Jessica Andersen - Magic Unchained

Cara gaped, first because the creature—the nahwal!—had acknowledged her, and then because of what its question meant. “You’re a three-question nahwal!”

Rabbit had killed the prior version of the oracle, defending himself when the creature went rogue and attacked him. The Nightkeepers had searched long and hard for another, needing the answers it could provide if it chose. The “if it chose” was an important caveat, though, because the answers given by the prior three-question nahwal had been riddles at best, useless at worst, and almost always seriously obscure.

“Is that your question?”

“No!” she said quickly. “That was a statement, not a question.”

“Careful,” Sven said in an undertone. “The last one had a temper.”

“No shit,” she said, anxiety pushing her tone sharper than she’d really intended. Blowing out a breath, she whispered, “What should I ask?”

“Request not of others what you must decide for yourself,” the nahwal said flatly. “These are your questions, not his. Ask for your true heart’s desire and the answers will be yours.” Its eyes bored into her, reaching inside as the thing said, “What do you want, winikin? Ask it of me now… but ask wisely.”

Cara suddenly had to swallow hard, choking down the bitter thought that she didn’t remember the last time someone had asked her what she really wanted. She wasn’t even sure she knew anymore, and boy, did that suck. This wasn’t the time for selfishness, though, either in questions or dreams.

Her mind raced, bringing a skim of panic. What should I do next? she thought frantically, but didn’t say it aloud because it would be too broad a question. How can we get out of the cave? she thought to try—she might feel solid and real, standing there in the lush cave, still hanging on to Sven like she had the right, but in reality their bodies were far away, drowning. Maybe even near death. But she hoped—prayed—that the nahwal’s message meant there was a chance she and Sven would make it back to the magi. Why didn’t I get my mark? she almost asked, because the nahwal was talking to her, not Sven, and that had to mean something. Unless it didn’t.

Think! This was a shared vision, a shared message. Focus on the details. There wasn’t enough to the message for the brain trust to work with, was there? Taking a deep breath, she said, “What does this screaming skull look like?”

“It is the size of a man’s fist, made of obsidian, and looks as you would expect it to from the name.” There was no tone or inflection, no hint that she’d asked the right or wrong question. Sven, though, tightened his fingers on hers and gave the shallowest of nods.

Taking too much solace from that, she said, “What is the location of”—she stumbled over the ancient words—“Che’en Yaaxil?”

“We are there.” The nahwal gestured to the subterranean pool and almost ethereally beautiful surroundings. “It is an hour’s walk from the tomb of the First Father. That is your third and last question.” Sunlight brightened through the opening once more, limning the nahwal with a white halo.

“Wait.” Sven held out a hand to the ancient being. “What about me?”

The halo brightened and blurred, forcing Cara to squint and then look away. From within the flameless white fire, the nahwal’s multitonal voice said, “I will not take your questions, mage, but I will give you your answers: The vision belongs to both of you; it is how you want to be seen. And this is your charge: Do not waste the gifts you are about to receive.”

Hope flickered. What gifts?

“What gifts?” Sven asked as if reading her mind. But even as he got the question out, the nahwal’s image grew thin and began to fade. “Wait. Come back!”

“Gods go with you both.” The multitonal voice was soft, almost wistful.

The pillar of light flared brightly, reaching out to surround them in a warm wash of energy and a thundering, shuddering noise that sounded like an off-balance clothes drier running at top speed: a syncopated thumpa-thud-thumpa-thud that sent Cara’s heart into her throat.

What was happening? What were they supposed to do next? “Stop,” she cried. “Stop this!”

Sven shouted something, but she couldn’t hear him over the noise, could only hang tightly on to his hand. THUMPA-THUD-THUMPA-THUD!

On the last thud, the ground shuddered beneath her feet and her palms burned sharply as the cuts reopened and split wide. She cried out in pain, and then with shock as the blinding light winked out and they were suddenly standing on a featureless gray surface, surrounded by a huge mass of fog that churned around them with a deep-throated, windy roar.

She gaped, paralyzed by helplessness as the mist became tendrils that snaked out, reaching toward her and Sven.

“Get back!” He lunged in front of her and called a shield spell but nothing happened; he cast a fireball and cursed as it failed.

Standing there in warrior black, unarmed and shouting into the fog, he looked at once majestic and vulnerable, and her heart shuddered with a sudden gut-deep certainty that this would be the last time she would see him like this.

“Sven, don’t!” She reached for him, but just as her fingertips brushed his sleeve, the tendrils whipped around him and yanked him forward. Her heart stopped and her voice broke on a shattered scream of, “No!”

He shouted and fought the mist’s inexorable grip, lashing out with magic that fizzled as it was cast. Twisting back, he reached for her with one hand while warding her off with the other. His eyes were tortured, his face stark with horror. “Cara, I—”

The tendrils yanked him into the mist, and he disappeared.

“No!” She bolted after him, but stopped after only a few steps because she was suddenly, utterly sure that he wasn’t just gone from sight, but from the vision, the plane, wherever the hell they were.

She was alone—she could feel it on her skin and deep down inside. And with no magic, she had no way to get back to her body. She was trapped, locked into—

Movement snaked into her peripheral vision and she spun in a defensive crouch, then screamed when a foggy tentacle latched onto her thigh, burning with cool fire. Another wrapped around her in an instant, dropping on her like python coils; they slid and tightened until she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but scream as she was dragged into the mist.

Terror lashed through her. The fog was all around her, and then, gods, inside her—a terrible invading presence. It filled her up, pressing inside her chest and her skull as if searching for something and not finding it. The head and heart were the seats of a mage’s power, but she was no mage. As if suddenly realizing that, being angered by it, the fog seared through her, burning and tearing. Agony! She screamed, fell onto her side, and curled fetal as blackness washed across her vision and her entire world tunneled down to the presence inside her, the burning pressure in her head and heart. Weakness washed through her. Impotence. Then anger, because she didn’t want to be weak anymore, didn’t want—

Blackness overcame her, shutting down her systems and leaving only a last despairing cry to echo through her fading self: Help me!

Sven jerked awake, heart hammering as he blinked into pitch blackness. “Cara?”

She lay in his arms, with her body pressed against his and their legs intertwined, a soft, yielding layer of moist sand beneath them. But she didn’t answer, didn’t move, barely even breathed. Her cry for help echoed in his soul, but not aloud.

“Motherfucker,” he grated. The words echoed in the pitch-black, bringing back the sound of stone all around him, water nearby. He didn’t need the inputs to know where he was, though: the coyote cave. He was back in his own body, out of the vision and returned to the earth plane without her, spit there by the gray vortex. Its whirling power had been incalculable, searing his veins with a strange magic that had felt like the familiar bond times a million, as if he weren’t just bonded to Mac; he had become Mac, if only for a moment. Even now, that same feral power expanded his senses, sharpening his instincts and making him feel like he could do anything, fight anyone… except his own fucking selfishness. Because he might have held on to her in real life, but in the vision—where she’d been depending on him to get them safely back—he’d left her behind.