by Sam Sykes
“Betrayer!” he howled as he leapt forward and into the crowd.
After the first skull split beneath a hoof, the guards caught on pretty quick.
His sword swung wildly, cleaving bodies even as the guards surged forward, thrusting their blades into his mass. He didn’t seem to mind—hell, he didn’t seem to notice. Halamox just kept swinging, just kept stomping, just kept roaring.
And he was joined. From behind, two more centaurs—the refined kind with armor—came bursting through the door, spears in hands.
“Crush the human filth!” Halamox roared. “They’ve betrayed us!”
And soon, they added themselves to the chaos.
Whatever scenarios the guards might have rehearsed for, I was pretty sure this wasn’t one of them. Training failed, giving way to instinct. Fear and fury painted their faces as they realized this was no longer three dozen guards tormenting a Katapeshi girl. This would be a fight for their lives. They rushed forward, screaming and stabbing.
Halamox and his centaurs welcomed them. Their own war cries drowned out the shrieks of the guards, their own weapons dwarfed the guards’ puny swords. The wounds they took, they returned with savage blows. And by the time one of them finally went down under a flurry of steel, she did so with half a dozen corpses at her feet.
And me?
I was crawling for the stairs.
I’d like to tell you this was all according to plan. I’d like to tell you I truly was that brilliant. But if you knew me well enough, you wouldn’t believe it.
Still, give me some credit. I had a little idea of what I was doing.
I knew Halamox would still be close to the city walls. He had tired himself out taking me back to Yanmass and I wagered he’d still be pissed about my duping him and forcing him to call off his raid. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to get in on his own.
Hence, having Chariel deliver a profanity- and threat-laden message on behalf of Vishera to them and then escaping to lead them on a merry chase that “accidentally” led to a secret entrance into the city was the next logical step. I trusted Halamox’s time in the city would let him find Vishera’s manor.
You’d probably expect something to go wrong with this plan. I wouldn’t blame you; there’s a lot that could have gone wrong. I could have taken too long to get to the manor, the guards might have killed me right away, Halamox might not have taken the bait …
But fortunately for me, I have an excellent sense of timing, the guards were under orders from Vishera not to kill me immediately, and, for that last part, it turns out I was just a big enough pain in his horse ass to warrant this kind of slaughter.
I scrambled to my feet as I reached the stairs and glanced over. The remaining dozen guards or so had adopted more careful stances as they tried to close in around Halamox and his companion, but the two centaurs weren’t making it easy. They continued to bellow and swing their weapons in wide arcs, and the guards continued to jab and dart at them.
And no one seemed to notice me much.
“You boys have fun with this,” I muttered and sprinted up the stairs.
I had to make it to Vishera’s laboratory, through the secret room in her study. Dalaris would doubtless be there, if it wasn’t too late.
If it was too late, Vishera would be there. And then I’d stab her.
Either way, I was planning on getting something done tonight.
It was when my foot hit the top of the stairs that I heard the crackle of electricity. I had just enough time to glance down the hall and see the spark of cobalt before it came screaming out at me. My body was paying closer attention than I was, though; I instinctively leapt forward, feeling the tingle of the lightning bolt between my shoulder blades as it arced past my back and struck the wall. I fell to the ground, smoking splinters falling in a shower around me.
I was back on my feet in a moment, my knife in my hand and my eyes locked down the hall.
By the crackling blue light at the tip of a crooked wand, I could see the rage painted across Vishera’s face as she snarled at me.
“So, suffice it to say,” I said, clearing my throat, “I’m going to have to decline your offer of mercy.”
Credit to the old girl, she didn’t waste time with dramatic, villainous speeches. She simply leveled the wand at me again and hissed.
I darted toward her, zigzagging as I did so. She spat a curse at me, trying to fix her wand’s tip on me. She couldn’t have been a good aim in her best days, let alone with age catching up to her. When she finally shrieked the command word, the wand erupted with another bolt of electricity that arced well over my head.
I flipped the blade in my hand, slipped low as I closed the final few feet between us. I narrowed my eyes on her belly, felt the muscles in my arm bunch up in anticipation. Two quick stabs, I told myself. Right into her kidneys. Then run away and let her bleed out. Quick, messy, ugly. But it’d get the job done.
One held breath. Three more strides. I was right on top of her. I tilted my blade up, swept up close to her, and …
Bounced right off what felt like a solid brick wall between us.
I fell to the ground, looked up at the air itself rippling around her. Why I didn’t think she might have some kind of magic piece of crap that would protect her from me, I’m not sure.
Maybe I was just feeling lucky.
“Scum,” she snarled, turning the wand on me. “You have no appreciation for what I’m doing.”
“Accurate.”
I was back on my feet, darting around her as she tried to aim the wand at me. She might be protected by magic, but there was no amulet that could cure being an old, slow, creaky woman. I slipped around her, kept at her back. I couldn’t touch her, but I could keep behind her and that toy of hers.
“Thousands within Taldor’s borders,” Vishera snapped as she tried to whirl on me. “And they all rely on me! On what I can do! Their prince can’t protect them, their senate doesn’t care about them! I’m the only one who gives a damn!”
“Yeah,” I said, “you care enough to kidnap, murder, and rape for it. You’re just misunderstood, you poor angel.”
My eyes slipped around her person, looking for whatever trinket might be keeping her shield up. I saw something peeking out of her pocket, a column topped with something silver. It looked like it might fall out if I could just get her to …
“You’re like them,” she snarled. “Just like the Qadirans. The only reason you’d stand in my way is if you were in league with them.”
“Funnily enough, I’d be content to let you do whatever crazy crap you’re doing here.” I switched directions, darted back around her. “But you happened to involve a friend of mine.”
She whirled to try to keep up with me. The trinket fell out of her pocket, jostled by the sudden movement, and rolled across the floor.
I leapt for it, seizing it and rolling into a tumble. I ended up on my back, staring down the length of Vishera’s wand as it crackled with electricity.
With nothing else to defend myself with, I hurled the trinket at her. It tumbled through the air, bounced off the shield—still tragically up—and struck the wall.
It shattered into tiny fragments. Not a column, then. A vial. And as it smashed against the wall, the first thing I noticed was a viscous substance on the wood.
The second thing? Vishera’s scream.
“NO!” She reached for the vial, as though she could still grab it. “Visheron!”
“Visheron?”
For a moment, I wondered if she had used some kind of magic garbage to put his soul in that vial or something equally crazy. But, in a painfully swift moment, I looked at the glistening substance on the walls.
And I remembered what value she saw in Visheron.
And I fought the urge to vomit.
“Norgorber’s nuts, lady.” I sprang to my feet. “You are sick.”
Her sole reply was a scream as she raised her wand. And I was already running.
Wires tripped beneath
me. Pressure plates shifted. I heard a small symphony of clicking sounds in the walls around me. I tumbled low as twin gouts of flame burst from either wall above me. I leapt forward as a hidden blade shot out of the floor beneath me. I skidded to a halt as a chorus of darts shot out of the wall to my left and embedded themselves in the wood to my right.
Vishera shouted a command word. I heard the lightning bolt crackle behind me. I turned and ducked into the nearest open door, narrowly avoiding the arc of electricity that streaked past.
I slammed the door behind me, took a deep breath, and surveyed my surroundings.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t feel quite so relieved at being surrounded by so many large-breasted naked women. But Visheron’s room, and its many lewd portraits, was at least a reprieve from his mother’s attempts to kill me.
The artist himself lay not too far away from the door, sprawled out upon a sofa and completely naked. I held my finger up to my lips for an embarrassingly long time before realizing I didn’t need to. Visheron wasn’t moving.
I crept to his side, held my hand up close to his mouth. I felt breath, but faint. This was no natural sleep. His mother must have drugged him before she … she …
There was really no way to describe it without spilling my guts on the floor, so I was content to let it be.
I heard footsteps coming up the hall. I glanced around, saw a nearby sculpture of a ridiculously well-endowed naked woman. Hopefully, she wouldn’t mind if I put her tremendous bosom to more practical use. I slipped behind the sculpture just a moment before the door went flying open.
Vishera came stalking in, the tip of her wand alight with electricity. The first thing she did was storm over to her comatose son. I would have called it motherly if I wasn’t sure she was just checking to make sure her source of demonic seed hadn’t been knifed.
By the light of the candles burning in the room, I could see Vishera’s face. The rage on her visage exaggerated the harsh lines of her wrinkles, making them look more like scars. Her gray hair, usually neat and orderly, was tousled and hung about her face in sweaty strands. And her eyes …
Well, after seeing her eyes, the lightning bolts didn’t seem quite the most menacing thing in the room anymore.
I held still, took slow, shallow breaths as I watched her from the shadows. She skulked around, searching the room for me. Slowly, she inched toward the sculpture. I resisted the urge to flee, closed my eyes. She cast only a sneering gaze at the buxom stone woman so graciously serving as my cover and then stalked away.
Rude.
But I wasn’t about to protest. Vishera stormed off into the rear of the room, toward her son’s sleeping chambers. I took the chance, slipping out silently and creeping out the door.
I wouldn’t have long before she realized I wasn’t in there. Seconds, maybe. I had to make the best of this situation. Which, in this case, meant figuring out how to kill her. Gods knew I wasn’t going to get out of here with Dalaris so long as that woman was looking for me.
And to that end, I’d forgive you for thinking that it was stupid to head back to the study. I’d certainly understand if you called me a fool for pulling on the secret book and revealing the hidden door. And I’d probably agree with you that going down into a cramped room with the very real possibility of being trapped there with a psychotic woman full of things that could make me explode was a dumb idea.
But I’d like to see you come up with a better one.
I slipped down the spiraling staircase, into the darkness. Down here, at least, I had the shadows. At the very least, I had something here I could use against Vishera.
And as I went deeper, I realized that the shadows might be about all I had.
24
And Down the Gullet
Like any other job.
No matter what I had to rob, who I had to kill, where I had to sneak, one job was the same as any other. So long as I got out alive, I could call it a win. So long as I got what I needed, I could call it a total victory.
This? This was like anything else.
That’s what I told myself as I came creeping down into the room, through the pitch-black darkness. This was just another job. No matter how weird it might have gotten, I could get through this. I could do this.
I came pretty close to believing it, too, until the voices started.
“Hm?”
Deep. Resonant. Sultry.
“Ah, look who came back.”
Fennoc.
“This is to be expected, of course. They rarely stay away for long.”
I ignored him. Or tried to. It’s easy to ignore a literal incarnation of demonic sex speaking in your head, but only in theory.
Down the stairs, through the hall, stepping lightly for any traps that might have been reset. Through the door, into the dim blue light of Vishera’s laboratory. Just like before.
The first thing I saw was Vishera’s golem. I started, holding my knife up defensively. In another moment, I relaxed as I saw it lying in a tangled heap in the corner. All the various ichors from the various jars I had thrown at it still seeped from it; I must have done more damage to it than I thought.
The next thing I saw was Dalaris.
A table stood in the center of the room, beneath the dimly glowing orb of light in the ceiling. Upon its face, she lay, stripped down to her undergarments and strapped to it, unmoving. I immediately rushed to her side, felt for a pulse.
It was there. Faint, but there. Her eyes were rolled back into her head. Her mouth hung open, exuding a soft breath. She was still alive. Drugged, like Visheron.
“I can smell your concern for her from here, mortal.” Fennoc’s voice hissed from nearby. “It reeks. Kindly take it outside, won’t you?”
I glanced to the nearby door of his cell. It stood with all its complicated locks still undone—Vishera hadn’t time to redo them, I suppose. But even from beyond it, I could feel his gaze upon me, sense the wicked curl of his smile.
“Shut up,” I muttered.
“Stressed, are we? Whatever for?” He chuckled blackly. “Ah. What’s this? A quickened pulse. A heart beating just a tad too fast…”
“I said shut up.”
“And such rudeness. Feeling rather trapped, are we? There’s no way out of here, you know. Of course you know. You used the only way out on your last little jaunt to visit me. Poor dear.”
I consigned myself to ignoring him, began sawing at the straps holding Dalaris down. I could still do this. I could pick her up, carry her out, get out during whatever confusion remained …
“Oh. What’s that? A whiff of hope? Or is that desperation? Or denial? I can’t tell the difference, if I’m honest.”
“You’re never honest,” I snarled, finally breaking free the first strap.
“I can be, when it’s beneficial to me. Or when it’s amusing. Such as when I say you really should saw faster … or perhaps, just look up.”
A cold knife of fear in my belly. I didn’t want to listen to him. But upon hearing the crackle of electricity, the fervent breath of a furious old woman, I slowly glanced up.
Vishera stood in the doorway, wand leveled at me, cobalt electricity forming at the tip. Too close for me to dodge. Too far for me to get to. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. She began to speak the command word. I did the only thing I had left to me.
I cheated.
I leapt behind the table, ducked down behind it. The command word caught in Vishera’s mouth. I saw her eyes go wide. She jerked the wand back, terrified that she had almost accidentally electrocuted Dalaris.
“Careful there,” I said. “One false move and your future hell-baby grandchild forever remains a twinkle in your eye, old woman.”
“Coward,” she hissed. “You’d forsake her to save your own skin? Come out and face your punishment.”
“Lady, we can debate the semantics behind that accusation if you want, but I’m pretty sure you’re not in a position to call anyone names.” I slowly rose up behind the table. I pressed my k
nife to Dalaris’s throat. “And I know you’re not in a position to make demands.”
“Oh.” Fennoc chuckled. “That’s unexpected.”
“Shut up,” Vishera spat in the direction of Fennoc’s cell. She glared at me, spoke through clenched teeth. “Do not dare harm her.”
“It’d be a kinder fate than what you’ve got in store for her,” I replied.
“You mistake me for a monster,” Vishera said.
“I’m pretty sure it’d be a mistake to settle on a word as polite as ‘monster.’”
“The girl will be taken care of,” she continued, slowly lowering her wand. “I intend for her to have the best care while she carries my heir. She will want for nothing, have everything she desires—”
“Unless she should desire a life outside of carrying hellspawn, right?”
“Technically,” Fennoc interjected, “the spawn would be of Heaven and the Abyss.”
“Shut up,” I snapped.
“Once the heir is born, she may retire elsewhere.” Vishera rolled her shoulders. “A nice island to the south, perhaps? Maybe a home on the frontier. Or perhaps she would desire to see her house restored to its former glory, right here in Yanmass. Her family’s honor would be restored. And safe.”
“She’d never be safe in the same city as you.”
“On the contrary,” Vishera replied. “When my heir achieves his full power, when he is ready to take control of Taldor, there will be no place safer than within his family. His will be a glorious reign, a secure reign, and no one will know his power more keenly than those closest to him.”
“And if it’s a girl?”
Vishera shrugged. “I see no reason why a woman could not lead Taldor as well as any man.”
“Bravo, madame.” Fennoc chuckled again. “Your egalitarianism truly inspires.”
“Shut up!” Vishera and I snapped in unison.
“But…” The old woman sighed, offering me a smile. “This is all wasted breath, isn’t it?”
She took a step forward. I tensed, drew the knife a little closer to Dalaris’s throat. But she didn’t so much as flinch.
“You had the chance to run,” she said. “You knew I would not have pursued you. Yet you came back. You enlisted the aid of my centaur pawns, slew my guards, came all the way down here…” She gestured to Dalaris. “For her.”
