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

their final defiance. Only a fool would stand against the all devouring dynasty of R’lyeh.

Rulu ushered the darkening images from her thoughts, squeezing her fingers to elicit a sharper sting of pain. It did not provide the same escape as before. Her brain had become numb to pain.

She turned her thoughts skyward. Far above, in the shimmering circular reflection of the surface, the clouds darkened with crimson trim and horizon blurred with the distortion of an amber sunset. Viewed from the floor of the ravine, the distant window resembled a portal between the realms.

Half a mile ahead, the black walls of the ravine led into the shimmering tear between realms. In the merging, the silt, rock, and water gained the vibrant verdance of the Emerald Sea.

In a moment of weakness, the sense of looming doom dug roots deep in Rulu’s chest, and she allowed herself a sob of despair.

“…right there and come fight me if you dare, fucker.” The sound of William’s voice snapped her eyes wide.

Why, in foolhardy defiance of fate itself he stood there on the bottom of the sea, in the middle of the leviathan’s path. A grumbling undulation of Ishaiolthess’ pipes confirmed that he was indeed no hallucination of hers. He was her William.

He challenged the leviathan, “I’m going to ask you again. Stop right there and fight me if you dare, fucker.”

An amused whistle blew out of Ishaiolthess’ pipe. The momentary surprise of joy in Rulu’s chest plunged as she realized his situation. Alone, unarmed, two hundred yards beneath the surface — William was woefully outmatched in every measure of strength and situational advantage.

Rulu shouted back at him, “William, you cannot hope to win! Please do not throw your life away in vain.”

“I’m going to ask you again. Stop right there and fight me if you dare, fuc—”

A casual flick of Ishaiolthess’ tendrils silenced William.

Silt billowed. Beige clouds billowed in the ravine around them, obscuring what red mist would have remained of his body. Last scraps of Rulu’s shattered heart crumbled with a cry of anguish. This was why she had tried to save him, her poor pitifully foolish man.

A voice distorted by static crackled, “…right there… …me if you dare, fucker.” A broken crystal floated down into the silt at the same pace as the fractured image of William. An illusion, of course, how else could he speak unhindered beneath the waves. But where are you?

Breath of a current tugged the frills of her gills. A powerful one.

Silt shifted, dancing to the tug of the growing flux. Rulu followed it with her eyes and watched a square entrance into the Maze unfolding into the side of the undersea cliff. In the span of a heartbeat, the door was fully agape, and the chaotic turbulence of streams coalesced into a singular tube of maelstrom.

Ishaiolthess’ roar was muffled by the violence of water. Both he and Rulu were pulled in. And her world became a storm of silt and debris flying, whipping past her.

It forced her to squeeze her eyes shut. Despite the hurt a lightness swelled in her chest and a grin cracked on her lips. Very well William, she thought, perhaps I was wrong and you were right. Whatever it is you have planned, I shall never again make the mistake of not trusting you.

***

Fuck-fuck, fucksticks, this didn’t work as planned.

William clung to a rope hooked to the ravine. The immense power of the vortex kept him stuck on the rope, hanging on for dear life. He’d planned to be the first thing sucked in, yes, and he had admittedly entertained some cartoonish assumptions of how whirlpools work.

Debris flinging past him was a hail of needles. Duhie’s magical air bubble popped and every second felt like William was holding his face against a wood polishing machine. Worst of all, the leviathan remained outside the Maze.

Clouds of silt obscured the outline of its ginormous body. The thing was stuck where the dark dungeon hallway met the almost equally dark sea. Masses of thick tendrils swarmed around the edges of the door. That fucker was benching itself against the tug of the maelstrom.

Smack middle in the bed of writhing blackness shined bright lines of spring green. Rulu was less than a street’s width from William, though, against that current, each step might’ve as well been a lightyear.

William had to act fast. The Maze could only suck in so much water until the whirlpool lost its strength. Plus, the last breath in his lungs started to grow stale.

He imbued himself with the blessing of strength. Divine energy lit a sense of power through his muscles and propelled him to scale the rope towards the leviathan. At the doorway, the luminescent blob between a mist of silt and tentacle was close.

William reached for her, but could not.

The leviathan’s tendrils arose above him like trunks of dagger coated iron trees. Each was deadly, stronger than him. But the whirlpool fucked everyone equally.

Isha was struggling, his tendrils coiled and tensed, fighting against the suction.

William drew a dagger in reverse grip and punched it into an amaranth limb struggling against the door. It writhed in pain and another tendril flicked at him, but the whirlpool threw it off course. He drew the sharpened falchion in reverse and stabbed it an arm’s length further up, climbing the stretch to Rulu on the titanic monster’s feelers.

He swung blind at a spot above the green glow, hoping to cut her loose. She could regenerate, so long as he didn’t decapitate her — hopefully.

The blade severed thick hard flesh.

A luminescence pulsed. Rulu’s scream was half-drowned by the sea as the whirlpool yanked her into its heart.

William released the flesh embedded dagger and dove after her, kicking desperately to catch up. Zipping past the door, he commanded the Maze to close the sea entrance in