My question hit Arx like a set of high beams in the dead of night.

  “You know about that?” she whispered, eyes wide. “I don’t understand. You’ve never… Did Mia tell you?”

  My initial reaction was to deny it. No, of course, Mia had not told me, nor would she have. That was not the kind of thing she would have shared. Then it occurred to me how odd it was that I had not immediately wondered what the connection might be between Mia and a random memory that had popped into my head.

  I just… knew.

  Mia scoffed haughtily in answer. “And why would I do that? Did you honestly think our Lord and Master—booger churns my twatfish jar!”

  I blinked, jerked from my reverie by the abrupt shift in tone. “Well, that… certainly paints an image, Mia.”

  “Sorry,” she grumbled. “I meant to ask whether she thought you blind within your own domain. She dreams of that place most every night. It was obvious you would notice, eventually.”

  “Not that obvious,” I muttered. I might have even said it was impossible, but recent events had broadened my horizons on that topic. Then the rest of her words registered. “Hold on. Place? I didn’t say anything about a place.”

  “And yet you know exactly what I meant by it.”

  Arx made a panicked sound in her throat. “He knows the town, too?!”

  “Uh… kind of?” I admitted, scratching at my hatband as though to relieve the pressure of so many questions swirling in my head. “I have this vague impression of burned buildings. There’s a broken down pub… a little castle on a hill—”

  “How many spires?” she asked quickly.

  I had to think about that one. The mental image I had of it was only from the one angle, and there was a thin fog obscuring its outline.

  “Three?” I hazarded finally.

  “Oh, ’snails! Then you know about my… m-my, uh…” Like a light switching off, the panic drained from her face and she let out an uncertain chuckle. “Sorry, I… I feel like I was… hmm.”

  I tilted my head. That was weird.

  But before I could pursue the matter, Lynnria clapped her hands together sharply. “Okay, I don’t know what’s happening right now, but the second Mia mentioned domains, I started feeling dizzy again. Either move this conversation somewhere private or change the subject.”

  Arx groaned. “And here I thought sharing minds was your kink of choice.”

  Lynnria took a breath to speak, perhaps in rebuttal, but then her expression turned to one of helpless intrigue and she began to fidget uncertainly. “Is that what we’re talking about?”

  “Yeah?” Arx confirmed with a grin. “’stits and toes. You need to feed more often, girl. You’re about to waste away.”

  And to make certain Lynnria knew exactly what sort of feeding she was referring to, she gave her chest a suggestive little shake.

  “I’m fine,” our lesser snapped—after staring a second too long. “And I’ll thank you to keep your woman parts away from me!”

  Jax grunted with disapproval, though which part of the conversation she disapproved of was less than clear. “I says we change the subject. Sounded to me like ye was trying to pass a Boundary right from the get—no pain nor fuss—and here I were, forced to watch for weeks on while everyone else gets fairer by the day. Let Arx stew on her spires and whatnot at least a night.”

  I could see her point of view, even if was petty. It was not like any of that was Arx’s fault, and artificially holding her back would serve no purpose other than to satisfy Jax’s sense of karmic justice. Then again, it was only the one Layer. And the little romantic had mentioned wanting some time alone as a reward for clearing her trial, doubtlessly to drink in my reaction to the renewal of her physical transformation.

  I was about to pass it off by asking why she was worried about something so minor, given the scale of the prize Xhinn had offered, but then I remembered the privacy wall the goddess had erected. Jax had not heard. Which meant it could be a surprise. And now I was looking forward to seeing her reaction.

  “What are ye grinning about?” Jax asked, peering at me suspiciously.

  “Nothing.”

  “Lie! Liar!” Eyes flashing, Jax scrabbled forward until we were almost nose to nose. “Ye ain’t even trying to hide it!”

  My grin stretched uncontrollably. “Hide what?”

  “Ye be knowing exact-like—”

  Xyn cleared her throat. “Much as I would enjoy seeing where this is leading, I must agree with the girl. We should take this elsewhere. That skin Auntie left behind has begun attracting some attention.”

  We all followed her gaze skyward to where a couple of winged outlines were circling overhead. Normally, that would not have concerned me, but for Xyn to mention it? There was no way they could be something as benign as a few buzzards. Distance could be deceiving, and on a fantasy world like this, they could have as easily been a pair of Rocs.

  Jax swore. “Fine. Arx, grab the woman. Xyn, our shite. I’ll help the master.”

  She held a finger to my face. “This ain’t over.”

  *

  The first of them landed before we had gotten even a hundred paces away, and though the curvature of the path had put an intervening layer of rock between us, obscuring the moment, I still felt the impact. Whatever the creatures were, I doubted them large enough to be the mythical elephant-snatchers I had feared, but that thump had more than justified our caution.

  Jax paled and glanced over the arm she had slung over her shoulder. “Come on, Master,” she hissed. “Move yer arse.”

  “I’m trying!” I whispered back.

  My legs were responding to basic commands well enough now, but everything from my ankles to my hips was still a solid mass of tingles. Attempting more than a stiff-legged shuffle was impossible when each step was a coin-flip between a solid foundation and a trip to the ground.

  Deep croaks and other unidentifiable-yet-terrifying sounds followed in our wake as the birds tore into the Shepherdess’ remnant. My imagination filled with images of gigantic talons and snapping beaks, pushing and shoving at one another to get at every last morsel.

  Swing those legs, Donum! Let’s go!

  Sadly, there were not a whole lot of places for us to go to. I had no idea what the overall topography of the local region might be—whether the lonely mountain we were on was the exaggerated tip of a larger range or some extinct volcanic remnant—but my view only afforded bare cliffside for hundreds of feet above and below and not a tree or shrub in sight. We would be spotted from the air within moments of searching, and the path ahead was only ever continuing its upward climb.

  I did not doubt for a second that those scavengers had seen us before landing, either. Any bird that hunted like that would have excellent eyesight. That they had let us slip away unchallenged only meant they preferred an easy meal to one that might fight back, but I held no illusions that it would sate them. All too soon, the feast would be done, and the winged nightmares would renew their search for greater sustenance.

  Jax swore under her breath, having reached the same conclusion. “They’ll come fer us soon, Master. Keep well back when they do. The rest of us will make ‘em pay fer their supper… best we can.” She firmed her jaw. “Once they swallow us down, maybe our death flames’ll put ‘em off dessert. Then ye can fly to safety.”

  I eyed her uncertainly for a moment. It was not a terrible plan for something conceived at the spur of the moment. My spell stamina had developed to the point where I felt confident of at least making it to the ground below, but it had one critical flaw.

  “No. We can’t be sure of Lynnria resurrecting.”

  “Bugger Lynnria!” Jax hissed. “Only ye matter.”

  “She matters to me.” That was all I needed to say on that point. I would brook no argument. “Look, maybe if we press ourselves into the cracks along the wall here, I can get Fortunate Shadows to camouflage us well enough for them to fly past us. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always Forgotten in Stillness. If we hide Lynnria behind me, there’s no way those birds will notice her. Then the rest of you can lead them away.”

  “And the guard woman?” she persisted. “We just use her as bait then, do we?”

  I winced guiltily. I had not even considered her. “Preferably not…”

  Though, if those scavengers had gone for a heap of discarded skin first, they would absolutely stop to squabble over a whole—and notably fresh—laoi. If we were being at all smart about this, we should dangle the woman over the side of the cliff and let go the moment the birds came into view. With a timely bit of spellwork and a dash of luck, they would ignore us to chase down the moving target.

  But smart was not the same thing as right.

  “Damn it. What were we thinking, sitting around next to a giant pile of meat? We should have moved on the second Ahnbe disappeared.”

  “Ye wasn’t the only one with wobbled knees after that wench kicked off, Master,” Jax reminded me. “So don’t keep the blame to yer ownself. Now ain’t the time for it. Just keep those legs moving. Meantime—”

  As if on cue, a distinctive clap sounded behind us, and within the space of a single breath, a form as wide as a basketball court was long streaked past. The physics of flight dictated it was below us for now, but a single updraft and a few flaps of its enormous wings would see its altitude regained, ready to dive.

  Jax was quick to shove me behind her, axe materializing, while I stumbled into the cliff face.

  “Be ready for tears,” she warned.

  I nodded grimly, even as I wrenched myself upright. “Not if I can help it.”

  They were brave words, but keeping to them would have been a miracle even without a motor-function impairment. With a wingspan like that, those birds would easily have bodies the size of a rhinoceros. We had an arguable chance of defending ourselves against one, but against two? Three? There was none. We would be overwhelmed within seconds.

  Regrettably, we were not confronted with even such agreeable odds. A veritable flight of black forms streaked in the first one’s wake, blasting us with the tortured eddies of their wings like a passing freight train. I counted a full seven before I gave it up as pointless.

  And then a deep-throated croak sounded from above. We turned as one to spy another of the creatures staring down at us, half-concealed by a ledge about a hundred feet farther up. Only its head was exposed, but that was enough to get a look at it. Its feathers, eyes, and beak were all black, save for a bright plume of multicolored feathers that extended like a Mohawk down its spine.

  That it had seen us was obvious. That it was signaling the rest was just unfair.

  “Well, that’s horseshit,” I muttered aloud. There was not much I could say in complement of the Dungeon, but at least it would never throw something like this at us. Usually.

  “Minas?! Whistling dicks!” Lynnria shouted. “I can’t believe they’re still roosting up here. The Foxes told us they’d cleared them out. They had proof!”

  “Looks like you were conned,” Arx observed grimly. “Easier to sneak a feather from a nest than to clear out a flock that size. Especially with clever bastards like Mina birds.”

  “Mina birds?” I whispered. I’ve heard that name before, haven’t I? The Foxes, too, come to think of it. Some mercenary troop?

  Lynnria whipped around, extending her wand. “Donum! The Dirt Palace spell. Quickly. You have to shield us or we’re done for!”

  I turned to stare at her. “How do you expect me to do that? I can’t Speak without at least a full silver piece to fuel the Wisdom buff, and even if I had one, the last attempt almost killed me!”

  “You’re going to have to do something!” she yelled. “Those things will tear us limb from limb just to get at our weapons. Mina birds will do anything for a new bauble. They’re relentless!”

  “They collect shite,” Jax affirmed, eyes glued to the spiraling shapes rising over the horizon.

  Abruptly, one of the distant forms performed something like a swooping mid-air somersault, and a thin rod separated from it, arcing toward us. Or I thought it was thin. A scarce handful of seconds later, the thing slammed into the rock face about a meter above our heads, where it stuck quivering—a ballista bolt if ever I had seen one, fully as wide as my own hand.

  “And they use their shite to hunt,” she finished. “I warned ye about ‘em before.”

  In an instant, the memory of the event resurfaced. We had been walking down a seemingly endless corridor, looking at door after door in search of a specific clue, and one of them had featured an innocuous carving of the birds engaging in some mock swordplay, At the time, I had taken it as either symbolic or artistic license. If anything, it had been underselling the actual scale of the danger.

  Semi-intelligent giant birds… that use ranged weapons?

  “Okay, make that double-extra horseshit.” I turned, frantic. “Xyn! Ideas?”

  She took a slow breath, thinking. “If you had gained what had been meant for you, I could have distracted them long enough for the rest of you to seek the hidden Mouth. Now?” The lilim sighed, eying the gleaming sword she had summoned regretfully. “I will protect you until the end, my Gift.”

  “That be all ye can offer?” Jax growled. “What of yer Mum? She just gonna leave us up here to die?”

  Xyn looked at her sidelong. “She… could help. For a price.”

  There was no need to ask what kind of price that would be. I had only barely negotiated a cease in hostilities with the goddess, and I was already regretting it. She had quickly revealed Herself as the type to show up unannounced to your wedding, purse stuffed to the brim with bricks of cocaine and VICE hot on her tail. Not because she needed to or anything. Just for the laughs.

  So that connection would be reserved as a nuclear option.

  “Feh.” Jax spat. “I might’ve knowed.”

  “There must be something else you can do, Donum,” Lynnria persisted, hopping in place with nerves. “Some ridiculous spell? An Engraving? Anything! Think!”

  “What spell am I supposed to cast with twelve Words in my Vocabulary?!”

  “I don’t know!” She ducked just in time to dodge a weighted bag that spilled what looked to be a loose collection of pommel heads onto the ground. “You’re the dream guy, right? Make them dream of… of giant scarecrows that chuck fireballs!”

  If only. “Lynnria…”

  “Okay, okay. That’s stupid.” Her frantic hopping began taking her in little circles, even as the rest of the girls assumed defensive positions. “What about that time you made Arx’s prison disappear? Can’t you do that again, but… but with the cliff? Make a, uh… a cave or… or…”

  “Or Labia!” Arx shouted over her shoulder.

  Lynnria groaned. “Arx, please! This is serious.”

  “Master! Charge me arm guards,” Jax called.

  “Right!”

  Though distracted, I was nevertheless quick to direct a healing spell toward the pair of magical devices. They could somehow divert benign spell energy into an internalized battery and thus generate a temporary force field. It would only last long enough to shield us from a single blow, but it was better than nothing.

  “I am being serious!” Arx argued, undeterred. “The Labia form a tunnel entrance, right?”

  “Of a moistened, spongy variety,” Xyn agreed. “But it would have to be truly massive to fit all of us inside.”

  “Like yer Mum’s,” Jax called. “Biggest cunt I ever saw.”

  Xyn did not dispute the claim, even to mention the acres of clothing the titanic goddess had been wearing during her battle with the Shepherdess. But then, Xyn was currently weaving her blade into a defensive whirlwind to shield the area from the latest volley of grapeshot, comprising the unscrewed heads of several flanged maces, a few lightly chewed javelins, and swords mangled to the point of having returned to base ore. So she might have been a little distracted.

  I was just glad they did not have any more ballista bolts.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Labia, huh? Now that I thought about it, Mia had shown me a symbol out of that very book the last time we had been backed into a corner like this. She had not disclosed its meaning, but I had interpreted it as ‘Open’ or ‘Opening’ readily enough. So the idea had merit. Unfortunately, I had not studied that Rune anywhere close to long enough to attempt its recreation, nor was there a convenient Engraving already scribed into the wall for me to activate. I would need to cobble something together from scratch.

  “Lynnria!” I pointed toward the nearest spot along the cliff face that might support the spell effect I had in mind. “There. Dirt me.”

  “Yes!” Grinning now, she began pelting the spot with clod after clod of soil. “I knew you would come up with something.”

  I snorted before hastily smoothing the loose particulate from her wand into a wide vertical canvas. “Don’t pin this on me. This was your idea.”

  “As long as it works,” Arx yelled.

  She was doing her level best to return fire from behind the cover Xyn—and sometimes Jax—was providing, but a single arrow could only do so much against creatures like these.

  “Go for the eyes, ye blighted spoon!”

  “What do you think I’m doing?! Do you not see them swarming after it? I think they’re trying to steal my arrow.”

  “At least you’re keeping them busy,” Xyn said before turning to bark over her shoulder, “Lynnria! A little help?”

  “What do you want me to do? My wand doesn’t have that kind of range.”

  “You have a poison bolt, don’t you? Use that!”

  “With what ammunition? I need… boob storage first.”

  “Bloody frigid gooseheaded numpty,” Jax grumbled. “This be exactly why—”

  “Everyone shut up!” I shouted, sweeping a hand through the air. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

  Okay… okay… first I’ll outline what I’m going for. With a couple of hasty swipes through the soil, I carved out the rough impression of a vagina—spread wide, of course. We would need to actually fit through the thing, and there was no guarantee of the resulting organ being made of flesh. This was a mountain, after all. If we were extraordinarily lucky, whatever force eventually acted to interpret my little art project would understand that I just wanted an escape tunnel, but without the ability to be hyper-specific, I might as well have been negotiating the terms of a wish from a malicious genie.

  Right. Looks good. Next, uh… Manifest? The Rune I had discovered on Xyn’s hand would have been perfect here, but I had not been given the opportunity to study that one either—not to the point where I dared replicate it under pressure, anyway. Shit, how did it go?

  “Mia! Show me how to draw Manifest.”

  “I cannot, my lord. We do not possess that Word.”

  “It’s on Xyn’s palm!”

  “Which I have no access to,” she informed me. “You could call her over.”

  “She’s busy!” I scrubbed at my forehead furiously. “Haven’t we moved past this? What about all those times you—”

  “Master,” she cut me off, “I hope you are not insinuating that I could ever intentionally… reveal… a Word’s defining crystallization.”

  Defining crystallization? Is that what those books in my head are supposed to be?

  “That’s exactly what I’m—Wait…” I narrowed my eyes, finally catching the over-emphasis. Why did she say ‘reveal’ like that? Damn it. “More hints? Mia, we’re a little—”

  “Look out, Master!”

  Jax shoved me to one side just in time to block a half-ton boulder from staving my head in. Even through her force field, the force of the impact drove her to her knees before the thing deflected away, tumbled over the side of the cliff and to the rocks below.

  “Graaawk!”

  Jax dusted herself off furiously and began shaking her fist at the Mina bird perched overhead. “Say that to me face, ye plumed Nancy!”

  “Don’t give it ideas, Jax,” Lynnria muttered.

  I had to agree. We were holding our own against the ranged weapons through a combination of poor aim and worse ammo selection—though that boulder had been a step in the right direction. If those birds discarded their caution and just came at us en masse, we would be cooked.

  But they did have a certain fear; that much was becoming increasingly obvious. I could only think they must have tangled with Questers and others of the kinds before, which meant they had gained at least a basic understanding of how crazy and unpredictable we could be. Summoning fireballs. Calling lightning from the sky. There was no telling without probing our abilities first, and from their tactics, I could assume they did not have a supernatural power to heal themselves. Like any wild animal, an injury suffered here could lead to months of recovery, if not death. So I understood their caution, terrifying as it was to consider in a monster like that.

  However, caution could be exploited.

  “Arx! Sing at them. If you can entrance one, you might stun it out of the sky. Jax. Make with the shadow clones! Do whatever you can to keep them at a distance and off that ledge up there. Give them the ol’ razzle dazzle!”

  “Aye!”

  “Mmm~ yes!” Arx moaned with delight. “Command me, my Dearest.”

  I winced. My gut reaction was to suggest she take her foot off the slut pedal for five minutes, but I had to remind myself that getting in touch with their baser instincts was a huge component of what it was to be lilim. Half of their skills did not even work unless they were in the proper mindset.

  “R-Right…”

  Just as Arx was starting in on one of her favorite tavern sing-a-longs, I sent another handful of sparkling Words Jax’s way, recharging her shield, then struggled to my feet. The recent attack had jostled the otherwise-loose soil of my art project, so I would need to redraw the man-sized vulva before it would again be usable.

  This is so messed up. With the way things were going, it would not be just the lilim; I would be right there, executing perfectly synchronized swan-dives into the gutter beside them. I was just glad the girls were still wielding actual weapons—as opposed to giant floppy dildos. Why can’t I be a normal wizard? I know they have a reputation for being eccentric, but this is getting ridiculous!

  Somewhere in the middle of my distracted mental grumbling, I caught a handful of darkened shapes streaking past my periphery and up the cliffside to confront our nearest antagonist. But beyond the deep-throated squawking and other consequent sounds of combat, I paid the scuffle overhead no heed.

  “Reveal? Reveal… What the hell am I supposed to do with that?” I mumbled. “I don’t know that Word.”

  Lynnria glanced up from where she was picking over the myriad weapon scraps that had landed nearby and MacGyver them into something useful. “What Words do you know?”

  “For Verbs? Only Lift, Is, and—” I frowned, “—and Conceal.”

  “Conceal, huh?” she parroted absently. “That’s pretty close to Reveal, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.” I began nodding to myself slowly. “Right. Concept negation. That ought to work. Thank you.”

  Mia chuckled. “Of course, my lord.”

  “Glad I could… help,” Lynnria grunted as she pounded away at some unholy combination of flanged mace, javelin, and sword pommel.

  It took a handful of seconds to work out the starting positions and outwardly expanding finger twitches needed to inscribe each Word. As the verb of the pair, Conceal employed all five of my elongated nails to scoop out its squiggles and whorls. Labia, the noun, required only three. Limited as my Vocabulary was, it might have been a little early for me to conclude the five-and-three pattern it as a hard rule with the Language, but it had held consistent thus far.

  However, engraving the actual Words was secondary to what I was trying to achieve. At best, ‘Conceal Labia’ would just render my careless attempt at graffiti invisible. At worst… well, I could think of any number of intolerable scenarios, ranging from the spell targeting whatever hapless female was nearest to creating a permanent undergarment-checking trap for any and all future travelers that stumbled along this path.

  Wouldn’t that be the most random thing ever? Just going about your business, casually hiking up a mountain commando, then bam! Get pantied, bitch! Now that I thought about it, it might even make an effective ward against hostile Dungeon lilim.

  But that was neither here nor there.

  I needed to convert Conceal into Reveal. And I had recently learned how to do just that.

  “Alright. Here we go.”

  I clapped my hands once and rubbed them together while I prepared an appropriately wizard-esque speech. I would need to be quick about it, though. The Runes were already starting to glow with gathering magic.

  “Mountain wall, heed my call. Make not Labia but, uh—” I screwed my eyes up, thinking. Whatever fragment of Xhinn’s soul had been grafted onto me was not the part that handled verse. I was as much a rhyme-smith as a Vogon. “—shaft? Whatever. It’s a stupid convention, anyway. We need a tunnel. A way out of here! Uh… With this slash, make it so… so I command…”

  Lynnria popped up suddenly to shout, “By the power of Grayskull!”

  I twitched. Then repressed the need to grind my teeth.

  “You almost forgot that part,” she explained helpfully, before spinning into a defensive crouch with her improvised pole… mace?

  “Now, look here—”

  Clang!

  I jumped in surprise, then turned just in time to see Xyn stumbling off balance as yet another boulder crashed to the rocks below. It seemed the Mina birds were running short of their prepared supply of ammunition and were beginning to resort to their much-more-effective natural environment. Even our resident weapon master would be powerless to withstand that kind of assault for long.

  Meanwhile, Arx was trying to get my attention with a half-panicked expression on her face. She was in the middle of a verse asking whether Kete was right to beat his meat to Linda swinging to and fro, to which the reply was always a resounding, ‘Aye, lads! Aye, lads!’ But the important point was the ensorcelled Mina bird she was gesturing toward. It had not dropped out of the sky, like I had hoped. It was drifting toward us.

  I shrugged. “I dunno. See if you can drag it into their line of fire?”

  “Donum! The spell!”

  “Shit.” Mid-combat was the worst time to be improvising magic.

  I swiveled just as the Runes finished filling with power, and quickly traced a decisive slash through Conceal, just as I had learned to do with Silver.

  “Not-Conceal,” I shouted. “Reveal the Lab—”

  Crunch!

  I jerked back, startled, and had to catch myself before my weakened knees again dumped me to the ground. There had been no sudden rush of wind, nor gathering of resistance to my Will. The spell had barely even dipped into my Life pool to fuel the effect. The side of the mountain had just… opened. Exactly as I had wanted and as instantly as if some made-for-TV special effect. The resultant cave mouth did not even look like a vagina, carved from stone or otherwise.

  “Huh. That’s… convenient.”

  And then the smell hit me.

  “Maybe a little too convenient.”

  *

  Arx slapped her knees and guffawed. “There’s no way! ’snails, there’s just no way!”

  “Is that… really the Mouth?” Lynnria asked, unable to look away, her new weapon dangling from limp fingers. She seemed struck somewhere between wonder and absolute disgust.

  “Apparently.” Xyn was only just suppressing her grin.

  “But… why?” Mia sounded tired. “Just why?”

  The blonde shrugged. “Honestly? I couldn’t tell you. Mother must have put this here a very long time ago, during one of her feuds with Aunt Bline, I’d imagine.”

  I turned to glare at her.

  The cavern we were standing in could not have been more stereotypically picturesque had it been a preconstructed video game environment. Stalactites dripping down to spatter against their receptacle stalagmites. Moss. A few blue-tinged ferns. Just enough light filtering through from above to see by. With the altitude, I might have even wondered how it could be so warm and damp in here.

  Except that was obvious.

  “What kind of feud would warrant that?” I asked, pointing accusingly behind me.

  Now I knew why it had been so easy to cast that spell. Of course, it would be easy. Why would the magic need to interpret my intentions when there was a perfectly valid spell target sitting just on the other side of the wall?

  “Biggest cunt I ever saw,” Jax breathed, reaffirming her earlier proclamation.

  It was, too. At least twice the height of a man. Soft, perfect skin, hinting at legs sheathed in stockings of rock. Pink grasping lips, begging to be caressed. And the aroma was completely unmistakable.

  “It’s Her vagina!” I carefully swallowed back the building urge to rush toward the thing. “Why is Her vagina hidden in a cave on a mountaintop?!”

  “It’s probably just a facsimile,” Xyn returned in a reasonable tone—and not answering my question. “Probably.”

  “It’s here because it overlooks our Stele, isn’t it. This is Her idea of a joke!” Mia accused.

  “If it be, I ain’t getting it,” Jax muttered. She was staring, just as transfixed by the majesty of the thing as the rest of us. “Poor bugger be trapped in here, belike. Ain’t no way it’d be impaling itself on yonder pole, no matter how much it might want to.”

  “No, no!” Arx sighed. “She wasn’t planning on using it. Haven’t you ever been near a ruling Clan’s estate? The gate might be pristine, but you never have to walk far to see signs of malcontent painted on the walls. This is the same thing. Just… bigger.”

  I turned my stare on her. “You’re saying the Demon Queen… vagina-tagged Bline’s Stele? With a literal vagina?! What’s the point of that?”

  “Because of the smell!” Mia wailed.

  “And what be wrong with it?” Jax wondered. “Bit strong, I’ll admit, being this close and all, but it be a fine bouquet.”

  Yes, it is… I swallowed again.

  Xyn smiled, pleased. “Thank you.”

  “Of course, you would—fuck my tits!—would like it. Damned… sex-addled…” Mia grumbled incoherently for a moment. “I’ve been smelling pussy every time the wind shifted for the last thousand years!”

  Lynnria snorted. “Okay, that… that is a little funny.”

  “It is not funny!”

  Jax turned finally to glance my way. “Why ye be getting all upset, Faen? It ain’t yer Stele no more.”

  “It was as of three weeks ago! I thought I was losing my—cunt! I love cunt!—Oh, never mind!” Mia did not have her visual hologram turned on, but I could easily imagine her plopping herself into a corner to sulk.

  Croooak-kaw!

  None of us acknowledged the interruption. The Mina birds had been too big to chase after us, so they had resorted to poking spears into the cavern entrance ever since we had fled down here, trying to fish us out again. There was a slight chance of us finding another exit on the other end of that light above, but until I flew someone up there to investigate, there was no telling whether it might be big enough. Not that it mattered. With those birds patrolling out there, we were effectively trapped.

  With that… lovely… lovely thing.

  I steepled my fingers under my nose in an effort to control my trembling.

  “Xyn,” I began patiently. “Are you seriously telling me you led us all the way up here just to make us crawl into your Mother’s vagina?”

  The sentences coming out of my mouth these days… My mother would tan my hide. I would have let her, too.

  “Why? What’s wrong with it?” Xyn actually looked hurt. “There are no teeth. And it can’t move, so it can’t very well swallow you against your will. I thought you would appreciate a Mouth like that.”

  “It looks a little… tight,” Lynnria observed.

  “It’s the symbolism,” I spelled out, tone perhaps a shade on the wrong side of hostile. “And she knows that perfectly well.”

  Xyn just tilted her chin up and folded her arms. “Says the man with the raging erection.”

  “And whose fault is that?! Ever since your Mother put Her… essence in my mouth—”

  I took a moment to steady myself, but the aroma would soon overpower me. I knew it would. It was so strong. There was so much… Life! So much power! My body throbbed to be near it. To taste it. To again drown in its madness.

  Suddenly, Xyn’s hand found my cheek. “I can feel your struggle, my Gift. Be not ashamed. You are doing better than you realize to resist it as you are. You make my heart sing with pride that you might stand so near… yet apart.” She bit her lower lip slightly, eyeing me. “But resist not in bitterness. You are a man. Stand tall. Use your strength to welcome Her. Let your flag call to Her just as She calls to you. Watch as She flowers in response.”

  “You mean we have to get it horny before it’ll let us in?” Arx cackled again. “I think I’m beginning to appreciate Xhinn’s sense of humor.”

  I grunted sourly. “I don’t like not having a choice, Xyn.”

  “And who is forcing you?” she countered. “Whose body is throbbing with need but your own? Whose cock rises to meet me? I don’t see my—” She stopped to glance away. “—Her hand upon it… much as I might wish differently.”

  I glanced at her eye-patch suspiciously. It was still in place, but that slip… “Who am I talking to right now?”

  “Me? Who else would you be talking to?” She smiled beautifully, seeming embarrassed. “Apologies. I… may have let my imagination get the better of me. It is difficult being so near you, Gift…” Her gaze drifted down my body, even as her back arched ever so slightly. “…when you are like this.”

  My lips formed into a flat line, but all I could do was sigh and nod. Xyn’s obvious interest aside, I had to suppose there were worse things than being courted by such a dangerous and frankly perverse entity. Being hunted by one, for example. And once you set the symbolic aspects aside, this was just another Mouth. I had already been preparing myself for getting swallowed. So what if it was more… pleasant than I had been expecting?

  Besides, I had been more than willing to leap through one of my own creation not five minutes ago.

  However, before I could formulate a reply, she continued, “You’ve no idea how much I shall miss you while you are away.”

  My head jerked up.

  “What?”