But when it cleared, I could see the gate, as Wulftin promised. It was a swirl of clouds in the air in front of us, surrounding a hole that led to nowhere.
“I need to get closer,” Lilly said, her hair beginning to stick out from her head, and her eyes going pure black. “I can feel it, but I need to be closer to shut it down.”
Wulftin chanted and the disc move forward, sliding smoothly through the air.
Suddenly, I felt something strike my leg, and a bird rebounded off into the air. They were starting to attack. I drew my gun, sighted, and stopped. I couldn’t shoot one. The resulting explosion might very well cause Wulftin harm, or even toss all of us off of our platform.
Instead, Raven and I stood guard, ready to jump in front of either Lilly or Wulftin as the birds came in. They were only birds after all, so their attacks weren’t particularly vicious, but soon, both of us were covered in scratches from beaks and claws, and bruised from the birds simply flying into us. All the time, they kept up the litany of filth and depravity.
“By the gods,” I heard Lilly say. I never heard such despair in her voice before, not even when the Death Knight stole her magic. I turned and looked straight through the gate, and felt the same crushing weight myself.
It was another world through there. Dead, wasted, and decayed. It was our world as it would be, if the forces of darkness won…and they would. They were too omnipresent, too overwhelming. Oh, we could push them back for a time, but they would return, over and over, wearing us down. And our world would become the same as that apocalyptic landscape that I saw before me.
The birds sat in the dead trees of that world, croaking raucously as they fed on the scraps of some unnamable and long dead creature. A river, clogged with debris, oozed sluggishly along, winding through blasted hills of barren rock and dirt. The sky was an ashen brown color, with ragged wisps of clouds scudding along, occasionally passing in front of a pale, cold sun. Gusts of wind picked up dust, blowing it into choking masses, covering the birds at times, who would shake the grit from their feathers and curse.
And there was a man, floating in the air as we were, only by himself, with no need of a disc. He sat in midair in the lotus position, legs crossed, and arms held casually in his lap. His eyes were closed and his thin lips moved as he chanted silently. He was thin to the point of emaciation, and his grey hair hung down in a limp curtain from a fringe around his otherwise bald pate.
“It’s him,” Lilly said. “He’s the one holding the gate open. I need to get to him.”
“Are you crazy?” I yelled. “You’re not going in there!”
“Duke, I have to! The gate has to be closed down! Look at that place. The birds are only the beginning. You can feel that, right?”
I felt it from the moment I looked into that world. She was right, but I didn’t care. Let the world burn, there was no way I was letting her go into that place.
“No!” I shouted. “I don’t care, Lilly. I’m not losing you!”
She opened her mouth to argue, when Raven stepped in, cocked his arm and threw a knife. Knife throwing is a skill that takes a lot of practice to master, and Raven must have put in the hours. The knife flew through the air, through the gate, and seemed to grow smaller as it sailed into that other world.
But it found its mark. It buried itself almost to the hilt in the floating man’s shoulder. His eyes opened with a snap, and he glared at us, and even more than the banshee, or the Death Knight, or anything I had ever seen, I saw what true evil looked like. Evil that exists because it is, because that’s all it ever was, or ever would be.
He opened his mouth and screamed, but unlike Wulftin, it didn’t affect his spell, and he remained sitting in the air with no apparent effort. Lilly threw up her hand and started a spell herself. The man duplicated her actions, and they locked in a battle of wills, her black eyes locked onto his solid gray ones. The air crackled between them with the force of their magics striving against one another.
Behind me, I heard a grunt as a bird hit Wulftin and the disc slipped slightly.
“Raven! Protect Wulftin!” I shouted.
“What are you going to do?”
“End this.”
I pulled my gun and aimed at the floating man. I didn’t know who, or what, he was, but I didn’t care. The little, metal ball would do plenty of damage on its own.
I fired, and the ball sped forth, striking the man in the forehead. His head snapped back with the force of it, but he quickly recovered, growling as a thin trickle of blood ran down between his eyes.
“Do it again, Duke!” Lilly yelled.
I shot him again, this time taking him in the chest. And again, and once again. Each time, the little, metal ball caught him in a different area, and each time, Lilly pushed her spell closer.
Finally, she unloosed a howl and the winds swirled around us. The spell that she was using became visible, and it looked like a rope of sickly light leading from her to the floating man. The end of it wavered in front of him, not quite touching him. He held his own hands in front of it now, warding it off, bleeding from where I shot him.
“Once more,” Lilly said.
I fired again, and got him in the same area as the first shot. This time, as his head snapped back, the rope of light lunged forward and attached itself to his torso. It started to pulse hungrily, like a snake consuming a mouse, and he screamed again, but this time, his scream was rage, fear, and disbelief.
Lilly chanted louder, and the rope of light pulsed more strongly, until finally the man on the other end of it began to sink in on himself. His cheeks collapsed in toward his mouth, his stomach toward his back bone. His legs fell out of the lotus position and hung limply in the air. He twitched and jerked at the end of the rope like a fish caught on a hook.
In the end, Lilly sucked him dry, and we watched as his corpse fell out of the air, plummeting down to that ruined land below him. The gate began spiraling tighter, the hole in the middle becoming smaller, until with a snap, it closed, and the evil, dead land beyond was gone.
When it was over, Lilly leaned over the edge of the disc and vomited. I held on to her while Wulftin changed his chant and we started to gently descend.
“That was horrible, Duke,” she whispered. “Like the worst taste that I ever…”
“Yeah, but you did it. Again. You saved the city again.”
“We did,” she said, glancing at me, smiling slightly before she retched again.
I held her, watching the ground come closer.
Later, after we got some wine to wash Lilly’s mouth with, the four of sat in a tavern.
“You did good, Grandfather. Sometimes you surprise me,” Raven said.
“Same here, but for you,” I replied, and lifted my mug in a salute. He returned it.
“You were right, Wulftin,” Lilly said. “When the gate closed, the birds became ordinary birds again. How did you know?”
“Well, you see, it was all very logical when you think of how the energy must have flowed from that other world, to this one. Indeed, the conduit must have been…”
I lifted my mug and took a swig, glad that some things in the world are wholly good. Like ale, and Lilly, and hell, maybe even Raven. Everything is relative, right? For now, it was good to sit in a comfortable chair, drink my ale, and let Wulftin’s explanation wash over me.
THE LORD OF THE THINGS
The incident with the birds shook Lilly and I more than we wanted to admit at first. While it was great that we defeated them, (well, I say “we”, but really it was Lilly), knowing that other cold, dead land existed preyed on our minds. The sense of evil and despair from it permeated our thoughts, and we were having a tough time letting it go.
“It’s possible that the place we saw is really the origin of a lot of the evil we’ve been seeing lately,” she told me.
“Do you think that someone, or something, in that place is behind the attacks, then?”
“Possibly. I really don’t know.” She fell silent and
shivered. I could sympathize, and I only saw the place. Lilly actually connected with it.
She took a couple of days off work, and I didn’t go to the watchhouse either during that time. Instead, we stayed home, spending time together, and trying to concentrate on our upcoming wedding, which was now only a week away. To me, things seemed to be pretty much set. We had the location for the wedding ceremony and the location for the party after; we had figured out what food was going to be served and when, and the ale and wine was being taken care of. Apparently, flowers were arranged for and being delivered to both Father Magnus’ temple and the Rose Petal Room. As far as I could tell, everything was ready and we were simply waiting for the big day.
“When are you getting fitted?” Lilly asked me over breakfast.
My blank stare said it all.
“Duke, did you really forget?”
I nodded, my mouth full, almost afraid to speak.
“Let’s go, then,” she said, pushing her chair back from the table. I took one last swig of my coffee and rose to my feet.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“It’s alright. We’ve had a lot on our minds the last few days. I hope it’s not too late.”
Half an hour later we were at the tailors, where I stood in front of a mirror while a small, elderly man measured me in ways that made me think that perhaps I was really betrothed to him. But he was very kind and spoke almost exclusively to Lilly, asking her what my preferences were as to cut, color, style, and so on. Obviously, this was a man who serviced many a wedding.
I, on the other hand, only had the one partially under my belt, but even I knew enough to stand there quietly and let Lilly answer for me. In the end, I knew it was also going to be the best thing. She had a much more developed sense of style and taste than I did.
Finally, all the measurements were taken and jotted down, things were done being poked, prodded, and lifted and we were able to leave, with the promise that my wedding suit would be ready in two days’ time.
“Well,” I said, as we walked into the sunshine of a bright Capital City day, “that was unpleasant. What do you say we get some lunch and put it behind us?”
“A quick one. We’ve got some more errands to run today.”
“What? What else could we possible have to do?”
“We need some stuff for the house,” she replied. “My parents are going to be seeing it.”
“Oh, right. I forgot.”
After our very pleasant, but too short, lunch, we wandered down the street again, heading for the First Quarter. There, Lilly could find all sorts of household items, which she said would turn the place from being a house into a home…whatever that meant. For me, it meant standing around, offering non-committal opinions when she asked for them, and waiting patiently while she picked up one thing, examined it, put it back, and moved on to another. Often to return to the first one after looking at several others.
It was during one of these times that I saw the strange, gross little slug, crawling along the street as if it owned the place and didn’t have a care in the world. It was about an inch long and pink colored, covered with a layer of mucous that gleamed in the sunlight. That alone seemed odd. I always associated slugs and other such slimy creatures with damp, dark places. Places where you felt like you needed a wash after being near.
The sight of this gross little thing slithering slowly along amused me, so I watched it make its slow progress from cobblestone to cobblestone. And then it got stepped on, and my attention was torn away from it, and to the boots that squashed it.
Since the First Quarter is home to so many dwarves, it was perfectly reasonable that it was the heavy boots of one that smooshed my unpleasant little friend. Glancing up, I saw that it had been done without malice, indeed, without notice even. The dwarf continued on his way, unaware that he had snuffed out a life so casually.
Oh well. It was a slug. It was fun to watch for a minute or two, but really, it was a slug. Lilly was wrapping up her time inside of this particular shop anyway, and my carrying the packages service was being called upon. With luck, this would be the last one and we’d head home to relax.
But as usual, luck was not with me, and there was another place to visit. And another after that. There was even a grocer, where we picked up several expensive, delicious items that I was told were not to be eaten. They were for our guests.
It was no wonder that I spotted another slug as I plodded along under my increasingly heavy load of packages. My head was down, both with the effort of carting everything, as well as with the need to keep Lilly from seeing what I was sure was a pretty glum expression on my face.
It was moving along in the same manner as the previous one, slithering from cobblestone to cobblestone. When it would get in the gaps between the stones, it would either turn and move along the space between, or it would simply begin to scale the far side.
We came to what Lilly swore would be our last stop, so I dropped the packages to the ground to wait for her, and contemplated the little thing as it struggled along. I thought the first one strange to see, and now thought it even stranger to see a second, but, perhaps this was some sort of seasonal migration of pink slugs that I didn’t know about.
Then, another appeared. I looked around the street, but didn’t see any others, so it seemed that it was only the two of them. Blindly, they approached each other, both making toward the same cobblestone. For a moment, I wondered if something was drawing them to it, but I couldn’t see anything that would account for it.
I was silently cheering them on, hoping that they would reach the cobble at the same time and bump into each other. Yes, I was truly that bored that I was excited by a day at the slug races. I wondered what would happen if they did meet. Would it be like two old friends having a chance encounter, or two enemies suddenly facing off in a duel? Or was I going to get a slightly nauseating view of what constituted a slug’s sex life?
My wishes came true, for once, and the two little things did squirm to the same cobblestone at the same time. One slimed his way up from one direction and the other from the opposite side of the stone. They must have been able to sense each other, because they headed directly at one another.
When they met, they didn’t stop moving, but ran, for lack of a better word, into each other. It was like a slow-motion collision of two horse carts. I kept watch, unsure if this was slug love or war that I was witnessing, and also slightly embarrassed by how engrossed in the encounter I had become.
And then they…well, they moved…but not really. It was a weird kind of blurry effect, and then the slug was moving again, down off the cobblestone and on his way to wherever. One slug. One slug that was about half again as big as either of the original two.
Huh…slug love, I guessed. That was certainly a weird way to breed, but nature does some strange things. Which was yet another reason that I chose to stay safely inside the city walls and away from it whenever I could.
Two days later I was taking time for a long lunch in the Barman’s Choice, my favorite tavern in our neck of the woods. Lilly went back to work, but I was taking one more day to laze about and live the good life before I took anything from the Board. I was finding the bottom of my second mug of ale and contemplating a third, when Brindar came through the door.
“Grandfather,” he said, plopping down heavily in the chair that I pushed out with my foot.
“Brindar. What brings you here?” I searched around for the serving girl, lifting my fingers to indicate two ales. I was nothing if not sociable, and it would have been rude to let my friend drink alone.
“Nothing, really. Patrolling, I guess you could call it. Ivar wants me to have more of a ‘presence’ in the city, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“Huh. Well, glad you’re present here. Let’s have an ale.”
We shared the one and then another, and by that time, I was ready to get on my feet and move some.
“Let’s say we take a tour around the city,” I told him.
“See if we can find any trouble to stir up.”
In truth, I didn’t really want trouble, and neither did Brindar. But it was a better thing to say to another male than, “Hey, want to take a walk?”
Off we went, strolling along, two bad-ass Nuisance Men making their way through the mean streets of Capital City. And trouble did stay away from us. Like it or not, (and I admit that I did), I had a certain reputation, and Brindar had developed one in a remarkably short amount of time. There were no muggings, waylayings, or chicaneries within our sight.
But we did come upon one of the most disturbing things I had seen in quite some time. We were walking along for a good while and it was getting to the point that a stop at another tavern seemed to be in order. On the other end of the alley we were passing was a new place, The Drunken Man, that I was eager to try. There was such a thing as truth in advertising, and I admired their candor.
I mentioned this to Brindar, and since he was game, we set off down the alley, the thought of the cool, frothy ale already making my mouth water. But that feeling quickly dried up when I spotted yet another one of those pink slugs. Only this one was much larger than the ones I saw earlier. It must have been a good foot long, and as big around as an ale mug. It oozed along the alley, hugging the wall, like it was hoping not to be noticed.
“Wow,” I said, stopping and pointing it out to Brindar. “Look at that thing. I saw a few of them a couple of days ago, but they weren’t even close to that size.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed them too. Nasty little things.”
As we stood and watched, a rat squeezed out of a crack in the alley wall and sniffed along, heading for the slug. When it got close it stopped, its nose twitching rapidly. Then, it uttered a squeak, jumped, and turned, trying to flee.
But the slug was quicker. It threw out a long, pink, slimy tendril, which wrapped itself around the rat and pulled it to it. The rat squealed and tried to pull away, but the slug was stronger as well. As we watched, it pulled the rat to a spot directly in front of itself, and then flowed up and over the rodent, whose terrified squeaks faded away.
Duke Grandfather- The Whole Story Page 51