Undermind Book 5, Chapter 5: Brightsoul (Rough) (Patreon)

It was time.

Plunging through the silent dark, her body quivered in anticipation of the meal to come. Stronger than gravity, stronger than fate, the weight of souls was reeling her in towards the dusty marble of a dying world.

It was not the first. And nor would it be the last.

The world trembled at her approach. Trembled and died.

A single exhalation was all it took to set the air ablaze. A twitch of a tendril; a city erased. Mountains fell beneath her, leaving craters and canyons in their wake. When she reached into the ocean, colossal tsunamis rose up to smash coastlines across the globe.

And the souls… So many souls fleeing their shattered bodies. They streamed into the sky—and into her. She devoured them greedily; indiscriminately. It had been eons since she’d had such a feast, and it would be eons more before the next.

For there would be a next. The cycle must continue, or all would be lost.

Saskia awoke with a shiver—and not just from the cold.

“What the hell was that?” she muttered as she unfurled her wings, blinking in the pre-dawn breeze.

“Ixathi, methinks,” said Ruhildi, who apparently had shared her dream.

“It was a rhetorical question,” said Saskia. “I know whose memories they were. There are just many things I’d rather be dreaming about than Mrs Cthulu chowing down on a planetful of souls.”

After going all Cthulu on her captors last night, the last thing she wanted to do was dream about an even bigger Cthulu. Ever since she came to this world, this vague notion had been swimming in the back of her mind: that one day she might end up like Ixathi. Could that be the fate of all of her kind? Their underminds unleashed, wanting nothing more than to feed and feed and feed. Hell, her donkhole of a father was already well along that path.

But Ixathi’s thoughts, as best as Saskia had been able to tell from the dream, had not been wholly concerned with sating its hunger for souls—though there had been plenty of hunger. It had hinted at some other motive; some purpose for the apocalypse it had wrought. What that purpose was, she couldn’t begin to fathom.

It hardly mattered. She was like a termite trying to divine the thought process of a human kicking in its nest. If she was still in Gothgoria when Ixathi came kicking, her options would be fight or run. And she didn’t fancy her chances if she chose fight.

After flying aimlessly into the early hours of the morning, Saskia had finally roosted atop a tree in a sparsely-wooded forest. The landscape here was a tad less apocalyptic than the toxic desert of the Blightland and the stark, rocky terrain surrounding the Blightguard citadel. But only a tad. The trees were skeletal and contorted, with only a smattering of sickly yellow leaves hanging limply from drooping branches. Dead leaves littered the ground, while a few hardy bushes struggled to find sunlight. The only wildlife she’d encountered were screechy nocturnal birds and the occasional gaunt, spindly creature loping beneath the trees.

The souls of the dead seemed similarly few and far between on this side of the barrier. There should have been more of them here than in the Blightland, where nothing grew, and anything that could die already had. Which led her to speculate as to where the rest of the souls had gone. Could soulbinders, demons or some other monstrous entity have hoovered them all up? Ixathi?

Saskia was about to take to the air again when she realised she wasn’t alone—in the physical sense, because with Ruhildi and her demon passengers lurking in her soul-tree, she was never truly alone. A young human woman stood beneath her tree, head cocked to the side, looking up at her with huge, expressive eyes. The girl’s dress was torn, she was covered in grime, and there were dead leaves in her hair. She was sickly and pale, and probably malnourished. But looking beyond the physical, Saskia could tell there was something special about her. Behind the girl’s eyes, something blazed with the light of a miniature star—as if her soul was too powerful to be contained in that wisp of a body.

The girl held out her hand as one might do to a skittish pet. “Don’t be afraid, little imp. I won’t tell anyone I saw you.” She spoke the same language as the Blightguards, but with a heavy accent.

“It’s okay,” said Saskia. “By the time you got the word out, I’d be long gone anyhow.”

The girl nodded. “Good. You do speak Hirvalese. Would you like some tubefruit?” She held up a small sack, bulging with what must be the fruit in question.

Saskia made an ambivalent sound. “Are you sure? You look like you need them more than I.”

The girl chuckled. “Now you sound like Mother.” Suddenly, her eyes widened, her expression wilted, and she looked away, blinking rapidly.

“Are you okay?” asked Saskia.

“Y-yes,” choked the girl, wiping her nose on a grimy sleeve. “There’s enough for both of us. Come on down now?”

There was a note of pleading in her voice that Saskia found impossible to resist. And no, it wasn’t another Jedi mind trick—probably. She fluttered down to ground level, perching on a tree root in front of the girl. These talons weren’t really made for standing.

The girl held out her sack of fruit. Warily, Saskia craned her neck to peer inside. Despite the name, tubefruit were more ovoid than tubular. They looked a bit like capsicum, but when Saskia bit into one, she found it tasted sweet and citrusy. She devoured it in a dozen fast bites. Smiling, the girl handed her another.

“Thanks,” said Saskia around a mouthful of tubefruit. “I’m Saskia.”

“Elyendra,” said the girl.

They continued to eat in silence for a while, before Elyendra blurted, “I’ve never met an imp before.”

“That makes two of us,” muttered Saskia. Nine didn’t really count, because as an amalgamation of multiple souls, it was no longer, strictly speaking, an imp.

The girl frowned. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. So what brings you to these woods, Elyendra?”

The girl’s gaze turned furtive. “I…live here, I suppose. This is my home.”

“You don’t sound so sure of that,” said Saskia.

“It’s a…recent development.” Elyendra sighed.

“And not a happy one, I take it.”

“No,” admitted the girl. She seemed about to say something important, then changed her mind. “You’re different from what I expected.”

Saskia blinked at her. “Me specifically? Or imps in general?”

“See that right there is what I meant. You’re being direct. Imps are supposed to speak only in riddles.”

“Says who?”

“The stories. Then again, the stories also make your kind out to be vicious little pranksters.” A mischievous smile appeared on Elyendra’s lips. “You’re not going to poop in my hair, are you?”

Saskia’s mouth dropped open. “What? Ew, no!”

Elyendra giggled. “That was my reaction when Mother told me that story.” Again her expression sagged, and she hurriedly looked away.

The girl’s mother was clearly a source of pain for her. Saskia didn’t want to pick apart those wounds, but maybe she could be a proverbial shoulder to cry on? Sometimes it was easier to unload on strangers, and it wasn’t as if Elyendra could have many human friends to talk to out here in the middle of nowhere. “If you want to talk about it, I’m all ears.”

Turning back to her, the girl regarded her with liquid eyes. “All…ears?”

Clearly that hadn’t translated well. “It’s just an expression. I mean I’m happy to listen. But don’t feel you have to tell me anything.”

Elyendra pressed her lips together and shook her head.

Saskia sighed inwardly. Time to change the subjejct. “Anyhow, you living in a cave or something? I didn’t see any houses nearby.”

Elyendra shook her head again. “I have a…rock. It’s not much, but it keeps most of the rain off my head.”

Saskia couldn’t suppress a twitch of amusement. “So you’ve literally been living under a rock.”

Ruhildi groaned in her ear. Quiet, you, thought Saskia.

She followed Elyendra through the trees, across a burbling stream, and up a steep bank on the other side. On a small ledge part-way up the slope, a large, flat boulder was leaning against another bigger rock, forming a triangle. It was under that boulder that the girl had made her shelter, such as it was.

“I came to these woods just a handful of days ago,” said Elyendra. “I haven’t had time to…”

Saskia knew all too well that feeling of being alone in the wilderness, scrounging for food and shelter. But she’d been a nigh-indestructible troll when it happened to her. How much worse must it be for this fragile young woman? If Elyendra were lost, Saskia could lead her to the nearest village, but she was fairly certain the girl wasn’t lost—though she couldn’t say why. Whatever the reason, Elyendra was here by choice.

“No, this was a good find,” said Saskia. “But if you want me to help you turn it into something more comfortable, I think I can do that,” said Saskia. To Ruhildi, she asked silently, We could stoneshape a better shelter for her, right?

“Aye, but methinks you should be careful about revealing what you can do,” said Ruhildi in her ear. “We don’t ken anything about this lass. She may not be what she seems to be.”

I can’t go about distrusting everyone I meet, replied Saskia, again without moving her lips. This is a new world. We’ve already made enemies. Now we need friends and allies who aren’t dead. No offense.

“Who are you talking to?” asked Elyendra.

Saskia looked at the girl sharply. She was certain she hadn’t spoken aloud, so how did Elyendra know? “Oh, nobody. Just an…imaginary friend.”

Raising a sceptical eyebrow, the girl changed the subject. “If you think you can help, I’d be glad of the company. We can’t make it obvious anyone sleeps up here though.”

“You’re hiding from someone,” said Saskia.

Elyendra nodded slowly. “Hiding from everyone. Everyone from my village. The Blightguards. Everyone.”

Saskia nodded back. She’d suspected as much. “Okay then. We can build a secret hideout. It’ll be fun!”

“Only to a wee lass playing games of fancy,” said Ruhildi.

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with games of fancy, thought Saskia. Plenty of adults do it too, on Earth.

“They aren’t adults,” said Ruhildi. “They’re oversized babes still suckling their mams’ teats.”

Under Ruhildi’s guidance, Saskia reshaped the leaning rock, fusing it to its surroundings. She sealed off the back, and fashioned a front door of sorts that could be slid to the side. From the outside, the resulting structure simply looked like a single big rock. Someone would have to investigate very thoroughly to discover that it was hollow on the inside.

“I’ve never seen that kind of magic before,” said Elyendra, staring in fascination as Saskia put the finishing touches on the makeshift walls.

“It’s called stoneshaping,” said Saskia. “No surprise you haven’t seen it before. I’m not from around here.”

“You hail from Araduun? Koth?”

Saskia shook her head. “Earth, and more recently Arbor Mundi. And after that, the Blightland.”

Elyendra’s eyes went wide as saucers. “You came out of the Blightland? No-one leaves the Blightland!”

“So everyone keeps saying. But that doesn’t make it any more true.”

Suddenly, Elyendra took hold of Saskia’s shoulders, snatching her out of the air. Saskia’s wings flapped furiously as the girl shook her. “Did anyone else escape with you?” she demanded.

“Let go of me,” said Saskia. Her words came out harsher than she intended.

Elyendra did as asked, holding up her hands in contritions. “I’m sorry! It’s just…was there a woman? About forty years old, with hair the same colour as mine?”

Saskia blinked at her. And in that moment, she remembered the woman who had died trying to run back through the gate. Now that she thought about it, there was a resemblance… “Your mother,” she guessed.

The girl nodded excitedly. “Was she there? Did she make it out?”

Saskia looked at her for a long moment, trying to decide what to tell her. In the end, she went with the truth, minus a few unnecessarily awful details. “I’m sorry. Your mother passed away shortly before I got out. It was…quick.” Unless you count the fact that her soul maybe suffering eternally inside the barrier.

Elyendra didn’t react to her words in the slightest—not at first. She just stood there, still as a statue. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, she began to droop. She sat and leaned against the rock that was her new home. It was some time before she began to speak.

“I already knew, of course,” said Elyendra. “She was dead the moment the Blightguards took her. There never was any hope. But then you show up and…” Her body shook with…not sobs. She was laughing. It was the laughter of one who had nothing left to lose. “Fate is a heartless bitch. She held a shard of hope in front of me, then snatched it away.” She looked up at Saskia, hovering in the air before her. “Thank you for telling me.”

“It didn’t occur to me that you might be her daughter until…” Saskia drew in a deep breath. “My offer still stands. If you want to talk about it…”

“Maybe later,” said Elyendra. “Right now I just want to be alone.”

“Of course.”

Saskia took to the skies, feeling wretched. She didn’t go far. Now that she had an inkling of this young woman’s story, she didn’t want to just up and leave her alone out here. Whatever situation had driven Elyendra out of her village and led to her mother’s capture and execution…it wasn’t over.

Sure enough, barely an hour had passed before she spied a cluster of yellow and orange markers approaching from the edge of her minimap, moving too purposefully to be wildlife. They could be after Saskia—but she doubted it.

A quick mental projection into one of their heads confirmed her suspicions. It was a band of about twenty hunters; well-armed, but only lightly armoured. Snuffling the ground ahead of them were a pair of long-snouted beasts that must be the local equivalent of tracker hounds—though these ones were as much boars as dogs. The smooth efficiency of their movements suggested Blightguards, rather than simple villagers.

Listening in on their conversations yielded further interesting tidbits.

“The wench better be worth it,” muttered one of the men. “Why’s we go to so much trouble to bag one slip of a girl anyways?”

“If you hadn’t slept through the briefing, you wouldn’t be wasting your breath on such dumb questions, Hollock,” said another. “Our quarry’s not just any village wench. She’s a brightsoul. The Archduke’s itching to get some of that soul juice.”

Any answers as to what a brightsoul actually was would have to wait, because at that moment the tracker beasts abruptly changed course, following the scent trail down a bank, and the humans hurried to keep pace.

“What are we going to do about these guys?” Saskia asked Ruhildi. “I don’t want to kill them all, but it looks like those beasts have locked onto Elyendra’s scent. The hunters won’t let up until they have her in their clutches. After what the Blightguards did to her mother…”

“We won’t let that happen,” said Ruhildi, surprising Saskia with her vehemence. Then again, Ruhildi had endured years of torture and slavery. She wouldn’t just stand by and allow someone else to be captured and possibly subjected to an even worse fate—not even a stranger. “If you don’t want to kill the humans, I see only one alternative.”

“And what is that?”

“Kill the tracker beasts.”

Saskia let out a slow breath. “Really not a fan of that idea either. What have those beasts done to deserve it?”

“’Tis not a matter of who deserves death. How often have we killed to defend ourselves or those we care about?”

“I still don’t have to like it,” said Saskia. She gave another sigh. “But you’re right, of course. Now isn’t the time to get squeamish.”

Some time later, she quietly came in to land ahead of the approaching hunters. They showed no sign of having seen her, and she hid herself well behind a tree root, but the tracker beasts would undoubtedly smell her once they got near. She was, in fact, counting on that.

Sure enough, the beasts upped their pace and snuffled in her direction, while their handlers excitedly urged them forwards. Saskia didn’t wait for them to spot her.  She planted her hands to the leaf-strewn forest floor, and called forth a tide of essence, visualising the pattern Ruhildi had come up with.

There were a series of disturbingly dog-like yipes, then some colourful cursing. One of the men scrabbled at the hard packed earth where moments earlier had stood his dutiful pet. He looked distraught, and Saskia felt a moment of pity for him. Then she remembered why he was here, and she went about her grim task with renewed determination.

Several metres below ground, the beasts’ struggles abruptly ended when she impaled them with crystalline spikes formed from the surrounding minerals. Better that than let them suffocate in darkness.

Saskia launched herself back into the air, hearing shouts of alarm as the hunters finally spotted her. An arrow or two fired in her direction were no concern. The odds of hitting her were—

Something slammed into her chest, driving the breath out of her. She glanced down in shock at the feathered shaft sticking out from between her ribs. It had gone through a lung, and up and out through her shoulder. Now every breath was torture, and it was all she could do just to stay aloft.

“Keep flying,” said Ruhildi. “Don’t you dare faint on me.”

At Ruhildi’s urging, she flew west towards Elyendra. The angle of the arrow was such that she couldn’t easily extract it herself. Her only option was to reach the girl before she passed out. It would be a close call. Her mind was sinking into a haze of pain and fatigue. Only Ruhildi’s insistent voice kept her somewhat awake, and flying.

Some interminable time later, she found herself staring up at Elyendra’s watery eyes. She couldn’t remember coming in to land, but apparently she had landed, because here she was, still alive, and somehow still conscious. Speaking of which…

She closed her eyes, and finally surrendered to the darkness.

When next she awoke, the pain had receded. Elyendra was still leaning over her, but this time she was glowing. Guess the brightsoul thing isn’t just metaphorical, she thought drowsily.

The arrow was gone, and Elyendra’s hands were clamped over the entry and exit wounds. They were glowing even brighter than the rest of her. Huh. Okay. Some kind of healer then?

Elyendra removed one of her hands—and let out a gasp. There wasn’t so much as a scar left where the arrow had gone in.

“How did you heal so fast?” asked the girl, with a hint of accusation in her voice.

“Just one of my superpowers” murmured Saskia. She glanced her oracle clock. She’d been out for barely half an hour. “Except it doesn’t usually work this fast. I guess you had something to do with that…”

A slight blush spread across Elyendra’s dimpled face. “Yes, I’m a healer. But a wound like that should have taken days to heal. You almost died.”

“It seems we both have secrets,” said Saskia. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours? For starters, what’s a brightsoul?”

Elyendra opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment, Saskia sat bolt upright. She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary with her normal sight, but on her minimap, the markers representing their enemies were fanning out across the stream below, while others aimed bows from high up on the hill on the far side of the stream, and still others came down the bank on their side.

“They’re here!” hissed Saskia.

“Who’s here? The ones who shot you?”

Saskia nodded. “They’re after you. Dogramit! I led them right to you. Quick! Get inside the rock shelter! I’ll…I’ll hold them off.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” said Elyendra. “You almost died. What can you do to—”

“Don’t argue! Go!”

But the girl was having none of it. She stood defiantly on the ledge, raised her hand to the sky and…

An ethereal light settled over the area, banishing all shadows—illuminating each and every one of the hunters who had so carefully concealed their presence from mortal eyes.

Abandoning any notion of a stealthy approach, the hunters charged. Arrows pinged off the rocks, clearly fired in haste. Saskia snatched one of them out of the air with her bare hands—a skill acquired in her days as a troll. It wasn’t a flawless catch, however. As an imp, with her hollow bones and slim figure, she weighed about as much as a small cat. The arrow’s momentum carried her some distance before she arrested its flight, almost smashing her body against jagged rocks.

She flicked aside the arrow, and returned to Elyendra’s side. The brightsoul was most assuredly living up to the name. Her whole body was aglow, outshining the healing light Saskia had witnessed earlier. This time, healing appeared to be furthest from her mind.

Flames licked from her outstretched hand, blasting into the face of the unfortunate hunter who leapt at her. He fell back, howling, and landed with a splash in the stream below.

Saskia flew at another attacker, scratching at his eyes. Hardly her finest moment, but it got the job done. While he flailed at her, another blast of fire caught him in the back, sending him tumbling away.

Elyendra blazed brighter still. It hurt to look at her, but Saskia found she couldn’t look away. Was she even human?

Human or not, she was still made of flesh. And flesh could be killed.

Saskia didn’t see the arrow go through the young woman’s eye, but she saw the result. The light winked out. Elyendra slumped to the cold stone, and lay still, her one remaining eye staring up at the sky.

Another arrow thudded into her throat for good measure.

“Cease fire!” came a shout from one of the hunters. “We’re to take her alive!”

But it was too late for that. Saskia could see, plain as day, that the life—the spark of a soul—had already departed her body.

Then she jerked and sat up.

But it was not Elyendra who returned Saskia’s gaze. It was a look she’d come to identify with only one person.

Ruhildi.

“You took her body,” whispered Saskia, too stunned by the cascade of events to know what she should be feeling right now. All she felt was numbness.

“Not by choice,” said Ruhildi. “But methinks she’d want me to take it, if it means…” She cast a one-eyed gaze across the startled hunters. “…having her revenge.”

Their screams echoed in Saskia’s mind as she tried to sleep that night. But memories of their demise weren’t the only thing keeping her awake.

High in her soul-tree, another chrysalis had formed, shining bright as a newborn star.