Skylar did his best to keep the smirk off his face, which was very difficult. This is the caliber of the dreaded lie detector exam? "Your honor -- if that is the correct form of address -- I state and affirm that I am not, nor have I ever been, a worshipper of the Night King or any other deity."
The huge elf -- Interrogator, apparently? -- glanced above Skylar's head and frowned, his eyes narrowing in consternation and flicking to Reine before settling back onto Skylar. "So it seems. Yet you are dressed in such a manner, and there have been reports..." -- he flipped through a few pages of the report in front of him -- "...of you calling upon strange powers on occasion?"
"Well, your honor..." -- he didn't object, so maybe I lucked into it being correct or at least not worth arguing about -- "...I recently came into possession of this coat, which appears to be enchanted in some manner and grants me some number of powers or capabilities, including the ability to see in the dark." Fact one. "It is possible, given a conversation I had recently with the individual known to me as Levan Glim, that items exist known as Anticuaries which may give the user the ability to invoke Arts." Fact two, accurate though of questionable relevance. "It is subsequently possible that the coat may be such an item." An unfounded supposition, but not one I can prove or disprove to my own satisfaction, let alone yours. We'll also avoid commenting on whether I have, or have not, actually used any Arts. "As for my mode of dress, it is quite common where I come from and carries no connotation of worship or association with any deity by itself." Suck on that.
At this point, murmurs began to erupt from the witness benches; the Interrogator silenced them with a look and leaned forward with interest. "And where might that be?"
This was the dangerous part, but Skylar had had enough time in jail to figure out a gambit that at least had a decent chance of not immediately getting him executed. "I am from another continent..." -- a continent on another planet, but still technically accurate -- "...which I think might be unknown to the people of this place." Heh heh. "I don't know the specifics of how I arrived here, however -- I awoke alone in the swamp where the lady Justiciar who is known to me as Reine found me, after being exposed to an effect beyond my understanding in my home." Skylar was rather proud of that last bit.
The Interrogator's eyebrows went up, but his eyes remained fixed on Skylar's. "And in your home on this... other continent... you had no knowledge of Gram, nor of the Obscurum?"
"Correct, your honor. I spent most of my life indoors, and knew of the sun from books." This part I have to be particularly careful with... "As a result, I believe my confusion may have contributed to some misunderstandings." We'll leave which ones and how accurate their suspicions were out of the specifics.
"I see. Well, this is certainly very interesting..." The Interrogator shuffled a few more papers, then glanced in Reine's direction; his expression was practically a graven image of disapproval. "The judgment of Lucia has validated that you have spoken only truth; does this Inquiry have any further charges or challenges to bring before a verdict is rendered?"
"The other cultist!" Reine was on her feet, her hands gripping the pew in front of her with white-knuckled intensity. "The one who identified him as a follower of Gram! He knew exactly where to find him, and spoke on multiple occasions as to the Zuzan's character!"
"Point of order, your honor," Skylar broke in, "is it considered proper to refer to an Interrogation subject as a 'Zuzan' when they have only been observed as truthful during the proceedings? I am also not factually from the city of Zuza."
This, he immediately detected, had been a mistake; the big elf's expression turned very thoughtful, and he looked down his nose at Skylar with something nebulously between amusement and contempt. "So it seems. This Interrogation will henceforth refer to the accused by his stated name; but your comment intrigues me, young man. I am curious how you are familiar with such terms, if you are -- as you say -- a newcomer to our continent and culture."
Skylar immediately began to sweat. Fratz. One day I will learn not to gloat. "I apologize, your honor -- these are terms used in legal proceedings where I come from, as is the form of my address towards yourself." "Your august person" might be laying it on a little thick.
The Interrogator leaned forward again. "And are you yourself a legal practitioner, Mister Kass?"
"No, your honor." Skylar resisted the urge to tug anxiously at his collar. "I'm only repeating terms I've heard others use." In fiction, mostly, but we'll keep that under my hat. "As to the Justiciar's question, to the best of my knowledge, I had never encountered the masked gentleman in question before meeting him in the Justiciar's custody; it is also my understanding that he made a similar claim regarding another member of our assembly, which has since also been disproven."
There was a long pause, during which Skylar had to remind himself to breathe; then, abruptly, the mood shifted, and the Interrogator's expression relaxed into something Skylar clearly recognized as irritated boredom. Score. Volunteering an answer to the question without waiting for it to be directly asked of me might have alleviated his suspicion that I could be maliciously complying. "Another true statement, Mister Kass -- I am satisfied. Let the record show that you have been proven innocent of the charges against you."
Skylar abruptly found himself limp from relief; Wow, I was a lot more tense than I thought. "Thank you, your honor." He tried to bow, realized he wouldn't be able to while manacled to the chair, and instead sort of wiggled in a manner he hoped conveyed respect and gratitude. Does this mean I get to be emancipated now, or...?
"No thanks are necessary; this body is only concerned with the truth." The Interrogator made a few notes on the papers in front of him, then looked around perfunctorily. "If there is nothing else..."
"Don't I get to testify?"
Skylar jumped; the eerie, two-toned voice was unmistakable. The Professor. Vark! This is bad!
Out of the darkness surrounding them all, the leather-clad figure strode into the light; his hands were by his sides, and a leather bandolier crossed his chest diagonally. Skylar instantly began to sweat again, remembering the foaming acid from the sewers; up on the bench before him, the Interrogator frowned in displeasure. "Unauthorized entrants are not permitted once the proceedings have begun. Guards, remove this person."
There was a moment of silence in which guards failed to appear; the Professor crossed his arms imperiously. "I'm afraid they won't be following your orders anymore, Councilor." Councilor? Out of the darkness, the two guards that had manacled Skylar appeared, but they were clearly not on the Interrogator's side anymore; their skin was mottled and twisted, and their mouths hung open with dangling tongues while their eyes rolled back in their heads. That's not good. "Feel free to try to summon some others, however."
The Interrogator froze, looking shocked; in the stillness of that moment, the Professor turned and strode up to Skylar. "Seeing you helpless like this," he began, confusingly, "is a precious gift indeed. Stew in your fear for a moment; I will destroy you momentarily." He turned back to the Interrogator just as the towering elf leapt to his feet and intoned a prayer to Maivat, becoming surrounded by swirling light; he raised a massive fist to the sky, and a thunderous explosion of white fire engulfed the masked man's body in an instant.
For a moment, Skylar felt relief surge through him; then the other man strode nonchalantly forwards out of the conflagration as if it had been a warm summer breeze, and everyone's jaws dropped. "I'm afraid that won't work. But you have other things with which to concern yourself; behold." He gestured grandly towards the rear of the room, just in time for green flames to erupt all along the rear wall.
Out of the viridian smoke which billowed forth, lurching shapes began to appear; flabby and pale, they staggered in an ungainly fashion but moved with swift purpose nonetheless. As Skylar's eyes adjusted to the light and gloom, he caught his first full-face glimpse of the creatures and gasped; their bodies were like wet, bulbous bipedal icthyoids, with huge maws of jagged teeth and razor-sharp claws. In place of eyes, there was a smooth expanse of wet, pulsating flesh culminating in a sort of alien blow-hole, which twitched and quivered back and forth with grotesque muscular action as the fish-men surged forwards in search of prey.
"Kulaku!" Aymon barked in shock as the bearded elf surged to his feet. "To arms! We are besieged!" The witnesses immediately drew weapons and joined the fight; the Ilkon shifted into his shai'jara form and began to lay about him with mighty claws, a great roar going up that seemed to galvanize the others. The battle was chaotic, but Skylar thought he glimpsed the bearded dude who had accompanied Levan dodging and fencing with a longsword; his form looks similar. Maybe that's his teacher?
Skylar forced himself to pay attention to what was going on directly in front of him, noticing that the great stone bench where the Interrogator had been seated was now a crumbling, smoking pile of rubble; atop it, the massive armored form of the Interrogator struck powerful gauntleted blows at the Professor's much smaller form. But the masked man's body seemed to bend and flow like rubber, rejecting the massive force of the huge elf's strikes as though they were playful slaps; with despair, Skylar watched as the Professor nonchalantly recovered from having his own head forced backwards so violently that it touched the middle of his back, then dismissively flicked a handful of powder into his opponent's face.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Instantly, the Interrogator (Councilor?) doubled over, coughing and hacking with force that increased with each passing second; the Professor gazed down at his jerking body with amusement before turning back and striding towards Skylar with slow menace. "Forgive the interruption. Now, then, where were we...?"
"Uh," Skylar tried, "I think you were about to monologue and explain your evil plan, before leaving me here to contemplate my foolishness?"
"Oh, dear me, no," the Professor disagreed, shaking his head. "I think I was about to break every bone in your body, starting with your toes; I am given to understand there are a few hundred, so we have quite a lot of work ahead of us." The masked man held up his hand, flexing his leather-gloved fingers with an ominous creak. "Please feel free to scream."
"Tulim!" came a cry from across the tumult of the battle, in a voice which Skylar recognized as Aymon's; the Professor glanced up in interest, then looked back to Skylar with an air of detached anticipation. "Well then; shall we get started?"
He reached forward, moving with the speed of a striking viper; an iron-hard grip closed around Skylar's throat, but strangled only air. The masked man jerked back, astonished. "How...?"
"Yeah, I'm over here now." Skylar's voice came from behind him; he attempted to whirl, but Skylar was already shoving him into the chair, clapping the manacles around the Professor's wrists with quick, decisive movements. Good thing I had the presence of mind to use Weir to make him think I was still restrained after Aymon's Art got me loose; nearly killed me to maintain it for even a split second, but very useful to know I can do that. "Now, let's see who's really behind this caper!" With a darting movement, he snatched the other man's mask away to reveal his face.
NGH...!
Instantly, Skylar had to choke back vomit and close his eyes, but the vision burned itself into the backs of his retinas anyway; a watery, pinkish goo flowing and crawling with blasphemous life over a nicotine-colored skull stained with acrid blemishes and deformities, like the skeleton of a man who had been beaten to death and then thrown into a vat of acid. The worst part, however, was the eyes; deep red orbs shot through with purplish electricity, unbroken by iris or pupil, stared sightlessly out of a face so wracked with obscene vileness that it took all of Skylar's willpower not to shriek and soil himself. Holy skek, what is that thing...! Forcing himself to open his wracked and throbbing eyes again, Skylar averted his gaze and glanced around, trying to make sense of the nightmare all around him. "What...?"
The horrid creature's hand -- skeletal claw, under the leather...! -- darted towards the potions within its bandolier, but the manacles jerked its grasp up short with barely an inch to spare; the unspeakable, hideous ruin of a face grinned. "Clever, as usual. But see, how your plans all come to naught..."
Slowly, but with mind-twisting awfulness, the creature began to disintegrate; portions of it alternately liquified, became gaseous, or broke apart into scuttling insectoid pieces which swarmed towards Skylar with dreadful alacrity. Screaming like a girl, he back-stepped in terror, falling onto his rear and scrambling away with a desperation that rattled his sanity like a flimsy window in a storm. Fratz! Fratz! Fratz! Somebody...!
A flash of white fur sprang up before his eyes, and Skylar didn't hesitate; with the strength of frenzied panic, he sank panicked fingers like grasping claws into the Ilkon's pelt and hung on for dear life as the great bounding beast bore him away. The battle still raged around him, but he couldn't process anything; he buried his face in the great cat's coat and emitted shrieking sobs for what felt like an eternity.
Then, mercifully, the terror began to recede; through great, hiccupping breaths he managed to find his way back to rationality. Fear effect. Had to be, like what the manacles were doing to me. Wow, that sucked. "I'm okay now," he panted into the great cat's ear. "What do we do?"
The massive beast slowed and stopped, shimmying its back peremptorily; Skylar obediently slid off as Aymon returned to his true form. "We must recover the Councilor," he confided in Skylar, swatting away a kulak with a mighty backhanded blow. "I saw him fall, but if he lives, we must aid him; if not, we must bring proof of his demise to the other Council members. Decisive action is required if this assault is to be repelled; the city risks anarchy otherwise."
Skylar blanched at the thought of going back into the fray, but nodded reluctantly; even I can see the logic there. Civilization has three cities left, and I don't want to be at ground zero if that number drops to two. "Right. What do you want me to do?"
"I am sure," the Ilkon grunted as he crushed the skull of another fish-man, "you will find a way to make yourself useful." Wading into the chaos of the affray, he laid about him with heavy blows; Skylar, acutely conscious of his own vulnerability, stuck close to him and took advantage of what openings he could find to sow confusion and discord around them with Weir. Drawing upon his recent discoveries, he experimented with other gambits; he made kulaku attack each other, or stumble away from phantom blows directly into real ones, all the while seeming to be doing nothing but cowering and staring in horror at his surroundings. Okay, I admit it, this power is a heck of a lot cooler than I thought. I can get up to some real villainy with this.
Eventually, they broke through a knot of struggling bodies to the pile of broken stones which had once been the Interrogator's bench; Skylar sprang forward, looking for the armored elf, and quickly found him facedown and crawling feebly towards them. "He's alive! At least, so far..."
Aymon gently shouldered him aside, turning the other elf onto his back; Skylar balked at the sight of the Councilor's blackened, staring face and protruding purple tongue. He's choking. The stuff he inhaled... "Those flasks," he urged Aymon, "pour one down his throat if you've got one. His tongue and throat and lungs are falling apart."
"At some future time," the bald elf grunted, producing a canteen and reluctantly wedging it into the other elf's oedematous gob, "we really must discuss how you came to such knowledge." But the enchanted liquid began to work immediately; instantly, color returned to the Interrogator's face, and he doubled over coughing to expel first bloody phlegm, then ragged tissue, and finally clear water from his esophagus and lungs. Aymon nodded approvingly. "We are fortunate. We must flee this place immediately; Councilor, collect yourself as you are able."
Out of the bedlam surrounding them, three more forms emerged; Reine, triumphant and imperious, impaled a kulak through its bulbous throat, while Levan and the bearded newcomer fought a grim retreat against a swarm of more zombified guards. "This isn't looking good," Levan observed sourly.
"They're not what we have to watch out for," Skylar muttered, casting about at ground level for noisome swarming horrors; any minute now, the Professor's gonna find us, and we're gonna be totally korsked. "We need to clear a path, but there's too many --"
"Levan," the bearded man cut in, "you can do it." The Loathborn spun, a shocked expression on his face, but the other man cut him off. "It's this or we all die. You can agonize over it afterwards."
"Wow, thanks," Levan spat sarcastically, but the groaning, weeping forms of the animated corpses of the guardsmen redoubled their assault; cursing, he hewed at them, trying to clear a little space. "All right, vark, fine. Which way is our escape?"
"There is a door... on the far side..." panted the Interrogator in a weak, strangled voice. He pointed with a trembling gauntleted hand towards a shadow that might have been a door or just a mirage through the smoke and mayhem. "There..."
"Okay, well, if this doesn't work I hate you all and you were jerks." Levan squared his shoulders, sucked in a breath, and stretched out his free hand towards the monsters rushing towards them.
"Castigar."
Immediately, fire filled the space before them -- a dark and hungry flame, shot through with black and purple authority, that incinerated and struck down everything in its path. "Go!" the bearded man shouted, springing into the gap to hack away at the foes which remained; Skylar ducked under one massive arm to help the giant armored elf along and immediately regretted his choice. Holy vark, it's like trying to lift a statue. I might strain something and die. Fortunately, Aymon bore the immense elf up from the other side, and somehow they made it a few stumbling steps forward; all around them, Levan and Reine and the bearded man were fighting with extravagant swordsmanship against the seemingly-infinite tide of monsters. Further... just a little further!
"Amusing."
The dissonant, agglutinative voice behind him froze Skylar's blood with horror; involuntarily, he glanced back and saw the Professor's wretched, pestiferous form reconstructing itself barely ten feet away. "The city is mine; where, precisely, do you intend to run?" With languid menace, the abomination reached once more for a potion on its bandolier.
Skylar, sensing his imminent deliquescence, ducked out from under the Interrogator's tremendous armored bulk and snatched up a small piece of broken rock from the ground that had once been part of the floor or furniture or ceiling; with the strength of desperation, he hurled it at the creature's odious form. The loathsome being watched the puny missile rocketing towards it with disdainful amusement, right up until the rock slammed into the fragile glass of the potion flask in its vile paw.
Skylar, turning to run with the utmost of his cowardice, did not see what liveliest awfulness this unleashed upon the atrocity behind him; but he was further chilled when he heard not a scream or a furious roar, but a deep-throated chuckle which seemed to echo and linger far beyond the endurance of normal sound. Squeezing his eyes shut, he ducked down and hurried after the others.
Their flight seemed interminable; horrible sounds clashed around, above, and behind them, and more than once he thought they were all going to die. But, eventually, the air before and around them cleared; they emerged into an antechamber of sorts, and Aymon dumped the gasping bulk of the Councilor on the stone floor as he sprang back and strove mightily to close the door against the swell of pursuers behind them. Skylar, half-dead from fright and fatigue, wanted to topple over; but his fear of the mob catching up to them outweighed his desire to curl up and scream by just enough to galvanize him into action. He sprang up, seized a fallen pike, and wedged it into the best leverage point between the door and the ground he could reach; together with Aymon's prodigious strength, he managed to fight back the horde inch by inch until he could finally shove the polearm through the door's handles and seal it shut. Gasping, he slid down the door into a puddle of viscid water and tried his best not to throw up.
"As I said," Aymon remarked, equally out of breath next to him, "You tend to make yourself useful."
"Contingencies do exist," wheezed the Interrogator after they had rested briefly, "but they require a quorum to enact." His voice, ravaged and enfeebled by the Professor's corrosion, was barely a whisper of bloody effort, but the enormous elf persisted. "I must reach the other Council members at once."
"Erdrym, my friend," Aymon gently reproved him, "you are in no condition to fight, and barely even in any to travel. If the keep is besieged, it is likely the others are fallen or scattered; you must be reasonable."
"What are you talking about?" Reine demanded. "The Councilor is the preeminent instrument of Maivat's will! Even prostrate, he is a beacon of holy power; why do we not simply annihilate --"
"Peace, Justiciar," the Councilor -- his real name might be Erdrym, I guess -- panted in a ghost of a whisper. "I cannot Invoke with such damage to my speech."
Reine opened her mouth to protest, recognized the flaw in her logic, and looked away furiously; Interesting. So she can be convinced with facts, sometimes. "That zubnak," she spat. "He knew exactly what he was doing."
"Yeah, who the heck is that guy?" Levan interjected, cleaning his scimitar glumly. "Anybody know anything about him besides 'is gross and also kinda unkillable'?"
"He called himself 'the Professor'," Skylar commented tentatively; the others all turned to look at him, and he flinched under their scrutiny but did his best to soldier on regardless. "I don't know what his deal is, but he seems to know us, even if we don't know him. I don't think he's a real cultist of Gram -- he used alchemy, not Arts -- but he's clearly not somebody we can take lightly."
"Whatever his identity, it seems as though this attack has been planned for some time," Aymon observed. "It is possible he incriminated the Loathborn and the Zuzan in order to have them brought here, so that he might make an attack upon the Councilman."
"Nevertheless." With difficulty, Erdrym rose, struggling to erect his massive armored bulk and stand. "We must make haste. The most likely place for the Council to convene under siege is the Stone Throne; we must make for it at once."
"Yeah, well, that's exactly what that guy thinks we're gonna do," Levan pointed out. "If we go there, chances are he'll ambush us again right away; we should head to the Gallows instead."
"My student's suggestion is wise," the bearded man agreed. Identity: Levan's teacher, confirmed. "Any coordinated assault will find the Gallows impenetrable; in addition, many of the city's factions have representatives there, and a defense could be coordinated through such channels."
"Krepnaks." Reine crossed her arms over her chest, her expression disdainful. "Are you all on the Council? Disobeying his wisdom is stupidity by definition."
"A deadlock, I see." Aymon turned towards Skylar, who blinked in confusion. "Zuzan, what say you?"
WHAT'S OUR VOTE?
