magma
flowing from both caves. Only they weren’t caves. They were nostrils. A
pair of airship-sized eyes opened on either side of the slope, four in total,
and peered past her down to the plain below.
Li spun to see what had piqued the terrifying monster’s interest. A
caravan of six boxy steel wagons crept along the road, not two days march
from Hasra itself. The safest area a caravan could pass through, outside the
walls.
The mountain scuttled forward, and all she could do was cling to the
root and pray as the mountain lunged. They dropped into free fall as its
mouth scooped up the caravan, the surrounding trees, and the road itself in a
single mouthful.
She summoned three tendrils of air and cinched herself to the tree, then
prayed fervently that the roots held it in place.
The mountain chewed twice and gave a tremendous belch of flame and
magma, which sent a wave of heat upward. Snow melted all around her and
then became steam as it exposed the mountainside around them.
The behemoth—for that was the only thing it could be—shook like a
dog, and she barely hung on. Below her, Bumut screamed in terror, but
despite being bounced around seemed safe enough.
Finally, the creature settled and lay down across the road. The titanic
legs retracted, and within moments the awful creature disguised itself as
nothing more than a small mountain range once more. Such a clever ruse.
Li slid down the slick rock and landed in a crouch next to Bumut. He
cradled a wounded arm, but his natural regeneration would take care of that
soon enough. Would that she’d been to the summit. Then she could have
healed his wounds herself. “You’re all right otherwise?”
He nodded, the terror seeming to have stolen his words.
“You realize what we just witnessed?” she demanded, stabbing a finger
at the nostril behind her. “This is a behemoth, not two days from the capital.
We need to get word to the Imperator. Immediately.”
“I agree, and you know what it being here must mean. You will go
faster alone.” Bumut rose shakily to his feet and handed her the sack of
scrolls. “Take these with your winds and fly as fast as you can to Hasra.
Warn them. Tell the Imperator that the time for another Call has come. The
Fomori are active once more. I will take a circuitous route to the city away
from the creature. I’m too small to attract its notice, I believe.”
Li nodded grimly as she agreed with his logic. “Be careful, Bumut.
Live.”
Then she sketched a series of blue-white sigils in the air, deftly fusing
the colorful symbols together until the magic crystalized into a flight spell.
The winds billowed up around her as the sigils fell away, and she seized the
sack with two air tendrils.
Fear found fertile soil within her as she rose into the sky and zipped
away from the mountain, toward the enormous shining wall in the distance,
not nearly so tall as the behemoth. Closer and closer she came, but the
creature never stirred.
Whoever her would-be assassins were, they had failed. She’d survived.
And now the Imperator would learn of it. If the Fomori truly were stirring,
they’d find the Imperium stood ready to oppose them.
 1

XAL

T he opposite of love is not hate. It is apathy.

That was the last lesson my father ever taught me. That I must not give
up my passion. For if I did, that meant they had truly broken me.
An eradicator thrives on passion, he’d said. Let it fuel your magic. So I
had.
I’d survived seventeen years, two of them as a mage, and only twelve
that I could really remember. I’d survived the demons, and the warrens, and
the bullies, and the predators. I’d outlasted them all. Not many had. I’d lost
three older siblings, two to the dims and one to the calling.
No one survives on their own, of course. My mother was exempted
from the calling because of my father’s sacrifice during the last one, which
left her to guard and teach us.
She still woke us each morning at dawn, a soundless touch to my thigh,
just a brush as she passed among my sisters and delivered the same. One by
one we rose silently, no words or light as we navigated the near darkness.
My first task was emptying the chamber pot, the most dangerous chore
and not the most dignified. I fetched the battered pail and lifted it silently as
I ducked under the curtain and into the pre-dawn chill.
 Once the curtain had settled behind me, I allowed my vision to adjust to
the near darkness, instead relying on my ears. Shuffling sounded in the
distance, but it was distant. A big one from the sound of it. Bigger demons
were usually slower. Usually.
I darted silently out past the salt line, painfully aware that I stood
outside its protection. My heart thundered, as it always did, despite the fact
that I’d never been attacked when emptying the pail.
Each movement came with deliberate care as I slowly ascended the pile
of rocks outside our hovel and poured the filth over the side into the abyss.
Every morning I stared into those lurking depths, expecting to see
something. Every morning my empty future stared back.
The pillar of rock we lived upon slithered into the darkness below, its
length covered in warrens and caves that one could follow down into that
well of night if they were tired of living. A void Catalyst lay down there
somewhere if the legends were true. The body of a dead god. Magic beyond
understanding.
The only other view of note was the titanic wall enclosing the moat
around the dims, a magical edifice layered in runes that would block
destructive spells levied by the void mages trapped within. Mages like me.
The wards made it visible, though the towering golden pyramid behind the
walls would have provided illumination regardless. It allowed no true night
in the dims.
That pyramid, the Reactor, was reputed to be a magitech forge of divine
power. The first mortal-constructed Catalyst. A man-made god. One that
bestowed fire magic upon those allowed within.
Sun gods. Our noble oppressors.
I strained to ensure the demon I’d heard was marching away, then
slowly retreated back into our hovel and deposited the empty pot in the
corner behind the curtain we’d hung. Mother had already begun preparing
breakfast, soaking the hard bread the Hasrans gave us then churning the
results into simple gruel.
She fished out a handful, then pressed it into a thin cake between her
palms. Magical heat emanated from her slender hands, providing a bit more
light as the eye-wounding stench of sour cake filled the hovel.
Mother passed me the first one, as I was the oldest, then repeated cakes
for each of my three younger sisters. I’d already come into my magic but
had manifested void as most did, which wasn’t much use unless I wanted to
disintegrate breakfast.
I broke the cake in half and waited for it to cool before mechanically
chewing my way through it. I didn’t hate the taste, and they were better than
the cold version most of my friends would be eating.
Once breakfast was completed, I moved to kiss my mother on the
cheek. She grabbed my shoulders and peered deep into my eyes with a
smile, as she always did, then kissed my cheek, embraced me, and let me
go.
My sisters had already begun to secure the curtains both over the
doorway and our single window. I crossed to the far side of the table and
knelt in the light of our thin candle, made by mother anew each week.
The girls knelt on the far side of the table, ordered by age, Cili at the far
end, the three-year-old not really participating, but so badly wanting to.
Bha sat in the middle, sharps eyes glittering in the darkness, hungry for
knowledge in the same way I was. Nau sat on the far side, bored and still
nibbling on the remains of her sour cake.
“Knowledge is power,” I intoned, beginning the lesson, as I’d been
taught. “Knowledge brings freedom. Knowledge brings vengeance. This is
why they force us to live absent knowledge.” I used my finger to sketch at
the dirt on the section of the floor we used for teaching. “The most potent of
that knowledge is the Circle of Eight.”
 I drew eight empty rings, all arranged in a circle. “Cili, what’s the sigil
at the bottom?”
“Void!” Cili dropped to her knees and drew a clumsy sigil at the base of
the circle.
“Why do we bother with the entire circle?” Nau stifled a yawn and eyed
our scratchings disinterestedly. “If we manifest magic, it’s almost always
void. What use is the rest of it? I’ll never soar through the skies, so why
taunt me with the idea?”
Mother left off scrubbing the baking stone and eyed my sister sharply.
“Have you heard nothing your brother has said? These are not merely
words. Knowledge is power. If you ever escape the dims, then everything
you learn here could help you. Without that knowledge, you are little more
than a slave, even if we do not wear the collar. Literacy and spellcasting are
our paths to freedom.”
Nau nodded sullenly until the speech ended, then offered her attention
back to me as I continued the lesson. I recited all eight aspects, the four
elements, and the four realms.
Then I set my sisters to sketching their own sigils, as I had been taught.
Both Nau and Bha managed purple-black lines of pure void magic in the air
before them, their sigils drawn with far more artistry than my own, despite
the fact that I was older and had more practice.
My morning chores done, I hefted my pack and started for the door
where my mother stood waiting. I hugged her fiercely, then kissed each of
my sisters. Nau and Bha took it stoically, but Cili gave a tiny giggle, so I
tousled her hair.
She nibbled on her cake and grinned up at me over mash-covered
fingers, then began squiggling at the air, though no magic emerged from her
finger. Nor would it until she reached puberty, and it might not even then,
though it seemed likely since the rest of us had manifested magic.
 As I ducked out of the hovel I paused to inspect the salt line around our
home, each grain set a precise knuckle apart. That would keep out most
things, and make others seek easier prey. Fully a third of the dims lived
without salt lines, though.
I picked my way over the rubble next to the hovel, which squatted
beneath the fifth spire, towering over my section of the dims. Those towers
were the lifeblood of the dims and my destination. They stretched into the
sky above me like grasping fingers of a long-dead god, each hollowed out
to form a stronghold for one of the noble families that had once ruled here.
That was where writing had proven useful. The Temple of Celeste paid
a bounty on books, but nobody stopped me from reading them first. My
three best hauls had all been journals, and I’d devoured each one prior to
turning it over.
I’d learned that the spire we sheltered beneath had once belonged to Ark
Elias, one of the finest eradicators in recorded history. Well, before his fall
as a dreadlord, whatever that meant. Mostly it seemed to be being guilty of
possessing void magic, which Ark Elias had been born with.
Which I had been born with.
I picked my way around the base of the spire, wary of any demons that
had not yet retreated until I reached the burned-out ruin of a gatehouse, the
meeting spot where my friends and I gathered each morning. You could go
at a spire alone and keep what you found, but if you ran into a problem you
couldn’t overcome, or other relic hunters, then they’d rough you up and
take your haul.
I preferred partners. Less loot overall, but a more certain means of
contributing to my family’s survival. And a less lonely one.
“You’re dead,” breathed a feminine voice from the shadows next to me,
just outside the guard post. Tissa’s lithe form slid into the light provided by
the Reactor, her mischievous smile flashing in the near darkness.
 Her raven hair had been gathered and stuffed down the back of her shirt,
and grime already coated her face, blurring any patch of skin that might
expose her. I prided myself on my ability to hide and to move through
shadows as naturally as a bird in the sky. She was just better, that’s all. To
be fair, she was a year older and had more practice.
“Where’s your brother?” I whispered back.
“Inside.” Tissa slipped past me into the post, and I followed.
Debris carpeted the floor, the leavings of generations of demokith that
had clearly nested here before fleeing into the warrens to do whatever
demokith did. It meant no one loitered here willingly, and that made it a
perfect meeting place if you didn’t mind the odor.
Nef leaned against the far wall, the older boy—a man really—purposely
lounging in the single beam of light afforded by the last moon in the sky, its
purplish hue casting him in a sinister light. He cradled a jagged dagger in
each hand, and two more were strapped to his makeshift boots. All four
weapons had been shaped from voidglass taken from the warrens and were
highly prized.
I’d heard a dozen versions of how he’d acquired them, but none were
anything like the truth, I’d wager.
“Can you not cloak yourself in shadows? I thought your mother taught
you those fancy sigils.” Nef raised a hawkish eyebrow and delivered a cruel
smile. Not maliciously cruel. Cruel in the way a wolf or a drake is cruel.
“I could.” I didn’t reach for my magic, though I knew he expected me
to. He was stronger than I, but my magic was stronger than his. “How often
has the phrase ‘you read too much’ left your lips? One of those things I read
is that demons are attracted to magic, particularly void magic. Blur will
obfuscate me from sight, but it might also reveal our presence in the spire if
there are demons about.”
I reached for a handful of grime and winced as I smeared filth across
my cheeks. It took several more smears before I resembled Tissa, though
not as artfully done of course. She took more pride in the application.
“Let’s go.” Nef leapt nimbly into the air and seized a stone outcrop, then
pulled himself atop the wall with those annoyingly enviable arms. My
attempts at developing similar muscles had thus far failed.
Probably because I relied too much on my burgeoning magic. I reached
for the power that slumbered within me, wild and hungry. It dwelt within
my breast, a part of me but also separate somehow. I could draw it directly
with thought or focus it outward as spell by literally writing out the
instructions in the language of magic, the language of the universe.
I wiggled my index finger and sketched a void sigil, then a second more
intricate one that linked to the first. Wherever my finger passed it left a trail
of purple-black magic in the air, but my cloak hid the spell from sight until
the sigils fused and the magic took hold. The whole process took only a few
heartbeats.
A fissure in reality opened beneath me, ground falling away into
another reality as I began to drop. I held my breath as I tumbled into
darkness. Frost coated my cloak, the leavings of the lightless realm where
I’d journeyed. The realm of the demons. The Umbral Depths.
The darkness crumbled away beneath me as another fissure opened, this
one leading back into our reality. I dropped back into our realm a heartbeat
later, and landed lightly next to the window leading inside the spire, a good
stretch of hard climbing from where I’d started. It beat climbing.
“I thought magic attracted demons,” Nef hissed from below me, his
teeth bared in a snarl. The older boy expertly picked a path up the wall
toward me, and for a moment I feared he might attack.
“Lingering magic attracts them.” I climbed as well, and self-
preservation had nothing to do with my sudden speed. I added more words
in an attempt to mollify him. “If I hold magic, they can feel it. If we use it
quickly, they might sense it if they’re very close, but probably not. Even if
they do, they’ll only get a vague sense of direction. If I sustain a spell like
blur, they’ll definitely find us, and they’ll do it quickly.”
Thankfully, I’m a lifelong climber blessed with my father’s agility and
easily made it inside the crumbling window before Nef reached me. By the
time he’d arrived, I stepped over the first salt line, and the adventurer’s
code applied. No personal business until the job was done.
Nef glared at me as he stepped over, but said nothing. I don’t know if he
believed me about the magic. The way the muscles in his arms and
shoulders tensed as he looked at my neck said probably not.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d delivered a thrashing that had taken me
days to recover from. Days where I wasn’t earning for my family. Every
last one brought on by running my mouth when I shouldn’t have.
Tissa climbed soundlessly through the window and leapt over the line,
drawing Nef’s attention. He relaxed and I silently thanked my oldest friend
for her presence. Killing me would upset his sister. A thin shield, but I’d
take it.
“So what’s the plan?” Nef demanded. He’d sheathed both daggers in his
wrist sheathes, but I knew they were close at hand. Literally.
I knew my next four words would invite protest, and I wasn’t
disappointed. “We’re heading up today.”
Tissa’s face fell into a frown.
Nef’s mirrored it, only darker, and when he spoke, the words carried in
the darkness. “Up? I know I didn’t hear that right. I ate my patience in the
place where breakfast should have been. We need a find, Xal. I lack time or
patience for games.”
“Hear me out.” I raised a hand to forestall him. I’d thought about this
for days, how to broach it, and planned the hunt for far longer. “Every
adventurer in the dims goes down. Right now twenty other groups are all
starting their day, and they are all heading into this spire from different
points, just like they have every day for years. Decades. If we head down
we’re going to encounter the same hunters we usually do. Even if we find
some scrap, we’ll have to fight to get out.”
“Some of us aren’t afraid of fighting.” Nef’s tone made the implication
clear…I was a coward. I’d heard it often enough from him.
“Fine, you go fight for those scraps. I’m going up.” I didn’t bother
explaining the rest of my plan or what the journal had mentioned.
I stepped into the stone hallway and crept toward the stairwell at the
end. It spiraled both up and down into the darkness, the central artery
linking all the levels of the spire all the way down into the warrens where it
joined the other spires.
An ominous wind came from below, and the steps were far more worn.
The ones leading up were covered in dust. A faint subsonic hum came from
that direction, somehow even more ominous than the wind from below.
“What’s that hum?” Tissa breathed, suddenly beside me in the shadows.
Did that mean she was coming with me?
“Wards,” I breathed back. “We’ll need to be careful. They’re still active.
Touch one and losing a limb is the best that can happen. They won’t trigger
unless we try to open a door or touch something we shouldn’t.”
“Right.” She melted into the darkness behind me.
I noted that Nef lurked in the shadows as well, scowling at me. I’d put
him in a tough position. He needed me to find anything in the warrens
unless he and Tissa could tumble someone who’d already made a haul.
He could chance following me up into the spire, a place long picked
clean, but still incredibly dangerous. Or he could take his chances below.
I didn’t wait to find out. I plunged up the stairs and took my fate into
my own hands.
 2

ELIAS MANOR

T he stairs leading up into the spire had many gaps where stones had
fallen away, and I picked a cautious path across the more stable areas, the
pre-dawn wind keening up through the holes. The higher we climbed the
worse the erosion, to the point where no sane person would continue.
That didn’t even slow us down. Every kid in the dims began climbing at
the same time they learned to walk, and the ones who are bad at it get
weeded out pretty quickly.
Long cooperation meant we didn’t need to speak as we navigated the
tower, and both Nef and Tissa waited patiently behind me each time I
paused to inspect a precarious stone.
Many, many tense minutes later I stopped before a door that I believed
corresponded to the seventh level, which, if the journal was correct, had
been the author’s childhood home.
A line of faint runes had been etched into the stone outside the door, and
I knelt to inspect them. Scarlet fire. Black void. Golden life and sapphire air
to suspend the trap.
I raised a finger and sketched a void sigil in the air. Power answered,
and purplish light appeared everywhere my finger passed, the faint glow
illuminating all our faces. “Naunet, be sated. Atum, hold sway.”
 The ward flared, then dimmed. The door clicked open of its own accord,
exposing a faint glow from within.
“How the depths did you know to do that?” Tissa hissed, her tone
accusatory.
“The words came from the journal we landed last month.” I tensed as I
stepped over the inactive wards, but they remained silent as I gently pushed
the oaken door open. “A trap like this can hold a disintegrate spell, but it
can’t reset. That means that no one has been beyond this point. If they had,
the spell would have to be inactive. We’re the first people here in decades.”
The floor had been badly pitted in a way I’d not seen before, either in
the warrens or in any of the other four spires. I bent to inspect the marble.
“Looks like it’s been eaten away by something. Magical acid maybe. I think
earth magic can do that.”
“The damage is old, whatever it is.” Tissa touched some of the
crumbled stone. “A battle spell I’d imagine. Maybe the night of black blood
reached this very hallway? Some sort of last stand? Anyway, you’re right
about us being the first here. This dust hasn’t been touched in years.”
Nef maintained his bored disinterest but did cross the threshold and
follow us into the ancient hallway. It grew more dangerous as we
proceeded, and eventually we reached a gap where the stone floor had
fallen away entirely.
Below us, the wind howled over a hundred-cubit drop onto jagged
stone, and it was close enough to the moat around the warrens that even if
you survived you might tumble into that endless abyss. Vertigo raced
through me, which wasn’t something I normally wrestled with.
The gap was about four cubits across. With a running start, I might be
able to make it, or I might not. Might not meant death. On the other side lay
a slick floor. There were handholds, but nothing to support my weight.
“You’re too weak to jump that.” Nef’s taunt was delivered in a way that
said he thought he’d scored a point. “Looks like you’re going to have to fly
across.”
“That would require air magic. I don’t have air magic. I open fissures in
reality.” I moved my cloak to cover my hand, sketched three quick sigils,
then blinked across, as I had earlier.
This time during my brief passage through the depths something stared
back at me. An awareness as vast as time and eternal as death shifted in my
direction even as I returned to reality, frost covering my cloak. The fissure
snapped shut behind me and I was safe.
Or so I hoped. I didn’t know that I’d ever feel safe again. What had that
been?
I’d arrived on the far side of the damaged floor in a crouch where I
waited for first Nef, then Tissa to join me. My heart slowed as I convinced
myself that whatever had seen me in the depths couldn’t reach me here.
Nef sprinted up the hallway and made the leap easily. He rolled to his
feet and moved to join me, though his attention remained on his sister.
Tissa charged up the hall toward the gap in the floor and gathered her
legs beneath her for the jump. At the last moment her foot came down on a
bit of ice, lingering frost from my spell, and her foot slipped. I knew she
wouldn’t make the jump.
I shrugged out of my pack, sprinted past Nef to the edge of the gap,
seizing his hand, then tossed one of my pack’s straps in Tissa’s direction.
She sailed over the gap, about to fall short, but snatched the worn leather
strap.
Nef sensed my plan without needing explanation and grabbed my wrist
in his iron grip, then set his feet as an anchor. Tissa clung to the rope, and
Nef and I yanked her across. She landed in a graceful roll and came to her
feet, chest heaving as all of us panted.
“I don’t know what happened.” She glanced back at the other side. “I’ve
never slipped like that.”
 “You need to pay more attention.” Nef growled low in his chest and
made a noise of disgust in his sister’s direction, then turned the annoyance
on me. “You got us into this, Xal. Fix it. Where’s the loot that makes this
death trap worth our time? If we find nothing, are you buying my dinner?
Because if not…well, I’m going to be very irritated.”
I couldn’t afford his meal, though I could part with my own ration. Just
pocket the sour cake and smuggle it out to him. Mostly I felt guilty for
nearly killing a friend by careless use of a spell. A spell I wouldn’t need
were I stronger and in better shape.
“That’s fair. Dinner if we find nothing.” I rose to my feet and advanced
up the hallway. Fire rubies had been set in the wall for illumination at some
point, but they’d long since been pried out, leaving the hallway in perpetual
dimness.
“These gems must have been taken during the attack.” Tissa peered up
at the empty sockets. “Looks like someone got rich.”
Nef grunted sourly, and we fell to silence as we prowled forward into
the near darkness.
We passed a half-dozen doors on the right and left, each warded as the
entrance to this level had been. I ignored them all and kept moving up the
hallway to the very end, grateful that the stone past the break had survived
largely intact.
A thick oaken door barred our way, and a similar row of runes lined the
floor outside, but also included a second ring. That ring was comprised of
life, water, and soft white spirit runes. Protection. Not only would
something nasty happen if we triggered the ward, but if we tried to destroy
the door, the ward would deflect most spells.
“Where are we?” Tissa moved to stand next to me, though she seemed
more interested in what lay behind the door than the door itself. “I can…
feel something on the other side. Something powerful.”
 “I don’t know,” I admitted, my least favorite three words in existence.
“But I know how to disarm the wards.”
I raised a hand and sketched an elaborate series of purple sigils in the
air. They interlocked into a stylized eye, the symbol of house Elias. The
moment the last sigil finished the lot fused together, and a black rune on the
door winked into existence. It bore the same eye, which flared as the door
unlocked with a loud click.
“You actually did it.” Nef’s tone made it clear how unlikely he’d
thought it to happen. “Is it safe to go inside?”
“I don’t know.” Hated those words. So much. “Give me a moment.”
I crept forward and peeked through the doorway. A noble’s chamber lay
before us with a four-poster bed, a nightstand, and a mirror. Four thick
tomes sat in a pile atop the nightstand.
Four. A fortune.
Beyond them, the wall-length mirror pulsed with enormous power. I
cautiously entered the room and crept across the thick rug to stand before it.
Runes and gemstones lined the entire frame, of a complexity that dwarfed
what my mother had taught me thus far. I’d need her to make sense of any
of it, if she even could.
“What is it?” Tissa had moved to stand next to me, while Nef had
already picked up all four books and stuffed them in his pack. I thought it
safer not to press.
“A scrying device maybe? Mother says Hasran divination requires fire
and dream.” I discarded my own theory as I peered at the runes. Neither
sigil appeared in any great quantity. Most were void or earth. Summoning.
“Or this thing is a portal. It could take you to some other location.”
Nef shouldered his way into our conversation, pushing Tissa to the side
as he inspected the mirror. “Unless this thing can magic up wishes, then its
value is in those gems. We should pry them loose. We can eat for weeks.
Longer maybe. ”
 “That would be a fatal mistake. You try pulling a gem out of an
eldimagus like that, and it might explode.” I took a step back from the
mirror to indicate how serious I was. “It’s too heavy to carry. Let’s at least
finish looting before we take our leave.” I moved to stand next to the
nightstand. “We’re in the bedchamber of a dreadlord. Dreadlords probably
dress in some expensive fabrics.”
“Expensive outside the dims maybe.” Tissa rolled her eyes. “Silks are
worthless in here.”
“Non-magical ones would be.” I moved to the nightstand and opened
the bottom drawer, which contained a lady’s corset, a man’s shirt, and a
pendant. The garments were the softest things I’d ever touched as I lifted
the shirt and corset from the drawer. “Both of these are magical. I can feel
it, and I bet Tissa can too.”
“He’s right.” She held the corset up, and to my surprise, she modeled it
as if she wanted to try it on. “It’s a damned sight more comfortable than
what I’ve got on. Is this free loot? Each of us gets an item?”
“Sure.” Nef stretched a hand past me and plucked up the pendant, of
course. “I’ll take this. Xal can appraise it before we sell, when he tries to
weasel us out of the books.”
“Before we do that we still have the big question.” I moved back to the
mirror, then shimmied out of my old shirt and into the pristine silk, blacker
than midnight. I admired my reflection in the mirror, and very much liked
what I saw. Not a lord, even if I squinted, but less of an urchin maybe. A
dashing rogue? “Do we activate the mirror and see where it leads? I’m for
yes. We poke our heads through, look around, and only step through if
we’re okay with what’s on the other side.”
“Why would you risk messing with that thing?” Nef loomed over me
and folded his arms in a way that made it clear how much deferred pain
could be summoned if needed. I surprised myself by refusing to back down.
 “Because a treasure trove could lay on the other side.” I took a step
closer to Nef and bypassed the bully to speak directly to his greed. “There
could be gold. Real gold. Fire rubies. There could be void ebony. There
might be books, or even better, knowledge scales. That’s like a whole
library that fits in the palm of a hand. Or there could be voidglass, like your
knives.”
“Or there could be death.” Tissa shook her head as she frowned at the
mirror. “We don’t know what’s down there.” Then she bit her lip. Greed
whispered loudly to her, I think. “You’re just talking about opening it for a
second and looking, right? Can you close it right away?”
I considered that. Theoretically, activating the mirror required a sigil,
and I’d bet silver to rocks that it was the same we’d used to get into the
room. If it worked…sketching it again would close it, right?
My mother would know, but then she wasn’t here.
Those next few seconds changed my life forever. I could have gone and
gotten her help. She’d have come. I could have been happy with our current
haul. But our current haul wouldn’t get me out of the Dims, nor free my
family. It would only make my prison more comfortable.
“Yes, I can close it right away.”
 3

THE WARRENS

I stepped boldly before the mirror and sketched the same eye I’d used to
enter the room. The moment I completed the final purple squiggle the
relic’s surface rippled like a jostled bowl of water. Tremendous power
activated within it, the void, twin to my own power, but also a more solid,
primal magic that I did not know.
Instead of reflecting our surroundings, the mirror’s silvery depths now
revealed a cavern, with rough natural-formed walls and carved columns that
had been hewn into the pathway. A faint light source lay up a slope in the
distance, but not anything that allowed us to pick out details of the cavern.
“It looks safe enough. Through the hole. Now.” Nef nudged my
shoulder with the tip of a dagger. “Scout the other side. Remember that
you’re expendable and that I’m hungry.”
“We all are,” I hissed back defensively. “I’ve never seen magic like this
before. Have you? I just want to be a little cautious is all. If there’s an active
ward, we could be disintegrated when we step through.”
That terrifying thought echoed through my mind as I passed through the
mirror’s shimmering surface, and the magic drenched me like my waterday
bath, only far colder.
 The room I’d emerged into, the cavern, had been coated in a faint rime
of frost, and my breath misted in the air. Something crunched under my
sandal, and I knelt to retrieve a sharp and glittering object.
“What do you have there?” Nef hissed as he emerged from the mirror.
Trust him to smell loot before even arriving.
There was no sign of Tissa, but I didn’t pay her absence much mind.
She lived more in shadow than in light and had probably retreated to watch
our progress from safety.
“Voidglass.” I held up a broken spear tip, short and jagged. It fit neatly
in my hand, too short to be a proper dagger but concealable at the very
least. A pocket knife then. “Free loot?”
“Sure.” Nef shrugged, clearly annoyed by the interruption. “We can ask
Tissa when she decides to rejoin us, but we both know she won’t care. Do
you have any idea where we are? Path goes that way.”
He nodded behind me, and I turned to inspect the way forward. I kept
the jagged knife in my hand, as I owned no other weapon. An undersized
knife fit an undersized urchin, I guess. I’d still have preferred a staff. What
kind of mage didn’t own a staff?
A poor one, that’s who.
The path grew brighter as we climbed, the stone slippery with frost as
we wound around a weathered ebony column that blocked much of the
corridor. By the time we reached the top of the path I fought for breath but
tried to make every gulp soundless as I peered over the rim, down a steep
trail that descended to a beach in the distance. The aroma of salt mixed
with…we weren’t alone.
Below us a cluster of monstrous creatures with black chitinous skin and
large horns conversed in guttural voices. They congregated at the shore of a
vast black lake, which stretched off into the distance until the darkness took
it.
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