“Even so.”
The enhanced Titan stood in the hallway, blocking the approach with his ebon bulk. The huge archway behind him was filled in with smooth obsidian.
Scorio stepped up cautiously. “Can I speak with Queen Xandera?”
To his surprise the Titan turned, slammed a fist through the stone wall, then briskly cleared a passage before stepping aside.
“I’d take that as a ‘yes’,” said Alain.
Scorio stepped through gingerly, peering about, but was met with the sight of an empty set of rooms. They were as before; braziers, columns, gorgeously patterned walls. Even the great pool was filled once more with a bed of coals, effulgent and smoldering.
There was no sign of blood or the violence done to the previous Xandera.
“Hello?” He made his way to the pool’s edge. “Queen Xandera?”
Peering back, he saw that Naomi and Alain had remained outside, barred from following by the Titan’s outstretched arm.
The coals stirred, swirled, then parted as Xandera arose from their midst. She was yet again changed, and now wholly herself, appearing as she had the first time he’d seen her.
While her upper torso had remained humanoid, her lower half was now that of a thickly segmented snake, most of which lay hidden beneath the coals. Her head was again crowned by huge, ridged horns, and spikes burst forth in a profusion from her shoulders and elbows.
All of her was now composed of exquisitely crafted plates of black armor, with bright yellow light limning each ridge and burning brightly in faint lines across her body, tracing her musculature. Her hair was resplendent, hanging in a thick, red-tipped mane, and her eyes blazed, now more than ever holes that revealed her molten interior.
“Scorio.” Her voice had deepened, was again exactly the same as that which he’d first heard. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Queen Xandera.” The similarity was disconcerting in the extreme. He had but to squint and it felt as if weeks had been rolled back. “It’s an honor, as always.”
“Why so formal?” She tilted her head to one side, smile playful. “You are close to me like kin.”
“It’s hard to ignore how regal you look. All grown up.” Scorio smiled. “I’m glad to see your home restored to you.”
“Much damage has been done, and I am in need of mates so that I may repopulate my spires. But I must work with what I have, and I have been busy. Look upon my labors.”
And she gestured, so that the coals rippled back to reveal a great gray egg in their midst, just like the one Scorio had carried forth into the Telurian Band—and then another, and then more. There were many of them, perhaps twenty or so, but before Scorio could get an exact number the coals washed back over them and they were gone.
“That’s… you’ve been busy.”
“I have indeed. I am weary. Most weary. Were I not powered by this fantastical mana, this Noumenon, I would have perished after laying the first five. But I have been equal to this task.”
“Because of the Blood Ox?”
“Because this True Fiend comes to lay siege at my door. And I must confess, Scorio, that I am very tired of being besieged.”
“But we need mana,” said Scorio. “You didn’t hatch till you were infused with Noumenon and I breathed on you. What are we going to do? We don’t have time.”
“But we have the mana.”
“We do?”
“Bravurn stored his Gold within my spires. And seeing as they are mine, I can sense all within them. They are locked in a room with no doors far below us, but mere clay and rock is no obstacle. I have ordered my drudges and Titans to gather at the closest point in preparation for my descent. I shall burn a hole to his vault, and then we will bring the Gold here and bathe my eggs till they are ready.”
“How long will that take?”
“Not long, if we hurry. Then we must transport the eggs to my caldera, where I shall summon the furies of the fire lakes below. If we act quickly, we shall have twenty more sister-mines ready to meet the Blood Ox when he appears, each and every one of them Gold-infused. It’s what we’ve traditionally used to awaken queens in the past.”
“Then let’s get to it,” Scorio said, heart racing with sudden newfound hope.
Xandera emerged from the pool. She was huge, her serpentine body easily twelve yards long, thick and heavily armored till it abruptly tapered, and she exuded heat such that his skin stung just from being too close to her.
Without a word she slithered out of the royal suite, the Titan stepping aside, and led their small party down, down the circling corridors to emerge at last far below into the gloom where the denizens of the hive had gathered.
It was an unremarkable stretch of corridor.
Xandera paused before a curve, raised one hand, and the air shimmered as she summoned heat from the heart of a volcano. The clay walls cracked, then ran, and soon melted away as she proceeded into the wall, creating a new tunnel with impressive rapidity.
They speared a good thirty or so yards into nothingness before the wall ahead parted and became a gap. Xandera waved her arm in a slow circle, widening the portal, and the raw aura of Gold mana washed out in a deluge.
Scorio’s heart began to pound. He’d not felt such massive amounts of Gold since the Crucible, and holding his breath, he stepped past the queen’s burning-hot bulk and into Bravurn’s secret vault.
It was massive and dominated by row upon row of wooden crates. These clearly contained the Gold; they radiated such potency that Scorio felt himself overwhelmed.
But his attention was quickly drawn from the crates that receded into the dark to a corner that was well appointed; carpet, desk, a glass cabinet filled with cut crystal decanters, a large iron-bound chest, and several heavy ledgers.
“Here we go,” he whispered, striding forward then slowing, unsure where to begin.
Alain didn’t hesitate. He opened the uppermost ledger to reveal columns of figures. “His financial records. Date, quantities imported, to whom he sent shipments, names… all here.”
The ledgers were bound in green leather, their spines stamped with numericals indicating their order, and their pages were onion-skin thin, the figures and lettering neat and precise.
“These go back decades,” said Scorio. “Do you think they’re worth something?”
Alain shrugged. “Only if you want to know who Bravurn was sending his Gold to. I bet there are some surprises in here.”
“Look,” said Naomi, opening the cabinet. “These elixirs. I don’t recognize half of them.”
Scorio joined her. Not only were there bottles, but also racks of glass and metal vials, along with delicately wrought metal boxes with cleverly hinged lids. Opening one after the next revealed some to contain a mass of pills, others to be lined with velvet with only five, or ten, or even just one pill lying in their centers.
“Wow,” whispered Alain. “These are bona fide treasures. He must have been collecting these forever. What even are they?”
“Potent,” said Scorio, examining a perfectly carved rose made from pink quartz. He closed the rosewood lid and passed his fingers over the tracery of tangled gold lines inlaid into the wood. A symbol he recognized as that of an old compass was delicately carved behind the lines. “And now? Ours. Too bad we can’t store them in a mini-Sanctum like a Charnel Duke.”
“Too bad we’re not just Charnel Dukes and Duchesses to begin with,” said Naomi wryly, but even she couldn’t hide the avarice in her voice. “Look, these are Vitality Pearls. There must be…” She shook her head in amazement. “At least a hundred of them in this jar alone.”
“Let’s take a couple each,” suggested Scorio. “We’ll distribute the rest later when we know what they do.”
“Shouldn’t we take the most expensive-looking stuff regardless?” Alain raised his brows. “In case we’re going to die, and need to just roll the dice?”
“Maybe,” said Scorio. “But they’re probably too powerful for us and would just burst our Hearts.”