by C. M. Carney
“I’m bored with your tales.”
“No, you’re not,” Myrthendir said with a grin. “Like me, you understand that true power lies in knowledge. It is amazing what you can learn if you know where to look.” He removed the arboleth egg from the stasis container and held it up to the light. The larva inside the opaque sack spasmed in fury. Gryph felt the clarion call of the aetherial monstrosity tug at his mind once more. The larva knew who he was, knew that he had killed its parent. No, that was not accurate, not its parent, but its former self. This larva was not an offspring of the arboleth Gryph had slain, but a continuation.
Gryph had no time to contemplate the horror of that truth as Myrthendir spoke again, eyes glued to the arboleth egg.
“Did you know the last Stone King had one of these? It was plundered during an Alliance raid. He believed it could help him defeat the Prime. Had he been stronger of mind he would have been right. But he was a desperate and broken man, and the Prime used those weaknesses against him.”
The once luminescent diamond at the crown's brow flared with darkness, sucking in the light around it and Gryph felt a deep sadness seep into his soul. Myrthendir waved his hand over the cube and a section of wall flowed apart revealing a small alcove. He eased the leathery sack into the slot and the cube wall flowed closed. The pressure in Gryph’s mind disappeared and for a moment the world was silent. Then, from deep inside the cube a low hum rose at the edge of hearing, like a distant swarm of bees.
“By the time his artificers had finished building the warborn the Stone King’s mind was gone. He had become an avatar for the Prime, and with their guidance, he built this.” The elf lord placed his hands on the adamantine cube. “It was to be the ultimate weapon in the war, built by a Thalmiir to be used not against the Dark Ascendancy, but by them against all the free peoples of the Realms. This is how the Prime operate. They will tolerate no sentience but their own. They infest, infect and devour.”
Gryph knew the Prince Regent, this aberrant elf that was both more and less than Prime, spoke the truth, and it terrified him.
“I ensured that the Prime have seen what I have done here today. They know the weapon is found, and when they return to Korynn, they will come for it.” At Myrthendir’s touch, the top of the cube flowed open and the low humming grew to the cacophonous buzzing of rage. “I say, let them.”
A torrent of black fog zipped up and out of the vessel, spinning and twirling in the air, like a million tiny mites on the hunt for prey. The black fog soared and twined into the air above Myrthendir and stopped like a predator sizing up its prey. It pulsed and throbbed, spun upwards and flew at Gryph.
32
The heat coming off Avernerius’ blade pummeled into them like a tsunami. Ovyrm and Tifala took involuntary steps back. Errat shielded his eyes. Only Wick seemed unfazed by the punishing heat, reaching a hand close to the inferno and grinning like a fool.
Whiffs of heat and smoke flowed off the blade and twisted towards the warlock as if drawn to him by some kind of magnetic field. When they touched his outstretched fingers, they twined around them and were absorbed, sucked in through the pores of his skin.
He giggled and turned to Tifala, his eyes the color of glowing coals. “This feels amazing.”
“I’m sure it does honey, but we’re kinda in a rush here.”
“Right,” Wick said, but a spasm deep in his gut stopped him short and he smacked a fist to his chest like a man who’d eaten too much rich food. He belched and a jet of flame erupted from his mouth. It tore at the space between Tifala and Ovyrm forcing both to dive out of the way. “Oh, shit, sorry.”
A guttural growl came from Avernerius. Wick wondered if the demon was just displeased by Wick’s heat theft, or if it was something more. It’s probably pissed to be bound to such an idiot.
Errat helped Tifala and Ovyrm to their feet and the adjudicator glared at him. “If we survive this day, I will teach you discipline. Otherwise people will die.”
“I hope you’re better at it than my father,” Wick said hanging his head in genuine contrition.
“Can we turn our attention back to knocking down the impenetrable door please?” Tifala asked.
Wick nodded and looked up at Avernerius. “You guys may want to find something to hide behind.” He gave the massive demon some unseen signal and the abyssal terror gripped its blade of magma in both hands and pushed it into the fissure it had smashed into the door.
For a moment the door resisted the onslaught of heat. Nobody in the room breathed for several seconds as they watched, but then a dim glow appeared on the surface surging to bright orange. The glow grew brighter, and a hiss rose as molten metal and stone oozed from the wound and splattered to the ground at the demon’s feet.
Avernerius pushed forward, the massive muscles of its back and shoulders flexing with the effort, and slowly the sword moved forwards. Instinctively, everyone backed up a dozen feet. Gas and heat built inside the growing puncture and with it pressure. Splatters of molten rock and metal spattered out every few seconds sizzling against the demon’s hide but doing no damage.
After several moments the blade burst through the door and Wick ordered the demon to remove the blade. Wick tried to peer through, but the puncture was several feet above his head. Under other circumstance his pathetic jumping would have been amusing.
The demon grumbled again and Wick turned to Errat. “Can you see anything?” Errat eased forward, his natural resistance to fire, while not as great as Wick’s new immunity, allowed him to get close enough to peer through.
“I can see Gryph. He is bound by arachnid webbing, but he is alive. Myrthendir is at the control station for the entire city.” Errat turned to the others, his eyes wide in worry. “And he’s wearing the Iron Crown.”
“Iron Crown?” Tifala asked.
“It grants the wearer the power to control the weapon.” Errat shifted to get another view and his eyes went wide. “I see my brothers, the warborn,” Errat said in wonder.
Wick, Tifala and Ovyrm exchanged panicked looks and then Wick turned back to Avernerius. With a nod the chthonic monster pushed the hilt of its sword back into the hole and reactivated the blade. Slowly it eased the magma’s cutting power around the perimeter of the door. In a few more minutes they would be through.
Let it be in time, Wick begged.
ΡΡΡΡΡ
Gryph tried to move as the contrails of black fog screamed down at him, but the webbing had hardened and held him immobile. Desperate, he sent a surge of mana into his Ring of Air Shield hoping beyond hope that the magical item’s cooldown period had expired.
He felt the rush of expanding air as the shield activated. The hardened webbing around his hand and forearm shattered, sending splinters of stone in all directions. The air shield enveloped his head and face a second before the black fog, and the wave splattered around the invisible globe like rainwater on a windshield.
The deluge of particles spun up and crashed against the globe of solidified air with a thud he could both hear and feel. The black fog had all the will of the Prime with none of the intelligence, a force more animal than sentient.
He toggled the ring’s interface open and grimaced as the shield’s health dropped with each assault. I have maybe another minute before it fails. He tried to listen for the hissing, to feel the heat, hoping his friends got through before his shield failed, but the thunderous sound of the black fog made it impossible to hear. Hurry Wick.
Then a horrible thought filled his mind. The others won’t know about the black fog. I need to warn them. I need to get free. His mind raced through all of his spells, powers and skills, scrambling for options.
He scanned through his interface like a speed reader, hoping his subconscious mind would discover something he hadn’t. He couldn’t conceive of any way his spells, Flying Stalactite, Animate Rope, Water Blast, Demon Scales, Halo of Air, Mind Shield, Telepathic Bond, Detoxification and Minor Healing, could help him escape. But he could warn his frie
nds.
He cast Telepathic Bond and stretched his mind out to Wick. He felt the link between their minds form, but it felt distant, garbled and static filled, like a bad cell phone connection. Wick, Gryph screamed through the link. The weapon is not the warborn. It is some kind of swarming creature. Beware. Take all precautions. He felt dumb saying that last bit. It wasn’t like his friends were idiots who thought they were hacking their way into a Sandals Resort.
Gryph? Came a garbled response in Wick’s voice, before it cut out in a hailstorm of fuzz. Gryph could hear what sounded like the gnome swearing far in the distance for a few seconds then the static grew worse and the link broke.
His mind scanned his skills and their perks, desperate for some kind of plan, but nothing came to mind until his eyes passed over Soul Magic. It was paradoxically his highest level and least useful of his skills because he did not know a single spell in the sphere. He’d reached Level 27 only because he had spent a Divine Perk Point on Assimilation and then stolen the knowledge from Ouzerio the Barrow King’s mind before killing him.
He was about to swat the screen aside in disgust when he spotted Soul Bind. He had gained the Apprentice Tier Ability by reaching Level 20 in Soul Magic. It allowed him to bind a creature, beast or animal to him if he could beat it in a contest of wills. He’d used it only once and that mental battle, against a chaos corrupted dire wolf, had been horrendous.
His eyes snapped up to the swarm of particles assaulting his shield. Could it work? Deciding he had nothing to lose, Gryph closed his eyes and cleared his mind as best as he was able. First, he cast Mind Shield, which enabled his Wisdom to temporarily borrow the score of his highest Attribute for purposes of mental defense. His 59 points of Dexterity was more than double his 27 points of Wisdom and he felt more aware of the universe and of himself.
Hoping the boost to his mental fortitude would be enough Gryph activated Soul Bind and pushed his will towards the black fog. The strands of soul magic stretched towards the swirling maelstrom and then he felt the fog.
It was a mindless weapon, composed of millions upon millions of microscopic motes of something trapped midway between energy and matter. To Gryph it looked like the Realms equivalent of nano technology. He pushed his mind further, and a prompt blared red in his vision.
Soul Bind has Failed.
The Black Fog is neither animal nor beast nor a sentient being and therefore has no soul to bind.
Well crap to that, Gryph thought, a part of his mind growing more fearful. How do I fight these things? He glanced up at Myrthendir and pushed his will into the elf lord’s mind. He knew, from Soul Bind’s description, that binding a sentient soul was an evil act and would push him further into the dark side, but he didn’t see another option.
The Prince Regent’s eyes snapped up and locked onto Gryph’s. The elf lord bared his teeth with an animalistic snarl and then the strongest mental shield Gryph had ever felt snapped down like a bear trap, chasing Gryph out. He recoiled and Myrthendir’s mind lashed out at his own, like the quick strike of a scorpion’s tail.
If only I had time to consume you, he felt the aberrant’s stained mind more than heard it. The tendrils of his soul bind reacted like a child touching a hot stove, and he suspected that even with his upped mental defenses, Myrthendir was more than capable of backing up the threat.
But then the elf lord returned his attention to the rune covered control panel and the tendrils of Soul Bind searched once more. They twined about the adamantine cube and deep inside Gryph felt the mind of the arboleth larva.
He focused his will into a needle thin dagger of psychic potency and jabbed it into the mind of the larva. He expected it to scream in psionic agony, to rage and flail as it tried to pull itself away, but what happened was much more disturbing.
The larva was no longer Prime. It was as if Myrthendir had wiped the mind of any self-awareness. He has enslaved the larva by overwriting it with a mote of his own self. Gone was the superiority and the rage at inferior life forms. Gone was the need for conquest and genocide. Nothing was left of the Prime mind but perfect order and harmony, an organizing intelligence with no more personality than a common AI back on Earth.
Gryph already knew the Game Mechanics, the Realms equivalent of the laws of nature, could be hacked. That was how Alistair Bechard had invaded the Realms from Earth. He’d rewritten the underlying laws of nature and altered the Game Mechanics to his benefit. Now, without realizing it, Myrthendir had done something similar.
He’s built the Realms’ version of a supercomputer, Gryph realized in shock. If I can just find the right subroutines, the ones that control the black fog. He pushed in further and he could feel the black fog itself.
He had suspected to feel the malevolence of the Prime, but what he felt was worse. A cold, calculated intelligence flowed around Gryph as he pushed his mind inside. It was desperate to control all, to bring order to the chaos, all in service to the mind that created it.
Gryph searched for a back door. He knew that Myrthendir would be unfamiliar with the concept of computing and hoped he would not notice the infiltration.
Gryph sent a reluctant thank you to his long-dead father who had insisted Gryph learn the basics of coding as a child. He fed a simple one-word order into the structured alien mind and hoped. STOP!
The world got quieter and Gryph opened his eyes. The black fog hung motionless as the last few seconds of his Air Shield ticked down to nothing and disappeared with the whoosh of air filling a vacuum.
He knew he had mere moments before Myrthendir discovered what he had done. I have to get out of these bonds. He reached deeper into the larva’s mind and sent another command into the black fog, just as Myrthendir’s suspicious gaze tuned from his control panel to Gryph and then to the immobile swarm of mites. The black fog quivered for a moment and then rushed towards Gryph.
Gryph had once been caught in a sandstorm while serving in the Middle East. It had torn at clothing and skin and left him temporarily blind. What Gryph was now experiencing was far worse and the scouring torrent of microscopic motes ripped at clothing and skin alike. But they also tore at the hardened bonds that held him. His health dropped a mere 10%, but the pain made it feel like he was on the brink of death.
He fell to the floor and ordered the black fog to dissipate. The mites flew up and coalesced once more. Myrthendir jumped over the console and smashed down at him with his staff. Gryph activated Parry, but he was near blind and the elf lord’s blow knocked him back.
Gryph’s connection to the black fog snapped like a taut rubber band suddenly breaking and the recoil felt like a punch to the face from a baalgrath. He staggered, barely avoiding Myrthendir’s next attack. He used Counter Attack, landing a blow to Myrthendir’s side. The Prince Regent grunted in pain and Gryph pressed the attack, spinning and landing another blow before he saw Myrthendir grinning at him.
Gryph only had a moment to wonder why the elf lord was grinning when the black fog swarmed around his head. Claustrophobia took him as the mites filled his nose and mouth. Tears exploded from his closed eyes and he could not breath. A childhood memory of being swarmed by hundreds of black flies in the woods near Bow Lake punched into his mind and he fell to his knees hacking, desperate for breath.
A distant part of Gryph’s awareness heard a metallic clang through the pain and terror, but he was far too focused on the burning behind his eyes to pay heed to the sound. The minuscule motes swam inside his vision and pushed into his mind.
His muscles calmed, and he felt his resistance to the onslaught of the black fog wane. Then a vortex of darkness pulled him down threatening to smother him.
“Goodbye Gryph. I am saddened that you would not join me willingly, but life so rarely gives us what we desire.”
Then there was nothing to Gryph but obedience.
Myrthendir grinned down on him. “Our friends have arrived just in time.”
Gryph’s mouth opened, and he vomited up the stream of black fog. It swarmed
above him, diminished in size and dove back into the adamantine cube. What little remained of Gryph was ordered to stand. He did as commanded, ignoring all the pains in his body as if they were another’s burden to bear. Myrthendir looked over Gryph’s shoulder and told him to turn around. He did and the sight of his friends, a sight that would have caused a ‘fuck yeah’ fist pump moments before, didn’t even stir the smallest of smiles.
