Up through the teleportal hidden from all sides but the front, then straight ahead past the twisted ritual which had bound the taur to the wall.

  Another half hour saw us through the horrors of the original centipede room, the tuar’s lair, and the strange room of needles, constantly shifting, promising power.

  It would have been past noon by the time we made it back to the third floor. I’d been in some manors before, castle and keeps even on rare occasion, but they all paled in comparison to the immeasurable size of the Bleak Fort. The stairs alone took thirty minutes to ascend in some cases.

  It was on the third floor I realized my mistake. At the top of the stairs the path branched both left and straight ahead. I’d carved Xs in the walls in order to determine my path, especially so close to the stairs where multiple paths presented themselves. The path directly ahead was barren of Xs, but the path to the left...

  It had collapsed. A large boulder lay across the path, broken flagstones, ceiling tiles and dirt piled up around it. Shining power had set off the volcano as he’d escaped. Once more the maps wouldn’t know the way. Not truly.

  Still, it wasn’t hopeless. I’d been able to navigate around them the last time, and the lower floors had been spared the eruption. There were advantages to stairs half an hour tall.

  “Forward it is then,” I murmured, more to my self than Attar.

  Forward took us to the room where I’d once met Tom painting. The dwarven treasures still lay on the ground here. If Tom had never taken them, I wasn’t about to. A crack to our right split the wall in two; a new path at the tip of one of the room’s hexagonal walls.

  Directly to our right was that pit trap which I didn’t dare allow Attar to jump across. It was only a ten foot gap, but that was not a sustainable path. Even if he succeeded nine times out of ten, the tenth jump would be fatal. Straight ahead was the only option.

  Our long round about took us through more evidence of Shining Power’s damage. Damage I’d seen before. The rocks had cracked and the stone had fallen in exactly the same way as the previous unleashing, even though it had been a completely different origin. Us mortals made plans, and nature took its course regardless.

  The boulder turned a six minute journey into a thirty minute one, but at the end of the detour the wall directly ahead was cracked in half. Directly across the revealed room, framed on either side by the crack in the wall, were the words “Mind the gap.”

  Nature took its course, but the gods had a sense of humour.

  We left the gods to their jest. Down the hall, catwalk, through the ancient chamber, past the corpselike Magi, through the room where Brace and I met, down the long hall and back up the stairs.

  I had a vague idea of where the map was on the second floor, but I also remembered dangers. Many had died to the goblins we’d met just past the mural room.

  “The goblins I spoke of are through there,” I pointed to the door, “the ones which killed Oscar and Oisín. Stay behind me when I enter, and be ready to defend yourself.”

  Attar and I both checked our amulets to make sure they lay directly against their skin without impediment.

  “Ready?”

  “I never will be for battle.”

  Sword Storm III

  Neither would I.

  My spell smashed the door in half loud enough to set the dungeon howling. I’d met some of the ghosts and prisoners now. It did nothing to make the sounds less chilling. Perhaps sadder, but that was all.

  The goblins weren’t howling. Though I’d always hate them for what they’d done, I had to respect them. When my sword flew through the door, the goblins immediately took up their weapons and spread out to deal with the intruders. Silent save for the occasional call or barked order, they should no fear, not even when I stepped into the room.

  The sun rose, spreading outward, thickening, a spiritual light so powerful, so tangible I could almost see it form before me the—

  Barricade II

  I’d already said nature made its own plans and gods played their games. When I cast my spell a barricade did not form.

  Instead, that strange transparent helmet I’d stowed in my pack to carry my coins shattered and the coins sprayed upward with enough force to scatter outside my backpack. Where they struck the cobbles, the stone screeched and twisted in on themselves, shrinking away until only half the rock remained.

  This in turn caused the stampeding goblins to stumble on the suddenly uneven floor.

  Then the floor itself gave a tortured groan, and the walls and ceiling of the room rushed together.

  I jumped backward, letting my enhanced legs carry me fully clear of the shrinking room.

  The goblins caught between the shrunken stones were not so lucky. As the room collapsed in size, the stone were brought back together with instant force, turning any caught between them to paste.

  None survived.

  Attar inhaled sharply, “What was that?”

  I carefully approached the threshold, but the path now only led to solid stone. Even my ring could not penetrate past the newly formed wall.

  “Dark magic, I suppose. I know nothing else which could produce such an effect.”

  “Is there another path?”

  “If there is it is a secret way. This is the only room leading off the stair case.”

  “What of those holes there?” Attar asked, pointing an empty sleeve to the room we’d used for some time as our safe room while Rian slowly died, “And that gate? Does it not lead onward?”

  “We can lift the portcullis, but it leads only to a single room. Beyond that, I can teleport onward, but you will have to wait. Possibly for several days. Perhaps you’d be better off to return to Brace’s party.”

  “Have you no means of knocking down a wall so we both may continue on?”

  I’d been hoping to find a pick for some time, but so far luck had not been on our side. Still, I’d seen the fantastically destructive powers of the Dead King’s lancegay, and the sun had just risen as I’d been casting my spell. I could record the start of a tunnel.

  I walked to the wall nearest the safehouse and readied my spellbook in one hand and the spear in the other. A single blow sunk the blade in nearly the depth of my hand and almost half as wide on all sides. I withdrew and struck again, and again, and again, nearly every 5 seconds a chip of wall fell. By the end my muscles were shaking and my body screamed in protest, but I’d managed to keep the pace with the help of the strange power of the spear.

  Tunnel: Excavates 11.25ft3 over the course of an hour.

  We couldn’t see the other side of the wall by the task’s end, not even close, but it was a start. Every rewriting could double the spell, more if I had the strength to chip along side it, but I didn’t dare get in the way. Nor did I fancy a second attempt.

  Dust lay heavy in the air. Far heavier than I would have thought my own actions could produce. Sweat also should have been pouring from me, but instead my skin was as smooth and dry as ever, though every part of me trembled with exhaustion. I slumped against the wall and laid my head against the cool stone. When had I lost the ability to sweat? Was that a boon or a bane? I didn’t feel like I’d overheated despite the lack of moisture. Perhaps one of the holy man’s blessings, or some aspect of one of the two goddesses intertwined in my body and soul.

  Now the heavy lifting was done, the harder task was ahead of us. Now we had to wait.

  It turned out I was only just barely strong enough to lift the iron portcullis. I thought I’d been too weak before, but had that been before I’d been exposed to the altar? I was pretty sure it hadn’t. Maybe all was not the same in this newly redone future.

  Attar slipped under and I led him for the first time in his recollection to the room which had served as our safehouse as we’d waited for our friends to recover and die.

  The room wasn’t barren as I’d remembered it. Sure, it still looked the same, but I had my ring of senses now, and my ring told a different story.

  The south wall—had it been south?—was still marred with the words “The king of serpents has marked this passage”, but beneath the text was a small etching of a serpent in the stone. And beneath the stone was a hollow. And in the hollow was several rows of caskets. We’d completely missed it the first time over.

  I pried up the facade with my spear, being careful to first check for any traps or abnormalities which might constitute the treasure’s defence, but there were none.

  There were three caskets in total, all modest wood in construction. A wagon wheel atop the middle casket, as though to pin it down, which, along with its contents, had me trembling. I took the bouquet from my pack and readied it just in case. The caskets weren’t locked, not even sealed against the elements and insects, such that they were, yet the contents were perfectly preserved.

  The first casket contained naught but a giant beehive, filling the whole of the little coffin. No bees waited inside, but it was rich in wax and honey.

  The third casket was a collection of bits and pieces. A wig, a branding iron, a large key, a drinking horn, a fine pelt, and several giant mushrooms. There was something primal about it. Not quite reeking of funerary ritual, but something of witchcraft.

  Then I lifted the wheel and opened the middle cask.

  The princess entombed inside didn’t move.

  Who knew how long she’d waited there, how long she’d been laid to rest, yet not a mark of time showed on her features.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  To call her beautiful would fail as a descriptor. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman on earth, she was transcendent above the mortal mold. What was more, she was, simply put, beauty perfected for me and me alone. And I’d see her before—seen her treasures at least, wore her gun at my hip, and now her strange luggage made sense.

  I’d wanted to find the woman to fit the armour and the chains, and here she was, more unbelievable in flesh than she was in possibility, and she worn such things because for one who looked like her it was a necessity. Beauty, even in death, was her trade. Beauty in all it’s wonderful artistic forms. There was wisdom in studying her face, enlightenment in her repose, a dreadful nostalgia in her raiment. She fed my soul, and by the looks of it, Attar’s, in the way a great painting demanded ever more of its viewer.

  I was prepared for her. Attar was not. Yet, upon Attar’s next two words, it was I who was stunned into inaction.

  “She’s alive.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Her soul is... rotated, for lack of a better word. Somewhere along the line she got lost and returned the wrong way ‘round.”

  “More likely she was forced into that position. This whole hidden burial is strangle contrived. Can you save her?”

  “Easily but,” he hesitated, “Should I? She was hidden right next to the room containing that dark ritual.”

  I bit my lip. I didn’t trust my own judgment, not with her. Had I been alone, I wouldn’t have hesitated to free her, whatever the consequences. The chance at the pixie’s promised love—augmented by divine beauty—twisted and tore my judgment out of my control. I felt more fool than Magus, but I could not deny that I felt.

  “You are the expert. You decide.”

  “I can see no harm in it, and potentially much good. It will be the work of a second.”

  So saying he pinched her nose lightly. The woman coughed, then gasped in a great breath through her mouth. Attar released her nose and helped her rise.

  “Easy. You are okay. You are with friends.”

  Friends she couldn’t see, yet her gaze locked immediately on where my eyes should be.

  “You’ve been touched by the Corpse in the Sky.”

  There it was. I could see it on her also. The Corpse in the Sky’s blessing was obvious once I knew what I was looking it. Even here, hundreds of feet below the dark fort of dark warlocks, with the air warped by twisted magics and ravenous desires, she was free. Even here, she could taste the sky. Just as I had. Just as we both had in the presence of that being far below.

  She had recognized the fact before me. Which meant she had met another also touched by the Corpse in the Sky. Or her magic, and she had magic, Myrra’s senses were clear, granted her some insight.

  I tried to smile reassuringly, though I wasn’t sure if she could see it, “I was. Though it was another presence which robbed Attar and myself of our visible form.”

  “You’re a woman?” The woman sounded surprised, “I’m sorry, some sense of mine assured me you were a man. Perhaps that light which shines from you. The form is masculine to my eye—I’m sorry I—” her teeth clicked shut.

  “I am Oswic, Magi of the Sacred Order, Wise Man of Blackbridge, The Starcaller of Dawn, Master of Twilight, Voice of the Storm, Speaker on the Wind, Five Time Hoopstone Champion of Ravenhold, and Darkswallower of Bleakfort. I am a man, though the sounds you hear are not my own. A goddess commands my voice, though not my words.”

  The woman blinked rapidly, her face scrunched up in confusion, “And you sir?” she caught herself again “Are you sir?”

  Attar laughed, “Indeed I am, though only recently. My voice is also not my own but Oswic’s. As he has said I am Attar. I have no titles for it is not my people’s custom.”

  “That sounds like... quite the tale.”

  Her voice rose in uncertainty with every word until, with the final letter, I could not contain myself any longer. I threw back my head and joined Attar in his merriment.

  “What is it?” She smiled uncertainly, wishing to join in on the joke, unsure if it was made at her expense.

  “Please, forgive us, we’ve been trapped beneath the Bleak Fort too long. Here, let me try something,” I dug into my pack for my vial of quicksilver and held it up near Attar.

  There, as I’d hoped, was reflected Attar’s face as it should be without the dark magic’s influence erasing his presence. Reflections were found in silver and silver was the place of truth. Even the warlocks couldn’t extinguish the truth, only smother it.

  My face and hand were not reflected. Instead I could see there The Watcher, who waved coyly at the woman and then stepped back so Attar was in full view. Both Attar and the woman started at that.

  “Who is—what is that?” Asked the woman.

  “The man is myself,” Attar’s lips moved as he spoke, proving his statement, “and the woman, I have no clue, though she looks remarkably like Oswic.”

  Attar frowned, “And remarkably like yourself as well.”

  “You said Oswic was a man?” The princess asked politely. She would have been fully in her right to feel frightened, but instead she sounded curious.

  “The woman in the silver is The Watcher. An ally of mine won from the warlock’s clutches. She is my mirror and my guardian, but she is not me. She is perhaps my strength and aspiration. An ideal ascribed to the other half of my soul.”

  “Warlocks? Is that your word for necromancers? Your accent is strange so perhaps we speak different dialects.”

  The fallen branch landed where the moss was already indented. I’d also noticed her accent, but thought it a speech impediment or affectation of the wealthy. I’d not met a large number of nobility, and even fewer royalty (Dead and Mushroom not withstanding).

  But I knew the accent. I realized it the moment she mentioned the necromancers. And that meant... I knew her.

  Seventy five years ago a wealthy king had travelled the painted lands, leaving gold in his wake. The people had adopted many of his habits and mannerisms in his honour.

  If those mannerisms of speech were removed, the speaker would have the accent of the woman before us.

  “You were taken in the year 925 by the Golden King. You are Princess Astra of the Painted Lands.”

  Her face fell, “Yes I am. I was bought like a common trinket, as if beauty can be bought and sold! My own father sold me! He claimed it was no different than taking his hand in marriage, but he sent me away to hang like a painting in his necromancer fortress... but you mentioned the Bleak Fort. How did I come here?”

  The black goddess within me rose and pounded through my blood like fire. The princess, once irresistible, became all consuming. If she could have seen my visage she would have shrunk away in fright. Any would who had sense. Any who were not desperate for the worst kind of attention. The black goddess, goddess of time, had found another outside her normal doom.

  Attar could not save me. He had not been raised in these lands, and he was a necromancer besides. Necromancers were psychopomps, the opposite of whatever had been done to her, but 75 years of bias would be hard to undo with simple placation.

  I forced my eyes shut, ended my ring’s senses, and spoke, though my voice was huskier than it had any right to be, “It is the year 1000. I am so sorry.”

  I forced my mouth shut before I said any more, whether it be damning or conciliatory.

  At first Astra smiled. Then she froze. Then her face collapsed. Tears welled on her perfect face. Tears which the goddess would have happily lapped from her cheeks. It wasn’t my mind being wrested from my control, not exactly. But it was a fascination, as one cannot help but watch the moon come out from behind a cloud, or a dragonfly alight on top of a tall tree.

  Astra took a long, shaking breath, “And this is the Bleak Fort?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. What do we do?”

  I had seen it in her when I’d seen her inner light. The Corpse in the Sky, somewhere far from Bleak Fort, had chosen the princess for a reason, and the reason was clear. She was not one to shirk from hardship or duty. She would stand tall as long as she needed to.

  “We should take Astra to Brace at once,” Attar said, “Get her to some form of safety.”

  A light cloud of dust swirled up around Attar, briefly outlining the concern on his features.

  “What of the warlocks?”

  “I have slain any I’ve found,” I said, “The upper floors are much safe than the lower. And our friends above are not without skill.”

  “You’ve slain warlocks? You did say you were Magus, didn’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “Then you have my trust. The Magi were always my father’s wisest advisors. Was it you who broke me from my sleep?”

  “It was not. If you have my trust, then please trust me here. Those who captured you were not true necromancers. They were perverted. A necromancer is a psychopomp, a guide of the dead, one who lays to rest, not one who binds the living. Do you understand?”

  “I suppose. Though my impression of the Bronze Coast is not favourable.”

  “Good. I tell you this because Attar is from the Bronze Coast, though you cannot see him clearly at this time.”

  The princess blushed, “Forgive me, I was not aware. I did not mean to cast aspersions upon you.”

  “There is more,” I continued. Better to bull through the thorn bush than struggle uselessly against its bonds, “Attar is a necromancer and a true and loyal friend.”

  The princess agreed without hesitation, “If you say so Magus, it must be.”

  My cups could prove whether or not she believed me, or was hiding the truth in her heart, but there was something powerful in trust, and I chose to trust her.

  “Will you come with us to our friends? Attar and I are scouting below, forging a safe path down through the Bleak Fort.”

  “I wish to help,” she held up a hand as though used to forestalling protest, “however, if you believe me most useful out of your way, then I will happily acquiesce.”

  My instincts warred with one another. My first was to travel alone, though it had been tamed by Attar being perhaps even more effectual than myself against our trials. The second was the desire to keep Astra near that I might gaze upon her, both for her beauty and her strange tie to time and death forestalled.

  There was no sense deciding until I knew her capabilities.

  Attar must have been thinking along similar lines, “Do you believe yourself capable? What talents may you offer in delving? We face many traps, magics, tricks, and foes.”

  “Plus endless ill fitted doors which take all our strength to open. The architect of the place himself works against us.”

  Judging by Astra’s startled expression I failed to keep the venom from my voice when referencing to my arch nemesis.

  “Well... I am a skilled fighter, I have been trained all my life and, what I believe more important, I am a veteran of ten battles,” she stood, revealing herself to be far taller than the clothes of the princess I’d found. Was there more of them running around here or stuffed in casks?, “My height is... variable, though I am always weaker than I appear.”

  So the clothes could have been hers. Were likely hers. Only the Golden King could have afford such extravagance and demanded such impracticality. Could her clothes change with her? She was tall now. Taller than Attar, taller than I had been before I’d changed.

  “My height is the result of a blessing,” she continued, “I am not quite a caster, but one who was cast. A worker of magic like yourselves, though in a way far closer to myself than my learning.”

  “Fairy blessed,” I guessed.

  She nodded, “It’s strange to explain, but I am raised up or diminished by those around me, I am never short on companions, and I am always at my centre; in control and never left unaware.”

  Fairy blessings were like that. Physical and metaphysical bound together to form something unique to each of the blessed. Her powers were undoubtedly useful for dealing with others, and, from the sound of it, finding traps or ambushes. Depending on her control of her size she could slip away unseen or grow to match our enemies.

  But she was weak, and she was vulnerable. No matter her skill or courage, resilience was the key factor of survival. Attar only managed because our souls were linked and I could protect him. She would die.

  “Your talents are numerous and beneficial, but the danger of the Bleak Fort is unique. I would, unless our need is great, beg that you remain with our companions on the first floor.”

  Astra laughed, “I already said I would defer to your judgement, Magus, no need to beg.”

  “And,” she added, suddenly nervous, “I like you too.”

  Her face flushed red. She’d clearly spoken on impulse. Where before I’d been attracted to her I at once grew immensely fond. Courage was endearing.

  I smiled, wishing she could see, my own face would be as red as hers, and my heart fluttered so hard I could barely speak, “I’ll have to court you, then. But I never said anything.”

  “I can feel exactly what others are feeling. It’s... useful, and terrifying in matters of state. And life.”

  She continued on explaining, I listened with rapt attention while Attar guided the two of us back up the stairs. I was nearly three decades in age, and one of the Magi to boot. Yet I tingled with that brilliant, sparkling energy of a young man and for that I was grateful. My sense of wonder had yet to diminish. I was blissfully unaware of our journey and the passing time, and sorrowful when the time came to bid our farewell with Brace once again.

  I could only bless the pixie as he’d claimed unable to do so for me.