by Tim Waggoner
The tentacle whip fastened its beaklike mouth on Osten’s inner forearm, and the thin crimson tendrils that surrounded the mouth wrapped around the man’s elbow before burrowing into the flesh. Osten’s teeth were gritted tight and his jaw muscles clenched. Sweat poured off him, and his every muscle was wire-taut as the symbiont began altering the internal structure of his body. His brow furrowed in concentration, and Lirra knew he was fighting to resist the pain of the foul creature merging with his physical body as the psychic corruption as the whip joined with his mind.
Lirra turned toward Ksana and saw that the cleric’s eyes were closed, her lips moving silently. No doubt the cleric was seeking her patron goddess’s blessing for the volunteers as well. Lirra hoped the gods were in a beneficent mood today. She knew Osten and the others could use all the help they could get.
The tongueworm slithered over the length of a woman’s body, reversing its position as it neared her mouth. It inserted the tip of its tail between her lips, and the woman closed her eyes and opened her mouth wide to receive it. The worm hesitated for a moment, as if not quite able to believe it was being welcomed, and then it plunged its tail down the woman’s throat. Tears streamed from her eyes, and her body convulsed as the tail wriggled its way down into her stomach, intending to anchor there. When the bonding process was complete, the tongueworm-whose hood resembled a human tongue-would lie flat over the woman’s true tongue. She would still be able to speak, but the tongueworm could lash out whenever she willed it to deliver a paralyzing poison strike using its concealed barb. Lirra turned to see how the host on the third table was faring.
The crawling gauntlet had scuttled across the man’s body like a large crustacean and settled over his right hand and forearm. The bonding process for this aberration was far less disturbing than for a tongueworm. The host wore it like a natural gauntlet, and the symbiont extended tiny tendrils into the flesh to bind itself to the host body. The man winced as the gauntlet joined with him, but the procedure looked much less painful than it was for Osten and the woman, and Lirra was glad for the soldier, though she had no doubt he’d have an equally difficult time resisting the psychic influence of the evil creature.
The last symbiont was a stormstalk. It resembled something like a fat, fleshy serpent with a single large white eye in the center of its otherwise featureless head. A static discharge of energy like a miniature lightning storm danced over the surface of the eye as the aberration slithered across the chest of the woman who would serve as its host. Once coiled over her breastbone, its tail wriggled toward her neck and slid around the base of her skull. The creature plunged tendrils into the host’s skull, burrowed through the bone, and dug into the brain to take root. As the process began, the woman screamed-the only one of the four volunteers to make a sound as their symbionts joined with them-and Lirra didn’t blame the woman one bit.
Lirra looked to Elidyr. The artificer was in motion, rapidly touching the Overmantle’s crystals in a complex pattern, his hands moving with the speed and grace of a master musician playing a familiar, beloved instrument. Several seconds passed without result, and Lirra began to fear that the device wasn’t going to work, that Elidyr simply hadn’t had enough time to complete it. But then the crystals began to pulsate with an eerie blue-white light, and four streams of energy emerged from the Overmantle’s framework and lanced through the air to strike the four crystalline rods affixed to the tables where the hosts lay. The rods shimmered with the same light as the Overmantle’s crystals, and the tables began to gleam blue white as the rods transferred energy to the steel. In turn, the magical energy was fed directly into the host’s bodies, and by extension, into the symbionts as well-just as Elidyr had said it would.
Now all four of the volunteers cried out in pain, but their shouts were drowned out by a chorus of shrill shrieks, like the high-pitched screams of animals in intense agony. The shrieking was so loud that Lirra clapped her hands over her ears to drown it out, but the action did no good. The sound remained just as loud, and Lirra realized that it wasn’t an actual sound at all, but rather something she was hearing in her mind. She was experiencing the combined psychic cries of distress from the symbionts as the Overmantle’s energy coursed through them.
She glanced at the others and saw that Vaddon and Ksana both held their hands over their ears, as did the guards and Elidyr. Not Sinnoch, though, and not Rhedyn, either. Of course they would be immune to the cries, Lirra thought.
The expression on Rhedyn’s face was neutral, while Vaddon’s was one of intense concentration as he observed every detail of the experiment going on before him, weighing and judging, just as he always did. Ksana looked worried, no doubt concerned for the volunteers’ safety, but along with the worry was a taut alertness. The cleric intended to hang back and let the experiment run its course, but Lirra knew that at the first sign any of the volunteers needed her, Ksana would spring into action. Elidyr’s face was wild with joy, like a Karrnathi child receiving his first weapon on Blades’ Day Eve. Sometime during the proceedings, Sinnoch had lowered the hood of his robe, and the dolgaunt observed the scene around him with a sly, inhuman smile that disturbed Lirra more than anything she’d witnessed since the experiment began.
Suddenly both the symbionts and their hosts grew still and lay motionless on the tables. The psychic screams of the aberrations died away, and their absence felt as if a great pressure had been removed from Lirra’s mind. As the hosts continued lying there, the Overmantle still feeding streams of mystic energy into the tables, Lirra feared that something had gone dreadfully wrong with the experiment, and that the men and women were dead. But then, almost in perfect unison, the four volunteers sat up, their expressions beatifically calm, and Lirra allowed herself to hope that the Overmantle had worked, and the hosts were in full control of their symbionts. If it were true, if Elidyr had finally succeeded, then perhaps Bergerron would continue to support the Outguard’s work, and they could-
Before Lirra could finish her thought, the hosts leaped off their tables and rushed toward the guard standing closest to them. The guards were still off balance from having experienced the symbionts’ psychic screams. They had dropped their handling rods to cover their ears, and while the psychic screams were over, none of the guards made a move to draw their swords as the hosts approached.
“Arm yourselves!” Lirra called out in warning, but it was too late.
All four of the guards wore Elidyr’s enchanted armor, and the spells worked into the metal should’ve repelled the symbionts or at least slowed their attack, but for some reason the armor’s magic had no effect and the hosts didn’t so much as pause as they closed in. None of the guards wore any protection for their heads or faces, for the Outguard had needed none before, and it was a lapse the hosts exploited with swift, ruthless efficiency. The woman with the tongueworm opened her mouth, and her symbiont shot forth like a striking snake, its barbed tip striking one of the guards just below the left eye. The flesh there instantly became swollen and discolored, and the guard stiffened as the tongueworm’s paralytic poison took hold. As the tongueworm flew back into the woman’s mouth, the host walked forward, drew the paralyzed guard’s sword, and laid open his throat with a single savage swing of the blade.
The man with the crawling gauntlet slashed open a guard’s throat with the symbiont’s razor-sharp claws, while the woman with the stormstalk sent a crackling burst of lightning from her symbiont’s eye directly into the third guard’s face. The man screamed as his flesh blackened and his hair caught fire. He fell to the ground, crying in agony, and the woman moved in to finish him off with a second burst of lightning. Osten stepped toward the last guard, the tentacle whip lashing out and wrapping around the woman’s neck. Osten yanked back hard on the whip, and there was a loud crack as the guard’s neck broke. The whip uncoiled and the woman slumped to the floor of the chamber, dead.
Not only had the Overmantle failed to give the hosts control of the symbionts, the reverse had somehow taken
place-the symbionts had complete control over their host bodies. More, the energy fed into the aberrations by Elidyr’s device seemed to have made the symbionts stronger than normal. It had taken them only a few seconds to slay the guards, and the hosts-or rather, the host bodies under the symbionts’ control-turned toward Lirra and the others.
Elidyr gazed with stunned disbelief at the carnage the hosts had wrought.
“This can’t be happening!” the artificer cried out.
Standing next to him, Sinnoch pointed toward the air several feet above the Overmantle.
“I believe you have something slightly more important to worry about, Elidyr,” the dolgaunt said with a sickening grin.
Everyone’s eyes-including those of the symbiont-hosts-turned toward the point in space Sinnoch had indicated. The air rippled, distorted, and then a seam opened … at first it was a small tear only a few inches long, but it soon began to widen until it measured more than a foot in length.
“What is it?” Lirra demanded.
“It’s a portal,” Elidyr answered in a frightened whisper. “To Xoriat.”
A chill raced down Lirra’s spine at her uncle’s words. She was looking at a hole in space … a doorway between this world and the Realm of Madness. What awful things lay on the other side of that door-and what if those things chose to come through?
“I thought you said the Overmantle would only create a small portal to Xoriat!” Lirra said.
“That’s right!” Elidyr stared up at the slowly widening portal in complete bewilderment. “I … I don’t understand!”
“You don’t need to understand!” Lirra snapped. “You just need to close it!”
“Right.” Elidyr didn’t sound very sure of himself, but he began frantically manipulating the Overmantle’s crystals. Sinnoch continued to stand next to the artificer, but the dolgaunt made no move to assist him, Lirra noted.
Lirra turned to Vaddon, Ksana, and Rhedyn. “We need to deal with the symbionts before they start moving again. We’ll each take one and do whatever is necessary to stop them.” Her expression was grim. “Understand?”
They nodded and drew their weapons as they chose a target and began their approach. Vaddon headed for the man with the crawling gauntlet, while Ksana made for the woman with the stormstalk and Rhedyn for the woman with the tongueworm. That left Osten for Lirra. Despite what she’d told the others, she was determined to stop the tentacle whip without harming Osten if she could. Twice Lirra’s actions had resulted in Osten being taken over by the symbiont, and she felt it was her responsibility to make up for those errors in judgment-and if it should come down to her having no choice but to kill Osten, then she’d make sure to do the deed as swiftly and painlessly as possible. She owed him that much at least.
The host bodies remained standing motionless and gazing upon the portal to Xoriat. As the symbionts were creatures born of madness and corruption, they doubtless could sense what lay on the other side of the rent in space, and they stood watching almost reverently, as if they were waiting for something to emerge. The thought chilled Lirra, but she pushed it aside. They were lucky that the symbionts were mesmerized by the portal, but there was no telling how long they’d remain like that, and Lirra and the others had to take advantage of the situation while they had the chance.
As she moved toward Osten, she couldn’t resist sneaking a quick glance at the portal hovering in the air above the Overmantle. It was two feet long and nearly a foot wide, and Lirra could see through to what lay on the other side. But what she saw didn’t make any sense. Swirling images, some blurry and indistinct, some so clear and sharp that it almost hurt to look at them. Things that appeared to be geometric shapes one instant, only to shift into amorphous blobs the next, and then into something so nightmarish it defied description after that. Sounds came through as well-mad laughter, grating low-pitched words spoken in a language she’d never heard, cries like those of exotic animals from deep within the darkest jungles of Xen’drik. Smells filtered into the chamber through the portal too-the foul stink of swamp gas, the cloying odor of thick perfume, the rank stench of decay, the oversweet smell of fruit on the verge of spoiling, and the coppery tang of blood.
The Realm of Madness, indeed, and Lirra found herself almost giggling at the thought. She immediately clamped down hard on the urge.
Careful, soldier, she told herself. The influx of disorienting sensations coming through the portal was starting to affect her mind, and she needed to maintain control of her thoughts. Otherwise, she risked succumbing to madness.
She started to tear her gaze away from the portal, but just as she did she caught a glimpse of a pair of hands reaching through-inhumanly long fingers covered in hard gray armor that reminded her of an insect’s shell with pulsing red muscle visible between the segments. The sight of those alien hands filled her with fear and loathing so strong that for an instant she wanted nothing more than to drop her sword to the floor and flee the lodge in terror. But she kept a tight rein on her emotions and forced herself to look away from the portal. The fear subsided then, though it didn’t entirely leave her. She didn’t know what the creature reaching through the portal was, and she didn’t want to know. Hopefully, Elidyr would find a way to close the portal before the damned thing could make it all the way through into Eberron. In the meantime, she had a job to do.
She started toward Osten.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Osten’s head turned toward her as she approached, and eyes that no longer contained even a shred of humanity focused on her. Osten’s lips stretched into a cruel smile, and Lirra felt a cold pit open in her stomach as she realized the tentacle whip recognized her.
She didn’t waste time on words. The fastest way to stop the symbiont was to weaken it, and to do that, she needed to deprive it of its blood supply-Osten. She rushed forward, sword in her right hand, dagger in her left. The symbiont was intelligent in its own way, and if nothing else it possessed a certain amount of animal cunning. But one thing it didn’t have was battle experience, and Lirra intended to use that failing against it. As she drew near, she raised her sword, feinting with the weapon to draw the symbiont’s attention while she struck with her dagger.
Sorry, Osten, she thought.
The tentacle whip did nothing, and for an instant she felt a surge of hope. Perhaps the aberration was still too mesmerized by the portal to react in time to stop her.
But as her sword arm came around in its feint, Osten grinned, stepped aside, and the tentacle whip lashed out and wrapped its coils around the wrist of her dagger hand. The whip yanked her off balance, and Osten reached out with his free hand, grabbed hold of her other wrist and twisted. His grip was inhumanly strong, and she felt bones grind and a sharp pain shot through her arm. Her fingers sprang open, releasing their grip on her sword, and her weapon tumbled to the chamber floor. Next the tentacle whip squeezed the wrist of her dagger hand, forcing her to drop that blade as well.
Her right wrist blazed like fire, but she grabbed hold of the tentacle whip, grimacing at the warm, greasy feel of the thing’s flesh, planted her feet solidly on the floor, and hauled backward with all her might. The whip was taken by surprise, and Osten’s body stumbled toward her. Lirra lashed out with her foot and swept the man’s left leg out from under him. Osten fell onto his side, hitting the stone floor hard. With the tentacle whip joined to him, the impact wouldn’t do much to slow him down. What she’d wanted was to get Osten’s head-or more specifically, his throat-within striking distance of her boot. She kicked out hard and crushed the man’s windpipe.
Osten’s body stiffened, and she felt the tentacle whip vibrate, as if it were reacting to the blow as well. Osten’s mouth gawped open like a fish’s as his body struggled to draw in air, but the soft wet clicks that emerged from his throat indicated that Lirra’s blow had had the desired effect. He could no longer breathe and would rapidly lose strength and die, rendering the tentacle whip, if not helpless, than greatly reduced in strength. Hopefully weak
enough that Lirra would be able to deal with it then. As if its host’s plight were already having an effect on it, the whip released its hold on her wrist and fell to the floor. Lirra decided to take the opportunity to retrieve her weapons. Keeping an eye on the tentacle whip in case it decided to strike again, she reached down and grabbed both her sword and dagger. Osten’s face had turned red and was beginning to shade toward purple. His eyes bulged as he fought a losing battle to breathe, and though Lirra knew that she’d had no other way to stop the symbiont possessing his body, she found herself unable to watch the man’s face as he died. The whip itself still lay limply on the chamber floor, and she decided to risk a quick glance to see how the others were faring.
Vaddon had dealt with the crawling gauntlet in the most expedient way possible-by cutting off the arm of its host at the elbow. The man sat on the floor, white-faced and grimacing in pain, bleeding stump jammed against his midsection to staunch the flow of blood, while the crawling gauntlet-still attached to his severed arm-scuttled across the stone floor searching for somewhere to hide, leaving a trail of crimson in its wake.
Ksana stood before the woman possessed by the stormstalk. The serpentlike creature unleashed a bolt of lightning at the cleric from its overlarge eye, but the cleric raised her hand and the energy discharged harmlessly inches before striking her. Ksana then stepped forward and swung her halberd like a staff, striking the woman on the side of the head with the end. The woman took a stagger-step to the side, and before she could react, Ksana-moving with a savage speed and grace that seemed at odds with her rational, accord-seeking personality-reversed her strike and struck the woman in the side of the neck with her halberd’s axe blade. Blood fountained from the wound and the woman fell onto her hands and knees. Ksana then flipped her halberd around for a new strike and brought the axe head down upon the juncture where the stormstalk had buried its tail into the base of its host’s skull. The stormstalk had no mouth with which to scream, but the way its body quivered told of the pain it suffered from the blow, and the aberration immediately yanked itself free of its host and began frantically slithering away before Ksana could strike at it again. Once the symbiont had left, Ksana dropped her halberd to the floor and rushed forward to place her hands upon the wounded woman and begin healing her.