Yax realized how the dwarves had lost a number of their vessels in these rescue operations. A sub had to swoop in low over the enemy vessel to position its flattened keel over the slave module. Once the Barracudas took care of the seals, the sub’s crew would magnetically charge the keel, dock with the unsecured compartment, and then carry it away like a raptor with prey in its claws. But the critical period before pickup left it vulnerable to attack from below by the powerful eyestalks of the Ophanim. Mirroring the bottom of the hulls would make the boat easier to spot by anyone or anything at a lower depth; however, it would provide crucial protection from the Many-Eyed One’s attacks.

  If the submarine didn’t make it back to port, Yax knew he’d have nothing to report. The Throne had to be thwarted. No matter the cost. Swimming as swiftly as a fish, the elf closed the distance between him and the tower. As he did, he swam lower and lower, descending into the twisting, turning maze of corridors and alleys between the barnacle-covered structures. But he kept his eyes on his prize, the captain’s tower.

  The resistance he encountered along the way proved ineffectual. Rounding a corner, he heard a spear gun fire. Yax halted abruptly and let the projectile slide past him in the water. With the aid of transformative Aethyr energies, the elf moved with the speed and efficiency of a predatory fish. Unlike the dwarves, he had the reactions of a real barracuda, for the fluid around him behaved as if it were his natural environment.

  Yax drew Starkiller and returned fire. Shot clean through by the beam from the wand, the Kappa bushwhacker slumped where it floated. Its companions raised their weapons but never had a chance to fire. His wand struck down the one on the left, and a dwarven spear skewered the ugly bastard on the right.

  The goblin clutched at the barbed dart protruding from its distended belly. As it crumpled onto the unsteady ground beneath their feet, the elf spotted a diminutive figure behind it. The distinctive bubblehead stayed his wand hand. He let the camouflage slip.

  “It’s me,” Dagny cried, her voice distorted but recognizable.

  Yax smiled, relieved she’d survived the landing. He said, “Where are the others?”

  “Handling the seals. They’ve got three to go. I came looking for you.”

  “Why in the Nine’d you do that?”

  “I saw you tumble away from the explosion. I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  He sighed and said, “You’re one in a million, Dags. I’m fine, but none of us will be if that Throne has his way about it.” Yax pointed to the lethal beams of light spewing forth from the tower.

  “What do you plan on doing about it?”

  “I aim to get its attention and keep it. One way or the other.”

  Shouldering her spear gun, Dagny responded, “Then let’s get to it.”

  The elf couldn’t help but smile broader this time. The little dwarven woman had more fighting spirit in her than a whole army of Choj’Ahaw. But would it be enough?

  VI. Toppling the Throne

  Yax and Dagny rushed the tower, cutting down any goblin that opposed them. Before they realized it, they’d reached its shiny, smooth surface. At this distance, he could tell that its resemblance to a shell was no coincidence: it was one.

  “Watch our backs,” he said as he ran his hand along the structure.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m looking for bubbles,” Yax explained.

  Dagny looked puzzled. “Bubbles?”

  “Yeah, where there’s air, there’s fuel. And where there’s fuel, there’s fire.”

  He repeated the phrase in the original dialect of the Unen’ek as he channeled the elemental forces of fire into the air bubbles trapped in the tower since it last surfaced. The building shuddered under his open palm as a series of implosions rippled through it. Numerous cracks spider-webbed its exterior, running in every direction at once.

  Looks like I cracked the egg, Yax thought, his mind on the Eternal War. Fighting with the dwarves here, he had struck a blow against the Lords of the Underworld. But one must be careful when kicking a hornet’s nest, otherwise one gets stung.

  Seizing Dagny by the arm, he swam away from the crumbling structure. He lost sight of the nest perched atop the tower in the cloud of dust and debris muddying the waters. So he didn’t stop swimming until they’d rounded the corner of another building.

  Unfortunately, their escape had been too swift, their getaway too clean. The Throne was nowhere to be seen among the wreckage. Had it moved on to another target? Had it taken the fight to the submarine itself? If so, they’d never stop it in time.

  A familiar evil light gleaming in the alley between two adjacent structures alleviated his immediate concern for the dwarven craft. But the location of the Ophanim’s lethal beam created a whole new concern, the fate of the Barracudas and their mission. It’d take a team effort to distract the creature long enough to destroy the seals.

  Wand in hand, Yax rushed to their rescue alongside the intrepid but inexperienced yeoman. They arrived at an intersection behind the Throne but that did not guarantee them the element of surprise. The broad, bulbous beast filled the space between the containers. Its main eye faced away from them but several of its tentacles turned toward them, each one tipped with an unblinking eye that glowed dimly in the murky waters.

  The Throne floated a few feet above the back of the Leviathan. It advanced on a pair of Barracudas who worked to sever one of the retaining clips securing the pressurized slave module in place. Yax fired a warning shot over the creature, not for its benefit but to alert the dwarves. They abandoned their labors, taking cover behind the seal itself. The Many-Eyed One fired its most devastating beam but only managed to disintegrate one corner of the retaining clip.

  The beast roared in frustration and fired in both directions simultaneously. Beams of Aethyr energy shot past Yax and Dagny but one of the Barracudas didn’t fare so well. Ensnared by one of the Ophanim’s eyestalks, the dwarf lowered his spear gun and stood. His battle buddy reached for him, but it was too late. The next blast turned him to stone.

  Dagny stood her ground at Yax’s side. Though her arms trembled, she steadied herself enough to plant a projectile in the Throne’s body with her pneumatic spear gun. She ratcheted the slide on the side of the weapon and loaded another bolt from its clip.

  Yax tried to target the most devastating eyestalks first, but with them waving about wildly, he lost track. He fired into the wriggling mass of appendages and incinerated one with his own blast of Aethyr energy.

  One down, too many to go, he thought. We have to buy the Barracudas some time.

  Yax channeled the Aethyr through himself and into Starkiller. He peppered the Many-Eyed One with a barrage of blasts designed to harass and harangue. Enraged and flash-blinded, it rotated its body to bring the one eye not affected by the spell to bear. The lone large eye in the center of the bulbous beast stared menacingly at him and Dagny.

  As he gazed into the unblinking orb, the elf hoped the dwarves worked quickly. He felt his blood run cold and his sense of purpose waver as the eye took effect. Averting his own eyes, he warned his companion to do the same. But she froze.

  Yax grabbed Dagny by the shoulder and dragged her around the corner. She crouched beside the wall of the structure and rocked back and forth, her eyes wide. The fear caused by looking into the eye of the Ophanim was unnatural, pronounced, but faded with time in most cases. Only the hardiest of folk could stare into it without breaking down. Despite possessing a natural resistance to those effects, the elf took no chances.

  Yax pointed Starkiller around the corner and fired several shots in the direction of the enemy. The Throne dominated the narrow corridor, so the elf’s chances of scoring a hit remained high. He changed positions and varied the number of shots fired. The tactic saved his life.

  Once the Ophanim recovered, it blasted a hole through the wall over Yax’s head. Always the innovator, the elf used the opening to spot for his new firing position. But to his horror, the Many-Eyed One had ignored his retreat with Dagny to a large extent. It advanced on the remaining Barracuda as the dwarf sabotaged the retaining clip with a contact acid.

  Even as the beast opened its toothy maw wide and devoured the saboteur whole, Yax admired both the dwarf and the Throne for their dedication to duty and objectives. However, admiration and respect didn’t win battles, much less an eternal war. But decisive, effective action and a healthy dose of luck might.

  The elf called upon an illusory trick used to devastating effectiveness by the Choj’Ahaw. The Wand Bearers and others waged war against the minions of Chichu’äm as well as a thousand natural horrors creeping, crawling, and flying across the face of Faltyr. So it paid to inflate their ranks in every way possible, including the creation of illusionary doppelgangers. Though elves could see through all but the most powerful illusions, the bulk of their enemies had not evolved a similar adaptation.

  When Yax rounded the ruined corner of the building, a trio of mirror images joined him. Each one cast Dagny a reassuring wink as it emerged into the open. The Many-Eyed One twirled around to face the four elves. And then both sides started shooting.

  Beams of colorful, deadly Aethyr energy flashed back and forth down the corridor in a frenzied display of firepower. One by one, the Throne’s rays cut down the impostor Wand Bearers until only the real Yax remained. But the elf’s attack had taken its toll as well. Of its eight original eyestalks, half of them remained functional. And its body had taken enough hits from Starkiller to slow the beast to a figurative crawl.

  The two relentless spellslingers stared each other down and then fired again. Yax turned his body to narrow his profile, but the ray hit him anyway. Frozen on the spot, he struggled to move but failed to budge an inch from his firing position. The Throne fared little better from the exchange as Starkiller’s blast disabled yet another eyestalk.

  Unfortunately, the Leviathan’s captain remained mobile and active despite its injuries. And its next shot was liable to kill Yax or turn him stone, a fate worse than death in his mind. But a figure emerged from his periphery to fill the emptiness between him and his fate.

  “You want him. You gotta come through me.”

  Though Dagny’s entire body quaked, her voice did not shake. As the diminutive woman faced down the death orb with naught but a spear gun and a grim smile, she stood taller than any titan or hero of yore. The beast laughed when it should’ve fired because Dagny didn’t wait for a response. A spear gun bolt through its central eye turned its cackles to cacophonous screams.

  Vitreous humor mixed with seawater as the Ophanim quivered in rage and pain. But it still possessed sight and the ability to fight back. And fight it did. Lethal beams lanced out from its remaining eyestalks.

  Yax watched in mute horror as they sought out and fought their tiny target. Dagny froze in place as well. Only the ashy white pallor and rigidity that overtook her form told him she’d stay that way.

  Yax’s mind reeled as he tried to process the loss of Dagny, of every possibility she represented to him, all of them reduced to nothing in one instance. He shook with anguish and let the anger welling up inside fuel him. As a masterful Aethyr-user, Yax could transmute most forms of ambient energy into a useable form, even emotional energy, albeit a draining, soul-crushing way to power his magical effects.

  The Throne’s spell shattered as the elf’s natural fury and ferocity overwhelmed its paralytic effect. Channeling the Aethyr energies into a burst of speed that bent time around him, he charged toward the beast in a blur of motion. Sword and wand raised high, the Choj’Ahaw prepared to kill or be killed. In his mood, he bet on the former.

  Ducking, dodging, and finally diving, he closed the distance between them. As he reached the range of the Throne’s slavering maw, he flung Demon Queller away from rather than toward the beast. As he dove past its dangerous mouth, his sword’s trajectory curved behind the Ophanim and then circled back around in a flat spin. On its first pass, the lethal blade severed two of the three eyestalks that still presented a danger.

  Spiraling onto his back, Yax kicked his legs to propel himself underneath the body of the bulbous orb. Drawing the wand down the length of its vulnerable belly, he cut a fine line with its burning beam. As he swam out from under the Ophanim, the weight and pressure of its own organs did the rest of the elf’s work for him.

  The enraged Choj’Ahaw caught Demon Queller in one outstretched hand and sheathed the sword in one fluid motion. He sneered as the final eyestalk tumbled from its severed stump. Despite the blood and guts trailing from the ruined orb, Yax jammed Starkiller into its broad back and chanted until the Golden Wedge at the wand’s tip glowed with the magnitude of a miniature star. When he released the fiery projectile, it burned a hole clean through the dying orb.

  As the Throne slumped to the ground, the elf lowered the wand. He stared over the fallen enemy at the petrified image of the brave young yeoman who’d saved his life. Yax tried to return his mind to the mission but failed. Anger burned inside him hotter than the ball of Aethyr fire that had finished off the captain of the slave ship.

  Did the lives of a handful of scrubby dwarven slaves equal the loss of such a brave soul? Could a hundred of them ever hope to replace one as super, as heroic?

  Best make her sacrifice worth it, Yax thought. And then he set to work.

  By the time Chief Oddr and the surviving Barracuda deployed the flares to signal the submarine, the elf managed to find and disable all but the last support securing the entire harness to the back of the Leviathan. He’d left the one closest to Dagny and the slave module intact. After all, she might be stoned, but that was no reason to leave her.

  The bioluminescent spores drifted up from the flare canister and stuck to the boat’s hull as it positioned itself over the slave module. The sub matched speed with the Leviathan as it swam onward through the trench, oblivious to the death of its masters. Yax could feel the Aethyr energies coursing through the boat’s keel. They magnetized it enough for the submarine to lift and carry the slave module to safety.

  The flattened, wire-wrapped keel married with the roof of the unsecured structure. As he watched in amazement, the sub floated away from the Leviathan taking its mission objective along with it. Once the slave module cleared the other structures, Oddr and his Barracuda attached their lines to its magnetized side and let its momentum carry them.

  Yax extracted the steel weight from the pouch on the belt given to him by Dagny. He hooked it onto the end of the fine silk cord coiled around the reel device. Pulling enough slack free to wrap the line several times around the statue that was his friend. Calling upon the Aethyr once more, the exhausted elf attached the weight and waited.

  As the slack left the line, the elf and his petrified friend floated upward, toward the slave module beneath the hull of the submarine. Though his wand hand felt heavy as his heart, he lifted Starkiller and aimed it at the Leviathan. He fired once, twice, and then a third time before the entire harness device shifted and slipped from the back of the beast. Swimming free of its burden, it rolled and rollicked in the waters of the Abyss. Despite the stony condition of the woman in his arms, the liberation of her kin and the giant Ja’Kan gave him hope for the future, for all their futures.

  “Hold on, Dags,” he whispered to her. “I can free you too. I promise.”

  And two centuries later, Yax did. But that would be another story.

  White Lightning:

  A Beauregard the Monster Hunter Short Story

  John G. Hartness

  “Beauregard Ulysses Brabham, get down here!” The dulcet tones of Tavvy’s voice penetrated the fog that was Bubba’s mind and dragged him forcefully from a dream into the waking world. The waking world was bright, so Bubba rolled over to limit his exposure to daylight. Unfortunately for Bubba, he had once again slept outside in his hammock, so the act of rolling over involved a rather abrupt introduction of his face to the hard-packed red clay beneath him. Sonofabitch, that woman is more likely to get me killed than any monster I hunt. And where’d my damn pants go?

  Bubba lumbered to his feet and relieved himself against a tree, then began the search for his pants. They were crumpled in a heap by the foot of the hammock, tangled around his work boots. Bubba shook his head and pulled on both pants and boots, swearing not for the first time to drink less in the future. It’s that damn preacher and his theological debatin’. He gets up here using all them big words and I figure the only way I can follow him is to be about half drunk when he starts theorizin’. But I never stop at half drunk, do I? Bubba shook his head at the two empty quart jars sitting on his porch, and started off down the hill toward his sister’s shrieks.

  “What in the seven flaming hells do you want, Tavvy?” Bubba bellowed as his father’s, now his sister’s, cabin came into view. Tavvy had nursed the old man through the last few years of his life, and now she owned the cabin and all the land to boot. The downside was that she had spent her prime courtin’ years caring for a mean old bastard of a father, and now she seemed doomed to spend the rest of her life as an old maid. It was a shame, too, Bubba thought. Tavvy wasn’t bad-looking girl, even if she was his sister. She had a decent enough face, if maybe her jaw was a little too strong and her chin a little too square. She had a decent body, too, with an impressive bosom and a healthy appetite. At a couple of inches over six feet and close to three hundred pounds, Bubba was more comfortable around a woman who could eat than some of the town girls who looked like they lived on water and air.

  “I require your assistance, Beauregard. You shall provide it as befits a gentleman of your stature.”

  “I ain’t no stature, Tavvy. I’m a real, live man, not one carved out of something.” He passed gas loudly and tried to maneuver downwind of himself. “See, Tavvy? Statures don’t fart. Now what do you need?”