“I just punched a Void Horror to death. Bitch, I’m motherfucking Sabin.” I blurted the ancient meme out before I thought that through, but to my surprise, Rin laughed a girlish, tinkling laugh.
“But you didn’t suplex a train!” she said.
I grinned back at her. “I’m not the only antique games collector here, huh?”
She smiled shyly. “No. And my dad loved that meme, and the game. All those games, actually.”
“Help me get Kanzo!” Ebisa called to us as she ran past. “He’s still alive!”
I was startled by the panic in her voice, but reacted without thinking. Rin and I both ran to her and helped her pull a fallen sarcophagus lid off Kanzo’s body. At first glance, I thought she had to be mistaken about the ‘alive’ thing. Kanzo lay still, his silvery skin bleached chalk-white. But when Ebisa crouched down and slapped his cheeks, the Mercurion stirred. He looked up at her with eyes that were now almost a flat, dull gray. The mana - and life - that animated him was nearly gone.
“Ebisa,” he rasped. “Rin. I... got to see you both... one last time.”
“What are you doing here?” Ebisa’s shoulders hunched as she saw what was buried in his chest - the Ravenstar, the dagger that had been gifted to her by Ignas. Her fingers hovered over the hilt, barely touching it.
Kanzo blinked slowly, laboring for each raspy breath. “I... thought about it all. And I realized... how much this means to you. You said you would come here. I decided I would hide myself and... and observe. Make a judgment. I saw Andrik for what he truly was. I... decided to kill him. For you.”
Rin’s face contorted with grief. “You...”
“Rin. Ebisa. Listen.” He licked his lip with an iron-gray tongue. “Even if you do not... recycle my body... please take my heart. There is a memory stone in there. I put it there m-myself, when I first learned the properties of Ruby Mana. It has... it has all my knowledge. All my art lives there. Take it... use it... however you will. Ebisa... if you use it, you will g-gain my power. All you will need is... is practice.”
The juchi reached up and removed her mask, looking down implacably at her creator.
“Please...” Kanzo gasped. “For... for the realm.”
The last of the light drained from his eyes, and he sagged against the floor.
Ebisa shook her head as she stood. Rin stayed crouched down, sobbing into her hands. Ignas hung back, his stern face grave and pale.
“A liar to the end,” she said heavily.
“What?” I looked over at her. “I saw him jump down and stab-”
“Not that.” She bent down and pulled the Ravenstar from his chest. “I mean the melodrama. He always told me that if there was one thing worth dying for in this world, it was art. His art, specifically. He spent years of his life trying to transfer his work to his students, but he was never happy with them. They changed his work in subtle ways... they had minds of their own. So he created me. That stone he was talking about? He always intended for me to have it. This was his last, desperate attempt to convince me.”
“Oh.” I looked down at the ashen Mercurion. Even in death, Kanzo was beautiful… a work of art.
Ebisa looked down at Rin. “You’ll be alright, girl.”
“No I won’t! I don’t want to be alone!” Rin shook her head, her face buried in her hands. “I hate this! I hate fighting... I hate HEX! I already lost everything! My life, my d-dad!”
The other Mercurion cocked her head in confusion.
“B-Before I came to Archemi. My dad died, then I died!” Rin hunched in on herself. “Everyone’s dead!”
“Oh, kitten.” Ebisa crouched down, and awkwardly patted Rin on the shoulder. “Cherish the memories of your dead, but the time for fathers is past. Now, it is time to make choices about our future. You have a House, surely?”
“They’re in Zaunt. And I don’t want to go there. It’s horrible... nothing but war and more war.”
“So I’ve heard.” Ebisa sighed.
Ignas grimaced, and walked over to the scattered charcoal on the floor, toeing it with his boot. Then he grunted, and bent down to pick something up. I went to go retrieve the Spear of Nine Spears. The metal felt fragile and crumbling, and sparked when my fingers touched it. I re-joined them, aching and bone-tired, and so did Ignas. He held out a stone to us - a ruby about half the size of a golf ball.
“Andrik was carrying this,” he said. “This is the... wait. Look.”
The stone had started to glow, the light building strength as I came closer. The Spear crackled in my hand, and then suddenly sparked with light. Red light. “This is the Ravensblood Ruby?”
“Yes. I’ve never seen it do this before.” He motioned the ruby toward the Spear. “How fascinating. It’s reacting with your weapon.”
I held the spear up for him to look at. “This is the Spear of Nine Spheres - the weapon that bound the Nine themselves. It is the key to the seals that trap the Drachan in the north. Your Majesty, the Void Terror we just fought and the cult your brother was in are connected, and I’m making an educated guess that if we’re seeing Void monsters in Archemi, it’s because the Drachan are starting to shake off their chains. Ebisa, I know you don’t want to follow in Kanzo’s footsteps as an Artificer, but I need ask you for a favor. Please.”
Ebisa regarded us levelly, then looked back down at Kanzo’s body. Her brows furrowed.
“I’ll think about it. Leave me.” She put the gray fox mask back on, and turned away from us to point at the corner of the room. “And take your survivor. He is your key to the throne, Your Majesty.”
“Survivor?” Ignas frowned, puzzled.
One of the Kingsguard struggled weakly on the ground, his leg pinned by a fallen sarcophagus. It was Tomaz - the second in command.
The new Volod of Vlachia nodded, and looked to me and Rin in turn. “Then I have one last request: that you help me take this man home. We can heal him, and put the court to order. I only hope that I can make things right after all of this suffering.”
Chapter 45
This kind of victory was usually the kind where I took my headset off, sat back into my shitty old armchair, had a beer and congratulated myself on a story well-told. Maybe after that, I’d go back into the game and try out the different endings to see which one I liked the best.
But here, there was no headset, no armchair, and definitely no multiple endings. I wasn’t even sure we were the good guys.
In the dust and haze of the ruined crypt, I watched Ebisa and Rin collect Kanzo’s broken body and wrap it in a shroud, and helped them load the bodies of the dead onto wagons. I watched Ignas dejectedly sift through the corrupted remains of his brother’s ashes. I felt like we’d done the right thing… but it was hard to pick a winner here. The murders had been stopped, the girls were about to be saved, peace would soon return to the kingdom. Theoretically.
I left the business of cleanup to the new Volod and his crew, jogging through the streets to the morgue. Fifteen minutes or so later, Cutthroat and I thundered through the gates of Vulkan Keep, headed for the stables. I left the exhausted dinosaur in her corral with an extra helping of food, and ran for the dungeons with a ring of keys liberated from the corpse of one of the Kingsguard.
My heart was in my mouth as I unlocked each door, following the same route that Garen had taken me. When I reached Karalti’s cell, I equipped the Blindfighter’s Fold, listening for any sound. There was nothing.
“Karalti!” I called to her as I unlocked the barred metal doors. “Karalti, can you...?”
As they swung in, I saw my pack and the dragon saddle on the floor, and the magic circle, deactivated and empty. Panic gripped my stomach.
“Karalti!?” I took a step inside, letting the door slam.
There was a deep hiss from behind me.
I lifted the blindfold as I turned, and saw a pair of huge, brilliant violet eyes peering back at me from the darkness. She was still chained, collared and muzzled, hunched against the wall and melded into t
he shadows.
“Oh thank god.” I ran to her, fumbling with the keys. Karalti stayed very still as I unlocked each manacle and disconnected the heavy chains from the collar, then the headcage that kept her from breathing fire. As soon as they came off, there was a swooping rush as our mental connection re-established itself... and then the dragon threw herself at me as I reached up to embrace her around her long, powerful neck.
“Hector!” Shivering and hot, Karalti pressed as much of her body against mine as she could. “Hector! That was so awful! I was trapped in this bad, bad place with nothing all around me!”
“Shhh, Tidbit, it’s okay.” I squeezed her tightly, burying my face against her scales, breathing in her deep floral scent.
“They were saying terrible things about you! And me! A-And my mother!” The anxious dragon crooned, swinging her tail from side to side in agitation. “Th-they kept trying to get in my head, and I-I couldn’t attack them, or move, or anything!”
I kissed her arms and rubbed her shoulders and the joints of her wings, not knowing what to do or say other than be with her. When I felt her start to relax, I looked up. “It’s okay, girl. But Suri’s still down here somewhere. We have to find her - she’s trapped, too.”
Karalti wagged her head and pushed past me, stalking toward the door. “I can find her by smell! Come on!”
The dragon was just small enough to squeeze through the dungeon passages, though her tightly furled wings still banged against walls and cell doors, and the spines that started from her rump and ran along her tail scraped the low ceilings. She tracked through the darkness like a scenthound, turned the corner, and came up short at a wooden door. “There! She’s past there!”
“Roger that.” I crawled underneath Karalti’s body and came up at her head, unlocking the door and pushing it into the room.
It was a torture room. Racks and strappado pulleys were cast into sharp relief by torchlight, along with trays of tools and rusted metal cages with built in stocks. Suri was in one of them - exhausted and pissed off, but otherwise unharmed.
“You wanna end up like the last guy who tried to fuck with me!? Come over here, mate! I’ll rip your fucking balls off!” she yelled from across the room.
“I’ll have you know that I never show anyone my balls until we’ve been out to dinner at least twice.” The joke sounded better in my head than it did coming out, but it was something to break the ice as I entered, Karalti padding in on my heels.
Suri couldn’t turn her head much. She was forced to bend at the waist, her wrists and neck locked into the metal stocks, her lower body trapped in the cage. She tried anyway, struggling to look up. “Hector?! Where the fuck were you?”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here any faster. The last three hours of my life have been like some kind of Nihilist wet dream-slash-nightmare. Void Wraiths, Void Horrors, Void-this, Void-that.” I pulled up in front of the cage and unlocked the two halves of the door. The lower half swung out, revealing the lock for the stocks mounted under the upper half of the door. “I’m really glad they let you keep your pants on.”
“Fuckin’ oath. Some cunt tried to take them off, believe me. I donkey kicked him so hard that he choked on his own dick.” Suri glowered at the room while I worked. “What the hell happened? And why are you wearing a nappy?”
“A what?”
“You’re wearing a bloody diaper.”
“No public toilets in Taltos, remember?” I let the bottom of the stocks drop away. “And it’s not a diaper. It’s a girdle.”
“It’s a diaper, you shitcunt.” Suri groaned with pain as she sunk to her knees and crawled out. I offered her a hand up, which she accepted. To my surprise, she leaned forward and wrapped me in a tight, fierce embrace.
“Is ‘shitcunt’ something you call someone you like?” I squeaked, as she crushed me into her chest.
“Depends on how you say it and who you say it to.” Suri buried her face against my neck, and only then did I feel the quaking in her hands and the muscles of her back.
I returned the hug, stroking her hair, and glanced at Karalti to gauge her response. The dragon’s crests were flat against her skull, but when I met her eyes, they lifted a little. She tentatively bobbed her head.
“We’re okay, Suri.” I rubbed between her shoulders and clapped her on the back. “Ignas won. Andrik’s dead. Like... really dead. The new Volod is wrangling his court as we speak.”
“Tell me on the way upstairs.” Suri’s voice was thick, as if she was fighting back tears. “I need a long bath and some clean clothes. And you need some fucking pants.”
“Sorry, ma’am, I left my fucking pants back in my other castle,” I replied.
Suri slapped me, but not with any force. I giggled as she stalked off, trailing behind her. I wasn’t sure everything was going to be okay just yet - but it was okay for now, and as Ebisa had said, it was time to think about the future.
Chapter 46
Two Days Later.
As I had done just over a week ago, I woke to the blueish light of Archemi’s sun dancing through the curtains across from my bed. Well, our bed.
Karalti curled around me, her wing draped across my body, her foreclaws clasped over her long, elegant muzzle. Her double heartbeat pounded a steady, slow rhythm against my back. Her lean body took up most of the bed, leaving just enough room for me to sleep.
I yawned as I pushed myself up to sit, letting the leathery blanket slide down my back. My HUD was pinging me, small blue icons pulsing at the corner of my eye. I leaned back against Karalti and pulled them across to check the time - 8:32 a.m - a quest update, and several notifications and messages.
[New PM from Suri Ba’hadir: Want to go for breakfast before the Big Event? RV at my bunk between 0830-0900.]
[New Event! 12pm - The Coronation of Volod Ignas II]
[You have unspent skill points!]
Quest Update: The Slayer of Taltos/Stalkers in the Night
The Slayer is dead, Andrik Corvinus III’s plan for the nation of Vlachia exposed, and the true Volod of the largest nation in the East has cleared his name. The Void-touched scheme of the old king did not come to pass, though the cost was dear. Was it worth it? Only you can answer that.
There remain some unanswered questions. During or after today’s Coronation, speak with Volod Ignas Corvinus II to solve the final mysteries of the Slayer of Taltos and claim your reward.
I grunted and accepted the update, then stretched and carefully extracted myself from the circle made by Karalti’s limbs and tail. When I got to my feet, she huffed out a small wheezy sigh and balled up tighter, shielding her face with a wing.
“Still too damn cute for your own good,” I muttered fondly.
I went to our pack and equipped my freshly repaired and polished gear: the Naziri Chest and Leg armor, Boots of the Winding Path, and the Sanctified Cold Iron Gauntlets - or as I liked to call them, the Zombie Crushers. They were much heavier than the fine leather Naziri Gauntlets, but the discomfort of wearing thirty pounds of iron and dinosaur leather on my arms would improve my Strength over time. I could even end up as strong as Suri - I just had to embrace The Suck.
I checked myself in the bathroom mirror one last time, and let out a terse sigh before stalking back into the bedroom. “Okay, Karalti. Wakey wakey, rise and shine!”
“Uuggoo...” The dragon groaned and wrapped her wing more tightly over her face.
“Come on. Up and at ‘em.” I snatched my spear from where it leaned against the wall and poked her with the blunt end. “Mr Alpha Rod says it’s time for you to become erect! Upright! Turgid. We have a coronation today.”
“You’re gross.” Karalti kicked out weakly with one of her back feet, snapping her killing claw down to try and catch the polearm. “Bring me some breakfast?”
I scoffed. “You can get your scaly ass out of bed and get your own breakfast, Princess. Come on, I have to go see Suri.”
Karalti mumbled, flexing her long ankles and hind claw
s before drawing her knees up against her belly. “So go see her. I sleep.”
“Not jealous?” I teased.
“No. I sleeeeep.” She sounded increasingly petulant.
I rolled my eyes, but I could tell I wasn’t going to win with her this morning. Dragons didn’t sleep quite as much as cats, but they definitely needed more sleep than humans. I’d spent most of the last two days sleeping as well. “Well, you’ve got an hour. Then we have to join the Coronation parade.”
“Uggh.”
Suri’s quarters were in the floor below our suite. I nervously brushed down my clothes and made sure my hair was sitting right before I knocked on her door.
“Hector?” She called.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Surreptitiously, I checked my breath. As always, it smelled faintly minty. One of the benefits of being a digital ghost.
I heard the heels of Suri’s boots against the floor, then the clunk of a bolt being drawn back. She opened the door and smiled as my jaw practically hit the ground.
“What do you think?” She struck a pose in the doorframe. Suri was already dressed for the coronation: gold rings in her lip, nose and ears, her fiery hair styled into loose corkscrew ringlets. She wore a scoop-necked dress made almost entirely of small glass beads. They poured over her dark curves like a heavy liquid, baring her arms, most of her chest down to the sternum, and both legs to the hip.
“I... umm...” I blinked a couple of times. “Requesting permission to shamelessly objectify you, ma’am?”
“Permission granted.” She linked her hands behind her back and thrust her chest out, her lips quirked in a sly smile.
I looked down, eyebrows raised, and nodded. “I’m pretty sure this is what heaven looks like.”
“Kind of like the Grand Canyon, huh?”
“Yeah.” The urge to brush my knuckles over the bare curves around the edge of the dress was powerful, but I managed to keep my hands to myself. “That sideboob game is intense.”
“Isn’t it?” Suri grinned, flashing sharp teeth. “Ignas put me on to his favorite dressmaker. Old bastard’s got good taste in clothes, I can tell you that.”
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