“Impossible! No one could be so stupid!”

How many times had Charlot said these words? Too many to count, and yet there was always some fool prepared to prove him wrong.

“A dozen men in armor led by a captain in an insipid-looking helmet. Ten militiamen at their fore. I suspect they’ve sent their whole force,” Lak said, trotting alongside the lumbering silverpaw as Korak trudged eastward. The war dog’s face was a mass of swirling shadows, a woman’s mouth forming over the dog’s muzzle. Out of the corners of his eye, Charlot could barely make out the sharp edges of the obsidian mask covering the dog’s face hiding in the shadowplane.

This was Lak’s prison, the Asyndagrim. With its power, the sïthur dominated the animal. In turn, she was bound to Charlot by the pact she’d made to be released from the cave where he’d found the mask. He knew her true name as well, Emymu. He kept it to himself.

“It would serve them right if the Wyrth arrived at their doorstep while they were out here chasing us! Their whole bloody town to the torch while they’re out here traipsing in the woods like a pack of fools!”

“They’ll be upon us soon. I can take their leader and set them into confusion,” Lak offered, and there was hunger in her voice. The Asyndagrim was an artifact of terrible power. Lak could take over a man just as easily as a dog.

“No!” Charlot barked. He suspected if he gave Lak free rein to deal with the soldiers there would be none of them left when he was through. “We shall lose them in the woods.”

“Our trail is not hard to follow,” Lak observed and, indeed, the path they’d followed was embedded with deep paw prints. The party couldn’t be easier to track if they’d lit a signal fire every twenty paces.

“We’ll take the northern path. Perhaps that will dissuade pursuit. Blasted simpletons.” With his knees, Charlot nudged Korak to the left, and soon, the bear was crashing through the underbrush, headed due north.

Sylas and Shaharzarat craned their heads back, eyes wide with the sudden revelation that Lak was far more than a mere dog. Charlot and Lak spoke in Yarlee, which neither of the children understood. There had been virtual silence since their escape from Billibee. The children were deeply shaken by their near immolation.

“Soldiers are chasing us,” Charlot said, first in Tonipatrua to Shaharzarat, and then in Terhaljatani to Sylas. “Gods above, if I have to repeat everything I say three times for long I’ll go stark raving mad. As soon as we’re clear of pursuit, the three of you are learning a common tongue.”

“I already speak Tonipatrua,” Lak said. Shaharzarat was startled to hear the dog talk her native tongue, and a look of confusion crossed her face.

“You speak it like a two hundred year old poet,” Charlot explained, for Lak had been imprisoned beneath the earth for a long, long time. “Tonipatrua is barely more useful than the dead tongue Sylas speaks.”

“Some of the greatest poetry ever crafted comes from the Tonipatrua,” Lak said, the dog’s low growl rumbling beneath the human voice. He’d rankled her.

“And the Mad Prince of Terhaljatan penned some of the greatest music ever composed. Both facts are irrelevant. There’s no one of consequence who speaks Terhaljatani or Tonipatrua for a thousand leagues. Aranic is the best choice for a common tongue. You would do well to listen in as I instruct them. Your own Aranic is atrocious. Care you don’t growl at me again unless you wish to lose your tongue,” Charlot warned.

“I did not mean to, I am sorry,” Lak said, her voice thick at his reproach. Her head drooped, and she slowed her gait until she fell several strides behind Korak. Charlot nodded at the move. One had to stay vigilant when they dealt with devils. They were forever testing their bonds.

With his knees, Charlot guided Korak north, and the path dwindled to little more than an ill-used game trail. Soon, there were so many low hanging branches that they were all forced to dismount and let the bear barge a tunnel through the brush.

The forest here was a mixture of harlot’s larch and maple, with jackpine fighting for light in the clearings. The leaves were thick over them, and Charlot’s vision dwindled with the light until he could barely see three steps in front of him.

Though it was barely afternoon, Charlot was weary from the morning’s excitement and the dark spell he’d cast. He’d never liked doing that sort of magic, and the burden of killing was heavy on his shoulders.

He could have let the false priest live, but that, too, would have had a cost. Somewhere down the line, someone else would suffer for the man’s false god. It had to be done, and who better than him to do it? Still, the weight remained.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

At last, the path brought them into a shady ravine. The trail led alongside a stream, and on either side the ground rose into a steep slope of craggy rock overrun with vines. This was the perfect spot for what Charlot had in mind.

“A moment,” Charlot said, rummaging in the many pockets of his robe. He felt something unfamiliar, and he plucked a ruby egg from his breast pocket. The immolatesnake’s egg!

He held it up to the dim light filtering through the leaves overhead and saw the dark form of the serpent coiled within. It did not move, but the egg was just a touch warmer than the air around it. The surface of the egg had changed, too. Once smooth, it now had a raised, scaly texture. He’d forgotten it for days!

What a stroke of fortune it hadn’t been crushed, and how doubly fortunate he’d found it before it hatched. This serpent’s venom had the unusual property of causing the blood of its victims to combust, burning them from the inside out.

“Shaharzarat, take this egg. Hold it in your hand, carefully. If it begins to hatch, set it on the ground at once without delay. This serpent’s bite is among the worst ways one can die.” Charlot’s rusty Tonipatrua grew more precise as he spoke, though it had been many decades since he’d spoken it last. He never forgot a tongue.

The girl surely understood him, for her dark eyebrows arched with alarm. Still, she took the egg. Sylas peered at the exchange, his queer eyes full of questions, but Charlot had no desire to repeat himself. Instead, he swapped to Terhaljatani to speak to Sylas so the boy would not feel neglected.

“Now, I find it unlikely the Billibee Militia will suddenly find the courage to chase down an archmage and a silverpaw bear, but always be cautious with your flank. The unseen is the greatest danger,” Charlot said, and how bitter a truth it was!

He rummaged through his pockets once again until he found his seed case. It was a silver hexagon. When he opened it, the inside was a grid of crystal triangles, each capped with little brass bead marked with an identifying sigil. In this dim light, he could not possibly make them out.

“A little light if you please, Flaccaro,” Charlot asked, and the staff blazed to life, allowing him to read the minute characters.

Between thumb and forefinger, he drew out one of the crystal triangles. The clasp of the case detached and became a set of tweezers. He used these to draw one of the seeds, broad and flat like a pumpkin seed with seven raised bumps running along its spine.

“Look! But do not touch,” he said to the children, and they drew close, peering at the seed. Charlot wrinkled his nose. They were both sorely in need of a bath.

“Suffocantor” Charlot pronounced, and he dug into the earth beneath their feet and planted it there. He watered the spot with his canteen. Then, from another pocket, he produced a tiny pearl, so charged with magic it faintly hummed beneath his fingertips.

He saw the war dog watching him closely. Lak could sense the fierce power concentrated there. Siyabros drew back, ears flat with concern, and Charlot wondered if he could sense the magic, too, or if he only took a cue from Lak. Korak was oblivious, snuffling in the brush in hopes of finding something to eat.

Charlot pressed the power pearl into the earth and invoked a channel between the suffocantor seed and pearl. For almost a minute they waited, and then seven shoots burst from the earth, growing at an incredible pace. It was an enthralling sight on its own, but to one who could see into the planes of magic, doubly so, for the currents of energy bound within the power pearl informed the growth. The unfurling leaves and twisting vines flowed along the lines of sorcery in perfect step with the magic. It was like watching a dance.

Keenly, Charlot noted Shaharzarat and Lak were spellbound by the display, while Korak and Sylas were merely interested—too interested!

“Keep your distance!” Charlot barked, both to Sylas and Korak who were both nosing toward the vines. Already, the main strands of the suffocantor fanned out to spread across the trail. Soon, the whole base of the trail was overgrown, and the suffocantor vines snaked up the rock faces, weaving across the path, rising until a spiderweb of green vines covered the path they’d come through.

“Will it ever stop?” Shaharzarat asked. In her left hand she held the serpent’s egg, the other clutched the hem of her ratty shirt. She was afraid of the spell, afraid of him, yet still she dared to ask. How well he remembered that curious look, and how strange to see it on another face, another person, removed by such a vast stretch of time! Once more, he remembered the pair of turquoise rings, but he pushed the memory away.

“The pearl will fuel the suffocantor until the energy I have bound within it is exhausted. Then, it will grow naturally and be quite a nuisance for the wildlife here until the first hard freeze of winter kills it. For our purposes, anyone seeking to follow us will have quite an unpleasant surprise. But that is a good question. Before you begin something, you ought to have a good idea of what will end it. What a great folly to put in motion something you cannot stop!”

“Can they not simply cut their way through?” Sylas asked, squinting his eyes at the sound of the Tonipatrua they spoke, as if that would help him to comprehend. The question spoke much about his character. No sooner had he encountered a barrier than he was thinking of a way around it. He was a natural thief.

For an instant, Charlot tried to remember how to say “constrictor” in Terhaljatani but, instead, he snapped a branch as thick as his thumb from a dead jackpine and tossed it at the writhing wall of vegetation. Fast as a whip, a tendril shot out and wound around the branch, squeezing it until it snapped. The crack was startling, and both children took an unconscious step away from the suffocantor.

“If the soldiers are wise, they’ll give up the chase. Nothing can pursue us through that unless it has wings. Let’s go.”

The master arcanist walked north along the stream, and his motley band hastened to follow.