Eight 4

On the way back, I double-checked the tunnel to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Beside me, the Deer God’s hooves seemed to spark against the stone with frustration.

At the tunnel’s end, we flew up into the ritual room hidden behind the Testament of Hunger. The Deer God gave the fountain a kick as we went by, then we passed through the secret door—this time circling around Anya—and I found the others still gathered where I “slept,” discussing plans for how to proceed.

Their heads all turned as something big smashed into the temple’s door. The sound was followed by a scattershot of cracks as rocks whipped into a frenzy by the winds impacted the walls.

Ikfael rose to check the door, but the work she’d done to reinforce it had held. I went to stand beside her, tempted to poke my head through to see the storm for myself. The sheer amount of chaotic noise—the winds’ relentless roaring, the drumming of rain, the thunder rolling—indicated it must be madness outside.

I took a beat to remember myself. The System notifications had warned against going outside. It would be a bad idea to go against the very clear advice of the World Spirit. Plus, there were people waiting on me.

Right. No going outside, no matter what. Not until—

I turned from the door to find both Ikfael and the Deer God gazing at me—one worried and the other thoughtful. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. The idea of a thoughtful Deer God made me… nervous?

It’s a bad idea to try to eat the storm, I thought at him. The World Spirit said so.

Luckily, he understood the point I was making, and he left with a huff to go watch Anya work, his frustration settling into the steadiness of waiting for the path ahead to open.

In the meantime, Ikfael sighed as if a crisis had been averted, then she padded back to where she’d been sitting. Well, I didn’t blame her. The Deer God heading out into the storm might’ve caused all kinds of trouble.

I pulled myself away from the door and focused on the silver cord connecting to me body until—

With a gasp, I sat upright.

‘You’re back!’ Yuki cried out, then we merged so that we could share our memories.

Quickly, we developed a story that excluded the Deer God, which was simple enough—credit for breaking the barrier and fighting the ghosts would have to go to Ollie/Eight.

A handful of beats later, we split, and then I nearly fell prone again from the impact of everyone’s attention. Their questions spilled over me until Mumu cut through it all with an, “Enough!”

The temple still reverberated from the storm raging outside, but the expedition went quiet.

“Is there danger?” Mumu asked, signing along with the words. “Are you injured?”

I replied in kind, “No threats that I know of, and I’m well.”

“Good. Now, Honored Ikfael has told us that this is something you’ve done before—a spirit journey—but what happened exactly?”

“This practice originates from my home family and is not something I can control, but it can happen spontaneously,” I said, and then proceeded to tell the modified version of events, which included an already-damaged barrier and injured ghosts. Which was pretty much the truth.

Mumu pursed her lips as she listened to the tale. “Do you know what could’ve caused the damage to the wall and ghosts?”

“Nothing that I can share,” I replied.

“I understand.” Mumu’s eyes looked into mine as she then asked, “And your estimate for the level of danger if we follow this tunnel you’ve found?”

“The ghosts can’t harm us thanks to Tenna’s Gift, but if the rest of the defenses are at the same level… then it’s going to be extreme.”

“Even with all the resources you and we can bring to bear?” Mumu asked.

I nodded. Whoever or whatever was deeper in had managed to turn back the Deer God. Nothing like that was going to be simple.

Once I had “woken,” Anya had paused her work to join the others around me, and her eyes had gone shiny as I’d talked about a possible way into the pyramid.

Mumu asked her, “What say you? Our goal was never to win the race. The Arc of Knowledge was to be enough.”

Anya’s beak opened and closed several times. Indecision wrapped around her spirit.

Weni moved to place a steadying hand on her sister’s shoulder and said, “Think it through like a scholar would.”

Anya nodded gratefully, then moved away to consider the matter.

While she did, I’d noted how Ikfael hadn’t said anything—how she’d continued to watch the proceedings without comment. There was a steadiness to her gaze that told me she’d already decided what she would do, no matter how the expedition chose to proceed.

What Heleitia wants is inside the pyramid, I thought.

Yuki’s qi spun in the equivalent of a nod, then they shifted my attention to Mumu, who in turn was alternating her gaze between Anya, Ikfael, and me. ‘Mumu knows Ikfael will go on, with or without us. Our lodge master is letting Anya come to the decision on her own.’

###

Anya’s ultimate decision was cold-blooded and truly worthy of a philosopher. She asked Mumu to send scouts ahead to see if there truly was a safe way into the pyramid. Meanwhile, the majority of the expedition would remain behind to unlock the secrets of the Testament of Hunger and the newly discovered ritual room.

That was the most rational thing to do, after all. She already had two incredibly valuable birds in the hand, discoveries that would guarantee her fame in the Philosopher’s Lodge. Why should she risk them for a deadly third?

The answer was she wouldn’t. At least not without knowing more, which meant putting the scouts at risk.

Anya’s spirit sank and tinged with a bitter self-recrimination I’d never seen before. Weni’s spirit colored in the same ways, but there was also a blush of pride in her younger sister. The decision had not been an easy one, but Anya had made it regardless. She bore the weight of it and held firm as she watched Ikfael and I get ready to depart.

It would be the two of us scouting the way ahead—the two most powerful members of the expedition, and the two most used to working together in unusual and chaotic situations.

###

I hadn’t noticed my first time in the tunnel, but the walls themselves were trembling with the fury of the storm above us. There was a dampness to the air too, and the smell of something bitter, similar to what we’d found once Anya had finally popped open the door to the ritual room—the scent more intense down below and growing steadily stronger as Ikfael and I crept onward.

Ikfael rode on my pack, ready to duck into the figurine around my neck. So far there hadn’t been the need, though. The heaviness that had afflicted me as a spirit was nowhere to be found.

“Everything still all right?” I whispered.

Ikfael’s paws flashed a quick affirmative, her eyes on the shadows cast by the lantern in my hand. The runes covering the walls appeared half-formed in the incomplete light; according to Yuki, only about one in fifty looked familiar. A suspicion formed within me that a good number were likely dummy scribbles.

No sense in letting the janitors see the real stuff, I thought.

‘Or anyone else who wasn’t supposed to be in the know,’ Yuki added.

Ikfael tapped my shoulder and signed, “There’s a change in the influence.”

A moment later, I felt it: a pressure different than what I’d experienced earlier. Rather than a weight, this seemed more like an unpleasant, tingling clinginess.

Conditions

Occupied (Evolving*), Influenced (1)

I saw it on my Status, though there didn’t appear to be any changes to either Yuki’s or my behavior.

“Do you know what the influence is supposed to be doing?” I asked Ikfael.

“Not yet,” she replied, frowning. “We likely won’t until it grows stronger.”

“So we keep going?” I asked, checking.

“We must,” she signed.

If we were correct in our assumption that the tunnel connected the Temple of Wanting to the pyramid, then that would put it at about a mile and a half in length. At a guess, we were about halfway to it when we felt the first tingles of influence, which was… quite the range. Unless there was a creature in the tunnel with us? Surely, that was the more likely answer.

I began to hood the lantern, but Ikfael chittered in my ear. “No, hand it to me. We’ll keep it lit to save our mana, but I do want both your hands free.” A pseudopod of water emerged from her Hoarder’s Pocket. There was a hook of stone at the end for the lantern to hang from.

So, I gave it to Ikfael and switched to a two-handed grip on my spear. Her pseudopod then moved ahead to extend the range of our vision. It was only ten yards, but that was better than what we’d had before.

We crept onward.

My eyes roved, never settling on any one place. My Status camera clicked again and again but never found anything besides the small insects sharing the tunnel with us. The land didn’t reveal any enemies either, nor did the Owl’s Ears I finally cast to make sure.

The tunnel was a marvel of magical engineering. Whenever you built anything underground, it invited all kinds of complications, but the builders had seemed to solve all those problems. No matter how damp the air became, I didn’t find a single pool of water. The air was also never still or stale. There had to be ventilation holes hidden among the runes.

About a hundred yards onward from when we’d first encountered the unknown influence, I felt my forehead itch and Heleitia’s mark activate. At the same time, the influence pressing against me eased.

Checking my Status, I saw:

Conditions

Occupied (Evolving*), Influenced (Nullified), Soul Corrosion Protection (8)

I don’t think my eyes bugged out, but it felt like they did. From the way Ikfael startled, she must’ve been similarly surprised.

Holy god damn hells. Soul corrosion? Is that… is soul corrosion really a thing? Oh no, Yuki!

‘We’re all right,´ the uekisheile assured me. ‘The mark spread to include us within its affected area.”

“Yuki—” Ikfael began.

But I signed, “It’s okay, okay. They told me they’re included in Heleitia’s protection. You’re safe too, right? Did you know this is what we’d be facing? Soul corrosion?”

“I am protected, but I know very little.” Ikfael paused to organize her thoughts. “Our zasha is… if our Heleitia is truly the beloved of Asiik and Amleila, then giving us so little information is a way to protect us from them. It means the things we do will be harder to predict.”

A shot of surprise ran through me. “The beloved share information?”

“Among other things, yes.”

“Which means we’re intended as…" I struggled to find a good translation for wild cards. “We’re intended as random elements in a game—”

“This is no game,” Ikfael said, her signs sharp.

“How am I supposed to know that?” I asked. “I feel as dumb as a piece pushed around by the players above me.”

“Because…” Ikfael started to say, then hesitated. “Because we’re to free Amleila. And Asiik too if we can.”

“That’s madness,” I protested. “First, it’s impossible. And second, who would let those two loose to ravage—”

Ikfael put a paw on my lips to quiet me. “Our zasha has asked me… has asked us through me to release her beloved from life.”

I blinked. “She wants us to kill them?”

Ikfael nodded. “They have been trapped for centuries. At the least, if Amleila dies, Asiik will be free to leave Old Baxteiyel. Our zasha assures me he will travel as far away as possible if that happens—wanting nothing to do with humans ever again.”

“So the story that Amleila binds Asiik to Old Baxteiyel is true?” I asked.

“Amleila binds both Asiik and… Heleitia,” Ikfael replied. “Only our zasha’s great will has kept her free from the shackles of Baxteiyel’s slavery.”

“But she’s a spirit of the land.”

“As is Amleila,” Ikfael signed.

“The people here found a way to control a spirit of the land.” I said, stunned.

“And so Baxteiyel was destroyed and its citizens scattered,” Ikfael signed.

“But why tell me all this now? Why not earlier?” I demanded.

Ikfael’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. Our zasha’s words were enigmatic. She said that ‘some gates must be passed through unobstructed.’ ”

My blood pressure rose. “I’m getting really tired of diviners.”

Ikfael sighed and tapped me on the cheek. “I understand. Our zasha has become over the past few tendays… not very easy to understand.”

“Heh.”

Ikfael frowned. “You laugh?”

I shook my head, since it wasn’t really funny, and said, “This the first time I’ve heard our Ikfael complain about her zasha.”

“That was an observation,” she replied. “Not a complaint.”

“Yes, of course.”

Ikfael’s eyes narrowed. “You’re humoring me.”

“Also true,” I said, “but given everything that we’re facing, maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world. Besides, I’m sure you humor me all the time.”

“Ah, yes. A more truthful truth has never been truthed.”

This time I was the one to narrow my eyes, but she seemed impervious to my stare, instead looking pleased with herself. The moment came and went, though I had one more question afterward.

“It’ll help you, right? If we complete Heleitia’s task for you?”

“It sits at the crux of a series of complicated exchanges,” she replied.

“But you’ll benefit?” I pushed.

“Very… very much so,” Ikfael replied, her signs strangely shy.