The Rod of Seven Parts

by Douglas Niles

  "What about guards?" I wondered as Saysi tipped the rod, guiding the whirlwind toward the opening.

  "Don't see any," the half-ogre stated—with a shrug that indicated he would take it either way. I, too, felt ready to fight and kill in vengeance for our slain companions, and for much, much more. I knew beyond any doubt that law was the bond that held worlds together, an order threatened by Miska and his horde of chaos. This was something I finally perceived with ultimate clarity, and I resolved to do whatever I could to protect that order.

  "It looks as if everything is going inside the fortress," Saysi said. "That could mean we don't have much time."

  "If we're not already too late," I muttered, suddenly chilled by that horrifying prospect. What if Miska had already commenced his attack?

  We soared closer to the mighty fortress. Looking down, I recognized the mass of the monsters on the ground as spyder-fiends, marching like a parade of ants when viewed from our lofty elevation. Other beings of grotesque and monstrous appearance filled out the army of chaos. I saw things that looked like huge octopuses, bulbous bodies waddling grotesquely, lurching forward on eight tentacled legs. A bloblike shape, like a slug that was as big as a castle, oozed on no legs, leering with a visage that was surrounded by lashing tendrils, while six bright crimson eyes glowed from stalks on the upper portion of its wedge-shaped head.

  Then the peak loomed high, blocking everything but itself from our view. The tunnel was a huge hole lined with stone walls of jagged blackness, leading into unseen depths. Abruptly the sides of the vast passageway encircled us as Saysi steered the whirlwind into the darkness. Acidic smoke stung my nostrils, but I cast aside worries about the air, ignoring the fact that it could prove fatally poisonous to mortals. Dim light, like the reddish illumination of fading embers, rose from somewhere far below, providing enough brightness to make out the dark stone walls on all sides. The shaft seemed to generally descend, and Saysi slowed our speed slightly to negotiate the winding turns.

  Bayar still stared over the rim, her tail clocking slowly back and forth.

  "We're on the right track," I whispered, fearful of attracting attention, though as far as I could see, the whole vast tunnel was empty except for us. The walls sped by dark and slick and lifeless.

  "Look." Saysi pointed, slowing our progress to a crawl as we approached a gap.

  The passage opened into a vast chamber, a place so incomprehensibly huge that it was impossible to think of it as an enclosure. It was more like an entire realm surrounded by distant, mountainous walls. Obviously the center of the massive, mountainous fortress was hollow, and now we had penetrated to that grim heart.

  The whirlwind hovered slowly, creeping close beside one of the black stone walls, gradually moving along a surface that at some point curved from our tunnel wall to merge with the ceiling of this cavernous chamber. Stalactites jutted downward from that upper surface, an inverted forest of spikes drooping like massive fangs.

  Illumination rose from a fiery swath in the center of the floor, a vast lake of lava, molten rock bubbling and flaming, filling the place with furnace heat and spuming tongues of flame hundreds of feet into the air. The stench of ozone and other, more acrid, gases bit at my eyes and nose, and a smoky haze obscured everything, coiling in layers throughout the massive space.

  Yet even through that haze, we could see that the floor of the chamber—all the space except that occupied by the flaming lake—teemed with the gathering horde of chaos. Countless thousands, perhaps a million or more, of the queen's minions thronged below, and more continued to spill into the chamber, swarming relentlessly forward from the dozen or so huge tunnels that broke the walls at the level of the floor.

  Again it was Bayar who pointed with her nose, this time holding silent even as her body tingled with urgency. She quivered, her tail straight, pointing at a shadowy corner near the vaulted ceiling.

  "Here—this way," I urged.

  Saysi steered us, still close to the ceiling. The massive spires of rock jutted downward everywhere, forming thickets of stone. We used this inverted forest for cover, crossing near one wall of the chamber, following the unspoken instinct of the hound. As with the flyers outside, the monsters below seemed utterly focused, unaware or uncaring of our presence.

  I saw a pair of wide ramps circling upward from the floor of the great chamber, each following one of the cavern's lofty walls to converge on a high, wide shelf. Pillars flanked the entrances to this exalted balcony, and gouts of crimson flame erupted from cracks lining the far walls of the immense platform, breaking up the shadows that had cloaked the area when I first looked there.

  "That's the place." I pointed to the ledge that, like a gallery, jutted outward from the wall, high up on the cavern side. A lofty dais stood there, and I could picture Miska mounting that platform to exhort his warriors. I cringed at the thought of the frenziedly howling tanar'ri that would follow his every command.

  Saysi guided us through the thick shadows near a side of the ledge, at the upper terminus of one of the great ramps. Monstrous troops advanced along this incline, but as yet, the first of these were far below, drawing only slowly toward this great elevation. The little priestess said nothing, but through some definite command, the whirlwind dissipated, setting us gently onto a floor of slick black stone.

  "Wait." Badswell whispered the word, then spoke to Saysi as we turned to look at him. "Should you touch the champion with the rod? Like Parnish?"

  "The third segment," she remembered with a nod. Placing her tiny hand around the location of the piece, she touched the tip of the staff to my arm.

  Again I felt that spark, the tingling of haste that caused everything else to slow down. Without a word, I began to walk, sword held ready before me while Bayar padded at my heel and Badswell and Saysi fell in behind. Stepping slowly and deliberately, so that the others could keep up, I skirted one of the pillars, which was as big around as a good-sized house. I saw that the flaming illumination rose from trenchlike grooves gouged into the floor. These depressions were filled with oil or some other flammable liquid, and the heat of the blazes grew uncomfortably warm as we slowly advanced.

  Approaching a lofty arched entryway, I heard sounds of muted conversation from within the cavernous chamber beyond. As we drew nearer, the sounds became louder, the words spoken in a deep, throaty voice that was vaguely female. At the same time, the sound was clearly inhuman, a deep and resonant rumble so monstrously frightening that my hands began to tremble.

  "Just a little longer, my pet... my beloved. It has been too long since I have known your embrace." The words gurgled outward, bubbling from something I pictured as a mountainous mass of flesh.

  "Aye, my queen. But the army awaits, and vengeance demands that I strike." This reply came in the strong, masculine voice of the wolf-spider. I allowed myself a growing flicker of hope, fueled by the preliminary knowledge that we had at least located our target.

  "There will be time, eons of time, for your revenge. Dally with me just a while longer."

  The chill surging along my spine was all the confirmation I needed: This was the voice of the Queen of Chaos herself. "My pleasure has been denied for too long," she insisted, her voice dropping to a bass rumble, pleading and whining, yet also potent with an irresistible command.

  "Or did you not yearn for me with the same fervor, with the unspeakable, unbearable passion that I longed for you?" A further note of sternness crept into the tone.

  "Nay, Mistress. For too many centuries, I have been forced to rely only on memories, knowing always that such recollections cannot compare to the exquisiteness that is your being!"

  We four intruders crouched like frightened mice in the thick shadows cast by the vast pillars flanking the entry-way. Somewhere within lurked the two powerful beings, godlike immortals whom we dared to challenge. Yet I felt no hesitation in myself nor in my companions. I didn't waste time trying to predict what our fate might be after we dealt with the hateful wolf-spider.

&n
bsp; "You take the rod," Saysi whispered, passing the artifact to Badswell. "You'll have the strength to drive it home, and Kip may need his sword to buy us time."

  "Good idea," I mouthed back, then added another thought. "You stay here. Let Bads and me go ahead."

  She gave me an expression that suggested she doubted my sanity, then fell in right between the two of us.

  I concurred with a silent nod; the plan was as good as we could hope for, given the desperate nature of our task. The little priestess took hold of her jade amulet, murmuring inaudibly, and I knew that she sought strength and courage from Patrikon. I only hoped that the god of law would bestow his favor upon all of us.

  We crept around the corner—the last corner. I found myself looking into a large room, with walls of burnished gold and a floor of immaculate silver. There was no light source that I could see, but the entire place seemed to glow with a dim but pervasive illumination. The chamber was featureless except for the two massive occupants coiled together within a stone's throw of the entrance.

  The Queen of Chaos towered like a large building, rising from the midst of a nest of tentacles. Her body was a dark and shapeless blob, almost black in color, the upper portion resembling some grotesque, unspeakably foul version of a giantess. The form was vaguely humanoid and female, yet so bulbous and disfigured as to barely resemble anything like a woman.

  Miska's human face was buried somewhere within the folds of the queen's monstrous body, but the two wolf heads were upraised and alert. One of them fixed me with a wicked glare, and I could have sworn that those lupine jaws curled into a grin of cruel amusement.

  Things happened quickly then.

  Realizing that I'd been observed, I raised the Vaati Blade and charged forward, hoping at the very least to distract the wolf-spider so that Badswell could approach and drive home the black artifact. Hastened by the rod, I sprinted across the silver floor like a bolt shot from a crossbow. Bayar barked bravely, charging after with a clattering of claws on metal.

  Then the Queen of Chaos turned those malevolent eyes upon me, and my body grew weak with fear. I struggled, feeling my muscles become limp and helpless. Still I tried to attack, but now my feet seemed mired in glue, even frozen to the floor. With a groan of anguish, I found myself unable to take another step.

  Bayar darted past me as if, with courage alone, she would rend both the foul queen and her grotesque lover. A black tentacle whipped outward, cracking into the brave dog's flank. With a plaintive yelp, the hound flew through the air, smashed into the golden wall. She slid to the floor and lay limp, like a bundle of brown rags.

  "These are the champions of law, my queen," Miska declared, his mocking voice penetrating my wrenching grief. The wolf-spider's handsome human head rose to regard us contemptuously while the wolves sneered and drooled to either side. "It seems they have been kind enough to bring us a present."

  "The rod?" The sound was a gurgling chuckle, menacing and amused at the same time.

  "Of course," gloated the wolf-spider, turning to enjoy our discomfort. "Naturally the artifact of law would have been a great drain upon my power, should I have tried to bear it through the planes as I made my escape. Fortunately you mortal fools were available."

  The vicious, manlike head turned back to his beloved queen. "They have brought it here so that you can store it safely out of reach of any of your enemies. It will never menace us again."

  "Champions?" mocked the queen, sneering down at me from the height of a three-story mansion. "What sort of champion is this?"

  I started to spit out a bold reply, some kind of brazen challenge to demonstrate my determination. But I was interrupted by the sound of my own sword blade dropping to the floor. Clutching the hilt, which suddenly seemed very large, I strained to lift the weapon. But it was too heavy for me to raise the massive thing...

  Because I was only a halfling again.

  CHAPTER 24

  VENGEANCE OF A QUEEN

  "Such precious little toys," gurgled the Queen of Chaos, looking down at Badswell, Saysi, and me. She clapped her hands with a remarkably girlish, yet terrifying, gesture. "How splendid that you have come to witness the end of your dreams... as well as the destruction of your world."

  I looked up in helpless fury, my body that of a tiny halfling, still mired in the magical restraint of the queen's command. Helpless, I looked at Bayar's ragged form, shedding bitter tears for yet another companion I could not save.

  "How ironic that the end of their dreams," echoed Miska, "should represent merely the beginning of ours."

  "Yes, my pet. Still, we must be cautious. I would wager that the two little runtlings are no threat to us. Do you agree?"

  "Aye, my queen. Yet the bigger one could be dangerous. He wields that axe with strength and skill."

  Badswell glared impassively upward as the two horrible beings discussed our fate. The half-ogre's big hands clenched the solid haft of his weapon, and I imagined him evaluating his chances. Could he accomplish anything with a swift, violent attack? Somehow he had given the rod back to Saysi, I noted with a start. Perhaps he had foreseen this complication when our approach was first observed.

  Don't try it, I urged silently, hoping that he would sense my plea. Certainly any overt move on his part could yield but a single inevitable result—one that was utterly, hopelessly suicidal. As to myself, though my nerves still tingled with the haste spell, I was incapable of lifting a hand in my friend's defense.

  "Very well.'' The queen appeared to reach a decision, for she raised a finger and pointed at the mute half-ogre. The digit, which was the size of my whole arm, twitched once, and a tendril of blue-black smoke emerged from the tip.

  I watched in speechless horror as the tentacle of vapor coalesced on the floor, coiling into a long, fat-bodied viper. The wedged head, with eyes of slitted evil glowing like fire, glared at the half-ogre while the sinuous body pulsed in a grotesque sidewinding motion. Badswell stepped warily backward, eyes fixed upon the serpent, axe raised defensively before his chest.

  The strike came so quickly that, even magically quickened, I couldn't follow the movement with my eyes. One moment the serpent was poised, watching its intended prey, and the next it had flown through the air, stabbing like a spear against Badswell's chest. The half-ogre had no chance to react, not even to move the axe. The serpentine, scaly body flexed as I sensed venom coursing from its wicked fangs, piercing skin, swiftly driving into that powerful, loyal heart.

  With a groan, Bads staggered backward, dropping the axe to the floor with a heavy clatter. His knees buckled as the snake remained pinned to his body. When he slumped forward, still and dead, the serpent evaporated into the dark smoke that had marked its creation. As the vapor drifted away, our bold companion twitched spasmodically, his head turning to the side, eyes open and utterly sightless.

  "Badswell!" screamed Saysi, breaking from her trance and rushing to the lifeless half-ogre's side. "You killed him!" she shrieked, turning her dark eyes toward the queen, fury bringing her voice to a trembling pitch. My own despair rose in a wave of bleak helplessness, the grim foreknowledge that everyone who meant anything to me was going to be killed. Even the little priestess was doomed. The miracle of her survival from Oakvale was merely a brief reprieve.

  "Of course I killed him," snapped the immense, grotesque creature peevishly. "Perhaps you are ready to share his fate?"

  Again a bloated finger raised, this time aiming toward the little halfling priestess.

  "No!" I cried, finally breaking free of the mire, forcing my own feet to move. I stumbled to Saysi's side, pulling her away from the corpse, and wrapped my arms around her as I turned back to the queen. "She's no threat. She can't hurt you!"

  Pleading with the goddess, I squeezed Saysi—hard—in a desperate attempt to calm her fury, at least to the point where she didn't goad the queen into another deadly strike. My own heart was breaking at the sight of the poor half-ogre's body, but I couldn't let that despair drive our only chance away.
As long as we lived, we still had cause for some hope, however slight. Fully small again, the same size as Saysi, I held her close and stared into her eyes, silently pleading.

  The queen's attentions had already drifted to the massive ramps extending down either wall of the mighty cavern. Only one of these was in sight, but I noticed the file of creatures climbing there, marching steadily upward in answer to an unspoken summons. A mighty raklupis was in the lead, its sleek wolf head raised to regard Miska and the queen with an expression of adoring attentiveness.

  Behind the Queen of Chaos, a white circle slowly took shape in the air, glowing with magical power, gradually gaining definition. It lingered there, a gate through the planes, though I could as yet see no sign of a destination through the large aperture. Still, I sensed that this was the invasion route, the avenue awaiting only Miska's command for the onslaught.

  "My army gathers, poised to attack," murmured the queen, as if she couldn't quite believe the fact herself. "But where shall I commence the killing, the glorious supremacy of chaos...?"

  My heart stuttered as those cold eyes turned back to Saysi and me. "I have an idea," she declared with a sinister chortle. "Tell me... where is your home? Do you have loved ones there? I do hope so."

  Resistance was instinctive, and I clamped my jaw shut in determination not to reveal anything. Suddenly I staggered backward, my head throbbing as though it had been ripped open. I could all but feel the queen's slimy tentacles reaching into the recesses of my brain, tearing out my thoughts as if she were plucking cherries from a bowl. Many of the morsels she cast aside, but soon, inevitably, she found one that she liked.

  "Colbytown? A silly name, indeed. No doubt a bland and boring place, full of purpose and order. That shall change, and very soon."

  "No!" I tried to cry out, but the word came out a rasping whisper.

  "Oh, don't fret. Miska shall take his army to lots of places, and chaos will reign in them all. You should consider it an honor, of sorts. A pathetic little village of halflings, incapable of any significant boasts or accomplishments, shall be the initial point of destruction for your entire world. Indeed, I can't imagine why you're so upset."