by Bill Ricardi
I groaned a little as I rose to my feet, “Is this ‘new guy’ bit going to be a real thing?”
Ames swatted my rump. “Let them have their fun. Come on folks, we have a couple hours of sun left. Shoulder those packs and keep your eyes and ears open. We’re moving.”
Oddly, the oppression that came from travelling through these lands didn’t seem as heavy or as real this time around. It was still early days. But the end of the first day on the caravan trip had seemed far more depressing. Still, I made it my job to keep tabs on my human companions. I engaged them in quiet conversation, I took breaks and snacks with them. So far, the pair of them didn’t seem any worse off than they were yesterday.
Half an hour before sunset, we saw a slight rise ahead of us and to our right. In a relatively barren place such as this, any break in the terrain was a cause for celebration. It turned out to be the cracked stone foundation to a long-abandoned farmhouse. It was the best candidate for making camp, although we couldn’t risk an open fire. Too much exposure. Instead we created a makeshift tent by clipping blankets together with Ames’ climbing gear, and draping the whole thing over the northeast corner of the broken foundation. We used a few rocks to keep the base of our fabric fortress stretched out, giving us plenty of room inside.
I used my magical pot to warm up and hydrate our meal of dried cod and seaweed. Thanks to Tara, we didn’t need to ration water at all, so everyone could enjoy coffee or tea at their leisure.
Speaking of our cleric, she cast her Portent just before we settled in to sleep. The results were vague but promising. Tara said we should deviate to a more northerly direction, but our destination wasn’t too far away now. It was the best news that we had all day.
As everyone was preparing their bedrolls, Tara walked over to me, crouched, and whispered in my ear, “How did you know about the baby?”
I thought back to that moment. “It was something that Toby said about teaching future generations. The way he said it. And I noticed that you didn’t take coffee the other night. You love coffee. You did it again tonight, opting for tea. But I guess at some level, I just felt it.”
The white-horned minotaur stared at me. “An offhanded comment and skipped coffee.” She shook her head a little. “You have an amazing mind, Sorch Stonebender.” With that Tara kissed my cheek and turned in for the night.
Sleep came quickly that night. I barely felt Ames’ fuzzy form spooning up to me before I drifted off. But it wouldn’t be a dreamless sleep. Far from it.
“Sorch Stonebender. I think it is time that we cleared the air.”
I snarled, irritated. Here I was again, at the demon lord’s stupid dinner table in his stupid eggshell-colored dining room, looking at his stupid-smug red face.
“What?! What could you possibly want now, demon?”
Koroth held both huge hands above his head, as in if surrendering. “Relax, my orcish friend! Relax. I’m here to call a truce, given your unfortunate situation.”
I picked up the mug in front of me. It seemed to be wine. I gave it a sniff. Wine, not blood. Knowing that I couldn’t be poisoned in my own mind, I took a long pull. Just to make the bastard wait.
Finally I asked, “What situation is that?”
The red eyed fiend picked up his own mug and drank deeply. He was making me wait now. Tit for tat.
“I’m good with numbers, as you know. I don’t monitor you day and night, but I know where you are and I vaguely know what you’re up against. I calculate that the odds of you dying in the next day or so are rather high.”
I scowled. “And I assume you’ve already told your people that I’m on my way, just to pad those odds?”
Koroth looked genuinely surprised. “Not my people, Mister Stonebender. I don’t have anyone within a day’s ride of you. You’re in no man’s land I’m afraid. So it’s not likely to be a man of mine that kills you.”
That caught me off guard. “We can’t lie to each other here, can we? Your mind open to mine, and the other way around.”
He nodded in agreement. “Withhold. Shield. But what we do say here is said without a filter. There would be no point in deception, it would be like lying into a mirror.”
I stood up and started pacing around the ‘room’, sipping the rather nice wine slowly. “So you think I’m about to die.”
“I do.”
I sighed. “What air are we clearing, exactly?”
The demon lord leaned forward, his great bulk towering over the relatively small dinner table. “I need the world intact. I can’t go into details, but you know that there is a great gamble amongst the gods and demons, and I am the broker. I have my own win conditions, but rest assured that they do not involve destroying the world. Do you believe me?”
I rolled my eyes. “We’ve been over the whole truth aspect of this conversation. Continue.”
Koroth frowned. “Right. Sorry. Seeing the great races leaderless and broken is not the same as killing everyone on the face of Panos. Your vision is of the destruction of the world, Sorch. It’s real. It’s a genuine presage, something so rare that the most powerful of priests struggle with it. The purity. Fate on a knife’s edge. The end of days on one face of a coin, and on the other… continuation.”
I drained my mug and sat back down. “What do you want of me, Koroth?” I asked, tiredly.
“The dream Sorch. The nightmare. Not second hand, not replayed through the filters of your mind’s eye. I need it fully, wholly, in its rawest form. You have to give it to me willingly. It must survive, even if you do not. Do you understand, little mortal?”
I snorted. “So that you can save the world?”
He shook his great crimson head. “I don’t believe any single entity can do that. So I can facilitate the saving of the world.”
I considered my next words carefully. “And what do I get?”
Koroth actually spilled his wine. “What?!”
“I asked what I get, demon? I’ll be dead, you said so yourself. Panos means nothing to a dead man.”
The demon lord set down his mug. “Sorch, your friends. You need to think-”
I cut him off, “How many of them live if I die? Who stops this undead army? How are my friends or my tribe better off with you enslaving them anyway?”
For once, Koroth looked completely flustered. “I’m not allowed to tell you any of those things, Sorch Stonebender. And there’s nothing physical that I’m allowed to give you in exchange.”
I presented my offer, voice like steel. “But you can get out of my head. My head and the heads of my friends. Forever.”
The Broker considered. “Current friends or future friends as well?”
I knew the answer before he finished asking, “Anyone who can honestly call me a friend in life or in death. Past, present, and future.”
I could almost see the calculation in his eyes. “Done.”
“Written and sealed with a Bonding Curse.”
A slight hesitation this time, but again, “Done.”
The demon lord drafted the contract and cast the Bonding Curse himself, detailing the terms discussed. Both of us signed the contract, which split itself into two copies and became absorbed into the mental manifestations of our bodies. With that done, I opened my mind. The full, vivid terror of my apocalypse dream flowed from my mind to his. I had never seen a horrified demon lord before that very moment. Koroth’s claws gripped the table until it splintered. His red eyes grew wide. As the final moment of the dream played out, I heard Koroth start to scream. But the conditions of the deal had been met, and he was cast from my mind in that instant, for now and forever.
The last thing that passed through my head before I fell into a dreamless sleep was: ‘I hope I beat the odds. Dying would be inconvenient.’
Chapter 15
The morning brought with it the familiar miasma of despair that I remembered from our last trip into this chalky wasteland. It really was no wonder that the Royal Moffit troops had decided on a seaside encampment. They wou
ld be boiling their seawater by now, and collecting the steam under rock and canvas domes. And they would be fishing in the ocean and collecting seaweed, both of which would provide tasty sustenance. Once they could establish supply lines, they would have a link back home that included letters, directives, ways to supplement their food, and raw materials to give them more options for shelter.
We, by contrast, had no hunting options, no gathering options, and limited water options. If we didn’t have Tara with us to create fresh water and didn’t pack our own rations, things would be even bleaker than they already were. Our shelter options were almost nonexistent, as we not only needed to blend in with this flat landscape, but our escape method was several hours away if we should be discovered.
One thing did brighten my mood a little bit. As we were portioning out a cold breakfast, Rick murmured, “Sorch, is it really Fall?”
I nodded.
“Then in all the chaos of the last couple of weeks, we missed your birthday. Happy birthday Sorch.”
I was just as surprised as anyone, both that I had forgotten and that Rick had remembered. There was a lot of softly murmured congratulations, embracing, and promises of a proper celebration when we all got out of this situation. It certainly lightened the mood, or at least made this place a bit more bearable.
After morning prayers, memorizations, and intellect enhancements, we headed north as the portent had urged. This area used to be farmland, most likely. The ruins of silos and farmhouses occasionally broke the monotony of cracked, white, dusty ground. Over a century ago these would have been green, fertile fields. That was before the last king of the Gray lands, Sir Rhoaden Belefast, had made his deal with the devils. What kind of horrific demonic bargain would result in this kind of devastation, one can only imagine. Anyone who witnessed that particular transaction was long dead.
Speaking of deals with demons, I had decided not to tell anyone about Koroth’s calculation of my survival odds. Anything I said could put my friends in even greater danger. Not to mention adding another layer of moroseness to the already oppressive sadness that this place brought. And my human friends were fragile right now to begin with. Besides, who is to say that telling them wouldn’t be the very thing that caused my death, or worse, their deaths? No, I’d keep Koroth’s death prediction to myself. If our foes could beat the best preparations that our party could make, so be it.
At around midday, we saw a small skeleton patrol in the distance, and apparently they saw us as well. We were in the open plains, and there was no cover to be had. Eight of the creatures brandished rusty broadswords and charged us, their boney legs churning. We prepared ourselves for battle. When the fiends were about five paces away, Toby raised his buckler and shouted, “To the Abyss with you!” Rather anticlimactically, every one of the creatures crumbled, leaving piles of bone scattered at our feet. We lowered our hands and our weapons, almost disappointed that the paladin’s turning of the undead was so effective in this case.
The party moved on quickly, in case the destruction of the patrol had set off some kind of warning to other undead, or to those individuals who were directing the stream of negative energy along the ley line. We slowed our pace again however, when Ames spotted something on the horizon. The feline pointed north and slightly west.
“A building, more than one story.”
We all peered in that direction. I did see a small lump of something, but trusted the cat’s keen eyesight over my own.
Will said, “I don’t see any physical phenomena, but… I suppose it would be overly dramatic to see actual waves of darkness emanating from the place and pulsing along the ley lines.”
Rick stared at his smaller companion. “You read too many fantasy books, have I ever told you that?”
Ames headed off any discussion of the merits of a healthy fantasy life. “We need to get there quickly and quietly. There’s no cover available. If anyone or anything notices us, plan to go in heavy.” The feline took out their hand crossbow. “And make sure that you have your holy water handy.” We had redistributed the pots of holy water remaining from our last expedition, plus or minus any that had been used or supplied in the meantime. Each of us ended up with a single sealed clay pot of the potent silvered and blessed water.
As we approached the structure and it grew in size and definition, certain aspects set it apart from any of the other buildings that we had seen thus far. Firstly, there was some kind of large stone sign out front, looking much like a double-tombstone. Presumably this was an advertisement of some sort from when a road had run past this way, long ago. Secondly, the structure itself was in remarkable condition. It was two stories tall, with the second story being a smaller square centered upon the first. Although the rock was bleached, it wasn’t crumbling as we had seen in so many other structures. Finally, there were wooden features that looked new, or at least not rotted away. There was a well with a small shingled roof. The well had an intact bucket on a rope. Some sort of tool shed was adjacent to the main building. All of these features should have decayed over a hundred years ago, yet here they were looking to be in decent shape.
When we got close enough, the party took shelter behind the big engraved stone sign. It was about 20 paces from the front door of the asylum. We knew it was an asylum because we could now read the faded letters carved into the granite slabs.
I murmured, “The Sam Ball Memorial Asylum.”
Toby rumbled, “Name sounds human. Maybe halfling or wererat though.”
Ames hissed, “Unless you think his mummified corpse is still in there somewhere, it hardly matters.”
We staked out the asylum from behind the sign. Thrice we saw signs of life, or possibly unlife. During the afternoon, a figure cloaked all in black emerged from the south-facing front door. It brought out an empty bucket, drew a bucket of water from the well, and swapped them. This happened twice more at twenty minute intervals.
Ames looked a little puzzled. Finally the were-cat solicited opinions. “Do we ambush the water guy?”
I was very much in favor of taking the ‘water guy’ prisoner. I lobbied heavily, bringing the others around to my logic. After a quiet discussion, we came to the conclusion that the front door had to be unlocked to facilitate the re-entry of whatever the water guy was. If we wanted to get inside while the sun was still out, this might be our best chance.
I asked, “Is it worth one of my spells to catch them unawares?”
All eyes turned to me. It would be my plan, then. The next time this water guy came outside, we would be ready.
If you’ve never seen a panther sprint up to a swamp bird who was completely unaware of the danger, then you might not have the right context for what happened next. I’ll try to explain. As the black cloaked figure was swapping buckets, Ames charged out from behind our sign. The feline was sprinting on all fours, picking up the kind of speed that can only really be achieved by digging claws into earth and pulling with every muscle in a cat’s body. But the process was completely silent, as Ames was the willing target of my Silence spell just moments before.
In my head, that glorious moment will always take place in slow motion: The leap of my white furred mate, looking for all the world like a feral beast. The shocked rise of the target’s arms, sending the bucket of water hurtling through the air. The full body tackle that resulted in a tangle of limbs. The impact of the poor black robed fellow, suddenly planted to the chalky earth like a startled turnip.
We hurried over to our pinned and squirming prisoner. Once I entered the sphere of silence, carrying Ames’ boots, I allowed myself a pleased giggle. The sight of that takedown was absolutely worth the mental drain that it had cost me.
Quickly, we dragged the squirming figure over to the toolshed and slammed the door, before the Silence spell could expire. It was a tight fit for two minotaurs and five humanoids, but we managed.
We threw back the hood of our prisoner. It was a thin, young, lanky, and rather pale human. His jaw was working frantically, f
orcing Ames to cover it with a white furred paw until we could actually be heard.
Once we could all hear again, Ames snarled, softly, “I’m going to uncover your mouth. If you scream, we kill you. If you try any magic, we kill you. Insults, evasions, we kill you. Speak above the sound of a whisper… I think you know. Nod if you understand.”
The young man nodded frantically. Ames’ paw came off. The first question that the feline asked was, “Who are you, and who are you with?”
In the barest of whispers, the lad answered. “I’m Robbie. I-I’m a cook. I’m with the cooking staff.”
We all traded glances. This was not one of the expected answers.
Seeing that we might not have liked the answer, the young man rushed on, “T-there’s eight of us. We clean the place and we cook. Tonight w-will be braised antelope. With turnips. And apple p-pie for dessert?” He ended the last part as a question, as if asking us if this information would prevent his death.
Toby rumbled, “Great plan Sorch. Do we go for the saucier next?”
I hissed, “Shut up!”
Then Ames surprised us all with a brilliant line of conversation. “Robbie, I’m Ames. I’m the owner of The Spastic Vole up in Ice House. We’re here to rescue you and your friends on behalf of the Culinary Guild.”
There was silence in the shack as we all held our breath, processing what had just been said and awaiting our prisoner’s reaction.
The lad nearly sobbed, “Oh thank the gods! This place is horrible.”
Ames nodded and said, “I can only imagine. You’re going to go back in there and, quietly mind you, tell everyone on the staff to grab a long knife, a sack of food, and a full waterskin. When the fighting starts, you all grab your stuff and hide in here. If all goes well we’ll be out to escort you to our ship. If things go badly, you just tell them we kidnapped you all, stole the supplies, and said if you left the shed we’d kill you. Got it?”
Robbie nodded, once. “Yes, I understand.”
Ames rumbled, “Your people all wear these black robes? And everyone else presumably wears something different?”