by Josh Powell
As they walked down the room, ants parted, opening a path for them to follow. Maximina crowded quite close to Gurken and Pellonia, swallowing reflexively. Gurken and Pellonia strode confidently after Antic. The ants closed ranks behind them as they went.
Finally, the sea of ants parted before an enormous queen. Clem and Apocalypse waited next to her. The queen was as tall as a two-story house and almost entirely abdomen. She bent down and looked at Antic for a moment, then over at Maximina.
“Greetings otherworldly one,” scented the queen. “I am the Mother of the World, She that Births, the Bearer of Souls, the Queen Mother. What bri— Just a minute.” The queen groaned and shuddered and heaved and a white egg emerged. An ant of moderate size picked up the egg and wandered off with it.
“What brings you to my chamber?” the queen finished scenting to Maximina.
“Greetings, Queen Mother,” Maximina scented back. “We came here seeking to fight the Phage and drive them from this land.”
“They are a nast— hurr urrr urr.” Another egg emerged, another ant carried it off. “They are a nasty species. We thought the quadraworms were bad enough, but you are a minor annoyance compared to the Phage. We’ve been fighting them for — hurr urr urrk — for some time.”
“We’re happy to lend a hand where we can,” Maximina scented.
“A gracious offer,” scented the queen. “And it comes at a most opportune time. We’ve been unable to assault the Phage nest, but I believe that with your aid, and unique talents, we may be able to breach their lair and defeat them once and for all. Hurr urrr-urrrrrk! Ahhhhhhh, that one’s going to be a warrior.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Gurken asked. He stood before an iron door. It was ten feet tall and covered in scratches and gouges. The round knob was set into the door, with just enough clearance around it to fit a hand. Pellonia, Maximina, Clem, and Apocalypse stood by his side. A swarm of thousands of ants of various sizes lined up behind them, ready to advance.
Maximina shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
Gurken sighed, reached out, and turned the knob. It turned easily and the door swung open, silent due to a generous amount of oil on the hinges and the excellent balance easily achieved by a dwarf performing his craft. The opening revealing a dining area where dozens of Phage-controlled dwarves sat on wooden benches eating a meal. The dwarves looked up, eyes wide, mouths gaping, tentacles writhing. Ants streamed between Gurken and Maximina, pouring through the door and into the room.
Maximina yelled to Gurken over the sound of the ant stampede. “The Phage controlled area is contained within rock too hard for the ants to dig through. And ants can’t work a door knob with their pincers. You can see where they’ve tried! I really think we’ve turned the tide of the war.” Gurken frowned and shook his head.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Berserker and the Invasion
GURKEN, PELLONIA, MAXIMINA, Clem, and Apocalypse strode into the dining room after the last of the ants made their way inside. It was a gruesome sight. Giant ants were crawling on tables and benches, sundering limbs and carving out chunks of flesh.
The Phage-controlled dwarves were caught unprepared. Some pulled out weapons and some managed to brandish no more than a fork and butter knife. Still, they fought with what would be considered valor in an ally, and insane ferocity in a foe.
By the time the Ice Capaders could draw a weapon, it was over.
“A door,” Gurken said. “They only needed us to open a bloody door!”
Antic, having surveyed the scene and scented with a few of the ants, walked over to Maximina. Maximina looked down at the ant and the smell of rosemary percolated in the air.
“Gurken,” Maximina said. “The ants are in need of your aid once more.” She pointed towards another door.
Gurken rolled his eyes. “Bloody goblins! Reduced to a doorman. Sure, sure. I’d be happy to hold the door for you, sir ant.” Gurken strode to the door while talking and opened it. It was unlocked and opened with ease. Ants streamed through, and the battle once more ensued. Gurken frowned.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Pedant and the Portal
“THIS IS TAKING entirely too long,” Arthur said. “The portal should be open by now. Phage should be streaming through. The world should be ours! Why aren’t you finished?”
Arthur stood on top of the Phage ship, four orbs circling his head. Solid rock surrounded him for hundreds of feet in any direction. He could see across the entire valley from his vantage point. In one direction was a great ice wall and the floating city of Arendal. In another direction lay the cliff where Melody left the world and from which the goblins launched their assaults.
Ohm was close by, chained to the ship with heavy irons. He strummed half-heartedly on his lute, a sad melody of loss and heartache. His wrists, ankles, and neck were bloody and bruised, skin rubbed raw under the manacles. Melody was picking at the Orb of Skzd using some sort of hand tools. Red and white strands of copper stretched from the orb to an enchanted grimoire. The images on the book flickered and changed as she pressed the tools onto the orb. Melody grimaced.
“If you think it’s easy, you should come over here and do it yourself.” She stuck the tool towards Arthur. “After all, it only took Pellonia and I about a thousand years on board that cursed elven ship to design and engineer the portal system. Why should it take me any time at all to extend its range across distant worlds?”
“Fine. What’s the problem?” Arthur asked, taking the tool.
“You’re smart, I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Arthur bent over and examined the orb. “Mmm. Hmm. Yes, I see. Fine, then. Take this back. I haven’t the slightest idea.”
Melody smiled and took back the tool. “The problem is there isn’t enough power. It takes a great deal of energy to establish a portal. The greater the distance, the greater the required energy. Once a portal has been established, it requires significantly less energy to reopen. The path has already been trod, so to speak. It’s like cutting down brush and trees to make a path through a forest; the first trip takes a lot of effort. After that, not so much.”
“Could you, perhaps — I don’t know — use the Sphere of Annihilation?” Arthur asked.
Melody scowled at him. “Don’t you think if it were that eas—.” She stopped talking and thought for a moment. “Maybe. Maybe, we can. That’s brilliant. It will take some time to set up, but… it should be possible.”
Melody and Arthur abruptly stood straight up, eyes distant. After a moment, their eyes came back into focus.
“If that doesn’t beat all,” Arthur said. “Keep working, I’ll take care of it.”
“The Phage queen is under attack. We must answer her summons.”
“We will,” Arthur snapped. “The portal is more important. If the portal is open, we don’t need the queen any longer.”
“Doofus!” he shouted.
A hatch popped open in the floor, a few feet from Arthur and Melody. Rufus poked his head out and said, “Yes, sire?”
“Take the man in the silken cloak and attend to the Phage queen, she’s under attack by you-know-who,” Arthur said.
“You can’t possibly mean…”
Arthur sighed. “Yes. Somehow Gurken, Pellonia and Apocalypse survived.” At that comment, Ohm stopped playing and perked up. Hope spread on his face like dragon fire through a city. Arthur continued. “They’ve somehow managed to acquire an abomination as an ally and an army of those infuriating ants. They’ve broken through the Phage lines and are assaulting the queen. Get rid of them. Or at least, distract them until we’re able to open the portal. Take this with you.”
Arthur plucked two of the orbs circling his head and tossed them to Rufus. Rufus caught the orbs and stuffed them into his robe.
“Yes, sire!” he said. With that, Rufus popped back down into the ship and closed the latch behind him.
Arthur pinched his brow together. “It’s so hard to get good help.”
“Why haven’t you directed a Phage to take him over?”
“Don’t think I haven’t tried. On multiple occasions,” Arthur said. “Him and the man in the silken robe. They’re immune. It’s mysterious. He’s still loyal, even if he isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, so I keep him around. Let’s concentrate on finishing the portal.”
Melody snorted. “Yes, sire.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Berserker and the Last Door
PAIN SHOT THROUGH Gurken’s hand as the muscles cramped and stiffened. He relaxed the grip on his axe and stretched his fingers.
“One hundred and thirteen doors,” Gurken said.
Pellonia set a hand on Gurken’s shoulder as he stretched his hand. “Poor guy. Hand sore from turning knobs?”
“Har har har,” Gurken said. He shrugged his shoulders, dissolving her hand. “You’re quite amusing. I only wish it were from knob turnin’.” A Phage jumped out from behind some debris, lunging at Gurken.
“Magicae sagittam!” Maximina said, waving a pair of wands. Six glowing white-hot arrows appeared by her side and whipped out at the Phage. They struck it square on and it fell to the ground, dead.
Gurken nodded towards Maximina. She nodded back.
Antic skittered over to Maximina, but Pellonia picked him up before he could get there. The scent of sulfur filled the air as Antics pincers quivered, Maximina’s eyes flicked open, and she took a step back. Pellonia set Antic on her arm and stroked his head as he purred contentedly.
Maximina swallowed and said, “Antic says that except for the queen’s chamber, the armored terrorpods… err… the ants have cleared out the Phage on this ship. Just the one door left.”
“Here we go,” Gurken said as the door swung open. He stepped out of the way as ants streamed into the room. Brilliant flashes came from the room, lightning snapped and crackled, and an acrid smelling smoke billowed out of the door.
Gurken, Pellonia, Maximina, Clem, and Apocalypse charged through the door and into the cavern, flashes of light causing their shadows to silhouette and dance along the walls. In moments, hundreds of ants lay on their backs, shriveling and twitching as the last traces of lightning sparked between them.
On the other side of the room, not twenty feet away, the wall was covered from floor to ceiling in writhing tentacles of various sizes. Occasionally, a clump would fall to the ground and stand up. In front of the wall stood Rufus and the mysterious man in the silken robe. Rufus held an orb in his hand, lightning crackling. He smiled.
“Hullo there. I’m afraid I can’t let you kill the Phage queen,” Rufus said. “Fulguri!”
A bolt of lightning shot towards them as they dove out of the way. It struck Clem, who did not attempt to evade, knocking him back into the tunnel. More Phage popped off the wall of tentacles and advanced. Slurp-pop slurp-pop. Tentacles sucked at the floor as the Phage moved towards them.
Maximina reached into her magic sack and pulled out a skull and the jar of will o’ wisps. She opened the jar and the wisps trickled out into the air. She waved a hand over the skull.
“Surgere!” Will o’ the wisps twirled in the air around the skull, twisting like a glowing hurricane as they were sucked inside. Motes of light shot from the eyes of the skull and flew through the room, settling on the ant corpses. As they enveloped the corpses, wisps of smoky light coalesced into an image of the ant. The smoky ant images lay down into the ant bodies. The ants quivered and stood up, marching awkwardly at first, then with more conviction. They met the advancing Phage head on and fought with grim determination. Ants were crushed, tentacles were severed.
Pellonia looked at Maximina. Maximina shrugged. “A dash of necromantic wizardry comes in handy,” she said.
Pellonia smiled and nodded. “You’re amazing.” Maximina blushed.
“No!” Rufus cried. “Those souls were mine!” He gritted his teeth. “No matter, there will be more. We’ve got a surprise for you.” The sound of giggling came from the wall of tentacles. Three Pellonias emerged from the tentacle wall. They were glowing a frosty blue, and a chill fell over the room as they emerged.
The first Pellonia held an axe of ice. Gurken recognized the axe as Sjekira, the axe gifted him from the frost giants. It was made from solid ice that would not — according to the frost giants — melt and was enchanted to freeze any foe it struck.
The second Pellonia wore a glimmering bracelet, Narukvica. It bestowed on its wearer an immunity to cold. Whoever wore it would know no chill, no matter how deep the freeze.
The third Pellonia wielded the mystic hammer Cekic. Any that struck someone brandishing Cekic would freeze in an instant, and one blow from the hammer would shatter them.
“Did you forget something in Arendal?” the Pellonias inquired, batting their eyes with faux sweetness.
“How did you get those?” Gurken asked.
“After we, The Lightning Brigade, retrieved the Sphere of Annihilation, the Bureau of Adventurers Guild asked if we would like to pay the ransom on the items they held as collateral against our taxes. Imagine our surprise, because we hadn’t put any items on reserve, and we’d already paid our taxes.”
Pellonia glared at them. “So you paid our taxes and got our weapons?”
The Pellonias smiled, and one of them said, “Good heavens, no. You owe a lot of taxes. Because of our newfound notoriety from saving the city from the plant beast and retrieving the Sphere of Annihilation, they decided to release the weapons to us. Your taxes are still pending. Don’t worry, we made sure they knew all about you.”
“Hello!” Rufus shouted, waving his arms to gather everyone’s attention. “They aren’t the surprise. This is the surprise.” He grinned and gestured to an enormous fleshy sphere, easily five feet in diameter. It floated in the air a foot off the ground; its mottled flesh was stitched together and there was a huge indentation in it above a smiling mouth filled with sharp, pointing teeth. Tentacles thrashed and squirmed on top of the sphere, one of them grasping an orb.
“Behold her, Hinenuitepo. The goddess of death and ruler of the underworl—”
“Did you say a beholder?” Pellonia asked, interjecting.
“A behold… no, no. I said ‘Behold her,’ as in look at—”
“Seems like another rather vague name,” Gurken said. “It could refer to anything at all. One must behold something in order to see what it is.”
“That’s not wha—”
“It’s hardly the worst name we’ve come across,” Maximina added with her own interjection. “Quite a good one if you ask me. Beholder. Sounds intimidating. Has some heft to it.”
“Very well,” Rufus said, squinting at them. “You all have fun. I’m a bit busy, I’ve got to go help Arthur open a portal and end the world.” Rufus and the mysterious man in the silken robes turned and walked away, robes billowing in the air. The beholder floated toward Maximina, ice crackling in its orb.
“Gurken!” Pellonia shouted. “Take out the beholder! Maximina, keep the Phage busy.”
“I don’t know,” Gurken said. “I haven’t been myself lately. My axe is broke, and that beholder has just as much right to live as we do. It seems I’m only good for opening doors.”
“Those goblins you befriended are the problem, aren’t they Gurken? Ever since you’ve come to understand the enemy, you haven’t been able to get a good rage going. Well screw that, you’ve got to be yourself. Kill that beholder or he’ll kill us!”
“You’re right, Pellonia. Dwarfen runes or no, I’ll kill the beasty.” Gurken glared at the beholder, tightened his grip on his axe, and growled.
“Great, I’ll handle the Pellonias.”
“Sure, sure you will,” the Pellonias said in unison. Then they giggled. “Three against one, this will be fun. Hey, that rhymes.” They clapped their hands and squealed.
Clem strode back into the room, stopping at Pellonia’s side.
Pellonia corrected them. “Three against two.”
“Clem smash y
ou!” Clem said.
“Oh, that was good!” Pellonia said, nodding with satisfaction.
“I shall smash them,” Clem agreed.
Gurken stepped toward the beholder. He shook the handle of his axe, in a vain attempt to light up the dwarfen runes. Kenaz, the dwarfen rune of vision, the vital fire of life, and the power to create your own reality remained dormant along with the rest of the runes. Gurken snarled and ran toward the beast, axe raised above his head, shouting an ancient dwarfen battle cry.
The fleshy orb that was the beholder hovered, the tentacles slipping and flipping around on top of its head. The tentacle holding the orb turned toward Gurken and a small circle formed on the surface of the orb, shrinking and expanding as if it were a pupil on an eye on the top of a tentacle stalk. Blue light discharged from the orb, a frosty halo swirling around it.
Phage continued to drop from the wall. Shkkkt-splat, shkkkt-splat. The zombie ants plunged into them with reanimated pincers. The Phage latched onto their heads and pushed their tentacles into the ants’ mouths, only to have the tentacles cleaved off by the ants’ pincers.
Simultaneously, the Phage ceased this tactic and swarmed the ants, plucking off their legs. The ants lay there, pincers snapping at the air, and the Phage retreated to swarm another ant.
“Oh, no,” Maximina said.
“Don’t touch the one with the hammer, Clem!” Pellonia said. “You’ll be frozen. Take the one with the axe.”
Clem picked up a small boulder and heaved it at the Pellonia with the axe. She dodged away and rolled closer. Clem heaved another stone, which Pellonia easily evaded. Clem, not displaying the resourcefulness that might be expected from a creature that was made from parts and pieces of Arthur, picked up yet another stone.