by Joe Jackson
“I just don’t want you to get too puffed up now that you’re a king…”
Max snorted. “Around this group, that is highly unlikely.”
Delkantar approached the cave mouth cautiously, still examining the tracks, though he looked up periodically to make sure nothing was watching from the darkness. Leighandra got the sense he was trying to gauge how recent the tracks were, and what they said about the cat’s general routines. He hesitated when he reached the cave mouth, but then crept a few steps closer and into the very edge of the shadow.
A loud click sounded, and the ranger muttered, “Oh, crap,” before several projectiles shot from within the cave and hit him. His armor fended off most of them, but one got him in the arm and he yelped in shock. He brushed the dart free of his flesh as he retreated back, and he laughed at the pitiful attack. It wasn’t until he started scratching compulsively at the wound that he and the others realized something was wrong.
Yiilu rushed forward and cut his tunic away enough to see the wound, and already the area around it was black. “Necrosis!” she gasped. “By the Earth Mother… Audrei, quickly! Get some water boiling immediately. I need a length of cord, someone.”
Max pulled Taeranna’s hair from his belt and handed it to the druidess. She regarded it skeptically for only an instant before she used it to tie off the ranger’s arm. Black lines traced up and down his arm away from the wound, and Delkantar gritted his teeth and then screamed. The druidess put her hand to his forehead and whispered a prayer to the Earth Mother, and the ranger’s eyes rolled back up into his head before he passed out.
“That will buy us some precious minutes, but not many,” Yiilu said. “Starlenia, heat one of your knives in Audrei’s fire and prepare to cut away any flesh that does not respond to our treatment. Leighandra, mash these berries into a paste and then mix it with a few drops of wine. Lion, Galadon: See if you two can find any kashar plants and bring me a couple of their wide fronds. If they have flowers or berries, bring a few of each as well. Max…”
“I shall watch the cave,” he said, drawing his sword and taking up a protective stance before his friends.
Everyone set to the tasks the druidess assigned them. Leighandra looked at Delkantar every few minutes, his brow slick with sweat but his breathing slow and quiet. Something was definitely amiss in all this. What sort of cat set dart traps on the entrance to its lair? Had those been there already, left over from when the mine was abandoned? Or was the cat not a cat at all, but some hybrid being never seen before that would prove cunning and wicked?
The chronicler finished her task and handed the mixture to Yiilu. The druidess added it to Audrei’s pot of water, which was slowly coming to a boil. The men returned with a handful of the fronds the druid had requested, but no flowers or berries.
“No worries there. They would not be immediately useful, just helpful to have on hand for any such future mishaps,” Yiilu told them. She crushed one of the leaves and added it to the pot. “I suspect once this poultice reaches a boil, we will be able to save him, but all we can do for the moment is wait.”
Leighandra swallowed at that. Though he was asleep, the black lines were still tracing along the length of Delkantar’s arm, only held at bay by the tourniquet and his druid-induced hibernation-sleep. Yiilu was in a race against time, but the mixture she added to the pot didn’t seem to care one bit, taking every usual agonizing minute to come to a boil. But eventually it did, and the druidess poured it – completely uncooled – onto the wound.
The ranger’s flesh sizzled as the boiling mixture burned his skin, but the blackness around the wound disappeared. The damage was still there, but the flesh was red now, blistered and torn, sore and weeping. The ebon lines slowly receded, but Delkantar’s arm was a mess, and Yiilu waited until the blackness had completely dissipated before she untied the cord. Delkantar groaned in his sleep, and then his eyes shot open and he screamed in agony.
Yiilu was already applying one of her salves to the wounds on his arm. Audrei came and laid her hand on him, that soft glow emanating from it again. The ranger sighed and relaxed under her touch, and Yiilu stopped applying the salve when she saw the effect Audrei’s healing ministrations were having. Leighandra rose and approached, and she watched in wide-eyed shock as the ranger’s wounds sealed and healed over.
Audrei paid no mind to the looks she received, her eyes closed as she prayed quietly in the luranar tongue and kept her hand to Delkantar. “Feeling better, my friend?” she asked when she opened her eyes and met his gaze.
Delkantar looked at his arm, then back up at Audrei. “I knew I was right about you,” he said, sitting up. “Thank you both. I can’t believe a stupid little dart just almost killed me.”
“That was the fastest-acting venom I have ever seen whose effects were so devastating,” Yiilu mused. “We must take great care if we continue farther into this mine.”
“Let me go ahead and take a look,” Starlenia said. “We used to protect areas of our land with cleverly-hidden tripwires and such. I may be able to root out anything else that was left in this entryway.”
She set off to her task. Delkantar insisted he felt fine again, so the rest of them waited on the rogue. Starlenia returned after a few minutes at a brisk jog. “There’s something in there. Not sure how far, but it’s not near the entrance. Doesn’t seem to be any other tricks or traps at the entrance, but I can hear breathing deeper in.”
“Not like a dragon’s breathing, I hope,” Leighandra muttered.
“Not that I can tell, but it is loud.”
They moved in as a group, and Leighandra called upon her arcane song once more to light their way. Max took the lead, carrying his shield before him to ward off any more darts. They passed a rack of hand crossbows that had apparently fired the volley that caught Delkantar, but there were no signs of others. Starlenia examined the triggering mechanism, but it wasn’t anything extraordinary. The mine itself had no track for carts of any kind, and the floor was hard stone. Every so often, loose grit would fall from the ceiling, and it reminded Leighandra of just how precarious the stability of the bluff might be.
There were several side rooms off of the main corridor, but only one held anything of interest. It had a bedroll and several chests, as though someone had taken up residence here. If that was the case, they were long gone by Delkantar’s estimate. The bedroll hadn’t seen use in months from what he could tell, but Vo’rii’s growl when she sniffed the bedding said it hadn’t belonged to anyone trustworthy.
The chests held little but for some empty bags and a rolled-up parchment. Delkantar unrolled the parchment and his eyebrows went up, but then he looked at the women, rolled it back up, and passed it to Galadon. The human paladin had a similar reaction, and so Max leaned over to see what they were looking at.
“Is that… a demon of some kind?” he asked.
“A succubus,” Galadon confirmed.
Lion took a look. “It’s a stunning drawing,” he said with little other reaction.
Leighandra swiped it from the paladin’s hand and took a look for herself. No doubt the artist had some considerable talent, but who drew a picture of a nude succubus and then left it rolled up in a cave somewhere? And then there were inconsistencies… Leighandra raised her own brows and looked at the men, most of whom had the good grace to be embarrassed.
“She has snake-like features,” she said. “Scales, that nose, the set of her eyes and their pupils. Could it be this was a half-syrinthian, half-succubus? Or are there winged syrinthians?”
Audrei took a look and scratched absently behind an ear. “Could it be this was the occupant of the cave?”
“With a drawing of herself? Seems a bit odd,” Delkantar said.
“Who or whatever she is, she’s not what I heard breathing deeper in this mine,” Starlenia said. “Let’s keep moving. You boys can stare at the naked woman later.”
Yiilu snorted, something Leighandra had never heard, and the druidess accompanied their O
konashai companion back out into the main corridor. They continued along, and Leighandra gave Delkantar a cool look as he tucked the rolled-up parchment into his belt.
“What?” he demanded.
“Boys,” she returned.
“It’s a clue…”
“It certainly is. It’s just a matter of to what.”
The ranger waved off her nagging and sped up to take point again. They passed a few other turn-offs and side rooms, but Starlenia didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The sound of the heavy breathing grew more pronounced the farther in they went. They headed directly toward it, only pausing to make certain nothing would come out behind them to cut off their retreat if necessary.
The center of the bluff, assuming they had gone that far, opened up into a wide cavern. Scaffolding was built along every rock face, abandoned and left to rot now, but Leighandra could see that once, there had been numerous veins of something here. Whether it had been gold, iron ore, or something else, she wasn’t sure, but the men of the area had done their utmost to strip it from the land. She wondered if such perturbed Yiilu, but the druidess seemed to pay little mind to their surroundings.
The heavy breathing turned out to be nothing of the sort, instead resulting from the wind blowing into and sucking out of the cave network. Here, it was louder and disconcerting, but at least it wasn’t a dragon…
What was more interesting was the creature that lay caged at the cavern’s center. Now, they could see the reason for the confusion of the tracks. The creature was massive, easily twice the size of Galrinthor. It was leonine in appearance, except where the head should have been, there was instead a humanoid torso. The creature’s head was leonine, and the human-like torso was still covered in fur, but this was something Leighandra had never heard of, much less seen before. Rounding out its odd appearance were two massive, impressively-feathered wings. She thought of sphinxes but wasn’t sure this quite fit the description; what was more, sphinxes were completely mythical. There were no records of any such beings ever existing upon Citaria.
The creature rose to its feet and its humanoid hands gripped the bars of the cage. “For what purpose have you come?”
The companions looked around at each other. “Yiilu?” Max prompted.
“The seal points directly at it,” she answered.
“Will you attack us if we set you free?” the luranar king asked.
“My place is not to attack, but to question. For what purpose have you come?”
“We seek the jade seal in your possession,” Max answered, moving forward. There was no sign of any key to the cage’s oversized lock. He pulled forth the Sword of the North Wind and cleaved the lock in two, then stepped back.
The creature opened the gate and stepped forth from its cage, stretching out to tower above the luranar. Its wingspan was incredible. “For months I have been in that dreadful prison! Have you dispatched the one who captured me?”
“Months?” Delkantar echoed. “Tracks weren’t that old… they couldn’t have been…”
“There’s no one else here but us, sir,” Galadon said. “Do you have the seal, and will you give it to us if so?”
“If you can answer my riddle, I will give you what you wish.”
“I take it the one who caged you couldn’t answer it?” Starlenia asked.
“He misunderstood what you wish. There is a vast difference between what one wants and what one needs. When one makes a wish, it is often with the former in mind, but when their wishes are granted, it is the latter they receive.”
“Great riddle. Can we have the seal now?”
The creature smiled, but its leonine countenance looked nothing shy of predatory when it grinned. “Answer me this, if you can: Six men and one woman undertook a journey which lasted one year. During the journey, they stopped at each one’s home, and each left one gift at each house, including their own. The woman, however, died along the journey, and only made it to six of the homes. If each home contained the same amount of value at the start, and each gift was of the same value, whose home was the poorer for the woman’s death?”
Leighandra did her best to memorize the riddle as quickly as possible.
“How many guesses do we get?” Delkantar asked.
“Silence,” Yiilu said, holding her hand up. “Do not answer. Come with me a moment.”
They followed the druidess a short distance away, and the creature stood with its arms folded across its humanoid torso, still smiling. That wasn’t exactly comforting to Leighandra.
“Tell me you know the answer,” Starlenia said, “because this riddle doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. There doesn’t seem to be enough information to solve it. The obvious guess would be the woman’s, since if she visited six homes, wouldn’t… but, no. Does it stand to reason they started at her home? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Leighandra, have you ever encountered this riddle? Did perhaps your mother ever mention it to you?” Yiilu asked.
“Not that I can recall, and being a storyteller, I think I’d remember.”
“I seem to remember something like this from one of my visits to your homeland, but this is not an elven riddle, is it?” Max asked, and Yiilu shook her head. “Was it a czarikk parable? Was this a story shared by the scale-folk, perhaps, and that I heard translated into elvish?”
“Yes, I think it was, though I am having difficulty recalling the answer. It seems like a mathematical question, but it is not. As Starlenia said, there is information lacking, but that was never the point. It was supposed to speak to something the czarikk believed, but what was it?” Yiilu asked no one in particular.
Delkantar looked over his shoulder. “So, what happens if we answer incorrectly, can you tell us that at least?”
“You die, mortal.”
“You mean you’ll kill us?”
“I cannot say how, only that you will die. Only the ones this seal was meant for will properly answer this riddle, and those who fail will meet their end. And then I will have to return the seals that led you here to their rightful protectors. Please do not answer incorrectly. I do hate to travel, especially so late in the year,” the creature returned, spreading its wings out to look at them.
“Is this a joke?” Starlenia whispered.
“If it is, it’s not a funny one,” Audrei sighed.
“A czarikk parable, yes… I think I remember,” Max said. “On my first visit to Queen Tiyaana’s court, there were czarikk emissaries there as well, and they told this parable, though it didn’t translate exactly into elvish, much less into our own. Now, hearing it in the trade tongue… I’m trying to remember. Circles, numbers… this is not so different than the story Starlenia told. It is not about the numbers or the values, but the people. Come.”
The luranar king strode over and stood straight before the creature. “Would you please repeat the riddle, sir?”
“Six men and one woman undertook a journey which lasted one year. During the journey, they stopped at each one’s home, and each left one gift at each house, including their own. The woman, however, died along the journey, and only made it to six of the homes. If each home contained the same amount of value at the start, and each gift was of the same value, whose home was the poorer for the woman’s death?”
Max nodded as the repetition seemed to confirm his thoughts. “Ours,” he said. “Our home is the poorer for it, for we are all one, all interconnected, one family below the heavens.”
The sphinx-like creature didn’t react at first, and Leighandra feared the worst. But then that smile creased its face again, less predatory now, and it bowed low, though it was still as tall as Max when it did. “When you stand before the czarikk, you will know the words by which to capture their hearts,” the creature said.
It placed its fingers into the center of its chest and then opened it like a cabinet. Leighandra wasn’t the only one to gasp as they saw this was no creature, but a construct of some kind given a semblance of life. That was a truly am
azing use of artificing and the arcane, and the companions stood amazed. And there, in place of its heart, was the fifth jade seal. It knelt down so that Max could take possession of it. “Take this with my blessing and that of the gods.”
There was a slow clap from the rear of the chamber, and the friends whirled around to behold the massive form of a half-demon. The man was easily seven feet tall, muscular and dark with all ebon features. He wore blackened leather armor, but unlike the suits worn by some of the friends, his was covered with the tools of the trade that clearly said killer. He wasn’t carrying any swords or other large blades on his hips or back, but Leighandra knew that with serilian-rir, that could be a bad sign.
“Well done,” he said. “I’ve been trying to coax that stone out of this fool for months. I suppose this explains why starvation and torture failed to work. Fortunately, the same will not hold true for the rest of you.”
Galadon scowled. “Who are you, and what business do you have with the seals?”
“In most circles, I am known as BlackWing. Don’t worry your pretty little heads about what I want the seals for. Rest assured you won’t like it, and you’ll try to stop me, and I’ll kill you. So, let’s get to it.”
“If you insist,” the knight said, drawing his greatsword.
“Will you aid us?” Delkantar asked the sphinx as he drew his own swords.
“That is not my place, mortal. I am a guardian. We do not take sides.”
“Fireblade would beg to disagree!” Starlenia said. After hesitating, she pulled forth the bone dagger rather than her second kukri. “Look at this fool: too stupid to even bring a knife to a sword fight.”
BlackWing buried his hands in the folds of his cloak, and when he pulled them forth, he had bladed cesti on them. He spat something on the back of them and then smiled.
Delkantar straightened up. “Tell me that’s not the same venom I was hit with…”
“Oh no, young human. This is far more potent. And if you think being stabbed with it was painful, wait until I sink my fangs into you.”
