The harness, thick as a miner’s arm, tore from the sled with a groan of stressed canvas and iron rings. The Maw-Worm's scream rattled the basalt beneath Thura's bare feet, spitting sprays of incandescent debris across the cavern floor. The beast’s head, wider than any conveyance in Khol-Zhan, pushed further through the fissure, its scales the color of cooled slag, its breath a furnace blast. Jorik lay convulsing nearby, a whimpering knot of limbs, his face an ashen mask of torment. His small frame seized against the obsidian floor as the vibrations hammered through him.
Morvath's body, a calcified bulk of fused spine and crystal, pinned the sled runner to the stones. Thura dragged the thick straps around his upper torso, her palms raw from the friction, her muscles screaming with effort. The central vent loomed, a maw of its own, belching superheated steam. She secured one end of the harness to a heavy iron peg driven deep into the rock years ago by some forgotten vent-tender, then looped the other end over Morvath’s inert form.
Her eyes, devoid of pity, scanned the overhead rock face. A series of ancient pulleys, installed for moving heavy excavation equipment, offered a solution. With a swift, practiced motion, she scrambled up the sheer rock, her calloused fingers finding purchase in every crevice. The air grew thick with steam and ash as she secured the harness to the winch line. Below, Jorik’s whimpers spiked into a pained shriek, a sound that cut through the rumbling earth, a counterpoint to the Maw-Worm’s growing fury. The beast was closer now, its amber eye, vast and reptilian, fixed on the chaotic scene within the vents.
Thura descended, her movements precise. She grabbed the winch handle, thick with ancient grime, and began to turn. The gears ground, protesting under the strain, but slowly, inexorably, Morvath’s enormous, glittering form lifted from the sled. His limbs, stiffened by the encroaching mineralization, scraped against the rock floor as he ascended. He hung suspended for a moment, an unholy chandelier of glass and flesh, before Thura guided him with her foot, pushing his inert bulk directly over the central thermal vent. The heat immediately began to rise around him, bathing his lower body in superheated vapor.
She cranked the winch further, lowering him slowly, until his feet just touched the scorching vent lip. His mouth, a rictus of terror frozen in crystalline amber, gaped wide. The superheated air, driven upwards by the vent’s immense pressure, forced its way through his altered lungs, through his calcified trachea. A sound, deep and guttural, unlike anything she had heard from the others, rumbled forth. It was a note, undeniably, but it was flat, a dull, dead thrum that seemed to absorb the existing minor chord like a void.
The Maw-Worm recoiled, not in pain, but in what Thura could only interpret as an absolute, primal rage. Its head pulled back slightly, then lunged forward with renewed ferocity, its jagged maw opening wider. The cavern shook, a rain of fine dust and tiny rock fragments showering down. The gullet lining showed slick with glowing magma, orange against the sulfur haze. It was preparing to swallow the entire lip of the caldera, the foundation of the city, Jorik included.
“No,” Thura signed to herself, her hands moving instinctively, a gesture for 'incorrect' and 'adjust'. The bass note was wrong. Horribly wrong. It was too thick, too sluggish, not resonating with the others. She could feel it in the soles of her feet, a disharmony that only intensified the worm’s fury. The existing minor chord, the one that had brought a brief peace, now warbled, struggling against Morvath’s deadening tone.
She looked at Morvath, hanging like a grotesque pendulum. His vocal apparatus, now a dense mass of vitreous bone, was too rigid. The air wasn’t moving through it with enough velocity, enough precision. It was like trying to force a river through a clogged pipe. Her eyes, cool and analytical, tracked the flow of air, the structure of his chest. His sternum, a fused slab of vitrified bone, choked the passage. It blocked the column of steam, damping the chamber before the vibration could gather force.
“The frequency is off,” she muttered, the words rough against her own dry tongue. Jorik’s convulsions intensified, his small body slamming against the rock. He let out a choked gurgle, spittle mixing with blood at the corner of his mouth. There was no more time for gradual methods. This was an engineering problem, and it required a drastic solution.
Her gaze swept the ledge, landing on a heavy iron trenching lever dropped near an ore cart. It was a brutal tool, designed for prying stubborn rock from the earth. She snatched it up, its cold, heavy weight a familiar comfort in her hands. Its squared head was pitted with rust and ash.
Morvath's pupils shrank to needlepoints behind the vitreous crust of his cheeks. He began to thrash, a faint, desperate struggle against his bindings, sending creaks through the winch gears. His flat rumble intensified, a panicked, desperate sound that only further enraged the Maw-Worm. The beast let out another roar, a sound that vibrated through Thura’s bones, threatening to rattle the marrow from her shins. It lunged nearer, hot slag dripping from its lower jaw onto the slag-crusted floor.
Thura ignored Morvath’s struggles, ignored the worm’s proximity. Her focus narrowed to the problem: the sternum. With chilling mechanical precision, she raised the wrench high. Sulfur smoke swirled violently between them. The iron bar slammed downward, striking Morvath's breastplate with an unyielding iron crack. The sound was not the splintering crack of bone she might have expected, but a sickening, wet crunch, followed by the faint chime of calcified shards.
Morvath’s flat rumble ceased abruptly, replaced by a high-pitched, almost musical shriek of agony. The blow had caved the central plate inward, collapsing the rigid cage into jagged shards. The tremors traveling up the tool's shank felt jagged and discordant. It was still wrong. Still not the pure, resonant tone she needed.
Thura dropped the iron tool against the stones with a dull clatter. She reached forward, her hand, small but strong, plunging into the gaping wound. The heat from the vent below made the air around Morvath’s body shimmer, distorting the scene. Her fingers probed the splintered edges of vitrified ribs, past the weeping pulp of the exposed pleural cavity. Her fingers, accustomed to the gritty texture of ash and the coarse feel of rock, moved with a dispassionate curiosity, feeling the difference in density, the resistance of the ribs.
Morvath's limbs jerked against the iron shackles, his head twisting toward her, jaw working against the amber seal. But Thura saw only the structural integrity of a failing instrument. She found the remaining, unbroken ribs, rigid and unyielding, restricting the compression of his lungs. She needed to manipulate them, to create a smaller, more focused channel for the vent’s air. She had to reshape the acoustic cavity until the column of steam found its pitch.
Her fingers closed around two of the denser ribs, pressing them inward, then outward, testing their flexibility, feeling for the perfect tension. A muffled, gurgling sound emanated from Morvath, a sound like a drowning man, but it was closer, she could feel it, to the note she sought. The Maw-Worm stalled mid-strike, its slag-caked jaws gaped, its massive eye rolling as the shifting drone struck its underside.