by Dmitry Bilik
“Shit, I can’t even count them,” I frowned. “They keep flying around, changing places.”
“Would you like me to ask them nicely to stay where they are?” Arts offered.
“That would be very kind of you. Anyway! What’s your name, my dear Oracle?”
“I’m Sakis.”
“Very well, Sakis. What I want you to do is find a hole somewhere and sit tight in it. Are there any people around here?”
“Sure. Father Theoktist. He’s one of you.”
“Meaning?”
“He’s probably a Seeker,” Arts said. “Now go and hide somewhere, both of you, while we take care of the harpies.”
“Yes! Please do it! Please!”
I watched the Oracle disappear behind the church’s heavy door, then turned to Arts. “Now tell me about these harpy things. Or rather, tell me how you suggest we get rid of them.”
“There’s nothing to tell. They’re semi-sentient. Or sentient, rather, but unlike house goblins they refuse to communicate. They understand human speech and can speak human languages, even though they speak the bird tongue between themselves. Nasty things. They do nothing but shit, drink, steal and make a mess.”
“Do they drink?”
“Ha! They’re worse than beastmen! And they love everything that glitters. They’re not good fighters, though. But there’re at least thirty of them there...”
“So what do you suggest?”
“We could start by pulling the closest ones whenever we get the chance. And then we’ll see. It’s not for nothing I asked you to come. I’d seen you smoke those rachnaids.”
I didn’t tell her that my tactics would have worked against a couple of harpies — or as long as I had enough time rewinds. But a whole flock? That wasn’t going to be as easy.
“Let’s just play it by ear,” I said.
A tarmac road led to the lighthouse and a single outhouse perched next to it, connecting them to the outside world. Concrete electric poles hung with cables ran the entire length of the road. Harpies were sitting on the ground all around them, imperious and noisy. Thanks to our snapdrakes, we could ignore the rough ground: the mounts effortlessly carried us across the thin strip of bay and the rocky shore. The problem was, now we were cut off from the rest of the world. Not the best place to launch an attack.
I was about to suggest that we make a detour, riding our mounts into the harpies’ rear which would give us much more room to maneuver. But Arts was already a good thirty feet in front of me. When I finally caught up with her, she pulled a staff out of her bag and waved her hand in the direction of the nearest harpy.
“I might just get her,” she said. “It can’t be more than fifty feet.”
“Try it. Just be careful,” I said without taking my eyes of the “semi-sentient creature”. Life had prepared me for lots of things, all the way to a two-hour Justin Bieber gig, but I definitely hadn’t been prepared to see a live harpy.
Saying she was an abomination would be an understatement. She was small — standing a good foot shorter than Arts — and covered in long gray feathers. Her face was that of an old woman, but with a beak in place of a nose and mouth. Her chest sported something reminiscent of woman’s breasts which luckily for me were covered in short white down. Her human arms were short with long sharp nails on her hands. The talons on her hind feet were sharp like daggers. Just as I watched, the harpy was busy standing on one leg sharpening them with her beak. Who did she think she was, a freakin’ flamingo?
Arts didn’t let me down. Her staff spewed flame which hit the “bird”, singeing its feathers.
The girl turned back to me and smiled, raising her staff in a triumphant hand. But I saw no reason for being so cheerful. The entire murder of harpies had taken to the wing, squawking and snapping their beaks. One of them was considerably lighter in color, bigger and noisier than all the others, drowning their screams out with her own screeching.
[ ∞ ]
I barely managed to push Arts’ staff upwards. The fireball missed the harpy who raised her head, gave us a surprised look and continued sharpening her talons.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Arts demanded.
“That’s not a good idea. As soon as you kill her, the whole flock will attack us. And they seem to have something like a leader, an alpha. Can you see her over there sitting on the roof of the outhouse?”
“How do you...” Arts began. Then her eyebrows shot up. “That’s how you did it! I wondered what it was! I couldn’t understand how a newb like you could crit all those rachnaids!”
“That’s irrelevant,” I interrupted her musings. “You’d better tell me how we can kill them now.”
“Good question,” Arts muttered.
“How many talons do you need to collect?”
“At least a dozen pairs. Ideally, the more the merrier. There’re some bonuses included. I might have to call up a team again. Get our guys’ asses here and share the reward with them. The problem is, you never know how pissed your juicehead friend might be.”
“Of course!” I very nearly slapped my forehead. I reached into my inventory and produced the bottle of cognac. “This is our secret weapon.”
“That’s not enough for this bunch.”
I grinned. “But that’s not all,” I dipped my hand in again, producing the nepenthe leaves. “My great-grandf- er, the guy who gave it to me said it makes good Oblivion potion, provided the proportion is right. Scrap the proportion bit. Let’s just mix it all together and see what it does.”
“You know what? It might actually work,” Arts said pensively. “Come on, then.”
We found a relatively flat rock. Arts pointed at it:
“You need to chop the nepenthe as finely as you can... Oh no, not with moon steel! Put it back! It’ll slice right through the stone.”
I nodded and reached for my Katzbalger. Can’t say it was very convenient: a sword is a poor replacement for a kitchen knife. On the other hand, the herb wasn’t some ordinary parsley, either. I was really afraid that the plant might start working straight away, so I was very cautious, making sure that not a single drop of juice splashed on my face; I even tried to breathe as little as I possibly could.
“Are you finished yet?” Arts asked, producing a crude wooden cup and a pestle out of her sketchbook.
“One moment,” I said, still chopping. “There you go. Take it.”
I lifted the rock in my hands. Arts gingerly brushed the green mess into the cup, making sure to collect the few droplets of juice. She then began grinding it with the pestle, moving with practiced precision.
I was about to compliment her on her apparent expertise but reconsidered. You never know these days. If you commend a girl’s cooking skills, she might brand you as an old-fashioned male chauvinist who sees her as a household appliance. If you comment on her good looks or shapely forms, you’ll be a potential rapist who only views her as a sex object. And if you hold a door open for her or offer your assistance with anything at all, that might make you a misogynic bastard. True, today’s women don’t need a man’s strong shoulder in their lives — in which case they shouldn’t brand said men as wusses. They aren’t. They’re just too wary of saying or doing something inappropriate.
“That’s about it,” Arts weighed the cup in her hands. “No idea if that’ll be enough. Alchemy isn’t my forte.”
“Likewise. But as they say, you can’t win if you don’t try. Especially as we have plenty of guinea pigs... or is it guinea birds? If it doesn’t work, we’ll have to think of something else.”
“Open the bottle.”
“Just a sec.”
I ripped the plastic seal off the cap, opened the bottle and drew in the noble bouquet. Dammit, this stuff was really good. I lifted the bottle and took a couple of swigs. Sorry about my manners, folks.
“Hey!” Arts poked me in the shoulder.
“I need some space for the juice,” I explained, gasping. “Come on, pour it in. Be careful.”
>
After a few more minutes of collecting every drop of the precious liquid and squeezing the dregs dry, we were looking at a bottle of excellent jury-rigged absinth. I cautiously sniffed it but all I could smell was fine barrel-aged liquor. Not a faintest hint of nepenthe. Shame we had no lemon.
“Come on, let’s go, then,” I said, putting the cap back on.
We moved slowly and carefully. I still remembered the earlier version of our future where all the birds had taken to the wing as soon as we’d wounded one of them. But now they didn’t seem to care, showing no intention of attacking us. Even the one that had been sharpening her talons had now fluttered over to a new spot at a distance and kept a careful watch on us from the safety of her new spot.
“The way I look at it, we can’t just set the bottle on the ground and leave.”
“They’re not stupid. They’ll know straight away it’s a trap.”
“Okay. Let’s go over there, then.”
We walked uphill toward the lighthouse along the dirt road which connected it to the church. The road was quite smooth; someone had even bothered to clean it of all the rocks. Perfect.
I “accidentally” dropped the bottle on its side, making sure it started rolling back where we’d come from. Then I poked Arts on the shoulder. “Scream! Shout something!”
Arts theatrically threw her hands in the air. “Oh no!”
Too many Oscarless actors around me just lately.
The bottle started rolling downhill, its golden label glistening in the sun. For a harpy, this was one hell of a prize.
This particular harpy just couldn’t resist it. She shot up into the air and darted past us toward the bottle still rolling down the slope. Her talons closed around her trophy. As she headed back, I even got the impression that she squealed something unflattering at us as she flew, apparently in the vein of “losers weepers”.
Still, her celebration didn’t last. As soon as she landed and started studying her prize, other harpies too caught sight of the bottle. She did manage to open the bottle and even take a few swigs before her sisters came. Feathers went flying as they sent the bottle round, screaming and squabbling.
Then the chief harpy came and promptly instilled the fear of God in them. The noise died out.
Having restored the pecking order, the biggest harpy sniffed the drink, snapped her beak as if saying something, and started taking large gulps. I’d never seen anyone drink so much or so long without stopping, not even Professor on the morning after. When she finally stopped, there was virtually nothing left in the bottle — a few ounces at most. And after her second go at it, even less so.
Already tipsy, the chief harpy flung the bottle aside. Luckily, it hadn’t broken. The cheekiest and greediest of her flock immediately descended upon it, fighting over the dregs, until they finished our makeshift poison to the last drop.
Your reputation has changed to Poisoner.
“I wonder how long it takes to work?” I said, scratching the back of my head.
“Could be anything. Let’s wait.”
Luckily, the universe must have taken mercy on me because my cell rang. My mom. I hesitated, not sure whether I should pick it up, but finally swiped the green button.
“Hi Mom. Is it urgent? I’d better call you back. I’m on roaming right now.”
“You really think I would have bothered you if it wasn’t urgent? Wait a sec... what do you mean, you’re on roaming?”
“I’m out of town.”
“Do you need roaming just for that?”
“Well, I’m on the regional limit.”
“But I read the other day that we don’t need roaming within the country?”
“Okay Mom, it really doesn’t matter,” I said, feeling my ears redden. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing yet. But maybe tomorrow. Lily is bringing her young man to meet the family. That’s why we’re having a family dinner together.”
“Mom, can you do all that without me? No one’s asking for my blessing, if you know what I mean.”
“Your father really wants you to be there.”
This was something new! I very nearly said that had he wanted it so badly, he could have called me himself. Then I shook my head in disbelief: I couldn’t really remember when he’d called me last. He always delegated these kinds of tasks to his personal assistant a. k. a. his wife.
“What time?” I asked.
“Seven o’clock. Lily is coming after work.”
“All right, I’ll be there.”
“Thanks. See you soon.”
I hung up, already anticipating some awkwardness at the dinner table. The fact that I didn’t have to propose to anyone was already good news.
I saw a message from Julia and even managed to reply to it when Arts distracted me from it.
“I think it’s coming on,” she whispered.
I switched my gaze from my phone to our feathered brethren. Or rather, sisters. Nothing up until now was really happening. Having polished off the admittedly excellent cognac, they had returned to their usual routine of preening, quarreling, flying lazily along the shore and shitting over everything, excuse my French.
“Why, what did you see?” I asked.
“Over there, look,” she pointed at a particularly noisy group.
She was right. They’d already moved from just words to being physical, soaring in the air and ripping each other’s chests apart with their daggerlike talons. Feathers went flying; blood was gushing everywhere; the air was blue with their avian cussing. This was a fight to the death.
“This is what happens if you don’t get the dose right,” I said, scratching my forehead.
“I think what happened was that Oblivion transformed into Amnesia. They just don’t recognize each other anymore. Look!” she pointed in the direction of the spire.
A real slaughter was unfolding in the air above it as the chief harpy was trying to fight off her aggressive minions. Their dead bodies were already piling up below although their attacks had taken their toll on the alpha bird too. She flapped along on her wounded right wing, trying to gain height. You didn’t need to be a clairvoyant to realize she was finished.
As if in confirmation of my musings, another set of talons sank deep into her throat and ripped out a good lump of flesh.
Arts winced. “This is hardcore.”
“You should be happy. All the less work for you. The only question remains, how on earth the new Oracle is going to clean all the blood away.”
Not that I was that worried. Eventually, the melee began to subside as most birds had either found their death at the talons of their inebriated peers, or were seriously wounded. The only exceptions were about a dozen harpies who’d been too timid to have claimed their share of the magic drink. They huddled together in the air, hovering over the sea about fifty yards away from the lighthouse.
Your fame has increased to 6.
“Time to do some harvesting,” I said, suppressing my squeamishness.
Arts didn’t seem to be in a hurry to test her luck, apparently hoping that the wounded harpies would eventually die. Still, they proved to be a hardy bunch, so I had to use my Katzbalger on quite a few of them.
Your Short Blades skill has increased to level 14.
All I’d had to do to receive this message was decapitate three of the wounded. Arts followed in my wake, cutting off their talons. By the way, our actions hadn’t gone unnoticed. The group of teetotaler harpies had started screaming its protest as soon as I had done away with the first bird. The further we advanced, the more their indignation grew. No idea what the last straw for them was, but they all took to the wing and came for us.
“It’s okay, we can manage,” Arts said, producing her staff.
“Wait a sec, I wanna try something. Then you can do your thing, okay?”
Once they were within my range, I started making circular motions with my arms. The Electric Field appeared unexpectedly — at least for the two harpies who were in the lead. Th
ey indeed seemed to be stuck in it, their wings moving slowly, their beaks opening in silent squawks. Yet another harpy had also become trapped in the Field just behind them. Visually, they hadn’t changed at all but the moment the spell stopped working, they dropped like stones to the ground, barely alive from exhaustion.
Your Destruction skill has increased to level 11.
“Can I do it now?” Arts shouted.
“Please do!”
She had time to fire her staff twice, even shooting down one of the birds. Then she flung it aside, raised her hands to the sky and summoned what looked to be Lightning Chain or something similar — you’d better ask the three harpies which were pinned to the ground with it.