The Lag (The Game Master: Book #1) (27 page)

Attila leaned over the Elf. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he wheezed. His freckled ears twitched. "He gave me an antidote and some of Leandra's elixirs. Make sure you don't step in the green goo. It's the worst thing..."

"What green goo?"

"You'll know when you see it. Go."

They hurried after Wayfarer. The undergrowth parted, revealing another clearing overgrown with grass. This one wasn't littered with bones or rusted weapons. But it was bare — not a tree or a bush to hide behind. If the monsters headed here...

Wayfarer dropped to his stomach and crawled forward. He moved with remarkable ease, considering he had this heavy unyielding staff in his hands. Attila had to follow suit. Despite his malaise, he moved quickly — but Beast began to lag behind. His half-orcish body was badly suited to crawling; he was panting and puffing like an asthmatic python.

They were already halfway through the clearing when reality shattered around them. A ringing sound bored into their ears. The outlines of objects blurred and began to fade.

Then it stopped. Everything went back to normal. Attila looked behind him at Beast, bug-eyed and feeling his ears.

"What the hell was that?" Beast demanded.

"Dunno. But it's something serious."

Whatever it was, it didn't come back. Attila's Eye glistened in the air overhead. The sky glowed crimson above the Conclave's Tower topped with its own eye, sinister and all-seeing. The Canyon's lands stretched to the horizon. Attila felt so small amid them: a tiny bug in Alpha's hand.

He shivered and crawled on, working hard with his elbows. The gigantic eye on top of the Tower seemed to be peering into his very heart.

Wayfarer rose to his feet and ran to the left, ducking. Then he waved his hand, signaling to them. Attila and Beast jumped up too.

The crypt lurked behind a small grassy hill.

The squat marble structure was covered in luxurious carvings. Its door was decorated with entwined vines framing the face of Fair Baby Magdalene. A cute she-dwarf she used to be, all pimples and eyes and the loveliest little nose. Still, next to the likes of Leandra she wouldn't have stood half a chance.

The crypt was surrounded by a low square fence about ten by fifteen feet. The earth behind it was footworn. Dry bunches of long wilted flowers poked out of marble vases. A path of light-colored rocks led diagonally from the fence gate to the crypt door.

It seemed to be okay — and still, Attila had a bad feeling about the place. It made him feel uncomfortable, a bit like a morgue.

He summoned the God's Eye back into his bag and put away the Book. They had no time to waste in front of the gate. Wayfarer produced a long bone key and unlocked it.

"Take the pills," he said. "Whatever you do, don't step off the path. Crayfish did and look what happened to him."

"What
did
happen to him?" Beast demanded but Wayfarer didn't reply. He raised his cloak collar and strode along the path.

They only needed to take a few steps, Attila thought. Very well. Not stepping off the path didn't sound that difficult.

Attila and Beast swallowed a handful of colored pills each, then downed the elixirs they'd received from Leandra. Attila slung his mythogun onto his chest just in case and stepped onto the path.

Everything changed around him. The fence turned into a wall built of gigantic bones. Gray wind swirled around him, its gusts lashing him, pushing him off the path which was reduced to a thin glowing stripe hovering in the dark. The vases had turned into large skulls with gaping holes on top which released unsteady beams of crimson light.

Attila staggered in the magic wind, struggling to stay on the path. He regained his footing and followed the familiar figure in the leather cloak that waded through the gray storm, the top of his staff glowing red.

The distance to the crypt had grown what — ten, a hundred times? There it was, barely visible far ahead, and it wasn't a crypt anymore but something else. Two lights glowed like eyes to both sides of the door.

Oily green spots gleamed on the path like droplets of splattered necro magic. Further down the path they grew more and more numerous, so that Attila had to step over them. Just as he tried to leap over one, a powerful blast of wind nearly blew him off the path. His foot landed on the path's edge; he waved his hands-

A powerful arm grabbed him from behind and returned him to the track. Attila made another step and looked back, nodding his gratitude to Beast.

Wayfarer stopped in front of the entrance to the crypt. It wasn't a cute little house any more. The building was shaped like an enormous head of a Wraith — a dead spirit. This was Fair Baby Magdalene's face but disfigured and ugly, her eyes bulging, her huge teeth clenched. The glowing path ended in front of her.

The Ugly Baby Magdalene was shivering, trying to unclench her teeth and say something but couldn't. Her eyes that were seven feet apart focused on the unwanted guests.

Wayfarer waited for Attila and Beast to approach.

"Hold on tight," he said as he stuck the bone key between Magdalene's teeth and turned.

Her mouth opened. The upper jaw snapped up. The giant dead head screamed in agony. Her shriek swept across the path like a hurricane; Attila was so weak he lost his footing and stumbled back, right into Beast's arms who stood with his feet wide apart, leaning forward against the tornado.

The dead head's shriek was a mixture of anger, fear, bitterness and unbearable pain. A jet of hot air kicked the wind out of Attila; his head spun, his legs gave under him. Gasping, Attila slackened in Beast's arms. His vision darkened. The whirling mass of gray and green mud closed over him.

Then it subsided.

Daylight poured in his eyes. The marble path glowed underfoot. He stood a few paces away from the crypt fence. The pretty carved marble house was in front of him, surrounded by a patch of footworn earth. Dry bunches of twigs poked out of the vases along the fence.

"Oh wow," Beast uttered, pushing Attila forward.

The crypt's door was open. A soft light glowed inside. They walked in. The small room was done up in shades of light beige. A marble pedestal rose in the middle, supporting a coffin of white stone. A small shrouded figure lay inside it. Its face was open — the gentle face of a small young woman.

"Why hasn't she... decomposed?" Beast mumbled. "Why does her skin look normal? Did this Ashileth use some of his magic on her?"

Four tall candles in stone candlesticks stood at the corners of the coffin. Their pink lights seemed unmoving, like smooth little marbles surrounded by flickering bubbles of iridescent light.

"Brace yourself," Wayfarer said. "It's the magic of the Elven candles that preserves Magdalene's body. But now I need to put them out."

"Why?" Beast asked.

Wayfarer reached for the nearest flame. Squeezing it between his fingers, he snuffed it out. All the other lights in the room flickered. The coffin jerked. Magdalene's face changed. It grew gaunt and sharp. Dark circles lay under her eyes.

The coffin jumped. Attila thought he heard an echo of a voice — whether crying or groaning, he couldn't tell.

Wayfarer put out the second candle. The light blinked again. The coffin shifted on its pedestal. The motionless Dwarven body groaned softly, the sound seemingly coming from another dimension.

"Jeez," Beast stepped back.

Magdalene's face was rapidly covering in scabs and ulcers. Only two candles were still burning. Wayfarer reached for one of them.

"Wait," Beast said. "I know she's dead but still, how can I put it... I mean, her beauty is the only thing she has left. And if you put out the candles..."

"She is naught but a binary code," Wayfarer snapped and put out the third candle.

The room grew even darker. The body in the coffin stirred and emitted a groan. Attila tried not to look at its face any more.

Wayfarer put out the last candle. Darkness filled the crypt. A thin strip of daylight reached through the open door but now it too had faded as if it were already twilight outside. Something terrifying was stirring in the coffin, groaning as it attempted to sit up, ripping the shroud apart.

Beast sniffed and reached for the club slung behind his back. Attila whipped out his mythogun. The coffin screeched and slid aside on its pedestal, revealing a narrow opening and a row of steps going down.

Attila and the other two hurried down the steps. As soon as they reached the floor below, the coffin screeched back into place. Wayfarer hunched in the low tunnel. Had Ashileth really been so short? Normally, Elves were tall.

The straight underground corridor soon ended with another set of stairs. Attila could barely hear a far-off thumping upstairs in the crypt.

"Is she thrashing around there, poor thing? Because we've put out the candles?" Beast mumbled uneasily. "Bummer. I know of course she's only a stupid NPC but still... I really feel for this awful Baby Magdalene. My heart just goes out to her."

Wayfarer pushed open a trapdoor and climbed out. "I can't see anyone," he called softly. "You can come out."

They found themselves in the Citadel courtyard, in a small nook between its wall and a small structure that looked like a sentry box.

Attila's heart beat faster. That is, his real heart did — fluttering inside his body stuck in the virtual suit. But Attila sensed it anyway. The Citadel! Mysterious and unattainable by most — and they had just breached it!

It was empty and dark. Sounds echoed from the black granite heavy like the Devil's fist. Attila ran his hand along the sentry box's wall. It was cold and rough to touch: tangible. Had he not known he was in a virtual world, he'd have never spotted the illusion.

Wayfarer stood next to him, looking around. Beast scrambled out of the trapdoor and tilted his head up. "Gosh, it's really hovering over you, isn't it?"

Attila tried not to look at the sinister eye that covered half the sky. He produced the Book and was about to order the God's Eye out of the bag but reconsidered. What if Alpha could use it to detect them?

Suddenly the whole expanse of black granite rippled. Attila crouched, pressing his hands against the ground. The sky behind the wall lit up with a rapid sequence of flashes. He had to squeeze his eyes tight from their flickering. He expected a great rumbling noise but the scene unfolded in complete silence.

Once the flashing stopped, he opened his eyes. Nothing had changed in the courtyard. As for outside, he couldn't really tell.

"I know," Beast said. "This was Blacksmith detonating his mines. He... he's blown the whole location to hell and back!"

"You can't blow a location," Attila scrambled back to his feet. His knees were weak.

"You can, with the kind of physics they have here. This world is expendable. I'd love to know what's going on behind this wall."

"If Blacksmith activated his magic mines," Wayfarer spoke, "it means things aren't good. Most likely, Alpha's army has breached River Castle's defenses."

An arrow whooshed past and sank into the wall with a crunching sound, its head piercing the stone — not the crack between the slabs of granite but the actual rock! Its black shaft still shook; the blue feathers of its flights quivered.

"There, look!" Beast shouted.

Several clerics were running toward them from the gates on the opposite side of the yard. They were armed with staffs apart from one who held a longbow that left a shimmering purple trail in the air.

Beast stretched out his hands and shook them. Two fireballs escaped his fingers one by one and volleyed toward the clerics. In a smooth motion, the archer ducked to one side. The cleric behind him failed to repeat his maneuver. The two fireballs hit him, enveloping his body in flames. The cleric's black silhouette bled through the fiery vortex, his clothes already consumed by the flames. Attila thought he saw a weird creature — a bit like a skeleton with an elongated animal head, large teeth and huge eye sockets. A moment later, the vision was gone. The cleric had vanished, leaving behind flecks of ash that floated down onto the flagstones.

Wayfarer ran around the sentry box, away from the clerics. The gates of the Conclave Tower loomed before them. Wayfarer raced toward a steel door within the gate, swung it open and dove inside. Attila followed.

A sharp pain in his left side made him wince. He pressed his hand to his waist. Beast continued to loose off fireballs as he ran; puffing and panting, he reached the gate and barged in.

Wayfarer slammed the door close. Attila elbowed the bar into place. With a clanging sound, the black head of an arrow pierced the steel from outside, spreading a whiff of purple glow.

The tower's lower level was empty: a large echoing hall with a high ceiling, done up in black. Torches burned on its walls. At its center, a few stone steps rose from a heap of collapsed rocks, left from the time when a spiral staircase once lead to the tower's top floor. Next to it stood a long mahogany table lined with throne-like chairs. Was this where the Conclave wizards had their luxurious feasts?

"Do we need to go upstairs?" Beast asked. "Are the wizards there? But how can we get up if the stairs are... ah, I see!"