Gwil’s throat burned with the familiar, awful taste, like rotten meat and bleach.

  He looked down and saw the tip of a glowing blue blade protruding from his stomach. The scholarly folks were squealing with delight.

  Rather than un-skewering himself, Gwil backpedaled into the blue man, slamming him into the wall. The entire boat shook at the impact.

  Gwil shrank up into his head to get out of his opponent’s grapple. That was a terrible mistake.

  A scream—more of shock than pain—tore from his throat as his left leg was sliced off at the hip. Gwil curled up as he hit the floor, his shrunken leg landing with a splat beside him. Shrinking upward had drawn his body up through the blade.

  “Aw, fuck,” he groaned, slamming his fist on the sonorous metal floor. Nirva rushed into his bleeding stump.

  As he rolled away, Gwil saw that he’d not been stabbed by a weapon—the blade was the blue man’s arm. The limb bubbled with claylike lumpiness as it morphed back into a hand.

  Challe stepped over Gwil’s tiny form, placing herself between him and Blue Guy.

  “Nice, Challe,” Gwil squeaked as he scrambled back. “Zap him!”

  She raised her arms.

  Nothing. “I can’t!” she cried.

  Blue Guy’s hand morphed into something like a shackle, and it closed around Challe’s neck. His other arm transformed into a blunt club, which he raised over his head.

  Gwil darted between Challe’s legs, hopping on one foot—his other leg had regrown to the knee.

  He raised his arms over his head and burst back to full-size, ramming his fists into Blue Guy’s gut. The man doubled over and Gwil uppercut him in the face. As Blue Guy’s head rocked back up, Gwil fisted the collar of his shirt and tackled him.

  Blue Guy stumbled back into the group of panicking scholars until he was table-topped by an open crate. His body folded inward to fit in the box.

  Gwil fell into the crate with him. He got his hands around Blue Guy’s throat and squeezed, surging Nirva.

  A frigid explosion erupted from Blue Guy’s body, blasting Gwil up into the ceiling. When Gwil landed, a few frozen chunks of flesh broke off his body and went skittering across the floor like gravel.

  Gwil swallowed against gags as he got to his feet—the severed one had grown back except for the toes. That explosion was pure Kaia—blue-black smudges stained the air. The blotches buzzed like mosquitoes.

  Blue Guy extracted himself from the crate, coming up with both arms shaped into swords.

  “Yo,” Gwil said. “How are you doing that with your arms?” Though Blue Guy didn’t have Buzzard’s monkeylike body, the two of them felt the same to Gwil’s sense. But Buzzard sure couldn’t transform his body parts like this.

  Blue Guy spat out some gunky blue blood and then raised his bladed arms, angling them forward like a praying mantis. The explosion had torn his shirt, and dirty frost coated his mangled chest.

  “Hey, I wanna know how you’re doing that,” Gwil repeated. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Challe fending off the gaggle of scholars, who were ineffectually attacking her with assorted objects.

  “Mm, I heard you the first time. But I would rather not, mm, speak to a peasant.”

  Gwil shrugged, then charged. As his opponent lunged with his blades, Gwil shrank down into his feet, then, inside the man’s reach, jumped straight up.

  He clung to Blue Guy’s face like a bug. Pop. As Gwil’s arms grew, they locked the man’s head in a hold. Using the momentum of his increased weight, Gwil flipped Blue Guy over and slammed him down.

  With his foot that was still boot-clad, Gwil Nirva-stomped Blue Guy’s face. Each subsequent blow landed with a squishy crunch. Gelatinous blue blood spewed out in chunks. The man’s eyes rolled back as he writhed.

  “That’s what you get for being sneaky,” Gwil said as he continued stomping.

  The air squirmed. Gwil felt it like worms crawling on his skin. He dove away as another explosion burst from Blue Guy’s chest.

  Frost hissed, spreading wherever the blast had touched. Gwil held his breath against the rancid Kaia and rushed into the rippling remnants of the explosion, throwing himself on top of Blue Guy.

  Coldness nipped at Gwil’s hands as he bashed in the man’s face with his fists. Blue Guy raised his bladed arms in defense.

  Gwil laughed and reinforced his hands with Nirva. He grabbed the edges of both freezing-cold swords and leaned his weight on top of them, pressing the blades into Blue Guy’s face.

  The man screamed, eyes bulging with terror as his face was cleaved open until it hung in flaps. He went still.

  “That was stupid of you. You sword-arm people should be more careful,” Gwil said. He turned to Challe. “Let’s get out of here. Yuma isn’t…”

  He trailed off at a sensation akin to having his ears unclog after a week of being water-logged. Myriad little sounds rushed to fill the absence of the thunder. The storm had stopped? No, it’d just gone quiet.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  ***

  “Are you shitting me?” Cort shouted. “That idiot. I explicitly tell him we’re gonna destroy the station and what does he do? Goes right inside.”

  He and Leira were making their way up the mountain of rubble, nearing the precarious tower that they intended to topple. Below, the floating station rocked around in the water.

  “Your hand signals were ambiguous and bad,” Leira said. “But it doesn’t even matter that they’re inside. Gwil and Challe won’t get hurt. We can continue as—”

  She cut off as something happened above; the storm went quiet. They both looked up toward the now-sealed breach.

  “Shit,” Cort grunted.

  “Oh, fuck,” Leira said. “I do know that guy. It’s that smarmy, moth-fucking archaeologist.”

  ***

  Gwil jumped to his feet. “Was that you?” he asked Challe.

  She shook her head.

  Gwil grinned. “It must be the king. C’mon.”

  He crossed the space, making for the hatch. The raw flesh of his new foot clung to the metal with every step. “Wait, let me get my shoe.” Gwil squinted, looking around for his leg. He found it by the droplets of blood, but it was tiny…

  “Uhh.” Pop. Gwil shrank down and removed his shoe from his dismembered leg. Then he put it on and grew back. The shoe became big.

  “Nice. Yeah, let’s go.”

  “Mmmmmm!” A squeal like a tea kettle. “You’ve ruined my face!”

  Gwil whipped around to see Blue Guy—surrounded by a few of the scholars—trying to sit up.

  “Huh? Weren’t you dead? Ohhh! Are you Hallowed and blue?”

  Blue Guy’s face was healing, but it was coming together all wrong. The tattered flesh was forming into a hardened mask of carapace-like ridges. He looked more insectoid than human. The exposed tissue that should’ve been pink had been scorched black. His chest had been transfigured in the same way, the skin like a shell.

  “I will need to get surgery,” Blue Guy spat. “You will, mmm, regret this. I swear it!”

  “You look cooler this way. Like a beetle warrior,” Gwil said. He turned to Challe and nodded her toward the ladder, then jumped up onto the roof.

  “You act like this all the time?” Challe hissed as she climbed up after him. “I thought you just felt bad for me or-” She cut off as she reached the top of the ladder. “How?”

  Remnants of the storm dribbled throughout the green-lit atrium. The wind and the thunder pounded against the temple from outside, now just a fist knocking on a door. Above, the breach had been sealed by a spiny crystalline substance.

  That glassy mass shifted; bits fell away like sawdust as a man-sized tunnel burrowed through the surface. The storm whistled through the hole as a metal cable with a hook on the end emerged, lowering into the atrium.

  A man was revealed, clinging to the line with one hand in the same way one might hold their umbrella. The tunnel sealed up behind him.

  He wore all white clothes, fancy type. His hair and beard matched. In his free hand, he twirled a wooden cane.

  Mir made of the man a giant. His form exploded into the eye of Gwil’s mind—an immense crystal pillar extending to the very limits. The latticing within the crystal depicted… so much. Flashing images of alien lands, impossible cities, ages past.

  Shit. This guy’s got a lot of juice. Except for Skuld—who, Gwil now recognized, buried things deep—Gwil had never felt Nirva like this.

  “That can’t really be him,” Challe said.

  Gwil shook his head. “It is. For sure.”

  As he reached the midpoint of his descent, the man said, “Some weather we’re having, eh?” Then he chortled.

  Gwil stared up at Yuma, unblinking.

  When he was about three meters above their heads, Yuma tossed his cane into the air, then aimed that hand at the water below. Cloudbursts of glittering crystal erupted from his palm.

  A pillar of haphazard, spiny chunks formed from that stream, something like a termite mound, growing out of the water. The king manipulated his power with his fingers and shaped the top of the pillar into a flat platform just below where his feet hung.

  Yuma stepped down onto the platform and then caught his cane without looking. He surveyed the atrium. A scowl formed on his face as he fixed on Gwil and Challe.

  “Did you harm my scholars?” Yuma asked.

  “Only the blue one,” Gwil said.

  “Heh. I’m sure he asked for it,” Yuma said. “He’s alive, though?”

  Gwil nodded.

  “Good. Very couth. You and I can have a conversation, then.”

  “I dunno about that,” Gwil said. “But we can try.”

  Yuma stroked his beard. “Did you kill Tezca?”

  “Yup.”

  Yuma folded his hands over the top of his cane. “I suppose it was time. He was both better and worse than I expected.”

  That was easy, Gwil thought.

  Yuma winked and something in his eye sparkled as he did so. “Here’s the billion-doubloon question, then. Where’s the Erithist Spike?”

  Gwil scratched at the scar on his chest and tried to imagine what Leira would say. “Gone.” He put his hands on his hips for good measure. “One of my associates fled with the treasure as soon as we secured it.”

  “That’s not the right answer,” Yuma said, straightening up.

  Gwil flinched when Yuma raised his hand. Something about the king set him on edge—the air felt stiff and crinkly since he’d arrived.

  Seeing that, Yuma smiled, revealing crystalline teeth. He’d only been reaching into his jacket’s inside pocket. He opened a case and lit a cigar.

  Beside Gwil, Challe stood frozen, breathing in stunted gasps.

  Smoke drifted from Yuma’s mouth and nostrils. “H’René!” the king shouted.

  “Mmyes?” the response came from within the boat, the voice carrying through the open hatch.

  “When the opportunity presents itself, please get the scholars to safety. Then I will go check on the Yaldabaoth Matrix site.”

  “Mm, certainly, Magister,” Blue Guy—H’René—called back.

  “Once that is addressed, we will decide what to do with the surviving Malikauans.”

  Yuma looked at Gwil again. “Now, thief, you have committed an unforgivable sin. I will have to torture you until I repossess the Spike.”

  Gwil cleared his throat. “That’s not gonna happen.”

  Yuma chortled again. Prim, delicate laughter—Gwil found it grating. “I see you, as I’m sure you see me. You are a child. But I’m more interested in the things I can’t see. Why are you still here?

  “You’ve profaned the tapestry of this World’s order—though I doubt you understand that, money-grubbing peasant that you are. That notwithstanding, you did secure the artifact. And yet, you’ve remained here to confront me? Why? Greed? Hubris? Delusion? What’s your angle?”

  Gwil said nothing.

  Yuma furrowed his brow. “Hm, is that it? I see you’ve captured the Vessel…” He looked at Challe. She trembled and then straightened—Gwil felt a spark.

  “You look quite spry for being fresh off of a crucifix,” Yuma said. “You must be a newer one.”

  “Get the fuck out of my home,” Challe said. The thunder boomed in harmony with her.

  “Ah, you’re allies. Mutual benefits, then. You thought if you mastered this temple, you could stand against me. Fair enough. The logic is there, however flawed. There is a puzzle piece that I just can’t place, though. What was that business with the teleporter? Did Tezca activate it in an attempt to save his life? Who destroyed it?” He looked at Gwil expectantly.

  “There’s no angle,” Gwil said. “I was just passing through and I didn’t like what I saw here. The teleporter was to let you know I wanna fight.”

  Yuma laughed. “I did hasten on over after I saw how quickly you butchered my troopers. I was monitoring a readout of their vitals, you see, as they were blown out like candles. Stock fodder just isn’t very reliable these days.” He shook his head. “You have my attention, boy. Where are your associates hiding?”

  “It’s just me,” Gwil said. He grabbed Challe’s two rear arms, spun while flaring Nirva, and launched her toward where they’d seen Cort and Leira. She landed in the water with a splash.

  He didn’t want her nearby until he knew what they were dealing with.

  Pop.