With only seconds remaining before the sand overtook us, I focused on the aspects that whirled around the archway. Chaos and movement, speed and force, earth and air. My sorcery wasn’t strong enough to halt the avalanche, but in the brief slice of time I bought by activating the Vision of the Design technique to see seconds into the future, I made a desperate attempt to save my friends.
My serpents followed my orders and harvested movement aspects as quickly as they could. I activated the Thief’s Shield to try to help them along. There was so much chaos, though, I wasn’t sure it had worked.
Abi’s hair slipped between my fingers, and I nearly lost my grip on the archway. It was now or never.
The sorcerous spell I’d woven harnessed all the movement aspects, and Vision of the Design showed me where my friends would be at the precise moment I unleashed it. With a shout, I triggered the spell.
Arcs of aspects flashed away from my serpents and curled through the air like silver fishhooks. The bursts of motion shot past my friends, then unerringly swerved around and slammed into their backs. The bolt I’d sent at Abi dove into the sands, then took a sharp turn and roared toward the surface.
My friends emerged from the swirling sands, their eyes wide, mouths open in surprise. My spell had knocked all three of them loose from the earth’s grip and hurled them toward the only safe space I could find.
Toward me.
The serpents moved with the precision of a spider snatching its prey from a web. One caught Eric, the next snatched Clem out of the air by the back of her robes, and a third looped around Abi. The rest of my supernatural appendages anchored me inside the entrance, and I dug my heels in to brace myself. Jinsei flooded out of my core and into my serpents, strengthening them so they could bring those I’d rescued to a safe landing.
“Everyone okay?” I choked, spat out a mouthful of sand, and tried again.
“I’m fine,” Eric said as he shook the sand out of his robes. “That was a close one, though.”
“I’m sorry,” Clem said. “I thought it was a solid step. The frost started melting, and it gave way.”
“Abi?” I asked my shell-shocked friend. His eyes were wide and haunted, as if he’d seen something beneath the sands that had nearly claimed him.
“I’m fine,” he said abruptly, and stepped back from me. “Thank you, Jace. I was sure that was the end of me.”
There was something about Abi’s tone that bothered me. He didn’t seem scared, or even worried. His eyes stared past me, at something I was sure none of the rest of us could see.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Light,” Abi said. “It’s this way.”
To my surprise, there was light deeper into the tunnel. A hundred feet or so from where we’d entered, shafts of light pierced the ceiling. Dust drifted down through the illumination, revealing holes in the tunnel’s roof. Those must’ve been chimneys that punched up through the desert ahead of us, providing light and air to those who’d lived in the complex. If that was true, though, then this place hadn’t been swallowed by the desert. It had been built beneath it.
“I’m moving out,” I said. “Stay back a bit, Clem. Abi, you come behind her. Eric, bring up the rear. If any of you needs anything, don’t hesitate to give a shout.”
I didn’t wait for my friends to respond. Time was running short. If I wanted the allies I’d paid for to arrive, I needed to light a flare for them. There wasn’t enough space in this tunnel to do that. I had to find a more open area.
The passage descended deeper into the earth, and the openings above us grew more distant. Parts of the floor crumbled away ahead of me, forcing me to leap across the yawning chasms. My friends followed, easily clearing the gaps, but every jump filled me with the worry that someone would miss, or the ground would crumble below them when they landed.
As much as those worries plagued my thoughts, though, I had to push them aside. There was no turning back now, and no time to play it safe.
Finally, the tunnel opened in front of me. We found ourselves in an enormous cavern that sloped down from the tunnel. The walls were lined with terraces and structures carved from the sandstone, forming rows of dwellings that flowed down to the floor beneath us. The ceiling rose far overhead, its apex pierced by a wide opening that allowed sunshine to pour into the darkness. A breeze that smelled faintly of cinnamon and salt swirled down through the hole in the ceiling to kick up dust beneath our feet.
The place was surprisingly intact, though many of the smaller structures had collapsed over the years. From our vantage, it was easy to imagine people living here, turning their faces toward the sky to catch rays of sunlight as they walked from their homes on the upper terraces, down the stairways to the larger buildings at the bottom of the bowl. I didn’t need a compass key to tell me that the Forge was down there, hidden somewhere in those ruined squares of fallen stone.
“I need a second,” I said.
I walked away from my friends, sketched a weak scrivening in the sand, and filled it with my jinsei. The pattern glowed, brighter and brighter, until finally the design snapped into focus with a sudden sharp crack. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do what I needed.
“There’s something here,” Abi said when I rejoined my friends. “It’s dark, and it’s hungry.”
I wasn’t surprised by that, though I was disappointed. I’d hoped the warped wouldn’t beat us here, that somehow this wasn’t on their menu just yet. But, in my heart, I’d known that wouldn’t be the case. The Umbral Forge was connected to the Grand Design at a fundamental level. It would have been more
