Slithering Maze 17: From Frying Pan To Fire...

Basysus, 28, 1278: Hidden Temple of the Sunfate Sisters, Mandami Hills. Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse…

Author’s Note: Kingdom of the Slithering Maze is a serialized fiction story that is a part of a collection called the Windtracer Tales. It follows the adventures of Tela Kioni and her crew dealing with expeditions in and around the world of Awldor. There they hunt down lost, and possibly lethal, relics of the Ancient Order, a near-mythical kingdom lost to the centuries old cataclysm, the Great Collapse.

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Previously: Deep under the Mandami Hills, Tela and her crew uncover a hidden shrine to the Sunfate Sisters. Once a place of reflection, later turned into a workshop by a set of mysterious stonemasons centuries ago.

Inside it’s fire-lit hall, statuary to the Fate Sisters stood guard over a dark pool. An inscription warned the unwary, but Tela and her friends deduce the secret. That only the faithful were allowed to know what the chamber actually held, and that something was in there with them.

But, before they could uncover what that knowledge was, footsteps echoed down the stairs. Thieves, brigands, or likely worse such as Fateweavers had found their trail, trapping Tela and crew in a room with only one exit, other than death…

Basysus, 28, 1278: Hidden Temple of the Sunfate Sisters, Mandami Hills. Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse…

The plan was to hide until the Fateweaver got bored and left. Then there was what really happened.

I hit the gritty sandstone floor on my hands and knees. Pain knuckled under my ribs, while I tasted the coppery flavor of blood against my tongue from a split lip. Calloused hands grabbed me and hauled me upright. Two more gut punches ripped a dry, wheezing cough out of me.

“We owe you for what happened at the flophouse,” snapped a jackal-faced human mercenary in gray cloth armor. A lurid red knife scar had been slashed across his cheekbone.

“Put it on my tab, Precious,” I rasped, glaring daggers at the man. Silently, I wished for more air, mostly because I enjoyed breathing. “Better yet? Go boil your head.”

I thought it was a clever reply, but it turned out he wasn’t that impressed. Still, he was careful when he hit me again, trying not to break my ribs. It’s always nice when you come across a professional at work.

My friends had ducked into side rooms, and I think even behind some overturned ancient stone tables at the far end of the hall. Things got blurry once we started running.

If I’d been smarter, like say, literally anyone else who had come with me, I’d have stayed glued to their heels. Instead, I darted off to hide in the shadow of the stairs to get the drop on the Fateweaver. Now, the only thing getting dropped was me on the floor.

But my friends were safe for the moment, and that was what really mattered to me.

Three hard punches later, I collapsed onto the cracked stone floor again. Jackal-face and one of his friends hauled me back to my feet. I stood, just not that well. My knees trembled from exertion, pain, and a quiet rage that could curdle blood. This also meant that the thugs who’d grabbed me partially held me upright.

A sharp, oily smoke licked the ancient brick walls. Salty sweat trickled down my face, flavored by grime. I stared at the floor, shaking, drinking air.

“Enjoying the view?”

That raspy voice of grinding, wet bone sent a shiver along my rattled spine. I looked up, squinting through pain, into the red-rimmed, dark eyes of that Fateweaver lady who’d tried to murder us. Granted, we had broken into her cult den, but still.

I spat a little blood onto the brick floor so I could talk.

“Could be better. Like seeing the artifacts you swiped sitting in a museum.” I tilted my head a little and smirked. By hells and high tide, it hurt to smile, but I managed. “As for you? You’re not my type. I’m not into cultists, and I don’t know where you’ve been.”

She snorted. Strolling away from the temple pool, she joined us with a greasy little smile on her face. The woman had her dark hood tossed back, giving me a really good look at her thin, punchable, bone-pale face. Long black hair in a braid, streaked with white, framed her narrow features. Old scar lines outlined the side of her jaw.

The rest was standard Fateweaver from charcoal vest and trousers to a blood-red shirt. She’d added a little three-fold mask pin on her vest over her heart, and a pair of serpentine daggers at her waist. Dark stains of partial handprints were smeared across her shirt. Because nothing says religious cult authority like day-old gore.

“Such a smart mouth on such a clever girl.” Her condescending raspy voice was like the sound of dying leaves. Slowly, she caressed the side of my jaw with a dead-pale finger. “So much bravado.”

I shuddered at her touch, and her smile turned feral. So I coughed, tasting copper, then spat blood on her boots with a glare.

She ignored the gesture, which frankly made me even angrier.

“You’re so adorable. Mind you, not nearly as delicious as that tiefling healer you drag around with you. But you’ll do in a pinch,” the woman cooed.

She stepped away and vaguely waved a hand in my direction like an afterthought.

“Search that filthy shoulder bag of hers. I’d wager she has her notebook with her. Windtracers are nothing without their journals.”

Two more thugs ambled over, which made me wonder where Fateweavers found these idiots? I struggled, because that is what one does, but they yanked my shoulder bag off of me anyway.

Apparently, search meant ‘dump it all on the floor’, which they did. My journal, three pencils, goggles, my Automatic Crystal shard, and everything including my favorite field knife all tumbled onto the rough sandstone bricks. My whip landed next to them.

The Fateweaver daintily sifted through my belongings. For a moment, she paused over the glowing palm-sized chunk of Automatic Crystal, holding it up to study it tenderly. I fervently hoped the thing in the crystal would eat her, but it didn’t. That just wasn’t how it worked. Still, a girl can dream, right?

Finally bored, the woman dropped the crystal in favor of my journal. She opened to the most recent page, flipping over my notes of the past week. The basilisk doodles in the margins earned me a delicately arched eyebrow of amusement.

“Cute,” the Fateweaver smirked.

She read it all. Painstaking records, drawings, my theories about the Iraxi, medallions, and everything right down to how Kiyosi can’t make a good tea to save his life. It was all there for the reading, much to her obvious delight.

“Oh, this is truly rich,” she purred, holding up my journal to compare it against the giant statuary in the room. “You and your ragged bunch solved the riddle, then left the door open for me.”

“Not my best day,” I coughed, then rolled my tongue against my teeth, making sure they were all there. “Still, I would’ve thought most doors know better than to let the likes of you in.”

The Fateweaver’s smile was all knifepoints and splinters. She raised a hand, preventing what I figured was another beating because of my mouth.

“No. We need her intact for the next step.” She grinned at me like a hungry cat, tapping my journal. “Now, where is it? You solved it this far, I know you’ve solved the rest.”

“No idea,” I rasped.

“I doubt that.” The Fateweaver straightened her spine, addressing her gray-clad thug brigade. “Search the temple. Every room and corner. The rest of her ragged little group is here somewhere. She can watch me play with them until she cooperates.”

Eight of her mercenaries spread out to search. That left me alone with her and three others.

My jaw ached. So did my gut. I knew when I was beaten. It just wasn’t right now.

“Stop! The pool.” I blew out a frustrated sigh. “There’s a stonemason’s model in the pool. I’m sure it’s of Toshirom Ifoon and shows a way inside.“

I jerked an arm, trying to pull loose from one of my captors. It didn’t work. They were both a good head and a half taller than me, and at least twenty Ancient Order kilograms heavier.

The Fateweaver, who was taller than all three of us, leered down at me. It felt like being ogled by an undead snake.

“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” She waved a hand to one of her thugs. “You. Go look. See if she’s lying.”

A gangly tiefling man with brick-red skin and curled horns like Kiyosi crossed over to the pool.

“I’m not,” I snarled back. “We just didn’t have time to get it out of the pool.”

The red-skinned tiefling leaned over the pool’s edge. Tail curled, he glanced back at us.

“Lady Nimad? The Windtracer wasn’t lying. I can barely see it under the water. Looks like there are some chains attached to the model, so it can be raised or lowered.”

The Fateweaver, Lady Nimad apparently, slid her eyes over to me, tilting her head.

“I’m so glad you decided to cooperate. Now, how do we pull it up? I want a closer look.”

“Don’t we all?” I replied with a patronizing smile.

The woman’s expression melted into a sour poison. I rolled my eyes, then jerked my chin toward the Sunfate Sister statuary.

“Statues. Put a person in front of each one, then toss in an offering to the Sunfate Sisters,” I lied.

Lady Nimad stood up, crossing her thin, bone-pale arms and looking down her long nose at me.

“I don’t trust you.”

She motioned for two mercenaries to each stand in front of a statue. Then a syrupy, wicked smile spread over her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“You made the discovery, Windtracer, so you get the honors.” She nodded sharply at the last statue. “Get moving.”

My captors shoved me forward. After a stumble, I got my feet under me, then walked over to stand next to the statue of the Sunbound Sister. A shadow slid low across the floor at the edge of my vision.

It was Nicodemus.

Sleek and gray, the smoke cheetah eased along the nearest side of the room, stalking Lady Nimad or one of her mercenaries, I wasn’t sure. If Nicodemus was nearby, the others—Lady Deep bless them—weren’t far behind.

Sure enough, I saw Skarri’s nimble shape slither between two shadowed tables. Scarily, Atha followed close behind without a sound.

Then Nicodemus snarled low in his chest.

“What was that?” Lady Nimad demanded, unfolding her hands to reach for those daggers at her belt. Slowly, she searched the room with her eyes.

I sucked air through my teeth, then coughed loudly as I stepped in front of the statue.

“My stomach. I missed a meal. Discovering lost historical sites and getting the tar beaten out of me makes me hungry.”

Lady Nimad shot that poisonous look at me again. But more importantly, her thugs looked none the wiser. Mostly they looked perturbed or a little bored.

I slowly turned my back to the statue, facing the pool. The two leg-breakers across the water from me did the same. When nothing happened, they frowned at me, then at their murderous employer. A dark shadow quivered below the water before I glanced away.

“Now what?” Lady Nimad demanded.

I extended both arms out at the water, frustrated, just not for the same reason she was.

“An offering?” I reminded her in an irritated, sing-song voice. “What kind, I don’t know. You’re the murder-madam who butchers people over this sort of thing.”

If looks could kill, the woman’s glare would’ve impaled me on the spot. She blew out a long, bitter sigh.

“I will so enjoy cutting you open and pulling out your guts.”

She crossed to the pool with that eerie, too-graceful walk Fateweavers have. With another acidic, suspicious look at me, Lady Nimad withdrew three square Jata coins from a pouch, then tossed them into the water.

They hit with a sharp bloop, then sank like stones.

I glanced at Lady Nimad, then at her mercenaries, raising my eyebrows. Nothing continued to happen, other than I held my breath.

Silently, a shadow rose from the deepest part of the pool.

A gigantic shadow.

“You lied!” Lady Nimad shrieked at me, grabbing for her serpentine daggers.

I held my arms out wide and shrugged mockingly.

“Did I?”

The pool erupted like a geyser as scalding mist bit my skin. I dove away from the statue as a giant arm with a hand made of deep blue liquid thrust out of the water. The hand became a fist, then smashed the nearest mercenary into a bloody stain against a statue. Someone retched, which I think was Kiyosi.

I tumbled over the rough stones. A chorus of pain and new bruises chased after me. People screamed and yelled, but I didn’t pay attention. I snatched up my whip as I stood, then cracked it against the ancient stone floor.

Bitter dust swirled around my boots as I locked eyes with Lady Nimad. She yanked out a dagger with a snarl and lunged. I cracked my whip. Leather sang, and her dagger pinwheeled away.

Then the room descended into chaos.

Nicodemus leaped with an angry snarl. Skarri and Atha charged out of hiding to ambush the nearest mercenaries with a yell. Kiyosi and Mikasi weren’t far behind.

To my right, the pool boiled like a hot spring. The fist submerged before a giant woman made of steaming blue water burst out of the pool. She glared death at us, gestured at the armor, then pulled a shimmering silver spear out of the water.

Those armor plates tore across the room and latched onto her with an ominous clank.

“At least it isn’t a falling boulder,” I murmured.

Steaming water splashed around my boots as I turned to square off with one of the mercenaries who’d punched me.

He rushed with a knife.

I cracked my whip the second he moved. Stone grit crunched under my boots.

Things got complicated from there.

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Windtracer Tales is a work of pure, unashamed fiction. In fact, it considers itself rather fancy and quite proud of itself. Names of characters, places, events, organizations and locations are all creations of the author’s imagination for this fictitious setting. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or reanimated is coincidental. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with the author’s, since the characters and the author tend to disagree a lot.

Also! Windtracer Tales and Windtracer: Adventures in Awldor is written with much respect to Starfarertheta and their work on the other half of Awldor.