Bel turned quickly enough to whip her snakes through the air.

  “Everybody, back into the sled,” she commanded, pointing at the bare-bones death trap. She shoved the stragglers back onto the slab of stone and prodded Jan into motion. “We need to get to the bottom, fast.”

  Beth pushed past Bel and hopped into the sled, where she bumped shoulders with the scorpion man, Seth. “I hear you didn’t do a great job explaining where I went, big guy.”

  He shrugged.

  “What about ambushes–” the whip-wielding delver woman began to ask, but Bel cut her off.

  “We’ll go too fast for that,” Bel snapped. “Like hell I’m letting Technis get away now. Move it, Jan.”

  The worried meerkat waited to see if anyone else would object, but Beth looked around angrily, cowing the rest of the group.

  “If it helps,” Beth began, “I don’t think Clark was expecting me. I get the impression that he stayed behind, and that everyone else is gone.”

  “Well, alright,” Jan finally relented. He placed his paws on the front of the sled and did something with his abilities to make the sled slowly slide down the ramp.

  Bel was instantly disappointed.

  “Can’t this go faster?” she demanded.

  “Please, don’t push him,” the hard-hitting delver begged in a quiet voice.

  “Faster?” Jan replied with a grin. “Oh, we’ll go faster.”

  As they talked, the sled picked up speed, not all at once but continually, as if it was unaffected by friction with the ground. Soon, Bel’s snakes were wrapping around her neck to avoid flying backwards. Everyone clutched onto a few bumpy handholds that Jan had left in the rock while their eyes watered from the wind.

  “Fast enough for ya?” Jan shouted over the screams of the hard-hitting delver. Bel looked at the expression on the heavily-muscled man and nearly laughed, despite her desperate mood.

  “I’ve been slingshot across the underworld in a garbage glider,” Bel shouted to Jan. “At least I can see where we’re going. This is fine.”

  “Oh?” Flan said with a mischievous grin. “Then maybe–”

  “You are almost at the bottom,” Cress gasped out. The flying gorgon was easily keeping pace when she was dropping straight down, but she had to strain her wings to circle and talk with them. “You should slow down.”

  “Ah,” Jan said. “That’s the hard part.”

  Flann tucked his head between his knees and clutched onto the sled. “Better brace yourselves,” the fox shouted. “And close your eyes!”

  Bel shook her head at the group’s exaggerated fear, at least until Jan began slowing the sled. Instead of letting it naturally grind to a halt, Jan gestured and the sled ate a section of ground. The sudden increase in height and change in speed made the sled skip and tip precariously, but, just before they flipped over, the new section popped off the sled, which caused it to careen in the other direction.

  He repeated the action, eating and spitting out slabs of rock, which sent the sled bouncing and sliding across the ground. Bel had to dig her metallic nails into the rock to keep her grip. Once she was stable, she was surprised to notice that they were actually slowing rapidly.

  But why?

  She looked at the rocks and realized that it would be the same as her picking up a large, stationary weight while running. The mass of it would slow her down. James had once explained the process to her with some fancy words, but Bel preferred to think of physics in terms of large rocks.

  The sled finally ground to a halt, a good twenty strides away from a blank rock wall that would have turned them into paste if they’d hit it. There was a wide passage to their side, unlit and foreboding.

  “Why not just let us grind to a halt?” Bel asked. The muscled delver was busy throwing up and Cress was panting heavily from racing the sled, so Bel decided to give her group a momentary break.

  Jan wiped sweat from his snout. “Really? You aren’t the least bit impressed?”

  Bel shrugged. “It was cool. But why not just grind to a halt?”

  Jan sighed. “Because at that speed the sled would rip apart and we’d go flyin’. Just the shaking at that speed would knock your eyes out.”

  Bel nodded. “Interesting.”

  She turned to her group. “Is everyone ready now?”

  The delver wiped his face and nodded. She got mumbled assent from the rest.

  “Great!”

  “I’m pretty much outta oomph,” Jan said. He staggered over to a wall and sat with a heavy groan. “Just gonna rest here a bit.”

  “Ya want me to stay?” Flann asked.

  Bel was worried that she was about to lose two of her most dependable fighters, but Jan waved at the fox. “Nah, you go ahead. I just don’t wanna slow you down.”

  “There’s still a good chance that Technis and all of his people are gone,” Beth said.

  Bel clicked her tongue. “Let’s assume otherwise until we find out something different.” She reformed the metal of her armor into a wide, round shield that she held in front of her body.

  “I’ll lead. Anyone else have any defensive abilities?”

  Beth tapped her knuckles Seth’s chitin covered shoulder. “This guy is pretty tough.”

  Bel looked him up and down. She remember him being good in a fight, but that had been so long ago. She wasn’t sure if her impressions still carried any weight.

  “You want to take point with me?”

  He shrugged.

  “That’s a yes,” Beth translated, gently shoving the scorpion man forward.

  Bel shook her head, but she help up her shield and advanced down the only passage at the end of the hallway. “Flann, can you give us some light?”

  “Sure thing.” The fox lifted his staff and summoned a few hovering orbs of flame.

  “Not much to see,” Beth muttered, peering around the wide, empty hallway.

  “No reason to slow down, then,” Bel replied.

  As they went through the wide tunnel, Bel saw a few signs of recent use: shiny bits of discarded metal, a few broken straps, the occasional scrap of food. “It looks like people passed through here recently,” Bel said, picking up the pace. “Maybe they haven’t finished their escape.”

  The group went silent, tension tightening their throats as they approached what would either be an epic battle or an epic disappointment. The hallway seemed to stretch endlessly though, and the silence grew thick and stifling. Bel forced her jaw to unclench and shifted her shield back and forth in her sweaty hands. At her current rate she was going to wear herself out just thinking about the fight.

  She looked around at her group and sighed. “Okay, let’s stop for a break.”

  The hard-hitting delver turned to her with wide eyes. Bel noticed that his shirt was drenched with sweat, and when she caught a whiff of he she could smell his fighting spirit from five strides away. “But–”

  She held up a hand. “Let’s take some water. We don’t know how long this will go on. There’s no point reaching Technis if we’re on our last legs.”

  “Did anyone bring water?” Beth asked.

  Flann snickered as they all looked around. “Oh, you young’uns are the best. I’ve got a bit with me, if no one minds sharing.” He shook a metal canteen that hung from his shoulder, making a sloshing sound.

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  “I have some as well,” Cress added, tapping a water skin at her waist.

  Cress and Flann took sips from their own water before passing them around.

  Bel frowned at herself as she realized how ill-prepared she was.

  “Am I forgetting anything else?” she asked.

  The fox shrugged and scratched one of his ears. “I can’t say I know anything about fighting an ascended god. I guess we’ll just have to wing it.”

  Cress flapped her wings, stretching them out. “Lempo will provide a solution, won’t she?”

  Bel grimaced. “She is my only relative who doesn’t show up unexpectedly.”

  “Ah, whatever. A good punch to the face will work just as well on Technis as anyone else.”

  The hard-hitting delver jabbed his fists through the air, sending loud cracks reverberating down the tunnel.

  Flann grinned. “I like your enthusiasm. His face’ll probably be more protected than most though.”

  Bel nodded. “Yeah. Nobody should expect him to be an easy target, and he’ll probably have at least some of his army with him.”

  “If he hasn’t gone already.”

  Bel glared at Beth. “Stop being so negative.”

  Beth chuckled. “Oh, how the tables have turned. You used to be the negative one.”

  Bel snorted. “Okay, enough rest, let’s go.”

  They continued, covering twice the distance they had already travelled before something changed. In the distance, they could see a yellow rectangle: the exit, lit by some mysterious light source. Bel flipped up her eye patch and examined the light with her spirit vision, but she didn’t see anything strange about it.

  They sped up unconsciously, eager to finally put an end to their long march. By the time they reached the end of the hallway they were moving at a near sprint, and burst into the new room with a great clatter of weapons and footsteps. Their sounds echoed through a vast cavern that was large enough to swallow a town or two. Darkness covered the edges of the chamber, and the only thing visible was a glowing orb twice Bel’s height that sat at the apex of a flat-topped pyramid. With her spirit vision, Bel could see an incredible number of grasping threads disappearing into the orb. It was obviously a portal.

  “Is everyone gone?” the whip-wielding delver asked.

  “Not quite,” a smug voice replied.

  Bel group turned as one, and Bel planted her shield in front of her to block any sudden attacks.

  The hard-hitting delver roared with fury. “Technis! I’ll avenge my–”

  His words ended in a splatter of blood when an enormous foot kicked him, splattering him as a child splatters a snowman. “That doesn’t seem likely,” Technis said.

  Bel and everyone else dove away from the five-times normal-sized god spoke. Fear took hold of her limbs and she pounced away, her body recognizing the threatening voice even if it was a bare wisp of a memory. His voice was bored, holding nothing but disdain. He wore a long robe of deep blue, and his deceptively plain face was eerily underlit by the glowing orb.

  Her turned to Bel and she staggered back from his attention. Her snakes hissed angrily as she instinctively shoved her back against the stone pillars of a small shrine that lay forgotten in the vast cavern like an abandoned child’s toy.

  “Were you coming for me? But you do not look pleased to see me.”

  A bit of fire washed against his robes and he flicked one of Cress’ pilums out of the air before it hit his face. “Or were you coming for the portal?”

  He gestured at the glowing orb. “I am afraid that there is no reason to keep it open now that you have dealt with Clark. You will have to rush if you want to get through.”

  He arched an eyebrow at Bel and she snarled. “I’m here for you, Technis.”

  “For me?” he said with mock surprise. “And here I thought that you preferred your mother.”

  Bel gasped with surprise and anger. “How d-dare…” she stammered, her voice choking off as her throat constricted with rage.

  He laughed at her. “There is no reason for us to fight, you know. I am already leaving.”

  He snorted at her. “And I’m doing it without your help, I should add. Your mother promised me a useful child, but you have been anything but.”

  “I’m not your child,” Bel hissed. “And I never promised you anything.”

  He smoothed out a small fire that was spreading on his shoulder. “It is more of a social contract, I suppose. Still, stories where the child attacks their parents abound. I should have heeded the warning.”

  He sighed and slowly looked over Bel’s group. Flann was still launching fireballs and the whip woman was trying to sneak up behind the large god. Cress was circling overhead, clearly looking for an opportunity.

  “Since you are here though, you can satisfy some of my curiosity.”

  Bel glanced at the portal, which had shrunk down to person height. “You’re not actually here,” she realized out loud. “This is just a puppet.”

  He laughed. “Of course! Did you think I grew five times my height? From what? Eating my vegetables?”

  He snapped the hem of his robes through the air, tossing Crecerelle across the room.

  “Cress!” Bel yelled helplessly.

  “So,” Technis continued, “tell me what ability allowed you to overcome the guardian I left on top of the Pillar. You must be holding something back.”

  Beth coalesced from the shadows around the god’s ankle, stabbing her dagger into him above the strap of his sandals. Or she tried to – her dagger glanced off of him, barely leaving a nick in his flesh.

  He twitched his foot to kick her, but she jumped out of the way. When he reached down to swat the assassin, Seth jumped in front of her and stabbed the god’s hand with his sharp tail.

  Technis laughed, grabbed a fistful of dirt and rocks from the ground, and tossed it at the pair in a high-speed volley of debris. They were blown off of their feet and dashed against the ground. Technis stomped after them.

  “No!”

  Bel pounced right at the god’s face. If she could just get close enough…

  His hand snatched her from midair, squeezing her painfully.

  “Well?” he demanded. “This is getting boring and you have yet to answer my question.”

  Bel prepared her mirror essence, but the god suddenly dropped her with an angry hiss of pain.

  “Electric whips? What stupid god hands out that ability?”

  Technis turned to the whip-wielding woman and kicked, but she whipped the open air and teleported away in a flash a light.

  Technis groaned. “I am truly looking forward to the Old World, where things make proper sense.”

  He slammed his foot into the ground, shaking the cavern floor repeatedly until everyone was knocked to the ground. Then he reached for the prone delver, a look of satisfaction upon his face. His smirk was washed away when a ball of flame exploded on his eye.

  “You annoying, demihuman scum!” he cursed.

  Bel watched in horror as Technis reached out and snatched Flann with his enormous hand. She pushed herself to her feet and flung her body at his face once again. She activated mirror essence in midair this time. She was already exuding the misshapen essence that would interfere with cores and abilities as she landed on his shoulder.

  “Let him go!” she demanded.

  “Oh?” Technis responded. He shook the small fox, and Flann screamed in pain. “This little guy? Don’t tell me that you like the demihumans. The Bargainer was a fool for trusting the gods, and a fool for degrading humanity with such weak blood.”

  He shook his hand again, and Flann screamed once more, but more weakly this time. Bel hauled herself up the cloth on his shoulder and scratched him on the side of his face. “Let him go!”

  He tossed the broken fox to the floor. “Since you asked nicely.”

  He reached up and grabbed her instead, imprisoning Bel in a grip that felt like the pressure of an entire ocean. “So is this it? A bit of essence manipulation? Clog up our cores with something weird? It is effective on a lesser being, perhaps, but on a god?”

  He stared at her, waiting for something else while Bel struggled helplessly.

  “Well, I am not impressed. Your mother insisted that you be a gorgon, but I see no gain from it. Just her strange humor, perhaps.”

  He watched her with malicious interest as he squeezed her body with increasing pressure. “You are more durable than the typical human, but that gives little–”

  He was interrupted when the ceiling fell onto his head. The god fell to the floor from the weight of the impact, but he kept his grip on her. Then the ceiling grew a mouth – several of them – and gnawed on his arm, tearing straight through the bone. Bel was freed when his arm was severed at the elbow.

  “You annoying spirit! I shall be glad to be rid of all of you as well!”

  Beams of light emerged from Technis’ body, vaporising layers of rock, but the amorphous spirit continued her relentless assault.

  Technis’ head popped from the rest of his body and tendrils grew from the neck so it could scurry away.

  “Oh, it matters not!” the god cried petulantly. “When I return, it shall be with the unstoppable force of human ingenuity! Even the pantheon shall fall to its knees!”

  The head hurled itself at the pyramid and exploded. A blast of fire and heat spread out – and then collapsed into the glowing orb, eradicating the portal and the pyramid in a climactic boom. Nothing was left but a few sparks of light.

  “Oh no,” the spirit groaned. She formed serpentine body formed of rocks and Dutcha quickly slithered across the floor. Multiple arms burst from her body as she grabbed the sparks and began sticking them together.

  “Lempo warned me to be careful about this, but it’s nearly destroyed!”

  The spirit looked around the room until her gaze settled on Bel. Her eyes opened wide with delight and she slithered close.

  “I’m just going to borrow some of that,” she told the dazed gorgon, before poking Bel in the eye.

  Bel screamed with pain. “What the hell?”

  Dutcha held up a glowing finger. “Just borrowing some of that spirit you’ve got in your eye. Nice addition by the way. Anyway, it’ll help me open this back up.”

  The great spirit poked her glowing finger into the pile of sparks and a small orb came to life her hands.

  “Phew! Quickly now, hop right in.”

  Bel looked around the room. Her group – the ones who were still alive – were slowly getting to their feet and staggering back to her. Seth was supporting Beth, and it looked like one of the assassin’s legs was broken. Crecerelle had a broken wing, and her limping didn’t look good either. Bel stood up – and she was fine, mostly. Sore but fine.

  She ran to Flann’s furry form, still laying where Technis had tossed him.

  “Flann!” she yelled, hoping for a reaction. He lay still, and Bel rushed to put her ear to his chest, hoping to hear something. She froze in terror, but she heard a breath, and his chest was still moving. The dam of her emotions broke, and she began to cry.

  He was alive, but he looked awful. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth and his limbs were twisted at angles that made Bel’s stomach churn.

  “Hey, Bel?” Dutcha called out. “I can only keep this open for so long, you know. You have to hurry.”

  “But I need to save Flann!” she yelled back through her tears. She angrily wiped at her face. “He was only here to help me!”

  Dutcha’s rocky face squinted at the small fox. “I, uh, don’t really understand these human things. Mortals all die eventually, right? They die all the time. But getting through this portal can only happen now.”

  Bel turned to Beth, desperate for help. “What can I do?”

  Beth let Seth pull her along to Flann’s side, where she dropped to the floor to examine the injured fox. “Maybe that priest can help him, but he’s not going to survive long.”

  Bel slipped her arms under her friend and lifted him.

  “Whoah, whoah,” Dutcha called out. “What are you doing? This is the plan! We can’t open the portals without a key, and Technis spent hundreds of years building that one!”

  “I have to save my friend,” Bel called back.

  “No, no, no! I spent forever eating that mountain, just so I would have to strength to keep one of these things open! You can’t just walk away!” The spirit slapped her tail against the ground, and her rocks grew cherry-red with the heat of her anger.

  “He’s my friend! I’ll be right back, but I’ve got to help him!”

  “But this isn’t the plan!” Dutcha shouted. “Do something, Lempo!”

  Bel ignored her, and ran from the room as quickly as she could while cradling her dear friend’s failing body.