by Logan Jacobs
Still, its reaction to the alchemist’s fire made me realize something else. The bat-people earlier must have heard us coming, but they didn’t react until they saw Aerin’s light, and now this one was obviously sensitive to the fire. Maybe the resemblance that these creatures bore to bats wasn’t superficial. After spending however many decades down here in pitch-darkness, they seemed to hate the light.
Merlin was the only one who could still do anything to the beast while it was in the air, and he flew around it with astounding agility and scratched and bit at it while Aerin healed Dehn and helped the halfling to his feet.
Maruk had backed up toward the door again, and he threw a nervous glance at me over his shoulder.
“It won’t stay up there forever,” I said in response to the orc’s unspoken question. The chamber was tall, but not wide, and all the bat monster could really do was hover and snap at Merlin while the puca darted around it like a mosquito. We could use this time that it was distracted to our advantage.
“Lena, how many more of those jars do you have?” I asked as I turned to the alchemist.
“Seven,” she answered immediately. Her violet gaze flicked up to the monster above us. “Do you think that’ll be enough?”
“It’ll have to be,” I responded. “Everyone take one, when that thing lands, we’ll light it up.”
“Alright!” Dehn didn’t sound any worse from his tumble off of the beast’s back. “Now we’re talking! I want two!”
Lena passed out the jars to the rest of us just as the monster landed again with a thud that shook the surrounding walls. It must have gotten a lucky strike at Merlin, because the gryphon swooped past us into the relative safety of the hallway with a sizeable chunk of feathers missing from one of his wings.
“On three,” I ordered as I turned the jar in my sweaty palm. “One... Two... Three!”
We all threw out our vials at once, and as the glass exploded into a shower of glitter against the flagstones, seven blooms of multicolored flames enveloped the beast.
The monster howled as the fire spread over its body and attempted to fly up again, but the flames had already begun to eat through its wings, and it could only flap helplessly as it was consumed. The smell of burning flesh mixed with something chemical and sharp filled the room, and we all backed into the hall to keep any errant sparks from hitting us. It was terrible to watch, but I found that I couldn’t look away as the monster beat its wings against the floor and the walls, and eventually even its piercing screeches were drowned out by the roar of the inferno.
“Gods of the Vales,” Aerin breathed.
“It’s like a festival,” Dehn added with relish, which earned him a sideways look from Maruk.
“What kind of festivals do you go to?” the orc asked, but then he quickly held up his hands. “Nevermind, I don’t want to know.”
Gradually, the monster went still, and the flames that surrounded it died out, and all that was left was the beast’s blackened corpse in the center of the room. I wasn’t looking forward to what came next, but I knew we didn’t have any time to waste. The smaller ones had begun to revive within mere minutes, and we didn’t have a way to light this one on fire again.
“We have to cut it up,” I said finally with a glance at my companions. “You know, to make sure it can’t come back.”
“Haha, yes! I’m on it, boss!” Dehn shouted and leapt forward to begin hacking at the creature’s burnt remains.
“You think it could still come back after all that?” Maruk asked with a frown.
“I’d rather not find out the hard way,” I replied as I summoned my mana dagger. “Come on, we’d better help.”
Even Merlin returned and joined in, though he’d reverted to his natural form, and we set about cutting the monster’s charred body into pieces. Its hair must have been extremely thick, because in most places, it seemed that its burns had only just reached its skin, but its bald face had been rendered a horrific facsimile of what it had been. The creature’s skin had burnt away from the bottom of its jaw up across its face to its torn ear right down to the bone, and its sightless eyes stared out like pickled eggs, the lids gone.
When I managed to tear my gaze away from the monster’s face, however, I noticed something strange. The gold chain around its neck had survived the flames that had destroyed the monster’s body. More than that, it didn’t seem to have been touched by the fires at all. I tugged at it in search of a clasp, but there was none, and the beast’s neck was too thick to pull it off easily.
I grimaced as I stuck my mana blade into the monster’s throat and began to cut. The dagger sliced through the flesh with ease, but the blade was short and required me to move awkwardly around the monster’s head as I cut it off. Dark blood, still warm, soaked into my sleeve up to my elbow and made my fingers slippery around the handle of my knife, but I gritted my teeth and continued to saw through the monster’s neck until, at last, its head fell away with a heavy thud.
I slid the gold chain from the bloody stump of the creature’s short neck and only then did I notice the pendant that hung from it.
“Woah,” Aerin gasped and left her axe buried in the monster’s shoulder as she came over to get a better look.
The pendant, of course, was soaked in blood, which I mostly managed to just smear around when I tried to wipe it off. It was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, a perfect setting of gold in which a single gem shone. The stone was about the size of my thumbnail, smoky in color and slightly translucent, and despite the gore that was smeared all over the rest of the pendant, there wasn’t a single drop of blood to sully its surface.
“That’s it,” Aerin said in an awed whisper. “That’s the gemstone, the first of the Shodra.”
At that, Maruk, Lena, and even Dehn came over to see it, and at once, I knew Aerin was right. I wasn’t sure what tipped me off, exactly, something about the weight of the pendant in my hand or the way the stone seemed to give off its own subtle glow, but I could sense the power of its magic, and there was no doubt in my mind as to what I was holding.
“That mage must have come for it,” Lena said, and we all turned to her. “The one that Greeves told us about, who came down here and started the curse.”
“What does the curse have to do with the gemstone?” Maruk asked.
“Maybe the mage tried to come and steal the pendant, and when he couldn’t, he cursed the village,” Aerin suggested. She stared at the pendant as she spoke, as though she was trying to decide whether or not she wanted to touch it.
“Maybe,” I replied. Then something else occurred to me. There were no human skeletons down here, not from that first mage, or from any of the adventurers that Greeves had told us had braved the crypts in the years since. “Wait,” I said, “if the Shodra are supposed to augment a person’s magic in some way... Maybe that mage didn’t come here to steal it, maybe he brought it with him, and then he tried to use it for necromancy but it went wrong and created those undead bat-things. He became... this, and everyone else who died down here was resurrected as one of those creatures.”
“Shit,” Dehn grunted.
“Perhaps we ought to make a note of that,” Maruk said. “‘Do not use fabled magical artifact for nefarious purposes,’ or something to that effect.”
“Good idea,” Lena replied.
It felt strange to do so, given the importance of the object in question, but since I had no better alternative, I looped the chain around my neck. I was about to try to cut it with my dagger to tie it shorter to fit, but before I could, it shrank magically from the size of the bat-monster’s neck to a length that fit me and had the pendant rest squarely in the center of my chest. I tucked in into the collar of my shirt and tried to ignore the way it felt unnaturally warm against my skin, as though it was something alive in its own right.
“We should get back,” I said at last. “The others will want to hear about this, and maybe they found some leads on the other three Shodra.”
�
��Can I be the one to tell them?” Aerin asked suddenly. “Since Lavinia thought my sign from the goddess was just an accident, and I was completely right all along, as always.”
“As always,” I answered with a grin as I pulled the healer to me and pressed a kiss to her lips. “Yeah, you can be the one to deliver the good news. Now let’s go.”
Chapter 9
Although it was late in the afternoon when we returned to the surface, none of us were particularly keen on the idea of camping in the area for the night or trying to find lodging in the village. Given how suspicious of us the villagers had been before, I didn’t expect that they would be any more welcoming when we came to their doors covered in blood, so we opted instead to just ride home. Thankfully, we had no trouble on the road and reached our guild hall shortly after midnight. The lights were still on inside, and as soon as we entered, Lavinia, Emeline, and Yvaine came out of the kitchen to greet us.
“Uh, don’t take this the wrong way, but you guys look like shit,” Lavinia said by way of greeting. “What the hell happened out there?”
I turned to Aerin, and the elf grinned broadly.
“We found the first of the Shodra,” the healer reported with immense pride. “I was right, Theira led us right to it.”
“Really?” Emeline gasped as she rushed forward. “Where is it? Can we see it? Where did you find it?”
“Let’s all sit down, and we’ll explain.” I smiled as I pulled the pendant out from beneath my collar. We gathered around the dining room table, and I set the pendant in the center as Aerin, Lena, Maruk, Dehn, and I took turns relating our most recent adventures to the others.
“Wow,” Emeline whispered when we’d finished, and she reached forward hesitantly to touch the gemstone. “It’s right in front of me, and I still can’t hardly believe it. Most people don’t even believe these really exist, even in the Mage Academy.”
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Yvaine remarked. “Though I think I might have chosen a different setting, silver, perhaps.”
“Or white gold,” Maruk suggested.
“Oh, yes!” Yvaine agreed emphatically. “White gold would be lovely.”
“Sorry I missed the fight,” Lavinia said as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“I told you it wasn’t just wax.” Aerin smirked.
“Yeah, yeah, you were right,” Lavinia admitted with a begrudging shake of her horned head. Then she stood and moved over to the desk in the hall and took up a few sheaves of paper that she brought back to the table. “Luckily for all of us, the firestarter, the princess, and I got a lead, too.”
“You did?” Maruk asked. “What did you find?”
“While we were researching in the library at the university, one of those creepy older mages came up to us--” Lavinia started.
“--Her name is Professor Hayle, she’s an archmage, and also very respected in the Academy,” Emeline interjected.
“Right,” the ranger went on, “well, she told us she’d heard about the Shodra. We were careful, we didn’t tell anyone, so she had to have heard about it from someone else. She said she knew a rumor about where the knife might be.”
“So what’s the catch?” Aerin asked with a frown.
“Some thugs killed her husband a few years ago and stole her wedding ring,” Lavinia answered. “She wants justice or revenge or whatever, but she can’t get clearance to track the bastards down herself, so she wants us to do it. We kill some murderers and bring back the ring, and she’ll tell us where to find the knife.”
“Hang on,” I said, “how do we know we can even trust her?” I looked around the table at the others. “I mean, no one else was supposed to know what we were looking for, and if she did have information that could help us, why wouldn’t she just tell us? We’re doing this for the Mage Academy, after all.”
“Well, our lie detector was out killing bat-monsters,” Lavinia replied with a glance to Aerin, “but I’d be willing to bet she’s a little annoyed that Maderel wouldn’t let her leave to go avenge her husband. Maybe she’s just making things difficult to spite him.”
“She seemed very earnest,” Emeline added, “and she’s always had a good reputation at the Academy. I think we can trust her, and it’s not like she’s asking for much, right?”
“I don’t know,” Aerin said. “Gabriel’s right, it does sound sort of... off, and you said she’d just heard a rumor about the knife. What if we go to all that trouble and she’s wrong?”
“You followed a drip of wax on a map,” Lavinia reminded her. “Is it that different?”
“Yes!” Aerin insisted. “That was a sign from a goddess, not a bribe from some old witch! Are you really telling me you trust her, Lavinia?”
The ranger glowered over the table. Aerin was right, it wasn’t like Lavinia to go run off after rumors like this, she was more practical than that, but I guessed that especially given our recent success in Olim, the ladona woman’s pride had been bruised, and she was trying to make up for it now by having another lead to offer.
“Yvaine, what do you think?” I asked.
“Retrieving the ring doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice, even if it doesn’t lead us to the knife,” the noblewoman replied with a shrug. “That was the rationale for checking on this village, too, was it not? We have no other leads for the time being, and we’d be doing something good for an old widow. We needn’t all go, either, and the rest of us can continue to search for information about the rest of the Shodra.”
“We did just find the gemstone,” Maruk added, “and we only just started. Surely we can devote a little time to this.”
I considered that. Yvaine made a good point, and she was right, we had taken a gamble when we’d ridden out to the village, too, it really wasn’t that different. As for how the mage Lavinia, Emeline, and Yvaine had met in the library had come to find out about the Shodra... well, Murillo had said himself how impossible it was to keep secrets in the tower.
“Alright,” I said at last, “we’ll look into it. Who wants to go?”
“Me!” Dehn shouted, to no one’s surprise.
“I want to help,” Emeline said. “I never had any of her classes, but Professor Hayle was always nice to me when I was a student in the Academy.”
“I would like to go as well,” Maruk said. “It’s the chivalrous thing to do.”
“Me, too,” Lavinia said. “I don’t want to miss another fight.” While I was sure the ranger did highly prefer field work to leafing through old tomes in the library, I guessed that that wasn’t the only reason she was volunteering now. She hadn’t believed Aerin before, and we’d found the gemstone, and I knew Lavinia well enough by now to know what a blow to her pride that would be. She wanted to make something come out of her own lead, too.
“Okay, the five of us will go then,” I said. “Did this... Hayle say where we might find the men who killed her husband?”
“Yeah.” Lavinia tapped a spot on the map a little ways west of the city, not far from the cultists’ fortress. “Farfury Garrison.”
“Great.” I pushed back from the table, eager to finally get out of my dirty clothes. “We’ll head there tomorrow.”
We all dispersed and headed back to our respective rooms to get cleaned up and get some much needed sleep, except for Maruk, who reluctantly remained to carve off a hunk of his fancy cheese for Merlin to make amends for having painted the puca’s toenails.
I rinsed the dried bat-monster blood off the pendant and locked it safely in the strongbox in my room before I peeled off the rest of my clothes for a bath. I hadn’t decided whether I would keep any of the Shodra with me as we searched for the others. They were so valuable, I didn’t want to risk losing any of them, but for the exact same reason, I wanted to have them close to me at all times.
Once I’d taken it off, though, I realized that I didn’t want to leave the pendant here tomorrow when we left to recover Professor Hayle’s ring. Even as I slid into the bath and closed my eyes, I couldn’t
stop thinking about it. No one here would steal it, of course, except for maybe Merlin, and it was safe enough from him in that strongbox, but I couldn’t shake the anxious twitch at the back of my mind that something might happen to it if I wasn’t keeping an eye on it. I couldn’t say why, but I already felt strangely attached to it.
As I washed the blood and bat bits out of my hair, I thought about what Aerin had said about the origins of the Shodra, that they might have been created by manipulators. Maybe that was why I felt some sort of connection to it, or maybe the truth was even simpler. Regardless of how they came to be, the Shodra functioned to enhance a mage’s power, didn’t they? Who wouldn’t want something like that?
I leaned back and tried to focus on the comfort of the hot water, but my mind drifted anyway to images of myself with the pendant and daydreams of what it might do for me. Aerin had talked about each of the Shodra having specific functions, but I still didn’t know exactly what the gemstone did beyond potentially turning people into zombie bat monsters, though I suspected that wasn’t the gem’s true purpose. Would it affect my mana and grant me more energy spellcasting? Could it act as a focus to make my spells more powerful? I felt half-tempted to go get it and find out, but thankfully, my senses returned to me.
I shook my head and rinsed the shampoo out of my hair before I stepped out of the tub to dry off. The gemstone was in my care for the time being, but it wasn’t mine to play with, and if those bat-people were any indication, it wasn’t a tool to be used lightly. I could keep the pendant with me to keep it safe, but I knew I had better not get any ideas beyond that. It was for the Mage Academy, and my job was to deliver it to Murillo.
I had just finished drying my hair and wrapped the towel around my waist when there came a knock on my bedroom door, and I padded over to answer it.