15-26. Serpent's Coil

Elijah smacked his lips in disgust. “Why do I taste burnt cinnamon?” he wondered aloud.

“Shut up,” Okar groaned. Then, he said something under his breath that Elijah couldn’t quite make out. It definitely included the word “bullshit” though. The halfling rolled over, massaging his temples. “What was in that ale?”

Alrhok muttered, “Poison. They had to be trying to kill us. It’s the only explanation.”

A loud banging announced Tisk’s arrival. Elijah sucked his teeth, clutching his ears to stop the noise. Meanwhile, Okar and Alrhok reacted similarly.

“Get up. We’re moving out soon, and I don’t want to run any of you over,” said the animal handler. Through his hangover, Elijah couldn’t help but notice that she’d said nothing about not wanting to leave them behind.

It was a pointed omission.

Sighing, he used Wild Resurgence on himself, then his two companions. That helped cut through some of the detrimental effects, but the foul taste in his mouth remained just as potent as before. And a lingering headache persisted, though it wasn’t debilitating.

As the other two complained, Elijah rolled out from under the wagon. The wheels were tall enough that he could easily stand beneath the wagon’s floor, but he didn’t rise to his feet until he’d left the shelter behind.

“I told you to take it easy,” Imal said, hands on her hips. Somehow, she looked no worse for wear.

“Where did you come from?”

“I slept elsewhere,” she stated. “Like a civilized person.”

Tisk looked at her like she’d gone crazy, saying, “I found you –”

“Never mind that,” Imal interrupted. “The point is that they overindulged, despite my warnings.”

Okar ran his hand through his shaggy hair and looked at her with bleary eyes. Somehow, he’d gotten straw everywhere – quite a feat, considering Elijah hadn’t even seen any straw. “I don’t remember you warning anyone,” he croaked. “In fact, I remember you goading Alrhok into drinking three extra –”

“Nonsense. That doesn’t sound like me at all,” she insisted. “You must’ve gotten me mixed up with someone else. Like Elijah. He’s a human too.”

“Human-ish,” Elijah reminded her.

“But he’s male!” Okar half-shouted, then immediately regretted the loud noise. It seemed that Wild Resurgence hadn’t quite banished the ill effects from the night of overindulgence.

“Like you know the difference. I heard all halflings are as androgynous as –”

“We are not androgynous!”

“You do look a bit…ah…soft featured,” Alrhok said, pushing his bulky form upright.

“I bet if we did your hair properly and added a bit of makeup, you’d –”

Okar interrupted Elijah with a glare.

“Fine. You don’t look like an adorable little –”

At the same time a dagger appeared in Okar’s hand, he lunged at Elijah. Not quickly enough that he actually stood a chance of stabbing him, but the meaning was clear. Elijah danced backward.

“Children,” Tisk chided as Elijah caught Okar’s wrist and wrestled him to the ground. Okar didn’t go down without a fight, and he dipped behind Elijah and put him in a headlock. They didn’t stop until Alrhok pulled them apart, but by that point, both were grinning.

“Almost had you,” Okar pointed out.

“You really didn’t,” Elijah countered.

That argument went on for the next few minutes until, at last, they climbed atop the wagon. A few moments later, Mona started forward, picking a path that wound around and over the city toward the next gate.

With the increased altitude, Elijah was treated to his first real glimpse of the mountains, which gleamed with silver light. They didn’t even look real, though according to Okar, they very much were. In fact, he went on and on about the mithril content, claiming that those closest to the city were practically useless. Only when they got off planet did they really get into the interesting stuff.

It was another reminder that Mitharin wasn’t just a single city. Nor was it only a planet. It was just one tiny corner of a vast universe that functioned according to slightly different rules than what Elijah was accustomed to.

He knew better than most that there were nearly infinite dimensions connected to the void. Most of them were entirely inhospitable to life, at least the way they thought of it. Instead, they were so alien that even entering them came with a note of distinct danger.

Like the one where even the air was sharp.

Or the lava one.

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A tremble went up Elijah’s spine when he thought of the vast manta-ray creature that had nearly shattered his mental defenses via its presence alone.

After about an hour, the first wagon reached the gate, and they slipped back into the Coreway without any fanfare. Soon, the entire caravan had left Mitharin behind, exchanging it for the familiar confines of the interdimensional highway.

The first thing Elijah noticed was that this stretch was far busier than the last. Rare was the moment when they weren’t passing another caravan going the opposite direction, and in places, the Coreway widened enough to accommodate dozens of wagon trains. They also passed through a few smaller interchanges, though they didn’t stop.

“How big is the Coreway, anyway?” Elijah asked once he rejoined Tisk on Mona’s back. “The whole system, I mean.”

She shrugged. “I have no idea. It’s always expanding. New dimensions. New worlds. The empire runs on resources, and we’re always looking for new sources,” she explained. “It also helps the expansion of the World Tree’s influence.”

Elijah nodded along. The World Tree’s existence was characterized by constant growth. Whether it guided that expansion was a matter of debate, but it never stopped. As it grew, it incorporated new worlds like Earth. Without the system, most of those planets would never survive the World Tree’s touch. The sudden explosion of ethera would destroy almost all life.

Thankfully, the system helped to ease the burden, which gave most of them at least some chance.

The day wore on, with them steadily crossing uncountable miles until they came to a curious site. Mano stood before them, and though he was back in his comparatively small humanoid form, he still managed to loom. His pitch-black halberd rested on his shoulder, and Elijah didn’t miss that it was dripping with golden ichor.

When the caravan drew closer, the draconic man vaulted onto Mona’s back. The ekolases trembled under the pressure Mano brought with him, but Tisk managed to keep her under control.

“Did you win?” Elijah asked.

“I wounded her,” Mano answered. “She retreated, but I feared a trap, so I didn’t pursue.”

“Smart.”

“I would like you to come with me.”

“What? Where?” Elijah asked.

“You will see. Use your world serpent form.”

Without further ado, he leaped from Mona’s back and jogged ahead. “Guess I’ll see you later then,” Elijah told Tisk. She was practically trembling from being so close to the transcendent. Or maybe it was the effort of keeping the ekolases controlled while in the presence of an undisputed predator like Mano.

Whatever the case, Elijah leaped from the ekolases’s back, then shifted into the Shape of the World Serpent before following his adopted brother. Despite the form’s speed, it still took him a few moments to catch up. When he did, he asked, “Where are we going?”

“I don’t want to spoil the surprise. This is a grand opportunity, especially for someone like you. Most will never witness such a thing.”

“Oh, now I’m definitely interested,” Elijah said as he slithered through the air alongside Mano.

As it turned out, they reached their destination after approximately twenty minutes.

“What happened here?” Elijah asked, slowing to a stop. It was a good question, because there were dozens of drakes and serpentors all around. They’d set up a cordon to redirect traffic away from a massive rent in the rainbow-colored shield. Keeping the void at bay was a golden mesh of wires that shimmered with so much ethera that the effect very nearly overwhelmed Elijah’s senses.

“This is where I reentered the Coreway.”

“Oh,” Elijah said. “Makes sense. Why are we here?”

“Because there is something out there you need to see.”

With that, he leaped upon the scaffolding and headed toward a gap in the mesh. It was only a couple of feet wide and five feet tall, so Mano had to duck to get through. Elijah just shifted into his human form before slipping through the gap.

He immediately regretted it, though.

The void was not a hospitable place. In fact, it was entirely antithetical to most existences, and most people wouldn’t even try to enter it until they were well into the deity tier. Elijah was a little different, though, and what’s more, he’d anticipated the effect. So, he’d loaded himself with healing spells before leaving the Coreway.

Even then, he very nearly lost consciousness the second he left the protection of the Coreway behind. And that was to say nothing of the pain.

If he’d not gained so many levels during the tournament, he probably wouldn’t have survived. That, and the mesh’s effect extended a few feet past the rift in the defenses, adding a little extra protection.

Either way, it gave him just enough time to shift back into the Shape of the World Serpent and regain the effect of Scales of Infinity. If the form needed to breathe, he would have let out a sigh of relief.

Mano floated nearby, lazily flapping the black wings that had extended from his back. Each movement sent ripples through the void, and though his true wingspan was only thirty or so feet, it felt like they cast the entire void in dense shadow that existed just outside Elijah’s perception.

“That form is a great boon. Traveling the void at your level is unheard of,” he said, his voice reverberating through the void. It wasn’t sound. Not exactly. Rather, it was something tied to power and force.

Elijah just nodded. He knew precisely how valuable Shape of the World Serpent was.

“Let me show you exactly how special it is.”

Then, he took off. Oddly, Elijah had no trouble keeping up. The only real evidence that they were moving at all was the rapidly shrinking Coreway. Otherwise, there was no sign of movement.

After only a few minutes, they left even that behind. At first, Elijah wondered if Mano knew where he was going, but then, suddenly, he felt something familiar, but in a way he couldn’t quite pinpoint. He just knew he wanted to follow that thread.

Thankfully, Mano did just that.

And an hour or two later, something came into Elijah’s field of vision. At first, he thought it was a planet, as odd as that might have seemed. There were no landmasses in the void, after all.

Or that was what he’d been led to believe. Soon enough, the evidence to the contrary loomed over him.

Once he accepted its existence, the first thing Elijah thought was that it was absolutely enormous. At least the size of Earth’s sun, and probably much larger. Even from countless miles away and in the void, Elijah could feel the force of its gravity tugging at him.

Fortunately, Mano didn’t lead him much closer.

“This is what is known as a serpent’s coil,” he explained, his voice much more subdued than before. “It is an amalgam of planets, most of which were abandoned or excised. An adult world serpent drags those planets into the void, creating a nest in which it will lay its eggs. Those eggs will, in turn, siphon the remaining power in the planetary cores, fertilizing them. When the juvenile world serpents hatch, they are almost always deity-tier.

He gestured. “This is the heritage of that form. If this was discovered by most others in the empire, they would descend upon it like locusts. A world serpent egg is extremely valuable.

“But be wary. For where there is a serpent’s coil, there is also the mother.”

Just then, Elijah felt the void ripple. And he saw a bit of the planetary mass shift.

That was when he realized that a world serpent had wrapped itself around the thing. Dozens of times.

Like a coil.

Suddenly, the name made perfect sense.

“Enjoy this sight, brother. For we are among the lucky few to ever see such a thing.”