Wraithblood: The Elixir, Episode 19a
“Khaenset,” you say, still staring at your brother in the mirror. “What do you see?”
Khaenset shrugs, expressionless. “I do not know.”
You wait, and then realize he’s not going to say anything more unless you prompt him.
“What do you think you see?” you say.
“Some sort of creature,” says Khaenset in his toneless voice. “There are pincers and tentacles and talons. Normal men would find it hideous to look upon. So hideous their sanity might crumble.”
“No!” wails Malcolm, rage enter his voice. “Don’t listen to him, Nerina! Let me out, let me out, I’m so hungry, I’ve been so hungry for so very long, let me out!”
The edges of his form blur and shift as he screams, and you catch a glimpse – just a glimpse – of what Khaenset was describing, and you recoil in horror. The others flinch as well, and Azaces starts cursing at the top of his lungs. You suspect the creature – whatever it is – has the ability to wrap itself in illusion.
“Kill the thing!” says Azaces, drawing his scimitar.
“Don’t be foolish,” says Nasser, grabbing Azaces’s arm. “It needs us to break the mirror. If it could attack us, it would already have done so.”
“I will kill you!” screams Malcolm, something like a barbed tentacle coming from his mouth, “I will feast on you…”
Azaces turns and levels his scimitar against Tarquin’s throat. “Why didn’t you warn us, fool? By the Living Flame, if you weren’t already a eunuch I swear I’d cut it off and stuff it down your throat.”
“I didn’t know!” squeals Tarquin. “I swear I didn’t. The Master always keeps his mirrors covered when he’s in the library, and…and…”
“Enough,” says Nasser. “Time grows short, and we’ve almost reached Callatas’s strong room. Tarquin, lead the way.”
Tarquin squirms out of Azaces’s grasp, giving him a murderous look, and walks away. You follow, along with the others. Tarquin walks towards the library’s doors, two massive slabs of oak, and points.
“The Master’s laboratory as at the end of that hall,” says Tarquin, “and beyond the laboratory is the strong room. And…”
He stops.
“What is it?” says Riordan.
Tarquin creeps to the door, peers through the cracks, hurries back.
“There are two Immortals guarding the laboratory door,” he says.
Grim silence answers that pronouncement.
“You can kill them, can you not?” says Tarquin.
“Chancy,” says Nasser.
Azaces snorts. “What he means to say is that we have three fighting men here – myself, Riordan, and Nasser – along with a damned Alghol.” He gives Khaenset a sideways glance. “That leaves a eunuch and a half-mad wraithblood addict. Three fighting men, an Alghol, a eunuch, and a half-mad wraithblood addict are not enough to kill two Immortals.”
“Is there another secret passage?” says Nasser.
“No!” says Tarquin. “That is the only door into the laboratory. We cannot turn back now! We’re so close!”
You take a deep breath, remembering Samnirdamnus’ words. The djinn claimed that Immortals could not see you, due to the damage you inflicted upon your spirit with wraithblood. You could stroll up to the Immortals and dose them with your paralytic. Or simply cut their throats.
Assuming Samnidamnus told the truth. And assuming your paralytic actually works on the alchemically-altered constitution of an Immortal.
Of course, Azaces has his bow, and Riordan his crossbow. You could have them coat their missiles with the paralytic and then shoot the Immortals.
Your eyes stray to the far wall of the library, to the doors opening on to a high balcony. You could simply go over the balcony and take a ledge to the laboratory’s windows.
Though if you slip, it’s a ten-storey drop to the street. You quickly calculate the amount of injury you would sustain in a fall from that height.
The results of that equation are not at all pleasant.
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