Chapter Twenty Three: Pretty Little Birdies
"We had best leave this place," the Ash Elf said, letting the body of the malformed rat fall to the floor, "It is unclean." He wiped his hands.
"What a fascinating description," Jeremiah observed.
"Of course," Valodrael purred in his bubbling voice as he stalked passed, "You would know all about places unclean, wouldn't you? What with what you carry in your pockets."
"Says the dragon who acts more like a demon," Jeremiah shot back.
"Oh ho," Valodrael chuckled, a liquid, dirty sound, coming to a stop, "Someone's feeling brave all of a sudden." His tongue unraveled as he turned his gaze on Jeremiah.
"Well if you harm me, just how long do you suppose your little friend would last?" Jeremiah smiled, denying how his robes were sticking to his back with sweat. Valodrael shifted his weigh, turning, one taloned hand scratching across the stone, his form oozing and sagging as it fought to hold on to its shape.
"The question you should be asking yourself," Estella smiled as she laid a hand on Valodrael's liquid neck, "Is how long do you think you'd last if you tried to kill me the same way you did Stink of the Midden?" Her flock of talismans clustered about her, chattering like a flock of crows.
For a moment the air hanged thick with the possibility of violence.
"Touché! I think she has you there, old boy!" Ulrich congratulated.
"My dear Ulrich, surely you are not implying that you think I would harm a child?" Jeremiah's smile was more than a little forced.
"In a heart beat," Kaelin folded her arms, "As in, you would but we are straying off the topic. If Lady Zilvra's brothers think we should be getting out of here then I for one thoroughly agree with them. If nothing else we're not that far from the Fortress and we've seen just how fast kerveads can start swarming. I don't wish to be here when those horrible little light bugs show up."
"That is also a fact," the Ash Elf nodded to her, "It is surprising to find an Overworlder who learns the way of the dark so quickly but maybe that just proves our Matriarch's wisdom in her recognition of you. Come, let us leave this place." The three Ash Elves snagged their fallen brother's pack and turned to look into the dark. With a groan, Thorian stood up, leaning on the wall.
"Blasted rats," he mumbled, favoring his bitten leg.
"I say there, old boy," Ulrich looked over, "Having troubles?"
"Blast rat got me good in the back of my leg," Thorian grunted, trying and failing to walk normally on that leg, "Blasted well burns."
"You're not looking too good all over," Ulrich replied, frowning as he looked more closely, "Just how did they get your ears? My gosh, if I'd realized they had nearly swarmed you under old boy I would have come over to help out."
"Oh that," Thorian rubbed an ear and winced, "I tried body slamming on them. Kind of worked but I wouldn't do it again. Nasty little biters."
"Cor," Kaelin winced in sympathy where she was inspecting the back of his leg, "They really did a number on the back of your leg here. I'd say you need to get off that as soon as possible."
"Here," Ulrich slid off of Peter the Centipede and stood resting a hand on the bug's carapace, "Have a ride."
"You sure?" Thorian perked up, "I've always wanted a go." He hobbled over and sat down on Peter's back. The centipede let out a wheeze that could only be its equivalent of a grunt.
"Why Thorian you never said," Ulrich smiled and then grimaced as a liquid surging sound echoed in the confined space. A glance showed him that Estella was straightening and blinking Valodrael's darkness out of her eyes.
"I am never going to get used to that," he muttered as he turned to follow the Ash Elves into the reaches of the tunnels that they hadn't explored yet.
"How do you think I feel?" Estella asked as she bounced passed him, "Not every little girl has her imaginary friend become so real."
"Just how did that happen?" Kaelin asked.
"I thought you were listening when I said I met him when I was out looking for talisman wood," Estella smiled.
"Yeah I was," Kaelin replied as they set off into the dark, "But how did it happen? I mean, why on Hestia were you willing to become his..." She struggled to word it.
"Host, my dear Kaelin," Jeremiah piped up from the back off the group, "The word you are looking for is host. That or maybe cocoon, seeing as a cocoon is something that stores a better creature until it is hollowed out and useless, after which the more worthy creature moves on to another food source."
"Host does well enough, my good sir," Estella replied, "After all, we would not want to engage in a public display of impoliteness and dare I say, uncivil conversation. After all, it might give our companions the impression that you are something of a bore."
They all traveled on in silence for a few moments.
"Er," Thorian said, "Is it just me or did she sound like a right fancy pants just then?"
"I was trained to be," Estella admitted, "Granted my training was cut rather short but I was trained to engage my husband and my husbands associates in witty and intelligent conversation so that I may reflect well for my husband. In many ways this whole adventure has been something of a holiday for me."
"A holiday?" Ulrich raised his eyebrows, "My good lady, dare I ask what sort of life you lead before becoming acquainted with your draconnic friend?"
"Only the same as every other high born girl the world over," Estella replied easily, pausing to have a good look at the brightly colored spider that was busy weaving its web in the branches of one of the glowing fronds, "Learn to speak in a way that pleases men, learn to say what pleases men, learn to sit and be still and be seen and not heard. Learn that you have no thoughts or feelings or wishes of your own that are pleasing to men. That if a man asks you for anything then you should provide, that you're only worth is in pleasing men. That it is your one and only worth to please men and you should do it all the time but if you please men before your father has sold you to your husband then you are a worthless strumpet who dishonors her father and her family." She looked back at their stunned faces.
"Yes, I've never quite understood that one either," she admitted, "You get slapped for saying 'no, I don't want to do that' but then you get more than slapped for not saying 'no, I don't want to do that'."
"Geesh," Kaelin lifted her lip, "It doesn't sound so different from what I went through and you say that is what all noble girls go through?"
"All high born girls," Estella corrected, "Them and the girls who's fathers want them to marry up the social ladder to gain contacts with the high born. They are what are called new money and they are always looked down upon, unless they provide enough sons for their husbands. Then they get a little respect." She pattered on down the tunnel a little way and then held up her hand for a stop. Crouching she placed her hand on the floor and tilted her head as if she was listening to something. Her ear and the surrounding tissue rippled and darkened, something else pushing its way up through her being, stretching her ear out into a fleshy, fin like structure.
"And to think, just about every little girl I know wants to be a princess when she grows up," Kaelin shuddered.
"I think people see the riches, the pomp and pedantry and don't realize that it comes with a price tag," Ulrich shifted uncomfortably, "I knew that I had it bad because well, my mother and father weren't married but it never registered on me that my half sister's had it worse." He rubbed his bitten hand. That was beginning to itch abnormally.
"Oh did the great Ulrich not notice that he wasn't the only one who was looked down upon by his family," Jeremiah didn't quite snigger, "Oh woe is us that Ulrich Brekka isn't the paragon of virtue he pretends to be."
"Hack to the kettle calling the pot black, old boy," Ulrich retorted, "From the sounds of it you didn't a long hard look in the mirror while we were at the fastness when you could have done with doing so."
"Er," Thorian scratched an ear, "I don't quite understand something. I know you folk do this thing called marriage which means you are supposed to stay together but if your folks hadn't done it then why you go on about your father's family? Won't you be with your mother's family?"
"Urgh," Ulrich pinched the bridge of his nose and then gave Peter a slap to start him moving again as Estella waved a hand to indicate which way they should go. They walked on in silence for a few minutes the darkness gathering again as they moved away from where the glowing vegetation shone. Kaelin whispered a question to one of the Ash Elves then, after he nodded, light another regular light stick.
"My mother was one of the traveler folk," Ulrich admitted eventually, "Her caravan was broken up. It happens sometimes if the traveler folk aren't quick enough to shift on out of an area. Every little thing that goes wrong is blamed on them and, well you can guess the rest. My mother as I understand it was quite pretty so when the caravan was broken up some of the local young men of the nobility decided that they'd have her as their kept woman, charming people that they are."
"You humans do that to your woman?" one of the Ash Elves asked, his disgust evident.
"This from the people who's men folk have to fight for every day they live and every meal they eat?" Ulrich returned. The Ash Elf stopped and blinked.
"You see?" Ulrich asked as they padded on into the dark, "It looks to me as if the Overworld and Underworld are mirror images of each other in more ways than one but perhaps we can learn something from each other."
"Doubt it," Thorian sniffed, "We've been there for long time and you still don't learn from us."
"And how do your people treat their woman folk, my dear Thorian?" Jeremiah grinned in the dark, "Do they build them palaces and worship at their feet?"
Thorian was silent as their walked on and Kaelin had to fight down the urge to smack Jeremiah in the mouth. It was obvious that Jeremiah was taking the mick out of Thorian again and Thorian knew it even if he...
"You look after your woman, not 'cause she's weak but 'cause she's precious," Thorian cut through her thoughts, "She looks after you, not 'cause you're dumb but 'cause you're are precious. You look out for each other, that's all there is to it. You back each other up and watch each others backs. You stick to that and you'll do all right. I don't know why you people make such a fuss about it all."
"You know something?" Kaelin smiled, "I like that idea. Shame more people don't listen to that idea."
"Well maybe the Goddess of the Thunder Voice should tell her followers to live that way," Jeremiah stumped along, grinning.
"Now that is the first good idea you've had all day," Kaelin replied with something close to a smile, "I'll keep it in mind."
Jeremiah frowned. That wasn't the reaction he'd wanted and he scowled as he marched along, his puppets shuffling along behind him, the Vigor bent almost double under the weight of his pack. That was one good thing to come out of this whole journey, at least he now had a suitable servant to do the lugging about for him. Still, he was becoming mighty tired of having to walk every where when Ulrich seemed to pick up mounts here, there and every where. How come Thorian got to ride on his pet whereas he, Jeremiah, the one who would be so much more worthy of it, was still having to wear out his boot leather walking along like a peasant. It was infuriating!
The group hiked on through the unending dark of the Underworld, the unending night that seemed to stretch on forever, unchanging, unrelenting, mind numbing with its monotony. The smell of damp stone began to desensitize the nose and the temperature...
"Is it me or it becoming warmer down here?" Ulrich asked.
"Certainly feels that way," Kaelin nodded.
"It does the deeper you go into the Underworld," one of the Ash Elves informed them, "We have come down a fair way since leaving the citadel."
"If it warmer the further down you go, then why don't you build your fortresses deeper?" Kaelin frowned.
"Because then it would be impractical to reach the surface," he shrugged, "That and we do not appreciate the heat the way some do so we have no reason to attempt to invade the territories of the dwerg."
"Dwerg?" Thorian asked, "What's a dwerg when it's at home?"
"I believe that they are the people we Overworlders refer to as Deep Dwarfs," Ulrich said, "I have to admit that I was under the impression that they were just a legend."
"I believe that the dwarfs that we Overworlders are more familiar with are reluctant to admit to the fact that they had something of a schism in the past, my dear Ulrich," Jeremiah provided, "The dwarven people do like to maintain the front of unity against all outsiders."
"Bet they still don't like people like me," Thorian muttered.
"Probably not..." Jeremiah began and then stumbled to a halt as the walls broadened out to become a cavern full of gently glowing caps of mushrooms.
"Oh no, not again," Thorian muttered, "I don't much like mushrooms, not after last time."
The Ash Elves on the other hand seemed to relax as they stepped into the dull green glow, swinging their packs down and fanning out through the stalks. Within a few moments they were back, one of them carrying a brace of creatures that looked like gigantic pill bugs.
"We can camp here for a rest stop," the eldest of the Ash Elves announced, "We have let the spiders that are here know of our presence and as long as you stay with us they will leave you be."
"Ah, as much as we are honored that you have taken such trouble for us," Jeremiah was sweating gently again, "It might not be a good idea for us to linger. I am afraid that we surface folk do not react well to the fungi of your home."
The Ash Elves frowned at each other and then one of them seemed to realize what Jeremiah was taking about.
"You saw some interesting visions and heard voices of people that were not there?" he asked.
"Something like that," Jeremiah admitted. The Ash Elves looked at one another again and burst out laughing.
"T'is a shame we were not there to see," one of them wiped his eyes, "But you may rest assured these are not those kinds of mushroom, your eyes will not deceive you, nor your sleep be interrupted, I promise you that." He bowed.
"Are you sure? It's just he," Thorian jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Jeremiah, "Started acting real funny the last time we were round mushrooms too long."
"I am sure," the Ash Elves bowed again, "Indeed having found this garden we will be able to eat well this night." Behind him his two companions were cutting through the stem of a mushroom, nearly half as tall as they were.
"How's your head?" Kaelin asked Thorian.
"Er," Thorian rubbed an ear again, "Better, I think, headache eased off after we left those rats things behind. Why'd you ask?"
"Because the last time we were near mushrooms that sent our friends funny I had a bugger of a headache," Kaelin admitted, "So I figured if your head's okay then we should be safe."
Thorian thought about it for a moment.
"That makes sense," he nodded.
"Right then," Kaelin said, "Off the bug, I want to take a look at the back of that leg of yours. No point in letting it get infected."
"Shall I give you a hand?" Ulrich offered, "Since our little friends are no longer here and..." He looked around and spotted Jeremiah wandering among the mushrooms close by, oblivious to the rest of them as he studied the mushrooms, obviously fascinated by their glowing property.
"That's a good point," Kaelin admitted, "Rather have you than him. And you, hurry up and lay down on your front, we haven't got all day." Thorian obediently lay down on his front, where upon Ulrich took a great deal of pleasure from sitting on him to hold him down.
"Just returning the favor, old boy," Ulrich grinned.
"Remind me why I keep helping you guys out?" Thorian grunted.
"Oh hush the pair of you and let me look at this," Kaelin frowned as she knelt, inspecting the damage. After a moment Estella came over and held the lamp for her. Thorian grunted again as Kaelin set about cleaning the wound out and dripping 'For Healing potion' into it.
"That should do it," Kaelin reported as she bound the injury in a length of bandage, "Up you sit now, no standing on it for the rest of the night if you can help it and I'd say it should be healed by morning. You have to admit it, this for healing stuff is good." She grabbed Ulrich's hand to help him off Thorian and Ulrich couldn't help but wince.
"Oh not you as well," Kaelin sighed, "What is it about men where they always try and brush it off when they have been seriously injured but will act like they are dying when they have the common cold?"
"Don't want to seem weak when we're hurt," Thorian rolled himself into a sitting position, "But we want to know our women still care when we're ill so we act out a little when we got the sniffles to see if you're going to care when it is something big."
"That is surprisingly insightful of you old boy," Ulrich observed and then flinched on reflex as Kaelin started trying to clean his hand where a rat had bitten to the bone.
"Hold still," Kaelin complained, "Here Thorian, you do that job."
"Okay-dokay," Thorian grinned as he snagged Ulrich's wrist in a vice like grip.
Ulrich grunted as the feeling in his fingers started to disappear but then he reckoned that might not be such a bad thing as Kaelin started cleaning the injury out.
"I have to admit I didn't know your people could get a cold," Ulrich said from between clenched teeth.
"Yeah," Thorian said, "Both of them."
"Both of them?" Estella asked, her eyebrows arching.
"The one you humans get and the one the orcs get," Thorian nodded, "Orc one worse, makes you all dribbly at the edges. Uncle Xuk never did get back to being proper green after his round with it, him always a little grey these days."
Kaelin swabbed out the hole and dripped potion in to it.
"I take it that when you say you go all dribbly, the dribble is green?" she applied a dressing and started wrapping a bandage round the injury.
"Yeah, real thick too," Thorian nodded again, "Makes you feel awful."
"Not surprised," Kaelin sat back and cleaned her hands, "Sounds like it forces the algae, the plants that give you that color, out of your skin. Can't be nice."
"Do you think that's what happened to all the orc people?" Thorian asked, "They always seem a little grey, some times a lot grey. Always wondered if that's why they're always grumpy."
"That is said to be the punishment of the gods," one of the Ash Elves piped up from where they were slotting a pot bellied kind of stove together and loading the lower chamber with what looked like lumps of a black and crumbly rock, "When the god of the orcs lost his eye to the god of the elves, his people lost the power of creation. That is why they build no cities and sow no crops, they are stunted in their minds and bodies."
Kaelin hummed as she went to town of cleaning out all the other little cuts and bites the rats had left all over Thorian's back and particularly his ears.
"That might not be holding true any more," she suggested as she worked, "We met a band of goblins who were bright green. They spoke of a Goddess of the Thunder Voice, one who teaches and they asked to learn. I for one, have never hear of a goblin asking to learn before, have you?"
"Have you told them who the goblins thought was their goddess?" Jeremiah asked as he came back to the camp, "Have you admitted to that merry dance you lead them on?"
"Alright," Kaelin turned to face Jeremiah, "They thought their Goddess of the Thunder Voice was me because I played Haggis to them in an attempt to scare them away. They thought I was their Goddess and there didn't seem to be any good way of telling them otherwise so I didn't, though I did try to get them to go away and leave us alone. Not that it worked because they kept coming back."
"She also weren't the one who killed Stink of the Midden," Thorian glared at Jeremiah as he pulled his shirt back on, "Someone else did that and I'm looking right at him, so don't you go making out it was all Kaelin's fault, 'cause it weren't!" Thorian jutted his jaw aggressively at Jeremiah but the disgraced priest just grinned.
"Dinner is becoming ready if you would like to join us," one of the Ash Elves said diplomatically.
The dinner was better than Kaelin expected, with the Ash Elves providing their knowledge of the edible species of the Underworld and the party pulling some of their surface world foods out of their packs. The giant pill bugs were surprisingly good when roasted inside their shells in the top chamber of the oven and the mushrooms, seared on the very top of the oven, tasted not unlike a creamy mild chicken. All in all, a successful field cooking session and Kaelin rolled up in her blankets feeling happier than she had for a long time, drifting off to the quiet murmur as the Ash Elves broke down their fallen brother's pack and redistributed the weight.
Kaelin snuffled in her sleep.
She knelt by the fire, watching as her Grandfather 'disciplined' one of the Pack's women. She couldn't look away, she knew if she did then she'd be next in the ring, taking her Grandfather's ire. He won't stand for weakness like that so Kaelin looked but she didn't watch. Her eyes were turned in that direction but they didn't see what was going on in front of her, her ears didn't heard what was going on.
She blinked.
There was a man standing behind her Grandfather. Kaelin stared. She was sure he hadn't been there a moment before, in fact she was sure he'd never been there. She craned forward. He wasn't one of the pack. He was too clean, too fresh. Her nose twitched. She could smell him, even though he stood so far away from where she knelt, she could smell him, fresh and clean and something... something of forests and plains and... people. People she'd never met, people she wanted to meet, some where she wanted to go, some where far away from here. He was dressed strangely too, like a knight but not at the same time, his armor made up of overlapping scales of a blue washed metal, his muscles the long, wiry kind used to swift and sudden motion. The sword at his waist was also strange, slim and curved. There was a air of calmness, of stillness about him, totally at odds with the scene before him. He seemed to be everything her Grandfather was not but it was her Grandfather he was looking at, an expression of disgusted and maybe... disappointment on his bearded face as he folded his arms and shook his head slightly.
Kaelin flicked her eyes, just her eyes round the rest of the circle but nobody else there seemed to see the man there, standing behind her Grandfather, passing his quiet and gentle judgement on the old werewolf.
Kaelin looked back at the man and started as she realized that he was now looking directly at her. His eyes, such blue blue eyes, smiled at her from under tawny locks. Suddenly Kaelin knew a sense of love she had never felt in her waking moments and the tears were forced from her eyes as her heart seemed too full to bare.
"Time to wake up," the man spoke gently and Kaelin opened her eyes to see the dull glow of the mushrooms in the cave.
"Bad dream?" a voice asked quietly.
Kaelin turned her head to see Ulrich gazing at her with concern. She had to think about it for a moment.
"No," she whispered, "It was a good dream, at least at the end." She curled up again and thought about it some more until she heard the others rising. She decided that she didn't want to share the details, at least, not yet. Somehow it felt too personal and part of her still wondered who the man had been, who the knight who was not a knight had been. She was darn sure she'd never met him but some how he was familiar, as if she did know him. And there was something else.
She thought about it as she chewed her breakfast, letting the others talk on without her. There was something else, something she was missing, something she'd noticed about him that was tickling at the back of her mind.
"You are unusually quiet this morning, my dear," Jeremiah observed, "Could it be something you bit has disagreed with you?"
"You disagreed with me long before I bit you," Kaelin muttered, not looking up from the cup of tea Ulrich handed her, "In fact I think you disagreed with everyone on this team before I bit you."
"Huh," Thorian half laughed, "Even managed to disagree with that metal man and he's not around a lot, is he?"
Kaelin sat up straight, the penny finally dropping.
"Thank you for saying that," she pointed at Thorian without looking round, "You've just reminded me of something."
"Er, I did?" Thorian frowned.
"Yes you did," Kaelin said, having a dig through her pack, "A little detail about a dream I had last night, you just made me realize what the connection was that was nagging me."
"And that would be?" Ulrich asked.
"Hartseer's swords," Kaelin replied, still digging through her pack, "They aren't straight, they're curved. Curved, single edged, something akin to the blades the elves make." She nodded to the Ash Elves and then sat back on her heels. "Bother, I don't have any plain paper."
"Why Kaelin," Jeremiah smiled, "I wasn't aware that you could even read."
"I am perfectly capable of reading," Kaelin snorted as she started reloading her pack, "And even if I wasn't I could still look and draw."
"And what could you be wanting to draw?" Jeremiah munched his breakfast.
"Someone I haven't met," Kaelin admitted, "But I think... Hartseer may have. I'm not sure, it was a dream after all but... well this journey has been strange enough that I wouldn't be surprised if it is not something to consider."
"My dear Kaelin," Jeremiah said in the sickly sweet way he had sometimes, "You really should know that dreams are only dreams, they have no meaning in the real and waking world. It is the sign of an unsteady mind if you can't differentiate between what is real and what is imaginary. Perhaps you should consider speaking to a priest before you act upon these impulses and as I am here..."
"Says a priest who's order includes a chapter of soothsayers," Kaelin didn't look round, "Perhaps you should have talked to them yourself before you started hunting out those books of yours. If trying to see the future is real then why should looking into the past be any less real?"
"She has a point," Ulrich nodded and raised his cup to her, "After all, nothing fades like the future or clings like the past, we are all shaped by our pasts. Doesn't mean we can't grow in a new way once the world around us changes." He inclined his head to the Ash Elves. The oldest of the Ash Elves inclined his head in return but his expression was troubled.
"Any ho," Kaelin laced her pack shut and stood up, "Shall we be moving on?"
"Might as well," Ulrich agreed.
"Not getting anything done round here," Thorian shrugged.
"My dear people," Jeremiah smiled, "What is the hurry? We have the security here that we haven't had for so long. We have food and people who can keep the creatures of the Underworld at bay. Why should we hurry to..."
He trailed off.
"You were saying old boy?" Ulrich asked as he swung on to Peter the Centipede's back. Jeremiah didn't answer, just kept staring at the wall. Frowning Ulrich turned his head to look at what had so thoroughly captured Jeremiah's attention.
A large brown spider was creeping down the wall of the chamber. Though not as large as some of the spiders the companions had faced, they immediately tensed at the sight of it, even their Ash Elf allies bringing their hand bows up. The spider halted and stared straight back at them, the single blood shot eye in the top of its head rolling as it ogled them.
"Let's be moving on," Jeremiah suggested as he hastily scrambled to his feet, "No time like the present after all. Let's get going. Come, hup there, one, two, one, two, one, two." He quick stepped it out of the cavern and for once Kaelin was not inclined to call him out on his duplicity, following along in his wake, the hairs on the back of her neck rising when she had to turn her back on the thing, all too aware of it still gazing at her.
They quick stepped it down several tunnels before they came to a stop.
"That was unnerving," Estella stated, rubbing her arms.
"That is singularly enlightening observation coming from you, my dear," Jeremiah managed to smile with something of his usual demeanor.
"That maybe more true than you realize," Ulrich grimaced, "If it was just the rats then I would have said that they were just some weird mutation, unsettling but natural enough in a world where free energy can be spun into magic. Now we've seen its effects in a spider I'm more inclined to believe that it is the result of deliberate tampering."
"That can't be good," Thorian sniffed.
"So what do we do?" Kaelin asked.
"We pocked it yesterday by killing those rat swarms," Ulrich stated, "As my guess is that they were the early warning system that were meant to keep intruders out, so what ever it is knows we are here."
"If we try to withdraw, it will only come after us," an Ash Elf stated, "It is trying to judge how big of a threat we are. If we give it time to complete that assessment then we will only have given it time to decide how best to kill us."
"So if we find it first we have a chance of it not being prepared to met us?" Ulrich queried, "Well I suppose that those runic rings must take sometime at least to charge up."
"It may not be what we are looking for down here," the Ash Elf admitted, "But whatever it is, it is as unnatural to us as it is to you." He hefted his hand bow and uncapped his quiver of arrows. "Let us finish this!"
"I can agree with that!" Ulrich grinned, his eyes dancing with mirth as he loosened his swords. Kaelin just sighed and shock her head but she settled Haggis more comfortably in her arms.
"I'll just be preparing my prayers," Jeremiah muttered, stepping towards the back, "No need for us to be all clustered together. In fact..." He juddered to a stop as a small finger pocked him in the back. He looked over his shoulder to see Estella standing there. She smiled up at him, a truly unnerving expression as the black sludge seeped from her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
"Let's step along," Jeremiah matched action to words.
"So glad we can agree," Estella piped from behind him. Thorian looked at her and winked.
The tunnels stretched on into the dark, Kaelin now shielding the light stick with a hand to cut down how far ahead the light penetrated. They walked on, trying to stay alert but it was difficult, the unending, stark sameness about the throats of stone numbed the mind and made the senses begin to drift. There were moments when Kaelin blinked and wondered if she had nodded off for a second, walking on by sheer habit down the eternal night as Hestia itself swallowed them. In the darkness tiny sounds, echoes of far away drips of moisture and the hum of the little lives that call this place home murmured and ran together until one could believe that one was hearing far away conversations, born by the slow breath of the rock.
Jeremiah tilted his head, straining his hearing.
There it was again, an honest to gods voice, high pitched and crackling but a voice that spoke in the gloom ahead. Peering into the dark ahead Jeremiah could see a turn in the tunnel ahead, the voices echoing round that turn. Pursing his lips he kept in step with the others but shortened his stride so that he fell back and back again. Just a little more...
Thorian shoved him forward. Kaelin glanced round but didn't say anything, trying to decide what she was hearing.
"Keep up, Mr Godly Man," Thorian grunted.
"My dear Thorian," Jeremiah protested, "We're been marching for hours, can't a chap take a minute to ease his feet?"
"Not when he's trying to hide at the back to let his friends take all the risks," Thorian loomed at him, "That and how come your feet are sore, huh? The rest of us are lugging our fair share of the weight in our packs, you aren't even doing that, you are letting your little pets do all the work for you. Do you ever do a proper days work?"
Jeremiah glowered at him for a moment and then grinned as a thought struck him. Leaving Thorian looking confused, Jeremiah turned to his Ash Elves and gestured a couple of times. The blue eyed puppets stepped forward and interlaced their arms to make a seat, a seat upon which Jeremiah promptly deposited his generous back side. The puppets staggered for a moment and various things went crack but they held his weight, just but they held it.
Kaelin glanced round again and raised an eyebrow then turned her face away with a small shake of the head. Still, it rather showed just how much Jeremiah had managed to slim down over the last few weeks as she doubted that the undead Ash Elves would have been able to manage it when Jeremiah had first been a member of the King's Special. Though how he stood the smell was any ones guess. Thankfully most of the caves they had been traveling through had been dry in nature so the puppets were drying out, rather than going soft and drippy but there was definitely an unpleasant odor around them now. She would have suggested that he get rid of them but that would only mean that he was then on the look out to find himself some more and she was more than tired enough of that freakiness.
Ahead Estella and one of the living Ash Elves held up an arm.
"They hurt my little birdies. I don't like them hurting my little birdies," a high pitched, crackling voice echoed down the tunnel.
Kaelin pulled up her hood in an instance. Jeremiah blinked as first Kaelin was there and then she was not. He glared at the space where she had been. It was becoming irksome that so many of the group were acquiring magical items that they could use without asking him first. That was not how it should go, he was supposed to be their expert on all thing esoteric, he was the one they were supposed to turn to when they needed something beyond the physical realms performed. This independence grated on his nerves. People needed reminding of just how powerful he was. His eyes flicked sideways as he spotted a shadow moving on the wall, where there was no one to cast it. So she couldn't hide that could she? That was useful to know.
"Shush," Ulrich lent forward and patted his centipede's 'neck', "Quietly now my lad." The bug's antennae twitched and it rippled slowly forward as Estella twisted the ring on her bracelet and vanished, the talismans tweeting for a moment and then quietening as they flitted forward.
Moving as quietly as they could the team slowly crept forward round the twist of stone.
The cavern was massive, the ceiling lost in hanging stalactites that dripped with the passage of eternity, the dim light of glowing chunks of crystal shining off of damp stone. Keeping low they inched out on to the natural galley, trying to keep down behind the irregular balustrade of stalagmites that thrust up between the mighty stone pillars that ringed the edge of the cavern, supporting the roof at irregular intervals. Hiding in the shadows of the galley, further round the cavern, Kaelin could see overflowing bookcases spilling their contents on to the floor. There were also shadowy figures standing there. She narrowed her eyes, trying to see if they were moving.
"They're odd," Thorian mumbled, making her turn her head. She started as she realized that two of the shadowy figures stood to the left of the tunnel they had just exited but the beings didn't move, their glass eyes dim and pitted, cast down at the floor. They looked like a very amateur attempt to recreate Hartseer but there was none of the polish in the construction and a disproportion to the results that spoke of someone either not overly bothered with how well they would function when they were animated or not entirely sane.
Thorian frowned with disgust when he realized that Jeremiah hadn't followed them, leaving them in the lurch. He shook his head as he realized he couldn't see Kaelin either and then looked over the edge along side the others.
In the huge hollow below them the center of the cavern was littered with bits and pieces of mechanical experiments and scraps of magical operations, half complete potions and piles of spell components. The only really clear space was off to the left where a large runic array still glowed with the after effects of power.
"Oh yes, Nanny Tatters will make the little ones mind their manners, yes she will," the crackling, whining voice spoke, drawing their attention to the far side of the hollow. There, silhouetted against a blue glow, something huge moved and flared its wings.
"Oh shoot," Kaelin whispered, "Its a dragon." A crunching, sucking noise beside her made her jerk round in time to catch Estella as the girl fell sideways, most solidly visible, traces of black goo still on her lips. A movement drew Kaelin's eyes and she saw the trailing end of Valodrael's tail flowing up the nearest pillar.
"Oh," Estella shuddered, "He's not usually that rough."
"A dragon?" Thorian pouted with thought, tilting his head from side to side, "Nope, still looks like a winged club to me."
"More to the point," a clear, educated voice enunciated, "Has the Snake Clan been recruited to our cause of yet?"
"Oh yes," the dragon cackled, "Oh yes, they have been recruited. The little puppies had such a lovely time recruiting them to the cause." The laugh was utterly chilling in its lack of sanity. "Nanny Tatter's keeps her word, oh yes she does, she does. Nanny Tatters opens the way, the ways and the means."
"Then despite the set backs this bad batch is causing us, I believe that we are approaching the end game," the educated voice observed.
Ulrich craned his neck, shifting slightly round the galley, trying to get a clear look at the speaker. He frown. The speaker appeared to be hovering above a collection of crystals, the surfaces of which had been cunningly carved into curving and flowing symbols.
"Rune stones," Ulrich whispered under his breath, something Hartseer had told him tapping at the back of his mind and his eyes registered what they were truly seeing. The speaker wasn't hovering because he wasn't truly there, he was an illusion built out of light, an illusion of a distinguished looking gentleman of advanced years, with a straight nose and high forehead, his hair brushed neatly back. Though the blue light made it impossible to tell what the true colors where the was something undeniable rich about his robes.
"Oh yes," Nanny Tatters, the dragon, cackled, "The end game. Yes, yes, Nanny Tatters remembers what the end game is supposed to be. The question is whether you remember what you promised. Nanny Tatters wants what is her rightful due, yes she does. Don't you be forgetting it, you naughty little man."
It was eerie to hear such a big creature giggle like a little girl.
"Please tell me that I don't sound like that when I laugh," Estella muttered.
The man in the light managed a little quirk of a smile.
"I assure you Nanny Tatters that once our little loose end is tied up and the God Engine works how it is supposed to then you will have the ascendancy you were promised," he stated, "After all, a deity should recognize those who helped him ascend, should he not?"
She giggled again.
At the mouth of the tunnel, Jeremiah lifted a hand to halt his seat of puppetted Ash Elves. Surveying the scene he slid down from their support and stood pulling his beard, wondering what to do, stay quiet, try and direct the dragon's ire towards the others or to slip off quietly back down the tunnel, trusting to his memory to lead him back to the citadel and there try to recreate the runic circles to get out of the Underworld, the King's special and all the rest. There again, he could see the glow of magic down in the hollow and a little craning revealed another runic circle that he might be able to high jack. He muttered a prayer to his god, calling on him to reveal what manner of magic inhabited those gleaming runes.
The sense of dragon and Fey magic nearly knocked him on his butt.
"Air!?!" the dragon's head turned, what looked like a mane of dreadlocks swinging round her neck. She sniffed. "Someone's where they not supposed to be. Someone's being naughty. Yes, yes, Nanny Tatters smells you. Who's being naughty? Who's being a naughty little boy."
Thorian went to reply out of sheer habit of trying to be polite and then clapped a hand over his mouth as he realized that it would not be the best move he ever did.
"Who are you? Where are you?" Nanny Tatters turned fully, "Who's fiddling with things that they should leave well enough alone?"
Jeremiah pressed himself back up the tunnels mouth until his own puppets got in the way. He stilled then, trying to breath as quietly as he could, to project the belief that he was just a rock, just a rock, nothing to be seen here. Estella looked at him and raised her eyebrows before slowly shaking her head. Ulrich nudged Peter so that he himself was positioned behind Thorian's reassuring bulk.
The gentleman in the blue light frowned as Nanny Tatters turned her back on him.
"Is there an issue Nanny Tatters?" he curved an eyebrow and something about the expression revealed someone who did not like anything to distract from how he dictated the conversation.
"Someone's being naughty," she crooned, stepping slowly across the chamber, her head swinging back and forth on the end of her long neck, "Someone's where they're not supposed to be. Come out, come out where ever you are."
Ulrich craned to look passed Thorian's shoulder.
"Is it me or does she not look to be the healthiest dragon on the planet?" he muttered in Thorian's ear.
"Yeah," Thorian nodded, "Don't think brown dragons are meant to be all mottled like that and what's with those sort of finger things growing out of the back of her head?"
Ulrich frowned and then saw what Thorian meant. The mane of dreadlocks weren't hair, as he had originally thought, they were fleshy ropes that dangled round her neck, wiggling round the bases of her two forward sweeping horns.
"Nanny Tatters," the blue gentleman folded his arms, glaring at the dragon's retreating form, "I hope I do not need to remind you of what happened the last time my plans were revealed before they were ready. I will keep my word only if you keep yours. Deal this problem!"
"Yes, yes," Nanny Tatters squawked, "I will, when the nasty little things come out of hiding. I know you're there."
"Oh shoot!" Kaelin whispered, checking that her hood was still in place, "That can't be good."
"Have to admit that I wasn't planning on fighting a dragon this morning," Ulrich admitted, "What say you? Shall we pock her in the eyes?"
"Are you blind?" Kaelin hissed in disgusted, "She's only got one eye!"
Hearing Kaelin's hiss Jeremiah pocked his head round the corner in the tunnel again to see that Kaelin was absolutely correct. Nanny Tatters only had one eye, the eyes she should have had being just redundant pits in the sides of her face, the single monstrous orb of her eye popping and googling in all its bloodshot glory in the center of her forehead, its eyelids sliding sideways to the usually orientation to blink.
"Um, looks like we found who has been altering the rats," he noted in a cheerful murmur.
"I heard that," Nanny Tatters snapped, "Where are you? Where are you? Where are you, you stinking little sneaking..." She trailed off, blinking the sideways lids of her one huge eye.
Something dripped passed the end of her nose, something dark and thick and gloopy. It dripped again. Nanny Tatters slowly tilted her head up to see Valodrael's upside down face grinning and drooling among the stalactites.
Nanny Tatters drew breath to yell but Valodrael already had a throatful.
Nanny Tatters screamed as the wave of black cold struck her in her face.
"My eye! My eye!" she yelled frantically pawing at her head.
"Tally ho!" Ulrich yelled, his sword leaping to his hand as he kneed Peter the Centipede, sending the bug surging around Thorian and scuttling straight down the wall to the floor of the hollow.
"Oy! Wait for me!" Thorian bellowed as he straightened, pulled his broad sword out of its scabbard as he rose from crouching behind the balustrade of stalagmites. Ulrich completely ignored him, whooping as Peter galloped across the floor of the chamber to where Nanny Tatters spun and shrieked and cursed. She shrieked like a distressed kettle as Peter and Ulrich dived among her trampling legs, Ulrich lashing out with his sword, scoring a long gash that cut deep into her ribs.
"Oy! I said wait for me!" Thorian roared, not sure if he should cheer or curse as it looked like Ulrich was going to beat him again to the fight.
Behind the whirling, squealing mass that was Nanny Tatters and Ulrich, Jeremiah saw the blue gentleman lift his hands and making a gesture like his was savagely pulling something apart. With a soundless burst he vanished, the rune stones dimming. Jeremiah nodded to himself and decided to stay well out of it for the moment.
"Time to get what we need," Estella muttered, twisting her bracelet again. Her talismans twittered with distress and then hurried after where they heard her unseen footsteps sound as she scurried towards where the bookcases stood.
With a shriek, Nanny Tatters screamed out the words to a spell. Ulrich coughed and blinked as a wall of white flowed up from the floor and closed over his head. He shook his head, wiping the water droplets that formed on his face away as he strained his eyes to see through the fog. Next second he kneed Peter out of the way as Nanny Tatter's food came crashing down, nearly mashing him into the rock floor.
Thorian blinked as the pea souper fog filled up the bowl of the hollow, making it hard to see anything more than a foot away from the base of the wall but out near the middle he could see the thrashing hump that was Nanny Tatters making the fog mount up over her back.
"'Ere we go!" he yelled and leapt over the stalagmites, crashing to the ground nine feet down but he some how not only failed to break a leg but he also kept his feet.
"Orc ballet," Kaelin admired, "Never thought I'd see the day."
"You ain't seen nothing yet!" Thorian roared as he charged into the fog, brandishing his sword. Kaelin frowned as Thorian vanished into the fog but his sense of direction must have been good because there was a solid sounding smack and Nanny Tatters' head reared out of the fog with a shrill howl.
Kaelin smiled and puffed into Haggis' blowstick. The tune she hammered out was a rollicking martial tune that made the stalagmites ring and set the stalactites humming in resonance. She couldn't see what effect it was having on her friends but Valodrael seemed to expand where he was clinging to the ceiling, the lights of dying stars popping and bursting over his hide.
With a grin as the music throbbed through her own system, Kaelin bounded down the rough steps on the left that led to the hollows floor and leapt through the tattering streamers of fog.
"Tell me," she called as she charged, "Is that your face or did your neck throw up?"
Nanny Tatters swung her head towards Kaelin's voice.
"Says the nasty little dog's breath," she crackled back, "Haven't you ever heard of garden mint?" She seemed to be regaining some of the sight in her one huge eye.
Without breaking stride Kaelin let the beast out of its cage, her bones crunching into new forms as she leapt, fangs springing out of her jaws like nails being hammered through a plank. Nanny Tatters shrieked as Kaelin's claws dung in a hair's breadth from her goggling eye. She screamed again, head whipping from side to side, Kaelin clinging on and clawing over and over, swarming over Nanny Tatters' face, gouging until the blood splattered into the air with each shake of the dragon's head. Nanny Tatters reared on to her back feet and thrashed. Kaelin span off, still clutching a handful of the fleshy dreadlocks. Nanny Tatters roared, front feet slamming down hard enough to make the cavern shake. Kaelin landed, one hand slowing her momentum as her spine twisted to tip her on to her feet, all while she grinned through lupin jaws.
Ulrich slashed out and Nanny Tatters flinched away, a red line opening up on her palm at Ulrich's back swing.
"Not fair! Not fair!" she shrilled.
Estella continued running for the book shelves.
"Magic, runes, spells," she gasped out to her talismans, "You know what we are after, go." They swooped ahead of her, the fastest members scrabbling over the piles of books that lay cluttered at the foot of the book cases.
"Nasty! Nasty! Nasty!" Nanny Tatter's grated, spitting the words to another spell.
With wheezing groans five of the constructs round the edge of the room ground into life, their joints hissing as they strode forward, mismatched limbs making them lurch as they stomped towards the team, two of them closing in on Ulrich on one side and three baring down on Thorian and Kaelin on the other. They stumbled and swayed as they stepped off the edge of the drop but they didn't slow much, no light of intelligence in their eyes as they closed in on their targets. Kaelin's ear flickered nervously as it occurred to her that these things might very well walk through a wall to get at them.
Thorian span and smashed his broad sword through the torso of one of the constructs, spilling cogs and springs across the floor in a clanging cacophony. Its legs took two more steps before it realized that it was missing everything above the waist and toppled forward.
Ulrich ducked as a battered looking sword whistled through the air above his head. He laughed as it lurched and had to spin to control its momentum, its unequal legs stumbling across the floor.
He ducked again as Nanny Tatters' tail whirled towards him, her hissing squawking voice battering his ears.
"I say old girl," he ducked away from her clockwork soldiers again, "Could you turn the noise down just a little. In these things it is important to die with at least some dignity, don't you know?"
She did not appear to appreciate the advice, shrieking like a kettle about to burst its lid clear off.
Lady Zilvra's Ash Elves jogged down the rough steps and took up a firing line formation. The bolts whistled through the air but clanged off the metal forms of the constructs without effect.
With a roar Thorian bulled his way between the two remaining constructs of the ones who had attacked him and Kaelin. They staggered, obviously confused by the unorthodox attack and that gave Thorian time to turn, swinging his broadsword with a thunderous bellow. The first construct shattered, broken pieces scattering across the floor. The second stumbled to a halt and juddered, its joints locking up, thin tendrils of blue light flicking around the great gash carved through its chest, a teeth-aching whine growing in volume before...
"What the..." Thorian frowned.
The mockery of Hartseer exploded with a surprisingly soft sound, peppering the immediate area, which included Thorian and Kaelin with shrapnel and something that might have once been organic.
"Ouch," Kaelin said wryly as she picked a metallic splinter out of the piercing it had made in her ear.
"Should have left that in," Thorian called as he turned back to the massive bulk of Nanny Tatters, "You'd look good with gold earring in there."
"Get over," Kaelin barked as she bounded beside him and then she skidded to a halt, rearing on to her back feet, scanning the area, noticing someone was missing, someone who should have been involved in the fight.
"Jeremiah!" she managed a voice which would have done an irate mother proud, "He of the great blubber! Get your backside down here now!"
Jeremiah had stepped out of the tunnel mouth and was part way down the stairs before he managed to over come the instinctive drive to obey that voice. That was ridiculous, he was not a child to obey any more but it did give him an idea. His lovely new book had given him a prompt for a new twist on one of his old spells. Closing his eyes, he began muttering, trailing his fingers through the air to twist the strings of magic together. With a rush he let the spell go, opening his eyes in time to see an exact copy of himself swoop away from him on wings like a bat. He grinned. Now there was a handsome chap, not to mention powerful as well as Jeremiah mark two landed and span the bolt spell together in less than a minute. Nanny Tatters staggered as it crashed into her chest.
Coughing and wheezing she staggered back to her feet.
"Nasty, spiteful, selfish little beasts!" she croaked.
"Hark to the kettle, Natter Tatters," Valodrael gurgled from the ceiling, "Do you remember the curse my father laid on you after you destroyed the eggs of our people?"
"What?" Nanny Tatters looked up at him. It was the last mistake she ever made.
Valodrael didn't breath a wave of black cold, he vomited the very stuff of the void, cold made solid, a roiling, seething river of the very essence of ice, of non-being.
Nanny Tatters screamed as it enveloped her skull but her screech was, by degrees, drowned out by the cracking groaning of ice under pressure, her jaws locking open, her eye blackening as blood vessels burst, lesions blistering across her scales. Her whole body locked up, one fore foot in midair and for a second no sound echoed in the chamber as Valodrael closed his jaws with a satisfied smirk. Then with a frantic scrabble Ulrich and Peter the centipede dashed out from underneath her bulk as it came crashing down, the three inch thick layer of black ice engulfing her head shattering on impact with the floor, sending chunks and lumps spinning across the rock.
In the ringing silence that followed Ulrich turned to the last two constructs.
"I don't suppose you old boys would mind running away?" he asked politely. They stomped closer.
"Oh, guess not then," Ulrich grinned. The bat winged Jeremiah struck first, his mace of office ringing off the metal shell of the closest with a strident sounding clong.
"I say, old boy," Ulrich called, "Steady on and where did you get the new accessories?"
Jeremiah, the real Jeremiah, grinned as he watched his double almost gaining the admiration of one of the most annoying members of the team. He frowned in disgust as Kaelin bounded across the cavern and leapt at the construct, making it reel back under the impact. Ceasing it, with her thumbs digging into what would have been its ears and her fingers braced under what would have been the jaw, Kaelin wrenched and twisted, then with an almighty heave she hoisted its head a loft, riding its collapsing form down until it clanged against the cavern floor.
Jeremiah rolled his eyes. Some people had no decorum.
"Well done Kaelin," Ulrich whooped as he drove Peter the Centipede round behind the last active construct. He dismounted and hacked open the constructs back panel in one fluid motion. Jamming his sword back in its scabbard he reached his hands inside the things mechanical guts. Now if he pulled this one out here and rerouted that...
Ulrich stumbled back with a yell, flinging an arm up in front of his face as a shower of sparks fountained out of the machines internal workings. Ulrich backed away as the thing jumped and sparked and flailed about.
There was a hissing whistle and the prancing machine dropped, the sparks ending in a couple of coughing pops before falling silent. Across the cavern Lady Zilvra's elves straightened and slung their handbows over their shoulders, satisfied expressions on their faces.
"Good shooting," Ulrich congratulated. Kaelin meanwhile was glaring at the winged Jeremiah as the beast was slowly forced back into its cage. Stooping, she seized a lump of some mechanical experiment and threw it at him. The bat winged Jeremiah stumbled as it bounced off him.
"My dear Kaelin," he frowned slightly as he turned, rubbing his shoulder where the thing had hit, "May I inquire exactly what that was for?"
"You smell wrong," she stated, pacing closer, eyes narrowed, "You look wrong and you don't have your puppets clustered around you as a meat shield. In short, you are too damn brave to be Jeremiah so who are you and what have you done with the real one?"
"My dear, there is absolutely nothing to fear," the bat winged Jeremiah bowed to her, "Please excuse the confusion but the prime example of your comrade Jeremiah is perfectly safe and is in fact observing this interaction right this very moment."
Kaelin paused, confusion passing over her face. There was something very odd about all of this.
Leaving Kaelin to her little tiff, Ulrich wandered over to another group of the Hartseer knock offs. He had been close to making the rewire work he was sure of it, it just needed a little practice. After all, now he had the time to be more gentle with trying to get the back plates open. Picking up what appeared to be a likely looking tool, he started wiggling away at the back plates of the construct.
"What are you doing?" one of Zilvra's brother asked with a frown.
"Just trying to understand what the other side was trying to cook up for us," Ulrich gave a reassuring grin, even as he suppressed the urge to curse out Nanny Tatters for managing to seal this on more effectively. "After all, this is something totally new so it is best we understand..." The back panel popped free, "How they tick." Ulrich began fiddling with some of the threads of metal and the clockwork springs inside. There was a small bang and a cloud of black smoke.
Thorian guffawed at the sight of Ulrich standing there with his hair spiked up and his face blacked by soot.
"Not that one," Ulrich said ruefully and turned to the second construct standing near. He diligently ignored Thorian's continued howls of laughter as he worked. With a wheezing groan the construct straightened up, the light coming on in its eyes.
Thorian looked up, saw it moving and charged brandishing his broad sword.
"No, no, no," Ulrich hastily stepped in, shoulder to Thorian's chest, one hand catching Thorian's elbow on the down swing, "No, don't panic, old friend. It isn't going to hurt us."
"You what?" Thorian demanded.
"It's mine now," Ulrich grinned and turned to his new trophy, "Marmaduke! Walk!"
Clanking and groaning quietly to itself the construct stepped forward.
"You see?" Ulrich turned to Thorian, "It is perfectly under control."
A quiet hand clap echoed across the cavern.
"I have to admit I had doubts that a noble would have the necessary practical understanding to pull that off but I will say that it was half way impressive," Jeremiah was walking down the steps leading to the hollows stone floor.
"You what?" Thorian said as he and Ulrich looked first at the Jeremiah that was walking towards them and then at the one that was closer to Kaelin. They looked and looked again.
"And that isn't disconcerting at all," Ulrich stated.
"There's two of them?" Thorian scratched his head, "Since when was there two of them? I don't understand."
"That's the original," Kaelin nodded towards the Jeremiah that was just joining them, "I told you that this one smelt too good to be the real one." The Jeremiah double inclined his head to her, while the original one glared.
"Still it is a shame that you are not up to my standard, my dear Ulrich," the original Jeremiah turned back to his original target.
"I don't know," Ulrich grinned, "I would have thought you'd have been happy that I haven't nicked another one of your pets, seeing as Batholomew was originally yours."
"Well, I have to admit that I was having more difficulty imposing my will on it after the prayer over charged and resurrected it so it was no real lose to me," Jeremiah played it off, "And you have to admit that I provided you with a more intelligent mount than the servant you have provided for yourself."
Ulrich frowned and then Jeremiah grandly gestured to where 'Marmaduke' was trying to walk itself clean through the wall on the far side of the hallow, blindly obeying Ulrich's instruction to 'walk'. Estella was leaning over the parapet of stalagmites, staring down at it with a slightly confused expression, her hands full of a stack of books while Valodrael loomed over her, another book held in his bubbling jaws, eyes regarding the two Jeremiah's with equal interest.
"Marmaduke!" Ulrich commanded, "Coming here!"
The construct turned round and came plodding backward towards Ulrich, its dull gaze unwavering as it lurched across the cavern.
"Stop!" Ulrich held up a hand as if daming the construct's progress and it stumbled to a halt.
"Hum, going to take a little practice to master how to command them," Ulrich admitted, "And they are not the toughest things around." He turned a speculative gaze on the first construct he had tampered with. He stepped behind it again and started trying to replicate what he had done to activate Marmaduke. An ear-aching whine started up and Ulrich ducked only just in time.
"Are you going to do that again?" Thorian asked as he picked a piece of shrapnel out of his arm.
"No, no, definitely not," Ulrich brushed dust out of his hair, "I give up. The ungrateful things can stay here and rust for all I care."
"Right, good," Thorian nodded and turned to stomp over to Nanny Tatter's hulking corpse. He seized hold of the end of her tail and yanked. It apparently yanked back as he wound up on his butt. Jeremiah, the original Jeremiah, sniggered. Thorian stood up, dusted himself off and took up the slack on the tail. This time he put his shoulder into it and pulled with steady pressure, his muscles bulging as he dig his feet in and pulled.
With a fleshy ripping noise the tail parted at the point where the muscle structure tapered out into just sinew and bone. Thorian stumbled forward but kept his feet. He turned and reeled in the length that had parted company with the rest of the dragon.
"Cool!" he grinned.
"I'm sorry, my dear Thorian but I fail to see what that was in aid of," Jeremiah's winged double admitted, earning itself a glare from itself creator. Thorian grinned and took hold of its slightly thicker end.
It produced a very satisfactory crack that echoed and reverberated around the cavern when he flicked it.
"That's why," Thorian beamed, "Ever heard of a dragon whip?"
Kaelin nodded, an expression of admiration crossing her face.
"Nice," she said.
"Not as nice as this, my dear," the original Jeremiah stepped forward, rolling his sleeves up. Kaelin frowned and then her eyes went wide with horror as she worked out what her was doing.
"Are you frigging nuts!" she yelled, "Are you trying to get us all killed." She was too later, Jeremiah was already weaving the lines of power.
"May I suggest that we step this way, my dear," Jeremiah's double took hold of her arm and hastened her to one side as the rippling skeins of power curled through the air and poured down Nanny Tatter's throat. Ulrich drew his swords and Zilrva's brothers stepped up beside him, hand bows loaded and ready.
The power continued to pour down Nanny Tatters' throat, a corona of blue light forming around the edges of her great, goggling eye, the center remaining an unnerving black, reminiscent of the Void dragon that killed her.
Said Void dragon was bunching himself on the railing of stalagmites, a hallow noise of hunger rumbling up from his belly as he gazed at the spell work happening below him.
A creaking, cracking noise sounded as Nanny Tatters stirred, her legs gathering underneath her, the great black orb of her blue rimmed eye turned obediently to Jeremiah even as her body lurched to its feet, great wings drooping as blue light sifted from her part opened jaws. Jeremiah the first beckoned silently and Nanny Tatters took a step forward. He held up a hand and she stopped, head bowed to her master. Jeremiah grinned.
Kaelin was both shaking and shaking her head.
"You are insane!" she muttered, "You are utterly insane!"
"I have to admitted I'm not sure that was a risk that I would have been willing to take," Jeremiah the second admitted.
"Fortune favors the bold, my friends," Jeremiah the first smiled and something about that smile made Kaelin shudder.
"Oh," Thorian said disappointed, "And here's me hoping for some dragon skin armor."
"My dear Thorian," Jeremiah the first turned to him, "If you wish to have a dragon skin armor you are move than welcome to help yourself. After all, there is nothing in the pray that says the body has to remain intact once it is back on its feet."
"Really?" Thorian brightened and then he narrowed his eyes, "Wait, what's the catch?"
"No catch, my dear Thorian," Jeremiah the first continued to smile, "I am feeling generous in success and it is a virtue to share with your... friends."
"Why does that make me feel nervous?" Ulrich muttered as he returned his swords to their scabbards.
"Why would my generosity unnerve you, my dear Ulrich?" Jeremiah the first asked.
"Oh not that," Ulrich admitted, "You calling us friends, that is what unnerves me more."
"My dear Ulrich...." Jeremiah the first began.
A scream of fury echoed round the cavern.
They all jerked as if they had been stung. Lady Zilvra's three brothers were standing at the edge of the runic circle and the lines of power were glowing with renewed energy. Above the runic array a circulating ring of light was turning, holding in its center an image which was neither the cavern beyond the circle nor a reflection of the cavern before the circle. Instead the image within the ring of power was of a large room with a set of deeply indented stairs on either side of it and a huge set of double doors at the far end. Littering the floor of the room was the wreckage of furniture smashed to pieces in a desperate fight and the stains on the floors and walls revealed how brutally the inhabitants of the building had died.
"Isn't that...?" Kaelin trailed away as the three brothers turned their blazing gazes on the hulking form of the reanimated Nanny Tatters. There was no forgiveness and no mercy in their eyes as they crossed the floor, locked in step, the steely slither of their blades making the hair stand up on Kaelin's arms. The brothers didn't notice as the runic circle powered down and the image of their desecrated home popped out of existence, all that existed for them was the body of the murderous witch who had helped destroy their home, their clan and their family.
After a few minutes of those long deadly swords doing their awful work, most of the King's Special turned away. Leaving Jeremiah the first to grin as the Ash Elf brothers slowly peeled his reanimated dragon out of her skin, they moved away through the cavern, picking over anything that they hadn't had a good look at already. Estella Blackwood came down the steps to join them, blinking the last of Valodrael's darkness out of her eyes.
"So there's no doubt about it?" she asked quietly.
"None," Kaelin shook her head, "That was the main hall of the Fortress of the Snake Clan. We haven't just found how my scab of a Grandfather has been getting the werewolves into the Clan Strongholds, we've found who was opening the door for them." She growled low in her throat.
"Would you like me to eat him for you?" Valodrael's voice burbled between Estella's lips.
"If I can't kill him myself you are welcome to," Kaelin snarled, "Damn it but I should have made sure the first time. I should have made sure the first time." She punched a wall and didn't notice her knuckles bleed.
"It would be my pleasure," Valodrael assured before retreating so Estella was fully in control.
"How long do you think they are going to take with that?" Thorian jerked a thumb over his shoulder at where the Ash Elves worked.
"Depending on how skillful they are and how determined they are to peel it off in one sheet so any where between a few minutes and maybe an hour or more," Jeremiah the second suggested, "As much as it is understandable I would suggest that we prepare to leave as soon as possible. Something about this place feels of decaying magic and I'm not sure what it is going to do when the hour glass runs out.
"Going to be a lot of dragon armor, " Thorian noted, glancing back at where great flaps of it now hung loose from Nanny Tatters' frame, making her look like her name sake, "Think we're going to need something to carry that lot in."
"Well, it seems the now deceased occupant of this residence did have a habit of collecting odds and ends," Ulrich observed, tipping over a pile with a toe, "Though she had absolutely no organization. Why can't women ever properly file things?"
"I heard that!" Kaelin barked from one of the other piles of junk. Rooting though it she pulled a haversack free of the heap. "Found something." She called.
"Same here," Ulrich strode back, holding a sack aloft, "Now sure how much it will hold."
Thorian and Jeremiah the second didn't answer both of them closing in on the same satchel. Thorian reached it first.
"Here, this is pretty," he gave it a wipe. There appeared to be a face stitched on the leather flap that protected the top of the bag, "What do you suppose its looking at."
"I really don't know," the bag replied, "But whatever it is, your mother must have been so disappointed when she first saw that."
Thorian gaped at the bag. Kaelin stepped forward and slapped it.
"That's for insulting my friend," she spat, "Now watch your tongue or so help me..."
"Ha," the bag retorted, "Your mother bleats like a goat and your father chirrups like a pheasant!"
Kaelin narrowed her eyes.
"You watch your tongue or you'll go where everything that stinks goes," she warned it.
"What?" the bag demanded, "Up your bum?"
"No," Kaelin drawled, "The midden heap."
"Of course, sister, just cause your jealous that some of us know our worth," if a face made out of embossed and stitched leather could sneer then this was most definitely sneering.
"Could be the fire," Kaelin suggested. The bag fell silent.
Ulrich watched the whole display, shaking his head with an expression of pity in his eyes.
"It could only happen to us," he noted "There can't be another team of adventurers any where in the whole wide world who go to claim their fair share of the loot for all the work they have done and wind up with a magic item who's only talent is to spout insults at its owners at the drop of a hat."
Jeremiah's moth, both the original and the copy, buzzed their wings.
"No," Ulrich said in exasperation, "I wasn't talking about you!"
