Framework of the Frontier, Sain Artwell [read me a book .TXT] 📗

and her lips were swollen. She sounded exhausted. “Y-yes… It is…”

Though he was sweaty, William felt fine. He climbed out the bed to fetch her a drink and sat back by Ember’s side. She took long thirsty gulps and held the cup out for more.

“Thank you,” she said.

He ruffled her sticky hair. “Anything you need.”

She relaxed against his caress. For a few moments they did nothing else. Neither needed words to know the other was simply happy to be.

He’d finally seen a glimpse of what he wanted of his life — of this world. A girl like Ember was what his heart had starved for. She was what he needed to remain grounded in a measure of reality, as unreal as she was. That night, William fell asleep a happy man.

16

The mushroom coated golem staggered mid-step, crashing into a thick moria tree growing in the middle of the narrow street of the ruined town. William’s nerves tensed to readiness as he watched Rulu dart out from the underbrush on the opposite side. She scaled the construct like a big sexy gecko, planted a hand on its orb, and stopped it.

“Now, William. It will soon regain mobility,” she said.

He hopped over a short wall and rushed to the golem. Blessing himself with strength, William began to chip away at the golem. Moss sloughed off of its neck, revealing cracked stone. He aimed at the same spot again and again. With a second blessing he cleaned off the orb of stone.

“Awesome job Rulu, I knew your powers would be handy,” he said.

Rulu raised her nose high smugly. “You may continue the praises.”

“I don’t understand…” Ember pulled the anti-magic chest behind her. “How can your magic, which affects the mind, work on soulless golems?”

Rulu quirked her brow, assuming a lecturing tone. “A mind does not require a soul to echo in the Dreaming. Is this not common knowledge among the scholars of Nibir?”

“How could it be? Your brand of magic is not exactly common…” Ember grumbled something under her breath.

William dropped the core in the antimagic chest. “Let’s hope this didn’t break it, or transporting them is gonna get real tricky.”

“It should be fine.” Ember lifted the other handle of the chest.

“Is this assumption spun from the same education as your understanding of mind and soul?”

“Rulu, c’mon.” William gave her an accusing shake of the head. “Don’t be an ass.”

“I am merely making a fair observation.”

“No you’re not, you’re being an ass on purpose.” William said flatly, hoping to keep it at that and began to head to the hidden entrance.

Rulu crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes to match her snide tone. “And you owe me a blessing from yesterday.”

“Oof, yeah, completely slipped my mind.” William whistled guiltily, catching a small grin on Ember’s lips.

Rulu wouldn’t let up. “Forgot or skimped on purpose to use with your consort.”

“The heck is a consort?”

“I believe it translates to…” Rulu made an alien undulating sound, repeating the word in her native tongue. “No?”

“Thanks?” William didn’t know what to say.

“Please don’t put dumb titles on me, or us. It’s not your business.” Ember gave the aboleth a disapproving pout.

“Hmph. Whatever. The details of your relation matter little, beyond the fact that it is obviously obstructing the deal struck between myself and William.”

“Yep, yep, yep… This is the atmosphere we want to set-up before heading into a golem infested dungeon?” William said with thick sarcastic emphasis.

Ember’s ears drooped. “Sorry.”

“I am owed two blessings,” Rulu stated, unfazed. “Do not make a habit of forgetting it.”

William groaned internally. “God, if you start treating it like crack I’m gonna stop giving you any. I said one a day ‘on some days’, and besides, it was a good will offer to you. If you have some problems that are making you extra bitchy today, feel free to share.”

The look on her face went from bitchy to something that reminded William of her being a monstrous aboleth from a realm beneath the whales’ graves. Her eyes said, death.

Okay, maybe I was too snappy.

Rulu muttered a downright demonic series of hisses. Yea, definitely a bit too snappy.

“Look, you’ll get your blessings. There’s no rush. I’m a man of my word.” Or at least I try to be.

Nothing more was said of it.

After maybe fifteen minutes of searching, they found the ruined wall of pale stone, where they had first spotted a golem opening the door into the Primordial Maze.

“Alright, let’s go over this real quick. I take it out, hold it up to the wall, and if it starts shooting lasers you mind blast it again.” William looked at Rulu.

Rulu scoffed. “You need not be so cautious. A single golem core poses no threat to me.”

“Okay, we’re ready, Ember.”

Ember opened the lid and William reached for the eye. Its center dot jolted around wildly. Arcane glyphs began to play across its surface in repeating circular patterns. With Rulu’s fingers on the orb, William pointed it at the stone wall. “Let’s hope this works.”

From where the eye stared, reality began to peel away in inward folding flakes. The olive green gateway stood over twenty feet high and wide. It was stone with pearly marbling and deep grooves, almost as if carved by a glacier, but not quite. The patterns, though natural in their curves, hinted of intelligence impossibly alien yet instinctively familiar at once.

It gave William a strange chill.

“HURRAH!” Ember jumped up and down, repeatedly, excitedly. “It works, it works, the key works. I knew it! My gods, this is it, this is it, can you see the patterning? It’s as Endevar’s manuscripts detailed, though the color is slightly off, but maybe it’s the lighting…”

William peeked into the gateway. Shadows shrouded all but the first few steps of cushy barf colored