Bondsfungi: Chapters 19-20 (The Weirkey Chronicles) (Patreon)

I just posted an essay over at r/progressionfantasy if you want to read it! Just a few thoughts on the subgenre I tried to articulate in a useful way.

Advance apologies that the remainder of this book is going to include more cliffhangers than usual. I think switching between plots will read well in full book form, and hopefully give the back half of the book increased intensity, but you're going to be left hanging some of the time. At least after these chapters you know what's going on. ^-^

-

Chapter 19

At first Issak thought he had died, then he was plowing dirt with his face. He pushed himself up, ready for an attack, but saw no one. That was when he realized that it was much worse than he'd thought.

The earth wasn't a natural red, it was covered in blue and purple filth. When he looked up, even the sky had changed to a sickening purple, emanating from a terrible violet sun. For a second he went back to his theory that he had died and gone to some underworld, like some of the tribes believed, then he pulled himself together.

His back hurt and his spear was still covered in the blood of an opponent. His back wouldn't hurt in the afterlife. More likely he had fallen into one of the other worlds that some claimed existed in the city. Those stories had always struck him as even less credible than tales of the afterlife, and he'd always thought that the strange people he saw occasionally probably just came from some far-off island. But now he definitely felt like he was in another world.

"Ho!" Issak called out to the surrounding space, without any response. No one within sight, and no sign of the battle. He chose a random direction and set off, beating his spear against the ground.

He'd landed in a relatively flat area, but there were blue and green plants everywhere. A terrible monster appeared without warning from behind one of them and Issak cried out in anger before thrust his spear at its head. To his surprise, it glanced off some sort of natural armor and instead dug into the beast's body.

It must have been a sublime beast, because it didn't die immediately, but it wasn't close to the equal of a third stage warrior. As it gnashed blade-like jaws at him, he hefted the beast into the air and smashed it into the ground, then blew it apart with a rush of cantae. No real challenge, but if there were more of those things, he would need to move cautiously.

Some time later, after killing several more of the beasts, he spotted another human. Not anyone he knew, a man from one of the other tribes. Just a first stage warrior, unfortunately, but better than one of the city dwellers.

"Ho!" The other soulcrafter waved and approached him. "What is this place?"

"We've been thrown to another world," Issak said. "Everyone else must have been as well."

"Is something wrong with the air? It feels..." The man cut off, panting for breath.

At first Issak assumed that the man was simply weak and out of breath, but when he filled his own chest with air, it did feel wrong. Not like poison, but wrong. Issak snorted loudly and drew his cantae out of his soulhome, resisting whatever the effect was.

"Get used to the air." Issak grabbed the man by the back of his shirt and pulled him upright. "This is a savage world, without a city dweller in sight. Without their farms and walls, they'll be helpless. If we work together, we can rule this place."

~ ~ ~

Nauda stumbled in total disorientation, at first wondering if she had been struck by an attack. She had been in the middle of a fight with several of the barbarians when they were all distracted by truly massive levels of cantae, presumably Wiltur attacking again. Then something even more fundamental had begun to fall apart, Nauda's body had been stretched across an infinity, everywhere and nowhere, and she had stumbled into a new world.

It was blessedly verdant compared to Fithe, but the purple sun left no doubt she was far from home. Nauda began running through the worlds she hadn't visited, considering what she knew of each. Before she could reach a conclusion, she realized that something was wrong with her breathing and focused on the more immediate problem.

Clearly, something in the air was different than other worlds. Nauda stepped into her soulhome and quickly found the mask that she'd used in the Chasm. Back in the real world, she placed it on her face and breathed carefully.

When she paid close attention, she thought that the air felt a bit thicker, almost like she moved through a fog even though it was completely clear. In theory, her body should have transitioned when she was thrown between worlds, so she wouldn't immediately choke to death or die from a simple illness. That was no guarantee of health or compatibility, however, as her visit to Ichil had made quite obvious.

After several breaths, Nauda decided that the mask wasn't helping. There was nothing in the air that needed to be filtered out, the fundamental quality had changed. She hung the mask around her neck in case it came in useful and focused on her breathing. The throbbing core of her heartoak was burning throughout her chest at a very low intensity, perhaps helping her adjust. She would have to accept it for the time being.

The region appeared to be composed of rolling hills in all directions and she had landed in a relative depression, leaving her with little horizon. Nauda cautiously moved to the top of the nearest peak, hoping she would find that others had been transported nearby.

No one at first, so she began moving methodically. As she reached the top of another rise, Nauda suddenly saw an enormous bug emerge from the bushes and froze.

It was larger than any bug she'd seen before, as long as she was tall and rising past her knees. More than anything it reminded her of the insectoid demons, but it didn't immediately attack her as a demon would have. The large black eyes stared in her direction and some of its six legs shifted, but she had no idea how to read any of its body language.

"Hello?" Nauda started softly. "Can you tell me where I am?"

The bug looked at her a little longer, then shuffled on. Something about the blank way it had stared at her made Nauda suspect that it was an animal, not one of the intelligent inhabitants of the world. That, or it had just snubbed her.

Despite the dire circumstances, or perhaps because of them, the idea made Nauda smile. She decided to steer clear of the bug in case there were more of them: even if it wasn't violent, it had large jaws that looked like they could do some damage. If only her telescope had been in good working order, she could have examined it further, but instead she continued exploring.

Several larger hills later, her hopes that everyone else had landed nearby had died. Instead she settled for gaining a stronger understanding of her circumstances. There was a small nest of the bugs she'd seen earlier, a cluster of trees inhabited by smaller eight legged bugs, and a number of flying bugs.

She was beginning to realize that her language needed more words to describe bugs. On Tatian, they were all minor annoyances or crop pests, but here they seemed to be the dominant form of life. She'd tried talking to all of them, but they'd reacted with either indifference or mild hostility until she retreated.

When she traveled further in the direction the sun was setting, Nauda began to see other signs. There were no more hives of small bugs and she spotted a few tree trunks that looked smoothly cut. Reaching the top of the next rise, she finally caught sight of something resembling civilization.

What she'd at first taken to be another hill was in fact a hive, dozens of bugs moving to and from various holes. Though roughly similar in shape to the others, these clearly had greater intelligence. Some carried bundles of materials, other collaborated on digging, and a few stood in a perimeter around the hive. She'd reached civilization... which wasn't necessarily a cause for relief.

Even if they were intelligent, that didn't mean they were friendly. Nauda didn't see any signs of weapons, but they all had vicious pincers on their faces and their feet ended in dexterous claws. She was considering whether or not it would be a wise idea to approach them when she abruptly spotted another human.

It was one of the wild tribes soulcrafters, not a particularly strong one. They'd been enemies a short time ago, but in an unknown world they might be allies. He was hiding behind a bush, examining the hive, so she moved up behind him quietly.

"Peace." Nauda's first word still startled him, but she quickly raised her hands in a passive gesture. "I have no intention of fighting you, not here. We're all strangers to this place."

"Stay away, city dweller." His glower broke apart when he spoke, and the man reached for his mouth in surprise. "What's wrong with my voice? What have you done to me?"

"It's soul translation." She did her best to listen to her own words instead of the meaning, but couldn't glean much meaning from them. The sounds struck her as a mix of clicks, whistles, and other odd sounds, plausibly the language of these bugs. "It's because we're in a different world."

"No more lies! I'll survive on my own, so just leave!"

Nauda frowned, wondering if it was worth forcing the issue. She'd only met one person so far, and when the sun set she could use someone to help keep watch for wild beasts. Of course, given how little she trusted him, working together could be an even greater threat.

He solved the problem for her by sprinting from the bush, away from both her and the hive. Yet in the process he moved within sight of the guarding bugs, which roused themselves and started to move forward. The faster the wild tribes soulcrafter moved, the more the guards closed on him, until finally one stood in his path.

"Stand aside, or I'll cut you down!" He drew a sword and menaced the nearest guard.

They didn't say anything or threaten, one of the other bugs simply struck him in the side. Nauda took an automatic step forward to help, but it was too late: the guards killed him almost immediately, then they began dismembering the body. She could only stare in horror as several of them carried the remains back into the mound.

Nauda carefully slipped away from the hive, reconsidering her plans for this new world. They were clearly too organized to be simple sublime beasts, yet they had no other traces of civilization. She did suspect that they only attacked when he got too near their territory, but she wasn't sure. If she saw any other organized bugs, she was staying far away.

The sun had reached the horizon, its color fading from a brilliant violet to a softer purple. As it grew darker, Nauda desperately hoped that her friends weren't alone in some far-off world...

~ ~ ~

Being violently thrown across space and time to enter a new world wasn't something Theo had experienced many times, and he would be happy to never repeat it. He recovered fast enough to catch himself as he fell through the crack in reality, then he groaned.

The earth, the sky... this was definitely Slest. It had a bad reputation as one of the most lethal worlds for unprepared world travelers. Arbai might have a more unlivable environment, and Ichil might be the most actively predatory, but Slest was uniquely dangerous. The average sublime beast was supposedly powerful enough that even Archcrafters were at risk.

Since he wasn't immediately in danger, Theo let his thoughts drift back to the battle. The Ichili who had arrived must have been Fiyu's relative, based on her cry. There was some family resemblance in the lean frame and dark hair, though he wore a metal mask that covered the lower half of his face. He'd been impressive, a soulcrafter at the very peak of Authority. And the way he'd layered so many strikes so precisely and rapidly to deflect a Stronghold technique spoke to an extremely high level of skill. Unfortunately, his arrival had made everything far worse.

Theo was confident that Wiltur had destroyed his weirkey as a tactical decision. Insane, expensive, and reckless, but tactical. No opponent on the battlefield was a large enough threat to make him panic, so Theo guessed that it had something to do with what Tythes had been shouting. What had happened or what he was doing was unclear, but apparently Wiltur had decided it was worth sacrificing a valuable asset.

The sundering of the weirkey would have broken a ragged hole between worlds, casting them all to the key's destination. Unfortunately, the chaos between worlds would have tossed them around during the transition, so there was no telling how far the others might be or just how many had fallen through. Their best hope was that one of the Authorities had a Fithan weirkey to take them back.

Meanwhile, he needed to get his feet under him. Theo noticed that something was wrong with his breathing and hypothesized that the atmosphere was composed of different gasses, perhaps too different for the shift between worlds to fully adapt. He began exploring the area, searching for sublime materials that could be used to assist the process.

Though he was unsuccessful in that, he discovered his sleigh lying over a hill. It had been banged up when it landed, but otherwise it was in tolerable shape. Unfortunately, they'd unloaded many supplies to take more people and the few left had apparently been thrown out. Still, it was better than nothing.

Finding the sleigh made Theo optimistic that he'd find the others quickly, but as he widened his search radius, he discovered no one. There were a few strikingly red rocks that had presumably been thrown from Fithe, and one corpse, but no living people. Usually breaks between worlds only took beings with a soul, so this explosion must have been especially bad.

Finally he spotted someone hiking over a nearby hill... Kathina. Theo rapidly drove closer to her and she waved with both hands, then gave an enormous smile of relief when he got close.

"Lucky that we ended up nearby." She vaulted up into the sleigh behind him and he set it to hover in place so they could talk to one another. "I was afraid we'd all been sent to other worlds."

"No, I think everyone who got caught in the cracks was sent to Slest."

"So that's where we are. Unfortunately, the House of Coin has absolutely no information about this world. There's only one gate to Slest on the entire continent, and it's within Wavefront's borders."

"I have basic supplies, but we need more, starting with local sublime materials to adapt." Theo eased the sleigh into movement again, though he kept it low in case the local inhabitants were active. "I don't suppose you found anything?"

"Actually, I did." Kathina pulled a compass-like armament from her soul and grinned. "Normally we use this to track down sublime materials in the wasteland, but it works here too. Everything I found was too weak for soulhomes, but I can show you."

She guided him to a hollow that flowed with cantae, sublime plants filling every cranny. The way they clustered together seemed reminiscent of cultivation, but Theo saw no sign of any owners. He hopped out to examine the materials, testing their properties carefully to find those related to respiration. Kathina quickly understood and eventually they found flowers with pale green leaves that felt appropriate.

"We need to adapt to breathe this world's air perfectly," Theo explained as he began picking some for his soulhome. "A wreath of these should be enough for a start, you just have t-"

"I know the principle. I haven't done exactly this before, but I can manage it."

Indeed she could. Theo thought he was rather skilled at impromptu soulcrafting, but Kathina finished only a minute or so after him. Once he'd made a wreath of the flowers and placed it on his soulhome door, each breath came a little more easily.

That was a pretty good start to getting his feet under him. Theo leapt back into the sleigh, nodded to Kathina, then they began to explore.

~ ~ ~

For a time, Fiyu merely sat on the ground and struggled to contain her dismay. She had been so close to Relative Guchiro, only to be torn away by a strange twist of fate she didn't understand. Just seeing him had made her heart ache, then it had all been taken away. By the time Fiyu controlled her emotions, she needed to lift her mask to wipe away tears.

Her situation was not hopeless. She recognized her surroundings as Slest; Relative Guchiro owned a weirkey for that world. He had even showed it to her, a spiky key of chitin. The way she had been thrown into the world randomly meant it could take him a long time to search, but now that he knew she was alive, he would definitely come for her.

More concerning was his behavior, which she could not explain. It was true that Associate Karchibol should not have grabbed her, and Relative Guchiro was always very quick to defend anyone under his protection. But his method of contacting her, and his immediate attack, struck her as unnecessarily suspicious.

Had he not received her message? Perhaps he had been trailing her between worlds ever since the accident and only now caught up to her, without ever returning to Ichil. Whatever the reason, she was certain that there would be a rational explanation once she could speak to her relative again.

In the meantime, he would want her to be as resourceful as he'd taught her. Because he owned a Slescan weirkey, he had advised her regarding the world. She would need to make a few modifications in order to thrive in the new atmosphere, and her stealth technique would need to shift because the world made heavy use of the sense of smell. Now that she reflected on his lessons with more experience, she believed that he had even tried to warn her about how bright the sun was. At the time she had thought it would be like a cavesteader lamp in the sky.

But she was not the child she had been then, and the purple sun was nowhere near as oppressive as the one in Tatian. Fiyu would adapt and find her friends, then she could introduce them all to her relative. If she was cautious enough, she could finally be reunited.

Unfortunately, even her relative could not teach her about all the possible conditions on an entire world, so she would need to improvise. Most importantly, the level of aggression in the locals varied widely between continents and even regions, and Fiyu had no idea where she had landed. It was best to be cautious until she understood better.

Fiyu had just found sublime materials to help her breathe when she noticed another person approaching. It was a soulcrafter from House Crimson, which put her on edge at first, but the man didn't appear to be angry. Instead, he raised both hands to show he didn't hold a weapon or cantae.

"Please, you need to help us! She was hurt, and now she's even worse..."

Though suspicious of a trap, Fiyu felt his body twitching in actual panic, so she followed him. He led her to a small cluster of trees, where an old woman lay. Fiyu recognized Acquaintance Gethyrue, though she looked much worse than before, with burns across her face, one arm scorched, and bloody gashes in the robes around her legs.

"When I arrived, terrible beasts assaulted me!" The soulcrafter had to pant for breath, clearly not having been able to adapt yet. "I was barely able to flee them, and she saved me. But the beasts are nastier than they look, and she was already so injured... she needs treatment, or she'll die."

"I am not a healer, but I will help as much as I can." Fiyu bent down beside the old woman, testing her breathing. It felt weak, but her cantae still flowed strongly within her. "We need to carry her away, immediately."

"Carry her? That would just make her wounds worse."

"You killed the beasts here." Fiyu rose and looked until she found the insectoid corpses, which didn't take long. "Those were trained animals, and they may have released a message in death. Their masters will be coming soon."

-

Chapter 20

After an entire day of searching earned them only one House Crimson soulcrafter and one barbarian, Theo decided that more extreme measures were necessary. Unfortunately, their search had also revealed that the region was filled with hives of organized and aggressive insects. While Kathina guided the other two in collecting food and making a camp, Theo soulcrafted.

He'd invested some time into his sensory chamber, but hadn't needed to put it into heavy use until now. Now he carefully set the depthclaw shells in their carved places and poured the abyssfluid inside. When he walked around his soulhome, they made quite detailed ripples, but learning to use it outside his soulhome was an entirely different challenge. It was like trying to control a new limb and he could have used tips from Fiyu, but he made gradual progress.

Once he was confident he could sense a major threat before it got in range, it was time for a better search. Too much of the day had already passed, so Theo camped for the night, sleeping in the sleigh instead of bothering with the rest of camp. He didn't really trust the barbarian woman with them, but she was outnumbered three to one and apparently cooperative.

The next morning, they all piled in to gain altitude. Theo let Kathina drive so that he could focus fully on his sensory skill, otherwise just providing a reversed gravitational field to lift them as high as possible. More and more of the landscape around them became visible and there were no obvious threats as they ascended into the bluish clouds.

No obvious allies, either. Other soulcrafters might be hiding under tree cover or inside the occasional caves, but Theo didn't see any sign that the hives weren't operating as normal. Rising high enough, he eventually caught sight of a substantially larger hive, practically a miniature city even without considering underground tunnels.

"Are we sure that we can't contact them?" the House Crimson soulcrafter asked. "I was examining the ones that look like ants, and they're not sublime beasts. If they have soulhomes, then they must be intelligent enough to communicate."

"That doesn't mean they'll be friendly," Kathina said. "From what I've seen of them, I don't think their intelligence is really like ours."

"Maybe they could build this much like normal ants, but can they maintain a complex society this way? They must have leaders of some kind, and I refuse to believe they all operate so mindlessly. They've domesticated animals, after all. What if w-"

"Look!" The barbarian woman lurched to her feet and pointed in the other direction. "There are kin down there."

When Theo followed her arm, he spotted a small group of humanoids moving over the hills. It was hard to see details, but he thought she was right that they were from the wild tribes. Not who he wanted to find, but better than nothing.

"I don't like the terrain between us." Kathina carefully eased the sleigh around and began moving in that direction. "Look at those raised areas... I think there are tunnels underneath. I guess if we can fly over them it doesn't matter, but..."

"We need to land." Theo felt something in the sky and at first thought his new sense was malfunctioning, because it couldn't be that big. Whatever it was, it was flying toward them fast.

As he let normal gravity take over, Kathina guided their fall and slid them toward a cluster of trees that would hide the sleigh. They were none too soon, because a speck on the horizon grew rapidly. Just as they finished obscuring themselves it came into sight: a black beetle the size of a house, buzzing directly toward them.

Worse, it was just an animal. There were reins leading down from its head to a woven platform that hung underneath, and he spotted several individuals on it. Most stood upright, unlike the giant ants, but they seemed to have too many limbs. Possibly the true Slescans.

"They saw us. We need to fight." The wild tribes soulcrafter stepped out of the sleigh and hurled her spear.

Theo and Kathina sprang into action at the same time, thankfully choosing different targets. He managed to grab the spear before it flew outside the trees, stopping its flight without using any cantae. Kathina covered the barbarian's mouth and pinned her against the sleigh. The soulcrafter from House Crimson stared at them in surprise, mercifully silent.

They all waited as the beetle buzzed overhead, circling around the region and clearly searching for them. After a time, it buzzed on without any of the occupants searching the ground. Theo could still feel it traveling over nearby hills, no doubt searching for the flying vehicle that had been detected. That was going to be a real problem.

"Touch me again and I kill you." The barbarian shoved Kathina away, though the threat was weakened by the fact that she hadn't been able to escape until Kathina let go. "We could have fought them."

"And they would have sent more. You can't just kill scouts and expect no retaliation."

"It doesn't matter what sublime beasts they have. We can't cower in fear."

Kathina folded her arms and fixed the barbarian soulcrafter with a flat gaze. "If you're going to disobey and get us into a conflict, you're a liability. Don't do it again."

To avoid an argument that would just waste time, Theo handed the woman her spear back. "We need to be cautious for now until we understand the local hives. They might view us as intruders."

"Umm..." The House Crimson soulcrafter cleared his throat before trying again. "Are you sure they'd attack us? The ones riding the beetle clearly used tools. This area must be their farm, with the ants being... I don't know, their earlier life stages, or a different species. Shouldn't we consider talking to them?"

"Not when we have so few options."

The soulcrafter looked to Kathina for support, but she shook her head immediately. Theo thought that she had the better grasp of their situation, and fortunately the other two couldn't really challenge them. That might be a problem if they met up with the larger group of wild tribe soulcrafters, who it would be too much to hope the barbarian had forgotten about.

That night they ate a meal of stringy meat from one of the wild beetles plus a few gnarled fruits that had proved to be edible. Theo had plenty of food in his storage chamber, but kept it in reserve while they could forage. Plus, he wasn't going to feed a large number of potential enemies.

When they settled down to rest, the barbarian soulcrafter tried to sneak away from camp almost immediately. Kathina went out to intercept her and they argued in terse voices before eventually returning. Theo knew that was going to be a problem and wished he could trade the barbarian somehow. He'd gladly toss someone to the flesh-devouring ants in exchange for Fiyu and Nauda.

More beetles buzzed throughout the night, but the air was clearer in the morning. His group headed over the uneven region, keeping the sleigh low to the ground while watching for insects between the ridges. Theo's new senses informed him of an unnerving number of bodies moving in the tunnels below, comparable to an ant colony on Earth.

If they attacked, their numbers would be overwhelming, but Theo wasn't concerned about that. A single gravitational field would likely be enough to deal with the relatively weak ants and their sublime beasts, no matter how many there were. What bothered him was the intelligent Slescans: he didn't know how many Rulers the hive could field, or whether they had any Authorities. Flattening part of a colony would likely lead to a distress signal that would summon more.

"Waste. Remove." An unearthly voice floated to his mind, not touching his ears, oddly flat and yet ethereal at the same time.

"What?" Theo looked back to the others, who only stared at him. "Did someone say something?"

"We've all been completely silent," Kathina said. "I have pretty good hearing, and the most I can hear is the insects crawling below the ground."

"I could have sworn..."

"Are you feeling okay, Theo?"

"Waste. Remove." The words came to him again and Theo whipped his head around, trying to find the source. Except he was starting to wonder if it could be a sound at all, since it didn't seem to come from any direction, just floated through the air. Yet he did get the sense it came from below...

"Are you sure you didn't hear anything?" Theo asked as he searched around. The Crimson and barbarian soulcrafters stared at him as if he'd gone fully insane.

Just when he was beginning to wonder about it himself, Theo saw one of the beetle-like creatures emerge from the mouth of a tunnel. They all tensed up, fearing detection, but the beetle never once looked up. Instead it pushed a ball of what looked like gray mud in front of it until the sphere rolled down a slope. Theo shifted the sleigh's arc, both to hide better from the tunnel entrance and to see the slope.

At the bottom was a small pit, filled with similar balls of waste. He couldn't help but draw the connection to what he'd just heard, but how did that make any sense? If Kathina's ears were better than his and she heard nothing, he needed a lateral explanation...

Judging that it was worth the risk, Theo floated lower, just over the entrance. The beetle had returned inside, but another emerged soon. Theo closed his eyes and concentrated on listening, but he didn't hear anything. At least, not until Kathina drew in her breath.

"You idiot!"

The sleigh wobbled and Theo opened his eyes and looked back. He saw the barbarian struggling with a beetle and thought they were being attacked before he saw the metal hook through its head. Judging from the trailing rope, she must have hooked one of the beetles and jerked it upwards. Distracted by him, Kathina hadn't been fast enough to stop her.

"What's the problem?" The barbarian cracked open the shell, examining the innards. "These are way bigger than the other beetles, so they've got have more meat on them."

"Do you think you can just take one of them without consequences?" Kathina leaned over her seat to grab the barbarian, who glowered back at her.

"We killed the other ones without a problem. But fine, if you care so much..." She scooped out some of the meat and hurled the corpse over the side of the sleigh.

Kathina lunged out to grab it before it could fall, but the insect's body broke apart. Theo cast a gravitational field to catch both, almost too late for the reversed gravity to cancel out their momentum. Once both were lifted closer to the sleigh he managed to breath a sigh of relief, while Kathina grabbed the barbarian by her leather shirt.

"You realize that could bring the entire hive down on us?" Kathina nearly shouted before controlling her voice.

"They're just bugs." The barbarian shoved off her hands and began sniffing at the meat she'd collected. Kathina's anger cooled into something worse and she sat back, slowly wiping her hands.

While they argued, Theo pulled in the beetle fragments. At first he thought they were surprisingly odorless, but as they got closer he was overwhelmed with a stench worse than anything he'd ever smelled. Except a moment later it didn't smell so bad, more like some sort of flower. Theo wrapped the pieces in a cloth and rubbed his forehead, feeling the beginning of a migraine.

"Incursion. Incursion. Incursion."

The eerie voice whispered to him again.. and Theo felt the insects underground begin moving more rapidly. He didn't hesitate, just grabbed the sleigh controls and began flying at maximum speed.

As they raced over the region of tunnels, insects began to spill from the entrances, swarming in all directions. His abrupt movement had jolted the others, but they all fell silent when they saw the horde. Fortunately it seemed to be mostly ants, canvassing the ground instead of looking up... but a large number of them were gathering around the tunnel where the beetle had been killed.

The sleigh managed to outpace the signal, but Theo still felt the word "Incursion" thumping in his head over and over. Only once they passed beyond the tunnels did it fade and he finally let himself slow down. They found an unoccupied cluster of trees and hid themselves as well as possible, watching as the swarm slowly calmed down and began to return to their tunnels.

"We made it out." The Crimson soulcrafter slumped down into his seat, his face pale and sweaty.

"See?" The barbarian gave an indifferent shrug, though Theo thought it was bravado. Kathina looked about ready to shout at her, but Theo cut her off.

"Did you really hear nothing?" he asked. She frowned and shook her head.

Once the hive seemed to have subsided, his group settled down behind an unoccupied hill. Trees made good cover, but they also tended to house wild insects, and Theo didn't want to risk causing a disturbance that might be detected. Besides, the others needed time to recover from the close call.

He was more concerned about what he had been hearing. Theo crawled to the top of the nearest hill, peering over to examine the tunnel colony. It was still more disrupted than it had been at the beginning, and he didn't hear anything.

Yet he was sure that it hadn't been his imagination. During his years on Earth, Theo had learned multiple languages so that his soul translation in the Nine Worlds would be more flexible. So far it had worked just as intended: he heard basically any language spoken as clear English. This had to be something else, and though he had a theory, he wasn't sure he could really believe it.

One of the languages he'd learned fairly well was American Sign Language, which so far hadn't been tested. It seemed unlikely that soul translation would work for pure signs: what would it do, make his eyes see different symbols? After a decade without returning to the Nine Worlds, he'd decided that it was worth trying. He'd also made an effort to learn Morse Code, though he'd eventually dropped it because it felt pointless. Yet now he began to wonder if both had mattered after all.

When he thought back over the experience, he came to the conclusion that he hadn't actually been hearing any sounds. It had been pure meaning appearing in his mind, which he'd just assumed was a voice. Many insects communicated via pheromones... could he actually have been hearing those signals?

If so, then he might be making a breakthrough in communicating with the inhabitants of Slest. Theo turned around to the group just in time to see Kathina cut the barbarian woman's throat.

Kathina let the body fall and wiped off her sword before returning it to her soulhome. When she saw them staring at her, she shrugged. "What? She was clearly a liability, and at this rate she would get us all killed."

"You can't just..." The Crimson soulcrafter only stared at the body for a moment before his horror turned to her. "You think you're in command because you're stronger? That makes you no better than the wild tribes."

"What makes us different from the barbarians is that we can work together, and we'll all die if we don't."

Theo strode down the hill to interrupt them both. "There's no time to argue, not if this is in their range. Get the body. We need to move."

They obeyed, though they argued as soon as the sleigh got underway. Kathina believed that the insects wouldn't travel beyond a set territory, while the Crimson soulcrafter wanted to bury the body. In Theo's opinion they should run as far as possible, but he had to admit that charging into unknown territory would take on other risks. The west was occupied by the largest hive and going northeast would only bring them into contact with the larger wild tribes group. No doubt there were other threats he hadn't seen from above.

Once they got a safe distance away, he was overruled because Kathina didn't want to carry the corpse with them. They found a desolate region and she used her sword to cut a quick grave in the ground, the blade cutting the stone like cloth. Aside from insisting that it be deep and that they cover the beetle as well, Theo just hoped they worked quickly.

"From the wild tribes we came." The soulcrafter from House Crimson stepped over the grave and spoke the words like a benediction. "To them we must never return. We remember the sacrifices of our ancestors even as we leave behind their blood."

Theo stayed silent out of politeness, if not respect. Kathina didn't give that much, rolling her eyes at the display. Once it was done, Theo insisted that they move again before creating a camp. As far as he could judge the insect hives, he thought they were in a wasteland in between occupied regions, since he saw only wild bugs instead of any organized groups.

Just in case, Theo kept watch while the other two made simple food from the available resources and then slept in the sleigh. Theo ate some of the beetle meat, but once he was alone he reached into his soulhome and pulled some fruit from his storage room.

Though he watched the horizon for any sign of pursuit, he saw nothing and instead spent time thinking about Kathina's killing of the barbarian. Arguably murder, even though they had been mortal enemies just a week ago. The man Theo had been when he first returned to the Nine Worlds would have entirely agreed with her and possibly done the killing himself. Now he found himself evaluating her ruthlessness, even if he couldn't entirely disagree with her logic.

There was no sign of any insect groups by the time his watch ended. Theo woke up Kathina and settled into the sleigh, hoping that the next day would be less eventful than the previous.

He woke up to the sound of pained screams and insectoid legs skittering.