I press my face into the bars and peer down the corridor. The old guard is gone. I guess his armour was too nice to leave sitting here when there’s a big battle around the corner. Instead, they’ve left us with somebody’s page; a lanky git on the business end of puberty.

Honestly, we could probably take him. I don’t say that to Evelyn – she’d probably go for it.

From my that quick observation, I’ve managed to intuit that the corridor has a curve to it. If we were a few cells further to the left, then the door would be out of our guard’s line of sight, and we could slip through the bars undetected. Unfortunately, we’re not a few cells to the left. What’s more, prison cells have this minor design quirk that one could easily miss – you can’t easily leave them.

I turn away from the bars and towards the cobbled wall of our cell. The heavy rocks held firm by mortar and misery. Certainly a challenge for a mere mortal, but nothing in the face of my arcane mastery.

“Spongify.”

The head-sized stone in front of me quivers and sags within its confines. I press my fingers either side and push into the doughy rock. Even reduced to a syrup, it scratches my hands, but it peels away from the mortar like a dream. I run my hands around it, breaking the wall’s hold, then start pulling. Then I start heaving.

Evelyn steps forward to help just as I’m about to burst a blood vessel. Emmet joins in when the two of us are about to herniate ourselves. The rock might be melting in our hands, but it’s still heavier than I am.

With a concerted pull, the last of the mortar cracks, and the stone slides free. It hits the floor, and the universe has to quickly decide how much clunking a magically softened boulder should make. Lucky for us, the answer is not much, and it lands with an embarrassing plop.

Doubly lucky, that rock wasn’t load bearing, so the wall doesn’t collapse. I tentatively stick my head through and find an empty cell on the other side. Now we just have to do that again. Fuck me sideways.

I let myself catch my breath and turn towards the gloomiest corner in this prison.

“Are you sure that you’re not going to help us?” I ask as Rothmore does his level best to ignore that I’m using his own spell to get out of here.

“I told you, it’s not my problem. Let that cult or the empire or whoever do whatever they’re going to do – I’m just going to stay out of it.”

I don’t know if it’s what he said or the way he said that – probably both – but it rankles me more than it should. It really shouldn’t. He’s making sense. I wouldn’t help a bunch of idiots I’d only met this morning. And putting myself in danger to do it? Delirious. Even giving up after being screwed by the empire makes sense – why give them another chance by doing something about it? But still, something about him gets under my skin.

I must have read the first few pages of Darke Mag’kx a thousand times, trying to decipher its meaning. Every now and then, the enchantment would flicker out and the Old Mythic would lose its creative spark. The words would become legible and they painted a picture of a man with a mission. Someone with a goal and a purpose. To bring magic to everyone.

“You’re not who I thought you would be,” I mutter without really meaning to. Rothmore looks at me with the same irate expression as always. But this time, maybe flecked with melancholy.

“And who did you think I’d be,” he growls.

“I don’t know,” I shrug, uncomfortable with the conversation yet grasping for the right words. “Driven?” Rothmore chuckles mockingly, though who it’d directed to stays ambiguous.

“You want me to help a bunch of idiots I’d only met this morning?” He echoes my thoughts.

“Didn’t you have a goal?” I ask, feeling inside like his assistance isn’t really what I’m looking for. “Why give it all up?”

“And give them another chance to ruin everything? No thank you. I’ll just mind my own business.” Everything he says makes sense – everything is what I’d do. Maybe that’s the problem.

Back home, everything had been about power. Not towards anything in particular – all in the pursuit of some nebulous, directionless villainy. That cousin that ended up here? I think he was caught poisoning a village’s well. I don’t think he even really knew why he was doing it.

Rothmore turns away and I wander back to the others. His words still circle around in my head. Actually, it’s more like what he didn’t say. There’s something I was expecting, words that I wanted him to say.

“Are you alright, Lucien?” Emmet asks. I nod, take a breath and leave it to the side. One thing at a time – we need to get out of here first. I’m starting to sound like Emmet. No wonder He’s been miserable.

I step forward and jam myself through the hole. For the first time in weeks, I’m thankful that all my nice clothes are presumably still at the tavern in Weld. Evelyn grabs my feet, shoves me through, and my shirt bravely sacrifices its thread count in place of my skin.

Some guy – chained the wall – watches awkwardly as I tumble through and pick myself off the ground. I match him with a tight nod and turn to grab Evelyns windmilling arms. Once she’s suitably skinned, I hurry over to the bars and peek through them. Unfortunately, the guard is still clearly in view, picking his nose. One more cell should do it.

Evelyn lands in a heap and starts pulling Emmet through. Meanwhile, I snap my fingers and loosen the next brick. It deflates and the other two help me wrestle it to the ground. Glancing back, I remember our guest – or maybe host. He waves and it immediately becomes awkward.

“Uh, do you want to come with?” I ask if only to fill the air. He has the nerve to look startled before shaking his head.

“Nah, I’m good mate,” he says. “The cuffs are a bit tight though.”

“Like, actually?” I ask, searching for the sarcasm, but coming up empty. He nods genially and I shrug, walking over. “Wait, you’re not in for murder or something, are you?”

“Embezzlement.”

I look to Emmet for the moral judgement and get a shrug in return. Good enough for me. The prisoner’s cuffs melt off and he sighs in contentment – and cracks enough of his joints to make me nauseous.

“Thanks mate,” he sighs and waves us off as I’m shoved through the next wall.

Thankfully, the next cell is empty and we don’t have to risk catching whatever was wrong with that guy. I push my face against the bars and can’t see the guard, hidden behind the corridor’s bend. Perfect.

“Alright, phase two,” I say as Evelyn and Emmet ooze out the wall. “What do we do?”

“You know, ‘I have a plan’ usually goes past step one,” Evelyn whispers back.

“Well, it was a pretty good while it lasted,” I shoot back and bend the bars aside. When no one materialises in front of us, I creep out into the corridor and beckon the others forward. The thing about corridors is that it’s really only a choice of forward and back. If there’s stairs, then it’s up or down. So faced with a guard behind us and the ground below, the route is pretty clear.

We hurry down the corridor, passing rows of cells and trying not to flinch at every shadow. A few of the cells are occupied and I can feel a dozen intense stares prickling at the back of my neck. No one shouts or makes a fuss – a little bit of incarcerated solidarity. Half of them are probably war criminals anyway, so I try not to feel too bad.

A set of stairs lead down to another corridor of cells, which leads to another set of stairs. I dimly remember the sound of slamming doors as we came in, so we go through a few doorways for good measure. Most of them lead to more cells, but one leads to an offshoot corridor that incredibly, doesn’t feel hostile to human life – it even has a carpet.

“Hey, I think this is the barracks,” Evelyn whispers, already sticking her head through a door. “Ooh, new plan. How about we dress up as guards and just walk out?”

It sounds stupid, and I’m pretty sure it’s motivated mostly by a desire to try on chainmail, but it’s not the worst idea. Marginally better than crossing our fingers and hoping for clear shot to the elevator. I shrug at Emmet and start following behind him.

Evelyn’s already got a cuirass on – backwards, I’m pretty sure – and is trying to put the chainmail over it. The armour jingles around she gets it over her head and a clank of boots on stone joins in.

I freeze at the threshold and flick my eyes down the corridor, just as a trio of guards round the corner. A second stretches as our eyes meet, then I kick Emmet through the door and slam it shut behind him. I catch a glimpse of Emmet and Evelyn looking horrified, then I bolt back up the corridor.

The guards shout and they give chase, lumbering past the barrack doors, building speed like cast iron bulls. Please let Evelyn have sense and keep the door closed.

I hit the stairs to the next floor and risk a glance back. The guards bellow their customary greeting – though ‘stop right there’ feels a little disingenuous when you’ve already got your swords drawn. They rush at me, but a thought seems to glance off a neuron, and one of them twists towards the barrack’s door. Can’t have that.

“Nice swords losers! Did your mum buy them for you?” Not terribly clever and barely coherent – but it’s enough to distract them. They forget the door completely and charge at me. I spin on my heel and lunge up the stairs.

I’ve already forgotten how we got here, so I take the next right at random. The guards reach the top in a cacophony of banging metal. Shit, they got here quickly – I thought they’d be slower. Doesn’t that armour weight a million tonnes?

“Lovely armour boys. How much pocket money did you have to steal to pay for it?”

Somehow, I get a rise out of them and they redouble their efforts. I dart through a door and slam it behind me. Seconds later, there’s a crash and the wood explodes as one of them throws themselves through it.

My legs are already aching and my lungs creak from the effort. Even with the armour, the guards keep up the pace, no matter how many sharp corners I take.

“Your tabards look dumb!” I gasp out and jerk to the side as one of the idiots throws their sword.

Another set of stairs comes up on my left and I scramble up, reaching a door at the top. Plated boots stamp against the floor behind me and I slam my shoulder against the wood. It swings open and a gale of icy wind hits me in the face. There’s a foot more of floor, a squat balcony railing, then empty air. I fight against my momentum and manage to stop before I go over the edge. Who designed this mess?

Metal beats against stone and I swing around.

“Wait, hold on – stop!” I shout. Then a pile of steel and idiot slams into me and we both go over the edge.

There’s a jerk in the bottom of my stomach as the ground disappears. Our hands paw at each other, trying to find purchase as the wind screams around us. I’m probably screaming too, but I can’t hear anything else. I pry my eyes open even as the wind tears at my eyelashes. It feels like it’s only been an instant, but the ground is already so close.

A fall like this probably takes ten seconds, maybe even less – and the ground is eating them up. I tear my eyes away and they land on my partner. His hands are buried in my shirt, mine in his dumb tabard. Eyes shadowed by his helmet lock onto mine and read only as shocked – there’s not been enough time to process a more complicated emotion.

The mask of malicious anger has vanished between these seconds and he’s left looking alone and confused, up here in the sky. I can see him realise what’s happened after second number three. By second number four he’s managed to reach fear. Eyes, squinted and tear stricken from the wind, lock onto mine and I unclench my hand.

I lurch to the side and, miraculously, we roll around in the sky. I point a trembling arm over his shoulder, fingers splayed towards the ground. As it fills our world, I snap my fingers and push every ounce of everything I have into the spell.

“Spongify!”

The world jerks back and goes black as we shoot through a patch of instantaneously slushy granite. The spell snaps and whatever speed we still had shoots through my ribs with an agonising creak. The sudden reprieve from the wind feels deafening, and I gladly break it with a life affirming groan.

“You still alive?” I ask, knocking on the guard’s cuirass. He groans, and shifts his head. The helmet rolls off, the dent probably saved his life.

“By The Mother, maybe,” he mutters.

I slowly push off him, everything aching, but somehow nothing broken. The ground is back to its stony toughness, and I pull myself out of the knight-shaped hole in the ground. The guard rolls over and I reach down to help him up.

“Lucien!” Someone shouts. “Oh god, are you okay?” Evelyn and Emmet – dressed up in guardsmen armour – run over from the elevator and rush over to me. Emmet immediately sets his magic to work, and Evelyn just works off her nervous energy by patting the rubble off me.

The guard pokes his head up from the hole, and looks at us with an understandably dazed expression. I glance at the other’s costumes, then at the retreating dust cloud of Reynard’s expeditionary force. Then I turn to my new friend and snap my fingers alight.

“Alright buddy, give me your clothes.”

Sweat and dust run together until every inch of skin not covered by stuffy armour is smeared with mud. By the time we manage to catch the imperial attack force – after their second water break – the grit has gotten absolutely everywhere, right down to my underwear.

“What in Her name are you three doing?” A voice bellows through my brain and I squint up at a knight, sunlight strobing off his plumed helmet – must be a captain or something. “We’ve almost reached the staging point and you’re only now showing up? What do you have to say for yourselves?”

“Huh?” I rile up and Evelyn knocks me in the ribs. Oh yeah, infiltration.

“Reporting for duty Sir!” Evelyn rolls the dice and snaps one of the thousand salute variations the Empire like to rotate through. By the look of his rapidly developing hernia, it’s probably the wrong one.

“Who do you people report to?” He shouts, and Evelyn’s mouth clicks shut.

“Um,” I buy time. I guess infiltrating unquestioned was too much to hope for. I shuffle through my head for an answer. “I don’t know.”

That particular moment of inspiration hangs between us for a good few seconds as the knight samples its bouquet. I should have just said Reynard, or even that guy from the ride over.

“Tell me about it – this operation is a mess,” the knight miraculously rolls his eyes and waves us off. What is it with captains and blatant insubordination? “Just fall in line and get ready. We can have a little discourse on punctuality when this is over.” He gives us a cold smile then wanders away to harass someone else.

I let out a shuddering sigh of relief. With any luck, we’ll be miles away by the time he remembers us. Not wanting to risk another lick of attention, we shuffle forward and join a herd of soldiers. We line up, and try to blend in. The guy directly in front of me glances back for a second and gives me a look.

“What’s up with the dents?” He whispers as the commanding officers start parading around at the front. I don’t need to look down at my cuirass to see the enormous dent in the front – I can feel it every time I breath. “Fall down the stairs?” He chuckles snidely.

“Yes. Shut up,” I suck it up and he turns back around, sniggering. Better that then the truth. If only Evelyn would stop sniggering too.

“Soldiers of the Empire!” Reynard booms from the front. “Before you lies the lair of heretics and criminals. Today they shall be brought to justice!”

I peek around the shiny helmets and see a featureless cliff face, with the battalion arrayed around it. Shouldn’t there be a cave or something? A similar sentiment begins to buzz around the soldiers, and I’m sorry to say, it’s the idea of sharing a thought with these simpletons that makes me re-evaluate my opinion.

Squinting at the cliff face, I search for what Valerie seems to be desperately trying to convince Reynard exists. I look away from her panicked flailing and look harder at the rocks. No crevasses or concealed caves – not even a single crack. It takes me another few seconds before I notice that incredibly obvious hint. It’s clearly an illusion barrier – my aunt used to cast these on my room every solstice.

I become momentarily interested to see how Reynard would dispell it, then reality catches up to me as he directs a few soldiers to start piling barrels in front of the cliff. The cultists are probably sitting behind their unspeakably complex arcane array, giggling at the idea of these knuckle-draggers stuck clueless in front of it. I’m loathe to admit it, but when confronted with a simple design requirement – a wall – mages tend to immediately get lost in the sauce. They’ll construct a labyrinthine spell with a thousand fail-safes and pre-emptive countermeasures, but have no plan for a dozen barrels of explosives igniting in front of them.

Flames erupt in all directions and the shockwave knocks half the battalion onto their asses. I’m lucky to keep my feet, so I get my retinas seared off instead. Some idiot – probably Reynard – shouts charge and a sea of disoriented suits of armour flood through the ruined cave entrance that the bombs uncovered.

Someone grabs my arm and pulls me forward, just as I’m about to be trampled. Mostly blind and not quite ready for complex decision making, I let myself be dragged through a haze of smoke. We stop and a sweaty palm is pressed against my face. There’s a spark behind my eyes and my vision flicks back on. Emmet pulls his hand away and Evelyn nods us forward.

“Where is everyone?” I ask, still a little dazed. Evelyn points further into the cave as it becomes an almost perfectly cylindrical tunnel. A few soldiers, similarly disorientated, run past us.

“They’ve already gone further in,” she says.

“Shit.” I push off the wall and start running down the tunnel, the others following.

We pass dark blobs of slumped over bodies. Cultists with bits chopped off, and imperials with charred armour. I hear footsteps falter in their rapid beat behind me as Emmet, or Evelyn, force themselves to look away. The sounds of battle – the clash of steel and crackle of lightning – rage in front of us and we burst into an enormous cavern. Mana crystals and obscure magitech constructs litter the room in the same way as in the cave where Evelyn appeared – just on a larger scale.

A dozen little skirmishes play out around the central ritual platform – both sides having thoroughly lost the initiative. I spot Reynard struggling to corral his minions, while Sable stands atop the platform, cycling between spell slinging and conducting whatever ritual he’s here for. I don’t see Abbey, but good money says she’s probably in the middle of all of that.

We stand there, staring at the absolute state of everything, until a noxious green spell sails over our heads and helpfully ends this moment of indecision. We rush into the room and scramble behind a neglected mana engine, covered in frost and spluttering in distress. I duck as a ball of fire screams overhead and cast about for even a semblance of a plan.

Atop the platform, Sable cries out and the dais lights up with a mess of glowing runes. The engine next to us splutters feebly and starts whirring into motion. The crystal pillars around the cavern begin to glow and I notice pipes lying at our feet start pumping glowing liquid around the room.

How bloody big is this ritual?

The entire room glows with a shade of magic blue and the air in front of Sable start to pulsate like a gossamer tumour. He turns around and starts putting his all into blasting imperials; the ritual apparently being pretty hands off at this stage.

“Is that bad, Lucien?” Evelyn asks gesturing at the astral rent going into labour in the middle of the room.

“Probably,” I say. “I think it’s safe to say, if he’s doing it, it’s probably bad. Come one, I don’t think we’ve got a lot of time.” Though the question of where we’re going is still up in the air.

“How about the tubes,” Evelyn says, pointing at the glowing pipes splayed across the room. “Abbey’s got to be in the middle of this, right? Let’s go where the most magic crap is.”

I stare at her, gobsmacked. She’s actually starting to get the right idea about magic. I nod and we run off, following the pipes as they thread between stalagmites. A few cultists take the time to shoot spells at us, but are quickly distracted by crazed knights and sharp swords.

We round a stone pillar and I almost think that this is going well when the ritual platform stops glowing blue and starts glowing white. The air begins to hum and the magic in the room buzzes at the back of my throat.

Without really meaning it, I come to stop and watch as the air splits open and cracks into shifting shards of shattered reality. Light flicker though it, covering every colour of the rainbow – and a few more for good measure. Sable lets black lightning flicker out in his hands and steps towards the half-formed portal.

The air hums in my ears and crackles in my throat, and almost everyone in the room finds themselves falling still. Luckily, Reynard is not ‘almost everyone’; unluckily, he chooses to express his agency by shattering the big glowing crystal sitting right next to him.

You’d think that he would have learnt from the last portal ritual not to shatter the stabilisation crystals. He should have learnt that particular lesson because I did it to him. And it’s as stupid now as it was then.

The portal atop the platform hiccups and turns an angry red. Then reality throbs, and the room fills with light as the air tears itself apart and dozens of rifts appear around the cavern. Reynard has a split second to regret his decision as space-time collapses around him, then he’s blasted away by a near-solid pillar of water.

Though the dent in his breastplate is telling, he turns out to be lucky as the portal gurgles, then explodes with a jet of steam, scalding everyone who managed to keep their footing. The explosion – as all good ones tend to do – seems to set everything off, and the caverns fills with pandemonium.

A tentacle materialises and whips out to grab a helpless soldier. Its portal snaps shut just as quickly as it appeared, severing it and sending the writhing appendage crashing into the wall. A plume of fire disgorges out of a glowing hole in space and half the ritual platform snaps freezes. Sable blasts it back with fire, then hunkers down, apparently trying to keep the plates of magic spinning all by himself.

I hear reality quiver beside me and I spring forward, shoving the other two with me. The smell of rotten oranges fills the air and a dark shape falls out of the ether with a wet plop. It looks like an enormous human tongue, held up by six human legs – and by looks like, I mean is. The demon gurgles and sprints in three different directions at once. We fuck off before it figures itself out.

We don’t get far before someone with fewer limbs and only slightly more intelligence picks a fight. A cultist swings a sword, crackling with three flavours of lightning, and looks like he’s completely caught up in energy of the room. He swings his sword wildly, magic shooting out in crackling arcs. Evelyn does a fancy parry and a lilac spark shoots down her blade and zaps her finger.

The cultist cackles and raises his sword for another swing. Then the ground flashes, and we fall a few feet through it onto a bed of garish green grass. I jerk up and the portal snaps shut with a coquettish wink. We’re left sitting in a field of gently swaying grass, a pleasant breeze tickling our clothes.

Somehow, that seems to enrage our mutually stranded cultist and he lashes out. The first swipe almost takes off my head, then it’s coming back around for another go. Evelyn throws her sword at his and they spark apart with a crackle of ozone. He shoots more traditional lightning and I trip over my feet.

The pressure changes around me and the pleasant meadow smell disappears as I knock us backwards and through another portal. The cultist has a moment to register confusion before the new portal snaps shut, leaving him trapped on the other side.

In any other situation, I would probably need a moment to compartmentalize.

“Run!” I shout and scramble up as another volley of portals pop into existence around us.

We round a corner, ducking as a swarm of knives burst out of a portal and disappear into another. Mercifully, the pipes converge on another ritual circle, nestled in the shadow of its mother. Cultists race about, putting out fires – both metaphoric and literal – and generally past caring about three visitors in imperial armour.

Abbey stands, strapped to a bizarre machine. Her hands are covered in a steel housing, which the machine swings up and down with spider-like arms and a burst of glowing steam. Every swing pulses energy and another round of portals spring into place. She flinches as she sees our armour, then sags in relief as she sees our grimy faces.

“What is this even meant to be?” I ask as Emmet and I try to pry her arms out of the elaborate torture device. “How do we get this to stop?”

“I don’t know, we’re trying!” Shouts one of the cultists, who no one asked.

The fighting has mostly devolved to a general rout. Sable is still standing atop his platform, trying to coax his red portal to play along. By the way he’s sweating, none of this chaos is meant to be happening – which means that whatever Abbey’s strapped to can’t just be disgorging dimensional rifts like candy at a fairground.

“It’s not stopping Lucien!” Evelyn shouts as she starts hitting one of the swinging arms with a rock. The cultists around us seem torn between cringing at her treatment of their machine, and joining in themselves.

Her rock sparks off the machine with a pulse of magic and she kicks it in the shins. It doesn’t seem bothered and lets off another round of portals. With my eyes at the base of it, I finally see glowing lines of power tracing from the machine and up to the platform and into Sable’s ritual.

It’s mostly speculation, but it looks like Sable’s going to have to cut that out before any of this mess stops. Alternatively, we let him finish his little performance, but I already know that isn’t really an option.

I rush up the steps towards Sable, tripping over spilt magic and rubble as I go. The taste of copper hangs thick in air and a sensation stuck somewhere between winter chill and electricity grows stronger as I approach.

Wind howls around the angry red vortex as I crest the platform and pause outside the horrifically complicated runic array splayed across the ground. I try to shout at Sable, but end up coughing as magic burns my throat. It gets his attention anyway.

“You,” he shouts with the breathless strain of someone trying to carry a carriage on their back. “Don’t you dare interfere; I am at the precipice of greatness!” He carries on with similar trite platitudes as I desperately study his chicken scratch ritual.

“What do you even want,” I wheeze out in a lame attempt to distract him. Like the melodramatic prick he is, he snaps it up.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He jeers like a child. “You’re lucky. You will be first in line to welcome my lord as he descends upon us to take his rightful place as The Mother.” I nod vaguely and I search through my memories for any clue as to what the runes in front of me do. “With his power, we will march on the Imperial Capital and take what is rightfully his. We will dethrone the disgusting conglomerate of pretenders and usher in a greater and more powerful Mother than ever before!”

His demented piety reaches fever pitch and the red vortex pulses appreciatively. At an agonising pace, it splits from the centre and opens into a terrifying void. Sable opens his arms with a manic grin and something shifts in the depths of the infinite black.

Reality bends and strains as that something draws closer and simply grows in our vision. Then a sharp talon slides out of the portal, slicing through air in absolute silence. The talon is followed by a finger, then a hand; yellow flesh bursting with pustules and smelling like death. Sable’s smile freezes in a horrified rictus and the hand slowly unfurls to encapsulate him.

There’s a pretty basic lesson taught to most neophyte conjurers. When you’re summoning something that’s even in the neighbourhood of eldritch, don’t be the one standing in front of it when it arrives. Sable must have forgotten it, though from his face, he’s figuring it out on his own.

The entity places its seeping thumb on Sable’s forehead and I finally remember what an elemental grounder rune looks like and snap my fingers – thank you Uncle Bastian. A firebolt, crackling with ozone, tears the floor up, surgically crippling the entire array.

Something enormous looks directly at me for a boundless second. Then the portal snaps shut and the arm crashes to the floor, its severed stump gushing milky white pus. Sable stands surrounded by rotting fingers and stares at me shakily.

There’s a lovely moment where he’s not trying to kill me, then every blown-out rune under us sparks, and the entire array gives one last, spiteful, burp.

A ripple in space unzips itself and gravity turns ninety degrees. In the moment before Sable and I tumble into the portal, I see Evelyn and Emmet looking on in horror from the foot of the pedestal. Second time today, this is getting out of hand.

Then I land on hard tiles and the portal snaps shut above me. I turn my head and am faced with rows of metal shelves, filled to bursting with colourful bags and boxes that shine oddly in the light. I hear the beat of footsteps and a woman in an apron rushes over, her hand pressing a little box to her ear and calling for an ambulance. Whatever that is.