RE: Monarch

“There are people following us.” I trailed Elder Saladius around the low-ceiling, poorly constructed room that made up his kitchen. 

“Color me shocked. Shocked and amazed,” Saladius muttered, stoking the fire of the small stove. He cracked open several gray, speckled eggs several times too large to be a chicken’s, that impression reinforced by their bright-red yolks. “How surprising that the first human in the sanctum in centuries brings trouble in his wake.” 

Okay. That was fair. But I had a feeling Saladius wasn’t the sort to be impressed with idle agreement or flattery. And something about the latter half of his sentence caught me off-guard. 

“In centuries? There have been others?” 

Elder Saladius snorted. “Did ya’ think you were the first? Haven’t you heard, boy? There’s nothing new under the sun. Course there’s been others. Before my time, but they brought trouble with them. Each and every one.” 

Had he brought us here just to gripe at me? “There were mitigating circumstances.” 

“Seems like a polite way of saying ‘shit happened I wasn’t prepared for, and now I’m relying on the hospitality of others to bail me out.’” 

My temper flared. “We can leave-“

“Yes, do that-“

“It could be argued that I have a duty to them.” He pointed out towards the others with a primitive, grease-stained wooden spatula. I glanced behind me to see if they’d heard. They idled in the small cramped quarters that could only be referred to as a living space in the most generous application of the term. Then he stabbed the spatula towards me. “I do not have a duty to you.” 

I held my hands up, palms up. “Fair enough.”  

I stood in silence as Elder Saladius continued to cook. My mouth watered at the smell, despite the ugliness of the food. The crabs of the ocean chamber were a fond memory marred by the dryness of stringy meat and dehydrated rations we’d been living on for the last few days. It dawned on me with an almost crushing disappointment that the amount of food that was being prepared was barely enough for a single serving, let alone enough for the rest of us. 

“The exit to the sanctum has been cut off,” I said, trying a different approach. 

“So the disembodied voice wasn’t just in my head?” Saladius didn’t even look at me. 

“It… wasn’t.” I said. It was surprising to hear that Thoth’s message had traveled this far, but then again, it explained, at least in part, the amount of hostility he was showing. “If you can’t help us, that’s fine. But maybe you can point us in the right direction.” 

“I can’t help you.” His voice was cold. 

_Yeah, I’ve been getting that impression._ I bit back the retort before it left my lips. “Simple directions on where to look. We were a bit rushed moving out of the heart, didn’t really get a chance to ask around. Eventually, I’ll need to find an infernal that can teach me the flame, but more importantly, we need to find a way to get the barrier down before things get ugly. And for that, we’ll need Morthus. 

Saladius stopped for a fraction of a second before pacing to the counter. “Doubt he’ll be able to help you. Even amongst the rest of us geriatric types, he’s not in what I’d call the best of health these days.”

My head snapped up. “What’s wrong with him?” 

“That’s not for me to say.”  

“Where is he?” 

“Also not for me to say.” 

I stared at him in disbelief, fighting the urge to throttle the man. 

Elder Saladius grabbed a repurposed bottle from the winery—now filled with a viscous black sauce—and slathered the eggs with it. My stomach rumbled as he balanced both eggs on the skillet and gobbled them down, the black sauce spattering his long white beard. 

I narrowed my eyes. It wasn’t just my imagination. He was clearly enjoying this. Frustrated, threw up my hands. “Clearly, I’m wasting both our time, and that chip on your shoulder is worth more than the well-being of every other infernal child touring the sanctum. So thank you for your hospitality. And we will be on our way.” 

There was a gust of air and the rickety, lopsided door that connected the kitchen to the main room swung shut with a groaning creak. 

I looked from the door back to Elder Saladius, annoyed and unimpressed. 

“So dramatic. Tell you what,” Saladius said. His expression was shrewd, almost unreadable. “Give me three days.” 

“Why?” I said. It took a lot to irritate me these days but Saladius had managed it. The things that annoyed me most were concentrated apathy, willful ignorance, and pointless obstruction. From everything I’d seen so far, Saladius had mastery of the full set.

“Speaking practically, it will give you a chance to throw off the bumpkins on your trail.” He shrugged. 

I watched him carefully, trying to divine the reason the conversation had taken such an unexpected turn. “And what do you get out of this arrangement?” 

“Free labor!” 

“We’re leaving.” I pulled at the door, but it remained stuck to the wall. Was that air magic? How was he doing that?

Elder Saladius rolled his eyes. “Pride-pricked nobles, always the same. Fine. In truth, I like the little one. She remembered me. Most don’t. They just come calling, hat in hand, expecting me to dole out knowledge. Least I can do is help her acclimate since you rushed her out of the heart.” 

I bristled at that. But, he was right. None of us were familiar with the fine-print of how Bell’s element interacted with the sanctum. 

Saladius continued. “I’ll take a look at the others as well.” 

“To what end?” I asked. From everything he’d said, I couldn’t imagine he actually wanted to teach them. 

“To make sure they don’t have any glaring weak-points. So, a few weeks from now, when you get them all killed, I don’t have to feel guilty.” 

The old me would have walked out right then. I could weather insults, but implying I’d get them all killed hit a little too close to home after everything Thoth had said. But things were different now. I’d been humbled over the events of the enclave. Brought low. Pride was for people who could afford it. I couldn’t. I needed every advantage I could get early on. 

Elder Saladius threw open the door, the knob jarring against the sandstone, sending a small blanket of fine debris drifting down from the low ceiling. In his hand, he held a bucket. “Alright, you, you, and you. Outside, with me.” He’d indicated all three of my companions. 

“And me?” I asked. 

Elder Saladius smiled shrewdly. “Oh. I have a special task for you.” Then he handed me the bucket. 

----

The beetle had massive jaws that shifted the sand of the dunes themselves when it closed its mouth. It was huge, ugly, and worst of all, it was chasing me. One mantra repeated through my head. I fucking hated Elder Saladius. I hated his stupid, unkept facial hair. Hated his quirky appropriated way of speaking. Hated his shiny bald head and every other single fiber of his being. At least Barion had the decency to do it himself. Saladius, on the other hand, had sent me out to be brutally murdered by giant insects. 

His request had been innocuous enough. He wanted to work with Jorra, Maya, and Bellarex first. And for me, he had a task. There were several bugs he used as an early alarm system. His wording. It had taken him months to navigate them where he wanted. And now, the bugs needed to be fed daily. That, in and of itself, was fine. From the rather unstable way he had reacted our first meeting, I was expecting a bit of hazing while he worked with the others. Menial chores doled out with the intent to humiliate. If that was all they had been, I would have been fine. It was unfortunate to miss the opportunity of learning from an air magician first hand. But I wouldn’t deny the others the chance to learn, and frankly, imagined Elder Saladius to be a miserable teacher. 

So, Prince Cairn, go feed the bugs.  

He neglected to mention exactly how large the bugs were. I’d nearly died when I met the first one. There were several spots marked on the map, but this being a desert, landmarks were sparse, and it was hard to estimate distance. So, staring at the page and looking up distantly, I had barely noticed as I began to descend that the decline had begun to angle sharply downward, and did so in a concave circle fifty feet wide. The sand shifted under my feet and I began to fall. 

_Snap._

There was a whooshing noise immediately followed by a jarring impact as a set of four distended mandibles cracked where my head had been just a moment before. The creature disappeared just as quickly at the point of the inverted cone. If I hadn’t lost my balance, it would have cost me my head. I’d taken several deep breaths to steady myself before tossing a wad of meat across the pit to the opposite side. The creature’s aim was true this time, and I watched in horrified fascination as it blurred out and back into the hole in the span of a second, nothing left of the meat but a red smear across the sand. 

In a mix of determination and stubbornness, I stayed the course. I had no intention of stomping back to Elder Saladius and proving his warped impression of me as a spoiled noble correct. Now that I knew what to look for, the rest had been easier. Identify the nest. Toss the meat. Move on to the next. It became more of an issue of endurance. Sweat soaked the neck of my shirt and the pits of my arms as I navigated the dunes, occasionally dripping down from my brow and stinging my eyes. 

The grueling, repetitive nature of it lured me into a false sense of security. I arrived at the final scarab nest and found that my bucket was nearly empty. Elder Saladius had been fairly precise when he demonstrated the amount of meat to be given to the bugs. “No more, no less.” The last portion was roughly half the size of what he’d recommended, and frankly, I assumed he was just being anal-retentive. Big as they were, they were still just insects. So, faced with the alternative of backtracking all the way to Saladius’s hovel, I upended the bucket and tossed the remaining meat into the hole. It bounced down the slope. Just like before, there was a blur as the meat was consumed. 

But then, the ground rumbled. I froze as the scarab emerged from the dune and scurried around the circumference of the hole. I began to push mana into the inscriptions in my legs, preparing to flee. As soon as I did, its head jerked in my direction. The shell at its back parted and its transparent wings beat in a hummingbird cadence. But instead of taking flight, it hurled itself toward me. 

And now I was running. 

It was fast. Faster than me. There was a gust of rancid wind as the beetle’s jaws snapped at my back, mere inches away. I swore under my breath. If this _thing_ cost me a rest I wasn’t sure I could forgive myself for it. My one saving grace was that despite its many legs it wasn’t particularly agile. I zig-zagged across the dunes in a pattern that was almost as disorienting to me as it was to my pursuer. But still, haven’t sent Vogrin out earlier to scout I was running perilously low on mana—this likely wasn’t sustainable. The possibilities ran through my head. 

Could I deal with it the same way I’d dealt with Kastramoth? 

No. Surrounded by sand. Nothing to set on fire. 

Poison? 

Considering its body mass, I doubted that would work. 

_Think, dammit._

I was once again faced with the ugly truth: I was most in my element when I had time to plan and foreknowledge of what was coming. The natural downside of that method was that it generally involved dying first. That had been almost acceptable to me when I was under the impression that the worst thing that could happen was my own personal pain and trauma, the worst-case scenario finding myself stuck in a situation that could not be salvaged within the provided loop. My experience in the enclave had tainted that impression, rendered my previous confidence moot. I didn’t have infinite chances. If I died too many times, I couldn’t shake the feeling that _something_ would happen; that the darkness that clung to me tighter and tighter would eventually refuse to let go. Some part of me desperately hoped that I was wrong, that it wasn’t as dangerous as my mind was making it out to be. And perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps it was situational. Maybe the feeling of the cloying black would dissipate now that the challenges of the enclave had been overcome. Still, I wasn’t rushing to find out. 

I needed to get better at this. Striking a balance between the informed methodical planning I excelled at and improvising when things went sideways. All that to say, I had no intention of dying to this oversized termite. 

It was just the question of how exactly to avoid it. 

As if the creature had psychically divined my hostility, it leaped forward, wings buzzing, its jaws snapping. I threw myself to the side. There was a tearing sensation. At first, I thought it had finally caught me, shock hiding the damage. Then I felt the air on my skin and realized it had shredded the back of my shirt. I had precious few seconds to feel relief before I landed at an awkward angle and tumbled down a slope, the hot grittiness of sand crunching as it covered me, getting in my eyes. The beetle slid down after me, snapping hungrily. 

Why, Elphion? Why didn’t I just go back for more meat? 

I pushed the last of my mana into my legs, bouncing back up. The beetle roared. Half-blind, I stumbled into a set of ruins, squeezing myself between the fallen rocks of what had once been the entrance to a crypt. 

The scarab clawed at the rocks with its front legs, trying to force its way in. 

The upside was that it was far too big and the collapsed entrance was packed too tightly for it to make any real headway.

The downside was that every time it slammed the full-breadth of its bulk against the barrier, it came closer and closer to collapsing the entry-way and trapping me under the rocks. 

A sense of numbness washed over my legs as the last of the mana within the inscriptions dissipated. 

Like a candle had been extinguished, the beetle seemed to immediately lose interest, poking at the rocks experimentally, then wandering off. It patrolled in circles around the crypt in patterns that reminded me of when it had first emerged. I cocked my head, watching curiously as I waited. It continued the strange circular pattern.

Damn. Of course, it wouldn’t be as easy as just waiting for it to wander off. 

I took a few minutes to steady my breathing, then began the slow process of gathering mana—

As soon as I did, the beetle’s head jerked around, looking over towards me. I stopped, letting the mana go, no longer gathering it to my core. Again, it was like a candle had been extinguished. 

I thought back to the original encounter. The beetle hadn’t bothered with me until I’d started routing mana to my inscriptions. It was attuned to magic somehow. I looked closer at its face and could have laughed. There were membrane-like holes on the sides of its head that likely functioned as ears, but simple black markings where the eyes should have been. Suddenly, its chosen habitat, a simple trap that enticed prey to come to it made much more sense. The beetle was blind. 

But it wasn’t deaf. Without the use of magic, I doubted I could free myself without making a great deal of noise. I thought it through. For some reason, my thoughts drifted to Bellarex. The way she imbued void magic into her daggers, into her sword. 

Slowly, an idea began to form. 

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