Seductive Silence, Page 2

  Chapter 2

  The Quester of Righteousness rides hard, spurring the horse to its breaking point. The dragon releases a jet of flame, narrowly missing the valiant hero and his doughty steed. The Quester of Righteousness draws his longknife at the last eyeblink, and as the dragon tries to fly away from its fierce attacker, the tip of the longknife catches his belly as man and horse pass underneath him.

  The cut is carried out in one clean, complete motion, and dragon guts spill to the ground in a quick succession of squishy patters.

  The Quester of Righteousness slows his horse and turns to face the dragon, writhing in its death throes. He raises his visor, revealing two jewel-like blue eyes, tiny puddles of perfection. He swings the Longknife of Iniquity at nothing and brings it to a halt in mid-swing, shaking loose a spray of purple dragon blood.

  A woman emerges from a nearby cave, her white dress and blonde hair billowing in the soft breeze. She gazes at the form of the slaughtered dragon for but a moment before running up to her brave benefactor, who has stepped down from his horse. She wraps her arms around him and plants a wet kiss on his lips.

  “Oh, Quester of Righteousness, I knew you would come, I just knew it.”

 

  Novanostrum steels himself as the shot echoes through the humid swamp. The lead ball whizzes past his head, leaving a bloody burn mark on the skin of his ear. Novanostrum raises his staff and produces a fireball which hits the brass atrocity square in the chestplate and knocks it into a tree.

  Zanther races up to Novanostrum, grabbing the wizard’s head and inspecting the burn on his ear.

  “Looks like you lucked out.”

  “Nothing lucky about it. I changed the density of the air to redirect the path of the shot.”

  With a series of clicks and scrapes and whirrs, the metallic creature rises to its feet and begins approaching them, once again raising its gatling arm.

  Novanostrum pulls back his sleeve to reveal his golden wristwatch. He gives Zanther a serious look.

  “Do what you do best.”

  Colors fade from reality, and everything is black and white as Zanther charges toward the armored menace. The gatling arm recoils, and a lead ball floats toward Zanther in slow motion. He easily dodges this, and the arm recoils again and again, sending out multiple shots, all of which Zanther dances around.

  At last, with his longknife raised over his head, Zanther closes the distance and brings his weapon down in a diagonal slash, knocking the boxy head off of its metal rod of a neck.

  Time reasserts its control over the scene as color returns. The metallic thing ceases to move, and Novanostrum and Zanther rush to the injured man on the ground, who has managed to sit up and grasp the hole in his abdomen. As Zanther gets a good look at the man’s face, his eyes light up with recognition.

  “Hernaldo?” Zanther asks.

  “Zanther...it’s good to see you again. It would have been nicer to run into you about five ticks ago, but--” Hernaldo coughs up a little blood as he chuckles.

  Zanther turns to Novanostrum. “You’ve got to help him. Magick him back to normal.”

  Novanostrum grabs Hernaldo’s hand and removes it from the wound, inspecting it. “I’m sorry, but this injury is beyond magick.”

  Hernaldo nods, having expected as much. “It doesn’t matter, anyway, now that I’ve run into you. You two can convey my message to Queen Madra.”

  As he says this, he pulls an envelope from his pocket and hands it to Zanther, managing to smear blood all over it in the process.

  “What’s the message?” Zanther asks.

  “That thing you just smashed up is called an ‘automote’. My mission was to infiltrate Mortesia and evaluate their capabilities. They have over one hundred thousand of those mechanized monstrosities and they’re preparing a war. However, they’re not just going to march from town to town, they have a secret plan which is detailed in the letter. They’re making a move to take the whole of Upper Kleighton, and unless something drastic is done, they’ll get it.”

  “What sort of magick makes them move like that?” Zanther asks.

  “Not magick,” Hernaldo says, “gears and springs. The Mortesians have a mechanickal mastermind developing weapons for their military forces, and once he built the first one, they made copies. Lots and lots of them. Madra must be warned. The rest of Upper Kleighton must be warned. War is coming, and the people must know what they’re up against.”

  Crouching over Hernaldo, Zanther looks up at Novanostrum. “We’ve got to get him to a physick.”

  “It’s too late,” Novanostrum says.

  “Is there anything else we should know, Hernaldo?” Zanther asks, but it’s too late. Hernaldo’s eyes are glassed over, looking at nothing.

 

  Marchand stands guard while Varello pokes and prods the body, lifting hair and checking pockets and searching for wounds inflicted before death. After he is satisfied that there is nothing else to be learned through observation, he draws a wooden flute from a jacket pocket and starts playing a slow, melancholy tune.

  The twilit sky above makes the wooly walls of the willow forest glow orange, and Marchand gives Varello a puzzled look which is returned with a harsh glare.

  However, Varello doesn’t miss a note, he plays through the tune once and starts to repeat it. The corpse begins to stir, with the hollow wheezing of air being breathed through punctured lungs and an exposed nasal cavity. Rather than rising up and trying to eat their brains, though, the deadder just kneels there, directing its dead stare at nothing.

  Varello plays through the song one final time, occasionally giving the deadder a kick to the ribs or the head as he walks around it. The deadder grunts a little, but gives no other reaction. Finishing the song for the third time, Varello stops playing.

  The reanimated corpse slumps to the ground, fully dead once more.

  Marchand, who has been watching this whole scene in open-mouthed horror, is finally able to draw enough breath to speak.

  “You...you can raise the dead?”

  Varello shrugs. “In a manner of speaking. However, they do not retain much of their former essence, if any at all. It’s amazing, though, what happened to this one. Whatever happened to him was powerful enough to override his deadder instinct to shamble off towards something living to eat, even though there was a perfectly good meal standing right where you are.”

  Marchand looks around for a moment before catching Varello’s drift. “You were using me as bait?”

  Varello nods. “You’re half right. I mean, you’re right about the ‘bait’ part. You’re wrong about the tense, though.”

  Their banter is interrupted by a rustle in the trees a few dozen yards down the path. Marchand’s soldier instincts kick in and he sprints toward the sound. Varello takes his time following, mumbling softly to himself.

  “No. Don’t go. It’s too dangerous,” he mutters as he strolls closer to the sound.

  He creeps into the interior of a willow tree and peeks through the drooping, living wall to see Marchand on his knees in front of three women. Two of the women are short and dumpy, with plain dresses, and these two are going through Marchand’s pockets while the third woman, a moving sculpture of the ideal woman, wears no clothes.

  Varello immediately realizes the problem, and pulls out his flute in an attempt to produce a temporary solution. He plays a lullaby, catching the attention of the two unattractive women who begin to stagger towards him before falling asleep. The third woman inspects her fallen friends, smiling and fully alert, before looking straight at Varello.

  Knowing that her look caused the catatonic death-stupors of Marchand and the corpse not fifty yards from where he stands, Varello flinches at her glare, squinching his eyes tight and expecting the worst.

 

  “How did you know him?” Novanostrum asks.

  “I didn’t really know him all that well. The first time I met him, he was playing cards with a group of guys in the back of a pub in one
of the seedier districts of Claustria proper. A few moonths later, I ended up in the cell next to his in Dankwater Stinkprison. He recognized me from before, we came up with a plan, and we escaped.”

  Novanostrum stops, mid-stride. “You were in Dankwater? And you escaped?”

  “You almost sound a little jealous. What, did you think I never had any adventures before I met you?”

  “No, er...well. Hmm. What did you do to get thrown into Dankwater?”

  The slithy toves burble in the distance, their vorpal cries echoing over the moonlit plains of Paterlingua as Zanther and Novanostrum come to a fork in the path. Three pointed signs are nailed to the post, each pointing in a different direction. They pause in front of the sign, and Zanther takes a sip from his waterskein.

  “Well, wizard, do we dare brave the path northward into Darrinian territory, or do we head west and take our chances in the domain of the Grand Pontiflex?”

  Novanostrum strokes his chin thoughtfully. “You know, I haven’t seen a single Crucifer since we left the Deus Palatium after that last sketchy debacle.”

  Zanther looks upward, searching his memory. “Neither have I. It’s weird, though. You usually see at least a few of them wherever you go. Not that I miss them or anything, with the way they would go around expaling people and coaxing so-called ‘donations’ from them.”

  Novanostrum starts walking down the road toward the Deus Palatium. “Well, let’s go this way, then. We can sniff out some information about what’s going on with the Crucifers and pass that info along to Madra so she can factor that into her war plans.”

  “You really think this is going to turn into a full-blown war?” Zanther asks.

  “As they say, pessimists are just unpaid fortune-tellers.”

 

  Her long, red locks cover her naughty bits as she draws closer, her smile never wavers, and Varello keeps playing his flute, hoping against hope she will succumb to the magickal lullaby before it’s too late. She draws closer. Ten man-lengths away...five...until she is standing right in front of him.

  Varello’s hands drop to his sides in frustration, abruptly ending his song. The woman reaches for his flute and he hands it to her. She inspects it, turning it over in her hands before putting it to her own lips and blowing hard.

  Her cheeks puff out as her fingers dance over the holes, but she produces no sound.

  She seems not to notice her musical shortcomings, spending a full tick doing a silent impersonation of a flute player before handing the instrument back to Varello. Dumbfounded, he stands there as she walks back to her homely friends and rouses them. Unlike the naked girl, they are wary of Varello and edge away from him as soon as they realize that he is still standing and holding the flute. They shepherd the nude girl away, and Varello is all alone with a stupefied Marchand.

 

  Pebbles shake and the ground rumbles as two giant stone slabs are pulled from the earth below. The stars, which twitch ever so slightly, do not seem to be affected by the earthbound events. Zanther watches silently while Novanostrum rearranges the landscape with his hands, a magickal maestro terraforming their surroundings.

  “Seems like a lot of effort to go through just to make a simple lean-to,” Zanther says, looking at the two big pieces of rock.

  “Future travelers will also be able to use this. Consider it an example of altruism.”

  “Now, Nove, I don’t mind if you show off, I really don’t, but let’s not pretend you have even an ounce of compassion for others.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We spent half a day walking through the smoking ruins of Arcania, past injured and starving people, and you didn’t do a bonking thing to help a single one of them.”

  “I have no sympathy for any Arcanian. In my eyes, they barely even count as people.”

  “You’re from Arcania. They’re your people.”

  “Oh, I was definitely born there, there’s no denying that. However, after the myriad of unpleasant tortures they visited upon me, my feeling is that they deserve what they get.”

  “Deserve what they get? To have airships level half of their city? To always be subjected to the arbitrary and harsh rule of the Wizards’ Council? You can’t condemn the many for the sins of the few.”

  Novanostrum stops walking and sets his palms upon Zanther’s shoulders.

  “Sins of the few? What was done to me required consent from the people themselves, and yet an overwhelming majority of those fools supported it. My concern for anyone who could subject another living thing to the torment which I faced is nigh on zero.”