by C S Vass
The mage returned to his vial and moved towards Godwin like a headsman approaching the scaffold.
“Wait!” Godwin shouted, fearful as he had never been before in his life. “Just tell me one more thing.”
“I think we’ve chatted enough,” Yegvellen said.
“Why did you even issue the vampire contract? Why did you waste time having me try to kill Grushenka if this was really about getting my thrygta?”
Yegvellen paused. His brow furrowed. “Grushenka? Ah, Namaeria. What of it, Godwin? The demon has been a plague on Saebyl for long enough. I’m a man of efficiency. Is it so wrong that I sought to use you to eliminate a threat before studying you?”
“But what if I died?” Godwin insisted. “You knew there was a chance of it. You would have spoiled your experiment!”
Yegvellen scoffed. “Hardly. I would have recovered your body and proceeded uninterrupted. Now enough of this stalling, Godwin. I have some synthesized uranium that I’m terribly curious about mixing with your thrygta.”
Godwin’s heart was pounding in his throat like a mad animal trying to climb from a trap. “No! Yegvellen, don’t! You don’t understand! I’ll—”
Yegvellen emptied the hot, radioactive contents of the vial right onto his thrygta.
Godwin screamed.
Chapter 18
Pain.
Sharp, hellish torture unlike anything he had ever experience filled every muscle, nerve, and cell of Godwin’s body. His skull boomed like an earthquake had rendered it in two. Joints burned in agony. His lungs throbbed with each breath. He couldn’t take it. He was going to black out.
He didn’t.
Godwin remained awake for every horrible second of whatever terror was moving through his body. From above he could hear Yegvellen speaking, but either the mage was chanting in some ancient language, or Godwin was so delirious with suffering that he could not make out the words. Stars danced in his vision like the hundreds of demons he had slain over the course of his time with the Shigata.
Slowly, unbearable torture transformed into horrible pain. Horrible pain dulled into angry throbbing. At last, his body returned to calm. He wasn’t dead.
“Tell me, Godwin, how does it feel?” Yegvellen asked.
Godwin realized that during the madness he had been strapped to the table. He hadn’t even noticed. It wouldn’t have mattered. He still had virtually no control over his body.
“Water,” he managed to say through cracked lips.
“Of course.”
Yegvellen fetched a skin of water and tilted the operating table upwards to the point where he could allow Godwin to drink. The Shigata had never tasted something so refreshing.
“You’re not dead,” Yegvellen mused. “That’s more than I would have hoped for. Your thrygta seems to be reacting. Take a look.”
The mage tilted Godwin’s head downward so that he might take a better glance at his thrygta. The dragon-in-chains pulsed wickedly on his chest, emitting silver light.
“What have you done, you fool?” Godwin gasped.
“I’ve introduced a new chemical into your body. Come now, you’ve already stamped yourself with that silver tattoo. You can’t pretend to be offended.”
“My body isn’t your play thing, you freak,” Godwin said. He could feel some strength returning into his hands. Slowly, careful not to attract attention, he moved his fingers. They were far from full strength, but any improvement was reason to celebrate.
“Actually, it is,” Yegvellen replied. “What we need to do now is figure out what makes your thrygta different. Had that been simple liquid silver, you would undoubtedly be dead. Or is it your thrygta at all? Your silver eyes, perhaps that is the trick.”
“What are you babbling about?” Godwin said.
Yegvellen seemed not to hear him. It was obvious that the mage was speaking only to himself. Pacing back and forth, he continued to monologue. “All died but the Dragons. He’s no Dragon. What could it mean? Is it the thrygta, or some bizarre twist of luck? One mustn’t ever throw out the possibility of a freak occurrence. Some stray chance that shan’t ever repeat itself.”
Yegvellen continue to pace the room, speaking to himself. Godwin tried to listen, but he was still in great pain and was distracted by the throbbing of his silver thrygta. The pulsing seemed to be growing more intense. The thrygta almost looked like—no, it was—growing.
Awestruck, Godwin watched in frightened silence as silver markings expanded from the thrygta. They encapsulated his chest in mysterious geometric patterns unfamiliar to his eyes, dripping down his chest towards his waist, creeping over his shoulders and down his arms, until every part of his body he could physically see was covered.
Godwin’s heart raced in his chest as he watched this bizarre occurrence. Through it all, a single thought pierced the cloud of bewilderment that had wrapped around his mind. I cannot die. I cannot die. Not until I speak with Lord Rockhelm. Not until I let someone know what this madman is doing. I cannot die.
That thought was like a spark that touched some deep fuse in his mind. It coiled through him, until it hit a reservoir of power unlike anything he had ever felt, and exploded.
Everything happened at once.
Godwin screamed, snapping the ropes that bound him to the table like they were twigs. Raw, angry power surged through his body. Yegvellen shouted, his concentration blown apart like the glass that shattered around him when Godwin grabbed him and threw him onto the table that held his precious concoctions. The mage lifted his staff, but Godwin moved with the rapidity of lightning, grabbed the glowing staff from Yegvellen, and snapped it in half over his knee.
The mage shrieked like a frightened child and fell to his knees. “S-s-s-stop! I have secrets. I’ll show you what you want. I’ll explain everything. I’ll give you the key to this power. You can give it to the Shigata. You can rebuild your order. More pow—”
Yegvellen suddenly stopped speaking as a force hit Godwin from behind. Bori had awakened during the commotion and grabbed Godwin from behind, holding him back.
“No Odruri!” the ogre shouted. “Take him alive! He knows much. Don’t kill him!”
Bori might as well have expressed that sentiment to a stampeding rhino. Godwin’s world had disintegrated into one of mindless rage fueled by impossible strength. Ordinarily he never would have been able to go up against an ogre with nothing but muscle, but in his current enchanted state, he threw Bori aside as easily as if the ogre were a child.
Yegvellen shrieked again and dove helplessly underneath a shelf full of potions. Grabbing one without even looking, he tossed a thick round-bottom vial at Godwin with all of his strength. The container sailed past the Shigata’s head, hit the wall, and exploded with the force of a dragon barreling out of the side of a mountain at full speed.
“Odruri, no!” Bori screamed.
It was too late. Godwin had already picked Yegvellen up by his collar and flung the mage out of the opening in the tower. Yegvellen flew with arms outstretched like a crippled eagle as his screams faded to nothingness.
Bori watched Godwin, his eyes trembling with horror. The Shigata’s world was spinning. He couldn’t think in words, but some strange feeling was coming over him. A great wave of sleepiness crashed against his body as he felt his muscles drain of their wild, raw power.
Falling to his knees, Godwin looked at his hands. The strange markings that had covered his body were gradually receding. He couldn’t think straight, but he couldn’t let himself lose consciousness yet. There was still something to do.
Straining as if the weight of a boulder was strapped to his back, Godwin gradually managed to rise. He heard the ogre say something, possibly his name, but he ignored it. One aching step at a time, he walked over to the still intact table that Yegvellen had started this horrific experiment at. He lifted a corked vial identical to the one Yegvellen had used to contain that strange radioactive substance and placed it in his pocket.
Then he collapsed.
Burning ac
hes shuddered through Godwin’s body like electricity. His eyes hurt too much to open them, so he simply kept them shut and focused on his breath. It felt like every inch in his body had been pounded with a meat tenderizer. He felt a soft featherbed underneath him. There was a cool breeze in the room coming from some open window.
Remembering the events that led up to his losing consciousness, Godwin forced one sticky eyelid open, then the other. “You’re awake,” a familiar voice said. “I was worried you wouldn’t make it.” Turning his head slowly, Godwin saw Bori sitting on a chair opposite of him. His arm was in a sling, but otherwise the ogre seemed unharmed.
“What happened?” Godwin asked.
“What happened?” Bori repeated. “What hasn’t happened? I’m the last person who can answer any of the questions that have cropped up.”
“Yegvellen…is he?”
“Dead?” Bori chuckled. “I’ll say. He was a mage, not a bird. There may have been some snow to break his fall, but you threw him out of a tower five stories high. It seems he landed on his neck.” The ogre suddenly scowled. “Not that I’m happy about it. The mage was the only one who could provide some answers as to what the hell happened in his laboratory.”
Godwin turned his head towards the ceiling. A beautiful chandelier studded with flashing diamonds rested above him. So they had made it back to the Three Sisters after all.
“I’m sorry,” the Shigata said. “I don’t…I wasn’t in control. I don’t know what happened. No…that’s not quite right. I didn’t black out. I remember…but it wasn’t me. I wasn’t the one doing that.”
The ogre nodded solemnly. “That was no small thing that happened,” he said. “There will be investigations, wolves, special mages sent in to deal with the events that transpired in that tower.”
“Does anyone know we were there?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Bori replied. “Your friends…the Tarsurian and the woman, they were right outside. As soon as you blacked out, I was able to get you down to them and they quickly arranged for a carriage to take us away before anyone came. But I wouldn’t recommend going back there now. It’s bound to be crawling with Rockhelm’s men. Probably Boldfrost’s too, before long.”
Godwin nodded. His head was throbbing, but he needed to find out more before he could allow himself to rest. “Where are they? The ones who brought us here?”
“Resting. You’ve been asleep for nearly a day, and they haven’t had much sleep. Finally they agreed to get some when I was well enough to take over your watch.”
“A day? Damn it, I don’t have time for this.”
Bori met Godwin’s eyes. The Shigata saw they were filled with anger.
“I’m sorry, Bori,” Godwin said. “I owe you my thanks. You risked your life to save me. You didn’t have to do that. I’m in your debt.”
“Not that I did you much good,” Bori said. “Yegvellen was far craftier than I imagined. You do know why I helped you, I hope?”
Godwin nodded. He remembered the look of admiration in the ogre’s eyes when they first met outside of Saebyl’s castle. Admiration…and shame. “I do. I repeat, I’m in your debt.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Bori said seriously.
“Tell me,” Godwin said. “How did you come to serve Yegvellen?”
“He recruited me as a guard to protect the entrance to his tower. He said there might be other small duties, fetching people for him and such. I didn’t think anything of it when he told me to wait outside of Rockhelm’s castle and await a Shigata. The lie I was to tell struck me as unimportant. I don’t pretend to understand the ways of wizards and mages.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Godwin said. “He would have deceived you with magic had his tongue failed. Yegvellen was no ordinary mage. He said he sat on the Council at the University of Magic and Mathematics. Let’s hope his colleagues don’t come seeking revenge for his death.”
“I plan to be gone soon anyway,” Bori said.
“Hm, where will you go?”
“Valencia.”
“A dangerous city these days. At least that’s what I hear.”
Bori’s expression hardened. “That’s why I plan on going. I have no friends or family here. I was in Saebyl merely to seek coin. But there are things happening in the Southlands that are more important. My kin need me.”
“I understand.”
Godwin stretched as much as his injured body would allow and sat up on his pillows. Suddenly realizing his clothes had been changed, a quick panic flooded over him. Bori, seeing him suddenly trying to get up, rushed over.
“What, Odruri? Be calm. All is as well as we could hope for now.”
“My pants,” Godwin said, urgently. “Where—”
“Quiet,” Bori said impatiently. He walked over to the nightstand, opened it, and removed a vial filled with a toxic-looking silver liquid. “Is this why you panic?”
Godwin’s eyes widened. “You should put that down. I have no idea how dangerous it is.”
“You should have some idea,” Bori shrugged. All the same, he heeded Godwin’s words and returned it. “I saw you take it. I figured it was best to keep it safe until you were well enough to manage on your own.”
“Thank you, Bori.”
“You’re welcome, Odruri.”
Godwin sighed. “Please, just Godwin. I left that other name behind me.”
“A name is harder to leave behind than a magic sword,” Bori said. When Godwin scowled the ogre relented. “Very well, Godwin.”
They sat together in silence for several minutes. Before long there was a knock at the door, and in walked Robert and Grushenka. The Tarsurian looked rather healthy. Clearly his time at the Three Sister’s had not been spent anguishing with worry.
“It’s good to see you up,” Grushenka said. “I feared you would not make it.”
Robert simply nodded and took a chair in the corner.
“It’s done, as I’m sure you know,” Godwin said. “Yegvellen is dead. You no longer have to fear the mage hunting you.”
Grushenka looked thoughtful for a moment. “More will come,” she said after a time. “But Yegvellen was unusual. You’ve done me a service. One you owed me, I don’t have to remind you. I consider your debt paid. Now let us speak of him no more.”
“Will everything be all right?” Godwin asked. “Will the events of the last few days come back to you?”
Grushenka grinned. “I will be quite all right,” she said. “It’s you who should be worried, Godwin. Bori told me about what Yegvellen did to you in that lab. Are you feeling like yourself?”
Godwin considered the question before answering. His body felt like it had been stomped on by a giant, but that was to be expected. He had heard of similar things happening to werewolves the first few times they transformed. While he didn’t turn into a literal beast, some strange mutation had taken place, probably swollen his muscles and changed his physiology to some extent. But why? How?
“Godwin?”
“I’ll be fine,” Godwin said. “If I can ask your hospitality for a short while, I’ll have time to create enough remedies that you’d never know I was in a fight.”
“I see,” the vampire said. Then, smiling wickedly, she added, “I’m glad to hear that Godwin. Despite your brash stupidity, I admit that I would have been disappointed had you died. After all, I don’t trust Robert to have the wherewithal on his own to save the girl you mentioned.”
Godwin’s heart leapt to his throat. “Lyra? You’ve heard of her? Don’t just sit there, damn it, speak!”
Grushenka merely chuckled. “Get your rest, warrior. You’re not going to save any maidens anytime soon in your current condition.”
“For hell’s sake, don’t leave me gaping like an idiot,” Godwin exclaimed. “What have you heard?”
“Very well,” Grushenka smiled. “I’ll tell you, if only to encourage you to get out of here faster. The girl arrived in Saebyl. She was accompanied by a dwarf.”
“A dw
arf?” Godwin said. Suddenly remembering, he shouted with joy. Of all the luck! “Tzuri-ren! Of course. Robert, did you hear?”
A weak smiled played at Robert’s lips, but it did not meet his eyes. “Yes, Godwin. Stupendous news.”
“So, where are they?” the Shigata eagerly pressed.
“They were safe when they arrived,” Grushenka said.
Godwin’s smile crumbled. “Were? Hell, what are you talking about? Answer me! Where are they?”
“It seems destiny has bridged your forked paths, Godwin,” Grushenka said. “You’ll have to see the Lord of Saebyl if you want to know that.”
“Denver Rockhelm? What does he have to do with this?”
“He’ll tell you himself, no doubt,” Grushenka said. “It seems the girl has raised the interest of our local lord. No, don’t ask me anything else. That’s all I know. I didn’t want to sniff around too hard for her, lest I raise suspicion where I don’t want it. All I can tell you is that she parted ways with the dwarf after some sort of argument. Rockhelm knows who she is. He wants to find her. Go and speak with him. That is why you came to Saebyl anyway, is it not?”
Godwin turned over what she was telling him in his head. It was, he supposed. To know she was safe, at least that she was safe after the shipwreck, was welcome news. It would be foolishly irresponsible to not speak with Rockhelm since he had come all of this way. He supposed now the meeting would just be a little longer.
“Does Rockhelm know I’m in the city?” Godwin asked.
“How should I know?” Grushenka shrugged. “I’ve told you what I can. Now if you don’t mind, I have a business to run.”
“Farewell, Godwin,” Bori said as he rose. Approaching his bedside, Bori took Godwin’s hand in his undamaged one. “It was an honor to meet you and fight alongside you. Perhaps our paths will cross again one day.”
Godwin nodded courteously, and the two left him alone with Robert.
“Quite an adventure,” Godwin said to the easterner.
“Yeah,” Robert said, also rising. “I suppose I’ll let you get your rest.”