by Chad Huskins
The vehl had finally formed a plan. They began swatting at Lord Hiss. The trout were nibbling at the bait. When one of their tentacles came close, Hiss reached out and snatched it, yanked it, and tore it half. It happened with such simple ferocity that Drea gasped.
The wounded vehl screamed, then lashed out at him with three more tentacles. Hiss caught all of them, yanked them, tore them, and then tossed the pieces to the ground, where they burst into red flame and dissipated like dust.
“Now you know me,” he said. “And I know you. Regroup. Make your plan. Try again.”
And they did. The vehl spread throughout the forest, some of them racing around Drea’s cottage, others soaring high into the air. They circled the forest, smashing through trees and whispering to one another. A conspiracy was forming all around her. Drea could hear them speaking some hideous language, presumably forming their new plan.
When they came at him, it was all at once, a dozen or more demons tearing through the air, headed towards him.
The crixstones fastened to Lord Hiss’s arms flashed with a wicked dark-green light.
“It won’t matter,” Drea heard him say, a second before the demons crashed into him. Lord Hiss dug in his heels, and was driven back ten feet by the wall of darkness. She saw disembodied teeth gnawing at him—chitta-klak-chitta-klak—pulling at his arms, trying to tear them off.
Hiss grabbed one of those mouths by the upper and lower jaws, pulled them apart, splitting the creature’s face in half and flinging the two pieces to the ground, where they fell apart and incinerated.
“Your plan,” he said. “It wants more subtlety. Try again.”
One of the tentacles lashed out at his left arm, while another grabbed hold of his right wrist. The vehl tried pulling him apart, but Hiss was able to pull his limbs in with such force that it tore his enemies’ limbs off.
“Again!” he said.
The darklight of his crixstones intensified. Drea imagined he was drawing power from them.
Three of them plowed into him from behind, but Hiss turned around and grabbed hold of their limbs, their mouths, their faces. In a maelstrom of powerful movements, the golem was able to rend and peel, stomp and tear.
“Again!” he screamed as they swarmed him.
They grabbed his ankles and tried to pull him off the ground. Hiss grabbed the trunk of a tree for balance, his massive hands digging into the bark. With one foot, he stomped on the tentacles, smashing them, causing them to burst like beetles being crushed under a massive boot.
“Again!” he cried, grabbing the next tentacle that lashed out at him. “Kill me! I beg of you!”
The crixstones on Lord Hiss’s gauntlets burst with darklight, bathing his whole body in a glow, empowering him with unnatural strength and durability. Still, after each assault, the darklight faded a little more. He was draining what stores of darklight he had, pouring it into this fight.
“Again!” he cried, flinging one of the vehl into the trunk of a tree. “I beg to die, but am honor-bound not to make it easy! You’ve yet to give me a real challenge! Again! AGAIN!”
Drea watched in abject terror as the iron golem tore into the hideous cloud of demons. At times she lost sight of him, for his enemies were legion. The vehl came continually from the darkness, whipping at him, biting at his helmet, smashing into his chestplate. Again and again they assailed him, again and again they failed. Lord Hiss never relented, never tired. Like the armor he wore, his willpower was made out of some as-yet-unidentified alloy.
But the vehl would not retreat. They also were fearless, and they attacked him until there were only three left, now two, now only one.
Now none.
The last vehl was stamped out by Lord Hiss’s massive foot, giving out one final squeal of agony. Afterward, the forest fell silent, and Lord Hiss stood there panting. His armor breathed an unsteady rhythm now,
Sssss-ssss-tsssssssss-chu-chuuuu-chuuuuuuuu-sssssss
Drea stared at him in wide-eyed astonishmenet. Thryis was still half unconscious in her lap. The fellstorm was finally dying off, the blooms of fire dying away to nothing. A few normal arcs of blue lightning went across the sky, illuminating the golem in front of her.
Finally, Lord Hiss dropped to his knees. He looked up at the sky, and shouted, “I still live! Why? Have I not suffered enough, Loraci? Are your scales not yet balanced? I’ve suffered, and yet I still live! I—STILL—LIVE!”
Tssss-tssss-tsssssssss-chhhhhhuuuuuuuuu
He fell forward, putting his palms in the snow. All around him, there were small remains of the vehl he’d killed, some of those pieces sizzled and melted into the earth. Soon, there were no signs of the hideous creatures. It was as though they never were.
Drea watched as Hiss hauled himself back to his feet. He turned and looked at her. For a long moment, they stared at one another, both unmoving.
“Th-thank you,” Drea said, her body trembling as much from fear as cold.
“I didn’t do it for you,” he said, standing there, being as still as the trees.
“Why, then?”
“A man desperate to die will go to great lengths to see it done.” He started walking away.
“How did you know the vehl were out here?” Drea called after him. “How did you know I was in trouble?”
“I didn’t. You told me that if I ever wished to talk, I had only to visit. I…I was coming to pay you a visit.” He hesitated a moment. “No one has ever given me such an invitation before. At least, not since I became imprisoned in this cage. I thought…I thought that if I could talk to someone…”
Drea rose to her feet. “Then come talk with me,” she said, shivering.
“No. We have nothing to discuss. It was a mistake to come here—”
“I need to speak with you!” she said, stepping over Thryis’s body and approaching him. As she did, her foot bumped into something familiar. Drea looked down and saw the Old Man, and picked it up. When she looked at Lord Hiss again, he was walking away. “Wait!”
The machine-man stopped.
“You…what you just did…I’ve never seen such power before. How did you do that?” She looked at stygian stones on his gauntlets, and recalled what The Essence of Stygian had to say about them. “Was it the crixstones? It was, wasn’t it? Crixstones power curses. You’re a fell-sorcerer yourself, a Curser.”
Lord Hiss said nothing, only breathed,
Ssssssssssss-chhhhuuuuuuuuuuuuu
“But if you’re schooled in the Arcana, why are you then trapped in your cage? Can you not release yourself?”
“The person who locked me inside this prison is a far more powerful Arcana practitioner than I,” he said. “And I am bound to that person. I cannot be released from my suffering until my master grants me that mercy. Or dies.”
“You mean Lord Syphen?” Drea said.
Lord Hiss stood there, silent as a statue.
Behind Drea, Thryis was stirring. She rushed to be by Thryis’s side, looking into her fluttering eyes.
“She’s hurt. I need to get her inside, out of the cold.” She looked at Hiss. “Will you please stay with us? Just for the night. In case those things come back?” The machine-man said nothing. “Please! I beg you. Help me, and I’ll help you.”
Lord Hiss’s helmet tilted to one side. “How can you possibly help me?”
“You want death,” she said. “You want release. I don’t have it in my power to grant it to you—not yet—but if I can, if ever I have the chance, I will release you.” She added, “You have my word.”
“An empty promise,” he said. “Since you have no means of breaking a curse.”
Drea lifted the Old Man, aimed it at the tree off to her right, and fired. The jerk of the gun shook her whole arm, and when the bullet tore open a hole in the fabric of reality, Lord Hiss took half a step towards it, like some student fascinated by a magician’s trick, wanting to see how it was done.
When the hole closed, Drea said, “I may not be practiced in the Ar
cana, but I have resources. And I may know someone who can help you.”
“That’s a cursed object,” Lord Hiss said, walking towards her slowly. “Where did you get it?”
“You won’t know unless you come inside and talk with me.”
Lord Hiss hesitated a moment, just staring down at her with those vacant black eyes. Then, at last, he walked around and lifted Thryis off the ground, as easily as if she had been a leaf. “If we’re going to talk of promises and curses, let us do it by a warm fire.”
Drea stepped inside the cottage first. Lord Hiss would barely fit through, but before he stepped inside, he paused and turned back to address the dark forest. “If any more vehl remain out here,” he called, “be sure to go and send for more! Bring your friends! Bring as many vehl as there are stars in the heavens! And tell them all that Lord Hiss beckons death! Give them my invitation, and return when you think you’re ready to try again!”
Drea stood to one side and let the golem push his way through the door. His armor scraped against the doorframe, peeling away a few splinters.
Drea switched on a globe and hurried over to her bed. “Lay her down here,” she said, then rushed over to the hearth to start building a fire.
Lord Hiss could find no place to sit, so he slumped down on the floor and leaned back against a wall. Drea moved her easel and sketching desk out of his way.
Once the fire got going, Drea stoked it. Intermittently, she went over to the windows to look for any sign of vehl or house guards. So far, it didn’t seem as though anyone in the main house had heard the scuffle. In the distance, she could still barely hear the city bells ringing.
They’re still out there looking for Lord Dustrang’s killer.
Then, a tiny voice said, “Drea…blessed goddess…”
She rushed over to Thryis’s side and took her hands. “Easy, Thryis. Lie down. You took a nasty fall.”
“What about you?” Thryis said. “You also took a—”
Ssssssssssssssss-chhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuu
Thryis looked over at Lord Hiss in the corner, gasped, and sat straight up. “Drea, what’s—”
“It’s all right, Thryis. He’s a friend.” Drea kissed her head. “He saved us.”
“Saved us? How?”
Drea looked over at the machine-man. “Well, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure how it all works, but…his armor is encrusted with crixstones, which are ideal for Cursing. I assumed those crixstones were used to curse him to forever dwell inside the armor, yet he used them quite effectively against the vehl just now.”
“The crixstones were put there by Lord Syphen,” said Lord Hiss. “They help bind me to the armor. But I’m also gifted at Cursing. Not all curses are bad. I’m able to temporarily curse my body with great strength, and curse my enemies with a spell of fragility.”
“Can you not then curse yourself to death?” she said. “Since you crave death so much, I mean.”
“It’s possible,” Lord Hiss said. “Though a far more powerful curse has been laid on me. The curse of long life.”
Drea stood up and walked over where Lord Hiss sat slumped, his blank eyes staring dejectedly at the far wall. Drea pulled up a stool and sat in front of him. “Why did Lord Syphen do this to you?”
“Because of something I did long ago.”
“But what could you have done to deserve such imprisonment?”
Lord Hiss looked at her. “You above all people should know that one needn’t do much to become the pawn of a fell-sorcerer like Phaedos Syphen.”
True enough, Drea realized. “Have you ever heard of the Temple of the Hidden Door?” she asked.
“No. Should I have?”
“I suppose not.”
“Let me ask you some questions, then,” Lord Hiss said. “Starting with that cursed pistol of yours. Where did you get it?”
“A woman gave it to me.”
“What woman?”
“She’s called Lady Blackveil.”
For a long moment, Lord Hiss did not move, he just sat there breathing small clouds of steam in and out. “So, it seems you’ve come across more than your fair share of Lord Syphen’s handiwork.”
“You’ve heard of her?”
“I’ve heard the songs,” he said. “And the stories. I know that she has her own axe to grind against the Syphenus.” He shook his head. “You’ve come into this tale late, Drea oda Syphen. You’ve entered this story at the end of a long series of tragedies, all orchestrated by House Syphen. We’re all their puppets, we all dance to their tune.”
“Maybe we don’t have to.”
“But we do,” Lord Hiss said, standing up slowly, the hinges in his joints squealing from the effort. “We all do what the fates have condemned us to do.” He started towards the door.
“Where are you going?” Drea said.
“I need to rest. Tomorrow is a three-moon day, the augurs are saying. That means the whole city will gather at the Den of Beasts tomorrow and see if the birds fly right, and if the Triumverate will receive the blessings of the gods.”
That’s right, Drea thought. I had almost forgotten about the ceremonies. She stood up, and made such a bold move as to touch his hand. The iron gauntlet was almost hot to the touch. “Wait! You said you would stay—”
“There’s nothing more to discuss, and your pistol can obviously protect you, should you need it again.”
Drea put herself in front of the door, blocking his path. “You can fight back. We all can.”
“Our lives are chosen for us, the stage is set by powerful men long before we are ever born, and the stage cannot be altered. Stand aside, girl.”
For a moment, Drea stood her ground. Then, after realizing the defeat in his voice, she got out of his way. He opened the door, and awkwardly squeezed his way out. As he walked out into the night, Drea called out, “We can change it all! Things don’t have to be the way they are!”
“If things didn’t have to be, they wouldn’t be,” he called over his shoulder.
“Please! I can help you—”
“I hear you’ve been reading The Way. ‘Avoid the unlucky and the unhappy, for they will only drag you down.’ Isn’t that what the Seventh Precept says? I’m both unlucky and unhappy, Drea oda Syphen. Steer clear of me, for your own sake. A curse like me is never a good one.”
Thryis joined Drea in the doorway, hopping on her one foot. Together, they watched him disappear into the dark. Thryis was shaking when she took Drea’s hand and kissed it. They looked into each other’s eyes. They could still hear the city bells ringing. And somewhere not too far away, there was the sound of a Lictor’s blaring whistle.
“Do you think they caught her?” Thryis asked. “Or killed her?”
“I don’t know, Thryis luv.”
Drea shut the door and guided Thryis over to the hearth, where they sat on the floor and held each other close by the fire. They listened as the fellstorm died away. Thunder could be heard retreating.
For a while, they remained silent and shivering, overcoming their shock of the night’s events, occasionally caressing each other’s cheeks, trying to assuage each other’s fears.
“Drea?”
“Yes, my love?”
“I’ve never been more scared in all my life than I was tonight. But the way you stood up to it all—the way you stood up to those vehl—it was like the fire I saw in you when we first met, when you stood up to those bullies. Or that time on the Street of Wares…” She trailed off. “Sorry, I know you don’t like thinking about that night.”
“It’s all right, Thryis.”
“You’re a fighter, Drea. I’m a talker, but you…what you did to those vehl was—”
“I wasn’t going to let them take you.”
“That was quick thinking, undoing my leg. You’re so clever.”
“If I was really clever, I would’ve seen what was staring me in the face all along.”
Thryis looked at her. “What do you mean?”
Something had been
nagging at the back of Drea’s mind ever since Lord Hiss had left. She couldn’t say what it was, exactly, but it had to do with something he’d said. Finally, it came floating to the surface, and Drea felt the dawning of realization.
Yes, she thought. Right in front of my face. Just like the stygian stones and my inheritance of my father’s shares in the various companies. It should’ve been obvious from the beginning, for I had the evidence all along.
“Thryis luv, I need you to stay here,” Drea said, standing up.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to go to the library.”
“What? Now?!”
“I have to see something.”
“But what could possibly—”
“Take this,” Drea said, handing her the Old Man. “If you should see any of those things return, don’t hesitate to use it.”
“But where are you—”
“I just have to check something.”
“I’m going with you,” Thryis said, struggling to stand.
“No, you’re not.”
“Smack your bottom! You don’t tell me what to do! Wherever Drea Kalder goes, Thryis Ard—”
“Thryis!” Drea shouted. “Sit—down!”
Thryis was stunned. Something in Drea’s voice had changed. And slowly, Thryis lowered herself back to the ground. “I don’t like it when you yell at me.”
“Neither do I,” Drea said. “But you’re not even allowed to be on these grounds and if you’re seen running around out there with me, we’ll both be in trouble. I’ll be right back, I promise.”
Before Thryis could say anything more, Drea was out the door and running in a crouch across the lawn. She ran through the aviary, passing by the pigeon cotes and sneaking into the library.
Drea had brought no lantern, and there were no more flashes of lightning from the windows, so she felt her away along the dark aisles by memory until she came upon the books on genealogy. Drea took out the first two tomes, which covered the beginning of the Syphenus family tree—at least, as far as it was known eight hundred years ago. She found the nearest globe and turned it on, then opened the book to the portrait of Orick Syphen, the first documented ancestor of House Syphen, and the author of The Way.
