Into the Dark

“All right,” Rakkan said once they were descending the stairwell into the dark, “let me just tally up all the ways this is stupid. Sending seven kids against a foe who’s apparently a credible threat to the Empire: stupid. Double stupid when those kids are your entire pool of heirs, so you’re risking the future stability of the Empire itself. It’s likeliest that this mysterious light mage is secretly a member of the court, so they’re probably still snoozing in their comfy little bed while we stomp around down here in the mildew. Sending us to do this on the one morning we’re all guaranteed not to be well-rested! Trusting some primitive superstition about toughening people up instead of modern education. Also, the idea that it’s danger and struggle that made Ophia and Uthien break through, when our mysterious older sister and her knowledge of heretical magic were obviously the deciding factor!”

“I’m not sure we can count that one,” said Espa. “He did send Morenna down here with us, after all.”

“Okay, fair enough,” Rakkan agreed. “That one’s on the fence. Have I missed any, Uthien?”

“I thought it was pretty strange to insist we call come armed,” said Uthien. “Three of us are life mages. They can’t harden any weapon more than their own fists, and also life mages have a known tendency to break weapons they try to fight with.”

“Right!” Rakkan exclaimed. “That one’s so common knowledge I forgot to even count it! Behold, everyone: the wisdom of our Emperor.”

“The man is an actual dipshit,” Morenna said from the back of the line.

“You know, Morenna,” Rakkan mused, “sometimes I wonder if your mother was the real brains of the operation. The conquest was on a roll until she died, and ever since then the old man has barely managed to control his own court.”

“Perhaps it would behoove us all to look into alternate weapons,” said Uthien.

“Yeah? What’s that look like for the brand-new world’s best air mage?” Rakkan asked.

Uthien opened the heavy-looking pouch hanging on his belt opposite his short sword, and three dark metal spheres about the size of his fist drifted up from it; he held out one hand and they began rotating in formation above his palm.

“Father let me take these from the treasury,” he said.

“Oho, watch out everybody!” Rakkan cackled. “He’s got balls!”

“They’re tungsten,” Uthien explained.

“Tung…what?” Ophia wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t even sound like a real word.”

“It’s a rare metal that’s exceptionally hard and heavy,” said Uthien. “Basically the toughest material that’s not enchanted. It’s so hard it can’t really be worked except by lightsmiths, and not into very elaborate shapes, so… It isn’t used for much, yet. Most worked tungsten is in the form of spheres or cubes and the like, kept as curiosities in museums and treasuries.”

Two of the tungsten spheres suddenly whizzed to both sides, slamming into the stone walls hard enough to embed themselves halfway in shattered craters.

Rakkan blinked. “Whoah.”

“That’s impressive, little brother,” said Aldan from the head of the line, “but be careful with the walls. I’m not sure which ones are load-bearing.”

“None of these,” said Morenna. “This staircase is in a tunnel through solid bedrock.”

“Hey, so…how heavy are those things?” Rakkan asked more seriously, holding out a hand. “Can I see one for a second?”

“Yes, Uthien,” Ophia said sweetly. “Let Rakkan handle your balls.”

Espa had to cover her mouth to suppress a laugh.

Aldan at that point emerged into the first long gallery; the ice had long since melted, but it was still strewn with the shattered wreckage of clockwork soldiers the Princesses had previously destroyed. He stepped forward, making room for the others as they trooped out to survey the damage.

Aldan had been in front because he could make his entire body glow with light magic; Ophia had walked in the middle with a fireball hovering over her hand for additional light. Morenna had kept up the rear because she didn’t need light to see. Now they spread out, breaking formation.

Rakkan whistled. “Damn, girls. You don’t mess around.”

“We’ll probably have to fight more of these,” said Uthien. “Any advice from our veterans?”

“Ophia found a trick that works very well,” said Morenna. “We might have to rely on her.”

“I think the seven of us are better off than the three of us were,” Ophia added. “They don’t hit much harder than human fighters, but they are relentless and tough. It takes a lot to keep them down. Three life mages might be just the ticket: we simply have to hit them, a lot, as hard as possible.”

Morenna grimaced. “I dislike relying on brute force above precision, but with these…I think she’s right.”

The group set off down the gallery toward the other doorway, falling back into the same formation as before.

“If you happen to know any more magical secrets, sister, this might be a good time,” Uthien suggested, glancing back at Morenna.

“I’m not an encyclopedia of heresy,” she said irritably. “I know a few secrets; there are probably a lot more I don’t know. Pretty sure everything that would be useful to any of you, I’ve already told you.”

“What about…energy magic?” Espa asked. “You said the source of life mages’ power is…our own body chemistry?”

“Ah…well, yeah, I suppose,” Morenna agreed. “Your body is a complex, squishy mechanism in which lots of different chemical processes are always happening, and life magic draws power from those. I didn’t dwell on it because… I mean, is that useful for anything?”

“I don’t see how,” Rakkan said, frowning. “I already knew I was drawing from my own body. The particulars aren’t…applicable.”

“I couldn’t figure out anything either,” Espa admitted, “and I’ve been trying. Ah, well.”

They had passed into the corridor beyond, which turned into another descending staircase. Now, as they trooped down, they became aware of sounds from up ahead.

The group slowed, and by the time they emerged into a crossroads beyond were creeping warily. From the base of the stairs, two stone corridors branched off to either side, but directly ahead of them…

It was another corridor, made from Machine Men alloys rather than stone. It was also bristling with traps—obvious, constantly-running traps. Huge blades sliced across the path, segments of the wall slammed up and down and sideways like giant hammers, periodic gouts of flame roared across the space at intervals; in the distance it looked like there might be more exotic perils obscured by the view.

The seven siblings stared in silence.

“I have to say,” Uthien finally admitted, “I can’t imagine what this machine is supposed to be…doing.”

“It’s not supposed to do anything,” said Aldan. “This is what it does: it’s a corridor that kills you unless you’re very fast, agile, and skilled. It’s…frustrating, how little we know about the Machine Men. Their culture, their beliefs, things like that. The heroes who defeated them made sure all their writings were destroyed so no one else could replicate their technology, so… We don’t know what the point of this was. Punishment for criminals? Some kind of religious ritual? Maybe a rite of passage, like Father has us on right now?”

“What’s odd is it’s turned on, but I can feel all the mechanisms in the walls,” Morenna murmured. “When the clockwork soldiers came alive, they became…internally opaque, like single bodies. My magic couldn’t affect their insides.”

“That’s because this isn’t a single body,” said Aldan. “The light mage reactivated the central power core of the whole facility; energy is being pumped into these fixtures from there. It is not its own enclosed system.”

All six of them turned to stare at him. It was Uthien who asked the obvious.

“How do you know that, Aldan?”

“Ah, yes,” Aldan said with a smile, stepping forward and turning to smile at them all, framed by the corridor of mechanical death at his back. “Well. This is the part where I betray you.”