Pathfinder Tales: The Crusader Road
Page 19
Jerrad crept up the stairs, peering upward as he went. He stopped as the rattling sounded again and studied the floor below. Nothing. He started up again, into the dim recesses of the tower's upper reaches. The air smelled dry and had a hint of leather, which he hoped meant books. It also had other scents—floral mostly—but nothing he associated with malevolence.
He came up high enough that eye level was equal to the room's floor. He couldn't see very much more than shelves lining the walls and the undersides of tables and a stool or two. Here and there the sun's dying light—which had squeaked past shutters—reflected from an alembic's curved side. The lanterns and track also circled the ceiling in this chamber. The stairs curled further up into the tower, but shadow hid whatever was up there.
The rattle sounded again, snapping Jerrad's head around. There, on the east side of the room, one of the lanterns shook and glowed. A soft green light pulsed, growing brighter with the rattling, then dying as silence resumed. The lantern's outer cylinder, which had slits in it to let light out, didn't give him a good look at what was inside.
On cat's feet he entered the room. Though he'd never seen a wizard's library before, he couldn't have mistaken it for anything else. Aside from shelves full of books, the tables had jars filled with ingredients. Mortars and pestles, bowls, pitchers, and vials lay everywhere. A small stove had a distillation coil next to it—that much he recognized from a still some of the Silverlakers had created.
Again the lantern rattled. As Jerrad approached it, he noticed something odd. While it hung from the track like others, a brass tube about a foot in diameter led from a hole in the wall right up to the lantern's side. Around the pipe he caught the guardian spell's whistle.
He reached the cage. Could it be a pigeon, maybe? Jerrad smacked the heel of his hand off his forehead. Stupid Mouse, pigeons don't glow.
"Hello?"
The lantern remained still and silent, with no hint of light leaking out.
Jerrad climbed up on a stool to bring his face up level with the lantern. He rapped on the metal shell. "Hello?"
Light blazed.
"Ow." He recoiled and grabbed the lantern so he'd not fall off the stool. The lantern shook, and something bounced around inside. It didn't seem to be very heavy, and it made little snarling sounds that suggested it wasn't very happy, either.
Jerrad blinked tears from his eyes. "Look, I'll help you get out of there if you promise not to blind me again."
The lantern remained dark and quiet.
"I'm not going to hurt you."
No response.
Jerrad rubbed his hands over his face. "Fine, stay trapped. You're probably some demon that will rip my face off anyway." He climbed off the stool and started looking at the books while he still had a little sunlight. He didn't see anything that came even close to the slender volume he'd been using. "If I can't find something, I'm stuck here forever."
The lantern's light strengthened to an emerald glow. Jerrad took advantage of it quickly, looking around for anything that resembled his grimoire. "There, got it." He made his way around a table to the northern wall and slid a small book from between two larger volumes.
He flipped through the pages. Blank. None of them had writing, not even incomprehensible gibberish. "But it feels like my grimoire. It's hopeless."
"Release me. I'll help you."
Jerrad smiled and tucked the grimoire inside his belt. He returned to the stool. "How can I help?"
"The bars of this cage are too close. I can't escape."
The youth didn't see any bars, and assumed they had to be inside the outer shell. He reached up and around, slipping the two spring catches that held the cylindrical shade tight to the lantern. It came off easily. He set it down, puzzled.
"What cage?"
The sprite in the middle of the lantern spread her arms. "This cage." She stood just over half a foot in height and had beautiful leaf-like wings which were dark green at the points, fading to a lighter green at her back. Her eyes had an emerald hue, and her red hair fell in ringlets to cover her breasts. Her skin had a slight greenish cast to it, making it appear that she had been carved from a pale jade.
Jerrad couldn't see the cage to which she referred. Three posts connected the lantern top and bottom, but nothing else stood between her and freedom. He frowned, then renewed the spell which gave him a sense of magic.
"That's it." He smiled.
She folded her arms and snorted. "My plight amuses you?"
"No, no, it's not that. I think I have it figured out." Jerrad smiled. "I'm Jerrad, by the way."
She eyed him suspiciously. "You can call me Lissa."
"Good. Lissa, I think you're seeing an illusion which makes up your prison. The magic seems strongest in the lantern's top. I'm going to guess that there's an enchantment there which projects the illusion keeping you in."
She stared at him for a moment. "You're saying there's no cage?"
"I'm saying the wizard really liked illusions." Jerrad shrugged, thinking better of explaining why he thought that. "The illusion is strong enough in your mind to keep you in, but I think I can put my hand in there and pull you out."
"And slice me up through the bars? They're as sharp as knives!"
"If there are bars, I won't be able to reach in and pull you out."
She frowned. "You may have a point there. I think I'll close my eyes."
"Might help." He rubbed his hands together to warm them. "I'm ready."
The sprite nodded, then closed her wings about her. Her light died, plunging the room into darkness. Jerrad reached out, letting his fingers slide slowly along the lantern's floor. He felt the sprite leap into the back of his hand and grab his cuff, then he slid his hand out again.
She leaped into the air, wings spread and light blazing.
"Ow, blinding!" Jerrad pulled back, hands rising to shield his eyes. The stool tottered. Too late he grabbed for the lantern and missed. The stool slid over to bang off the bookcase. Jerrad slammed hard into the floor.
A green blur circled the tower, then shot down the stairs, leaving Jerrad utterly alone in the dark. Lissa's ghostly afterimage lingered in his eyes, and shutting them did nothing to get rid of it.
He pounded his fist on the floor. I should have known. Sprites hate me. I try to do something nice, and I get abandoned. I'll die here hungry and alone and ignorant.
Tears welled in his eyes. He swiped at them angrily, then sat up. She'd fooled him, and he'd let himself be fooled. He knew he should have been angrier at Lissa than he was at himself, but that wasn't how the voice in his head was apportioning blame. He was as trapped in the tower as the sprite had been in the lantern. I'm so stupid.
He sat in the dark for a bit, then started thinking to distract himself. It wasn't hard for Jerrad to piece together what had happened to the sprite, or to many sprites in the past. The tube constituted some sort of trap by which the sprites became caged in a lantern. He figured that some magic which no longer functioned moved the lanterns along the circuit, providing light for the tower. Once a sprite made the full circuit, they probably went out the way they came in. The wizard likely had some magic that made them forget what they'd been through, so they'd not warn others.
It struck Jerrad that this was a clever use of spells, but he didn't like the way the sprites became enslaved. It might have been that the wizard trapped them when they came to steal things from him, and a little involuntary servitude was the penalty he meted out. The gods knew that Jerrad could have wished for that sort of justice heading the way of the sprites that picked on him, but it still seemed harsh.
Now, if I could find a way to get the ogres into these lamps... He laughed at himself, feeling a little better. That would require magics well beyond his abilities. He suspected the reason the slender volume he'd pulled off the shelf had blank pages was because he wasn't ready to handle those spells. My mentor thinks those spells would kill me. Without them, even odds for starvation or ogres doing the job.
That was one of the miniature weapons displayed below. "You're not here to shoot me, are you?"
"No. I don't often need rescue. Never before, really. But I understand gratitude." She held the bow up. "This my grandfather's. He lost it before Mosswater fell. The family scoured Echo Wood for it. They looked everywhere—except here. I came. I found it."
"Great." Jerrad smiled weakly. "On your way back to your family, would you mind killing some ogres?"
"I'm a good shot. This is a great bow." She shrugged. "But these arrows won't stop ogres. Or the animated skeletons."
"No, of course not. Silly me."
"Why do ogres concern a wizard like you?"
"I don't, um, I'm not..." Jerrad sighed and killed the illusion.
"Hey, where did you go?" The sprite darted in toward his face, gasped, then backed off. "You're Ogrebane's son.»
"Guilty." Jerrad frowned for a heartbeat. "Probably would have left me here faster if you knew that from the outset, right?"
"I barely recognized you. No mud." She shrugged. "A deal is a deal. You freed me. I'll free you."
"Thank you."
"Once you're out of Mosswater, you're on your own."
"Get me on the road to Thornkeep and that'll be good."
"Done and done."
Jerrad followed the sprite down the stairs, using her light for navigation. She moved quickly, so shadows shifted. He barked his shins twice, but bit his tongue. Though Lissa's idea of gratitude clearly differed from his, he didn't think pointing that out to her right at the moment was a good idea.
They paused in the archway, and Jerrad's heart sank. Though there wasn't much light by which to see, a number of shapes large and small shambled through the night. Skeletons—mostly adult humanoids, but some decidedly shorter—limped along in threadbare clothing. Occasionally they had a dark patch of dried scalp with a long lank of wispy hair. Though they didn't appear to move very quickly, Jerrad ascribed that more to lack of targets than inability to run.
"First trick is getting out of here." Jerrad took a good look at the tiles on the inside of the arch. "A bit more light would help."
Lissa obliged him. A number of the skeletons oriented toward her glow and marched into destruction via the guardian spell. "You might want to hurry," she offered.
"I know." He cast the translation spell. The legend on the tiles read, "May the wind speed your journey." That gave him heart, which increased when he noticed two tiles opposite each other, about waist height. Their decorative element translated as a glyph for wind.
"The spell was meant to keep folks out, but battering legitimate visitors wouldn't make sense." He shifted the grimoire around and tucked it in at the small of his back, then reached a hand for one of the wind tiles. "I bet if I touch this..."
"Wait." Lissa lowered her light. The skeletons lost interest. She flew over to the opposite wind tile. "Straight down this road. Cross the stone bridge. Turn south."
"How far?"
She gave him an appraising look. "Probably too far. I'll distract those I can."
Jerrad nodded. "Thank you."
She nocked a needle-like arrow. "Now."
He touched the wind glyph and jetted forward. The gust of wind carried him beyond the ring of debris. He stumbled as he landed, but somersaulted and came up on his feet. Jerrad ducked a swipe from a bony claw, and not because it was particularly slow. The spell is speeding me.
He started running. Lissa sped ahead of him a yard in front and two above, bright as a full moon. Her light rendered the skeletons as luminescent jade carvings. He spotted them easily and gave them a wide berth. He leaped over stone blocks with ease, and quickly was able to gauge how far a jump would carry him.
Barely a hundred yards from the tower, an ogre spotted him. She shouted, a mixture of surprise and outrage. More shouts answered her from down the street. The earth shook as the ogres—curious, hungry, or just murderous—came to the street.
Lissa dove fearlessly at them, weaving her light into a glowing knotwork. Ogres would reach for her, but she'd elude them, then pop up right in front of their faces. She loosed arrows to pierce them tongue and throat, adding pain to their shouts.
As bold as she was, her quiver had few arrows, and pain enraged rather than discouraged ogres. Her flying through the branches of a tree, or down through an arch, might lure an ogre into a collision, but the pack of them gathering in Jerrad's wake had their target in sight. She couldn't distract them, so flew ahead to light his way.
The wind made him faster than the average ogre, but a couple of the tallest pounded after him. Their long strides ate up ground. They got close enough that he could hear fat folds slapping against each other. He dared not look back, and instead put his head down and pushed himself for more speed.
Ahead loomed the bridge Lissa had mentioned. The stone arch wasn't very long, and spanned a dry canal. Jerrad aimed himself straight at the middle. On the other side, I turn right. He glanced toward the street running south and smiled. No ogres.
That momentary distraction almost doomed him. He raced up the bridge and, at the last second, realized the center had fallen away. Without a good chance to measure the distance, he leaped and hoped for the best.
He cleared the hole, but slipped as he landed. He bounced off the balustrade and tumbled to his knees. He spun around, facing his pursuit. The ogres were far closer than he'd dared imagine.
Lissa darted down. "Run!"
"No." Jerrad forced panic away and cast his illusion spell. This should buy me time.
The ogres chasing him never saw the gaping hole in the bridge. Jerrad's spell concealed it within an illusion crudely matching the surrounding surface. The first ogre stepped through it and fell. His face hit the edge closest to Jerrad, scattering teeth in a rattle. The second ogre couldn't stop either and crashed down onto the first. Voices roared from beneath the bridge, and ogre blood splashed darkly against the bridge's stone railing.
Jerrad got to his knees and ran off the bridge. As he turned south, he got a shadowed view of the ogres. At least one more went through the hole, but it appeared as if she jumped instead of being pushed. Then something that looked terribly armlike rose back up and the ogres crowded on the bridge started to jostle and claw for it. Another ogre went through the hole—clearly pushed—and the snarling became blood-curdling.
Lissa paced him, keeping her light low unless she needed to warn him of a hole or skeletons. He avoided pursuit, and as he reached the edge of Mosswater, the wind spell slowly faded. He stopped where weeds had conquered the road and turned toward the sprite.
"I just wanted to thank..."
Lissa circled him once, then vanished to the east like a dying star.
Jerrad frowned. "That's right, go tell your squirrel buddies I'm coming." He wanted to be angry, but decided instead to be pleased she'd at least kept up her end of the bargain. I couldn't have gotten this far without her.
Jerrad headed south as quickly as he could. That wasn't as fast as he wanted to be. The spell might have sped him along, but it also tired him out. And made him thirsty.
I wonder if there's a spell in that grimoire for conjuring up water. He reached back for the book, but it wasn't there. He couldn't remember dropping it, but quickly figured it had flown free on the bridge.
He look a last longing glance at Mosswater, then shook his head. Not going back for that. He pointed his nose south and started running again.
After an age, he burst through the last hedgerow and sprawled on a clear stretch of road. His chest heaved. He knew he had to get up and keep running, but he needed just a moment to catch his breath.
The ground shook. For a heartbeat, he feared ogres had somehow raced past him and cut him off.
He dragged himself to his feet and looked for cover.
Wait, that's not ogres. Those are men on horseback.
Relief flooded through him. He staggered toward them, holding up open hands. "Please, help me."
The patrol's leader reined up short, and Jerrad recognized him. His heart sank.
"Jerrad Vishov. How curious to find you here." Baron Blackshield scowled at him. "You've broken one of my rules, and for that, you shall pay dearly."
paizo.com #3236236, Corry Douglas
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Scourge of Silverlake
Tyressa forced her hands open as Baron Blackshield and his riders came through Silverlake's gate. The shadows from torchlight deepened the angry lines on the man's face, but Tyressa hadn't suffered under any illusion that he ever smiled sincerely. I don't want to be around when he does.
"To what do we owe this pleasure, Baron Blackshield?
The Master of Thornkeep raised a hand and impatiently flicked fingers. One of his subordinates came around to his side. A hooded figure, bound hand and foot, lay athwart the saddlebows. Even before the rider grabbed the back of the boy's tunic and unceremoniously dumped him to the ground, Tyressa's hand rose to her throat.
Jerrad.
Serrana, slinging her bow, ran to Jerrad and yanked the hood off. "Mouse's breathing."
Jerrad gave his sister a sharp look, the white of his eyes contrasting sharply with his dirty face. "I'm okay."
"He's got a cut on his head, Mother."
Tyressa met the baron's hooded gaze. "Do I thank you for fetching him here, or explain to your widow why I killed you for hurting him?"
"Temper, Tyressa of Silverlake. You don't want to start a war with Thornkeep."
"Look around you, my lord." She spread her hands. "You'll notice that my people have organized themselves into squads to search for my son. We outnumber your men here, and with Baron Creelisk's guards, we're a match for your house troops. If there's to be a war, you'll die with the first dozen arrows crossed in your heart."