Lady Ruin

CHAPTER SEVEN

Osten’s head turned toward her as she approached, and eyes that no longer contained even a shred of humanity focused on her. Osten’s lips stretched into a cruel smile, and Lirra felt a cold pit open in her stomach as she realized the tentacle whip recognized her.

She didn’t waste time on words. The fastest way to stop the symbiont was to weaken it, and to do that, she needed to deprive it of its blood supply-Osten. She rushed forward, sword in her right hand, dagger in her left. The symbiont was intelligent in its own way, and if nothing else it possessed a certain amount of animal cunning. But one thing it didn’t have was battle experience, and Lirra intended to use that failing against it. As she drew near, she raised her sword, feinting with the weapon to draw the symbiont’s attention while she struck with her dagger.

Sorry, Osten, she thought.

The tentacle whip did nothing, and for an instant she felt a surge of hope. Perhaps the aberration was still too mesmerized by the portal to react in time to stop her.

But as her sword arm came around in its feint, Osten grinned, stepped aside, and the tentacle whip lashed out and wrapped its coils around the wrist of her dagger hand. The whip yanked her off balance, and Osten reached out with his free hand, grabbed hold of her other wrist and twisted. His grip was inhumanly strong, and she felt bones grind and a sharp pain shot through her arm. Her fingers sprang open, releasing their grip on her sword, and her weapon tumbled to the chamber floor. Next the tentacle whip squeezed the wrist of her dagger hand, forcing her to drop that blade as well.

Her right wrist blazed like fire, but she grabbed hold of the tentacle whip, grimacing at the warm, greasy feel of the thing’s flesh, planted her feet solidly on the floor, and hauled backward with all her might. The whip was taken by surprise, and Osten’s body stumbled toward her. Lirra lashed out with her foot and swept the man’s left leg out from under him. Osten fell onto his side, hitting the stone floor hard. With the tentacle whip joined to him, the impact wouldn’t do much to slow him down. What she’d wanted was to get Osten’s head-or more specifically, his throat-within striking distance of her boot. She kicked out hard and crushed the man’s windpipe.

Osten’s body stiffened, and she felt the tentacle whip vibrate, as if it were reacting to the blow as well. Osten’s mouth gawped open like a fish’s as his body struggled to draw in air, but the soft wet clicks that emerged from his throat indicated that Lirra’s blow had had the desired effect. He could no longer breathe and would rapidly lose strength and die, rendering the tentacle whip, if not helpless, than greatly reduced in strength. Hopefully weak enough that Lirra would be able to deal with it then. As if its host’s plight were already having an effect on it, the whip released its hold on her wrist and fell to the floor. Lirra decided to take the opportunity to retrieve her weapons. Keeping an eye on the tentacle whip in case it decided to strike again, she reached down and grabbed both her sword and dagger. Osten’s face had turned red and was beginning to shade toward purple. His eyes bulged as he fought a losing battle to breathe, and though Lirra knew that she’d had no other way to stop the symbiont possessing his body, she found herself unable to watch the man’s face as he died. The whip itself still lay limply on the chamber floor, and she decided to risk a quick glance to see how the others were faring.

Vaddon had dealt with the crawling gauntlet in the most expedient way possible-by cutting off the arm of its host at the elbow. The man sat on the floor, white-faced and grimacing in pain, bleeding stump jammed against his midsection to staunch the flow of blood, while the crawling gauntlet-still attached to his severed arm-scuttled across the stone floor searching for somewhere to hide, leaving a trail of crimson in its wake.

Ksana stood before the woman possessed by the stormstalk. The serpentlike creature unleashed a bolt of lightning at the cleric from its overlarge eye, but the cleric raised her hand and the energy discharged harmlessly inches before striking her. Ksana then stepped forward and swung her halberd like a staff, striking the woman on the side of the head with the end. The woman took a stagger-step to the side, and before she could react, Ksana-moving with a savage speed and grace that seemed at odds with her rational, accord-seeking personality-reversed her strike and struck the woman in the side of the neck with her halberd’s axe blade. Blood fountained from the wound and the woman fell onto her hands and knees. Ksana then flipped her halberd around for a new strike and brought the axe head down upon the juncture where the stormstalk had buried its tail into the base of its host’s skull. The stormstalk had no mouth with which to scream, but the way its body quivered told of the pain it suffered from the blow, and the aberration immediately yanked itself free of its host and began frantically slithering away before Ksana could strike at it again. Once the symbiont had left, Ksana dropped her halberd to the floor and rushed forward to place her hands upon the wounded woman and begin healing her.

Rhedyn stood before the woman possessed by the tongueworm, his body cloaked in shadow, sword in his right hand. The worm had attempted to strike at him, but he’d managed to grab hold of the aberration with his left hand before its barb could sink into his flesh and paralyze him. The tongueworm writhed in obvious pain, and Lirra knew that Rhedyn was using the corrupting touch of his shadow sibling to hurt the creature, and through it, to hurt the host body as well. Maintaining his grip on the tongueworm, Rhedyn yanked hard and pulled the host body toward him. When she was close enough, he rammed the sword into her stomach, seeking the spot where the tongueworm was anchored. The woman’s eyes flew open wide and a gout of dark blood spilled past her lips. It was followed by the length of the tongueworm as it abandoned the wounded body of its host. Its mouth end whipped toward Rhedyn’s face, as if it intended to seek him as a replacement host. But Rhedyn cast aside the worm and it fell to the floor in a blood-slick coil and began rapidly slithering away. Rhedyn withdrew his sword from the woman’s body and she slumped forward onto the floor, a pool of blood spreading out from beneath her. Rhedyn didn’t once look at her. His gaze swept the room, searching for more symbionts to deal with.

Rhedyn was a soldier doing a soldier’s work-Lirra knew this. Hadn’t she dealt just as ruthlessly with Osten and the tentacle whip? But there’d been a brutal efficiency to Rhedyn’s motions, along with a casual cruelty she’d never seen in him before, and she found herself wondering how much of that had come from him and how much from the symbiont he was bound to. She thrust the thought aside for later contemplation and looked to the center of the chamber, where Elidyr continued to struggle with the Overmantle.

The artificer had pulled out all three of the device’s trays, and his hands were blurs as they moved back and forth across the crystals. Whatever he was doing was having some effect-no longer did streams of energy stretch from the Overmantle to the crystalline rods attached to the steel beds, and while the obscene insect-shelled hands still gripped the inner edges of the portal to Xoriat, the opening in space itself had shrunk significantly since Lirra had looked upon it last. She had the impression the portal might’ve been closed by now if the creature on the other side, whatever it was, hadn’t been struggling so hard to keep the doorway open.

Sinnoch continued to stand next to Elidyr, but the dolgaunt still did nothing to help her uncle. Instead, the creature was laughing wildly, taking mad delight in the chaos surrounding him.

She gripped her sword tighter and started walking toward the center of the chamber. She doubted there was anything she could do to help Elidyr, but she could stop Sinnoch from making the situation any worse and, if nothing else, see to it that he paid for his betrayal … assuming, that is, her uncle managed to close the portal. If whatever those insect-armored hands belonged to made it through to their world, Lirra had the distinct feeling that none of them would survive very long after its arrival.

But before she could do more than take two steps, she felt something grab hold of her ankle. She looked down and saw a hand clasping her boot-a hand that belonged to Osten. The man lay prone on the ground, arm outstretched, holding onto her ankle with an iron grip. He grinned up at her, and she saw the ragged, bloody hole at the base of his throat, and she realized what had happened. She’d seen the technique performed on the battlefield before when a soldier’s airway was obstructed and no cleric was available. Cutting a hole in the throat, like a tiny second mouth, allowed air to bypass the obstruction and make it into the lungs. The soldier would then be able to breathe until such time as he could be seen to by a cleric and healed. But the last time she’d looked at Osten, he’d seemed on the verge of losing consciousness. How had he managed to perform the procedure on himself? And then she realized that he hadn’t. The tentacle whip had used its barbed tip to dig into the tender flesh at the base of Osten’s neck and create a crude opening. It seemed the aberration was more intelligent than she’d given it credit for.

She glanced toward Osten’s left arm where the symbiont was attached, but as she did so, its length unfurled toward her, and its coils wrapped around her throat. She instantly tightened her neck muscles before it could squeeze too hard, yanked her boot free from Osten’s hand, and spun around, intending to bring her sword up and strike at the aberration. But before she could do so, she watched in horror as the tentacle whip’s mouth detached from Osten’s arm, anchor tendrils tearing free from his flesh with tiny sprays of blood. Then, using its grip in her neck for leverage, the whip flexed, bringing its mouth end swinging toward Lirra’s left arm. It happened so swiftly that she had no time to react, and then the beaked mouth bit into the inner flesh of her forearm and its anchor tendrils burrowed into her skin, seeking purchase in the muscle beneath.

Lirra screamed.

Elidyr’s terror was eclipsed only by his confusion. This couldn’t be happening, it just couldn’t!

He was dimly aware of the separate battles taking place around him-the volunteers going mad, the guards dying, Vaddon and the others engaging the symbiont-controlled hosts-but his attention remained fixed on the portal that had opened in the air above the Overmantle. The portal was supposed to be there, of course, its chaos energy fueling the dragonshards in the Overmantle, but it was supposed to be so small as to be invisible to the naked eye. This portal was hundreds, no, thousands of times larger, and Elidyr simply could not account for that. Nor, unfortunately, could he do anything to reverse the portal’s growth. He frantically tried to recalibrate the crystals’ energy matrices, but it seemed that his efforts only made matters worse.

Inhuman hands gripped the insides of the portal and began to widen it. Which was yet another impossibility. One couldn’t physically touch a hole in space, let alone make it larger through sheer physical effort. But that’s exactly what appeared to be happening.

Xoriat is on the other side, he reminded himself. The rules of existence are different there. If such a word as rules could even apply.

But the artificer forgot all about whether or not a dimensional portal could be grasped by hands when he realized exactly who-and what-those hands belonged to: a daelkyr lord.

Nausea ripped through his gut and pain like a white-hot dagger seared his brain, as the presence of the daelkyr lord assaulted his sanity. He had to retain hold of his faculties at least long enough to shut down the portal and prevent the daelkyr from coming through, even if doing so cost him his sanity in the end.

He turned to Sinnoch. The dolgaunt was looking up at the daelkyr’s carapaced hands with wild joy. Elidyr opened his mouth, intending to call for the dolgaunt’s help, but the sounds that emerged from his lips in no way resembled human speech, and all they did was make Sinnoch laugh. Realizing he was on his own, Elidyr focused his attention back on the Overmantle and did his best to hold off the burgeoning insanity roiling within his mind.

In the end, he didn’t know whether he managed to figure out the right combination or if he stumbled upon it by accident, but when he finished touching the last dragonshard, the portal to Xoriat stopped growing and slowly began to close. The daelkyr fought to hold it open, but as powerful as the lord was, he couldn’t keep the rift open without the Overmantle’s help. As if the daelkyr realized this, he withdrew his hands, and Elidyr felt a moment of elation that he’d succeeded in preventing the foul creature from emerging into their world.

But even as the portal rapidly closed, the daelkyr shoved his arm through, hand stretching toward Elidyr until the claw tip of the index finger gently touched the artificer’s forehead. And then, just as swiftly, the hand withdrew and the portal snapped shut and vanished.

Elidyr stood frozen for a long moment, staring up at the spot where only an instant before a doorway had been open upon the Realm of Madness.

“Of course,” he whispered. “It’s all so clear now.”

And he began to laugh.

Vaddon was furious with himself for giving into his brother yet again. Though he hadn’t admitted it to the others, he’d been just as upset that Bergerron had ordered the Outguard to cease operations and vacate the lodge. Not that he cared about proving the worth of using symbionts in warfare, but he hated leaving a job undone. So when Elidyr had told him they might have one last chance to salvage a victory, Vaddon had decided to gamble on his brother a final time. Unfortunately, it was rapidly becoming clear that this was one gamble Vaddon had lost.

The guards were dead, and the four others who’d volunteered to be subjects of the experiment were either wounded or, in one case, dead, and the symbionts that had possessed them were running loose in the chamber. Worse yet, there was some kind of distortion in the air above the Overmantle, and while Vaddon was no expert in magic, he’d witnessed enough to recognize that whatever was happening, it wasn’t good.

Vaddon turned toward Lirra and was about to inform her of his orders, when he saw the tentacle whip wrap around his daughter’s throat, then detach itself from Osten and latch on to her. Lirra screamed as the symbiont fused with her flesh, and Vaddon thought he hadn’t heard a sound so awful since the dying scream of his wife when she fell at Jaythen’s Pass.

Osten slumped to the floor, unconscious. Lirra still held her sword in her right hand, and she raised the blade, clearly intending to bring it slashing down upon the tentacle whip, but the instant she began to swing the sword, the muscles in her arm locked, freezing the blade in place. The aberration was exerting control over Lirra’s body in order to protect itself, and though his daughter fought valiantly, Vaddon knew with every passing second the tentacle whip was solidifying its hold on her. If there was any chance to get the damned thing off her, it was now.

Vaddon moved forward, sword gripped tight, his soldier’s mind-honed from years of training and decades of battle experience-rapidly calculating the best way to attack. There were really only two choices: cut the symbiont off Lirra or kill it while it remained attached to her. Neither was without risk for Lirra. Given that she was now physically and mentally joined with the tentacle whip, she would feel the aberration’s pain as if it was her own, and she’d suffer the same shock to her system as it did. But Vaddon knew his daughter’s strength. She could withstand whatever he did to her-assuming he could find the strength to do what needed to be done.

The contest of wills between Lirra and the tentacle whip continued, sweat running down the sides of Lirra’s face as she fought to regain control of her sword arm, the tentacle whip lazily, almost mockingly, undulating in the air as it continued to prevent her. Vaddon knew he had no chance of making a stealthy approach-the enchanted armor prevented him from moving silently-but he hoped that the contest of wills Lirra and the symbiont were locked into would occupy them both long enough to give him the opportunity of getting in close.

Vaddon continued toward Lirra, armored feet clanking on the chamber’s stone floor. But when he was within three yards of her, the tentacle whip’s barbed tip suddenly swung in Vaddon’s direction, almost as if the aberration could sense the soldier, and it lashed out at him. Vaddon instinctively dodged to the right, and if he hadn’t been wearing armor, he might’ve been able to move swiftly enough to avoid the tentacle whip’s strike. As it was, the symbiont’s barbed tip grazed his left cheek, and Vaddon hissed in pain. The wound itself was minor, but that wasn’t what concerned Vaddon. The big question was how much venom did the barb manage to inject into his body during its glancing blow? The general received his answer a split second later when a fiery sensation began spreading through his cheek, along his jawline, and down into his neck. A wave of weakness passed through him, and his sword slipped from his gauntleted hand as he fell to one knee. He felt the venom’s fiery touch move swiftly down into his left arm, and vertigo struck him, nearly causing him to collapse. But Vaddon hadn’t survived hundreds of battles by giving up easily, and he fought to keep his head clear. His daughter still needed him, and he’d be damned to every hell that had ever existed before he failed her.

Though it took every ounce of willpower he possessed and then some, Vaddon picked up his sword, hauled his body to a standing position, and started toward Lirra once more, doing his best to ignore the poison fire spreading throughout his body.

Lirra felt pressure in her head as if there was something inside-something big-trying to claw its way deeper into her brain. Accompanying the pressure came the whispering of a sly, sinister voice that sounded too much like her own, though she knew it wasn’t. With each word the thought-voice spoke, the pressure inside her head mounted.

Submit … give yourself over to me … let us be One …

She tried to ignore the voice as she concentrated on moving her sword arm so she could cut herself free of the damned tentacle whip. But no matter how hard she fought against the symbiont’s influence, she could not make her arm budge even a fraction of an inch more toward the creature. Its will to survive was simply too strong. As soon as the thought passed through her mind, she felt an answering surge of elation that she knew didn’t originate in her own heart. It was the whip, excited that it had managed to dominate her to such an extent, and eager to assert its control over her further.

You might be able to prevent me from harming you, Lirra thought, but that doesn’t mean you own me.

The thought-voice whispered in her mind. We’ll see about that.

Lirra was about to redouble her efforts to cut the symbiont off of her when she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned to see her father coming toward her, expression grim, sword held tight. She understood instantly that he thought he was coming to her rescue, and while she loved him for it, she inwardly cursed him too. The whip was too wild, too dangerous, and she couldn’t-

She watched helplessly as the tentacle whip lashed out, its barbed tip grazing Vaddon’s cheek. The wound swelled red as the symbiont’s poison went to work, and her father staggered and fell to one knee. She sensed the whip’s elation at having brought down an enemy, and she knew it intended to strike again, this time to deliver a full dose of poison, killing Vaddon.

NO! she shouted in her mind, and the tentacle whip froze, poised for a second strike but unable to complete it. The terrible pressure assaulting her mind eased slightly, and Lirra managed a smile. Now who owns whom? she thought. She felt the whip’s answering rage as if the emotion were her own, so intense that it almost knocked her off her feet, but she rode it out and the feeling subsided to the point where it became manageable. She wanted to go to her father’s aid, but she knew she couldn’t risk bringing the tentacle whip any closer to him. She might’ve been able to stop it from attacking once, but that didn’t mean she’d be able to do so a second time. Better to keep the symbiont away from everyone while she fought to get rid of it.

She glanced at Vaddon then and saw he’d managed to stand and was coming toward her once more. The entire left side of his face was swollen, as was a good portion of his neck, and his gaze was bright and feverish. But still he continued forward. If she could just keep him away …

As if in response to her thought, the tentacle whip lashed out, grabbed hold of Vaddon’s right ankle, and yanked the man’s leg out from under him. The general flew backward and cracked his unprotected head on the chamber’s stone floor. He moaned once and then lay still. Before Lirra could react, the whip released its grip on Vaddon’s ankle and coiled about her arm. She sensed a certain amount of dark amusement coming from the symbiont, but there was something else, too, a more subdued, almost compliant thought that seemed to say, See? I can be useful when I want to.

Lirra feared the worst for her father. Tentacle whip venom was raging through his system, and he’d just received a severe blow to the head. Either condition alone might prove fatal, but together …

Evidently Ksana was thinking along the same lines, for the cleric dropped her halberd and ran to Vaddon’s side. The halfelf laid a hand upon the general’s swollen cheek, closed her eyes, and began softly murmuring prayers to her goddess. Confident her father was in good hands, Lirra looked away and turned her attention toward Elidyr and Sinnoch. She was just in time to witness the closing of the spatial portal above the Overmantle. When the rift between realms was sealed, the malignant presence that had filled the chamber vanished, and the atmosphere immediately felt less oppressive, almost like the aftermath of a terrible thunderstorm.

Lirra was thrilled. Her uncle had succeeded in closing the portal and preventing whatever had been on the other side from coming through. It was over.

She sensed an amused thought from the tentacle whip: Not quite. Watch.

Elidyr began laughing, but it wasn’t the relieved laughter of a man who’d just survived a close call with death-or worse. This was the cackling mad laughter of an unhinged mind. As she watched, Elidyr raised his arms above his head and spoke two simple words.

“To me!”

A trio of distorted shapes moved swiftly forth from the shadows, and Lirra recognized the other symbionts that had been used in the failed experiment. All three of them-the crawling gauntlet, the tongueworm, and the stormstalk-rushed toward the artificer with frightening speed and launched themselves at him. If Elidyr felt any pain as the symbionts grafted themselves to his flesh, he didn’t show it. He merely stood, arms raised, a beatific look in his eyes as if he were a religious supplicant receiving his god’s blessing. Within seconds the aberrations had fused with Elidyr’s body, and the artificer lowered his hands and looked at Sinnoch.

“What do you think?” Elidyr asked.

Sinnoch grinned. “It suits you, my friend.”

Elidyr’s answering smile was lopsided and his eyes blazed fiercly. “My thoughts precisely.”

It shouldn’t have been possible for her uncle to have three symbionts attached to his body. There shouldn’t have been enough blood in him to sustain more than one aberration, and the strain on his system of hosting three should’ve killed him. But he looked perfectly healthy. Almost too much so, as if bonding with the symbionts had increased the strength of his life-force. Perhaps it had something to do with the power generated by the Overmantle-or with the chaos energy that had filtered through the portal to Xoriat. Whichever the case, not only did Elidyr appear to be suffering no ill effects from fusing with the symbionts, he appeared stronger than ever. And from the wild, mad expression on his face, he had become completely insane.

If bonding with the symbionts had driven him to lunacy, then he was a greater threat than all of the aberrations combined. For he still stood before the Overmantle, and though it was now shut down, he might well choose to reactivate it again-and reopen the portal to Xoriat. And this time, whatever was on the other side might well make it all the way through.

Lirra glanced at Ksana and saw the cleric was still tending to her injured father. With the other soldiers dead, that left only Rhedyn to help Lirra deal with her uncle. She’d lost track of Rhedyn in all the confusion, but she found him standing next to the body of the woman he’d slain. He stood watching Elidyr, sword held at his side, the dark aspect of his shadow sibling full upon him, so that he appeared to be standing in deep shadow. Lirra had a difficult time making out his facial features, but his expression seemed to be one of wonder and … she wasn’t certain, but she thought it might be satisfaction. What was wrong with him? He shouldn’t just be standing there! He was a soldier; he should be fighting!

A thought whispered through her mind. He’s one of us …

I’m not US! Lirra thought, but in response the tentacle whip only coiled more tightly around her forearm.

“Rhedyn!” she shouted. “Help me!”

He didn’t react at first, and Lirra feared that something had happened to his mind during the time the Xoriat portal had been open. But then he turned to her and slowly smiled behind the shadow that cloaked him. The sight of that smile hit Lirra like a blow to the gut. Rhedyn-her Rhedyn-had gone mad just like Elidyr. Following on the heels of that thought was a worse one: What if he’d been mad for some time now, perhaps from the moment he’d fused with his shadow sibling? She remembered the words he’d spoken during his visit to her room last night.

I cannot-will not-give up my shadow sibling. As an impure prince, I can serve Karrnath in ways others could never hope to. And as long as I remain bound to a symbiont, I will repulse you physically. But if you were to accept a symbiont …

Of course Rhedyn was smiling, for he’d gotten his wish. She was bound to a symbiont. At least for the moment. But as long as that was the case, she might as well make some use of the damned thing.

She turned away from Rhedyn and started toward Elidyr.