Volume 1, Chapter 54: The Fastest Way Up Is Down (Patreon)

Stoke caused the entire line of fire I had painted to swell and flare brighter, literally setting the people running through it ablaze.

At the same time, with nothing more than one hand extended toward the flames, I threw myself sideways and down, copying my opponent’s earlier movement. I landed beside the wall, planted one foot against it, and kicked myself away just in time to evade a blind slash that still managed to catch me somewhere beneath the ribs.

Without looking back, I started running, satisfied with the simple fact that I hadn’t died on the spot.

I had no idea whether I had killed anyone behind me, or wounded them badly enough to stop them where they stood. Instead, I sprinted along the wall, and whenever I passed close enough to one of the gas lamps, I stretched out my right hand—the one bearing the ring—and absorbed the flame burning inside it, instantly plunging another stretch of the corridor into darkness.

Bursting around the bend in the tunnel, I could hear several sets of footsteps behind me, trying to keep up, while the brightly lit section of the port I was running toward looked less like salvation and more like another problem. Two more people stood right by the tunnel exit, peering inside with their hands hovering near their belts, leaving me with absolutely no illusions about what they intended to do.

I remembered there were several buildings with balconies on their upper floors near the market I was about to run into.

“Catch him!” someone shouted from behind me, and the people waiting for me abandoned all pretense, drawing curved knives as they stared into the part of the tunnel still completely swallowed by darkness.

I burst out of it a fraction of a second before one of them attacked—the one I had already picked as my target.

Armoring my shoulder with Cinderhide, I charged straight at him, turning sideways to minimize how many knife thrusts he could land in that tiny window between noticing me and me slamming into him.

I rolled over him, catching a glimpse of what my blackened, magma-like skin had done to his chest. His clothes were torn apart, and so was the skin underneath.

The blood hadn’t even had time to properly start spilling before I pushed myself back onto my feet with one hand—using his windpipe as leverage—while the other reached for his knife and ripped it out of his grip as he struggled to breathe.

By the time I was standing again, the second attacker was practically on top of me, so I threw the stolen knife at him while simultaneously jumping backward toward the railing.

I aimed for his neck, but the blade buried itself in his collarbone instead, knocking him off balance, though not enough to stop him completely.

Luckily and unluckily for me at the same time, the wooden railing my back slammed into couldn’t take the impact. It snapped—and sent me over the edge. I still managed to twist around in midair and, like a cat, came down on all fours on the roof of a building below, its surface made from fungal matter. Not soft enough that it didn’t fucking hurt. Not hard enough to kill me on impact.

“Holy fuck!” I tried to shout, but what came out was more of a weak wheeze.

“Um... you alive in there?” Bri asked from underneath the rags.

“Yeah,” I whispered, forcing myself back into a run across the roof.

I immediately jumped onto the next one, this one made of wood, picking up speed as I checked every part of my body and tested whether everything still moved the way it was supposed to. Once I was sure the leg that hurt like an absolute motherfucker still worked and was just being a little bitch about it, I ignored its whining and forced it into a sprint.

“You can burn the rags now.”

As Bri set her covering on fire, I ran along a wooden ledge, looking down at the crowd below. It had thinned considerably because of the late hour, but plenty of people still looked up at me, pointing and shouting. Some even reached for stones or whatever small objects they could find and started throwing them in my direction.

When I had first burst out of the tunnel, my plan had been to head upward, jumping onto balconies and climbing my way toward the exit. The fall had forced me to change that plan. Now my attention was fixed on a large elevator at the end of the street, below the buildings whose rooftops I was currently running across.

It was three levels beneath me and slowly making its way upward, stopping at every floor. If I had counted correctly, I had a chance of reaching it in time.

I finally looked back. Two people were definitely running in the same direction as me, except one level higher. There might have been more, but I didn’t have time to check. Instead, I reached the end of one of the rooftops, used its downward slope to slide toward the edge, caught the ledge with both hands, and let myself drop to street level.

Only then did I properly feel the wounds near my ribs. they did not appreciate being stretched.

“Bloody fuck,” I muttered, choking down the flash of pain and breaking into a run again.

Ahead of me was a long, straight path all the way to the elevator I had spotted earlier. Only a handful of people walking in the same direction stood any chance of getting in my way.

Braziers spaced every few dozen feet illuminated the street, while people who noticed what was happening outside firmly shut their windows, apparently unwilling to become witnesses to my execution. And I was almost certain that was what this chase had become. If this had been nothing more than a mugging, my attackers would have given up by now.

“Bri…” I managed after another few steps, vaulting over a table just as a man stepped out from behind the building across from me. I couldn’t tell quickly enough whether he was a threat, but I preferred not to find out up close.

“…Can you… at least…” I sucked in breaths between words as I reached a narrowing in the street, where, unfortunately, another man appeared with a knife. The weapon extended toward me was all I needed to see.

I changed course immediately and jumped onto the railing protecting people from the drop below. This one, thankfully, was made from reinforced metal and held my weight. From my new, higher position, I focused on the scaffolding below, rising from the street underneath and extending even farther upward.

I abandoned the elevator as my salvation. Instead, I let gravity take me for just a moment. As my body tipped over the railing and angled toward the steel beams supporting the wooden platforms, I bent my knees and launched myself toward one of the supports.

“What are you, um, doing!?” Bri shouted as we flew a good seven feet from the edge I had jumped from.

My hands caught the metal bar. I tightened my stomach—which my injuries once again strongly objected to—and killed my momentum by swinging around the pole. A moment later, I hooked my feet around it and climbed quickly enough to pull myself onto the platform above.

“…Bri, like I was saying…” I stood and looked around. Back on the street I had left behind, four men held a brief discussion, pointing alternately at me, the street, the scaffolding, and the elevator. Then they split up and ran in different directions.

There were two more on the level above, and they had already started moving toward the route I intended to take.

“…Can you keep an eye on the area and tell me if something…” I took a deeper breath, forcing my body to calm down as I walked across the wooden planks toward the center of the cylinder.

The scaffolding I was moving across had been erected around a white-stone tower still under construction.

“I mean—if someone’s about to try to hurt me?”

“Mhm, of course!” she replied.

When I reached the wall, I jumped, planted one foot against it, kicked myself upward, and caught the edge of the next platform. I repeated the maneuver twice more until I reached the highest level, then jumped onto a beam suspended from an idle crane.

It shuddered beneath my weight and tipped dangerously toward the drop, but I quickly grabbed hold with both hands and started crawling along it in a crouch toward its center of gravity.

The other end hung almost over a section of the street that, thanks to the route I had chosen, I was fairly certain I could reach much faster than the people chasing me. I straightened up, holding onto the ropes suspending the beam beneath me from the crane’s hooks. Then, hand over hand, I pulled on them until I forced the entire structure to rotate slightly farther to the right.

When the opposite end finally hung near a protruding stone platform below, I took a deep breath and ran along the sharply descending beam. About two feet from its end, I launched myself toward solid ground. A few seconds later, I landed and immediately rolled forward, bleeding off the momentum gravity had been trying to drive straight into the ground.

Bri yelped, released a cloud of black smoke, and flared brighter as the cage strapped behind and above my shoulder slammed against the stone during the roll. Thankfully, neither of us seemed too badly hurt.

“Watch out!” Bri screamed, but too late to matter. Both of us noticed the attacker only when his hand was already driving a knife into my side, at the exact moment I stood up. The first stab went cleanly somewhere beneath my ribs and momentarily blanked out my thoughts.

I reacted instinctively by using Cinderhide in the same spot, covering my skin with a layer of half-petrified magma. The next strikes glanced off the hardened ridges that formed there, surprising my opponent enough that his assault stalled and gave me an opening to retaliate. Both hands came up toward my chest. One shot straight into his face. The other followed immediately with a hook that knocked him completely off balance and sent him stumbling sideways.

“Bri!” I shouted, spitting blood at the same time. I glanced rapidly around us, but all I could see were people retreating into shops and homes. “Is there anyone else!?” I demanded, moving toward my opponent in a southpaw stance.

I faked the attack with my left hand, raising it while simultaneously lifting my right to block my opponent’s strike, all the while watching his eyes and face.

“No one except, um, that guy!” Bri shouted back.

The moment his attention shifted toward my rising left hand and my talking fireball, I threw a strike deliberately aimed several inches wide of his head. Using the momentum, I spun quickly and finished with the real attack—a planned right elbow driven straight into his face as his eyes followed my left hand and his head was only just beginning to turn to keep up with my movement.

When the point of my elbow connected where his jaw met the rest of his face, every light went out behind my opponent’s eyes, and he crumpled toward the ground. Just to be sure, I rolled him from the position he had landed in, reaching for his wrist to make sure I wouldn’t get caught by a cheap shot.

I sat on his chest and struck his temple several times with an open palm, while looking around for the knife he released during the fall. I then rolled over my shoulder while holding onto his outstretched arm, trapped it between thighs, and twisted until I tore it from the socket. I got to my feet and, as a parting gift, delivered a soccer kick straight to his skull. When I heard the crunch of breaking bones, I finally stopped. I wiped the blood from my mouth and spat on the bastard.

“Goodness, um, gracious! You probably didn’t have to—”

“Quiet, Bri. Until we’re safe, your only job is spotting guys like that,” I cut her off, pressing one hand against the wound in my side.

I bent down, tore the pouch from his belt, and tossed it into my own bag without checking what was inside. A moment later, I went back for his knife, picked it up, and, closing my eyes briefly from exhaustion, forced myself into a run again.

“Okay… just make sure I’m not about to bleed out or something,” I added, feeling pain throughout my entire body.

At the same time, I was already repeating my mantra in my head.

First, I could think, so I was still alive.

Second, everything already hurt, so adding more pain came with diminishing returns.

Third, I had survived this much. I would survive whatever came next.

Fourth, I could still count, which meant my mind was still working and I could still rely on myself.

“It looks like your intestine has been cut open, and the only things keeping you conscious are sheer willpower and a significantly elevated adrenaline level. Lex, you need immediate treatment, and I need a hand to do that. I’m afraid you’re going to die if we don’t stop.” As she spoke, the heat radiating from her noticeably weakened.

I was already looking around for some way to save myself. The elevators were no longer an option. I was certain that every nearby one had some cutthroat waiting beside it, ready to finish off whatever life I had left. So I stopped by the railing, braced both hands against it, and surveyed the area.

Somewhere down and to the right, a system of long ladders ran all the way toward the top. First, they didn’t look like they had been used in a long time, so there was no guarantee they were safe. Second, in my current condition, climbing them seemed like a terrible idea.

“Come here,” I told Bri.

She flew out of her cage.

Tensing my Psyche, I forced the Authority at my disposal to make the fire I drew from her remain suspended in the air, then began sketching something that could generously be called a hand. I intended to bend reality and verisimilitude as far as they would go, because I didn’t have the strength for anything more precise.

My own hand, heated and lightly scorched by Bri’s flames, was literally throbbing with pain as I kept glancing around between strokes.

“The ladder fucking sucks,” I muttered, spotting an alcove farther away with a spiral staircase inside. “Stairs are a no.” I painted another finger while listening to the growing noise of people running in my direction. That forced me to abandon the drawing at maybe seventy percent completion.

With no better option, I started running toward a cluster of buildings made from bioluminescent fungus. Not because I particularly wanted to reach them, but because no noise was coming from that direction. Along the way, I spotted a nearby crane lifting a sizable load upward on several hooks.

To reach it, though, I would have to run another forty feet along an extremely narrow horizontal spar, from which a net hung vertically, filled with small flying reptiles writhing inside.

“Lex. Um. Don’t tell me you’re going to—” Bri noticed what I was planning.

I let my movements and chosen direction answer for me.

“Fuck!” Something sharp buried itself in my lower back. A literal second earlier, I had heard the whistle of air warning me that something was flying toward me. I doubled over and almost fell, dropping into a crawl as I looked back.

“Um, one man, on the left. He came out of the, um, shadows… I mean, he ran out of them,” Bri said, directing my attention toward the right place.

The bandit was already dangerously close, another knife held low in one hand as he charged toward me.

I glanced forward, felt the heat radiating from a nearby brazier, and acted without thinking. I covered my arm almost to the elbow in Cinderhide and plunged it into the glowing coals. My head immediately swam from the strain on my Psyche, but not enough to put me down. I grabbed a solid handful and hurled it into the face and chest of the man who was almost on top of me.

He immediately lost his burning desire to hurt me—or perhaps gained some. Either way, I swept his leg out from under him, sucked in another deep breath, and forced my eyes wider.

Then I ran onto the narrow spar. I managed as many steps as my sense of balance allowed before I began tipping hard to the right, dragged that way by the weight of my bag hanging off-center.

So I jumped—straight toward the load being lifted by the crane.