Another flying leap took him closer to the central ‘body’ of the Abhorrent. As soon as he landed, hands grasped at his ankles and calves, but he slashed at them with his glowing blade. He jumped again.

This time he landed on a patch of open leathery skin. He ran forward.

I only have a bit of time before Dasi’s spell wears off.

A ragged scream reached his ears. He looked over. The gigantic hand was shrinking along with the rest of the creature, and dirt streamed out of its fingers as a result. It still had trapped Jad.

“Xerk! Help!”

How was he supposed to help? “I’m on it!”

Xerxes flipped his sword around so he was holding it blade down. He raised it over his shoulder. Then lunged forward and stabbed it into the Abhorrent.

The entire thing lurched, and he nearly lost his footing, staying upright only by virtue of holding the sword. Its tip, a mass of burning energy, bit into the creature’s flesh with ease. He scrambled to find a better position, one of his feet finding purchase on a wrinkle in the Abhorrent’s skin.

Grabbing the quillons, he shoved the sword down.

An inhuman stream of shrieking speech exploded. He couldn’t tell the source, nor make out any words, but it sounded like the Abhorrent language.

The arm that held Jad bent at the elbow, then snapped up. Jad flew out of the hand, screaming as he sailed in an arc going away from the cliff. The light of his shield winked out.

“Shit,” Xerxes blurted.

The hand which had thrown Jad now bent toward him.

He yanked his sword out just as the light of Minor Augmentation faded. The stabbing attack didn’t seem to have done anything.

He leaped forward, rolling over his shoulder to avoid the hand that slammed down. Then he pulled out more stibnite talc. Then fingers of the giant hand bent, and then the thing crawled toward him almost like a spider.

He traced the Asgagu Sebum rune as fast as he dared, while simultaneously backing away.

A flash of light caught his attention: Kashtiliash had followed him. Unfortunately, despite being a High Seer, Kashtiliash couldn’t cast Minor Augmentation yet, so he wasn’t going to be of much help.

Glancing around himself, Xerxes saw he was almost in the center of the Abhorrent’s ‘body.’

A second or two later, his sword was once again an expression of energy.

The brain should be in the very middle of everything, he thought. He backed up a few more paces and stabbed the sword down, pushing it in as far as it would go. The Abhorrent shuddered. He began shoving the sword to the side, hewing a gash into the skin.

The hand was almost on him.

Kash barreled into it from the side.

Xerxes kept pushing. Putrid brown blood bubbled out of the wound.

Kashtiliash beat the finger with his glowing hand, punching burning holes into it, but overall, doing little damage. “The brain’s down there,” he yelled.

“It’s too deep,” Xerxes replied.

Kashtiliash buried his hand in one of the huge fingers, then ripped down, while simultaneously pushing his hand inside the flesh. He must have struck a blood vessel, as a sudden eruption of brown blood spilled over his arm.

Another shriek from the monster split their ears, and the hand jerked away, nearly taking Kashtiliash with it.

Not pausing for a beat, Kashtiliash ran over to Xerxes. “Got an idea,” he said.

Using his feet, he pushed at the edge of the huge gash Xerxes had cut open. Then he wriggled down, wedging himself into the bloody open. He pushed with his legs.

The gap opened, accompanied by the sound of flesh being torn.

The smell nearly made Xerxes vomit, but he could see what Kashtiliash was trying to do.

“Keep pushing,” Xerxes said, while simultaneously casting Minor Augmentation again.

“Remember, these things don’t have real skeletons,” Kashtiliash said.

“Right, too heavy.”

Another hand was flying toward them.

The sword lit up. Xerxes hopped into the opening Kash had created. It allowed him to start his stabbing attack a good three feet further down. He pushed down, eventually stepping onto the quillons with his feet. He pushed.

The hand faltered.

He pushed down more.

A spasm ran through the Abhorrent.

Then it started falling.

Xerxes thought the fight was over. He was wrong. The Abhorrent toppled, slamming into the ground with such force that Kashtiliash was dislodged, and was flung to the ground. But the monster wasn’t dead. It began crawling, while at the same time, Dasi’s spell ran its course, and the creature started returning to its full size.

This is it.

If he didn’t kill the creature right now, they wouldn’t have any hope of reaching its brain.

Shoving his boot into a fold of the creature’s flesh, he pushed harder.

The growing flesh enveloped his hands. His forearms. He pushed harder. The sword bit deeper. The creature around him spasmed.

Soon he was up to his shoulders.

He kept pushing.

The flesh writhed as if trying to eject him.

He took a breath as his head slipped into the slick, bloody interior flesh. He made a final push.

There was another twitch from the flesh around him, then it went still.

He pulled at the sword, but his arms didn’t move. He wriggled his shoulders, trying to use his knees to pull himself out. He was stuck.

And he couldn’t breathe.

He twisted his hips. Tried to shift the position of his feet. They slipped in the blood.

He panicked. Struggled.

Not gonna die like this!

Then he felt something grab his wrist. A hand.

Someone pulled on him.

He tucked his toes underneath the quillons of his sword. He moved a few fingers. A cubit.

Gasping, he slid out of the monster’s flesh, flying through the air and tumbling down its side to land in a pile with Kashtiliash. His sword clattered down next to him.

He lay on the ground, the dead monster looming over him as he gasped for breath.

“You did it,” Kashtiliash said.

“Barely. Thanks, by the way.”

“No problem.”

Xerxes tried to ignore the disgusting fluids covering him. “Jad,” he said.

“Fuck.” Kashtiliash groaned and sat up. “He got thrown to the east somewhere.”

The sound of someone running reached their ears. Xerxes sat up and saw Katayoun speeding in their direction. She skidded to a halt next to Xerxes. Dasi wasn’t far behind.

“Are you hurt?” Katayoun asked.

“Not really. But Jad got thrown off the thing. We need to find him. Dasi, how are you doing on melam?”

She hesitated. “I’m low. Really low. Enough for a Minor Alteration, but that’s it.”

There were Abhorrent everywhere. For all they knew, every second was another second before they were surrounded. And they needed to find Jad.

“I have some pills I can give you afterward,” he said. “To make up for the melam. Can you transform into a hawk and scout the area?”

She nodded. “Done.”

Dasi told them that, for the moment, the wider area was free of Abhorrent. She also helped them find Jad. He was some fifty cubits to the east, impaled on a tree branch, hanging upside down. The way his body was bent showed that his back was broken.

He was breathing but unconscious.

A large tree limb emerged from his abdomen, which was what held him in place some ten cubits above them. It looked like he had struggled to pull himself off the limb before losing consciousness. He was soaked in blood. In fact, it dripped down him so heavily that his face was covered in slick redness.

Dasi muttered something and looked away.

Kashtiliash spat a curse.

“This is bad,” Xerxes said.

Katayoun took a step closer and looked up. Her jaw twitched. She stepped back. “Xerk,” she said in a near-whisper, “he’s gone.”

“What?” Xerxes squinted and looked at Jad’s chest. “No, look. He’s breathing.”

“That’s not what I mean. The injuries are too severe for Minor Restoration to fix. Even if we got him off that branch, I couldn’t close the wounds. I couldn’t make up for the blood loss. I couldn’t stitch his spine back together properly. He’s not dead but… he will be soon. Look.” She pointed at the pool of blood on the ground at the base of the tree.

“She’s right,” Kashtiliash said. He cursed again.

Xerxes gritted his teeth as tears built in his eyes. “There’s got to be something we can do.”

“There isn’t,” Katayoun said. “I can cast Minor Restoration and Slow Death. The next spell in the healing line is Blood Restoration, but I haven’t mastered the Balatu Sanum rune. And Major Restoration is a Mystic spell. I wish I could do something.”

She was right. Minor Restoration could heal small wounds, even wounds that could be potentially fatal, such as a cut to the neck. It could also mend broken bones. But the power of the spell wasn’t enough to stitch large holes, fix damaged organs, or replace lost blood. Jad still had life in him, but it was draining rapidly.

“We can’t just leave him there,” he said. “He might be in pain.”

Katayoun put her hand on his shoulder. “He’s unconscious. And given the blood loss, I don’t think he’ll wake up. His heart will stop beating in minutes. Maybe seconds. The most humane thing would be to just… let him pass in peace.”

Xerxes fought to hold back the tears. “I told him we’d take care of his family, but I don’t even know their names.”

Katayoun squeezed his shoulder.

Dasi walked away and sat on a log with her back to the grisly scene. Kashtiliash leaned up against a tree and closed his eyes. Katayoun bowed her head.

But Xerxes kept his eyes on his friend. He watched the blood flow down from the wound. Jad’s breathing grew shallower.

He thought about their friendship. How Jad had taken the punishment for the botched Operation: Kat Walk. How he’d tried to keep Enusat in check. His attempts at leadership.

What was the point?

It’s not fair. Jad had his downsides, but he’d been a good friend. Funny. Fun to be around. What had he done to deserve this?

Since when has life been fair?

Jad went still.

Xerxes bit his cheek and wiped his cheeks dry. I’m sorry, Jad. I’ll get revenge for you. And for Enusat. And everybody else. Arwia. Kuri. Laxu. Atra-Hasis. Ningal. Tizqar. And the Unsighted too. I promise.

“Let’s hurry,” Katayoun said. “We need to move.”

It was grisly work, but they got Jad’s corpse down from the tree. They dug a shallow grave and covered it with branches and rocks. When the work was done, the four mages stood around the grave.

“Someone should say a prayer,” Kashtiliash said.

Xerxes, thinking about his confusion regarding the Monad and the Pontifarch, said, “Not me. I’m… not the right person.”

“Me either,” Dasi said.

Kashtiliash looked at Katayoun. She looked back at him.

“I’m not a word person,” Kashtiliash said.

Katayoun nodded. “I’ll do it.” She clasped her hands together in front of her and stood quietly for a moment. Then she closed her eyes and bowed her head.

Xerxes did the same as he reached out and put his hand at the crook of her elbow.

“Almighty Pontifarch,” Katayoun said, “praise be to your name. Today we lost a friend, and we want to ask that you watch over him on his journey through the cycle of reincarnation. Please bless Jad’s soul.”

Xerxes opened his mouth in preparation to say ‘amen.’ Except, Katayoun kept talking.

“Pontifarch,” she said, “we’re here fighting in your name. But we don’t know what we’re doing. We’re surrounded by the enemy. In over our head. None of us asked for this. They forced it on us. Some of us just want to live ordinary lives. Be happy. Have families. Children. But we know that as Sighted mages, we also have important responsibilities. Pontifarch, can you please turn your eye in our direction? Can you help us? Please.”

Katayoun squeezed Xerxes’ hand between her elbow and her side, then went on, “We don’t want to die like our friend. We want to finish our mission. Maybe help some people. Then leave this planet and go home. If you care about your servants, and if you care about us Sighted, can you please send us your blessing? I beg of you. Please.”

She squeezed his hand again. “This, Pontifarch, we pray to you with all our hearts and souls. Amen.”

“Amen,” Xerxes muttered.