Liar's Blade

by Tim Pratt

  "Should we follow?" Cilian said.

  Zaqen nodded. "Yes. But I will go first. That way if my brother comes out of the dark, he will pass by me before he sees you, and I can toss him a few eyes to mollify him." She took back the light rod and moved slowly down the tunnel. The back of her robe was stained with the fluids oozing from her back.

  The corridor was carved from the stone, wide enough for them to walk two abreast, though they went single-file instead. "My brother has triggered some traps," Zaqen said. "That explains the twinges of pain I've been feeling." She pointed to a heap of shattered arrows. They'd been rigged to fire from the right side of the tunnel, and had smashed themselves to fragments on the left side, their arrowheads damp and partially melted. A single punctured eyeball was speared on the point of one of the arrows.

  "That didn't hurt him? Your ...twin?" Rodrick said.

  "I call him Lump," she said. "And no. Lump's body isn't bothered much by projectiles or blades. They tend to just pass through, and the wounds seal up again as soon as the penetration is done. Occasionally an eye does get snagged, though. That makes Lump angry. And hungry. Hungrier."

  They continued and found another trap, this one a wide, crescent-shaped blade that had fallen from the ceiling and now spanned the width of the tunnel. The blade was smeared with ichor and surrounded by a few eyeballs, all sliced in half as neatly as grapes for a salad. "Lump survived that?" Rodrick said, aghast.

  Zaqen shrugged. It was a much less dramatic gesture with her hump gone. "Have you ever tried to slice a pudding in half? It just flows back together again. That's Lump."

  "You feel these arrows, these blades?" Cilian said. "The pain?"

  "Well, yes, but it doesn't feel like I've been chopped in half. The arrows were a bit like getting splinters. This blade coming down, that was like slicing the ball of your thumb on a paper knife, a short stinging sensation. It could be much worse."

  They stepped carefully over the blade and continued, the tunnel now curving toward the left, and Zaqen paused to peer into a pit ten feet across, blocking their progress. "Hmm. I think there's a pressure plate here, where I'm standing. It must have made a portion of the floor fall in, or a sliding panel move aside."

  Rodrick eased himself forward and looked down. He grunted. There was no bottom, as far as he could tell, just an opening to lightless depths. "Do you think Lump, ah ..."

  Zaqen shook her head. "No, he's still up ahead. My brother is sticky. He can climb up walls like a snail. He's fine."

  "How do you know his location?" Cilian asked. "Do you have a psychic bond?"

  Zaqen snorted. "Nothing as poetic as that. Here, Rodrick, give me your hand."

  He held out his hand, a bit nervously.

  "All right," she said, "now close your eyes."

  "Ah—"

  "Don't be so nervous."

  Rodrick obeyed. Zaqen took his hand and lifted his arm up over his head, then let go. "All right. Where's your hand?"

  "Is this a trick question?"

  "Only if you make it one."

  "All right, then. My hand is over my head." He wiggled his fingers. "Right there."

  "Good. Open your eyes. How did you know where your hand was? You couldn't see it. But it's not a psychic bond. It's proprioception. I know where Lump is the same way you know where your hand is—he's part of my body, even if he happens to be away from my body at this particular moment. I think Lump can sense me as well. He must be able to. The times I tried to flee from him, he always found me again, days or weeks later, no matter how far I ran. He's not too far away now, either. Any ideas for how to get across the pit?"

  "My pleasure," Hrym said. The temperature suddenly plunged, making Rodrick shiver, and an icy bridge shimmered into existence across the middle of the pit. Zaqen started across, walking slowly and cautiously—then gasped, doubled over, and fell to her knees. She nearly fell into the pit, but Rodrick leapt forward (his feet sure on the ice, thanks to one of Hrym's quiet little spells, no doubt) and seized her by the arm. He pulled her back up, then half-dragged, half-carried her to the far side of the pit, depositing her on the stone floor. She gasped and trembled, gnashing her teeth and rolling her eyes. "What is it?" Rodrick said. "Zaqen, are you having some kind of fit, or—"

  "My brother," she gasped. "My brother is fighting. And he is not winning."

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Frost Monster

  Stay with her!" Rodrick boomed to Cilian. He snatched up Zaqen's light rod and hurried down the corridor.

  "Why are you rushing into danger and leaving a perfectly good human shield like Cilian behind?" Hrym asked. "That's not like you."

  Rodrick didn't slow down, though it was a damn good question. "I just want to be the first to lay my hands on this great red jewel," he said, and Hrym laughed.

  "Of course, that's it. You've gone sweet on the sorcerer, haven't you? I never knew you had such a weakness for the lost and the broken."

  "I—"

  "It's fine," Hrym said. "I haven't been plunged into the guts of anything alive in ages. I could do with a warm bloodbath."

  Rodrick hesitated in front of another triggered trap—this one a series of metal spikes that had slammed down from the ceiling into slots on the floor, creating a forest of sharpened metal. He touched Hrym against a few of the spikes, freezing them into brittleness, then shattered them with sword blows. In that fashion he managed to clear an irregular path through the spikes, sufficient for him to slip through. Not far beyond the spikes he found a steep flight of stone steps, and he rushed to the landing at the top. A wooden door, banded with metal, still stood in the doorframe, but it had a great ragged hole burned out of the center, as if by acid. After making sure there was no acid still bubbling around the edges, Rodrick ducked and wriggled through the hole.

  The chamber beyond stank of acid and blood and damp fur. The room was roughly circular, and in the center stood a long rectangular stone altar. On it rested a red, spherical jewel nearly the size of a child's head. Beyond the altar, in the shadows where Rodrick's light did not reach, something enormous roared and thrashed and howled, its voice so low and powerful it made Rodrick's back teeth vibrate. He dropped the light rod to the floor and drew Hrym, then crouched, trying to see what kind of beast he was about to face.

  "Snatch up the jewel and run away," Hrym said reasonably.

  "But ...Zaqen's brother ..."

  "She said he can pull himself together from shreds, and can follow her to the ends of the world, if need be," the sword said. "So let him."

  "Right." Rodrick saw the sense in his friend's counsel. Putting himself in danger to save a member of the party was questionable behavior anyway, and when the party member in question was a lump of optophagic tentacled slime, it was doubly so. He hurried toward the altar, hoping that removing the jewel wouldn't trigger any traps. Just as he reached for the bezoar, something flew out of the darkness and smashed into his chest, knocking him to the ground. Hrym went flying from his fingers, clattering on the stones and complaining bitterly about the impact.

  The thing that had struck Rodrick's chest moved, wriggling and surging, and when the thief lifted his head to look, he screamed.

  Lump was on his chest, tentacles writhing, one of his eyes—an ice-blue one as big as a peach—gazing directly into Rodrick's face.

  I have such pretty eyes, Rodrick thought, squeezing them shut, as if his eyelids would save him if Lump decided to scoop his eyeballs from his head.

  Instead Lump slithered off his body, and when Rodrick opened one eye to look around, the parasite was vanishing back into the dark behind the altar. A moment later there was another roar, and the hideous creature flew through the air again, this time hurled against the wall, where it struck wetly, then slid down, landing unmoving on the stone floor.

  Rodrick got to his feet unsteadily—his chest hurt like he'd been punched over the heart with a mailed fist—then stumbled toward Hrym. "The jewel!" Hrym cried. "Get it first!"

  Ri
ght. Rodrick changed direction, veering to the black stone altar. He reached out with both hands and seized the jewel, which was warm, as if it still retained some heat from the red dragon's belly where it had been formed.

  "Stop!" called a low, harsh voice from behind the altar, and it spoke with such authority that Rodrick actually paused.

  A figure moved toward him, the illumination from the dropped light rod just revealing the outline of its shape. Rodrick whimpered, clutching the jewel to his belly, because when things that stood ten feet tall and five feet across the shoulders approached him, a certain amount of involuntary whimpering was to be expected. The creature radiated cold, and its single eye glowed pale blue: Rodrick would have said it burned pale blue, but this was the opposite of burning. It froze pale blue, and the sight of that eye was somehow so terrifying that it made Rodrick stand fast in place, paralyzed with a fear that went beyond the body, and made him think the monster was somehow meddling with his mind.

  The thing shambled a step closer, and it was like nothing he'd ever seen before: roughly human in shape but covered in shaggy white fur, mouth a fanged cavern, arms so long its clawed fingers nearly brushed the ground. Its right eye was missing, blood oozing from the socket and crusted on its fur.

  "Please," it said. "Leave the jewel."

  Rodrick tore his gaze away from its single eye and the temporary paralysis diminished. He scurried backward, squatted to snatch up Hrym, and brandished the blade at the monster. "I can't do that. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I must."

  "You travel with that ...thing?" the beast said, its voice understandable despite the rough growl that seemed to rumble behind every word. "That demon, the beast with the eyes?"

  "Lump was born right here on Golarion, actually," Rodrick said. "Though I'll grant you that some of his ancestors must have been immigrants from peculiar shores. I'm sorry he attacked you that way. Lump is a creature of appetites. We didn't expect to encounter someone down here we could make conversation with. There are stories, you know, about the monster that lives in this pit, and kills anyone who comes near."

  "The traps kill most of them," the beast said. "I eat their remains, though. Once I would have found the idea of eating humans and elves and dwarves repulsive, but the taste of such flesh agrees with this body. Still: I will allow you to leave. Losing an eye has put me off the idea of fighting for now. Just put down the jewel, and depart."

  "What good is this gem doing you?" Rodrick continued edging almost imperceptibly backward, Hrym in one hand, the jewel in the other. "You can hardly sell it. I understand you might be starved for beautiful things down here, but I'll tell you what, I'll head back to New Stetven and nip into a shop and have someone make a beautiful ornament for you, I'm sure I can have someone deliver it—"

  "You see merely a treasure to be looted, foolish mortal," the beast said. It placed its hands—claws, really—on the altar and vaulted over the obstruction, landing in a crouch that still let it tower over Rodrick by a few feet. "But the jewel is more than that. I have been tasked to protect it."

  "Ah, you're a guardian, well, of course, I understand," Rodrick said. "Fear not, we are on a mission from the very god who hid this jewel so long ago—"

  "You lie, or you are deceived," the beast said flatly. "Aroden died. I felt him die. The entire world has been sickening ever since."

  "Aroden?" Rodrick said. "Gozreh sent us—"

  "Gozreh? What does Gozreh have to do with anything? I am an ancient of Aroden's cohort, sworn to guard this jewel. It was never to be used again save by Aroden himself, and now that he is dead, it must never be used. The guardians of the other keys have fallen victim to age and entropy and decay, all long dead but myself and one other, but I was a great priest and wizard, and I lived on even when my first body died. I moved my mind from my human form into the bodies of cave bears, frost trolls, ice giants, and finally into this yeti. But ..." He clasped a hand to his wounded eye, and, to Rodrick's astonishment, let out what sounded like a sorrowful sob. "My magic is nearly faded. It began to fade when Aroden died, and has not fared well since. I tried to leave this body, to take another form, and I could not. I will die in this body. And if need be, I will die defending that artifact from pillagers and thieves. The fact that you are ignorant of the gem's true purpose, and of the danger it poses, is the only reason I will consent to let you leave here alive. Put the gem down, and I think ...once you have left this place, I will use the last of my magics to collapse these tunnels. I have lived so long that I now fear death, but that fear has made me weak. I will seal myself inside with the jewel. If I must die, I can at least die with the gem buried beside me, and my ghost can defend it from any who might seek it in centuries to come."

  "You make a good point," Rodrick said. "Why don't we just—freeze him, Hrym!"

  The sword went cold in Rodrick's hand, and a swirling sideways tornado of ice sprayed forth from the point of the blade, making the yeti disappear in a wave of white. Rodrick grinned and started to turn away—until a heavy hand touched his shoulder, pressing him down to his knees and sending waves of cold through his body so intensely that his teeth began to chatter instantly.

  "Mortal," the beast rumbled behind him. "I am in the body of a yeti. They are creatures of the highest icy peaks, imbued with frost magics. The cold does not touch me. But the cold I create can touch you."

  "I'm trying to spare you the worst of it, Rodrick, but it's not like ordinary cold," Hrym said. "Bugger."

  "B-b-b-b-bugger," Rodrick agreed, his arm now numb from the beast's frigid touch. Without Hrym's magic insulating him from the worst of the cold, he thought it was quite likely he'd die—and he might anyway.

  But there was movement before his eyes: Lump came squirming across the floor, body diminished in size but still easily as big as a crawling human child. Some of his tentacles had been raggedly severed, giving his movement an ungainly cast, but Lump came onward gamely—and as he approached, he opened a new eye, one of freezing, glowing blue. The yeti let go of Rodrick's shoulder, roaring in outrage. Lump built up speed and leapt over Rodrick, slamming into the yeti's chest.

  Rodrick rolled over and watched as Lump flowed up the yeti's body, covering its howling face, tentacles elongating and squirming and questing for points of entry. The yeti howled, its screams muffled by flesh pressing against his face. Rodrick struggled to his feet and tried to run—he just about managed to limp—toward the door, the red jewel tucked under his arm, Hrym somehow still clutched in his fingers despite the numbness in his arm. He gestured vaguely with the sword, as best he could, but Hrym got the idea, and spikes of ice burst forth in a spray of needles and smashed apart the wooden door: there was no way Rodrick could wriggle through the hole Lump had burned, not in his cold and battered state.

  He stumbled down the stairs, toward the maze of spikes, and carefully threaded his way through, awkwardly twisting and turning to slip through without losing his grip on the gem or on Hrym, too weak to raise the sword and smash more of the spikes aside. As he emerged from the maze, Cilian approached, supporting Zaqen with one arm. "We heard shouting!" the huntsman called. "Are you safe, friend?"

  "Oh, perfectly," Rodrick began, and a horrible roar rolled down the tunnel, followed by a wave of cold. He turned, guts tightening in fear.

  The yeti guardian came tromping down the steps, body so huge he filled the passageway, bellowing in murderous rage.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Sadness of the Executed

  Both the yeti's eyes were gone now, the white fur of his face smeared horribly red. Halfway down the steps he lost his footing and crashed facedown on the ground.

  "An abominable snowman," Cilian said. "I have heard of such creatures, but never thought to see one."

  The yeti lifted its blind head and began to drag itself forward. "Stop," it said. "Please. Leave the gem. I will tell you of other treasures. Ancient ones, unknown to all and only lightly guarded. Just leave the gem."

  "I didn't realize
those creatures could speak," Cilian said, frowning.

  "They don't generally speak languages that humans do." Zaqen's voice was a husky rasp. "They speak the old tongue of the serpentfolk, or of other planes, though in general yeti despise those who share my bloodline. Some say they are guardians of the thin places, where this world touches other, stranger ones. But this yeti seems to think it should be guarding our key."

  "Key," the yeti said, and dragged himself forward until he reached the forest of spikes, then cried out when his clawed hand touched one of the sharp spines, and began to bleed freely. "You ...you know it is a key. But you cannot know ..."

  "He didn't begin as a yeti," Rodrick said. "He says—"

  "You do not know what danger you hold in your hand," the yeti said, voice pitched in the timbre of a whisper, but loud enough to carry down the passageway. "The thing you could unleash—"

  Just then Lump came slithering down the steps, sliding like a boneless thing, and crawled across the yeti's back. The beast—or wizard-priest in beast form—howled, and smoke rose from Lump's passage. Zaqen's parasitic twin was excreting acid of some kind, and he paused for a long moment on the back of the yeti's head, tentacles waving almost gaily. The two freezing blue eyes he had stolen from the guardian of the key blinked asynchronously. After the yeti slumped, still and silent, his head a smoking ruin, Lump slithered forward. He made no attempt to avoid the spike traps, simply undulating along placidly. The razored spikes sliced him, and sliced him again, so that soon he was slithering in a dozen ribbon-like pieces. Once he emerged from the other side, the pieces oozed back together, forming a seemingly seamless whole.

  "My eyes," Zaqen rasped, and Cilian opened her bag and handed her the jar. She reached in, took a handful of eyes, and tossed them to her brother, who leapt and absorbed them into himself.

  Zaqen took off her robe and knelt. "Come, brother. You are tired from your battle. You have done well. You deserve your rest."