“How did you get to be trapped in there, anyway?”
Bekkit surprised him by laughing bitterly. “I put my trust in the wrong person.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
“A god. Forgotten to most, worshiped by just enough to still exist.”
“And the name of this god is…?”
“You wouldn’t know him. His followers call him the Lord of Light.”
“How very bland.”
“Isn’t it? ‘Tis also a misnomer. This being is a deity of deceit and death. As I learned to my ultimate misfortune.”
“Seems you’ve made a lot of enemies in your time. Even Ket hates you, and she seems to like everyone.”
“Alas, young Ketten has every right to despise me.” He gave another heavy sigh. Benin had to fight not to roll his eyes at the sprite’s melodrama, and instead just waited, knowing from experience that Bekkit would not pass up an opportunity to talk more about himself.
“As you know,” he continued after a moment, “I too was reborn as a God Core. My denizens were dragonkin, who regrettably came to feud with first Ketten, then Corey.”
“You mean the kobolds?”
“If it prefers.”
“But if you were a Core, how come you’re a sprite?”
“The universe works in mysterious ways—”
“I don’t mean literally how. I just mean, why did that come about?”
“If it would let me finish… the universe is apparently a great believer in second chances. When a Core fails, they are offered a chance to redeem themselves by serving as the next Core’s sprite.”
“Huh. So Ket was the god of gnomes before Corey arrived?”
“Correct.”
“And Grimrock took her gnomes for sacrifice? Then shattered her gem?”
“Well… she shattered her own gem in a misguided attempt to seek more information on her enemy. She over-exerted herself; her mana reserves ran dry. With nothing left to sustain her, she shattered.”
Benin shuddered. Every mage had received the lectures, heard the horror stories about what would happen were they to expend too much mana at once. It was one of the reasons pyromancy was so dangerous. The most unpredictable element could behave in strange ways, and a volatile spell could drain a caster dry in moments.
“So why is Ket mad at you?” he asked. “You could hardly have chosen who your Core was.”
“’Tis as she said. I betrayed her.”
Benin narrowed his eyes, waiting.
“Corey and Ket lead their denizens by example. Through faith. As did I. However, Grimrock uses…used… darker means.”
Benin grimaced. “Yeah, I saw his altar.” It had been made of bones. “A benevolent god he was not.”
“Sacrifice, not worship. Fear, not faith. He bred his denizens—my denizens—to be fodder, then slaughtered the weakest of them like they meant nothing.” His voice shook, though with anger or sadness Benin couldn’t tell.
“You told him about the gnomes so he’d stop tormenting kobolds?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Let me guess. He didn’t stop.”
“No.”
“And then you lost the only friend you’d ever had down there.”
There was a heavy pause. He heard Bekkit swallow before continuing.
“I eventually appealed to the Lord of Light to aid me in my plight. Instead, that treacherous entity sent an agent—an adventurer of the Guild, no less—to secure Grimrock’s alliance in favor of mine. They faked his destruction, then restored his gem, removing all other witnesses. At that monster’s request, they removed me from the dragonkin Sphere, trapping me in stasis and keeping me in a secure location until they should once more have need of me.”
“Must have been a relief when we freed you instead.”
“Indeed. Though as we’ve discussed, I am somewhat dissatisfied with the limitations of my current form.”
“Understandable.”
“I wish to burn. To fly.”
“You’ve got wings. I’ve seen you fly plenty.”
“Untrue. It has seen me flit. Flutter.”
“Like a hummingbird,” Benin agreed.
“I wish to soar, young fire brother. Soar!”
Okay, crazy.
“I’m sure you will,” he told the sprite.
“It will help make this happen.”
“Like I said, keep teaching me the good stuff and we’ll see.”
Benin checked his mana. It had almost fully replenished during the course of their conversation. He picked himself up off the ground, brushing charred twigs and blackened leaves from his robes as he reached again for his magic.
“One more time before we go back,” he said, focusing on Levitate and trying to ignore the bruises on his backside from his last attempt.
“Is it sure? Our absence from the Sphere has surely been observed by now.”
“Not likely,” Benin told him. “I bet they haven’t even noticed we’re gone.”
Thirty-Nine
Seed
Corey
“Where in the hells have you been?!”
Benin didn’t seem to hear me. The human mage stared around at the camp, mouth open and eyes wide.
Four of the five dire badgers had survived the fight. Gneil and the acolytes were tending to their injuries, while the tribe’s regular badgers sniffed suspiciously at the now-docile creatures they’d just been fighting. One of the owlets had hopped down from the chariot and was now riding around perched on Bruce’s head.
“Hoot-hoot,” it said. Naturally.
The other owls, temporarily unsupervised, had taken it upon themselves to harass the carpenters, all four of whom were attempting to repair the smashed wagon. The owlets toddled around, getting underfoot and generally making a nuisance of themselves until some of the gnomish children came over to scoop them up and take them away from the busy workers.
Other children helped the builders to gather up the webbing that was strewn everywhere from the fallen skynet. They wore thick gloves made from what looked like mole-rat skin, and frowned in concentration as they sorted through the sticky strands for any that could still be salvaged.
Meanwhile, the gnomish medics were tending to the handful of injured warriors, most of which had thankfully only received superficial wounds.
“What happened here?” Benin managed to ask.
“Badgers,” said Coll.
Bekkit cleared his throat and rose from his perch on Benin’s shoulder.
“Honored Core, forgive me. I simply sought to train this young mage’s powers in a location safely away from your denizens—”
“Safe?! You left them without protection!”
Benin frowned. “Coll was—”
“Also off gallivanting in the forest,” I snapped. “That the humans behaved irresponsibly is no surprise—” Benin folded his arms and snorted “—but I honestly expected better of you,
