Paul, Jamie, and Asa stood in the middle of a dusty
road, watching the rays of the sun as it slipped slowly below the horizon.
That thing would come for them soon. Asa felt tension coursing through
him. Had it been left to him, he would have bypassed the town altogether.
The idea of taking on a monster that not even the Seeker's apprentice could
defeat was one that he had not quite come to terms with. Apparently,
his journey was going to end here. He nodded grimly to himself.
At least he would go down fighting.
There was a darkening of the dusk that marked the
division of the town and the surrounding wilderness, and a man stepped
out toward them. It was only when the man's gnarled and rotted hand
came up to pull its hood back that Asa realized this thing had ceased to
be a human being a long time ago. Its hood slipped back with a grotesque
sliding sound to reveal a shriveled countenance. What was so decayed
as to almost be a human skull regarded them. Taut grey skin was pulled
over its all too visible bones. A fat yellow maggot squirmed out
of the side of its head. Red sparks where its eyes once had been
regarded them coldly. And then it spoke.
"Asa...."
Asa felt his heart turn cold in his chest, and terror
crawled outward from it. This monstrosity knew his name.
"Asa...." Its raspy voice, dead air passing over
dessicated vocal cords, called to him. "Norax has sent me.
I am the Lich Drachenovus and I am here to bring you to your master.
Norax awaits you Asa, and power like you have never held before...."
Asa found himself involuntarily taking steps forward,
toward the corpse. Drachenovus was right... better to give up...
give up...
"Give up..." Drachenovus whispered. "Come
with-"
The Lich's calls were abruptly interrupted by a
lance of fire which sprang from Paul's hand and collided violently with
its chest. Drachenovus hissed and looked away from Asa, who found
that he could move again.
"DeLocke!" the Lich yelled loudly. "You would
face me again?" It laughed, a horrible grating sound, and then resumed
its speech "And you bring friends into Hell with you! Good,
very good!" With that, the lich lunged forward, spraying a blue bolt
of energy at Paul. Paul dodged quickly, but not quickly enough.
He was spun around by the force of the blast as it struck his shoulder.
At that moment, Jamie appeared behind the lich, slicing at it with her
sword and sending it stumbling forward. Hissing, it turned around
faster than it had any right to and grabbed Jamie's sword arm. "Wench!
I have dispatched better warriors than you." Its grip increased on
her wrist, forcing her to drop her sword.
Paul scrambled to his feet, fire kindling on the
edge of his fingertips. Drachenovus spun around, holding Jamie in
front of it with one putrid hand. "She dies DeLocke! Move and
she dies!"
"Kill him!" Jamie commanded, her rage at being unable
to fight back boiling over. "Forget about me, kill him!"
Asa, to the side of the battle now, had been standing
in what could be best described as a shocked stupor. Suddenly, the
moment became very real to him. Jamie was going to die if he didn't
do something. Faster than he knew what he was doing, he lifted his
rod.
"Thalla!" he cried.
There was an enormous shockwave which knocked him
back and almost to the ground. Paul nearly went sprawling.
Jamie managed to wrestle free from the Lich and run to where Paul was standing.
The lich itself stood in mute horror at what it was seeing.
Thalla floated three feet off of the ground, surrounded
by a soft white glow. She held in her hand the yellow rod that Asa
had used earlier to free her. Regarding the lich with cold indifference,
she spoke.
"Drachenovus... so Norax has you, does he?
A shame."
Thalla's vaguely musical voice soothed Asa.
It seemed to have the opposite effect on Drachenovus.
"Thalla no! Please, I had no choice!"
The previously brave corpse had now turned into a gibbering thing begging
for whatever twisted form of life still dwelt within it. "Don't-"
It got no further. Thalla raised the rod and
a blinding white fire spat from it, engulfing the rotting Lich. It
screamed, a hideous screech that Asa was sure would deafen him. Flesh
burnt and peeled off of its bones, and it writhed aimlessly on the ground,
crying out for mercy. Then the fire vanished, and with it Drachenovus.
Thalla turned to Asa. "Is that all for now?"
she asked, her tone saying that her previous act had been but a small fraction
of what she could do to repay him. Asa nodded and whispered the words
to release her.
The faintness that usually accompanied the release
of a summoned being crept over him, and he relaxed and let it. Suddenly,
it leapt at him and dragged him down into its dark abyss.
Asa closed his eyes and fell to the ground.
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