I woke up, I suppose it must have been afternoon. Not sure how many hours passed since our capture. The sun was getting a little low, maybe a hand or two above the horizon, but it’s so hard to tell here – days don’t have a very consistent time-frame, they seem to change in length by up to a couple hours from day to day.
The buyer was gone, and although I initially thought I might have been hallucinating, the others revealed that they’d seen the person too. So much for that. If that’s so, then Mahar must still be around – either in person or in legend.
However, the lamia – for that indeed is what she was – stood facing us in the center of the room. Now that I could see a little more clearly, I’ve come to the conclusion that the lamia is a most unpleasant form…she had no eyes, and in fact on close inspection (a lot closer than I wanted, but hell, I was chained to the walls) what passes for an attractive woman is actually a closely-knit collection of insects. Beetles, mostly, and it’s uncanny how they hold themselves together, the appearance of skin is almost perfect! I sensed a bit of the arcane about her, so I suspect some form of fey glamour brushes over the cracks in her disguise. Her eyes were probably the most disturbing part of her – dark sockets with masses of tiny black beetles, they formed their disguise and melted constantly as she spoke. Each time the backs of the many creatures grouped together, the “iris” of the false eye had a different color, as the wing casings of different ones came into formation.
“You are awake, that is good,” blue, deep blue like a shallow sea. As she noticed me looking at her she brought a cup to her mouth – a cup made from a skull. A rather fresh one, as it was still somewhat tacky, leaving thick smudges on her fingertips.
At first I didn’t say anything. I did notice Bingo’s absence as well, and hoped he’d been able to get away. Didn’t really expect it, but I was hoping.
All this acedemic discussion belies the horror she instilled in us, in me. With a clear view of the room, I realized we were in an upper room of an old, ruined tower. One wall crumbling away to give us a view of Moss Kag, tanalizingly close. The undead thing that had masked as an Eladrin, the bodak, stood in the room’s stairwell. It (he?) wore close-fitting black leather and a mask with goggles over his eyes…I suppose to keep his gaze from affecting his allies on a day-to-day basis.
“Silence? That is all you have for me? And yet we will share such times together, Azrael.” Black, gaping sockets. She had her head tilted to one side, and stirred the contents of her “mug” with what looked like a wire whisk. Expensive culinary equipment, I would never have expected. An insect – I think a dark roly-poly – fell from her left eye and down into her cleavage.
“How do you know me?” I finally asked as she got closer. The skull stank like a battlefield. I don’t have any objection to the smell of blood, been around it long enough, but I certainly can’t say that I like it.
Her voice was low, almost man-like, but it scraped like rough wood on stone – my guess is that the creature forms words by buzzing wings in its “throat” to create noises that we’d understand as language. Where it keeps its mind I haven’t the foggiest clue, though it wouldn’t surprise me if this collection was powered by some weird spirit, similar to how some undead are ‘puppeted’ by spirits outside of the body.
Everyone else was chained up on the wall with me, Rhogar to my right, Sered to his, Dei to my left, Nix to his, and Althea just down from him. Dei and Althea were both blindfolded – no surprise, being fey, they were natural teleporters, and these two creatures probably were quite familiar with that capability. Canon was not to be seen…at least, not immediately. We were all stripped close to naked – in spite of the situation, Nix had a hard time to keep his eyes on anything other than Althea’s breasts – and chained over our heads. Sered was in a corner, and the wall to his right was the crumbled, broken one through which we could see the far castle.
“I know many secrets about you, little Shadrim. Before we’re done I’ll learn all of yours, just as I learned Canon’s here as I stripped the flesh from him.” Guess that answers that. Brown eyes, almost perfect. She waved the mug gently under my face. I could see his skull had been emptied and its interior waxed. I guess that was his blood and brains in there, which she was keeping a little froth in with the whisk as she drank it. “You know, he tastes a bit gamey, like bear meat!” She smiled wide and giggled in a rude parody of a small girl. A film bubble of blood formed in her open mouth for just a moment. It popped, leaving a single tiny drop on her chin.
I think if I’d eaten something more recently I might have vomited there and then. Probably should have tried, just for spite, but a plot was hatching in my head, and I didn’t want mine to end up like Canon’s quite so soon.
Looking at that wall, it occurred to me that the stone in which our chains were anchored might not be the strongest stuff. In fact, I was willing to bet that Rhogar could probably rip his free if he really got the wind in him.
Against the far wall was a pile of loose stone, rock, and gear, I recognized some of it – apparently ours. After being stripped it must have been simply piled up to be sorted over by our captors. I suppose these two have had plenty of time to prey on travelers like ourselves.
All around us on the floor were bones, and many more skulls, each one intricately carved with some kind of language. I didn’t recognize it, but it was very detailed, similar to scrimshaw. Even the walls, to some degree, had carvings like that in them.
“Yes, you see now, don’t you? Each creature has its secrets, and I keep them all. I carve them into the bones and stones to pass the time. What secrets you must have, for the armies of Ihnbharan to want you? Oh, but they don’t really want you, now, do they? Just these three. I wonder what the Shal Rava has in store for you?” Her right eye was gold, and her left was red. She motioned towards Nix and Sered and Rhogar. “The rest of you…well, we’ll have so much to talk about.”
She had turned away and walked towards the stairs, the bodak just looking on impassively through his goggles, like a smelter staring at hot ore. He had his sword on his back, in a leather loop-sheath. The thing’s blade gleamed with a strange kind of radiance, almost like an absence of light – the glassy weapon seemed to actually leech light and color out of the air around it. Very strange…and I certainly would not want to find out what effect that aura would have passing through my flesh.
The others were all awake now, in various states of repair, all of us bloody and bruised from the battle. Rhogar even had a hefty dent in his skull where he’d been whalloped by one of the cyclopsi. Knowing Arkhosian anatomy fairly well, I recognized it as a minor injury, which would re-inflate in time. Missed his vitals.
Time to put my little plan in gear. “Madam, if we are to spend so much time talking, what shall I call you?”
“So you are interested? You wish to share with me? You may call me Liss, little Azrael. Liss.” She looked back at me over her shoulder. The eye I could see was a mass of churning grey maggots.
“Given what I can tell of the conversations to come, a little courage might be in the offing. I don’t suppose you have enough there to share, as it will be hard to keep speaking with a parched throat?” I could hardly believe I was doing this, I really understood then what the Necromancers of House Goradrim meant when they described their work as ‘contemplative dissociation.’ I actually felt as if my mind, my thoughts, were happening a few feet above me, almost as though I were watching myself through a tiny window over a great distance.
“So, you want some? Courageous indeed. I have never found one of you willing to partake of others.” She was walking back to me now. The eyes were a color I can’t really remember – just that they were almost hypnotic, and there was no trace that she was anything other than a fair Eladrin woman. With thick red smears on her fingers and thumb.
I bared my canines, which I’m proud to say I normally keep very clean. “I am Shadrim. I have an appreciation of the light and dark together. Perhaps at this moment, dark seems a little more appropriate.” Yellow with flecks of black, I realized the flecks were legs of an insect imperfectly disguised.
I was a little surprised that the others weren’t crying out, but I heard Dei drawing breath in shallow gasps. I risked a glance over at him, and shushed at him. His head was trembling and he recoiled away – which I think means I probably was putting on too much of a show, since he was probably thinking I meant “I’ll have some of you, too.” No matter, that all worked as part of the plan.
As she drew closer, I muttered loudly enough to be heard by the others. “Courage and strength are something all of my companions could use.”
She held the cup to my mouth, and I came near enough to gagging that I almost spoiled the whole effect. Still, I managed to get a couple of swallows down before she spilled over my lips and down my chin. She took back the cup, cradling it and frowning a little, watching me through eyes slitted – I could see movement under the lids, the way you can see someone moving their eyes in a dream, but I knew this was not a dream, and that wasn’t an eye moving under there. She was apparently disappointed that I’d wasted some. I summoned up the tiniest bit of power and channeled it into my words. My own voice came out thick with the taste of Canon’s blood on my tongue. “All in need of courage and strength can find it, like the stone in these very walls.” I felt the little surge pass through my throat and into the air of my words, I tried my hardest to make the effort as subtle as possible.
Not subtle enough. My throat caught a little on something…probably a gobbet of Canon. She felt the wisp of power slip by, and let out a hissing shriek: “What is this!?!”
The bodak immediately drew his blade and took a step forward, confused at what had happened, and I did a fast check to either side of me – as I’d hoped, Rhogar and Sered were both looking at me with revulsion, squirming in their chains…they had felt the charm settle on their wrists as I spoke, adding just a little touch of extra flexibility to them. When I looked left, I saw that Nix had vomited a little, but was struggling madly with the chains, as were Dei and Althea.
I lost sight of them all for a moment, my gaze captured by the face of Liss as her features twisted in an agonized approximation of fury. Those perfect eyes – violet, I remember now – flew apart into a thousand tiny stinging things, which began to orbit her with unnatural velocity. Many of them hit me in their path, and it felt like the time I had been caught in a sandstorm – they hit me so hard they embedded in my skin. Not being one to disappoint, I let out a shriek of my own – I am not ashamed to admit it, I felt pain – and put as much volume and residual emotion into it as possible. I was hoping this would add to the power of the charm I was using to give everyone a fighting chance at breaking our bonds.
Quickly stealing a glance at Sered, I saw him stran futilely against the manacles on his wrists, to fall defeated by them against the wall. Rhogar, on the other hand, did exactly as I expected – the revulsion and disgust had given him a powerful core to build effort on. The sudden realization that the anchor for his chains was weaker than he expected ignited his anger, and in a rage he pulled the anchor stone clear out of the wall!
The next few minutes are a bit of a blur to me – the bodak smacking Althea for some reason, which dislodged her blindfold. Suddenly able to see, she quick-stepped – with a soft double-pop of displaced air – over to the pile of gear to retrieve a weapon, but as she glanced up, she met his gaze.
He had whipped off his goggles as he had turned to see where she’d reappeared.
She dropped like a sack of potatoes. She didn’t seem to be breathing, but I was a good fifty feet away and still chained, so I could not really tell.
I really lost track at that point – I know Liss hit me probably several times and hard, as I did my best to ensorcel the bodak and confuse him. I have a vague recollection of using a healing chant on Rhogar as he made a mad dash for the pile, only to see him come up waving what looked like a woman’s silk scarf before looking at it with frustration and returning to the pile for his sword. Nix shooting some sort of spell at Sered’s chains. Sered eventually getting free and distracting Liss from me at last, while I spent all my effort to dodge the Lamia’s blows and withstand the cloud of vermin that orbited her in a sudden buzzing frenzy. At some point, Bingo appeared – apparently he’d tracked us all the way back to this tower, and had scaled the ruined side of it after he’d heard either Canon’s screaming earlier, or my own more recent outburst.
Towards the end, Rhogar stormed back to the wall and with enormous swings of his greatsword sliced our chains clear. Came close to slicing my fingers off, as well, but fortunately only close. As Sered was keeping the lamia occupied, Dei at some point knocked the bodak – who himself had begun to bleed a dark ichor from his nose and right ear – from his feet, sword skittering across the stones. Almost immediately, the thing seemed to evaporate into a thin mist, ghost-like, and faded from sight. Try as I might I could not get a glimpse of where it went. I recall expending the last of my reparative charms on Althea to bring her around, and seeing her shaking her head and standing unassisted was gratifying.
Liss, realizing she was on the losing end of this one, dissolved into a stream of filthy coleopterids, which skittered and buzzed themselves away through cracks on the floor. Sered, ever eager to get himself singled out and killed, gave chase while the rest of us caught our breath. I don’t know if he even heard me shoulding after him to come back, it probably wouldn’t have mattered if he had. Nix set himself on the pile of belongings and began digging out his own gear, while Dei, Bingo and Althea ran down the stairs after Sered.
Before the bodak could return and reclaim it and use it on us, I ran forward, stripping my shirt to wrap around the blade it had dropped. I returned to the pile, where Nix was shifting on unsteady feet.
I stood guard over Nix while he sorted his gear out, watching for the return of the bodak or of Liss herself. A short while later Sered and the others returned, having been eluded by the lamia. The bodak was not to be seen. We debated for a moment what we should do, and eventually Bingo volunteered that he’d seen a glade about a half-hour’s fast walk would take us to where we would be at least relatively safe. Looking at the big pile of broken rock and all of our gear, we took turns shoveling the majority of it into a eulithid pocket – apparently in this day and age a wizard named Heward takes credit for the eulithid extra-dimensional containers.
Regardless, we piled everything in it except for our armor, boots and weapons, and set out to the glade and the safety it offered.
As promised, we arrived at the glade exactly as Bingo told us, and settled in with a travelers’ fire to sort out our respective gear. I haven’t felt so relieved to set hands on my bow in a very long time. I guess given my relative timeline, that would be a very long time.
We also discovered we’d found quite a bit of simple jewelry, mostly of Eladrin make, and a small amount of coinage which hadn’t belonged to anyone. As well, a suit of very greasy, very slippery enchanted scale mail and a few other items – Nix readily identified a single arrow among the lot made of bone, carved with several tiny runes that we both agreed had some rather powerful flame enchantment on it. The various new gear found its way to people – the scarf actually landed with Nix, and someone made the “it looks quite fetching on you” joke. From what we could see, it was enchanted in some way as well. No one could use the armor effectively, so it was rolled up and put away.
While the sorting was going on, Bingo saw the weapon I’d recovered from the floor before we left among the pile. He raised an eyebrow as he slotted away the engraved arrow, and asked “What are you going to do with your new toy?” It took me a moment to realize what he was on about, until I realized then I was the only one in the group who used a longsword. Come to think of it, my own was a little long in the tooth – ironic that I should think that, given my elapsed span.
I picked up the sword from the ground where we’d laid down all the additional equipment we’d recovered, partially unwrapped it from the shirt, and looked at the blade again. The blade was made from a clear, dark material, like smoky volcanic glass. The hilt appeared to be some kind of darkened carbon steel, the grip blood-red leather with silver wire pulling it tight. I held out my hand and rested the weapon on it lengthwise, trying to ascertain it’s point of balance. This might have been a mistake. As soon as my flesh contacted it, I felt a chill as though ice water ran into my veins from that touch. A whisper in my mind, like the rush of water over distant falls, grew and formed into words.
I am Sybarron, the slave-blade. If you follow, I will lead you to mastery over all who oppose you.
