fissure down, digging as he went.
Well after dark, he finally found what he was looking for-or, more precisely, what he was looking for found him.
His excavations had settled into a dreary routine, taking far longer than expected. The constant rumble of earth being moved, the continuous projection of his vision, and the endless standing as he wrought his magic all taxed Serreg's alertness, lulling him into a casual state of mind not unlike his long hours spent in one of the university laboratories.
As he had done several times before, Serreg paused briefly from his exertions, suspending his spells to slake his thirst with a sip of water. As he recorked his flask, however, he noticed that something was different.
The sound of moving earth hadn't stopped.
He looked quickly at his excavation; it sat there undisturbed. The sound came from behind him. He stepped back and turned his head toward the noise, and as he did he realized that there was more than one source. Something disturbed the earth to his right, and something else did the same on his left.
Seeing nothing, Serreg briefly closed his eyes and took a deep breath to purge himself of surprise. Facing the sources of the noise, he adopted a prepared stance, feet shoulder width apart and hands in front of his abdomen with his fingertips touching lightly, all as he had been taught in the martial spellcasting courses. He stared at the empty space between the sounds. He was ready.
And frankly, he was relieved to be interrupted. It saved him the trouble of hunting the miscreants down. Once his surprise passed, Serreg didn't even think to be frightened. After all, what did a Netherese archwizard have to fear from any but his own kind? He simply prepared his mind to deal with whatever creatures might come forth. Kill all but one, and trap the last for detailed interrogation. Then, if it turned out to be something new, perform an intensive autopsy.
At the edge of the illumination from one of his stones, Serreg saw the surface tremble, crack, and heave upward. He smiled slightly and waited.
The ground rose higher, pushed from below, and as it did so it tumbled to the side, until Serreg saw the creature itself rising out of the dirt. At first, he saw a flurry of hands, perhaps three or four, pushing the earth to the side. Vile-looking hands they were, shaped in some unsettlingly inhuman fashion with long, wicked fingers that seemed to end in talons. Then dark, bulbous flesh pushed itself out of the ground, a wad of meat a good fathom wide. As it rose, Serreg saw the beast's arms retract wholly into the puckered tissue.
The creature continued to rise, though Serreg saw no obvious means of movement. It rose from the ground as a dead fish rises from a fishmonger's barrel, pulled forth by the hook through its mouth. As more of the creature's body hove into view, it narrowed toward the tail, adding to the image of a dead fish. Serreg raised one eyebrow in interest. Long, blunt spines, slightly curved, covered the majority of the shapeless body; perhaps a grotesque decoration, perhaps a defense, perhaps some kind of bizarre full-body system of legs.
The creature rose further, leaving behind an open hole in the ground, somehow all the more repulsive for the sickening creature that floated placidly out of the wound. Fully eight feet of nauseating monster had risen from the cavity by the time its width had diminished to the thickness of Serreg's leg. He watched as another yard emerged from the ground, ending in a vicious barbed tail.
The beast turned itself more or less horizontal, lounging in the air, with its tail drifting slowly back and forth. It turned its rounded front toward Serreg, and he saw a puckered mouth with countless hooked teeth all gnashed together in the center. 'Fascinating,' said Serreg.
He would definitely have to bring the creature back. 'Serreg's subterranean tubuloids,' he would call them. Ah, the immortality of discovery!
He did not notice that the speed of the wind began changing unnaturally around him.
Well, best get to work, he thought, and cast Aksa's morphing upon the creature.
He intended to alter the beast into what it first reminded him of: a fish. There on the open plain, a fish could easily be caught and transported back to Delia. Once back in the safety of one of the university laboratories, he could return the thing to its natural state.
Serreg was rather affronted when the morphing failed, and the magical power frittered itself away, flickering across the thing's flesh and jumping from spine to spine.
Annoyed, Serreg cast Mavin's flesh-stone transmutation on the beast. An eleven-foot-long statue would be more tedious to transport, requiring telekinesis and all, but on the other hand stone was much less slimy than a flopping fish, and petrification afforded the stupid beast no opportunity to bite him.
That spell failed as well.
Serreg paused. Eithei' haste from the excitement of discovery ruined his spellcasting, or else the grotesque abomination was highly resistant to magic. Serreg preferred to consider the former to be the case. He began to cast Pockall's monster hex, a spell with which he was quite well versed as he practiced it regularly on laboratory animals. But as he gathered the energy and spun the incantation, the creature opened its mouth, a vile circular maw full of mismatched jagged teeth arranged around the rim in no particular order. Serreg fought to keep his mind focused on finishing the incantation..
The creature lunged. Its four arms flew out from its body, erupting from the soft flesh into which they had withdrawn. The mouth gaped open far wider than Serreg had thought possible. Ref lexively, Serreg abandoned his spell, its power dispersing harmlessly while he flopped onto his back under the speeding bulk of the monstrosity.
The thing swept almost soundlessly over him. Serreg reflected for just a moment that no matter how intensive one's combat spellcasting training might be, it was always very easy to panic in the field. That flash of realization crystallized his discipline, and Serreg drew upon the countless hours of repetitive drills he'd performed. He rolled quickly to his feet, and as he rolled, his arms also flew through the requisite gestures for General Matick's missile. It was a basic technique, but a very useful one. No sooner did Serreg finish the incantation than he pushed himself to his feet and aimed the magical strike.
The creature passed over one of his light stones and was lit repulsively from below as it turned back toward Serreg. He fired the spell, and a cluster of tiny red flares shot from his finger toward the beast. They arced in and impacted its hide, flaring as they struck the creature with their deadly energy.
The monster seemed not to notice. Even a horse will flick its hide from a horsefly's bite, but Serreg saw not even that much of an expression of annoyance from the thing.
¦ With the amazing speed born of fury, Serreg cast another, more powerful attack spell: Noanar's fireball. As the creature turned to attack him again he sent the blazing ball of flames straight into the monster's open mouth. His aim was perfect, and the creature drew up short and screamed in a strange, monotone hoot. Despite the alien sound, Serreg knew he had struck a solid blow.
The flames died out rapidly, and in the dim light of his globes, Serreg saw the beast wagging its body back and forth. He saw the blackened teeth framed by blistered skin, and spittle and ichor being slung about as the creature wagged its… its head?… to clear the pain.
Serreg started to smile in conquest. But instinct tempted him to look over his shoulder instead.
Two more of the horrid things hung stationary in the air behind him.
As he blinked in surprise, the multiple arms of the two creatures issued forth, and began making mystical passes in the air. Serreg glanced back at the wounded beast and saw that it, too, wove a spell.
They had him surrounded.
He sprinted away, not caring which direction he took. He zigged and zagged as the obscene taloned hands of the three subterranean slugs launched magical spells. A crack of raw magical power flew past him to one side. Another spell of unknown nature ripped the ground open a few yards behind him, and just as he thought himself lucky, a wave of magical frost struck him from behind. It hit like a gale, cutting through his archwizard's vestments and biting his flesh. The impact knocked Serreg off his feet, and the sudden drop in temperature made his back arch.
Too cold to shiver, Serreg stood. The three creatures studied him. One cast another spell as he rose, too quickly for Serreg to dodge or counter, and he found himself framed in flickering red light.
Enough, he thought, and pulled one of the most powerful spells he knew to the forefront of his mind, something to burn all three of these vile things: Volhm's chaining.
Serreg's eyes glowed with raw power as he quickly moved through the invocation. He watched with grim satisfaction as the three creatures gathered together and closed upon him.
