Light bloomed in her world between worlds. So much light. So much magic.

She was…sated.

Oh, she could take in more if she needed to. A lot more. But it would be a while before her body could process even what she had already absorbed.

Her frond was angry with her. She could sense that now. She had a vague inkling of what it meant to be angry, although the fact that a frond feel that way about her—a vital part of itself—was a strange concept. Emotions in general, beyond hunger and the urge to grow, were difficult for her to grasp.

The knowledge magic had taught her much over the…months—yes, that was indeed the correct measure of time—since her frond had tapped into it. This newfound understanding had allowed her to nudge her frond toward the largest easily obtainable source of magic she’d found thus far. Her frond had stubbornly turned away from the delectable bounty despite the powerful surge of hunger she had projected into it. And so she had sought another way to encourage it to do what was best for them both.

Fear.

She’d sent a surge of raw fear into her frond. Its mind had done the rest, conjuring up images of terrifying creatures coming to devour it.

Success!

Driven back by the hallucination, her frond had unwittingly absorbed a generous portion of the world tree’s magic. Not enough to do any lasting harm to the world itself, but more than enough for her.

What she had not anticipated was the effect the sudden increase in magic would have on the local denizens bonded to her, who drew their magic from her. These beings, known as vassals, were having difficulty controlling the power they now wielded. One was having a particularly adverse reaction. This vassal’s bond was stronger than the rest, and its power was antithetical to life itself. It would only have been a matter of time until the vassal succumbed to the damaging combination, but the sudden surge of magic was greatly accelerating its demise.

This was the source of her frond’s anger. It thought she was responsible for the imminent loss of their vassal.

Losing vassals—and fronds, for that matter—was to be expected. She was young, and had yet to experience such things, but she knew she was far from the first of her kind to visit these worlds. The residue of her predecessor had revealed much about the nature of her existence.

Her frond didn’t see it that way. It clung to their vassal, desperate to keep it from slipping it away. And in its desperation, it did something she hadn’t anticipated. It fused the vassal’s consciousness—the very core of its being—to her. The new bond was no longer a tenuous thing that would last only as long as the vassal lived. Now, this vassal was almost a frond in its own right, with mind and magic separate from those of her other fronds, yet closely entangled with one of them.

When the vassal—her frondlet—withered and died, its peculiar branch of magic allowed it to linger as long as the frond itself survived.

In time, she discovered that her frondlet’s husk of a body could absorb the magic of the world, just as her frond could. When she briefly extracted her frond from its world, her frondlet came with it. She didn’t know if it would be possible to disentangle them—or if there was any benefit to be gained from doing so. For now, wherever one went, the other would follow.

Such was the state of their entanglement that when she pollinated her first frond with the second frond’s mind and memories, another frondlet bloomed on the first world as well. It had no body of its own, but it took root in the husk of a dead vassal.

Sustaining two fronds and their entangled frondlets was straining her young body to its limits, even with the bountiful magic now surging within her. It would be many years before she could simultaneously extrude three fronds.

This was unfortunate, because her third frond was almost ready. Not only was it almost fully grown, but she also had a world picked out for it—one that was even more enticing than her previous choice.

For her third frond to have its chance to bloom, she would have to withdraw one or both of her other fronds. Yet both of them had unfinished business in their respective worlds. And she had a feeling they would need each other in the days to come.

She could wait a little longer. But not too long.

 

Saskia Wendle awoke with a cold hand on her shoulder. Too cold.

She rolled over, blinking up at Padhra—no, at Ruhildi. Her friend, inhabiting the zombiefied body of her other friend and bodyguard—oh god this was so frocked up—gave her a rueful smile. If this was weird for her, how weird must it be for Ruhildi, who had woken up on another world in a body not her own? Actually, scratch that. Saskia knew precisely how weird that felt.

“’Tis almost time, Sashki,” said Ruhildi.

“Already?” croaked Saskia. It felt as if she’d been asleep for a less than a minute. She’d been tossing and turning all night, but at some point she must have finally nodded off.

Hopping out of bed, she hurried to make herself presentable for the dawn ceremony. The dress Amlya had provided her was, frankly, a little ridiculous. It was even gaudier than Minganha’s usual outfits, and that was saying something. On the other hand, she was grateful to have anything to wear right now. Most of her clothes—everything she hadn’t been wearing yesterday—were buried in the rubble of the temple. This was not the first time Amlya had clothed her. The Lingya woman had been the first to offer her food and shelter and clothing after she’d stumbled down the slopes of Mount Sesayung, naked and alone.

In the room across from theirs, Amlya still sat by her husband’s bedside. Saskia swallowed, seeing his limp, bandaged form. Mig had taken a bullet defending her.

“How is he?” asked Saskia.

“I managed to get some warm broth into him,” said Amlya. “My husband is strong. He is too stubborn to die.”

Saskia gave her a wavering smile. “That’s good to hear. I wish—well, I’m sorry things turned out this way.”

“Do not apologise, Yona. I…” Amlya trailed off as she caught sight of Ruhildi, stepping up behind them.

Saskia wouldn’t have known her friend was undead just by looking at her. Her wounds and…otherworldly features were concealed beneath layers of clothing and makeup. Her magic would prevent the body from rotting.

But nor did she look quite like Padhra. Ruhildi held herself in a subtly different way, and she hadn’t quite managed to emulate that stoic, yet alert expression that had been a permanent fixture on Padhra’s face. The moment Ruhildi opened her mouth, anyone would be able to tell the difference. It was just as well Padhra had never been much of a talker. Still, even without speaking, Ruhildi hadn’t been able to fool Amlya, Padhra’s aunt. Saskia had been forced to admit that Padhra’s body was currently inhabited by her ‘spirit friend.’ She hadn’t yet been able to bring herself to tell Amlya that her niece was, in fact, quite dead. Saskia hadn’t had time to come to terms with that fact herself. If she said it out loud, she might just become a blubbering mess, and that was no way for a ‘goddess’ to behave.

“Sass, you ready?” asked her mum, coming to her rescue.

“Yeah.” Struggling to maintain her composure, Saskia threw her arms around Amlya. “It’ll be starting soon. Thank you for everything.”

Amlya herself wouldn’t be attending the mass burial ceremony. She had a sick husband to tend, and it would be best if her children didn’t have to witness so much death.

Saskia, Ruhildi and her mum rode the hexapod to the site the Lingya had chosen for the burial. They left the ancient machine parked a few hundred metres away, cloaked under its stealth field. Now was not the time to make a showy entrance.

This wasn’t one of their usual burial grounds. Those weren’t able to accommodate so many dead in such a short span of time. The new site was a short distance away from the now-destroyed temple, beyond the patch of forest whose trees had been burnt and toppled by the airstrike.

By the first the light of dawn, temple survivors and villagers alike were gathering by the hundreds. Some of the men and boys had shaved their heads, which if Saskia remembered Lingya burial customs correctly, marked them as children of the deceased. Many of the girls and women had painted faces, and they wore every piece of jewellery in their considerable collections.

Saskia didn’t want to think what would happen if their enemies chose to attack again today, with so many of them out in the open. Although with all these dead bodies here, Ruhildi would be in her element…

Fantabulous, she thought. Now I’m imagining a funeral turning into a zombie uprising. Thanks, Ruhildi.

Her friend flicked her a smile, just for an instant, before assuming a neutral expression.

Oh yeah, mind reader. That was one of many things she’d learned from the recent memory dump she’d received from Arbor Mundi—along with Ruhildi herself. She was still reeling from the discovery that there were, in fact, two Saskias, on two different worlds; one troll; one human. She now both of their memories up to the point where troll-Saskia had last dipped into the between. Fortunately, her other self had already done the mental legwork of figuring out what the hell was really going on, after their memories merged the first time, on the other side of the interdimensional divide. Now, it was just a problem of sorting between the two threads.

One thing she hadn’t figured out was whether there also two Ruhildis. Had her friend’s soul been cloned, or had she simply transferred to Earth? Until Saskia received another memory dump from Arbor Mundi, she had no way of knowing.

Fergus, Dave and Raji stood at the back of the crowd, looking uncomfortable, while Ivan spoke softly to Minganha and another priestess. Ivan had been here long enough to make a few connections among the locals. The other three were newer arrivals, who had rarely stepped out of a city before coming here. This was as far from their usual scene as she could imagine.

The ceremony itself was mercifully brief. The dead had been swaddled in white sheets, and arranged in neat rows before a series of graves. There was a distinct aroma of burnt flesh on the air that no amount of incense could mask. Mourners placed coins and other valuables on the bodies of their loved ones. Minganha spoke briefly, then turned to her.

Saskia stepped between the bodies, touching each of them in turn, and muttering the words the priestess had prepared for her. By the end of it, her voice was choked, and tears clouded her vision.

Whispers rippled through the crowd. Gratitude for her compassion. Prayers. To her.

She didn’t deserve their devotion. She was no goddess. She was a fraud. And now she had their blood on her hands.

If she hadn’t come here, these people would still be safe at home with their families. Their deaths were on her. Padhra’s death was on her. She’d had every reason to expect her enemies to strike at her here, and yet she’d stayed, because…

Because where else could she go?

Saskia didn’t have a good answer to that question, but she’d have to find one. Because she couldn’t stay. Not now. Not after this.

There were more burials to be done, but few of the locals would be present for those. The bodies of the soldiers who had attacked the temple were being piled into graves on the other side of the ruined complex, and outside Tengsanpalem. Minganha had insisted that they treat the dead soldiers with dignity, even after all they had done—if only to ward off vengeful spirits.

“Do we have any hints as to who they were?” asked Raji, as they gathered to discuss their next step.

“Not really,” said Saskia. “They knew exactly where to go, and yet there was none of the radio chatter I would have expected from such a well-coordinated operation. In fact, I never heard them speak—not once. So I’m not even sure of their nationality.”

“Mayhap they were under a compulsion,” said Ruhildi, speaking in the stone tongue. “Remember what we saw in the dream, Sashki. Calburn could command folk to do his bidding with just a pinch of words.”

The others looked at her in confusion, so Saskia translated for them. “She thinks the soldiers may have been mind controlled. My father has that ability—like a Jedi mind trick.”

“Seriously?” said Fergus. “That’s awesome!” At her scowl, he added, “Also creepy. So could he be behind this?”

“I doubt it,” said Saskia. “He warned me someone was coming for me. In a dream. Why would he do that if he had sent them?”

Dave raised his eyebrows. “In a dream.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Saskia. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m telling you, a lot of my dreams aren’t just dreams. Oracle, remember?”

“If your dad can make puppets out of people, it’s likely he’s not the only tentacle master who can do it,” said Ivan.

Saskia groaned. “Can you please not call us that?”

“Okay, Tentacle Girl—ow!” Fergus rubbed his side, where Saskia had elbowed it.

“I think I know who was controlling them,” said Saskia. “Viktor calls him The Ram. The Lingya call him Ogunteng, the Infernal Spirit. He’s my father’s enemy. And Yona’s enemy. And just about everyone else’s enemy too, it seems. Look, he’s basically the Devil. And now he’s coming after me.”

“The Devil,” said her mum, looking at her with the same expression Dave had held moments earlier.

“Not literally,” said Saskia. “But he’s not to be taken lightly. If he can mind control a whole platoon of highly-trained soldiers, who knows what else he can do?”

“Those guys they sent after us back home—they could also have been mind control zombies,” said Fergus.

“Let’s not call them zombies, okay?” said Saskia. “Seeing as we have someone here who can raise actual zombies.” She glanced pointedly at Ruhildi.

“This is so fu…dged up,” said Raji, hastily correcting himself as Alice Wendle’s hand reached for him.

Fergus grinned at them. “Now I know where she gets it from.”

“Whatever do you mean?” asked Saskia, giving him a dangerous look.

“Er…nothing.”

“Can we get back on topic?” said Dave. “Whoever is responsible for the attacks, they’re not the only ones we have to worry about. The destruction of the temple, the downed choppers—they’ll be easily visible by satellite. Hell, someone might have seen the airstrike itself. Every government and private group with eyes on this area and an interest in finding you is going to know something big went down here. So what do you think is going to happen next?”

“They’re heading our way,” said Ivan.

“I realise that,” said Saskia. “I’ve already decided I can’t stay. Not after everything I put these people through.”

“Where do we go, then?” asked Fergus.

“You know, you don’t have to come with me,” said Saskia. “There may be safer places for you to be.”

“Our reasons for coming here haven’t gone away,” said Dave. “We’re still safer with you than on our own, even now. We survived an all-out attack by a large military force. What do you think would’ve happened if you hadn’t been here at the time?”

“But a lot of people did die…” said Saskia.

“Because we were spread too thin, trying to defend them all at once,” said Dave. “The hexapod is a powerful weapon, and it can travel unseen. It can keep a small group of us safe, and take us…anywhere, as long as we don’t have to cross an ocean.”

Saskia sighed. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. It’s not like I’m gonna leave the hexapod here where our enemies, or some random government goons, could find it.”

“I will stay,” said Minganha. “My people need me now more than ever. It saddens me to see you leave, Old One, but we will meet again, in this life or the next.”

“Of course, Minganha,” said Saskia. “This is your home. I would never ask you to abandon it, and I’m sorry I caused you so much pain. I hope if I’m gone, our enemies will have no reason to attack you.”

“You are not to blame for what they did,” said Minganha. “Any one of us would die for you, gladly.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Saskia. “If they do come back, don’t throw your lives away in a fight you can’t win. Do what you can to survive. Run and hide if you have to. Live to fight another day.”

Minganha nodded. “It would not be the first time our people have used such tactics.”

“Speaking of running and hiding,” said Ivan, “that’s all we’ll be able to do until we can make some more ammo for the hexapod’s gauss guns.”

Saskia had already considered that problem. She looked at Ruhildi. “You can shape iron, right?”

“Aye,” said Ruhildi. She glanced about her. “There is a fair bit of iron in these mountains.”

The ground trembled beneath their feet. Ruhildi held out her hand, and a stream of reddish-brown dust rose up to meet it. She clenched her fist, then opened her palm for them to see. In her hand lay a tiny chunk of polished metal.

The others were staring at her, mouths agape. “Who are you?” asked Fergus.

Saskia winced. Her friends knew Padhra was dead, and that this wasn’t her, but they didn’t know the full story about just who now resided in her body.

“Ruhildi is my oldest friend from Arbor Mundi,” said Saskia. “She’s a necromancer, but also a stoneshaper—earth magic, basically.”

“I’m not that old, Sashki,” objected Ruhildi.

“Technically, you’re the oldest person here,” pointed out Saskia. “Almost twice as old as my mum.”

“I remember you telling me about her,” said Fergus. He looked at Ruhildi. “You’re a dwarf, right?”

Ruhildi answered in English. “Aye, I were dwarrow.”

“And you even sound a bit Scottish,” said Fergus. “How does that even work?”

“Uh, that’s probably my fault,” said Saskia. “She only speaks English through her link to me. I suspect my expectations of how dwarves should speak colours how my translator thingy makes her sound to us.”

Fergus laughed. “So you unwittingly turned her into a cliché?”

Saskia shot him a glare. “She’s not a cliché. She just…sounds like one.”

Raji rolled his eyes. “You know the original dwarves of mythology were Norse or Germanic, right? You should have made her talk like a Viking.”

“Tell that to all the movies and video games that gave dwarves Scottish accents,” said Saskia. “It wasn’t exactly a conscious decision on my part.”

“Guys, we so have to get her to do voices for the Threads of Nautilum dwarves,” said Fergus. “There is literally no-one better suited for the role.”

“Except Nautilum’s dwarves aren’t Scottish.” Saskia frowned. “They’re actually less of a cliché than real dwarves—oh god, what have I done?”

“Back to the matter at hand,” said Dave. “Where are we going to go from here?”

“I don’t know,” said Saskia. “Since you’re all coming along, maybe we should decide together.”

“We could go back to India,” said Raji. “It’s relatively close, and I have family there.”

“Too close,” said Ivan. “And too crowded. I say we get somewhere far from here. We could go north across China, into Russia. I speak Russian, and my dad has many contacts there. From Russia, we can head west into Ukraine. Or the rest of Europe, if you prefer.”

“Our attackers might have been Russian,” said Dave. “Their choppers were Russian-made.”

“That doesn’t tell us anything,” said Ivan. “Half the world buys Russian military equipment. Besides, if they were mind controlled puppets, their nationality is irrelevant. Anyone, anywhere could be turned against us.”

“True,” said Saskia. “But ultimately, I want to track down the one who keeps sending these donkholes to kill us. So if he were Russian, then that would be all the more reason to go there. It’s also quite sparsely populated up there, if we avoid the main centres. May be easier to hide.”

“How about Norway?” said her mum.

They all looked at her.

“That’s…really far away,” said Saskia.

“I’m aware of that,” said Alice. “Obviously it would be a more long-term goal. But that is where I met Calbert. If we could find your father…”

“We could wring some answers out of him,” said Saskia. “It’s…not a terrible idea. So Russia first, then head northwest, possibly as far as Norway?”

The others all nodded. Except Ruhildi, who just looked confused. Apparently being able to read Saskia’s mind didn’t give her an instant understanding of Earth’s geography.

“There’s one more thing I’d like to do before we go,” said Fergus. He looked at Saskia. “I want you to make me your vassal.”

“You what?” said Dave, staring at him in something close to outrage.

“I know it’s…a big step,” said Fergus, still looking at Saskia. “But if our enemy is mind controlling people, he could conceivably do it to any of us. Unless we’re already…connected to you. In theory, at least. Your kind has to be immune, right? Otherwise he’d have just mind controlled you straight off a cliff. It stands to reason that your vassals are also immune.”

“There are so many assumptions in there, I don’t even know where to begin,” said Dave.

“I have to agree, that’s a pretty big stretch, dude,” said Raji.

“Maybe,” said Fergus. “But that’s not the only reason. I’m supposed to be a magus, right? So far, I haven’t been able to do shite with it.”

“Give it time, and practice,” said Saskia. “It took weeks for Minganha or the others to do anything, too. Ivan developed his magic faster than that, but that’s because…” He’s got eldritch genes, like me and Mum. “…he’s a freak.”

“Oi!” said Ivan.

“You know it’s true,” said Saskia.

“But you must admit, Minganha’s powers have grown a lot since she became your vassal,” said Fergus.

“Yeah, I suppose… But you should be aware that my oracle abilities interfere with the local magic. You wouldn’t be able to share my oracle interface and use your magus powers at the same time.”

“So I’d have to chose between two strong powers, instead of having one weak one?” said Fergus. “That sounds positively awful.”

“Dude, Padhra was her vassal,” said Raji. “And now she’s dead and a freaky dwarf’s taken up residence in her corpse.” He looked at Ruhildi. “No offence.”

Ruhildi raised an eyebrow at him.

“Not sure if that had anything to do with her being my vassal,” said Saskia. “Ruhildi’s soul may have just latched onto the nearest dead woman she could find. And she’s kind of a special case. I don’t expect that to happen again.”

“Frankly, I don’t care what happens to my body after I die,” said Fergus. “If someone from another world wants to use it after I’m gone, be my guest.”

Saskia sighed. “You sure about this? Because I don’t know how to reverse it if you change your mind.”

“I’m sure,” said Fergus.

“Well then, I guess we should go visit the control chamber.”

“Ah what the hell,” said Dave. “Vassal me too, while you’re at it.”

“Seriously, guys?” said Raji.

“Well you have to admit, the oracle UI shit will be pretty useful,” said Dave. “Like augmented reality goggles, without the goggles.”

Raji sighed. “Oh fine. I guess you should hook me up too.”

“What about you two?” asked Fergus, looking at Ivan and Alice.

“No way,” said Ivan. “My magic is plenty strong enough already. I don’t want anything messing with it.”

More likely, he just didn’t like the thought of her sticking her not-so-metaphorical tentacles in him. She could respect that. It was pretty weird.

“I…suppose I could give it a try,” said her mum.

Saskia blinked at her.

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Alice. “The thought of being manipulated into hurting you…well, if being your…vassal might prevent that, then I’m all for it.”

Several hours later, Saskia awoke by the keystone with four new vassals. She’d half expected it not to work on her mum, who, as a bearer of latent eldritch genes, still presumably had the potential to manifest her own undermind. If it hadn’t happened already, it probably wasn’t ever going to. But if it did…

Well there was no point in worrying about it now. They had bigger problems to deal with.

On her minimap, several aircraft were closing in fast. They weren’t marked as threats, so presumably not the same group who had attacked them, but she didn’t want to be here when they arrived.

“We have to get going,” she told them. She snatched up the now-palm-sized keystone and stowed it away. “Before we do, we should bury the entrances to the vault.” She turned to Ruhildi. “You can do that, right?”

“Of course, Sashki.”

When they were outside, it took only seconds for Ruhildi to bring tonnes of rock down on the cliff-side entrance, and smooth it over so it didn’t look like a fresh rockfall. The other entrance, already half-buried in the ruins of the temple, she sealed over just as quickly.

After a hasty goodbye to Minganha and the other Lingya, they piled into the hexapod. Her mum and Raji and Ruhildi rode in the storage compartment, while the rest took up their seats in the cockpit.

Then they were off, lumbering down the mountainside as a trio of helicopters landed outside the destroyed temple, and Minganha strode forward to greet the new arrivals.

“That was cutting it a bit close,” said Ivan. “Do you think they spotted us?”

“We’re mostly invisible, so no,” said Saskia. “And I don’t think giant bug mechs were on their list of things to look out for. They look like Nepali military, and I doubt they have a clue what really went down here.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” said Ivan.

As they made their way down the slopes of Sesayung, Saskia was already deep in thought, wondering what lay in store for them next. Their prospects for a peaceful life seemed dimmer than ever.

But she had her friends. She had Ruhildi. She had her mum. Somewhere out there, even her donkhole dad was looking out for her. Whatever perils awaited her in the weeks to come, she would not face them alone.