The Worldwound Gambit

by Robin D. Laws

  Baatyr smacks him in the face with the back of his mailed hand. Blood trickles tentatively from the prisoner's pitted cheek.

  "Tell us who you are!" Baatyr demands.

  Aprian scrutinizes Tiberio for any hint of sympathy. Tiberio contains his reaction.

  The prisoner's stammering gradually yields intelligible speech. "I am Nenarok. I am Yath's good servant. Do not harm me."

  Baatyr gut-punches him. The man doubles over and tries to fall to his knees, but the demon-ridden sentinel grabs him, arresting him in mid-fall.

  Tiberio can't help but flinch.

  "Good servant?" Baatyr laughs. "Yath has no good servants. But you'll serve him well by surrendering to whatever treatment we deem you worthy of. Understand?"

  "I have done all that Yath asks," the prisoner gasps. "I do not deserve this ..."

  Baatyr slams the prisoner's head against the torture table. He allows him to lie on the floor, burbling. "Tell us how you lived, Nenarok."

  "Mercy," Nenarok cries.

  Baatyr kicks him. "Follow instructions," he says.

  "I felt the call," the wretch gurgles. "I saw the tower in my dreams. Until then I was neither good nor evil, but the pull on me was so strong I could not resist. It promised me power, and—"

  "Not that part," says Baatyr. "Who were you before?"

  "You don't object to this?" Aprian asks Tiberio.

  Tiberio tries to shrug. "He is only meat," he says.

  "And spoiled meat at that," Aprian laughs.

  "Who were you before?" Baatyr repeats.

  "A cobbler."

  "Where did you live?"

  "A village outside Kenabres."

  "Did you live alone?"

  "No, with my wife and two children. The croup took my wife and daughter. Just before the visions started."

  "What did they look like?"

  "My wife was stout and solid. My daughter, lovely in her way."

  "You were saddened when they died?"

  Tears sneak across the man's face. "That was before I embraced Yath. Before I saw that all is chaos and destruction. Now the fate they suffered will be visited upon the entire—"

  A kick in the face silences him. "And your son. What of him?"

  "The tower told me to bring him here. He was too young to understand. On the trail, there was no food..."

  "A most satisfying tale," says Aprian. "Don't you agree, Tiberio?"

  "Yath permits the strong to prosper, and fuels itself on the wailing of the weak."

  "You say it, but without conviction. Show us who you truly are, Tiberio the half-orc."

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "First, hoist him to the table."

  The prisoner's body is limp as Tiberio picks him up. Midway through, Nenarok starts to thrash. He wildly kicks and claws at Tiberio.

  "Punch him," Aprian commands.

  Tiberio tries to still his flying limbs by hugging him close. He tips back against the torture slab. Nenarok flails free. Tiberio grabs his arm.

  "Just hit him," Aprian says.

  Tiberio places Nenarok in a hold.

  Aprian's lip curls. "You can't do it, can you?"

  Baatyr and Ergraf join the struggle, taking control of the prisoner's windmilling limbs. Tiberio steps away as they strap him onto the table.

  Aprian places a rusty scalpel in Tiberio's hand. "Carve him up a little. Start with the ribcage, maybe."

  Tiberio holds the scalpel.

  "No," Nenarok begs.

  Aprian whispers up into Tiberio's ear. "What sort of demon are you, Tiberio? That hesitates at a spot of cut-work?"

  Tiberio turns the scalpel on him.

  Harsh laughter curdles from demon-ridden throats.

  "You were right all along, Baatyr," he says.

  "He kept us entertained, though," says Baatyr. "All these days. Almost but never quite slipping up."

  "Should have dragged it out longer," Ergraf says. "Back to boredom after this."

  Aprian bellows cheerily. "Showing patience, are we, Ergraf? We'll have to keep Nenarok, and test you next!"

  Ergraf twists the prisoner's neck, breaking it. "No," he says, "He was tedious."

  Tiberio points the scalpel at Nenarok's killer. It wavers in the air.

  "Now this is stranger still," Aprian says. "We knew you couldn't torture a helpless wretch. But you can't even strike at us, can you?"

  "Back off," says Tiberio.

  "Is it your concern for the meat we wear?" Aprian asks, to a chorus of guffaws. "Trust me, we'll ride these bodies till they fall dead."

  "He's not going to give us a fight at all," Ergraf says.

  "Won't stop us from giving him one," Aprian answers.

  They advance on him. Tiberio drops the scalpel.

  "Let's make this one last," says Aprian.

  They strip Tiberio of his armor. They leave theirs on.

  The beating begins.

  Hendregan holds the attention of the demon faces, drawing them deeper into his crazy reverie. Before them ripples an ecstatic vision: the world, burning. They jubilate as the fire spreads from the world called Golarion to a thousand realms unknown. Leaping tongues of fire course from these material realities to the cosmic spheres beyond. The Abyssal eats the celestial and is itself consumed. Distinctions between law and order, between good and evil, singe, ignite, and are turned to ash. The law beyond law blackens, twists, fragments, and is gone. Creation in its entirety is engulfed. The demon faces are demons no longer: they are a purer, higher manifestation. They are destruction, red yellow blue, and the gray smoke that lingers after.

  A thudding sound enters Hendregan's consciousness. At first he casts it away. It comes back. Eats at the edges of his fiery vision. It intrudes first as an awareness of pain. The consequences of frail mortal action spill into the perfection of his apocalypse. He tries not to understand what it is. Tries to recapture the utterness of the flame.

  He feels the demons' awareness peeling off from his own. Struggles to recapture it.

  No good. He hears the smack of metal-shod fist on flesh. Groans of agony suffuse his madness. Empathy dispels it.

  He identifies the groans as Tiberio's.

  He pictures what the demons are doing to him.

  Too late, he dismisses the image from his mind. But now the fires are gone.

  The demons see his madness as alien to their own. Not that of a true brother.

  They wake from the dream.

  Open their eyes.

  And scream.

  Gad and Vitta reach the twisted pedestal. Behind them lie scattered the remains of disarmed traps: the gears and cogs of a spear trigger. Spore-throwing fungi, melted by alchemical powder. Gas jets stuffed with rags, stiffened by fast-hardening glue.

  Gad reaches for the orb.

  An unearthly wail assails their ears. It rises to ear-splitting and falls to merely painful, then repeats the cycle again, and again, and again.

  "Hendregan's burned," Vitta says.

  Gad snatches the orb from the pedestal. He runs for the chamber beyond. Vitta sprints for it, too, an instant behind him.

  The vault walls close. In the instant before they touch, he sees Jerisa on the other side, running.

  The vault doors smash together. Their closing frees them from Vitta's contagion effect. The process that brought them within the confines of ordinary time and space reverses itself. Its metal components melt and swirl. Translucence returns. Gad averts his gaze as unassimilable chaos crawls across its surface, scrambling the vault's geometry.

  His legs crumple beneath him. He hits his head but scarcely notices as new senses flood his awareness. Unwanted perceptions crash over him in waves. He plummets endlessly through a well of unthou
ght. Eternal evil and primal chaos ripple together through his consciousness, competing to destroy it.

  He tells himself: I am Gad.

  I still have my team.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Crumble

  Time dissolves.

  The chaos opens, but is not disrupted or reduced. Through the translucent field steps Fraton, flanked by dull-faced knights. Bright tunics swathe their breastplates. They bear upended versions of the Everbright Crusaders' emblem, its heraldic devices caught and crushed in the buglike tentacles of Yath.

  Still addled by his contact with the chaos vault, Gad tries to stand. A false crusader's sword-point appears at his throat.

  Gad woozily regards his old enemy. "I believe this is where you say, So we meet again, Gad."

  Fraton steps briskly over, so he can loom above him. "Tiresome witticisms. How I have missed them."

  "You're not glad to see me, then?"

  The fallen paladin yanks Gad to his feet. Vitta is already standing, a sword also at her throat. Fraton snaps manacles on Gad first, and then on the halfling.

  "You're wondering whether we got all of your people," Fraton says.

  "As long as you're reading my mind, I'm also thinking of a number between one and ten."

  Fraton slaps him.

  Gad smiles.

  Fraton frowns. "You believe it shows weakness to strike you."

  "Right again. You don't even need me for this, do you?"

  Fraton's tightly waxed mustache vibrates. A mirthless smile cracks his lips. "Oh, I need you, you self-satisfied bag of snot."

  "I see you've been attending demon invective class," he says.

  Fraton sniggers. Gad has never heard him laugh before.

  "I've a revelation for you, Gad. It comes at the cost of some personal discomfort to myself, but will nonetheless be more than worth it. Long have I prayed for the day when that damnable smirk would be rubbed irrevocably from your face."

  "Switching deities along the way, no less."

  "Our meeting here demonstrates the frailty of fair Iomedae. Despite her virtue, despite her power, despite the depths of my devotion to her, you always slipped through my fingers. But now that I bow, through Yath's intercession, to the Lord of the Locust Host, here I am with you finally in chains."

  "This isn't the first time I've had your manacles around my wrist."

  "But it will be the last."

  "Refresh my memory. Have I heard you say that before?"

  Fraton comes close enough for Gad to smell his breath. Wine and nutmeg. "The theme for this discussion is weakness. My purported weakness in wishing to see you suffer. The goddess Iomedae's, for failing to deliver you to my grasp. Despite your litany of gross and flagrant sins."

  Gad leans in to whisper to him. "Don't forget. You're on the side of the sinners now."

  Fraton slaps him again. He breathes in, recovering his composure. "No, no. I haven't changed. I've seen the true light. Demons punish sin. Only they do it utterly and completely. When a sinner dies, he is tortured. Taken apart. Reduced to cosmic fuel. By demons. Take notes, master of japes, for this is your own imminent fate." He pauses.

  "If you've forgotten what you were on about," volunteers Gad, "the subject was weakness."

  Fraton makes a fist but refrains from its use. "Yes. Weakness. If invited, you could no doubt pontificate endlessly on what you perceive to be my manifold weaknesses."

  "Yes, but that would be rude."

  "A true weakness, however, is exposed when a quality a man considers to be his greatest strength is revealed to be a fraud."

  "You've been rehearsing this, haven't you?" Gad glances at Vitta, seeing the fear in her stance.

  "What would you say is your greatest strength, Gad?"

  "How about we skip to the part where you answer your own question?"

  "Some might say your wit. The falsely agreeable arrangement of your facial features. Your composure while trapped in a losing position. But these are all to varying degrees peripheral to your success. Wouldn't you agree?"

  "I would."

  "In the end, your exploits are indirect in nature. You act through others. Make them stronger than they are. Smarter. Greater as members of your team than they could ever be on their own." He strides over to Vitta. "Like this ridiculous creature." He pulls Vitta's hair, crumpling her copper headpiece. Her face convulses in silent pain.

  "Stop that."

  Fraton pulls harder, bending Vitta's neck back. "Your greatest strength, Gad, is the loyalty you instill in your cat's-paws." He releases Vitta. "And now I must show you that this strength is merely weakness disguised by cocksure arrogance. You find these absurd, these marginal, these broken creatures, and con them into thinking they are whole—provided they do your bidding. Execute your plans. But they've seen through you, Gad. Seen how you manipulate and exploit them. Their loyalty is betrayal." He reaches into his tunic pocket and withdraws a letter. "I suppose you consider the reading of personal correspondence to be another example of rudeness."

  "Yes, etiquette is my primary concern here," Gad says.

  Fraton flaps the letter at him. "I found this slipped under the door of my quarters here," he says. "I now quote in full, omitting salutations: I have been betrayed, and so have you. It has come to my attention that you are the betrothed of the priestess Isilda. The man who owns my heart is known to you: his name is Gad. He and the priestess have been dallying behind your back. That means, of course, that he is here in the tower. In exchange for free passage from the tower, for myself and the others he has selfishly lured here, I'll help you capture him. If interested, meet me at the bridge of tar in six hours. Yours, Jerisa of Castle Suma."

  "She met with you?"

  The mustache primly rises. "I was considering it, when the demon faces screamed. Now, unfettered by any promise to your jealous little assassin, I can freely consign your confederates to tortures incomprehensible."

  "Let them die quickly," Gad says. "With honor."

  The paladin's blue eyes twinkle with delight. "Wouldn't dream of it, you bilious rodent! No, no, no, you can be sure they'll expire exquisitely, and by inches."

  He nods to the other antipaladins, who take them from the vault. Waiting for them, also manacled, are Jerisa, Hendregan and Tiberio. The first two are bruised and cut. Tiberio weaves on his feet, battered almost beyond recognition. Blood leaks from the sides of his mouth, spattering on his boots. The possessed guards form a protective knot around the prisoners. Scorch marks blot their armor and helmets. Clearly, they took the brunt of one or more of Hendregan's fire spells before overcoming him.

  "Can I have a word with her?" Gad asks.

  "Provided your words remain audible," Fraton answers, "I might find an exchange between the two of you surpassingly edifying." He nods to Gad's guard, who leads him up to Jerisa.

  "You bitch," Gad says.

  She flinches. "The letter?"

  Fraton holds it up.

  "Why?" Gad asks.

  Jerisa battles back tears. "Because I love you."

  "You're cracked in the head, Jerisa."

  She leans forward, brushing his lips with her own. She pulls back. "And because you never loved me."

  "You bet I didn't." Gad headbutts her.

  She falls. The guards grab his manacled arms and yank him away. Blood gushes from her flattened nose.

  Tiberio and Vitta regard Gad in appalled surprise.

  "More than I'd hoped for," Fraton clucks.

  He nods to his corrupted paladins, and then to the demon-ridden sentinels. They shove their prisoners onward, prodding them into the guard station. On the torture slab, fist-sized demons in larval form feed already on Nenarok's corpse. They sprout mandibles to scissor his cooling flesh, their maggot bodies bloatin
g.

  Gad and the others shuffle along in defeated silence. The sentinels lead them into a passageway they haven't ventured into before. Bowel-like strands dotted with black bug eggs dangle from its ceiling, dripping rank fluid. Fraton tics fastidiously as droplets land on his armor and eat at the fabric of his fine half-cape. The corridors double and triple back on one another, weaving the group through a confusing, subtly up-sloping path. Though he pretends at surety, Fraton must periodically consult the demon-ridden sentinels to choose the right route.

  In time they arrive in an arched, womblike passageway, lined with wooden doors. Pores in the walls sweat blood and pus.

  Isilda waits there with her retinue. Her fly-demon buzzes expectantly. Leashed attendants hunker together, grasping whips woven from the hairs and shells of monstrous beetles. The priestess stands haughtily straight.

  "Deliver the captives," Fraton tells his men.

  One of them pulls on Gad's shoulder.

  "No, not him," corrects Fraton. "The others."

  He walks with his men as they lead Vitta, Tiberio, Hendregan, and Jerisa to Isilda's group.

  A bored Baatyr dumps the prisoners' captured gear in a corner.

  "Fraton," Isilda says.

  He performs a perfunctory bow. "Priestess."

  Her nostrils flare, as if detecting a change in their relative positions.

  Fraton waves Jerisa's letter at her. "We have matters to discuss."

  Isilda reaches for it. Fraton snatches it back and puts it in his tunic pocket.

  "Mysterious pronouncements ill become you, Fraton." She sneaks an anxious glance at Gad. "What has he told you?"

  "There is nothing I need to ask him," Fraton says.

  "I can open him up for you," she says.

  "Of that I have no doubt," replies Fraton, "but further effort on your part will not be required."

  He clicks his heels together, pivots on them, and returns to his entourage, and to Gad. They depart down an oozing side tunnel.

  Jerisa leans close enough to whisper into Isilda's ear. "Perhaps it's time you put him permanently on his pedestal."