Rest did not come easily in the Temple of the Swarm.
They had chosen a defensible place. That was the phrase adventurers used when they wanted to pretend exhaustion could be managed like any other tactical problem. The shattered sanctuary offered solid walls, limited approaches and enough rubble to make an unseen attack difficult. Kaylor's new black greatsword stood within arm's reach, its presence creating that strange resistance to magic around the place where he sat. Fendor had selected a position from which he could see both entrances. Nethnarel slept lightly, when she slept at all. Isamu appeared motionless enough to have been carved from the stone.
Hexen listened to insects.
There were none.
That was what troubled him.
The temple belonged—or had belonged—to the Lord of Swarms. Hexen had expected buzzing beneath every silence, wings moving inside the walls, crawling things waiting beneath loose stones. Instead the sanctuary offered only the occasional shifting of damaged masonry and the slow breathing of exhausted companions.
The absence felt deliberate.
As though the Swarm did not need to announce itself here.
Hexen stared at the darkness until shapes began forming where there were none. He had become accustomed to distrusting his own perceptions. Some of that had begun with the Lord of Swarms. Some earlier. Every strange power that answered him now carried a question with it.
The bargain concerning Scourge was finished.
He knew that.
This was something else.
They had entered voluntarily. They had killed the Hunt Lord's warriors voluntarily. They had killed celestial defenders voluntarily.
Kaylor had received a sword for it.
Hexen glanced toward Peacemaker.
Even resting against broken stone, the greatsword seemed to absorb more light than it reflected. Kaylor had given it an almost flippant name, but Hexen had seen the dragonborn's expression after the others stopped watching.
Kaylor understood what the weapon cost.
Perhaps not in coin.
Perhaps not even in blood.
But nothing in this temple seemed willing to offer power without also offering a reason to wonder what kind of person accepted it.
Hexen closed his eyes.
The sound of water woke him.
He opened them again.
Isamu was already standing.
That did not surprise him.
"What is it?" Hexen asked.
Isamu looked toward the corridor beyond the sanctuary.
"Water."
Kaylor stirred.
Fendor's eyes opened without the elf visibly moving anything else.
Nethnarel sat up.
For several seconds all five listened.
There it was.
Not running water.
A single hollow drop.
Then another.
The sound came from somewhere deeper inside the temple.
Fendor sighed.
"I dislike mysterious water."
Kaylor reached for Peacemaker.
"You dislike everything mysterious."
"No. I dislike mysterious things we inevitably touch."
Nethnarel stood and brushed dust from her clothing.
"That's usually Isamu."
Isamu was already walking toward the corridor.
Fendor pointed after him.
"Thank you."
They abandoned the idea of rest.
Again.
The corridor narrowed before opening into a circular chamber.
The architecture there was older than the sanctuary they had left behind. Hexen saw it immediately in the stonework. The later carvings of the Hunt were absent. So were the radiant motifs surrounding the celestial guardians. The walls were smooth and dark, shaped from stone that seemed to drink the light from their spells.
At the center stood a well.
Or something built to resemble one.
There was no bucket. No rope. No wooden frame above it. Only a circular rim of black stone rising waist-high from the floor.
The sound of water came from within.
Isamu approached.
Fendor stayed near the entrance.
"Before anyone does anything—"
Isamu looked down.
Fendor closed his eyes.
"Wonderful."
The well was deep.
That much Isamu could tell.
Beyond that, very little.
Darkness swallowed the interior. A faint reflection shifted somewhere below, though whether it came from water or something else was impossible to know.
Nethnarel moved closer but stopped before touching the rim.
"Magic?"
She studied it.
Her expression changed.
"Yes."
Kaylor looked at the well.
"What kind?"
"The irritating kind."
"Specific."
"Would you like me to invent an answer?"
"No."
Fendor said, "I would."
Hexen walked slowly around the structure.
Nothing grew here. No moss. No roots forcing themselves between stone. Even the dust seemed thinner around the well.
He placed one hand near the rim without touching it.
Something moved beneath his skin.
Not physically.
Recognition.
The same awareness he sometimes felt when the Swarm Lord's attention turned toward him.
Hexen stepped back.
Kaylor noticed.
"What?"
"I don't know."
"Useful."
"I said I don't know. I didn't say there's nothing."
Isamu continued staring downward.
There was something almost meditative about him when confronted with danger. Kaylor met threats by bracing against them. Nethnarel examined them. Fendor distrusted them professionally. Hexen increasingly wondered what they wanted.
Isamu simply became still.
Then he leaned closer.
The well took him.
There was no warning.
No hand reached from the darkness. No rope wrapped around his body. One instant Isamu stood beside them.
The next he vanished.
Not fell.
Vanished.
Kaylor lunged and caught empty air.
"Isamu!"
The word went down into the well.
No answer returned.
Fendor immediately drew the Oathbow and aimed it into the darkness, an action that would have been more reassuring if any visible enemy existed.
Nethnarel put both hands against the rim.
"He's not falling."
Kaylor looked at her.
"How do you know?"
"Because we'd still hear him."
"Maybe it's deeper than—"
"He disappeared."
Kaylor stared into the well.
Hexen felt the recognition again.
Stronger now.
His stomach tightened.
"He's somewhere else."
Fendor turned.
"You know that?"
"No."
"Then why say it?"
"Because the thing feels like the Swarm."
That ended the argument.
Nethnarel stepped away from the well.
Kaylor did not.
"Can you get him back?"
Hexen stared into the darkness.
"I don't know."
Kaylor's hand tightened around the stone rim.
"You're saying that a lot."
"I can start lying if it helps."
"It won't."
"Then let me think."
Hexen closed his eyes.
For a moment he tried to feel the temple as he might feel a forest: the movement of life, the shape of living things in unseen places, connections between one part and another.
The temple resisted that understanding.
Stone dominated everything.
But insects did not care about stone.
The awareness came faintly.
Thousands of tiny lives.
Not beneath them.
Elsewhere.
And in their middle—
Isamu.
Hexen opened his eyes.
"He's alive."
Kaylor exhaled.
"Where?"
"No idea."
Fendor looked at the well.
"Please find out before one of us sticks his head in there."
Hexen glanced at him.
"You know exactly what happens next."
"Yes. That's why I'm complaining early."
Hexen touched the rim.
The world vanished.
Isamu landed on his feet.
He had no idea how.
There had been the well, the surrounding chamber, Kaylor reaching toward him—
Then darkness.
His boots struck stone.
The first insect bit him before he understood where he was.
The second crawled beneath his collar.
Then the chamber moved.
Isamu raised an arm across his face.
The walls were alive.
That was his first impression, though it was not technically true. The stone remained stone. Everything upon it moved.
Beetles.
Flies.
Wasps.
Centipedes.
Creatures too small and too numerous to identify individually.
They covered the floor in shifting sheets. They clung to the walls. They filled cracks in the ceiling. Wings beat against one another in such numbers that the sound ceased to resemble separate insects and became one enormous vibration.
Isamu moved.
That saved his eyes.
The swarm rose from the floor where he had been standing and struck him like thrown sand.
He covered his face, turned and ran.
There was nowhere to go.
The chamber was sealed.
No door.
No visible passage.
Only bare walls and—
A pedestal.
It stood near the center.
Isamu almost laughed.
Of course there was a pedestal.
Every dangerous room eventually contained one.
Something rested upon it.
He could not see what.
The swarm came again.
Isamu struck at it.
That was useless.
His training had prepared him to fight men, beasts, giants, demons and things with anatomies that made little sense. None of it offered an elegant answer to several thousand creatures small enough to crawl into his clothing.
He moved instead.
Never standing still.
Never letting the mass of insects settle on him long enough to bury him.
They bit exposed skin.
They found gaps.
One went into his ear.
Isamu slapped it away hard enough to hurt himself.
Another crawled down the back of his neck.
He ignored it.
Pain was information.
This information was irritating.
He reached the pedestal.
Gloves.
A pair of dark gloves lay upon the stone.
Nothing about them looked extraordinary.
Which meant they were probably dangerous.
The swarm changed direction.
Insects that had been pursuing Isamu suddenly turned toward the pedestal.
Not all of them.
Enough.
They gathered around it but did not climb onto the gloves.
Isamu watched.
Interesting.
The room had not teleported him here accidentally.
The thought required no mystical insight.
There was a gift waiting in a sealed chamber.
A Swarm gift.
For him.
Isamu looked at his hands.
He had never needed weapons the way others did.
Kaylor carried enough steel for three warriors. Fendor's entire way of fighting had grown around a bow. Hexen relied upon staff, spell and shape. Nethnarel carried enough magic inside her to make weaponry almost decorative.
Isamu's hands had always been enough.
Now someone wanted to improve them.
He disliked how perfectly chosen that was.
The insects struck again.
Isamu moved.
He would decide whether to take the gift after he survived long enough to think.
Hexen appeared in the chamber badly.
Isamu had landed on his feet.
Hexen arrived sideways.
He struck the floor, rolled and came up with insects immediately covering one sleeve.
"Of course," he said.
Isamu looked at him.
"You came."
Hexen slapped insects from his shoulder.
"I was pushed."
Isamu's expression did not change.
"By the well?"
"Let's say yes."
The swarm rose between them.
Hexen stared.
He had seen insects in greater numbers before.
That was not what disturbed him.
They did not feel wild.
Every part of the swarm moved as though influenced by a single impulse. Not perfectly. Individual creatures still crawled over one another, collided, wandered and corrected.
But beneath the chaos was direction.
Purpose.
Hexen knew that feeling.
"Don't let them cover you," Isamu said.
"Thank you."
The swarm hit Hexen.
He disappeared inside it for an instant.
Then the druid burst through the other side, coughing and swearing, beating insects from his hair.
"They bite."
"I noticed."
Hexen looked around.
"No door?"
"No."
"Wonderful."
He saw the pedestal.
Then the gloves.
Then Isamu.
"No."
Isamu glanced at him.
"No what?"
"No putting on mysterious gloves in the Swarm Lord's secret insect room."
"I haven't."
"Good."
Isamu looked back toward them.
Hexen followed his gaze.
"You're considering it."
"They're for me."
"That does not improve the situation."
"Why?"
Hexen stared at him.
"Because the last gift was guarded by a divine machine that tried to burn Kaylor's soul out through his armor."
Isamu considered that.
"Kaylor likes the sword."
"That is also not reassuring."
The swarm gathered.
Hexen felt it before he saw the movement.
There would be no time for the argument.
He reached for the Horn of Blasting.
Fendor had been right about one thing.
Eventually every dangerous object became useful if they carried it long enough.
Hexen raised the horn.
Isamu's eyes narrowed.
"What does that do?"
"Stand behind me."
"Why?"
"I've never used it in a room this small."
Isamu moved.
That answer was sufficient.
Hexen drew breath.
The horn sounded.
The chamber exploded with noise.
It was not music.
It was the voice of siege engines, thunder and collapsing stone forced through a single instrument. The blast hammered into the swarm and tore it apart. Insects became a black wave thrown backward from Hexen. Thousands struck the far wall. Wings scattered through the air. Some creatures fell motionless. Others fled into cracks or crawled disoriented across the floor.
For a few precious seconds, the chamber became visible.
Hexen lowered the horn.
His ears rang.
Isamu said something.
Hexen frowned.
"What?"
Isamu pointed at the pedestal.
The insects were already moving again.
Not toward them.
Toward the gloves.
Hexen saw the pattern.
Every surviving creature seemed drawn toward the objects.
The gloves themselves had not changed.
Yet the swarm converged around them with growing urgency.
Isamu stepped forward.
"Wait."
Isamu stopped.
Hexen studied the room.
No exit had appeared.
No mechanism had activated when the swarm was dispersed.
Whatever this place was, it had brought Isamu here for the gloves.
Maybe accepting them was the way out.
Maybe accepting them was the trap.
There was no reliable way to distinguish the two.
Hexen hated temples.
"Fine."
Isamu looked at him.
"Fine?"
"If you're going to do it, do it before they recover."
Isamu approached the pedestal.
Hexen added, "That was not approval."
"I know."
"Good."
Isamu picked up the gloves.
Nothing happened.
He turned them over.
Dark material. Reinforced palms. No obvious runes.
The swarm drew closer.
Hexen tightened his grip on the horn.
"Still time to put them back."
Isamu slid one glove over his hand.
The insects stopped.
Every one Hexen could see.
The entire chamber seemed to hold still.
Isamu put on the second glove.
The swarm moved.
Hexen raised the horn.
Too late.
Insects raced across the floor.
Not charging Isamu.
Returning to him.
They climbed his boots.
His legs.
His arms.
Isamu remained still.
"Take them off," Hexen said.
Isamu did not answer.
More insects covered him.
Thousands condensed around his hands.
Hexen saw beetles crawling over the gloves, then disappearing into them.
Not beneath.
Into.
Wasps folded themselves against the dark material and vanished. Centipedes wound across Isamu's wrists and became ridges in the surface. Tiny wings flattened into patterns that shifted whenever he moved his fingers.
The swarm diminished.
The gloves changed.
What had looked like leather now seemed alive.
Not entirely composed of insects.
Not entirely separate from them.
A beetle crawled across Isamu's knuckles and sank into the surface.
Another emerged near his wrist, moved a short distance and vanished again.
Hexen lowered the horn slowly.
"That is horrible."
Isamu flexed his hands.
The insects moved with him.
He made a fist.
The surface tightened.
When he opened his hand again, several tiny creatures crawled between his fingers before sinking back into the glove.
"They fit."
Hexen stared at him.
"That was your observation?"
Isamu looked at the pedestal.
"Yes."
"You have bugs for hands."
"Gloves."
"Made of bugs."
"Partly."
Hexen closed his eyes.
For one moment he understood Fendor perfectly.
Then Isamu struck.
Not at Hexen.
At the air.
A simple movement.
Fast.
Controlled.
The sort of practice blow he had performed thousands of times.
Something in the glove answered.
The air cracked.
Isamu looked at his fist.
That interested him.
Hexen saw it.
"No."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were going to."
"I was not."
"You made the face."
"What face?"
"The one that means you found a new way to hit something."
Isamu considered that.
Then he made the fist again.
Hexen sighed.
The last insects disappeared into the gloves.
Silence settled over the chamber.
Not true silence.
Something still crawled.
Hexen could hear it whenever Isamu moved his fingers.
Kaylor hated waiting.
That was not a revelation.
Waiting had always felt too much like surrendering decisions to someone else. In battle, he could move. Strike. Defend. Put himself between danger and another person.
The well allowed none of those things.
Hexen had vanished after Isamu.
Now Kaylor stood beside it with Peacemaker in both hands and absolutely nothing useful to attack.
Fendor watched him.
"Do not hit the well."
"I wasn't going to."
"You were thinking about it."
Kaylor looked at him.
"I could break it."
"Yes."
"Which might open whatever it's doing."
"Or strand them permanently wherever it sent them."
Kaylor looked back into the darkness.
"I dislike reasonable elves."
Fendor nodded.
"Most people do."
Nethnarel crouched beside the rim.
She had tried several forms of magical examination. The results remained frustrating.
The well contained magic.
Obviously.
The magic moved things somewhere else.
Also obvious.
Beyond that, the structure seemed almost intentionally resistant to being understood from this side.
She sat back.
"We wait."
Kaylor's jaw tightened.
"For how long?"
"Until something changes."
"Excellent plan."
"Do you have another?"
"Yes."
Fendor said, "It involves hitting the well."
Kaylor ignored him.
Then the sound came.
Deep below them.
A horn.
The blast was distant and distorted, as though traveling through miles of stone, but unmistakable.
Fendor lifted his head.
"Hexen."
Nethnarel nodded.
Kaylor stared into the well.
At least they were together.
He was deciding whether that made him feel better when the darkness inside the well began to move.
Light appeared at the bottom.
Greenish.
Weak.
Then the chamber shifted around them.
Kaylor raised Peacemaker.
Fendor drew.
Nethnarel stood.
The well's black surface became reflective.
For one instant Kaylor thought he saw another room inside it.
Isamu.
Hexen.
Then the image broke.
The stone beneath their feet lurched.
"Not again," Fendor said.
The world turned sideways.
When the temple released them, it did so without dignity.
Hexen hit the floor first.
Again.
He was beginning to take it personally.
Isamu landed beside him.
Kaylor appeared a moment later with Peacemaker already raised.
Fendor arrived swearing.
Nethnarel materialized last and somehow remained upright.
They were together.
That was the first useful fact.
The second was that they were no longer in the well chamber.
A passage stretched ahead.
Smooth stone.
No insects.
No pedestal.
No obvious route backward.
Kaylor looked at Hexen.
"You all right?"
"Yes."
Then he pointed at Isamu.
"He has bug hands."
Everyone looked.
Isamu raised both hands.
Fendor stared at the dark gloves.
Something crawled across one knuckle.
"No."
Hexen's expression brightened slightly.
"Thank you."
Nethnarel stepped closer.
"Those are alive."
"Yes," Isamu said.
Fendor looked from Isamu to Hexen.
"And you let him put them on?"
"I did not let him do anything."
"You were there."
"There were a lot of insects."
"That somehow makes this worse."
Kaylor leaned closer.
A tiny beetle emerged from the glove, paused as though examining the dragonborn, and disappeared again.
Kaylor straightened.
"Do they do anything?"
Isamu made a fist.
The insects shifted.
"I think so."
"What?"
"I don't know yet."
Hexen immediately said, "And we are all comfortable leaving it that way until something attacks us."
Fendor looked down the corridor.
"Given our recent success with rest, that should take about thirty seconds."
No one disagreed.
They continued.
Isamu walked near the front.
The gloves did not feel foreign.
That was what unsettled him.
He had expected weight, resistance, some sensation of wearing another thing over his skin.
Instead they responded as quickly as his own hands.
Perhaps more quickly.
The insects seemed to anticipate movement. When he flexed a finger, the dark surface tightened around the joint before the motion completed. When he closed his fist, he felt strength gather there.
Power.
Cleanly delivered.
Perfectly suited to him.
Exactly as promised.
Behind him, Hexen carried the horn.
Kaylor carried Peacemaker.
Two gifts from a demon's temple.
Neither had required anyone to swear new words aloud.
Neither had come with chains.
The Lord of Swarms understood something more dangerous than coercion.
Give someone what they already want.
Then let them decide what it means.
Isamu looked at his hands.
A tiny wing unfolded from one glove.
Then disappeared.
He closed his fist.
The crawling stopped.
Ahead, the corridor widened.
They entered another chamber.
Fendor looked around.
"Everyone remember what happened the last time we entered a room?"
Kaylor gripped Peacemaker.
"We killed things."
"Before that."
"We found things."
"Before that."
Hexen said, "We made poor decisions."
Fendor nodded.
"That's the one."
Behind them, stone moved.
A wall dropped across the passage.
The impact shook the floor.
Kaylor turned.
At the same moment, water began pouring into the chamber.
Nethnarel looked at the rising flood.
Fendor closed his eyes.
"I hate being right."
The water climbed around their boots.
Then their ankles.
Something translucent moved beneath its surface.
Isamu raised his insect-covered hands.
The gloves moved with him.