When Gulliver woke, the world was red and terribly, terribly dry. His head was still pounding and the red haze through which he saw everything could not be a good sign, but it was nothing next to the awful, burning thirst. He felt it draining him. He felt it enabling him as the energy of desperation forced him, unsteadily at first, to his feet and then to hunting for something – anything- to drink.
When the first thing that caught his eye as thirst-quenching was Emesha, he began to worry.
“What… uh… what did you do to me?” he asked, his voice taking on a strange new timbre to his ears.
“It was a syringe of Vampiric blood, pretty ancient, it has to be said. I keep it on me for emergencies.”
“You dosed me with Vampire blood!?”
“It’s an incredible curative agent in the short term. Ideal for moments when nothing else will do and I was worried that your head injury was… quite serious.”
“It’s still poundin’!”
“No, that’ll be one of the side-effects of the blood thirst, I should think.”
“Blood thirst!?”
“I assume you’re pretty thirsty right now? I might even be looking particularly cool and refreshing?”
“Well… uh…” Gulliver felt his saliva glands aching in their drought.
“Indeed. Well, so long as you don’t actually give in, you’ll be fine – once the blood wears off.”
“And ‘ow long will that take!?”
“It very much depends. If you’re active you could metabolise it quite quickly and-”
Suddenly Gulliver’s ears seemed to filter out everything Emesha was saying and instead he heard, quite clearly, a familiar, beautifully broken, horrifically hoarse voice echoing down the corridors towards him.
“I prefer to keep my words brief,” a Lich was saying and, instantly, Gulliver new that Franck was in danger.
“-might only take a couple of hours, otherwise,” Emesha finished. She gave him a pained expression. “I’m sorry, but terrible thirst is preferable to death, is it not?”
“I’m sorry, Emesha,” Gulliver said, already moving away from her, “but Franck needs me!”
And boy, could Gulliver move. Now that the initial wobbliness had passed, he found he could run down the corridors with tremendous ease. The walls blurred past in a red haze and it felt like his feet barely touched the ground, like he was flying. He almost felt like he could fly, if only he had a little more juice, but he tried to keep his mind off the burning thirst and instead focused on Franck. He could hear the old man’s fluttering heartbeat. He could hear the crackling of the Lich’s flames. If he expanded the focus of his attention he could hear all the Liches across the Keep, how they muttered to themselves in their terrible tongue filled with frustration and hate, which was enough to keep his senses honed in on what really mattered: on Franck and the one Lich that threatened him.
He “flew” along the corridors as if they didn’t matter, as if the walls and junctions and doorways and even the other Liches were merely suggestions he was choosing to follow. As if he could float through the walls themselves, if he really wanted to. If he had just a little bit of extra power. If he only had some blood.
It was in this manner of ever-shifting attention, of dragging his mind away from his terrible need and from the fearsome forces that surrounded him to the matter at hand, that Gulliver passed the relatively short journey from the cave, through the many corridors, to the dead end where Franck faced the Lich. And so quick was all this that the Lich was only then screaming “Silence!” just as Gulliver neared the final corner. He swept around it like a roaring wind even as the tornado of purple fire and ancient bone fell upon Franck.
Gulliver was there in an instant, parting flame, grabbing at searing hot bone, pulling the Lich apart piece by hypostatickally-held piece so Franck could stumble backwards into the chains of the pulley and flop, nearly lifeless. And then, Gulliver was throwing the Lich backwards down the corridor, far enough away that he could stop and take a breather himself before the ancient terror regathered it’s strength, or called for backup.
The whirling clatter of flame and bone resolved itself once more into a humanoid shape and burned with an awful anger as it stared back at Gulliver, eyes even more full of hatred than usual.
“Vampire!” it hissed in its whispering moan, “How did you get in here!?”
“Well, I wasn’t a vampire until just recently, really,” Gulliver replied, feeling unnaturally nonchalant. He knew he should be terrified. Wasn’t.
“There are no new vampires!” the Lich shrieked.
“Well, this might only be temporary, like. It’s enough for now, though ain’t it?” He grinned. Realised he was actually enjoying this.
“You took me by surprise a moment ago,” the Lich said, more calmly, “but now I know what you are you’ll not find things so easy.”
“Well then,” Gulliver said with a smile, “come at me then… bony!”
The Lich
roared and fell upon Gulliver like a storm surge.
Franck was dazed. He felt like one big burned bruise all over and he could barely open his eyes against the terrible fatigue. Where his injury lay, his stomach burned like someone was pressing a hot iron into it. He was vaguely aware of a swirl of dark colour, bruised air, whirling before him, but it seemed to take a long time for full realisation to come upon him; for him to see that something was defending him and battling the Lich. And losing.
For that is definitely what was happening. Franck had no idea exactly what was fighting the Lich, but he could tell by the ever-growing pyre of purple flame that the Lich was gaining the upper hand and that, soon, it would shake off the attacker and devour them both. I have to do something, he thought wearily, but his mind wasn’t at its sharpest and it seemed to take him a long time to remember just where he was and what he had been carrying around in his pockets, just in case.
Glacially, he turned around and placed his hands on the great metal chain which had been propping him up, then, reaching into his pocket, he dragged out a small bag of black sand and began to sprinkle it, as liberally as he could manage, across the links of the chain. When all the sand had been used up, fusing itself with the metal rather than dusting the corridor floor, he began to heave the slack of the chain upwards and turn back towards the violent storm that filled the corridor.
“I don’t know who you are,” he said, weakly, “but I have something that might help.” And he lifted the chain as high as he could and stepped towards the swirling conflagration. “Please, just reach for it – I don’t think… I don’t think I can hold it up much long-”
He felt the strength in his arms leave him as his eyes began to close, and the weight of the chain dropping upon him, but rather than the crushing pain of it sending him to the floor, he felt a rush of cool wind and then, opening his eyes just slightly, saw the chain being reeled into the tornado at a terrific speed and then – oh glorious – and then a spiral of bright green fire igniting through the storm.
The Lich screamed and then the storm seemed to come apart as something leapt out from it, still spinning, and the Lich, falling back into its skeletal shape, was left bound up by yard after yard of burning green chain.
Franck blinked as the figure holding the other end of the chain slowed and resolved itself.
“Gulliver?” he asked in confusion.
“Looks that way, don’t it?” the pirate said with a grin, then he suddenly doubled over, dropping his end of the chain.
Franck staggered towards him. “Are you alright?”
“Don’t come any closer!” Gulliver commanded in a voice that was so authoritative and powerful, so unlike his usual self-effacing tone. “I don’t want to drain you!”
It took a moment for Franck to understand and to recognise the red gleam in Gulliver’s eyes.
“Gods, what has Emesha done!?” he whispered in horror.
“What she felt she ‘ad to, I suppose,” Gulliver replied, clearly struggling with the thirst as he crumpled to the ground, “but she said it wouldn’t last – that I’d burn through it quickly.”
“But at what cost!?”
The sudden look of terror in Gulliver’s eyes told Franck everything he needed to know about what Emesha had told the pirate. “Oh, Gulliver,” he said with gentle sorrow. “Thank you. May we none of us live to regret this.”
And then, pulling himself together and stepping carefully away from the ailing Vampirate, Franck approached the Lich.
“I don’t suppose it will be very long before your brethren come join us,” he said, “so I think it’s time we made you talk.”
And he drew
something else out of his pockets that he had been concealing. And the Lich began to scream.
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