“What irrelevant talk is this?” the monster shouted. “You should tremble in fear, bow down, and ask that I am merciful enough to kill you last. For your stupidity you will die now, painfully,” she roared, and she prepared to strike at Pesino, when she was suddenly distracted by Gawail, who flew past her face, throwing a tiny handful of dust in one eye.
The Echidna roared. It swatted at Gawail with one massive hand, while the other hand flew to its eye and tried to rub away the irritating dust.
“Good work, Gawail!” Kate shouted her approval.
Marco hastily reached for the bow that had been ripped from his shoulder, and found the quiver of arrows nearby. He was off to the side of the monster now, not the focus of its attention for the moment, and he took advantage of his opportunity to fire an arrow at the creature’s shoulder.
He was so close, and the target was so large, that he could not fail. His arrow flew true, and struck the creature in the shoulder. The thick skin and tough muscles beneath resisted the dart he had fired though, and it penetrated only weakly, just the head of the arrow burying itself with her.
The Echidna roared, and looked at Marco, then reached down and surprised him by flinging a stone at him.
Marco tried to raise his sword to protect himself, knowing even as he made the reflexive movement that the narrow blade would be no protection from the heavy rock. The stone hit his blade with a clang, and little other reaction, and then the stone struck his shoulder, hurdling him backwards to the ground.
He landed amid the wreckage of his own backpack contents, which were scattered around the floor of the cave. The Echidna was slithering towards him, and he saw his own death approaching as he observed the speed with which the monster was preparing to kill him. In a panic he grabbed out and seized the first item he laid a hand on, then flung it up at the creature’s face.
The small stone jar flew through the air with uncanny accuracy and struck the monster in the mouth. The Echidna hardly noticed the tiny inconvenience for a moment, but then Gawail made another valiant attempt to help his friends, diving down at the monster’s face and releasing a second tiny bit of grit that was aimed at the vulnerable eyes.
The Echidna swatted with more accuracy in response to the second time the pixie came at it, and there was a tiny scream of anguish as Gawail was struck hard and flung to the ground. The monster looked down in satisfaction, pausing for a moment, then returned its attention to Marco, preparing to kill him for his temerity in attacking it.
And then the monster froze in place. A strange expression of puzzlement and then pain, crossed her face, and she screamed a loud, unearthly scream that was so loud and terrifying than Marco felt the ground quake, and a few small stone overhead dislodged themselves from the roof and fell to the floor.
The Echidna straightened up and raised her arms above her head in horror, while the others also felt overcome with horror as they watched her arms begin to rapidly shrink, melting back down to her shoulders. The scales at her waist seemed to come to life, and began to climb rapidly up her torso, turning flesh into snakelike exterior.
Her breasts melted down to flatness, her mouth grew wide, and her nose began to protrude as her eyes shrank and darkened and bulged. She turned from a hybrid creature into an enormous snake, one that lay on the ground, stunned by its sudden, painful transformation.
“The alchemical formula!” Marco suddenly shouted, understanding what had happened. He had picked up a piece of debris from the ground and thrown it at the monster, who had swallowed it. It had been one of the jars containing a dose of the medicine the alchemist Sty had created in the Lion City, the one that had changed Cassius and Pesino from merfolks to humans! And it had worked on the Echidna – differently – by changing her from a hybrid creature into a snake. Carried for hundreds of miles, forgotten, the formula had unexpectedly turned out to be a formidable weapon.
Even as he looked at the giant constrictor before him, Marco tried to get up, his wounded shoulder angrily sending pain shooting through him as he tried to roll over.
There was a flash of light from the Echidna, and the whole length of the stunned, massive snake glowed momentarily. Marco suddenly remembered what had happened under the pier when Cassius and Pesino had been changed: they had changed first into beings that were completely dolphins, and only then – with a flash of light – had then turned into humans.
That meant that the Echidna was about to turn into a human too, and he still had not harvested one of its scales.
Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Marco forced himself to teeter forward, raised his sword, and hacked it down on the shuddering giant snake. A handful of scales flew off and a small patch of scarlet flesh was exposed. He knelt on the ground and picked up the dry scales, which still felt warm with the heat of the monster’s body.
As he touched the artifacts, his mind exploded with a burst of cognition. These items, the goal of his long, perilous journey, were ingredients in a great many rare alchemy formulae, used for extraordinary purposes. There was some purpose the spirit of Ophiuchus had in mind, he realized, and he was likely to be needed to complete.
The creature began to writhe wildly, and it struck Marco, flinging him in the direction of his friends, who caught him in midair. He knocked Cassius and Kate to the ground, and landed atop them, stunned.
They all looked up and saw the monster, changing form again, changing from snake to human – giant human.
“Help me up,” Marco breathed painfully, as he watched. The monster was going to be ready for battle once again in just a matter of moments, and he had to be ready.
Pesino wrapped her arms around him and lifted him with surprising strength. “We can run now Marco,” she said. “You’re hurt; don’t try to fight any more.”
“I owe you one thing,” Marco answered, as he gained his feet with her help. After a momentary glance in which their eyes locked on one another searchingly, Marco left Pesino and dashed out back to the vicinity of the shapeshifting monster. He still held the handful of scales he had gained in one hand, and he put his sword away to free his other hand, then reached down and picked up a stone jar.
“Pesino, this is yours!” he shouted as he tossed a dose of the medicine needed to transform her back into a mermaid. “Cassius, this is yours!” he called, and immediately tossed another jar of the mixture to the former merman. He picked up the ruins of his pack, which still held a few of his food supplies, and stuffed the Echidna scales within.
As he turned to run back to the others, he heard a guttural scream, and realized that the Echidna had recovered from the effects of the transformation. A giant woman stood over him, now complete with hips and legs and feet, looking down at him with a black expression on her face, full of anger and fury.
“What have you done to me? What magician are you? Foolish mortal – don’t you know that no mortal tool can overcome my divine nature?” she shouted.
It was true, Marco realized. Already, her feet and ankles were starting to sprout a few scales; despite the strength of Sty’s transformational alchemy, the divine nature of the Echidna’s hybrid form was reasserting itself – she was already returning to the snake and human composition that was her nature.
“But I’ll deal with you in this form now!” she said, and she stooped to swing her fist low along the ground, a massive block of flesh and bone that struck Marco forcefully and flung him many feet through the air, so that he crashed up against the wall of the cavern and fell in a heap on the ground.
He fought to keep from blacking out; his vision was fuzzy and his eyes were momentarily crossed as he looked up and saw the woman striding towards him. She was coming to finish him off.
Fearful and desperate, and acting strictly from instinct, Marco raised his right hand without thinking and pointed it at the monster. A bolt of energy flew from his fingers and struck the floor of the cave at her feet, upending her and sending her falling backwards. As Marco watched, she landed in a sitting position, and her legs pulle
d suddenly together, fusing together into a single snake’s tail as she overcame the effects of his alchemical dose.
Marco looked up and pointed his hand at the ceiling above her, suddenly realizing that there was only one way to slow her down. He could not defeat her, but he could guarantee that she would not be able to chase after them. He released another bolt of energy aimed at the ceiling above her, and then adjusted his aim and released another, then moved to a new target over her head and shot one move time. A massive shower of stone fell down from above, landed on top of and all around the Echidna, just as she was rising to start to strike at him, and the monster was buried under tons of stone.
Marco lowered his hand in weariness, and saw that Cassius was running over to him. As the man reached Marco, there was a new noise, and a sudden, dramatic rise in temperature, as a hole appeared in the newly raised ceiling, and a shower of molten lava began to pour through.
“Marco, we have to go!” Cassius spoke to him, grabbing both Marco’s hands and lifting him up. Marco lolled into unconsciousness from the pain and expenditure of energy and shocks of the encounter, so that Cassius was forced to sling the unawake hero over his shoulder, then lumber back to the two women.
“Cassius, we have to escape!” Kate shouted, pointing at where the lava was falling steadily down. It was entombing the Echidna under a fiery layer of molten rock that sealed the fallen ceiling stones on place on top of the monster; but the lava was also starting to flow towards where the small band of attackers stood.
“Wait! We need one more thing!” Pesino cried, and then she darted directly towards the dangerous, creeping stream of lava. She stopped just short of the flaming mass and stooped to pick up Gawail, then came running back to the others, her skin on one arm an angry red color from the burns that the heat the lava had inflicted upon her.
Kate picked up a pair of packs of supplies and the threesome started running through the cavern, headed now in the opposite direction from the way they had entered, lit only by the red glow of the lava, and they stumbled onward as quickly as they could. The cave grew dimmer and cooler as they moved further from the lava, and they slowed their pace as they lost visibility in the dark cavern. The dimness faded to blackness, and they slowed down to a point of Kate holding onto the back of Cassius’s cape, as Pesino held onto Kate’s and they carefully continued to move, finding the cavern descending now at a steep incline.
“Let’s stop and rest a moment,” Cassius soon said, panting from the exertion of carrying Marco in the darkness. They all stopped, and Cassius laid Marco down.
“Do you think he’s okay?” Kate asked.
“Let me check him,” Pesino cautiously felt her way forward and placed her hands on Marco, then carefully moved her face down to his, and knelt silently, detecting his feeling as well as his breathing. “Marco,” she murmured softly, then pressed her lips against his in a tender kiss. “Marco, you saved us,” she said softly. “We’re all alive and getting away,” she told him. “But we need you to light the way for us.”
She gently massaged his forehead and his temples and then his cheeks, trying to rouse him from his slumber.
“Where are we?” he mumbled moments later. “I can’t see. Am I blind?” he asked.
“Praise the lord!” Kate said joyfully.
“No, I don’t think you’re blind. We’re just in a cave without any light,” Pesino answered his question.
“You beat the Echidna!” she told him proudly. “You beat it and we got away!”
“I didn’t beat it forever,” Marco answered, as he remembered the end of the battle. “I just trapped it, but didn’t kill it. The monster will come out again someday I’m afraid.
“Help me sit up,” he told her, and felt her hand slide under his back, then raise him upright.
“Thank you,” he grunted painfully moments later. And a moment after that his hand flickered into a dim brilliance, illuminating the area around them.
“It’s good to see you all,” he said, looking around at his friends. Pesino looked burned on one arm, but there were few other signs of injury.
“How do you feel?” Pesino asked.
“It hurts to breath; I think that thing cracked some of my ribs,” he answered, then looked around. “Where is Gawail? Is he okay?”
Pesino reached into her cape and gently pulled the pixie out, then held her hand open, the tiny body lying limp on her palm. Marco stared at the small hero, who had saved his life.
“Here,” he said after several seconds, “lay him on my hand,” and he held his right hand out, palm up.
Pesino gently deposited the pixie in Marco’s hand and they all looked. Marco closed his fingers carefully over the tiny hero, covering him completely, before his hand began to glow more brightly, shifting colors slowly, then rapidly, then suddenly dimming to a low white color. He opened his fingers, and they all looked carefully at the pixie.
Gawail suddenly gave a cough, and sat up. He looked around and up at the four faces that stared so intently down at him. “You’re all okay. I’m okay too!” he stood up and laughed, and the others laughed with him. “Did we win?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Kate answered. “Marco got his scales, and we got away from the monster, but now we’re lost in the caves.”
“Well then, let us find our way out,” Gawail said. He fluttered his wings, and floated up into the air. “I’ll start scouting what’s ahead. Which way are we going?” he asked.
“We were going that way,” Cassius pointed, and Gawail shot off through the air, disappearing in seconds.
“What did you do to him?” Kate asked. “Was he dead? Did you bring him back to life?”
“The power of the hand told me what to do,” Marco answered. “I’m still not sure what I did. I’m not sure about anything right now,” he said as he closed his eyes and rubbed them with his fingers.
“Let’s get going,” he said a moment later, and he held his hands out, seeking assistance to help him rise to his feet.
They resumed moving through the cavern, following in the direction Gawail had flown. “I’m heading towards my fate, Marco,” Pesino told him a few minutes later.
“What do you mean?” Marco asked slowly. His breathing was labored, for every breath he took was shallow and painful.
“I’ve had dreams in recent days, dreams of being in a cave and approaching something that I can’t see, but something that I know is going to change my life. And now, I think this is the cave I dreamed of,” she explained.
“I’ll protect you from anything,” Marco reassured her.
“What if I find out I don’t want to be protected?” Pesino asked softly.
Marco had no answer, and continued to walk, troubled by the implication of her question. He wasn’t sure he was ready to face a future without Pesino, as the conversation seemed to imply might happen.
Gawail returned to rejoin them later, though none of them knew how much later. “There is an airflow coming through the tunnels, so they must lead to the surface,” Gawail said, “But so far I have not found a way out.”
They stopped to eat a brief meal of their supplies, and came to the realization that they had brought no water with them, which immediately made them all feel thirsty. Gawail left them to go scouting further ahead, and they resumed walking.
“There is a stream not far ahead,” he told the others when he next returned. “You’ll reach it soon, and then we’ll have to make a choice.
“There are two directions to go at a fork ahead. Both lead upward, but I can’t find which is best.”
They soon reached the stream, a swift-moving current of water in a narrow channel that raced through a part of their cavern before draining away into a hole in the floor, and they all took turns drinking greedily from it.
“Was that water safe to drink?” Kate asked moments after they passed over the stream. “I feel strange.”
A fog started to rise around them, a fog so thick that the walls of the cave were invisib
le.
“I feel different too, different in my body and even my soul,” Cassius answered as they came to a halt. “I feel lighter,” he said.
“I feel different too, like big problems don’t matter anymore,” Pesino agreed.
“We’ve got a big problem that still matters to us,” Marco answered. “We’ve got to find our way out of here.”
Soon after that they came to the spot where the cavern offered two choices. A smaller cave on the right and the main cave straight ahead both appeared to rise towards the surface, but Gawail could offer no advice about which to follow.
“Let’s spend the night here and rest,” Cassius suggested. They were all tired from the long, grueling day, and agreed to his idea. Marco extinguished the light coming from his hand, and they all settled in to sleep.
“Marco,” Pesino said some time later, awakening Marco from his sound sleep, “I feel something is approaching.”
“Is it hostile?” Marco asked.
“Yes and no,” the girl answered. “It is hostile, but maybe it doesn’t have to be,” she answered with a note of confusion in her voice.
Marco awoke Cassius and Kate, and Gawail as well, then lit his hand to illuminate them all. They heard a sound coming from the small cave on the right, and Marco drew his sword as he moved to the front of the group, though his injured ribs continued to constrain any ease of movement.
A movement was suddenly visible among the shadows inside the cavern, and then they all stared in horror at what emerged from the darkness.
Chapter 25 – An Underworld Guide
A minotaur came charging out of the cavern and ran towards them at high speed, stopping only when he took note of Marco’s glowing hand and shining sword.
“Go back!” He ordered, pointing in the direction he had just come from. “Go back! You know you may not return to the land of the living. Return and find peace.”
The sight of the minotaur was fascinating. The monstrously large head and shoulders of a bull, with eyes that blazed red, sat atop a muscular man’s torso. The monster held a spear in one hand, and a shield in the other.
The Echidna's Scale (Alchemy's Apprentice) Page 32