17

  Spoils

  Oydd grabbed one of the violet lobes from the blackening wreckage of the lich's corporeal form, careful only to touch the cursed flesh with his divine claw.

  Nearby, Bax retrieved his monocle. He lifted it to inspect the crack with a grand, theatrical sigh, then wiped it clean on his leggings and returned it to his vest pocket.

  "It needs a chain," he announced.

  Oydd pulled one lobe free with a surprisingly grating tear, and lifted it, dripping, from the lich's cranial husk. A viscous purple slime covered the organ, thick as honey. Strands of the substance reached back to the lich's open skull. The goo oozed slowly down the rudra's arm and drizzled on the floor.

  "That almost looks delicious," Cricket joked.

  Bax, oblivious to the sarcasm, licked his lips.

  "You fool," Oydd said coldly to Bax, and the gnome's tongue disappeared back into his mouth. "You crushed one of the lobes!"

  Bax took a step away from the rudra, but Cricket stepped in front of him protectively.

  "He also saved your life."

  Oydd scowled, but nodded. Still, he had trouble looking at the gnome.

  A soundless wind began to blow through the chamber along with an unnatural heat. And in the calm and silence that followed, Oydd's eyes suddenly grew wide. "Run," he whispered.

  "Wha?" Cricket only half looked down at the corpse.

  Oydd cleared his throat and repeated more loudly, "Run! Leave anything corrupted behind. Anything that touched the lich! I'll explain later!" Before he took off, the rudra lifted the bloodstone egg with his mind, leaving Bale's claw free to carry the salvaged brain.

  "Cricket looked over at the pieces of his rotted khopesh on the ground. "But I..."

  "No! Leave them!"

  Jesh arrivd at the insect's side, and put a firm hand on his shoulder, pushing him away from the shattered weapon.

  Following the rudra's instructions, Cricket dropped the silver spear, which had begun to blacken as if it had been held over a fire, and looked up at Jesh. "Lech'ti is still alive."

  "Go grab him," the druid replied. "But hurry."

  Cricket ran to the unconscious azaeri, sheathing his remaining khopesh, stooped, but hesitated, unsure how to move him safely with a broken back. In his haste, he simply decided moving him was safer than leaving him, and he hefted the soldier onto his shoulder, using his lower arms to try to keep the spine in alignment as he ran.

  Fortunately, as a martial artist, Cricket was exceptionally good at moving without bobbling or bouncing. And Lech'ti was fortunate, as well, that the insect had four arms to steady him from head to foot.

  As Cricket left the chamber, a violent black wind began to swirl around the lich's corpse, lifting the rattling remains from the floor. A hollow, exhaling breath rose from the throne, and an icy hand grasped weakly at the back of his neck.

  The red glow began to dim from Cricket's turtle charm, at which point he realized how much he had been relying on the Grace of Strength.

  Jeshu, on the other hand, began to glow with a soft yellow light, speeding his motions to the point that he could almost keep up with Scorpion and the insect.

  The group retreated down a hallway, pursued by a sinister, biting wind and moving shadows. As he watched, the corpses of their fallen foes began to twitch. He pressed on without slowing until they came upon the room where they had rested earlier.

  Oydd surveyed the corners of the small chamber as he caught his breath, and despite the flickering darkness and wails shuddering through the halls, he sat.

  "We'll rest here."

  "Are... we safe?" Cricket asked. "We can go further."

  "We are safe," Oydd assured, but Cricket looked to the druid for confirmation.

  "Yes, Cricket, this is far enough. His power at this distance is inconsequential."

  Bax nodded in agreement, though he looked as ruffled as anyone.

  "Why did we have to run? I thought he was dead."

  "Well, he was dead the whole fight," Oydd replied. "But he is not gone. The throne room is tainted by his ruinous magic. It is not safe. His spirit and influence will remain here for ages—hundreds of years at the least, I think. During that time, his power may dwindle, or it may cultivate. But he is greatly diminished and I believe he has no way to regain a corporeal form."

  "So he's haunting the place. Why didn't you just say that?"

  "What?"

  "I asked why we had to run. And you could have just said, 'because he's haunting this place now'. That simple."

  Oydd stared back bleakly. "Regardless, we had to leave." He looked over the group. "Did any of your weapons touch the lich?"

  Cricket looked down at his khopesh. "No. No way I was going to risk losing both."

  The rudra winced and grabbed his shoulder. "Where's Erro?"

  "You saw him poof," Cricket said as he laid Lech'ti on the ground. The druid immediately knelt at the azaeri's side.

  "Erro poofed?" Oydd repeated, dumbfounded.

  "Well, no, he was a Cricket again, by that point, right?"

  Bax nodded. The gnome held Rusalka's scimitars along with their sheaths in his arms, like gathered firewood.

  Cricket turned back to Oydd, looking a little irritated. "Bax had already run out of magic, remember?"

  "Is that something you told me! That Erro was a shadow in disguise?" Oydd roared. "How could I remember something you hadn't told me!"

  "Well, I mean... Erro isn't really an azaeri name, is it? The real question is what happened to El'lick. I haven't seen him since before the first time we came to this room."

  "And no one noticed?"

  "I didn't notice!" Cricket yelled. "Did you notice?"

  At this, the rudra shut his beak.

  "I didn't think so! It's not my job to keep track of your friends!" Cricket stared harshly until Oydd's eyes softened in concern.

  "Cricket, what's wrong?"

  "What's wrong! Are you kidding me? This is our first real defeat, and I don't feel like celebrating."

  "Our... what?" Oydd asked incredulously. "What on earth..."

  Cricket ignored him, turning his back on the rudra, and stalked over to a place against the wall, where he slumped against the stones.

  "Oh dear," Bax said.

  "This isn't good," Jeshu interjected, hovering over Lech'ti. The azaeri's chest rose very slightly, but his normally black skin looked flushed and grey.

  A faint approaching sound came from the hallway, and Bax reached for his Witch Clipper, forgetting, momentarily, that he had left it behind under Oydd's instruction. He held out his hands, rather, and concentrated. And with an unflattering grunt, an illusory Witch Clipper appeared in his hands. Despite the display, he discreetly positioned himself behind Scorpion.

  A moment later, Skunk appeared in the doorway, his head no longer crushed, and looking no worse for wear. He rose on his hind legs and flicked his tongue out like a lizard.

  "Oh, marvelous!" Bax cried in relief. "Best possible result."

  Oydd paid no attention to the mutant's arrival, transfixed as he was by the now green bloodstone.

  Seeing no one particularly in the mood to talk, Bax wandered over by Cricket and plopped on the ground next to him.

  Cricket stared at his own empty lower hands.

  The gnome patted the sides of his lap and let out a long sigh. "Well..." he began, then saw the dark look on the insect's face and cocked his head as if rethinking his approach.

  "Time for scimitars then."

  "What?" Cricket asked glumly.

  "Scimitars," Bax said, holding up the bundle in his arms. "Steel too! You don't want to fight with just one khopesh, right?"

  "What's steel?"

  "Oh, it's... I haven't seen any down here til now. But it's stronger than iron. Actually... I think it may be a type of iron. Not really my specialty, but it's high quality stuff."

  Cricket tried to not look interested. "But I—"

  "You said you'd use them if you were in the depths of despair. So it's... a good time."

  "But I don't want scimitars."

  "Ah..." The gnome thought. "But you do like symmetry, and one khopesh is not symmetrical."

  Cricket didn't respond.

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  "I am reminded of the gnomish poet laureate, Cobble Wobblebottom, who said, 'to escape my confines, I had first to transform into a butterfly'."

  A short silence followed.

  "You're saying I need to be willing to change and adapt?"

  "What? Heavens no! Wobblebottom's is a cautionary tale. He was in a cage for writing degrading poetry about the mayor. And he had an amateur enchanter friend transform him into a butterfly to get out. But she didn't know how to turn him back."

  Cricket finally looked up. "When did you get a pointy hat?"

  "Oh," Bax reached up to his head with his stubby arms. "It's not real. I thought it might intimidate the lich. It is also, by happy chance, the height of gnomish fashion! I've just never dared to, um, attempt to pull it off before. Is it fetching?"

  "It's more... fancy than intimidating."

  "But you think I'm pulling it off?"

  Cricket nodded. "Yeah, it looks really good."

  The gnome smiled at the compliment. "Thought he might think I was a wizard. But the point of the story is that the poet didn't need to take drastic action. All he needed to do was serve his sentence of one day or return the mayor's pig."

  "You said he was in the cage for writing mean things."

  Bax scratched his bearded chin. "That I did. Am I mixing up mayors? It's hard to keep track. Let's see... I think that was on a tuesday, so Cornelius would have been mayor. Which means... yes, you're right. The pig incident was earlier. All he had to do was apologize."

  "You have new mayor's every day?"

  "Well yes. We used to have daily elections, but that caused too many casualties, so we opted for weekly elections, where we picked seven different mayors for the course of the week. After a while, there were really only eight gnomes interested in mayoring, so one politely bowed out in the interest of order."

  "That's polite," Cricket agreed glumly.

  "So... now we have a mayor assigned to each day. Except for holidays! On holidays we let anyone who wants to take a turn, so no one feels left out. A... a lot more interest on holidays. This was before everyone died, of course."

  Cricket furrowed his antennae. "Doesn't seem like you'd get much done in a day."

  "On the contrary! It's highly motivating when you know you only have until Wednesday to pass new motions. Extra democratic, really! I was mayor once during the annual corn fair, and I proposed biweekly elections, which was surprisingly popular, but also surprisingly divisive, since we couldn't agree what biweekly meant. So everyone was for it, but we were split about fifty-fifty between those who thought biweekly meant twice a week, and those who thought it meant every two weeks. Almost..." Bax tapped his index fingers together, "almost led to civil war. So we appointed a special committee to decide the meaning of the word before ratification, but some gnomes wanted a new vote entirely, so that matter was also referred to committee. I was on that committee, which also caused quite a controversy, being a conflict of interest. But there were only so many gnomes, you realize."

  "Bax, I'm really not in the mood."

  "The point was, to stay in your lane."

  "Is that an idiom?"

  "Oh, yes. It comes from farming. If you get excited and try to seed someone else's lane—"

  "Bax..."

  "The point is, you like your left weapon to match your right weapon. So it's time to try scimitars. I know for a fact all the swordsmen at Euna Brae are very possessive of the best swords—even the practice ones. So... you'll want to come back with a weapon you've already claimed."

  A loud raspy breath echoed down the corridor beyond the doorway.

  "Why aren't we moving further away? This doesn't seem super safe."

  "Hmm…” Bax sighed. “Well, I assume he's much weaker. I kind of rate ghosts the same way I rate puns. The lowest grade are annoying but harmless—like poltergeists. Even the mid-tier ones are only dangerous around the ignorant, or if they gather in large numbers. And then, very rarely mind you, you come across one that is an abomination before the gods and threatens the very fabric of reality. And none of them are funny."

  Cricket's head hurt from trying to follow.

  Bax continued, "I would say that rudra was a top tier threat, and now just bottom tier."

  Cricket sighed. He watched Jeshu working on Lech'ti for a while, while Scorpion talked with Oydd.

  "I may have gotten some fingerprints on the blades. I hope that's okay."

  The gnome's voice pulled Cricket back. "What are fingerprints?" he asked. "Like footprints?"

  "What? No, no... that would be handprints. Fingerprints are... marks that fingers leave because of the natural oil in skin. I've heard it's bad for swords, but I have no idea why."

  "Natural oil?"

  "Yes, skin has... it releases a little bit of oil." Bax held up his thumb for the insect. "So it leaves this print on anything I touch. Does your exoskeleton not do that?"

  "I don't..." Cricket looked over at the rudra. "Oydd?" But Oydd either didn't hear him or pretended not to. "Yes," Cricket said. "My shell has natural oil. More than yours, I think. That's what makes it shiny."

  Bax nodded enthusiastically. The insect, meanwhile stared at the tiny rings on the tip of the gnome's thumb, transfixed. Suddenly he picked up a scimitar and examined the 'fingerprints' left on the metal in wonder.

  "Do you have marks like that on your toes?" He asked.

  The gnome scratched his head. "Why... I have no idea."

  *****

  Jeshu finished tending to Lech'ti. And when he stood to speak with Oydd, he noticed the shifted hue of the floating bloodstone.

  "Is... that corrupted now? Why didn't you leave it behind?"

  "No, I don't think so," Oydd replied. "I do want your opinion, but I don't sense anything menacing coming from the stone. I suppose it neutralizes the energy to a degree. I think the same thing happened with the hammer you blessed."

  Jeshu nodded. "May I examine it?"

  "I don't know if it's safe to touch." He levitated the stone closer to Jeshu regardless, and the druid leaned in, closing his eyes to sense for darkness. "It's actually heavier than it was before the fight," Oydd added. "So something has changed, but I can't say what at present."

  "It is not... corrupted, in the normal sense of dark magic. I agree it's not dangerous. But I also agree you should not touch it until we have more time to scrutinize."

  "It's as green as a scorpion," the ratling chimed in.

  Jeshu raised a wooden brow. "I would have said forest green. But I suppose that's not a term used down here. Your scorpions are this color?"

  Oydd nodded. "So they can camouflage in the sand."

  At this, Jeshu smiled. "If your sand is that color as well, then why not call it sand green?"

  "Because sand can also be black," Scorpion said dismissively.

  "Don't you have black scorpions?"

  "Well..." The ratling thought a moment then scowled, looking away.

  Oydd motioned for Jeshu to follow him and approached Cricket, where he found the insect helping Bax remove his soiled boots.

  The rudra covered his beak. "Ah, that smell is atrocious."

  "It's not mine," Bax said defensively. "It's from the goblin."

  "You... got these boots from a goblin?"

  "Right off his corpse where it lay, plastered against the wall," Bax said proudly.

  "Against the wall?" the rudra pressed with a look of skepticism.

  Bax nodded three times. "They're magic."

  "How do you know?" Cricket asked.

  "From the skid marks! That's what killed the goblin, by the looks of it. Extreme speed. I don't think he had a handle on it though."

  Cricket brought all four palms to his chin in frustration. "Ah, man, I wish those would fit me." Cricket eyed his own insectoid feet and compared them to the tiny boots.

  "You want to end up a stain on the wall, as well?" Oydd snipped.

  "Maybe," Cricket said, sullenly.

  "Cricket, I'm sorry about your khopesh," Oydd said, sounding sincere.

  Cricket's expression sank to another level of despair.

  "But I overheard the gnome, and I do think those swords will be a nice fit for you."

  "Do you know what they do?" Cricket asked with an uninterested tone.

  Oydd nodded. "Nothing major. They have an enchantment to make them lighter."

  "What!" Cricket said, suddenly excited. "That's like the best possible enchantment! It's speed, but it doesn't count as speed!"

  "Doesn't count?" Oydd asked, perplexed.

  "Yeah, it will stack with Jesh's spell."

  Oydd and Jeshu both stared back in confusion.

  "That might not be the right word," Cricket admitted, " but if they had an enchantment for speed, then I couldn't benefit from that and Jeshu's speed spell, right?"

  "That's... correct," Jeshu replied. "Not fully, since it would be the same type of magic."

  "But lightness," Cricket stressed, "isn't really magic at all. It makes me faster, but I'll still get the full effect of the speed spell!" Cricket picked up both scimitars with newfound interest. He hopped to his feet and took a few swings. "Oh, ho!" he laughed with an ecstatic look on his face. His antennae nearly stood up straight.

  "Yes," the rudra said dryly. "I suppose they will... stack, as you say. Actually, that's sort of what I came to talk to you about—augmenting magic, that is."

  Cricket made six more swipes in record time before responding. "What?" Still, the rudra did not elaborate, seeing that Cricket was entirely distracted, and not wanting to have to repeat himself. The insect shifted the swords to his lower arms and tested out several styles without acknowledging his company.

  "They're so light I can use them in my lower arms." He stopped and scratched his chin, contemplating. "But I need to optimize the effect. I'll need to do some tests and see how fast I can swing them compared to a heavier... No, first I need to try out your speed enchantment," he nodded to the druid, "and see which set of hands they're faster in. No..." He furrowed his antennae.

  "We'll settle that later," Oydd stated. "For now, I wanted to talk to you about the way Jeshu's Grace reacted when you got angry."

  "The fiery burst? That was pretty cool," Cricket said with a smile aimed at Jesh.

  "It was nothing I did," the druid replied.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Exactly what he said," Oydd answered. "You did it. Somehow you aug—"

  "I cast a spell?" Cricket interrupted.

  "Well, not so much," Jeshu clarified. "You... changed my spell. With some of the dark magic from your khopesh."

  "I cast a spell!" Cricket told Bax, and the gnome beamed with the sort of pride a father has in a son.

  "No, you didn't." Oydd said, somewhat deflated.

  "But I basically did."

  Oydd shrugged.

  "So yes?"

  "More importantly," Jeshu interjected, "is how you did it. While you used magic from the khopesh, it was not an inherent ability of the weapon. You mixed your own mana with mine..."

  "Quite expertly, might I add," the rudra said. "The two meshed very well."

  "What should I try next? Ghouls?"

  Oydd shook his head. "Your... discipline is more similar to Jeshu's than mine. Otherwise it would not have worked. Conjuration is much closer to abjuration in nature than necromancy."

  "Yes, of course," Cricket nodded.

  Oydd looked skeptical. "That's what you and Jesh do respectively. The point is, frankly, in a short time you have become incredibly experienced at manipulating and organizing dark magic. And while you cannot currently cast a spell," the rudra said pointedly, "you might be able to utilize the magic you harvest from your remaining khopesh."

  Cricket frowned and hung his head at the mention of his clones.

  "It will take time," Oydd continued. "But you may learn to form a solid clone with one khopesh. And for now, you still have the nine shadows back at the tower."

  "Ten," Cricket corrected. "Nine who teach weapons. But then there's the lazy one who mopes around and writes depressing poetry."

  Cricket sighed and his mandibles quivered. "But also that was my favorite khopesh. It was the left one."

  "Your khopeshes are identical."

  "Yes, but I always used the same one in my left hand."

  "Move the remaining khopesh to your left hand," Oydd replied with a harsh tone. "It's no different."

  "So you're saying that it wasn't my favorite?" Cricket asked condescendingly. "Thanks for explaining my feelings to me."

  Oydd tucked his staff in the pit of his arm, covering his eyes with his free hand as he massaged the bridge of his beak.

  "That's what I thought." Cricket said sternly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to inspect Bax's toes."

  The gnome wiggled his toes from within his stiff, pointed socks.

  "We... we may need to clean those boots," Cricket conceded.