Amates 31, 1277. Just when I thought I had everything figured out…
It was a kobold.
Actually, it wasn’t a live flesh and scale kobold but only a statue of one. This had the same size and shape as a real kobold, only with interlocking dark metal plates for a ‘skin’ like an alligator’s hide. Palms and other ‘soft’ parts were still the same clouded quartz crystal. Each individual fist-sized piece of the Automatic Crystal had slid, turned, or rotated along the knobs that dotted its surface. They had clicked together like a puzzle to fashion arms, sinewy paw-stepper hind legs, a reptile-shaped head and tail.
All in all, the process took only two seconds from start to finish.
Everything in the room came to a dead stop, even the fight between Ki and the mercenaries by the stairs. All eyes were on the statue with a combination of fascination, shock, and a little fear over what had just happened. No one spoke or moved, save for one exception, which didn’t surprise me one bit.
“Finally!” Baron Marius almost cheered, a grin smeared across his face. “After all these centuries, I’ve found one still intact!” A dark shadow passed over his face a moment so fast, I almost missed it. “Also, no Cesibus or Alchemy Council to get in my way.”
Cesibus? That was something to think about when my life wasn’t in danger.
“Don’t get too happy. It’s not yours,” I said in an even, flat tone. “It’s going to a museum.”
I saw that all too bright light in the baron’s eyes as he shot a glance in my direction. There was a lot of greed there, but something else that was even more dangerous. It was the same damaged, predatory shine I saw when he tried to twist me inside out with a spell back at Banye. A chill slithered down my spine as he raised his glowing crystal shard in front of him like a totem. Its light cast his wine red waistcoat and fine clothing into stark relief against the gray grunge of the room.
He took a slow step towards me.
So, I threw a dagger at him.
In my defense, I wasn’t feeling all that diplomatic toward someone who tried to murder me once before.
The blade slammed deep into the baron’s chest, right between the lapels of his waistcoat. He staggered back a step with a grunt, reaching for the weapon, while bloody hell erupted around us.
Two Crimson Company mercenaries rushed to his side. One stopped by the baron, while the other one, a tall, square-jawed wall of muscle, ran right at me. I yanked the whip off my belt, then cracked it in the air between us. Air popped like a thunderclap. The big man in the leather jerkin bolted sideways like a startled jackrabbit while he covered his face with an arm.
“Don’t even try it,” I snarled at him.
I cracked the whip twice more, just to buy myself some more space. The Crimson thug wanted nothing to do with that whip, so he gave ground. But from what I could see, the second he had the chance, he was going to rush me again. I pulled the last dagger from my belt and held it low in my left hand. Just in case he got too close for comfort.
Past my current thug-shaped problem, the baron yanked the dagger out of his chest, then shoved the man next to him roughly aside. The mercenary recoiled in wide-eyed horror at the sight of the smoking dark hole in the baron’s chest. Powdery gravedust poured from the wound like a waterfall of gray sand that smeared itself across the baron’s silk white shirt.
Baron Marius shoved the terrified thug aside into a stack of broken chairs.
“Get away!” he snapped irritably, then hurled my dagger across the room. The baron fixed a hungry, irritated glare on me. “This? Again? Tela, this habit of ruining my clothes is getting expensive. You’re becoming more trouble than you're worth.”
That predatory stare of his would have scared milk to cheese, but I stood my ground. At least, until a blast of yellow-white light from the crystal shard in his hand punched me in the stomach. Next thing I knew, I was on the floor, laying on my side. I opened my eyes.
Panic slapped me into action as a shadow fell over me. The Crimson thug I had threatened reached for my shirt. I rolled to the right. My whip handle made a satisfying crack against the side of his jaw when the hard leather knot bashed him like a flail. He backed off fast, and I scrambled to my feet.
The baron grabbed the wounded man, then tossed him aside to the floor like a big sack of garbage. I retreated a few steps, wanting no part of that. Baron Marius was a lot stronger than I imagined. Which made a wicked sort of sense since he was undead.
“Both of you, stay back!” he snarled at the two thugs. “She’s mine!”
I flinched, then stepped back again. It was the tone in his voice that did it, with that all too raw, hungry look in his eyes. All the memories of horror and pain when he ripped into me with a spell flooded my vision in lurid detail. All of it from sight to smell, and everything down to the screaming. Mostly my screaming.
Somewhere near the stairs, I heard Ki shout for Mikasi. The halfling gave a sharp reply I couldn’t make out. They both sounded either in pain or panic, not sure which. Past and present blurred into a murky mess, covered by ghosts from the past. Friends were laughing, crying, then screaming and dying, while the Long Deep ruins around me swallowed them whole.
Friends I had brought here years ago to die, just like this time.
A shadow of motion made panic shake me back to reality. It was the baron. He was almost on top of me.
“Hold still this time,” he said, his words slithered like cold slime. The man’s crystal shard turned a familiar sickly yellow. “It won’t hurt much.”
I lashed out with my whip. The handle made a sharp, solid smack across his jaw. He stumbled back, wide-eyed, grabbing his jaw from what I assume was instinct. I advanced on my tormentor with whip and dagger, like a woman possessed. Where I didn’t stab, I beat mercilessly with the wood and leather handle. Most people are at least a head taller than me. But that meant I learned a long time ago to make every hit count so it would both hurt and sting.
Seconds later, the lich quickly stumbled away from my frantic torrent of pain, hands raised in some sort of weak defense. His shirt was a shredded mess, but so was he. What wasn’t cut had been broken or bruised. Gravedust streamed out of a dozen cuts.
Exhausted, I gulped down air while sweat poured down my face and through my braids. I wiped at it with a hand. Dust smeared across my cheek.
Lich or no, even he had to have a limit on how much punishment he could take. I just needed to knock him out long enough to give us a fighting chance in here. I lunged after him.
“Ah’sa’kee!” I screamed in kobold.
A pale yellow-white blast of light exploded from his crystal shard. I dove for cover behind the ruins of a nearby table but never made it. Hot magic hit me in the chest like a hammer. One moment I was on my feet, the next I skid across the floor. My back crashed into one of the ancient cabinets at the edge of the round room. I was just lucky it was that and not one of the open windows.
Wood splinters shot everywhere when the fragile, ancient cabinet doors gave way behind me. A shower of antique pottery rained down. I curled into a ball and covered my head against the porcelain avalanche.
Once the last bowl fell, I stumbled to my feet. I felt like a cracked pane of glass, bound together by cheap, frayed twine. Everything from back to boobs, joints to lower ribs, felt like a spectacular bruise. Ki was going to chew me out again. I coughed to knock the dust out of my chest, which earned me a sharp stabbing pain in my right side. All the other aches joined in a second later.
An agonizing scream snapped my attention back to the room. I spun around, pain forgotten for the moment. It was the baron, but sadly, he wasn’t the one screaming. A small problem I really wanted to fix.
The scream was from one of Vargas’ thugs. An elven man, a head or so taller than me, wearing battered crimson brigandine armor. Baron Marius had forced the man to his knees and had a hand latched on the thug’s throat. Red, bright magic flowed out of the baron, through his crystal shard, and over the mercenary like hot syrup. Everywhere the power touched, the mercenary writhed in agony, screaming as if it boiled him alive.
Without a second thought, I ran right at them. Did I know what the baron was doing? No, and I didn’t care. But it was about to stop.
Four paces out, I cut loose with my whip. The popper struck the baron like a lightning hammer. He grabbed his wounded hand. The crystal shard clattered to the floor while the Crimson mercenary collapsed like a forgotten sack of potatoes.
Baron Marius shot a poisonous glare at me that would scare milk into cheese. But his bloody spell faded into a bad memory, and that’s all that mattered at that moment.
“You. Again!” He snapped the words out like his favorite profanity.
“Me. Again,” I replied with all the venom I could muster. Sure, I was exhausted, but anger made up for the difference. “It doesn’t matter who or what you are, I will end you before you hurt anyone else or even touch that relic!”
The baron snarled at me, then lunged for the crystal shard. He was fast, but to my surprise, his former victim was faster. The mercenary grabbed the baron before lich took a step. Off balance, Marius hit the floor face-first. I vaulted them both, then kicked the crystal shard to the far side of the room. It clattered to a stop somewhere near Ki and Mikasi.
I spun around to find myself squared off once more against Baron Marius. He had kicked free of the elven mercenary, giving the wounded man a bloody nose on top of the magic-burns. The elf lay there curled in a ball, wracked by agony.
It was like facing a mad, undead bull. I had lost my dagger somewhere near the now-shattered cabinet. All I had left was my whip, a battered body, and a lot of pent-up rage. If I stood up straight, I was only five nindel two. The baron was a head taller like most everyone else, broad-shouldered, with undead strength for days. I took a deep breath before I readied my whip and planted my feet. This was going to hurt.
“End me?” Marius snarled, shoulders bunched like a predator ready to strike. “Get in line, Tela. You aren’t the first…”
Then, in a blur of red and gray, the baron was gone. Something slammed into him with the force of a runaway wagon. A tinkle of silver clattered to the floor at my feet. I glanced down, stunned, trying to keep up with the moment.
It was a lone silver spider pendant. The one Vargas wore everywhere.
He had let the curse take him. The same curse that had infected him the last time we were here.
Vargas had thrown the baron to the floor not far away, using all four of his new, fur-covered, spidery arms. Fangs were eager to rip the lich to shreds. But that lich wasn’t about to go down easily. There was a muffled crack when Marius snapped one of Vargas’ arms. The mercenary leader let out a soul-shriveling shriek of pain.
That sound snapped me out of my haze. I scrambled over to the Crimson Company mercenary that lay at the foot of the Automatic Crystal. The elven man was covered in ugly purple blotches of magic burns. Blood streamed down from his nose. He looked like he had been shoved through three kinds of hell and left some of himself behind.
My old friend, pain, returned and politely explained that I wasn’t that much better off. I dropped to my knees. A sharp pinch, almost a stab, jabbed me in my lower ribs. I gasped, but refused to double over.
“You have bandages? Burn creams? Healing salves?” I asked between sharp gasps.
Smoke curled up off the man’s ruined armor, clothes, and body. He blinked at me, eyebrows pinched over a confused frown, while he tried to focus on my face. After a second, he shook his head.
“Bandages,” he rasped at me, voice raw. “Left belt pouch. Rest is in my pack. By the stairs.”
I practically lunged for the man’s belt pouch. He grabbed my wrist.
“Why?”
The intensity of his gaze with that one word made me hesitate. I stared at his intense look with my own.
“Because you’re hurt,” I snapped while I pulled my hands free. “I don’t like any of you or Vargas, but what the baron did? What he was doing?” I shook my head while I jerked out the bandages. “It wasn’t right. Not a bit of it.”
What really wasn’t right was all the things I didn’t say. That I couldn’t stand for these ruins to swallow anyone else whole. Not even Vargas or his cut-throat crew. Too many had already died here. It needed to stop.
I quickly ripped away the man’s sleeves, then loosely covered the burns with as much cloth as I had. There were more burns than cloth, but I did what I could. After that? I rummaged through my battered satchel in a panic.
“Something!” I snarled at both the world and myself. “Lady Deep, if you’ve ever listened to me, I need something, dammit! Anything!”
A hand gently touched my shoulder, and I nearly screamed.
I honestly thought it was Ki or Mikasi. It wasn’t either of them. The soft rattle of wind chimes blew through the air. In that music, there was a gentle voice that spoke in perfect kobold.
“I heard you call,” the soft voice sang. “You’re hurt.”
I glanced over at the hand, then up at its owner, and found myself staring into a pair of golden, crystal, kobold-shaped eyes.
It was the Automatic Crystal statue.
I had been wrong. Everyone was wrong, yet also a little bit right.
The Automatic Crystal of the Eclipse was a golem. Tears stung my eyes.
“I can help with the burns,” it sang softly in my mind while its eyes glowed at every syllable. Flashes of light that I somehow understood as words. “I know how.”
For no reason at all, Mikasi’s words from that day in his workshop back in Banye leaped out and ambushed me.
“A language of light,” I repeated in a hoarse voice. “He was right. By the Lady Deep and her Nine Misbegotten Children, he was right…”
The Automatic Crystal of the Eclipse was talking and I could understand it.
It was help, just not the kind I expected.
