by Joe Jackson
The jackal-woman swallowed, then fought to catch her breath. “The Crimson Huntress put a bounty on his head. Two million marks. I thought I could…collect it for my family. Oh, Tarra…”
“Two million marks?” Erik muttered. He looked at Sonja and Aeligos in turn. “Any idea how much money that equates to?”
Sonja shook her head, but Aeligos answered. “Two hundred thousand gold coins,” he said. “Marks are about the equivalent of our silver coins.”
“Good gods,” Erik blurted, and he turned back to the elestram. “What’s your name?”
She seemed surprised, though whether by the personal nature of the question or the way Erik had asked, he wasn’t sure. “Nessandra,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Nessandra Kivekt.” She shivered, and Katarina gestured for someone to get the blanket from behind her saddle. Jol went and fetched it, and Katarina wrapped the jackal woman in it.
“Are you an assassin? Or just a bounty hunter?” Erik pressed.
Nessandra’s eyes came up, full of questions in return. She pulled down the blanket a little, and then slipped her shoulder and arm out of her leather breastplate, cringing with every movement. She pulled it down far enough to expose her right breast, and the gray, demonic skull with four swords that discolored the fur there. “I am a hunter of the Ashen Fangs,” she said.
“Our sister-in-law had a run-in with one of your number not so long ago,” Erik said. He remembered the symbol well enough, and wanted to see if the elestram would fill in any more information about Turillia.
“Tarra…,” Nessandra whispered again, and she sucked in a hissing breath. Her golden eyes closed against an obvious wave of pain, and tears ran from them. “Forgive me, Tarra. Now I have left you all alone.”
“Who is Tarra?” Katarina asked. “Is there a message we can deliver to them?”
“She is…my sister,” the elestram breathed. “Tell her I…love her.”
Erik didn’t even have to get close to see the widening of her pupils, or glance at Katarina to know the elestram had died. The paladin closed Nessandra’s eyes, laid her head gently down on the ground, and covered her completely with the blanket. Erik sighed. While Nessandra had provided a couple of answers, she left so many more questions behind. Who had summoned her here to Citaria? How many more Ashen Fangs assassins would be coming to try to collect a two million mark bounty on Taesenus’ head? And, if the Silver Blades were interested, where could they possibly find her sister Tarra to deliver the news of Nessandra’s death?
He turned to Katarina. “You two didn’t fight when she arrived here at the complex?”
Katarina looked up at him and shook her head. “No. She said she could sense me from some distance before she approached. Explained that she was after Taesenus, and had no quarrel with us. Since she didn’t attack me, I decided it was worth the risk to send you a replacement for myself.”
Erik barked a laugh. “Well, I suppose that worked out fairly well,” he said, but then he pursed his lips. “Not so much for her, unfortunately.”
Katarina smiled bitterly, but then she shook her head. “I just can’t figure out how she was able to cross the threshold, if I wasn’t.”
“I think some of the journals inside may shed some light on that, but we left them all down there for the time being. We can take the brains in and let them figure out what they can,” Erik said, gesturing toward Sonja and Aeligos.
“We’d better make it quick, though,” the rogue returned. “We need to get to a city with a healer, or I’m going to lose one of my wings – which means I’m going to lose them both.”
“Maybe Sonja should teleport you right to Marsdale, or back home?” Erik prompted.
“No, better we stick together,” Aeligos said. “We don’t want to alert Taesenus that we’ve split up. We just can’t dally here too long. We should get on the road in the morning; if we head straight to Marsdale, I think I’ll be fine.”
“All right, then,” Erik said. “Sonja, see if you can locate Sherman and Sharyn; I’m really starting to get worried about them now. When you’re done, come with me, Aeligos, and dad down into the complex, and we’ll see what we can figure out.” He turned to Katarina while his sister began to use her arcane power. “Taesenus didn’t attack you either when he came out?”
Katarina shook her head, but Sonja answered from behind Erik. “His power doesn’t seem to be able to cancel out my illusions, so I used one to hide us. We wouldn’t have been able to fight him, not without the rest of you.”
Erik nodded. “No, that was the smartest thing to do,” he said, then turned to his other companions. “Jol, Gabrius – are you two well enough to stay up here and guard Katarina while she gets some sleep?”
“Certainly,” Gabrius said, and Jol likewise nodded his agreement. “We will see if we can set a pyre for our slain ally as well.”
Sonja glanced around with her eagle eyes, but when she shook the enchantment away, the answer was already obvious on her features. “I don’t see them,” she said. “Where could they be? I’m tempted to teleport to a couple of the nearby cities and ask, but Aeligos is right about that. We’ll head to Marsdale and see if Markus has heard anything. Oh, and don’t worry about a pyre – I can take care of that when I come back.”
“And someone start cooking something, please. I’m starving,” Corbanis said casually.
Gabrius glanced at Jol before taking up his bow and quiver. Erik was pretty sure there was going to be something delicious to eat when they got back. A part of him felt guilty for some reason, looking forward to having dinner and relaxing when there was a dead body in their camp. Against what he normally would have considered his “better judgment,” he felt sorry for the elestram, and a little sad, both for her and her sister. Erik once again considered Makauric’s death on Tsalbrin, and how it had hurt Kari so deeply, and finally, after so long, he understood.
Erik descended once more into the bowels of the complex with his father and siblings. After a short while, they reached the strange fireplace room with the two carved chairs, and Erik turned to Sonja. “Can you see if you can pick up any feelings or anything from this room?”
“It’s not even a question,” Sonja said, her eyes wide. She walked over to stand before the two chairs and it was obvious she was intrigued. “Gods, she’s beautiful.”
“Which one?” Aeligos prompted.
“Well, both of them, really,” she answered. “King Koursturaux is certainly alien to my eyes, but as beautiful as she is deadly. And Seril...gods, she looks like Tisa Ch’Brakkh. Right down to those golden eyes.”
Erik exchanged glances with his father and Aeligos. “Can you hear anything they’re saying? Or get any sort of feel for what they might have been talking about?”
“Hard to say,” Sonja said. “They’re not speaking any language I’ve heard before. But they seem to be on quite friendly terms. This is definitely going to be alarming to Kari and your Order. I hope this doesn’t mean what we think it does. I…OH!”
Sonja jumped back, and Erik moved over to lay a hand on her shoulder. “What is it? What did you see?”
“She looked right at me,” Sonja said, barely above a whisper. “King Koursturaux turned and looked right at me.”
“She was probably just looking at the fire,” Corbanis offered.
Sonja took a few steps to her right, and shook her head. “No, she wasn’t. She’s still looking at me. Gods, let’s get away from here, quickly.”
Erik looked at his father and brother again, concerned, but they all turned and followed in Sonja’s wake as she continued. Soon they came to the arena where the fighting had taken place. Aeligos eyed the shadows warily as they descended the stairs and crossed the room. Erik and Corbanis didn’t miss the rogue’s trepidation, and drew their weapons as they crossed the chamber. They helped Aeligos climb over the fallen columns with his wings useless. Sonja used her arcane power to clean up the slick on the ground, and they made their way to the back room where the Tilcimer met
its end.
Aeligos wasted no time moving over to the glass tanks. Sonja took stock of them as well, but left the rogue to investigate those while she went and collected the journals from the desk. She deposited them in her pack. “We can read these on the way home,” she said. “If we start going through them now, we may be here for days trying to figure all of this out. And Aeligos needs his wing mended.”
Erik agreed with a gesture. “Can you seal off this complex, in case someone needs to come back and examine any of the things we leave behind?”
Sonja nodded. “I can do that,” she said. “I’ll make sure to leave the blood seal at the entryway intact. I don’t think there’s terribly many serilis- or serilian-rir wizards and sorcerers out there, so that should severely limit the chances of this place being disturbed. If we come across something we need to investigate further, I can bring us back here. If Taesenus shows his face again, we’ll be ready for him.”
Erik stared at Sonja, and she looked confused, then nervous. “You were amazing today,” he said, and her eyes immediately went watery. “You’ve been amazing through this entire affair. I know I was kind of harsh with you after the necromancers, but–”
Sonja waved away the comment and interrupted, “No more harsh than you needed to be.”
Erik nodded but didn’t let her interruption detract from what he wanted to say. “Just know that we wouldn’t be standing here victorious if it wasn’t for you,” he said. “If you had listened to me and stayed in DarkWind, I think you’d be attending a number of funerals, instead of just preparing one for an elestram.”
Sonja sucked in her bottom lip, and Erik had to stifle a laugh. It reminded him of Kari, and he wondered if that was where Sonja had picked up the amusing habit. Corbanis put an emphatic stamp of approval on everything Erik had said by patting his daughter’s shoulder and then pulling her in for a hug. Erik saw Aeligos’ reaction, but it wasn’t what he was expecting. The rogue said nothing, but he looked at the floor for a few seconds before he went back to examining the glass tubes. After a moment, Erik recognized what his brother was thinking.
He decided to help his brother focus on his strengths, and not any shortcomings he was considering after his injuries in the battle. “What are we looking at, Aeligos? Any idea?”
“Stasis chambers of some kind,” the rogue said, dipping a finger in some thick liquid, just shy of being a gelatinous puddle. He sniffed the jelly before shaking it off and wiping the rest on his cloak, then he checked the other two tubes. “If I’m not mistaken, the Tilcimer was kept in stasis in this one, but I have no idea what may have released it. If this other tube here held the first Tilcimer, then–”
“There’s another one?” Corbanis asked, coming to stand before the third empty tube. He swore when Aeligos nodded. “Where in the name of the gods could it be?”
“I don’t imagine it will take long before we find out,” Erik said, and he glanced at his sister over his shoulder. “Fortunately, at least now we know what we need to kill it, and how.”
Sonja smiled.
“That’s the weird thing,” Aeligos countered. “If it emerged from this tube here, then the third one – or second, depending how you want to look at it – has been out for some time. The other two chambers are both dry, and while my sense of smell is far from being as sharp as Gabrius’, neither of the older ones still smell like cinnamon or whatever this stasis goo is.”
“What if the wet tube is from the last one?” Erik asked. “I mean, one released after this one here?”
Aeligos shook his head. “I don’t think so. I could be wrong, but my instincts tell me the third one is out there somewhere, and has been for some time.”
“Terrific,” Corbanis said, turning away with a huff to go examine the corpse.
“Well, consider what this could mean,” Sonja offered. “The third one may not be as destructive, or at the least, it might be much more selective with what it destroys. Or, since we’ve heard nothing about it, it could already be dead.”
“Gods willing,” Erik muttered. “Anything else you think we should take a look at before we leave?”
“I think those journals and what we’ve seen will tell us enough,” Aeligos answered, rising to his feet. He headed for the exit, but stopped by the doorway and looked out it warily, checking both directions. “Should we leave the Tilcimer, or bring it back to the campus of the Order for study?”
Corbanis made a retching sound. “Unless Sonja wants to teleport back home with it, we’re not going to want to take this thing with us on that long a journey.”
“I’d say just leave it. We know enough about it,” Erik said.
Corbanis drew his sword. He chopped off several of the Tilcimer’s horns as souvenirs, and then relieved it of its head. He undid Erik’s manacles and tossed them to his son. “It’s funny, if you think about it,” he said, straightening out. He had the attention of all three of his children. “This is the Devil Queen’s legacy: in the end, her own creations turned on each other and destroyed any chance of accomplishing her goals.”
“You mean Taesenus, or us?” Aeligos asked.
Their father snorted. “Both,” he said, then gestured toward the door. “Let’s get home.”
They stopped only to release Atauridar from his cell on the way up, and then they relaxed around the campfire when they reached the surface. Sonja began gesturing toward the entrance to the complex, and not one person turned away from the display of her power. The rock above the entryway liquefied, and spilled down over the opening before it solidified again. With pure will, she left gouges and streaks in the sheer face, creating the appearance of a natural rock formation. She stepped back after a minute and waved her hand toward the wall with her eyes closed.
“It’s done, and the blood seal is still intact,” she said.
“That is amazing,” Katarina said with a bright smile.
“You wield power like Seril herself,” Atauridar commented, drawing all attention to himself.
“Shut up! Don’t say that,” Erik barked. He didn’t even have to look at Sonja to know what effect such words would likely have on her confidence.
The elite demon didn’t bother looking at Erik or Corbanis, who had his fist balled and looked ready to make good on his comment about the demon’s teeth. “You wield power like she did, not intent,” he clarified. Sonja’s brows rose and, curiously, she nodded graciously.
Erik let the matter drop, and Sonja continued to work while dinner was being prepared. There was a quiet and somewhat solemn time when she set up the pyre for Nessandra. Once the elestram’s funeral pyre was burning strongly, the group sat down and enjoyed a late dinner of rabbits Gabrius had caught and prepared. Sonja used her arcane power to carve a marker for Nessandra while she ate, and Erik was thoroughly impressed not just by the use of the power, but the meticulous work it created. She carved the elestram’s name into the granite marker, along with the notation that she “gave her life to erase the legacy of the Devil Queen.”
Erik ordered Katarina and Gabrius to sleep throughout the night along with Sonja. Erik and his father took care of watching over the camp, allowing Sonja to recuperate from her arcane usages, and Aeligos and Jol to rest with their wounds. Erik was leery about some of the serilis-rir from the village being drawn to the campfire in the night, but Atauridar said that was highly unlikely, for what little comfort that gave Erik. No trouble came, and Atauridar didn’t seem at all surprised; indeed, he said he expected they’d never see the serilis-rir of that village again.
“What can you tell us about this place? What was Seril doing here?” Erik asked the elite demon while the others slept.
“You vastly overestimate my importance to her,” the serilis-rir answered. “I was privy to none of her plans aside from those she shared with me during the Great War. To put it in a way you would understand, I was little more than a grunt to her. I may have been in charge of a great number of others, but I was a grunt nonetheless.”
“
What orders did she give you before she met her end?”
“None,” Atauridar answered. “She gave no orders at the end. No guidance or direction, no contingencies. I fled her service, as did many of my brothers in arms, before the end finally came at Kaelariel’s hand. We were left to our own devices, and as you saw for yourself, we tried to simply find an isolated place to live in anonymity.”
Erik looked to his father, who shrugged. “Don’t waste your time,” Corbanis said. “Let Kari and the Council question him before they hand him his just desserts. He’ll never tell us anything of use.”
“Not even about Taesenus?” Erik prodded the elite demon.
“That coward,” Atauridar spat. “Fled back to his mother like a dog with its tail between its legs after Vanador bested him. That was how I ended up with my command. Suffice to say I hold no loyalty to him; indeed, I hold him in contempt.”
“You realize Karian Vanador is who we’re taking you to see, right?”
“It matters not,” the elite serilis-rir said with a shrug. “My fate was decided long ago. I have simply evaded it for a few years.”
Erik sighed. “Get some sleep,” he ordered. Atauridar looked around warily, and Erik couldn’t help but laugh. “Nobody’s going to attack you. If we wanted you dead, you’d already be dead.”
They headed southeast the next morning at a brisk pace, intent on reaching the coastal city of Marsdale as quickly as possible. Here they started to see the Tilcimer’s handiwork: little towns and farming villages burnt to the ground, with only scattered markers to indicate that anyone had come back to inter the dead. Erik realized the irony of Seril’s years of attacking the people of Askies forcing them to wall their cities, and those walls being what kept the Tilcimer from doing far more damage than it had. It left him puzzled as to why the creature hadn’t been gifted with wings, as most of the serilis-rir were. He also realized that if it wasn’t for the speed with which the priesthoods could relay messages, it would have taken a lot longer for any response to have reached the area, and the casualties would have been considerably higher.
