Call of the Abyss [Book 2 Complete]

The wind carried Julia along as she glided. She had spent the past few hours refining her air-gliding technique, deciding that the gravity propulsion could wait for a while. She was obviously going to try it again, but she would do it carefully next time.

She closed her eyes as she glided on the wind. She could feel it sweeping past her body, smell the scents it carried, and hear the subtle shifts in the leaves and the ripples on the water as it blew through the marsh.

Gliding beneath the towering marsh canopy, eyes closed, she angled down slightly to avoid an oncoming branch.

A smile tugged at Julia's lips as she whirred past the branch, narrowly missing it. She could hear the leaves rustling in the wind as she approached. She had known the branch was there without needing to see it.

It was like the wind was whispering directions to her. It was an almost instinctual thing—her senses picked up an obstacle, and her body moved appropriately to avoid it without much conscious thought.

The instinctive flight freed her mind to wander, unburdened by the need to track each passing moment. She began to wonder about the differences between her gravity flight and her current method. She felt there was a marked difference between the two—she almost certainly wouldn't be able to use this instinctual navigation method with gravity flight.

Gravity propulsion was simply too fast—too unnatural. The wind couldn't speak to her when she was sealed in an air capsule and hurtling faster than sound. This kind of flight felt more like what she imagined a bird might experience. It was instinctive, delicate, unobtrusive, natural. The air gliding felt like flying with nature, while the gravitational propulsion felt like flying in defiance of it.

Julia suddenly realized she'd been subconsciously assigning morality to the two methods of flight—as though Gravity Magic went against the principles of the world. Well… perhaps it did. Wasn't all magic a kind of defiance? Imposing one's will on the world, regardless of what nature intended?

But that didn't make it a simple binary of good and bad. Burning a forest down was probably not good—but was it bad when nature did the same with a bolt of lightning during a drought? Was it bad to build levees that kept rivers from overflowing and washing entire towns away? Was it wrong to defy nature to ensure your children survived the many horrors it could wield?

Shaking her head, Julia cast those thoughts to the back of her mind. Though they were worth contemplating, they had no bearing on her search for Nashiin.

She had been flying now for about four hours to reach the edge of the marsh. The trip would have likely taken half as long had she not been testing flying methods and fine-tuning her air gliding, but she was close now.

She marveled for a second at how freeing flight felt. Even the valewyn, as fast as it was, took several hours to reach the border town during her last excursion with Ithshar's company, having to dodge this-way-and-that to avoid obstacles and marsh creatures. Up here, Julia had no such worries—only the occasional shift in air currents to worry about.

Julia could see a clearer section of the marsh to her left that was possessed of those gigantic insects—the zarakhil. This region of the marsh was slightly different, in that rather than the huge marsh trees that—while submerged—resembled forest trees she was familiar with, this region had trees with many trunks.

There would be dozens of trunks (or maybe they were roots?) sticking out of the water for several stretches before joining up into a single trunk. Just a passing glance showed Julia why the zarakhil likely hunted these areas. Those trees, with their spread out roots, were perfect shelters for marsh creatures. She could see ghamhûr nesting and resting within their confines, while the zarakhil used their long, needle-like appendages to spear into the cover.

There seemed to be mixed results—the zarakhil, while deadly and dangerous—didn't appear too bright. They would spear through the roots, miss, and just keep trying—over and over, without changing tactics. The wiser of the ghamhûr easily found the spots within the roots that were safest and stayed there, while the less wise were speared and consumed.

As interesting as the cycle of life in the marsh was, it was not Julia's purpose for being all the way out here, so she refocused. Being this near the edge of the marsh put her close to the Nashiin's blockade, which meant danger.

Trixy unwound from around Julia's torso and took off invisibly toward the left, while Julia flew (much slower now) toward the right. She used one of her old tricks and dispersed her body into a mist, making her already lightweight body nearly disappear to any onlookers. She looked like nothing more than a light fog moving through the air. Even still, she made the fog her body had become transparent as well—one couldn't be too careful around Nashiin.

It had been much more difficult to pull this trick off before her evolution. She could transform her body, but it was not nearly so fluid and controlled as now. She would quickly store her armor in her bracelet as she became mist, but getting it back on was the difficult part.

She could summon it from the bracelet and form herself (as a mist) into it before taking her normal, human shape—in effect growing into her shape within the armor rather than putting it on. However, it was much slower than she would've liked. Now it was a nearly instant thing. It felt like slipping her shirt off and on over her head—something she hardly had to think about.

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She floated about lazily on the breeze, which was light but steady today. She estimated it would take about three to four days at this speed to scout the entire border, but the extra time would give her ample opportunity to observe her surroundings. That time could be cut in half if Trixy went the opposite direction and scouted, but Julia was unwilling to be too long or far apart from her.

The plan was for Trixy to do more active scouting of the area within the border, while Julia scouted the border itself. She felt more secure and hard to detect than Trixy, who was just relying on her invisibility. This was just hiding her from visual range, not any other senses or sight. It was also an effect created by magic, so although visual light wouldn't reveal her, to any kind of mana perception, she would shine like a fire.

A spirit actively using magic was like a torch in the dark. Granted, it was less noticeable in the marsh—which was saturated with mana from the Mother—but it was still noticeable enough that Julia could pick Trixy out from half a journey away.

Julia floated closer to the border—close enough now to once again observe the harsh, unnatural-looking divide between the marsh and the swamp that surrounded it. The demarcation was like someone had drawn it on a map, as if that map had become reality. There was even a line through the water where the green-tinged marsh water met the dark, murky swamp water, as though someone actually had drawn it into reality.

She'd decided to survey the marsh border due to familiarity (or lack thereof) more than anything. The Zal'Nadir had been given the reconnaissance mission as well, and they were infinitely more familiar with the marsh interior than she.

Julia had decided her time would be best spent scouting the border, which she could likely do better than anyone else thanks to her advantages as a spirit.

She was unsure if it was due to her recent evolution or her growing familiarity with the marsh and its mana signatures, but Julia could now see the Nashiin below the water far more clearly.

They were faint outlines of a hazy purple, with orbs of fire in their eye sockets. The effect her Spiritual Sight created was ghastly and strange—it would have given her goosebumps had she still been in her body.

The hazy outline with the fiery purple eyes gave the impression of malicious spirits—not spirits like she or the Mother, but vengeful ghosts—lying in wait to lure their prey to the bottom of the marsh.

Didn't Braden once tell her of fictional creatures like that? What were they…sirens? Though these were not attempting to lure sailors with beautiful song, nor were they hunting for sustenance—they were ravenous phantasms of death and destruction.

The hours began to pass as Julia settled into a sort of meditative state—the kind of focus one achieves when doing a repetitive task for long periods of time. She watched the Nashiin in the water while looking as far into the swamp as she could. Trixy constantly whizzed by just behind her, scouting out the interior as Julia drifted.

She began to notice an inconsistency within the Nashiin formation: some areas had a greater concentration of forces under the water.

Most of the marsh was evenly surrounded by regular skeletons spaced several strides apart each. They would be interspersed with the occasional Revenant or Ghûl, but the uniformity of the formation was maintained.

However, as she drifted by certain parts of the border, she would see concentrations of skeletons, Ghûls, and even Revenants hiding underwater. These were not lying on the marsh floor, either.

They were standing under the water, as though prepared to launch to the surface and grab any fool misfortunate enough to cross their paths. To Julia, this spoke of readiness.

While the undead that seemed passive would activate when anything meeting whatever criteria they had been commanded crossed into their range, these were always alert—always awake, always watching.

"What are you guarding…" Julia pondered.

Now, the Julia from just a few weeks ago might have immediately gone off to investigate. The current Julia, however, recognized that she was part of a larger effort against the Nashiin. Charging in recklessly—no matter her perceived advantages in stealth—could make her efforts all for naught should be unable to return with any information.

Deciding to act within the orders Seyatha had given the Zal'Nadir—and, by extension, suggested to Julia—she backed off from the border. Once she was about a solid journey from the Nashiin's blockade, she reformed her body, donning all her gear—she was not taking any chances.

She formed the runic script above her hand and spoke into it.

"Are you there, Seyatha?" she asked of the runes.

"Indeed. You have something to report?" Seyatha's voice spoke back from the script.

"Yes, I've been scouting the border of the marsh—the Nashiin's blockade. Much of it is as I remember, but there are inconsistencies I feel I should report," Julia said.

She explained the abnormality she'd discovered, while also explaining what she'd observed as "normal" Nashiin blockade numbers from her time in the swamp.

"...I see," Seyatha said, a silence stretching as she digested the information.

"You were right to report this. How long do you think it will take to cover the entirety of our borders at whatever speed you can move safely?" Seyatha asked.

"Probably three or four days. I can move faster, but I lose a bit of stealth as well as time to thoroughly investigate each area I pass otherwise," Julia explained.

"Excellent. That is incredibly quick. In that case, will you monitor for more inconsistencies like the one you have already spotted? Perhaps record them on something—write them on paper, scratch them on wood, carve them into Nashiin bones, whatever you can find and use—and note their specific numbers.

"To the best of your ability, try to get an accurate read on their numbers, the makeup of these 'active' troops, and their positions around the border. When you've surveyed the whole of the marsh, return to Veshari so we can examine your findings.

"It could be that the Nashiin have given us excellent surveillance targets in their caution," Seyatha said, and Julia thought she heard a grin in her voice.

"Will do," Julia replied. She canceled the script and resumed her misty scouting. Perhaps the time to go on the offensive was nearing.