by Garon Whited
The spell on the tower.
It had confounded me, a sensitive to magic, and I didn’t like it a bit. I came into its radius of operation and I was snared, as simply as that. Which irked me something considerable. Have I mentioned I hate having my mind tampered with? Well, I do. I thought about it for a while and decided I needed another defensive spell. I grabbed hold of the local magical energy and started building a bunker for my brain. A bit of my own energy to grab it, a bit more to shape it, and a lot to make it stay. Good magic. Stay… stay! Visions of brick walls, Army tanks, underground missile silos, futuristic force-fields…
The only problem I ran into was how to bomb-proof my skull and still have the ability to use a translation spell. The things were really handy. I needed something better than a metaphorical open hatchway while I chatted with people. I didn’t solve it immediately, but I did come up with an idea for an airlock-like arrangement… Unfortunately, I was interrupted while fleshing it out.
The door unlocked with a grating click and an elf stepped gracefully into the room. He was white as snow and dressed in black, with purple-irised eyes. He was about five feet tall, thin, handsome—almost pretty—and had black hair pulled back into a short pony tail, held in place with some sort of clip. Judging by the way he looked at me, I was willing to bet he was not a frolic-in-the-woods vegetarian, but a roast-the-baby-and-suck-the-marrow Bad Guy.
“You speak Rethven?” he asked. He had a nice voice, too.
“I do,” I answered.
“You also speak Goblin?”
“No, but I have spells for that. Who are you?”
He calmly drew out a whip and cracked it, opening a small gash in my chest. I cried out, mainly from surprise, somewhat from the hurt. I clapped one hand over the wound. I was glad I did; it started to close up immediately and I didn’t want him to know I was regenerating. I had a feeling he might enjoy having a torture subject that was hard to kill.
“I will ask the questions. You will answer. That is all.”
Since he didn’t ask a question, I just nodded.
“You are a magic-worker?”
“Yes.”
“Of what sort?”
“Wizard.”
He nodded. “Where did you get that sword?”
“I inherited it.”
“What can you tell me of it?”
“Not very much. It has an affinity for fire and for me, and I think it’s sleeping.”
“That is all?”
“Yes.”
He looked vexed. Finally he gave the smallest shrug I have ever seen. “What of the other implements you carried?”
I hesitated. “Can I ask you to clarify the question?” I tried.
“Many of your implements may have their function divined with some thought. The cooking utensils, for example, and the clever knife with the hidden compartment. But some are utterly foreign to me. What are they?”
I hesitated again. I suspected he was talking about the gun, the bullets, and other high-tech devices.
“I’m not sure which items you’re talking about,” I tried. “If you can show one to me—or just describe it—I can tell you what it is.”
“This is tedious,” he observed, coiling the whip. Without another word, he left; someone bolted the door behind him—presumably one of the two life-forces I’d sensed. Probably my jailers.
I wondered what was next. Displays of my stuff? Or another bout of wait-and-see? Regardless, if there was a chance he’d simply bring me my things and spare me the need to go hunting them down…
I kept wondering for a while; it was some time after midnight before the door opened again to admit the elf. He carried my backpack in one hand and the whip in the other. Unfortunately, the chain was not long enough to allow me to reach him at his position by the door, so I didn’t try.
He drew out a pistol. “This is?” he asked.
“A weapon. It throw small metal slugs, faster than a sling.”
He put it away. Out came a magazine for the pistol. “And this?”
“A device that fits into the weapon. See the small metal things in it? The spring pushes them up so that when one is thrown, the next is made ready.”
He regarded the magazine much more intently than the gun. Trying to figure out how to make an auto-loading sling, possibly. He went on to have me identify a few other things, all of which were defunct. Cell phones, for example, do not take sea bottom pressure very well. Not that I had used it here, but it was still in the pack. Ditto for the shortwave radio receiver and pocket calculator.
Once that was done, he turned and stepped out into the hall. A few words in goblinese passed and both my jailers came in. One had his crossbow, the other a long knife. I got the feeling they were about to kill me. The one with the knife was licking his chops and grinning. The elf didn’t bother to stick around.
I stood up and got ready to fight—i.e., I put up my hands and crouched a little. What else was I going to do while naked? Poor, defenseless human, acting so brave in the face of death!
Short Stuff with the crossbow tried to shoot me. I smacked the bolt aside mid-flight; I tried to catch it to throw it back, but you take what you can get—crossbow bolts are very fast. It shattered on the stone wall. My jailers stood, staring and stunned, with looks of blank amazement. I took that as my opportunity to bend down and twist the lock, hard. It snapped in my hand and I kicked free of my ankle-fetter.
Short Stuff Number Two—the one with the knife—lunged for me while his partner ran screaming from the room. I sighed. Life was about to be complicated again. Well, more complicated.
I grabbed knife-boy with a lot of tendrils at once. He expired in mid-leap and I brushed the body aside. He hadn’t tasted very good as far as a life is concerned; a nasty, black-hearted little mean person. Ugly to the bone. There was no way I was drinking any of that blood unless there was an incendiary device involved beforehand. And maybe not even then.
Out into the hallway. Check left, check right, nobody in sight, but screaming coming from the left, a sudden thud, and much-muted is the screaming… and off I go, following. Down the hall to a door, a brisk kick to shatter the door, then through the remains of the door and to the stairs. They go up and down, but the screaming is coming from up. I go up.
Several short and ugly people with swords came down. And with a sweep of life-drinking tendrils, they fell down. Not all at once; the front two dropped immediately, the next two took a second or so more, five and six halted on the steps before I was finished with three and four, and seven and eight were headed back up the steps before I latched on to them. They were not brave souls.
It was the spiritual equivalent of drinking yesterday’s coffee. Cold and nasty. But now I felt a lot stronger and had a pair of short swords, so maybe I wouldn’t have to do that again. I hoped not; I felt a bit more ruthless and cold from the aftertaste. Aftereffects of consuming very nasty people. A part of me wondered how long it would last.
Up the steps I went. I didn’t know how far down I was, so I kept going up. I would eventually find a window or come out on top of the tower; either one would work for me. Occasionally, I would encounter a goblin. It would scream and I would kill it. Pity they were all so small; I would have liked something to wear. Then again, they were also unwashed and smelly. I’m not sure I would have worn anything on them even if it had been my size.
The stairs had no doors; they simply went up through a hole in the floor, along one wall. It occurred to me it was a good spot to get one’s head cloven in twain. I went up carefully. Sure enough, as soon as I had risen far enough to get eyebrows over the edge, another goblin tried to part my hair with an axe. I ducked, and it clanged on the stony edge. Then I put my hand on the back of the axe, held it in place, and rose quickly.
He let go of the axe and ran. One good thing about these little guys, their morale seemed to be a fragile thing. I finished climbing the steps and ran after him. He ducked sideways into a door, quicker than I would have expected
, and I charged in after him.
Bad move on my part. A dozen of the little so-and-so’s fired as one, the majority nailing me in the torso. One lousy shot managed to put a crossbow bolt through my right thigh. I made some sort of noise; it sounded vaguely like a cross between a gasp and a scream. Somehow it was worse than being shot by exploding bullets—the bullets were hammers of pain, but the pieces that would have really been hurt were also blown away. These bolts were lances of pain, all going deep into flesh that remained connected and screaming.
A sudden, wild pulse throbbed in my blood and I lost it. Utterly lost it. My temper snapped like a matchstick and things got a bit hazy.
I do recall fanning out my tendrils in all directions and setting them to whirling. Rather like a magical whirlpool that sucked in all life energy with me at the center. I also recall the taste of blood; I’m pretty sure I drank from some of them. Not as foul as I might have expected, but no treat. I’d rather drink rat.
When I came to myself again, it was a gradual process. I think I’d just killed the last thing I could find on my stalk up the steps, and was on the roof of the tower. I know I saw the front door on my way up, but I was intent on killing everything I could find. Enraged and drunk on my own power, perhaps. Berserk, certainly.
So there I was, standing on the flat roof, holding one short sword—I don’t know where the other one went—and gradually calmed down. The pulsing in my blood slowed and diminished in strength; as it did, I found I could think again.
I wasn’t even remotely tired—far from it! I was exhilarated, energetic, ready to do it again and for longer! Even my wounds were gone. With enough living things near me, I kept getting stronger and faster and more dangerous. Instead of eventually becoming exhausted, I grew more powerful the longer it went on. The only things that would stop the process were killing everything I could find, being killed, or sunrise.
Oh, I’m sure there’s a point of diminishing returns. The power of the spirit is good, but for a vampire there must also be blood. I might become a wraith at some point, a ghost of killing, if it went on long enough without a pause to drink something more material than a spirit; but that would take a lot of killing to achieve.
I shuddered and made a mental note not to take foolish chances; I didn’t want a repeat of this. It was a state of completely uncontrolled fury, and I didn’t like it at all. I could do stupid things—well, I could do that anyway—but lost in fury I might not have a chance to regret them. It was dangerous for me and anything near me. But at the moment, my big concern was keeping my own skin intact; mindless rage has never seemed to be a terribly good idea to me.
A soft applause met my ears. I turned around, seeking the source. The elf was standing head and shoulders out of the hatch in the roof—I presume it needed a door for when it rained—and was gently clapping.
“Well done, lord,” he said. “I trust you have fed to your satisfaction?”
I pointed my ichor-dripping short sword at him. “I want my things,” I stated. I noticed my fangs were still out; they didn’t want to retract. I tried.
“Immediately, lord,” was the response, and he disappeared from view. I stared after him. I hadn’t expected that. I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t agreement! Then again, maybe it was a ruse to get a head start? No, surely not—why bother to follow me up to the roof and applaud if he was only going to run away?
I looked over the battlement of the tower. The front door was still shut. So he wasn’t running that way.
I went down the steps, three floors, until I was at ground level; here was a smithy. I had passed through it like some engine of death, killing everything without actually damaging much. It was spooky to see. There wasn’t a drop of blood anywhere; apparently, I had sucked the blood from these without really noticing. There were a dozen or so bodies, all lying perfectly still, as though they had simply dropped in their tracks—which might have happened, if the tendrils got them before the fangs. At least the light from the forge gave them a semblance of color, ghastly as it was. It made me think of Hell. Aesthetically, it was somewhat pleasing. I took a few moments with the shortsword to make cuts and holes where I had bitten, disguising the nature of the wounds. Habit.
The elf came back up from the basement levels at a light, quick trot. He set down my backpack—hastily but neatly repacked with my equipment and clothes—and swung Firebrand by the belt. I could sense the blade didn’t like him. Judging by the way he was careful not to put his hands anywhere near the sword itself, I suspect he could too. He laid Firebrand on the floor next to the pack, stepped back, and bowed.
“Does my lord require any other service?” he asked.
From prisoner-to-be-whipped to yes-my-lord in less than ten minutes? I wondered. What gives? I asked as much.
“My lord, forgive,” he asked, and I could hear a slight quaver in his voice. “I knew not that one of your kind had returned from beyond the Gate of Shadows.”
Aha, thought I. “My kind?” I asked. “And what do you think I am?”
“You are na’irethed. One who stands in the light, rules in the dark; one who drinks life.”
“You’re right about that,” I observed. While I spoke, I looked him over. His spirit was deeper, richer in colors than a human’s, and tinged with darker shades than most. Not a nice person at all. I had wondered, for a moment, if I might have brushed by him with that whirlwind of life-draining effect and weakened his will. No, he looked intact to me. If he was lying, I couldn’t tell. But he didn’t like being stared at that keenly.
“What will my lord require?” he asked, going to one knee.
I drew out my clothes and got dressed. He didn’t move. I thought I detected a faint flinch when I picked up Firebrand and buckled it on. When I took out my gun, checked the load, cocked it, and pressed it to his head, he merely looked inquisitive.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t smear your brains all over a wall,” I demanded.
“I am your loyal servant,” he replied immediately. “I will serve you best by living and doing your will, rather than wasting my life in an expression of your well-earned ire. I will be your herald to all the under-deeps of the world, and restore to you the dominion over all the dark lands.”
And do a damn fine job of sucking up, I reflected. You have to respect a man who can think that fast and sling that much blarney on the fly. I put the gun away.
“All right. Tempting as it is to kill you out of hand,” and it was, believe me, “I’m trying to cut down on random violence.”
“My lord has his servant’s thanks.”
“Yeah, well… right,” I replied. I’m not used to having people bow and scrape and refer to themselves in third person. “What’s your name, anyway?”
He told me. I couldn’t pronounce it if my life depended on it. It was long and complicated and probably had some cultural significance regarding his history and deeds and family and whatever else. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the least interested in a lesson in culture.
“In the interests of ready communication,” said I, “I will refer to you as ‘Bob.’ It is not replacing your name, but it is difficult to repeat your name when one is in a hurry.” Or at all, I added mentally.
“Yes, lord. When you say ‘Bob,’ I shall know that you are addressing myself.”
“Good. Now, what’s this place out here for?”
“The tower, lord?”
“Yes.”
“It is a foundry, lord, for the iron mines over which it was constructed. I took it from the humans of the west and have made use of it for a decade, forging weapons and armor. The spells are my own, drawing in any who venture too close, and they become slaves in the mines below.”
“I see. How many more goblins do you have?”
“Few, my lord. There are four shifts of them to guard the slaves, and only the shift on duty has survived your wrath. The smith, his helpers, and the personal servants are also dead.”
“Fine. T
ake me to see the slaves.”
“At once, lord.” And he did. Down and down and down farther, we kept on going. The stairway, once below the floor where I had been incarcerated, turned into a sloping ramp. This wound down, erratic and twisting, presumably following the iron seams. As we descended, I heard the sounds of digging echo up the shaft. Eventually we came to the end of the tunnel; there were wheeled carts being loaded with iron ore and with rock.
Despite myself, I was curious about the operation.
“You do not smelt it here below?”
“No, lord. The fumes would kill everyone.”
“Of course.” I was thinking there could be a ventilation chimney, but the local drilling technology probably wasn’t up to that. “And what do you do with the rock? The dross of smelting?”
“One of the older tunnels ended at a deep chasm. The waste is carted there and dumped.”
I nodded. Good answers. Labor-intensive, but what did he care? Slaves aren’t exactly there to be coddled.
Nor were they. When we reached the diggings, I saw a bunch of skinny, hungry-looking men with picks and leg-irons. The only working lanterns were down near the slaves themselves, illuminating them and the diggings. A pair of shuttered lanterns was set some distance back, presumably in case the slaves decided to douse the lights. The goblins stayed back with the shuttered lanterns, holding crossbows; one overseer with a long whip was actually down with the slaves. The slaves could probably kill him if even three of them agreed to rush him, but it still wouldn’t get them out of the leg irons or the tunnel. And crossbows have a lot more range than a bunch of men with picks. One or two dead companions would slow the whole line down considerably.
I wondered how many escapes were tried, and how many of the failures were tortured to death in front of the rest.
That made me realize I could half-remember such things had actually happened. I tried not to think about them. Or about my own dietary side effects.
“Bob?”
“Yes, lord?” he answered, surveying the operation with me. We hung back with the crossbowmen; I saw no reason to notify any of the humans to my presence.