The Saga of Tallia the Unwilling Ch. 08

Talia looked at the chest and its contents with amazement. "What is this?"

"Help!" declared the sidhe. "Aid in our darkest hour."

"Aid from whom? Who was that ghost?" asked Tallia.

"That was no ghost. That was the spirit-form of King Bressian of the Danan, lord and master of the Summer Court." Without another word, the sickly Mela drank deep from the flask. Immediately the sidhe's color returned and her scraped and raw wrist wounds, reminders of her imprisonment, faded from sight leaving behind only unblemished flesh.

She then handed the flask to Tallia, "Drink," she said.

Tallia had a sip and found the wine to be dark and delicious, sweet and almost thick. The Amazon immediately felt a surge in her spirit. The wound in her leg, already healing, wholly disappeared. And all exhaustion and hunger lifted from her.

"A panacea," said the sidhe. "It will recover me from this illness in moments and ensure that you are strong enough to fight. But we must be careful with it. There is only enough for a single draught left."

"A wonder," said the priestess.

"These wrapped blocks are a rare cheese taken from the king's larder. They are aged for centuries and a small portion will feed each of us for a day. This is enough to sustain us for weeks, I believe."

"And the daggers?" asked the Amazon.

"The sciathán iolair, the eagle's wings. It takes some practice, but a skilled wielder can throw these blades and they will return to their hand. They are also made of true silver and sharp enough to pierce iron."

"Again, a wonder!" said the priestess. "This... this is what the fire meant! We will find all that we need."

"I think we'll need more than fancy knives and some magic wine and cheese to defeat the wizard and his army," said the Amazon. "But I do feel much restored. You and the ghost, you spoke for some time. What did you speak of?"

Melaerryn looked at the Amazon, uncertain at first, but then overtaken by a need to be honest. "When we were prisoners, I dared not tell you of my real mission for coming here. The wizard can read minds and if he discovered..." she trailed off.

"Discovered what?" asked the curious priestess.

"Long ago, Gaelynglas was not just a dark ruin. This was a grand city of my people, a city dedicated to the study of art and science, music and magic," spoke Mela in a voice full of distant sorrow. "But there was war and upheaval. The city was abandoned. In the chaos, a powerful sidhe relic was lost here. I have been sent to retrieve it. It is the Itheoir Draíochta, the eater of magic. It is a stave made of the heartwood of a tree that no longer grows outside of the Summer Lands. It is set with sigils of true silver that allow it to swallow magic like you or I would drink water. King Bressian fears that in the wrong hand it could become a terror. If Arion wielded the stave it would make him even more powerful than he is now. Even other sorcerers could not stand against him. It is probably the reason he made his fortress here."

"Could the stave be used against him?" asked Liandra. "Could it take away his ability to control minds?"

"Possibly," said Mela, "It is said that the stave can break any enchantment or nullify even the most powerful of castings. But I'm not even sure I can wield it. It's secrets are long ago lost."

"We have to try!" exclaimed Liandra. "With that stave, we could turn the tide. We might even able to break your curse, Tallia. Where is this stave? Where does it lie?"

"I'm not entirely sure. The stories speak of a warded door and beyond that a sunless sea. And within the sunless sea is an island of white stone. There, in the crypt of the last High Magister of Gaelynglas, is the most likely resting place for the Itheoir."

"A warded door? We've seen that!" said the priestess excitedly. "It was not far from here."

"Yes," said Tallia cautiously. "But there also we met the demon in darkness. It sounded like moving stone."

Mela's ears perked up at that. "That must be the Cloch a Siúlann, the stone that walks. They are ancient sidhe guardians. They are sacred stones animated by prayers and spells woven by my people long ago to guard their greatest treasures. This is more proof that the stave is near. We must find that door!"

"And this guardian, you can deal with it?" said Tallia.

"I... I don't think so. They were created long ago by a lost tribe of my people. Whatever words were chosen to let their masters pass have been long forgotten. I fear we must fight it."

"Wonderful. Does this demon have any weaknesses?" asked Tallia.

"It is a living statue thirty hands tall at least that is completely impervious to mortal weapons. It can see in darkness, feels no pain and does not bleed. It is warded also against all but the strongest of sorcery."

"Could you not melt it like you did the silver or the signal horn?" suggested Liandra.

"No. I am a shaper of metal," explained Melaerryn. "I can sculpt metal with my hands, but this guardian is made of stone and that is beyond my ken."

"Again, wonderful," said the Amazon. "So, the choice before us is to either fight a monster we cannot harm or return to Arion's tower and fight a wizard we cannot disobey."

"The stave must be the key," said Liandra. "With that perhaps we can dispel the demon and defeat the wizard's magic!"

Tallia shrugged. "Fine then. Let's find this magic stick." It all sounded so absurd to the warrior, but in a mad world, what other choice did she have?

Mela regained her feet and stretched out, at last feeling much better. "I can help you with one thing. You were wielding a much larger sword when first I met you. Would you like to once again possess a weapon like that?"

"I suppose so," said the curious Amazon. "I'd prefer a good spear though even more."

"A spear I cannot make without wood, but if you hand me your two short blades..." The Amazon complied with Mela's request.

Melaerryn took the two weapons and for a moment stroked the metal blades with her delicate sidhe fingers. "The alloy here is poor. A little silver will also improve the mix." The blades began to glow. She scooped up molten metal like it was glowing clay and began to shape it. The metal flowed at her command and even ejected a ball of black gunk that she cast aside. Mela shivered. "Such impurity. This handle can't support a truly long blade or it will be unbalanced, but still it can be lengthened. Yes, I think that perfect."

When she was done, the two blades had become one. The coarse, blunt brace of short blades had been transformed into a single saber of strange silvered bronze. The Amazon inspected the blade and found it light, flexible and wicked sharp. "This is a fine weapon," she admitted. Not perhaps as fine as her devil-blade, but neither did it pompously ramble about the road of heroes or cause genitalia to disappear.

"Such remarkable magic! Can you do anything else?" said Liandra in wonder.

"I am a scholar of languages and histories," said Mela as if that somehow answered Liandra's question. "In fact, I came here hoping to better understand the intertwined past of our two peoples. Humanity and the sidhe have a long history together but it is now largely forgotten. I hope to reclaim what was lost."

Tallia ignored all the long-winded scholar's talk. Instead she gave the sword several swift swings. The metal sang in response to her powerful blows. This pleased her. She had no scabbard for the new forged weapon and so just tucked it in her makeshift belt. "Gods, what I wouldn't give for some decent armor once more," she said to herself. This only reminded her that her last set was probably still mired in the muck at the bottom of a lagoon of the River Deng. No breastplate, no greaves, no bracers nor helm. She didn't even have a damn shield!

She looked at the two ladies she was travelling with and assessed them. "If we are going to survive this expedition, you both must be ready to fight. I know that neither of you are exactly warriors. One of you is a priest of the god of love and the other is a scholar, but I ask now. Do either of you have any experience in battle?"

They both looked at each other. "I killed a monkey man once," said Mela.

"You did indeed," smiled Tallia.

"I can handle myself in a scrap," said Liandra. "I didn't cross half the world without a few close calls."

The Amazon nodded. "Both of you should then take a dagger. And stay behind me when battle begins. Try to keep foes from getting at my flanks. Light is also going to be problem. We only have two brands left..."

Mela chimed in, "Oh, light is no problem." She grabbed another chunk of silver from the little pile the Amazon had made. Again the silver began to glow. She fashioned the silver into a short rod as easy as a sculptor might work clay. When she was finished, the rod had a broad head graven with strange elven runes. The headpiece began to glow most profusely. "This will glow as bright as we require for days to come."

Tallia was not entirely sure what to make of all this casual sorcery the sidhe seemed to throw about. Liandra on the other hand was only more and more excited with each new act of magic.

"Amazing! Wondrous!" the priestess cried. "I have heard stories of the fairy folk and their magic, but had never hoped to see it."

"Get this straight, priest!" exclaimed the suddenly furious Melaerryn. Her mood had shifted quick as the sea. "I am not a sprite, an elf, a pixie, puck, dwarf, imp, hob, gremlin, grumpkin, goblin, gnome, bogie, boggard, borrower or a bumbling bramble brownie! And especially, definitively, certainly I am not a fucking FAIRY! I am a noble sidhe born of Summer! The Bairn of Eldrassar!"

Her two companions exchanged glances, unsure exactly what any of that meant or why their companion was suddenly so angry.

Mela took a deep breathe. She regained her composure and flushed a little red, embarrassed at her outburst. "Look, just cool it with... with that word."

"Which word?" asked Liandra, still taken aback.

"The f-word."

"Fuck?" asked the incredulous priestess.

"NO! Not fucking 'fuck'! FAIRY!" cried the flustered sidhe, "It's not... I'm not... I don't like it, okay?"

"Fine," said the Amazon still unsure exactly what to make of all this. Mela had better thank her gods that Hilarius did not travel with them, mused Tallia. She would likely wake up one morning with 'fairy' tattooed prominently upon her forehead. Reminding herself of her absent friend did nothing for Tallia's mood. So instead she employed her usual defense mechanism and skipped straight to the practical matters at hand.

"Let us gather our kit," said Tallia firmly. "Liandra, you have the food. Mela, you carry the silver. I'll take the rest and we'll each bear a skin of water. Both of you, keep those daggers where you can reach them quick, at your belt or in hand. I'll go first, never get ahead of me. Mela, you have the light, so stay in the middle and keep the torch up, so I can see danger ahead. Liandra, you guard the rear and make sure nothing takes us from behind."

Everyone nodded at their assignments and broached no argument. Soon enough they were underway. Even with Mela's new wonders, truth told, their gear remained pitiful. The trio wore rags mostly cobbled together from Sang's abandoned, stolen bed sheets. There was scarcely an item of proper clothing left between them. Mela at least had a cloak of rich purple cloth, albeit tattered and soiled at the hem. Liandra's once well-kept green robe had been ripped and torn and barely held together anymore. A stiff breeze and the pair would be soon stripped bare.

But Tallia was the worst. She remained genuinely indecent. She had been stripped naked days ago by the wizard's thugs before being dragged to the arena. Since then had found no remedy for her nudity. She wore only a leather harness that crossed her chest and only emphasized her exposed bosom. Her last remaining item of clothing was from Zhang Zhen -- the belt of leather, studded with small amounts of silver that had been ignored by the beast-men as they stripped her and abandoned in her cell. Neither of these provided any modesty but did provide a place to hang her new sword and sidhe-dagger. She had tried to fashioned a loin cloth, but she was no seamstress and the poor, hole-ridden bed cloth kept coming apart. So the rag hung loose, again providing no real coverage. Gods on high and in hell, she missed her scarlet tunic fiercely in these cold damp caves!

The situation with footwear was somehow worse. There was not one functional pair of shoes amongst them. Liandra at least retained her sandals, though they were now much worn. Traveling across the bare rock of these caverns shoeless would make for slow going, but what choice did they have? Tallia cursed herself for not stealing the beast-men's boots from their last battle in the guard room, but they had been so rushed to escape, they had grabbed only weapons and torches.

They also lacked packs or even pouches. Instead they only possessed the sacks that had once held stolen provisions. They made a few straps with coiled cloth so the sacks transformed ino crude knapsacks, but again they were fragile and would not last long. But for now, they sufficed if rather inelegantly. Travelling together, the three looked to Tallia like a band of homeless wretches dragged from the depths of the Rat Ward of Yaath'Xin.

But they did have a few treasures that marked them as something unusual. Tallia had the sidhe-made sword. Mela carried a great store of silver for her magic as well as the glowing rod. All of them had the fine daggers provided by King Bressian, though none of them really knew how to make them return to their hand.

Hilarius would be able to figure those daggers out. Tallia sighed at that thought. Again, her mind could not escape the little rogue. What if Mela had woken up before Sang and Hilarius left? Would her tales of a magic stick that could eat magic have persuaded them to stay, that there was now hope against the wizard? Or would they have proclaimed this new quest only a different kind of madness. 'You can drive your self mad with these kind of questions,' thought Tallia. But in the end, as before, none of it mattered. Hilarius remained gone.

They then drank their fill of water, replenished their skins and even tried a little of the strange sidhe cheese. Tallia found it surprisingly delicious. It was both salty, sweet and rich together in a way she'd never encountered in a victual before. But she had little time to ponder this curiosity. Instead, the trio got moving at last abandoning Sang's hiding spot. They had a door to find somewhere in this endless labyrinth of night and nightmares.

***

Rontus the four-armed rhino-man and his cadre of a dozen murderous monster-men fell prostrate before the mighty Arion Three-Eyes in the wizard's sanctum. "What do your require, dread master?"

Zara Burning-Horn was there too, and she bowed as well, but only slightly. The demoness certainly did not fall prostrate upon the floor like the worshipful half-men. Regardless the wizard did not seem in a mood for analyzing the subtleties of his servants' obeisance. He paced back and forth, clearly agitated, wringing his hands in frustration.

"I have a mission for you of the gravest important," proclaimed Arion. "Four fugitives have escaped from my dungeons. They are assassins who seek to murder me and I very much want them murdered first."

"It shall be done, dread master," said Rontus in a deep reverberating voice. "Who are these dead men?"

"They aren't men at all! These assassins are all women save for one. These troublesome bitches are led by an Amazon warrior named Tallia. She's the most dangerous! She's killed some of my best warriors already. But not my most elite. Not you, Rontus Man-Eater!"

The monster Rontus only bowed. He considered the title a great compliment.

"The Amazon travels with a priestess of a sex cult named Liandra as well as a sidhe witch. The only man is a short servant, a thief as I recall. And they may have help from a fifth member -- an archer of some kind who has so far proven adept at evading my patrols."

"Their number does not matter, my lord," boasted Rhontus. "I shall slay them all!"

The wizard continued. "They have fled into the vast undercity beneath the fortress. I have already had reports that they are stealing provisions and supplies, so doubtless they have made some sort of hidden hideout and hope to use that as a base to strike against me."

"You've sent other patrols into the undercity, master?" asked Zara. The demoness was not pleased about the prospect of other Sons of Arion bumbling around and interfering with their hunt.

"No, no. I'm sending only you," said the wizard waving away her concerns. "I used to occasionally send patrols down there, that's how we caught the sidhe witch. But I lost too many slaves for too little gain. There are yet old elven demons haunting that place. Those you should avoid. The escaped prisoners are all that matter!"

"You want them alive, master?" asked Zara.

Arion paused. He had once hoped to sacrifice them all to this Demon Queen. Such a worthy sacrifice would please her greatly and doubtless she would teach him yet more secrets. After all it had been her tutelage that had shown him how to locate the spheroid of green starstone, how to shape it and polish it and become one with the treasure. The Eye was now his greatest source of power. What other wonders did she have to share if only he could please the fickle demon goddess and prove his devotion to her?

But no. These would-be assassins had proven themselves too dangerous. Tallia had survived his arena, killed his tiger-dragon and almost killed him. Once the Rice Lands were under his thumb, he would bleed out victims by the hundred in praise to the Demon Queen. Now, he must see this errand done and swiftly.

"No," he finally stated resolutely. "I want them dead. I need only heads to show me that they are slain."

Rontus grinned eagerly at this assignment. The prospect of hunting a pack of women and having free reign to murder and feast upon them pleased the ogre greatly. Zara was less sure. Something was clearly troubling her master.

"To escape your prison, master," asked the demoness, "they must have magic at their command."

"The witch and the priestess both dabble in magic," admitted Arion. "The witch's bloodline marks her as a metal-shaper. She can melt bronze or iron with her touch but she is young for her kind and has little real control. The priestess seems to be able to call up spirits, but again, she little understands her powers. And Tallia -- Tallia has proven..." the wizard paused, carefully choosing his next words. "...somewhat difficult to control."

Zara startled at that. There was the answer. Someone had resisted the Eye! That was what had her master so upset.

"Regardless, they are no match for you, my finest," proclaimed the wizard. "Rontus, you will crush them with your great might. Zara -- bring them your fire! Show them no mercy for rest assured, these assassins will offer you none. Now go! Return to me with their heads and I will reward you all richly with gold and slaves."

Now the wizard resorts to bribes instead of threats and commands. Zara was certain then that she had today seen a side of Arion Three-Eyes she had never witnessed before. This was the first time she had detected real fear from this master of mind control. Regardless, it did not change her mission.

Rontus and Zara both bowed in unison, "It shall be done, my master."

And they left his presence, intent and ready to hunt their prey.

***

Mela's shining silver rune-light made finding the warded door easier than Tallia had feared it might be. Where they had once only groped about in the faint illumination of the tapered candle, they could now clearly see scope and scale of this grand warren of chambers and corridors. Further, they now travelled with someone who read the weird curving script that proliferated everywhere. The sidhe sorceress clearly was fascinated and fixated upon all these ancient, arcane evidences of a world long gone.