Gulliver could feel the vampiric energy leeching out of him as knelt in the corridor, oblivious to all that was going on around him. His vision was now not just a red haze, but a sea of red darkness through which nothing else could penetrate. The pounding in his head was like the beating of an ancient drum following the rhythm of his heart and, he feared, of Franck’s, and his throat burned like eponymous grains of Searingsands, like the aftermath of an inferno, of a lava flow.
Oh gods, he thought, am I goin’ to die? I don’t want it to end like this! Besides… Franck needs me, doesn’t ‘e? I’ve been useful for once! Don’t let it end it like this!
Slowly, he tried to breathe, focussing on the cool air flowing into and out of his lungs, of the life it fed within him, even though each inhale and exhale was agony.
I need to stay alert. I need to ‘elp Franck!
He tried to peer through the red murk, to pick out the details around him and, slowly but surely, he began to see the green and purple glow of the captured Lich and then, even more slowly, the silhouette of Franck beside it, holding something up towards the Lich. Gradually the pounding in his head subsided a little and he began to hear.
“…get to the bottom of this whole Ancients thing and I’m pretty sure that you know something about it.”
The Lich screamed and, for a moment, Gulliver slipped back into the thirst haze, but it cleared more quickly this time.
“…nothing to say to you, little human. My brothers will be here any second and then you will be ours!”
“I don’t think so,” the Former Baron replied and held the object out a little closer, “because they will be able to sense what this is doing to you and I don’t think they’ll want anything to do with it at all. You know what it is, of course.”
“Get that thing away from me!”
“I can only assume that’s a yes. As I understand it, it’s a device the ancients once used to control your kind. It was found in some Ancient ruins deep below Losthope, I believe. I paid quite a bit for it a long time ago. Never really expected to find a use for it and yet, here we are.”
“You know nothing!” the Lich howled.
“Then enlighten me. It was the Ancients that created you, wasn’t it? Some kind of torture?”
“You cannot even name them!” the Lich cackled.
“Then tell me their name.” The device moved just a little closer and the Lich screamed once more before dissolving into something like incomprehensible sobbing.
“They called themselves the Ch’Thari,” the Lich said at last. “For as long as I can recall – as long as any of us can recall, they have been at war with my people.”
Gulliver could hear the satisfaction in the Former Baron’s voice when he asked his next question.
“So the Liches were once the other ancient race that dominated Shadow? Were the Stoneships yours?”
“Yes!” the Lich hissed.
“So.. this form you have now… was it a punishment?”
“It was revenge!”
Throughout all of this exchange, Gulliver had been regaining control of himself and, as he did so, the vampiric senses with which he had been temporarily gifted came alive once more. Suddenly he became aware of all the other Liches in the keep and, it seemed, they were very aware of him and of Franck.
“Revenge for what?” the Former Baron was asking.
“Uh, Franck,” Gulliver said, rising slowly, but powerfully to his feet, “I think we’re gonna need to take this conversation outside.”
“What?” the Former Baron asked, as if waking from a dream. “Oh, the Liches. Oh, yes, I suppose so. Do you have a plan for that?”
“I thought you were supposed to be the one with the plan?”
“Well, yes, but I’m not the one with the supernatural powers of the undead, now, am I? So, any ideas?”
Gulliver surveyed the scene. Now that he could see clearly he noticed that the chain had a weak point near where it ran through a hole in the ceiling. It would be easy to break, without undoing the hold it had on the Lich. In one lightning-fast movement he leapt towards it, chopped it with his hands and brought it crashing down to the ground as he landed gently beside it.
“I think I can lead the Lich,” Gulliver said, “especially if you give me that thin’ you’re ‘olding.”
He reached out his hand and Franck, somewhat warily, passed the device over. It was smaller than Gulliver had been expecting and it fit nearly inside his palm. It didn’t look like a device at all, of course – more like an ancient fossilised shell - but, as he looked closer he could see that, in the grooves of this ‘shell’ there were tiny slivers cut out so that that looked like they could be pressed up and down like a pirate’s plank on exercise day. It was intricate and surprisingly heavy and Gulliver had the sudden fear that he might drop it and break it. Instead, he gripped it firmly and advanced towards the Lich.
“You’re
comin’ with me,” he said and the Lich simply cowered.
They raced through the corridors of Coldsolace Keep as fast as Franck would allow. Gulliver would have dragged the Lich much more quickly on his own, but he couldn’t leave Franck behind and risk the old Philosopher falling to the other Liches, which, even now, were chasing them at a distance. None wanted to be too close to the Ch’Thari device and yet they were all so enraged and filled with hate that they could not just ignore this assault on their prison. Gulliver could feel their rage, but, when he looked over his shoulder they were nowhere to be seen, always just one corner away.
“’Urry up, Franck!” he called as he dragged the Lich around another corner and the Former Baron, clutching his abdomen, paused for another moment.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” the old man replied, but Gulliver knew they would have to wait another while before he would be fit to run again.
“You don’t have long left now,” the Lich sneered through its agony.
Gulliver wanted to ask what it meant, but that was only because he was denying what his enhanced senses already told him. Franck had been hurt worse than he would ever admit back at the obelisk and things were not as they should be. It was hard to tell from the uncertain beating of his heart just how much longer he had left, but the Lich wasn’t wrong. It would not be a long time.
“Okay,” Franck said, still sounding out of breath, “keep going!”
Even with all the stopping, it didn’t take long for them to reach the cave where Emesha awaited them, her face a rigid sculpture of consternation.
“Franck! Gulliver!” she called as they dragged the Lich into the cave near the water’s edge, “I didn’t think you’d make it!”
“Quick! Grab the lantern!” Franck commanded as he picked up his own then took it to the point where the cave met the underground tunnels of the Keep, before setting on the ground next to the cave wall. “Put yours on the opposite side!”
Emesha obeyed and then, without needing to be told, began to fiddle with the mechanism of the hypostatick lamp until its bright light suddenly disappeared, instead radiating a very thin barrier of hypostatick energy like a crackling, purple rainbow. There was a fizz of energy where it met the same coming from Franck’s lamp and then, just like that there was a makeshift Hypostatick field separating them from the Liches who now emerged from their shelter around a corner to rage against it like hailstorms of bone.
“And there we have it,” Franck said, dusting off his jacket a little, “one Lich.”
“You say that like it was easy,” Gulliver said, and then suddenly he felt his head pounding once again and the world around him seemed to wobble in its red haze. “Oh bugger,” he said quietly before collapsing to the floor once again.
The last
thing he could hear before everything went black was Emesha’s voice saying, “Oh,
Gulliver. I’m so sorry…”
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