text: Zezili crawled into a nearby cocoon, sliding in its mucus. She grabbed a moldering body and yanked it up against the opening to the cocoon, shielding her from the view of the approaching monsters. She could just peer over the back of the stinking corpse and see the alien women hissing passed her, close enough that she could throw a rock and hit one.
  
  They sniffed the air as they approached. Zezili froze. They swung their heads about. Zezili stopped breathing.
  
  They exchanged rapid-fire clicks and guttural sounds – some kind of language.
  
  Then the gaggle of figures moved on, and Zezili let out her breath.
  
  She needed to find out where Storm had gone when he breached this barrier. Waking up these things was supposed to require some kind of ritual. It was why they brought the jistas. So where had he performed it?
  
  Zezili crawled out of the cocoon and loped across the field, keeping low. She paused often to flatten herself against the ground whenever she heard or saw one of the strange women. She made for what looked like a ziggurat at the center of the anomaly. At first she'd thought it was some plant-plagued hill, but now that she was closer, it was clear it was a building that had been reclaimed by the woods.
  
  The bodies made a neat trail to the structure, and they got fresher. She recognized three women from those she'd brought with her, and one of the Sebastyn jistas. They had lost at least one jista back in that stupid town, Mordid. That left three to do whatever needed doing to wake up these things. How many would it take to put them back to bed?
  
  Zezili found the doors of the temple – was it a temple? A fortress? –open. They were massive slabs of stone. She wasn't sure how Storm had gotten them open. The jistas, maybe? She stepped inside and pushed the arm with the dagger ahead of her. Inside, great bronze mirrors reflected the light from the entrance, spilling in back and back, further than Zezili could see. What she could make out was a broad foyer with a massive ceiling painted in strange geometric figures. The room had six broad exits – not counting the one she walked in from. She saw that the mirrors directed the light to just one of the entrances, at her left.
  
  Inside were more bodies, all less than a week old. The odor was so strong that Zezili's eyes watered. She picked her way across the bodies and made for the archway. As she rounded the corner, she saw another body ahead of her jerking erratically on the floor. A breath of horror escaped her. Then a bloodied face rose from the flopping body: it was some serpentine creature with great black fangs and eyes the color of silver. It had four front limbs. She saw the lash of a black tail. She had never seen anything like it.
  
  Zezili put the wall at her back. The creature rose up. It was at least twice as tall as her. It moved so fast she had no time to retreat. In a breath it was on her. It clamped on her thigh. She stabbed it in the eye. It howled, and released her. She stabbed the other eye. The tail lashed, and caught her across the face. She fell and stabbed it in the torso. It was thrashing now. It was the thrashing that would kill her, that fucking tail—
  
  Zezili stabbed it in the throat. The face came at her again. She batted it away with her left arm and stabbed with her right. The blood was black, and made her skin itch. She hissed. The tail smashed her face. She stabbed at the eyes over and over, splattering black, irritating blood until it stopped moving.
  
  Zezili took great gasping breaths. She drooled into its mashed face, and spit black ichor. She got up, and stumbled past the body. The tail thumped. She hollered at it, kicked it, but it was just reflexive nerves. It flopped on the floor.
  
  She pushed on, deeper into the ziggurat. She was definitely headed below ground now, following the slightly sloping floor. The creature's blood burned her skin. She wondered how poisonous it was, and if she'd be dead before she got to the end of this fucking maze. She spat. The blood made her mouth tingle.
  
  Down and down she went, passing great open doors inscribed with strange writing. They reminded her of the stories she'd heard of Tordinian tombs. The open doors led to rooms the size and shape of her wardrobe at home, and the walls were covered in mucus. She saw great plant-like protrusions covering the interior of each. Like the cocoons outside, the tombs glowed with a faint green bioluminescence. She tried to imagine spending… what? Two thousand, a thousand years cradled in one of those things? This must be where the Empress had buried her kin.
  
  The corridor opened up. Zezili walked into a broad, spherical room. The room was lined in the same sticky tentacles as the tombs she'd passed, and the floor was green. It roiled like something alive, and lights rippled across its surface. She saw what remained of her three Sebastyn jistas on the edge of the pool, their skin charred. At the center of the pool was a great dais, and on top of the dais was what looked like a silver throne made of skulls, all coated in silver. She did not recognize the skulls of the creatures that made up the throne. They looked vaguely human, but distorted. Some had three eyes, or four eyes, and massive bulbous foreheads, and jutting mouths. A few even looked like they had horns. They were some parody of humanity, some dark vision. On top of the throne was Storm, slumped forward with chin on chest. Zezili could not see him well, but suspected he was as dead as the jistas.
  
  "What the fuck?" she muttered aloud, because none of it made any sense. She was not gifted, and suspected there must be some kind of barrier or switch or something she couldn't see.
  
  Zezili looked around for something to throw into the pool, and settled for yanking a satchel off one of the jistas and tossing it in. The pool was not a pool – the bag sat on it like it was a solid surface, disturbing only the light. But it didn't hiss or eat it or burst into flame.
  
  Zezili squared her shoulders and tested one foot on the green surface. She'd come all this way, why stop now? The light flickered, but it was solid. She crept across the surface to the throne and peered up at Storm's body.
  
  She raised her foot to mount the silver steps—
  
  And Storm's head jerked up. He gabbled at her, jerking about like a puppet on a string. Zezili jumped back, shoving her daggered hand ahead of her.
  
  Storm swung his head toward her, and the gabbling became something she could understand. "Do not defy her!"
  
  "What happened?"
  
  "Do not defy her!"
  
  Green bile dribbled from Storm's mouth. His eyes were unfocused. His flesh looked moldered, to her. It had taken on a greenish tint.
  
  "Storm?"
  
  "Do… not… defy…"
  
  His chin slumped back to his chest. The body relaxed, as if the puppet master released the strings.
  
  Zezili stepped gingerly around the back of the throne. The top of the throne was attached to the back wall by a giant, pulsing thread of green tentacles, all fused with the silvery throne. She thought of the Empress's silver throne back in Daorian. Fashioned after this one?
  
  That's when she heard the whispering.
  
  Zezili crept behind the throne and hid under the massive pulsing tentacle. She peered around the other side, back the way she had come.
  
  It wasn't whispering. It was hissing.
  
  The Empress's people were clicking and muttering and sliding down the hall toward her. The shushing sound grew louder and louder.
  
  Zezili thought she might lose her shit then, just dribble out there behind the throne. Her gut churned so bad she wanted to vomit.
  
  But this was what she wanted, wasn't it? Some glorious end, fighting impossible odds?
  
  Zezili pushed her daggered hand forward, and stepped out from behind the throne.