The dwarf shrugged. “If ye think ye can be the most help with yer broken arm.”
Creel patted the pommel of Final Strike, which he must have sheathed during the fall. “My sword arm is just fine.” He grinned.
Kulnor laughed. “Away with ye, then. I’ll be waitin’.”
“G-77, take us back up there,” Ferret said. She wrapped one arm around Creel’s waist, then they were off, hoping to make it in time to help their friends.
***
Mira had found that she could lighten her body by focusing her ki, although the technique was exhausting. She couldn’t become lighter than air itself or even fly but instead turned her fall into a gentle downward drift like a dry leaf—preferable to plunging like a stone as Creel and Kulnor had.
She briefly mourned their loss, but her instincts screamed at her to get back up above and protect Taren. However, for the moment, she was stuck on a boulder inside the chasm, where she had drifted, and was forced to take a moment to rest.
An idea came to her then, and she studied the sides of the chasm, thankful they were rough and provided numerous handholds.
I think this should work. There’s no time to waste.
She focused her ki once more, first surrounding her body in a thin nimbus, then imagining herself becoming as insubstantial as a cloud, the same technique she had used to slow her descent. She crouched and leaped off the boulder, straight upward as high as she could, and with her lessened weight, she made it nearly halfway up the shaft. Rather than allowing her momentum to fade and start falling again, she extended her feet and ran lightly up the wall, finding a stone jutting out here, a knot of root there. She pulled with her hands as she moved, flying up the wall in moments, much like a squirrel racing up a tree.
With one final burst, she shot up over the side, tucking into a somersault so her momentum carried her forward enough to land on solid ground. She released her ki and landed softly.
To her left, the strange automaton with the ruby in its chest lay collapsed against the wall. To her right, the robed demon was bearing down on Aninyel, who was wounded, one arm ruined. Despite her injury, the elf didn’t look either cowed or helpless, instead fully intent on her foe.
Taren was momentarily safe across the chasm, so Mira attacked at once, knowing the only way to ensure his safety was to defeat this fiend. She lunged at its back just as the demon spun around, sensing her presence. Her extended fist connected with its chest, although it felt as if she had punched a pillow. The ratty robes collapsed inward with little resistance, and she released the blast of ki she had focused.
The fiend’s robes rippled around her fist, the effect spreading outward like the disturbed surface of a pond. A moment later, the demon disgorged insects from within its mass, as if the vermin were stuffing the empty robes. A deluge of pale, segmented worms, cockroaches, and other insects rained out of its sleeves and hood and from beneath the hem of its robes.
Mira stepped away, taken aback by the result of her strike. Roaches and worms swarmed across the ground. The green fires of the demon’s eyes guttered a moment like candles in a stiff gust of wind. The fiend seemed diminished after her attack, like a training dummy bereft of its straw filling.
Just then, the tip of a curved sword burst through the demon’s chest right in front of Mira. The metal had no blood on it, but it did glimmer a sparkling blue like the waves on the ocean.
Aninyel’s face was twisted in pain as she slid her saber free to strike again, but at that moment, the fiend’s eyes flared brightly again. A nimbus of green magic flowed from its sleeves as it gathered itself to attack.
This thing won’t die. Mira fell back, dismayed, her hands raised defensively, although her ki was nearly spent.
A flash of silver cut across Mira’s vision and struck the fiend’s open cowl. She blinked, surprised, but then recognized Taren’s dagger, Lightslicer. The blade was embedded in the nothingness directly between its burning eyes.
The fiend roared its rage, green flames billowing from its sleeves. Mira and Aninyel both jumped back and hit the ground as the demon flailed around as if blinded, gouts of fire spewing wildly as it sought to incinerate its attackers. She could do nothing other than keep her head down as the fireballs singed her hair, streaking past mere inches above her. She wondered if she should make a run for cover, but none was nearby. Whether she remained in place or not, the fiend would soon get lucky and scorch her with its magic.
***
“Can’t you go any faster?” Creel asked impatiently.
They had left the isle below, and he scanned the sky, looking for the Refuge somewhere above them.
“Maximum speed, G-77,” Ferret said.
Creel’s skin abruptly mashed to his skull as their velocity increased tremendously, the wind blasting at him mercilessly, tearing at his hair and pummeling his face. He squinted eyes that were suddenly dry and saw the Refuge approaching, at first a black dot, then rapidly increasing in size. He was glad for the strength of Ferret’s metal grip around his waist, even though his cracked ribs protested the treatment. With the adrenaline rush of the moment, he barely noticed the pain.
“This better?” Ferret shouted.
Creel grinned. “Aye, just don’t overshoot our target or flatten us on the underside of the island like a squashed beetle.”
The Refuge loomed large, approaching faster than he would have thought possible. For a moment, he held his breath as he feared they might be splattered on the base of the island, but then he saw the illuminated shaft bored through the island’s core. With a rush of wind, they shot into the shaft.
Ferret shouted something he didn’t quite make out, and they slowed noticeably, although they still were moving fairly rapidly. Daylight bloomed overhead, and his fingers tightened around Final Strike’s hilt in anticipation.
They streaked out of the shaft. Ferret slowed them even more, and he took in the scene at a glance.
Mira and Aninyel were down in the grass across the gorge, and the fiend was launching fireballs wildly across the valley, gouts of fire tearing up ground and scorching grass, leaving blackened smudges where they struck against the cliff. Taren was crouched down across the chasm.
Creel pointed, and Ferret must have read his thoughts, for she flew above the fiend. At his signal, she released him from nearly twenty feet in the air.
He yanked Final Strike from its scabbard as he fell toward the maddened fiend. He raised the sword in his good hand and brought it down with all his might atop the crown of the demon’s cowl as he landed.
Final Strike slashed through the tattered robes, meeting very little resistance as it easily cut through the rotting cloth. He hit the ground, his feet and knees protesting the drop, followed by his ribs and back. Final Strike cleaved the demon completely in twain, biting gently into the grass at the bottom of its arc.
Creel fell over on his back from the force of his landing, and just in time, for that sickly green fire exploded from the fiend as the pieces of robes fell away. The burst of green light ended, then insects erupted everywhere, a rain of worms and cockroaches and maggots and other things he tried not to dwell on. He spat and wiped his face free of the vermin.
The valley was eerily still then, as everyone hesitantly picked themselves up from the ground. Creel groaned from the pain of his multiple injuries as he regained his feet. No one said a word—perhaps the others were simply stunned to be alive. He had certainly had his own doubts for a moment while plummeting through open sky.
“Dak, that blow you struck is one for the ballads,” Ferret said in awe, breaking the silence. “Is it dead?” She had landed near Creel, looking odd with a second head perched on her shoulder and metal wings jutting out of her back.
“It’s dead,” Taren called over. “Or at least its corporeal form is.”
“Intruder eliminated,” G-77 agreed. Though it was probably Creel’s imagination, the construct sounded somewhat smug.
He noticed something glittering among the bulk of the squirming inse
cts. A shiny, gracefully curved dagger lay on the ground.
“Whose is this?” he asked, clearing some worms away with his boot.
“Oh, that’s mine.” Taren extended one hand, and the dagger became a silvery blur as it streaked away across the chasm to end up back in Taren’s hand.
“Huh. Neat trick,” Creel said. He sheathed his sword and looked around, relieved to see his friends weren’t dead, although Aninyel looked pretty bad off.
“Ferret, would you mind taking me across?” Taren called.
“Sure.” She flew over to pick him up.
“That was quite the dramatic entrance,” Aninyel remarked. She was brushing insects from her blue-gray hair with her good hand. Her left arm was shriveled like an old stick and weeping blood from open sores, but despite that, she still had a smile on her face.
“You arrived just in time,” Mira added, relief plain on her face.
“Aye, but I’ll be feeling that for a while,” Creel admitted. Everything hurt, but he was very pleased that the demon was destroyed.
Ferret and Taren joined them a moment later. “I’m gonna go pick up Kulnor,” she said. “Don’t do anything else for the ballads till I get back, all right?”
Creel chuckled. “Aye, lass, we’ll try not to.”
After Ferret disappeared from sight, the creak of metal drew his attention. The unusual automaton was struggling to rise from where it had lain near the cliff wall. Its metal body, originally a blend of gold and silver hues, was blackened and melted in places, scuffed and dented in others, yet the ruby still gleamed brightly from its chest.
“We seek Overseer Lenantos,” Taren said as the construct approached with long, graceful strides.
“You have found him,” came the reply. “I thank you for destroying that demon. It was much more puissant than I had anticipated, destroying scores of my factotum. I nearly met the same fate.”
Lenantos, or this facsimile of him, was much different from the other automatons. He stood a head taller than Creel and was spindly of limb, without the bulky suit of armor form of the others, Ferret included. His torso was almost the shape of a sword hilt, slightly broader in the middle and tapering subtly toward either end. Gold and silver bands wound around his torso. His head looked similar to all the others though he had a hinged jaw that moved when he talked. His brilliant blue eyes glowed as brightly as sapphires catching a ray of sunlight.
“I see you bear one of our rings,” Lenantos said, “yet my people are no more. Who are you, and what is your purpose here?”
“I am Taren, grandson of your master, the Engineer.” Taren let the words hang a moment before he continued. “The Engineer is no more, and the forces of the Abyss seek to gain access to Voshoth and the Tellurian Engine for their own sinister ends. I mean to stop them.”
Lenantos let out a metallic sigh. “So, our plans have failed, as I’ve long suspected when all communication ceased. For many long years, I awaited my master’s command, but when my mortal shell failed, I had no choice but to transmute myself and hold to my most sacred trust—protecting the control rod. Centuries passed, and my people dwindled in number and eventually died out. Only the factotum and I have persisted. And now the day has arrived when my master’s heir stands before me. Do you seek the control rod for your own ends?” Lenantos’s blue eyes stared intently at Taren as if they could pierce his very soul.
“I do not. I seek to destroy it in the inferno chute beneath the earth in the Hall of the Artificers so that Shaol and his ilk may never use the machine to destroy the multiverse.”
The overseer nodded slowly. “In hindsight, I have questioned the wisdom of such a creation, but I was a mortal man once, bound by hubris and the desire to gain my master’s favor by offering him an ultimate weapon for his great war—not only for my own sake but for my order. My brethren all felt the same. Alas, in my long centuries of introspection since, I’ve come to see the folly of our ways. Your arrival lightens my spirit, since it means that my long vigil finally comes to an end.”
At that moment, Ferret and Kulnor flew up out of the chasm and landed lightly beside the group.
“Master, unit G-77 stands ready, awaiting your command,” G-77 piped up exuberantly.
Creel was surprised to see Lenantos smile affectionately at the damaged construct. His face and jaw were marvelously engineered to allow such an expression.
“Your persistence is commendable, G-77. You may shut down all systems now. Your task has been completed most nobly.”
“Yes, Master.” G-77’s wings snapped back into their sheath, and the automaton clicked and whirred for a moment. Then the glow in G-77’s amber eyes slowly faded and was gone.
Ferret untangled herself from the deactivated machine and set it down reverently, as she might have a fallen comrade in arms.
“How have you come to be?” Lenantos was studying Ferret with interest. “You have the chassis of an alpha-model factotum, and yet you are more than that.”
“I’m a person stuck inside this metal shell,” she replied, knocking on her breastplate. “I, uh… unwisely ventured into a room in the Hall of the Artificers and got trapped inside. It changed me to this.”
“The Transfiguration Chamber.” Lenantos cocked his head at an angle. “And how was your soul preserved?”
“I was able to halt the transformation with my talent before the process took her fully.” Taren laid a hand on Ferret’s shoulder affectionately. “And now, I’d ask for your wisdom on how we might transform her back. I was told of a Reverse Transfiguration Chamber located at the Shirak Research Station.”
“Yes, just so. I’m curious as to how you know of that. Our secrets are very closely held… or were in times past.”
“An associate of my mother’s—the Engineer’s daughter—retained some of your master’s memories. How that came to be wasn’t explained to me in any greater detail than that.”
“Ah, the master’s memories… He is but a ghost now, as are all of the artificers, once his cherished servants.” Lenantos was silent a long moment, as though lost in thought. “Forgive me, you do not have such luxury of timelessness as do I. Your friend’s metamorphosis may be reversed as you said in the Reverse Transfiguration Chamber. Yet I must warn you—the tank has some… incongruities. It was an experimental system that was abandoned before thorough testing could be completed, and these variances were never eliminated completely.” His gaze locked on Ferret. “Would you risk your newfound strength and longevity to return as a being of flesh once more?”
“I would,” she said in a quiet but confident voice. “I’d rather live and die as myself, with all the pleasures and pain that go along with such a life.”
Creel smiled at Ferret, his heart going out to her. And we will damn well do everything we can to see you back to yourself again.
“Well said—it takes wisdom to put such thoughts into words. I wish you good fortune, then.” Lenantos turned on his heel and beckoned the group. “Please, come with me. I must give you something before I hand over the control rod.”
***
As they trailed after Lenantos across the blasted field toward the cottage, Aninyel sidled up beside Taren.
“Nice trick, by the way.” She tapped her temple as she gazed up at him.
“I’m glad it worked… I wasn’t sure it would.”
“Message received—loud and clear.” She flashed her grin.
“Let me see that arm of yers, lass,” Kulnor said to the elf, frowning at her ruined limb.
“Lass? You’re a charmer, aren’t you?” Her eyes gleamed impishly. “I probably have seen more years than your great-great-grandfather, Master Dwarf.”
Kulnor looked uncomfortable a moment, finding himself on uncertain ground. “I reckon women are the same in some ways no matter if they’ve dwarven, elven, or human. Flattery is the best approach if ye’re unsure.”
Aninyel tittered with laughter. “Flattery will get you far. That is a universal truth.” She extended her arm. “Loo
k all you want. It’s not exactly my best feature at the moment. If you’re of a mind to keep looking, by all means, don’t stop there.” She ran her good hand over her hip and down a thigh suggestively.
Kulnor blushed behind his beard, and Aninyel laughed harder. Taren couldn’t help but join in. Even Mira smiled at their banter.
Kulnor cleared his throat and gently took her injured arm by the wrist to examine it. “That thing put a blight on ye. A nasty curse.”
“Nasty it sure is. Can you banish or dispel it?”
“Aye. Give me a few moments.”
“I’m not in any great hurry, my friend. This quest is the most fun I’ve had in a hundred years.” Aninyel smiled and winked at Taren, then sat in the grass.
Kulnor knelt beside her and began chanting, holding his holy symbol in one hand.
“Go ahead and finish your business here, Taren,” she said. “We’ll catch up.”
“Will do.” He increased his pace as Mira shadowed him.
Ahead of them, Creel was walking with some difficulty, one hand on Ferret’s shoulder to steady himself. The monster hunter was apparently in significant pain, and his left arm hung limply as if broken.
Lenantos was waiting patiently upon the porch of the cottage when they arrived. “I admit I fancy my trappings of normality.” The overseer gestured to a pair of rocking chairs on the porch. “Reminds me of being alive.”
In addition to the rocking chairs, a workbench stood beneath the front window. Right off the cottage’s porch was a small flower garden that had been neatly tended until an errant fireball had destroyed the majority of it.
“I sense you are a good man, Taren,” Lenantos said. “Do you vow to destroy the control rod once I submit it to you?”
“I do,” he replied. “You have my word.”
“Very well. Allow me to retrieve one item from inside first.” Lenantos ducked his head beneath the low lintel as he entered the cottage. The sounds of him rummaging around went on a couple minutes before he returned, carrying what looked like a smooth, glassy piece of obsidian. The stone was lozenge-shaped, as big around as an ale keg, circular, and about a foot high.
Trial of the Thaumaturge (Scions of Nexus Book 3) Page 37