Nightlord: Sunset (47 page)

Fine.  I sat down and gathered power, weaving a couple of spells.  Normally, it takes a while to gather power together—a second or two of concentration, if it’s a simple spell.  In a fight, this can get you killed.

So I cheated.  I prepared a spell or two in advance.  Think of it as typing up a contract without actually signing it; it means nothing until the signatures are on the paper.  It just sits there, waiting, until you set it off.  You can also tap a hanging spell for the energy you tied up in it and just go blasting power at your problems, but that’s far, far less efficient.  But if I’d had a spell hanging ready, I would have been able to set fire to the guards’ swords in the torture chamber even if they were swinging at me at the time, instead of needing the time it took for them to close with me.

Of course, preparing a spell in advance also means that another magic-worker can see you have spells hanging around you, and a good smack by a strong will can disrupt them.  Most mages have magical objects to put spells into to prevent that sort of thing; that’s one reason wizards are so fond of carrying a staff.  Also, when you’re out of ready spells, it’s still a whacking great chunk of wood.

I wonder where my dryad-staff is?

Which brings me to another point.  Magic-workers can cleverly fry each other with spells, or they can both duke it out mentally with sheer force of will.  Jon and I took a few throws that way; he was a strong-willed, imaginative, and devious old coot.  I lost, seven falls out of ten.

In some ways, a battle of wills is more dangerous than swapping hostile spells.  It’s not as pyrotechnic, of course, unless you can see magic, but it carries with it the danger of having your mind liquefied.  I don’t want to sit quietly and drool while someone gets a knife out to finish the job.  Or worse, doesn’t finish the job at all.  Being as coherent as a moderately-retarded houseplant doesn’t appeal to me.

Anyway, I digress.

I hung a couple of spells around me.  A pair of good hammering spells, each like a good stroke with a battering ram.  Handy for forcing doors if I had to leave in a hurry.  And, while I was at it, a translation spell, since I don’t speak goblinoid.  Goblinese.  Goblin.  Gobbledygook.  Whatever.  It took about an hour and a half to assemble things.

Then, with sword and pistol at hand, I went up to the tower and rapped smartly on the door.  Bronze I left behind, out of sight but in earshot.  Just in case.  I don’t think she liked it much.

It wasn’t long before the same fellow stuck his oversized nose over the edge.  He looked surprised to see me.  He made a startled exclamation, then addressed a question to me.

“You speak any other languages?” I asked.  He frowned at me.  It wasn’t an improvement for his features, and I thought almost anything would be.  He addressed me again, apparently in the same tongue.  I let loose my translation spell and answered, “I’m sorry, but could you repeat that?”

The look on his face was astonishing.  Suddenly, he “heard” what I said, in his own language, in his head.  I knew he wouldn’t like it, but it’s hard to get the idea across and then ask for permission without a common language.  The fact that touching his brain with a spell didn’t bother me was another marker for how strong the curiosity-spell on the tower was.

His immediate reply was graphic, obscene, and forceful.

“No,” I replied.  “You aren’t my type.”

“Who are you?” he demanded.  That wasn’t precisely what he said, but that was the idea.  His actual terminology was more colorful.  I noticed the crossbow had peeped over the edge and was held ready.

“I’m just curious.  I saw the smoke and thought I’d drop by, say hello, that sort of thing.  I take it I’m not welcome?”

“Oh, everyone’s welcome,” he replied, sneering.  “Most don’t just walk up and knock.”

“Then I’ll wait here while you open the door,” I suggested.

“Yeah, right, you do that.”  He withdrew and I waited.

Presently, the door clunked and rattled, then groaned inward.  I stepped inside.

Let me make something clear I had not fully realized until a moment later.

I’m hard to hurt.  I am by no means invulnerable, but it is difficult to inflict serious injury on me.  Even during the day, I am exceptionally tough and resilient—far more than a normal human being.  I can take a punch from a mailed fist and just about shrug it off.  Part of that is the excessive density—no wisecracks, please—and part of it is the new way my cells all hold together.  I think.

In addition to this, I wear a vest designed to stop small-arms fire and sharp pointy things.  Even if I
am
injured, if I can survive until the sun goes down all will be well in short order, since I regenerate rapidly.  It gives a person confidence to know these things.  When risk is lessened, one can substitute confidence for bravery.

It can also make a person bloody stupid.

Intellectually, I realized I could still be killed.  But viscerally, down in the guts, I felt pretty near immortal.

A whale of a knock on my noggin did much to dispel that gut feeling of invincibility, as well as my own rather limited intellect.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8
TH

S
unset woke me.  Judging by the overwhelming annoyance of having my skull itch—not the scalp, mind you, but the bone—I’d say I had a concussion.  Or had had one.  Whatever the grammar is.  It went away.  I listened, didn’t immediately hear anything special, and took stock.

I was naked on a cold stone floor.  The spells I had taken pains to have ready had been discharged, disrupted, or dispelled.  The air was damp-ish and smelled of straw, feces, and a general unwashedness.  Something was around my ankle.  I opened my eyes.

It was a cell.  Typically, I’d have expected to be in a deep hole; that’s the easy way to keep someone from going anywhere.  A cell told me there might be considerable traffic in and out.  Not for the prisoner, of course; there was a large metal cuff around my left ankle and what looked like a primitive spun-cylinder combination lock.

That last implied—at least to me—that prisoners weren’t kept here for long.  A key lock you’re stuck with; a combination lock just takes patience and lots and lots and lots of time.  I could shorten it considerably; the hasp was iron, and a good, sharp twist should break it.  At least, at night—during the day I’d need a lever of some sort.  Which I didn’t have, of course.

I hate being naked and locked in a dungeon.  I’m really learning about a whole new range of unpleasant experiences.  I much preferred the idea of waking up in a strange bedroom.  But I wasn’t ready to charge out into the hall naked.  Best to look helpless while gathering some intelligence about the place.

I settled down against the wall and let my tendrils feel their way around.  I was underground.  There were two lives nearby, just outside the door.  Nothing else without going up or down.  No sign of my things. 

Of course, that just gave me time to think about why I was here.  I had been incredibly stupid.  Hindsight being 20/20, I considered it to be the capstone of my career of stupidity.  What in the name of heaven possessed me to go wandering off into the alien landscape to chase a faint wisp of smoke? 

The spell on the tower.

It had confounded me, a sensitive to magic, and I didn’t like it a bit.  I came into its radius of operation and I was snared, as simply as that.  Which irked me something considerable.  Have I mentioned I hate having my mind tampered with?  Well, I do.  I thought about it for a while and decided I needed another defensive spell.  I grabbed hold of the local magical energy and started building a bunker for my brain.  A bit of my own energy to grab it, a bit more to shape it, and a lot to make it
stay.
  Good magic.  Stay…
stay!
  Visions of brick walls, Army tanks, underground missile silos, futuristic force-fields…

The only problem I ran into was how to bomb-proof my skull and still have the ability to use a translation spell.  The things were really handy.  I needed something better than a metaphorical open hatchway while I chatted with people.  I didn’t solve it immediately, but I did come up with an idea for an airlock-like arrangement… Unfortunately, I was interrupted while fleshing it out.

The door unlocked with a grating click and an elf stepped gracefully into the room.  He was white as snow and dressed in black, with purple-irised eyes.  He was about five feet tall, thin, handsome—almost pretty—and had black hair pulled back into a short pony tail, held in place with some sort of clip.  Judging by the way he looked at me, I was willing to bet he was not a frolic-in-the-woods vegetarian, but a roast-the-baby-and-suck-the-marrow Bad Guy.

“You speak Rethven?” he asked.  He had a nice voice, too.

“I do,” I answered.

“You also speak Goblin?”

“No, but I have spells for that.  Who are you?”

He calmly drew out a whip and cracked it, opening a small gash in my chest.  I cried out, mainly from surprise, somewhat from the hurt.  I clapped one hand over the wound.  I was glad I did; it started to close up immediately and I didn’t want him to know I was regenerating.  I had a feeling he might enjoy having a torture subject that was hard to kill.

“I will ask the questions.  You will answer.  That is all.”

Since he didn’t ask a question, I just nodded.

“You are a magic-worker?”

“Yes.”

“Of what sort?”

“Wizard.”

He nodded.  “Where did you get that sword?”

“I inherited it.”

“What can you tell me of it?”

“Not very much.  It has an affinity for fire and for me, and I think it’s sleeping.”

“That is all?”

“Yes.”

He looked vexed.  Finally he gave the smallest shrug I have ever seen.  “What of the other implements you carried?”

I hesitated.  “Can I ask you to clarify the question?” I tried.

“Many of your implements may have their function divined with some thought.  The cooking utensils, for example, and the clever knife with the hidden compartment.  But some are utterly foreign to me.  What are they?”

I hesitated again.  I suspected he was talking about the gun, the bullets, and other high-tech devices.

“I’m not sure which items you’re talking about,” I tried.  “If you can show one to me—or just describe it—I can tell you what it is.”

“This is tedious,” he observed, coiling the whip.  Without another word, he left; someone bolted the door behind him—presumably one of the two life-forces I’d sensed.  Probably my jailers.

I wondered what was next.  Displays of my stuff?  Or another bout of wait-and-see?  Regardless, if there was a chance he’d simply
bring
me my things and spare me the need to go hunting them down…

I kept wondering for a while; it was some time after midnight before the door opened again to admit the elf.  He carried my backpack in one hand and the whip in the other.  Unfortunately, the chain was not long enough to allow me to reach him at his position by the door, so I didn’t try.

He drew out a pistol.  “This is?” he asked.

“A weapon.  It throw small metal slugs, faster than a sling.”

He put it away.  Out came a magazine for the pistol.  “And this?”

“A device that fits into the weapon.  See the small metal things in it?  The spring pushes them up so that when one is thrown, the next is made ready.”

He regarded the magazine much more intently than the gun.  Trying to figure out how to make an auto-loading sling, possibly.  He went on to have me identify a few other things, all of which were defunct.  Cell phones, for example, do not take sea bottom pressure very well.  Not that I had
used
it here, but it was still in the pack.  Ditto for the shortwave radio receiver and pocket calculator.

Once that was done, he turned and stepped out into the hall.  A few words in goblinese passed and both my jailers came in.  One had his crossbow, the other a long knife.  I got the feeling they were about to kill me.  The one with the knife was licking his chops and grinning.  The elf didn’t bother to stick around.

I stood up and got ready to fight—i.e., I put up my hands and crouched a little.  What else was I going to do while naked?  Poor, defenseless human, acting so brave in the face of death!

Short Stuff with the crossbow tried to shoot me.  I smacked the bolt aside mid-flight; I tried to catch it to throw it back, but you take what you can get—crossbow bolts are
very
fast.  It shattered on the stone wall.  My jailers stood, staring and stunned, with looks of blank amazement.  I took that as my opportunity to bend down and twist the lock, hard.  It snapped in my hand and I kicked free of my ankle-fetter.

Short Stuff Number Two—the one with the knife—lunged for me while his partner ran screaming from the room.  I sighed.  Life was about to be complicated again.  Well, more complicated.

I grabbed knife-boy with a lot of tendrils at once.  He expired in mid-leap and I brushed the body aside.  He hadn’t tasted very good as far as a life is concerned; a nasty, black-hearted little mean person.  Ugly to the bone.  There was no way I was drinking any of that blood unless there was an incendiary device involved beforehand.  And maybe not even then.

Out into the hallway.  Check left, check right, nobody in sight, but screaming coming from the left, a sudden thud, and much-muted is the screaming… and off I go, following.  Down the hall to a door, a brisk kick to shatter the door, then through the remains of the door and to the stairs.  They go up and down, but the screaming is coming from up.  I go up.

Several short and ugly people with swords came down.  And with a sweep of life-drinking tendrils, they
fell
down.  Not all at once; the front two dropped immediately, the next two took a second or so more, five and six halted on the steps before I was finished with three and four, and seven and eight were headed back up the steps before I latched on to them.  They were not brave souls.

It was the spiritual equivalent of drinking yesterday’s coffee.  Cold and nasty.  But now I felt a lot stronger and had a pair of short swords, so maybe I wouldn’t have to do that again.  I hoped not; I felt a bit more ruthless and cold from the aftertaste.  Aftereffects of consuming very nasty people.  A part of me wondered how long it would last.

Up the steps I went.  I didn’t know how far down I was, so I kept going up.  I would eventually find a window or come out on top of the tower; either one would work for me.  Occasionally, I would encounter a goblin.  It would scream and I would kill it.  Pity they were all so small; I would have liked something to wear.  Then again, they were also unwashed and smelly.  I’m not sure I would have worn anything on them even if it had been my size.

The stairs had no doors; they simply went up through a hole in the floor, along one wall.  It occurred to me it was a good spot to get one’s head cloven in twain.  I went up carefully.  Sure enough, as soon as I had risen far enough to get eyebrows over the edge, another goblin tried to part my hair with an axe.  I ducked, and it clanged on the stony edge.  Then I put my hand on the back of the axe, held it in place, and rose quickly.

He let go of the axe and ran.  One good thing about these little guys, their morale seemed to be a fragile thing.  I finished climbing the steps and ran after him.  He ducked sideways into a door, quicker than I would have expected, and I charged in after him.

Bad move on my part.  A dozen of the little so-and-so’s fired as one, the majority nailing me in the torso.  One lousy shot managed to put a crossbow bolt through my right thigh.  I made some sort of noise; it sounded vaguely like a cross between a gasp and a scream.  Somehow it was worse than be
ing shot by exploding bullets—the bullets were hammers of pain, but the pieces that would have really been hurt were also blown away.  These bolts were lances of pain, all going deep into flesh that remained connected and screaming.

A sudden, wild pulse throbbed in my blood and I lost it.  Utterly lost it.  My temper snapped like a matchstick and things got a bit hazy.

I do recall fanning out my tendrils in all directions and setting them to whirling.  Rather like a magical whirlpool that sucked in all life energy with me at the center.  I also recall the taste of blood; I’m pretty sure I drank from some of them.  Not as foul as I might have expected, but no treat.  I’d rather drink rat.

When I came to myself again, it was a gradual process.  I think I’d just killed the last thing I could find on my stalk up the steps, and was on the roof of the tower.  I know I saw the front door on my way up, but I was intent on killing everything I could find.  Enraged and drunk on my own power, perhaps.  Berserk, certainly.

So there I was, standing on the flat roof, holding one short sword—I don’t know where the other one went—and gradually calmed down.  The pulsing in my blood slowed and diminished in strength; as it did, I found I could think again.

I wasn’t even remotely tired—far from it!  I was exhilarated, energetic, ready to do it again and for longer!  Even my wounds were gone.  With enough living things near me, I kept
getting
stronger and faster and more dangerous.  Instead of eventually becoming exhausted, I grew
more
powerful the longer it went on.  The only things that would stop the process were killing everything I could find, being killed, or sunrise.

Oh, I’m sure there’s a point of diminishing returns.  The power of the spirit is good, but for a vampire there must also be blood.  I might become a wraith at some point, a ghost of killing, if it went on long enough without a pause to drink something more material than a spirit; but that would take a
lot
of killing to achieve.

I shuddered and made a mental note not to take foolish chances; I didn’t want a repeat of this.  It was a state of completely uncontrolled fury, and I didn’t like it at all.  I could do stupid things—well, I could do that anyway—but lost in fury I might not have a chance to regret them.  It was dangerous for me and anything near me.  But at the moment, my big concern was keeping my own skin intact; mindless rage has never seemed to be a terribly good idea to me.

A soft applause met my ears.  I turned around, seeking the source.  The elf was standing head and shoulders out of the hatch in the roof—I presume it needed a door for when it rained—and was gently clapping.