Sword and Sorcery Eight, chapter four_Sword and Sorcery, a Novel

4

 He was on fire. Burning from within as skin was torn and muscles burst through. His shoulders snapped apart at their joints with an awful, wet popping noise. Then they branched and reformed in a shower of spurting blood, dragging webs of ripped flesh along with them.

 At the base of his spine, as well.

 He transformed. Unwillingly, horribly, inside and out, to the sound of his own pain wracked cries, the marten’s wild screeching and guttural howls from the orc. He writhed as that change seemed to flay him alive, crushing ancient machines to bloody dust in his agonized frenzy.

 And it hurt. Right down to his soul, which was pulled inside out and reversed; hooked partly free, its alignment forcibly altered. He vomited bile and flecks of himself that hadn’t been grafted. Surged repeatedly into the air, then collapsed again, thrashing in piled-up debris.

 But he’d never been able to change who he was.

 Rolled over. Caught sight of the orc… the… Marget, his sister… She’d ballooned in size to nearly the mass of a cave-troll, with a misshapen, powerful body and a face that was mostly fanged mouth. Only her tiny red eyes retained Meg, as she clawed at herself, fighting to tear off that monstrous bulk. It was her plight… the flickering loss of her conscious awareness… that moved him to get up and do something.

 If he had one last shred of order and good in him, a final unblemished spell he could work…

 “Stop,” he commanded, lunging at Marget, hand outstretched. Inscribed Rayna (“I compel”) in midair, leaving a trail of mingled red fire and glittering light. A desperate effort, but just this one time, his last bit of order won through. The sigil glowed pure, shining white. The spell succeeded, halting Meg’s transformation halfway through. The sorcery left her physically altered, but still partly conscious. Not fully a troll.

 And there were no more elves left in the Dark World, now.

 He rose from his crouch, swaying and reeling; trying to deal with more body parts than he knew how to manage. The tail could be wrapped tightly around his left leg. That was something. Those bat-like, still-bleeding wings could be awkwardly folded, but he no longer moved the same way. Clung to impatience and rage, because furious strength was better than crying.

 Lurched his way over to Marget, whose confusion and misery would have drawn pity, compassion, before. Now… He controlled his own urge to attack the huddled half-troll. Placed a pale, sparking hand on her head, where tufts of black hair sprouted from warty grey hide.

 “Whu…?” grunted the bit of her mind that was Marget.

 He shook his head, sending dark hair sliding away from a chilly and perfectly sculpted face. The wings (not his… they weren’t… couldn’t be his…) wanted to spread. He kept them ruthlessly folded, pulling the last bits of a tattered red cloak across his own transformed shoulders and onto Marget.

 “I do not know,” admitted the former elf. “A spell of some sort, set as a trap by my enemy.”

 Next, he turned his attention to that memory-ghost and the animal. Very much wanted to delete the one and fry the other to cinders... but withheld his strike. Probed curiously inside his own mind and heart at the bloody hollow where friendship had been.

 There was noise and activity from far overhead. Red motes of dust shivered and swirled in the light that streamed through five collapsed layers. Someone was coming. The animal uttered a wavering cry. Sorrow, he realized, not fear. As for the data-ghost…

 Lord Erron had placed himself between the small, furry scout and what had been Miche. There was nothing at all he could do to help either, but his impulses were still noble thanks to a last-ditch spell of protection. That seemed to spark a thought, for the altered elf spoke again, this time to Erron.

 “This place and its master probably think they have won,” said Miche-not, in a very low voice. “I have been changed, and perhaps he expects me to join him. To delete you, and roast that.”If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

 “Run,” whispered Erron to Nameless. “Warn them to flee, up above. I’ll try to hold him off as long as…”

 There was no hiding speech or thought from the one whose mind he stemmed from, though.

 “You mistake me,” said the former elf, stepping into a shaft of dusty gold light. Beautiful, awful and cold. “I do want to kill you… but I will do nothing at all at the behest of my enemy, and I know that I wouldn’t have done so, before. I…”

 He looked at the data-ghost with eyes that burned crimson under a faint sheen of silvery-grey.

 “I require your guidance, Erron. All that I want now is wrong, except for destroying the Fallen One. Can this change be reversed?”

 Someone was hurrying down from above. Two someones, if his hearing was accurate. Scrabbling, leaping, racing to get there. Ready to help, as that kind of folk always were. Lord Erron seemed to consider. Then,

 “I believe so,” he ventured, just a shaky projection from inside of Miche-not’s brain. “If you can access the healing spring at a waystation… a shrine, that is… its waters can surely correct your alignment, but…”

 “…But there is no way they will let me inside,” finished Miche-not, folding his arms across a broad, armored chest. “I am corrupted now, and my altered nature will trigger the shrine’s defenses. I would be forced to fight and defeat its goddess.” A thought that was too confusing to dwell on. Part of him wanted exactly that; to break into Gottshan, destroying her, their spawn and the shrine. Freeing himself forever.

 Erron flickered. Shifted position.

 “It’s worth considering, Miche, that…”

 “Not Miche. Not any longer,” he growled, interrupting the startled data-ghost.

 “Well enough,” said Erron, with a phantom, ragged deep breath. “We’ll come up with a better name for you, then, and I’ll do my best to provide you with guidance on our way to the Fallen One’s lair. I… recall how to get there, still.”

 Erron shook himself, glanced upward at twin shadowed figures, then went on, saying,

 “What I was driving at, is that you’ve already fought her in one of her forms. She killed you, over and over. I was there. It happened to me, too. But you wouldn’t stay dead, so she switched tactics and bedded you, instead. A good time was had by all… and she ensured that you’d have real trouble attacking her, again. Just a thought, my friend, but one that you must consider. Maybe she’s got an ulterior motive. Maybe there’s something else that she wants besides you.”

 Right. He itched at the top of both wing joints, where blood was still drying and thumb-claws pushing their way through the flesh. No harder to deal with than everything else, he supposed.

 Glass-cat dropped down from a slanted and broken third story. Landed fluidly atop something that crumbled beneath her. She was prevented from falling on through by her own quick reflexes and a hand-up from the other newcomer (an ape-like construction of wood, brass and mithral).

 The massive orc-troll surged to her feet behind Miche-not, reaching for weapons that had swelled right along with her body. The former elf lifted a negligent hand to restrain her.

 “Peace, Sister. They mean well. Their nature is soft, weak and compassionate. They will not strike without provocation.” He glanced at Erron, who shrugged and then nodded.

 Glass-cat bounded lightly onto a less fragile section of floor, raising a thick cloud of dust. Her tail lashed as she regained her balance. Then, ears and transparent whiskers well back, she hissed,

 “You have been changed, Mrowr. We saw the great flare, and your fall. Dark Cloud hurried production of this one…” she jerked a clawed thumb at the hulking brass ape, who nodded silently. “…and then we came down here to help. Too late, it appears.”

 Feeble. Soft. Smothered and bound by emotional chains. They cared, like the marten and data-ghost. They had been friends, and that was a thing he could use. Would have cherished, before. (Wouldn’t he?)

 “I am considerably altered, as you have seen,” he agreed, patting the orc-troll’s muscular arm. “Both of us are. But there may be a way to reverse what has been done, and… and I need those about me who can explain the right thing to do. I did not ask for this, and the one who has done it will pay in slow, screaming inches, drowning in blood.”

 Erron made a frustrated sound, causing Miche-not to look over again.

 “See, that is a very dark impulse… Vrol? Is it alright to call you that? The warrior did.”

 The former elf dipped his head, wracked with a sudden tumult of conflict. Wouldn’t show it, though.

 “Yes. Vrol is a name that still works, as does Meg, for my sister… but I very much mean to find, torment and destroy him, Erron. If that troubles any of you, leave now and stay out of my way, or be killed along with him.”

 The force of his violent emotion affected Lord Erron, strengthening signal-transmission to the point of near solidity. The data-ghost leaned down to scoop Nameless clear of the buckled floor. The beast was still keening aloud in genuine sorrow. Stupid, worthless pest. But no one had left him, nor had they turned away; a thing they might come to regret, but not here and not now. He inclined his head once again.

 “So be it, then. You shall correct me when what I am doing is wrong. I vow to consider your guidance,” promised the former elf; trapped in a world that had just grown immeasurably darker. “I am not a good person. Maybe I never was. But I can act that way, with your aid.”

 Marget placed a big, clumsy hand on his shoulder, causing those hideous bat wings to spread.

 “Good enough,” she grunted, “for this place.”

 Her voice was a rumbling snarl, filtered through too many jumbled-up fangs and long, curving tusks. Marget was still in there, though; sheltered and cupped like a dying flame.

 “Good enough,” he agreed, placing a hand over hers. “And not ended. Not yet.”

MillionNovel

Sword and Sorcery Eight, chapter four