IGS #4, Chapter 29

The Nightmare Lady

Naomi lost herself to wonder.

Traversing the Lustrous Maria was akin to wandering through an endless dream. Acherzua had been many things thus far, from the dour impressiveness of the Fiery Shoals to the grim bleakness of the valleys in the Iron Weald, the instinctively homelike Farmlands and the ethereal enervation of the Silver Unfathom.

But it had never been endlessly, impossibly beautiful.

Nox led her through regions sheltered between towering menhirs where emerald waters glimmered between flat, encrusted lily pads of jeweled growths, so that it felt as if she wandered through an artist’s impressionistic palette. The horizon lost in a magenta haze, the sky above an endlessly spectacular sunset or sunrise.

In some places the mesas and rough columns arose sufficiently close together that the land took on the aspect of a stone forest, the ground growing rising and falling with vibrant corals which also grew up the sides of the cliff faces and menhirs, their stone fronds exhaling and gently undulating as they breathed in the Gold and Silver mana. The air became a moody blue, as if they were a fathom underwater, and the sky far above shimmered azure and silver.

Occasionally their path left the waters below, to stray up along sandy ridges that crawled around great mountains, the land eternally sloping down, the sun growing fierce, the petrified bushes of ocher, cadmium yellow, delicate pink, and royal purple resisting the gusts of perfumed wind, so that the landscape became only more alien.

 They slept in hollows and under great shelfs of veined rock. They drank from the azure waters which were sweet, not salty, and feasted from the riot out of fiendish life that everywhere swarmed around them.

For in comparison to the barren Unfathom, the Lustrous Maria was alive with fiends.

Flocks of striped reptilian discs floated over certain coral bushes, their sides flashing as they darted back and forth. Immensely fat lizards sunned in the open, their crimson markings indicating their poisonous nature. Heavily carapaced lobsters the size of horses grazed within the undergrowth, while flocks of lavender horses on stilt-like legs a dozen yards tall moved with impossible grace across the landscape like errant clouds.

Naomi felt herself growing strong. The colors soothed her soul. The vibrancy mocked her austere depression. She felt herself breathing deeper of the rich scented air, and one beautiful day she bathed in a deep well of water so clear it felt as if she hovered over a shaft thirty yards deep on whose white sands below she could just make out jeweled starfish.

Nox visibly relaxed, and the more Naomi indicated her amazement at the Lustrous Maria, the more he puffed up with pride, as if he were personally responsible for the wonders and glories that surrounded them.

“Lustrous Maria very nice,” he’d allow, and Naomi could almost hear him sniff. “Quite pretty, well endowed with tasty snacks.”

But Naomi never quite let down her guard. It was from this realm that the Blood Ox had recruited his army, and despite his cavalier attitude, Nox was careful in the paths he chose, how exposed he allowed them to become. On their third day traversing along a coral ridge a hundred feet above a glimmering bay, they saw a herd of familiar fiends moving along a causeway. Platinum carapaces encased huge black tentacles and coils, their heads horned helms, their forearms clasped by great silver vambraces.

Naomi stared, fascinated. She’d fought these alongside Scorio and the others, recalled all too well had fast they’d moved, their ferocity, their terrible might.

Now? They moved at a leisurely pace, leaping over stretches of water, pausing to crack open nodules and root inside the rubble for congealed mana. A dozen individuals, with a few smaller ones in their center.

A pack? A pride?

No matter. Nox and Naomi held very still, even though they were so high up and far away, till the fiends were gone.

Another day they saw a Symmetron perched atop a mesa, four-faced, four legged, each of its four arms clutching a great coral club of a different hue, its gold, impassive faces gazing in the four cardinal directions as if it were self-appointed sentinel or guardian of the realm.

Nox didn’t appear quite so grandiose whenever they were forced to slink past these potential foes.

But otherwise it was a dream. Gold mana flowed in magisterial rivers through the air, the countless corals and fronds and fiends drinking deep. Silver curled around the Gold, as if drawn to its noble nature, while Bronze and Copper flew overhead, Iron powered along in great stubborn runnels, and Coal, well.

The sight of the seams of Coal worming along the cracks and filling the occasional ravine filled Naomi with a deep and persistent melancholy, so that always she averted her eyes.

Their most disturbing encounter occurred while passing through a petrified forest of flame. The ground was slate gray and riven by rivulets of pearlescent blue waters that chuckled and ran down toward a distant bay a half-mile away. Occasionally entire swathes of the stony floor were covered in bright crimson lichen, and everywhere great flesh-colored mushrooms of stone arose, surrounded by clams as big as Naomi whose shells were parted so that tendrils could rise to draw in the mana.

But it was the trees and their impossible foliage that filled Naomi with awe. Every trunk bent to the west, as if bowing before an unfelt wind, and from their boughs streamed thick filaments of red and orange, of the palest pink and dark lavender. The effect was intoxicating; it felt as if she followed Nox through an eternal burning cloud that had caught upon the prongs of the branches, the cool grays and blues of the ground only emphasizing the ruddy glowing light of the canopy just overhead.

Nox was warbling one of his travel songs, which was composed of snatches of old Quantic trials. At first Naomi had sought to divine meaning or sense from his verses, but had finally grown accustomed to their being free-associations, word poems with little meanings but somehow pleasing and comforting to the ear.

“Tulip branch upon black spear home,

rising moon seen though broken cave.

Moist burrow where Nox seeks to dwell,

Tulip branch in Great Soul hell.

Black spear thrust through falling moon,

Broken cave where no may dwell.

Tulip branch and emerald spire -”

Naomi followed in her human form, a slender walking stick of spiraling white coral in one fist, an eye out for the small speckled conchs she liked to cook for dinner in a salty soup, when one of the flame red trees to the side suddenly twisted about, trunk supple, so that a humanoid torso in its center rotated into view, great blood-veined petals extending from the nape of its neck and shoulder blades to frame it like the heart of a great impossible orchid.

Naomi startled and leaped away, Heart Igniting instantly so that she became the Nightmare Lady, while Nox let out a huffy croak and expanded his vocal sacs in distress, ready to unleash a mana blast.

The fiend, the person, the… whatever it was, however, made no attack. Six armed, its flesh roseate like the canopy above, bald, its face a minimalist simulacra of humanity, it fixed its yellow agate eyes on Naomi grinned, revealing a mouth full of what might have been insect legs or flower pistils.

“The Queen returns,” it hissed, all six arms rising and falling, long taloned fingers flexing, the vast petals like ship sails behind its head and back shivering. “The Queen returns, diminished!”

The Nightmare Lady checked herself, tail lashing, ready to leap away, ready to shred the tree-fiend or flower monster or whatever it was. “Queen?”

“Seen dimly, darkly, adumbrated your form, royalty still, royalty forevermore,” hissed the repulsive creature. “Long gone, long lost, word goes forth, message through root and thorn. Welcome, half-Queen, wastrel girl, mocking echo.”

The Nightmare Lady glanced at Nox, who’d turned about with his ungainly steps to face their interlocutor. “What are you talking about?”

“Foolish tree. Idiot tree.” Nox allowed his sacs to collapse back into his throat. “Not mana mad.”

Its six arms continued to rise and fall with unnatural grace, its yellow eyes to burn. “Word of your arrival preceded you, word of your going advances ahead. The land knows. The land knows. The land knows its own.”

“My arrival?” The Nightmare Lady glanced about the vale, not wishing to grow so distracted that an enemy could creep up on them. “I’m… known, here?”

“The echo is ignorant of the prime sound. Muddied water. Dying vine.” The lipless mouth split open even wider. “Let me embrace you. Come into my folds. What once was lost can be torn free. I do this as a service. Humble servling to once-great Queen. Cast off impurity. Remove weakness.”

The Nightmare Lady lashed her tail from side to side. “I don’t think so.”

“Nox remove its head. Better if it stop talking.”

The fiend evinced no fear. Its eyes were somehow growing larger, the eyelids retracting to reveal ever more of their burning yellow spheres. “You are known! You are seen! Word shall reach your home. I send it now. You shall be collected! You shall be flensed! You shall be flayed!”

“Time to go,” said the Nightmare Lady, backing away. She didn’t want to get close to those grasping arms, to that widening mouth, to the huge petals that palpated the air hungrily, their blood-filled veins visible in their amber flesh.

“Nasty tree,” agreed Nox, throat bobbing. “Rude.”

They hurried over the slate rise and down the far side, leaving the rooted fiend behind. But now the flame trees around them stirred as if lashed by a wind, their long, crystalline leaves chiming eerily and loosing a mist of fine, crimson mica that glittered like blood snow as it fell upon them.

It was so pretty.

But the Nightmare Lady didn’t want the dust falling on her black skin. She bounded ahead, leaping over orange coral bushes and fast-flowing rivulets, till at last they broke out of the flame trees on a great oblique ridge that carved a path down and around to a sunlight dappled bay where a Six Snake fiend was grazing, half-submerged.

The Nightmare Lady stomped and shook herself, a faint cloud of crimson dust coming off her bony frame, but then stopped.

The undulations weren’t limited to the fire trees. Though the great boughs behind them had fallen still, the Nightmare Lady could track the passage like a great shiver of movement expanding outward around them, down the ridge, causing the small bushes, the larger fronds to quiver, on and on till she couldn’t be sure of her senses.

Nox waddled up beside her, his black form dusted pink.

“You see that?” She pointed with one talon. “Whatever message that fiend sent, it’s gone far ahead of us.”

Nox stayed silent, lips pursed in the manner indicating displeasure.

“You ever meet something like that?” The Nightmare Lady studied him.

Nox belched, and settled in a little deeper where he sat, wobbling from side to side. “Acherzua hold many fiends. The Lustrous Maria has most of them. Nox never meet rude tree before.”

“It seemed to recognize me.” The Nightmare Lady stared blankly at Nox, then down at her upturned palms. “I don’t… it called me a Queen?”

“It not spend much time with you.”

The Nightmare Lady grimaced but made no comment.

They traveled on.

But now the land seemed aware of their passage. The wind brought whispers as they progressed, half-understood, that caused the Nightmare Lady to slow and tilt her head. The vegetation and corals at times shivered as she passed them by. Fiends circled overhead.

But Nox was undismayed. Her attempts to engage him in the matter fell flat. His behavior grew strange. He began pausing for no reason she could discern, great shovel-head half-cocked to one side, listening, eyes heavy lidded. Or abruptly he would clamber up a spire shelf of rock to gaze alertly out over the expanse of the Lustrous Maria, intent on some mysterious signal she couldn’t discern.

One morning as they made their way through shallow emerald waters, hopping from great stone lily pad to lily pad, he suddenly stopped and tensed.

The Nightmare Lady turned in a slow circle, seeking in frustration some sign of whatever foe or danger had caused her companion to freeze yet again.

Nothing.

Then a world shattering reverberation sounded from Nox, his huge throat expanding as if he’d just swallowed a massive fiend, and his call blasted forth, nearly deafening her.

Hissing, the Nightmare Lady pressed her palms to her earholes and crouched. Nox inhaled deeply and again croaked, the sound prodigious, propulsive, echoing out over the watery flats.

“What the…?” She glared at her companion, who remained fixated on a distant clump of corals. “Nox! What are you—”

A second call sounded forth, made thin by the distance, but unmistakably similar to Nox’s.

Nox shifted his weight excitedly from side to side. “Nox does not abide a challenge!”

“A challenge? From who? Another Emperor Wraith Toad?”

“Nox supreme!” Never had she heard him sound so excited. “Nox thin the field!”

And he squatted deep into himself, body ridging and rising into folds about the elbows of his arms and huge rear legs, then exploded forth into a leap so prodigious that the roseate lily pad beneath him shattered. The Nightmare Lady recoiled, one arm raised against the chunks of rock and gust of wind, and watched in blank shock as Nox sailed through the air, the farthest she’d ever seen him leap.

He landed a good hundred yards away in a great splash.

A second figure hurled itself aloft from the distant corals to land before her friend.

A second toad.

“Oh damn,” whispered the Nightmare Lady, rising from her crouch.

The other toad was as massive if not bigger. Dark as coal and with red jagged stripes running down its side, its eyeless sockets were rimmed with spikes and an aura of crimson light burned off its lumpen hide. Horns extended from its elbows, and rimmed its broad back.

Nox warbled and shook and swayed from side to side, his sound felt more in the Nightmare Lady’s bones than heard, and then the second toad began the same, shifting and swaying and issuing its own call.

The Nightmare Lady ran forward, leaping from pad to pad, tail lashing behind her.

Their song grew louder. Even at this distance it was deafening. Nox began to burn with a fearsome black aura she’d never seen before, and the waves of weaponized Coal mana could be felt even at this distance. It felt like she was running into an ever thickening cloud of pressure.

Their song was complex and interweaving. But not harmonious. Each toad strove for mastery. Their rhythms and cadences vied for supremacy, at times clashing and then resolving as one took the lead, only for the other to rumble and croak and sing forth a new challenge.

Small waves were pushing away from where the pair stood, washing over the corals and pads. The air shivered.

Should she intervene? Would Nox even welcome her help?

The duet grew more ugly, the surging rise and fall more chaotic as neither acquiesced to follow the other’s lead, and then abruptly both toads hurled themselves at each other.

The collision was momentous. They leaped with enough power to cross another hundred yards, but only flew a dozen before they collided. Limbs clutched at each other, mouths opened wide, tongues lolling as their auras blazed even brighter, and the backlash of aura was so tremendous that the Nightmare Lady dropped to one knee, arm raised again to shield her eyes.

The toads crashed into the emerald waters and began to toss and tumble, rolling and striving for mastery. The strange toad was larger, and at first it seemed it would overwhelm Nox, his crimson aura surging like wildfire. But then Nox got his rear legs under him and rose tall, pushing up and forcing the second toad to rear up as well.

For a moment they teetered, rear legs full extended, and then they crashed down onto their sides.

The Nightmare Lady couldn’t comprehend how they were even fighting. They were too massive, their talons too meager to do actual damage. No, it was their auras; they surged and sizzled and spat where they overlaid each other, black fighting against crimson. Both toads resonated as they rumbled deep and powerfully, and wave after wave of mana burned through the air, buffeting her where she crouched.

Scowling, she pressed on. As she drew closer she heard both toads calling forth—insults? Their voices were interwoven, words and phrases meshing and clashing.

“—dry warren where no eggs are laid—”

“—eggs of the mother hatched inside the pool—”

“—dry hide of hideous pretender—”

“—hide of gleaming gems—”

“—eyes like gems, fecund females, all thirsting for Nox!”

The Imperial Wraith Toad hurled the crimson toad aside and immediately charged his foe before he could right himself. With a great shoulder thrust he knocked the other toad onto its back, then hunched his shoulders and unleashed a terrific Coal detonation.

Black fire washed over the crimson aura, negating it, and then Nox unleashed a second detonation, then a third.

Each caused his opponent to dim, his crimson stripes darkening, his aura snuffing out. The water around them was lifted up and hurled away in great curtains of stinging spray, the ground cracked, and again the Nightmare Lady fell back lest the mana detonations sear her hide.

Then—silence.

Nox remained crouched beside his toppled foe, who struggled weakly as if dazed, his limbs stirring back and forth as he remained trapped on his back.

Nox gazed over the fallen toad with a sneer. “Hollow egg. Nox supreme lusty male. Know your place.”

And he began to waddle away, splashing through the emerald waters that had flown back in.

The other toad remained flipped, mouth slowly opening and closing, straining as if caught in a nightmare of invisible honey.

Nox strolled past the Nightmare Lady, wisps of black smoke still rising from his pebbled hide. He held his head high, his chest puffed, and the Nightmare Lady followed him warily, occasionally glancing back at the defeated toad.

Only once they had left the arena of battle behind and rounded the base of a ragged island that rose to a high plateau did Nox cease to strut. He abruptly sagged, shoulders slumping, and sank into the lambent waters.

“Are you… are you all right?” asked the Nightmare Lady.

“Nox…” The Emperor Wraith Toad inhaled deeply. “Nox mighty. Nox crush pretender male. Nox… need nap.”

A dozen questions arose in the Nightmare Lady’s mind, then fell away. “I’ll hunt something for you to snack on. You must be hungry.”

“Naomi good friend.” Nox began to crawl toward a dark cleft in the island’s cliff face. “Nox must recover from excess virility. Must not disappoint… must not disappoint females.”

The Nightmare Lady watched him go, then shook her head and smirked. “Perish the thought. I’ll be right back. Stay safe, all right?”

The great toad turned so that he could move backward and squeeze his bulk into the dark slash in the rock. Once wedged in tight, he sagged down again, water lapping about his chin.

He made no response.

The Nightmare Lady watched him for a moment longer, then loped off, casting about for prey. As she ran, the closest corals, bright outgrowths of vermillion flecked with gold, ripped as if in alarm, or acknowledgment of her passage.

Reaching the Pools of Radiant Gold was going to be a far stranger experience than she’d anticipated.