Dying. Ruhildi was dying and it was all her fault.

Angry tears welled up in her eyes as she paced back and forth along the crater rim. How could she be so stupid!? Fooled by a simple hallucination into absorbing the gigantic mass of arlium that had once towered over this island. Worse, if her suspicions were correct, the trickster who had conjured the illusory deepworms was, in some sense, herself. Her deepest self. Her undermind.

During her recent trips into the between—both her own and that of her human counterpart on Earth—she’d caught brief, confusing glimpses into her undermind’s…well, mind. In so doing, she’d begun to get a sense of its goals and motivations. They were quite simple, really. Her undermind wanted to feed off the magic of this world; to grow stronger; to expand. That was essentially the reason for her existence, from its perspective. She was just a mouth. Or mouthlet, as her father’s keystones called her.

And what better source of magic than a mountain-sized chunk of arlium?

Never mind that the sudden influx of essence brought by all this arlium had played havoc with her vassals. Never mind that it had turned the focus in Ruhildi’s chest against her own body; that it was killing her.

No, why would something so trivial as her friend’s life matter to the undermind? She could just get more vassals.

Except, joke’s on you, my eldritch psychopath, because if Ruhildi dies, the bone dragon isn’t going anywhere. And if we let her die, I quit! I’ll never feed you so much as another grain of arlium. Let’s see how you like that, you stinking pile of tentacles!

She kicked a large rock, sending it tumbling over the edge, where it smashed down onto the smooth expanse of arlium that lined the inside of the crater—all that remained after her recent binge. Had her foot not been made of sterner stuff, she’d have the mother of all stubbed toes. As it was, it simply jolted her out of her thought spiral.

About time too, because this was not helping Ruhildi. She needed to think of something. Do something.

Saskia had already used a portion of their precious supply of arlithite to turbocharge her blood, before feeding it to the unconscious dwarf. It had healed some of the internal damage, but as long as the arlium remained, it would continue to rip and tear at her insides long after the healing effect expired. It would be another day or so before Ruhldi could benefit from another dose of her blood. A bit of healing once a day was better than nothing, but it wouldn’t be enough to offset the damage.

Another obvious solution had been to absorb the arlium into her own body, the same as she’d done to the sea monster and tentaphant and various other animals on this island. After seeing what had happened to the local wildlife, she’d been a little hesitant to extract the stuff from her friend in one fell shloop. But she’d figured the two situations were different enough that it was worth the risk. The creatures of this island had absorbed their arlium slowly over time, as part of their diet, and it had formed an integral part of their internal organs. In her friend, it was a malignant growth; a magical cancer.

And so, after much cringing, she’d cut deep into Ruhildi’s arm to get at a thin strand of faintly glowing amber. She’d pressed a trembling finger against it, and…

Nothing.

No absorption. No euphoric feeling or rush of warmth. And no change to her friend’s condition.

She’d decided it must be because this arlium had come from her in the first place. There was, after all, a lot more of it inside Ruhildi’s body than had been contained in her original focus. This arlium, in some sense, already belonged to Saskia. There was no need, from her undermind’s perspective, to absorb it.

More drastic surgery was out of the question. It had been out of the question even when there had just been a single shard of arlium seated next to her heart. Ruhildi had made it plain that removing it that way would kill her.

What else, then? What can I do? Think, dogramit, think!

What about Nuille? She was a healer.

There was no way for the druidess to heal Ruhildi directly, because they couldn’t get to her. The dragon was currently a limp assemblage of metal and bones stretched out across the crater rim. Ruhildi had tied her command dead spell to the keystone, so that even as she slept, the dragon should have remained animated. The fact that it hadn’t spoke volumes about the severity of her condition. Without the dragon, even getting off this island would be tricky.

No, getting to her wasn’t an option, but Nuille did know a fair bit about healing and magic in general. Maybe she’d think of something Saskia had missed.

Seizing the possibility, Saskia dove into the druidess’s head—and found her engaged in some riverside X-rated activities with Garrain, joined by an audience of playful otter-things.

Yeesh, do they have no shame?

Afterward, the pair told her that they too had been affected by her recent ‘meal,’ with nearly disastrous results. But each of them had found a relatively safe outlet for their excess essence. Saskia didn’t ask if it was sex magic. But it was totally sex magic.

Her view wavered and distorted, sinking toward the ground, and she caught a glimpse of a…paw? Switching to Garrain’s head, she saw that Nuille had turned into a…

Oh wow, she’s so cute!

“Okay, I did not see that coming,” said Saskia, eyeing the slippery little otter rubbing up against Garrain’s feet. “Though I probably should have because druid. How does that even work? Where does all your extra body mass go when you shrink down like that? Or do you become some kinda super-dense otter? What if you turn into a tiny bug? Or a microbe? A virus? Would you still weigh as much as your original form, creating a black hole…okay, don’t try that.”

Returning to her elven form, Nuille blinked in confusion. “I…don’t know what you’re talking about. The sloun is the first stable form I’ve been able to take. I haven’t had time to try another. I was…busy.”

“Oh yeah,” said Saskia. “Getting busy, alright. Look, I’m sorry I messed up your magic, and I’m glad you managed to sort it out. But Ruhildi wasn’t so fortunate…” She went on to describe the situation.

Nuille sighed. “I’m not sure what help I can offer. What the forge master did to Ruhildi when he implanted her focus inside her body—that’s far beyond my expertise. Removing shard would have been risky at best, even before it became…something else.”

“I know,” said Saskia. “And I already tried absorbing it into my own body, the way I did to your foci. Didn’t work.”

“I wonder…” said Nuille. “What if this is simply reaction to the essence overflow that has been affecting us all?”

“Obviously it’s some kind of reaction to that…stupid, stupid, stupid thing I did,” said Saskia. “But none of you have arlium creeping through your bodies.”

“What I mean is: it has affected myself and Garrain in different ways, because our magic is subtly different, even though we are both greenhands. It stands to reason that a necrourgist would have her own unique reaction.”

Garrain drew in a breath. “But a necrourgist has mastery over…”

“Death,” said Nuille. “That is my point, ardonis.”

Saskia drew in a sharp breath. “You think her reaction to an overabundance of essence is to frocking die?”

Nuille winced. “It was just a thought. But if that is so, you should be able to undo it, simply by cutting off her supply of essence.”

Saskia smacked her palm against her forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that? It’s so easy. I can do it right here and now.”

And so she did, at the press of a virtual button on her oracle interface.

“Thank you so much, Nuille! Now I’ve got to go and see if it helped.”

Returning to the dragon, she saw that Kveld had lain Ruhildi down in the back of the cabin, near the keystone, swaddled in a pile of blankets. He sponged off her face with a damp cloth, under the supervision of nine fuzzy white critters lurking in the overhead compartments.

Saskia’s hope died the moment she looked at her friend through her medical interface. The tendrils of arlium were still there, slowly flexing and expanding; still wreaking havoc on her organs.

If it were the essence overload triggering this reaction, removing the supply should have had some effect. It hadn’t. That meant this was something different; something unique; something she still had no clue how to fix.

“Fuck!” she whispered. Her lips trembled, and a fresh round of tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

Kveld patted her on the arm. “Don’t lose hope, Saskia. She’s fair tough. We’ll find a way…”

She drew in a shuddering breath. “I just…I thought I had something there.”

“I’ll take another look at the keystone library,” said Kveld. “Mayhap there’s a spell or…”

Looking at Kveld, she saw that he’d reverted to his obsidian form. This spell drew enough essence to keep him from losing control of his magic. It was one of the few stoneshaper spells that were both essence-heavy and entirely defensive in nature, so it was a good choice, even if it made him look like a golem.

Zarie didn’t have it so easy. She stood on the far side of the crater, surrounded by a perpetual stormcloud. Now that Saskia thought about it, she could just cut off the tempest’s magic as well—and that of her other vassals, if they chose.

In fact, that might not be their only option. What if there was a way to throttle the essence supplied to all of her vassals without cutting it off completely? Before today, that had been happening automatically without her input, but apparently everything had been thrown out of whack after she absorbed a mountain of arlium. Her oracle interface gave her a little blue mana vial for each vassal that acted as an on-off switch for their magic. But there was no reason to assume they had to be buttons. What if they were slider bars instead; like volume controls, but for essence instead of sound?

Sure enough, with a quick mental tweak, she was able to change the amount of bubbling blue liquid in Zarie’s vial. She moved it to about half full.

“How’s that, Zarie?” she asked, via their oracle link.

“How is…what?” A look of realisation crossed the mer woman’s face. “Oh! My magic is more stable now, yes?”

“Yeah, but is there still too much essence? Or not enough?”

The tempest dispelled the thundercloud. “I can feel…more than before, but I can hold it in now.”

“So, about right then, I guess,” concluded Saskia. “Let me know if you need more—or less. I can change the level any time.”

After consulting with her other vassals, she dialed back their essence supply as well—except Garrain, who said he wanted to use it to maintain his ‘guardian trees.’ Because they were a thing now, apparently. Giant stompy trees could be a useful defence against any assassins who came knocking, so why not?

Then she looked at Ruhildi’s empty mana vial, sighed, and raised it to the quarter mark. It didn’t seem to change anything, but Saskia figured having access to something close to her normal flow of essence wouldn’t do her any harm, at least.

She was almost out of ideas. As expected, the keystone offered no clues as to what exactly had happened or how to reverse it. She could think of no way to revoke the vassal bond, short of removing her mouthlet from this world—permanently. Desperate though she was, she wasn’t going to kill herself on the off chance it might help her friend.

There was one more thing she could think of, but it was a long shot.

Curling up next to Ruhildi, she pressed her hand on the keystone, and asked it to send the two of them into the shared dreamspace of the between. Not physically, of course—just their sleeping minds.

Sure enough, she soon found herself in the warm, murky depths, trailing a thick tangle of glowing tentacle-vines. The light was so bright down here, it was almost painful.

On the end of a smaller coil of vines hung the limp form of her friend. Ruhildi’s skin was translucent, her skull and bones shining beneath it. Taking hold of the dwarf’s shoulders, she shook her gently. Ruhildi’s eyelids fluttered, but did not open. At her touch, the glowing tendrils attached to her friend’s spine writhed and flexed, boring a little deeper into her. That could not be good. Even as she watched, they seemed to be thickening and…sprouting?

Experimentally, she tugged at one of the vines. With surprisingly little effort, it came free in her hand.

Immediately, Ruhildi began to jerk and thrash in her arms. Her friend’s mouth opened and closed. No sound emerged, and her eyes remained shut, but it was clear from her facial expression that she was in pain.

The dwarf seemed to waver, and then it was as if she was looking at an ethereal image of her friend, dark instead of light, superimposed over her original body, but slightly out of sync. As she watched, the two seemed to separate.

In that moment, she knew what she had to do. Still holding the flailing vine, she plunged it into Ruhildi’s dark, spectral image.

There was a blinding light, and then—

Saskia jolted awake. She could feel the memory of her dream slipping away like sand through an hourglass. What had just happened? Had it worked? Checking her friend, her heart sank. Ruhildi remained still and silent, her breaths so faint, Saskia could barely feel them against the skin of her hand.

A mouth-watering aroma filled the air. Rover Dog handed her the roasted leg of a large animal, dripping with juices. She tore into it, feeling more than a little guilty that she could be enjoying this meal while her friend lay dying at her side.

“I have suggestion,” said Rover Dog, watching her eat. “Sages of Skaenwyr Isles may possess secret for healing friend squishy.”

“The mer?” said Saskia. “I heard they were good at alchemy, but what could they do that Nuille couldn’t?”

“Waverider sages talk to echoes. Learn many secrets.” He gave a trollish shrug. “Just possibility.”

“Echoes? You mean souls of the dead? Like I did with my father?” Something else about his words tickled at her mind, but she couldn’t remember why. She turned to Zarie. “What do you think? Would your people know how to heal her?”

“My people, no,” said Zarie. “But these mer are not my people. We should ask them, yes?”

Saskia closed her eyes and pulled in a long breath. It was a faint hope, but a hope nonetheless. “Okay, let’s do this. But how will we get Ruhildi there? We can’t fly, obviously.”

“I will go to them,” said Zarie. “I will bring back a boat.”

“Not boat,” said Rover Dog. “Waveriders cross sea another way.”

Saskia frowned. “How? Do they have something that can carry Ruhildi?”

Rover Dog nodded. “You will see.”

Turning to Zarie, she asked, “You think you can make it to these other islands?”

The mer met her gaze with a resolute expression. “I am tempest. Water is no barrier to me.”

“Thank you so much, Zarie,” said Saskia, blinking away the tears forming in her eyes. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She looked at Rover Dog and Kveld. “All of you.”

Offering her a sympathetic smile, the tempest gathered up a few supplies to take with her. Just as Zarie was about to leave, Kveld ran after her. The dwarf was no longer in obsidian form, though Saskia had left enough essence for him that he could recast the spell should the need arise.

“Wait!” he said. When Zarie turned to him, his face went beet red. “I…I will see you safely to the shore.”

Zarie looked at him blankly. “I can defend myself against a few wild beasts, yes?”

“I…” said Kveld. “I don’t… I…och bollocks. I mean, I ken you can fight. ’Tis just…safer this way.”

Smooth moves, Romeo, thought Saskia.

A faint smile crossed Zarie’s lips. “If you insist. Run with me. And do try to keep up, yes?” Wind whistled around the tempest. She turned and dashed off down the slope, her feet barely touching the ground.

The dwarf sprinted after the mer, moving surprisingly quickly for one clad in heavy armour. Hopefully Zarie wouldn’t toy with him too much. Her people had funny ideas about testing prospective mates. Saskia took a couple of quick peeks at them as they made their way down to shore—just to check if they were okay.

Yup, that was the only reason. Definitely.

Damn, not so much as a peck on the cheek. You need to up your game, dude. Oh well. Maybe next time.

Without a backward glance at the dwarf, Zarie summoned a vortex of air, and stepped out onto the surface of the water, heading for distant shores.

Over the next couple of days, Saskia watched as the tempest glided across the churning windswept seas, guided by a shared minimap and Rover Dog’s directions. Zarie walked through a storm not of her making, and out the other side. She endured the baking sun and chilly nights—all while wearing nothing but a small bag of supplies and the air itself. After more than thirty hours without sleep, she slept for six hours on a tiny, rocky, deserted island in the middle of nowhere.

During waking hours, Saskia dialed up her essence supply almost to its maximum. Zarie was burning so much of it just to keep herself aloft and surrounded by a repelling vortex, there was no reason to hold back.

Late on the second day, as she entered the outer waters of the Skaenwyr Isles, she nearly came undone. Dark shapes rose up in the water beneath her, and the tangerine glow of projected danger filled the air.

“Look out!” shouted Saskia through their voice link.

But Zarie was already one step ahead of her. Swept up a vortex of shrieking air, the tempest launched herself skyward, even as fingers of lightning arced down around her, striking the gaping, toothy maws of the great serpents that breached the surface. How she managed to avoid striking herself with those lightning bolts, Saskia had no idea. The first group of tempests she herself had faced in Dwallondorn hadn’t been nearly so competent. Then again, those tempests had had a lot less essence to work with.

Lightning was all it took, in this instance. One serpent bobbed belly-up in the water, while the rest dove straight back down and didn’t come back. Smart serpents.

Zarie landed lightly on the water, and glided forward, the tips of her toes making twin trails in the frothing water. She looked remarkably unfazed by the close encounter.

“How can you be so calm in the face of…that, and yet so terrified of the fluffy little adorribl—uh, frostlings?” asked Saskia.

“Frostlings would freeze solid the sea, devour those creatures, and build nests in their carcasses,” said Zarie.

“You’re…not wrong,” admitted Saskia, remembering what they’d done to the deepworm in the mountain cave. “But they’re so cute! How can you be scared of anything so cute?”

Zarie let out a huff of air. “You will be scared when they eat your face, yes?”

“Eh. It’d grow back.”

“Trows,” muttered Zarie.

Ruhildi, meanwhile, continued to fade a little more each day. Saskia couldn’t bear to see her like this; to watch helplessly while her friend withered away before her eyes. All she could do was be here for her; mop her brow, clean her soiled blankets, and try to get some food and liquid down her throat. Whether Ruhildi lived or died was out of her hands. It was all up to Zarie now.

On the evening of the second day, the tempest came upon a trio of mer, standing on what looked like a tiny, barren island…except…

Yup, it was moving, alright. The island wobbled from side to side, and a jet of water sprayed into the air. Only then, did Saskia realise what she was looking at.

It was a whale. Or a creature that somewhat resembled a whale, with a wide, pock-marked back, and short, stubby flippers that rarely surfaced.

The whale riders were staring at Zarie in frank astonishment, gesticulating wildly. Unlike her, they wore loincloths, bras, and colourful headdresses. Zarie calmed the storm surging around her, and stepped onto the creature’s back. The three mer women lowered their bodies in clear supplication. They spoke in high, excited voices, though neither Zarie nor Saskia could understand what they were saying—yet.

“Keep them talking,” said Saskia. “My translator will kick in soon enough. I think they believe you to be some sort of goddess, or higher being…”

It wasn’t long before she—and by extension, her vassal—began to make sense of their words. The Waveriders called her a spirit walker, which seemed a bit odd, but whatever.

“You mean tempest, yes?” said Zarie.

One of the mer women tipped her head in the negative, and said that Zarie walked with the spirits of the sea. This was all very interesting, but they were on a clock here. At Saskia’s prompting, the tempest managed to turn the conversation to the issue of why she was there and what she needed from them; that it was a matter of life and death.

The Waveriders were surprisingly eager to help, and waved aside any suggestion of payment. In short order, they were on their way back to Fireflower Isle.

Two days later, Saskia and her friends were boarding the whale in front of some very confused mer. They had seen trolls before, but they didn’t know what to make of the dwarves—especially the sick one. This time, Saskia had to leave the adorribles behind. Couldn’t have the little murderfloofs freezing—and quite possibly devouring—their ride.

Journeying by whale was a surprisingly smooth experience. The great beast’s gentle movements didn’t induce the same sense of sea-sickness that boats did, and there was plenty of room to move about on the beast’s back, even for a troll. Saskia, however, was in no mood to appreciate any of that. She had eyes only for her friend. “Just a little longer,” she murmured, over and over; a mantra to calm her roiling thoughts.

On their third day at sea, a trio of green, craggy islands loomed on the horizon, and Saskia finally felt the tension begin to seep out of her muscles. Maybe the mysterious sages of the Skaenwyr Isles could help. Maybe they couldn’t. One way or another, she’d find out soon enough.

As they drew close to the largest of the three islands, inhabitants of a seaside village gathered on the shore, pointing and waving and shouting and singing.

The whale drew up next to the docks, where a crowd of excited, curious mer came to greet the new arrivals. Saskia felt a few curious glances on her, but it was Zarie who drew the most attention. Wind swirled about her, and she rose up into the air, hovering a few centimetres off the ground.

“We have need of a sage,” Zarie told her awestruck audience. “You can bring one to us, yes?”

Saskia gently lifted Ruhildi’s stretcher, cradling it in her arms as she stepped down onto the creaking platform. She set her friend down in a shady spot beneath a wide-leafed tree, and waited impatiently as the mer went to fetch someone who could help them.

Ruhildi stirred slightly, and began to mutter something in her sleep. Saskia leaned down, suddenly attentive. This was the first sign of life she’d seen in days.

Then her friend began to convulse. Foam issued from her lips. Her limbs jerked and flailed so hard, it took the combined efforts of Kveld and Rover Dog to hold her down.

Through her medical interface, Saskia could see spidery tendrils of arlium twisting, writhing, worming their way deep inside her friend’s skull. Ruhildi was gasping out her last breaths before her very eyes, and there was nothing she could do about it.

“I’m so s-sorry,” choked Saskia, stroking back her friend’s matted hair, silently cursing her claws, which, as always, were getting in the way. “We tried, Ruhildi. We tried. I don’t know what to do. Tell me what I need to do. If I have to storm the gates of your Halls Beyond, I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you. Anything. Just tell me—”

Ruhildi stopped breathing. Her body sagged and went very, very still. So still. So quiet.

No. She would not accept this. She refused to accept this.

Kneeling by Ruhildi’s side, she pumped her chest and breathed into her mouth, over and over, as the sun wobbled overhead. Ribs cracked beneath her hands. Several times, she tried to force her blood down an unresponsive throat. All the while, a small, but growing voice inside of her pleaded with her to stop. To let her friend go.

It was a long time before she listened to that voice.

Dead. It was over. All traces of life—all traces of Ruhildi—had faded. What lay before her was an empty shell. A bag of bones, slowly cooling on the sand.

Saskia sagged to the ground, exhausted. Even now, her hands clutched the dead flesh, refusing to let go. Her body trembled. Eyes squeezed shut. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything. She had nothing left to give.

Hands stroked her back; one large and clawed; others small and soft and warm.

She ignored them.

Her first and greatest friend in this world, the woman who had saved her life over and over, who had always been there for her…

Just like that, she was gone. And it was her fault.

“We…we did our best,” said a distant, choked voice. Kveld’s voice. “She’s with her daughter now.”

Baldreg. She was going to have to get word to Baldreg. He and Ruhildi had been growing close after… First Freygi, now this. This would destroy him.

Something picked at the edges of her frayed thoughts. It took a while for her to realise what it was. Why was Ruhildi’s mirror still there on her oracle interface? The face on the mirror was grey and waxy, but still undeniably her friend’s. If only she could…

With metaphorical fingers that seemed to be trembling even in her mind, she reached out and touched the mirror.

Amber light. That was what she saw on the other side of the mirror. Why would death have a colour? Shouldn’t there be darkness, or nothing at all?

“Ruhildi,” she said, feeling a stirring of…something from within. “If you can hear this, please say something. Anything. Please, Ruhildi. I need to hear your voice again.”

All of a sudden, the light seemed to part, and it was as if she was looking through a blurry, tinted lens at her own desperate, tear-streaked face.

“Princess…” said Rover Dog, sounding uncertain.

“Oh my god, Ruhildi!” Rubbing away the tears, she saw that Ruhildi’s eyes were indeed open. What the hell!? How was this possible? Not that she was complaining. A tremulous smile spread across her lips. “Ruhildi, you’re ali…”

Her friend wasn’t breathing.

A quick check of her medical interface confirmed it. No breath. No heartbeat. No life.

Ruhildi didn’t say anything. Just stared up at her with unblinking eyes.