by Des Pensable
When he awoke he found himself lying on a bed of dry reeds in a dark stony cell with seven painful stumps where his legs and arm had been. The steel door at the entrance had a small barred window, which allowed faint flickering light to enter from a torch burning on a wall outside the cell. The amount of light didn’t matter much as he had excellent dark vision. He mentally sought his source but didn’t bother using any magic as he also felt the tell-tale numbness of a dead magic zone.
‘Great! ‘ he said using mindspeak, ‘So much for stealth and cunning. I’m legless in a dead magic cell that blocks my magic abilities. How do I get out of this predicament? Slivver, can you help?’
A minute later Slivver answered. ‘That was terrible. That was the most pain I’ve ever had. What have you done that makes people want to harm you?’
‘Ah so eavesdropping on my mind has a down side.’ said Aquitain. ‘You shared my pain.’
‘I share all your emotions.’ replied Slivver. ‘I will especially enjoy your lovemaking.’
‘Ha ha.’ laughed Aquitain. ‘I’m afraid you’re in for disappointment there.’
‘Why is there something wrong with you.’ asked Slivver with a real sound of concern.
‘No. It’s just that I’m betrothed to a woman that can’t enjoy lovemaking yet.’
‘By the miserable Powers what have I done to deserve this?’ cried Slivver.
‘I can remember when I thought times were tough. I had to spend a month on a Mudrun rat to stay alive. I got no sensible conversation but do you know that he copulated with at least six female rats every night. It was bliss!’
Aquitain hadn’t felt so miserable for ages but surprisingly Slivver was cheering him up. Slivver had no idea how they might get out of their current predicament but related several short experiences of difficult situations where he had somehow survived. His strange dark humour appealed to Aquitain.
He lay there thinking about how everyone believed he was some type of villain, an Agent of Chaos and how much he was going to disappoint them as he could hardly bring much chaos to the world sitting in a dark cell with no legs. It was actually quite funny in a weird sort of way.
He was still chuckling at Slivver’s latest tale of woe when in flew a miniature woman about two hand spans tall. She had thin delicate wings like that of a butterfly and wore only a chain of some small flowers around her waist.
She flew straight down and landed in front of him just out of reach. He heard sounds reminiscent of the Llanllean speech. He couldn’t understand as his earring had been taken. She then changed to what sounded like the Elendari language. On the third attempt she succeeded. She asked his name in low Draconic.
‘Hello my name is Glammer. I’m a friend of Llalorax. He asked me to find you and apologize and ask forgiveness for what they have done to you. He feels great shame that a young Llanllean could be treated so badly in his presence yet he was unable to help.’
‘Hello Glammer. I’m Aquitain.’ He replied using mindspeak.
She looked at him a bit closer.
‘Ewww. Do you know you have a parasite on you?’
Glammer suddenly stopped talking and darted out of the cell. Moments later they heard footsteps and two Elendari guards came strolling down to the cell. One opened the door and the other shone a light from a torch in. He smiled and said in low Draconic
‘I was told to feed you well as the Queen had something special planned for you so we set some traps and caught you some special dinner. Hope you like it.’ as he tipped a bucket letting half a dozen dead rats fall on the ground in front of them. Aquitain looked at the bodies and thought ‘You’re joking!’
After the guards had left, Glimmer returned. She dragged three of them over to him then said ‘Aquitain, Llalorax said that you should eat and keep up your strength.’
He couldn’t believe it. They were feeding him rats! Then again when he thought about it, he did look like a spider and presumably that’s what they ate. The only problem was he had never tried to eat as a Llanllean. Somanller had showed him but he didn’t try it at the time.
The idea was to stab his sucker tube into the stomach cavity of each rat and squirt some digestive fluid into it. However, his sucker tube didn’t seem hard enough at the tip and wouldn’t penetrate the skin of the rat and having only a left arm didn’t help much either.
Fortunately Glimmer flew over and made a hole in each of the rat’s stomach cavities with a little dagger. When it came to squirting digestive fluid into them he managed to get it all over the outside as well. This meant that when he picked them up after a few minutes to suck up the dissolved internals the animals simply fell apart in his hand.
At first he was rather reluctant at sucking up the rat juices but after the first taste he lost all hesitation. It was really quite delicious. A lot like a warm meat stew with a definite wild rat flavour. Then he began to worry.
If the digestive juices dissolved up the rats so quickly would it dissolve up his hand and arm? He tried wiping the stuff off his hand but couldn’t wipe it off his arm so started desperately whirling it around. Glammer must have thought that he was going a bit crazy as she darted off presumably to report back to Llalorax.
After a few minutes, nothing seemed to happen to his arm so he concluded that his body was resistant to his own digestive juices like it was resistant to his own poison and settled down to eat the other two rats and then work out what to do next. The rat lunch had actually cheered him up. It had got him out of the depressive mood he was in and he started to think positively.
‘Okay how do we get out?’ he said as if talking to himself.
‘You’re a mind wizard Aquitain, act like one, use your mind. There is always a way.’ he remembered that his grandfather had said this many times and he started to mull over his knowledge about dead magic areas.
Dead magic cells were usually built to contain magic users. They were built out of rock that had been caught in a certain type of magic storm that leached the magic out of the surrounding terrain. The rock became like a sponge to magic absorbing any in the vicinity.
If a wizard used a power in the area the power almost always failed. Even magic items or effects cast before entering the dead magic area quickly drained or failed once inside it.
Back at his Granddad’s mansion he had experimented with rock from a dead magic zone. It soaked up mind magic power as well. It was quite different to the chaos matter his collar was made of, that seems to almost reflect magic. It suddenly occurred to him that he might still have his collar on. It looked like a worn out old leather collar with no real value. He felt his neck and sure enough they hadn’t removed it. Now what to do with it?
He removed his collar and willed it to take the shape of a ball. It worked; the chaos matter wasn’t affected by the dead magic rock around him. Two small powerstones embedded in the material fell to the ground. They would be useless in here but the chaos matter, now that could be useful. First he had to get some mobility back. He thought on that for a while then came up with the idea of creating a cocoon or small haven around himself where he could use his mind magic without it leaking away into the rock.
He formed the chaos material into a flat disc then kept flattening it until it was like a large oval serving dish. Since he was quite small without legs he would be the main course.
He manoeuvred his body by rocking, rolling and shoving the plate under his body until he was on top of it. Then holding the edge of it he used his mind to shape it up, around and over him. The end result looked something like a large eggshell flattened on the bottom side with a couple of fine holes for air at the top.
Quickly he activated his shape change ability to turn into a gnome with legs. It worked! It actually worked. He was elated. He scratched himself just to prove that his legs were really there.
‘Well done!’ said Slivver.
‘I can see that we’re going to make a great team.’
‘What have you done to help!’ asked Aquitain.
He stopped to consider his next move when he heard a tapping on the top of his vessel.
‘Are you in there Aquitain?’ whispered Glammer.
‘Of course I am. Where else would I be?’ he replied a little annoyed.
‘Oh. How did you make this big egg thing? Llalorax would like to be able to do this. Can you teach him? Then we can all escape.’
‘One question at a time please Glammer. I can talk because I have changed shape to a gnome. Now as to the other question I don’t think I can teach your master how to do this without getting out of the cell. How is the door locked?’
‘There is a set of levers, one for each of the six cells. But they’re much too big for me to move.’ said Glammer.
‘Damn.’ replied Aquitain. ‘Where is Llalorax? Did they chop his legs off too?’
‘He’s in a cell two down from yours and yes they chopped off his legs as well. He said that it’ll take at least six weeks to grow them back again.’
‘That’s neat,’ thought Aquitain, ‘I can lose a leg and grow it back again in a few weeks without even using my abilities. Then again it’s much faster my way,’ as he changed back to his spider form with a complete set of new legs. He split the eggshell open and stepped out.
Glammer was quite surprised and zipped out of the small hole in the cell door presumably to tell Llalorax what she saw. Seeing her brought back memories of Alpha. It would have done exactly the same for him.
‘I wonder where Alpha is?’ he mumbled then dismissed the thought. ‘No time for sentiments, it’s time to act.’
‘Who is Alpha?’ asked Slivver.
‘He was my familiar.’
‘Oh.’ said Slivver. ‘and he died?’
‘No. I traded him for my cousin’s life and I was cheated. I lost both him and my cousin.’
‘Well don’t worry about me then.’ replied Slivver.
‘I’m not stupid. I won’t let you trade me for some worthless female.’
‘Watch your words Slivver! My cousin was not some worthless female.’ he said quite venomously then
‘Could I have a little mental peace. I’m trying to get us out of here!’
‘Okay, okay I’ll keep quiet. It’s always the same. I get no thanks for helping and all the blame for disasters. I’ll just sit here and let you get yourself into more trouble and I won’t lift one of your fingers to get you out of it.’ he said sulkily.
Aquitain scrambled around the cell then up the walls and across the ceiling checking for gaps or weaknesses. It was all the same type of dead magic rock and there was no easy way out. He would have to wait for the guards to open the door and then somehow surprise them.
He sat clinging upside down on the ceiling for some time thinking of all sorts of elaborate plans to incapacitate two large Elendari guards when his mind wondered back to the Crin.
He had once asked one of them how they would incapacitate a large dangerous animal and they said they would use a sticky net. Here he was a spider and hadn’t thought to use a net. The more important question was did he have enough skill to make one. He had had one go at it before and messed it up getting sticky web all over himself. This time his life depended upon it.
For the next three hours he spun web, both sticky and non-sticky and by trial and error eventually managed to produce two sticky webs that would be about the right size for catching an Elendari guard. He then made a non-sticky version and practiced throwing it around the cell. Glammer came back and very quickly realized what he was planning to do. She again zipped away this time without saying a word.
About an hour later, in flew Glammer all excited.
‘They’re coming, they’re coming and there’s three of them.’
‘Oh no, I’ve only got two nets. This had better work or I’m dead again; this time probably permanently.’
He heard the footsteps plodding down the corridor. He could hear the sound of metal tapping against armour. There was definitely more than the two that came last time.
He positioned himself on the wall above the door. He had shaped the chaos matter into a hollow shell roughly the shape of a gnome lying on its side facing the far wall.
With luck when they used the torch to look in it would look like a gnome sleeping. Since there should be a spider in here, hopefully they would run over to see what had happened and he would get a chance to net them. Surprisingly, Glammer flew down behind the decoy just as the door started to open.
Two guards and the guard officer peered in one holding a torch above his head to shed more light into the cell.
‘Go away and get some real food. I don’t like eating rats.’ said the decoy.
The officer pulled out his sword and ordered one of the two guards to go in a have a look at the gnome that should be a spider. The one with the torch walked over to the decoy and the other guard stepped into the room stopping immediately below Aquitain.
This is what he was waiting for. He dropped on top of the guard below him holding sticky net with four of his legs. He completely covered the guard, leaped to the floor then ran back up the wall again. The netted guard yelled and the one with the torch spun around to see what was happening just in time to see Aquitain scamper up the wall.
‘The bloody thing’s tricked us. It’s grown legs and has run up the wall.’ he shouted as he grabbed for his sword. Before he could pull it out of its scabbard he felt the prick of a small weapon in the back of his neck. His eyes went blurry and the room began to spin. He dropped to his knees and fell face forward unconscious. No one noticed Glammer dart quickly back behind the decoy with a small dagger in hand.
The officer tried to pull the net covered guard out of the cell but the netting stuck to the wall, the floor and the officer himself. Aquitain swung the second sticky net out through the door further covering the net-covered guard and partly over the officer who swore loudly. He then followed it, climbing out the top of the door opening and ran up the wall on the outside. His nets had done their job. Now he had to incapacitate them.
The officer saw him climb out the door and swung his sword around ready to stab at him. He had no doubt that this was going to be dangerous. He could easily get skewered here. The officer was probably a much better fighter than the guards and didn’t seem to be afraid at all. He ran down to the floor and the officer followed him with his sword extended, all the time trying to remove the web with his other hand.
Moments later he was staggering and falling forward, Glammer had stabbed him in the back of the neck. Unfortunately for her he had flung his web-covered arm backwards when he fell forwards and she was caught in the net and dragged down with him.
The net covered guard realized that he was the only one conscious but couldn’t escape so he began to scream loudly for help. Aquitain didn’t hesitate; he scrambled over to the guard and bit him on the neck squirting poison over his fangs as he did so.
The guard screamed at first as if in pain then over the next few seconds went rigid, foamed at the mouth, shuddered all over and stopped breathing.
‘Whoops. Too much poison, I didn’t expect it to be that strong,’ he thought.
‘Anyway I’d better keep going. If anyone heard that noise they’ll come running.’
Fortunately, no one seemed to hear the shouts so he was left to tidy up the mess. He moved over to Glammer and carefully extracted her from the net. She was very scared of him touching her and flew out of reach as soon as she was free.
‘I have helped you get free. Please release Llalorax.’
Aquitain nodded but decided that it was more important to move the unconscious bodies into the cell first. This proved more difficult than he imagined. His sticky net stuck to everything, the wall the floor and even to him and it was very strong.
In the end he decided to leave the guards where they were. He went into the cell and wrapped the unconscious guard with sticky web then left to open the doors to the cells. Unfortunately, his plan came unstuck at this stage. He wasn’t strong enough to move the levers
.
Glammer looked disappointed but said nothing. He would have to take on the rest of the guards himself and perhaps get one of them to move the levers.
The door out of the area was locked. Where was the key? The officer would have it. He went back and searched the officer, then the other two but found no key. Maybe the door was locked from the outside by another guard after the three had entered. He needed a key and remembered his chaos matter. It was still lying on the floor in the shape of a gnome. He mentally reformed it into a ball and carried it back to the door.
How many guards were on the other side of the door? Should he wait for them to open the door? Were they waiting for him? He looked at Glammer who seemed to understand his hesitance.
‘There is only one left but we can’t get out because he’s locked the door.’
‘Thank you, Glammer.’ thought Aquitain as he held the ball of chaos matter near the lock.
He concentrated on the ball and moments later a thin branch like strand grew out of the ball and into the keyhole. A few seconds later he turned the ball and Glammer heard an audible click as the lock opened. The branch-like part re-joined the ball and then reformed itself to look like a leather collar that Aquitain strapped around his neck. Glammer looked on, quite impressed at Aquitain’s initiative.
Aquitain opened the door inwards keeping his body to the side of the doorway expecting the worse. When nothing happened he peered out the doorway. A few paces away there was another building made out of wood. He heard its door slam shut. He sprung out the door and ran to the left side of the cellblock, turned and looked around. He couldn’t see anyone. No one appeared to want to attack him so he relaxed a little and looked around to see where he was.
There were three buildings all set at an angle to each other set in a circular grassed area about a hundred paces across. The cellblock was made out of grey blocks of rock and two others made out of wood. The curious thing was that there were walls all around the circular area going high up into the sky and in the middle of the sky was a black disc. It took him a full minute to realize the significance of where he was. He was in a bottle.