True to the false long’s word, Shrike’s jailors treated her relatively well. They provided her with a comfortable bed, and her serpentine jailers tended to her needs without a fuss. It was no exaggeration to say that life in this cell was the most comfortable experience in her entire life. It was just a shame that captivity was so soul-crushingly dull. The guards showed no interest in learning how to communicate with her and barely spoke with one another.

Bored out of her mind, she tossed and turned in her bed, trying to force herself to sleep. To her frustration, her body refused to rest for more than two or three hours at a time, so she remained awake and miserable throughout most of the day. Shrike signed with relief when the blue sun finally receded, and the great Old Ones began collecting their toll. Eager to part with more of her energy, she took out an empty energy crystal that the guards had failed to confiscate and focused her qi into it. She was just about to invoke a prayer to Kanghui when something clamped around her throat and slammed her head against the wall.

Grimacing, she glared at the serpent that had seized her neck with a catchpole. She tried to pry the tool off, but it was like trying to push back an avalanche. Another serpent rushed into her cell and coiled its body around hers. Her first assailant released its hold on her neck, allowing her to breathe once more.

“What are you doing? Your leader promised he wouldn’t harm me!”

Ignoring her indignant shouts, her captor injected a needle into her shoulder. Almost immediately, she felt lightheaded. Minutes later, her world went black.

******

Shrike didn’t expect to wake again. When she did, she almost wished she hadn’t. It felt like someone was pounding her skull. The first thing she saw was a set of jaws filled with curved fangs and gnarled tusks. She flinched, then cursed when she smashed her already throbbing head into a stone wall.

“Took your sweet time waking up, huh? I heard you had a bit of a rough night.”

Her headache worsened by the false long’s distorted voice; Shrike couldn’t stop herself from glaring at the monstrous being.

“Don’t be squinting them beady little eyes at me, missy. You think my ophidians are gonna keep playing nice when you start shooting laser beams out of your tit? That’s a no-no. A very big no-no. Pull any shenanigans like that again and I’ll toss your ass into a cockroach pit, capiche?”

Shrike stared at him, utterly perplexed by what he had just said.

“You still got tranquilizer running through your system or something? I am not slinging physics questions at you. Are you going to be a good girl from here on out, or are you going to keep shooting lasers out of your chest?”

Shrike continued to stare at him.

“Judging by that dumb look on your face, you're still not picking up what I am throwing down. Did the drugs scramble your brain or something? Do you not understand what I am saying anymore?”

Sarin shook her head.

“Let’s just make sure. Stand up.”

Shrike rose to her feet.

“Sit down.”

Shrike plopped back onto her bed.

“Now hop on your left foot.”

Shrike bit her lip to mask her snarl. Evidently, she failed as the false long let out a bark of laughter.

“Okay, looks like you still understand me. Problem is, I can’t understand you, but we’re going to fix that. Kind of. Sort of. Not really. I am actually too lazy to bother learning a new language, so Sarin’s gonna do that for me.”

Shrike's eyes narrowed when the false long’s minion slithered into view. Her unnatural body reminded her of the false long’s interest in hybrid creatures and her own chimeric anatomy. Had the false long discovered Kanghui’s secrets to modifying life or had he replicated the great serpent’s research independently? Were all the creatures living within this fortress created by his hand as well?

Unaware of the dread creeping across her spine, the false long cheerily introduced his subordinate to her.

“Little red, meet Sarin. She’s going to figure out how to communicate with you so we can ask you invasive and uncomfortable questions later.”

Sarin whispered something in the false long’s ear.

“Be more subtle? What for? We locked her ass in a cell. She’d have to be the dumbest of idiots to not realize we were going to interrogate her. Whatever. If it makes you happy I’ll try not to be too honest in the future. Right, let’s get on with this. What’s your name, little red?”

“Shrike.”

“Shrike,” Sarin repeated, pronouncing her name perfectly. She then pointed at the false long. “Archduke Zhulong.”

“Ark took Zhuwong.” Sarin giggled softly whilst the false long tilted his head skywards.

“Damn, this is going to be a long day. Alright, how do you say, ‘I am already regretting this’ in your language?”

******

As Zhulong predicted, the hours did drag on, but Sarin made good use of their time. The lamia’s mind was a cup with no bottom. She memorized words minutes after hearing them. Within a few hours, she was capable of stringing basic sentences together. More unnerving than Sarin’s capacity to learn was her desire to. She only allowed Shrike a few breaks between their lessons and spent that time jotting notes into a datapad. Zhulong was considerably less productive. When the false long was not asking questions on his minion’s behalf, he was sharpening his claws, eating, or playing with a fuzzy, lamb-sized moth.

“Talking to you has been nice, Shrike,” Sarin said less than an hour before Raya yielded the sky to Baetyle. “One day I will learn to speak better, but right now, understanding your actions is more important than understanding your tongue.” Her gentle smile faded and her eyes hardened. “Last night, you tried to attack guards. Not wise. Why did you try?”

“I didn’t! Those lying snakes were the ones that attacked me.”

“Guards said that light came out of your chest. You deny?”

“No! My qi was just being siphoned. Did those idiots watching my cell not realize that night was setting?”

“Siphoned?” Sarin enunciated slowly and deliberately. “That is what you call that attack?”

“I just said I wasn’t attacking anyone!”

“A way of escape then?”

“No! My qi was being taken!” Shrike groaned, bewildered that such an intelligent woman could be so dense.

“Your energy was being taken away from you?” Sarin’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “You are sick? Bugs feed on you? Drink your blood?”

It took a moment for Shrike to comprehend what Sarin was insinuating.

“What? No! I do not have any parasites! The Olds One took my qi! Why is this so hard for you to understand?”

“The Old Ones?”

Shrike slapped her forehead in frustration.

“Yes, the Old Ones. The four great gods.”

“Gods?”

“Ugh! You know, immortal beings in the sky? The ones we pray to?”

“I cannot understand if you keep using words that I have not learned.”

Struggling to figure out a way of explaining the concept, Shrike attempted a physical demonstration instead. She folded her hands and bowed her head.

“A god is something you bow to? A kind of leader? A king?”

“No. A god is far above that.”

“An emperor?”

“No, damn it!” Shrike cried, at her wit's end. “I am talking about the ones that live beyond the sky!”

Sarin finally appeared to register what Shrike was saying. “Ah, I see. Some of the—" she paused mid-sentence and whispered something to Zhulong.

Her leader, who had been carefully placing berries on the moth’s head as it slept atop his own, said, “She wants to know how to say tribal.”

Sarin continued speaking once she had learned the zostian equivalent. “Yes, as I was saying, sometimes very isolated tribals made up strange ideas. A tribe of monofus,” Sarin’s eyes flicked towards the resting moth, “that joined us years ago, used to wrap their dead in silk and bury them close to a titan skeleton they called Kosska. They thought doing this would give the dead a second life. Your tribe does something like this too?”

“We’re not luddites; we don’t pray to skeletons! We worship Kanghui and the tianlongs!” as Shrike spoke, a startling revelation occurred to her. She squinted at Sarin.

“Do you not worship any gods?”

Sarin glanced at Zhulong but didn’t respond.

“Surely you at least pay tribute to the Old Ones?”

Sarin ignored her question. “What do these gods have to do with the light that came from your body?”

“Everything,” Shrike murmured distantly, still processing the implications of Sarin’s ignorance on all religious matters.

“Explain.”

“Every night the Old Ones take a portion of our qi and afterward we pray to Kanghui and the tianlongs. Those were the lights the guards saw. They are harmless and we can’t stop them from coming out of our bodies.”

“This happens to all of your kind?”

“The Old Ones siphon qi from anything that draws breath. Zeraphs, dobuwana, neanderthals, animals, we all contribute. At least, that’s what I thought. They don’t collect qi from you?”

Instead of answering Shrike’s question, Sarin asked her another, “And this happens every night?”

“Yes.”

“You have no control over it?”

“We cannot stop the Old One’s from making their collections. Even if we could resist, most of us would still pay tribute because if the Old Ones die, so do we.”

Sarin retrieved something from a nearby bag.

“You say you have no control, but the guards said you were putting energy into this object.”

Shrike's hands went to her pocket. She hadn’t realized they had emptied its contents. “That’s just a prayer crystal.”

“Not a weapon?”

“No.”

Shrike’s blunt and exasperated response seemed to convince Sarin she wasn’t lying.

“You say this....siphoning happens to everyone, but does everyone think this? They all think that Old Ones are the cause?”

“The Old Ones are real,” Shrike snorted, flabbergasted that she actually had to convince someone of this obvious fact of life. “Most gods are.”

“There are other gods besides these Old Ones? How many do you believe exist?”

“Too many to count. My kind worships Kanghui and the four remaining tianlongs. You can see them along with the other outer gods at night. Kanghui is the giant serpent, and the tianlong looks like your leader.”

“And they also siphon energy from you?”

“No. We give them our qi willingly.”

“Why? How?”

Why did they? A week ago, Shrike would have proudly declared they did so out of love and devotion. Now that simple inquiry elicited more consternation than the most daunting of riddles.

“I don’t know,” she admitted after a long time. “Kanghui created us and the tianlongs brought our ancestors' prosperity. But that was a long time ago. Now my people starve and suffer. I want to believe they still love us, but they haven’t offered us any miracles for many years.”

She sighed and stared at Sarin’s face, unable to read that unnaturally pleasant smile plastered on her face. “As for how, well, that’s what the prayer crystal is for. May I have it back? I didn’t get a chance to pray last night, and I would like to do so tonight.”

“I will forward your request to Zhulong. This has been an interesting conversation. Have a wonderful evening, Shrike.”

******

After an hour of deliberation, Zhulong gave Shrike permission to pray, but only under strict supervision. As night approached, the false long, Sarin, and a score of ophidians watched her intently. The guards hissed at her when the Old Ones made their collections, but were shushed by Zhulong.

“Trippy. How many more lights do you plan on pumping out?”

“My tribe tries to pray to Kanghui and three tianlongs each night. As I could not pray yesterday, I will attempt to pray six times.”

Zhulong nodded after Sarin finished translating and remained uncharacteristically quiet when she transferred qi to her prayer crystal. The welcome reprieve ended the moment she was done.

“So, you’re a channeler?”

When he spoke, images of a man producing fire and light from his hands popped into Shrike’s head.

“A pyromancer? No. I cannot expel qi or transfer it into other objects.”

“But you just did.”

“Well, that’s what prayer crystals are for. They allow us to store our qi inside it so we can offer it to our gods at their altars later.”

“Nothing happened when we touched it,” Zhulong grunted. “Gimme, that thing.”

Shrike reluctantly handed the crystal to the false long. He rolled it in his palm, fascinated by the light flickering within it. “So, this thing is filled with your spiritual breast milk?”

Shrike grimaced, refusing to dignify the crass inquiry with a response.

“If gods dig this stuff, then it must taste good.” Zhulong sniffed the crystal. Thankfully, the ever-mercurial false long wasn’t actually enamored with the prospect of eating the qi enriched mineral and handed it back.

“You look pretty worn out.” He nodded to the ophidians. “Take little red back to her bed. Make sure to give her an extra ration of food for her cooperation.”

Grateful to be away from the false long’s vile presence, Shrike allowed the ophidians to usher her back to her cell.