JollyDoc
Explorer
THE LUCK OF THE DRAW
The companions stabilized their wounded as best they could, but without Michael, it amounted to little more than field dressings. Katarina climbed to her feet unsteadily, a heavy bandage over her injured left eye.
“We’re not going to find Ileosa here,” she said to the others, “but I believe that Zellara’s guidance is still sound. We need to find the final resting place of the specter and return his body. Perhaps he will be able to tell us where the Queen has retreated.”
The pull of Zellara’s Harrow drew Kat and her comrades to the ground floor of the castle and into the servants’ quarters. There she paused at a seemingly blank wall, and then ran her hands over its surface. Her fingers triggered a hidden catch, and a section of the wall slid aside, revealing a narrow flight of stairs that led down. At the bottom, a passageway branched northeast and southwest. To the southwest, the way seemed to have once been closed off after only a few feet by an ancient brick wall, but a man-sized hole appeared to have been fairly recently smashed through it.
“That is the way,” Katarina nodded.
Cautiously, they followed the sorceress down the narrow hall. It gave onto an elongated chamber, the walls of which were decorated with bas-reliefs depicting a great market in a bustling city. The floor was littered with debris and fragments of ceramic, glass and bronze, as if hundreds of containers had been smashed to pieces long ago. Four alcoves in the southwest wall each contained a statue of a kneeling servant with an oversized head, but the statues were too crumbled to be otherwise recognizable. A narrow archway exited on the far side. As the companions made their way across, their light fell more fully across the statues. They began shining with a phosphorescent glow, and at the same time, each of the companions felt their throats grow dry with the taste of salt, and their eyes began to itch ferociously. A moment later, the statues flashed with blinding light, and the air became as dry as the harshest Osirion desert. Each of the agents felt the moisture being literally sucked out of their bodies, leaving them parched and gasping for breath. A moment after that, salt-crusted, androgynous figures emerged from each of the statues, their eyes huge, milky, opaque orbs. O’Reginald, rubbing furiously at his eyes to clear them from the light blindness and salt, opened them only to meet the gaze of one of the oncoming creatures. In that instant, his heart simply stopped, and he slumped to the floor. When Kat, Ratbone, Herc and Raelak finally cleared their own sight, they were stunned at what they saw, yet they had not survived for so long by being paralyzed by the sight of death, even the death of one of their own. Ratbone and Herc rushed two of the bodaks, obliterating them in a frenzy of claws and steel. Raelak dispatched the remaining two with arrows placed with precision through eyes and throats.
“I hope this is worth it,” Herc said coldly as he glared at Katarina. He lifted O’Reginald’s limp body over his shoulder and stalked through the archway on the far side of the chamber. The room beyond it seemed to be a dead end. The air felt cold and clammy. The ceramic floor, walls and ceiling were lined with light brown tiles that formed gentle geometric patterns. On the far side, an ancient coffer sat atop a single low plinth of stone. Kat walked slowly over to the coffer, which stood open. Its interior was empty, but there were several fang-shaped shadows burnt into the bottom. Then, at an impulse from Zellara, her eyes rose to the far wall. On closer inspection, she saw that a section of it appeared newer, of more recent stone work.
“Ratbone,” she said, turning to the druid, “can you get through that?”
In answer, he punched one massive fist through the wall, revealing it to be hollow on the other side. A partially decomposed corpse, mouth agape in a painful death scream, lay slumped against the wall of the otherwise empty chamber. The corpse, clad in a rich, dark purple outfit, was one of a thin, bearded humanoid with pointed ears and a pair of vestigial horns sprouting from his brow.
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A short time later, the four companions stood in the specter’s apartment once more, with three corpses at their feet. As they laid the tiefling’s body on the floor, the apparition appeared again, but this time not as just a misty outline. He looked to be a translucent elderly tiefling man with a deck of Harrow cards that periodically flew out of his hands to spiral around him before returning to his clutches. He regarded the quartet with kind but sorrowful eyes before he began to speak.
“Thank you for taking my bones from that dreadful, dark room below,” he said. “My name is…was…Venster Arabasti, and in life, I was half-brother to King Eodred. As I’m sure you’ve deduced by now, Ileosa killed my brother. Poisoned him, to be specific, but you may not know of my role in that dreadful deed. I was seduced by Ileosa’s promises of power and love, but I do not seek to shift the blame for my own shortcomings. In the end, I got what I deserved I suppose, when Ileosa walled me up and left me to die. Now, as long as she continues to live, I shall remain bound here, unable to emerge from this room, imprisoned by my own shame and guilt. Still, perhaps I am not completely beyond redemption. Perhaps, through you, I can help to undo what I helped set into motion, and perhaps move on to face Pharasma in the afterlife and accept my fate.”
“During my imprisonment here, I could sense the queen’s thoughts and desires as long as she was in the castle. That knowledge has long tormented me, but I now realize that it was all simply preparing me for this day…for my chance at redemption. I know that Ileosa plans on using potent magic found in a place called the Sunken Queen to achieve eternal youth. Although I don’t know exactly what this entails, I do know that the ritual is based on ancient magic indeed…ancient magic that requires the lifeblood of an army of unknowing sacrifices. I fear that Ileosa has been grooming the citizens of Korvosa to be the blood sacrifice she needs to achieve her goal. Even now I can feel strange and potent forces gathering in the spirit world as she makes ready to take the final step.”
“The church of Asmodeus has been gathering blood samples from the citizens…,” Kat whispered.
“Can you tell us more about this Sunken Queen?” Ratbone asked.
Venster shook his head in frustration and growled low in his throat.
“Death has not been kind to my mental faculties,” he snapped. “It is difficult for me to recall details of what I knew in life, let alone fragments and snatches of thoughts and feelings I sensed after my death. Still, you should seek out my mother’s tower. It is a place where the monarchs of the Arabasti line could go for peace and solitude. I have sensed Ileosa in this location several times, and often her most notable burst of sudden inspiration and power occurred in that chamber.”
“There is one final gift I might give you. Many have died in Korvosa due to Ileosa’s whim and cruelties, and each death has bolstered my grief and desire to set things right. Further, you yourselves carry with you a spirit of your own…the Harrow reader Zellara.”
At that moment, Katarina suddenly felt an empathic burst of excitement and fear from Zellara.
“By using the deck she gave you as a focus,” Venster continued, “Zellara and I can siphon the spiritual power and energy of those who have died at Ileosa’s hand or orchestrations into it, transforming it into a powerful tool and method for the spirit world to grant you further insight and power. I warn you, however, that not all of the spirits are kindly ones; many were insane and cruel in their own lives, and there is, unfortunately, no way to exclude them from this infusion of power. Zellara and I can, though, moderate their influence by focusing them through the traditions and mysticism of the Harrow itself. Will you accept this?”
The other three looked at Kat, and she nodded once, decisively.
An instant later, Zellara manifested in the room beside Venster. The cards of her Harrow deck flew out of their pouch at Kat’s belt and began to spiral and spin in between the two spirits. As they concentrated, the anger and wrath of the city’s dead siphoned through them to infuse the cards, which began glowing brighter and brighter. After only a few moments, with a final flash of light, the cards settled into a neat and tidy stack on the table and then both ghosts vanished.
“We each must draw,” Kat said. “First, however, you must declare how many cards you will take. That declaration will bind you. If you do not draw all, they will be drawn for you, and you must still abide by their weird. However, Venster’s and Zellara’s sacrifice will allow you to discard once only, but you must then redraw. Choose wisely.”
“I will take two,” Ratbone said. “Perhaps I will discover something that will return O’Reginald and Michael to us.”
The first card Ratbone turned was the Mute Hag. ‘Your best-kept secret becomes known,’ Zellara’s voice intoned in the druid’s mind. He accepted this without reservation, knowing instinctively that anyone who saw him from that day forward would know him for a shape-shifter. He turned his second card…the Wax Works.
‘Several vengeful duplicates of you shall appear some distance away, but they shall seek you out and seek your death.’
Again, there was no hesitation in Ratbone’s decision. He knew the extent of his own power, and knew that many, if not all of his friends would die if the fate revealed by the card were to come to pass. He discarded it and drew another…the Inquisitor.
‘You may know the answer to your next dilemma,’ said Zellara.
Ratbone’s shoulders slumped. Not the help he had hoped for.
“I will draw next,” Kat said, as she took a seat at the table. “I will choose the maximum draw allowed…four.”
Kat did not need Zellara to explain to her the results of her choosing, for she was a master of the Harrow in her own right. She turned the first card. The Tangled Briar. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Somewhere at that moment, one of their past enemies had just been returned to life and was even now seeking revenge. She thought briefly of redrawing, but decided against it. There might be greater need. She turned the second card. The Winged Serpent. She barely stifled a broad grin. She had just been granted one wish. Feeling more confident, she drew the third. Her face blanched when she saw it…the Sickness. She began feeling ill immediately, and she quickly discarded the card and drew again, the sweat fading from her brow as she did so.
“Oh…shards!” she said as the next card was revealed…the Twin!
Before the stunned gazes of her companions, Kat’s body began to change. Her shoulders broadened and her hips narrowed. Her bosom shrank away completely, coarse facial hair sprouted from her jaw and upper lip, and somewhere below her waist, she felt a truly startling sensation. Within a matter of seconds, Katarina had been transformed into a man! He grimaced at the expression on the faces of his friends, aware that there was nothing for it but to draw his last card. The Mute Hag appeared again. Intuitively, Kat knew that his ability to disguise his appearance was forever lost. Everyone who now saw him would know exactly who he was.
“Next,” he sighed, rising from the table and adjusting himself beneath his skirts.
Raelak swallowed hard as he looked down at the cards.
“I think I’ll only have two,” he said.
His hand shaking only slightly, he drew his first card.
‘The Rabbit Prince,’ Zellara said. ‘From this point forward, your fighting prowess shall become more lethal in the extreme, but in exchange, your defenses against your foes shall be weakened.’
The ranger shrugged. “I can live with that,” he said. He turned his second card.
‘The Tyrant!’ Zellara shouted in horror. ‘No!’
At that moment, a rift opened in reality, and a creature that had a bipedal, reptilian body, at least twenty-feet tall, with two baboon-like heads and tentacles instead of arms began to step through, reaching hungrily for Raelak.
“Redraw! Redraw!” the Shoanti screamed, and an instant later the rift snapped shut as a third card turned from the pile.
‘The Teamster,’ Zellara said, her voice still shaky. ‘You will undertake a dangerous quest for a great reward.’
Raelak sighed. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he grumbled.
Herc was last. He gripped Serithtial as he sat at the table.
“I’ll take four,” he said tonelessly, then reached for the pile.
‘The Brass Dwarf,’ Zellara said. ‘You are now immune to the effects of fire, but electricity shall be your bane.’
Herc nodded and drew again.
‘The Inquisitor once more,’ Zellara repeated the explanation of Ratbone’s draw.
Herc shrugged and drew.
‘The Tangled Briar,’ Zellara said, her voice grim. Another enemy returned from the grave.
Herc drew the last card.
‘The Winged Serpent,’ Zellara announced joyfully. ‘Another wish!’
As the last card was drawn, Zellara and Venster reappeared.
“I hope that I have been of at least some assistance to you,” he said. “I offer you this one last boon.”
He removed a ghostly signet ring from his finger, one which bore the crest of House Arabasti. He dropped it onto the table, where it landed with a solid thunk as it became wholly real.
“This will open my mother’s study,” he said. “You will find it at the top of the tallest tower. Thank you again for all that you have done, and all that you shall do.”
With that, he slowly faded from view. Zellara’s expression was one of hope as she smiled at each of her champions, and then gave Kat a single ectoplasmic kiss on the cheek before she too faded away entirely.
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The two wishes the comrades had received were ultimately the easiest of their dilemmas. Despite Kat’s altered physique, at least she was still alive. The same could not be said for O’Reginald and Michael, and so, with two carefully worded requests, the wizard and priest were restored to the world of the living once more. There were many questions to be answered, not the least of which was Kat’s new gender. Once the pair was brought up to speed, Ratbone suggested another use for one of their boons.
“We need to know the fate of Ishani,” he said, referring to the mystery of what had happened to the Abadaran priest after he had entered Castle Korvosa. “I choose to use the boon granted to me by the Harrow deck for this purpose. Show me Ishani Dhatri!”
The air crackled and rippled with dark energy before them, and a hulking shape appeared. A grim statue hovered there, its slow, seemingly weightless bobbing belying its obvious bulk. Sculpted in the shape of a grim, horned angel, gigantic wings and terrible, long-clawed arms jutted from a legless body that tapered into a blunt, blade-like trunk. Upon the ominous form’s breast hung the fresh remains of the crucified corpse of Ishani Dhatri. No sooner had the nightmare construct appeared, than Ishani opened his mouth and began to scream and scream. At the same moment, a blast of pure evil emanated from the figure, and Kat felt his soul literally being drained from his body. His own screams joined those of Ishani. Ratbone snarled, morphing into his feral form as he leaped at the demonic statue. He bit and clawed, his talons and fangs tearing stone and shadowstuff from it. For the first time, the construct lurched into motion, and it grappled with the druid with its own clawed hands and spiked wings. It hurled Ratbone away from it, which gave Raelak the opening he needed. The ranger loosed a salvo of gleaming arrows into the thing, and it shattered into a thousand pieces. Ishani’s body stopped screaming and fell to the floor, a lifeless husk.
“What…was that?” Herc gasped.
“An akaruzug,” O’Reginald said. “A construct spawned in Hell, but coveted by evil mages for the power it provides, drawn from the souls of the living, or once-living.”
“Can…can Ishani be brought back?”
“I believe so,” Michael replied. “His soul was not allowed to depart, but was kept bound. Thus, it should still be accessible.”
The priest bowed his head and began to pray over the Abadaran’s body. A warm glow settled over Ishani, and his face became peaceful. A moment later, he drew in a long, shuddering breath and opened his eyes.
“My friends,” he smiled wanly. “You do not know the depth of my gratitude, both to you for saving me, and to Abadar that you still live.”
“Not half as grateful as we are,” O’Reginald smirked. “Unfortunately, we’re not staying here long.”
He told the priest all that they’d discovered about Ileosa and her diabolical plan.
“I have heard of the Sunken Queen,” Ishani said when the mage had finished. “It is an ancient Thassilonian ruin located in the Mush Fens. There is an odd, rocky formation known as the Green Reef which lies some thirty miles due south of it. I can draw you a map and you can use that as a landmark.”
“We are grateful,” Kat said. “Then, I’m afraid, we must bid you goodbye, my friend. You should find Cressida. She will need your help organizing the resistance.”
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Following Venster’s directions, the six companions made their way to the top of the tallest tower in Castle Korvosa, only to find an empty room. Ratbone placed the prince’s signet ring upon his finger, and as he did so, a shimmering portal appeared in the air above them. One by one, they climbed through. They found themselves in another small chamber, but this one contained a single large bookshelf filled with dozens of books and scrolls. Nearby, a single desk and chair stood. Sitting on the desk was a single large book with a black leather cover. Kat picked up the book and read its title aloud:
“Truths of the Sihedron,” he said.
It smelled faintly of brimstone and was written in the infernal language of Hell. He flipped through it for several minutes. It contained seven chapters, one for each of the Thassilonian Runelords. He paused at the chapter dedicated to Runelord Sorshen, the Runelord of Lust. The chapter had been heavily glossed in Ileosa’s delicate penmanship. In particular, it seemed she was particular obsessed with something called the Everdawn Pool, a device she appeared to believe still existed in the ruins of the Sunken Queen. According to the notes, the gathering of samples of blood from thousands of ‘supplicants’ was but the first step. Once the pool was ready, it would be able to draw forth the lifeblood of those thousands to infuse a single creature with eternal youth. In short, it seemed that Ileosa intended to sacrifice most of Korvosa’s citizens to attain immortality.
Kat turned his attention to the other books and scrolls on the shelves, hoping he would find even more information of Ileosa’s plans. He wasn’t disappointed. He found her written plans on how she had poisoned her husband, a letter of contact to the Red Mantis, and an outline of how she had planned to use blood veil to murder many of Korvosa’s undesirables. Lastly, among a batch of magical scrolls, including two that allowed the summoning of powerful extraplanar beings, Kat found something very enlightening indeed. It was a sheet of parchment that appeared to be made of human skin, covered with writing in human blood. It was, essentially, a contract between Ileosa and Sermignatto, in which the fiend agreed to provide the queen with infernal aid, minions, and even a bound devil to augment her body and mind. In return, Ileosa promised to turn over part or all of Korvosa to the bdellavritra and his unspecified superiors once she had finished her current goals.
“I think it’s time we took a little trip to the Mushfens,” Kat concluded as he rolled the parchment back up and tucked it into his cloak.
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Kat once more transported himself and his allies through the murky lands of the Shadow Plane to swiftly reach the edge of the Mushfens. From there, it was a relatively simple matter for Michael to use his own magic to first find the path to the Sunken Queen, and then transform himself and the others into mist to be carried speedily along the wind. In hours, instead of days, they reached their final destination. Surrounded by a grove of primeval mangroves and draped in immense sheets of moss and vines, the horns of the Sunken Queen seemed to claw at the sky like the blind talons of an immense monster drowned in an abyss of mud. On the east side of the great pyramid, which leaned heavily into the marshy slough, one of the three original horns had collapsed, leaving a jagged, metallic stump. On the south side, barely dented by the elements and millennia of neglect, was a giant relief of a standing, naked woman, her lean idealized figure immersed in murky water up to the knees.
“I do believe that Ileosa may have inadvertently provided us with unlooked for aid in her hasty departure for this desolate redoubt,” Michael said as he and the others solidified once more.
“What are you talking about?” O’Reginald asked.
“Watch and learn, my arcane friend,” the priest smiled. “Not all things can be explained by experiments and laboratories. Sometimes you just have to have faith.”
Michael took one of the scrolls that Kat had retrieved from Ileosa’s hidden library, and unfurled it.
“Iomedae!” he called to the heavens. “Hear the plea of your faithful servant! Our need is great, though it is not for ourselves that we seek your grace! Thousands of innocents are suffering, and will suffer more at the hands of Hell and its foul machinations should we fail in our quest! We beseech thee, by the power vested in this prayer, to send us what aid you would, that we may bring low these servants of evil, in your most holy name!”
All was still for a moment. Even the sounds of the swamp life went eerily quiet. Then, the air was rent by a bolt of blue lightning that struck the ground directly in front of them. As the blinding light faded, a tall form appeared. He stood well over ten-feet, and his skin was the color of purest gold. Wings so white they brought tears to the eye of those who looked upon them, sprouted from his broad shoulders. He wore burnished, gilded mail on his muscular frame, and in his hand he gripped a mighty sword that glowed with the power of Heaven itself.
“Your call has been heard, and I have been sent,” the solar said in a voice that sounded like a choir of angels. “I am called Pez, Dispenser of Justice. What service do you require of me?”
“Holy One,” Michael said, kneeling. “Our tale is long, but our time is short. Suffice it to say that an artifact of great evil has been put into weak, human hands. This has been done by the designs of agents of Hell, so that thousands of mortal souls can be claimed for its flesh pits. We go to destroy this artifact, and she who wields it. Will you join us?”
Pez merely nodded, his eyes flashing with golden light. He had walked among mortals before, and had found them to be worthy allies. He was eager to do so again.
The companions stabilized their wounded as best they could, but without Michael, it amounted to little more than field dressings. Katarina climbed to her feet unsteadily, a heavy bandage over her injured left eye.
“We’re not going to find Ileosa here,” she said to the others, “but I believe that Zellara’s guidance is still sound. We need to find the final resting place of the specter and return his body. Perhaps he will be able to tell us where the Queen has retreated.”
The pull of Zellara’s Harrow drew Kat and her comrades to the ground floor of the castle and into the servants’ quarters. There she paused at a seemingly blank wall, and then ran her hands over its surface. Her fingers triggered a hidden catch, and a section of the wall slid aside, revealing a narrow flight of stairs that led down. At the bottom, a passageway branched northeast and southwest. To the southwest, the way seemed to have once been closed off after only a few feet by an ancient brick wall, but a man-sized hole appeared to have been fairly recently smashed through it.
“That is the way,” Katarina nodded.
Cautiously, they followed the sorceress down the narrow hall. It gave onto an elongated chamber, the walls of which were decorated with bas-reliefs depicting a great market in a bustling city. The floor was littered with debris and fragments of ceramic, glass and bronze, as if hundreds of containers had been smashed to pieces long ago. Four alcoves in the southwest wall each contained a statue of a kneeling servant with an oversized head, but the statues were too crumbled to be otherwise recognizable. A narrow archway exited on the far side. As the companions made their way across, their light fell more fully across the statues. They began shining with a phosphorescent glow, and at the same time, each of the companions felt their throats grow dry with the taste of salt, and their eyes began to itch ferociously. A moment later, the statues flashed with blinding light, and the air became as dry as the harshest Osirion desert. Each of the agents felt the moisture being literally sucked out of their bodies, leaving them parched and gasping for breath. A moment after that, salt-crusted, androgynous figures emerged from each of the statues, their eyes huge, milky, opaque orbs. O’Reginald, rubbing furiously at his eyes to clear them from the light blindness and salt, opened them only to meet the gaze of one of the oncoming creatures. In that instant, his heart simply stopped, and he slumped to the floor. When Kat, Ratbone, Herc and Raelak finally cleared their own sight, they were stunned at what they saw, yet they had not survived for so long by being paralyzed by the sight of death, even the death of one of their own. Ratbone and Herc rushed two of the bodaks, obliterating them in a frenzy of claws and steel. Raelak dispatched the remaining two with arrows placed with precision through eyes and throats.
“I hope this is worth it,” Herc said coldly as he glared at Katarina. He lifted O’Reginald’s limp body over his shoulder and stalked through the archway on the far side of the chamber. The room beyond it seemed to be a dead end. The air felt cold and clammy. The ceramic floor, walls and ceiling were lined with light brown tiles that formed gentle geometric patterns. On the far side, an ancient coffer sat atop a single low plinth of stone. Kat walked slowly over to the coffer, which stood open. Its interior was empty, but there were several fang-shaped shadows burnt into the bottom. Then, at an impulse from Zellara, her eyes rose to the far wall. On closer inspection, she saw that a section of it appeared newer, of more recent stone work.
“Ratbone,” she said, turning to the druid, “can you get through that?”
In answer, he punched one massive fist through the wall, revealing it to be hollow on the other side. A partially decomposed corpse, mouth agape in a painful death scream, lay slumped against the wall of the otherwise empty chamber. The corpse, clad in a rich, dark purple outfit, was one of a thin, bearded humanoid with pointed ears and a pair of vestigial horns sprouting from his brow.
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A short time later, the four companions stood in the specter’s apartment once more, with three corpses at their feet. As they laid the tiefling’s body on the floor, the apparition appeared again, but this time not as just a misty outline. He looked to be a translucent elderly tiefling man with a deck of Harrow cards that periodically flew out of his hands to spiral around him before returning to his clutches. He regarded the quartet with kind but sorrowful eyes before he began to speak.
“Thank you for taking my bones from that dreadful, dark room below,” he said. “My name is…was…Venster Arabasti, and in life, I was half-brother to King Eodred. As I’m sure you’ve deduced by now, Ileosa killed my brother. Poisoned him, to be specific, but you may not know of my role in that dreadful deed. I was seduced by Ileosa’s promises of power and love, but I do not seek to shift the blame for my own shortcomings. In the end, I got what I deserved I suppose, when Ileosa walled me up and left me to die. Now, as long as she continues to live, I shall remain bound here, unable to emerge from this room, imprisoned by my own shame and guilt. Still, perhaps I am not completely beyond redemption. Perhaps, through you, I can help to undo what I helped set into motion, and perhaps move on to face Pharasma in the afterlife and accept my fate.”
“During my imprisonment here, I could sense the queen’s thoughts and desires as long as she was in the castle. That knowledge has long tormented me, but I now realize that it was all simply preparing me for this day…for my chance at redemption. I know that Ileosa plans on using potent magic found in a place called the Sunken Queen to achieve eternal youth. Although I don’t know exactly what this entails, I do know that the ritual is based on ancient magic indeed…ancient magic that requires the lifeblood of an army of unknowing sacrifices. I fear that Ileosa has been grooming the citizens of Korvosa to be the blood sacrifice she needs to achieve her goal. Even now I can feel strange and potent forces gathering in the spirit world as she makes ready to take the final step.”
“The church of Asmodeus has been gathering blood samples from the citizens…,” Kat whispered.
“Can you tell us more about this Sunken Queen?” Ratbone asked.
Venster shook his head in frustration and growled low in his throat.
“Death has not been kind to my mental faculties,” he snapped. “It is difficult for me to recall details of what I knew in life, let alone fragments and snatches of thoughts and feelings I sensed after my death. Still, you should seek out my mother’s tower. It is a place where the monarchs of the Arabasti line could go for peace and solitude. I have sensed Ileosa in this location several times, and often her most notable burst of sudden inspiration and power occurred in that chamber.”
“There is one final gift I might give you. Many have died in Korvosa due to Ileosa’s whim and cruelties, and each death has bolstered my grief and desire to set things right. Further, you yourselves carry with you a spirit of your own…the Harrow reader Zellara.”
At that moment, Katarina suddenly felt an empathic burst of excitement and fear from Zellara.
“By using the deck she gave you as a focus,” Venster continued, “Zellara and I can siphon the spiritual power and energy of those who have died at Ileosa’s hand or orchestrations into it, transforming it into a powerful tool and method for the spirit world to grant you further insight and power. I warn you, however, that not all of the spirits are kindly ones; many were insane and cruel in their own lives, and there is, unfortunately, no way to exclude them from this infusion of power. Zellara and I can, though, moderate their influence by focusing them through the traditions and mysticism of the Harrow itself. Will you accept this?”
The other three looked at Kat, and she nodded once, decisively.
An instant later, Zellara manifested in the room beside Venster. The cards of her Harrow deck flew out of their pouch at Kat’s belt and began to spiral and spin in between the two spirits. As they concentrated, the anger and wrath of the city’s dead siphoned through them to infuse the cards, which began glowing brighter and brighter. After only a few moments, with a final flash of light, the cards settled into a neat and tidy stack on the table and then both ghosts vanished.
“We each must draw,” Kat said. “First, however, you must declare how many cards you will take. That declaration will bind you. If you do not draw all, they will be drawn for you, and you must still abide by their weird. However, Venster’s and Zellara’s sacrifice will allow you to discard once only, but you must then redraw. Choose wisely.”
“I will take two,” Ratbone said. “Perhaps I will discover something that will return O’Reginald and Michael to us.”
The first card Ratbone turned was the Mute Hag. ‘Your best-kept secret becomes known,’ Zellara’s voice intoned in the druid’s mind. He accepted this without reservation, knowing instinctively that anyone who saw him from that day forward would know him for a shape-shifter. He turned his second card…the Wax Works.
‘Several vengeful duplicates of you shall appear some distance away, but they shall seek you out and seek your death.’
Again, there was no hesitation in Ratbone’s decision. He knew the extent of his own power, and knew that many, if not all of his friends would die if the fate revealed by the card were to come to pass. He discarded it and drew another…the Inquisitor.
‘You may know the answer to your next dilemma,’ said Zellara.
Ratbone’s shoulders slumped. Not the help he had hoped for.
“I will draw next,” Kat said, as she took a seat at the table. “I will choose the maximum draw allowed…four.”
Kat did not need Zellara to explain to her the results of her choosing, for she was a master of the Harrow in her own right. She turned the first card. The Tangled Briar. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Somewhere at that moment, one of their past enemies had just been returned to life and was even now seeking revenge. She thought briefly of redrawing, but decided against it. There might be greater need. She turned the second card. The Winged Serpent. She barely stifled a broad grin. She had just been granted one wish. Feeling more confident, she drew the third. Her face blanched when she saw it…the Sickness. She began feeling ill immediately, and she quickly discarded the card and drew again, the sweat fading from her brow as she did so.
“Oh…shards!” she said as the next card was revealed…the Twin!
Before the stunned gazes of her companions, Kat’s body began to change. Her shoulders broadened and her hips narrowed. Her bosom shrank away completely, coarse facial hair sprouted from her jaw and upper lip, and somewhere below her waist, she felt a truly startling sensation. Within a matter of seconds, Katarina had been transformed into a man! He grimaced at the expression on the faces of his friends, aware that there was nothing for it but to draw his last card. The Mute Hag appeared again. Intuitively, Kat knew that his ability to disguise his appearance was forever lost. Everyone who now saw him would know exactly who he was.
“Next,” he sighed, rising from the table and adjusting himself beneath his skirts.
Raelak swallowed hard as he looked down at the cards.
“I think I’ll only have two,” he said.
His hand shaking only slightly, he drew his first card.
‘The Rabbit Prince,’ Zellara said. ‘From this point forward, your fighting prowess shall become more lethal in the extreme, but in exchange, your defenses against your foes shall be weakened.’
The ranger shrugged. “I can live with that,” he said. He turned his second card.
‘The Tyrant!’ Zellara shouted in horror. ‘No!’
At that moment, a rift opened in reality, and a creature that had a bipedal, reptilian body, at least twenty-feet tall, with two baboon-like heads and tentacles instead of arms began to step through, reaching hungrily for Raelak.
“Redraw! Redraw!” the Shoanti screamed, and an instant later the rift snapped shut as a third card turned from the pile.
‘The Teamster,’ Zellara said, her voice still shaky. ‘You will undertake a dangerous quest for a great reward.’
Raelak sighed. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he grumbled.
Herc was last. He gripped Serithtial as he sat at the table.
“I’ll take four,” he said tonelessly, then reached for the pile.
‘The Brass Dwarf,’ Zellara said. ‘You are now immune to the effects of fire, but electricity shall be your bane.’
Herc nodded and drew again.
‘The Inquisitor once more,’ Zellara repeated the explanation of Ratbone’s draw.
Herc shrugged and drew.
‘The Tangled Briar,’ Zellara said, her voice grim. Another enemy returned from the grave.
Herc drew the last card.
‘The Winged Serpent,’ Zellara announced joyfully. ‘Another wish!’
As the last card was drawn, Zellara and Venster reappeared.
“I hope that I have been of at least some assistance to you,” he said. “I offer you this one last boon.”
He removed a ghostly signet ring from his finger, one which bore the crest of House Arabasti. He dropped it onto the table, where it landed with a solid thunk as it became wholly real.
“This will open my mother’s study,” he said. “You will find it at the top of the tallest tower. Thank you again for all that you have done, and all that you shall do.”
With that, he slowly faded from view. Zellara’s expression was one of hope as she smiled at each of her champions, and then gave Kat a single ectoplasmic kiss on the cheek before she too faded away entirely.
___________________________________________________________
The two wishes the comrades had received were ultimately the easiest of their dilemmas. Despite Kat’s altered physique, at least she was still alive. The same could not be said for O’Reginald and Michael, and so, with two carefully worded requests, the wizard and priest were restored to the world of the living once more. There were many questions to be answered, not the least of which was Kat’s new gender. Once the pair was brought up to speed, Ratbone suggested another use for one of their boons.
“We need to know the fate of Ishani,” he said, referring to the mystery of what had happened to the Abadaran priest after he had entered Castle Korvosa. “I choose to use the boon granted to me by the Harrow deck for this purpose. Show me Ishani Dhatri!”
The air crackled and rippled with dark energy before them, and a hulking shape appeared. A grim statue hovered there, its slow, seemingly weightless bobbing belying its obvious bulk. Sculpted in the shape of a grim, horned angel, gigantic wings and terrible, long-clawed arms jutted from a legless body that tapered into a blunt, blade-like trunk. Upon the ominous form’s breast hung the fresh remains of the crucified corpse of Ishani Dhatri. No sooner had the nightmare construct appeared, than Ishani opened his mouth and began to scream and scream. At the same moment, a blast of pure evil emanated from the figure, and Kat felt his soul literally being drained from his body. His own screams joined those of Ishani. Ratbone snarled, morphing into his feral form as he leaped at the demonic statue. He bit and clawed, his talons and fangs tearing stone and shadowstuff from it. For the first time, the construct lurched into motion, and it grappled with the druid with its own clawed hands and spiked wings. It hurled Ratbone away from it, which gave Raelak the opening he needed. The ranger loosed a salvo of gleaming arrows into the thing, and it shattered into a thousand pieces. Ishani’s body stopped screaming and fell to the floor, a lifeless husk.
“What…was that?” Herc gasped.
“An akaruzug,” O’Reginald said. “A construct spawned in Hell, but coveted by evil mages for the power it provides, drawn from the souls of the living, or once-living.”
“Can…can Ishani be brought back?”
“I believe so,” Michael replied. “His soul was not allowed to depart, but was kept bound. Thus, it should still be accessible.”
The priest bowed his head and began to pray over the Abadaran’s body. A warm glow settled over Ishani, and his face became peaceful. A moment later, he drew in a long, shuddering breath and opened his eyes.
“My friends,” he smiled wanly. “You do not know the depth of my gratitude, both to you for saving me, and to Abadar that you still live.”
“Not half as grateful as we are,” O’Reginald smirked. “Unfortunately, we’re not staying here long.”
He told the priest all that they’d discovered about Ileosa and her diabolical plan.
“I have heard of the Sunken Queen,” Ishani said when the mage had finished. “It is an ancient Thassilonian ruin located in the Mush Fens. There is an odd, rocky formation known as the Green Reef which lies some thirty miles due south of it. I can draw you a map and you can use that as a landmark.”
“We are grateful,” Kat said. “Then, I’m afraid, we must bid you goodbye, my friend. You should find Cressida. She will need your help organizing the resistance.”
____________________________________________________________
Following Venster’s directions, the six companions made their way to the top of the tallest tower in Castle Korvosa, only to find an empty room. Ratbone placed the prince’s signet ring upon his finger, and as he did so, a shimmering portal appeared in the air above them. One by one, they climbed through. They found themselves in another small chamber, but this one contained a single large bookshelf filled with dozens of books and scrolls. Nearby, a single desk and chair stood. Sitting on the desk was a single large book with a black leather cover. Kat picked up the book and read its title aloud:
“Truths of the Sihedron,” he said.
It smelled faintly of brimstone and was written in the infernal language of Hell. He flipped through it for several minutes. It contained seven chapters, one for each of the Thassilonian Runelords. He paused at the chapter dedicated to Runelord Sorshen, the Runelord of Lust. The chapter had been heavily glossed in Ileosa’s delicate penmanship. In particular, it seemed she was particular obsessed with something called the Everdawn Pool, a device she appeared to believe still existed in the ruins of the Sunken Queen. According to the notes, the gathering of samples of blood from thousands of ‘supplicants’ was but the first step. Once the pool was ready, it would be able to draw forth the lifeblood of those thousands to infuse a single creature with eternal youth. In short, it seemed that Ileosa intended to sacrifice most of Korvosa’s citizens to attain immortality.
Kat turned his attention to the other books and scrolls on the shelves, hoping he would find even more information of Ileosa’s plans. He wasn’t disappointed. He found her written plans on how she had poisoned her husband, a letter of contact to the Red Mantis, and an outline of how she had planned to use blood veil to murder many of Korvosa’s undesirables. Lastly, among a batch of magical scrolls, including two that allowed the summoning of powerful extraplanar beings, Kat found something very enlightening indeed. It was a sheet of parchment that appeared to be made of human skin, covered with writing in human blood. It was, essentially, a contract between Ileosa and Sermignatto, in which the fiend agreed to provide the queen with infernal aid, minions, and even a bound devil to augment her body and mind. In return, Ileosa promised to turn over part or all of Korvosa to the bdellavritra and his unspecified superiors once she had finished her current goals.
“I think it’s time we took a little trip to the Mushfens,” Kat concluded as he rolled the parchment back up and tucked it into his cloak.
_________________________________________________________
Kat once more transported himself and his allies through the murky lands of the Shadow Plane to swiftly reach the edge of the Mushfens. From there, it was a relatively simple matter for Michael to use his own magic to first find the path to the Sunken Queen, and then transform himself and the others into mist to be carried speedily along the wind. In hours, instead of days, they reached their final destination. Surrounded by a grove of primeval mangroves and draped in immense sheets of moss and vines, the horns of the Sunken Queen seemed to claw at the sky like the blind talons of an immense monster drowned in an abyss of mud. On the east side of the great pyramid, which leaned heavily into the marshy slough, one of the three original horns had collapsed, leaving a jagged, metallic stump. On the south side, barely dented by the elements and millennia of neglect, was a giant relief of a standing, naked woman, her lean idealized figure immersed in murky water up to the knees.
“I do believe that Ileosa may have inadvertently provided us with unlooked for aid in her hasty departure for this desolate redoubt,” Michael said as he and the others solidified once more.
“What are you talking about?” O’Reginald asked.
“Watch and learn, my arcane friend,” the priest smiled. “Not all things can be explained by experiments and laboratories. Sometimes you just have to have faith.”
Michael took one of the scrolls that Kat had retrieved from Ileosa’s hidden library, and unfurled it.
“Iomedae!” he called to the heavens. “Hear the plea of your faithful servant! Our need is great, though it is not for ourselves that we seek your grace! Thousands of innocents are suffering, and will suffer more at the hands of Hell and its foul machinations should we fail in our quest! We beseech thee, by the power vested in this prayer, to send us what aid you would, that we may bring low these servants of evil, in your most holy name!”
All was still for a moment. Even the sounds of the swamp life went eerily quiet. Then, the air was rent by a bolt of blue lightning that struck the ground directly in front of them. As the blinding light faded, a tall form appeared. He stood well over ten-feet, and his skin was the color of purest gold. Wings so white they brought tears to the eye of those who looked upon them, sprouted from his broad shoulders. He wore burnished, gilded mail on his muscular frame, and in his hand he gripped a mighty sword that glowed with the power of Heaven itself.
“Your call has been heard, and I have been sent,” the solar said in a voice that sounded like a choir of angels. “I am called Pez, Dispenser of Justice. What service do you require of me?”
“Holy One,” Michael said, kneeling. “Our tale is long, but our time is short. Suffice it to say that an artifact of great evil has been put into weak, human hands. This has been done by the designs of agents of Hell, so that thousands of mortal souls can be claimed for its flesh pits. We go to destroy this artifact, and she who wields it. Will you join us?”
Pez merely nodded, his eyes flashing with golden light. He had walked among mortals before, and had found them to be worthy allies. He was eager to do so again.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
is there any chance of hearing about the adventures of Pez? I'd so like to get to know him a bit better. Keep up to good work.
