Framework of the Frontier by Sain Artwell (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📕

Rulu straddled the fallen suit of armor, pressing her forehead against the chitin helmet. Normally, reaching out to touch another’s dream required physical contact, but inspired by William’s blessing Rulu tried to bypass it. Behind the blackness of her closed eyes she could feel the dreamspace, the wispy veil of misty nothing connecting all minds. Only now, without William’s magic, she could no longer see through that veil.

She reached blindly into the void like a hungry anemone, flailing with the tendrils of thought until one brushed past another mind. Her lips cracked in a victorious grin as Rulu wrought her focus around Aggoloth and began her spell.

A Curse of Madness was much the same as a simpler Touch of Confusion, except the process was reversed. Instead of imposing her own emotion on another through her mastery over the Dreaming, Rulu invaded the private lairs and labyrinths of Aggoloth’s mind. Traipsing through it like a shark on a reef, she found the fountains of her fears and the home of her most guarded horrors, and she twisted them with the screaming torrent of her psychic might, imprinting her own visage into a true fobia.

Proud of her accomplishment, but not yet satisfied with the technique used, Rulu repeated the process with both of the miarii. She did consider ending their lives as well, but preferred to leave their judgement to the currents of fate. Stunned, they made easy prey for surface predators.

Now all that was left was for her to return to her temporary abode under the trickling falls. Rulu turned to the land vehicle, feeling a somewhat embarrassing shudder of excitement swell within her chest. Never in her life had she operated a surface vehicle before and the prospect of it made her feel like a tadpole all over again.

The design of it was mind boggling and yet, ingenious. Two round shapes of hard bone-like material were attached to a rotating shaft beneath a hard square basket. Rulu knew that the movement was activated by handling the two long twigs.

Giggling giddily, she wrapped her fingers around them and pushed.

It took her several dozen attempts to figure out why it did not move (she needed to lift and push). When she did manage to move it, the novelty of driving the cart wore off after the first fifty steps, and after a hundred, grew downright tormentous.

Her gills boiled hot and heart drummed in her ears. Rulu took numerous pauses from her labor to avoid collapsing under the dizziness and strain, dipping her limbs in the nearby trickle to drink and massage the soles of her abused feet. She noted several nicks and scratches, which showed no marks of regeneration, likely due to the dry stone dust and debris festering within the wound. It would have to be cleaned later.

Above her, in the unreachable fathoms of the sky the accursed burning eye glared at her like a malicious god of fire, burning the skin beneath her drying membrane mucus to crisp. Its gaze did not begin to relent, until Rulu heard the familiar song of the falls.

On the shores of her home stood a trio of avian creatures even taller than William. Their feathers were the same tar black as their sneerful elongated faces. Fresh blood covered their talons. It was from William’s half devoured miarii male companion.

The slits of their large yellow eyes narrowed as they noted Rulu’s presence. With a posturing screech, they expanded their wings.

“Witchling. She returns!” Cawed the one with a tint of dark amber in her eyes.

“Begone. I have no interest in negotiating with beast-folk,” Rulu spoke in a firm command. Her eyes locked with the one who had spoken and reached out for her mind, taking preemptive aim for a mind blast. “And leave the fallen, for he was a comrade of my acquaintance and I owe at the least a chance for the man to be buried according to the ways of their gods.”

“Claims our prey. Arrogant!” The beast struck air with her wings and darted towards Rulu, who brought the astral waves crashing on the creature’s mind.

She crashed into a rolling tumble of feathers.

Startled, her sisters screeched aggressively, baring their bloody fangs at Rulu. However, she had no interest in a prolonged quarrel against multiple creatures able to fly. “She lives by my mercy alone,” Rulu bluffed, intensifying the glow of her luminescence. “Begone or face the wrath of my full might.”

Vitriol and fear oozed from the scowl of the two remaining creatures, but they swallowed their pride. Rulu watched them pick up their unconscious kin and take off, vanishing into the rapidly darkening sky.

A measure of relief washed over her. And, in the wake of that relief the exhaustion of the day set in.

Everywhere ached. Her body screamed for nourishment and rest.

“It would be a good time for you to wake up now,” Rulu told William and his pleasantly curved companion.

They protested by remaining firmly unconscious.

Rulu groaned miserably. In her days of exile she had seen enough beasts stalk the moments of darkness, which the surfacers called night, to learn of its perils. She could not leave them unprotected. So, she crawled into the welcoming waters of her temporary home and clung to the edge. While keeping a watchful eye on the vegetation and the sky, Rulu began to dig out the rocks from her soles.

By the time William’s female companion stirred, the colors of abyss had spread to all but one amber-lit corner of the horizon.

She moaned softly and darted upright. Her big floppy ears sprang up in panic shared by her wide eyes.

“Will? Will?” The woman searched for him with a growing alarm.

Rulu pulled herself on the surface, brightening the glow of her body to draw the woman’s attention. Knowing that they had been enemies the last