by Defendi, Bob
This was the wrong room.
Chapter Fifty-Six
“Now is the time for all good players to come to the aid of their party.”
—Bob Defendi
ie, you son of a bitch!”
Jurkand fought like a cat, meaning that he made himself appear as big as possible, scratched for the groin, and generally sprayed a lot of saliva.
The two guards attacked him, giant men wielding weapons that looked almost like toys in their hands… but they weren’t toys. Not unless you were the type of child that liked to play with entrails.
He ducked under a blade and stumbled backward. These weren’t the most talented fighters in the world, but neither was Jurkand, and what the guards lacked in skill, they made up for in sheer acreage, muscle mass, and applied leverage.
The guard’s sword smashed into the wall, spraying gravel across Jurkand. The little man smiled, feinted, and kicked the one on the left in the groin with all his might. The guard rattled like a bag of coins, but that was the only sign of damage.
The guard chuckled.
“Ah, hell,” Jurkand said then ran.
The guards didn’t run. They walked. He ran ahead of them and rounded the first corner. They clanked loudly behind, close as if they’d teleported right behind him. He turned to find the guards, still walking, rounding the corner ten feet back. That was odd.
When he made it to the next corner, they walked forty feet behind, but when he came around that corner, the sound of their clanking immediately became very loud and close. He glanced over his shoulder, and they rounded the corner not ten feet back.
“Freaking—”
Okay, so they were magical chase guards.
He twisted around another corner and another, and each time he lost sight of them, they miraculously appeared on his heels again. He played the floor plan of the palace through his head until he found a long stretch. Three more corners, and he was there.
The corridor was some hundred feet long, skirting down one side of the Heart of Light. It had no doors along its length, opening into the gong pits at the end. He didn’t know what he’d do when he got there, but it was better than running until he fell over dead.
By the end of the hallway, he had an eighty-foot lead on the guards. He found a door and threw it open, expecting to be hit by the stink of Human waste. Instead, he found a long shaft with rungs hammered into one wall, like God’s staples.
Jurkand glanced back at the guards. Seventy feet. He examined the shaft. Hraldolf had changed the plans. Where did it lead?
The facts fell into place now. Heavy. Unyielding. Facts made by a blacksmith with durability issues.
Gorthander hadn’t come back to rescue him.
That meant Gorthander was dead.
That meant Hraldolf was alive.
That meant they’d failed.
That meant they were all going to die.
If he had been an investment banker instead of a retired overlord, there would have been bullets next to those facts, but his fantasy-world status didn’t change the way they lined up. Besides having all the thats and all the meants on top of one another, it was a pretty bit of logic. Inescapable. Like the guards. Or marriage. Or those criers that shouted in your window to sell you stuff while you’re eating dinner… and unlike the criers, this problem couldn’t be solved with a crossbow bolt, a shovel, and a discreet friend.
He stepped out into the darkness, catching a rung and pulling his weight out over the drop. He craned his neck so he could see the guards the entire time, and started down. When he finally lowered himself below the level of the floor, the clanking sound became much closer. He climbed as fast as he could, and one of the guards eclipsed the light from the doorway. The monster swung out onto the rungs after him.
The shaft was damp, the rungs slick as he descended. Above him the metal of the rungs strained audibly. Flecks of rust drifted down into his eyes, causing them to burn and itch. Faster and faster he climbed, though it was obviously too late.
The sound of snapping rungs announced the great rushing approach of the falling guard. He barely had time to step off into the air before the armored lout smashed into him, carrying him down, down, under the great weight.
He hit with a splash, sending a spray of water into the air even as the guard drove him deep, a wedge carving through the smothering water. He struggled and flailed and managed to get out from beneath the guard, to swim upward even as his lungs burned and complained.
His head burst through the surface. He splashed and gasped in the cold, wet pit. Who put a pool in a shaft in the middle of a castle? He didn’t understand.
He swam, searching for the ladder, but couldn’t find the rungs. That was good and bad. Bad because he couldn’t see a way to climb out. Good because he was pretty sure the sinking guard wore too much armor to swim to the surface.
The light down here shone thin and weak. He peered up at the door, four stories above him. The head of the second guard leaned over the edge. Jurkand relished a good obscene gesture, and he tried several now. Those that didn’t involve his legs and feet at any rate.
A strange, hard form brushed past his leg, massive in this deep, narrow pool. He jerked away with that same panic one feels when caught by a really wicked piece of seaweed. He scanned the surface of the placid water, but could see nothing except cold, inky fluid.
“What the hell?”
A dorsal fin sliced upward through the surface, and everything became clear.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
“Still better look away.”
—Bob Defendi
he squirming, awful little man threw Lotianna to the bed and then climbed on top of her. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she thrashed and fought. This wasn’t happening. Not to her. It wasn’t happening. It was someone else. Someone else.
He reached down, his hand moving along her body, rude, grasping, the nails catching and pulling on her shift. The fingers moved like a rasp, rough on her thigh, then fumbled at himself, loosening clothing, rearranging, getting ready.
She needed to get out of here, to leave her body. She could float out of herself, be another person. Just for the duration. She needed to be gone. She needed to be free. Free.
Lotianna stopped struggling. Her ineffectual slaps quieted. She became cold. Lifeless. This flesh wasn’t hers. This body wasn’t hers. This was merely a piece of meat. A thing. Not her at all. Someone else.
Finally, he stopped his fumbling and smiled down at her. It was time. He was going to do it now. Not to her. To someone else.
No. To her.
Not someone else. Not some stranger. To her. To her body. To her psyche. To her soul. She couldn’t avoid it, wouldn’t avoid it. This was the world she lived in. This was real. She could deny it, or she could face it. She could surrender, or she could fight. Fight.
She reached up with her weak, trembling left hand. The fingers still shook, but she forced them up.
Those fingers wrapped around his throat. She squeezed, but she had no strength, couldn’t so much as force the windpipe closed. The hand just hung there, on his throat, spasming. Not enough. Not enough.
He pulled back, supporting himself on his left arm as he looked down, first at her hand, then at her.
“Ah. I was really rooting for you there,” he said.
“Waid,” she slurred. “I’m nah dun.”
With that, she heaved her body sideways. She was weak, but she managed to hop six inches, catching his supporting elbow with her shoulder. With a twitch, it folded, and his weight came hurtling down at her.
But her hand was still on his throat, her forearm hanging below it. He drove her elbow into the bed, transferring all his weight onto the post of her arm, into her hand. He landed on his own voice box.
He fell off her limp arm and rolled onto his side, gasping. She threw herself up onto the edge of the bed, and swayed to her feet. She couldn’t run. She had to keep from falling. She
stumbled one step and then another. The door loomed closer. A step. A step.
She reached out for the ring on the door. She pulled at it, but her fingers didn’t have the strength. She tried again, and again her fingers slipped off.
A gurgling came from the bed. She needed to get out. She couldn’t get this far and not get out. That wasn’t how this ended.
This time, she pushed her arm through the ring, used her weight to pull the arm as a lever. The metal bit painfully into the flesh of the forearm, but the door scraped open.
“Bitch!” he shouted behind her.
Lotianna stumbled out into the hall. Omar fought six guards on her right, his back to her.
“Ohma!” she screamed.
He shot a glance her way, then back at the guards. They had him pinned down, and he cursed as he renewed his fighting.
“Damico!” he yelled. “She’s down this way! I can’t get to her!”
Then Henchman smashed into her, knocking her into the wall across from the door. He pressed against her. The tears started again. At least she wasn’t in front of Damico. It was only Omar who would see.
“Thought you were going to get away,” Henchman rasped.
“Scru yu,” she said.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Omar bellowed, and Lotianna faced him. He stood there, his face a mask of fury, as Henchman fumbled with her shift from behind. He pulled his attention from the guards, and raced toward her, his back exposed.
She sensed Henchman craning to see, and heaved her head back, smashing it into his nose. He bellowed and fell into the doorway, but caught the frame and hurled himself at her again.
Omar ran three steps, before one of the guards raked a blade across his back, spraying the corridor with blood and bits of rib. He bellowed like a wounded ox and stumbled, regaining his balance even as a second guard hacked, severing his left arm at the elbow.
But he didn’t stop, he didn’t slow. Heaving himself forward, his blood spilled out. He continued, his eyes already dead, his mouth still screaming, his ax raised in the air.
It came down in an awful sweep, and Lotianna looked as Henchman caught the blade in the head.
Both of them teetered, blood spilling onto the stone, then they fell into one another, and then to the ground.
Lotianna shook. The two mutilated bodies glistened as an expanding pool of blood, bone, and gristle spilled out on the floor. They were dead. Beyond dead. They were destroyed.
She looked up at the guards, six of them. They filled the hallway like a single-file line of boulders, rolling calmly down the hall.
Omar was gone. Damico and Arithian and Gorthander were nowhere to be found. She was alone. Alone in front of the unstoppable force. At one time in her life, she had felt entitled to the world, like enemies were nothing but a perfectly metered challenge that she could defeat with methodical ease, but since she’d changed, since she’d begun to feel real, nothing was so certain. She stared at this wall of metal and muscle, and knew they were just men, and she was just a woman. Helpless with the drugs.
Omar. Her eyes welled, but the tears weren’t for her. Omar.
It used to feel like the world was a game for her to win. Now she knew it was nothing more than a series of events, any one of which could destroy her. Six men. Six new, potential killers. Or captors. Or tormentors. Did it matter?
She ran.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
“One Player Character left.”
—Bob Defendi
raldolf gazed down at Gorthander and stroked the side of the dwarf’s face. “My pet.”
“Master.”
A thump sounded by the door as the bard stepped into view. What was his name? Oh, yes.
“Arithian. Where have you been?”
“I went on a drink run, you bastard. You weren’t supposed to start without me.”
Hraldolf didn’t know what that meant, but nodded. “So, it comes to this.”
“Prithee, it does.”
“Do you even know what ‘prithee’ means?”
“Shut up.” Arithian circled.
“Do you think you can beat me?” Hraldolf smiled, causing the torches in the room to flare.
“My dear, sweet, overlord,” Arithian said. “I’m immune to charm spells.”
Hraldolf shrugged. “Are you immune to dwarven clerical berserkers?”
“Gorthander could never kill me.”
“I never really liked you,” Gorthander said. “All those thees and thous. Talk like a damn normal person!”
Arithian frowned, doubtful. He looked back and forth between Hraldolf and Gorthander. “Don’t do this, Hraldolf. We can’t let you destroy the world.”
“But I must,” Hraldolf said.
“Because the adventure says so?”
“Shut up,” Hraldolf said.
“This is madness.”
“This is my life’s work.” Hraldolf glowered.
“Why?”
The words spilled out of Hraldolf faster than he could think them. “Because I have this face! Because I’ve had to spend my life as a pariah. Because my father left me, my brother left me. Alone. Can you imagine what it’s like to be alone, no matter how many people are in the room? Can you imagine what it’s like to know no one can ever look you in the face? No woman? No man? Even your family flinches when they see you? Imagine that!” The rage boiled in him. A rage he barely understood.
Arithian shook his head. “Fine, Phantom. Go back under your opera house.”
He rolled his eyes as if he thought this were some badly thought-out story. This was no story. This was Hraldolf’s life.
“Do not mock me, Bard.”
“No.” Arithian shook his head. “Please. Tell me about your pain.” His voice dripped sarcasm.
“I will kill you,” Hraldolf said. “I will kill you all.”
“What a great way to know love,” Arithian said.
“What do you know about it?” Hraldolf said. “My spies report on you. A woman on each arm, the others gazing at you with dreamy expressions. You can never know my pain!”
“Let me get my violin,” Arithian said.
This little son of a bitch. This silly adventurer was mocking him? He’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad. Didn’t he know what Hraldolf felt? Didn’t he know what it was like to suffer this much?
No. No one in the world did. That’s why. That’s why he was doing it.
“Gorthander,” Hraldolf said. “Kill him.”
The dwarf screamed and launched himself at the bard. Hraldolf let Gorthander handle it. This was it. He finally had his answer.
Up until now, the pieces of his life had fallen into place one at a time. The peasants, the women, the art. He thought of these things one by one, and with each, he felt more like a real person. Had he been hollow for so many years because of the pain? Was that why he’d been so two-dimensional? So silly? So shallow?
Maybe, but with this sudden exposure to his own inner turmoil, he understood. He’d never noticed it before. He’d never seen all that anguish, all that loneliness below the surface.
The clash of weapons rang behind him, the Dwarf snarling with battle rage.
With this last piece, he finally felt whole. He could sense it all click together. This was it. He was a complete person.
The dwarf roared. Hraldolf heard a wail of pain from Arithian.
Hraldolf reached into his belt pouches, pulled out the two Artifacts. He looked at them. This was all he needed. With these, he could destroy the world.
Gorthander had opened a large wound in Arithian’s belly, and the bard lay on the floor now, gasping. Gorthander smiled above him.
“What do you want, master?” Gorthander asked as if he sensed Hraldolf’s attention.
“I want to destroy the world,” Hraldolf whispered.
Gods help him, he did. He had to end it all.
“Should I kill him?”
�
�Go ahead.” Hraldolf raised the Artifacts. “It won’t matter.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“You didn’t think this was going to end well did you?”
—Bob Defendi
amico stumbled back into the corridor, his breath aching in his lungs. He came on a sight of slaughter. Past three dead guards lay Omar and what used to be a man. Omar’s back was open, the armor rent, bone and bits of lung exposed. The other man’s head had been cloven in two by Omar’s ax.
But where was Lotianna?
He stumbled down the hall, staring down on the body of his dead friend, but couldn’t bring himself to grieve. Lotianna was still out there, still in trouble. Omar had said she was here.
He noticed the open door next to the bodies, stumbled over to it, and checked inside.
A bed in the center of the room looked rumpled from some kind of struggle. Her dress lay to one side. He was too late. Dear God, too late.
He stepped in, the pain pounding in his heart. This was where he’d failed her.
Why even bother going on? He’d already failed the woman he loved. Maybe he should let the world end. He still believed that, didn’t he? If he let the world end, he’d be released. He wasn’t sure that meant he went home; maybe the alternative was that he simply ceased to be. That would be good too.
Another racking pain hit him, this one making his knee invisible. He hissed through gritted teeth and waited for it to subside. Maybe he didn’t have to go home. Maybe it was too late for everyone.
He started to leave and saw an armoire, the door ajar. After limping over, he opened the door. There were clothes inside, and at the bottom, a chest. His knee felt solid again, so he genuflected and opened the lid.
There was a sock inside. A pile of new batteries. Some guns from Star Wars action figures. One cufflink. A television remote control.
And it started to make sense.
Plot coupons. He’d seen them in so many games and stories. You needed to find the red key to open the red door. You needed to find the ingredients to make the poison. You had to get the pieces to reassemble the Artifact. Plot coupons. Collect them all, and you can progress to act three. They were like storytelling trading cards.
