Chapter 305: The Dwarven Cave of Mantamia (7)

“What do you mean by that?” Ignisia asked Ketal.

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

“No, I mean,” Ignisia said, trying to make sure she had heard correctly. “You are saying you want to move the entire mine outside his domain?”

“Yes.” Ketal nodded once. “I have a question. What sits at the center of the demon’s domain?”

“For Mantamia, it was once Hephaite’s holy ground,” she replied after a beat. “It was protected by divine power. That holiness was stained and inverted, and the whole place transformed into a field of evil.”

“So the domain is not anchored to the demon himself.”

Which meant that if they could separate Mantamia from the space the domain covered, they would step outside its rules entirely.

“The only reason he can manipulate everything inside so freely is because the mine is within his domain,” Ketal said. “If we take the mine out, his reach should end.”

“That is impossible,” Grombir said at once.

“Impossible?” Ketal echoed. “Is the mine truly that large?”

“No. Not in volume,” the dwarf king answered. “Mantamia is compacted to an extreme, so if you compare raw size, you might call it a hill. In terms of dimensions alone, moving it is not unthinkable.”

Size was not the obstacle. Weight and nature were.

“The ores inside carry Myst in themselves,” Grombir went on. “They are highly resistant to Myst.”

Using Myst to pull or push them was nearly pointless. That was why the dwarves mined with honest picks and hammers rather than clever enchantments.

“Which leaves simple, physical force,” Grombir finished, “and that is where reality asserts itself. The mine is terribly heavy.”

Every vein was crushed until there was almost no void left between crystals, ore on ore until the density verged on the absurd. If one spoke in mere mass, Mantamia outweighed mountain ranges.

“How do you shift the weight of a mountain chain with muscle alone?” Grombir asked gently. “You do not.”

“Leave that part to me,” Ketal said, cheerful as if they were discussing the weather.

Grombir blinked, wondering whether he had failed to explain. Ketal sounded as if picking up a mountain were the sort of errand one ran between lunch and supper.

“But your point stands,” Ketal added, still calm. “Even if I lift, the mine is not a single brick. If I simply put my hands under it and pull, some of it will shear and break away as it moves.”

“Can you bind the mine with your Dragon Tongue?” Ketal asked Ignisia.

“That will be difficult,” she said. “For the reason Grombir stated. The ores push back.”

“I am not talking about the interior,” he said. “I mean the outside.”

“The outside?” she repeated.

“Can you wrap the mine from the outside?” Ketal asked her, “As if you were cinching up a sack, binding the very space that contains it.”

Ignisia had once bound the space of an entire mountain when she was trying to suppress him. It was not impossible. She took the question seriously, tracing possibilities in her mind before she answered.

“It will not be easy,” she said at last. “Even if we avoid touching the ore directly, their resistance will still bleed outward. And there is a demon inside, is there not?”

If she tried it, Raphael would feel the change in an instant and push back with everything he had.

“By myself, no,” she said plainly. “At minimum, I would need another dragon who can use Dragon Tongue.”

“What if that other one is me?”

She stared at him.

“In the past, I could not learn Dragon Tongue,” Ketal said, matter-of-factly. “I could not command the Myst, so I put it off. I trained simpler disciplines first, then intended to learn the Dragon Tongue after I had tamed myself.”

He looked at her levelly.

“I can handle the Myst now, at least to a degree. Can I use Dragon Tongue? And if the answer is yes, can you and I, together, bag this mine?”

Ignisia did not dismiss it. She went quiet for a time, weighing what she had seen of his control against what would be required.

“We will have to test it,” she said finally. “I do not know until then.”

“Good. That is simple.” Ketal clapped lightly, as if closing a ledger. “I will learn from you. You cast, and I will reinforce. We do not have a better option.”

“That is true,” she admitted.

“Then it is settled,” he said, smiling. “Ignisia, I am in your care.”

***

“Are we truly going to do this?” she asked Ketal when they had stepped out beneath the open sky.

She knew he was strong. She had seen him lift a mountain without leaning on Myst, and that was the kind of thing that ought to crack the mind that tries to understand it. Still, the mine was a mountain range in weight. Even Ketal should not be able to simply carry it away.

“It is possible,” he said, unbothered. “Leave that part to me.”

“Well then,” she answered, allowing the doubt to drain from her eyes. “Do your part, and I will do mine. You said you can handle the Myst now. How far can you go?”

“I can route it through the path of Myst to strengthen and armor my body,” he said. “And if the conditions are right, I can drag it outward, make it strike.”

“That should suffice,” she said. “Try the Dragon Tongue you used before. Let’s see how it sits in your hands now.”

“Right. It was this, if I remember.”

He drew breath, reached down into the quiet core where the Myst coiled, and spoke. “

Fire.

”

A sheet of flame flared in the empty air. The last time he had touched the Dragon Tongue, he had failed to restrain them, and the magic had turned feral and licked up his limbs, eager to eat. Ignisia tensed on instinct, ready to smother an explosion the moment it bloomed.

However, the blaze did not detonate this time. Ketal narrowed his eyes and spoke again, not aloud, but deep within, the way one puts a hand on a beast’s ruff and leans close to the ear.

Obey,

Ketal said inwardly.

The flames shivered, on the edge of slipping their leash, yet they stayed. Ignisia watched for a long breath, then allowed herself to relax.

“That will do,” she said. “You can use Dragon Tongue.”

“Oh, good,” he said, delight leaking into his voice despite his effort to stay composed.

He was not elated because he had become stronger. He was elated because he was learning the thing itself, because he was allowed to play with a new tool, like a child with a fresh toy whose mechanisms had yet to be explored.

“How does it feel?” she asked him.

“I can clamp down if I must,” he said. “But it is not easy. If I try to do more than this, the leash will snap.”

“So there are limits after all. You’ll need to refine your control a bit more. Binding a mine isn’t simple destruction—it has to be done with a clear purpose, which makes it difficult to handle. I’ll teach you,” Ignisia said.

“I am all ears,” he said, grinning.

So he studied. Ignisia showed him how to coax the Myst into the syllables, how to shape the intent so that the world would understand the meaning beneath the sound, and Ketal practiced until the path of Myst within him stopped feeling like unmarked trails and began to feel like roads.

“

Leap,

” Ketal said.

The air around him kinked. There was a rough crackle, the ground scuffed and clawed as if a huge hand had torn a page and left ragged edges, and Ketal vanished and reappeared several paces away, standing amid disturbed earth.

“The spatial leap is not usually that violent,” the Holy Sword said, its tone reluctant. Ketal was not moving like other casters. The Myst that sheathed his body tore the world around him rather than slipping between its fibers, and the ground showed the scrape marks of that passage.

“Excellent!” Ketal said, unfazed. He clenched a fist, testing the way the syllable had moved through him. “Let’s keep going.”

“You sound like a child,” the Holy Sword murmured, a little wonder sneaking in despite itself.

Time passed, measured in repetitions rather than in clocks. A week later, Ketal grew steadily more adept at handling Myst. He stood still, watching the fire that had risen in the empty air before him.

Somewhere inside, the beast of Myst rumbled. Harsh though it was, it was listening. He could feel the way its temper shifted under a firm hand, like a large animal being soothed against its will.

“You have grown accustomed,” Ignisia said quietly.

“I have found the rhythm,” he answered.

The Dragon Tongue was the Myst made explicit, and using them meant he was reaching for the beast more directly than when he merely hardened his flesh. Little by little, he was learning what the beast wanted, and what it was.

Ignisia watched him handle the thread for a while longer, then made up her mind.

“This should be enough,” she said.

“Oh,” he said. “It is time.”

“It is an even chance,” she warned. “But we cannot afford to wait.”

Raphael sat inside Mantamia and sent precious ore down to Hell. They could not give him too much time.

“Then let’s go,” Ketal said.

They took their place on the surface, standing precisely above the heart of the mine.

“The plan is simple,” Ignisia said. “The mine sits directly beneath our feet. I will bind the ground and the mine together in one wrap. If we succeed, you will grab that ground and lift, then toss the whole thing outside. Are you absolutely certain you can do that?”

Even as she spoke the plan aloud, it sounded wild.

“There is no problem,” Ketal replied, smiling.

“All right,” she said. “I cast first. You reinforce.”

“Agreed.”

Ignisia drew breath and let it out as a word that was more idea than sound. “

Bind.

”

Ketal laughed softly and spoke with her.

“

Bind

.”

The world responded. Something in the deep logic of things shifted, and command ran like a ripple through stone and ore, seeking to cinch everything into a single parcel.

Far below, Raphael frowned as he stacked a last glittering piece atop a column of gems that had no right to stand.

“It is too quiet,” he murmured.

For more than a week, no one had stepped into his domain. He had begun to wonder whether the sight of Ketal had been a waking dream, whether those trembling knees had belonged to a fantasy his vanity had conjured.

“Are they plotting something?” he asked the air, and lifted his hands again. “If they are, I cannot feel the motion of it.”

The gemstones rose and fit themselves like living bricks at a gesture. He smiled, approving his own handiwork.

Then the ground shook. The neat tower leaned, murmured like sand, and slumped. Raphael stared at the collapse, then snapped his senses open and out, searching for the hand that had nudged his table.

“They are trying to bind the mine,” he said, eyes widening.

His first thought was to ask why. Even bound, Mantamia would remain within his domain. It would be a pointless effort.

“Still, I will not allow it,” he said, one refined shoe cutting a mark in the dust as he stepped.

Ore ripped free. A host of crystals and metals sprang to his will, and they surged toward the Dragon Tongue wrapping the mine, glittering like a thousand stormfronts. The impact slapped the air.

“

Urgh,

” Ignisia gasped. She shoved more will into the word until her throat felt raw. Raphael’s denial struck her binding like a shield boss, and the two forces ground against each other. The wrap began to fray.

Even with Ketal’s voice braided through her own, Raphael’s resistance was too great. The makeshift sack was tearing.

“No,” she breathed.

Ketal felt it as clearly as she did. He narrowed his eyes. It could not continue like this, because without more strength, they would fail. He reached inward.

He had learned things while training the Dragon Tongue. He had moved the Myst more directly, and that had taught him something about the beast within him. It did not want to sit in a harness. It wanted to run until its lungs burned. It wanted to smash and ruin.

It did not want to accept him. That was why it fought his orders. It did have pride. When it scented a strong enemy, it wanted to tear and bite and claw. From that, Ketal had come to a conclusion.

This was his power, but it was also not his. Something, sometime, had taken up lodging inside him and become one with the Myst so thoroughly that he could pull it out like this. It lived in him, yet it was other, and that was why it sometimes strained against the bit.

He had once thought, as the Wandering Merchant had suggested, that he was simply forcing the Myst, and it was pushing back. However, that was wrong. The beast’s feelings were too specific. It held a degree of self-awareness and desire that belonged to a living thing.

Ketal did not know its name. He did not need to.

Listen

, he said within.

The beast rumbled, its gruff tone carrying the sense of a demand, as if to ask what Ketal wanted from him.

How long do you intend to fight me?

Ketal asked.

Is it not time you listened to me?

A low growl rose from deep within him.

Do not be so stubborn.

Ketal smiled, not with his mouth but with the sense of himself that moved along the same channels as the Myst.

I do not know what offends you, but there is no need to reject this completely. If we resolve this, only good things will follow, not only for me, but for you as well.

The growl softened by half. Ketal kept his voice easy.

When this is done, you will be stronger. Strong enough to foul anything you please.

A shorter, sharper rumble followed, carrying a note of consideration and a silent question of whether it could believe him.

You have watched me

, Ketal said inwardly.

You know I do not lie.

The beast hesitated, then moved. It came forward inside him and showed itself through the syllables. It took the Dragon Tongue Ignisia had cast and ate it, not to break it, but to make it its own, and then it ran. The wrap that had been fraying thickened and swelled, and in an instant it cinched, every edge drawing tight.

“What is that?” Raphael shouted, flung backward by an impact he could not catch. For a heartbeat, he had not been able to resist at all, and in that heartbeat, the mine had been swaddled from crown to base.

Ignisia stared at Ketal, blank with surprise. He looked very satisfied.

“That will do,” he said. “Well done.”

The beast growled, short and curt, as if to say it had only done what was necessary.