The Icon Unbound

Chapter Twenty-Seven, Part B - Saiph

We only have one chapter left. Is this how you thought it would end? Wait for it, guys....wait for it! I am so glad that we have reached this arc for Saiph. This is the part where the worst has happened (or so he thinks) and he has to decide what to do next. This is where Rigel was earlier. Thanks for all your wonderful comments/votes. They keep me encouraged! --Elizabeth, UPDATED 07/30/2017

Answering whatever sacrifice and prayer she made, the metal around Saiph bent and twisted as if it were in a hot forge. Desperate to avoid the white-hot metals, he hauled himself onto the first platform he came to, and then leapfrogging over fallen debris, tried to keep ahead of the inferno. Walls of earth tried to bar his way. Shards of metal tried to stab him. Saiph slipped around one just as another formed, and then he had to let go of the chain just so he could maneuver. He could still hear his quarry up ahead, trying to make her way to the ship and the stars.

Scuttling noises from the white shapes were getting louder in his ear. Time to act. Perhaps his mother would be able to remove the connection, or be able to tell if one existed.

She was almost at the door now. Her skirts were catching on every stray barb, every half rusted splinter, but the doors were just ahead.

Her drakys had come this way. Saiph could see the claw marks it had made up the side of the ship. Apparently, the creature wanted to get into the heavens as badly as his grandmother. The ship hummed with vital energy, perhaps it would even work after all these years.

All they had needed was the proper key and the will to flood the Red City. Well, he would send her corpse up in the ship after he had her heart. It was surprisingly easy to contemplate. He had killed for her before.

Fifteen feet away now, he could have her in a few strides. A few more seconds and he would have her heart. Just before the entrance to the ship, there was a loading platform of sorts. It looked like the most stable, horizontal surface in the entire complex.

Picking up her tattered skirts, Ru'a went straight to the door.

Ru'a howled in frustration when she saw that the door to the ship was closed fast. Her wounds had already stopped dripping blood, and the marks she made on her flesh had faded into her skin. Could the witch be all out of tricks?

Saiph rushed forward as eight figures crawled out of the darkness and on to the platform. One of them had been attacked by the drakys. Three claws had raked the...person?...from shoulder to belly. Instead of blood, a silvery sort of puss leaked onto the floor. They couldn't seem to walk, but they crawled on their bellies quickly enough, using their clawed hands to propel them forward.

These were all that was left of the ancient underground city.

Unable to die, they had lived in a hell for thousands of years, drowning. Bile roiled in Saiph's gut as their sorry existence, if it could be called that, became clear. Their own faces were frozen in expressions of fear and disbelief. As for the rest of their bodies, they were translucent, like termites, thin skin covering visible bones and organs. Those that still had eyes, all were black and empty, except for their pain. Their vocabulary consisted only of screams.

And scream they did, in pitches and variances that an untwisted human could not replicate.

Saiph trembled to cut them down, he had wasted so much time chasing Ru'a. He could be too late. Every second was wasted. But when they turned their eyes to him, all he could do was pity them. How many were still trapped? Had they been swept out along with the dark water?