BPL2 - Chapter 10

About three months before Ruwen Starfield’s Ascension Day

The Black Pyramid

The floor of the Blood Gate felt spongy beneath Lylan’s feet. Soft, glowing moss covered the floor of the entire room, and as she watched, it began to move and creep up over the tops of her boots.

Her Black Pyramid mark grew cold on her wrist, the moss retreated, and Lylan stepped away from the portal as Ky came through.

Ky got down to business immediately, pointing at one of the many other rune-covered doors surrounding them. “That sequence will take you to a hallway in one of my levels, and from there you can request a portal to the Farm,” she said. “Report to the foreman’s office for your assignment. If you see anything concerning, do nothing. Simply notify your supervisor, and they’ll get word to me. The last thing I need is another death.”

Lylan nodded, not letting her disappointment show. “What exactly is the Farm?”

“No place, no matter how secret and impressive, can run on intel alone. We need to eat. We need supplies and equipment. The Black Pyramid provides an area where my Shades can generate all that without drawing the attention of the outside world.”

“Really?” said Lylan, surprised. “Don’t you have… people for that?”

“Yes,” said Ky. “Shades are the people. We can’t exactly post job listings at the Stone Harbor Worker’s Lodge, now can we? Everyone over level twenty takes their turn in a yearly rotation. You get the privilege of starting early.”

“I feel so special.”

Ky narrowed her eyes.

Lylan held up a hand. “That was a joke. I’m glad for this chance. Truly.”

Ky nodded, then continued her orientation lecture. “Activating a portal back out of the Farm is only possible at the exit stone, so don’t get lost out in the woods and make everyone come searching for you.”

Lylan frowned. “The Farm is outside the Pyramid?”

“It’ll seem that way,” said Ky. “But no. The interior of the Pyramid is planet-sized, but it feels even bigger thanks to some fancy space bending or something. I learned the hard way not to try and understand it—that way lies math.”

“Copy that,” nodded Lylan.

“Oh,” said Ky, snapping her fingers. “One more thing. I told you to flag anything suspicious no matter how minor, and I meant that, but with one exception. I’ve gotten over thirty reports in the last week on a Step practitioner who lives here and the paperwork is killing me. It’s not him.”

Lylan nodded.

“Try to remember what I said before.” Ky gave her a kind smile. “It’s not over yet. Do well here, and we can talk about making you a Shade again.”

Lylan gave a huge smile to demonstrate that she could take advice. “Will do, boss!”

Ky stared at her for a moment, then pinched the bridge of her nose and mumbled to herself.

“What?”

“Go.” Ky pointed to the door. “Before I stab you.”

Lylan stepped out of the exit stone and into the blinding sunlight. Ky hadn’t been kidding about the spacial bending. For all appearances, Lylan stood at the edge of a small farming facility in a quaint little valley. A forest of leafy, autumn-colored trees surrounded them on all sides, rising up on gentle hills. Behind her was a fifteen-foot-high marble obelisk—the exit stone—and beyond that, a dirt road winding away into the woods. Down the road ahead of her stood a wooden office building with a notice board hanging crookedly from the wall.

Lylan entered the foreman’s office and glanced around. There was a nameplate on the only desk, barely holding on for life as the mass of papers and coffee cups threatened to push it off the edge. It read, “Shade Zip Calhoun, Foreman.”

A beefy woman with a sour face sat behind the desk, and a scrawny man with messy hair stood in the back corner checking time cards and ticking things off a list.

Zip Calhoun looked Lylan up and down. “And who the hell are you?”

“I’m Sha—” Nope. Not a Shade anymore. “I’m Lylan Keel,” she corrected.

“Unbelievable,” muttered the woman, slapping an irritated hand on the desk. She turned an outraged face to the man with the clipboard. “Just look at her. Mistress has sent me another reject, and a dangerous one by the looks of her. I cannot believe this. What am I supposed to do with her? Can’t put her anywhere important because we already know she’s a screwup. What do I look like, Mikma? No, I’m seriously asking. Do I look like the warden of a delinquent facility?”

Mikma appeared very uncomfortable and didn’t answer.

“Oh, Blink off, Mikma.”

He held up his hands. “I would never say it out loud, Zip.”

“That’s true,” said Zip Calhoun. “Just like how I would never say you look like you’ve got a baby worm biter in your pants but are too embarrassed to say so.”

Mikma gave Zip Calhoun a rude gesture and returned to his papers.

Lylan tried to keep her eyes from bugging out. What a pleasant place to work.

Zip Calhoun turned back to Lylan. “We’ve got two types here—real Shades pitching in on the rotation because somebody’s got to do it, and wash-outs who aren’t fit for anywhere else. Which are you?”

Lylan bit her lip to keep herself from saying something snarky. It was clear that Zip Calhoun already knew and wanted to make Lylan say it. “Mistress sent me here to help out. Just tell me where to go.”

“We’re full.” Zip Calhoun returned to her paperwork. “I’ve got no work for you.”

“Well…” Lylan gestured uselessly with her hands. “What am I supposed to do, then?”

The woman acted like she hadn’t heard her.

“I can’t just leave,” said Lylan, a little desperately. “I need this job to prove myself.”

Zip Calhoun looked up. “Mistress Ky might run the organization, but I run the Farm. The Farm. You understand? We’re not a trash can where Mistress can throw all her problems and hope they just magically disappear.”

“I’m not—”

“Not what?” interrupted Zip Calhoun. “Not a problem? Or not trash? We all know why you’re down here and not up top.”

Lylan’s breath caught in her chest. That comment hurt more than it should have. She swallowed. “I was ordered here,” she bit out.

Zip Calhoun dropped her pen and leaned back in her chair. “What’s this now? Looky here, Mikma, I think we’ve got a snitch on our hands. You gonna run crying to the Mistress?”

“No,” said Lylan quietly.

“Then get out of here,” said Zip, returning to her work. “I don’t care where you end up, so long as it’s out of my way.”

When Lylan closed the office door behind her, she heard laughter.

Lylan stood on the dirt road, biting her lip and trying to hold herself together. She couldn’t slink back to Ky without something to show for herself, and she had a feeling that if she didn’t stay out of Zip Calhoun’s way, she’d get a punch to the face with those meaty hands.

The warehouse across the road looked busy and possibly in need of help, so she crossed over and shouted, “Hello?” until she got the attention of one of the crew.

A man leaning over a vat of something gooey growled loudly and looked up from his project. He displayed his palms to her, glowing purple and emitting floating sparks. “That last person who interrupted me got to demonstrate what this spell does on skin.”

Lylan held up her hands and walked backward out of the warehouse.

She fared no better with the pickers who were Blinking around the orchard or with the guys lifting crates onto ferries by the little river. Everyone she came across appeared to be of the Observer class, and all in various states of annoyance at having to do menial work with spells and abilities not suited for the task.

They weren’t the most cheerful crowd, and none of them were keen to annoy Zip Calhoun by allowing someone onto their crew without explicit permission. Lylan tried lying her way in a few times but had less than zero luck against these higher-level Shades.

At a loss for anything else to do and little pride left to offend, she nicked a shovel and cart from behind the stables and started clearing the road of appah dung. She’d done this kind of work before the Academy, but her muscles were out of shape and screamed at her that Shade-living had made her soft.

She made her way up and down every road in the little town, and three hours later, it was finished. Lylan smiled and wheeled her last cartload back toward the compost pile.

She was just rounding the corner of the stables when she heard a shout. Lylan turned just in time to see a golem-driven wagon barreling straight at her.

She barely lurched out way and avoided being crushed. But there was nothing she could do to prevent the rest of the devastation.

The golem and wagon hit the dung cart with a crash of splintering wood and flying debris. The wagon careened to the right and smashed through the stable paddock, causing the appahs to go absolutely berserk.

Six boat-sized appahs reared and stamped, and then bolted from the open paddock and into the road. They stampeded around in a panic, trampling buckets, tools, and crates of food. At least three people Lylan could see had to dive out of the way before being flattened.

“WHAT THE HELL?” boomed the furious voice of Zip Calhoun from just down the road.

Mother of a Krebber, this was bad. Lylan Blinked behind the nearest building and then fled toward the edge of town.