Monthly Archives: August 2025

The Drownway – Afterwords

Posted by natechen on

Well, another adventure in the books. The Drownway is one of the two stories I had bouncing around in the back of my mind that drove me to begin playing around in Nerona in the first place. I’ve had a particular soft spot for Renaissance Italy as a setting for stories since I read The Prince of Foxes way back in high school. Being a fan of science fiction and fantasy putting my own twist on the historical setting seemed like a natural extension. Some echoes of the Renaissance inspiration can be seen in characters like the Borgias or Cassian’s fascination with fashion.

I said at the beginning that I was also interested in story as an exploration. The Drownway was concieved as a search because I wanted to go to the edges of Nerona as I’d concieved of it and see what I could find. The Benthic started as a vague idea to explain why large portions of Nerona might be viewed as lost ruins. I had not originally intended to discuss them more than as a sea dwelling species that had once sunk part of the Neronan peninsula into the ocean.

The story served to flesh them out more and I’m very pleased to have taken a slightly closer look at who they are and what they are capable of. Will they come into play more in the future? Perhaps. I’ve greatly enjoyed writing stories set in Nerona whether in novellas, as with The Drownway, or as short stories. I intend to continue with them as time permits.

That said, I don’t think my next project on this blog will involve Cassian Ironhand and his companions. For that matter, I’m not sure it will involve Nerona at all. Right now I’m more inclined to check in on Roy Harper again and see how things are going in the Columbian West.

Whatever happens next, it won’t be for a little while yet. I normally take a week off after completing a project but this time around I plan to take two. I have several irons in the fire right now and I’m going to take a little more time to get things lined up before I return with my usual between-project musings. Keep an eye out for those beginning on September 13th.

In the meantime, one of the projects I’m working on is the 2025 Haunted Blog crawl! If you’re interested in knowning more about that and perhaps even participating yourself you can find out all the details here:

Open Call – The 2025 Haunted Blog Crawl

If you’d like to support what I do here consider picking up a copy of my book of Roy Harper stories, Have Spell, Will Travel on Amazon. You can find it using this handy, dandy link:

Thank you as always for reading. I’ll see you in two weeks!

The Drownway Epilogue – Rumors in Renicie

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

“I’m very glad to see you here, Signore Teodoro,” Grigori said, his smile warm and broad. “The trip across the Drownway must have been very trying for you but I hope my men made it as easy as possible.”

“I regret that they didn’t, Signore Borgia.” Teodoro sat on the chair in Grigori’s chambers with enough force that it seemed it would break. The bulky man paid it no mind. “I regret that I have not had the pleasure of hearing from you since our last correspondence a month ago. I am sure a man of your means has already learned the outcome of that.”

“Indeed?” It wasn’t surprising to him but disappointing none the less. Grigori studied the gray layers of Teodoro’s clothing, noting that he did seem unusually moist and bedraggled, even for someone who had gone through Nerona’s dampest passage. “Perhaps the unnatural waves that lashed the islands three days ago were the cause. By all reports they were quite violent.”

“That much I can confirm myself,” the other man replied, leaning back in the chair and staring into the distance. “I never felt as close to death as I did when I saw the water coming. It seemed like the whole Adriatic Ocean had come for my life, as if there were some score it had to settle with me.”

“Yet here you are.” Grigori settled into his own chair in a more restrained fashion. “Shall I send for something to refresh you? Or would you prefer rest?”

“I haven’t the time for either, I’m afraid, not if I wish to remain a free man.” He gestured weakly towards the outside world, presumably referring to whatever forces still sought to imprison him. “The successor to the Prince of Torrence may still be an open question right now but such matters rarely go unresolved for long. Whoever rules from the citadel next will eventually have to turn their attention to affairs of state. The murder of a Conde by one of his brothers will not be low on the list and I intend to be far from here by then.”

Grigori winced to hear such an important matter put so tastelessly. “Wise of you, Signore. I will not detain you then. Find Evincio in the stables, tell him you require the chestnut stallion and he will see you well mounted.” He motioned to Gunter and the Eisenkinder brought him a bag, small in size but heavy in the hand, which Grigori passed on to Teodoro. “This will see you well on your way.”

He weighed the bag for a moment, clearly debating whether he should examine the contents, then nodded and secured the bag in his belt. “Thank you, Signore. You have always been very kind to me. I hope we will meet again.”

“As do I, Teodoro. As do I.”

Gunter kept himself from scornful noise until after the door closed and their guest was gone. “What a nearsighted fool.”

Grigori sighed and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and massaging at a sore spot in his stomach where a shallow cut was still healing. “Teodoro was a loyal man. Perfect for his role in every respect, save for his lack of imagination, and a very valuable weapon in the courts of Torrence. If he could have inherited his brother’s title it would have benefited us greatly. Pity he never made it across the Drownway.”

“If you say it then it must be so, Papa Borgia. Will Evincio need my help in the stables today, do you think?”

“No, no, Gunter, you always sell him short. Leave him alone and he will surprise you.” Gunter chuckled but knew better than to comment on his master’s joke. “Besides, I need you to go into the square today and start making inquiries among the bravos again. Our quiver is out of arrows and at the worst possible time, when Torrence is in chaos and ripe for the picking!”

“What about the Blacklegs? They are still here, aren’t they?”

Grigori cracked one eye open to glare annoyance at the Isenkinder. “I don’t need a whole company of condottieri to shield my investments, Gunter, I need a few arrows I can loose into the squealing runts of the herd. Besides, I have heard a dragon was spotted along the Drownway recently. The Prince will likely buy up all the large bodies of troops to mount an expedition against it and I have no desire to bid against him. What about those Hextons you know?”

Gunter scratched at his pale beard. “The Herakleans took a contract headed north a few days ago. I believe they were headed to Lome and from there to Fionni as caravan escorts. At wagon speeds it will be a month before we can expect to hear from them even if they were a good fit for the job you have in mind.”

“I haven’t told you what I want them for yet.”

“I’ve arranged hundreds of tasks for you over the years, Papa, and I can only think of three or four I would trust them with. They’re Hextons. Their conscience dictates far more of their behavior than is wise.”

“I see.” Grigori closed his eye again and considered his options. Three of his men lost waiting to ambush Teodoro on the Drownway, many of his others tied up dealing with business in Lome. He had not had as much need for bravos since he brought Gunter into the family and his connections among them were not as strong as they had once been. He ran down that list of names, quietly eliminating them one at a time, until he arrived at an unenviable conclusion. Grigori sat up and opened his eyes to the grayness of the world to find Gunter quietly watching him. “You know what that leaves us with, don’t you?”

“We wait a month to see what new options appear before us?”

“Fortune favors the bold, not the passive. Someone will succeed to the throne of Torrence and I will have a blade at his belly or my name is not Grigori Borgia! Now, bring me the Blind Man.”

Gunter let out a breath that might have been a sigh. “Very well.” He crossed to the chamber’s exit, opened the door and summoned a page, telling him, “There is a Blind Man enjoying the master’s hospitality in the kitchen. Fetch him here.”

There was a bottle of wine sitting on the sideboard and Grigori helped himself to a generous serving. “He was here already?”

“I was on my way to report it to you when you summoned me on account of Signore Teodoro. It didn’t seem wise to mention it while he wasn’t here.”

“Your discretion is praiseworthy. It can be difficult to know how to deal with things when I am not entertaining guests. Your own position became available because your predecessor couldn’t parse such delicate matters.” Grigori drained his cup and waited for the bracing warmth of the wine to hit him. He was going to need it.

The servants in his household were nothing if not swift and less than three minutes after Gunter sent him the page returned, knocking on the door and announcing, “The Blind Man requests an audience with Signore Borgia.”

Grigori fixed his eyes on the door and said, “Enter.”

The page stepped into the room, holding the door open for a man dressed in a simple gray tunic and hose with a gray cloth wrapped around his eyes. He held a rough wooden staff that came up to his leather belt. The man’s hair was dark, bordering on black, but streaked with silver. In a few years Grigori suspected the situation would be much the opposite, with gray the dominant color and the black fading into obscurity. In spite of his incredible plainness the newcomer had an unsettling air to him.

Grigori marshalled his full faculties, doing his best to attend to every small change he observed, but he still found no indication of when the Blind Man began seeing through his eyes. Perhaps he was using Gunter’s or the page’s instead. Grigori raised his wine cup in salute.

“Papa Borgia,” the Blind Man said, bowing deeply from the waist. “I hope I find you well on this blessed morning?”

“Well enough.” Grigori motioned the page into the room. “Pour my guest something to drink, boy.”

“I am content, Signore,” the Blind Man said, a thin smile on his lips. “If you enjoy your wine that is more than enough for me.”

Grigori ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth, wondering if his guest was picking up on that sensation as well. Then he waved the page out of the room and made eye contact with Gunter. The Isenkinder nodded. “I should see if Evincio ran into any surprises. Excuse me, Papa.”

Once they were alone Grigori turned his attention fully to his guest. “Well, Fabian. Here we are again.”

“You don’t seem very happy about it, Papa Borgia,” the Blind Man said. “Have I done something to displease you?”

“I can’t help but recall that every time you come to me it seems like I get swindled out of something.”

“I? Swindle the Prince of Plunder?” His expression turned to one of mock horror. “How could I? Who can cross you and live to make the mistake a second time?”

“Perhaps I should give you your eyes back after all.”

The Blind Man’s expression lost all hint of mirth as he said, “You would value them more if you could see as clearly as they did.”

“The color of a thing has little to do with its value. My eyes work well enough, as you can tell for yourself. If you don’t enjoy seeing the world as I do then you shouldn’t have paid your debts as you did. Or you could just visit less.”

“Have you heard the latest news from the Drownway, Papa Borgia? And I don’t mean Teodoro. Clearly you have already learned about that or Evincio wouldn’t be on Gunter’s mind.”

Grigori pursed his lips, annoyed at the way the Blind Man seemed to learn everything there was to know in Renicie the moment it happened. Even if he could listen with every ear in the city he couldn’t use them all at once. Could he?

“It seems you haven’t.” The Blind Man folded his hands around his staff and sat back in his chair, looking as satisfied as a pick pocket with his first purse. “Signore Marelli’s caravan has arrived at last.”

Grigori sat up straight as an arrow. “Have they? They’re more than three weeks overdue!”

“Well, not the entire caravan, no. The word on the docks is that they were attacked by the Benthic and the wagons were lost. But not the crown jewel of the collection.”

For the first time since Gunter mentioned his presence Grigori started to feel like he might get something useful from the Blind Man this time around. “Are you saying…?”

“There were three survivors from the caravan.” He held up said number of fingers and wiggled them as they were named. “A bravo hired as a guard. One of the junior merchants who was driving a wagon. And a young woman with eyes like sapphires. They arrived just after low tide this morning in the company of their rescuers.”

Just like that Grigori saw all his plans for Torrence coming back together in a new shape, possibly one that would bring him even greater returns. There was only one little detail that gave him some hesitation. “Their… rescuers?”

“It seems the surviving bravo had a brother who heard he hadn’t arrived and set out to rescue him. Touching, really. The people on the docks seem as excited about the Ironhand and his party as they are about the survivors that were rescued.” The Blind Man offered a helpless shrug. “So fickle. Just last week they were bemoaning the loss of all that good Fionni cheese Marelli was dealing in.”

“They must be an impressive bunch if they managed to rescue prisoners from the Benthic, survived a falling star with the waves it raised and made it all the way here afterwords.” Grigori rubbed at his bottom lip, considering the facts. Given his current position and the fact that these bravos had somehow retrieved a key weapon he’d thought was lost he couldn’t afford to ignore this development. What he wasn’t sure of was why the Blind Man had brought the matter to him. News this significant would have fallen in his lap sooner or later. “Do you know where these bravos are?”

“Of course Papa Borgia.” The Blind Man got to his feet, his covered eyes still pointed towards Grigori’s own. “Would you like me to bring them to you?”

“Yes. As it happens I was in the process of searching for just such skillful individuals.”

“Then search no longer.” He sketched out another bow. “I shall return with them in a day or two, if not before.”

“I look forward to good news, Fabian. Until then.”

The Blind Man let himself out, the thin smile back on his lips, passing by Gunter as the Isenkinder returned with his usual impeccable timing. He made sure the door was firmly closed behind the Blind Man then approached Grigori’s desk. “That one may be reaching the end of his usefulness, Papa.”

“Reaching the end, Gunter. But not there yet.” He took a sip of his wine, wondering what his next move ought to be. “Evincio?”

“It’s a shocking thing, Papa. It seems he found a horse thief who broke into the stables! Thankfully they have kicked the villain to death but, alas, his skull was cracked like a chestnut in the process. His face is unrecognizeable. I fear we’ll never know who he was.”

“Tragic. The horses?”

“In good health. Unfortunately it seems Evincio was hit by one of the mares. His arm is broken.”

That was one problem settled and another in its place. Grigori got up and headed for the door. “Start putting together a sling, Gunter, and we’ll go and look in on poor Evincio. I leave for Lome in ten days and I need those horses in their best shape. I will take the break so he can return to work.”

“Of course, Papa. Of course.”

If only every problem House Borgia faced could be handled so easily. Still, there were new bravos at hand. If they proved sharp enough they might be a worthy weapon for the next duel. Time would tell.

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Seven – The King of Stars

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Cassian washed up on shore on a wave of exhaustion and bruises. The moon was setting overhead and, if he closed his eyes and ignored the four Benthic scattered along the sand, he could almost imagine their entire trip beneath the ocean hadn’t happened. Almost.

He flopped onto his back and put one arm over his head, hiding from the stars overhead. If he was going to slip into total fantasy he might as well try to pretend that Cazador hadn’t gone missing in the first place and all he had to do to find him again was head home to the farm. Problem was, that fantasy wasn’t going to help anyone. Not himself. Certainly not Cazador. So Cassian rolled onto his front and slowly pushed himself up onto his feet.

“Are we all here?” He asked. “All alive?”

“Can’t be alive,” Adalai croaked. “Hurts too much.”

“The dead don’t feel pain,” Marta replied. She had a lot less trouble getting to her feet than the rest of them. Cassian wondered if she knew that she’d grown a thin layer of scales holding her shield against the rush of water that came in when the cavern under the ocean collapsed. He wondered if they were permanent.

“I beg to differ.” Adalai refused to move anything other than his lips. “If this is life it’s too miserable for anyone to survive it.”

“I don’t think anyone does,” Verina said, looking down on him from a perch on top of the Linnorm’s head.

He finally lifted his head up off the sand but only to glare up at her. “Pedantry.”

“Stop wallowing,” Cassian said, reaching down to grab him by the collar of his doublet. “Just because you died once and Returned doesn’t mean you can become a whiney misery for the rest of us.”

Adalai finally started moving for himself, brushing Cassian’s hand away and pulling himself upright. “What makes you say that?”

“The whining, mostly.”

“No, what makes you think I Returned from Eternity?”

Cassian blinked once, wondering if the other thought he was some kind of idiot. “I watched it happen. Adalai, your body vanished from the cavern for at least five minutes then the mists parted and you popped out of them like a spring saying the King of Stars was coming. I’m not a deeply religious man but even I can figure that out.”

“When you put it that way it does sound awfully compelling,” Adalai murmured. “I wasn’t exactly dead, though. That place was nothing like the outskirts of Eternity.”

“How is this place still here?” Verina said, her voice echoing over the sodden beach as the Linnorm lifted her higher and higher so she could survey their surroundings with her own eyes. “How are we? That star fell and the waves were like mountains! They should have ground us on the rocks like a millstone and shattered these islands as well.”

Cassian glanced at Trill, who still hadn’t moved, and said, “I wonder if they have anything to do with it. The Stellaris have some kind of pact with the King, perhaps he arranged to spare them.”

“Well either way we should probably get them back into the sea,” Marta said. “I don’t know how long it’s been since we washed up here but they have to be running low on water to breathe by now. After all they did for us I’d hate for them to die in such a pitiful way.”

“Of course. Stupid of me not to think of that. Are you in any shape to help, Adalai?”

“Give me a minute.”

In point of fact Marta and Cassian managed to get all four Benthic back in the water before Adalai rallied enough to move about. It was hard to hold it against him. Regardless of what the others might think, Cassian was fairly certain Adalai had died and Returned in that cavern. That kind of ordeal would leave anyone exhausted.

Trill and her guards came around after a couple of minutes in the ocean which was a bit of a relief to Cassian. “We’re all alive,” he said, sitting on the seabed so he would stay submerged with them. “So are you. I hope that’s enough to convince you we bear you no ill will because I have no intention of going back to the Ursus Nest with you.”

Trill made a dismissive gesture. “At this point I don’t believe there is much to be gained by bringing you back with us. If you were a threat to the Stellaris you’d have shown it by now. In addition the dragon you killed was a threat to us, so I suppose we also owe you a favor. Return to your arid lands. All I ask is that you take the time to ask for permission before entering our waters again.”

“Wait.” The Benthic paused on the brink of departure. Marta struggled for a moment as she tried to frame her question. Finally she just blurted out, “What about Braxton? He has been your prisoner far longer than is just and his own people need him back.”

She needed him back, although Cassian wondered if there was a future for her with the man she was so obviously smitten by now that fate had conspired to make her devour part of a dragon. However, whether or not that would matter was largely up to the Benthic. Trill did little to set the issue to rest. “I will do what I can,” the Benthic captain said. ”But I can’t make you many promises.”

Cassian cleared his throat, which didn’t sound quite as impressive under water, and said, “Forgive me for being a pessimist but are you even sure Ursus Nest still exists? After that star fell I have to wonder. The islands in the Drownway absorbed far more of the impact than I expected them to but the waves still must have dealt terrible destruction to anything in or along the Gulf.”

Trill swished her tail to cut off the Hexton woman’s protests. “Worry not, Marta Shieldbearer. Ursus Nest is quite safe, as is anything along your shores. Matriarchs are far more powerful tide turners than the normal Benthic. The reason these islands remain here instead of being swept into the Gulf is most likely because the Matriarch we saw put the whole force of her power into calming the waves caused by the star’s fall.”

“Your people have that kind of power?” Cassian asked, disturbed by the notion.

“We couldn’t survive without it,” Trill replied. “Stars fall in the ocean far more than upon the arid lands. Even without a Matriarch the Stellaris have found the power to turn back larger waves than these. We will be well. In time, when the needs of the treaty are upheld, we will return your Baron to you.”

Cassian returned the speaking pearls to Trill and they parted ways. As he waded through the surf back towards shore he glanced at Marta and frowned. “You’re still showing scales.”

She rolled up one sleeve and showed him the reptilian patterns there were fading. “I think it will go away with enough time. I’m not sure why they chose just now to finally make an appearance.”

“I have an idea or two but it’s pointless to guess blindly. In the forge we would have to hammer things out and I suspect this will be much the same.” Somehow, in the midst of all the insane underwater antics, he’d managed to keep ahold of his bag. Once he opened it up and looked he found his map was still in its oilcloth. Not a huge stroke of luck but he would take it.

As he waded the last few feet to shore he unfolded the map and tried to match the contours of the shoreline to the outlines on the page. He took the position of the stars. He looked east, then west, then east again. Finally he came to a stop, still ankle deep in water, staring blankly at the paper.

Adalai came out to meet him there. “Are you okay, Cassian?”

He kept staring at the map, unseeing. “Where… where do I go, Adalai?”

The other man took him by the elbow and gently dragged him back towards shore. “How about we go to Renicie?”

“But… the caravan… we haven’t found the caravan yet, I can’t even pay any of you and…” The map swam in front of his eyes.

“It’s all right, Cassian,” Marta said. “We all take some losses here and there, this is just one of them.”

“But…”

“You can’t stay out here searching for him forever,” Adalai said. “Come on, it’s time to head back to dry land.”

The map slipped from his fingers and crinkled softly as someone folded it again. Cassian staggered forward as the full weight of the day settled in on him. They had found dozens of Clayhearts like Cazador in the dragon’s lair wrapped in coral and, while they hadn’t looked at every one of them, it was a foolish fantasy to think his brother wasn’t among them. A caravan was a natural target for a dragon. And if Clayhearts were a part of whatever sorcery or ritual the creature was undertaking that made Cazador’s group even more of a prize. They had gone missing in the same general area the dragon hunted.

Now the dragon’s lair was destroyed by star fall.

A flash of rage cleared his vision and Cassian spun around, ripping his breastplate plate off with his Gift. “What a stupid…”

The breastplate skipped more than a dozen times of the waves. “Waste…”

He ripped off a gauntlet but before he could throw it Adalai grabbed him in a bear hug, dragging him back from the water line. “Let me go.”

“Calm down, Cassian.”

“I have to -”

“There’s nothing left to do. It’s time to move on.”

He finally let himself stop, staring out at the waves as they rolled in endlessly, rippling with the reflection of the heavens. Perhaps the King of Stars had come to Return Adalai, perhaps to destroy the Benthic’s gods. Perhaps it was just his duty to guide Cazador and the others into Eternity.

“Let go of me, Adalai.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. You’re right, it’s time to head back to land.”

The other man relaxed his grip and stepped away, leaving Cassian unsteady but upright. The rush of anger that energized him a moment ago had vanished, somehow leaving him even more tired and sore than before it arrived. He sighed and squinted at the ocean, absently wondering if he could catch the gleaming of his metal armor. All he could see was waves. Then he caught a brighter point of light that he focused on it. But it didn’t have the glimmer of metal he’d come to associate with the dragon sight he’d inherited from the sea dragon.

It was more of a cluster of lights. Seven of them. They were rushing inland and quickly separated into a seven pointed crown that raised itself up out of the ocean, seeming to reach all the way to heaven. Beneath them was the outline of a man. Terror washed over Cassian as a living representation of forever stepped up and out of the ocean, steam rising off a body filled with the power of the constellations, and bent down to the shoreline. He shrank back from the entity as one closed hand came to rest on the ground.

The fingers flexed, full of blazing comets and shimmering starlight, then opened to deposit three unconscious human forms on the sand. Then the King of Stars straightened up, paused for a moment to look at the four people who watched him in frozen awe. Then his body vanished and his crown stretched upwards until it merged with the stars above.

Cassian wasn’t sure how long he stared up after the King before he came back to himself. At the very least it was still night when he did. He wasn’t sure why they’d been chosen to see the vision, nor did he care. There was only one thing that really mattered to him.

Reenergized, he dashed forward to the bodies on the beach. It was clear at once they were all breathing. One was too small to be an adult and the second had long, graying hair so Cassian ignored them. The last was the right size. Before any doubt could build in his mind he grabbed the man and rolled him over so he could see his face.

That was how Cassian Ironhand found his brother at last.

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Six – The Inevitable

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

One of the rarest Gifts given to men was the Gift of Artifice, the power to take a bit of another person’s Gift and hide it away in an object so that anyone could use it. In his brief time in Nerona Adalai had seen two such Artifacts. To the average person such a thing was indistinguishable from any other object of their kind but to someone with the Gift of Arms they were quite obvious.

The sword he’d grabbed was an Artifact.

There were other hints it wasn’t his sword as well. It was a touch heavier than his rapier, the blade was short, leaf shaped and made of bronze and his own weapon was still in its sheath. In fact, if he hadn’t been so disoriented he might not ever have grabbed it. Now that he was holding it he was more disoriented than ever.

To an Arminger an Artifact was even more complicated than a normal object, since normal stuff only picked up powerful impressions if they were used constantly by a single person for a decent period of time. If a thing changed hands the old users’ impressions faded away while the new slowly overwrote them. An Artifact contained traces of at least two people all the time, the Artificer who made it and the person who’s Gift was used to create it.

To make matters even worse, most Artifacts needed to be recharged. That required an Artificer as well as another instance of the Gift stored in said Artifact – and they didn’t have to be the same two people who created it originally. Those distinctions didn’t make much of a difference to most people. To an Arminger they could make the Artifact basically unusable, as the conflicting impressions drowned out any other thoughts from the Arminger’s mind.

Fortunately the sword he’d discovered among the remains of the Deep’s prison wasn’t that complex. He only caught the afterimage of two people from it. The sword was also quite old, so he wasn’t able to tell much about either person, whether they’d been male or female, young or old. The only thing he knew for sure was one of them was a Thunder Hand, as that was the Gift the blade contained.

That said, he strongly suspected the blade belonged to someone who hated the Benthic. As soon as he stepped out of the fog and his eyes landed on Captain Trill he felt a surge of hostility flow out of the sword. He’d never felt such a powerful impression from any object before, Artifact or not.

A hand fell on his shoulder and he spun to find Cassian staring at him with a bewildered look. “What happened to you?”

Adalai opened his mouth, about to explain the vision he’d seen, then stopped himself. “It would take too long to explain.”

Cassian glanced up and Adalai followed his line of sight to discover an enormous, bloated Benthic dragging the last of its hundred foot long tail through a newly formed hole in the ceiling. “I hate to say it but we probably won’t have time for it anyway. Marta’s keeping us dry for the moment but if that thing breaks her shield the Linnorm’s getting doused and that’s our best weapon off the table.”

The sword was incensed. Adalai glanced down at it and realized it was a tool created for exactly this kind of situation. At first he wasn’t sure what it was trying to do, the concept didn’t make a lot of sense to someone who wasn’t used to an electrical Gift like the Thunder Hand, but he had a sudden flash of insight when he glanced at Marta to see how she was doing. As he looked at her he thought of Braxton.

Who was a Thunder Heart, who could breathe under water somehow because his body was living lightning. That was when the pieces clicked into place.

“Have Marta let me out then shrink the dome down to a bubble and make it as solid and layered as she can. It’s going to get bumpy.”

Cassian gave him a skeptical look. “You have an idea?”

“Not an idea.” He hefted the bronze blade. “This.”

“Well… better than nothing.” The Ironhand didn’t look convinced but he moved off to do as he was asked.

There were many things Adalai had learned back home that the people of Nerona were totally ignorant of, a shortcoming he’d learned not to hold against them. Their Gifts gave them the power to see and do many things he’d never dreamed of, either. Yet more often than not it turned out that the science he’d learned in school and the preternatural gifts of Nerona overlapped in the most unexpected ways.

Electrolysis, for example.

He wasn’t sure how masters of Nerona’s lightning wielding Gifts had discovered the fact that water contained oxygen and that you could use electricity to separate the air from the water. Much less how they’d done it without exploding all the hydrogen created as a byproduct. Yet someone out there must have put all the pieces together because the longer he held onto the sword the clearer its function became. Some mad Artificer had built it for the sole purpose of cleaving water into air, allowing its owner to breathe and fight the Benthic on equal footing.

Adalai wasn’t sure how exactly it did that. Fortunately Artifacts didn’t need him to understand all the details of their function. He just needed to tell it to start cutting water and it would. Just as well since the bronze blade didn’t have the same feel to it as a sword that had spent years in the hand of a fencing master. It couldn’t guide him through a duel.

Yet it did still have some guidance for him. Adalai could tell that this wasn’t the ideal situation to use it in, for example. His own understanding of chemistry and physics told him that the stunt he was thinking of pulling was going to be pretty rough. He might not survive it.

For a second Adalai wondered if the Linnorm still smelled inevitability clinging to him. It had been a long time since Karoushi told him he would find his way home if he continued down the path he’d chosen. He wasn’t sure if he was still on that path.

Years in Nerona had changed him quite a bit. And if he did still carry a touch of the inevitable about him there was no telling if it came from the same promise Karoushi made him at the corners of Eternity. Perhaps he walked a different, equally inexorable path to a far different destination.

There was an easy way to find out.

He stepped out through Marta’s shield bubble, letting the cold water of the deep sea pass over him for a brief moment, then raised the sword and nudged it to life. The blade cut through water with a sharp crack. He pushed it to do more. For a moment foam filled the water around him then Adalai flinched as the water around him lit up, a brilliant lightning bolt filling the cavern.

The original purpose of weapons like these was to be thrown into the water just ahead of its user. They would burrow into the water leaving a corridor of breathable air. Adalai couldn’t tell how the man who originally carried the bronze blade intended to keep the water from replacing all the air once it was created. Presumably there was another Artifact or someone with a Gift to handle that.

Regardless, Adalai found himself almost throwing the sword out of his hand as he used it since it wanted to bury itself into the seafloor again. He had to actively work against the impulse as he cut the water around him into its component gasses. It got worse as the pressure around him built.

It was impossible to guess how much liquid the massive lava chamber held but what Adalai was certain of was that the water would take up much more room as gas than as liquid. With only a comparatively small hole in the roof to escape from, things got tricky fast. Adalai felt his ears pop once, then twice, as he swung the sword around him in larger and larger arcs and the pressure in the chamber built. He felt a strange sensation, as if the ocean floor hiccuped. Then there was an abrupt sensation of movmenet and he felt himself being swept up in a rushing current, as the sound of crackling electricity was replaced with a roaring waterfall.

Adalai felt himself tumbling along, water around him and to his back, blade still cleaving apart the sea. He would have lost it if he hadn’t already grabbed the hilts in a two fisted death grip earlier. He wasn’t sure how long it went on. Looking back on it, maybe twelve seconds passed from the moment he began slicing apart the water to the moment he willed the sword to stop cutting. In that time a lot changed.

For starters, when he opened his eyes he found he’d been thrown out of the cavern over the sea floor. The explosive rush of air and water had not only broken the roof of the cave it had thrown everything within across half the ocean. Marta had formed a solid, shimmering sphere out of her shield. It looked like she had shrunk it enough that the seven of them inside were kept from jostling and, although no one looked comfortable, they also didn’t look like they’d broken anything from jostling as they rode the geyser.

The Benthic that didn’t have the benefit of Marta’s shield hadn’t been so fortunate. One drifted in the water a few dozen feet away, her body unmoving, twisted into a painful spiral shape. The Matriarch had been more fortunate, perhaps because of her greater size. She drifted by the gaping opening in the sea floor a few hundred feet away, dark eyes glinting with sinister reflections in the murk of the ocean bed.

To his horror she reached out one oversized hand, grabbed the corpse of one of her daughters and shoved half of it into her mouth. As she chewed her eyes turned up and met his.

Adalai twitched himself around in the water and pointed the bronze blade at her. It was a show of force, yes, but an empty one. He could tell the Artifact had lost most of its potency. It might contain enough power to cleave a few more gallons of seawater but no more. The majority of the weapon’s power was spent and it wouldn’t be restored until another Artificer and another Thunder Hand collaborated to recharge it.

Unfortunately the Matriarch didn’t buy his bluff. She pushed the last of the morsel into her mouth and lifted her imposing bulk up off the ocean floor and started towards them.

Marta’s shield bubble vanished and Trill’s guards zipped out of it, one breaking off to collect him, then all eight of them made their best time upwards towards the surface. As they drew close together Cassian called out, “Was that supposed to kill them?”

“Mostly I was just hoping we’d get out of there,” Adalai admitted.

“Well it worked but we’re not out of the woods yet.”

“What are we not out of?” Trill asked. “It didn’t translate.”

“Just swim,” Cassian replied. “Unless you think the eight of us can kill a Matriarch.”

“We can. One or two of us may even survive.” She pointed towards the stone spire that housed the dragon’s lair. “Better to fight from arid land. She is too large and heavy to fight well out of the water, even my troops will be able to outrun her there.”

“Doesn’t leave us much room to maneuver,” Adalai muttered.

“We can deal with that,” Verina said. “The advantages are still mostly on our side.”

They breached the surface a few moments later and the humans began to help the Benthic up away from the waves. It was late in the evening and the stars were beginning to show. Adalai took them in for a moment, wondering if the King of Stars had left a new omen there for them.

“Get up as high as you can,” Cassian said. “I assume a Matriarch can throw water as well as the rest of you and the more we make her work the better.”

“Get back in the water.”

He froze. “What?”

Adalai pointed upwards, towards a gleaming star far brighter than the others that pierced through the dusk. “Falling star. Get back in the water before it hits.”

Marta followed his finger and squinted. “Shooting stars almost never fall to earth, I wouldn’t -”

“I saw the King of Stars not five minutes ago and he was not happy, get back in the water before he gets here or I’m not responsible for what happens.” Without waiting for a reply Adalai scampered across the small stone island towards the far shore. It took less than a minute. In that time the falling star had grown noticeably larger.

Once he got down to the water again he pulled off his cloak and tied it around his waist, since it looked like he would have to swim on his own. He managed to wade out to knee deep before Cassian called out, “Wait!”

The others were coming over the crest of the island behind him. “Change your mind?”

“The Matriarch surfaced long enough to look at the sky and left again,” Trill said. “If she isn’t willing to stay here, I’m not.”

“Then let’s get going.”

“Where?” Cassian asked.

“Far away.” Adalai looked up to see the falling star had already grown to the size of his thumb. “Let’s hope it’s far enough.”

They made it half a mile when the star hit the spire and a wave the size of a mountain swept them away.

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Five – The Matriarch

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

When the Mists rolled over Cassian he readied himself for every conceivable outcome other than none. So, of course, that was exactly what he got. Other than a light coating of moisture nothing of note came out of the strange rocks at all. After several days underwater he didn’t even notice the damp anymore.

Cassian tapped Verina on the shoulder and motioned towards the Linnorm. A moment later it disappeared and Marta was able to let her shield collapse, surrounding them with breathable water again and wiping the mists away all at once. “Trill,” he snapped, pointing towards the tunnel in the chamber’s ceiling. “Let’s get up there and-”

“Adalai’s gone,” Verina said.

That was absurd. Yet when Cassian looked around he realized it was also true. A moment ago the Arminger had been right there beside him, not more than six or seven feet away, and now there was no sign of him. “Did anyone see anything?”

“He was beside me,” Burp said. “Then, when the Mists in the Deep passed between us, he disappeared.”

“Of course he did,” Verina yelled. “That’s what mist does, you overgrown fish, it makes it impossible to see.”

“Verina!” Cassian tried to stare her down but she had turned away and knelt among the rubble of the stone knot, sifting through it desperately. Frustrated he turned to Trill. “Could the Mists in the Deep have moved him somewhere else? Is that something it does?”

“I don’t know Cassian,” the Benthic captain replied. “I told you, we didn’t bother to remember much about these things. It was the King of Stars that solemnized our treaty with Nerona and changed us so we no longer had to be born of a Matriarch. We didn’t want to keep worshiping gods that made us kill our whole family just so we could hatch children.”

“You could have kept some notes so you were ready to fight one if it ever showed up.” It was an unreasonable thing to say and he knew it but he didn’t feel it was that much more unreasonable than anything else they had to deal with at the moment. “Verina, he’s not there. Get up.”

She spun about, fury in every inch of her face. “What is wrong with you?”

“I’m going to die some time in the next hour. I’d like to do something useful before then.” Because he had his gaze locked on the tunnel mouth Cassian spotted the exact moment the first Tidallais Benthic entered the cavern. It carried a spear of coral and glass and looked exactly like all the others they’d seen so far. It even had a grayish pearl in its forehead. He pointed her out to the others. “Here they come.”

“Any chance they’ll just leave when they see we broke the thing back there?” Marta asked.

“Makes it more likely they’ll stay to get even with us,” Trill said. “They don’t get anything by leaving. Their sisters would probably take it as an opportunity to kill and eat them for their failure.”

“Wonderful.” Cassian glanced around, trying to figure out the best way to deal with the coming onslaught. “Get up, Verina.”

“I cannot conjure the Great Linnorm here for long, Cassian. What do you want me to do?” The Slavic woman’s voice was slow and weary. She was still rummaging through the rubble of the stone knot but her movements were as listless as her voice.

“Marta. Build a shield. We can let the Benthic in one or two at a time and the Linnorm and I will deal with them.” He gestured to Trill. “You can keep drawing in water with the Benthic so we can breathe.”

“That won’t work for long,” Marta said. “There’s no way I can hold up that kind of shield for more than a minute or two. It would be hard enough to hold up a shield with this much water overhead and only air inside. But there’s no air here. A watertight shield with nothing inside is even worse.”

“We can put air inside,” Trill said. “The Lord of Folded Waters gave us the power to turn the tides when it created us, with that power we can turn water to air. It’s difficult but we’ve had a lot of practice. How do you think we made the air pocket under the Ursus Nest?”

Cassian allowed himself a brief smile. Their odds of living through this still weren’t good but at least he could die breathing air rather than water. “Get to it, then. Keep water in your lungs and air in ours and we’ll do the fighting as long as we can stay alive.”

“Well.” The water around the Benthic began to bubble and foam, the turbulence making Trill hard to hear. “At least we know for sure now.”

“Know what?”

“You did kill the dragon after all.”

Cassian snorted. “It only took eight of us running to our deaths to prove it. Given that I think I could have gone without the credit.”

Trill burbled laughter and bowed her head towards him. “I’m sorry you couldn’t find your brother.”

The air formed a solid, singular bubble around them and Marta raised a glowing dome over it to keep it in place. The last few drops of water gathered themselves in pools around the Benthic. Verina got to her feet and tossed a last piece of rubble aside, her tattoos sparking and sizzling as the water evaporated off of them. “What a waste,” she murmured. “Slew a dragon, defied a god and nothing to show for it at the end. The least we could have done is boiled the sea and taken the Benthic with us but I can’t sustain the Linnorm that long and there’s no liquid stone to help us along the way.”

Cassian glanced down at the floor, wondering if he could make that possible somehow. Unfortunately there was no sign of the angry red glow the tales said hinted at liquid stone, just the sparkling gleam he had seen here and there since gaining a dragon’s eyes. He suspected it was some kind of ore. He’d begun to wonder if his Gift had fused with the dragon sight and created some kind of new ability but he hadn’t had the time to explore it. It looked like he never would.

“Look on the bright side,” he said. “If we killed all the Benthic here there wouldn’t be anyone left to tell our story after we’re gone.”

“Not how I was hoping to be remembered anyway,” Marta replied.

The Tidallais had gathered themselves into a phalanx a dozen strong and now they swooped down towards the seven of them, brandishing their weapons. Cassian glanced at their Shieldbearer. “How many of them can you keep out?”

Before she could answer Verina cut in, saying, “Let them all in.”

Cassian flexed his fingers, setting his daggers and sword floating as he calculated the odds. Even with the Linnorm, twelve against eight was difficult. It turned out the Tidallais evened the odds for him, splitting into two groups moving in opposite directions. Half of them continued towards Marta’s dome, the others spun around and headed back up towards the cavern entrance at top speed.

He wasn’t sure what they were doing but there were more pressing matters to deal with. Marta did as asked and let the Benthic through her shield, doing her best to keep the water out when she let them in. She succeeded, to a certain extent. The Tidallais had gathered some of the ocean under their sway before they passed through her barrier and they managed to get that through but the rest of the sea remained outside. They flopped through the shield a few feet above the ocean floor and charged as soon as they picked themselves up.

Cassian immediately chose four of them and sent a blade flying at each. One dodged, another batted his sword aside, his aim was off on a third and the dagger glanced off the coral and carapace armor she wore. The last dagger slammed home in its target’s throat.

Two of the remaining Benthic threw boulder sized orbs of water at him and he scrambled, getting clear of one before the other slammed him into the rock below. He lay there, head swimming, then webbed hands grabbed him and hauled him to his feet. Burp and Trill were helping him up as the other two Stellaris reclaimed the water that hit him. As he was dragged out of the way the Linnorm appeared and swept in.

Cassian had always assumed that having two necks and two heads to keep track of must have been a huge liability in battle. Clearly that was not the case. One of the Linnorm’s heads focused on the Tidallais, blasting a constant stream of fire at the fishy creatures that they warded off with their rapidly dwindling water supply. The trapped sea boiled and foamed, filling the dome with steam.

One of the Tidallais Benthic used the clouds as cover, moving out from behind the water wall and throwing a smaller globe of the liquid at the Linnorm. However the second head spotted it and evaporated most of the projectile with a snort of flame. Cassian stretched out with his Gift, whipped his sword off the ground and plunged its point through the attacker’s side. The Benthic dropped to the ground, thrashing.

In spite of the way the numbers had turned against them the Tidallais pressed forward, their supply of ocean dwindling as the Linnorm wore away at it. Cassian retrieved his sword and daggers. He took a traditional dueling stance, allowing his extra daggers to drift along beside him, and advanced in tandem with the Stellaris to meet them. The translation pearls apparently didn’t work without water as a medium. However Trill still made her intentions clear with a flexing of her jaws and chopping gesture with one hand.

Cassian nodded and shouted, “Hold the flame!”

The Linnorm’s mouth snapped shut and the heat died away; then the five of them charged the four Tidallais, meeting in a brief, sharp melee. Cassian let Trill’s troops go first, using his Gift to sling daggers at calculated moments, tipping fights in their favor one by one. Forty seconds later, all the Tidallais were dead.

Cassian lowered his blades, breathing hard, and took stock of the situation. The Great Linnorm shimmered overhead, transparent but still close enough at hand to instantly join the fray once things started up again. Verina’s bound spirit was clearly the best asset they had to hand. Yet her ability to use the two headed menace was entirely dependent on keeping it dry, or at least mostly dry. He glanced at Marta. “How much longer?”

The Hexton woman had a thin sheet of sweat forming on her face, her breathing steady and deep like a laborer dragging a heavy load. “A while.”

“How long is a while?”

“Longer than soon. I don’t know, Cassian, I’ve never had to hold something like this so long and there’s strangeness going on up there. It feels like we’re stuck in a storm.”

Cassian looked up, wondering what she was talking about. He discovered that the six Benthic that remained outside their air pocket had been joined by others, bringing the number up to at least ten. They swam in a large, vertical oval. One end of the shape was near the middle of the chamber the other was at the tunnel entrance overhead. Each Benthic seemed to be throwing something at the tunnel as they swam past.

There was something coming down from the passage, too, something that glimmered in his dragon sight. He scowled. “What are they doing?”

A cool touch rested on the side of his head, startling him, and Cassian looked down to find Trill had come close and connected their heads with a tunnel of water. She placed her translating pearl in the water and said, “The ocean eats the stone. It is our way of shaping rock. Soon they will have weakened it enough that the Matriarch will be able to come through.”

“How long will that take?”

The answer, as Marta might say, was soon. Although her shield kept them separate from the shockwave Cassian could still see it buffet the Tidallais when the chamber’s ceiling caved in. A huge hand had broken through there. It withdrew and an equally enormous head pushed into the new opening.

It was a strange mix of human and eel features with eyes far larger in proportion to its skull and an underbite so pronounced Cassian briefly thought the creature was injured somehow. Fronds and tendrils as thick as bundled hay drifted through the water behind it. Its huge hands clawed at the opening, tearing more and more of the stone away as the Matriarch dragged its bulk further into the cavern. A score or more additional Tidallais swarmed in around her.

Cassian heaved out a deep breath and readied himself for the next assault, once again taking stock of his allies and their situations. As his eyes swept through the bubble he noticed the steam drifting past. Or not drifting, per se, but all gathering together at the center of the bubble, where the stone knot had been. It settled until it formed a shallow pool, rippling and churning like a storm about to burst.

Then the mists parted and Adalai stood up from among them, a strange, bronze sword in one hand, and the mists rose up behind him…