And the Darkling Reefs Abide

The lesser canyon reef‍ ‍—‍ any reef, really‍ ‍—‍ was perfect for getting yourself lost in. Groves and copses of coral grew in knotted bunches, curled around each other, reaching, spreading, and turning it all into one excellent maze. It was trimmed and managed for medusa to go through, but the highest priority was ease and quickness of motion, and keeping every last spot shaded.

What that meant was a unpredictable network of spaces and spans connected any two points, like the webbing of cracks in rock. But sometimes proper holes where open up.

It was fitting, really, that the devil‍-​shelled prison would be a shaded island sealed by the punishing light of the sun.

But I couldn’t dwell on a the layout of the town. Even I couldn’t fall into a loop with the cloaked medusa coming down like a lightning bolt or comet, angled directly at me, trailing behind me a wake of angry guards.

If I didn’t suspect this the next in the line jellies to try to kill me, I’d feel a resonation. Partners in [crime]. The both of us on the mortal run from the law.

I glance both ways, lifted up my sunshield, and darted into the greater canyon reef.

Even with gravity accelerating him downward, it would take him moment to get here. And it would take me moments to get into the reef.

It sparked a line of thought, a perplexing observation. Why was he up in the air? What use did it serve?

If I were pursued by guards (and i am), fleeing skyward would just make more of a target of me.

I heard the crashed of metal hitting the glitter dirt. Opposite my vector, I saw the cloaked medusa had took for himself a guard’s sunshield, and on it he landed in a spray of dirt and massive crack.

The guards weren’t slow coming behind that, but already I saw his tresses flexing. He was bulleting right at me.

I threw myself into the lesser canyon reef, and took the first turn that came to me.

Never had I seen this medusa before. He was new to the reef, then. He didn’t know the twists and loops like I did. He’d get lost.

I took the most inscrutable route I could. Slithering down into pits, vaulting up into high walks, spinning around in spirals and intersecting curves.

I was going fast, and I was going erratic. The jellies who hadn’t already evacuated saw all this, and it was worrying, I knew. Word would spread about the suspicious medusa heading towards the sun spire –

They were heading toward the sunspire too. Medusa were being evacuated – and where else would you evacuate then the temple wherein you had the defense of a living gods?

I went down a solitary path. Wall corals had grown this into an alley. I knew at the other end of it was a small part centered around a nest of vipers. The way was notable for how disconnected it was. It wasn’t the spider web of cracks and connections.

(This was a trap.)

It occured to me, then, why the other fugitive had decided to stake his struggle far above the complexities of the reef. He didn’t know the environs. It was slow, inscrutable going.

And (some of those jelles had been colored, some of them had been armored) it was crawling with guards.

At the end of the path, when the curve had just winded to a point where the part itself could be seen, a red bell strafed into few, holding two spears and three tresses pointed right at me.

(The red guard)

I could see behind me the pursuing guards found a second wind, and two rushed up just then and completed my entrapment.

I lifted a tresses –

But a dart was already flying from the pair of guards, already striking me, already feeding poison into my mesoglea.

I fired out of my tress, but the magic never came.

I absorbed a breath. Fine, I’ll do this the hard way.

Three guards. Three alert guards. Who hadn’t just ripped their arms off to climb from a pit. Who hadn’t had to outsmart a jelly with god whispering in ear. Who hadn’t had a long, long journey to even get here.

The red guard stared at me.

I was ready to throw myself, if only I could find the cliff.

“Stand down, Ruen. It’s over.”

It wasn’t over.

About then is when the coral ceiling exploded.

Well, that’s not quite it. It dissolved, it disintegrated, it melted.

It wasn’t there anymore.

I tilted my bell up. We all did.

The cloaked medusa (who else?) was coming down just like that. Tresses pointed at the guards trapping me.

One, two three. Tresses aimed, it was a second of anticipation and then the guards exploded.

Dissolved, disintegrated, melted.

They weren’t there anymore.

I found my mind focusing on the absences toward the park.

The red guard.

It was an obstacle knocked down, wasn’t it?

I fell down to my stalk.

The cloaked medusa descended. In the end, I had delayed, but not escaped, the death from above.

“You looked like you needed help.”

“I could have figured something out.”

“Really?”

“I’d have to.”

“Determination. That’s a good quality. But you need sense, also.”

A beat of silence. I everted some of my eyes to rest them.

“You would have died. That’s all. No trick you could have trumped up. I saved you.”

I remained silence. I’d said all there was to it.

“So be thankful, ephy.”

“Name’s Ruen.”

“Can’t imagine I’ll need to know that.”

“Why? Are you leaving like that? Did your good deed for the day?”

“You’re going to the sunspire, aren’t you? I am too.”

“Of course.” I said. “There’s not much else here, is there?”

“Come here,” he said. “I’ve got an antidote for the magic disjuctor.” He was reaching into one of the bags slung about his form. Eyes inverted, gazes firmed searching the pack –

Abruptly, obviously, it was then that the explodes wracked the coral walls about us. It was an explosion of the kind favored by an angry species of beetle native to the forests. One had to try in order to raise them here.

Explosions. I was launched off my rooted stalk, and the figure was abandoning his search for the antidote. We were moving‍ ‍—‍ but where? I went toward the den of vipers, my previous destination. The figured floated off toward the explosions.

Again I was interrupted. A trio of cyan jellies descended like one more death from above. They had a curious likeness about all of them, as if they’d all stobilated from the same polyp. But it was an exact likeness, infected across each of them. Clones, replications‍ ‍—‍ even polypmates knew subtle differences, erosions from time.

They wielded spears, and threw them all at once. It had become my instinct to apply my gift‍ ‍—‍ but still the poison stopped me. I dodged. Floating was too slow, and still my magic flight was wobbly. One spear stabbed into me, and was grazed an eye.

The clones descended, still with they same symmetry of movement. Cyan, not colorless. Was this the working of some gift?

I everted eyes opposite the clones, and saw the cloaked medusa dealt with their own trio, moving at the same rhythm as mine.

I glanced even more upward, at the space between us. High, where it wasn’t our instinct to look, where I would hide if I were the one cloned.

The cyan jelly was there, bell brighter, glowing with life the clones lacked. I saw a dozen tresses orchestrating the symphony of movement, jostling up and swiping and stabbing, pulling the animating the clones –

Like puppets. A medusa whose own gift was to be a puppet master.

Caught up in observing, I’d made a target of myself, and another spear flew right toward me.

A tentacle had seen this, and was shoving against a wall, knocking me away. Saving me.

I had to do something, act, decide.

What did I do before I had a gift?

Knives. I had them in my bad, and a thoughtful tentacle had already retrieved one. Look at the puppetmaster medusa, take aim,

Throw.

It didn’t strike true. The puppetmaster had seen me notice him, he was ready, he was dodging.

But the motion caught the attention of the cloaked medusa where a shouted warning wouldn’t have been heard over the explosions and shouting and distance.

The cloaked medusa looked upward.

He saw the puppetmaster.

The puppetmaster knew dark agony.

He was screaming and thrashing and falling like a smited star from the sky. All I knew was the dark treses the figure had aimed and the darker bolt of magic which had issued from it.

I decided I would not make an enemy of the cloaked figure.

Not before they had been removed as an obstacle, at least.

The clones all turned to dust and wafted away on the wind. But our battle was a conspicuous, loud thing and we could see and hear the guards tripping over themselves to get to us.

We had to move. I was at the lead, the native, at a slow pace so the foreign medusa could move through the knotted labyrinth of the lesser canyon reef.

A tentacle slapped me and I everted and the cloaked was press a glass orb to my face and it was sloshing.

“The antidote. Drink it quick.”

It was three gulps, and we were moving again. I sung, “Why are the guards attacking you? What did you do?”

“Chaoswright. Desert exile. I am welcome in no lands, this one among them.”

“The cannibals in the desert? The godpiss heretics?”

“Not everyone would have recognized me as such, of course. If I were a more agreeable sort, I would have allowed the guards escort me here. I could have completed my pilgrimage with a minimum of violence.”

I nodded. If I had allowed the guards escort me‍ ‍—‍ where would I be?

We had to take sudden turn here, and crawl through a wet tunnel up to a higher district of Avelt.

Behind me, the traveler was continuing, “But death told me that this commotion would be useful for you. The god of death told me a few things.”

“You’re an ally, then?” Are you his new champion? Had i already failed? Would it not be me to usher in the age of darkness?

“Of sorts. Our goals intersect more than they align. Death told me a lot of things, but I believe none of them. He’s a terrible fucking liar.”

A knife, already tight in tentacle, was there just in case I wanted to make a rash mistake.

I was interrupted, however, by seeing the attack snails slithering at us from further up the tunnel. Their eyes were glowing with a bioluminescent chemical, and their razor sharp teeth lining their verticle slit mouths were out and gleaming.

I stopped. The knife would be put to a less rash purpose.

Or would have been. The cloaked medusa spied them next, and his black Gift turned them to dissolving puddles of life materials.

Even the shells. Even the shells were puddled.

“We should turn around,” I said.

“They must be up there expecting, yeah.” [Maahi] squirmed up next to me, eyes looking close. He said, “Listen, this can’t be the quickest way, is it?”

“We have to avoid the guards.”

“You’re doing a pissing job of it.”

“I –”

“Look, they know we’re both going to the sunspire. It’s better to assume that. Why not just go straight there and quit the dance?”

“We can trick them, make them think we’re somewhere we’re not.”

“Buy us pointless moments of freedom. Buy them time to surprise us just when we’re settled in thinking we pulled one over on them.”

“It’s safer, cautious. There’s too many gifts out there to counter them all.” The puppetmaster appeared in my thoughts. She stuck with me, like some idealization of myself, who I should be. It stung a little.

“You think you’re some manipulating type, don’t you? The world is chained to [something] and you can move that? Or do you fancy yourself one to put the chains there?”

The cloaked medusa didn’t wait for an answer and he was gone.

I didn’t think Maahi was really upset or splitten with me. We had disagreements on where to go, but I imagined at the gates of the sunspire we’d meet back up and continue our journey its conclusion.

I didn’t think he was ultimately upset with me. Judging me, perhaps, but not upset.

Still, I didn’t think it the best course to follow after him. It wasn’t a good idea to go up the tunnel with whoever sent the attack snails presumably still waiting, but it was perhaps not the best idea to follow after Maahi without conceding to their idea that brazenly assaulting the sunspire was the best course.

I’d drunk the antidote and felt it seeping throughout my mesoglea. I wiggle my tresses and felt experimental currents of magic spark up and down them.

I could through myself off one more cliff. With my magic back, I trusted myself to handle a few guards.

At the mouth of the tunnel waited a deep blue guard and at one side a red guard and at the other a certain disturbance to the grass i knew to be the invisible guard.

“Ruwen,” the red guard said.