When All Else Fails... - Part 1

Part 1

Glimberbee's evil grin chilled Iritsuki Van Olseweir to the core. "Best get comfortable, my dear," he said, his high voice like a trilling flute solo, ringing out over the cold stone walls of the dungeon. "You have at most a few hours to consider whether you'd like to upgrade your accommodations by volunteering to tell me where your fellow Guardian may have taken the Infernal Codex. I suspect that after that time, my hunters will have returned, successful or not, and they will be eager for diversion."

"Far away," Iritsuki said with a harsh snarl. The heavy iron chains binding her wrists to the stone wall rattled with the force of her protests. "That is where your Codex is now. The Adelcot Guardians will destroy that accursed book, or failing that, hide it in away in such a distant and forbidden place that not even God could find it." She questioned her choice of words at once.

Glimberbee smirked. "Such blasphemy, from a paladin?" he said, arching an eyebrow. The expression was, admittedly, rather fetching on him, despite the recent damage to his hair. "I knew you had it in you. Your faith is not so strong, then? Perhaps you could renounce it and serve me instead."

Indeed, Iritsuki felt the flickering shadow over the light of her soul after she had said those words, but whether it was a divine warning or her own conscience she could not say. "Perhaps you could renounce your evil, and serve God instead," she responded defiantly, her pride still stinging at her recent defeat at his hands.

Iritsuki had come from the Sekitsu Archipelago far to the southeast. As a teenaged orphan she had been brought from her island home to learn the ways of a paladin of the True God, called "The New God" by polytheists who refused to renounce the ancient pantheons. Her foreign heritage was obvious in this land; her nose was short and undefined, her dark brown eyes had a distinctive fold at the inner corner that others lacked, and her hair was long, fine and black, though she kept it bound up in a pair of buns. Her breasts were firm and small, her body slender and lithe but for a flaring pair of generous hips that seemed to be her most eye-catching feature. The phrase 'exotic beauty' seemed to follow on the lips of many who saw her, and she had grown to hate those words. It made her sound like an object, like a painting or a fine horse. But now, even wounded and disheveled in this dungeon as she was, Glimberbee's eyes drank her in with attraction.

Glimberbee was no ordinary thug or dishonest dealer; he was a quickling, a supernaturally-fast faerie creature about three feet tall, resembling a slender blue-skinned elf. With angular features and round, haunting dark-blue eyes, he was handsome in a purely physical sense; she could see why her fellow Guardian Jaqa had remarked on her attraction to him when they first saw him. But Iritsuki was devoted to God, to the Adelcot Guardians, and to protecting the weak and innocent. On the few occasions she might consider making time to indulge her attractions to a handsome man, it would not be a smugly amoral profiteer like Glimberbee. Jaqa, her assigned partner in this mission, was a redcap witch doctor serving Drezna, the ancient dark goddess of lust, and had no such reservations. It was one of many topics on which the two Guardians held extremely different opinions.

Despite Iritsuki's misgivings as to why a noble organization such as the Adelcot Guardians even employed someone like Jaqa, the two had worked well enough together to track down the meeting place deep in the Rosegloom Wood where Glimberbee had arranged to sell the Infernal Codex to a diabolical cultist and ambush them during the deal. Jaqa had slain the cultist and run off with the Codex, while Iritsuki fought off Glimberbee and his two goblin bodyguards, mounted on wargs: huge, shaggy black wolves with devilish lineage.

In the battle, Iritsuki had discovered too late that the quickling wore a girdle of hill giant strength, and her favored naginata proved to be less effective than hoped in the dense forest. To her shame, she had fallen in defeat after being beaten by a rapid drumbeat of blows from the quickling's stout club, backed by the strength of giants. Her one consolation was that her naginata's blade had, during the fight, severed Glimberbee's topknot before the final blow from his club had sent her into unconsciousness. She might be his prisoner facing torture and eventual death, but now her captor had a stupid haircut.

It was not much comfort. Iritsuki was stripped of her weapons and armor, chained to the wall in the dungeon in Glimberbee's remote manor on the edge of the forest. Her head still throbbed from the blow she had suffered despite calling upon the healing powers of God to mend the worst of her wounds, and even now, Glimberbee's two goblins and their hellish mounts were tracking down Jaqa to retrieve the Codex. They had their money from the dead cultist, but were eager to seize an opportunity to sell it again. But with Jaqa's shamanic magic, Iritsuki was certain she could evade pursuit, return to the shack on the other side of the Red Rose River, and light the signal fire to call in a squad from the Adelcot Guardians to make their rendezvous, secure the Infernal Codex, and complete the mission. Then, finally, a rescue mission would be mounted for Iritsuki herself. It was part of the Adelcot Guardian's creed: never leave a fellow Guardian behind.

That is, of course, if Iritsuki lived that long. She doubted she would.

Evwen so, she felt a bitter sort of triumph at the victory her life had bought. Jaqa had, in the end, been a perfect choice for her partner for this mission: she was vicious, driven, and goal-oriented, and didn't like Iritsuki at all. She would surely not be swayed by sentimentality to jeopardize the mission by coming back for her. And Iritsuki, despite her own distaste for Jaqa, would both keep their enemies' attention and hold up under torture long enough to withhold the information about the rendezvous place and signal fire. The Guardian Council had chosen correctly again, no matter Jaqa's other faults. The impending victory brought a grim smile to Iritsuki's lips.

"Smiling, are you?" Glimberbee asked, raising his eyebrow again. "Find joy where you can, then. If you have nothing to tell me before my two hunters return, you'll be at their mercy, and they have... rather eccentric tastes. The last time they captured a lovely human lass like yourself, they cut away sections of her skin, and deep-fried it. They said it was rather like bacon."

Iritsuki stared coldly at him. Her jaw was set, her smile now gone.

"I wouldn't know from personal experience," Glimberbee said with an a shrug. "I am, of course, not a cannibal savage." He rolled his eyes. "They tell me, however, that she concurred when they forced her to try a piece and demanded her opinion."

A slight tremor only briefly broke Iritsuki's glare.

"And I am entirely ignorant of the flavor and consistency her eyeballs produced when given the same treatment," Glimberbee continued in an offhanded manner, "though they offered to inform me with a certain amount of glee. They would have given her a taste there as well, I'm told, but each of them wanted to sample one, and she had only two eyes. Rather selfish of them, wouldn't you say?"

Iritsuki shook in her chains, tears forming in her eyes as dread rose in the pit of her stomach. She refused to give in to her terror! She would not break before these monsters ever laid a hand on her. If she could remain silent through the night, Jaqa's escape would be assured.

Glimberbee studied her, then shook his head wearily. "I am a decent and honorable man," he said, "and I would very much like to spare you from that fate, my exotic beauty, but you're making it very difficult for me."

There was that accursed 'exotic beauty' phrase again. "Horse dung is more decent and honorable than you are," Iritsuki snarled, her anger roused. "It's not to me, but to God, that you need to speak; He would very much like to spare you from your own fate."

Glimberbee scowled. "I am not a bad person," he said. "I cause no misery. I kill nobody. I only sell people tools, and it is their business alone what they do with them. I'm no more a killer than any swordsmith in the world." He sighed. "As a paladin in the holy light of the new God, you are... clergy, correct?"

Iritsuki nodded slowly, her suspicious glare never fading.

"Then I'll confess my sins to you now," Glimberbee said, and he knelt before her on the stone floor. "I have stolen a few gold and silver coins from innkeepers' strongboxes. I have given loans to fools at high interest, knowing repayment was all but impossible. I have sold counterfeit merchandise far above its actual value." He smiled and spread his arms. "I'm not a fiend, nor a murderer. I'm only a hard-bargaining merchant and a petty swindler. That's all I am."

Iritsuki kept her silent, stony expression, refusing to dignify his mocking confession with a response. Glimberbee smiled, awaiting some sort of retort so that the game could continue. When he failed to achieve a reaction from her, he stood, and his face hardened in a petulant glare.

"Pray that I don't take up killing people any time soon, holy wench," Glimberbee said spitefully, "for I work fast, and soon enough there'd be none of you left." He slammed the heavy door of the dungeon and stalked away, leaving Iritsuki alone in her chains, the cold stone floor beneath her legs and butt.

Once she was sure he was truly gone, Iritsuki strained against the chains that held her to the rough stone wall. It was useless; she could not hope to tear them free from their cold grasp. Across the room, a single window stood, the night sky outside mocking her. The light of the gibbous moon outside illuminated clouds that swam past with each passing minute, gliding across the sky. Iritsuki envied those clouds. They seemed so free. She had to remind herself that with each minute that passed, Jaqa drew closer to reunion with the other Adelcot Guardians and the completion of their mission. Thanks to her sacrifice, the Infernal Codex would be used to summon devils and possess ambitious fools with its insidious diabolical corruption no more. It would be destroyed, or locked far away.

The howling of wargs carried through the night, drifting through that single window. They grew near, and grew louder as minutes passed. And then Iritsuki heard the idle, chattering conversation of the two wicked goblins, distant at first, but drawing closer, their tones hard-bitten with frustration, their words bitterly making excuses for a failed hunt. Next the heavy footfalls of the wargs, and the creak of the rusty manor door. She started shivering. Tears streaked down her chin as she set her jaw so firmly it hurt her teeth. No doubt Glimberbee would give her a final chance, and she would have to remain resolute. The hour of her sacrifice was at hand.

A small black shape dove through the window and into Iritsuki's lap with an iron 'clang!' then stared at her with a toothy, grinning face with glowing red eyes and razor-sharp teeth. Iritsuki screamed and went into convulsions of terror.

A small, strong open hand slapped her. "Make yours mouth silent!" a female voice accent hissed in a harsh yet lilting accent. "Screaming like small girl will tell them we are here!" The red-eyed apparition took on a contemplative look. "Though suppose they are knowing already you are here."

"Jaqa!" Iritsuki said, struggling to keep quiet. That Northeastern accent and the odd speech patterns were unmistakable; where Iritsuki had spent agonizing hours of speech practice flattening her foreign accent and learning perfect grammar, Jaqa seemed determined, after a point, to always be uniquely Jaqa. "Please, tell me you've already dropped off the Infernal Codex?"

"No, still have," Jaqa said, patting the backpack that she wore. "Came back for you. Is Adelcot Guardian code. Never leave a fellow Guardian behind... even if they are bumbling paladin with big stick up hers chubby human ass, ya?" Now that Iritsuki's eyes adjusted, Jaqa's form came into view, as distinct as her voice; a grinning, razor-toothed, thin but buxom woman about three feet tall in a tattered red dress that fell to her knees, a red pointed cap, and big, heavy iron boots. Her hair was wild and black, and fell from under her cap to her bare shoulders, framing a sharp face that was impishly pretty in the rare fleeting moments when it wasn't contorted into some hideous exaggerated expression of glee or fury. She had a certain kind of feral beauty about her, if one favored huge, glowing red eyes and teeth that could cut glass.

"Get out of here!" Iritsuki said. "They're here! The goblins, and Glimberbee, and their wargs-"

"Shut up!" Jaqa countered. "That is why we needs to get you out of this, before the goblins and the sexy faerie man start with the cuttings off of yours pieces, ya?"

Jaqa stopped and chanted a few words in the Old Speech, casting a spell that only Iritsuki's training enabled her to detect as a Stone Shape spell. Iritsuki had to cringe; it was the magic of the false elder gods, and of the selfish and wicked goddess of lust from the dark side of the elder pantheon, no less! Nevertheless, the magic was true: the stone wall behind Iritsuki rippled and spit out the bolts that held Iritsuki's chains in the wall, letting them fall to the stone floor with a loud clang. Iritsuki grimaced at the sound, if their captors weren't coming after her scream, they were surely coming now.

"Stand up!" Jaqa barked at her. "Only thing you are good at is being tall, and you can't even do that right when we are needing it! Use yours ungainly height for good for once and climb out the window and pull Jaqa with you!"

Iritsuki bolted to her feet. The window was, fortunately, only five feet off the ground, and with the strength granted by adrenaline and terror Iritsuki grabbed the edge and flung her body halfway out of it, completely undaunted by the extra weight that burdened her wrists from the chains. As she crawled the rest of the way, the stone window ledge scraped her bare skin and bruised her belly, but she pushed through despite the pain and flopped down on the dirt outside, in the yard of the manor house. She was free, outside the manor! But she heard the dungeon door open, and the startled chattering of angry goblin voices. "Where is she!? Who's that?" They had arrived below to question her, and Jaqa was still inside!

Iritsuki threw an arm back in the window so that a chain dangled down and braced herself against the wall, and when a weight on the end of the chain wrenched her arm nearly from her shoulder, she hoped it was Jaqa and not a goblin and pulled with both arms to draw her out. Fortunately, it was indeed Jaqa, and when a glaring goblin face peered up at the edge of the window, Jaqa lost no time in planting a kick from her heavy iron boots right between his eyes, knocking him back down.

"We needs be leaving!" Jaqa exclaimed. "Can still summon yours fancy God-horse today?"

Like all paladins, Iritsuki was capable of summoning a bonded celestial horse once each day. She nodded and knelt in prayer to do so. "Masuyo, fellow servant of God, come to me in my hour of need..."

"Am taking that as a 'yes'," Jaqa said sternly, "or else is stupidest thing you've done today."

The nearby front door of the manor swung open with a wrenching squeak.

"The two are not mutually exclusive," Glimberbee said, and abruptly he was facing them with a cocky smirk, still wearing his girdle of hill giant strength, carrying a deceptively stout club. "Drop the Infernal Codex and run. I will not pursue you. Or fight me, and I'll beat your silly horse back to the Upper Planes and then hand you over to my goblins."

Iritsuki froze, even as Masuyo, the grand celestial mare who was her divine bonded companion, shimmered into existence on this plane behind her. Naked, wounded, and unarmed, she couldn't hope to defeat Glimberbee, who had been a match for her in full armor with her naginata. Jaqa would likely fare little better against such a fast and powerful opponent. And yet as a quickling, Glimberbee was so very fiendishly fast that there was little doubt he could outrun even the swift horse Masuyo, so flight was equally doubtful.

"Oh!" Jaqa said. "I actually am in the having of something that belongs to you, sexy faerie man. Picked it up at scene of battle when I went back." She stopped and reached in her backpack. "You remember this, ya?" What she held up was a little cloth doll, but attached to it was the topknot that Iritsuki's naginata had severed from Glimberbee's head earlier.

Glimberbee scowled. "I can't exactly put my hair back on," he said, "not that it's important in any case. The Codex. Now. No more games."

"Go and start fucking yours self," Jaqa snarled, and she bit into the leg of the little cloth doll, one of her sharp teeth tearing a jagged line down it so that stuffing spilled out. Glimberbee screamed and fell back, clutching a leg.

"What in the-?" Iritsuki started.

"Never be minding!" Jaqa shouted. "On yours funny God-horse and pull me up with you! We have a lot of runnings away to do before he gets better!"

Continued in Part 2

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