The Siphon's Scream

"A steady hand is not a prerequisite for heroism. One can shake uncontrollably and still calculate the correct trajectory." —Faren, Institute Lecture Notes

The Siphon's Scream

Faren - The Glimmerdeep Archives

The gantry shook so hard Faren nearly pitched over the railing into the industrial abyss below.

"Elara!" he screamed, clinging to a support strut as the metal groaned beneath his boots. "The mountain is falling apart!"

Elara was plugged into the maintenance console, her hands flying over the brass keys, her face illuminated by the flashing red warning lights. She looked like a conductor trying to direct a hurricane. Her spectacles were cracked, smudged, and sliding down her nose, but her focus was absolute.

"The seismic readings are off the chart," she shouted, her voice tight but controlled. "The structural integrity of the lower mines is gone. The core is expanding."

"We have to go!" Faren yelled, looking at the spiderweb cracks spreading across the obsidian ceiling. Dust was raining down like snow.

"Not yet," Elara snapped. "Look at the energy flow."

She pointed to the massive black tower suspended in the center of the foundry cavern. The violet light pulsing through its cables had turned a blinding, furious white. The tower was vibrating, groaning under the strain. It was no longer a machine; it was a bomb.

"He's overloaded it," Elara realized. "Root opened the tap too wide. The siphon can't handle the output of a waking Dead King."

"What happens if it breaks?"

"It explodes, same as what happened in Seda except…" Elara said grimly. " …it takes Glimmerdeep with it. The valley, the pass, everything for fifty miles will be erased."

Faren looked at the tower. He looked at the floor of the foundry below. The thousands of enslaved dwarves were frozen in terror, clutching their tools as their world shook. They were waking up from their trance, but only to die.

He thought of his wife. His children. The people he couldn't save on the road to Seda because he had been paralyzed by fear. He thought of Aga charging the elementals.

"Can we stop it?" Faren asked.

"No. We can't stop the flow," Elara said. "But... we could divert it." She pointed to a lever on her screen marked EMERGENCY VENTING - ATMOSPHERIC. "If I reverse the polarity of the intake fans, we can dump the excess Ether out the chimney. It won't stop the earthquake, but it might keep the tower from turning into an explosive event."

"Do it!"

"I can't!" Elara slammed her fist on the console in frustration. "The Sanguine locked the remote access. It has to be done manually. At the tower base."

Faren looked at the tower. It was suspended over the magma pit, connected to the gantry by a single, narrow service bridge made of grated iron.

The bridge was swarming with Red Robes.

Three Sanguine acolytes stood on the catwalk, guarding the manual valve wheel. They were chanting, feeding their own energy into the siphon to keep it stable.

"I'll go," Faren said.

Elara stared at him. She adjusted her spectacles, as if trying to bring him into focus, seeing him for the first time. "Faren, you're no warrior. You have an encyclopedic knowledge of ancient linguistics. They have blood magic. You'll be killed."

"Correct, I'm not a warrior," Faren said, his voice trembling. His knees were knocking together. He was terrified.

But he remembered Aga in the alley just a few days earlier. You can't help a rabid dog. He remembered Rina reflecting on what she had said in her address to the Senate. Words are not enough.

He grabbed a heavy, iron pipe-wrench from a tool rack. It was heavy, greasy, and real.

"And I'm done watching," Faren whispered.

He ran toward the bridge.

The wind on the catwalk was ferocious, hot and smelling of sulfur. Faren kept his head down, charging. The heat blistered his skin.

The first Sanguine acolyte turned, surprised to see a scholar sprinting at him with a wrench. The acolyte raised a hand, a lash of red energy forming, crackling with malice.

Faren didn't stop. He didn't try to feign. He simply threw his weight forward.

"Gah, physics!" Faren screamed.

He ducked under the lash and swung the wrench upward. It wasn't a graceful strike. It was desperate. The heavy iron connected with the acolyte’s kneecap. There was a satisfying, wet crunch. The acolyte screamed, his leg buckling backward, and he fell over the low railing, plummeting into the depths below.

One.

The second acolyte drew a curved dagger. Faren scrambled back, slipping on the grate. The dagger slashed the air inches from his nose.

Think. Think.

Faren looked at the steam pipe running along the rail next to the acolyte. He looked at the pressure gauge. Critical.

He swung the wrench. The acolyte braced for impact and found none.

Faren swung not at the acolyte, but at the valve on the pipe.

HISS.

A jet of superheated steam, pressurized to burst, blasted outward. It caught the acolyte full in the face. The man reeled back, blinded, clawing at his boiling skin, and stumbled off the edge into the abyss.

Two.

The third acolyte—a tall man with a mask of bone—didn't join the melee. He simply stood in front of the manual override wheel, blocking the way. He continued to chant, and the air around him grew heavy, suffocating.

Faren couldn't breathe. His vision blurred. Blood magic. It was crushing his lungs, turning the oxygen in his blood to lead.

Faren dropped to his knees, gasping. He crawled forward, dragging the wrench, but his limbs felt like water. The acolyte raised a hand, and a ball of crimson fire formed in his palm.

Faren stared at the fire.

And then, something snapped in his mind.

He didn't see fire. He saw syntax.

The chanting of the Sanguine... it wasn't just noise. It was a language. A dialect of corruption, forcing the Ether to behave against its nature. It was an error in the fabric of reality.

Faren was a linguist. And he knew how to correct a sentence.

"No," Faren choked out.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the flask of alchemical solvent. He threw it.

The flask shattered against the acolyte’s chest, soaking his robes. But there was no spark to light it.

The acolyte laughed, the fireball in his hand growing brighter. "Die, scholar."

Faren reached out with his mind. He didn't pray. He didn't beg. He simply looked at the latent heat in the air, the vibration of the molecules, and he spoke a single syllable of High Etheric he had read on a tablet in the archives.

"Ignis."

It wasn't a shout. It wasn’t a command. It was a definition.

The air in front of Faren shimmered. A spark, made of will, snapped into existence at the tip of his finger.

It flew.

The spark hit the solvent-soaked robes.

FWHOOSH.

The acolyte burst into flames. The scream was immediate and terrible. The man flailed, the blood-spell breaking instantly as his concentration shattered. He tumbled over the rail, a falling comet.

Three.

Faren stared at his hand. His fingertips were smoking. He felt a drain, a sudden hollowness in his chest, but also a rush of exhilaration that terrified him.

I did that, he thought. I spoke, and the world listened. Gaidan is not going to believe this.

But there was no time to analyze. The tower was vibrating so hard his teeth rattled in his skull.

He grabbed the manual release wheel. It was red-hot.

Faren screamed as his palms burned, the smell of searing flesh filling his nose, but he didn't let go. He heaved.

The wheel groaned. Decades of rust fought him.

"Turn!" Faren roared.

He pushed. He pushed with the help of his new sense. He pushed with the idea of motion. Kinesis.

The wheel turned.

CLANG.

The vents on the tower slammed open.

A pillar of blinding white Ether shot straight up, bypassing the siphon, blasting up through the chimney shaft and out into the sky.

The pressure dropped. The tower stopped shaking.

Faren slumped against the railing, cradling his burned hands, laughing hysterically as the mountain continued to crumble around him.