Wraithblood: The Elixir, Episode 21a

You take a deep breath, produce your tools, and set to work on the door’s three locks.

Time passes. You couldn’t say how much. The world shrinks, until you forget about the mortal danger of Callatas’s mansion, the men around you, the Elixir Rejuvenata behind the door. The world only contains you and the door, and the intricate mathematics underlying the masterwork of the door’s locks.

You even forget about wraithblood.

Bit by bit you probe the lock, prying open some of the steel plates to have a look at the mechanical innards of the traps. From time to time you stop to scribble notes on the wall or floor with a piece of chalk.

“How much longer?” says Tarquin, wiping his sweating hands on his orange robe. “How much longer?”

“Do be silent, Tarquin,” murmurs Nasser. “She is concentrating.”

“She must hurry!” says Tarquin. “If the Immortals find us…”

“If she makes haste and the door blows up in her face,” says Azaces, “then we’re finished, fool. Can you pick the lock? No? Then shut your damned mouth.”

In truth, you barely hear them. Numbers pour through your mind, an endless torrent of them, pattern after pattern of them. Sweat drips down your face as you maneuver your picks into the locks, prying a gear loose here, adjusting a spring there, digging ever closer to the end…

And then, all at once, the equation balances in your mind, and you push your pick into one of the keyholes just so…

The locks release with a massive clang, the traps disarmed. You pull on the door, and it swings open on oiled hinges, revealing the interior of Callatas’s strong room.

And you feel disappointed, hollow, empty. The lock is open, the puzzle is solved, the equation balanced. You hardly care what is beyond the other side of the door.

You very badly want some wraithblood.

“Well done, Strake,” says Nasser, gently pushing you to the side. “Well done.” Nasser, Riordan, and Azaces step into the strong room. It is a small room, empty save for a small wooden table in the center. Upon the table sit a dozen small crystal vials with wax seals, filled with a silvery liquid, a liquid that gives off a pale glow.

The Elixir Rejuvenata.

Khaenset remains standing next to you, looking indifferent, while Tarquin peers at one of the long stone counters, giving furtive glances in Nasser’s direction. After a moment he picks up something long and metallic, and hurries away from the counter. You glance over Callatas’s shelves, and wonder if the Master Alchemist has any wraithblood here…

“Well done, gentlemen,” says Nasser, loading the vials of Elixir into a leather satchel. “Now, let us be gone from here, and…”

“I think not.”

Tarquin has moved in front of the laboratory doors, his right arm pointing at Nasser. In his hand he holds something that looks like a large copper meat fork, albeit a meat fork that has silver runes scribed upon its length.

A blue spark flickers between the tines, growing larger and brighter.

Nasser’s face takes on a placid, dangerous-looking calm. “What is that?”

“One of Master Callatas’s tools,” says Tarquin. “You don’t want to know what it does. Now. Put the satchel with the Elixir upon the counter, and then step back into the strong room. All of you!”

“Why?” says Nasser.

“Because otherwise you’ll find out what this tool does,” says Tarquin.

Riordan is behind Nasser, and you see him quietly slip a bolt into his crossbow.

“Bah!” says Azaces. “Wretched eunuch! What, you think you can take all of us?”

“I don’t need to,” says Tarquin, grinning. “I’ll hide the Elixir, and turn you over to the Immortals. Then when the Master returns from the Padishah, the Immortals will show him your corpses, and the Master will conclude some of thieves escaped with the Elixir. And then, once his suspicions have passed, I will sell the Elixir and escape.” His smile widens. “The Elixir will heal my maiming, and the rest of it will make me richer than the Padishah. Then I will be the Master!”

“Tarquin, Tarquin,” says Nasser. “I’ll give you once chance. Put aside this foolish scheme, and share in the profits of our venture. Otherwise I’ll show you how I deal with treachery.”

Tarquin sneers. “I’ll give you one chance. Put down the Elixir, or you’ll see just what kind of weapons the Master can make…”

“Khaenset!” says Nasser.

Khaenset moves in a blur, racing for Tarquin, and Riordan raises his crossbow. Both men are fast, far faster than a fat eunuch in an orange robe.

But the thing in Tarquin’s hand is faster than any man.

A sheet of snarling blue lightning erupts from the fork, slams into Khaenset, wraps him in a cocoon of crackling fingers. The blast knocks him to the floor, his flesh charred and smoking, and a massive arc leaps from him to strike Riordan. The crossbow shatters in his hands, and the blast knocks him back against the wall, his hair on fire, his chest and face a charred ruin.

If he’s not dead already, he’s going to be soon.

“Down!” yells Nasser, and you, Azaces, and Nasser duck behind one of the massive stone counters as another sheet of blue lightning rips over your head. A second bolt slams into the counter, sending jars and vials raining to the floor around you.

“I told you!” says Azaces, “I told you not to trust a eunuch, I told you…”

“Unless you have a pertinent suggestion,” Nasser says, “kindly shut up.”

“Give up, Nasser!” shouts Tarquin. “Give me the Elixir, and I’ll kill you quickly!”

You look over the vials and jars scattered across the floor, and a sudden cold feeling settles over you. Some of the symbols on the jars you recognize from the formulae on the library’s mosaic floor, and you realize that you have all the materials handy to make Hellfire, the Alchemists’ deadly liquid flame. The slightest spark can ignite Hellfire, and if you can throw it on Tarquin and his lightning rod…

You see Nasser reach into his coat, draw out a throwing knife. Undoubtedly he hopes to kill Tarquin before the eunuch can bring the lightning rod to bear.

And beyond, you see Khaenset’s charred body twitch. The daevagoth in Callatas’s dungeons could not kill him, and apparently neither could Callatas’s lightning rod. The Alghol assassin is creeping, inch by inch, towards Tarquin.

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