Shatter! Magdala woke up buried in sand. She’d recognized the spell her lord uncle had cast but hadn’t had time to realize what it meant before the ground opened up. She’d fallen, something had smashed in her cloak, and then she was knocked out.

She spat out sand and then clawed her way out of the heap. Now free, she shook the loathsome stuff out of her hair and clothes. It would take days before she got it all out of her clothes, weeks for her hair; honestly, if it had been socially acceptable, she’d shave her head to be free of it. Once she was as sand-free as possible, Magdala tried to stand up. She promptly slipped and fell.

A million bruises, aches, and pains bloomed on her body, exactly as if Magdala had fallen down a stone shaft for Cueller-knows-how-long. Groaning, she stood up again, this time careful to keep her footing on the shifting sand mound, and made her way a patch of stone floor that was clear of sand. After shaking more sand off herself, she looked around. She’d ended up in a three wir by three wir cell, which was filled with a strange azure light.

“I’m going to kill my lord uncle when I-” The bluecap. Magdala reached under her cloak and instead of a vial of bluecap mushroom extract, she found a sticky mess of broken glass and the lead bar she’d bought for Mei’s bullets. That explained why she’d been unconscious for the fall. The bluecap extract’s soporific effect had knocked her out. Maybe that was lucky if galling.

She checked the rest of her inventory. Thank Cueller. Everything else including her hair clip, the basic ingredients for Mei’s propellant had survived, and her spare vials had survived the fall. Magdala stowed it all away and considered her next problem: getting out of here.

Above the mound of sand she’d fallen into, there was a giant hole, still dribbling sand. A quick look up it revealed no clear way out unless Magdala made like Mei’s birds and learned to fly. Could she blast her way up? No, she didn’t have nearly enough components for that and there wasn’t any water or plants here. She’d have to find another way. Magdala turned her attention to the rest of the cell.

Like the ruins above, it was dusty, dry and devoid of any decorative features although it did have one close wooden door, whose cracks allowed the weird azure light to enter. Magdala went to it and pushed it as hard as she could. It barely budged.

Was it barred? Magdala peered through the crack between the door and the frame. Yes, it was. There was a long slab of wood across the door. Considering that there was nothing but sand in here, it seemed odd to bar the door like that, but whatever. Magdala moved on to the walls, which were made of stone blocks with no gaps between them. She wasn’t getting out that way either.

Magdala sagged, wishing that she had Dwayne’s abilities. Then she could- Wait. Would that work? Magdala’s eyes darted to the door. What was that bar made of? She had the magic to answer that. She returned to the door and slipped one finger through the crack and got it on the door bar. “Nqeoum.”

Elemental proportions and formulae poured into her mind. The door bar was wood, but it was jaw-droppingly dense, almost as dense as stone. There was only one variety of wood in the whole world that dense: nuhajyny, a rare and expensive species of hardwood native to the forests of southeast Wesen. And here it was being used to block a mere door. Were the Yaniti so rich that materials like this were a pittance to them? Magdala shook her head. It didn’t matter. Wood was wood. It would burn.

After mixing some of the propellant ingredients with sand, Magdala sprinkled some on the bar then pressed her finger into it. “Nqerm.”

She snatched her hand back as the mixture congealed and sizzled and ignited, an orange flame happily eating through the wood bar. It wasn’t as cheery as Dwayne’s but it would do. As her latest hellish concoction did its work, Magdala investigated the rest of the cell. She ignored the hole in the ceiling. Clearly it was a late addition.

She placed her hand on the nearest wall. “Nqeoum.”

Sandstone. Magdala touched the other walls. More sandstone. She pressed against them, but there were no hidden doors or secret switches or pressure plates and so Magdala turned her attention to the big heap of sand and groaned. The heap was huge and considering that she was still scratching sand out of her hair, she didn’t relish the idea of digging through it. She glanced at the brightly burning flame outside the door. That was going to take a while. If only Dwayne or Mei were here…

Magdala swallowed. Were they trapped down here too? Was her lord uncle? Were they- Magdala banished that thought. No, they were all fine. Mei had her rifle, and both her lord uncle and his apprentice had their magic. They were fine. She just needed to focus on her own situation. And that involved digging. Crinkling her nose, Magdala knelt at the edge of the sand heap and started to scoop sand off the pile. Soon she was sweaty and desperately wishing she’d brought a shovel. She’d take off her cloak, but if something happened she’d need everything in it, and she couldn’t afford to lose it. Her mother had given it to her when Magdala had entered the academy, the last time Iona Gallus had been unequivocally proud of her daughter. That pride didn’t survive long did it. After all, Magdala had-

Her hand hit something hard. A trapdoor? Magdala dug around it and grabbed hold of it, used her weight and her strength to pull it free. When it came free with an odd pop, Magdala fell back onto her well bruised haunch with a slim book in her hand. Another hand, mummified and dusty, still held the book.

Aware that part of her was screaming, Magdala ripped away to the hand and tossed it onto the sand heap. Then after getting her heart rate back under control, she inspected it. The hand was small, no bigger than her own, and had a tarnished silver ring on its index finger. Was this another explorer or a Yaniti ancient? If the latter, had she been barred in here by her own people and left here to die when the city fell?

Magdala was still grappling with these questions when, with a heavy thump, the bar on the other side of the door fell to the floor. Magdala stood up and brushed sand off her knees. Whatever fate had befallen the hand’s owner, she wouldn’t share it. Tucking the book under her arm, Magdala pulled the door open and entered a curved corridor that was riddled dozens of barred doors. Was this a prison? How many people had been trapped in those cells with nothing but this book to keep them company? And why this book? Magdala opened it. It was in Imperial Yaniti, which she’d learned her first year at the Magisterium academy. And she’d complained that she’d never use a dead language.

Pointedly not looking at any of the doors, Magdala moved into a bright patch of azure light that streamed down from the ceiling and started to read.

Once upon a time, there was a boy.

Ah, yes, Yaniti creativity at its best.

He lived alone in the dry and dusty mountains where he grew cokop root and tended a small well.

One day, while he was watering his roots, he heard a voice whisper, “Are you lonely?”

“No,” said the boy, continuing to work. “I have my roots and water. I have my house and bed. I have the sun and earth. They keep me company.”

How could anyone be satisfied with that?

“Oh, but what about your family?” asked the voice.

“My family is gone,” answered the boy.

“Don’t you miss them?”

“They live in the earth who feeds me. They taught me about the sun, which warms me. They built the house who shelters me.”

“Well, he clearly needs his head checked.” Magdala ignored how the hallway swallowed the sound of her voice.

“That is all very well and good, but who do you talk to? Who keeps you from thinking about the fearful nights and hard days?”

The boy hesitated. Since his father’s death, all day he tended his cokop alone. Since his mother’s death, all night he listened to the wolves howling. Since his sister’s death, he’d talked to no one.

Still, he said, “I do.”

“Liar.”

“Who are you to call me Liar?” shouted the boy. “You’re just a voice from nowhere.”

“All voices come from somewhere. Mine just happens to come from very far away.”

“Then why talk to me? Are there not others where you are?”

Magdala wondered how it was talking to him.

“Though there are many others here, I am lonely. When I see them, I talk to them, but they just laugh and walk away. So the nights are hard because I fear that the day will come, and the days are fearful because I hear only laughter that isn’t mine. I do not wish to be alone, Liar.”

“Then, where are you?” asked the boy.

“I am where I am.”

Odd. Most of the Yaniti myths Magdala had read had described awesome beings wandering the earth, performing miracles beyond modern magic’s understanding, but this was just about a boy on a farm.

The boy considered this and then glanced at his roots. He knew that they would keep so he took his water jug, filled it, and then placed it under his arm. He walked towards the whisper. “Then I’ll go where you are. What’s your name?”

“‘Name’? What is a ‘name?’”

“Something to call you by,” said the boy. “A word that others use to call you.”

“Ah, then, I do not have a name. The others do not call me.”

The boy paused. “Would you like one?”

“Maybe. How does one get a name? Is it difficult?”

“Someone just calls you by it and then it is yours.” The boy continued to walk.

“I would like someone to call me.” The voice grew clearer with each step the boy took. “Please. Give me a name.”

Magdala’s family name Gallus meant prestige, honor, and justice and, to her mother, magical excellence. Maybe it would easier to be nameless.

The boy considered the request. He’d never named anything before. His parents had given him one name, his sister another. He hadn’t named the cokop or the river or the sun or the moon or the twinkling stars. Still, he knew what name to give. “Lonely Whisper.”

“I do not wish to be lonely,” said the voice.

“Then how about just Whisper then?”

The voice fell silent. For a long while, the boy walked without the voice’s guidance, drinking water from his jug when he was thirsty and foraging for berries when he was hungry.

When three days had passed, Whisper replied, in a breath that tickled the boy’s ear, “I like it.”

“Good.” The boy corrected his heading. “I’m glad.”

“Oh, Liar, I think you’ve given me something very precious.” Whisper’s voice echoed out from a cave carved into the side of a stone cliff. The boy put his empty water jug down at the entrance and entered without fear.

“So, Liar, are you lonely?”

The boy considered. “No, I have you.” He kept going deeper and deeper into the dark cave until he came upon a swirling pool of light.

“Liar,” the pool rippled with Whisper’s giggles, “I gave you a name. The least you can do is stick to it.”

“It’s true. I’m not lonely.” The boy knelt by the pool. “Not anymore. May I see you?”

“Yes.” The pool burst, splashing light everywhere and drenching the boy’s eyes. When he could see again, an owl with eyes as bright as the stars and feathers the color of the evening sky hovered over him. It changed into a child with fluffy purpled hair and twinkling eyes and joined the boy beside the pool. “Nice to meet you, Liar.”

The boy smiled for the first time in a long time. “My name isn’t Liar.” He embraced Whisper. “It’s Asaph.”

Magdala stared at the name, double-checking to make sure she hadn’t made a mistake in her translation. But she hadn’t. This was a story about Asaph, the founder of the Yaniti Empire, master of a thousand spirits. In history class and in church, she’d been taught that he’d come out of the east bearing scrolls that the Yaniti mages had used to build the first magical civilization after the Cataclysm that had ended the Age of the Gods. This was a lost piece of history. She had to get this to the others.

Magdala sped up, running past door after barred door until she reached one that stood at the end. She reached for the handle. A thunderclap made her jump, but before she could run, the door opened on its own.

Magdala thrust the book in front of her like a shield. “Sorry, sorry, I had to-”

“Maggie?”

Magdala peeked over the cover of her book. “Mei?” She grinned. “Mei, you’re all right!”

Mei frowned at the book Magdala hid behind and then gently pushed it out of the way. “We’re being hunted.”

***

“Qeuieryit!”

As the ground crumbled beneath her feet, Mei made a break for the edge of the city square. Something snatched at her ankle and she leapt over it, not bothering to see what it was and kept running. The ground’s crumbling was speeding up, and she had to keep ahead of it, but first she needed to find her brother and… Where was Huan? She risked a glance back and the world slowed. Huan was on his back on the ground, fighting off grasping tree roots that curled up from underground. Not bothering to question where the roots had come from, Mei changed direction and dashed to her brother’s side. “Huan!”

Her brother turned to her and snarled from behind the Mask. Reflexively, Mei stopped a couple of wirs from Huan, her hand flying to her knife, but there wasn’t the time to calm Tiger and the crumbling was catching up to her.

“What are you doing? Ri’a’tha!” Dwayne’s flame burnt away the roots. “Move!” He tried to pull Huan to his feet, but the beast caught Dwayne by the throat and pulled him down. Then the ground opened beneath them and they were gone.

“Huan!” Mei rushed forward, but crumbling caught her and dropped her into the rustling darkness. Hoping to minimize injury, Mei tucked her rifle to her chest, rolled into a ball and waited for impact, which didn’t come. Instead she kept falling, the dry desert air becoming wet and musty, the star-filled night giving way to blue twilight. By the time she’d just started wondering if she’d survive hitting the ground, she hit water and sank. Gritting her teeth against the cold, Mei oriented herself and swam upwards, one hand still holding her rifle. When she reached the surface, she sucked in air and looked around.

She’d landed in a bowl-like lake that looked as if a giant had taken a spoonful out of the earth and, despite not being full, was so deep that she couldn't see the bottom through the crystal clear water. Around the lake, hundreds of arches and terraces in dozens of layers disappeared up into a twilight blue expanse. How far has she fallen? Was she still in Yumma? Where were Huan and the others?

Mei shivered. She’d deal with those questions later. Holding her rifle over her head, she swam to shore, scaled the lake’s sides and laid herself out on the ground, letting the air warm her. She let her heart rate slow, her breath go quiet, her mind still. When fear had finally drained from her, she took stock of her situation. Despite the sudden fall, she still had her knife, rifle, and bullets, but the water had ruined the rifle’s explosive powder, making her rifle useless. She’d need Maggie to make more. Mei was sure that Maggie was down here too; mages seemed incapable of avoiding trouble. At least it made deciding who to find first easy: first Huan, then Maggie, then the Wesen boy, who they’d have to find because Maggie would want to, finally anyone else who’d fallen down here.

With her priorities set, Mei prepared to explore by checking her knife, wringing out her clothes, and disassembling her rifle and leaving it to dry. Then she slid into the shadows of the arches, taking care not to touch the strange scribbles on them. Past the arches were statues in various poses and dozens and dozens of doors, all barred with huge beams of dark wood. Edging past a statue, Mei tried to unbar a door, but it was too heavy to lift with just her arms, and considering how she’d ended up down here, she wasn’t keen on finding out what was on the other side so she backed away. Something crunched under her boot. She looked down.

A human rib cage.

With a soft squeal, Mei pulled her foot free and scrambled back from the pile of bones. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she became able to take in the horror around her. This was a battlefield, the statues versus the bones. The nearest statue had impaled the skeleton Mei had stepped in with a massive spear, pinning its hip to the stone floor. There was no expression on the skull, but the statue was showing rage and fangs. It was so convincing that Mei drew her knife and backed away and waited for the statue to see her and attack. It didn’t. It held that final pose of death. Whenever this battle had happened, it was over.

Once again calm, Mei inched towards the nearest statue again, inspecting its face and form. In Tuqu, statues were rare and only made to honor the most honorable ancestors and emperors, and in Soura, there were dozens of statues standing on the street corners, in town squares, in front of their temples, and they were all of the same four people, but both in Tuqu and Soura, statues were made of humans.

These statues weren’t. The closest one, whose chest had been stoved in, had curled ram horns and a snake’s face, its neighbor cloven hooves and a monkey’s tail. Yes, what was left of their torsos were human, at least if humans ever came bear-sized, but otherwise every other part of them had been stolen from some animal and the effect was unsettling. Mei had planned to wait for her rifle to dry properly, but if these statues could move, she didn’t want to wait and find out.

She returned to her disassembled rifle, wiped down its pieces as best she could, and then reassembled it, keeping one eye on the statues. The weapon would probably still work, but Mei hoped to have a chance to clean it properly soon. After double-checking that she still had her knife, Mei started to walk around the edge of the lake, keeping the arches between herself and the statues while looking for a way out.

She’d made half a circuit when the arch next to her filled with water. Mei pulled back from it, her knife drawn, deep breath taken, but the water didn’t pour out; it just hung in the archway like it was sitting in a cup, chittering softly. Wary, Mei slid back towards the lake. This, like the tree roots and the statues, was nothing like any magic she’d seen before.

The water chittered for a little longer and then changed. “You are?”

Mei nearly fell into the lake from shock. It spoke Tuquese.

“You are?” The water stilled, waiting for Mei’s reply.

Mei wasn’t going to as “Talk to magic water” didn’t sound like a good idea. She ran, going under the archways and slipping between statues. If humans had gotten in, they had to have gotten out. When she finally found a door left unbarred, she made a beeline towards it.

The doorway filled with water. “You are?”

Cursing, Mei slid to a stop. What did this thing want? This was the only unbarred door. Could she unbar the others before this thing caught up to her? What if it blocked her again?

A heavy thump echoed throughout the chamber, stilling the water in the door and it evaporated, leaving Mei alone.

What was that? Mei considered the now dry door and decided against going through. Instead she sheathed her knife, went to the nearest pillar and started to climb. She pulled herself up to the second floor, slid over the railing, and waited. Two sounds reached her ears, a low murmuring and a splash of water. If the latter was the thing behind the water, then the former had to be what it was looking for and it was close. Mei followed her ears to another barred door and pressed her ears to it. There were footsteps, light an unconcerned. Maybe a guard, but so long as they were human Mei didn’t care. Knowing she couldn’t lift the bar with her arms, Mei got under it and pushed it upwards. The bar resisted, but Mei didn’t relent, and soon it gave way and she made it drop to the floor. The resulting thunderclap silenced both the murmuring and the splashes. She had to hurry.

Mei wrenched opened the door, and a wild-haired girl shoved a book into her face. “Sorry, sorry, I had to-”

“Maggie?”

“Mei?” Maggie grinned. “Mei, you’re all right!”

Mei frowned at the cover of the book, which had the same characters as the arches around them and the cube above. It didn’t seem very shield-like. She gently pushed it out of the way. “We’re being hunted.”

“What?”

Water dropped on Mei’s nose. She grabbed Maggie’s hand. “We have to go.” She pulled the mage into the corridor just as the doorway filled with water.

“Mage!” The water froze and shattered, and an serpentine white weasel Mei dropped to the floor, its hackles already raised. It was longer than Mei was tall and packed with muscle and its steel blue eyes flicked between them.

A dozen heartbeats passed before Maggie asked, “What is that?”

The animal’s eyes focused on Maggie, and the air chilled.

Mei put a finger to her lips and shook her head. Then, she slid closer to the animal, which kept all its attention on Maggie. To it, Mei’s knife and rifle weren’t the real threat. Maggie’s magic was. First Mei needed to get it to refocus. Slowly, she slid in front of Maggie and forced the animal to look at her. The animal blinked and backed up, unsure what Mei was doing.

“Wha-“

Mei shushed Maggie and gestured for the mage to sit, doing so herself slowly and with both hands up and away from her knife. Behind her, Maggie compiled in a soft chorus of clinking glass. The animal’s eyes narrowed, but the tension in its shoulders was fading. Good. Mei assumed a cross-legged sitting position and waited. Behind her, she could feel Maggie’s impatience and confusion but also the trust. Good, everyone was calming down. Now that Mei could get a good look at it, the animal had webbed first and broad shoulders, like the otter she’d seen in her father’s hunting portraits.

When the otter stopped growling and started sniffing the air, Mei pointed to herself. “I'm Mei.”

The otter blinked and then chittered.

“Is that your name?”

The otter nodded. Its eyes slid to Maggie.

Maggie inched forward to sit beside Mei. “I'm Magdala.”

The otter padded forward and then raised up on its haunches and tilted its head. Mei smiled. Sure the otter was as large as a human and had appeared out of a pane of ice and had cold vapor was pouring off its pelt, but it was really cute.

Maggie shivered. “What now?”

With the eyes of otter and mage on her, Mei tried to come up with a plan. Maybe the otter could-

“PORTHOP! VULICUR!”

The strange words rippled through the otter and transformed curiosity into rage. The otter leapt at Maggie, teeth and claws ready to dig into her. Mei shoved the mage out of the way and allowed the otter to fly past them into the corridor behind. Getting to her feet, Mei drew her knife and got between Maggie and the otter, which snarled and then darted down the corridor and into a vertical pool of water, which shattered as the otter passed through it.

“Who said that? What was that?” Maggie stood up. “What happened?”

Mei shrugged. They had to find the way out first.“Let’s go.” She led Maggie down the corridor, her eyes searching for the sound of splashing.

“Cups, where are we?” Maggie stared up at the blue tinged abyss above them. “How far down did we go?”

Mei shook her head. “I don’t-” A sudden chill hit her from behind. She whirled around and intercepted the otter as it tried to pounce on Maggie. It was heavy and had momentum, but Mei pushed back hard and shoved the otter back into the water, receiving frosty scratches down her arms in return. They had to get out of here. The corridors had too many doors. She grabbed Maggie and pointed. “Climb down!”

Maggie stared at her. “What bu-”

Again, the air chilled. There was no time to discuss it. Mei grabbed Maggie’s arm, climbed over the railing, and pulled the mage down with her, right out of the way of the otter’s latest charge. They fell and it was only Mei’s desperate grab at the pillar that slowed their descent to the first floor.

“Ow!” Both girls hit the floor, their fall cushioned by bones, a fact that Mei had no time to consider before the archway next to them filled with water. Mei steeled herself for another attack, but Maggie grabbed the back of her tunic and pulled her into the pool’s bowl. The otter sailed over them and into a vertical pool on the other side. Here, they had enough room to dodge and enough room to fight. Mei pulled her rifle out of its case, readied her knife and waited for the otter’s next attack.

“That was a spell.”

Mei stared at her. “What?”

Maggie peeked over the edge of the bowl. “That word Vulicur. It must have been a spell. There’s someone else down here.” She glanced at Mei’s rifle. “Aren’t you going to shoot it?”

Mei shook her head. “Wet powder.” She gestured to the archway. “So that’s magic too?” She tried not to rub the scratches on her arm, which didn’t bleed but did ache.

Maggie grimaced. “It has to be although I’ve never heard of magic like that. That movement shouldn’t be possible. Luckily, it looks like it only does one portal at a time so it’s pretty easy to dodge-” A wintry blast filled the chamber as every archway on the first and second floors filled with water. “No, no, no! That's not fair.”

At least they weren’t in the corridor. Mei stood up and kept her eyes and ears open. An archway up and to the left splashed, and she turned to see the otter barreling down towards them.

“Behind you!”

At Magdala’s warning, Mei glanced back and stared. An ice pillar the size of a tree trunk was rocketing towards them. The otter had used itself as bait for this attack, and they couldn’t dodge it, it was too close, too fast. Mei raised her knife anyway.

“HA!” A red and brown blur slammed into the pillar, knocking it off course. The shock that they were safe spurred Mei to turn back to the otter, slashing her knife across its face before using its momentum to toss it away. Howling, the animal scrambled to the nearest portal and disappeared into it and then all the archways all dried up.

After a quick check that she was in fact alive, Mei turned to Maggie and their savior, but instead of thanking them, she sucked in a breath. It couldn’t be.

“Oh, thank Cueller.” Maggie stood up. “I am so glad you-”

Mei’s hand blurred, and her knife flew through the air. The woman in the red robe dodged it lazily.

Maggie dove between Mei and their savior. “Mei, what are you doing?”

“That’s Rabbit.” Mei reached for her rifle. “That’s Rabbit and she’s after Huan.”

Maggie turned to their savior. “What is she… oh.”

The woman was bronze-skinned, had furred feet, had tied back dark brown hair, wore a red celk robe, which she’d closed around her waist with a yellow sash, and her blue eyes glittered behind a stylized rabbit mask. “I really should carry extra shoes.” She removed the mask and tucked it into her sash, and her feet began to shift to human. “Rabbit’s feet are five times larger than mine.”

Shouldering Maggie aside, Mei grabbed her rifle and took aim. “What are you doing here?”

Momin smiled. “Did you really think you'd gotten away from the Tuqu Empire?”