Forsaken

by Cebelius

  Angie chuckled at that, and said, "Don't let them hear you call them that, or you will have a fight on your hands. Lizard kin claim salamander blood, while the troglodytes trace their heritage to the undine. They are mortal enemies."

  "Don't know why they would be," Abram said as he too moved to the food. "Not like they'd want the same kinds of land."

  "They are enemies because they find each other delicious," she said with a shrug. "A trog will go out of his way to kill and eat any lizard kin he finds, and the lizards do likewise. They raid each other's territories regularly, each hunting the other as food."

  "Yeesh."

  Abram glanced back to see Sif still standing by the door.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  Sif nodded after a long moment's pause, then said, "I'm just not used to this. I spent most of my life bowing and scraping. Being served makes me feel uneasy."

  "You didn't seem to mind taking the lead in front of the dwarves," he pointed out.

  "That was an act." Sif smiled faintly. "But what just happened? That was real." Her smile broadened a bit as she looked at him. "Now even a template is calling me the Lady of Svartheim."

  "Well, you are," he said with a shrug, absently remembering to take his cowl down. Angie smiled and nodded her thanks when he did so. "I may be aiming for control of Svartheim, but you'll still be the bergsrå. I couldn't take that away from you even if I wanted to, which I don't. May as well call it like I see it."

  "I ... thank you, Abram."

  "You're welcome. Come on, eat. I'm sure you're hungry."

  The three of them sat and filled their bellies as Abram was made to recount his brief misadventure with Lygi. He glossed over just how he'd escaped from the bindings, claiming only that they were loose. The pain he had endured wasn't something he could brag about, not when he'd only gone through it because he'd been negligent in the first place.

  Once he finished, Angie filled him in on what Lygi had done at the pier, and why it had gone wrong for her. She mentioned that they'd found her body, along with some of the trogs that had been dispatched to kill and rob her. He tilted his head in confusion when Angie described the body, and said, "I just used dark lightning on her until she died. There wasn't a mark on her when I left."

  "The trog in the village said the same thing," she replied. "But when we found her, she'd been completely skinned and half-eaten. We only knew it was her by size, and because she was found where we expected her body to be."

  He winced. It made him queasy to think that he was being transported by cannibals.

  Abram then told them of Sube, and recounted what she'd said to him.

  "So you have new bond powers?" Angie asked.

  He nodded. "A bit stronger, a bit more durable, a few more spells. I now have all the elemental affinities along with Death, Chaos, and Evil."

  Angie shook her head in wonderment as she said, "Abram, that is amazing. Given time, you may well become the greatest template wizard Celestine has ever known."

  "Something to shoot for," he said, having no real idea how he should respond to something like that. "For now though, it just gives me a bit more versatility when I'm preparing my spells. How long do you think it'll take to get to Sidastrgeil?"

  "I don't know," she admitted. "I've never been able to come this far."

  Abram was reminded of her previous lover as he caught the hint of regret in her voice. He frowned and asked, "You're not going to start something we can't finish, are you?”

  She shook her head. "No. I said that you were my priority now, and I meant it. I couldn't even be sure a given dwarf had wronged me unless she admitted to it, and to be honest, I don't much care."

  Angie glanced away and her brow furrowed, then she shrugged and asked, "What would I gain?"

  Abram shook his head and glanced toward Sif, who was looking at Angie as though she'd just said something incomprehensible. He agreed with the bergsrå. The very idea of letting the Mor off the hook for what she had done to him was beyond absurd.

  "If you don't make people pay for the wrong they do, they simply do more wrong," he said quietly. "If we do run into a dwarf that we know took part in what happened to your last lover ... I will kill her."

  Angie frowned, then shrugged. "I guess I wouldn't mind that. Just be sure she wouldn't be of use first. We aren't so well set up that we can waste things and people we might need later. As for righting wrongs, don't be so eager to pursue justice. Things like that tend to come full circle no matter who is right, and in the end nothing changes. Trust me, I've seen it happen often enough."

  He blinked, then shook his head and said, "I don't know how you manage it, Angie, but you're warm and stone cold at the same time."

  "It comes with experience," she said with a smile. "You'll learn the value of an even temper too, if you live long enough. If I had been able to get my revenge when it first happened, I'm sure I would have. It isn't as though I never wanted to make them pay for what they'd done. Now? Time has robbed me of any satisfaction I might get from revenge. It just seems like a waste of effort."

  "Do you think I'm wasting my effort?" Abram asked.

  She shook her head. "No. Your wounds are fresh, and you have liberty to act. I hope you get everything you want from the Mor, and I'll help you get it. As for me, I'm no dwarf. I don't hold grudges. I have better things to do with my life."

  "There's a lesson there for me, I'm sure," Abram said wryly. "I hope you'll forgive me if I refuse to learn it."

  She laughed and leaned over to kiss him lightly on the cheek. "There's no lesson here for you, young lover. What the Mor did to you is unforgivable, and when you take your revenge it will be with my full support."

  "I think I love you."

  She winked at him and turned to resume her meal.

  Two days brought them to the far side of the Sea of Two, and the three of them disembarked without having spoken more than ten words to any member of the crew. As they walked down the gangplank, only the trog with the sash was there to see them off, and Abram didn't even get his name.

  The pier gave way to a small town so like the one on the other side of the sea that Abram wondered for a moment if they hadn't turned around and wound up back where they'd started.

  The three of them entered two shops before they left the town. In the first they purchased provisions for the rest of their journey, and in the second they bought a proper set of clothing for Sif. She wound up choosing a set of leathers that Abram wouldn't have called armor so much as simply form-fitting. At least, it was by the time the leatherworker who sold it to them adjusted the fit.

  Angie did virtually all the talking, while Abram kept his hood up and did his best to stay in the background.

  As they left the town Angie said, "We should probably pick up the pace, and do our best to get as far away from town as we can. Now that we've been delivered, the trogs are under no further obligation not to harm us, and since we paid with a gem in the first store, the captain of the barge will soon learn just who it was he transported across the sea."

  Abram nodded, then glanced at Sif, who was smiling absently and had been since she'd gotten her new clothes.

  "They look good on you," he said, and it was true. The leather was entirely black, and even with just his dark sight, the contrast worked well with her white skin and hair.

  Her smile widened just a bit as she turned those fascinating blue-on-black eyes to him.

  "Thanks. They feel good too. It's nice to be wearing something other than rags after so long."

  She frowned then as she looked at him, and said, "You still don't have anything to wear on your feet."

  "Well, unless we have to cross steam pits or something, I'll be fine," he said, waving a hand idly. "After all this, my feet have gotten pretty tough."

  "She's right though," Angie said. "You won't convey the right impression as a competent wizard if the dwarves see your bloody, bare feet. You should have said something."

  Abram didn't answer othe
r than to shrug. The truth was that it genuinely hadn't occurred to him. It was just a game, and he didn't exactly have an armor score or character equipment slots to remind him that he needed such things. He was used to the feel of walking around with bare feet, and as far as his history in the game was concerned he hadn't worn shoes in years.

  "Doesn't bother me, and if it bothers the dwarves I'm sure I can come up with some other way to suitably impress my competence upon whoever survives the demonstration."

  Sif winced, then nodded as she said, "Just be careful. Some of us aren't mighty wizards, and it would be my preference if we all get through this in one piece?"

  "Fair."

  The three of them climbed a switchback that brought them to a ridge overlooking the sea. Turning from this, they found themselves in a vast, but not a high cavern. It had no walls that he could see in either direction, but the roof was fairly even and only about seventy feet up according to his mini-map's legend. Interspersed throughout the open space were gargantuan columns of stone, but there were no stalactites or stalagmites to indicate they were in a living space. The stone columns had a natural look to them, but Abram had no idea how they'd come to be without the other indicators that usually went along with their creation.

  Reminding himself firmly that it was a game and he was wasting cycles thinking about something no normal person would bother with, he put speculation on the window dressing aside and asked, "Do either of you know what threats we may run into here?"

  Neither did, and he realized he shouldn't have expected them to. It was obvious neither had ever crossed the Sea of Two. They knew of Sidastrgeil because the dwarves were explorers, though their civilization tended to be static.

  Still, the going was easy. The stone wasn't exactly flat, but it wasn't arduous and the pillars of stone here and there were so widely spaced that they didn't impede progress. The only real danger was that they would veer off course or become lost, but the fog of war on Abram's mini-map ensured that they kept moving in the right direction. All he had to do was zoom out past his visual range, and their line of travel was stark against the black.

  Several times over the course of the day Abram caught sight of a dot of movement behind them. No matter how many times he turned to look though, there was nothing there. Other dots came and went. He'd targeted several beetles of various kinds and something called a weaver, which he suspected was a spider. To his growing frustration though, this particular dot always winked out before he could cast a targeting spell on it, almost as though it knew it had been spotted. He couldn't even be sure it was the same thing each time, but he had a creepy feeling that it was.

  Eventually, he gave up and said, "I think we're being followed. I haven't been able to target it yet, but it's popped up at least four times in the last few hours. Never for more than a second or two, but enough for me to notice."

  He glanced over to see Sif giving him a curious look, and explained. "I've got a divination spell up that shows me any conscious movement over twenty pounds within a hundred twenty feet. This blip shows up behind us each time."

  Sif frowned, turned, and her brow furrowed as she concentrated. After a moment she said, "There is a weaver colony off to our left, and several other large insects scattered around, but I can't sense anything behind us that looks like it might be following us. There's one beetle back there about two hundred feet away. Nothing intelligent at all in any direction for at least half a mile."

  "Just telling you what I'm seeing," Abram said sourly. "After what happened with Lygi, I figure it'd be better to just say something now before whatever it is bites us in the ass."

  Sif shook her head. "Abram, there's no one back there. I can sense anything touching the stone."

  "There's plenty of room in here to fly," Abram snapped.

  "Calm down," Angie interjected. "See if you can 'target' it if you notice it again. I'm not sure what that will do for us, but I trust you. Sif, I trust you as well. It is entirely possible that something is hidden from us somehow. Let's just be careful, all right?"

  Abram nodded, glad that his scowl was hidden by his hood. Since they didn't know when they might run into something, he had it up. It annoyed him that Sif trusted her ability more than his, but he had to admit that the range on hers was quite a bit farther, and she'd been able to identify at least the race or species of other targets before, always accurately.

  Hantu, is there a chance that-

  'No.'

  You didn't let me finish.

  'Presuming you were about to question the efficacy of our spell, trust me, you didn't want me to let you finish. Such questioning would mightily offend me. I am THE Hantu Raya. My spells, and so YOUR spells, do exactly what we intend for them to do.'

  Abram wisely chose not to pursue his original line of questioning as he thought, I was GOING to ask if there's a chance we could extend the range of the spell out beyond my visual limit.

  'You were not.'

  Since you didn't let me finish, you'll have a helluva time proving that.

  For a moment, Hantu didn't reply. When he did, he managed to make the text look surly somehow.

  'The cost of the spell will rise depending on the range you want.'

  You called it a mystic radar. Radars aren't constant. They pulse. So what would it cost to do one pulse, and leave the dots thus revealed up on the map, fading out over the course of a minute?

  'At what range?'

  Double the usual.

  '64 mana.'

  Abram boggled for a moment, then thought, Dude.

  'Don't you 'dude' me. You said you math gud. Double the radius of a sphere, and you increase the volume by a factor of ... say it with me now ...'

  Abram facepalmed, gritting his teeth even as he thought, Eight.

  'There it is. Your spell as it exists costs you eight mana reserved as a constant effect. Don't make me write it out; you've already embarrassed yourself enough today questioning my design in the first place.'

  You're a spiteful little shit.

  'Prove it.'

  "Abram?"

  He looked up, realized he'd stopped walking, and started again as he said, "Sorry, was just trying to work out a spell that would resolve this ... and the short version of the long answer is that casting it will cripple my reserves and isn't guaranteed to even show me what I want to see."

  "I'm telling you, there isn't-"

  "'Anyone back there.' Yeah, I heard you, Sif. Fine."

  They kept walking, but as time passed and Abram failed to see the dot again, he only became more convinced that something was following them.

  Abram was half-right.

  Something had been following them. That something realized it was detected when Abram stopped and mentioned it, and circled wide of the group to get ahead of them.

  Daji was annoyed as she practically flew through the cavern, headed for Sidastrgeil. While she approved of the template's growing competence, it was beginning to consistently inconvenience her.

  The dwarven outpost was only ten miles further on, and when Daji reached it she hid to don her disguise. Momentary illusions cost her little, but she planned to be visible for some time, and such expenditures added up.

  Once she was ready, she strode confidently toward the gates of the squat stone edifice and stopped when she was bade.

  One of the heavily armored guards barked a quick question, and she answered just as sharply.

  "I am Lygi! Let me in. I have news of the campaign."

  22

  Sidastrgeil

  Abram stood stock still, unsure what to think.

  At least I'm not the only one, was his only coherent thought. Sif and Angie stood next to him, just as dumbfounded. Before them was Sidastrgeil. The cavern it was situated in was vast: the roof was outside even his enhanced visual range. While that made him uneasy, he'd become accustomed to the idea that he was underground, and it made his agoraphobia less pressing.

  The dwarven outpost, however, was not built into the c
ave in the way he had expected. Instead, there was something of a skyscraper constructed of stone block sitting in the middle of the space. It was a monolithic structure and though its walls were ornately carved with geometric designs, it was obviously not carved into or from the surfaces around it, but had been laboriously built on top of them. The dwarves had not used a single natural feature to aid in or facilitate their construction.

  The building looked like a massive rectangular building block, albeit an intricately carved one, and its only visible entrance was a vast double door of graven metal. Six torches were set in scones of increasing height, three on either side of the entrance. The door itself was closed, and upon it was runic script Abram found — to his bafflement — that he could read. Essentially, the runes laid out the laws of the outpost. Initially, they read something like the ten commandments, but then broadened out into minutia that Abram didn't bother trying to take in because neither the structure that was the outpost nor its door had the bulk of his confused attention.

  In front of the door were two ranks, each composed of five dwarves. The first rank were armed and armored in a manner very similar to those they'd encountered attacking the broodmother. The second rank were an odd assortment of what looked to Abram's inexperienced eye to be trades. Two carried massive packs and had a variety of hammers and other smithing tools hung from their persons, while another two wore no armor at all, though they did carry packs. They were both well-groomed and had something of a scholarly look to them. Then there was a dwarven woman with unique armor. She wore a silvered breastplate chased in blue with matching faulds, greaves, spaulders, and gauntlets. Her head was uncovered, save for a diadem set with a sapphire that lit the area around it with the glow from a soft blue flame that obviously didn't burn.

  It was obvious because it wasn't setting the woman's hair on fire.

  The only others present were two more armored dwarves that stood in the attitude of guardsmen next to an elder dwarf female wearing absolutely dazzling robes that gleamed with the gold and platinum threads used to weave them. It was craftsmanship so fine that even a layman like Abram was stunned it was possible.