Her fingers itched to touch the ax. She rubbed fingers and thumbs together. They tingled. Herseeingworking strengthened all on its own. She stepped carefully closer.
She had a feeling she wasn’t supposed to touch it, but the copper glowed. It called to her. She passed around the mud puddle, into arm’s reach of the skeleton. Gently, she reached out to touch the ax. Just a fingertip. The metal was frigid, cold enough to burn. She yanked back her hand and stepped away.
Her heel touched the very edge of the mud puddle.
The ax fell through the skull and landed inside the skull, behind the jaw and teeth.
Red light blasted up from the mud, so bright it blinded her. Liz shut off theseeingworking and stepped away, fast, bruising her instep. Bumping, grazing her knee on a rock. Pain shocked through her, clearing her head.
The mud burped. A single expulsion of air.No.Of gas. It smelled like sulfur. Like brimstone.
A second bubble erupted. Sulfur and old ashes and the fetid stink of death. “Oh. Hell.” She looked back at the skeleton. The chain glowed. The ax glowed. She looked down at her body. Her skin glowed where the blood-curse rested just below the surface.
She had just messed up. Bad. She raced to the cave opening and faced back inside. The floor of the cave was littered with broken rocks. The front wall had once kept all intruders out, hiding the cave. It had once been a solid chamber. Like a prison.
A rumbling vibrated through her feet. Her skin glowed with the blood-curse magic.
Something was coming. Something big. Something bad.
She had to fix this.
Liz pulled on the ley line, drawing the power into herself. Placing her palms on the rocks near the cave opening, she pushed the energy back out of her body, fast, hard, through the rocks and into the chain that bound the skeleton, everywhere the copper touched the rocks. Shoving the powerinto the metal hurt. Her energies weren’t usually compatible with refined copper, but there was so much power.Somuch. It felt far easier than it should have been. She pushed and pushed. Knotting the ley line power into strands that she tied over the copper and into the rocks.
The mud was bubbling around the edges.
The vibrations got harder. Earthquake... except not. It was something much worse. The ley line power popped free of the binding she was attempting. Liz stepped back toward the water.
The rocks holding the copper-wrapped skeleton shook and slid to the side. And into the mud. As they tumbled away, she saw the hands and feet of the skeleton, dozens of tiny bones. They fell apart as she watched. The skeleton rocked. It fell forward. And toppled into the mud.
Eli
The earth rumbled. Eli sat up fast. He had been in earthquakes, the kind caused by plates of the Earth sliding around, the kind caused by a volcano erupting, the kind caused by mudslides. This felt like that, the low deep, muted rumble of rocks and mud sweeping everything in their path.
Liz was at the pool. If a mudslide came down the hillside, it would take the path of least resistance: down the runnel.
Without even looking, he grabbed the gear he might need and sprinted back to the pool.
Liz
She cursed. Panting in the sulfur gases, growing desperate for oxygen. Unable to look away. Unable to leave. Knowing what she had done. Knowing what was happening and unable to fix her stupid, foolish mistake.
The bones lay there for a moment, on top of the mud puddle. The mud bubbled harder, even in the center, little plops of sound that shoved gasup, creating holes and suction that began to draw the skeleton down. Heat was mixed in with the reek. Liz covered her mouth and nose. The stench was dangerous. She was breathing too fast and not feeling any better. The stench had displaced the air in the cave, and she wasn’t getting oxygen.
The skeleton sank into the mud. A moment later, something rose from the mud, something like a tree trunk, if trees were made of mud. Mud and bone. Long bones stuck out the top, bumpy joints pointing to the cave roof. Embedded in the mud were smaller bones, the toe and finger bones. No copper was visible.
Liz took another step back. The step caught its attention. It leaned in toward her. She froze, except for her desperate breathing and the sudden, urgent need to cough. The mud bent away and then it flung part of itself at her.
A ball of mud and debris hit her in the face. Like muddy slime, it covered her face and hair and down her naked body. It covered her nose and eyes and mouth. And it tried to get inside. Shoving up into her nostrils, trying to slip past her lips. She couldn’t see. If she tried to take a breath, the thing would be inside her. And she had no breath left at all.
She drew all the power she had, all the power she could access. She threw it at the mud thing. It screamed like an animal. Something exploded out from it. It hit her in the chest. Slid down her arms, over the blood-curse remnants. Pain shocked through her.
A third mud bomb hit her. The force threw her back.
Like a rag doll, she flew back through the waterfall, flailing, taking with her the mud, a rock she caught in one hand, and a small bit of bone that had been in the mud bomb. She landed in the water. Her head above the surface for a moment.
She fought with all her magic, wrapping herself in the ley line. Desperate for a breath. She dunked under. Rose back up. Threw more raw energy.
Mud hit her again.
