22nd Level

[Zadown]

She rubbed the dirt between her pale fingers, looking thoughtful. The grains fell down to the grimy floor. Amal stood up and wiped her hands clean.

 

"They didn't go this way. No residue, none whatsoever."

 

He nodded, his armor rattling softly as it always did when he moved only slightly. His helmet was hanging from his wide, heavy belt, next to some of his weapons. Seated between the massive shoulderpads of his plate mail and protected by a loose gorget, Qimir's large head looked too small, out of place. He brushed moisture off from his beard and moustache, the vacant look in his dark eyes showing how tired he was.

 

"We didn't really think it'd be that easy, did we. It's a huge maze."

 

"Mmhm."

 

Amal looked around while Qimir hunched down while standing in one place. She briefly wondered if he could sleep standing up like that, enceased in his blanket of metal, then turned her attention to what she was looking at. She wasn't tired, not yet - even though she was small, her tools and clothes weighted merely a fraction of the immense weight Qimir hauled around.

 

"All that metal makes you dull, Qimir. It drags your thoughts down."

 

"You really believe that Sophist propaganda? I thought you had left their illusions behind."

 

"Hah. Everything you disagree with is an illusion, but when you actually need something I can do ..."

 

She took a dirty rag from inside her cloak and used it to clean out a part of a wall, kneeling down to reach the area. The parts she polished were green stone unlike most of the dungeon and she grinned in delight, digged with her rag-covered fingers to clear the grooves of the text engraved on the surface.

 

"Think your techniques would have revealed you this?"

 

He took a few jingling steps closer, peered over her shoulder.

 

"This place is full of engravings. What of it?"

 

"Tch tch. Ah! Don't touch it."

 

Qimir pulled his hand back and said nothing.

 

"The green stone's infested with the rot, you don't want it even on your armor."

 

She pushed at the stone, her grin appearing again with a force that transformed her face when it made a clicking sound, then she tossed the rag away. For a moment nothing happened. Then with a irritating grinding screech a secret door swung open. Qimir, still mute, grabbed his helmet with a practiced air and slammed it down, the visor clanging loudly against the rest of the armor. Amal retreated from the dark doorway like a dancer, now there, now behind the wall of steel her companion formed.

 

A hastily snatched buckler in one, a well-cared for sword in the other hand Qimir stepped through, once again some spring in his step.

[Zadown]

"So, if I hadn't born a second son, destined to the Gods of Metal ..."

 

"You are still thinking about what I said back there?"

 

She looked incredulous, then started laughing - a sound very out of place in their grimy, gloomy surroundings.

 

"There's nothing wrong in observing ideas from every direction."

 

Amal wiped a few tears out of her eyes, still shaking gently. Her hoverlamp shuddered and descended a few thumbs before she calmed down enough to make a gesture of keeping.

 

"You are too funny, Qimir. I need my solemnity to keep my tools in order, you know that. Dying by starvation in the dark is not my preferred way to go, even if I'd do it laughing."

 

"Right. I'll try to be silent, then."

 

He sounded sullen and turned away, chewing on the conjubread like it was just another task to be done. Amal reached towards his shoulder but checked her fingers before they touched his heavy armor, rubbed her pale fingers together like she was trying out the texture of the air.

 

"Don't get too mad. Cold anger, remember?"

 

"That was never one of my problems."

 

"Mmhm. I suppose not."

 

"Steel alone would not save me here, either ... what is it?"

 

He had finally turned back towards the renegade miracle worker. Despite the slowness of his thoughts, Qimir wasted no time in recognizing the look of intense concentration on Amal's petite, dark brown face. Her body stayed rigid, her lips still, but her thin fingers wove a complex pattern in the empty air in military sign speech. The big man barely moved but a tension settled over him like a wound spring, an explosion of steel waiting to happen.

 

They could both hear it, then - a shuffling, liquid sound, nauseating even with the rinthwind blowing towards the approaching aberration. Amal sighed her breath out in one long go before settling down in a lotus position, touching the massive armor enceasing Qimir as if by accident. He had been quickened before, but the experience remained throughly unsettling: steel waking up all around him, its heavy thoughts hastened to a level where the mournful dirges almost turned into shrill gibbering, a weight lifting from his shoulders.

 

Qimir grabbed an ancient block of stone with his free hand, a vain hope of not getting any rot on his own weapons or armor flickering feebly somewere deep in his cold, solid mind. The hoverlamp zoomed forward past a corner, leaving Amal in the dark. Qimir hastened his step to keep up. They had taught them how to fight without the weight of the sacred skin, just in case, but he had almost forgotten how to be agile, how to be fast.

 

He hadn't expected it to be so close, either. Or so damn big, rotted to the core, the madness of the defilers burning in its rheumy eyes somewhere where its head had used to be. Even with quickened armor that did not feel like steel Qimir's thoughts were still the slow, placid and chilly things floating at the depths of a lake, held close to avoid fatal fears, to ignore useless distractions. The ghastly form, only half as terrifying as he'd be if rot would catch him, could not shake him. He threw the stone.

 

Not long after, he returned, the lamp circling him like an affectionate pet.

 

"Not dull, worker. Unfazeable, anchored."

 

She opened her eyes, a fear that she had been keeping at bay swirling in them. The lamp shuddered, its flame flickering.

 

"You didn't get any of it on you, did you? You know what the rot does!"

 

"I saw what it does, Amal. It makes soft enemies."

 

"Your weapons and armor are clean?"

 

"I threw a rock at it. You know what sort of strength quickened hands can hold. As long as I didn't strain you too much, we are fine ... althought, I wouldn't walk through that corridor if we can avoid it."

 

She nodded but moved closer, eyes narrowed to catch any sign of infection on the bright steel Qimir wore from head to toes. He drew his sword, showed how its oiled blade gleamed in the light of the hoverlamp, sheathed it. Amal finished one more circuit around the big man. When she spoke her voice was akin to a whisper.

 

"They might've met their fate against those, they might be lost and gone and damned by the rot."

 

He shrugged, his heavy-again armor clattering.

 

"Then the justice is already done. Rot or living, dry bones or flesh, we'll find them."

 

"We'll find them, yes."

 

But she did not sound so certain.

[Zadown]

Every time they had found a new stairway down the silence had grown longer, heavier. This doorway was shaped to be a dragon's maw, its eyes plundered ages ago, most of its jade teeth missing. It still had a sense of dangerous majesty granted to it by what it marked, the wounds it had suffered in the hands of endless looters soothed by the darkness of these depths. No stone in view had seen sunlight in thousands of years.

 

"The dragon."

 

Short comment, but behind the lone word crowded whole pages of meaning. Qimir touched her shoulder gently, the gesture so unexpected and the steel so cold Amal shivered.

 

"Yes. The fifty-fifty, the deeper depths, the looter's gambit. But ... they aren't our equals."

 

"Nor do we have their experience, no matter how long we did spend studying the dangers."

 

She took a few steps to be able to better stare at his face with narrowed eyes, quick disdain shaping her own face, altering her tone.

 

"You'd turn aside, now? After all we've already been through."

 

Amal had been envisioned a few different responses, was not sure if she actually wanted an excuse to start climbing back up towards the surface. She had not expected the deep rumbling laughter of the second son of Hamarr Gothian, the loud mixture of it and the clanking of his shaking platemail.

 

"Haha! This! This is where we start! You should know better than accuse one of us of cowardice. They do not give the sacred skin to those who hesistate. If anything, I'll need you to tell me when to back off, finally, should there be such a moment in those depths beyond this portal."

 

She sighed, maybe out of relief, maybe in resignation, drawing strength from the hoverlamp's unwavering flight around them. If she was succumbing to fear, to the crawler's shock or to the pressure of fourteen levels of labyrinthine stone above them, the lamp would shake first before her hands, fall and fade before she would. Knowing it to be futile, she grabbed another handful of dirt before letting it fall slowly from between her fingers.

 

"There's no mistaking it. I can feel their flaw in this."

 

He nodded, already satisfied with her judgement the first time. They were both professionals, more inclined to criticize their own work than that of the other.

 

"Nothing to it then. It's no good to tarry at these places."

 

Qimir slammed his helmet down and marched down the stone stairs into the dragon's gaping maw. She dusted her hands off and hurried after him, her lamp dipping lower for one dizzying moment when a vision of staying up here alone in the deepening dark intruded into her mind.

 

The next level looked much like the previous one, the remains of the guardian of the portal lying on the floor of the antechamber as the books had described. Amal studied the floor with critical eye looking for signs of residue or other tracks of the fugitives, relaxing into her usual work trance with the familiarity of the work. After a while when no terror construct lunged at them from the gaping doorways, no shambling rot-creatures appeared, she started speaking while examining the tracks.

 

"They should be afraid by now."

 

Qimir nodded first, then thought better of it and removed his helmet and spoke.

 

"You can get this deep only with either pure rationality or with a healthy dose of fear."

 

"Mhmm. They must have hired good crawlers, though. Or lucky ones."

 

Another nod, more visible without his helmet but still lost to the woman, busy with the minutiae of the floor.

 

"No corpses."

 

"Ye-ees. No ... corpses. Hmmm."

 

She closed her eyes, certain of his protective presence. After a minute or two she opened them and smiled with the tranquil grace of the miracle workers, a shadow of the inhuman calm of her trance lingering in her gaze.

 

"They are heading towards the star-walker gate."

 

"A-ha."

 

Something leaden had crept into Qimir's tone of bright steel - the leaden shadow of the star-walker gate, the portal to the sixteenth's level, the fool's doom, the crawler's tomb. He placed his helmet on his head again to keep the nervous thrum of his heart enceased in steel.

 

"I had been hoping to confront them here, at the lowest."

 

Humanity rippled through her, forced an involuntary gasp out of her that was almost sexual in nature. She regained her poise quickly, could not see Qimir's wide grin through his helmet. Amal looked towards the direction their prey had escaped, glanced at the man over her shoulder.

 

"Yes, me too. Fears and the lack of them aside, odds of anybody walking the sixteenth for any greater length of time and returning to boast of it aren't good."

 

"We are still going."

 

It wasn't a question.

[Zadown]

"This stone ..."

 

He fell silent. She thought for a moment, idly, if he had died and those were his last words, the first half of something profound yet never finished. Then she brushed aside such useless speculations: his wounds hadn't been that bad and the second sons that actually finished their training did not die of shock. Her wobbling lamp steadied itself. Eventually he spoke again, like there had been no pause at all.

 

"... it is like my brothers. Unyielding."

 

"Comforted by the fact you can't back down, are you?"

 

"Yes. You see right through me, miracle worker."

 

"They've taught us both well."

 

Amal sighed out a long cloud of tiredness, dragged herself to an almost upright position. A look at Qimir she had been dreading to make made the lamp wobble again - through her veil of dispassionate philosophy it still twisted her heart to see what the creature had done to her travelling companion. Blood on his abraded plate mail, his stern face hidden in the shadows of a torn helmet, the hard stone he had been slammed against cracked from the force of the blow.

 

"Ach, woman, it's not as bad as it looks. I only rue the fact it broke my dagger."

 

Now that she was listening to it, she could easily hear the tone of raw pain flowing underneath every word, knew if she would look at him right now the lamp would fall, that she would cry for the first time in years. Amal swallowed empty air instead. She could still hold on to the ten principal abstract mantras, felt their poisonous, frigid calm keeping her afloat. He coughed, then she realized it was an abortive attempt to laugh.

 

"Heh. You sure showed it ... a thing or two about miracles."

 

"It would have crushed me in a second, had you let it."

 

"Mmm."

 

So much weariness in that one wordless sound.

 

"I'll keep guard, Qim. There won't be another like it around, not nearby."

 

"It's Qim now, eh ..."

 

His voice faded into exhausted blackness. She rubbed her face to keep weariness away, glanced once at the dark room and the ruined titan kneeling to them both, feeling detached wonder at the sight before setting her face into a resolute mien. Amal opened her rucksack and took out her conjuven and her set of focus tools. The mere sight of the mundane items made it easier to ride the wave of unemotion, to wash her mind of unnecessary clutter. The light grew brighter as her hoverlamp channeled the steadier thoughtwaves into visible wavelengths, really showing the enormous size of the room they were in. She ignored the view, whistling a hymn to order off-tune while going through the familiar motions of focusing her mind to craft bread and conjure water.

 

Time diffused, lost its slow, river-like flow as she worked, pushing her insistent emotions to the barren edges of her mindscape with every abstract mantra she created in her thoughts. Her frayed focus returned keeping her tiredness at bay, her attachment to her travelling companion, her fear, her despair, her anxiety. The world was a white canvas and her mind a wet, thick brush inscribing its properties anew in a way that suited her. At the end she had to tug herself back, was faintly alarmed in some human part of herself how far she had travelled. It wasn't safe without somebody looking after your body and Amal knew it - a basic truth told early in the training, repeated every year, history books filled with examples of what would happen.

 

Her fingers were cold and pale. It wasn't good.

 

Amal dragged the lamp back to her and projected his dispassionate will into it, changed its reality. Its light dimmed but turned warmer, gained a flickering reddish hue resembling a living flame. She smiled faintly as the warmth seeped into her neglected bones, made blood flow again in her shockingly colorless skin. The smell of conjubread hit her next. She was ravenous, suddenly.

 

It didn't take much to wake Qimir up. A careful touch on the cold platemail, maybe as little as her moving into his sphere of control, the area inside which his blade ruled. He rose from the dark as slowly as he had fallen into it, ready to move if necessary but cautious of his wounds.

 

"Did you dream, second son?"

 

"... yes. A white flame between me and my death, up there under the blazing summer sky. Such brightness ..."

 

It did not sound like him, for a moment. Then the tendrils of the dream faded in the stark reality and she could sense him shaking his head gently inside of what was left of his helmet. He swallowed, then shifted his body enough to cause the tormented, broken platemail around him to groan in protest.

 

"You've made ... water and food?"

 

"Of course."

 

She smiled, careful not to turn her face towards him before the smile was gone again.

[Zadown]

The rinthwind had a different quality down here. Untouched, feral, ancient - it carried dust and the scent of forgotten metal, faint hints of old perfumes hiding under the heavier smells that hinted at the bygone builders of this mad maze. Qimir flexed slightly, a nervous habit he had acquired after Amal fixed his armor. No matter how good she was at what she did some subtle flaws remained, a number of faults where the sacred skin was too maneuverable, too light, too vulnerable. It was like a ghost itch on his second skin. A blast of rinthwind made dust swirl across the worn corridor, gave him an excuse to stop. She gave him a sharp glance, as clear as any uttered "what?".

 

"You know I'm not easily swayed, but this is all wrong."

 

"We've both known that for a while, now. They lied to us at the top."

 

"I should've realized you reach any conclusion sooner than I do."

 

His reworked helmet let her see his slight grin. Her lips turned upwards in response and she nodded, tapped his heavy armor with frank familiarity, light fingers barely brushing the engraved metal.

 

"You still have your uses, second son. What worries me is what do they have? Chaos! I have worries enough for each finger, and some left for my toes."

 

"We both saw that hammerer titan they had taken down. No sign of any of them being wounded in that fight."

 

She nodded again, looked at the wall for any signs of rot before leaning into it. They hadn't seen any for several levels now, but neither of them was the type to take pointless risks.

 

"It wasn't a miracle that made those marks on it. Our art tends to ... be quite a bit more concentrated."

 

"Yes. Obviously not any sort of warrior, either, unless quickened or otherwise altered. They did not teach us to crush and rend metal constructs."

 

Their talk about the titan had been almost the same as last time and the time before that. It was like a mantra or a ritual, two people reading woodenly from the same book. Something did pass between them every time they had this conversation, or any of the other codified ones. The meaning had left the words but it had entered the gestures, the tones and the looks on their faces. Last time she had just nodded at his remark about what they taught to the adherents of the Gods of Metal, left it at that. Now her eyes narrowed as if seeing something unpleasant.

 

"You think we can take them."

 

Not a question. She was always ahead of his mind, often at least one step, sometimes so far ahead he could not even see the mental terrain she was rushing through like a wind.

 

"It's my holy duty to try. We worship those moments where the blade turns, the coin is in the air and the bones still rattle on the table. Unless something is ruled inevitable, that is."

 

That was a question, a frown on his face, uncertainity in his stance that was mirrored with her absolute, solid seriousness, a gravity of soul visible on her brown, petite face.

 

"It'd be a lie if I called it a foregone conclusion, no matter what I think of it. And any lies between us two would be deadly, down here."

 

He nodded gravely in full agreement, sealing the exchange of words forever. This, this conversation had been too perfect, too far above the mundane to be ever debased with a repetition. They both would remember it all, know that the other would as well. She pushed herself off the wall and he turned to face their direction of travel again. Off they went: two brave souls, a hoverlamp as their only source of light in the deep, ancient dark.

[Zadown]

The vast space gave her a sense of vertigo, of falling into every direction like a drunken bird thrown about by heavy winds. They had spent ages in narrow tunnels and small rooms, some areas slightly larger so their titanic guardians would fit and have enough leeway to fight properly. This was something completely different, a majestetic fall into the darkness of the distant next level. Except it wasn't dark. She could see a dozen of blazing fires far below, glanced upwards into the impenetrable shadows to see where the smoke would go with no luck. Wherever it did go, there had to be a chimney of sorts - their vantage point only received a faint smell of smoke along with drifting sounds from below. It was like an undisciplined army speaking in voices she could not quite discern, the language foreign and the speakers most likely not quite human.

 

She crept back from the sheer drop, a deep frown on her face that Qimir could not see in the gloom. Their hoverlamp was safely tucked away, their own voices soft whispers - neither of them were experts of stealth but neither of them were stupid, either.

 

"It is some sort of deep-folk army. We've punched right through the most dangerous levels, it seems."

 

"They did most of the work, I'd say."

 

"I'm not disputing that, Qimir. We had our fair share of excitement, even so."

 

He nodded, then realize she might not see the minute gesture in the low light and muttered an acquiescence.

 

"Mhmm."

 

"They might be in there."

 

She could sense his relaxed posture tauntening, could guess the hungry look that would appear on his hairy face.

 

"You sensed residue from the machine?"

 

"It's around."

 

"That's not very precise, worker."

 

"There's all sorts of things down there, maybe deep-folk golems or blasterbows, titan trophies ... it's not an exact science, right now."

 

"If you say so, then."

 

He sat down, his back against the wall, both the man and the wall almost invisible in the reddish fire-hued darkness. Qimir breathed out in an exaggarated way, relaxed his heavy muscles again.

 

"Now, I'd like to jump down there and end this charade once and all, having had my share of chasing these thieves - but there was a thing Brother Ferrian always hammered into our thick skulls: know thy enemy. And we both know I am completely ignorant of these deep-folk. So ..."

 

She let out a sigh of relief she hadn't realized she had been holding.

 

"So you are actually ready to listen to what the degenerate Sophist boy-loving scribes of the Digger Era say about the subject?"

 

"Yes. Work your miracles, sage. Tell me what we are about to kill."

 

She grinned, but there was little mirth in it.

[Zadown]

His thoughts felt like they wanted to scatter, bucking under his metal mind like a herd of steel beasts. He embraced them like a friend, opened his eyes wide in the shadows of his helmet and stretched his ephemeral wings to catch the warm air rising from below. Too fast, it felt like, but he was in the care of miracles now, held within the caress of another esteemed professional. Always easier to trust to another.

 

The roar of the wind in his ears, the gibbering of the deep folk rising as he got closer, as a wave of agitation rippled through the vast cavern. Other noises as well: grinding metal and omnious hum from golems, shrill sounds of tormented reality from the depths of the blasterbows, first barks of command. It was still a chaos and he had the time he had expected to have, suddenly thankful of the pace he was falling. First nimble-minded archer got a bolt of shocking bright light off with fingers less nimble than the mind that ordered them around, the crackling bolt of energy vanishing into somewhere behind him. Fleeting worry about the petite woman sitting all alone up there, then the big hands of his mind caught the errant thought and hugged it close, dragged it into the calm and chilly embrace of Sons of Steel.

 

World was shrinking and turning easier to understand, all excessive details vanishing.

 

He touched ground. Floor cracked under his weight and his impact sent a slight shockwave to every direction, shaking the footing of the increased number of archers trying to get a clear shot at him. Qimir's sword flickered out like a frog's tongue and first blood was spilt just as the wings that had safely brought him down faded out, a memory of a dream. His shield-hand held an axe - this was not how he was supposed to die, alone and without a shield, but a terrible joy was rising from his iron core and he did not care. Axe swung out, eviscerating a deep one as he ran past, fury simmering in his eyes.

 

The world turned bright, into a mixture of bolts of sunlight and moving silhouettes.

 

His strength was impressive even normally. Now his second skin amplified his every motion, pent-up anger focused into one terrible point giving his dance an explosive quality that would've been impossible to fake. Sword cut through a blasterbow and its owner, axe cracked against an unarmored opponent with bone-crushing force. A jump as the ground beneath his feet was torn apart by return fire, always a bit too slow. Screams somewhere - friendly fire, most likely.

 

He landed near a golem, was almost fatally surprised by its burst of speed as it rushed towards him. Qimir shifted his location slightly to keep the hulking thing between him and its creators, dodged a blow so fast it made the air hum and took a step backwards. A dance, yes, but not with the ugly golem. Far above and behind them both he could feel a power manifesting itself - the hairs on his neck stood up as if he'd been shocked by a will-o-the-wisp. Air blurred, his ears popped and the golem crumpled, its torso imploding just as it was about to throw a punch he wouldn't have had room to dodge. Qimir feinted right, then leaped past the falling golem from the left side. Shards of metal and stone rained on his armor as more and more blasterbow bolts struck either the dying golem or the generic area of the room. The archers shooting at him he wasn't too worried about. It was the few beams of light striking upward that made him grit his teeth inside his re-made helmet.

 

Qimir grabbed that worry by the throat, threw it down into the icy depths of his inner core and danced forward, wielding death in both hands.

 

To his surprise, the deep folk scattered before him. The barrage of crackling bolts slowed down and then ceased, leaving behind an empty, taunt space he could not help but honor. The proper way of doing things was in his blood and would remain so as long as that blood still flowed through his intact body. So, he slowed down and saluted the muttering, gibbering, alien army, saluted their superior numbers with weapons drenched in deep folk fluids. A small part of him felt joy at the fact they had ceased to fire upwards as well, made his face twist into a grin nobody saw.

 

From the faceless army a larger silhouette detached itself, something that looked a lot like a rinth crawler, a shape that would pass casual inspection up top where nobody would expect you to be anything else than a man. But here, next to its real kin, he could see the subtle signs, the ways it had been put together wrong. It held a massive sword in one hand, a beautiful oval shield in the other and there was a glint in its eyes, a sharpness in its curved smile.

 

"Yerr no crawlerr, Brotherr."

 

"Yourn't 'neither, burrower."

 

He had forgotten how the quickening slurred his speech, had trouble compensating. The mockery in front of him did not speak too well either, though he could see how it would pass in the rough parts of the top-side town, how it could be almost like a camouflage in some smoky taverns and grimy brothels near the entrance.

 

"Two of yar, iee? Yar kinda accept duels, orr two an' two given th' help?"

 

Qimir nodded and rolled his shoulders, making his kit jingle softly in the uncanny silence. This time he made a real effort to speak with glacial slowness.

 

"The winner keeps the Machine."

 

"The winnerr keeps it."

 

Another powerful un-crawler stepped out of the crowd, this one built and clothed in a way that had surely distracted any male they had talked with at the top. He wasn't interested, however, and could see past the outter shape to the muscles coiled underneat, remembered what had been done to those wild guardians even the deep folk knew not how to bypass. Two against two, then - not the usual duel, but it felt right. Everything felt right and he leaned forward, felt the two skins around him slide smoothly against each other, felt the warmth course through his muscles.

 

The coin was in the air, the bones were rattling on the table. This was what he had been born for.