The Jade Mage: The Becoming: Volume 2

by William D. Latoria

  “Come now, Sweetie! She’s a fine woman…and I’m sure she’ll make a fine wife that’ll produce a proud litter of pups for you!” Unable to contain herself any longer, Elizabeth laughed hard at the situation. Tartum could do nothing and simply sat there and endured her mirth. He knew she was teasing him, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to dump both tankards of spit wine over her head.

  “If darkness doesn’t fall soon, babe, I’m going to kill myself.” Tartum said, only half joking.

  Elizabeth didn’t miss a beat, “What will I tell the puppies!?!” she asked, doubled over with laughter.

  …

  The rest of the day passed as miserably as Tartum thought it would. He spent most of the day ducking Adonna’s advances and trying not thump Elizabeth on the head. She truly seemed to be enjoying the amount of discomfort this was causing him. There were a few hours when Adonna disappeared, and for a brief panicked moment, he thought he had lost her. Just as he was about to go looking for her, she reappeared from somewhere behind the bar and was as charming as ever. An hour before the sun began to set, Tartum had had enough and told Elizabeth he was going to make his move. If Elizabeth thought it was a bad idea, she said nothing. She just sat there, enjoying his discomfort.

  Tartum walked over to the bar and waited for Adonna to come to him. He had planned this out after she had reappeared. Now, he got to see if his plan would work and if today had been worth all the misery he had been put through. It didn’t take long for Adonna to notice him and come sauntering up.

  “Ey dere, big pretty man! What can I get yer?” she asked him, with breath as foul as a corpse.

  Getting his head around her filth, Tartum swallowed his pride and forced himself to answer. “Adonna…my sweet…I’m uhhh…ready to see those…uhh…stars…you mentioned earlier.” he said. He choked on the words a few times but was able to say them and sound convincing enough.

  Adonna grinned from ear to ear, and Tartum couldn’t help but shudder at the sight. Her teeth were turning black from years of neglect and through a gap he saw that he had seen correctly earlier…there was a boil on her tounge. She mistook his shudder for excitement and grabbed him by his robes trying to pull him in for a kiss. Tartum stopped her by grabbing her shoulders; she looked at him with confusion in her eyes.

  “What are ye doin’ stoppin me kisses, boy! Ain’t this what yer been wantin’!?” she asked.

  Tartum thought quick, “I uhhhh…just don’t want…her…to see us.” Tartum motioned towards where Elizabeth sat. “Do you have somewhere private we could go?”

  Adonna looked at him through squinting eyes, and he was sure his ruse wasn’t going to work. Just as he was positive his lies had been seen through, she suddenly lit up and leaned in close to whisper in his ear; being this close to Adonna was possibly the worse experience of his life. He made the mistake of looking at her face as she leaned in and saw inside her ear, it was caked with earwax and hair. He almost walked out on the mission at that moment, the only thing stopping him was pride, and the fact that he didn’t want to explain why the whole day had been a waste.

  “We can stow away in them thar rooms up yonder, pretty man.” Adonna purred into his ear. Tartum wouldn’t be surprised if his ear had shriveled up and fallen off, as her breath touched his skin. He kept telling himself that his plan was working so far, he just had to endure her a little longer.

  “No, my dear, no…my friend will notice that. Is there somewhere else, in the back perhaps, we can escape without being detected?” he asked. His excitement over his plan working was beginning to override his gag reflex.

  She thought for a moment, looked at him with longing eyes, and then pulled him behind the bar. Tartum smiled a genuine smile at that point. His plan was working well, and he was escorted to the back where, hopefully, no one would be the wiser to what happened next.

  Adonna brought him into a room, back around fifty feet from the bar. It was full of old barrels, half eaten meals, parchments, papers, and bottles. There was also a set of exquisite tankards, the likes of which Tartum had never seen. He was completely distracted by their majesty, and Adonna quickly noticed he was paying more attention to her tankards than to her removing her clothes.

  “Ahh, I see yer admirin’ me mugs, are ye? They were me Papi’s before he up and died, the stupid bastard! Don’t be touchin them, mind ye! They’s mine, and I don’t need some breastsuckin man muckin up my pretties with hands that should be playing more with my ditties!” she said.

  Tartum was barely paying attention to her anymore and looked over the tankards. There were ten of them, and they were all made of different metals. Gold, silver, bronze, iron, pewter, steel, tin, copper, and a couple were made from materials he couldn’t identify. One was white like paper, and the other was black like onyx. Each of them were made by a master craftsman to look like a dragon sitting on its haunches. The wings were furled in, and the tail curled up and into the back of the head so it made a makeshift handle Each dragon had a different set of jewels used for the eyes, and each one was a work of art. Tartum couldn’t believe something as beautiful as these tankards were sitting in an inn ran by a woman as disgusting as Adonna.

  “What is yer problem, boy? Yer goin to fuck me or ain’t ye?” she asked. Tartum turned around to face her and saw that she had removed her shirt. The sight that he beheld, he knew, would haunt him for weeks to come. After a day of putting up with this filthy troll of a woman, Tartum’s patience was finally at an end. With grim relief that his facade was over, he reached for his pouches.

  “No, my dear, I’m going to fuck you, just not in the way you had hoped.” Tartum said, finally feeling like himself again. Retrieving a spider leg from his pouch, Tartum opened himself to the magic and spoke the words of power, “Swa-swa-swyth. La-lateedo!” he said and the spider leg burst into a sticky mass of webbing and shot at Adonna. She had just enough time to let out a short scream before the webbing engulfed her, and she fell silent. Tartum noticed that with her in his magical webbing, the air somehow smelled a little sweeter.

  Tartum’s joy was short lived, as he realized the fatal flaw in his plan. The office had only one way in or out, without even a tiny window to offer an escape. He had no idea how he was going to get her out of the inn while encased in the cocoon. Cursing himself for a fool, Tartum looked around the room for a sack or a wheelbarrow, anything he could use to cart her off to the guild without drawing suspicion. His eyes fell upon the empty barrels in the room, and he suddenly had an idea.

  Popping the top off a barrel marked “swine wine” Tartum looked inside. It was filthy, but it would suit his needs for what he needed to do. Picking up the cocooned mess that was Adonna, Tartum folded her up the best he could and forced her into the barrel. It was a tight fit and he knew she wouldn’t be comfortable, but he believed she would live and stamped the lid back on. Testing the weight of the barrel, he found that it was heavy but not unmanageable. He was about to roll her out of the office when his eyes fell back upon the tankards along the wall. Each of them was too exquisite, too beautiful, to simply leave here to end up being destroyed or sold for a few coins. Tartum decided to enact his right as a member of the thieves’ guild and began tying the tankards to the back of his belt. He was able to get four of them on before he ran out of room. Looking around the office, he found a satchel he was able to get two more into and looked longingly at the four tankards he couldn’t bring with. The pewter, the iron, the tin, and the copper mugs had to be left behind, but Tartum had gotten the other four made of metals he could identify and the two made of something he couldn’t. Situating the satchel so it hid the bulges on his back, Tartum began to carefully roll his barrel of Adonna out the door.

  He made it past the bar, and when Elizabeth saw him, her eyes almost popped out of her head. She recovered herself quickly enough and moved to meet Tartum at the door. None of the patrons took notice of their passing. It was the movement from under the stairs that reminded Tartum he hadn’t thought of everyth
ing. He moved faster towards the door as the black cloaked man went towards the room behind the bar. As the man disappeared, Tartum mouthed the words “MOVE!” to Elizabeth, and she nodded her understanding. Helping Tartum get the barrel out the door and down the stairs was easy. They made their way quickly through the alleyways they had come through that morning, stopping in the shadows Elizabeth had pointed out when they heard a man’s voice call out into the night.

  “STOP! THIEVES!!! THEY STOLE A BARREL OF WINE AND MY PRIZED TANKARDS! GUARDS! GUARDS! THIEVES! A GREEN CLOAKED MAN AND A BLACK GARBED WOMAN!!! STOP THEM! STOP THEM!!!” he bellowed.

  They had made it a good distance away and were well hidden in the shadows before the man had sounded the alarm. They were down a side alley that few people used, due to the smell but if they began pushing the barrel now, they would be found out the moment someone looked their way. Reaching down, Tartum grabbed a handful of ash; he looked over to Elizabeth and saw she had a look of worry on her face. “Don’t worry, babe. We’ll get out of this. When I say, push the barrel as far down the alley as you can. My spell won’t last long!” without waiting for confirmation Tartum turned his head down the way they had come and infused the ash with his magic.

  “Krekat-sijuwith!” he whispered, and threw the ash down the alleyway. Immediately, he was rewarded with a pitch black void where there had been light moments ago.

  “Move!” He hissed, and they pushed the barrel down the alleyway as fast as they could. Tartum could hear armored footsteps now and knew the guards were getting close. He hoped his darkness spell would give them the time they needed to get away. Running through the alleys as fast as they could push the barrel, they dodged the guards and bystanders. Elizabeth had a good sense of direction and knew her way around the back alleys and side roads of Saroth. Tartum was glad to have her with him; he knew if he had been alone this would not be going as well as it was.

  It had been a while since they had heard the sounds of pursuit, and Elizabeth had them double back numerous times just in case they were being tracked. While they rested, Elizabeth told Tartum the guards usually don’t hunt them for very long, just enough to make a show that they were trying. It appeared that she was right, and they came out from hiding to verify no one was following them. After a few minutes, Elizabeth gave the all clear, and they began pushing the barrel the hundred or so yards to the entrance to the guild.

  Elizabeth was silent, and Tartum’s mind was racing too fast to be bothered with trying to hold a conversation. As they got to the wall, Tartum threw another darkness spell towards the entrance of the alley and began to ensure the coast was clear like he had been taught. It was then he felt it, someone or something was watching him. Looking over at Elizabeth he saw she noticed it too and Tartum stepped into his darkness spell. Throwing a sapphire on the ground, he quickly cast his dome spell. As he said the final words to his spell, the darkness fell away, and he found himself face to face with the black cloaked man from the inn.

  “Hello, green one, I almost lost you for a second there. Where do you think you’re taking my mother?” the figure asked.

  Tartum couldn’t see the man under the hood, nor did he detect any weapons on his person. Tartum looked behind him at Elizabeth, “What did the client say about her son?” he asked.

  Elizabeth flashed him an evil grin, “He wasn’t mentioned in the contract.” she replied.

  Tartum smiled, since he had met Adonna Chastilight he had wanted to bash someone’s skull in. Her self-proclaimed son would do quite nicely. Unslinging his staff, Tartum squared off against the man in front of him. To his credit, the man didn’t seem to be scared.

  “Long story stranger, suffice it to say, you can’t have her back.” Tartum said.

  The black robed man laughed. “I don’t really care about her, inn’s mine now that she’s gone; I want the tankards you stole. They’re worth more than you’ll make in your life, and they ain’t yours to begin with. Give em up, or I’ll get ugly.” he warned. Tartum thought he sounded young, but his confidence was strong.

  Tartum couldn’t help himself, “Pal…if you really are her son then you’ve been ugly since the day she squirted you out.” His barb silenced the man, and two short blades slid out from his sleeves. The man came at him with all the fury Tartum had expected.

  The twin blades were of a poor quality, Tartum noticed, as he parried the man’s initial attack. He thought about trying to simply disarm the man and sending him on his way, but now that he had seen where they were going, he was too much of a risk. Even without a pendant, Tartum was sure Savall wouldn’t take kindly to this stranger bringing the entire compliment of guardsmen to their doorstep. The man’s martial skill was novice at best, and Tartum began to take him apart. He had a lot of pent up frustration from the day’s events, and this upstart was going to pay the price.

  With an expert blow, Tartum knocked one of his blades to the ground and used the counter blow to shove him away and out of range for his blades. They stood there for a moment, eyeing each other. The black clad figure’s hood had moved up, and Tartum could see his nose and mouth. It wasn’t much, but Tartum could tell that whatever face was hidden under that hood, only a mother could love, and possibly not even then. Tartum saw the man’s mouth twist into a smile, and he came at him again. His attack was reckless, and Tartum decided the man was trying to die with honor. The thought disgusted him, and he decided to show him that no death was ever honorable. Just as he was about to pulverize his ribcage, he heard a rip and felt something tug at the satchel he had stolen from Adonna’s office. Tartum’s finishing blow went wide, and instead of hitting the man in the chest, his staff glanced off the man’s inner thigh causing him to cry out in pain and begin limping away.

  Tartum looked down and saw that the man wasn’t trying to kill himself but instead feigned a suicidal attack so he could steal back the tankards. Tartum was momentarily dumbfounded by the turn of events and watched as the man quickly began limping away. Regaining his senses, Tartum pulled out a couple rose petals and followed the man down the alley. He infused the petals with his magic, and as the man rounded the corner, Tartum began to release the petals in front of him.

  “Moro-yet krat-tu-veyin doro-peth!” he said calmly, as the petals burst into white hot life.

  “Torroth!” he commanded, and the orbs burned through the man’s lungs and heart. He was dead before he hit the ground. Tartum walked over to the corpse and retrieved the satchel. Taking out a bit of sulfur, Tartum began to cast his fireball spell.

  “Doctay-von-we!” he said, and a fireball the size of an orange formed in his hand.

  “Beath!” he whispered, and the sphere leapt from his hand and quickly engulfed the man’s body. As Tartum watched his opponent burn, he became entranced by the green flames as they danced along the body turning him into ash. When Tartum saw that the stones of the alleyway were beginning to warp from his magical fire his gave the command, “Uush” and was almost disappointed to see the flames die out. Kicking the ash to disperse the evidence, Tartum rejoined Elizabeth in the alleyway.

  “Feeling better?” she asked.

  Tartum smiled, “Much; what a hells of a day!” he replied.

  Elizabeth smiled, “Come on, Sweetheart; help me get this nasty bitch into her cell. I need a bath!”

  Tartum walked over and helped Elizabeth push the barrel into the dungeon of the guild. He opened the barrel and dumped Adonna into the first cell that was available and slammed the door closed.

  “Jith!” he commanded, and the webs dematerialized into the floor. If Adonna was uncomfortable or injured from her journey in the barrel, it didn’t slow her down as she leapt to her feet and began screaming at them.

  “Let me out! Yer’s are dead! Both of yers! Ye hearin’ me!?! When I gets out of ‘ere I’m gunna rip yer fucking ‘eads off and piss fire down yer necks! I’m gunna hunt down yer childrens and piss fire on them too! All of ye are dead! Fuck you! Fuck you, ye whores!” she screamed. Elizabeth shut the por
t hole in the door, and they left her in the dark. Tartum could still hear her muffled threats as they ascended to the bath area of the compound.

  As he was bathing, he wondered if he had sounded like Adonna when he was first thrown in the Null Box. After some consideration, he admitted he probably did. He wondered if Jeth went to take a bath after he kicked him inside on that first day. Tartum was laughing when Elizabeth looked over at him with an odd look on her face.

  “Sweetheart, I have to ask you something.” she said.

  Tartum’s curiosity was peaked. “Go ahead, my love.”

  Elizabeth looked down, “Why is it that Adonna isn’t wearing anything but her bottoms?” The tone of concern in her voice brought a burst of laughter out of him. He quickly explained what happened after they had gone to the back room, and Elizabeth looked visibly relieved.

  “Thank the Gods!” she said, “For a minute there I thought I was going to have to end our relationship and kill myself.” she teased.

  He couldn’t help himself, Tartum looked at Elizabeth sideways and mockingly said, “What will I tell the puppies?!”

  Elizabeth gave him an incredulous look and began to laugh.

  …

  Tartum’s skin was red and irritated from his bath. He had scrubbed himself very hard trying to get the oily feeling of Adonna off his skin. He refilled his tub three times and was beginning to think there wasn’t water hot enough to remove the stench when he finally felt relief. He was now sitting in Savall’s office with Elizabeth, waiting for him to get back from checking on Adonna in the dungeon. Elizabeth and Tartum were inspecting a couple of the tankards he had stolen from her office on his way out.

  “I can see why you grabbed these, Sweetie, they’re incredible! You said there were ten of them?” Elizabeth asked.

  Tartum nodded, he was admiring the black metal of the tankard he couldn’t identify. The dragon looked so real, Tartum half expected it to jump off the mug and breath fire all over the office. He had the rest of the mugs; the silver, bronze, steel, and unknown white metal lined up side by side on Savall’s desk. Elizabeth held the golden one, and Tartum had the black. They all perfectly matched each other in every detail except for the jewels that made up the eyes of the dragons. The jewels in the tankard he held were pure yellow citrines, and they made the dragon look like it was staring at him.