Power of the Lost

by Cebelius

  "Guess I'm first," he said with a glance toward Mila, who nodded. He stepped to the door on the right wall from the plaque. "We ready?"

  Yuri said, "Marcus, back him, then me, then Mila. Laina, you cover Shy. Astur brings up the rear."

  As she obeyed Yuri, Asturial said, "It is a pity we do not have Euryale with us. She could test these doors with impunity."

  Terry winced, reminded that the gorgon was missing, and he had no idea how he was going to find her again.

  Marcus put a hand on Terry's shoulder. When he glanced up at him the big man said simply, "I got you."

  Nodding, Terry took a deep breath, gripped the iron ring in the door, and pulled.

  The strange magic that the sphinx used seemed to apply here as well, and they found themselves in the next room without transition, positioned exactly as they had been in the last room. The door remained open, and through it they could see the bodies of the fallen.

  Almost immediately, fire erupted from all four walls and closed in on them.

  "Back, back!" Yuri screamed, and Terry leapt away from the door he was standing next to, which was the door across the room from the one he'd opened.

  Mila was chanting next to him and in the next instant a dome of iridescent energy crackled to life around them, but as the flames swept inward toward them, Terry knew that the shield wouldn't save them.

  They had guessed, and they'd guessed wrong.

  The room they were in was a deathtrap.

  A piercing scream rose as the flames caught up to and engulfed the unconscious mantis warrior, rousing him ... only to consume him. The creature skittered upright, its high-pitched, whistling shriek overcoming the roar of flames for a moment as his chiton charred and his out-sized compound eyes burst from the intense heat. Juices dribbled down his hard-shelled face, only to sizzle and pop as its armored surface blackened and cracked, the edges glowing red, then white as the magical fire consumed him.

  The flames seemed attracted to him, as though his body were sucking in the inferno, and within seconds the last of the fire shot past its gaping, flaring mandibles and eye sockets, taking only moments to reduce his body to a roughly mantis-shaped cinder that soon collapsed under its own weight into a haphazard pile of pale white ash.

  There wasn't even any smoke wisping from the remains, so thoroughly did the fire consume the body.

  Silence fell over the group. With a whispered word, Mila dispersed her wall of magic. Terry stared at the ashes, and then doubled over, staggering away from the group. He fell to his hands and knees, retching as the afterimages of the horror he had just witnessed overcame him.

  He wasn't the only one to lose his last meal. Laina reached out and held herself up against the wall, heaving as her guts refused to tolerate what she'd just seen.

  As he fought to recover himself, he heard Asturial say with studied calm, "It is fortunate he was there to cover for this mistake. Perhaps we should return to the next room and wait. If another group of mantis do appear, we can open the next door using their living bodies as cover."

  Terry's fists clenched, and his eyes blazed as he wheeled on the dragon, but before he could speak Shy stepped in front of him, hiding Asturial from his view as she said, "Calm down, Tee. Now is not the time."

  "When IS the time then, Shy? Tell me, when?" he asked, so furious that he was barely cogent, his voice cracking with a combination of raw nerves and righteous anger as he thrust a hand just past her head in Asturial's direction. "When she sacrifices one of you maybe? You want to wait until that happens? Do you!?"

  His hand came down and he thrust a finger under her nose and snarled, "Because it will! That woman is an honest-to-god, no-shit psychopath! Using people like that is flat-out fucking evil!"

  Shy's eyes brightened considerably, and she stared coldly into Terry's eyes as she reached out and set a hand on the side of his neck, and spoke directly into his mind.

  'We NEED her, Tee. YOU need her. Without her here Utlatlahu would have devastated us. She is predictable, and she is an asset. And before you say it, yes, I know this is something she would say. She would be right. We have broader ambitions than to die here trying to be noble. Last but not least, remember that she is on OUR SIDE.'

  Terry's eyes narrowed, and he reached up and caught Shy's wrist. With the exceeding gentleness of a man one wrong word away from snapping, he broke her connection to him and let her go, then turned and walked through the open door and back into the corpse-filled room they'd just come from.

  He was so angry that he felt his pulse throbbing in his temples, and it had taken every ounce of his self-control just now not to go off on Shy. He owed her more than he could repay, and she didn't deserve that from him. Nevertheless, the anger was there, and he wasn't sure he could stifle it if he spoke to her just then.

  It's so easy to forget sometimes that these people aren't human. That they don't think like me, don't believe as I do.

  He was glad at just that moment that Prada was elsewhere. He knew without asking what she would say to this. That he was being foolish, that any and all avenues of survival should be considered. That the lives of his friends and lovers were worth more than those of strangers.

  Emotionally, that might be true, but morally?

  There was no way for him to explain to these people that there were some bridges that shouldn't be crossed, ever. He felt like railing at them, but they simply wouldn't understand. To them, killing was just ... part of the game, and if they could throw some stranger's corpse onto the pile instead of a friend's, that made perfect sense to them.

  But it's not that kind of choice!

  His anger was fading, bled away in facing the fact that if he wanted to keep a clean conscience, it was his responsibility. No one else would do it for him. There was only one way to ensure that things were done the right way. He had to solve the mystery in front of him, and if he was wrong, be willing to pay the price himself.

  That tiny part of him that kept track of the details reminded him that he wouldn't be allowed to pay that price though. Someone else would always be stepping up to take the bullet on his behalf.

  Which means I absolutely MUST be right.

  The pressure he was under had him clenching his jaw and fists, but he did his best to put aside the stakes. He had a task in front of him, and nothing else would happen until that task was done.

  One thing at a time. Solve the riddle, then deal with the consequences.

  Looking at the riddle, he went through it line by line, considering each.

  Free the sun and

  Right the moon

  Leave the path and

  Reap your doom

  Find the course and

  Brave no danger

  Back once more and

  Down for stranger

  Leave the path and reap your doom. No fucking kidding.

  The first two lines seemed like nonsense though. There was no sun or moon to free or correct.

  Trying to focus, he spoke aloud so that the others — who'd since gathered around — could chip in.

  "So we've got direction words, here, here, and here. But following the direction in the second line was wrong. The rhyme scheme is naught A naught A naught B naught B, but again, following the direction in the second line was wrong and there is no direction in the first line ... wait."

  It can't be that simple.

  Terry cocked his head, thinking it through, then said slowly, "I ... guys? I think I got it. I think."

  "Tell us," Yuri said, his voice unusually quiet.

  "Well, there's no punctuation in this whole thing, except the fact that the first word in each line is capitalized. I think Shy was right, but she missed all the directions."

  He touched the first word in the first line as he glanced from it to the door just in front of him, then tapped each in succession as he said, "Forward, Right, Left, Right, Forward, Back, Back, Down. The direction words are examples. Back tells us there's forward. Right tells us there's left. Then ... down
."

  "That doesn't make any sense," Laina said, pointing to the open door on the right. "If we go forward, then back, we'll be in the same room we just left."

  Terry glanced over at the open door, then nodded and scowled, feeling frustrated.

  Mila though, tilted her head and said, "Not necessarily."

  She walked over and shut the open door, then looked at Terry expectantly.

  He blinked, then shrugged, waited, and watched. A few seconds went by, then the door started glowing with a soft blue light and he said as much.

  Mila smiled, showing teeth as she said, "The room doors are the keys. The space we are in is not contiguous."

  "What?" Laina asked.

  "Contiguous means touching," Terry said as realization dawned. "Next to one another. The doors are magic. They don't actually just let you walk into the next room, they send everyone in one room into another when opened. So if we opened that door again, we could wind up in another death trap, not the one we were just in."

  Mila touched her nose, then pointed at him as she said, "Just so."

  Terry reached out and put his hand on the pull ring for the door just next to the placard and asked, "Everyone ready?"

  For a moment, no one spoke, and he could feel the tension in the air. If he was wrong, someone here was about to die. Everyone knew it, and no one wanted to be the one to say the word.

  Asturial said, "This is foolish. We should wait to see if another wave of mantis warriors will appear. They will almost certainly do so if we give them time. We subdue a few, and use them. Terrence Mack is irrational, and his judgment cannot be relied upon to protect us, particularly because he knows he will not be the one to pay the ultimate price. This is a matter of life and death, and I feel I have the right to call for the opinions of others here. Surely you all are not so blinded by his anger that you will allow this?"

  "Seconded," Prada said. "There is no reason to risk the death of any of our number when we do not have to."

  Shy exchanged a glance with Terry. He wanted to say something, to plead with her not to do this, but at length she said, "I concur. While I think Tee is right in his interpretation of the riddle ... it's too much of a risk. Utlatlahu is our enemy, which makes her servants just as much our enemies. Using them to keep ourselves alive makes sense to me."

  He bowed his head. He had expected something like that from her, but it still pained him. He knew she was thinking of them all, but he couldn't help but feel betrayed somehow.

  He turned his attention to Laina. She gazed at him for a long moment, then said, "I'm with Boss. It'd feel like ... like murder. It's just not right."

  "I agree with Laina," Mila said, surprising Terry both with her answer and the sheer conviction in her voice. "We should not try to force others to pay for our mistakes. Not to mention the mantis warriors may be individually weak but they are not helpless, and they will fight. Just because we avoided casualties in our first meeting does not mean our luck will continue. What if the next group is twenty? Thirty? I think Terry is right, and in that case there will be no danger on the other side of this door. Facing another group of warriors is ultimately the greater risk."

  Marcus scratched at his chin absently for a moment, then shook his head and said, "Pass."

  All eyes turned to Yuri.

  The tiger man looked at Terry with an inscrutable expression on his feline face and said, "Boss, will you abide by the decision made here? I need to make sure that you understand the stakes."

  He pointed at the door just in front of Terry and said, "If you are wrong, someone dies on the other side of that door. That could be one of us. You understand the position you have put me in?"

  Terry swallowed hard as he thought about it. In the end though, he realized that whatever he might feel about what was to happen next, it truly wasn't his decision to make. He said, "This is a dungeon, Yuri. In here you're the boss. That makes you responsible. I owe you my life, I trust you, and I'll back you whether I agree with what you decide or not. That's my responsibility to you, to everyone, and I accept it."

  Yuri nodded once, then looked around at each of them in turn. Terry got the sense that he was weighing their resolve, that he was looking into the hearts of each man and woman present. It was ... humbling.

  Finally, he turned back to Terry and said, "Open it, Boss. We are ready. If you are wrong, it will be me."

  Terry let out the breath he'd been unconsciously holding, and nodded once. Yuri was putting his faith in Terry's guess. He was sanctioning this chance, and accepting responsibility for the outcome. Mila moved to her brother and embraced him. Her voice cracked as she said, "Yuri."

  He returned her embrace and smiled at his sister calmly as he said, "It will be all right, little sister. You will see."

  Yuri is a true leader. I hope one day I can be half the man he is.

  Terry's throat tightened as he tried to swallow, failed, and turned toward the door.

  Please, God. Pleeease let this be the way.

  He hauled on the ring. The door opened, and they were transported.

  21

  Left Behind

  Euryale laughed.

  She strode amongst the statues of what had once been a sizable force of zone beasts, mammoths, and who knew what else, and she laughed. Stheno had indeed returned to her master, and in so doing had crippled his army.

  She had already spent most of the day searching for traces of the wagon, finally coming to the inevitable conclusion that whatever had caused the blackened circle and blasted everything in every direction had taken her master away.

  She knew he wasn't dead. She knew it with a certainty that went soul deep. Euryale didn't have the same sort of bond with Terry that Shy did, and she couldn't live inside his skin like Prada, but she knew her master was alive, somewhere.

  So now she strode among the statues and laughed, ignoring the tears that streamed down her face. She didn't know where her master was. She had no idea how to find him.

  She was lost.

  Seeking inspiration, she came to the site of her triumph and searched in vain. The zone beasts were accoutered in rough but serviceable armor and had common weapons. None of it was of any interest to her, though she did take up a mace as her anger mounted, and begin the slow process of demolishing the small forest of statues that surrounded her.

  She took her time and was thorough. Taking down the mammoths and their riders was the most fun: she simply knocked out one leg and then walked under the belly of the stone beast as it tilted.

  Athena's curse turned the living to stone, specifically a type of volcanic rock called scoria. As far as rocks went, it was porous and weak, and broke easily when subjected to strain or impact.

  So it was that most of the statues that tumbled from the howdahs broke either as they fell together or as they landed against each other on the otherwise soft ground.

  More by chance than design she'd begun near the outer edge of the gathering, and it took her almost an hour to work her way in toward the center.

  There she encountered a proud stone statue that she hesitated to destroy.

  This must be one of Thomas' bonded women, she thought as she gazed up into the beautiful face of the centaur. The expression on that face was distant, sad, but more than anything, lonely.

  The emotion was so poignant that it touched Euryale, and she hesitated, lowering her mace to consider her options.

  She had three doses remaining of her solution, a concoction to restore flesh from stone. Back on earth such a thing had been impossible, but Celestine provided a means for every end, if the doer was willing and capable. Stheno had disdained alchemy, but Euryale had pursued it, and in due course discovered her most prized recipe.

  It would work, and provided the petrification hadn't lasted more than a day, restored life as well. Beyond that, it simply provided fresh meat.

  The time limit was nearing, or perhaps it was past. Euryale glanced around but wasn't really sure. It was past dawn on the day after
the battle, but she cared less for time than most.

  A warm summer's breeze ruffled the tattered remains of her dress, still attached to her belt. She had not bothered to pull new clothes from her hoard. Clothing was unimportant. All she really wanted was to somehow find her way back to her master.

  As she looked up into the face of the lonely looking centaur woman, it occurred to her that she'd seen this particular creature yesterday. She was Thomas' personal mount. She wore jet black armor, but that hadn't been the only thing black about her. Her pelt, and her flesh ... all of it had been black, with silver hair.

  Dim memories stirred within Euryale. Something she had read in a book once about centaurs — an eldritch that looked like one, but wasn't. She had many books on a variety of topics, all dropped over the years by foolish questers. Several of those books had been about monsters though, which would surprise no one given they had all been owned by monster hunters, adventurers, or their ilk.

  What was it ...

  Frowning, Euryale pulled the slave's chains she'd earlier used on her sister out of her hoard and attached them to the statue of the centaur, then applied her solution and waited.

  It took almost ten minutes for the change to come over so large a creature, and Euryale smirked as she saw signs of life.

  The half-horse woman collapsed, shivering as she curled up into a fetal ball, the silvery chains jingling as she gasped and panted with renewed life.

  Euryale waited, and when the spasms passed she asked, "What are you?"

  At the sound of her voice, the centaur uncurled and twisted her upper body, supporting it on her hand as she said, "I ... wha' happened? The last thing I remember ..."

  She had a bit of brogue to her voice, and Euryale thought it made her sound cute, but she was in no mood to go through the whole turned-to-stone-I-saved-you-be-grateful speech. So instead, she crouched next to the woman and several of her snakes lashed to within inches of her face, jaws gaping to present fangs with poison beading at their tips.