Aces and Eights
Part 10: Escape
Kyla returned within what I guessed
was an hour, followed by two extremely pale men bearing serving trays and what
looked to be one of the stuffed chairs I had seen earlier on the level below.
Both of the men were gaunt and silent. They moved with mechanical smoothness,
keeping their lusterless eyes locked straight ahead. Dressed as she had been
before, Kyla bade them set their burdens before me. They complied in silence,
and I could not help but shudder, inwardly, at their apparent fate. The
pasty-skinned pair were ensorceled servants of the lowest order--little more
than zombies, I guessed. When they had deposited the chair, and erected the two
trays, Kyla dismissed them with a single gesture. When they were gone, she
shifted her attention to me.
"I will be dining with
you."
As I was unable to move a muscle, I
remained quiet. She seemed to note my conspicuous silence then, and spoke the
words to partially counteract the spell I was under. As before, movement
returned to only a portion of my anatomy. This time, however, I found that I was
able to move from the waist upward. "Thank you," I said after a time.
Without comment, she seated herself
in the chair several feet away, occupying a space halfway between me and the
ash-filled fire pit out in the center of the wide room. For a few seconds, I
watched her, taking in the angularity of her features, the wet shine of her
brown eyes. Somehow, even as my enemy, she was fascinating.
Looking down, I noted that both
trays bore similar fare. One stood directly before me, and the other she pulled
nearer to her position. Thus we began eating.
The food was better than good. It
was wonderful. I commented on this, and she agreed through a mouthful. She
finished her bite, washed it down with a healthy swallow of wine, and said,
"Merequist is indulgent in very few areas. Most of his servants are more
than half dead--like those you saw a few moments ago. His chef, along with only
a handful of others, is an exception."
I took another bite of what tasted
remarkably like lemon-seasoned spinach. As had often happened before while
frequenting unfamiliar Shadows, I was surprised by how comfortable an alien
place could seem with only a few echoes of home. An attractive companion, a
decent meal, and suddenly I could forget that the alien world I currently
inhabited might actually be riding on the back of some cosmic turtle, rather
than orbiting a sun. The disparities between Shadows are sometimes drastic,
sometimes incremental. It is often the slight shadings which can provide the
greater danger, if one forgets. Travelling between realities is funny like that.
Pushing my thoughts toward escape, I
ate slowly, stretching out what I knew would be a limited time of free movement.
Since she could freeze me with only a few words, I did not want to attempt a
direct psychic assault. Neither did I favor the idea of simply doing nothing,
and again being made a statue. I was busy racking my thoughts for a solution
when I began to sense something faint and mystical.
Kyla put down her fork and looked at
me. She stood. Guessing the mild disturbance to be a Trump call, I kept my
features neutral. I deliberately took another bite, looking up at her with an
inquisitive expression.
Kyla looked as if she were about to
paralyze me, then decided against it. After taking several steps backward, so
that she still faced me, my captor stood still. Though a distant look spread
over her face, I knew that if I made any sudden or strange gestures, she would
probably register it immediately, peripherally. As she began to mumble, I
continued to eat. Once I could tell that she was fully involved in the Trump
communication, though, I sent my awareness into my ring. I hoped like hell that
she would be so caught up in her current conversation that she would not detect
what I was about to do.
Quickly, without moving, I willed
the ring to send out fine lines of energy from its position on my hand back
along my arm. When the delicate forces reached my shoulder, I stopped them,
afraid that anything more might be noticeable. With the faintest of efforts, I
maintained the invisible branches of sensitivity about my right arm like a
ghostly, shoulder-length glove.
Though the paralysis field had
previously halted me from using my ring at all, I felt halfway certain
that--with it already activated--I would have a good chance of freeing myself.
If Kyla proved to be anything better than what I was--a minor dabbler in the
arts--I knew that she would probably remark upon my furtive tinkering as soon as
she withdrew her attentions from the Trump contact. So I decided that a little
conversational distraction might help my cause. As soon as she closed off the
contact and stepped forward again--
"This spinach is beyond
compare." I said softly, playfully seasoning my words with just a dash of
sarcasm. "You'll have to get the recipe for me later."
Offering me a sinister smile, she
said, "Of course," then reseated herself.
"I don't suppose you'd care to
share the details of that last call with me?"
"Afraid not. Merequist is the
talkative one."
"So I noticed. It seems to be a
classic characteristic of villains; they love to explain themselves before they
do you in. Maybe it's guilt related."
She swallowed. "Maybe it's ego
related."
I chuckled and took a sip.
The meal did not last much longer.
Worrying that she might discover my little trick at any given moment, I found it
hard to enjoy what remained on my tray. She, too, seemed preoccupied, perhaps by
something she had learned during her last Trump call. When it was clear that we
were both finished eating, she summoned the same two servants who had assisted
her previously. They worked as quietly, and as lifelessly, as they had before,
removing the trays and the carved wooden chair without sound or expression.
When we were alone again, she wasted
no time in re-paralyzing me. "I will return again later," was all she
said before she, too, left the room.
I waited several moments before
attempting anything. Then, when I felt reasonably sure that I was truly alone, I
focused my thoughts on the tendrils of energy encasing my arm, willing them to
life. The field entrapping me was, I soon learned, too complicated for me to
quickly dismantle. An adept would probably have been able to do it in a short
while, but its design was beyond my capability. Without any prior experience
with the wheel construct feeding the enchantment, I had virtually no chance of
dispelling it altogether. A more attainable goal, I realized, might be to
attempt to unweave only a portion of it--the section holding my arm, for
instance. This decided, I set about doing it.
Slowly, painstakingly, I used the
ring's ultra-fine feelers to disentangle the ordered lines of force from my arm.
It was like trying to unravel silk in the dark, and each thread consumed a bit
of my time and energy. Some time later, I felt the section of the spell upon
which I had been working beginning to lose its form. A few more twists and
unwindings, and that portion of the force-mesh which held my arm finally
dissipated. Exhilarated, I moved my arm about, stretching and testing the limits
of my movement. I found that I could reach the pouch at my belt.
Unable to look down, I began
rummaging blindly through the pouch, feeling for one of the acorns I carry
there. I finally recognized the rough, familiar shape. Carefully, not wanting to
drop my prize, I lifted out one of the small enchanted nuts. I considered my
options.
Though I knew that the now-invisible
wheel design and its paralytic hold on me were of a deeper complexity than what
I could handle in a short period of time, I felt reasonably certain that, if I
approached the problem in a different manner--a less delicate one--I could free
myself.
I regarded the ash-filled fire pit
occupying the center of the room. It was about three feet across, and appeared
to be quite shallow. Rough, dark pieces of rock, raised a couple of inches
higher than the smooth stones of the floor, had been set into its border,
forming a ring. Aiming carefully, I tossed my acorn. It landed a few feet short,
then rolled to the left side. Internally, I swore. You will have to believe me
when I tell you that it is harder than you think to hit a target with a thrown
object while ninety percent of your body is completely immobilized.
I reached down for another empowered
acorn. I had four remaining. Upon casting the second small missile, I was able
to gauge the distance more accurately, and my acorn landed near the center of
the fire-pit, kicking up a small cloud of dusty ash. When the cloud cleared, I
saw that only a small portion of the acorn remained uncovered. For the next few
seconds, I watched closely, suddenly unsure whether the ash would be sufficient
to activate the magical acorn. Only twice before had I ever even used any of the
things, and on both occasions, I had deposited them in natural soil. Even as I
began to worry, though, I detected a small movement within the powdery gray pit.
At first, the effects were minimal.
A single green shoot rose upwards, then was still for a moment. As I watched,
however, this tender plant rapidly grew into a small sapling. From that instant
forward, no more pauses ensued. The sapling grew smoothly up and out. Leaves
unfurled along its branches, and some of its more unruly roots slithered up out
of the fire-pit and across the floor. Before long, the tree exceeded my height.
It was then that I began to hear the first splintering sounds. The unnatural
oak's root structure, I knew, was spreading itself between the flagstones. More
cracking sounds, louder, split the air. A wailing began to rise, accompanying
the growth of the oak.
As I watched the growing tree, I saw
that the floor seemed to be buckling in places. Then, flashing rapidly into and
out of visibility several times before flaring into complete substantiality, the
wheel design revealed itself. Again, ink colored flames sprung up at its border,
and the symbols I had seen before shimmered into being all around me. The oak
tree now towered within the room, its upper branches having flattened themselves
out against the high vaulted ceiling. The wail was much louder. The ring of dark
stones bordering the fire-pit had been broken in places by the tree's swelling
base.
Then, with a deep whooshing sound,
the wheel's central column of indigo flame rose up around the lower trunk of my
tree. The bark, wherever touched by the mystical fire, grew black. This appeared
to slow the growth of the tree, but did not halt it. Wide cracks broke open in
the floor, and raced in zig-zag patterns toward the far walls. Thick, knotted
roots pushed up from beneath the floor. The wheel flickered a few times, and
each time it did, I was shaken violently. Upper portions of the tree snapped off
against the ceiling, and limbs rained down around me along with bits of broken
masonry.
Second later the flames around the
wheel snuffed out, and the designs faded. I fell to the shattered floor, free
from the spell. I lay panting for a few seconds, my body tingling as life and
mobility returned to it. Then silence filled the room; the oak had finally
reached the limits of its growth. Raising myself, I studied my surroundings. The
damage was tremendous. The floor looked like a field of rolling gray hills, and
the massive tree dominated even the room's uppermost reaches.
Knowing that my enemies were probably moving toward me, I turned and darted from the room, mouthing a quick word of thanks to Yggdrasill, that great ash at the center of the cosmos. Without delay, I headed into the nearest side passage.