“No.” Now it was Xandera’s turn to make a face. “Ghost heat? The heat that was and is no more? I don’t know how to say it.”
“Don’t try explaining it to him,” said Naomi. “He has the mind of a small child. Shall we descend?”
“After you, oh mighty Dread Blaze,” said Alain. “Give me a shout when it’s clear.”
Xandera simply hopped down to the first ledge below them, her presence casting a radius of golden light into the gloom as she fell cleanly to the rocky ridge. Naomi rose into the Nightmare Lady and followed suit, leaving Scorio and Alain behind.
“So, ah, Scorio.” Alain grimaced into the depths. “Mind if I, well, hitch a ride?”
“How did I know?” Scorio ignited and assumed his scaled form, looming over Alain as he extended his wings and beat them a few times, raising dust. “Hold on.”
“It’s not as if I don’t want a magical way to get around,” grumbled Alain, wrapping his arms around Scorio’s neck. “Going everywhere on foot is boooaargh!”
Scorio dove forward, wings closing down his back, to fall swiftly past the Nightmare Lady and Xandera. Alain nearly choked him in terror, till Scorio opened his wings and pulled up into an easy glide.
“Bah! You did that on purpose!”
Scorio grinned toothily. “Maybe. I wanted to be sure you were holding on.”
They glided to and fro as Xandera dropped easily from ledge to ledge. The Nightmare Lady would simply fade away only to emerge from a patch of darkness deeper in, her eyes burning ever brighter.
“Hey,” said Alain. “What’s that moving over there?”
Scorio looked at where the Flame Vault was pointing and frowned, baffled: a naked woman was swaying from side to side, her legs hidden behind a rock, her arms swinging with her. Her skin was as pale as milk, but her hands and forearms were painted black, and her hair was a smooth ebon waterfall that ran down her back. Red eyes gleamed, but she was otherwise expressionless.
“Hey,” Scorio called out to the other two. “You see her? Up the ravine.”
The Nightmare Lady paused, green eyes narrowing, while Xandera glanced in the woman’s direction, her golden eyes widening. “Oh, that’s just the tail of a fiend.”
“The what now?” called Alain.
“Watch.” Xandera ran lightly along the ledge, leaped to another slightly below, and coursed along that, heading swiftly toward the swaying woman. Scorio glided along overhead, confused but alert, until the entire side of the ravine animated.
He’d not noticed the serpent for its incredible camouflage. It looked to be made of living rock, as big as the Tokalauth variant that had assaulted Scorio atop the mesa, bigger perhaps. Its head was the size of a cart, thick tendrils hanging from its chin, and its eyes burned crimson as they snapped open.
“Oh, damn,” whispered Scorio, only to realize Xandera was now well within striking distance of the huge snake. “Watch out!”
But the serpent was drawing rapidly away from the blazeborn queen, its coils bunching up till it speared out across the ravine proper to descend to a ridge on the far side and undulate into a great tunnel hidden within the shadows. The woman’s pale body jerked and slid after the snake, clearly affixed to the tip of its tail, lifeless now as the fiend fled.
“See?” Xandera pointed to the last flicker of movement as the snake disappeared entirely into the tunnel. “That fiend.”
“Oh. Right.” Scorio glided past, then wheeled about tightly to return and land beside the queen. “Why, ah…”
“Why did it just run from us?” Alain was staring at Xandera. “That weird woman tail was clearly bait, right? It was meant to draw us in. But then why did it just run - I mean - slither away?”
“Because of me,” said Xandera simply. “It was scared of me.”
“Oh.” Alain blinked. “I guess you’re, ah, pretty scary?”
Xandera cocked her head to one side. “Do you think so?”
“I mean…” Alain glanced at Scorio for help. “No? You look like a twelve-year-old girl. With glowing hair.”
“Shows how much you know,” said Scorio, then smiled at Xandera. “Traveling with you really does make things easier. We’d probably have had to fight that thing otherwise.”
“Probably.” Xandera shrugged. “But let’s get to the bottom. I’m growing impatient. See you there.”
And with an impish smile the blazeborn queen stepped to the edge of the ledge, turned to face them with her arms outstretched, then simply fell backwards into the darkness.
“What?” Alain darted forward to peer down after her. “Hey, you shouldn’t… ah, man. That’s crazy.”
Scorio stepped up alongside him just in time to see Xandera’s lurid glow diminish into a receding spark as she fell ever deeper. A few moments later it stopped falling. She must have reached the floor, and remained still, waiting for them, tiny and impossibly far below them.
“Let’s go,” said Scorio, gesturing toward his back with his thumb, and Alain complied wordlessly. Naomi was already working her way further down, but then she simply stopped and seemed to inhale the darkness. The area around her grew strangely gray, the lines and edges of the rock becoming prominent, as if Scorio were using his darkvision.
So that’s what happened when she drank in the dark.
It must have empowered her to a high degree, because she simply stepped off her promontory to drop into the darkness as well, and was gone.
Scorio descended in an ever tighter spiral, trying to reconcile that image with the Naomi he knew. He’d told Naomi her new powers were impressive and amazing, and they were… but something about seeing her pull in darkness and grow more malevolent, more disturbing as a result…
Nox’s words came back to him: Is Naomi Nightmare Lady, or is Nightmare Lady Naomi?
He wrestled with that question as he flew down into the bottom of the chasm, but was unable to find an answer before alighting beside Xandera and Naomi, who’d thankfully shed her frightening guise.
The bottom of the chasm was choked with fallen rocks and boulders, and narrow enough that Scorio had been forced to glide straight down without being able to turn at the last. Now they stood on a sandy stretch, the air cool and damp, the darkness shifting with hidden life.
Scorio activated his darkvision and saw hundreds of small insect-like fiends withdrawing, their feelers waving in the air.
They reminded him too much of the beetles, so he killed his darkvision and turned gratefully to Xandera. In this darkness her skin was a warm, grayish-brown with subtle purple undertones. Her eyes, larger than a normal human’s, glowed bright yellow, while her hair was even more splendidly effulgent, a beautiful gold at her crown that changed to honey, then warm orange, then darkened to crimson and burgundy just at the tips, making it so that she stood in a halo of her own radiance.
“I’ll summon the fire,” she said, tone hesitant. “It should… you should all get back.”
“Is this safe?” asked Alain. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you?”
“I’ve done this many times before. I feel it. Just never as this me. Or with this much… power.”
“That doesn’t sound reassuring. That’s the opposite of reassuring. Scorio? Naomi? How about we wait outside the volcano radius?”
“Normally I’d argue with you on principle,” said Naomi. “But this time? A little distance might be wise.”
“We’ll wait above,” said Scorio, and in quick order flew his two friends to a higher ledge.
Xandera ignored them, staring instead fixedly at the ground. She extended her arms and walked slowly in a circle, massaging the air as if it were a tangible mass.
“Weird,” noted Alain in a clinical tone. “But I’m reserving judgment.”
“You just said it was weird,” said Naomi distractedly. “You’re not reserving anything.”
“No, the ‘weird’ comment was objective. I’m still open to a subjective, and more accepting, opinion if this doesn’t get us all killed.”