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

hopes of decapitating the leviathan as it lunged to follow them.

Riding the eye of the whirlpool, the shapes in water unblurred. Rulu focused into William’s, her arm outstretched towards him. He reached back.

A burning sensation turned to pain in William’s lungs. He swallowed a cough, tasting iron. Rulu sensed his drowning, drawing his lips against her breath granting kiss.

It was the sweetest lungful of water he’d ever taken.

William shielded her from the impact as they slammed into a t-crossing, where the hallway connected with the circularly curving one. The stream turned, pulling them towards the cubic hall at the center of the Maze.

But, as they rode the flow, it slowed. The water level descended and the whirlpool petered rapidly until William and Rulu breached the surface of the water and were eventually left drenched in a hip high flood.

William coughed out water. “Hi again Rulu.”

She replied with a smile, swimming by his side and brushing against William’s leg as he waded water. “I cannot begin to express the depths of my regret, William. Perhaps together we could have had a chance at—”

“It’s all good. I might’ve done the same myself, but let’s focus on the now.” Eyes watering and nose dripping seawater, William glanced backward, hoping to see the ‘head’ of the leviathan floating on the waves.

Nope. It’s still alive. A wall to wall writhing mass of hooked, barbed, and naked tendrils squirmed towards them in an avalanche of certain death. William took longer steps against the water.

Its voice boomed in heart trembling undulations both primordial and demonic.

“He promises untold agony to you before death,” Rulu translated.

William took faster steps. “Hahaha! Great!”

“You cannot outrun him.” She swam on her back to match William’s pace, worry weighing her lips.

He took longer steps. “I know, I know. I’m trying to think of something. I sort of assumed we’d ride the whirlpool to the main room and it would have suffered some damage and— Oh fuck it’s fast!”

“Bless me, William. I shall stall him.”

He took her hand and spoke the words. Glimpsing into Rulu’s soul, William felt an overflowing gratitude and a well of love and admiration. Lines of luminescence surged. Their shine cast long shadows on the hallway and glistened off of the leviathan’s oily tendrils. Rulu’s eyes locked on the leviathan.

Its howl was a series of low booming whistles. As promised, the creature slowed down to a crawl that matched William’s struggling advance.

“Now he promises me agony before, during, and after the rape,” Rulu translated.

Huffing, William ignored a spiking hurt in his knee. “I thought leviathans were immune to your mind magics?”

“Correct. I am manifesting telekinetic barriers at the centre of the hallway.” Her face winced. Dark liquid trickled down her cheek. Rulu bellowed back at the leviathan in what William assumed were profanities and mockery.

Isha’s response left William’s ears ringing.

Rulu cackled and spat out a dribble of blood. Inexplicably, William joined in with an uncontrollable chuckle, despite knowing they had no reason for joy yet. Irritating as it was to the leviathan, Rulu’s magic didn’t seem to be doing any real damage. They could only hope that ice could hurt it more.

Ahead grew a discord of noises, thousands of instruments and hundreds of voices. Together they warbled into an incoherent white noise. Circling the corner, they reached the entrance into the center of the Maze.

“What damnation is this?” Rulu shouted.

“A distraction.”

The open view into a city of gravity defying architecture was gone. Instead they faced a stunning landscape of the rooftops of ancient Iram in its heyday, except, this one was a prop painted by some form of ancient illusory magic, made of colors too vibrant to be real and exaggerated shapes. On the towertop with them stood a handful of humans in rich costumes of exorbitant luxury. They postured violently at another actor disguised as a hobo. Another scenery of a black-and-white masquerade ball of wizards with no grays in between clipped over the first illusory opera, complete with a ballroom and a band.

Behind them, the writhing wall turned a corner and surged forth. Red spurted from Rulu’s nostrils as she erected walls, but the leviathan simply crawled through them, piercing itself.

“Rulu, hang on tight.” William picked her up and drew a shivering breath, closing his eyes to feel the dungeon around him to orient himself. Turns out, it was harder to sense the right direction while distracted by the blare of the operas and a chance of agonizing death.

“Fuck, pray for luck. Blessing of strength.” William sprinted for a running start and leapt.

Landing was like trying to touch fingertips while blind. He hit on the right building, against the wall and not on top of it.

“Ow-fuuuck!”

His shoulder felt crunched. By sheer luck, William avoided squishing Rulu between himself and the building, but she wasn’t entirely spared. Groans of agony whined out of them both as they slid down a floor onto a balcony.

The entrance into the dungeon was flooded with thirty one overlapping echordings. Ruins drowned under their illusory projections. Here and there a glistening limb covered in rows of teeth poked through. Large chunks of structures were sent flying as Ishai searched for them.

William jumped up to the roof and continued skipping wide widths of empty space when possible regardless of what the knee said. He needed to squeeze everything out of every blessing left.

“Where is Ember?” Rulu asked.

“She’s good. They’re all hiding up ahead.”

“And do you have a plan where we survive?” Rulu swiped the blood clean from her nose and cheeks, peeking over his shoulder at their distancing hunter. “A leviathan is nigh unkillable. What manner of a weapon did you find to slay one with?”

“We’ll let it wrestle with the frost slime, unload what we have at it, and hope for the best.” The divine strength faded.