The Wyrms of &alon

The half of our soldiers that hadn't entered the hallway spilled back out into the laboratory. They leapt forward, slicing into as many of the puppets as they could. The puppets fought like animals, and moved with supernatural speed. Three or four leapt onto a single Vvz'zsh soldier and drained the charge from zyr body, which they instantly discarded onto the floor before leaping at their next target.

Another Vvz'zsh turned to us. "Get going!" ze yelled. "We'll keep them busy!"

Dzrtk dashed forward, dismembering several puppets' legs.

Ze turned to Tk'tk'tk. "You heard zym! Lead the way!"

Tk'tk'tk flexed zyr arms and bobbed zyr tail. "Come, it's this way!" Ze pointed at the door.

Puppets leapt at us, but I knocked them back the way they came with an exploding shell of force.

Tk'tk'tk grabbed one of the handles on the door and slid it open. We ran through the opening. Tk'tk'tk came in right after us, closing the door behind zym. Right before the door shut, I saw several Vvz'zsh warriors gather in front of it in a defensive position.

"Follow me!" Tk'tk'tk said.

We ran ahead as quickly as we could, passing through a corridor with a hexagonal cross-section. The floor was dibbled with the bumps and indentations the D'zd used to climb, but the walls and ceilings were astonishingly smooth, likely to deter climbing. The stone had been polished to a sheen. Faint radiation bounced off its surface, whispering indistinctly into our flowers.

It was creepy as heck.

We followed down the bend in the middle of the corridor, after which it flattened out, and then turned, and then rose up, and then turned again before finally opening onto a spacious, curving gallery. Archways dotted the passageway, leading onto narrow balconies that peered out from underneath an overhanging section of the Palace. The view through the archways was breathtaking, and in more ways than one. Fighting soured the city's grandeur, though, I suppose, at least our side had the advantage.

The steam from Suisei's explosions had mostly dispersed, giving a clear view of the damage our assault had caused. The South Gate had fallen, literally. The whole southern portion of the city walls were in ruins. Sunken pits were blown into the ground in front of collapsed walls' stubby remnants.

Panic shimmered through Dz'zrt'zt's streets. The Dominion's soldiers were retreating in a desperate attempt to contain the advancing Vvz'zsh forces. Even though the T'dzd'ch outnumbered the Vvz'zsh, the Dominion's forces were scattered and demoralized. They hadn't expected their defensive line would get cracked open like an egg, just like they hadn't anticipated anything like Suisei or Nina.

Even though I couldn't see my friends in the chaos, I didn't need to. I just followed the trail of melted buildings and frozen bodies they left in their wake. The Vvz'zsh's chieftains, and their finest warriors, and all their Passaged warbeasts ran amok through the Dz'zrt'zt. Vrr't'k riders rode their mounts onto and off the backs and flanks of lumbering brzhts; the vrr't'k spread their wings and glided forward, dispersing across the city like seeds on the wind.

I had to raise my arms to block my flower as a brilliant wave of light rippled out from one of the brzht howdahs.

It was Chief Srrt'zt'krr!

Her figure glowed like a miniature sun, cloak fluttering in an imaginary breeze. The waves of rippling power expanded outward, demolishing buildings and knocking back enemy troops. The luminous waves snaked around the Vvz'zsh troops, leaving them unharmed while smearing T'dzd'ch puppets along the streets.

"Holy shit…" Lark whispered.

"You can say that again," I replied.

For the first time in a long time, I felt exultant.

"This…" I glanced back at my companions. "This was what real victory looks like! This is what blood, sweat, and tears were made for!"

Teamwork and camaraderie had joined hands and given us the boost we'd sorely needed.

It gave me hope that, maybe—just maybe—things might start taking a turn for the better. I knew I, for one, could really use a ray of sunshine, and I doubted I was the only one who felt that way.

The waves of power petered out. Tchn't'ts flew low to the ground, dropping troops onto buildings' rooftops.

Yes, time was of the essence, but our allies needed to hold the line for just a little bit longer. Everyone was fighting for their lives. The sooner we found the treasury, the Key, and the storystones, the sooner the violence could finally stop.

I turned to face my companions. "C'mon, let's hurry."

Lark nodded in agreement.

We kept moving, following Tk'tk'tk's lead through corridors and atria until we arrived at a… well…

"Holy moly…" I muttered.

The light of my words bounced off the walls.

It was a truly grand room. The floors were tessellated in triangular pieces inlaid with abstract symbols carved in rings and wandering paths, like scrawlings from an alchemist's grimoire. Holes in the floor led to basements below. Silver-leaf trees—Szrg, I believe they were called—grew up from the lower levels, forming living columns that spanned from floor to ceiling. The columns were shaped into cylindrical trellis grilles that glowed with gentle electromagnetic music, and had outgrowths that reached up through the large hole in the middle of the ceiling that led to the next floor up.

Like the corridors, all of the walls around us were polished smooth, to prevent any D'zd from climbing.

Tunnels opened up at the edges of the room, linking this chamber to adjacent copies. Some tunnels dead-ended in balcony platforms high up along a wall, giving a view of the open floor.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"The Library," Tk'tk'tk said. "Though, formally, it's just part of the State Treasury."

I guess you could have called it that. Though, instead of bookcases, the many rooms of the D'zd library were studded in free standing triangular prisms pocked all over by deep cubby holes. I assumed the library's texts were waiting inside them.

I had to admit, it felt like we'd stepped into a tomb.

I walked up to one of the "bookcases", peered into some of the cubbyholes, and pulled out their contents. As I was able to understand the D'zd language, I wanted to believe that I'd also be able to understand D'zd writing. Much to my disappointment, I didn't.

D'zd writings came in three flavors: clay tablets etched over with markings, fibrous parchments woven from plant and animal threads, and the fabled storystones. The ink on the parchment glowed to my D'zd "eyes", though the light wasn't at equal strength everywhere I looked. Some manuscripts were much brighter, as if they'd been written only yesterday, while others were faded and blurry.

I wondered if they used some kind of radioactive substance in their ink.

"What do they keep here?" Dzrtk asked.

"Everything," Tk'tk'tk replied. "But, most of all, history." Skittering up to the nearest bookcase, the T'dzd'ch defector pulled out a large sack and started going through the cubbyholes one by one and flicking any storystones out of them and into the bag.

Tk'tk'tk glanced at me and the others. "Well, don't just stand there! Help me collect storystones!"

Dzrtk, Lark, and I nodded and started to help, unwrapping the bags from around our abdomens.

"Why 'most of all'?" Lark asked.

I stuffed the reams of documents in my hands back into the cubbyholes I'd taken them from and then reached for the nearest storystone and dropped it, gently, into my bag.

"History is memory, Rk," Tk'tk'tk explained. Ze looked up at the hole in the ceiling to the floor above us. "When we are nymphs, the hatchery workers tell us stories about the Vyx and the Vyxit. They inspire us throughout our lives. It helps inform how we understand ourselves, and our people." Ze turned to me. "Do you know why the Vyxit hunt the Blight and its Serpents?"

"Because they need to be stopped," I said, and I meant it.

"Of course," Tk'tk'tk replied, "but there's more to it than that." Ze looked over the cubbyholes. "We D'zd were fortunate. The Winged Saviors were able to rescue hundreds of thousands of us. With so many survivors, we were able to keep our people's identity alive. Most other Vyxit peoples weren't as lucky."

"How so?" Lark asked.

"The Blight drove them to the brink of extinction. Although the Vyxit saved their posterity, we can't give them back all the knowledge and collective identity they'd lost." Ze shook zyr head. "I'll never forget what the Eggwatcher told us: once, the Vyxit were the lost ones, but in becoming a people, they were found. Now, we journey together, as one mighty family."

"Perhaps one day, some of the Vyxit might find what they'd lost," Dzrtk said. "Some stories say the Serpents hold the souls of everyone the Blight ever killed. That's why we hunt them," ze added. "Killing them sets the captive souls free."

Man oh man, now I really wanted to tell them what I was, and I was about to go through with it, only to stop myself at the last moment.

Once we have the key, I thought, then I can tell them.

Tk'tk'tk went over to the next bookcase and gathered more storystones. I noticed ze was being rather selective with which ones ze picked, putting some back if ze judged them to be superfluous compared to what we already had.

It was kind of frustrating to watch, considering how few of the things the bookcases had in the first place.

"Let's keep going," Tk'tk'tk said.

Ze moved into the next room. There was a large hole in the middle of the floor, which led down to yet more library rooms. Fortunately, the Szrg trees growing in the lower level formed walkways of a sort that we could and did easily clamber down.

We got to work collecting more storystones, only for Tk'tk'tk to tell us to stop.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"You can't read, can you?"

"No, I can," I said, "just not your language."

Tk'tk'tk went through my bag and Lark's and pulled out several storystones and put them in the nearest bookshelves.

"The stones you've been collecting are repeats of one another. Others are too common to be worth taking."

"Shouldn't we be prioritizing the search for the Key?" Dzrtk asked.

Tk'tk'tk flicked zyr stinger in aggravation. "Yes, but…" Ze set zyr bag on the floor. "Right now, most of the Palace guards should be fighting in the city streets. Once we acquire the Key, alarms will be triggered. We'll have to make our escape. There won't be enough time to collect any more storystones."

"Not if we succeed in taking the city!" Dzrtk said.

"That's a big if," Tk'tk'tk said.

Just then, all my limbs went rigid as a familiar agony flooded my body. The same happened to Lark fell to the floor, and was able to see that the same had happened to Lark. More of AVU screams shot through my mind as I twitched on the ground, and for a brief moment, I could feel my wyrm body, out in the real world.

"It happened again," Dzrtk said.

Lark got back to her feet. "I noticed," she quipped.

I shook my head as I did the same. "We're not just hurrying for the others' sake," I muttered. "I don't know how much longer we'll be able to stay in your world."

"Then let's make sure every moment counts," Dzrtk said.

"Uh, guys…?" Lark said.

I looked up.

We had company.

Three of the most heavily armored D'zd I'd ever seen walked out from under an arched passageway. The sheer heft of the plating around their torsos and abdomens seemed to crush the silky, T'dzd'ch garments underneath, except where the fabrics billowed out at their four sleeves' ends. Their scissorblades were thicker than any I'd yet seen.

"Uh oh," I muttered.

They slashed their swords at us without skipping a beat. It was an odd tactic, to say the least.

Last time I checked, you swung a mélèe weapon at your opponent when they were within reach, not when they were on the opposite side of a big freaking room.

For the briefest moment, I saw something ripple through the air. A quiver of movement, ricocheted from wall to wall like a billiard.

It hurtled toward us, radiating heat.

Dzrtk screamed. "Move!" Scraping zyr sword on the floor, ze leapt at me, pushing me back as ze landed.

The quiver struck the spot behind me where I'd just been standing, carving a deep furrow into the ground as it melted the floor. The runes in the floor glowed and sung as the melted line quickly smoothed itself away and the melted stone re-solidified. The runes fell silent a moment later.

"Oh fucking hell," Lark moaned.

On the one hand, this was all really neat. On the other hand, fudge, they had magic heat vacuum swords!

"Move! Move!" Tk'tk'tk said. "Those blades are Chanted!"

Yeah, I noticed.

"Wait!" I yelled. "I've got it covered!"

At the risk of tooting my own horn, I was our current preeminent specialist when it came to invisible force attacks.

Though I wasn't as swift as I would have been as a wyrm, I was still able to summon a force-field and blast it at the vacuum blade cataphracts. Their invisible cuts and the heat they carried died the instant they came up against my expanding forcefield. The floor directly beneath it melted slightly, but only for a moment before solidifying again.

I yelled. "Dzrtk!"

The Vvz'zsh warriors charged at the three heavies while they were still trying to understand why their ranged attacks weren't working on us. Their bemusement had given Dzrtk just the opening ze needed.

Ze cut off one of the heavies' heads with a double chop of both scissorblades.

Dzrtk bent down and grabbed one of the dead heavy's vacuum blades. The remaining two heavies struck zym together, forcing Dzrtk to dodge, but then came back with a swipe from their second arms, sending piping hot vacuum waves barreling toward zym.

Running forward, I leapt at Dzrtk—pushing off with all fours—lobbing a cloud of cold at the heavies in the same motion.

"Move!" I yelled.

Dzrtk and I moved out of the way, skidding to a stop along the floor right as my magic consumed the remaining two T'dzd'ch.

In seconds, they were frozen dead.

Dzrtk skittered out from under me while I pushed myself up.

"Now we're even," I said. I would have smiled if I could.