Chapter 164: Book 2 Chapter 71 - Tesselation

Strength.

What did that mean for Zoe? Was the Might in her muscles enough? The Willpower that kept her moving forward long after she wished to stop? She felt herself twisting, stretching, tearing, and she leaned against the slope lest she fall from it completely.

Her breath burned in her lungs.

“What is your offer?” her speech was halting.

The demonic wasp cleaned its antennae.

“Give me a piece of your soul, just a little piece — so small, so sweet — and I will give you the strength to keep going. When others want to rest, you shall persevere. When their spirits break, you shall remain immutable. When they turn back, you shall forge ahead. Isn’t that everything you want?”

The wasp buzzed its wings and alighted on Zoe’s outstretched finger.

“Tempting, yes?” said the wasp. “So we have a deal?”

Zoe blinked as she brought the wasp closer to her faltering lips.

“No,” she said as she bit down on the demon.

Chitin crunched beneath her teeth. Acidic, foul-tasting fluids leaked onto her tongue. She spat out the twitching legs and thorax. Venom numbed her tongue.

And she crawled. One hand after the other. Chains dragging her up and weighing her down.

Toward the peak.

What good was Might if her mind failed? What good was Willpower if she needed a crutch? She pushed herself because she must.

The wasp buzzed along beside her.

“That was rude and unnecessary.”

“Seemed… necessary…”

“Don’t you see that I’m trying to help you?”

Zoe closed her eyes as sweat dripped from her nose. Her hands slipped, and she lost her footing, lost progress, slid back down the slope foot by foot until the heavy chains stopped her.

Repetition of a dream. The future is the past unspooled.

“With my help,” said the wasp. “That won’t happen again.”

“Buzz off.”

Zoe batted at it, and it flew away. The droning wings faded until only the heat remained. She didn’t know how long she lay there.

ding!

ding!

ding!

The Black Star chime slowly rose her from her stupor. She glanced up. Moth lay ahead. Crouched, waiting, arms outstretched. What was Moth doing? Talking to her hand?

Zoe squinted.

No.

Moth was talking to the demon.

Zoe’s heart lurched in her chest. She pushed herself up and forced herself onward.

“Moth…” her voice was a croak. “Stop…”

Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the cracks in the ground, and she hauled herself forward. Calves bunched, launched. She pulled herself. Charged on all fours like a panther.

Moth smiled at her, and the wasp buzzed up from her fingers as Zoe neared.

“Don’t… talk to… her,” Zoe wheezed.

The wasp landed on Zoe’s trembling knuckle.

“Seems I was wrong,” the Four-Hearted Wasp said. “You don’t lack strength of mind nor strength of body. Even your hearts — all three of them — beat with resilient power. But I know what you need.”

Zoe swatted at it, but the wasp easily evaded her hand. Spots flashed before her eyes. Woozy. She blinked.

“Go away.”

“You need navigation. Isn’t that all you wanted from me in the first place? An answer to where things are? Where to go next and how to get there? You don’t need muscles or mind or moxy, no, you need a map.”

Zoe blinked.

The slope wavered ahead of her, and the wasp cleaned its antennae like it had all the time in the world.

That didn’t sound like a bad deal…

“What kind of map?” she asked.

The wasp cocked its head and grinned. Small human teeth startling white against the black and yellow chitin. One incisor sat at an angle, and the asymmetry struck Zoe off balance.

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“The map will be exactly what you need. You wish to fight a god? A new system? You will need the tools scattered about by the Crimson Armada. The vaults forgotten by even the Gambler. Treasures! Weapons! Dungeons! My map will guide you to them all!”

Zoe gritted her teeth, hating that she was having this conversation. It felt too much like she was back in the room with Mr Biggs, a place too bright for such dark decisions, but when someone has something you need…

You deal.

“What is the price?” she asked.

The wasp played it cool, though its whole body trembled.

“Nothing so gauche as your whole soul, or even a part of it. No, I offer a subscription service. If you accept, I’ll gift you the map. Free. Whenever you want to look at it, you simply give me 1% of your soul, and I will let you look at the map for ten minutes. How does that sound?”

It sounded…

Zoe had no idea. Would ten minutes be enough time to get what she needed? Probably not, even with her and Anton’s Insight. Could she look at it once and never again? Somehow, she doubted that would be an option.

She opened her mouth, still deciding on what to say when the demon raised its forelimbs in a placating gesture.

“Wait, wait, wait! I can tell you’re a tough cookie. That’s fine, that’s alright, I appreciate a hard negotiator. So, I’ll tell you what. Just for you…” again that too small, too human ingratiating smile. “I’ll bump you up to platinum tier and for every 1% of your soul you’ll gain 12 hours of map use.”

Zoe narrowed her eyes.

“If you could offer that —”

“And I’m not finished! With gold tier, you won’t just have a map but a certified Infernal Navigation Chart, which will provide updated conditions to any route or obstacle along your destination.”

“Can others see the map?”

“Of course! It’s a map, not a hallucination.”

Zoe felt her breathing even out as she considered. It sounded too good to be true, and she knew — she knew — that had to be a bad thing.

But…

“How will I know what is on the map? It might be in a language I don’t understand…”

“Ah, a savvy customer. Tell you what, because I like you, I’ll let you try out the map right now. Free. Of. Charge. That’s right, you heard me: free.”

“Ok…”

“Say ‘Infernal Map Projection’, or ‘IMP’, for short.”

Despite the horror, despite the hardship, of the sweltering dream — Zoe felt a moment of startling embarrassment.

“IMP?”

A black spark floated before her vision. It twisted and unravelled, as though a sheet were being pulled from a pocket. The map spread out as large as the desk from her old office. It hovered in the air before her, slightly rippling in the heat, a chart of human skin — she had performed too many surgeries to be mistaken — with tattooed lines depicting spirals and esoteric runes.

She could make out some shapes in the overlapping circles and loops: the Cages, the Hourglass, but…

“I can’t read this,” she said accusingly.

“Summoning the map is only step one. Now, give a destination, like I said, this one is free. Pick anywhere you want.”

She frowned. This had to be a trick, but…

“Show me how to return to the town where I control the polyp.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she thought of all the mistakes in her wording. What if by saying “me” the map provided a path her friends couldn’t take? What if she no longer controlled the polyp? What if the means of returning was something she couldn’t achieve?

But the map took her words and worked with them.

The lines of ink shifted and carved themselves anew with a buzzing like a hive of wasps. Blood dribbled as circles spiraled down into densely packed streets. A city bloomed in the center of the map, with a trail dotting itself out toward an X on the far left. Notes appeared down the sides.

“Follow the trail from the Swamp to Lower Demon City. Reach the Palace of New Law and cut your way through to the Unnamed Town of Zoe Chambers.”

She frowned.

“That seems too easy.”

The notes expanded.

“The Gambler’s death has left a power vacuum and a sense of lawlessness in the Lower Demon City. The residents cannot abide a state of chaos, and so the turmoil is swiftly growing into a byzantine tangle of rules and regulations.”

Additional notes appeared marking subtle directions and advisories for the various aspects of the path, but Zoe had seen enough.

She needed this map.

“So I can use this map as many times as I need for 12 hours at a time?”

“Of course. Once summoned, you can ask for as many directions as you need.”

“What’s the catch?”

The wasp shook its head.

“Catch? There’s no catch. You pay me a percentage of your soul and in exchange you get to use the map. Why would there be a catch?”

“There’s always a catch.”

The wasp, somehow, sniffed.

“Stereotypes are always harmful. Now, do we have a deal?”

Zoe’s heart leaped into her chest. She looked around. Moth watched her, and the Black Star’s chains rested upon her, but neither said a word.

“What do you think?” Zoe asked.

“It is up to you,” Moth said, and she smiled, but Zoe couldn’t place the emotion behind the expression.

The chains stroked Zoe’s back.

Ding!

Who am I to say if you should or should not make a deal?

I’m just worried…

Ding!

Zoe… if you lose too much of yourself to the demon, we shall simply kill him and take it back. We have our sights set on killing Rue, no lesser creature will stand in our way.

Zoe’s eyes widened at the Black Star’s bubbly proclamation, and she couldn’t help grinning. Moth reflected her smile.

“Alright,” Zoe said. “We have a deal.”

“Marvelous!” The wasp flew up toward her. “You’ll feel a little pinch.”

Its stinger plunged into her nose, and Zoe yelped. She blinked as pain swept through her and —

The pain vanished. She stared at her hands, at the tessellated smooth stone beneath her. The wasp was gone with the pain, and the map had retreated into whatever pocket space it dwelled.

But she didn’t need the map.

She stared up at the distant peak and grinned.

One note had told her how to get out of here. Instead of just climbing in a straight line, there was a route among the cracks of tessellated stone that would be easier, and, without another moment’s rest, she started climbing. Her toes dug in, her fingers gripped, and her shoulders burned as she pulled herself higher.

Moth sat on her back, whispering encouragements, and the chains wrapped around her fingers like gloves. Zoe followed the route shown by the map and passed where she last slipped. Passed where she first fell. Kept going.

Hand after hand, until there was nowhere to go. She sat atop the peak and let out a deep shuddering breath. Unbearable heat, but she forced herself to stand. She had done it.

The view from the top — it was the first time she looked at her environment. As the realization sank into her, the weariness leached into her bones. It was a face. She stood upon a face, and the hostile peak was a nose. Like a speck, she stood there and gazed down at two oceans of light and shadow.

Eyes.

They watched her with infinite patience and grace.

She understood, as the heat grew until she started burning, as the gaze swept over her, as the eyes stared.

She stood upon the face of an Angel.

A buzzing filled her ears, like a nest of wasps. She winced but kept staring even as the sound drilled into her brain.

“You cannot judge me!” she screamed at the eyes. “Nobody can judge me!”

The eyes stared. Eternal. Unblinking. Full of light, and knowing, and —

Zoe blinked.

She lay in a dark room that smelled of earth and undergrowth. Mushrooms adorned the walls. Bella sat beside her, back turned, she was holding a bronze dagger coated in green patina in one hand and her runeblade in the other.

“Come on, I know it doesn’t look that tasty, but it’s good for you! It’s like broccoli, why, I’d eat it if I could. I would too!” She mimed raising it to her open mouth, and the sword let out a little howl like a petulant cat. “Oh, you want it now. Here you — oh, Zoe? You’re finally awake! I have so much to tell you!”