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  With a critical eye, Ermolt surveyed the room beyond the hallway before entering. The light from Elise’s torch illuminated piles of dry rot that could only have been furniture in the distant past. The colors had become muted over the years, but Ermolt could still pick out pale yellow embroidery that may have been brilliant gold in the past. The ceiling was still covered in a layer of cobwebs more than double Ermolt’s height above his head. He briefly wondered if the webs were made by giant spiders or normal ones. The strands themselves seemed normal in size. There were just so very many. He was sure Athala could tell him if he asked, but he really didn’t want a well-meaning lecture about spiders of all things. It was better to just drop the whole thing.

  Ermolt emerged from the cramped hallway and walked into the middle of the room before he stood up straight with a happy groan. The room wasn’t large, but after over a half bell in narrow tunnels, it felt cavernous. There was ample room for him to do as he pleased. He lifted his hammer above his head with both hands, arching his back to try and stretch out the complaining muscles. Two vertebra low in his spine cracked and the sound echoed off the oddly shaped walls.

  “Stay alert,” Elise said with a conspiratorial whisper as she followed behind him. “The dust on the floor looks to have been disturbed. Someone’s been here before.”

  “Don’t be so paranoid,” Ermolt said, his point undercut slightly by his automatically lowered voice. “Not the right kind of disturbance for people. Probably just wildlife. Rats and crawlers or the like.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Athala asked, genuine curiosity contrasting with the doubt in Elise’s eyes.

  Ermolt pointed to the marks in the dust on the floor. “The disturbances are narrow.” He continued to point across the floor, his finger guiding their gaze along one of the old trails in the dust, to where it passed near one of the walls. “None of the disturbances go up higher than a fen along the wall. Whatever disturbed this dust is small and likely not a threat.”

  “Actually, it’s very likely that anything we encounter here could be affected by the magic of the spell we’re after. Spells of this power—”

  “Quiet,” Elise hissed, her free hand punctuating the urgency with a hailing wave. “I think I heard something.”

  Ermolt looked beyond her. At first there was nothing, and he almost teased Elise for her paranoia. But then he saw them, approaching in the darkness before the red pinpoints of their eyes glowed in Elise’s torchlight. They were rats, but they were nearly the size of wolves, with twisted features and bizarre dimensions. Their legs and claws were disproportionately long and their teeth nearly overgrew their mouths. Their pelts were ragged and spotty, almost as if they were constantly molting.

  The large rodents spread out as they entered the room, showing some intelligence far beyond that of normal rats. And as they bared their teeth and hissed, Ermolt noted they were much more aggressive, too. Their fur bristled, and their naked tails—nearly three fen in length, when they didn’t end in a ragged scab—lashed back and forth threateningly.

  “I’ve seen this behavior before,” Athala said as she slowly took a step away from the approaching rats. “This is territorial instinct. Interesting how it has modified their behavior, though.”

  “How what has modified their behavior?” Ermolt shifted his feet, mimicking Athala’s slowness as he readied his hammer in a defensive stance. The rats seemed to have no interest in attacking just yet. They were fanning out. But that didn’t mean he wanted to spook them by accident.

  “Oh, the spell. Permanent spells intended to last forever have special magic woven into it. It’s basically a spell that mimics a wizard. It draws magical energies to the spell to keep it going. After a few decades, though, they start to leak.”

  “This might not be the best time for a history lesson on magic,” Elise interjected, and Ermolt noticed that she too moved slowly as she deposited her torch in a nearby sconce and readied her shield, slinging it off of her back and strapping it onto her arm with practiced ease. The rats made no sudden moves, but continued to approach, their formation spreading out as if they intended to flank the intruders.

  “Do they usually work together like this?” Ermolt moved to his left to position himself to block the rats from getting too far around them. He glanced to Elise and she nodded.

  “Oh, yes. All rats are highly social creatures,” Athala said. “I’m not sure if they usually fight together, but even if they naturally don’t, the mental alterations can have far-reaching effects, especially in imbuing them with the traits and behaviors of other animals. The boldness of their approach is how they would go about cornering a lesser intruder.”

  “Really not the time, Athala,” Elise said a little more firmly. She readied her mace, taking up a space on the right, covering that flank in a way that mirrored Ermolt. A rat moved toward her and she took a tentative swipe at it, sending it skittering back with a hiss, but causing the others to surge forward, snapping at the air to drive her away from following up on her swing.

  “Right, sorry. But he did ask.” Ermolt glanced quickly at Athala and winked. The wizard raised her hands, shimmying her wrists to clear her sleeves from her skin as she prepared a spell, but just if they needed her support. Ermolt was pleased to see she was reserving her power. While that was normally ill-advised in a life or death situation, if magically deformed rats got the better of them, he and Elise would be poor bodyguards. Athala needed to save her strength for gathering the spell ahead.

  “They’re almost in position. Likely not going to wait much longer,” Elise said with a warning tone, snapping Ermolt’s attention back to the approaching horde. A few of the rats began to coil their bodies to spring.

  Ermolt roared a challenge. His deep voice boomed in the enclosed space as he lunged forward. The sudden sound didn’t scare the rats as much as it provoked them, and the mob surged in towards him. Ermolt brought his hammer around fast, driving it into the lead rat’s midsection. There was a wet splintering sound and the body flopped onto the ground.

  Elise rushed forward into the opening as Ermolt’s arms stopped moving forward. Her mace lashed out twice, clobbering a pair of rats that were rushing forward to take advantage of the opening. Ermolt saw that the first one she struck hissed and stumbled back, but the other collapsed in a heap, its eyes rolling around in its head.

  As quickly as she had approached Elise retreated while Ermolt began his backswing. He slammed his hammer around into the group of rats, bowling them over and scattering them. The momentum meant he brought the hammer up over his head. With a grin, he slammed it down directly onto a charging rat, the head of his weapon creating a splatter of gore as the beast was flattened.

  Ermolt ripped his weapon free with a squelch and his stomach rolled. Elise rushed forward to cover him. A rat charged him and found Elise’s swinging shield with its jaws instead of Ermolt’s bare forearm. It squealed pitifully and stumbled back. Its muscular legs wobbled as its jaw hung useless, either dislocated or broken by the shield. Elise quickly followed up with a swing of her mace that landed on its forehead, a wet crunch confirming the kill.

  With his weapon free, Ermolt bellowed in challenge at the rats again. Elise took a step back as he charged forward towards the last four surviving rats. He swept his hammer around in front of himself in a wide arc, low to the ground. The rats skittered back, successfully dodging the swing. They surged back in toward him, but Ermolt maintained the momentum. Both barbarian and hammer whirled in a full circle and a second swing caught the oncoming rodents. The heavy weapon plowed through their ranks with a chorus of snapping bones and pained squeals. Two of the rats flopped motionless to the floor while a third thrashed useless limbs, squealing in agony as its broken bones tore through the skin.

  A final rat, having managed to escape with only some bruising, hissed threateningly. It backed into a corner and arched, fur bristling to make it appear larger. Ermolt took a step forward and it gnashed its teeth, but made no attempt to attack.r />
  “Take care,” Elise warned. “There’s a reason they use a cornered rat as an example of a dangerous fight.”

  “What do you propose we do, then? Just leave it alone?” Ermolt shifted his grip on his hammer, considering options for his approach.

  “Well, no,” Elise said, crossing behind Ermolt. He suspected that she was on clean up, and the wet thunk and squeal that followed confirmed his suspicions. “Just be careful.”

  Ermolt frowned at the rat and it snapped at the air, coiling its body as though readying to pounce. He hesitated, unsure if it was going to lunge or hold its ground. The two stared each other down for a handful of moment, neither willing to make the first move. “This is annoying. I know I really shouldn’t be afraid of it, but I like the current configuration of my face. And just for the record,” Ermolt said with a frown, hefting his weapon, “it would be really nice to be able to throw my hammer at it. Shame I didn’t get a chance to—Hey!”

  Without warning, a flash of orange shot between his legs, striking the rat. The bolt of fire hit true, the impact staggering the rat before the flames engulfed the wound.

  Ermolt instinctively lowered a hand to his crotch, which the fire bolt had flown within a rhen of, the heat of its passing still clinging to the area. “What did I just finish saying?” He turned angrily to look at Athala, who shook wisps of smoke from her fingertips.

  “You said you wanted to keep your face as it was,” Athala said indignantly. She looked almost disappointed in his decision to scold her. “It seemed that dealing with the rat was some threat to that desire. I helped.”

  “Well, in the future, anything I say about my face and my desire to keep it safe, you can count that as going double for my nether region!” Ermolt pulled his hand away from himself, looking at it as though he expected to pull it away covered in ash and burnt hair. “If you need me to move so you get a clear shot, communicate. I know you know how to use your words.”

  “Ha-ha,” Athala said, rolling her eyes, even as she grinned at him. It wasn’t often Ermolt liked working for a client, but Elise and Athala had grown on him over the past few weeks. He was almost sad they were finally getting around to collecting Athala’s spell, as it would signify the end of his contract. Perhaps he could convince her to look for another.

  Ermolt stepped forward and ruffled Athala’s textured hair, causing her to squeal and duck away as individual corkscrews loosened from the side-swept tail she kept against her neck. Without hesitation she untied the bit of rawhide that contained her hair and smoothed out the wild locks before securing them back in place. The whole time she glared at Ermolt, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

  Elise watched the exchange with a small bit of mirth on her usually stoic features. The heavyset Conscript could pretend to be the hardened leader all she wanted, but Ermolt saw through her disguise more often than not. The Temple of Ydia might have assigned Elise to watch over Athala in an attempt to get them both out of their collective hair, but she had grown to care for the wizard just as much as he did. She just didn’t know how to show it.

  “Are we ready to continue?” Elise finally said after Athala had her hair back in place.

  Ermolt grunted in response and Athala nodded. Elise spun on her heels and collected her torch before continuing forward. Ermolt was amused to note that she held the torch farther away from her person now, likely realizing he was right in his assessment of her blinding herself.

  Athala started forward, but then stopped next to Ermolt. “So, as I was trying to say earlier, loose energy from a spell like the one we’re seeking can have strange effects on the world around it. It can warp walls and passages, and even alter reality itself. But that sort of thing takes a long time, and this spell has only been here for a few hundred years. In theory.”

  Ermolt scoffed and he patted Athala on the shoulder, careful to hold back his strength lest he knock her to the floor. “Oh, only a few hundred. That’s nothing.” He shook his head, and the two of them followed Elise out of the room before she got too far ahead.

  “Well, Neuges has been around for thousands upon thousands of years. There have been stories of standing spells around since the beginning or near beginning of time. Reality around those places is said to start to break down and spatial logic doesn’t apply anymore. But that’s after an exceptionally long time. Again, in theory.” Ermolt glanced over his shoulder at the wizard. She seemed completely unfazed by anything so far, and he found himself admiring her. “You see, first, organic material is affected. Plants and animals will mutate, insects can increase in size, and dead bodies exposed for extended periods can become animated.”

  “Fantastic,” Elise said from just ahead, having paused at the next crossroad to let her companions catch up. “Because my absolute favorite thing is fighting giant bugs and walking corpses.”

  “Well, there’s no way to be certain that we’ll come across those things.” Athala paused for a moment, and Ermolt found himself grinning as he could nearly see the connections being made. “Although, I wouldn’t doubt it. Giant rats would be the first sign of worse things to come. Hm.” She looked on ahead, peering into the darkness, likely wishing she had prepared a ritual or something to help tell her what lies ahead.

  Ermolt wasn’t worried. Giant rats, bloated bugs, and animated piles of bones were nothing but dust and blood under the head of his hammer. And if they did come across something larger, he had nothing but faith in his companions. The three of them worked together smoothly as a team, even if it did result in him almost having bits set on fire.

  The group continued forward once more. Distantly, Ermolt wished he had worn a slightly hardier armor.

  Chapter Four

  “So, which way are we supposed to go?” Elise asked Athala expectantly, lifting her torch so the wizard could see the forked hallway easily enough.

  “Um.” Athala hesitated and pulled a small compass out of her pocket. She held it up, shook it once, glared at it, and then shook it again. “According to this and my last reading,” she hesitated again, looking down both halls before pointing at the bit of solid wall directly in front of them. “That way. Which,” she quickly continued as Elise glared at her, “obviously isn’t a good enough answer. I, uh, I will take another reading to see if I can get a more specific answer?”

  “That would be helpful, thank you.” Elise tried to relax her jaw. It wasn’t Athala’s fault that she was so very, well, Athala. They had only been working together for a few months, but Elise had come to recognize that Athala was one of the most authentic people in all of Neuges. She didn’t have a malicious bone in her body, although that didn’t mean she wasn’t frustratingly flighty. Just that she didn’t intend to be.

  The wizard set her knapsack down, and pulled out a small notebook and a few magical trinkets—mostly baubles and crystals, but also a large metal device that looked like a pendulum—setting about the ritual that would give her information about the magical energies in the surrounding area. “I can use the details of my previous reading to triangulate a little bit, too, and get a clear idea of how far away it is.”

  “Great,” Elise said with a genuine smile. “More information is always better.”

  Ermolt looked down the two pathways, his hand rubbing his hairless chin. “I bet it’s right,” Ermolt declared after a moment.

  “Why’s that?” Elise said, stepping up beside him, careful to not scatter Athala’s items. She looked back and forth with him, arching the torch as far as she could down either path without actually stepping beyond the fork.

  “The walls,” Ermolt said, making Elise raise an eyebrow. “You see? There are fewer torch sconces on the left side. It’s probably a less traveled path. If one torch went out, there would be a big dark space between the torches.”

  “I see them, but I disagree.” Elise rested her own torch in one of the closer sconces. She was tired of holding it. “A more traveled path would need fewer torches because people would notice sooner and replace them faster. A
side path would want more torches so that you could go longer without replacing them. They probably wouldn’t even have all of them lit at once.”

  “Interesting theory. Want to bet on it?” Ermolt grinned.

  “Hmm.” Elise feigned consideration for a moment, trying not to mirror his smile. The barbarian was the newest addition to their group, and while his confidence was sometimes irritating, his candor was refreshing. “I’m not sure. What are you offering?”

  “Well, I could throw down some money, but that wouldn’t be interesting enough.”

  “Of course,” Elise said, watching Athala work for a moment. The wizard’s hands passed over Draconian symbols she’d drawn on the floor, and even though her eyes were closed she traced each symbol almost perfectly. Elise looked up at Ermolt again. “Did you have something else in mind?”

  “How about the loser gets their face dragged through spiderwebs on the way out?”

  Elise barked with surprised laughter, clapping her hands together in glee. “Oh, you’re on.”

  “Hey Athala,” Ermolt said, “we’re going to scout a bit ahead. Yell if you need anything.”

  Athala made a grunting noise that might have been acknowledgment. It was hard to tell when she started doing anything with her magic. They’d discovered a few weeks ago that she had a sort of reflex action to grunt in response to any attempt to talk to her while she was working. Elise had decided that it was a defense mechanism to make people think she was listening so they wouldn’t actually interrupt her.

  In the past, Ermolt had spent time getting Athala to grunt in agreement to a series of slowly more and more ridiculous statements, until eventually Elise’s peals of laughter cut through the concentration and got Athala to actually pay attention to them. But since Ermolt actually had a purpose he was likely looking forward to this time, he just shrugged at Elise and motioned down the left-hand hallway.