“No,” I moaned. “This can’t be happening.”
Every one of the tentacled monstrosities turned its head toward me. Eyes with hourglass pupils and rainbow irises locked on me. Their chant became faster and more urgent. “Oolorthshog, oolorthshog, oolorthshog!”
Something answered their plaintive cries. It rose beyond the edge of the Grand Design, so massive it was impossible to see more than a fraction of its bulk at once. Its body shifted and twisted, a mass of undulating fibers that stretched and contracted as it pulled itself erect to look down on its children. The choking stink of ammonia flooded my senses as sticky fluids rained down from the thing’s drooling mouth.
One mammoth eye opened and glared down at me. The weight of its attention smothered me and banished my thoughts. The pupil was the size of a star, all-encompassing, and it pulled me toward it as surely as a black hole’s gravity. There was nowhere for me to run, no escape. This thing, whatever it was, would devour everything in its path.
“Jace!” Hahen shouted, shaking me. “Jace!”
My mind reeled as it snapped back from the horrors I’d seen to my mundane dorm room. I was on the floor, on my back. Hahen was crouched beside me, his hands on my shoulders, and he shook me a second time. I was lying in something wet and foul-smelling.
Ammonia.
I bolted into a sitting position and scrambled to my feet. That odor clung to my nostrils and reminded me of the madness I’d seen just moments ago. One of those things had followed me back. It was here, somewhere in my room. My fusion blade appeared in my hands before I could stop it.
“Stop,” Hahen said. “Whatever you saw, it cannot harm you here.”
My instincts told me Hahen was wrong. The pressure of that titanic monster’s attention still weighed on my thoughts. Foul liquid that reeked of ammonia soaked my clothes, and a black stain marked the floor where I’d collapsed. It hadn’t been a vision. It had reached through the connection to my core and left its mark on this place.
“There’s nowhere safe from that thing,” I said.
Hahen stepped around the stain to reach me. He raised his hands and closed them around mine. His ancient eyes peered up at me with concern. “Banish your blade and tell me about it, my friend.”
It was impossible for me to concentrate in those stinking clothes. I stripped out of my robes and dumped them into the wash container in my closet. What I wanted was an hour-long shower, but I settled for a clean pair of casual robes. Then I cycled my breathing to ease my panic and focus my thoughts. It took minutes before I could shake the terror enough to describe what I’d seen to Hahen.
His expression went from concerned to skeptical when I described how I’d followed the pain into my core. Before he could interrupt me, though, I pushed on to explain how I’d found my way through the shell and down, down to the Grand Design. His eyes widened with surprise as my tale continued. When I’d finished, he covered his mouth for a moment and looked away from me.
“I have never heard of such things.” He cleared his throat and looked at me from the corner of his eye. “You’re sure of what you saw?”
I nodded. “That’s exactly what I experienced. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Hahen sighed and folded his hands in front of him. “What do you think it means?”
The simple question floored me. I’d looked to Hahen for answers the whole time I’d been in the School. There were things he didn’t know, of course, and he always told me when we’d reached the limits of his training and experience. To have him ask me something so serious, though, was new. It worried me.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
The rat spirit clambered up onto my bed to sit next to me. He looked down at the floor, lacing and unlacing his fingers as he thought. The silence between us stretched out for most of a minute, neither of us sure what to say. At last, he raised his head and met my eyes again.
“You have seen something no one else has, Jace,” he said. “I fear you’re the only one who can divine its meaning.”
His words reminded me I had seen more than just a copy of the Grand Design. During the Empyrean Gauntlet, I’d watched a dragon and human set fire to a much simpler version of the pattern. Another creature had been in that vision, too.
That had to be the monstrosity outside the pattern. It was coming, eager to devour the Design and all it contained.
“Yes,” I said, and told Hahen what I’d seen.
He shuddered and closed his eyes when I’d finished. He became so still I worried he’d fallen unconscious. When he looked at me at last, his gaze was filled with sorrow.
“I am very sorry this burden has been placed upon you, my young friend,” the rat spirit said. “I will search for answers with the other spirits. Perhaps someone can shed some light on what we must do in these dark times.”
What I’d seen rattled me. But I wouldn’t let that fear destroy me or push me off the path before me. The Empyrean Flame had chosen me for a quest that would create a new Flame, a new Design. That destiny hadn’t landed in my lap by accident. I’d fought dragons and an army of locusts. I’d outflanked sages and survived assassins. The task before me was daunting.
That didn’t change a thing.
I had to save the world.
Or die trying.
The Undercity
MY ENCOUNTER WITH THE bizarre monsters on the Grand Design left me strung out and worried. Every second they chewed on the silver threads of fate shortened lives. Even worse, the longer their fest went on, the sooner their dark master would arrive
