Zachary rushed away from the prison, pulling the sphere
out of his pocket. The Angel of Death
had said some magic words right before Pink fell and started changing. Could that have been a coincidence? He’d never seen an Angel need to use nonsense
words before. Everything they did, they just did.
The Angel of Death had said this sphere was a good luck
charm. Maybe the opposite was the case. Zachary tossed the sphere away from him,
causing it to land on the grass a distance away from him. He kept running.
*****
Cody followed the fear trail Zachary left behind
him. His frightened scent grew more
powerful as Cody drew near to its source, and before long, Zachary was in
sight. The human found a sudden burst of
speed somewhere inside him as Cody approached, but it did him little good.
Cody reached Zachary and tackled him to the ground. The human’s fear was pungent in the air as
Cody pinned him, but the scent faded away when Cody knocked Zachary
unconscious. Cody closed his eyes and
scanned through his mental catalogue of the diseases he had to tag. He started with the most serious ones which
were not immediately life-threatening.
He tried to strategize his transfers to move as many illnesses as he
could. He went through the pettier
illnesses, and then the most dangerous ones.
Finally, Cody moved over a group of life-threatening
injuries in a single burst before snatching up and eating Zachary’s soul before
the human could die. When he’d done
that, he lay back for a moment, and then stood up to go back to the
prison. Explaining this to Larngulal
would be easier if fewer Selechii goons survived this affair, and in a few
days, Cody would be in a position to scrub the organization from the face of
the earth. With both their leader and
Zach working for him, he’d be able to find all of their hide-outs, track down
every one of them and either kill them or send them to the police. He just needed to wait for Valthakar to find
Bavandersloth and he’d be golden. He
smiled. He really was going to win. Perhaps Cherie wouldn’t have to wait until
next Valentine’s Day for another night as special as their last.
*****
Cherie sat down in the training academy the next day with
her work on her desk. Some of the other
trainees talked amongst themselves as they waited for the instructor. Cherie looked over her work. It still seemed satisfactory to her.
A few moments before class was set to start, the
instructor walked in. “Good morning,” he
said.
“Good morning,” half of the class repeated.
“Alright, everyone, you should all have completed the
sheets I gave you last Friday over the weekend.
Today, we’re going to go through them.
For each of the scenarios, you were asked to write down questions you
would want to ask to help you identify the kind of monster which had attacked
the place in the text. Today, I’m going
to answer them. Now, let’s read back
over the first scenario.”
The instructor got out a sheet of paper and read aloud
from it. “You are in the field when your
squad meets with you to give you information.
They tell you that the rural Ethiopian village in question has faced
three disappearances. Each one has been
a woman who went out to collect water and did not return. The ground near the bank of the river is
muddy, but there have been no unusual footprints found.” The instructor looked up at the
trainees. “You were asked to list two
questions you would ask to help you figure the answer out. Would any of you like to ask one of your
questions to me now?” One of the other
trainees raised their hand. “Church,”
the instructor called.
“The question said no unusual footprints were found, but
was anything else unusual found in the area?
Not just on the bank, but anywhere on the path these women would take to
get there?”
“That’s a good question, but not in this case, no.” The instructor looked away from him and back
to the class as a whole. “He was doing
something right when he thought of that, though. Outside the box thinking is critical in this
job. One shouldn’t let themselves be led
to assume that the bank is where these women are being snatched from. That’s possible, but it also might not be the
case.” The instructor turned to another
student whose hand was up. “Yes,
Ackerman?”
“About it being possible for them to have disappeared
from the bank, I think I spotted something that might rule that out. If these women went there to collect a day’s
supply of water in the morning, wouldn’t they have been seen by other women?”
The instructor smiled.
“Now that is a very good
point. Your colleagues press the women’s
families further on that point, and discover that all of them had gone out at
night. There’d been a disease epidemic
in the area, its symptoms are all naturalistic, and these women had each gone
out to get extra water for family members dehydrated by the illness.” The trainee who had given that answer
grinned. Cherie decided now was the time
to put up her hand. However, the man
behind her was called on first.
“Williams?”
“Yes, I was wondering if any of the women’s buckets were
found, especially near the river bank.”
“Interesting question.
Why do you ask?”
“According to the book, auhizotl will call out to their
victims in a way that imitates the voices of their loved ones. I reason that if one of these women heard such
a call and went after it, they’d have left their bucket behind.”
“I see,” the instructor said. “Upon searching the area, your group finds an
empty water vase. With further
questioning, you discover it to have belonged to one of your victims. Also, out of curiosity, how many of you
narrowed in on an auhizotl as one of your guesses?”
Looking around, Cherie saw several students with their
hands up, other than her and Williams.
“Hmm, I see,” the instructor said.
“Lambert, what’s your question?”
Cherie looked at the instructor. “The scenario said that there were no unusual
footprints found on the river banks.
What kinds of footprints were found?
I ask because it might be that the monster responsible left footprints,
just ones we didn’t recognize as unusual.”
The instructor smiled at Cherie. “Ah, another good question. There were snake tracks in the area, along
with those of a mud turtle, and those of a wolf.”
“Would wolf prints be consistent with an auhizotl?”
“They would. It’d
take close inspection to tell the difference.
The absence of any blood or evidence of a struggle near the bank had
caused both you and the villagers to rule out a wolf attack, or indeed, any
wild animal attack.”
“Are there any prints around for us to do that inspection
on?”
“Yes. You do the
inspection, and you discover that the prints are indeed those of an auhizotl.”
Cherie smiled. Yes, she thought.
“Now then, onto question two.”
*****
Bavandersloth felt a voracious hunger as his
consciousness returned. He’d felt this
same hunger before. Quickly, he recalled
what had happened at his mansion.
Kandrinarkora had told him Odelarch and Tkoralkiarch were working with
Gborin’gargoth to betray him.
Bavandersloth stood up.
He was in a dirty cave. He could
see no light nearby which might indicate an entrance. However, sniffing the air, he smelled a
pungent fear. It was distant, but
intense. Bavandersloth salivated as he
rushed through the cave, following the scent to what he presumed would be a
fresh soul for him to devour.
As he ran, he thought.
His phylactery had been hidden in the Rocky Mountains, so it could be
presumed that that was where he was. It’d
been thirty days since Bavandersloth’s last memories, or else an entirely new
form would not have been built for him.
He didn’t remember how his form had been destroyed. He hadn’t felt, seen or heard anything
unusual, except of course Kandrinarkora’s voice. That was probably the trigger, indirectly. Gborin’gargoth had destroyed his form to
prevent him from alerting the community to what Odelarch and Tkoralkiarch had
done.
Bavandersloth reached the mouth of the cave, and stepped
out into a dawn-lit snowy valley, surrounded by trees and with looming
mountains to his left and right.
Bavandersloth followed the scent across a creek and up one of the
mountains.
If his form had been destroyed by Gborin’gargoth, his
absence would have to be explained. Not
knowing how Gborin’gargoth had done it, it was difficult for Bavandersloth to
guess whether Odelarch would have been able to explain the whole affair
away. If Gborin’gargoth had been clever,
he’d have made sure to destroy his form in a way which would seem impossible
for his collaborators to achieve.
Depending on what that was, any number of persons may be blamed for what
happened.
Bavandersloth run up the mountain a ways, and then turned
to walk around its face. The smell was
coming from a nearby hill. Bavandersloth
could tell that much. He made the
mountain subtly smooth itself as he walked on it, to keep the terrain from
slowing him down.
It was unfortunate that Bavandersloth would have to
punish Odelarch and Tkoralkiarch, the latter especially. Bavandersloth had grown to like the boy. Perhaps Bavandersloth could use a binding
spell as Tkoralkiarch’s punishment. Yes,
that was exactly what he would do. His
phylactery collecting ability was too useful to waste.
Bavandersloth would be less merciful to Odelarch. He’d been a troublesome boy from the
beginning. Bavandersloth has seen
promise in him, but any possibility of him being an ally in the future was
offset by the fact that he had made himself Bavandersloth’s enemy now. He should be dealt with cruelly and without
hesitation.
Bavandersloth felt a blade of grass crunch beneath his
foot as he smelled the fear, closer, but only on account of Bavandersloth’s
motion. The fearful human didn’t seem to
be moving at all. Perhaps they were
stuck where they were, maybe pinned by a rock.
It was a difficult problem, Bavandersloth realized,
working out how to exact his retribution on the boys. As much as he’d love to gain Tkoralkiarch as
a bound servant, getting his phylactery would be obscenely difficult. He could call it back to himself at any time,
and if he did, getting it back would require entering the range from which he
could retrieve Bavandersloth’s phylactery.
Wait, no.
Kandrinarkora had blocked Tkoralkiarch’s retrieval ability once. There was no doubt he could do it again. Yes, that would work. As for Odelarch, Bavandersloth would acquire
his phylactery once he had Tkoralkiarch serving him. He’d bind him, make him lead Bavandersloth to
his friends and family, (if Gborin’gargoth was communicating with the boy,
there was no doubt he’d hidden them away), kill them in front of him, and then
kill the boy himself.
Of course, it was possible that Larngulal or Kgobauru had
already seen to their punishments.
Bavandersloth hoped she’d not secured them by doing something rash. At one of their earlier council meetings, she
had advocated a large-scale attack on a major city to draw attention. It was one of the rare times Bavandersloth
had been united with Ntullnarlth against her.
Such an attack would inspire too much fear and panic. The right amount of those things would bring
in the audience Bavandersloth needed for his final broadcast. Too much of them, and fuck knew what would
happen. Suspicion would brew. Riots would rage. Just about anything would be liable to occur
in such an atmosphere.
Bavandersloth finally reached the source of the scent; a
little girl, sitting on the mountain, crying.
Bavandersloth was invisible, so she couldn’t see him. He rushed toward her and buried his scythe in
her stomach, killing her. Immediately
after that, he raised his shield.
Sure enough, his shield was immediately struck by a giant
glowing blast of magic, shattering in an instant. Bavandersloth’s eyes widened. There was only one lich who could have
created a blast that large.
Bavandersloth jumped back into the valley, dodging
another incoming blast. He looked to see
where it’d come from. He reasoned out a
direction, but was unable to figure out his attacker’s location from that.
Bavandersloth hurried back into the wilderness. That blast had come from Valthakar. He’d scared that little girl, and then used
her to lure him to that specific spot.
He’d know Bavandersloth was there when he saw her die, and that’s when
he fired. That meant Valthakar was no
longer under Bavandersloth’s control.
That was bad. That
was very, very bad. But who could have
freed him? It must have been one of the
traitors, but neither one was powerful enough to reverse a binding spell. Could they have powered themselves up? No, that was absurd. They’d have had to kill hundreds, something
neither of them would ever consider.
Or… perhaps, would they?
Cody had become rather ruthless as of late, it was true. By all accounts, his killing of Ntullnarlth
had been quite cold. Still… it seemed
unlikely. The far more likely option was
that they’d gotten some third person to assist them. If that was the case, the culprit was likely
a fellow do-gooder. How many others were
there?
Off the top of his head, Bavandersloth could name
three. Vargrilog, who, when
Bavandersloth last knew, was in Abuja, Nigeria, promoting civil rights as he
fought crime. He had become a lich
around three-hundred years ago, originally to fight the North Atlantic Slave
Trade, of which he had been a victim. It
was a shared background over which he and Bavandersloth had bonded, and his
judgement was normally good enough for him to be more than worthy of governing
that area, but Bavandersloth knew his loyalty to the community would be more
than tested by this plan.
There was also Ngulakoro, in Warsaw, Poland. Now that Kaburlduth was gone, she was the
last remnant of the storm of lich creation that was World War II. Her original intent had been to leave Poland
with her family during the invasion.
Later, she returned to actively fight the Nazis.
Finally, there was Kagzuwehl, the Oldest Living
Do-gooder. Just a smidge too young to
bind Valthakar himself after freeing him.
He was a product of the crusades, one of the smaller ones. He’d turned to magic to repel the crusaders
who invaded his lands. He was in
Jerusalem at the moment, if Bavandersloth recalled correctly.
Bavandersloth thought.
Any of these three would have been able to release Valthakar from
him. Which one had, however? The book could easily have informed Odelarch
about any or all of them, though contacting them might have been difficult.
Bavandersloth wracked his brain as he sniffed for more
fear. He could smell a few faint whiffs
in the distance. He licked his
lips. Perhaps they were from a
settlement.
*****
Valthakar cursed.
His blasts had hit nothing but the snow.
Bavandersloth had sensed his trap.
Valthakar jumped to the far side of the mountain from the
one he’d hit, the location where Bavandersloth was less likely to be, all
things considered. He waited a few moments,
and then took his human form. He grabbed
his cell phone and then took his true form again as soon as he could. He dialed Cody’s number.
“Hello,” the boy said before the first ring ended. Valthakar stood up and ran toward the nearest
town as he spoke.
“I didn’t get him,” Valthakar said.
“I see,” he said.
“He’s probably going to the closest town, Palisade. You should call your friends at DIAPP, their
special ink would be very helpful to us, and when you’re done with that, you
should take the first flight here, perhaps on one of their helicopters. Bring Justin, and the dog if you can.”
“I don’t think Sparky would do well on a helicopter
ride,” Cody said, “but Justin and I will head over as soon as we can.”
“Get here as soon as possible. Try to do it while Bavandersloth is still
frenzying if you can. His compulsion to
feed will be advantageous to us.”
“Of course.”
“Alright then. I’m
out.” Valthakar hung up. He took a deep breath and zoomed off at his
top speed, kicking up a white, snowy mist.
*****
Cody put the phone down.
He lay back and waited a moment for Agent Lambert to call.
The phone rang.
Cody answered it. “Yes?”
“The DIAPP office in Grand Junction, the closest one to
Palisade, has already been alerted, and the whole area is being evacuated on
the pretense of an incoming tornado. As
for you being transported there by helicopter, it’d take too long. We do have a plane that could get you there
in less than an hour and a half. I’ll
have it prepared at the Goldfalls Municipal Airport.”
Cody smiled. “Thank
you. Justin and I will be there in about
twenty minutes.”
“Alright. We’ll
prepare the jet as quickly as we can.
Oh, and there’s one other thing.”
“What?”
“We can loan you some of the sonar goggles our
exterminators use. They’ll allow you to
see Bavandersloth while he’s invisible.”
Cody’s eyes widened.
“Wow. Really? That’d be great. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Mr. Lambert hung up.
Cody put the phone in his pocket. He turned to Justin, whose eyes were on a
brightly glowing cell phone. “Hey,
Justin.”
Justin turned around and looked at Cody. “What?”
“We’re going to Colorado to help Valthakar fight
Bavandersloth.” Justin’s eyes widened,
but Cody continued. “Mr. Lambert is
preparing a plane for us now.”
Justin sat up, and then looked down at the floor. He took a deep breath, and took his true
form. “Alright,” he said.
*****
Valthakar slid down one last cliff and ran into Palisade
before Bavandersloth had a chance to. Tornado
sirens blared in his ears as soon as he approached the small community. An evacuation order was being issued over
loudspeaker. Odds were this was a ploy
by DIAPP to empty the city. Looking
around as he walked through the small farming neighborhood around him, it
seemed to have worked.
Valthakar thought.
DIAPP helicopters were already in the sky; their pitch black metal skins
blending into the midnight above.
Valthakar should seek some kind of shelter, he realized. Bavandersloth was much slower than him and
wouldn’t be here for a while, so there was no point in him being out in the
open. Hopefully, DIAPP’s sonar would
detect and ink Bavandersloth as soon as he entered the little town.
Valthakar looked up.
One of the helicopters was approaching him. His eyes widened and dashed around. He ran into the nearest empty house. He waited.
The helicopter hovered over him for a few minutes before touching down; perhaps
realizing a rampaging Bavandersloth wouldn’t sit and wait like he was. He decided to de-cloak, though he put his
shield up at the same time as an exterminator jumped out of the helicopter and
approached him. The woman stayed a good
distance away and with her flamethrowers pointed at him. Valthakar stayed where he was as the woman
eyed him, her fear detectable to him, though foolishly mild. Valthakar didn’t pay her much mind as she had
a rather confused conversation through her earpiece, presumably about him. He just sat, waiting for Bavandersloth.
*****
Jeremy sat in the helicopter, his guns primed at where
Bavandersloth was expected to arrive. Of
all of the military operations he had been involved in, this was by far the
most sophisticated and important ever to involve paintballs. Not ordinary paintballs, true enough, but
paintballs nonetheless. They were
certainly the purplest thing which had ever been fired from a chain gun.
Jeremy pressed his lips together. A small part of him was impatient for the
lich to arrive, but the much larger part that remained knew better than
that. He listened for the woman at the
radar to shout out that they had detected something. She didn’t of cour—
“Hold on! I just
caught a blip on the sonar. It’s the
right size and speed, but it’s headed for Grand Junction!”
Jeremy’s eyes widened.
His full attention snapped toward his gun, sparing the little bit he
used to listen to the conversation happening behind him.
“Straight for Grand Junction? He must have figured we’d be here. All helicopters pursue. Goggles on.
Fire on sight. Disregard all
collateral damage.”
“Yes, sir!” Jeremy shouted, along with those in the
helicopter with him, including the other gunner behind him who held the actual
weapons. Jeremy took a deep breath as
the helicopter moved.
*****
Valthakar raised an eyebrow as he saw the exterminator
near him react to a radio message and the helicopter above him land. The exterminator turned toward him and said
something, but Valthakar couldn’t hear it through his shield. He sighed and lowered the thing.
“Bavandersloth has been spotted heading straight for the
next town over,” she said. Valthakar’s eyes
widened.
*****
Justin looked down at his feet as he sat on the plane,
thinking. He’d have to kill
Bavandersloth soon. He remembered how
eager, how excited he’d been to avenge his parents when he’d thought it’d been
Valthakar who killed them, but for some reason, he felt different about it this
time.
He tried to settle back in his seat. His seat was hard and lumpy, unlike
Bavandersloth’s jet. All the same,
Justin never wanted this plane ride to end.
He wished he could just sit here forever.
*****
Justin sat on the velvet couch, tears in his eyes,
staring downward at the brown hardwood mansion floor underneath him. He closed his eyes as drops of water fell
onto that floor. He recalled his
mother’s warm embrace, how she used to cheer him up. How she’d held his hand during his first flu
shot. He’d not believed her when she
said it wouldn’t be that bad, but with her there, it really hadn’t been.
Justin felt a hand on his shoulder as he cried. He turned around and opened his eyes. Bavandersloth was there, smiling down at
him. His smile was warm, soft,
comforting, kind. Justin looked up at
him as he walked around the velvet couch and sat next to him, not saying a
word. Looking up at him, Justin
thought. This man had saved his life. The Angel of Dea—no, the thing impersonating
him, it would have taken him too if this man hadn’t been there to save him.
Justin felt the seat below him depress as the man sat
beside him. Justin looked down, before
embracing the man in a hug, head leaned over his shoulder. Bavandersloth squeezed him just tightly
enough as Justin cried over the man’s shoulder.
*****
Justin squeezed the armrest as he heard the plane’s
engines whirr around him. The whole
time, it’d been Bavandersloth. He’d
stolen his parents’ souls.
They would be freed after Bavandersloth was dead, Justin
remembered, a thought which quieted his tears a bit. He looked up at Cody, whose attention was
focused on the copy of On Soulless Ones
which was spread across his lap.
Tears still trickling down his face, Justin turned over
his hand and placed it in front of Cody, who looked at him, at first
quizzically, but then with a faint smile as he took the hand and squeezed
it. Justin leaned over and rested his
head on Cody’s shoulder as he read, closing his eyes, squeezing the last few
tears out.
*****
Bavandersloth rushed across the sand toward the second
nearest settlement. Valthakar no doubt
lurked at the nearest. He’d get more
food at the larger cluster of humans to its west. He could smell more fear from there than he
might have expected. Why would that be? The odor wasn’t enough for it to be Valthakar
in devourer’s garb, or in any form. Perhaps
DIAPP was faking a disaster to have the town evacuated? Yes, that would explain it. It would also imply that Valthakar had told
DIAPP what he was doing and they had listened.
The alliance that would imply had been made was more than unfortunate.
Then again, it could also be a real natural
disaster. That would be quite the
coincidence, however.
In any case, any likely cause of a fear of that strength
made it doubly pointless to go for the nearest town. No doubt it would soon be evacuated.
Bavandersloth continued toward his destination as he
heard helicopters fly up behind him. His
eyes widened. He turned around. There were several of them in the distance,
and they were zooming toward him.
Bavandersloth looked ahead as he dashed for the city, but
kept watch on the helicopters over his shoulder. It was only a minute or so before they caught
up with him, and then slowed down to keep pace.
He aimed his hand up at the helicopter nearest to him, but in the time
he did that, five helicopters had him in their sights. They pelted him with paintballs. Bavandersloth seethed as he saw his once-invisible
form become covered in neon purple ink.
The lich ran ahead nonetheless. If DIAPP was after him, Valthakar was as
well. Bavandersloth raised his
shield. It was soon covered in ink, ink
that would fall on him as soon as he lowered his shield. The shield was still faint from Valthakar’s
destruction of it a while ago.
Bavandersloth seethed. It was vital that he avoid another encounter with
Valthakar, but he wasn’t sure how he would avoid it.
Bavandersloth ran to the side as the helicopters
repositioned themselves in front of him, but to no avail, as they pelted the
front of his shield with ink just as they had the back and sides until he was
finally blind.
Being blinded did not stop Bavandersloth from sprinting
forward with all the strength he could muster.
However, as he did, he felt his shield pop at the hands of a magical
beam.
He turned around, even as the ink spilled on him,
covering himself in a devourer’s cloud.
He saw another shot, a magical blast, come toward him. He jumped to avoid it, but felt the shock of
it hit him like a million tons as it hit the road, a shockwave tearing off his
legs and throwing him a large distance.
Bavandersloth felt himself, his back flat against the
ground. He lifted his head up to look in
front of him, when he saw the magical beams which sliced off his arms. He grumbled as Valthakar walked toward him. “Wait!” he shouted.
Valthakar uncloaked in front of him and grinned. “I won’t be doing that.”
“I ate out some of the ski lodges! I got my fill already. If you blow me up, you’ll just have to search
for my phylactery again, and the monsters will be just as dedicated to keeping
you from finding it.”
Valthakar stopped.
He turned around, shouting up at the helicopters behind him. “Do any of you have any contact with someone
with a copy of the book?”
One of the agents nodded.
“The head of every base has one.”
“Find out if what he just said is true.”
Bavandersloth lay back.
The agent spoke again about a minute later. “It is,” the human said. Bavandersloth grinned.
Valthakar turned around.
He walked the rest of the way and kneeled down next to the prone Bavandersloth. He matched Bavandersloth’s smirk. “Well, congratulations, you get to live an
extra few hours.” Valthakar stood
up. “Tkoralkiarch will be here inside
the hour, however, so I wouldn’t get too comfortable.”
Bavandersloth took a deep breath.
“I wish you could understand how wonderful it is to see
you just as upset about your own death as any common mortal,” Valthakar
said. “You think you’re some lord of
amorality, but you’re as obsessed with preservation as Odelarch is. The only difference is what you want to
preserve. Thinking you can live
forever--”
“I don’t think I can live forever.” Bavandersloth looked up at Valthakar. “I knew when I became a lich that my phylactery
would eventually be destroyed.”
“I’m not talking about that kind of knowledge, Bav. No one is so consciously delusional that they
believe they’ll live forever. But at the
same time, you feel like you can live forever, don’t you? How often do you really think of your life in
terms of a finite span of time? At any
point in your eight-hundred years, did you ever really realize that you would die someday?”
Bavandersloth sneered, but as he tried to think of a
response, he struggled. “Perhaps not
often, I’ll admit, but yes. I have.”
“I see.” Valthakar
sat down, clearly intending this to be a long conversation. Perhaps inflicting himself on Bavandersloth
was the only way he could pass the time until Tkoralkiarch arrived. “If I didn’t know better, I’d admire your
honesty. I’m still greater than you in
this respect, however. I always think of
it that way.”
Bavandersloth turned his head and looked Valthakar in the
eye. “Really? Always?
I imagine that’s exhausting.”
Valthakar nodded.
“It is.”
Bavandersloth tilted his head. He looked back up at the sky. A starry night swirled around above him. He recognized every constellation by heart
from the days when you had to sail on a boat to really get anywhere.
“The alternative, however, is delusional.”
Bavandersloth looked back at Valthakar. He chuckled.
“Delusional?”
“Look at you. You
have all of your big plans. Tell me,
were you thinking about how long you would rule the world? I mean really, truly thinking about it? No.
You acted as I would expect someone to if some part of them thought they
were going to be in charge forever, because some part of you did.”
Bavandersloth scoffed.
“At least I’m after something.
You scream and cry about how finite your time is, but you insist on
doing nothing of value with it.”
“There is nothing of real value to do.”
Bavandersloth smiled.
“Really? You’re that much of a
fool? ‘Oh, dear, I won’t be able to do
things forever, therefore there’s no point in doing anything at all!’ Grow up.”
“Says the eight-hundred year old man to the
twelve-thousand.”
Bavandersloth chuckled.
“Yes, says me to you. Even
Odelarch’s worldview is more adult. At
least when he doesn’t get his way, he doesn’t wail like an infant about it for
over ten millennia.”
“I’ve not wailed about Atlantis since about a month after
it sank. I don’t care about it anymore.”
“And yet you spend so much time looking for it.”
“Curiosity,” Valthakar said, “if it could even be called
that. I have to pass the time
somehow. Looking for Atlantis is as good
a way as--”
Bavandersloth’s laughter grew louder. “Are you lying or are you honestly that
deluded.”
Valthakar glared. “Your
youth denies you perspective,” he said.
“Perhaps when you’re my age, you’ll understand. Oh, wait, I forgot,” he grinned, “you’re going
to die in a moment, aren’t you?”
That managed to silence Bavandersloth. A subtle grimace flashed on his face, but was
gone before Valthakar would have been likely to notice. Bavandersloth lay back, closing his eyes.
*****
“You may exit,” Justin heard soon after the plane
landed. He stood up. He’d been seated at the front of the plane,
so Cody was the only one ahead of him as he walked out.
Several exterminators got on motorcycles behind him, but
Justin and Cody ran straight for the desert where Bavandersloth was
stranded. Regardless of any other
respect in which he may be conflicted, Justin was quite uncomplicatedly
relieved that he would not have to fight a battle.
Justin sprinted forward inside his cloud of darkness,
looking down. He just had to grab the
phylactery and snap it. It would be that
simple. Cody had said Gborin’gargoth
would stop Kandrinarkora from blocking him this time. Justin didn’t even have to hear a word
Bavandersloth said if he stayed inside his shield. He’d just do it and his parents would be
free. All of the deceptive spells
Bavandersloth had cast would be reversed.
Valthakar would then cast that anti-lich spell, and all of this would be
over.
Justin took a deep breath. Over.
He’d felt like this would never be over, but it would be, at least where
Bavandersloth was concerned. The
community of liches would be defeated.
No new liches would be created, so it would just be a matter of hunting
down the ones that were left. Justin
would probably be a huge part of that, he realized. He was the one who could get any phylactery
he wanted. There were so many different
strategies liches had come up with to protect their phylacteries. Some liches hid their phylacteries in
secluded locations, from mountain ranges, to Antarctica, to lakes and rivers,
even outer space. There was one lich
who’d found a way to get his phylactery onto the international space
station. There was another who’d somehow
gotten it onto a space probe.
None of that mattered where Justin was concerned,
though. He got it, Sparky burned it,
that’s all there was to it.
Justin looked up as he heard the DIAPP helicopter twirl
above him. He looked back at the road in
front of him, and he saw Bavandersloth.
He clinched his fist and activated his shield. He stepped forward. Cody followed not far behind him, no
expression of any kind on his face.
Justin took another step. A tear
fell down his cheek. A moment later,
Cody said something, and then tapped Justin’s shield, but Justin didn’t respond. He did move again though, after a moment.
Justin was alone with his thoughts inside the
shield. Why had the plane landed? he thought. Why
couldn’t the ride have lasted longer?
He moved perhaps five steps in the first minute of his approach, but soon
discovered that by picturing his mother’s face, he was able to speed himself
up. Soon, he was close enough to
Bavandersloth for the lich to look back at him.
His lips moved, but Justin did not lower his shield. After a moment, he summoned courage to bring
Bavandersloth’s phylactery to him.
*****
Bavandersloth looked at the boy inside the shield. It was true what they said, he
discovered. When you’re about to die, your
entire life flashes before your eyes, though perhaps it only happened to some
people. His childhood flashed before
him, the quiet farm on which he’d been born.
He still remembered his mother’s face, after all these years.
As vivid were the memories of the chains he’d worn off of
the farm, and the heat of the sun and ache of his muscles once he’d been moved
to his new one.
More clearly than any of that, though, he remembered
her. She was the reason he had become
what he became. He’d become a lich so he
could save her, and he’d traded his soul so he could kill her. She’d been a weakness by the end, a
liability. She knew too much of him, and
her word and welfare held too much sway over his mind. Now, he only wished he’d done it sooner. He would have spared himself several
unpleasant incidents. Still, perhaps it
would be the one good thing about the Underworld. He might see her again.
After Georgia’s face faded from his mind, he remembered
the past few months, the most eventful in his life. His plan had been so intricate, so well laid
out, so wonderful. It would have
succeeded, but for the intervention of Gborin’gargoth. Bavandersloth could see the smile on
Odelarch’s face, as though the boy had just won their little game. He’d not.
He was not a player. He was a
piece. He was just a pawn in
Gborin’gargoth’s game against Kandrinarkora.
Bavandersloth lay back, closing his eyes as he felt a
sudden pain in his gut.
*****
Justin lowered his shield as he dropped Bavandersloth’s
phylactery to the ground in two pieces.
Valthakar walked right over and picked it up, changing into his human
form, pocketing it, and then taking his true form again. “Good job,” he said.
Justin nodded, his eyes downcast. “Right,” he said.
*****
Georgia sat at the table of plenty in the Underworld when
a stone she was meant to keep with her vibrated. She picked it up, activating its display.
“Bavandersloth has died,” the alert said. “Would you like to see him before he begins
standard processing?”
It’d been a while since she’d gotten such an alert. Without a second thought, she touched the “no”
option and resumed her meal.
