The Companions of Tartiël (12 page)

The conversation in their camp that night, what little of it there was, was filled with concern about the winged girl and her plight. Kaiyr feared for the girl’s life, vowing to visit righteous wrath upon any who dared touch her. Caineye and Wild gave him solemn nods of accord and went to bed with no further discourse.

Just shy of noon on the following day, the party’s efforts were rewarded when Caineye spotted a small cabin in the middle of the woods. It looked fairly recent and kept in good repair—perhaps it was someone’s oft-used hunting lodge.

While Wild and Vinto ducked into the underbrush to scout out any dangers in the area, Kaiyr and Caineye waited in the middle of a small outcropping of rock that was just close enough to afford the companions a view of the cabin between the trees.

“I couldn’t have picked a better spot, myself,” Wild commended the two when he returned, Vinto padding behind. After receiving two inquisitive looks, he nodded. “Nothing, as far as I or Vinto could tell. The group rode due south from here, which is why we didn’t meet them. The trail’s about half a day old. I didn’t get a good look at the house, but there’s a strange glow coming from the window on the other side.”

*

I frowned at Dingo but then looked at Matt. “
Master Wild
,” I said, deepening my voice to let everyone know that I spoke for Kaiyr, “
what do you mean by ‘strange glow?’
”

Matt looked at Dingo, who told him, “It’s a strange, pulsing glow of pale white. It’s only coming out of the one window, since the others are all tightly shuttered.”

Looking at me, Matt pointed at our DM. “What he said.” Shifting in his chair, he made it clear by his tone that he now spoke for his own character. “
I’ll go take a closer look. Since all those windows are closed, they’ll never see me coming.
”

“
It makes me nervous to send you somewhere we cannot see you, in case you need our aid
,” I said in my Kaiyr voice.

Matt shrugged. “
Listen for the girlish scream.
I scamper off toward the house, sticking to the shadows.” He rolled a d20 twice and added the results to his Move Silently and Hide bonuses. “Uh, yeah, they’re not gonna know I’m coming. Twenty-six on Move Silently, twenty-eight on Hide.”

Dingo’s eyes popped, an expression we learned he gave anytime any one of us rolled tallied results higher than twenty. Considering Wild made Hide checks with a bonus of +13 at the time, it didn’t take much to get higher than a twenty. “Jeez,” he said, “well, you go pretty much invisible to the point where Kaiyr and Caineye lose track of you.”

“Not likely,” I snorted, and Xavier chuckled, too, considering both our Spot and Listen modifiers were very high.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Dingo said, turning back to Matt. “Anyway, you sneak up to the house without being seen or heard, as far as you can tell. The house is quiet except for the occasional soft, pained moan of a young woman’s voice from inside.”

Matt nodded. “I keep going around to the open window and look inside, trying to stay hidden.”

“Okay. Well, looking inside, you see several things. First, the place seems like a normal cabin, with throw rugs, a bed, a couch, kitchen, etcetera. But in the corner sits a strange shadowy form on a rocking chair. The chair rocks, though the creature does not move with the chair, and you can see the slats of the chair through its body. But the light is coming from down on the floor to your right.” He paused.

“What is it?” Matt took the bait.

Dingo grinned. “You see the winged girl, bound to the floor with chains that radiate darkness that spreads like a light, only in reverse. And I need you to make me a…” he glanced at his
Monster Manual
, “… Fortitude save.”

Matt flinched, but Dingo didn’t notice. “You said a Reflex save, right?” he asked in vain hope.

“Fortitude.”

“Reflex?”

“For—fuck you,” Dingo laughed as Matt groaned and picked up his d20, dropping it on the large book in his lap. “You need to beat a seventeen.”

“Well,” Matt said in a resigned tone, “with my whopping plus two on my Fort saves, I get a whole six. What happens to me?”

Dingo winced for Matt but went on, “Well, the good news is, you’re not dead. The bad news is, you’re blind.”

*

“What’s wrong with him?” Caineye wondered aloud, crouching next to Kaiyr as their small companion stumbled his way around the house, keeping one hand on the building as if to guide him.

Kaiyr squinted, focusing on the halfling’s expression. “His eyes… he is blind.” Without another word, the blademaster rushed out to meet Wild.

“M-master Kaiyr?” Wild whispered, feeling himself picked up by someone larger than he and wearing robes.

“Yes,” the blademaster replied softly as he shuttled Wild back behind the rocks, Caineye and Vinto joining them as he set his burden gently on the ground. “Please, stay calm, Master Wild. You’ve been blinded.”

Wild directed a grouchy scowl in the direction of Kaiyr’s voice. “I deduced that myself, thank you.” Much to Kaiyr’s and Caineye’s surprise, the little man found a rock and sat down with more calm and dignity than either of them had expected.

“What—” Caineye started, but Wild cut in.

“The girl is on the floor, bound by some kind of chains. She seems to be in real pain, but whatever’s hurting her is invisible and doesn’t give her much chance to scream. My eyes gave out on me when I looked at her, but before that, I saw a shadow in the opposite corner, left of the door. From here, it’d be the far corner of the house.” He patted at his brow with a handkerchief he produced from one pocket. “I think I’m out of the game for now, friends. It’s up to you to get her out of there.”

The other two nodded. “I can leave Vinto here with you,” Caineye offered, but Wild waved away the suggestion.

“No, you might need him for that shadowy thing. It didn’t notice me, but I have no clue what it was. Besides, we’ve already found there’s nothing lurking in the woods around here.” Wild blew a sigh and drew his daggers, not needing to see in order to go through that practiced motion. “I’ll just sit tight. Give me a shout when you’re coming.”

“Very well,” Kaiyr said. “Stay safe. Master Caineye, we must make haste. I cannot stand idle while she suffers.”

“Right,” the druid said in Sylvan. “Let’s go.” With a hand motion to Vinto, he and Kaiyr headed to the cabin, Vinto circling around the other side and meeting them at the door.

Kaiyr peered in through the window where Wild had been blinded, keeping his eyes averted from the slightly-glowing form of the young woman on the floor.

“It’s their blinding beauty,” Caineye whispered to the blademaster, still in Sylvan. “Potent defense that renders all viewers permanently blind.”

Kaiyr frowned as he ducked back below the window. “There is no cure?”

Caineye shrugged. “Any simple magical means of recovery, yes. Nothing any layman could afford, but we can fix Wild up soon enough.”

The blademaster nodded, then indicated the door. “I saw that shadow creature in there. It stares at her with impunity, unless it already is blind.”

Caineye nodded. He glanced at Vinto, then looked up as if hit by sudden inspiration. With a whispered prayer to the powers of nature, the druid leaned down, and, before Kaiyr’s eyes, turned into a wolf. The man’s armor seemed to melt into his body, replaced by fur that sprouted all over him, starting at his elongated snout and ending at the tail that sprouted from his rear. When he looked back up at the blademaster, the only distinguishing difference between Caineye and Vinto was the color of their eyes. Even then, since Vinto’s eyes were a mirror of Caineye’s—his right blue and the left green—the similarity made it impossible to tell them apart.

The wolf Caineye nodded at Kaiyr, a strange motion in an animal, to be sure, and the blademaster returned the gesture, moving before the door. Then, with a sudden, “Hya!” he kicked open the door, snapping the latch from the frame and sending the whole door shuddering back on its hinges.

Kaiyr’s soulblade appeared in his hand, but before he could do anything else, two gray streaks rushed by him and into the small, one-room cabin. They launched themselves at the shadow, but the canines’ attacks passed right through the form’s essence, not disturbing it in the least. It did not even seem to take notice of the attack.

“He—help!” cried the girl on the floor, gasping. “Make him stop.”

Kaiyr backed his way toward her, careful to keep his eyes averted. As he knelt, her words struck him. “You can speak!—never mind that. Who is doing this?”

Arching her back in pain and straining at the darkness-emanating chains, she tipped her chin at the form in the chair. “He’s… he’s—uhhh!” Straining against the agony had been too much for her, and she stopped talking, lingering at the edge of unconsciousness, her body limp but shaking.

“Master Caineye,” Kaiyr called, and he realized he had forgotten that the druid could not reply when he was answered with a bark and a dismayed whine. “I know,” the blademaster replied, “but perhaps—”

“Leave this place at once!” roared a disembodied voice that shook the timbers of the cabin and made Kaiyr suddenly grip his soulblade tighter. “Your meddling here will only bring about your deaths!”

Kaiyr snarled back in swiftly rising anger, “Release this woman, wretch!” He twirled his glassy weapon in his hand and glanced about the room, seeking an adversary. Then, in Sylvan, “Master Caineye. See if you and Vinto can find any secret doors or chambers. We shall flush him out.”

The voice echoed in the room again, but softer. “If you do not leave, you shall perish. Take this as your final warning!” As the words faded, two small plumes of smoke erupted on the opposite side of the room, and from the quickly dispersing fog emerged two scorpions the size of large housecats. Their pincers snapped and threw sparks, and their tails glowed with fiery light.

“Summoned creatures,” Kaiyr muttered, stepping forward and meeting one of the scorpions as it scuttled toward him. One of the two wolves launched himself at the other, quickly snapping the thing’s body with a shake of his powerful jaws as Kaiyr dispatched the other one with a contemptuous flick of his soulblade. The creatures dissipated into smoke again, and the blademaster growled at the empty air, “Stop wasting our time.” A short laugh rang through the room, and the shadowy being in the rocking chair faded. With a creak, the chair stopped moving.

He knelt by the girl again after releasing his soulblade. “My lady, can you understand me?”

“What?” she replied shakily. “Kaiyr, you’re here.”

“Yes,” he replied softly. She seemed to be in less pain. Perhaps whoever was sending spells at him and Caineye had to concentrate on the young woman in order to bring on the agony. “I need you to do something, so that we may better help you. Can you suppress your blinding aura?”

“Mm,” she said, clearly exhausted. Kaiyr didn’t want to think about how long she must have been here, enduring this torture. “Sorry.”

The light faded, and Kaiyr looked at her. He was almost sorry he had, but he knew it was his duty to bear witness to the atrocities that had befallen her. Her skin had been marred with little cuts everywhere, and purple bruises all over her arms and legs marked where she had been beaten. One of her eyes was blackened and swollen.

Silently, he took it all in before his eyes traveled down her arms and legs, to where she lay bound to the floor. With a lascivious grin, the blademaster slid out of his robes and lay beside her, tearing savagely at her clothes and crooning sensual promises into her ear.

*

Dingo stared at me as I grinned. Matt and Xavier let out amused chuckles as Dingo gaped. Finally, he said, “Do you seriously do that?”

“No dice!” I said, raising my hands in a gesture of surrender.

“No dice?” he asked, but Xavier was nodding. Matt, who had also not heard the expression before, already seemed to grasp its meaning.

“It means I was just kidding,” I said. “I felt the need to lighten the mood. I mean, we’ve all been so serious for the past two hours.”

“Too bad Wild’s unable to see the kinky bondage,” Matt agreed.

Dingo just laughed. “I got it. ‘No dice,’ huh? I like that. Maybe I’ll use it in the future.”

“Yeah, I started using it in James’ game,” I told him. “I’d say something highly undiplomatic, and he’d tell me to roll, but I’d drop my dice and say that.”

“Nice,” the DM replied. “Okay, but seriously, what do you do?”

*

Kaiyr stared in consternation at the chains. From behind him, one of the wolves sniffed at the floor, finally letting out a decisive whuffle and pawing at one of the rugs to move it out of the way.

The blademaster found himself distracted by the wolf’s noises, and he turned to see that one of them had found a trapdoor hidden under a throw rug. The wolf’s form slithered and reformed into Caineye. “A secret door,” said the druid.

Kaiyr nodded. “I shall try to release her now.”

Calling to his spirit again, Kaiyr once more grasped his glassy blade with its warm, golden hilt covered in intricate designs and graceful curves. Standing over the chains binding the girl’s left leg, he brought his weapon down in a decisive strike. But upon connecting with the magical chains, the soulblade shattered into a thousand shards that dissipated into the air.

Caineye gasped. “Kaiyr!”

The blademaster, puzzled, looked back at the druid as his soulblade reformed in his right hand. “What?”

Seeing that nothing was amiss, the human blew a sigh. “Never mind”

Again, Kaiyr tried to attack the chains, to the same results. As he straightened, both of them heard a thumping sound from down below.

“I guess we have our answer,” Caineye said with a gleam in his eye. “Shall we?” He leaned down and tugged on the door’s handle as Kaiyr strode toward the hatch. Pulling it open, the two peered in and saw that there was a modicum of light emanating from somewhere.

Tucking his arms in, Kaiyr disdained the rickety ladder leading downward, instead simply dropping into the room—right into the middle of some dark ritual as a dark-robed figure chanted mysterious phrases over a small collection of magical implements. Tendrils of dark energy snaked up toward the ceiling, and judging by their position, linked to the chains binding the winged woman to the ritual.