Nyx heard the chittering scuffle of the giant beetle-bodies. Shots rang out from above them. With Safiyah’s attention on getting them in, the beetles were free to shamble where they liked. The flesh-ragged beetles huffed closer, moving down the edge of the hold toward them.

Nyx drew her scattergun.

Safiyah let out a breath. There was a sucking sound. “In! In!” she whispered.

Khatijah pushed herself into the spongy rent in the wall.

Nyx kept her weapon out. Only two of the beetle-things were still alive. The other corpses thrashed at the base of the wall. She heard the hissing call of the hungry sand.

The lead beetle was hunched over, cloaked in a burnous and torn trousers. The face was split in two, revealing the shiny black beetle carapace beneath. The bugs grew faster out here, and bigger. She saw Eshe’s belt. Eshe’s dagger. What remained of Eshe’s dark hair, tangled with coagulated blood and sticky bug secretions that must have hidden the scent from the sand.

Nyx put her finger on the trigger. Above her, more voices were shouting. More shots.

“Sorry,” Nyx said.

She pulled the trigger.

The beetle’s craggy visage exploded. Wet bug guts and the remains of Eshe’s mangled face spattered her tunic.

A whirlwind of sand spat up at her feet.

Nyx vomited.

Someone grabbed her from behind.

She grunted.

They pulled her into Bomani, into darkness.

Bomani was a living, rotting thing. It was as if it were constantly sloughing off its old skin and regenerating new and more intricate parts all the time. Nyx stared up into the guts of the thing. It was, she decided, like some gigantic bakkie that had been left to grow out of control for millennia.

They had walked across sucking, pulsing tissue and into a long, low, empty hall that made Nyx suddenly claustrophobic. The walls were practically dripping. The only light came from a line of blue bioluminescent fungi that crept along the walls.

“Where is everyone?” Nyx asked, low.

Safiyah closed the new gap behind them. Every wall was easily breachable, with her in the lead. “This is an outer ward. Most activity will be further in. I told you there was no need for weapons yet.”

Nyx kept her scattergun out. She was down to a handful of shells. The pistol ammo wasn’t faring much better.

“Does anyone even know how to run this thing?” Khatijah asked.

“There are some conjurers who shape it,” Safiyah said. “They simply apply the whims of whatever party rules the holdfast, though. Inside and out, these places grow and change depending on the vision of the one who rules them.”

“Do they do anything anymore? Think they could get fixed or something?” Khatijah asked.

“Fixed? I don’t understand.”

“If they helped make the world, can’t they still do it? Help… I don’t know… make it better or something?”