Lady Ruin

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Lirra started to reply but stopped when a fresh wave of nausea gripped her, accompanied by tingling at the back of her skull so strong it felt as if her head might split open. She sensed the same malignant presence she’d experiencd at the lodge, when Elidyr had managed to temporarily open a portal to Xoriat, and she recognized it as that of a daelkyr lord. She sensed the presence originating from a spot on the cave wall behind Elidyr and trained her gaze upon it. Through the rippling gray stone that served as a demarcation line between the in-between zone and Xoriat, she saw a sour yellow-green light off in the distance. As she watched, the light slowly grew larger, and she knew that she was seeing the daelkyr approaching, striding through his dimension as he headed for the in-between zone. On one level, the light offended her senses. There was a wrongness to it, as if it weren’t truly light at all but rather some corruption of it. But on another level, she felt an attraction to the foul light, as if part of her was being drawn to the daelkyr, and despite herself, she took a half step forward.

Elidyr saw and smiled.

“You have Xoriat in your soul now,” her uncle said, “and that part of you recognizes the approach of your lord.”

His words revolted Lirra, especially because she knew them to be true. She could feel the tentacle whip’s growing eagerness as the daelkyr drew closer to the in-between zone, as if the symbiont were a dog awaiting the return of a beloved master.

“You said the Overmantle hasn’t opened a true portal between dimensions this time,” Lirra said to her uncle. “That means the daelkyr won’t be able to permanently cross over to our world.”

“True,” Elidyr admitted. “But that’s unimportant right now. Once Ysgithyrwyn has dealt with all of you, I’ll be able to finish properly repairing the Overmantle. Then I can truly free him once and for all.”

“So you plan to have the daelkyr kill us,” Vaddon said.

Elidyr laughed. “Why would my master wish to kill you, when with a single touch he can open your eyes as he opened mine? I’ll enjoy watching you experience a changed perspective, Brother!” He chuckled before turning his gaze on Lirra. “You mostly belong to Ysgithyrwyn as it is, my niece, but I’m looking forward to your transformation becoming complete.”

Lirra would die before she allowed that to happen.

She leaned over and whispered in Vaddon’s ear. “I’ll take his left, you take his right.”

“Agreed. Watch out for that crawling gauntlet of his. It’s a weapon in and of itself.”

Lirra nodded and then father and daughter rushed forward to attack the man that was brother to one, uncle to the other. Lirra felt a rush of excited bloodlust from her tentacle whip, and she fought to ignore it. With a foe as powerful and deadly as Elidyr, she’d need all of her training and battle experience along with a clear head to prevail.

At first it seemed as if Elidyr intended to do nothing as his brother and niece attacked, and given his insane state of mind, Lirra wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if her uncle had simply stood there and let the two of them carve him up. But when Vaddon and Lirra came within five feet, Elidyr opened his mouth and extended his tongueworm toward Vaddon, while the stormstalk oriented its milky white orb on Lirra and unleashed a bolt of lightning.

Lirra dived to the side to avoid the blast of energy, did a shoulder roll, and came up on her feet running. Vaddon swung his sword at the tongueworm, but the rubbery hide of the aberration was tougher and more durable than normal flesh, and while the general’s blade cut into the creature, the wound it inflicted wasn’t very deep. Still, it hurt enough for the tongueworm to jerk back in pain, allowing Vaddon to get closer to his brother.

Lirra was within striking range of her sword, but as she raised it, the stormstalk’s eye began to glow once more. She commanded her tentacle whip to reach up and grab hold of the aberration just below the eye and pull it sideways, spoiling its aim. Elidyr’s symbiont unleashed its lightning, but the bolt flew well wide of its mark.

Lirra thrust her sword at Elidyr’s unprotected abdomen, but before she could ram her blade home, Elidyr deflected it with a quick swipe of his crawling gauntlet, the chitinous claw scraping loudly against Lirra’s steel. The blow was backed by more than human strength-another of Ysgithyrwyn’s gifts to her uncle? she wondered-and Lirra was knocked backward. She stumbled and nearly fell, but managed to stay on her feet.

While Elidyr was busy dealing with Lirra, Vaddon moved in and thrust his sword into his brother’s side. Blood gushed from the wound, but instead of crying out in pain, Elidyr laughed. He whirled to his brother and jammed his fingers into Vaddon’s right cheek. Elidyr’s fingertips sank into Vaddon’s flesh as if it were made of putty, and then the artificer made a fist and yanked. Vaddon cried out in agony as his cheek was torn from his face and he drew away from Elidyr, blood pouring from his ruined face onto the cave floor. Elidyr tossed his brother’s flesh aside, and then pressed his hand to his wound and massaged it with blood-slick fingers. Lirra understood what her uncle was doing-he was using his flesh-molding abilities to repair his injury-and she’d wager he was able to repair both the skin and the organs within. Was there no end to the man’s unnatural powers?

She rushed to her father, tore a strip from her uniform sleeve and used it in a futile attempt to staunch his horrible facial wound. Elidyr broke off his attack and watched Lirra’s inadequate ministrations with amusement, mad delight dancing in his eyes. Vaddon was breathing harshly and his wound was bleeding profusely, but his eyes were narrow and focused on Elidyr. She knew Vaddon was using every ounce of his ferocious will to concentrate past the pain, but she also knew that at the rate he was losing blood, he would rapidly weaken and lose consciousness. He needed Ksana’s healing touch, and he needed it now. But though Elidyr seemed content for the moment to watch his brother bleed, Lirra knew the crazed artificer could resume attacking them any second. As much as she hated it, she had to face facts. She couldn’t stand against Elidyr alone. She guided Vaddon’s hand to the blood-soaked cloth so he could continue applying pressure on the wound himself. He pressed his hand against ragged, raw meat and exposed bone, and despite his years on the battlefield and the number of times he’d been wounded in combat, the old soldier shuddered. But he gave Lirra a nod to show that he’d manage, so she turned away and shot a quick glance to check on Ranja and the warforged.

Longstrider and Shatterfist had recovered from the illithid’s mind blast enough to get on their knees, but it looked as if it was going to take several more minutes before the warforged were ready to rejoin the battle. By then, it would all be over, one way or another. Ranja was faring a bit better. She attempted to stand, wobbled, and then slumped into a sitting position. The shifter would recover before the warforged, Lirra judged, but again, she feared it wouldn’t be in time to help.

When Lirra’s attention was on Ranja, the shifter flicked her hand outward, and a small object flew through the air toward Lirra. The shifter was still weak and her aim was off, but Lirra commanded her tentacle whip to intercept the object, and the symbiont snatched it out of the air with ease and dropped it into Lirra’s open palm, the flesh wet with her father’s blood. The object was a small copper ball the size of a child’s marble. The metal felt warm against Lirra’s flesh, but she had no idea what the object was or what it could do. She knew one thing though-this was one of Ranja’s toys, and that meant whatever it was, it packed a punch.

Lirra turned toward Elidyr. She ordered the tentacle whip to sting his face, and as he blocked the strike with his crawling gauntlet, she hurled the copper ball at him.

The object hit Elidyr on the chest and flattened against his tunic as if it were made of copper-colored mud. He looked down at the splattered object on his chest quizzically, but before he could react, the copper began to spread like liquid, rapidly covering his torso, trunk, arms, legs, and finally his head. His entire body, symbionts included, was encased in the copperlike substance, rendering him immobile. Elidyr didn’t seem particularly disturbed by his sudden confinement. He looked down upon his copper prison and murmured, “Interesting,” as if his only concern was professional, an artificer admiring a work of thaumaturgical engineering.

Lirra grinned. Thanks, Ranja, she thought. With Elidyr incapacitated, she could get Vaddon to Ksana. But a quick glance showed Lirra that the cleric had problems of her own.

Sinnoch hissed like an angry reptile and charged Ksana, hands out and claws bared, shoulder tentacles whipping the air as he went, eager to grab hold of the half-elf and begin rending her flesh. The cleric stepped forward to meet the dolgaunt’s attack, holding her halberd like a staff. When Sinnoch came within range, Ksana swept the butt of the halberd upward and connected solidly with the dolgaunt’s chin. Sinnoch’s head snapped back, but instead of grunting with pain, the aberration laughed maniacally as both of his shoulder tentacles wrapped around the halberd and yanked, tearing the weapon free from Ksana’s hands. Sinnoch then swung the halberd around and smashed the flat of the axe head against the cleric’s temple, knocking her to the cave floor. Ksana rolled as she hit the ground and came up on her feet, her hands blazing with orange-yellow light. She released twin blasts of sun energy at Sinnoch, and the dolgaunt staggered backward, his chest aflame. He shrieked in agony and dropped the halberd, and Ksana darted forward to snatch the weapon off the ground as Sinnoch franctically attempted to extinguish the flames by slapping his shoulder tentacles against his chest.

Up to this point, Osten had stood and watched the fighting, but he let out a war cry and charged Rhedyn, the latter so completely covered in shadow that it was difficult to determine exactly where he stood. Rhedyn raised his sword, the weapon also cloaked in shadow, and waited for Osten to come to him. Osten-no stranger to dealing with symbionts-made his best guess as to Rhedyn’s location and swung his sword in a wide arc, the strike designed to hit Rhedyn regardless of where he was actually standing. Unfortunately, Rhedyn dodged at the last instant and Osten’s strike missed. The shadow-shrouded warrior’s return blow didn’t miss, however. His black blade nicked Osten’s forearm, and blood welled forth from the wound.

Meanwhile, Sinnoch had recovered from Ksana’s strike and had managed to rake the half-elf with his claws several times, and she was bleeding from gashes on her arm, neck, and chest. The dolgaunt’s hideous mouth was stretched in a bloodthirsty grin as he moved in on Ksana, claws outstretched, prepared to deliver a killing strike.

Blood loss had taken its toll on the cleric, but though she was weak, Ksana drew herself up to her full height, gripped her halberd tightly and shouted, “For Dol Arrah!” The axe head of her weapon flared with brilliant white light and as Sinnoch attacked, Ksana swung the halberd and buried the axe head in the dolgaunt’s neck. Sinnoch stiffened as the holy light of Ksana’s patron goddess flowed from the halberd and into his body. Beams of light shot forth from his eyeless sockets and poured out of his open mouth. His body began to shrivel up, as if it was being cooked from within. Lirra expected to hear the dolgaunt scream as he died, but instead he laughed uproariously, as if his death was the funniest thing he could imagine. Sinnoch’s laughter cut off abruptly and then the dry, lifeless husk of his desiccated body fell to the cave floor.

Elidyr looked at the dolgaunt’s corpse. “A pity that he won’t get to witness Ysgithyrwyn’s arrival, but at least he went out laughing. And speaking of Ysgithyrwyn …” Despite his imprisonment in the copper shell, Elidyr could still turn his head, and he glanced over his shoulder. The corrupt light that heralded the daelkyr’s arrival was much larger, and its sour yellow-green color was beginning to overpower the multicolored light given off by the Overmantle.

Elidyr turned back around to face Lirra and smiled. “It won’t be much longer now.”

She glanced at her father. Seeing Elidyr defeated-or at least momentarily neutralized-he allowed his sword to slip from his fingers and nearly fell to his knees, weakened by blood loss. Ksana hurried forward to help her old friend, and she put an arm around Vaddon’s shoulder to steady him.

“I’ve got him,” Ksana said to Lirra, and Lirra nodded. Now that her father was in good hands, she turned to Osten and Rhedyn.

With everything that had been happening, she’d lost track of how their battle was going. She hoped to see that the young warrior was at least holding his own against her former lover. Instead, Osten had been disarmed and Rhedyn held him from behind, the edge of his sword pressed against the other man’s neck.

“Surrender, all of you, or I’ll slice his throat open!” Rhedyn warned.

Lirra calculated the odds of being able to reach the two men and disarm Rhedyn before he could make good on his threat. Even with the extra reach afforded by her tentacle whip, she knew there was no way she could prevent Rhedyn from killing Osten if he wanted to.

Elidyr spoke then. “While I applaud your efforts, Rhedyn, it’s not necessary that they formally surrender. We need only keep them at bay a few more moments until Ysgithyrwyn arrives.”

The foul illumination given off by the daelkyr had become so intense that it filled the cave. Lirra doubted they had moments left until Ysgithyrwyn appeared. More like seconds.

A slow, sly smile spread across Elidyr’s face then. “Of course, my lord would prefer you to accept his touch willingly. Especially you, Lirra. Perhaps we can make a deal. If you go to greet Ysgithyrwyn, I’ll guarantee that Rhedyn spares young Osten. If you resist, I’ll order him to cut the boy’s throat.” He looked at the others. “And if the rest of you interfere in any way, I’ll order the lad’s death.”

Vaddon stood with Ksana, and Ranja was with the two slowly recovering warforged, and while none of them looked happy about it, they all kept their distance.

Rhedyn looked at Lirra. “Please do it. Everything will be so much more clear once you’re touched by Ysgithyrwyn. Your thoughts will be sharper, more focused. Everything will make sense.” He paused. “And then we will finally be able to be together.”

Osten snarled and struggled briefly, but Rhedyn pressed the sword blade tighter against the man’s neck. Beads of blood welled, and Osten forced himself to remain still, lest he cut his own throat.

“Not much time left, Lirra,” Elidyr warned. “Decide now or it will be too late.”

Lirra knew then what she had to do. “Very well. I will go to greet him.” She sheathed her sword and started walking slowly toward the section of the cave wall where the sour yellow-green light was most intense, the spot where she knew Ysgithyrwyn would cross over from Xoriat into this place between dimensions that Elidyr had created.

“Lirra, no!” Vaddon cried out. Ksana was still in the process of healing him, and his words came out garbled, but they were clear enough. Lirra didn’t look at her father. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. When she reached the cave wall, she got down on one knee and lowered her head, as if she were a royal subject preparing to greet her liege, or a worshiper about to meet her god. But as she kneeled, she gave her tentacle whip a silent command.

No, the symbiont responded.

Do it! Lirra insisted.

Why should I?

Because if Ysgithyrwyn corrupts me, you can’t.

The tentacle whip considered for a moment, and then it lashed out. Stretching backward behind Lirra, it wrapped around the Overmantle, picked it up, and dashed the mystical device against the stone floor. The metal casing broke apart, the crystals within shattered, and the multicolored lights the device had been generating winked out, leaving Ysgithyrwyn’s foul light as the chamber’s only illumination.

She looked up, squinting her eyes against the daelkyr’s light and saw an otherworldly hand covered in a chitinous insect-like shell protrude through the cave wall. The hand reached down toward her head, but before Ysgithyrwyn could touch her, the daelkyr’s yellow-green light began to dim. With the destruction of the Overmantle, there was nothing to maintain the intersection of the two dimensional planes, and they were beginning to pull apart.

As the daelkyr lord withdrew his hand, an alien voice echoed in her mind, one that didn’t originate from her symbiont. It was male, the tone beautiful and ugly at the same time, as if she were listening to soothing music blended with hideous screams.

This was most amusing, Lirra. I hope we get to play again someday.

Then the voice faded, along with Ysgithyrwyn’s light, and the cave walls resumed their solid appearance. Eberron and Xoriat were separate once more.

Lirra felt dirty inside, as if Ysgithyrwyn’s mental voice had left a slimy residue on her brain. She shuddered once, and then did her best to forget about the daelkyr lord as she turned to face Rhedyn, determined to get him to release Osten. But Osten stood alone, bleeding slightly from the shallow wound in his throat, behind him only shadows-shadows which Rhedyn had used his symbiont’s power to lose himself in. She started forward, intending to search for Rhedyn, but she stopped when she saw the puddle of coppery liquid where Elidyr had been standing. There was no sign of her uncle. Somehow, Elidyr had gotten free of his coppery prison and escaped, and Lirra had no doubt that wherever her uncle was headed, Rhedyn accompanied him.

Fury filled her at the thought that the two of them might get away, and she grabbed her sword handle, intending to draw her weapon and rush off into the darkness in pursuit.

Yes! the thought-voice said, the word accompanied by images of Elidyr and Rhedyn lying on the ground, covered in blood, begging for mercy as the whip lashed their bodies and Lirra plunged her blade into their flesh again and again.

Slowly, Lirra removed her hand from her sword. There’s been enough killing for one day. Now it’s time to take care of my friends.

Ignoring the symbiont’s protests, she started toward Osten.