Count Montby examined his face in the mirror. The make-up softened his features and he was certain his skin had originally been darker, but these were not bad things. The face he allowed to be seen could easily belong to a native of Tralgar. If he had to guess, he would say he appeared just under forty. Satisfied with the superficial adjustments, he prepared himself for the persona that went with this face.
The Montby that everyone knew was full of uncontrolled energy, fidgeting and hopping from foot to foot. He looked middle-aged but acted far younger, with an exuberance and flamboyance that was often remarked upon, and occasionally derided by those ignorant of his status. The real Montby was far older, kept alive only by magic, kept whole only by pilfered technology, and kept presentable to the public only by copious cosmetics. Inwardly he felt nothing like his persona.
Montby stretched his mouth into the crooked grin his underlings were accustomed to, clasped a gaudy purple cape around his shoulders, and left his dressing room. Sasha still sprawled nude on his bed, but he ignored her. She would remember nothing, even without the application of magic to blank her mind. Her addiction to opium and fey wine, both of which he provided at no charge, came in very useful.
Montby opened the door to the hallway, making sure the two guards outside caught a glimpse of the figure on his bed. No one would suspect he had been anywhere but his room last night. Misdirection. That was his motto. Even when it came to the men he trusted completely, loyal guardians who would lay down their lives for his briefest whim. Even they were kept in the dark whenever possible.
Montby turned left and began skipping towards the stairs which led up to the brothel. Neldrum, first among all his thugs, met him in the common room and followed him to one of the few empty tables.
“Did you find him?” Montby was more than a little irked that he had been so far unable to track the whereabouts of one of his most skilled employees. The man named Cirgal just showed up whenever he needed cash and waited to see what Montby wanted done. He did a little brute work, and the occasional killing, but mostly he was the man you sent to steal something heavily guarded. He was the best thief Montby had ever discovered. Perhaps too good. Things tended to vanish in Cirgal’s wake, never anything vital, but always something unique or expensive.
“Unfortunately no, Count. He’s been spending evenings in your brothels or drug houses like clockwork, but he gives my men the slip every night. I even attempted to trail him myself. I had one of the Nulls feel for any magic, but it insisted none was used. Your wizards still can’t pull off a successful scrying. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cirgal is only an alias of his, but to go this long without leaving so much as hair or flake of skin for us to get a reading from…”
Montby twiddled his fingers, tapping his boots beneath the table to a melody only he knew. “Tralgar is inundated with magic thanks to the university. But other cities remember the old methods of investigation. Talk to his favorites. Most men visit my district because they are desperate, or because they are hiding from some pain. Our Mister Cirgal does not strike me as the desperate type. There is something he has trouble facing, something that bothers him a great deal. Sooner or later he will blurt something. Perhaps he already has. Then he will finally be ours to control.”
“Yes, Count. I’ll put Mathus in charge of the investigation. He keeps up with the books. His men will begin questioning by this afternoon.”
Montby leaned back, snapping his fingers and rocking his chair a little. He whipped his head back and forth, glancing at each corner of the room. “What other news have you for me?”
Neldrum slid a sealed envelope across the table. “I’m told this contains symbols for you to use with your communication orb. I haven’t looked myself. I was told the contents were coated in explosive runes, modified to dispel for you and you alone. The Nulls confirmed explosive runes inside, but they aren’t familiar with that sort of modification to the spell. I could have the wizards dispel the runes just to be safe.”
Montby’s smile was genuine this time. “That won’t be necessary. I will deal with this myself.” He didn’t elaborate.
“There is one more thing, a message from the skeletons of the great southern desert. They think it might be time to repay your favor. There is a girl. You are to extricate her from the desert and protect her from anything that follows. They wouldn’t give any further details.”
Montby wasn’t sure whether to feel dread or relief. He’d long owed a debt to the skeletons, undead warriors who took him in when he was at his weakest. He had been clinging by a thread to… not even life, but mere existence. The risen desert host saw something kindred in him, and they somehow ignored their geas, turning blind eye sockets while Montby raided the buried treasure hoards they guarded, acquiring the tools to rebuild his physical body and create a new identity to go with it.
That debt had long swung pendulously over his head, and he would feel an immense uplifting when it was finally repaid. The nature of the favor troubled him though. It seemed such a trivial thing, to protect a girl lost in the desert. That was how Montby knew his involvement would have repercussions presently unfathomable.
The skeletons had always been terse in their communications, but the vagueness bothered him this time. Why did they even care about one of the living? Was she like Montby? Would he be honor bound to protect a potential rival to his growing empire? There was simply no way of knowing until after he committed himself.
“I’ll send Eltore,” Montby finally decided.
“I don’t trust that necromancer,” Neldrum replied. “He’s too ambitious.”
“That’s exactly why I’m sending him,” Montby explained. He almost left it at that, but ultimately concluded it would be worth it to ease Neldrum’s mind. The swordsman would be useless if he were spending all his time worrying about threats that didn’t exist. “Eltore is smart enough to know the desert skeletons are never trivial, and they happen to be an anomaly within his particular field of study. He’ll be both interested and flattered. And I’ll get him out of my hair for a few weeks, while important matters are being resolved here.”
Neldrum nodded and stood. He knew his business, and he was efficient, two things Montby liked about him. “I’ll make sure Mathus knows how important it is to find some hold over this Cirgal character. You’ll be informed as soon as anything changes.”
And just like that, Montby was alone again. Men and women were everywhere around him, for the brothel was always brimming with business of one sort or another, but he was set apart from the masses that flowed around him. Many of them recognized him surely, but they wouldn’t dare to approach him. He ruled this district with a ruthlessness that the official king of Tralgar could never hope to emulate.
Tralgar was a great city, perhaps the greatest on the planet, but it hadn’t always been so. It was because of Montby, and his dedication to all forms of vice, that it flourished. Trying to stamp those things out was impossible, as impossible as changing human nature by decree. The more various rulers across the globe tried, the more the market flowed through their clenched fingers like water.
And Count Montby made sure it all flowed here. The potential, the energy, the wealth both physical and intangible, all of it pooled here. Montby was the biggest criminal in the city, and he was untouchable.
Montby lifted a nearby candle to the sealed envelope Neldrum had passed him, and once again his grin was real. He’d already seen the codes inside, though none of his subordinates would have thought it possible. And even though no mention was made of the entity that waited for his communication, Montby knew who it must be. Someone just as powerful and ambitious as himself was finally willing to make a deal.
Methaneumar shoved fistful after fistful of sawdust into the corpse. Corpse was perhaps too generous a term for what remained of the body. It was little more than a human skin, rapidly filling with processed wood pulp and bloating back up to its former shape. As long as it looked passable though, that was all that mattered. The next of kin surely weren’t going to open the dead man back up themselves.
Beneath the operating table, two large bags contained roughly equal collections of jars, jars now filled with various organs and preservatives. Methaneumar planned to take one bag home to add to his personal collection and to leave the slightly fuller bag in a chilled niche. He would leave the doors to the morgue unlocked when he finished his shift, as a matter of courtesy rather than necessity. He had little doubt the men who waited nearby could make short work of the simple mechanical devices intended to secure the building.
In the beginning, Methaneumar, Meth to the few he considered friends, had dealt with the trio of thugs in person. After a while, business became more efficient. Handwritten messages were used in place of face meetings, and each party knew their roles well enough to slip into routine. Meth was instructed which organs were desired, and when to have them ready for pickup. The thugs knew how much compensation he required, and always made sure the minimum amount made its way to his possession. They were strangely honorable men after their own fashion.
It was obvious the men worked for Montby. No one else could afford either the plethora of body parts being procured, or the bribes to keep city eyes averted. While Meth stole just enough to continue his private studies of human anatomy, the thugs had cumulatively carried off enough tissue to raise a zombie army, not that any living necromancer was powerful enough to control such a horde.
Most citizens of Tralgar would have been scared witless to be approached by Montby’s henchmen. They’d be shitting themselves in terror once they realized they’d been under observation for some time, that the vile puppet master knew all about their financial difficulties and minor crimes. It was well known that once Montby had any sort of leverage over you, your life became his to command.
For Meth, however, the initial meeting with Mathus and his two silent sidekicks was nearly the best thing that could have happened to him.
Meth had never looked much like his father, or his mother’s husband more accurately. He was pale, tall, and thin, while his father was the opposite. The man in charge of the household wasn’t particularly bright, but he wasn’t too stupid to realize what had happened. He didn’t say anything, being the passive sort, but he harbored a growing resentment that he did nothing to conceal.
As his mother’s health deteriorated, Meth realized his own troubles were galloping closer on the horizon. His only obvious options were to either apprentice himself to a local craftsman, or to learn a skill at the university.
Tralgar was perhaps the only city in the world that recognized forms of higher learning other than the magical arts. It tenaciously held to the heretical belief that whatever a mage could do, an untalented man with enough knowledge could do as well. For every magical shield, there was an undiscovered alloy just as strong. For every healing potion there was a combination of herbs just as potent.
So Meth decided to become a surgeon. He was quite clever, with an almost eidetic memory when it came to biological systems, and he had a peculiar manual dexterity never seen before among his family. Studying the craft ought to be easier than taking candy from an orc.
Surgeons made decent incomes as well, from what he could discern. Mages might be the first choice for healing, but only the rich could afford spells and potions. The vast majority of the population would gladly settle for a man with a knife who had once heard the controversial germ theory of disease.
The university, though orders of magnitude cheaper than the various mage schools, was still far from free. Meth made it through three years of classes before his mother finally passed away and his legal father gathered the courage to take some sort of stand against his perceived injustice.
Meth came home one evening to find himself barred from entry, his books and other belongings already burned and left as trampled piles of ash in the street. His choice to pursue education outside of the various guild systems now seemed a mistake. He had no way to complete his training and was now too old to make an attractive apprentice. That left only work as an employee of the city.
Nine tenths of the time, this would have meant a lifetime contract in the army. Meth was one of the fortunate literate few aware of other openings, and thus he began what promised to be along career cataloguing and processing the various bodies that had reached the end of their mortal tales.
It was mind numbingly boring, with a pay scale to match its level of engrossment. Whether the tediousness of the job drove him too it, or whether the culprit was simply hunger, Meth soon began conducting simple experiments when he believed himself alone. At first he merely repeated the electrical stimulation experiments from class, causing fresh corpses to twitch and proving the theory that life force was merely another class of energy. Life energy, the so-called negative energy that drove the undead, lighting, fire… all were interchangeable if one understood the principles.
Emboldened by his growing autonomy within the morgue, Meth graduated to stealing organs, preserving them and taking them home for further study. Eventual discovery by the authorities was practically inevitable, with prison or worse assured. So when the three hulking thugs showed up one night, Meth was far from frightened. He felt only relief that none of them wore the uniform of the city guard.
Meth now sold organs to Montby’s organization on a regular basis, earning more than thrice what the city paid him. Soon perhaps, he could return to the university and acquire the documents proving he’d mastered the various surgical techniques taught there. He would still be under Montby’s thumb, but he might at least be employed in a more legal fashion.
Meth looked up from sewing the harvested corpse back together, shocked to see four thugs standing just a few feet away. It was amazing that such brutish men could move so silently. He didn’t recognize any of them, which sent a tingle of alarm up his spine. They didn’t wear any insignia identifying them as agents of the king, but that provided only minimal comfort.
If another criminal overlord had designs on this section of Tralgar, and these were his men, Meth’s future looked grim. Montby would likely come out still in control, and all his top men would be safe with him. The disposable peons on both sides would do the bulk of the suffering, and that description fit Meth perfectly.
One of the men drew a small knife but instantly flipped the handle out in a non-threatening manner. He placed it carefully on the newly stitched chest of Methaneumar’s uncaring companion. “Remove your right index finger.” A second thug placed a small glass jar beside the knife, saying nothing.
The precision of the request gave Meth a sliver of hope. A rival gang, seeking to stamp their mark onto various assets, would have just beaten him senseless. This was the request of someone who had taken time to study him as an individual. The loss of his dominant hand’s index finger would ruin any chance at one day becoming a competent surgeon, but it wouldn’t prevent him from cruder labors. It was the least injury necessary to ruin his life.
It was a test. It had to be. He’d been doing business with Montby’s organization too long to go unnoticed, and now the higher ups wanted to check on his loyalty, make sure he wouldn’t squeal if the city guards ever dragged him away. That had to be the case. Because if it was, they’d surely send him to a healer to reattach the digit before it rotted. Maybe, just maybe, this was the break he’d been hoping for. This might be the prelude to some form of advancement.
Meth took his time, first wrapping a piece of twine around his finger so tightly that all circulation was blocked. Then he filled a small sack with bandages and even ice from the cooler built into the back wall. Frozen water was a luxury in many places, but Tralgar had it in abundance. Between the trade routes and the mage houses, the city procured it so cheaply that public quartermasters didn’t even account for it.
Finally, Meth returned his case of needles and thread to a coat pocket, choosing to leave it unbuttoned for once. Anything else wouldn’t be prudent preparation, but mere delay. So he used his off hand to grab the knife that still waited for him, placed his nearly numb digit against the rough stone of the closest empty table, and pushed down.
Knife blades weren’t great at cutting through bone, and Meth was prepared for the gruesome task of sawing back and forth, but the metal sliced almost effortlessly, even nicking the hard stone beneath. He knew that no weapon could naturally be sharpened to such an extent, meaning this was an enchanted piece of equipment, probably worth more than his own life at this point. Another good sign. If someone didn’t see potential in him, they would have surely brought a simple hatchet instead.
Meth looked at the blood slowly dripping from his stump of a finger, wondering whether the lack of pain was due to his tourniquet or an effect of the magic aura on the weapon. Movement caught his eye and he glanced up, but he was too late to see anything but the blotchy brown bag closing over his head.
A strong chemical assaulted Meth’s nostrils and he tried to hold shallow breaths for as long as possible. A sensation of faintness followed each short inhalation, but quickly passed, leaving him conscious, if only barely.
A loud sigh penetrated the thick layers of fabric, followed by a chuckle from a different throat. Then something hard crashed into the back of Meth’s head, and all his efforts to resist the ether-like substance faded vainly into darkness.
“I’m sorry about that, but certain precautions are necessary. I admire your cleverness. You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. But you were resisting the anesthetic, and I couldn’t have you knowing the location of this room prematurely.”
Meth swam back up through the various layers of consciousness with remarkable speed. In a fraction of a second he went from utter nothingness to total lucidity. He was sitting in a reclined cushioned chair, far more comfortable than he was used to, decadent by his standards even. His head throbbed and his stomach threatened to revolt, but at least he barely noticed the ache above his missing finger.
His surroundings were likewise barely noticeable, dark shadows concealing everything but the face and hands of the man who had just spoken. More than just good design, a subtle enchantment lay across the walls, pushing the gaze away.
Far more noticeable to Meth was the man addressing him, the only other visible occupant of the small room. Judging by the silver hair and fractal pattern of wrinkles coating his face, the speaker was old. Very old. He looked healthy though, projecting an impression of heartiness even Methaneumar didn’t possess. He was almost certainly benefiting from the aid of magic, one of those men fortunate enough to possess a century or two of perfect health, until the rapid and inevitable ultimate decline.
The man dressed all in black, but it was a textured darkness rather than the glossy style currently in vogue among the upper middle class. Lacking lines of reflection, it was hard to tell whether the man wore some sort of robe, a suit, or simply a shirt and pants. Taken together, the man emanated a stronger feeling of secrecy than even the leaders of the rogues guild.
This man was no thief or assassin however, despite such appearances. It was misdirection, another test, and Meth had a good idea who really sat across from him. “You’re Eltore.”
“Correct. I knew you were sharp. Can you work out why you’re here?”
Meth began thinking furiously, thankful that he suffered no residual disorientation from his kidnapping. An initial thought was that he’d been working for Eltore all along, selling him body parts, and the dreaded necromancer now wanted to expand whatever operation he had going on. As quickly as it came, that idea was rejected however.
Three men known to work for Montby had always set up the exchanges before. This time, four new faces had been employed, brutes that couldn’t be tied to anyone. That suggested some sort of power struggle. Perhaps the necromancer was tired of being second in command, a reasonable frustration. After all, as competent as the current ringleader had proven to be, what more might be accomplished with an experienced wizard at the helm?
Bodies and organs. Those were still key. Montby had wanted them for something. Most likely he’d put Eltore in charge of some side project… and Eltore saw a way to turn that side project into a pivotal part of the organization? As guesses went, it was a good one. It would have to do.
“You have something planned for the corpses that slip through the city morgue’s books. But you don’t want Montby to know about it. So you need my assistance. Or to replace me with someone more compliant.”
The old man smiled so wide that it looked like his wrinkled face was on the verge of shattering apart. “Very good. I have just one more question. Do you realize the potential consequences of what you just said?”
Meth was ready for this one. “I’ve expressed knowledge, or belief at least, of what could be considered disloyalty. If you’re working with Montby’s full knowledge, testing me perhaps, I’m a dead man. Or if this room were compromised, it would be the same fate.”
Eltore leaned backwards, his face momentarily dipping into the enchantment that flowed across the surface of the room. Methaneumar tried to hold the man’s gaze, but the pounding in his head intensified until he was forced to look away.
“Absolutely correct. We’re bound together in this now,” said the darkness. “Have you ever been inside Nightcross Park?”
Meth began to shake his head, but caught himself and replied with a respectful “No, sir,” instead.
“I didn’t think so. It’s private property, fenced and guarded, surrounded by cemeteries on two sides and the cheapest bordellos on the other two. Even if you could sneak past the wardens at the gates, why would you want to?
“Montby has had me filling it with zombies for years now. There are hundreds of the things roaming about, and they’re not all the mindless shamblers that occasionally turn up in the wilderness. I’ve been experimenting, creating variants that are stronger, or faster, or specialized at particular tasks.”
Meth’s brain turned back to a line of thinking it had briefly pursued just prior to this meeting. They DID procure enough tissue for a zombie army. Eltore couldn’t possibly control it though.“Why he wanted this done, Montby never said. He knows I could never control more than a score of the creatures at once. It’s possible I could control wave after wave, if there were ever a large enough threat to send them against, such as an invading army that had gotten past the king’s soldiers. Though it would surely overrun us while I was switching my focus.
“What Montby doesn’t know, what few mundanes know in fact, is that wizards can combine their powers under certain conditions. And when they do, the effect is multiplicative rather than additive.
“You have potential Methaneumar. I can feel it, a faint resonance in your blood. I want to train you as my apprentice, and when you’re ready, we’ll combine our talents to command the horde. Montby’s organization will be ours. Perhaps one day, all of Tralgar.”
Eltore pointed a long bony finger at Meth’s chest and whispered a quick incantation. A short burst of light, clearly visible and yet not of any color Meth could describe, erupted from the outstretched phalange and struck the younger man just above the heart. He immediately felt a surge of energy, followed by an intense itching sensation in his wounded hand.
“Commanding the energies contained within the universe requires precision. I won’t allow my apprentice the handicap of such maiming,” Eltore explained.
Meth was so enraptured, by both his newly elevated status and the rapid regeneration process he currently experienced, that he completely forgot that Eltore still had his finger in a jar somewhere.
When he eventually left the room, its location no longer a secret, he additionally failed to notice the four bodies, one pressed against each wall. Hidden by the spell of obfuscation, Eltore’s four disposable minions went unobserved, patiently waiting to one day rise again.
Yassil looked up from his workbench, doubly surprised by the knocking at his door. None of his students were expected today, and he very rarely had any other visitors. Few knew the value of his craftsmanship, and those few also knew that he had no interest in monetizing his hobby.
Even more surprising, Yassil hadn’t heard his visitor approach. Even with the years piling up, he could hear creeping shadow fey at a hundred yards. Either he’d been far more engrossed in his latest project than was healthy, or his visitor had some form of concealment. Neither was heartening.
Yassil ignored the sound and went back to work, hoping this unanticipated arrival would go away. Repeated knocking, coming steadily at regular intervals, proved the futility of that hope.
Even after several minutes, the knocking had the same force and rhythm as it had possessed at the onset. This mysterious visitor showed no signs of impatience or that he might tire. The same couldn’t be said of Yassil.
The grey haired music teacher finally gave up his attempts at disregarding the sound, putting away his experiment and slowly making his way to the door. He picked up a few small weapons along the way, carefully concealing them where he could reach them quickly, just in case. He wasn’t a violent man by inclination, but no one reached his age without always being prepared.
Yassil pulled the door inward, revealing an unremarkable looking man on the other side, poised in the middle of knocking once more. The stranger wore a short sword at his waist, with no attempt to conceal the weapon, as well as boots and gloves that bore matching symbols.
The man smelled human, and no human could have snuck up so quietly, confirming Yassil’s suspicions of magic. That, combined with the consistent dress, told the music teacher that this was an official from one of the major economic powers, or at least someone impersonating such a figure. “Please excuse my tardiness in answering. Neither the ears nor the joints work so well at my age. How may I be of assistance?”
“My employer wishes to construct a musical instrument that will incorporate the various schools of magic into the music it produces. It will be an organ of sorts, but one unlike any the world has heard before. Diagrams have been drawn up, but to complete the machine, my employer requires a master of all aspects of the craft. He requires the best. He requires you, Sir Yassil.”
Yassil sighed, suddenly very sure he would be needing at least one of the daggers he’d just palmed. “I’ve already heard the offers of your employer, and written him back with an explanation of my refusal. I’m sorry if the message never made it back. Goblins have been raiding along the main highway lately, but I never suspected they’d attack an armed courier.”
The stranger’s faint smile never wavered. “Perhaps we could adjust the terms to something more fitting? I have forty imperial talents of silver available as an upfront payment, in case you had any doubts about the legitimacy of the offer.”
“It’s not a matter of price,” Yassil answered. “The design calls for the incorporation of sympathetic magic. Such an instrument could easily be weaponized.”
“All the more reason for you to accept the offer,” replied the stranger without missing a beat. “You could steer the designs away from such a possibility. Another, less skilled artist would certainly fail to see the unintended potential you so astutely recognized.”
Yassil felt a strange desire to trust this man, and an even stranger desire to please him. Such quick acceptance ran counter to his nature, alerting him that someone was attempting to influence him through magical means.
Yassil flipped the small blade hidden in his grasp, slashing it across the stranger’s throat before the man could even reach for his sword. As the visitor fell and died, Yassil jumped over him and rolled to his feet far beyond the doorway. He spun and darted to the side, constantly moving as he scanned the complete 360 degrees for the mage that had attempted to charm him.
The magic user hovered twenty feet above Yassil’s cottage, an intelligent position to take, as most men never bothered to look up. It wasn’t enough to save him though, as the music teacher’s second knife flew from his hand. The enchanted weapon parted the young mage’s invisible shield, striking his heart and killing him instantly.
Yassil saw motion out of the corner of his eye and dove to the side, narrowly avoiding the long curved blade that sailed past. He rolled back to his feet with two more knives in his hands, lamenting that he hadn’t bought enchantments for the rest of his weapons.
A white furry shape unfolded from the shadows, and Yassil wondered how the catman had hidden himself.
“Elf.” The yellow-eyed assassin growled the word, somehow filling it with more contempt than should be possible, and Yassil picked up yet another mystery. The feline folk were staunch allies of the elven kingdoms, often allowing elves and related races to visit their holy City of Light. Yassil had never known any of their kind to be marked as enemies.
The cat warrior practically stalked as it circled, effortlessly twirling a long curved blade that appeared to be a cross between broadsword and scimitar. Yassil backed away, wondering why it didn’t charge immediately. This was his home, and time was on his side. A hidden weapon, an unexpected visitor, all such surprises would be in his favor.
The feline stopped when it reached Yassil’s doorway, bending over the body of his former companion and emptying the pockets.
Yassil chose that moment to attack, throwing both his remaining knives. Almost unbelievably, the creature somehow twisted to avoid each of them. It made it appear effortless, not even pausing in its looting.
“You’re toying with me.” As soon as he said it, Yassil understood the creature’s motivation. It was insane.
“I prolong the hunt,” hissed the creature. “You hide poorly, elf. You do nothing about your reek.”
Yassil had hidden among humans for decades, mimicking their kind and using his meager magical talents to feign the process of aging. It had never occurred to him to change his odor, not for the sake of the surrounding simple folk anyway.
Yassil turned and ran, realizing he had no other options. He was at least a foot taller than the catman, with a much longer stride. It might have better endurance, but in a flat out sprint, he should emerge the victor. Its only chance would be to hobble him with a thrown weapon, and it appeared to only carry the one sword, a blade far too large for hurling.
Yassil only made half a dozen steps before something skewered his left thigh and brought him down. Impossibly, the cat warrior was just behind him, its fur not even ruffled from moving so quickly.
The mad assassin left its weapon in Yassil’s leg, loping around to face him with only its claws brandished. “Pull it free. Draw my blade and use it. Fight. Resist defeat, as even the common animals will do.”
Yassil could barely reach the hilt of the weapon, so he pressed his palms tightly against the flat of the blade and pushed away, slowly working it free that way. The weapon slipped away and clattered to the ground while Yassil gasped in shock. Blood poured from his thigh in a torrent and the pain was already diminishing. It appeared his femoral artery had been cut, if not entirely torn apart.
Yassil managed to grip the weapon, even though his arms were now shaking. He’d be dead in a minute, but that was too long. As he drove the blade towards his own heart, he only hoped he’d finally taken the cat by surprise.
The blade cut into Yassil’s sternum, but it was knocked away before it could penetrate deeply enough to do its job. Bewildered, his head now spinning, Yassil was helpless to resist as something wrapped tightly around his leg, staunching the flow of life sustaining fluid.
“You might as well let me die,” he muttered. “I’ll never build that machine. Torture won’t break me, and you’ve already seen that you can’t magically charm me into obedience.”
“We have stronger spells,” grunted the cat warrior with sadistic satisfaction.
“You don’t understand,” Yassil tried one final time. “The sympathetic magic will dominate the other enchantments. Sooner or later it will be weaponized. If the other components are charged strongly enough, we could be talking about genocide.”
The cat warrior patted the elf on the head condescendingly. “Why do you think Montby wants it?”
