41
Only, it wasn’t as simple as tracking a thread through the halls of some moldy labyrinth crawling with monsters and traps. No, because here, that wretched ‘thread’ connected a rampaging monster with its physical husk… and reaching that was Valerian’s goal.
In here, the oily tendril formed a stuttering, disjointed trackway, like a series of steppingstones. Individual strands hung in midair, sometimes plunging down through the rattling floor or into the cosmic machinery.
On the bright side, he could sense their position, having once been Sherazedan’s least worthy apprentice. Didn’t make the trail any easier to follow, though. Their slimy pull drew him on through a nightmare of shifting, chopping, collapsing, explosively lengthening tunnels and rooms. Worse, taken together, those strands often formed coded words, like: “ - .. .” (die) or “. .-. .- .. .-..” (fail)
Very encouraging, combined with apocalyptic booms, shrill screeching and a constant electrical buzz that came from every direction at once, including his juddering insides.
Worse still, Filno and Cinda were struggling badly, overwhelmed by that extra-dimensional, chaotic environment. They’d plunged through the rift with Val, meaning to help him find and destroy Sherazedan’s physical body. Only, they were proving to be more distraction than asset. The assassin had come along, too. The vampyre was present mostly as trickling fog, forming a pair of hands or a stout, barring arm whenever Filimar or Cinda threatened to step off a mechanical precipice or into the jaws of immense, whirring gears.
Val called a halt on a stable section of conduit big as a mountain range. Paused just below one of those dripping-dark soul strands (the first “-“ in “- .-. .- ..- --- .-.” meaning: traitor.) Right. Valerian turned to Filno and the ranger, who seemed queasy but very determined.
“I have been here before,” he excused himself, casting Cone of Silence to grant them some peace from the nonstop, grinding cacophony. “I took Sherazedan’s place for a while, so that he could drain the Mother’s shade out of Lord Arvendahl. I survived back then through his power. Now… because of my own, and maybe through Bea’s potion. You two haven’t got that shield or experience, but I think I can help you adapt. Here…”
He reached across the rippling gap to Cinda, first, and then Filimar. Wrote a sigil on both of their foreheads with the thumb of his spell hand, murmuring, “See.”
The rune flared and remained on his friends’ pallid faces, causing their eyes to truly open. No more ducking threats that weren’t there or walking straight into hazards that were.
Filimar looked all around himself, swallowing hard.
“Not… really sure that this is an improvement, Valno… but I thank you, anyhow.”
Cinda gritted her teeth with an audible crunching noise.
“Let’s get back on the trail,” growled the ranger, who sheltered the last scrim of Frost Maiden deep in her heart. “Find the lich, destroy him, and then get out of this place.”
Their vampyre companion manifested just his head in the coiling fog that composed him. Said,
“It is worth pointing out that… should we succeed in bringing an end to your former master… one of us will have to replace him. After that, reality will reset itself, perhaps not at all the way we would like it to. This is an absolute, utter blind roll of the dice, elflings.”
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Valerian ran a hand through his own shorn blond hair, nodding.
“I accept that, and I welcome your aid and advice, undying one. Better to have you as a friend than a lurking assassin. I will take Sherazedan’s place, once he is dead. This is all my fault, you see, and…”
Mandor’s floating head shook itself in negation.
“Does the knife blame itself, or the one who has wielded it?” he mused. “You were bred and maneuvered into position to perform a world-ending task. You refused, being a thinking and conscious person, not just a mere weapon.” The mist then swirled in a vaporous shrug. “Fate plucks the strings, but it is very much up to us how closely we follow her tune. Remember that, elflings.”
The vampyre’s hazel eyes burned hard, as his handsome face turned utterly grim.
“You still have a choice, even now.”
Filimar broke the tension with a short laugh.
“I’ll believe that when we’re safely off the gameboard and back to our normal lives again. Milardin, for me… with this hapless clod as a regular visitor.”
Cinda actually smiled, brushing recalcitrant strands of dark hair from her two-colored eyes.
“Back in the mountains, keeping my lands safe from hunters and orcs. Free and alone.”
Valerian snorted.
“Away from me, you mean,” he teased, clasping her shoulder. She looked aside, but did not pull free of his hand. “I’ll do my best to see that you get what you want, and you as well, Merlo.”
“Mandor,” corrected the Vampyre’s head, smiling through fog and bright auburn hair. “I am Mandor the Charmer, Left Hand of Darkness, third lieutenant to Losirr the Feral… who’s a cowardly, back-stabbing drek-eater, or he’d be here himself.”
Val’s eyebrows climbed halfway into his hairline.
“That is… a great deal of firepower for just the three of us,” he observed.
Mandor chuckled.
“The pair of you, actually,” admitted the vampyre. “Fallon and I were tasked with putting you and your blue-eyed friend out of Lord Arvendahl’s misery… but I would have thrown in the ranger for free,” he added, generously.
“Thanks all the same, but I’ll pass,” grunted Cinda, handing out good-berries. “Eat up, and let’s go. Fruit, not blood, thirteenth guest.”
Mandor laughed at the reference to a very old and horrifically creepy epic.
“In this place, I have regained a reflection of life," he assured them. "I can enjoy the taste of real food and have not the craving for blood. Your berries will do… with bread and cheese, if you have a bit on you.”
Which they did. Yes. Absolutely. After a handful of tart, sweet good-berries and magically toasted cheese sandwiches, they were back on their way. It was too noisy for chatter, but Valerian wouldn’t have wanted to talk, anyhow. He was never going to go home, he suddenly realized.
His last light words to his wife and baby… to Katina, dad, granddad and grandmother… to his brother Lerendar, Bea and Zara… to Uncle Reston and mum… Whatever he'd said was going to have to stand as final memory, no matter how silly or quick or brushed-off.
And Ilirian? Home? No more bow-fishing its crystal streams or hunting the deep, golden woods. No more drinking in morning sunshine from the balcony of his (amazingly roomy) suite. All of it tossed away with both hands to buy freedom and safety… release from this unending cycle… for everyone else.
‘I love you,’ he thought. ‘And you’re worth it.’
The writhing strand-bits they tracked pulsed a code to mock his resolve, spelling out: They will not even remember you. They will carry on in new lives, oblivious of your stupid sacrifice.
Valerian lowered his head, but Cinda could read pulse-code as well as he could, once she knew to watch for a pattern. In some round or another they’d been betrothed. Had been able to communicate with each other through tapping their (shoved well under their sleeves) engagement bands.
‘I will not forget,” she signed in short, choppy strokes. ‘I will remember, and I will come find you, Northerner, no matter what happens next.’
It was something to cling to, at least, and brought some ease to his heart, which got another warm jolt when Filimar leaned in to catch the last of her statement. He signed, too, saying,
‘Anyhow, I will push you both out of the way and jump in to replace the old toad, myself. An Arvendahl… Tarandahl, that is... to the fray!’
The vampiric mist that surrounded them quivered with laughter but offered nothing at all. Then, past a set of enormous, thudding pistons, they came to a great hollow, openwork sphere. There, held in place by a crackling web of cosmic forces, hung Sherazedan’s body, the linchpin of all reality.