“Your Majesty, I swear—we took every precaution to go unnoticed. We barely interacted with anyone. We didn’t have time!”
“Magic thrives on deception,” she sighed, her words complementing the dark mystery of the Messyleian night. “Come on.” She squeezed Filona’s shoulder and turned to the rest of the group.
“Let’s go.”
Jularra broke into a jog to make up the distance the child already had on them. The others caught up, with some overtaking Jularra to once again assume a protective formation.
At first glance, the city looked fairly benign. Messyleio's main street was wide and mostly unobstructed, save for the occasional oil lamppost. The buildings, shadowed and wooden, were no more than two stories high; they leaned forwards, backwards, and to the side after years of neglect. The city was showing its age. But the biggest peculiarity was the absence of people and horses; of activity, and noise. For such a well-known trade city, Messyleio just didn’t reflect the amount of life its reputation conveyed.
The strange girl leading the group turned off the main road and onto a narrower street. Jularra tried not to shudder at the increasingly confined space.
The child didn’t stop, and said nothing.
Vischuno trotted over to Jularra.
“Ma’am. I don’t like this at all.”
“I don’t either, Visch. But our people are missing, and I need to speak with Messyleio's leaders. What other choice do we have?”
As she finished speaking, a shutter above slammed open, startling riders and horses alike. Looking up, Jularra saw a figure silhouetted by the rising moon. It was the first sign of life other than the girl they had seen since entering the city.
“Good evening!” Jularra called to the shadow in the window. She smiled in the darkness as she turned around.
See? They’re just people. And they’re out there. The unknown city grew less intimidating.
But another sound spilled into the street, and this time there were no figures in windows to match it to.
It was the sound of an old man exerting himself in some way. Its direction was impossible to determine; it was bouncing back and forth between the shacks and shambles on each side of the street. The grunts and groans dug into the silence in a sickening rhythm—too pleasurable for toil, yet too aggravated to be sex.
The steady punch of the grotesque sound sent Jularra's mind strolling in the light of its most demented imaginings. Louder and louder the grunting grew, competing heartily with the clopping of the horses as the group approached whatever the sound’s source was. Hints of Brinnock’s melting terror and perverse faces from the Voidwarden visit grappled their way into Jularra’s mind.
Just when Jularra was planning to contrive a reason to speak, to distract herself from it, the little girl turned. The group veered with her toward a massive barn, its doors even larger than those they'd entered the city through. The potency of the disturbing sounds finally started to subside as they approached the barn.
The little girl walked up to the barn doors and turned to face her followers. She waited patiently as they halted in front of her. Once they had gathered, she smiled her toothless, dimensionless smile.
Jularra slid off her horse.
“All right, little one. We’ve followed you. Are Melcayro and Abranni in here? Are our people in here?”
“Yes,” the little girl answered. She started to giggle. Again, her sounds wavered in pitch, up and down.
“Yes, to which question?” Jularra sought to confirm, aggravated.
“Yes!” the child repeated. Her giggling grew. Mouth agape, she continued to repeat herself through her evolving laughter. "Yes! Yes!"
The girl continued to laugh, then started to shake.
Jularra stepped back. What the fuck?
The little girl shook violently. Her arms and hands started to draw up. Her neck and head curved out and around. Her laughter contorted into a deeper and broader tone as she started to grow. Her legs became thicker as she grew taller. Her arms extended. Her torso lengthened, and her face shifted into the older features of a woman at least twenty years older than the child.
The grown woman continued laughing, but in her own, adult voice. And then the barn doors swung open.
Instinctively, Jularra and the rest of her group reached for their swords, but that was as far as they got. Ahead of them, in the expansive barn, suspended in the air, were all the Bedrock and Spire that had stayed behind.
Their heads were covered with burlap sacks. The nooses were tied tightly around their necks, and attached at the top to some sort of invisible anchor. Jularra ran into the barn as the others sprinted in behind her. The dangling men and women wriggled and struggled against the tension of their nooses.
“Abranni! Melcayro!” Jularra screamed.
She ripped her sword from its scabbard and pointed it at the nearest dangling soldier. After kneeling down for a pinch of dirt, she placed it on her tongue and quickly spat it out. She now had the essence and structure of the dirt at her disposal. Holding her sword with one hand and placing the palm of her other on the flat of the blade, she concentrated the energy she had harnessed into the ground beneath each dangling Spire and Bedrock. One by one, she discharged the earthen energy from her sword, and up sprouted a narrow platform for each of them to step on.
With the last shot of energy and final rising pile of dirt, Jularra spun around, suspicious that her foes—whoever they were—had allowed her to save her people. As she turned, she saw her accompanying warriors with swords drawn, looking around for their adversary. As she completed her circle, the face of a new stranger weaved between the dirt piles she'd created.
“Ah! You are learned in the arts,” the stranger said. “I always wondered how true the rumors were.”
Jularra brandished her sword. With her free hand, she summoned a sphere of conjuration and encircled herself and her people—those behind her, and those still in the air—in veils of protection.
“Melcayro?” she spat.
Melcayro nodded. A smile crept
