Too Young to Die

by Michael Anderle

  But no matter how the world looked, one thing was true. “I don’t want him in danger,” she said.

  “He is in danger,” DuBois said. “And it’s necessary that he understand that. Humans can believe all manner of lies. He has to understand the danger he’s in and believe it—then he can begin to wake up.” He shrugged. “Or so my research suggests.”

  “So it suggests?” Mary wanted to tear her hair out. “Look, this is dangerous and I don’t like an AI to make decisions. Can’t you help him?”

  “I tried,” the doctor said. “I really did. I gave him a new party member, you see, someone who could help him fight the wizard.”

  “And?” She folded her arms and glared at him.

  He seemed impervious to glares and merely shrugged. “They didn’t hit it off. I don’t think he likes her, which is weird because he seemed to like many of the tavern wenches. So I thought maybe he’d like a woman as a party member.” He shook his head, baffled. “I even made her very much like him. It did not work.”

  Mary turned in a circle. She was fairly sure she would scream.

  “Oh, he’s waking up.” DuBois sounded pleased.

  “He’s—well, do something!”

  “I am going to do something,” he said. He held out the bag of popcorn to her. “I’m going to watch. Popcorn?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The entire village was outside, incongruously dressed in cloaks now that the rain had stopped. Embers drifted on the wind again—beautiful, if you didn’t know what they were. The people crowded close to the fountain in the middle of the square. Half seemed to have decided it was safer to look down, while others looked up unwillingly at the man above them.

  Sephith’s age was difficult to determine. His hair was still a glossy brown, tied back from the sides of his head in ornate braids. He would have looked like one of the elves from Lord of the Rings if it weren’t for his clothing. It was black, ornate enough to show his wealth and faintly ragged enough to suggest decay and violence. Knives were thrust into his belt together with a rusty flail, both of which had old blood on them.

  The wizard looked around with an expression of utter contempt. He saw the villagers before him and he hated them intensely. It was abundantly clear to Justin that he did not simply use them as toys—he wanted them to suffer.

  “Certain thoughts and words have reached my ears,” Sephith announced. His voice was amplified to boom around the town square. “Some of you are plotting to kill me. You believe that your pathetic lives have worth and that your feeble attempts to kill me will come to fruition. You wish to rally your people to attack me together.”

  There was a murmur of dissent. No one wanted to speak out too openly but people shook their heads as if they tried to assure the wizard that nothing was afoot that he should be angry about.

  “Do not deny it,” Sephith snapped at them. “You know what you must do. When someone speaks against me, you are to mete out justice in this very square. You are to keep the peace rather than let rebellion foment and spread. But have you done so?”

  A tense silence followed his challenge.

  “Or have you decided to protect the heretics among you?” he asked. “I think you have.”

  Justin was done with this speech. He began to push toward the front of the group. Someone caught his hand but he shook their grasp away. He intended to do this and he wouldn’t let anyone stop him.

  “I am a kind master,” Sephith said. “Far kinder than you deserve. In the west, whole villages have their minds enslaved. They live only to serve wizards and are killed on a whim. Do I do such things? No. I kill only when my experiments require it and to keep the peace.”

  A little impatiently, Justin shoved people out of his way. They didn’t seem to want to move but he wouldn’t let them continue to be cowards. This man was a bully and a game boss, and he was determined to get the XP and the ten gold for defeating him, stat.

  “And because you continue to force my hand,” Sephith said, “I must keep the peace now. I require three lives to atone for this rebellion. Three, and my anger shall be sated. You may choose which three to give me.”

  The village erupted into cries for mercy. People shoved Justin out of the way as they crowded close to the fountain. They fell to their knees and stretched imploring hands to the wizard as they begged piteously for mercy in a community appeal.

  “There shall be no mercy,” Sephith thundered. “I gave you mercy when I let you live your pathetic lives without slave crowns on your heads and this is the thanks I get for that mercy. No, mercy only causes rebellion. If it is justice you require, it is justice I will give you.”

  Someone pulled Justin back sharply and a figure in all black pushed past him. Anna had her gaze fixed on the wizard and she muttered something under her breath. One hand hovered near the hilt of a dagger at her belt.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” He clutched her cloak and yanked. She stumbled back with a yelp and the two of them struggled. They were close to evenly matched and for a few furious seconds, the sound of the crowd faded and all he could hear was the rasp of their breath and the regular dings as his Grappling skill updated itself.

  “He’s mine,” she whispered in a tone close to a hiss. “You know nothing about him. You’ll get yourself killed!”

  “If you intended to kill him, you would have done it already,” he retorted sharply. “You’re all talk.”

  “And you only care about the glory!” Anna ducked under his arm and pushed to the front of the crowd. When he grasped her arm to haul her back, she twisted expertly out of his hold. “These people deserve more than to have you save them so you can kiss the tavern wenches!”

  “You’re merely angry no one wants to kiss you. And they don’t want to kiss you because you’re insufferable!”

  She grinned at him. “I could say the same of you, couldn’t I?”

  That retort stung. Justin jerked away. “Screw you.” He shoved her into the crowd, only for her to shove him in return.

  The force of their physical exchange was enough to thrust the two of them onto a patch of open ground in front of the wizard.

  Justin didn’t wait. He was done with waiting and with pussyfooting around. Determined, he drew his sword and turned to face the villagers.

  “Don’t you hear his lies? He’s the one with his foot on your neck and every time he lifts it a little, he tells you he’s the one who saved your life. It isn’t mercy to not enslave you. It isn’t justice to take people when someone speaks out against him.” He lifted his sword into the air. “Today, you’ll see how a wizard should be dealt with.”

  He turned and lunged at the wizard. It was clear a moment into the jump that he wouldn’t successfully stab Sephith in the heart, but there were other targets he could reach. He angled his sword toward the groin, decided at the last moment that he wasn’t ready to do that to another man, and pointed slightly down to catch the wizard in the thigh.

  The strike never connected. In fact, he didn’t seem to have moved any closer to the wizard at all. Sephith held one hand out, the palm facing Justin, who remained suspended in midair.

  “What a display of strength and justice,” Sephith drawled. “As if you would recognize either, adventurer.”

  Something roared past Justin and he would have jumped if he’d been able to move at all. As it was, his heart apparently tried to leap sideways out of his chest and was, fortunately, stopped by his ribcage.

  Anna’s spell exploded around Sephith, and for an instant, the outlines of a magical shield were visible and gleamed in facets like a dragon’s scales. She gave a triumphant yell and Justin was about to shout that she hadn’t done any good at all when he saw what she’d intended.

  At the center of her spell, surrounded by the explosion that had weakened Sephith’s shields, had been a blade made of magic. It appeared that magic, like everything else, was vulnerable to a direct strike in a very small area. Propelled forward by the strength of the blast, her magical blade had
burst through the shields. It hadn’t gone far but it had drawn blood.

  There was a moment of pure, terrified silence. The wizard raised his other hand to touch the blood on his cheek and looked at her with the coldest expression Justin had ever seen.

  “That,” he said quietly, “was a mis—”

  Anna threw another spell without warning. The air around her target exploded once more and this time, he tumbled back. He snarled as he righted himself and rather than float, he stood instead on the rough cobblestones. The villagers pushed and shoved each other to get away.

  She advanced as she hurled her next spell, followed closely by another. When she finally drew her daggers and surged at Sephith, the wizard was so distracted that his free hand faltered and Justin immediately plummeted.

  “Ow,” he protested from where he sprawled in a hard landing. He looked up as Sephith made a wrenching movement with one hand and Anna’s knife was ripped from her fingers to hover in the air between them. It began to glow, first a dull orange and then cherry-red, before it turned white-hot and the metal splattered onto the stones. She jumped away with a cry of pain.

  “This is what your defiance has earned you!” Sephith yelled. He advanced and held a roiling cloud of darkness between his two hands.

  “For Stouthooooooooold!” yelled a gruff, familiar voice. The crowd scattered as Lyle burst out of cover and ran toward the wizard, his fists up and ready.

  Sephith jerked aside. The black cloud in his hands disappeared as the dwarf plowed sideways into him and Justin gave a reflexive snort of laughter at the look of surprise on the wizard’s face. He toppled sideways, only for his attacker to jump into the fray with his fists swinging.

  “Ye can’t punch a spell,” Lyle yelled, “but ye can punch a wizard! Who’s with me?”

  For a moment, Justin thought the people around him might join the fight. If the dwarf had continued to win, he was sure they would have. They had feared the wizard for a very long time and he had killed God only knew how many of their friends and family. With Lyle inflicting real damage, they were ready for revenge.

  Unfortunately, Sephith was as powerful a wizard as the stories claimed. An explosion ripped through the town square like a thunderclap and the dwarf catapulted away. He struck the side of the tavern with a deep thud and slid down to lie still.

  “Lyle!” Justin yelled. Fury filled him and he pushed to his feet to attack.

  “Look out!” a female voice yelled, and Anna tackled him sideways.

  “Let me up!” He shoved her away. “God, you can’t let anyone else—”

  Then he saw what she’d pushed him away from. Sephith floated once more and the air around him was wreathed in green and black flames that were so hot, they melted the cobblestones. The heat wasn’t as bad as it should be only a few feet away, but he still winced and the people cowered with cries of pain and fear.

  “You have one day,” the wizard boomed. “Be grateful I only ask for three lives in recompense for this rebellion. True justice would be far harder on all of you. If you do not send three sacrifices to my tower within a day, I shall take one from every family in the village.”

  He disappeared with a thunderclap, and the flames vanished with him. Justin edged forward slightly, saw that the cobblestones truly were melted, and wanted to throw up. He had almost been in the path of those flames. Without a doubt, he had very nearly been melted the same way the stone had.

  Who was he kidding? He wouldn’t even have melted and would simply have gone up in flames. His skin prickled.

  The villagers were crying. Young children buried their faces in their parents’ shoulders while townspeople argued between themselves, hissing names and accusations at one another. Anna walked quietly to where the remains of her dagger had cooled and become an inextricable part of the cobbles. Only the hilt of the weapon was recognizable.

  Justin stared at the tower in the distance. His hatred was so intense that he forgot anything else for a while. Then, reality clicked in.

  “Lyle!” With a curse, he ran to find his friend.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Interesting,” DuBois said. “Very interesting.”

  “What’s interesting?” Mary was sure she would lose her mind. She couldn’t read the little lines of code that continually appeared on the screen, and the doctor kept forgetting to interpret them. Sometimes, she thought he was not telling her on purpose so that she wouldn’t get worried about Justin, but that only made her paranoid when he genuinely forgot to translate.

  “He survived his first encounter with the wizard,” he said and stretched a little to pat her hand. “That’s good.”

  “His…first encounter? He didn’t beat the wizard?” She was fairly sure the character was supposed to be dead at the end of this, although that seemed bloodthirsty on her part.

  “No,” DuBois said. “I didn’t expect that he would. What’s interesting is that he and the two group °members are functioning as a team. They don’t like each other but it is going fairly well.” He swallowed more popcorn before he continued. “Also, he’s beginning to get more deeply invested in the game world. I don’t see any of his joke dialogue.” He saw her confusion. “He used to say things that showed he knew it was a game but he hasn’t said those as much.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “That’s very good,” he assured her. “In fact—uh-oh.”

  ***-

  Lyle lay inert outside the tavern. Justin shoved villagers out of his way as he ran to his side and lowered his head to listen for breath. He couldn’t see his teammate’s sides moving.

  Then, with a groan, the dwarf rolled onto his back and uttered a snore. Justin jerked back. His heart pounded with relief but the snore sounded like a water buffalo breathing through oatmeal. He had begun to wonder how he had managed to get a single moment of sleep since getting there.

  “Lyle?” He shook the dwarf’s shoulder and craned to check if there was any blood in his hair. He didn’t see any. Maybe dwarves were built more sturdily than humans. “Lyle, wake up.”

  It occurred to him how weird it was to try to wake an injured person in the game while he lay comatose in a bed somewhere.

  That was strange. For the duration of the fight, he had forgotten entirely that this was a game at all. When Sephith had held him suspended and melted the rocks, he had been furious, terrified, and ready for action—and there hadn’t been any room in his mind for disbelief.

  He shook his head. Now wasn’t the time for that. Right now, Lyle needed help.

  “Is he all right?” Anna asked. She had come to stand at his side.

  “Yes,” he said shortly. No thanks to you. “Help me get him up.”

  She came to loop Lyle’s other arm around her shoulders and the two of them levered him upright. The dwarf’s head flopped onto her shoulder before it lolled forward so his chin rested on his chest. He seemed half awake and stumbled as they walked him into the tavern. Sometimes, his feet found purchase on the ground but at other times, he seemed to sink into unconsciousness again.

  Both Justin and Anna were panting by the time they got inside. Dwarves were heavy. Frankly, he was surprised the wall of the tavern didn’t have a Lyle-shaped hole in it.

  “I need to see a healer,” he called. “The dwarf was injured fighting Sephith.”

  The innkeeper had come inside after the wizard disappeared and he gave them a dark look. “You troublemakers can get out of here. It was your meddling that made Sephith come in the first place.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Anna said heatedly. “He’s the one who ran his mouth. I showed up weeks ago and haven’t caused any problems for anyone.”

  “Until now, you mean?” The man shook his head.

  “Well, what’s your long-term plan, then?” Anna snapped. “You’ll simply wait while he picks the whole village off by twos and threes? Someone needs to deal with him!”

  “I was trying,” Justin said.

  “Oh, shut up,” she told him.
“You made a big speech, gave him time to get ready, and ran straight at him with the worst sword I’ve ever seen.”

  He couldn’t come up with a good retort to this and was thankfully saved by the tavern wench, who came to clear a table. She gestured for them to lay Lyle on it. Without seeming to care about the innkeeper’s glare, she checked for a pulse and pulled his eyelids up.

  “I thought so,” she said finally. She wiped her hands on her apron. “Your friend’s not hurt. He’ll be fine.”

  “Then…why won’t he wake up?” Justin asked. That seemed to be the million-dollar question these days.

  “He’s drunk,” the wench said. She looked at Lyle and sighed. “I had my suspicions after how much he drank before the wizard got here.”

  “That was only ten minutes.”

  “And ten minutes is enough for a dwarf to put away half a barrel.” She shrugged. “He’ll be fine. I’m not saying he won’t feel that hit on his head tomorrow, but he’ll feel the drink worse.”

  Justin smiled and strolled toward her, but her expression turned stony.

  “And my father’s right. You should all leave.”

  He looked at Anna, who smirked. “Not a word,” he told her.

  “I’ll be damned,” she said. “That tavern wench isn’t as easy a mark as I thought.”

  The sound of the crowd grew louder, and before he had a chance to respond, people streamed into the tavern. They shouted as one when they saw Lyle, Anna, and Justin.

  “There they are!” someone yelled.

  The crowd roared approval.

  “I don’t think I like this,” Justin remarked.

  “You really pissed them off,” Anna told him.

  “I pissed them off?”

  “Yes, you. If you hadn’t—” She stopped as the crowd pressed closer and looked at them, tight-lipped. “Yes?”

  “Sephith wants three people,” one of the men said. He pointed at them. “And we have three people right here, don’t we?”