HUMERUS
By Mayavan Thevendra
Part 8 of 8
LEASE OF LIFE
Four souls danced and weaved through some unknown aspect of space, pulled helplessly forward. Against the harsh, wailing background of utter fear, Barry was vaguely conscious of - something. He knew where they were headed, and he knew that things had undeniably gone completely tits-up, but there was something else. Morag and Kevin seemed far away, almost invisible, but the golem was shining like a supernova, and suddenly, Barry knew that something important had happened. The golem had decided that, as enjoyable as a life of servitude spent trudging around the desert was, it was time to move onto other, hopefully better things. Seeing as how it had come to regard the three skeletons as valued associates, you might even say - friends, it had decided to leave them a gift. And in typical fashion, it had eschewed the traditional route of chocolates, flowers, or gift vouchers, and gone for something a little longer lasting.
The ancient spirit crystal, cursed and foul, its origin lost in the sands of time, was drawing the souls closer, when there was a sense of a terrific amount of weight abruptly vanishing, and suddenly, there was one soul less. A hungry, frenzied beast, the crystal tried to pull the remaining three closer, but they would not come. As vile a thing as this gem was, it was still bound by rules, and so could only absorb the souls of the truly dead. Now, inexplicably, there were none to be had. The void around them warped and wriggled as three very surprised souls received their friend's parting gift: the gift of blood, the gift of flesh - the gift of life.
Reality flickered somewhere behind, came hurtling brightly towards them, and smacked them in the face.
***
As it happened, reality was something akin to a cold shower - bracing, unfamiliar, and potentially fatal. Barry was vaguely aware of feeling much heavier and softer than normal, before something hard smashed into the flagstones beside his head. As he convulsed his way into a standing position, Tenblade's scimitar swung again, wildly. There was something very strange and alarming going on inside Barry's head, aside from the enormous sense of imminent peril. Legs that felt four sizes too big tripped and crumpled beneath him; with a ragged, rattling howl, Tenblade staggered forward, his sword bobbing above his head. His eyes were mad, now more bestial than demonic. He pulled back his scimitar, this time intent on finishing Barry for good - and then something hit him on the head.
"Hoi! Ge'away from him ye fekker!"
Barry watched in daft bewilderment as two people he'd never seen before in his life threw chunks of stone and metal at the tottering giant.
"Barry, quick - get the bloody sword!"
The sword. It was laying there, a wounded, discarded thing, framed by a throng of living shadows that even now had begun to recover their bearings and will. Barry scrambled back onto his feet, and with a gait of movement that most likely felt as odd as it looked, he made a wild sprint for the blade.
Yet another projectile stung Tenblade, striking his temple and sending him stumbling. He was an enraged animal, and saw nothing of Barry as he flopped his way though the gloom, not until his hand had wrapped around the sword's hilt. Silver light sprang out into the darkness, muscle and tendon flexed with unnatural precision, and with a great flying leap, Barry swung the sword.
He landed lightly, and a moment afterwards, there followed a sharp crack as the soul crystal struck the floor, hacked free of Tenblade's forehead; his power was lost. In a final fit of desperate rage, the demon flung himself forward, his scimitar thrust out in front. Barry made one stroke to parry the blade, another to sever the arm, and a third to draw a gash across Tenblade's belly that brought him, finally, to his knees. Tenblade stared back, his eyes lit by a quivering glow, his shoulders and flanks a horrible mess of bone and gore.
"SO."
"So." Said Barry.
He felt an undeniable urge to gloat. And not just to gloat, but to carve Tenblade into as many pieces as his imagination and energy would allow. But Barry had been here before, and he knew only too well how unforgiving decisions such as these were to those who chose poorly. A great wall of indignant monstrous fury swelled around them as Tenblade's young pressed in for the attack; with no more delay, Barry spun, the blade a thin razor of light, and cut Tenblade's head from his neck.
For just a moment, it seemed that the headless body tried to heave itself up off its knees, but as a torrent of black blood spilled from the stump, the corpse fell to the ground, lifeless and limp. A great shudder passed through the ranks of demons, and they halted, staring at their patriarch's body. There was no rage left, no bloodlust; leaderless, fatherless and powerless, they felt only fear. They gave a raucous, desolate cry that was both terrifying and terrified, and fled from the hall in mad, shrieking droves, deep into the shadows of the crypt.
Somewhere, in some unknown realm of existence, Barry felt his luck run out.
"Barry! Barry, are ye a'right?"
Obviously the peculiar sensation in his brain had affected his vision - the sight of two naked people running up towards him, their flesh pink and baby- like, their bits jiggling all over the place, was one that must surely have been produced by some form of dementia.
"God, Barry, look at you!"
It sounded like Kevin - the old Kevin, and it even looked like him, although considerably meatier than Barry had ever seen him before. Peering cautiously downwards, Barry examined himself.
"Bloody hell."
Flesh, pink and baby-like. Senses and articulation based upon biological means rather than magickal. He was alive. They all were, and it was pretty obvious to all of them who was responsible. For some strange reason, Barry couldn't help but feel angry - angry that only three of them should survive, angry that he hadn't spent more time with Fleshy, and angry at himself for being such a damned coward, for being so weak as to have allowed things to happen this way. Barry had barely spoken a pleasant word to the flesh golem, in all of their travels, and yet, it had given its life for them. It wasn't supposed to have turned out like this.
"Oh, Barry," said Morag as she cleared aside tangles of curly, fiery red hair, "what are we going to do now?"
"Now?" said Barry. "As far as I can see, any of a million and one things, love. But hanging around here ain't one of them."
He turned the blade in his hand one last time, before casting it down to rest beside Tenblade's body. Almost immediately, and with a marked sense of relief, he felt its influence withdraw, sucked inwards into the fabric of the sword as if to recuperate and await another's hand.
"Aren't you taking it?" asked Kevin.
"Aye, it's a pretty powerful piece o' steel," added Morag, "it might come in handy."
"It might." Said Barry, staring grimly down at it, "but there's something not right about that thing. Let someone else have it. If they're dim enough to come all the way down here," he said, peering into the shifting dark of the hall, "then they'll deserve it."
A cold, electric blue light seeped up from below as the three of them descended the great stone steps. Picking their way through the heaps of demonic dead, they approached the light's source - a glimmering way portal, and close-by was the hunched and beaten form of the Man in Black. From the look of things, the fight had ended nary a moment too soon. His hastily summoned exit would have proven unreachable had Tenblade's horde not taken flight. Now, as he hobbled awkwardly towards it, he called out once again, his psychic voice piercing the ethereal realm between thought and sound.
"MINIONS HELP."
Barry, Morag and Kevin stared back at him for a moment, as if waiting for, and thoroughly expecting something to happen. A few tense moments passed, after which it still hadn't come.
"Hmm. Help, eh?" said Barry, beaming with relief.
"MINIONS HELP." Repeated the Man in Black, doddering somewhere between stooping half-upright, and falling on his face.
"Right, right, I heard you the first time, mate." Barry said, walking towards him. Very gently, he took the weight off the Man's injured leg, and eased him up, before kneeing him in the crotch.
"OOOOONNG!" Said the psychic voice of the Man in Black.
"You can take your 'Minions this' and 'Minions that' and stick it up your arse, you bleedin' twat!" said Barry, and walked past him into the way- portal.
"Aye, what he said!" Morag snapped, sniffing in the Man's direction and following Barry through.
"UUUUNGH.UGG - GOING TO BE.SICK."
Kevin bent down so that he was face to face with the doubled-up necromancer, and flashed him a sympathetic smile.
"Really sorry about that - traumatic experience, feelings running high, I'm sure you understand. Anyway, it's been lovely working for you, a real peach, but consider our service agreement hereby terminated." Said Kevin, before he strolled past, turned around, kicked the Man in Black in the backside and disappeared into the portal.
***
Lut Gholein was evidently a very different place, once one had acquired a pulse.
At first, the Jewel City of the desert was undeniably frightening, every noise an alarm - though this was remedied by stealing some clothes from an unobserved washing line and putting an end to a flagrant and unlawful display of public nakedness. To those inclined to be fully clothed, Lut Gholein was nothing short of spectacular. The number of stories that could be told in a city such as this, the number of directions a person's life could take, was as limitless as the colours and sounds and scents that sprang from every street.
Right now, the direction that three people in particular had chosen was straight towards the nearest pub.
"So wha's next then?" asked Morag, tying back her hair as they walked.
"You mean after getting horrifically pissed?" asked Kevin.
"Aye, after that."
"Heh, who knows? The sky's the limit, I'd say. Of course, since neither you or me have got any more magic left in us than in a dog's fart, so to speak, we'll be on even terms with everyone else - but so much the better."
"Ye think?"
"Definitely. It feels right this way, you know? Like a clean start, completely clean. It's going to be terrific - right, Barry? Barry?"
Barry looked back distractedly, startled out of his quiet musing.
"Hmm?" he mumbled.
"Ye a'right there?" asked Morag, as the three of them stopped.
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. I, uh.I was just thinking about Fleshy."
A new, unblemished face, ruddy and rosy, and Barry had already creased it with lines of concern. Kevin and Morag could clearly see the pain across it, as Barry shook his head, and glared at the sand around at his feet.
"It's just."
"No." said Morag, with a sudden sharpness that made Barry look back up.
"Eh?"
"I said no. I'm not going to let ye bury yourself in guilt and self-pity, Barry! Now ye listen to me - Fleshy's dead, an' nothin's going to change that, but he gave us life! Life! Here an' ye wanted to die for an age, an' ye always said how much of a joke it was to be us, and now we've got a real, proper second go at it! We're alive, and he's with us, love - he'll always be with us."
"Right, mate. And in more ways than one." Said Kevin, who put his hand to his face and gave his cheek a jiggle that made Barry smile.
"So now, come on Barry," pleaded Morag, "wha's next for us?"
Barry stared silently back, rubbed his forehead, and finally said:
"You mean after getting pissed?"
"Aye! Right!"
Barry's smile broadened into a grin, and with a glint in his eye, he put his arms around the other two, and pushed them on towards the tavern ahead.
"Well, for starters.we're going to tell every sod with a pair of ears what we just did - excluding the bit about us formerly being undead minions, of course. We'll be famous, 'the heroes who escaped Tenblade's lair'!"
"Uh-huh, and I suppose it won't matter that we cannae prove a word of it?" laughed Morag.
"Proof? We've got the greatest tale ever told under our belts," raved Barry, "a bit of drama, a bit of theatre, and we'll have 'em eating out of our hands - who needs proof?"
"Crikey, I still can't believe you actually did it," said Kevin with a chuckle. "You killed Tenblade. You, of all people."
"Aye, Barry against Tenblade - now there's a match-up!"
"We'll, you know," said Barry, "to be dead honest, he really wasn't all that tough, especially not at the end. In fact."
"No, no, don't do it!" gurgled Kevin, his hands over his mouth.
"You, heh, you might even say."
"Och, Barry, I'm warnin' ye!" moaned Morag.
".That he was completely armless! Armless! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
Morag buried her face in her hands, whilst Kevin got down onto his knees, and pretended to retch.
"Oh come on!" Cried Barry "Armless! Come on! That was funny!"
Kevin was right - it, life, was going to be terrific, simply because it was now theirs, and not some mysterious Man in Black's. The future was rushing headlong into the present - three minutes from now, they would reach the tavern eager for a drink and find that in their excitement, they had overlooked the fact that they had absolutely no money. Twenty seconds on from then, Barry would catch sight of a rather fat leather purse, hanging precariously, you might even say invitingly, from the sash of a plump, wealthy looking woman carrying a wooden staff.
And who knows what would happen after that.
THE END
By Mayavan Thevendra
Part 8 of 8
LEASE OF LIFE
Four souls danced and weaved through some unknown aspect of space, pulled helplessly forward. Against the harsh, wailing background of utter fear, Barry was vaguely conscious of - something. He knew where they were headed, and he knew that things had undeniably gone completely tits-up, but there was something else. Morag and Kevin seemed far away, almost invisible, but the golem was shining like a supernova, and suddenly, Barry knew that something important had happened. The golem had decided that, as enjoyable as a life of servitude spent trudging around the desert was, it was time to move onto other, hopefully better things. Seeing as how it had come to regard the three skeletons as valued associates, you might even say - friends, it had decided to leave them a gift. And in typical fashion, it had eschewed the traditional route of chocolates, flowers, or gift vouchers, and gone for something a little longer lasting.
The ancient spirit crystal, cursed and foul, its origin lost in the sands of time, was drawing the souls closer, when there was a sense of a terrific amount of weight abruptly vanishing, and suddenly, there was one soul less. A hungry, frenzied beast, the crystal tried to pull the remaining three closer, but they would not come. As vile a thing as this gem was, it was still bound by rules, and so could only absorb the souls of the truly dead. Now, inexplicably, there were none to be had. The void around them warped and wriggled as three very surprised souls received their friend's parting gift: the gift of blood, the gift of flesh - the gift of life.
Reality flickered somewhere behind, came hurtling brightly towards them, and smacked them in the face.
***
As it happened, reality was something akin to a cold shower - bracing, unfamiliar, and potentially fatal. Barry was vaguely aware of feeling much heavier and softer than normal, before something hard smashed into the flagstones beside his head. As he convulsed his way into a standing position, Tenblade's scimitar swung again, wildly. There was something very strange and alarming going on inside Barry's head, aside from the enormous sense of imminent peril. Legs that felt four sizes too big tripped and crumpled beneath him; with a ragged, rattling howl, Tenblade staggered forward, his sword bobbing above his head. His eyes were mad, now more bestial than demonic. He pulled back his scimitar, this time intent on finishing Barry for good - and then something hit him on the head.
"Hoi! Ge'away from him ye fekker!"
Barry watched in daft bewilderment as two people he'd never seen before in his life threw chunks of stone and metal at the tottering giant.
"Barry, quick - get the bloody sword!"
The sword. It was laying there, a wounded, discarded thing, framed by a throng of living shadows that even now had begun to recover their bearings and will. Barry scrambled back onto his feet, and with a gait of movement that most likely felt as odd as it looked, he made a wild sprint for the blade.
Yet another projectile stung Tenblade, striking his temple and sending him stumbling. He was an enraged animal, and saw nothing of Barry as he flopped his way though the gloom, not until his hand had wrapped around the sword's hilt. Silver light sprang out into the darkness, muscle and tendon flexed with unnatural precision, and with a great flying leap, Barry swung the sword.
He landed lightly, and a moment afterwards, there followed a sharp crack as the soul crystal struck the floor, hacked free of Tenblade's forehead; his power was lost. In a final fit of desperate rage, the demon flung himself forward, his scimitar thrust out in front. Barry made one stroke to parry the blade, another to sever the arm, and a third to draw a gash across Tenblade's belly that brought him, finally, to his knees. Tenblade stared back, his eyes lit by a quivering glow, his shoulders and flanks a horrible mess of bone and gore.
"SO."
"So." Said Barry.
He felt an undeniable urge to gloat. And not just to gloat, but to carve Tenblade into as many pieces as his imagination and energy would allow. But Barry had been here before, and he knew only too well how unforgiving decisions such as these were to those who chose poorly. A great wall of indignant monstrous fury swelled around them as Tenblade's young pressed in for the attack; with no more delay, Barry spun, the blade a thin razor of light, and cut Tenblade's head from his neck.
For just a moment, it seemed that the headless body tried to heave itself up off its knees, but as a torrent of black blood spilled from the stump, the corpse fell to the ground, lifeless and limp. A great shudder passed through the ranks of demons, and they halted, staring at their patriarch's body. There was no rage left, no bloodlust; leaderless, fatherless and powerless, they felt only fear. They gave a raucous, desolate cry that was both terrifying and terrified, and fled from the hall in mad, shrieking droves, deep into the shadows of the crypt.
Somewhere, in some unknown realm of existence, Barry felt his luck run out.
"Barry! Barry, are ye a'right?"
Obviously the peculiar sensation in his brain had affected his vision - the sight of two naked people running up towards him, their flesh pink and baby- like, their bits jiggling all over the place, was one that must surely have been produced by some form of dementia.
"God, Barry, look at you!"
It sounded like Kevin - the old Kevin, and it even looked like him, although considerably meatier than Barry had ever seen him before. Peering cautiously downwards, Barry examined himself.
"Bloody hell."
Flesh, pink and baby-like. Senses and articulation based upon biological means rather than magickal. He was alive. They all were, and it was pretty obvious to all of them who was responsible. For some strange reason, Barry couldn't help but feel angry - angry that only three of them should survive, angry that he hadn't spent more time with Fleshy, and angry at himself for being such a damned coward, for being so weak as to have allowed things to happen this way. Barry had barely spoken a pleasant word to the flesh golem, in all of their travels, and yet, it had given its life for them. It wasn't supposed to have turned out like this.
"Oh, Barry," said Morag as she cleared aside tangles of curly, fiery red hair, "what are we going to do now?"
"Now?" said Barry. "As far as I can see, any of a million and one things, love. But hanging around here ain't one of them."
He turned the blade in his hand one last time, before casting it down to rest beside Tenblade's body. Almost immediately, and with a marked sense of relief, he felt its influence withdraw, sucked inwards into the fabric of the sword as if to recuperate and await another's hand.
"Aren't you taking it?" asked Kevin.
"Aye, it's a pretty powerful piece o' steel," added Morag, "it might come in handy."
"It might." Said Barry, staring grimly down at it, "but there's something not right about that thing. Let someone else have it. If they're dim enough to come all the way down here," he said, peering into the shifting dark of the hall, "then they'll deserve it."
A cold, electric blue light seeped up from below as the three of them descended the great stone steps. Picking their way through the heaps of demonic dead, they approached the light's source - a glimmering way portal, and close-by was the hunched and beaten form of the Man in Black. From the look of things, the fight had ended nary a moment too soon. His hastily summoned exit would have proven unreachable had Tenblade's horde not taken flight. Now, as he hobbled awkwardly towards it, he called out once again, his psychic voice piercing the ethereal realm between thought and sound.
"MINIONS HELP."
Barry, Morag and Kevin stared back at him for a moment, as if waiting for, and thoroughly expecting something to happen. A few tense moments passed, after which it still hadn't come.
"Hmm. Help, eh?" said Barry, beaming with relief.
"MINIONS HELP." Repeated the Man in Black, doddering somewhere between stooping half-upright, and falling on his face.
"Right, right, I heard you the first time, mate." Barry said, walking towards him. Very gently, he took the weight off the Man's injured leg, and eased him up, before kneeing him in the crotch.
"OOOOONNG!" Said the psychic voice of the Man in Black.
"You can take your 'Minions this' and 'Minions that' and stick it up your arse, you bleedin' twat!" said Barry, and walked past him into the way- portal.
"Aye, what he said!" Morag snapped, sniffing in the Man's direction and following Barry through.
"UUUUNGH.UGG - GOING TO BE.SICK."
Kevin bent down so that he was face to face with the doubled-up necromancer, and flashed him a sympathetic smile.
"Really sorry about that - traumatic experience, feelings running high, I'm sure you understand. Anyway, it's been lovely working for you, a real peach, but consider our service agreement hereby terminated." Said Kevin, before he strolled past, turned around, kicked the Man in Black in the backside and disappeared into the portal.
***
Lut Gholein was evidently a very different place, once one had acquired a pulse.
At first, the Jewel City of the desert was undeniably frightening, every noise an alarm - though this was remedied by stealing some clothes from an unobserved washing line and putting an end to a flagrant and unlawful display of public nakedness. To those inclined to be fully clothed, Lut Gholein was nothing short of spectacular. The number of stories that could be told in a city such as this, the number of directions a person's life could take, was as limitless as the colours and sounds and scents that sprang from every street.
Right now, the direction that three people in particular had chosen was straight towards the nearest pub.
"So wha's next then?" asked Morag, tying back her hair as they walked.
"You mean after getting horrifically pissed?" asked Kevin.
"Aye, after that."
"Heh, who knows? The sky's the limit, I'd say. Of course, since neither you or me have got any more magic left in us than in a dog's fart, so to speak, we'll be on even terms with everyone else - but so much the better."
"Ye think?"
"Definitely. It feels right this way, you know? Like a clean start, completely clean. It's going to be terrific - right, Barry? Barry?"
Barry looked back distractedly, startled out of his quiet musing.
"Hmm?" he mumbled.
"Ye a'right there?" asked Morag, as the three of them stopped.
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. I, uh.I was just thinking about Fleshy."
A new, unblemished face, ruddy and rosy, and Barry had already creased it with lines of concern. Kevin and Morag could clearly see the pain across it, as Barry shook his head, and glared at the sand around at his feet.
"It's just."
"No." said Morag, with a sudden sharpness that made Barry look back up.
"Eh?"
"I said no. I'm not going to let ye bury yourself in guilt and self-pity, Barry! Now ye listen to me - Fleshy's dead, an' nothin's going to change that, but he gave us life! Life! Here an' ye wanted to die for an age, an' ye always said how much of a joke it was to be us, and now we've got a real, proper second go at it! We're alive, and he's with us, love - he'll always be with us."
"Right, mate. And in more ways than one." Said Kevin, who put his hand to his face and gave his cheek a jiggle that made Barry smile.
"So now, come on Barry," pleaded Morag, "wha's next for us?"
Barry stared silently back, rubbed his forehead, and finally said:
"You mean after getting pissed?"
"Aye! Right!"
Barry's smile broadened into a grin, and with a glint in his eye, he put his arms around the other two, and pushed them on towards the tavern ahead.
"Well, for starters.we're going to tell every sod with a pair of ears what we just did - excluding the bit about us formerly being undead minions, of course. We'll be famous, 'the heroes who escaped Tenblade's lair'!"
"Uh-huh, and I suppose it won't matter that we cannae prove a word of it?" laughed Morag.
"Proof? We've got the greatest tale ever told under our belts," raved Barry, "a bit of drama, a bit of theatre, and we'll have 'em eating out of our hands - who needs proof?"
"Crikey, I still can't believe you actually did it," said Kevin with a chuckle. "You killed Tenblade. You, of all people."
"Aye, Barry against Tenblade - now there's a match-up!"
"We'll, you know," said Barry, "to be dead honest, he really wasn't all that tough, especially not at the end. In fact."
"No, no, don't do it!" gurgled Kevin, his hands over his mouth.
"You, heh, you might even say."
"Och, Barry, I'm warnin' ye!" moaned Morag.
".That he was completely armless! Armless! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
Morag buried her face in her hands, whilst Kevin got down onto his knees, and pretended to retch.
"Oh come on!" Cried Barry "Armless! Come on! That was funny!"
Kevin was right - it, life, was going to be terrific, simply because it was now theirs, and not some mysterious Man in Black's. The future was rushing headlong into the present - three minutes from now, they would reach the tavern eager for a drink and find that in their excitement, they had overlooked the fact that they had absolutely no money. Twenty seconds on from then, Barry would catch sight of a rather fat leather purse, hanging precariously, you might even say invitingly, from the sash of a plump, wealthy looking woman carrying a wooden staff.
And who knows what would happen after that.
THE END