The Guildmaster rose to his feet and pointed at the large diamond in the middle of the table. “That is the gem with the High Wizard of the Sorcerers trapped inside. I need you to reinforce the spell that binds him to the gem, now.”
The two wizards looked at each other briefly and nodded. The older wizard took two steps forward and began an incantation. The magic words reverberated off the walls and the wizard pointed his hand at the gem. Before the spell resolved, the wizard in the gem lashed out in desperation. The room filled with electric charge, and a lightning bolt leapt out of the gem and struck the lead wizard in the chest. The bolt hit the wizard with such force that he was thrown backward and actually went through the wall. Nero could see that he was dead but did not have time to find out for sure, as the wizard in the gem lashed out again. Flames erupted from the gem, and a fireball launched directly toward the second wizard. The spell caster unceremoniously dove to the side as the fireball missed him and struck the wall behind. The explosive force of the detonation knocked everyone down, and Nero saw the gem scoot across the table and fall to the floor. Nero lunged back to his feet and noticed most of the room was on fire. He saw among the flames that the second wizard’s robes had caught on fire. The caster screamed in pain and ran around the room like a lunatic. Nero ran forward and tackled him to the ground. He forcibly took off the wizard’s burning robes. The wizard was badly burned in several areas, but he calmed down enough to realize what Nero was doing.
Nero got off the wizard and yelled at him to complete the spell. The wizard stood back up and reoriented himself. Large portions of his body were charcoal black, and he was in obvious pain. Still, the wizard took a step forward with a determination that did not match the indignity of him standing there naked with nothing on but his underclothes. The wizard in the gem lashed out again with several magic energy bolts. Three of the bolts went for the second wizard while one of the bolts went after Nero. The caster anticipated the attack and merely stuck out his hand to absorb the magic energy. Nero dodged to the side, but the energy bolt still tracked him. He dove to the right again and the energy bolt hit him in the left arm.
Pain lanced up Nero’s arm as he felt every nerve ending come alive. He could not do anything but stand there in misery with every muscle fiber in his arm firing at once. By the time the pain became manageable, the confrontation was over. The second wizard had managed to reinforce the spell binding the High Sorcerer to the gem. One of the walls and some of the furniture were still on fire. The Guildmaster and Cam rose from the crouch they had assumed on the floor. The naked wizard stood defiant against the power of the diamond, which was sitting innocuously in the middle of the table as if nothing had happened.
Several guards came rushing in to see if the Guildmaster was alright and to put out the fire. With commotion and chaos all around, the Guildmaster said, “Well that could have gone more smoothly. Nero, we will handle the gem from here. Why don’t you take your leave and go see to the second part of your plan?”
Nero looked at the destruction around the room and said, “Yes, Guildmaster. I will leave straight away.”
Nero made his way out of Guild headquarters with his four bodyguards in tow. They made it back to the Guild prison without incident. Nero went past the front desk and down the wide stairs into the ice cellar. He found the secret entrance to the prison and one of the guards on the inside let him in. As he entered the prison, Sivan met him at the door with a hand up, holding him in place.
Sivan leaned in and whispered, “Everything is prepared as you instructed. Xander just regained consciousness.”
Nero nodded his head and whispered back, “I was going to inspect the arrangements, but I will take your word that everything was completed according to my specifications.”
The halfling smiled back with a look that clearly said, Of course.
Nero said, “In that case, since Xander can’t see me here, I will go back to the Basilica and leave the details to you.” Without ceremony, Nero turned around and crawled out the entrance into the ice cellar. The guards locked the door securely behind him. Nero walked back to the Basilica in contemplation. It was all out of his hands now. Venal would either smile down on his efforts or he wouldn’t. There was very little Nero could do but wait. Wait and feign ignorance at whatever happened next.
Chapter 97: A Hero’s Welcome
Xander awoke on the cold, hard ground of a prison cell. How he had gotten there, he couldn’t say. The last thing he remembered was fighting the vampires in the Basilica of Fortuna and being hit hard over the head. To be honest, he was stunned to still be alive and was immensely grateful for the iron bars and the stone floor. The alternative would have been to wake up and find himself turned into an undead monster, or to have been killed and find himself at Seker’s doorstep once again. He didn’t want to return to purgatory until he had proven his worth to Fortuna, lest he be forsaken again and forced to spend eternity in one of the seven hells.
Still, he hoped he was well on his way to redemption. He had fought in his holiest place with the power of his god behind him. He had fought to save his friends and his High Priest.
Memories of his fight with the vampires came rushing back into his consciousness. He had always been quick with the sword and fairly good with divine magic, but nothing like what he remembered doing in the Basilica. It was almost like he had been an outside observer watching some hero of legend fight undead creatures he had only heard of in books and bards’ tales.
Just a few moons ago, Xander had taken his religion for granted and used it for his own purposes. He had prayed to Fortuna – not out of heartfelt worship, but so his goddess would grant him divine spells. He used his coin of Fortuna to make a few critical decisions in his life, but only when he didn’t care about the outcome too terribly much, or when he was too lazy to make the decision for himself. But now he had been to the other side. He had seen the face of death and been rejected by his god. Never again! Xander knew it had been a miracle that brought him back from the dead, and now he intended to use his unique perspective to reform his life, save his soul, and save others if he could. If the karma of this life determined what happened to him in the afterlife, then Xander was bound and determined to arrive in Fortuna’s kingdom with accolades to spare.
He also never could have imagined fighting vampires. Not because he was afraid of such creatures, but because vampires weren’t supposed to exist. They were a creature from mythology. A made-up monster whose only real purpose was to keep children in their beds at night. But now Xander was forced to admit that the stories must be based on fact. Their quickness, raw power, and single-mindedness were everything Xander had heard of and more.
Why had the vampires attacked the Basilica, and why had they taken him, and how had he ended up in this prison? He climbed to his feet and had his first look around. His eight-foot by eight-foot cell was surrounded on three sides by stone walls. The fourth wall had iron bars and an iron bar door. He could see into the three cells directly across from him. Two of the cells were empty, but the third cell to the right held a rather attractive woman who was asleep on the floor.
Going through his options for escape, Xander didn’t think it looked promising. The only equipment he had were the clothes on his back and the brains in his head. All his weapons and pouches were missing. The pouch with the gem in it was gone as well, making it impossible to ask the wizard for help – not that the wizard would have helped him anyway. He could feel that he had either been stripped of his spells, or that something about his cell prevented him from casting spells. All three of the stone walls as well as the floor were solidly constructed, offering no hope of digging his way out. He walked up to the iron bar door and shook it for all he was worth, creating a lot of noise, without getting any closer to his freedom.
Xander turned away from the bars in frustration, when he heard a female voice say, “What in the seven hells are you doing? Some of us are trying to sleep.”
Xander spun around on his
heels to see the attractive woman standing at the bars to her own cell. Xander said, “Sorry, but some of us are trying to find a way out of here.”
“Don’t bother. This is the Talon Guild’s maximum security prison. You aren’t going anywhere.”
Xander nodded and said, “Damn. That will make it more difficult. Were you awake when they brought me in here?”
“No. They always knock us out whenever anyone new is brought in or out. Hell, they knock us out whenever anyone is moved from one cell to another.”
“Hmm, how did I go from being attacked by vampires to being held in a Guild prison? It doesn’t make any sense.” Xander took a few steps forward and put his arms through his own bars in order to be more conversational. “If I tell you my name is Xander, will you tell me yours?”
“I don’t see why in the seven hells it matters what your name is. Neither of us will be around long enough to care.”
“Okay. Okay. I was just trying to be friendly. Get over yourself. Can you at least tell me why the Guild captured you in the first place?”
“What in the seven hells for?”
Xander ignored the constant reference to the less desirable areas of the afterlife and pressed on. “Learning why you were captured may help me figure out what the Guild’s motives are, which can help us find a way out of here.”
“Seven hells. I already told you not to bother trying.”
“Can you just humor me?”
The mystery woman looked lazily down one hallway and then the other.
“At one time I was an important priestess of Fortuna.” Xander’s interest level in the mystery woman immediately went up. “My opinion is that the Guild is an evil blight on the great Kingdom of Kentar. I thought it had far too much power and influence over Locus and this entire region. I told the King as much in letter after letter and finally in person. I requested that he crack down on the corruption associated with the Guild. You could say I was rather single-minded in my mission to bring the Guild under control.
“Eventually, my rants began to have a small effect on the King, who began issuing policies intended to limit the Guild’s power in Locus. Apparently, this cause and effect relationship was not lost on the Guild, so they took action. I was safe inside the walls of the Basilica, but I had to leave the protection of Fortuna’s grace from time to time, and that is when they kidnapped me.”
“How did the Guild know when you were leaving?”
“Who in the seven hells knows? What difference would it make if I knew how the Guild captured me? It happened! All right?”
“Okay. Okay. Calm down. I am also a priest of Fortuna, in case you’re interested.”
The woman was obviously bitter from her prolonged captivity with an edge that was razorsharp. There was a lot of emotion behind her outburst, and Xander thought he saw a tear fall down her cheek before she turned away.
The steady rhythm of footsteps on the hard floor approached from the right. A burly guard came into view and addressed them both.
“Now that you two love birds have introduced yourselves and exchanged stories, perhaps you could shut up.”
The guard turned around to leave as if the situation was settled and no one would dare challenge his authority, but there was no way Xander was going to leave it at that.
“Why should we listen to you?”
The guard stopped and paused, almost as if he had forgotten what it was like to have a prisoner talk back to him.
“Because I’m the one who decides whether you eat today or not.”
The guard then turned to leave again, expecting even more so that the conversation was finished. Xander decided to poke the bear another time.
“Why don’t you let us out of this prison, and then you can have all the peace and quiet you want?”
The guard spun around and faced Xander with a look of incredulity. “You must be the dumbest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen in this prison.”
A joke immediately came to Xander’s mind. “Then I have two questions for you. Are you new to the Guild, and most importantly, have you ever looked in a mirror?”
The guard stood there processing the insult. Once he understood what had been said, he took several steps and came right up next to the bars where Xander was leisurely standing, enjoying his banter with this idiot. Not unexpectedly, the guard drew his dagger and slashed at Xander through the bars. Xander dodged to the side, but too slowly. The dagger pierced his flesh on the right side, near his hip. Searing pain lanced through his body as he locked eyes with the guard. The guard stood there with his dagger in Xander’s side for a long moment before withdrawing it and slashed at Xander again.
As the weapon came out of his flesh, Xander rolled backward unceremoniously onto the stone floor. Pain lanced through Xander’s body once again as he hit the floor, but at least he had the satisfaction of hearing the idiot’s head hit the iron bars of his cell as he lunged forward in uncontrolled anger.
Xander yelled out, “Alright. I’ll be quiet. I’ll be quiet. Just don’t hurt me anymore.”
The guard had a look of complete triumph as he saw his bested prey lying wounded on the stone floor.
“Good. If you’re quiet the rest of the day, I’ll have the healer take a look at you tonight. Otherwise you can damn well stay in that cell and bleed to death. Do I make myself clear?”
Xander just nodded his head. The guard turned around again and stalked off to his post.
The woman across the way whispered, “What in the seven hells was that? Are you touched in the head or something?”
The guard laughed loudly to himself as he walked off in the distance. Xander didn’t say a thing. He let out a moan of pain and made sure it was loud enough for the guard to hear – an act that did not require much theatre, since he had just been stabbed in the side.
The woman shook her head thinking her cellmate was a moron. Just as she was about to turn her back on him and go back to sleep, Xander bounded silently to his feet and made another moaning sound. The woman looked at him strangely as he walked confidently up to the bars and showed her the keys he had just pawned off the guard that had stabbed him.
Xander mouthed silently across the prison to her. “That wasn’t so hard.”
The woman’s eyes lit up as if Fortuna had come back to Tellus and was standing right in front of her. Xander held his fingers up to his lips in order to silence her. He put out his palm, pushed it toward the ground in a calming manner, and went over to one of his sidewalls and sat down. The priestess of Fortuna did the same.
Xander waited a long time before he made his next move. He wanted everyone to settle back into his or her normal routine in order to maximize his chance of escape. Xander climbed painfully to his feet after enough time had passed and went to the door of his cell. He pulled out the confiscated keychain and silently counted out six keys. This next part is going to be embarrassing.
He snapped his fingers lightly to get the woman’s attention. Then he put his hand up to his mouth and forced himself to cough, loudly. As he was coughing, Xander stuck the first key into the lock and tried to turn it. Even though he was being careful, and even though he was coughing loudly, a few scrapes of metal on metal rang through the air. Try as he might, the key would not turn in the lock. Xander withdrew the first key and grabbed the second. He looked up at the woman, who by this point had caught on to what he was doing. They both coughed loudly as Xander inserted the second key into the lock and turned. Fortuna was with them as Xander heard the most holy of sounds. The key turned farther than it had before, and he heard a satisfying click as the lock to his cell released. He quickly turned the key the rest of the way around and pulled it out of the lock. He tried the door; it moved at his command just as he expected. Xander pulled the keychain back through the bars and put it in one of his pockets. He looked up at the woman and gave her his best roguish grin. The woman quit coughing and smiled broadly back at him.
It had been very fortunate that the second key had unlocked th
e cell. Xander doubted a fake cough would have gone unnoticed by the guards if he had been forced to go through all six keys. It was almost enough to make one believe in the Goddess of Luck.
As if to confirm what Xander had just been thinking, he heard the same guard from before yell down the hallway. “Shut the hell up! What is going on down there?”
Xander responded loudly in kind. “You stabbed me and now I’m bleeding to death. What did you expect? I thought you were going to bring a healer down here to patch me up, you moron.”
Almost immediately, Xander heard a chair scoot across the floor, followed by boots on the stone floor. Xander stood up against the cell door as the guard came rushing down the hall.
“You must be touched in the head to piss me off like this; or are you looking to have more of your blood spilled on the floor?”
Xander stood perfectly still, acting as if he did not care a lick about the guard bearing down on him with blood in his eyes. When the guard got to within a few steps of Xander’s cell he drew his dagger and lunged forward to stab him again. Xander waited until the last instant before he slammed the door open with all of his might. The big, burly guard was caught completely by surprise. The cell door rammed him in the head and then his torso, throwing him backward onto the floor in a heap. As he hit the ground his dagger fell free and bounced a few times along the floor. Xander rushed out of his cell to pick up the discarded weapon. The guard was dazed and slow to get up, but he was still conscious. Not wanting to give the guard time to recover, Xander went down on one knee and plunged the dagger into the guard’s neck. Only after the deed was done and the possibility of imminent death had passed did Xander focus on the world around him once again. He heard, rather than saw, someone else running down the hall toward him.
Without a conscious thought, he drew the sword of the dead guard and pulled the dagger out of his neck. He looked up to see another muscular guard running down the hall with sword drawn. Xander sprang to his feet and threw the dagger at the second guard. The momentum of his legs added to the lethal power of the dagger’s flight as it plunged into the guard’s chest. The guard stopped his advance and looked at his chest in stunned silence. Xander lunged into the opening created by the guard’s hesitation and swung his sword as hard as he could. The second guard recovered somewhat and stuck his sword out in front of him to block the oncoming blow. Metal struck metal and the guard’s sword flew out of his hand and clanged off the wall. Xander took another step forward and hit the guard across the face with the hilt of his sword. The guard fell unconscious to the ground. Xander moved over to the fallen guard and pulled the dagger out of his chest.
Do the Gods Give Us Hope? Page 22