And the Darkling Reefs Abide

Silent Maelstroms

Chapter 10

[describe how Oeara’s pane are formed]

“There’s no reasoning with you anymore, is there?” The red guard spoke almost quietly, I just heard him. I stared at him with idle rhopalia. I didn’t spare the air to respond; my mind was wrangling itself around this problem, feeling out it’s angles and holes, chewing on it. I assuredly didn’t have long; couldn’t rely on my obstacles making the same mistakes again and again.

They’d say a few words, and demand I come with them. They’d fight at the slightest opportunity. I might could win. I assuredly wouldn’t.

Before then I would have a out, I’d have to.

(Death had crowned me a worthy champion, after all.)

“I don’t know,” the blue medusa was speaking up, the biggest among them (was she the one who’d left? back already?) “what under the sun allowed to escape from the hornshell prison –”

“Determination,” I barked.

“– but I’ll guard you myself, this time. You won’t escape.”

The guard paused abruptly — I might not have noticed if my faculties weren’t straining for details.

If any among them (or the squad of colorless guards making the rear) had said anything, it was swallowed by the gentlest.

“Or, I suppose, I could put this sorry story to an end, and kill you.”

I pulsed, rose a fraction. Felt magic crouching at the mouths of my tresses.

“No one escapes death, after all.”

“Don’t.” It was a slow and hesitant syllable that the red guard spoke.

After all of this, the fool was still standing up for me?

The blue guard might’ve latched on the same thought. Three rhopalia were staring wide at the red guard, confusedly twisting as they considered his nonsense.

“There’s no reasoning with you anymore, is there? I hope — but I don’t think there is.”

[illustrating Ruwene’s thought processes, his considering of options]

The deep blue medusa said, “He’d stand down now if there was anything at all good in him.”

I could do it. Bow down right now, hope I could escape imprisonment once more, hope I’d have better luck flying the the sunspire next time –

Hope I’d have better luck without the chaoswright. I wouldn’t. That’s…

“Ridiculous.”

“Can you speak more than one word, honey?”

I lifted a few more rhopalia, met her gaze. “Ridiculous to think I’m driven by an absences of good. It’s what is good in me that has me here at all.”

The coordinator flapped feelers and rose up, bell tightening something serious.

“See, [red]? No getting through to him. [Stuck in a loop.] We ought to kill him.”

I knew how it’d play out. The other guard, the invisible Gift, was here, had to be. She’d lunge out of nowhere and stab me, and that’d be it.

I saw a disturbance in the grass, but perhaps she’d seen me looking, or perhaps it was just caution — but I didn’t see it anymore. She’d moved. I didn’t know where.

[foreshadow that she can only use her power on one thing]

Then if I somehow struggled out of that, I’d have the force wielding coordinator, the fiery red guard, and another invisible stabbing to contend with.

I could take them out with one good shot, but they knew that too.

Was I getting stuck in my head again? Should act?

My running was near its end, I knew. I saw the grip shift on the red guard’s spear. I saw the coordinator tentacle their mace.

I saw, in a sudden flash of expelled light, the purplish guard terribly appear.

She had a single tress outthrust, and it was all instinct, what came next.

My tresses, which were already impatiently buzzing with the death god’s gift, flew up in a mirror of the invisible guard. I fired out stasis –

And there in midair the magic struck home. Expelled light flashed out again, and the invisibly was ripped from a knife.

Time was all out now.

Act, or perish. All I could do now.

The coordinator flew upward first and light sucked in where the purplish jelly had been and the colorless ranks were stirring into motion and slowest of all, the red guard lowered his spear and began to come at me.

I took a good look at where the tunnel had spat me out at. It was the walled garden outside of another, higher brow restaurant. It sat at the edges of the inner districts and from here it loomed over the the way we’d come.

Tables had been tossed away and sitting pools had been dried. Hasty walls of tough ferns had been thrown at the fringes as walls, and a single path lead away, where half a dozen colorless stared at me.

It was a circular arena, and I was at one edge, and between me and the colorless ranks floated [red guard] and Oeara.

[Someone had used Oeara’s name]

A tentacle tugged and I threw myself west like it hinted. Breaths later, I saw the reason: a bright blue lance stabbed past, Oeara’s missile.

Fire was spraying down in a circle around me like a [line[ barring my way.

I knew the invisible knife was coming, but not when.

A tress rose aiming for the blue guard, and she was swift levitating out of the way.

I pointed one at the red guard and he didn’t move, confident I wouldn’t still him.

I didn’t. That faith could be useful.

So few pieces in place, so many strings cut.

“Hey,” I shouted. “Colorless guards. Why are you fight me? Why are you listening to these pretentious assholes?”

No response.

“Do you not wonder why they get to fly in front of you, why you have to take the rear? They don’t even treat you like you matter. You’re afterthought, deterrents. Treated like walls to block me than allies to assist your superiors.”

“We aren’t their superiors. The guard is a flat hierarchy.”

“That’s what you tell yourselfs. But look around you with fresh eyes, and tell me this isn’t the look of a hierarchy.

Knife. It felt whispered to me. A tentacle flailed out and felt the cool, invisible bell just beside me.

Another tentacle already have a knife swingin toward –

An entire pane glowing bright blue sweeped past between me and the now​-​visible jelly.

I would have lost a tentacle if it didnt have the mind to snatch back. As it stood, the knife’s handle was split into by the sheer edge of Oeara’s magic construct.

I couldn’t do anything.

“I fight for your freedom.”

I dodged another stab from the purplish’s guard’s knife. I saw the glad through her bell, so it glowing dimmer. She had to be low on vril. Good.

“Hua, get away from him.”

I could still her. She’d grabbed a bunch of my feelers in her tentacles, and I couldn’t take the chance that I would be stilled along with her.

At her word the guard — Hua — lunged away.

Her advice sealed her fate. I lifted a tress, glad to be rid of one obstacle –

The magic flow was zapping through the air but was intercepted by a spear of glowing bright blue.

The blue didn’t dissipate in a mist like the other magic constructs did. I saw the coordinate float over on swift levitation, and tentacle slapped down and the spear was in her grasp.

“Thanks.”

She threw the thing, and she could still control. Even when I dodged, the spear sought after me.

My only escape was throwing up my bag and stilling it as a shield.

My fleeing took me past the red guard, who swiped with his spear, no chance of hitting me.

“You aren’t doing anything, [red]. Are you trying to help him? Are you traitor?”

“As I was say,” I called out, a tentacle swaying to point at the crowd. “I fight for your freedom. I want to talk to the sun god about liberty, about how the Gifted step on us colorless medusa. I want us to be equals. That is why they oppose me.”

The red guard jolted. “We oppose you because you are carving a path of destruction across Avelt!” He stabbed his spear for emphasis.

The purplish guard. “Don’t let him spin this into some kind of noble quest. He is a monster, a murder. He’s a chaoswright!”

“I defended myself. That’s all it was.”

Defense?”

“All the guard who have been stilled attacked me first. They aren’t even dead; I am no murderer. I can bring them back!

The red guard lowered his bone spear.

“You cannot be taking him seriously. I forbid it.”

The colorless ranks were hesitating too. They still spread out, and floated up blocking all escape by the hard fern walls, but that was all. For most, one colorless guard was circling around dangerously, rhopalia staring me down, and another tended closer subtly.

Nevertheless, the distractions were working. I still had reign of he puppet strings.

Oeara lanced another bright blue spear at me. I dodged. Then she lifted all tresses and hit me with a whole volley, more than I could ever dodged.

A tentacle pulled me down and swung me to the very edged of the stabbing cloud, and the other tentacle lifted, pincushioned with burning bright blue lances, but nothing vital was risked.

“I am not attacking you. Why are you still trying to kill me?”

“I know your tricker. I’m not the only one here who doesn’t drink your lies.” There was a certain pressed surety to those words — as if saying them would make them true.

I saw a sudden motion to the northwest. I turnt, and saw nothing. Scores in the dirt floor where Oeara’s constructs had landed, my bagged still stabbed through with her larger lance, and the swinging shadows of the floating guards.

I marched my gaze around until I saw Hua. She was far on to the east, keeping her distance from me like Oeara suggested. A colorless guard was near, partially between her and me like a protector.

My mind latched onto her. She was like the last obstacle between me. Well, her and Oeara. But her most of all — she alone could follow after me unnoticed, strike me dead when least i expected it. I had to ensure that would not happen.

Oeara and Hua. I couldn’t get [red] and the colorless to attack or hinder them, they didn’t trust me enough for that. So what could i do?

I had left a rhoplium evert to the northeast to catch whatever that movement earlier had been, and I did.

The bag!

The large lance, which I’d stilled, remained embedded within it, and still the coordinator could compelled it.

It stabbed back and forth in the air to loose the clutching bag and I was fleeing backwards, putting myself behind one of the colorless guards.

“Please,” I said, tapped the guard with a tentacle — the one bleeding from lance holes — “I dont want to die. I dont want her to kill me.”

The larger lance was coming now, stabbing forward ineluctably.

I looked the Oeara,bell taut with frustration. I looked to Hua lingering in the east, edging forward just barely self​-​restrained. I looked toi Oeara flushing with worry at my looking at Hua. I thought of how she protected her, earlier.

I knew what I would do.

I fled past the guard, abandoned the trick of asking for protection. I lifted three tresses.

I waited, just a beat, for the larger lance to draw near.

I fired out of my tresses, one toward the red guard, one toward Oeara, one toward Hua.

Her reflexes were as sharp as ever. Panes of bright blue were flying in threefold formation. Two of them intercepted [red] and Hua’s still beams, and she dodged the one she’d missed.

I hadnt been idle. I was bulleting forward, trying to get to Hua before she used her last magic to go invisible again or some other trick.

Oeara was readying another volley of lances, I could read it on the blue glow in all of her tresses.

This last part would be the most delicate.

Hua ripped a spear from the colorless guard beside her (who looked so affronted), and stabbed toward me, I smacked the oncoming blade with a tress and point blank turned it to stone.

The purplish jelly dropped the thing like it was diseased, and started backwards.

I fired another close range stillness.

Oeara shortcircuted her growing lance volley and made another pane which slice by, biting into the dirt between me and Hua. The stillness ineffectual hit the pane, and froze it.

I threw myself to the side, and did it again. Another pane came down hard between me and her, biting into the ground, even biting into the other pane, and again stillness splashed useless on the pane, keeping it there.

I put out a scream of frustration, and floated up. Flying over Hua, I tried to fired again.

Oeara must be getting better. Already the pane was there, slowing to a stop about Hua. It froze there.

[A tentacle had stickily grabbed the dropped spear earlier], and I was stabbing towards Hua with it.

Maybe the coordinator had dimly realized what my game is.

But it was too late. At the point the last side of the triangle was facing her, and I was between her and Hua.

I pressed forward with the spear. I threw it.

Oeara could try to kill me, of course, but she’d be giving up a chance to save Hua.

I knew she was low on magic.

The time come, and the last pane sliced down into the ground. quickly did I fired a magic bolt at it, and seal hua inside.

“You are a cruel [bastard].”

“A clever plan, isn’t it? If killing her had been the goal, don’t you think I’d have had just as clever a plan to do it?

Oeara snarled. She had her mace and was lunged forward, swinging, missing, swinging again. I was dodging, dodging.

“I am not the enemy. I am not a monster. I’m trying to save. We’ll restore what was lost.”

I flew toward the restaurant at the end of the pathway the colorless ranks had been guarding.

“You can still dig her out,” I said to Oeara.

“I will kill you for this. You’ve made an enemy like this.”

I started away again. Eyed the colorless guards, who weren’t all pursuing. The one who’d been planning attack still had his bone sword lifted, but I saw him looking at his restrained companions. Dithering.

I tried to look at all the spread out guards at one. Not an easy task. “Here’s a token of my good will…”

“I’ll tell you where Mahii the chaoswright is going. Where he’ll be waiting for me.”