Anríq returned, stuck his head into the charred, ruined house, and then ducked inside. He crossed the room to the corner where Rien huddled against the wall.

  “He’s exactly the same,” Niyazi mumbled. “He never gets any better.”

  Anríq studied Rien for a minute and then looked away.

  “You can’t do anything, can you?” Niyazi croaked. “You can’t help him without your magic.”

  Anríq shook his head down at the floor, turned away, and stood up.

  Yann and Yvan both stood up at Anríq’s arrival. “Did you see anything out there?” Yann asked. “Did you see anything from Rien’s vision?”

  “There’s a front of wild magic moving this way,” Anríq told them. “It’s coming slowly. We won’t have any problem keeping ahead of it—if we want to keep ahead of it.”

  “What other option is there?” Yvan asked.

  “We could go straight into it and go somewhere else—somewhere Eliska, Marine, and I can get our magic back.”

  “We couldn’t do that,” Yvan countered. “We wouldn’t survive traveling through the Layers.”

  “We could get you through the Layers if we got our magic back,” Anríq explained.

  “Why do you think we keep going through all these collapses and landscape shifts, but you still don’t get your magic back?” Yann asked.

  Anríq shrugged that away. “That’s the problem, you see. The landscape might change with us still trapped in the same non-magical Layer—or we might be trapped in multiple non-magical Layers all collapsing on themselves, forming new Islands, and then fracturing again.”

  “What does that mean?” Yann asked.

  “It means that, even if we went into the front and traveled out into the Layers, the three of us might not get our magic back. I can’t guarantee that we would get our magic back—but I can guarantee that we won’t get our magic back if we move away from this front and stay in this Island.” Anríq turned back to the Watch Commander. “I can’t make that decision for you.”

  Yvan scowled at him. “So you can’t see anything beyond the front—like another landscape we might be able to get to if we went into it?”

  “There is no landscape beyond the front,” Anríq replied. “It’s a chaos Layer breaking across this Island.”

  Yvan looked around. Niyazi still sat next to Rien. The rest of the party watched and listened to Anríq’s report.

  “We can’t risk winding up in the Layers without your magic,” Yvan finally decided. “We’ll have to fall back to keep away from the front.”

  Those words got everyone moving. They all stood up—except for Rien. He jumped every few seconds and kept screaming, cringing, and yelling that the Darklings were trying to get him.

  His behavior put everyone on edge. Eliska really wished he would shut the hell up, but she didn’t say that.

  She knew exactly how he felt. She didn’t see Darklings around her right now, but she’d been suffering from the same mindless terror ever since the Watch fell into this Layer.

  Now she couldn’t even figure out which Layer the group was in or what to do about it.

  Yvan and Anríq led the way outside. Omer, Neils, Vidal, and Barsali followed. Yann waited to escort Marine and Eliska outside.

  Niyazi had to drag Rien to his feet and physically force him to leave the house. Rien screamed even louder, tried to fight his way out of Niyazi’s grip, and fought back like Niyazi might be one of the Darklings haunting Rien.

  Niyazi clamped his face shut in a granite wall of iron fury, tightened his grip on Rien’s arm, and shoved him through the door.

  The volcano landscape bubbled away the same as always. Nothing changed in this Island.

  “Which direction is the front coming from?” Yvan asked.

  Anríq pointed toward the lava river. “Over there.”

  “All right.” Yvan ordered. “Let’s move out.”

  The group fell into another loose formation heading in the opposite direction. Niyazi stayed in the very back this time. He never let go of Rien once.

  Rien didn’t notice anything except Niyazi holding onto him. Rien struggled every step of the way.

  Eliska forced herself to face front. Rien’s constant whimpering and yelping noises set her nerves on end. She would have given anything to make him be quiet—or at least face him in case he put the group in danger.

  She didn’t give herself the option to turn around. That would only agitate her more. She forced herself to keep walking no matter what.

  Yann stayed behind the two girls in a guarding posture.

  Yvan took the lead this time even though he couldn’t possibly know where he was going. He set off through the lava fields, picked his way around rivers and rivulets, and sprang over sulfur beds to avoid the worst dangers.

  Two lines of volcanic mountains rimmed the horizon going off in different directions. The mountain ranges converged in the center.

  They looked like they might end in a staggered pattern with a pass between them, but Eliska couldn’t be sure from this distance.

  The lava fields had leveled most of the countryside. Only a few small hills rose out of a smooth, melted sheet of solidified rock.

  The group had to climb one of these hills to continue on their way. Yvan stopped at the top and Anríq went over to him. They both turned around to check the terrain behind the party.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Eliska and the others stayed down on the flat ground. Thirst drove her out of her mind. These people wouldn’t survive much longer without water.

  They wouldn’t find any water in this wasteland. The gap between the mountains looked miles away—maybe even hundreds of miles away—if there was a gap there at all.

  Even if the group made it that far, no one could guarantee they would find water there—or anything other than more of this volcanic Island world.

  Eliska never thought she’d live to see the day when she would wish the Darklings would attack and send her to another Layer.

  She sure wished it now. If she had magic, she would have shattered this Layer long ago. Now she was stuck here—maybe forever.

  Anríq’s voice snapped her back to reality. “The front is moving faster than it was before,” he told Yvan. “It will overtake us.”

  “Then we better keep moving.” Yvan headed down the hill to rejoin the others. “If it can speed up, it might slow down and give us time to put some distance between us and it.”

  Anríq followed him back down to level ground. Yvan turned away to lead the party on their former route.

  At that moment, Rien jerked out of Niyazi’s hold. Eliska kept her back to them as much as possible. She didn’t see if Niyazi relaxed his grip at all or if Rien just got the jump on him by leaping away so suddenly.

  Rien sprang clear, landed ten feet away, and before anyone could move, he drew both his weapons.

  He spun this way and that hacking at thin air. “Get away from me!” he screeched. “Get away from me, you fiends!”

  Niyazi charged forward to intercept him. “RIEN!!”

  Rien didn’t hear or even see him. Rien spun the other way, chopped his broken sword at an invisible enemy, and stabbed with his left hand.

  The other Watchmen moved in. Yvan stormed forward and stared at Rien from outside his weapons range.

  The group watched him for a second before Yvan compressed his lips. “We’ll have to restrain him. Anríq and Barsali, move in front of him and try to engage or disarm him. Vidal, you and Niyazi get behind Rien. As soon as they distract him, the three of us will tackle him and hold him down while the others take his weapons.”

  Everyone nodded. Eliska backed off. She didn’t want to get involved in this.

  Yann, Neils, and Omer moved forward to back up the rest of the Watch.

  Anríq and Barsali drew their weapons and pivoted in front of Rien, but he kept swiveling back and forth. He didn’t stay facing in any particular direction.

  Yvan, Vidal, and Niyazi angled themselves behind Rien, but they wound up having the same problem. He occasionally faced them brandishing both weapons.

  He kept slashing the air and yelling for the invisible Darklings to get away from him. No one could get an opening.

  “That’s it,” Yvan growled after a few minutes. “The next time he turns away from us, we’ll charge him.”

  Vidal and Niyazi both nodded and braced themselves to pounce.

  Rien spun their way and immediately wheeled to hack his blade in the opposite direction.

  Anríq darted forward at exactly that moment, hefted his club, and caught Rien’s broken sword on the club’s spikes.

  Rien came to his senses for a split second when the two weapons met. His eyes cleared just enough to see Anríq standing in front of him with their weapons locked together.

  The next instant, Yvan, Vidal, and Niyazi rushed in from behind.

  They made it within two feet of Rien’s back. He didn’t disengage his weapon from Anríq’s club in time to stop anyone from tackling him, taking him down, and maybe even tying him up.

  At that moment, some unseen force struck Vidal across the side of the head. It hit him hard enough to knock him over.

  It must have knocked him out cold because he toppled sideways. He didn’t use his arms to break his fall before his whole body hit the ground in one stiff plank.

  “VIDAL!!” Yann roared and sprinted forward.

  He raised his glaive, spun around, and swiped the weapon in all directions trying to see what hit Vidal.

  Neils and Omer saw the blow, too. They both rushed in to defend Vidal, but there was nothing there.

  Yvan and Niyazi didn’t realize what happened. They were both running too fast to grab Rien.

  They got to him a second after it happened, yanked his arms away from Anríq’s club, and tore the weapons out of Rien’s hands.

  He sprang away just as fast and went back to jerking here and there, gasping and whimpering in terror, and retreating from invisible Darklings.

  Yvan glanced behind him in time to see Vidal on the ground with Yann, Neils, and Omer standing over him with their weapons drawn.

  Yvan frowned at them.

  Eliska rushed behind the men and bent over Vidal. A big purple welt covered the side of his face and ran up to his temple. The bruise kept swelling and a clear, dark slash marked the center of the bruise where something hit him.

  “What the hell happened to him?!” Yvan snapped.

  “Something hit him,” Eliska explained.

  “What was it?” Yvan demanded. “I didn’t see anything.”

  Eliska opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came out. How could she explain any of this to the Watch Commander?

  Omer saved her by speaking up in her place. “There was nothing there. It came out of nowhere. Whatever it was must have been invisible. It hit him without warning and he fell.”

  Yvan glared at everyone and then scowled down at Vidal. He didn’t move.

  Eliska touched his head before she remembered. She didn’t have the magic to heal him. No one did, not even Anríq.

  All the Watchmen exchanged glances and then searched the area. There was nothing here except Rien fighting invisible Darklings.

  Could there really be something unseen here attacking not just him but Vidal, too?

  Another wave of impending doom swept through Eliska’s insides. She couldn’t stay here.

  Part of her wanted to run straight into the front of wild magic bearing down on the party.

  She might get lucky and break through into another Layer where she would get her magic back. Anything would be better than this.

  The Watchmen rotated in all directions aiming their weapons outward. They all searched the area for unseen enemies exactly the way Rien did.

  He kept gasping, whining, and occasionally breaking out in yells. He no longer had his weapons, so he swatted the Darklings away with his bare hands.

  “Get away from me!” he screeched. “Get off me, you bastards!”

  Anríq walked over to him. Anríq walked steadily with no sign of slowing down.

  The sight gave Eliska an inexpressible feeling of relief. Anríq would fix it. Anríq could heal anyone…..if he only had his magic back.

  Before he got there, a blaze of light drew everyone’s attention. It flared behind the party twenty feet in the direction the group had just come.

  The same old man in the long white robe with the halo of brilliant light around him appeared standing there on the lava fields. He glared at the Watchmen just as menacingly.

  The Watchmen rushed forward into a line and brandished their weapons at the Voyant, but at that moment, a curtain of shimmering sparks and lightning swept across the landscape.

  It came from behind the Voyant, swept past him, and overtook the Watch before anyone could get away.

  Eliska barely had time to stand up. The Voyant vanished behind the veil—and just as fast, Eliska’s blood ran cold when she saw massive Darklings materialize right behind the sheet of flashing light and magical explosions.

  These didn’t look like any other Darklings the party encountered on their travels. These had a spikier look with some kind of plate armor covering their bodies.

  Their tentacles looked like some kind of jointed mechanical appendages studded with razor blades and slashing sharp edges.

  They functioned the same as tentacles, but the Darklings moved like some kind of machines instead of just monstrous shapes.

  The Watchmen closed together with their weapons drawn, but at that moment, Rien screamed again. “They’re here! They’re here! That’s them! They’re the Darklings from my nightmare!”

  He came out of whatever hallucination had been clouding his mind and rushed in to join the other Watchmen. He didn’t have his weapons anymore after Niyazi took them away from him.

  Niyazi didn’t try to stop Rien from snatching both weapons back. He moved right into line with the others and aimed his weapons at the incoming Darklings.

  None of the party got a chance to fight before the front of wild magic overtook them first.

  A charge of energy crackled through the air as the front moved in. It raced across the landscape too fast for anyone to get away and bore down on the party in a wall of powerful, explosive energy.

  The next instant, the front swept the group and the world blasted apart. A deep boom hit Eliska, tore her off her feet, and sent her spinning off somewhere.

  End of Chapter 10.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

  I post new chapters of The Corrupted Coil series on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday PST.

  Don't want to wait to read the rest of the book? You can purchase the completed book, the whole The Corrupted Coil Series, and the rest of Theo ’Manns work at Theo Mann’s Amazon Author Page.

  Read Tales From the Coil: The Calling for free!

  Get these episodes delivered to your inbox before anyone else sees them. Find out how on Patreon at .

  Thank you for reading and thank you for your support!