Rod of the Heart

by Cebelius

  Rod of the Heart

  Celestine Chronicles II

  cebelius

  Contents

  1. Devil's Deal

  2. Pins and Needles

  3. Foreseen Consequences

  4. Anything for Love

  5. Go Hard or Go Home

  6. Asturial

  7. Inconsequential Concerns

  8. Some Things Can't Be Taught

  9. City in Flames

  10. Behemoth

  11. Blood Debt

  12. Stubborn vs. Stupid

  13. What's in a Name?

  14. For What It's Worth

  15. Order of March

  16. Crypt Walk

  17. Sub-Cel

  18. No Man Left Behind

  19. Spider Queen

  20. Worth It

  21. Stick to the Plan

  22. The Way Home

  23. Everywhere I Go

  24. Time Alone

  25. Changing Focus

  26. Headaches

  27. The Night Before

  28. I Must Break You

  29. Something to Prove

  30. Deal Breaker

  31. The Deep Court

  32. Worn Out Welcome

  33. Three's Company

  34. The Seat of Devotion

  35. Good Laces

  Afterword

  1

  Devil's Deal

  The throne room of Volai Hart was designed to impress.

  Terrence Mack strode down a red carpet edged in ornate golden thread flanked at intervals by lit braziers that gave the cavernous space a vaguely threatening ambiance. Colonnades marched along on either side of the room, casting shadows on the tapestry-covered stone walls beyond. A hush had fallen, unsurprising of itself as few were left alive to disturb the quiet.

  Though no physical violence had been done here, death had settled into the room and her eerie stillness commanded silence from the few survivors. Terry felt awe and apprehension as he took the steps up the dais one at a time to behold the end of his enemy. A part of him still didn't believe that all this was his doing. He had planned it, but that he now stood victorious amid a silent, bloodless carnage left him humbled.

  Volai Hart was impressive, even in death. Her statue sat upon an intricately-carved mahogany throne that was polished to a dull shine. Four arm rests — two to a side — and the fact that the throne looked as much like a gently curving s-shaped slide as a seat would have given away the inhuman nature of the occupant even were she not present. Two lit braziers flanked the throne and its silent occupant, casting lurid shadows across stone that had once been flesh and scales.

  A great naga.

  Terry recalled someone calling her that, and she was big. Her lower body had been that of an emerald scaled snake and four feet across at the widest point, just below where disturbingly human-looking hips girded by a ruby-red silk sarong took over and led the eye up to behold a pleasing, sexually-ripe figure that, were it not now stone, would have made any red-blooded man salivate. Her breasts were held by a shining brassiere comprised of platinum cups secured by innumerable chains of precious metal overlaid on silk. Her face was regal in an alien sort of way, with pronounced brow ridges and fin-like elfin ears.

  Her expression was one of impatience and anger. Athena's curse had come on her so quickly that she hadn't the time to even register surprise.

  At least she didn't suffer.

  Volai Hart had been evil. That wasn't in dispute. The idea that the lives of an entire city full of people could be subordinate to one woman's desire was mind-boggling to him. But her desire hadn't been for power. It hadn't been for fame, or money, or revenge. She'd wanted children. There were no males of her kind. Only templates — men such as he, stolen from another world — could give an eldritch woman progeny.

  She's only the first. This will keep happening if I can't find another way to hide.

  "Tee! Get away from there!"

  Shy's voice broke the silence and he half-turned, brow furrowing in confusion as he asked, "What for? She's dead!"

  Terry saw Laina's eyes widen even from twenty feet away and her mouth dropped open as she pointed. He looked around in time to see the sarong that girded the statue's hips had folded into itself and now coiled like a snake ready to strike. It even had an open mouth and fangs were dropping into place.

  In a blur of motion it shot toward his face. It was only a lifetime of combat training and superlative reflexes that saved him.

  His right hand intercepted the blood-red thing and he caught it just behind the 'head.' The mouth snapped shut, disappeared, and he felt a fluid shift within the body of the creature as though he were holding a water balloon. Then agony shot through his hand as the thing's substance changed shape and lanced out in all directions. Ruby spikes jutted through his hand and fingers in a dozen places in that split second, and he screamed in surprise and pain as the remainder of its bulk shot up the tendril from Volai's body to engulf his wrecked and bleeding fist.

  The entire attack had taken all of perhaps a second to execute, and agony coursed up his limb as the creature began to engulf his forearm, progressively slicing the flesh of it to ribbons as it went.

  He heard the pounding of footsteps behind him as he glanced wildly around. Whatever this was, he couldn't punch it, or choke it, or even throw it away. His hand was still impaled from within and he couldn't open his fist. He had a knife in a sheath at his belt, but as the strange creature oozed up his arm he had visions of doing more damage to himself than to it.

  With a flash of insight he remembered what Mila and Yuri had told him about one of the many creatures they'd faced in the Monsoon complex that they had called 'gelatin.' The only two valid methods of attack there had been blunt weapons to break the internal fibrous structure — structure this creature didn't seem to have — or ...

  He spun around and slammed his engulfed hand all the way to the elbow in the nearest brazier.

  The pain in his limb redoubled as the burning coals touched his flesh above the advancing line of the slime, but the effect of the fire on it was even more dramatic.

  The amorphous ruby blob ignited as though covered in gasoline and abruptly lanced out and away, slipping effortlessly out of his clenched fist as it shot out in a graceful, burning arc to land with a hissing plop in the shadow of the throne.

  Terry jerked his hand back out of the fire and pressed his wrecked and smoking limb tight to his body as he put the brazier firmly between himself and the creature. It contorted as he watched, seeming to invert its substance to literally swallow and smother the flames burning across its surface.

  What was left was perhaps half the size of the original, but before he could do more than recognize that it — whatever it was — still lived, all three of his bonded women reached him.

  Laina picked him up without ceremony and dragged him backward as Shy raised the iron lightning rod she'd claimed from the Locutor and power began arcing from the bulb at the top. Euryale's snakes were all hissing as she paused next to the brazier, looking at the thing for a moment before she said, "I can't petrify something that doesn't have any eyes, Master."

  "I'll kill it," Shy said, raising her staff. The crackling lightning increased in volume and intensity, and Terry turned his head a bit so as not to look directly into the blast. Before the dryad could fire though, they all heard a weak yet strident voice cry out.

  "Stop! Please! Mercy! I wish to deal! I am starving!"

  Shy neither paused nor did she even look to Terry to learn his preference. She unleashed a brilliant bolt of green lightning down on the creature. It coruscated across the surface of the blob — which assumed a series of eye-twisting shapes as the power flowed through it — but when the light died it seemed no smaller.r />
  "Mercymercymercymercy!" it said. "I will not attack again! I have tasted mage blood! I will make a contract! I am a free familiar!"

  Terry was doing his level best to ignore the absolutely jaw-dropping pain in his arm from multiple holes, countless cuts the thing had carved into his flesh, and serious burns. He wasn't in the most merciful of moods, but to his surprise Shy lowered her rod and asked, "You were Volai Hart's familiar?"

  "Yesyesyesyesyes!"

  The words came so quickly that the syllables literally overlapped, as though the word were being spoken all at once from different sources, all slightly out of sync. One eye closed as he grimaced in pain, Terry met Shy's glance and said, "Okay, talk to me. What is that thing?"

  "I have no idea, Tee. But if it was Volai Hart's familiar, it's very powerful, and it's offering a contract."

  "Yeah I gathered, I just don't know what that means," Terry grunted before muttering some choice curse words under his breath. His injured arm was shivering as reaction set in, and blood was beginning to pool around his boot as it dripped off his elbow. He could feel a numbness beyond the pain that he recognized as the beginnings of shock, but held it off as best he could by focusing on the fact that the threat was still here.

  Euryale's snakes hissed as she said, "Come any closer and I'll throw this brazier down on you!"

  To emphasize the point, the gorgon gripped the side of the metal fixture with one brazen claw and reached in with the other to pull out several live coals, which she rolled around on her palm like marbles as she glared down at the blob.

  Metal hands ... man I could have used one of those just now.

  "I'm not going to hurt anyone! I want to make a contract with the mage! He doesn't have a familiar! I am a sanguine devil, and I can serve him!"

  He?

  Laina had physically interposed herself between him and the ruby blob. Given the size of the minotress, Terry had to lean out around her side to look at the thing as he said, "He? You mean ME? I'm not a mage you homicidal gumdrop demon from hell. Just what are you trying to pull?"

  "I am a devil, not a demon, and if you are not now a mage you can be!" the thing said, sliding sideways and dripping down the steps of the dais, describing a wide circle around the angry gorgon. "Contract with me and I can help you! You're the only one here who could keep me alive!"

  "Well then attacking me was really fucking stupid," Terry said through gritted teeth, turning to keep an eye on the little blob. Laina shifted her considerable bulk to keep herself between them.

  "I didn't know you were a mage!" the thing said. "I'm starving now that my contractor is dead. If I don't acquire a new contract soon, I will have to feed on vast quantities of normal blood to survive. Contract with me, and I will protect you! It is what I did for Volai!"

  "I have literally no way of being able to trust you," Terry ground out, still fighting a constant battle to keep a lid on the pain in his arm. "I'd just as soon see you burn for what you did to me."

  "Please! Give me a chance! You are the template, yes? I will tell you about Volai's plans for you in exchange for a contract! I will tell you what is coming for you!"

  ... coming for me?

  He wasn't the only one piqued by that particular gem. Shy asked, "What do you mean, coming for him?"

  "I need a contract. You need information, and protection. Let's do a deal," the creature said. It stopped, having placed Laina and himself between the gorgon and her brazier. Euryale stepped around to keep the thing in sight, and she was still playing with live coals in one of her hands as she stared at it with murderous intent.

  I don't like all this talk of 'deals.'

  Glancing over at Shy, Terry saw she was genuinely worried as her eyes flickered from him to the red blob quivering on the stairs below them and back again.

  "Why not contract with me instead?" Shy asked, speaking after a moment's deliberation.

  "Pppth, dryads have no blood, and even if you did, your bolt told me you are too weak," the blob said. From where Terry stood he could see that each syllable was formed as a bubble that, when it broke the surface of the slime, released a single syllable. Its speech made it look like it was fizzing. "And before you play round-robin with me, the minotress' mana is entirely tied to her milk, and the ... thing holding fire in her hand is cursed. Only the template will do."

  Shy has no blood?

  "So you need blood, and it has to be magically infused?" Shy asked.

  "I am very powerful once I reach full size, but that power has to come from somewhere," the blob said. "Contract with me and I'll even stop the bleeding I caused, and begin the healing process."

  "Oh, you're so fuckin' good to me I can't hardly stand it," Terry growled. "Tell me what Volai intended, and if I think the information is valuable, then we can talk about a contract. You owe me that much for attacking me in the first place. I give you my word: I'll treat you fairly."

  For long moments the only sound in the throne room was the crackling of the lit braziers, and the snap and pop of electricity arcing from the top of Shy's staff, making it sound like a Tesla coil. The blob shivered, and Terry got the impression it was pondering its options.

  Finally it said, "Volai Hart promised you and the city to the Twilight Zone in exchange for personal protection from Cecaelia, Lady of the Waves, after your capture and ... use. An Arch-Locutor has been dispatched to Florence. It was due in the next few days. She sent word of your apprehension before this audience."

  It paused, then added in the tone of an afterthought, "They know you're here."

  Oh ...

  His plan had backfired. He had underestimated Volai's desire to have him. Drastically.

  Then again, I would never have suspected she would be capable of ... this. My god, what kind of world IS this? Are all eldritch this bad?

  "Well!?" the slime burbled. "I'm starving! Let's do a deal!"

  Terry could feel the weight of the attention focused on him. The three women he loved were all watching him, waiting for his word ... but all he felt was the burning pain in his arm, and a dull ache in his soul.

  Maybe I should have just given myself up instead of trying so hard to be clever ... Presuming this thing isn't lying, no one man is worth this.

  Finally he nodded, wincing as he tried to keep the pain out of his voice. "All right. You talked. I listened. Now, we deal."

  2

  Pins and Needles

  Albrecht Ross stumbled as his legs abruptly refused to support him, and sank to his hands and knees. His heart felt as though it were about to burst from his chest and all his limbs flooded with a tingling feeling like fire that made him shiver and quake.

  Then, slowly, it passed.

  His vision cleared, and he found himself staring at the red carpet laid down between the braziers in the throne room of the Vicereine.

  What happened?

  One moment Vicereine Hart was making demands and the next ... there was nothing. Now he was here on his knees.

  He leaned back and thrust himself to his feet. He staggered, caught himself, and looked around as his hands instinctively tapped at the hilts of his short sword, dagger, and the small target shield secured between his shoulder blades. His weapons were all still in place, but what he saw gave him the impression that his weapons would be of little use.

  A forest of stone statues greeted him, along with four living people. The stone faces were almost universally cast in expressions of vague surprise or curiosity, and belonged to the guards, the casters, even the courtiers who had come to see the template, Terrence Mack.

  With a looming sense of dread, he looked to the throne. Vicereine Volai Hart was a statue, just like the rest of her court. Her crimson sarong — the blood-devil familiar — was gone from her hips and the platinum halter that supported her generous chest was now clothing on a shapely rock. The Rod of the Heart — the mighty artifact with which she secured her position as the ruler of Florence — still stood locked in her grip, but it had no pulse. The great na
ga was dead.

  "How did this happen?" he asked, looking at the survivors. "How did you do this?"

  "We'll get to that," the template — Terrence Mack — answered him. His voice was somber, and his bonded women stood by him.

  The dryad Shy was of a height with Terrence and stood just behind and to his left. She was currently clothed in little more than strategically grown foliage that roughly approximated a halter-top and abbreviated shorts. Her choice of attire left much on display, and her hourglass figure was one to make a man salivate. Her breasts were a shade larger than her frame suggested, and her hips were richly curved. Ross didn't know much about dryads, but he did know they were an eldritch race, and so not to be underestimated. That impression was reinforced by the staff she held — a steel rod with a heavy ball at the top from which tiny bolts of lightning quested and searched as though hungry for prey. Still, he couldn't help but catch an eyeful of the woman, and was interested to note that she had no belly button. Her flesh was covered in intricate whorls beneath the skin that reminded Albrecht of the markings in fresh cut lumber.

  Her hair was the color and shape of willow leaves, her eyes were a faintly luminous green and shone out of a beautiful face with full lips and a straight nose.

  Just behind and to Terrence's right stood the titanic minotress, Laina Lowe. Muscle corded on her body and played under her tan hide whenever she moved, and she wore a white apron that strained to contain the largest pair of breasts Albrecht had ever seen. That they fit her frame spoke to just how large she was: she topped him by an inch or two, and he stood a proud six and a half feet tall. Her rich brown hair curled down around a pair of longhorns that extended right and left a full three feet on a side before curling up to wicked points, but her face, with its upturned nose and big brown eyes, could only be described as cute ... perhaps adorable.