Memnarch channeled mana into the device. “Yes. Yes.” He turned away. “Perhaps achieving the state of planeswalker relieves some of the strain. Memnarch hopes so. It is a lot of work to struggle with the responsibilities of running an entire plane.”
He pushed his head back into the soft cradle, and the red lights raced over his skin.
Memnarch looked across the room at Malil.
The metal man stood stock still, watching.
“Do you understand what we are doing?” asked Memnarch.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps soon we will let you taste the serum.”
CHAPTER 4
Glissa’s eyes adjusted to the dark inside of the lacuna. The mossy ground glowed as it had before, but its light was far dimmer than that of the mana core.
“Can you see where you’re going?” she asked Bosh as he bounded up the tunnel, carrying her and Slobad.
“Yes,” came the metal man’s reply.
Bruenna hovered along behind, just off Bosh’s shoulder. She looked up the lacuna, and when Glissa looked over the golem’s shoulder they were almost face to face.
“How’s your leg?” asked the elf.
“It hurts.”
“How long will that spell keep you in the air?”
“Long enough to get us back to Lumengrid-if we don’t run into any vedalken or levelers.”
“Don’t look now.” Slobad stuck his scrawny arm out in front of him, pointing down the tunnel. “Well, maybe should look, huh?”
Glissa turned to see the point where the two paths in the lacuna joined, heading up the surface as one tunnel. Coming around the corner, spears held high, was the front of the vedalken army.
“Hurry,” shouted Bruenna. “If we can get past these few before the rest of them make the corner, we might be able to get by.”
Glissa could feel Bosh’s whole body rumble as he spoke. “Good plan.” The golem took off at double speed.
“Hope crazy elf can do that trick again,” said the goblin as they closed on the slowly growing group of blue-skinned soldiers. “Better figure out how to make it happen, huh?”
“Yeah, right,” replied the elf.
* * * * *
Marek turned the corner and looked down the other passage of the blue lacuna.
“There she is.”
“Sir, we’ve cut them off,” said a soldier beside him.
“Lord Pontifex will be pleased.”
“What should we do?”
“We should …” Marek looked back over his shoulder.
More vedalken soldiers filled the tunnel. It would be some time before his entire squad could march up the passage and join the fight, but more than a dozen soldiers already stood by his side, and more were arriving every minute.
“Sir?” asked the soldier.
“We should delay them, give the rest of the squad enough time to catch up with us. Don’t let them get past, and don’t let them go back down the lacuna. When more of our soldiers arrive, we’ll capture the elf girl and kill the others.”
“Sir, there are more than enough of us here to capture an elf, a goblin, a human, and a rusty old metal golem.”
“Perhaps.” Marek looked into the warrior’s eyes. “But we will do things my way, and you’re going to follow my orders. Right?”
“Yes sir,” replied the soldier. “We will delay them until the rest of the army arrives.”
Marek smiled. “Good. Make sure the others have their orders.”
* * * * *
“Are you sure we can get through?” asked Glissa as they scrambled up the lacuna.
“No,” replied Bruenna, “but what choice do we have?”
“We could go back.”
“The levelers have surely followed us into the lacuna. We’ll be trapped between two armies.”
Glissa looked ahead. The vedalken had lined up shoulder to shoulder, ten wide, across the tunnel, waiting. A second line had formed, and a third was beginning behind them as more soldiers came around the corner.
“What are they doing?” asked the elf.
“Clogging the tunnel,” said Slobad. “They hold us here for levelers. Cut us to little bits. Dead goblin. Dead crazy elf, huh?”
Bruenna nodded. “He’s right.”
“What do we do? We can’t fight all of them.”
“No,” said Bosh, “but we can bowl them over.”
“What-?” Glissa’s question was cut short.
Bosh lifted both she and Slobad off of his shoulders. A huge section of rusted iron opened on his chest, and the metal golem stuffed the elf and the goblin inside.
“You might get dizzy.” Bosh replaced the metal piece.
Glissa sat, knees jammed against her chest, in complete darkness. The heavy thumping of Bosh’s footfalls echoed loud inside the chamber.
“Is this going to work?” she asked.
“Don’t ask Slobad,” grunted Slobad. “Slobad don’t know what crazy golem doing.”
* * * * *
Bruenna flew behind the stomping golem. “What’s your plan, Bosh?”
“Stay behind me,” he said, “and stay close.”
With that, Bosh pulled his arms in to his sides. To Bruenna, it looked as if they were retracting. His head did the same thing, dropping down inside his body and disappearing from view.
The metal giant took three more bounding steps and leaped into the air. When he came down, he’d retracted his legs, and his whole body had turned into a perfect ball. The metal sphere rolled at the waiting lines of vedalken.
“Good plan,” muttered Bruenna, and she followed the rolling golem as he crashed into the soldiers.
Spears, helmets, and other accoutrements went flying, making a terrific noise as they smashed into one another and came down in a heap. Those soldiers who didn’t immediately jump from the way were squashed flat under the weight of the rolling metal ball.
Bruenna slipped in behind, following Bosh as he bowled the vedalken down like a patch of razor grass.
* * * * *
Marek couldn’t believe his eyes. One minute, there was a golem charging down the lacuna at him and his men. The next, a giant ball careened into his soldiers. Blue-skinned, four-armed vedalken were knocked every which way, many of them maimed or killed as the ball rolled over them and through the ranks. Marek dived out of the way to avoid being smashed.
Getting up from the ground, the vedalken lieutenant dusted himself off. He watched the still rolling ball and the flying human wizard as they passed swiftly through his shattered ranks, and continued up the lacuna toward Lumengrid.
“What was that?”
Moans were all he got in response.
* * * * *
Glissa braced herself against the inside of the golem’s empty chest. The steady beat of Bosh’s feet on the metal ground was interrupted by several loud slamming noises and one long grinding sound, then the world began to tumble. She wasn’t able to see anything in the lightless chest cavity, so she had no way of knowing which side was up. Whenever her head hit something hard, she figured she was upside down. Her legs, hands, and hair had become tangled with Slobad. Eventually, the two companions clung together for dear life.
“Slobad scared,” the goblin shouted.
“Me-”
Glissa’s response was cut short when her back smashed into something hard, knocking the wind from her lungs.
“-too,” she finished when she had regained enough composure to scream.
There were several loud thumps that sounded like something hitting the outside of the chest cavity. Abruptly, the tumbling stopped.
“Thank the maker,” said Glissa.
She had landed on her head. She was sure of this only because her neck hurt, and her feet seemed to be touching nothing but thin air. Flipping over, she untangled her body from Slobad’s and lifted herself up off the dark ground.
“Goblins not made for rolling, huh?” said the goblin. “Slobad sick.”
His words were followed by a gurgling sound, and the splash of liquid on the chamber floor. Glissa felt the wave of fluid flood over her feet.
“Nice, Slobad.”
The door opened and light poured in.
In the dark, Glissa hadn’t noticed how dizzy she had become. When she saw the wall of the lacuna, her head spun one way, and her eyes the other. She vomited.