Gorgon's Kiss
Kalentiri, Part Three: The Devil and the Eye (Chapter 31)
Results of the last poll: When Traagh breaks out of his interrogation, does he kill someone or does he just flee? (7 votes)
Kills someone. (14%)
Just flees. (86%)
Traagh’s head pounded like a thunderstorm raging inside his skull. His breaths came in thin, shallow heaves. He tried to engage his diaphragm so his lungs would fill, but none of his muscles responded. He could not even open his eyes. His eyelids each felt as heavy as a tree trunk. What had those tieflings given him?
The big orc’s sluggish mind drifted back to the darkened parlor. The tieflings had held a wet rag over his nose and mouth. Whatever substance they had soaked the rag in must have been a powerful paralytic. Traagh knew a handful of plants from the Gnarlwood that could cause sluggishness, but nothing that worked with the speed of the rag’s contents.
He tried to sniff, but even the tiny muscles in his face were not responding. The only sense available to him at the present moment was hearing. So Traagh listened.
He could hear breathing that was not his own. It was coming from two different places, which meant two captors nearby. If only he could move his arms, he could knock their heads together and escape. The mere thought of it made his biceps quiver.
“Dorifoyle, he’s coming around” said one of his captors.
“About time. Go get Trilura.”
Traagh heard a chair scrape the floor, then quick footsteps, followed by a door creaking open. The door was to his left. There was at least one piece of furniture in the room that he could use as a weapon. Crack the chair over one tiefling’s back. Take a sharp stick from the wreckage and stab the other. Then run.
Of course, that would only come to pass if he regained the use of his body.
He waited, hoping the remaining tiefling – Dorifoyle – would say something. But the Veiler stayed quiet. Traagh counted his weak heartbeats. The door opened after he had lost count in the three-hundreds. Two sets of footsteps sounded. Crack one with the chair, stab one, slam the last into the wall. Then run, left through the door. Break it open if needs be.
“How much did you use, Calumny?” That was Dorifoyle’s voice.
“He’s a big son-of-an-owlbear,” Calumny said. “I wanted to make sure he went down.”
“He went down all right. I wasn’t sure he was going to wake up.”
“I did what I thought was right. Who’s the poisoner here?”
“Hush, both of you,” said the third voice, higher pitched than the others. This must be Trilura, Devrion Fens’s former spouse. “Now that he’s awake, we can give him the antidote.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Calumny said. “Better to let the Gorgon’s Kiss wear off naturally.”
“We can’t wait that long,” Dorifoyle countered. “We need to find Acarax and dispose of whoever else she brought back here.”
Calumny huffed, and Traagh could hear him pacing back and forth. “I’m against this. I want it noted that I said so.”
“Just do it a few drops at a time until he can speak,” Trilura said.
Some more grumbling, then Traagh felt a warm liquid dribble into his half-open mouth. It touched his tongue as it gathered in the back of his throat. The flavor was peppery. He might have sneezed if his muscles could have generated the motion. He struggled to swallow; thankfully, his internal organs seemed less affected than his larger muscle groups, and his esophagus did its work, if ploddingly.
Within a minute, the weight on Traagh’s eyelids vanished, but he did not open his eyes yet. He waited. Another hundred heartbeats went by before he felt a second dribble of liquid.
“That dose of Gorgon’s Kiss would have stunned an ancient dragon!” Dorifoyle complained. “He’s barely breathing!”
“Just a little more, I think,” Calumny said.
Traagh felt a third drizzle of antidote wet the inside of his mouth. By now, he could swallow with ease. He could feel the hard surface beneath his prone body. He was lying on his back with his arms and legs hanging over the sides of a table. The feeling was coming back into his fingers and toes. And the best part: the wood of the Protean Staff still coiled around his upper arm. They must have overlooked it as mere jewelry, a trinket adorning a backward orc from the Gnarlwood.
At last, Traagh allowed his eyes to flutter open. His lip quivered. His cheek twitched.
“Stop,” Trilura said. “That’s perfect.” She loomed over Traagh, and her smile was more malevolent than any frown. “You, orc, who are you?”
“I am Traagh…Shunned of the Gnarlwood,” he said. His voice came out in a husky croak.
“Very well, Trag,” Trilura said, deliberately mispronouncing his name. “You were spying on our compound with at least three others: a felenin, a tiefling, and a lizardfolk. Where are they?”
Traagh took a moment to make sure he could breathe normally. He could, but he wasn’t going to reveal that to his captors. He sucked down a rasping breath. “I assumed…you had them…in custody,” he said. “That I was…the last…to be taken.”
“If that were the case, you’d be dead,” Dorifoyle said. “Don’t play games with us.”
“No games,” Traagh said.
“Then where are they?”
Traagh considered for a minute. The last he knew, Summer and Castle were at the Open Table. Good luck getting to them there. But he didn’t know where the others were. A little lie was called for. “The others went to…the Temple…of One and All.”
“Why would they go there?” Trilura pressed.
“I don’t know…maybe they found…religion,” Traagh said.
He felt a swift pain in his side, and it was all he could do not to react.
“If you really don’t know where they are, then you’re no use to us,” Dorifoyle said. “Calumny, kill him.”
“Wait,” Trilura said. “The lizardfolk is named Acarax. She belongs with us. She must be scared outside in the world when all she has ever known is the Compound of the Fifteen Veils.” She managed a single tear dripping along the side of her nose. “Please, you have to help us find her.”
“Acarax said you tried to cook her,” Traagh said.
Trilura tittered, an incongruously girlish laugh. “Silly Acarax. It was all a misunderstanding. Why would we do something like that?”
“Because you are awful people who only care about yourselves.”
Dorifoyle prodded Trilura out of the way. “People only ever care about themselves. If you care about your own skin, you’ll tell us where they are.”
“And then you’ll let me go?” Traagh asked.
“We won’t keep you in the compound any longer.”
Traagh made a show of struggling to raise his head. He stared daggers at Dorifoyle. “You know nothing of my people if you think I’ll turn on my companions.”
Dorifoyle sighed. “The Shunned, the Shunned. Always so righteous. Can your righteousness cause wounds to clot?” The tiefling drew a long, serrated knife from his belt and held it above Traagh’s heart.
“Stop,” Traagh said. “You don’t want to mess with me or my team.”
“Oh, we don’t?” Dorifoyle said. His arm quivered in midair. “And why is that?”
“We work for Monolith. You think the biggest company in Selenachar is going to look the other way at the disappearance of their contractors?”
“As you say, they’re the biggest company on the continent. You and your ‘team’ are disposable to them.”
“Don’t be so sure. We’ve talked to their devilish overlords.”
“Their what?”
But before Traagh could respond, an earsplitting noise rent the air. The floor beneath him quaked. As one, the three tieflings turned toward the window.
Now was his chance.
He tested out his muscles starting from his feet. His calves and thighs were strong and responsive. His abdominals were ready to crunch. His chest and arms could lift a stag. Traagh thought the word ‘club’ to his Protean Staff. The wood melted from his arm and formed in his hand. As soon as he gripped the club, he launched himself from the table. Two quick swings dropped Calumny and Dorifoyle. Trilura screamed and reached the door before a single blow knocked her unconscious.
Traagh stepped over her body, bent down, and said, “Serves you right for trying to eat my friend.” But the senseless tieflings did not hear his words.
_______
Under the cover of darkness and driving rain, the rest of the team made their way to the sewer’s entrance. Xander led the group with the just friends, Acarax and Iris, behind him, and the two felenin bringing up the rear. They reached the dead end at the stone wall of the tower. Xander dropped his knapsack on the ground and felt around for the vial he dropped when he had searched the tunnels with Summer. There was just enough potion remaining in the vial to illuminate the wall if he gave the tube a vigorous shake.
Xander began unpacking the explosive materials he had gathered from the various basements they had visited in recent weeks.
“How do we know this explosion won’t just cave in the tunnel?” Summer asked.
“The tunnel’s not too deep underground,” Xander explained as he lined the accelerant jugs along the wall. “I think the explosion will blow the tunnel open as well as blow a hole in the wall here. Everyone, move as much earth as you can behind these jugs. We want to direct the explosion at the wall.”
They set to work, sliding by one another in the cramped space. Within thirty minutes, they had several feet of dirt pressed against the jugs. The only part of the bomb they could see was a small portion of the black powder bucket.
“Here goes nothing,” Xander said, and he stuck a long matchstick into the powder. “Everyone, go to the latrine.”
“What about you, Xand?” Iris said.
“I’m going to light this and then run.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Summer said. “What would I tell your mother if you blew yourself up.”
“I’ll do it,” Castle said. “I’ve got steady hands.”
Xander looked at Summer who looked at Castle. Summer’s mouth fell open. “You’re prepared to take that risk?”
“After all that’s happened, it’s the least I can do,” Castle said.
Xander handed Castle a flint and tinder, along with a thin strip of paper. “Don’t try to light the matchstick directly. Light the paper and use it to light the match.”
“What, kid, you think I was born yesterday?” Castle said. “Get going. Everything’ll be fine.”
Summer backed away, their disbelieving eyes still on Castle. Xander followed, and he thought he heard Castle wishing aloud that he had some bhust left. They joined Acarax and Iris in the bottom of the latrine. A minute later, Castle dashed into view. Xander counted down from ten. The explosion came when he said, “Three.”
A sound like a hundred peals of thunder rocked the sewer. The ground shook. The piles of filth crumbled around them. As the echoes of the explosion died away, the ringing in Xander’s ears persisted. He could see Iris’s mouth moving, but he couldn’t make out her words. He watched Acarax creep to the tunnel’s intersection.
“S-s-s-starlight,” she squealed, and Xander heard the excited cry as if his head were submerged underwater.
He trailed the group as they moved back down the sewer. Indeed, his theory had worked, perhaps too well. A hole gaped in the tower’s side. It reached halfway up the tower’s height and was as wide as all of them standing side by side with arms outstretched. The tower swayed ominously. Rubble lay about in large piles, though much of it must have been blasted into the tower or else up and out of the sewer.
Xander stepped to the edge of the hole and peered in. A column of darkness met his eyes. It extended both up to the tower’s roof and down to some unknown depths. He picked up a rock and dropped it into the hole. He listened, hoping that by now his hearing had returned to normal. But it must not have, for all he heard was a squelching sound, as if the rock had hit a large slab of meat. He looked helplessly at the others.
“Let me try,” Iris said. “I’ve got a new trick I’ve been meaning to use.” Holding her hands in a cup, she hummed a short tune. From her hands rose a quartet of shining balls. She sent them into the hole and down, down, down. “There’s something at the bottom, but I can’t make it out.”
At that moment, Acarax stiffened. “Yes-s-s-s, Paskath,” she intoned, her eyes unfocused.
The lizardfolk stepped forward, each leg moving in jerky motions. She reached the edge of the hole, and before anyone could react, she jumped in.
“Acarax!” Iris yelled.
“We need to go in after her!” Summer said. “Xander, do you have any rope?”
“I’ve got something better,” he said. “Give me a second.”
Voices sounded from above, some angry, some scared. The Veilers were coming.
“We don’t have a second,” Castle said.
“Almost done!” Xander mixed two of the liquids he kept in his bandolier and produced the same sky blue potion he and Acarax had drunk earlier. “Everyone, take a sip of this, then jump immediately. Trust me!”
To his great astonishment, everyone did. Xander followed Summer, Castle, and Iris into the hole. Through the magic of the potion, they drifted down, passing each of Iris’s four glowing orbs. They landed softly on damp ground, like the bottom of a well. Acarax was there, but she was not standing beside them. The lizardfolk dangled limply in midair, clutched by a sparking tentacle.
The sparking tentacle was very much alive and connected to a bulbous body. A lidless eye, neither milky nor glassy, filled the fleshy form. The eye stared down at them with cold menace, its iris red as fresh blood. The living Ophthal was twice as large as its undead brethren. It floated in the air with its many tentacles sending sparks of energy arcing between them.
The Ophthal spoke no word, but Xander could hear its voice in his head nonetheless: “Foolish slaves. How dare you disturb Paskath’s meditation.”
Come back on Friday to see what happens next in the story of the Kalentiri. You can also listen to this chapter on the podcast side of the Trail Blaze Fiction Substack or your favored podcast app. While you’re waiting for the next installment, head over to AdamThomas.net and sample Adam’s fantasy novels.