Death by Cliché

by Defendi, Bob

  But Carl was working it backward, perhaps in an attempt to be less cliché. In this adventure, Damico wasn’t trying to collect the plot coupons.

  Hraldolf was.

  And from what Damico saw, he’d collected a lot of other things along the way. But Damico knew now. He understood the shape of it. The Artifact was a plot coupon. Hraldolf had it, and he could destroy the world.

  And Damico suspected what it was. This was so much worse, because he knew they’d failed. Worse because he knew Gorthander couldn’t win. Jurkand couldn’t win. Only Damico would know how to use the Artifact when he saw it, and he’d sent the others into the lion’s den.

  He’d lost.

  He’d never make it back there in time to stop Hraldolf. That meant they would all die. Too late for him to get back to his body. Too late for Lotianna, if she was still alive. Too late.

  He hung his head. What had he done? Why had he let his emotions get in the way? It was all so obvious. He should have understood in the beginning.

  But he didn’t, and now he’d failed them all. All those people he’d brought to life would die. It was all his fault.

  No.

  He forced himself to his feet. He had to go to get the Artifact. Keep fighting. Maybe Hraldolf would monologue. Damico had to keep fighting.

  A scream echoed down the hall.

  He ran out of the room, and heard the scream again. Lotianna. She was still alive. Alive and somewhere to the left. Still screaming. Maybe not raped after all. But to the left.

  The throne room was to the right.

  But there wasn’t time. He’d already wasted too much because he hadn’t figured it out sooner. He could head to the left and save her, and Hraldolf would probably destroy the world. Or he could go right.

  Save the woman he loved and let them all die, or save the world and live with the guilt forever.

  He closed his eyes and cursed, the abyss opening beneath him, the pain spreading into his limbs, everything fading. Fading.

  Fading.

  Chapter Sixty

  “He disagreed with something that ate him.”

  —Bob Defendi (quoting Ian Fleming)

  urkand froze quite figuratively: the water was the temperature of urine. If you think that’s a coincidence, you’ve never shared a tank with a shark.

  He went limp, floating like the metaphorical seaweed from Chapter 56. He needed time. Time to think, chiefly, but millions of years of survival instinct also wanted time for time’s sake. It doesn’t care what you use the time for.

  Something sprinkled down out of the walls, and the smell of the water became strange and pungent, not a smell he usually associated with shark tanks. He tried to nail down the odor, but after a futile second, his mind kicked out all speculation in favor of planning for its next heartbeat of oxygen-enriched blood. That was all the brain cared about, no matter what anyone else told you.

  But the shark or sharks could put a stop to that. He needed a plan beyond holding still and hoping the drowned guard hadn’t scraped himself and bled on the way down.

  Jurkand, being a retired overlord, knew a good deal about sharks. He knew swimming and thrashing about attracted them. He knew blood attracted them. He knew they rarely attacked anything bigger than them. Finally, he knew they hated the taste of Human flesh.

  And still, that smell made his eyes water. It seemed stronger now.

  He took a breath. He needed to stay calm. The hysteria dragged at him. He needed to keep his cool. He couldn’t risk any accidents. The smallest drop of blood in this water would mean death, or at least a savage tasting.

  The thought didn’t appeal to him.

  Here at the bottom of the shaft, the water glimmered darkly. It still rolled and splashed with the earlier impact of the guard, each wave slightly smaller than the last. The black water and silver, pox-ridden crests made for a mesmerizing sight. It took some time for him to wonder what would give the water pox.

  He reached out carefully, skimming his hand across the surfaces, catching dozens of little bits of debris floating there. He pulled his hand into what light he could see from above. Flecks of wet matter clung there. He pulled them to his nose and sniffed. That smell came from these bits of muck. He’d seen them fall in. Maybe the sharks had a button underwater that released them. He chuckled at the thought.

  He stopped.

  Slowly, his hand trembling with terror, with the effort, he brought it over to his mouth. With a tentative, seeking tongue he licked his hand, tasting an explosion of spices and salt. A miraculous, marvelous taste.

  It was seasoning.

  “Ah hell,” he said.

  The shark took its first bite, tearing the tender muscles of his belly, pulling out bowels, reaching for those tasty, seasoned organs.

  Jurkand screamed, but only briefly.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  “Superman never had trouble with dilemmas like this.”

  —Bob Defendi

  amico stood, still paralyzed with terror. On one hand, the woman he loved. On the other, the world. The rational part of his mind screamed the answer was obvious, but his soul wouldn’t listen. This wasn’t a time for rational thought. This was a time for action.

  He just had no way to act.

  He carried a dagger in his hand. His fingers twitched and went numb. The knife slowly tumbled from his grasp.

  His ears filled with the echoes of her last scream. His mind’s eye filled with images of her raped and broken, wondering why he’d abandoned her. This was supposed to be a game. This was supposed to be a series of escalating fights leading to a boss monster. It was supposed to be rollicking. It was supposed to be funny. What the hell had happened?

  The answer, of course, was he had happened.

  He’d transformed the lifeless into the living. He’d given will and strength and freedom to the story-bound, a third dimension to the caricatures. If he hadn’t, she would be fine. If he hadn’t, he never would have loved her.

  His mind raced faster and faster along paths of guilt and damnation. His fault. All his fault. He needed to save her and the world. He needed to have his cake and eat it too. This was a game; this was about wish fulfillment. Who would wish for this?

  No, he had to move, or both the woman and the world would be lost. He had to move.

  The dagger clattered as it hit the floor.

  Damico picked a direction and took off. He knew in his heart. No matter how rationally he explained it.

  She’d never forgive him for this.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  “There was nothing funny about that either.”

  —Bob Defendi

  otianna ran, her bare feet slapping against paving stones as she tore through the halls of the Heart of Light. She ran, and she screamed incoherently, and she didn’t look back.

  She could hear them, walking calmly behind her, catching up every time she rounded a corner. They came, and nothing slowed them. Nothing stopped them.

  Lotianna had to get away, but the wind tore at her lungs, ripped her throat raw. Her side stitched. They’d run her down and catch her.

  She kept pushing and pushing, but her feet fumbled on the paving stones now. With one last step, she stubbed her toe in a brilliant explosion of pain and canted onto the stone floor.

  The fall tore her shift and bruised her knees. She sprawled, scraping her hands and thighs then banging her head against the stone with a cascade of stars and blood. It was all she could do to writhe in agony.

  She had to get up and get away, but she couldn’t move. The pain had become everything. The wet feel of blood her only relief from the torture of her wounds.

  Finally her gaze cleared.

  The guards stood, filling the hall at her feet, watching her with impassive expressions. They probably wouldn’t rape her—they seemed more golems than men—but that didn’t mean she could afford to have them take her. They’d carry her to a chamber or to a cell, and then the ov
erlord or another of his henchmen would have her. She needed to run, but she had nothing left inside, just a raw, rasping breath that barely drew enough air to right her spinning head.

  “Die,” she said.

  One of the guards reached for her, but she acted instinctively. The running, the clear word, the strength in her limbs when she fell. It all came together at once, and arcane words scratched out of her mouth and at her ears.

  A blast of lightning launched out of her hand, catching the first guard in the chest. Lightning should have sheeted across his armor, grounding away without killing him, but the same magic that directed it through the air also directed it through his heart, causing him to collapse in a spasming pile of armor and seared meat.

  The other guards gaped at her, stunned, then rushed toward her, but already, she jumped to her feet, her hands and eyes flickering with power. She was back, and it was time to—

  The lightning ripped from her hands, too eager to even let her finish the thought. It caught one of the guards in the chest, launching out the other side and catching the next, then the next. When it finished crackling in the air, four of the guards dropped, leaving only a single standing man, amid a halo of smoke and the smell of burning hair.

  “Reconsider,” she said. It didn’t sound impressive as she vainly tried to tuck the torn part of her shift together.

  The guard examined her bare, bloodied limbs. He took a step forward.

  She raised her hands, reciting the words of the spell, but her tongue still felt slightly thick in her mouth, her reflexes just a little slow. It wasn’t until she slurred the first word she realized that while she could cast spells, she couldn’t cast them reliably.

  The power of the spell writhed out of the control of her misspoken words, flashing though her brain with searing heat that roared in her ears. One moment she was clear and in control and winning, and the next she landed on those abused knees, holding her head and screaming in time to the pain. Her entire body ached as she tilted over to one side, the power reverberating in her skull. Her body went limp, and she fell to the ground.

  She stared dully at the guard standing above her. He grinned and kicked her, smashing her back into the wall. She tried to scream again, but she didn’t have the strength. Blood stained her eyes. Her limbs still shook in the wake of the power. There was nothing she could do to stand.

  And so she didn’t.

  He kicked her again, shattering a rib, then plucked her off the ground, tearing her shift further. She hung there, broken, bleeding, and stunned, staring into that wide, pitiless face. She reached vainly for her magic, but it was gone now. Burned out. Maybe permanently.

  She spat blood across his face, and he grinned.

  In the distance, a noise arose, the sound of leather slapping on stone, over and over again. She tried to see past the guard, but he blocked sight lines better than mountains. The slapping grew louder, faster. The guard glanced over his shoulder to see who was coming. He faced the new foe, but he was implacable. That wasn’t the same as fast.

  A blade burst tip-first from the back of his neck, sending him crashing to the ground. He hit in a tooth-rattling impact, a spray of arterial blood dousing her even as the sound of the footsteps dropped in pitch, receding now.

  Damico shot by in a dead run. He waved one hand without looking back.

  “Can’t stay!” he shouted. “Saving the world. Forgive me!”

  He rounded the corner, still in a full-out run. For several seconds, his footsteps echoed back to her.

  She managed to lever the guard’s body off her legs. She needed to get out of the open hall, so she crawled to the nearest door, and pushed it open.

  She screamed at what she saw.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  “Hey. If Dan Brown can do it, I can too.”

  —Bob Defendi

  amico had read once that a properly conditioned Human can run down a deer. Not only was Damico not nearly that fit, but his character wasn’t either.

  On top of that, the painful insubstantiability (okay, I’m bluffing, that isn’t a word) tore at him as he ran, slowing him, stopping him even, in his final push to the throne room. By the end of the run he wasn’t just exhausted, every limb rang with pain.

  He stumbled the last few yards, his hands folded behind his head, allowing his lungs to fill like they’d taught him in high school football. He needed time to catch his breath. Still, with a misleadingly relaxed appearance, he rounded the corner and gazed at the throne room.

  Blood and the gory remains of guards plastered the floor. To one side, Gorthander stood over Arithian, the ax bloody, the bard bloodier. In the back of the room, Hraldolf lifted two objects into the air. They were small and Damico couldn’t make them out at this distance, but they had to be the Artifacts. Wind whipped about Hraldolf. A swirling cloud of flies surrounded him.

  “Hey!” Damico shouted.

  Gorthander, Arithian, and Hraldolf turned to him at once. Arithian looked sheepish.

  “What the hell?” Damico said.

  “I—” Arithian said, but Damico was having nothing of excuses.

  Arithian practically bled out. Damico needed to seize control of the situation.

  “You!” he shouted, pointing at the bard. “You were supposed to stall!”

  “But I was on a drink—”

  “You!” Damico pointed at Hraldolf. “Don’t you know I’m the damn hero? You can’t destroy the world without telling me your evil plans.”

  “But I—”

  “He told them to me—”

  “Shut up!” Damico managed to mask his gasps by making them into screams. People gasped when they screamed, right?

  He pointed at Gorthander. “And you! Dwarves get a plus-six bonus to all resistance attempts vs. magic!”

  “Oh,” Gorthander said, lowering his ax. “I forgot to add that in.”

  “Dammit. Do I have to do everything here!?”

  They all exchanged sheepish glances. Gorthander held out a hand and helped Arithian to his feet. Hraldolf shifted around, uncomfortably avoiding eye contact.

  “All right,” Damico said. “That’s better. Now, where were we?”

  “Dying,” Arithian said.

  “Killing him,” Gorthander said.

  “Destroying the world,” Hraldolf said.

  Damico shook his head. His breath had returned enough for him to yell, but his heart still pounded so hard he could feel it behind his eyes. He needed a few more minutes, and he’d be right as rain. He’d be a peach. Dammit, even he was doing the clichés now.

  “All right.” Damico heaved a long-suffering sigh (more gasp camouflage). “I’m gonna make my entrance again, and I want you all to be in a suitably dramatic moment when I do.”

  “That was dramatic,” Hraldolf said.

  Damico glared at Hraldolf, and the man stared back, exasperated. Damico shook his head and walked back out of the room, holding his posture until he rounded the corner out of sight… and collapsed against the wall, his chest heaving for breath.

  Sounds from the room allowed him to judge their movements as he gasped. He checked his hand. It shook, but appeared solid. Good. He closed his eyes and rose to his full height. Still too tired, he stepped back around the wall and into the entrance to the throne room.

  Hraldolf stood before his throne, the two Artifacts held out boldly in front of him. Gorthander and Arithian stood with their backs to the door, their weapons out. Arithian dripped blood into a growing pool. He swayed as if standing took a tremendous feat of will.

  “You will not stand against us, Overlord!” Gorthander shouted.

  Damico hung his head. Keep stalling. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “What?!” Gorthander asked.

  “I look pretty impressive,” Hraldolf said.

  “I’m a little light headed,” Arithian said.

  “Gorthander, heal Arithian,” Damico said. “He wouldn’t be hurt in t
he first place if you’d read your damned character sheet. Hraldolf, good. Don’t change anything, but you’ll have a line.” He considered them, his breath finally slowing as Gorthander finished healing Arithian. “Gorthander, you say, ‘this ends here.’”

  “But he won’t stand against us.”

  “Less is more, Gorthander. Hraldolf, when he says that, you say, ‘but there are only two of you.’”

  “Oh, and that isn’t cheesy?” Hraldolf said.

  “We’re playing to the classics here.” Damico started out of the room.

  “This ends here!” Gorthander bellowed.

  Damico stopped. “Good feeling, but do you think you can wait until I leave the room?”

  “Sorry.”

  Damico stepped out. He finally had his breath and heart now, and he didn’t think he could stall any longer. This was it.

  “This ends here!”

  “But there are only two of you!”

  “Three!” Damico said, rounding the corner, his sword out.

  “Twenty!” The guards said, stepping out of a door in the back, still strapping on armor.

  Dammit. Hraldolf had been stalling him.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  “So be it… Jedi.”

  —Bob Defendi (You don’t want to know what he was wearing)

  raldolf smiled as the guards swarmed around his throne, facing off with the three heroes. This was it, his moment of truth. He didn’t need to win. He only needed time to use the Artifact. He held both of them up now as the first ringing sounds of metal on metal echoed through the halls.

  “Hraldolf!” Damico shouted over the din.

  “Shut up!” Hraldolf shouted back.

  “Don’t you want to tell me what this is all about?”