Fyre Fly: Chapter 35 - Catalysis

Ollie and I head up to meet Mirzayael and soothe her worries as Dizzi and the rest continue loading the shuttles. They’ll be bringing Sandro with them when they’re done. Unsurprisingly, the town claims no responsibility for his actions, and are more than happy to let us take him off their hands.

Mirzayael is already waiting for us when Ollie lands.

“Everyone’s alright?” she asks, quickly checking Ollie over. When she finds no injuries, she turns to me.

“We’re okay,” I assure her for the seventh time in as many minutes. “Though it looks like we might be needing to put Ragna’s cell to use once more.”

I gave her the short version of events while Ollie and I flew back up to meet her. She expressed concern about bringing Sando back with us, but I’m more worried about letting him go and then not knowing where his is or what he’s doing. Mirzayael suggested a more permanent solution that I quickly shot down.

“His Role is not his fault,” I privately tell her. “I can’t kill someone over something they’re being compelled to do.”

“If you don’t, Ollie’s life will be at risk,” she points out.

“I will not let anything happen to Ollie.” My response is a little more fierce than I intended. “But as long as there’s a chance of finding a way to help them both, I have to try.”

“I don’t even know if there are any dragons left in the world, Fyre,” she says. “And if there are only a few, would you be willing to help kill them for this stranger?”

I don’t have an answer for that.

“There’s more,” I say aloud with a sigh. But first I turn to Ollie. “You can go play with Meritis if you like. Mir and I need to talk about some boring adult stuff.”

The dragon manages to roll his eyes. “I’M NOT DUMB! I KNOW YOU GUYS ARE GOING TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING IMPORTANT.” He waits a moment. “BUT I AM GOING TO GO FIND MERITIS, BECAUSE IT PROBABLY WILL BE BORING.”

I chuckle, patting his nose. “Have fun!”

We wait until Ollie has jumped off the wall and circled up toward the palace. Mirzayael turns to me expectantly.

“Blair found me in the marketplace.” As I relay the conversation I’d had with the god, I lean against the dock’s parapet and look down over the land far, far beneath us. It’s a breathtaking sight, one Mirzayael does everything in her power to avoid.

“I don’t trust her,” Mirzayael says once I’ve finished. “Why would she help us? There’s no motive.”

“Besides doing the right thing,” I point out. “Maybe she just doesn’t want to see a couple thousand people die for no reason.”

Mirzayael scoffs. “It didn’t stop them before.”

“What if it’s true that there is some discord in the heavens?” I ask. “What purpose would she have to lie about that? If they all wanted us dead, at this point, we would be.”

Mirzayael shakes her head, letting out an annoyed sigh. “Perhaps some of them might disagree on some things. Perhaps those two don’t want us dead. But that doesn’t mean they have no ulterior motive for helping us. They’ll ask for something in return, mark my words. And when they do, it won’t be an ask.”

I hope she’s wrong. But deep down, I suspect she isn’t.

“Either way, I suspect Blair’s warning is authentic,” I say. “The longer we remain aloft, the more we run the risk of drawing the attention of a god who is not interested in our wellbeing. We should try to find somewhere to settle soon.”

Mirzayael scowls. “Easier said than done. Did you have any luck finding information about mana ore mines?”

I grimace. “Not yet.”

As we wait for our ground crew to return, Mirzayael orders a couple guards to go prepare Ragna’s cell. It’s another ten minutes before I can make out the dots of harpies and our shuttles in the sky.

“Oh,” I say, my mind returning to Sandro. “There’s something else about the man I forgot to mention before. I think it’s unrelated to his Role. But he was wearing this magical cloak when we caught him. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to take it off; it appears to be sentient, and tried to fight us when we bound him. Our cells should hold Sandro just fine, but the cloak will cause us some trouble if it manages to escape.”

“A magical cloak?” Mirzayael repeats. “Strange. I’ve heard of garments imbued with proactive spells, but nothing that moves on its own. Are you sure he wasn’t controlling it? Perhaps with some form of Attunement?”

“I’ll double check when he gets here, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him.” I watch as the flying dots start to resolve into recognizable shapes. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

“This should be fun.”

I jump, head whipping to my right. Lisari is casually standing there, grinning.

Well, I can feel it’s Lisari.

The figure beside me has the same black and white clothes, potion bottles at their hip, dark hair, pale skin—but that’s where the similarities with the scholar end. The Lisari before me now appears taller, male, and though his hair is black, it’s because it’s made of faintly wafting smoke. Similar black fog drifts from his eyes. His very presence seems to exude power.

And danger.

I had felt it with Blair and Lisari before, but now I can also see it: this is a god.

I swallow down the pit forming in my throat. “Shirasil?”

Mirzayael’s head snaps in my direction. “What? Is he here? Where?”

I gawk at Mirzayael, then turn back to the man standing right next to me, feeling as though I’m losing my mind.

“She can’t see me,” Shirasil says, resting an elbow on the parapet and his chin on his fist. “Don’t bother.”

Then I catch sight of Blair, on the other side of Mirzayael. Like Shirasil, she now appears in a far more celestial form, with a subtle glow beneath her skin, and clothes that seem to float around her body like she’s underwater. I’m sure she hadn’t there a moment before. A chill runs through me.

“Shirasil is to my right and Blair is to your left,” I mentally tell Mirzayael, attempting to quell my panic. She looks wildly around. “They must be hiding themselves from you somehow.”

“Why are you here?” I ask Shirasil, since he’s the closest. Though he’s also the most likely to answer my questions, I wish it was Blair I was speaking to. Somehow, despite Blair’s aloofness and Shirasil’s persistent cheerfulness, she feels the less dangerous of the two.

“Careful, now,” he teasingly warns. “Talking to yourself? That can’t be a good look. What will your people think?”

He rests his hand, palm up, on the wall between us. “Psionic Touch would save you the trouble.”

I stare at the hand, abruptly reminded of the helplessness I’d felt the first time the gods hard cornered me. I try to stuff down the instinctive panic, focusing on keeping my head clear. I lean faintly away from Shirasil until I brush up against Mirzayael’s side. She leans back, providing a solid, comforting wall, and wraps an arm around me.

“Tell me precisely where,” she mentally replies. “I’ll strike at those places.”

“And then what?” I ask. “Run? No—no. I don’t think they’re here for us.” I glance at Blair out of the corner of my eye. She’s not looking my way, but at something outside the fortress.

“Is this another test?” I ask aloud, despite Shirasil’s offer. I try to follow Blair’s gaze, but there’s nothing of note except our approaching shipment of supplies.

“No, no, of course not!” Shirasil says.

But Blair says, “Yes.” She’s still not looking at me. “The most important test of all.”

“I’d call it more of an experiment,” Shirasil says, grinning madly as he also turns away. “Hypothesis: the remnants will react capriciously but the Travelers will maintain authority.”

“Predicting that the results will be unpredictable is not a real hypothesis,” I say before thinking better of it.

But Shirasil just laughs. “I suppose we’ll find out.” Then he casually places his hand on my arm.

I stiffen. His touch is cold, and I brace for whatever he’s planning next. But he doesn’t do anything else. He doesn’t squeeze my arm or try to hurt me. Does he want me to use my Psionic Touch? Why not say so?

I glance toward Blair. She’s on the other side of Mirzayael, at an angle where she wouldn’t be able to make out what Shirasil was doing. Was that intentional? Does he not want her to know?

“Not much time left now,” Shirasil remarks, leaning forward. The comment could have ostensibly been for Blair, but I’m fairly certain he’s trying to tell me something.

I take in a nervous breath.

[Psionic Touch activated.]

“Smart girl,” Shirasil says in my mind, and I shudder. The voice is somewhere between Shirasil and Lisari’s—or perhaps both speaking at once.

“What do you—”

“If the impending encounter goes poorly, Blair will take you, the boy, and the Dungeon Core, resulting in the destruction of this city and all its inhabitants,” he says. My heartbeat quickens. “Take hold of the Dungeon Core now… if you can.”

I tense, then privately reach out to Mirzayael. “Say nothing,” I tell her, trying to remain calm. “Don’t react.” I quietly open her link into the Psionic Touch.

“Why?” I ask Shirasil, reaching out to the Dungeon Core. “What’s about to happen?” The Dungeon Core stirs at my attention, happily greeting me, but I’m at a loss of what to do. Take hold of it? Its mind is not some tangible thing I can wrestle into submission.

“That depends on you,” Shirasil says. Mirzayael stills, but doesn’t make a sound. “Perhaps nothing will happen. Or perhaps we’re about to have a significant problem on our hands, and things will get very exciting. Either way, the boy won’t have any say in how this encounter resolves.”

“The boy?” I echo. “Ollie?” No. Ollie’s back in the palace, and the gods are looking out away from the city. Waiting for someone to approach.

Like our traders.

“Sandro,” I realize. What about him? The way his Role could impact Ollie? Or… “The cape. It had a mind of its own. It’s like the Dungeon Core, isn’t it?”

Shirasil grins.

“But why is it up to me?” I ask, still desperately trying to imagine myself wrangling the Dungeon Core under control—an entity whose consciousness has expanded to be larger than the city itself. “If something happens between the Dungeon Core and his cape—can’t he stop it?” A cape seems far easier to control.

Shirasil’s laughter rings through my head. “You’ve spoken with him. He has the mental fortitude of a wet rag.”

“And you think my mental fortitude will be enough?”

“I’m not here to flatter you,” Shirasil says, his amusement dancing through his words even as my anxiety is being wound tighter. “We’ll soon find out. But I think there’s a chance. You demonstrated your ability to think on your feet and act cool under pressure the last time we met. And even now you had the wherewithal to slip someone else into our conversation to eavesdrop. Hello, by the way.”

Mirzayael’s grip on my shoulder tightens.

“Why are you doing this?” she demands, now that her presence has been exposed. “Why are you hiding this from your fellow?”

Shirasil chuckles. “You told her about Blair, too? Of course you did. It’s quite simple: I don’t want you to fail.”

“And Blair does?” I ask, skeptical. She had just been telling me how she would be willing to cover for me and Ollie… as long as I maintained control of the Dungeon Core.

“No,” Shirasil says. “Neither of us want you to fail. But Blair won’t stop you from doing so. She believes organic encounters produce organic results. If she knew I was helping, she’d be extremely cross with me.” He sounds far too amused while he is saying this.

“How are you helping?” I ask, exasperated. “I still don’t know what to do!”

“Its power flows through you,” Shirasil says. “Don’t forget that you hold the reins. Its area may be wide, but its influence is small… for now, anyway. Don’t constrain your mind to what you see: imagination has no bounds.”

I don’t understand all of what he’s telling me, but the comment about holding the reins—he’s right about that. I control the mana that allows the Dungeon Core to exert its influence over the city. I’d once pictured it as a pipe of running water, where I could increase or decrease the rate of flow.

“Time’s up,” Shirasil says, removing his hand from my arm. He eagerly leans forward. “Here we go.”

The shuttles are so close, I can make out everyone’s faces. I check the Dungeon Core’s Map: they’re just outside its area of influence, still invisible to the Dungeon Core’s eyes, but that will change in a matter of seconds.

“Mirzayael,” I quickly say, but she’s already read my mind.

“I’ll secure Sandro,” she promises. “You focus on the Core.”

And then they’re within the Core’s range. Its attention latches onto the cape like magnets snapping together. It startles me with its suddenness, even knowing something like this was coming. A rumbling hunger overtakes the Dungeon Core, and it grows jittery and excited. It wants to eat this. It wants to eat this more than it’s wanted to eat anything!

At the same time, raised voices drift across the air. “No!” I can hear Sandro shout. “No, don’t!”

I’m having a similar mental conversation with the Core. I grab the faucet to the Dungeon Core’s flow of mana, and I hold it tight. No, I tell it. You can’t eat it.

Mirzayael gives my shoulder one last squeeze, then sprints from our place at the wall, drawing a line of silk as she rushes for the docks. I grab the edge of the parapet, white-knuckled as I clutch the stone, and feel the Core push back against me.

But it wants this thing. It wants it so bad! And it would be so easy to eat, it wouldn’t even take that much mana. Or maybe it would savor it, tearing it apart piece by piece—

No, I say firmly. I won’t be giving you mana for that, and that’s final.

The Dungeon Core sours. Why won’t I let it have this one thing? It’s not asking for much. And it needs it! It craves this thing, this food that feels so distantly familiar.

It can still sense my resolve, however, and it grumbles with growing agitation.

Fine. If I won’t let it have any more mana, then it will repurpose some mana of its own.

It takes a fraction of a second for me to realize what it means. I’m still letting mana flow through our connection. I have to if we want to keep the city afloat and operational. But not every function it’s powering is necessary. If it diverted all the mana I’m giving it for powering the lights in the palace, for instance—

I shut it down. I shut every single non-essential spell down, throttling the Dungeon Core’s mana flow simultaneously. My ears painfully pop and cold wind blows over us as the atmospheric spell powers off. In the castle, every fire, every light, every stove and water pump stops functioning. All I leave running are the spells that are keeping the city floating and stabilized.

The Dungeon Core throws a fit. It thrashes at my mind. It complains and demands and cries. It’s acting like a toddler, lashing out at my conscience with ineffective blows. I’ve only ever seen it remotely act like this before when I immersed it in the thermal spring water it hated so much—and this is much worse.

But I’ve overcome it before, and I’ll do so again now.

I steel myself. I imagine my mind as solid and unyielding, and the Core’s attempts to throw itself at me suddenly become a whisper. Shirasil was right; though its influence affects a large area, I still hold far more power over it than it does over me. I can’t let its abilities skew my perception of reality. I’m in control.

Ollie surfaces in my mind. “WHAT’S IT DOING? IT’S BEING SO NOISY!”

“Sorry. It tried to eat something it couldn’t have,” I tell him.

“OOOOOH.” Ollie sounds very understanding. “SORRY, CORE. SOMETIMES YOU CAN’T HAVE CANDY, AND IT’S NOT FAIR. WANT ME TO GET YOU SOME MORE SEA SHELLS?”

Finally understanding the futility of its struggle, the fight goes out of the Dungeon Core, and it puddles to the floor of my mind, pathetically sad. It supposes some sea shells would be nice.

“OKAY!” Ollie happily says. “ME AND MERITIS CAN GO GET SOME NOW! IT’LL BE FUN. BE BACK SOON!”

The Core encourages him to come back quickly. And maybe grab some of those pink shells, they’re the Core’s favorite.

I slump, loosening my grip on the wall. “Thank you, Ollie. That was a big help.”

Ollie, who seems unaware of how close we were to catastrophe, happily accepts the praise before his attention switches back over to Meritis, who is speaking to him.

I also return to the Dungeon Core. Will you behave now? That’s the only way you’ll be getting back access to all that mana.

The Dungeon Core gives a heavy, defeated sigh, but agrees to not eat the tasty thing. Can it have more mana now?

One good thing about the Dungeon Core is that it doesn’t seem to have any concept of lying, or the ability to do it itself. If it says it won’t try to eat something, then it means it—even if it might change its mind about it later. For now, though, I think I can trust it to behave.

I begin funneling mana back through the Core and turning the city’s spells back on. My ears feel stuffy as the air pressure and temperature start to slowly rise back toward their previous levels.

The shuttles pull into the dock, and Mirzayael is on Sandro in an instant.

I look over at Shirasil. Per usual, he’s smiling.

“And you said that wasn’t a real hypothesis,” he teases.

I grimace. “It was more like a prediction, anyway.” Shirasil chuckles, and I turn to Blair next. “Did I pass, then?”

She gives me a considering look, then nods respectfully. “You did well.”

Maybe that would fill me with more reassurance if I hadn’t known she’d been inches away from dooming the entire city.