Legends of Windemere: 03 - Allure of the Gypsies

by Charles E Yallowitz

  Nyx smiles at her friends. “Apparently, you two agree.”

  “I can hear her,” Luke points out.

  “I know that, but she can’t hear you. Just get her out of her chains, little brother,” Nyx demands, fighting to keep her voice low.

  “Awww. You’re still doing the little sibling nicknames,” the gypsy happily coos.

  “You know you like it, little sister,” Nyx playfully scoffs.

  Luke reaches over Sari’s head to plunge his hands into the iron ring holding her chains. The ring quivers after a few seconds, sending a rain of dust onto the gypsy’s head. Luke thinks the ring is about to fall out of the wall and onto Sari’s head, so he tries to gently push it away. He is shocked when the ring fires into the wall. The chains are quickly yanked through the wall and they show no signs of stopping. Luke is about to possess the chains when they jolt to a quivering halt. He notices that Sari’s arms are hanging at her sides while the chains strain to continue through the wall. The chains finally snap off of Sari’s manacles and the last sign of them is a distant clanging of metal on stone. Sari collapses to her knees, rubbing at her achy arms.

  “That hurt,” Sari groans, flexing her fingers.

  “What just happened?” the half-elves ask.

  Sari uses a bone fragment to open her manacles and struggles to her feet. “I have a special ability, which allows me to not be moved. It’s more of an instinctive reaction, but it means that there is no force on Windemere that can move me. This power comes from one of my ancestors who tried to merge with a suit of force field armor. Nobody knows why. She did not survive the attempt, but she was with child. Her daughter was saved and possessed the power of immovability. Since then, the first born daughter of every generation in my bloodline has been born with this power. My mother was the second oldest daughter, so I was surprised when my power woke up during an arm wrestling match last year. This power is common knowledge among my clan, but we make sure not to tell outsiders. Not that it matters any more. So, that’s the boring explanation of everything you just saw.”

  “You have a bloodline power too?” Luke excitedly asks. “I can see things when my eyes are closed or I’m blinded. It’s like I see things through my ears.”

  “She can’t hear you, idiot,” Nyx hisses.

  “What’s he saying? Is he making fun of me?” Sari asks, straightening her hair and skirts.

  “He’s behaving himself,” Nyx answers with a small growl. “Now, get me down from here.”

  “I get it now,” Luke says, looking Sari up and down with keen interest. “She used her immovability to resist the spike after it was stabbed into her. That’s why it was a shallow wound instead of something that would incapacitate her entire arm. It was still deep enough to hold the spike and give the illusion of a severe wound. That’s pure genius!”

  “For the love of Gabriel! Stop eyeing Sari like she’s a new playmate and get me down!” the caster exclaims, wildly kicking and thrashing in the air.

  “He’s checking me out?” Sari shyly asks.

  “He’s complimenting the use of your power to avoid severe injury and he’s gushing about how he has a bloodline power too,” Nyx rapidly explains, silently praying for her friends to move faster. “Now, can we get out of here? I’m sick of repeating myself and my arms really hurt. I’m sure the racket of Sari being broken out has alerted something, so Kalam might show up. So, hurry up!”

  “You’re so demanding,” Sari laughs, pulling a thin needle out of her skirt.

  “Stop jok-” Nyx starts. Sari undoes the manacles around her wrists and catches the half-elf on her good shoulder.

  “Can you move your legs, Nyx?” Luke asks.

  “They feel numb, but let me try,” the caster replies. She gently pushes herself away from Sari and wobbles on her legs. A small step is all she can manage before her legs erupt in a feeling of pins and needles. The half-elf awkwardly stumbles a few more feet until she is unable to withstand the pain and pitches forward. Sari swiftly catches Nyx’s good arm and holds her up.

  “We’re not going to get very far like this,” the gypsy mutters, struggling to keep Nyx steady. “I think you should lose some weight, Nyx.”

  Nyx tries to stomp on Sari’s foot, but she can only lift her heel an inch off the ground. “We don’t have time for this.”

  Sari fixes Nyx’s hair and suggests, “Can the ghost do anything?”

  “I can try to possess your legs,” Luke offers half-heartedly.

  Nyx glares at Luke and Sari, unsure who was angering her the most. “Let me go, Sari. We’re going for that spellbook and going home.”

  Sari slowly releases Nyx’s arm and steps away while the half-elf takes a deep breath. The gypsy is about to say something, but stops herself when Nyx looks at her and points at the door. Luke is already passing through the door when Sari undoes the lock and sneaks into the brightly lit hallway. Nyx takes a few more steps, which makes her feel like she is moving through prickly tar. By the time Nyx steps into the quiet corridor, Sari is already several doors ahead. The half-elf takes a deep breath and breaks out into a clumsy jog to catch up with the others.

  *****

  “This doesn’t look like a lab,” Nyx whispers, following Sari through a doorway framed by ivory demon statues.

  “That much is obvious,” Sari softly says. She is mesmerized by the piles of coins, gems, and other valuable items. She squints into the bright light until her eyes start to ache, forcing her to blink. Noticing that nobody is watching her, she snatches a handful of gems and drops them into one of her hidden skirt pockets.

  “Well, I guess there are worse rooms to wander into,” Nyx begrudgingly admits.

  “We can waste a minute or two here, right?” Sari asks with a childish grin. “I can't let all these treasures go to waste in the hands of Kalam.”

  “I agree that it shouldn’t go to waste, but we don . . . my crossbow!” Nyx exclaims. The half-elf rushes over to a nearby pile of coins where she sees her crossbow, her emptied backpack, and her man-handled belt pouches. Nyx frantically searches the pile and pulls out a cracked bottle of purple liquid. She drinks the potion greedily, feeling the skin reforming along her injured arm.

  Sari watches Nyx put all of her pouches back where they belong. An idea suddenly dawns on the gypsy and she begins to frantically search through the nearby piles of treasure. She finds a belt of throwing daggers that she straps to her waist and a slightly blackened stiletto that she slips into her empty leg sheath. Sari’s chaotic searching knocks over a pile of bronze urns that fall with a horrifying crash. She finally stops when she reaches under a gold bar covered table and pulls out a pair of thigh high, dark velvet boots. She hugs and nuzzles the familiar boots, tears of joy slipping down her cheeks.

  “Thank Cessia I found them. I thought they were gone for good,” the gypsy squeals as she puts them on her cold, dirty feet.

  “Those are pretty,” Nyx mentions.

  “They were my mom’s magic boots. I’ll show you what they can do when we get out of here,” Sari says, flipping up to her feet and spinning on her toes. “I’m so happy I found them. It would have been a pain to sneak back in here to look for them.”

  “Well, my arm looks better, but it still hurts. Where’s Luke?” Nyx asks, glancing around the room with a worried look.

  “You’re the only who can see him, so I can’t answer that,” Sari politely points out. “He could be in front of me and looking down my shirt for all I know. Not that I think he’s a pervert, but young men tend to do such things when they have the chance to be invisible. It happened all the time within my clan.”

  “Let’s be fair. Young women are not much better,” Nyx contends, looking around for the missing forest tracker. “I distinctly remember you stealing my first invisibility potion and using it to sneak into the soldiers’ bath house. You were lucky that the potion didn’t fail while you were still inside.”

  “I’m so happy that it made my entire body reappear in the middle of
a crowd. Wait a second,” Sari sarcastically retorts. “It didn’t make my entire body reappear. My favorite dress had permanent invisibility patches and my hair remained invisible for four days thanks to you.”

  “I see Luke!”

  “You just ignored me, didn’t you?”

  “Stop going on about your boots and follow me,” the caster replies. “He’s found something, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I think his spirit is getting weaker.”

  Nyx can hear Sari grumbling to herself as they approach the altar that has caught Luke’s attention. The altar is made of porous stone, shaped to resemble a male halfling wearing leather armor. Sari turns away from the pain-stricken face of the poor creature while Nyx takes a curious step closer. A square of stone has been set on top of the halfling’s hands, which are stretching toward to the ceiling. Nyx happily grins when she sees the leather-bound spellbook sitting upon the stone square. She can practically smell the ancient magic contained within the tome’s pages. It is such an intoxicating feeling that she doesn’t even notice her hand moving toward the smooth book. She lets go of the breath that she was holding as soon as her fingers touch with the cool leather.

  “I can feel the power of the spells in this book. I thought you said it was in the lab,” Nyx says curiously.

  “I thought it would be in his lab. The treasure room would have been my third guess,” Sari admits nonchalantly. “Does it really matter now that we have the book?”

  “This feels too easy,” Nyx whispers.

  “I wish you wouldn’t say that. Nothing good ever comes from someone saying that,” the gypsy whines, drawing one of her new daggers.

  “I couldn’t help it,” Nyx apologizes, creating a fireball in her palm.

  Sari looks around the room. “How do we get out of this place?”

  Nyx scoops the spellbook off the altar. “I don’t know.”

  The startling clank of a metal gate falling into place echoes throughout the room. The scattered torches spark and grow to fill the room with a warm light. The sound of something heavy scraping against the stone floor causes a nervous lump to grow in Nyx’s throat. It isn’t long before the source of the noise comes into view. Sari is the first to back away from the living table that is slowly walking toward her. Soon, the entire room erupts in scraping and dragging noises as more furniture comes to life.

  “Living furniture? That’s his great defense?” Nyx drones, calmly putting the spellbook in her backpack.

  “You sound disappointed,” Sari laughs nervously.

  “I am. I was hoping for an undead dragon or ghouls. Living furniture doesn’t really instill fear and terror in me,” Nyx admits with a fake yawn. The half-elf is about to turn away from the walking table when a drawer opens and releases a spray of gold coins. She is barely able to dive out of the way, letting the coins destroy the suit of armor behind her.

  “I don’t know about you, but that makes me pretty scared,” Sari declares, running away from the table. She can hear gold coins whizzing through the air behind her as she gets behind a large pile of gems, hoping to get away from where the table last saw her. The angry yelp of Nyx makes her turn just as a rapid, wooden thud starts up in front of her.

  The gypsy skids to a stop as a chair leaps in her path and turns itself upside down, spinning its razor sharp legs. It bounces towards her, forcing her to the far side of the room. Sari runs around a slashing rack of swords and ducks before an explosive vase sails over her head. Coins and gems fly in every direction as more vases sail off the writhing shelves. It is only luck that one of the vases that Sari jumps over hits the spinning chair and freezes it instantly.

  Meanwhile, Nyx continues to deal with the table by hiding underneath it. She feels safe until a full-length mirror waddles into view and reveals her location. The half-elf rolls to safety before the table slams its underside onto the ground. Nyx gets to her feet and sees a weapon rack hopping toward her. Glistening swords and long spears slide along the entire length of the rack’s shelves. She is about to cast a spell when she hears a high-pitched whine erupt from the mirror, which is beginning to glow. Nyx breaks her concentration in time to dodge another spray of deadly coins. She trips over a scuttling footstool and crashes to the ground. The half-elf looks up in time to see a beam of energy launch from the mirror and slice the weapon rack in half. Nyx scrambles to her feet as the mirror turns toward her. She moves to get out of the way when the footstool leaps on her back and begins pounding on her shoulders and lower back. The mirror fires at her only for the beam to miss when she trips over her own foot and stumbles out of the way.

  “Get off me!” the caster roars. She reaches back and grabs a stubby leg of the footstool. She throws the irritating piece of furniture at the mirror, which instantly grows an energy web from a crystal in its frame. The footstool bursts into flames and falls to the ground where it feebly kicks at the air.

  “I don’t like this, Nyx! Teleport us out of here!” Sari shouts.

  “The wards would stop me even if I could,” Nyx hollers while she fights against the animated full-length mirror.

  The pulsing beam of energy from the mirror is made even more dangerous when it hits the table’s flying coins. The beam is transformed into smaller lasers that scatter around the room. Nyx feels a sudden pain through her thigh and crashes to the ground, cursing under her breath. The mirror spins itself in order to send a tall energy wave along the floor, which Nyx rolls away from. She is quickly on her feet again before the table rushes at her and slams her against the stone altar. Nyx can feel one of her ribs snap, but she ignores it while squeezing under the table and desperately crawling to safety.

  “Did you ever have an escape plan?” Sari asks, sliding over the top of a rampaging piano.

  “Not really! Everything was last minute!” Nyx shouts over the sound of moving furniture. “I’ll think of something, so just stay alive until an idea comes to me.”

  “Just don’t take too long,” requests Sari, who is hiding from a fire-spewing candelabra.

  Nyx quickly casts a shield around her body, which absorbs the energy from the mirror and redirects the attack at the coin spitting table. The table explodes, sending coins in every direction. She runs behind the stone altar and tries to come at the mirror from the side. A beam sweeps toward the half-elf who lashes out with a blast of fire from her palm. The fire abruptly transforms into a thick, crimson whip and shatters the mirror’s left leg. Nyx watches the beam change direction and the mirror falls to the floor where it shatters. Two spinning chairs come wind-milling at Nyx from both sides, herding her toward the open mouth of an armoire. She is about to turn away when the armoire inhales, yanking the chairs off the ground. They vanish into the dark void that fills the inside of the armoire.

  “How are you doing, Sari?” Nyx asks, fighting against the strong vacuum.

  “Still alive!” the gypsy proudly yells.

  Nyx creates boots of stone that fuse her feet to the ground. “Do you think this room has any walls that would lead to outside?”

  “Maybe. I don’t really know the layout by heart,” Sari answers while running away from a swooping chandelier.

  “Well, I’ve done everything else without planning. No reason I should start being cautious now,” Nyx mutters under her breath.

  Nyx leaps at the armoire and releases a burst of fire into its mouth. The animated object explodes in a blaze of burning wood, sending the caster sailing across the room. She begins launching fireball after fireball in every direction until the floor is covered in melted coins and burning, twitching furniture. She sees Sari roll away from the chandelier before a fireball turns it into a dangling hunk of twisted metal. Nyx closes her eyes and concentrates when she is convinced that all of the animated furniture has been destroyed. She steadies her breathing as hundreds of thin fire tendrils writhe and flow off her body. Each tendril makes its way to the walls and licks at the narrow cracks between the stones. Minutes pass in silence before all, but one of the tendrils cu
rl and solidify around Nyx to form a cocoon of flame.

  “I suggest that you lay down and cover your head,” Nyx announces in a stern voice.

  Sari drops to the floor and obediently puts her arms over her head. A pulse of heat ripples through the room before the cocoon of fire grows in intensity. Nyx’s face appears in the cocoon with the remaining fire tendril attached to her forehead. Another wave of sweltering heat washes over the room, announcing the final stage of the spell. Sari whimpers when she peeks at the treasures melting around her, but she quickly averts her eyes when a sudden silence fills the room. The magical inferno around Nyx roars as it races along the tendril and careens into the wall. The defensive wards screech in distress until Nyx’s spell shatters the wall and escapes into the starry sky above the forest.

  “My head hurts,” Nyx groans, rubbing her temples.

  “That doesn’t surprise me. Take my hand and we’ll get out of here,” Sari says, still in awe of Nyx’s power.

  Nyx gently takes the gypsy’s hand and whispers, “Thanks.”

  Sari leads the half-elf to the gaping hole in the wall and jumps out into the cool, night air. It is a beautiful feeling against her skin even when she stops falling with the magic of her boots. Nyx is in a quiet daze as they float to the ground and Sari leads her into the forest. Neither of them look back to see a smoking figure is standing within the jagged hole in the sky.

  “She has gotten much stronger, but she still lacks control,” the Lich says with a chuckle. “I am lucky that her attack merely grazed me.”

  “Grazed you? She blew your arm off,” Trinity argues, slipping out of a magical treasure chest. She picks up the treasure chest and folds it into a tiny pyramid, which she neatly tucks into a belt pouch.

  “Only up to the elbow. It will grow back in a few hours,” the Lich casually claims, turning away from the hole. “We have to get that spellbook out of Haven. Though, with the spellbook gone, we no longer have a reason to be here.”

  “About time. So, who should be the one to tell Kalam about this?” Trinity asks with a wry grin.