Scry Me A Prophecy
Chapter 8 of Children of Luzistor
One day in Eolca, a boy was toying with a looking glass, using the sun to burn tracks in dry leaves. He came across a dead fly. Naturally he had to burn a hole in it. A tendril of white smoke drifted up. Naturally he had to know what it smelled like. When he came to a few moments later, he knew he'd stumbled onto something profitable. And so the Red Claws came to have the world's most powerful and disabling stink bombs.
Jili had talked Caladra out of several, promising to deliver the shamans out of their holding area. But it was still a long way to the ghost dock. Picard's combined teams would be waiting in ambush for pursuit, hoping to fight a delaying action until the Red Claws arrived. The amazons were not soldiers to be lightly expended. Their tactic was a fast, overwhelming assault designed to ensure no casualties.
A battle lord stomped past Jili's position beside a storage bin. Her stealth magic convinced him not to look down; there was nothing to see here. Across the way, the two shamans sat chained before their latest sacrifice, a man undoubtedly snatched from somewhere in the dark realms. He'd been drugged, it seemed, to make the job easier. Guarding them was a dragon lord, a taller version of the battle variety. It was strange seeing him pull guard duty. No one else was in the immediate vicinity.
The shamans would just have to understand about the stink bombs. Jili herself was immune to all things toxic and poisonous. She briefly wondered if Jonturi was too. But that failed dream was of no consequence. She was still alone in the world, had no need for any tag-alongs.
Timing was everything. Jili waited until the older shaman raised his knife for the sacrifice, the other readying his glowing wand for the tlingit capture. Both the dark lords were watching it, which is when Jili threw a spread of the bombs. They erupted in a cloying white fog that had the shamans retching and covering their faces with their robes. Jili had no time for subtlety: she crept through the fog, which even gave the dark lords problems, to jab the battle lord with glass widow. At once, he fell to his knees, choking on the rapidly multiplying fibers in his lungs. Glass-like fibers burst out of him in every direction, until he went still. His flesh became white and pruny.
The dragon lord was a bigger problem. Jili sprang out of stealth to haul herself onto his shoulders, jabbing him with a pin tipped with pass through. He went rigid as his flesh turned blue-gray, soon rendering him Jili's undead servant. She whispered in his ear, then dropped down. The lord pulled his long cavalry sword and smashed the chains binding the captives.
"Bring them," Jili commanded. The shamans were unceremoniously dragged behind the hulking leather-armored figure. They were far behind enemy lines, as Picard had planned. The bulk of the enemy force prepared to meet them head-on in open areas. Not knowing precisely where, they had to spread themselves thinner than they'd like.
Jili's target was a weapons assembly shop shown on the map as being between main passages. She brought her strange group just outside the musty space, where a group of laborers worked on repair and refurbishing. A troll overseer stood in the corner. Jili powered up a homing star about a hand, waited for it to achieve nearly full brilliance, then released it. It flew a curving course above the astonished workers to smash into the troll and bounce him off the wall. Stunned or dead, she couldn't tell. The ragged workers fled out a side passage. From overhead came a storm of running feet, including the heavy tread of something larger. Had they brought a dragon down here?
Jili next led the group down a dank passage that served as garbage processing, which passed right under one of the main castellums above. It was sure to be crawling with enemy as well.
She should have made contact with advance elements of the team by now. Instead, it was only one, who stood across a shallow lake in a remote control station. A troll attendant lay with his head twisted completely around, courtesy of the Borg queen. Jili pushed her charges through knee-deep water to step onto the platform near her. Forced draft fans, powered by miracite, sent their condensate into the recirculating pool for use elsewhere on the station.
Queenie eyed the undead dragon lord. "This explains why I've lost contact with my drone. Your talents seem endless."
"That answers the question," Jili said, "why he was doing guard duty. I thought he was being punished for something." She made a cracked grin. "Put one over on Ardra, did you?"
The Borg queen strutted to and fro as if deciding what to do. "You should question the Romulan girl. I have seen her sneak away at night."
Could nobody be trusted? "I get it. If you can't have the prize, neither can she." Great. Now the team had to be alert for whatever stunt Vixia was going to pull.
Taking another tack, Queenie raised a hand as if to a fine idea. "The girl who fancies herself your sister. I can make her like you."
"I'll pass." Jonturi would be better off dead. "Stay away from her."
That maddening smirk. "Intimidation?"
"Whatever you want to call it, lady. Now, let's get back to our lines before the dark lords catch us here." Queenie merely sauntered away in a different direction, seeming to have a mental map of the place. But she'd always be lurking nearby, waiting to make a play for the shamans. How she intended to get them back to her universe was a good question. And the same for Vixia.
Jili scurried up a ladder to the next level, a tedious process for the undead lord, who pulled his charges along on their neck chains. If one of them slipped . . .
In a wind-swept corridor, their luck ran out. Four armored figures had been posted here, and came at the trot. Metal shape shifters. Jili prepared to reel up out of their way, but just then, the girl made of white metal began to move. Jili had mistaken her for a statue. The android swept the metal men with a scythe formed from an outstretched leg. They all went down, but the severed legs quickly reattached. Next she bent herself around them like a giant rubber band, crushing them into each other. But they sprouted extra arms and legs that threatened to turn the tables.
The undead lord grunted and pulled his sword, but Jili ordered him to stay with the captives. She tossed her cord to stick on the ceiling, swung over the combatants, then extended the other end to loop around a metal neck. The cord retracted enough to pull the figure off the floor. Platina had an easier time with one less to deal with, but the hanging one tried to seize Jili. In a tricky maneuver, she summoned the skeletoid and leapt free. The two fighters crashed to the floor, where the skeletoid screeched and hacked away, this time wielding a fire sword. Metal was cut free and melted, but it always flowed back together. The only thing being achieved was to keep this one occupied.
Platina, with her superior AI, had succeeded in wrenching off parts of her foes, throwing them away so far that they couldn't return. Deflecting their blows, she used a hand like giant shears to cut into a metal chest, opening this one like a can. With sufficient damage, the tortured tlingit departed like ash, leaving behind a sepulchral groan.
Jili finished off the last one with a flurry of sword strokes. Her slender blades were the hardest metal known, and succeeded in taking off the head. That done, she dispelled her familiar in a blue flash.
"Why send him away?" Platina asked. "He can warn us of danger ahead."
"Normally I do that. But here? He might be captured. If we're separated, I can't dispel him, and he's lost to me." She studied the statuesque android. "I can't believe you got away with posing as a statue."
Platina pondered that. "Being coated in gray would be a better disguise, but the effect would be lost the first time I shape-shifted." She eyed the big dragon lord. "You have a convert." The shamans gaped at Platina. They'd never seen one of their metal creations speak like this one did. But they recognized her construct.
The younger one, who called himself Krell, tugged at his chain to get close. "This is the work of our long-lost forebears. They had mechanical brains that we lack. Are there others?"
"There are seven of us," Platina said, "each of a different metal. We serve the greater good, and call no one master."
Jili addressed the one she'd heard called Mombassa. "As you can see, the money is in security—not weapons." Could this be what the prophecy referred to? That these men could see the light? It didn't seem likely. They were giving Platina calculating looks. Jili assessed them in turn. Killing them would solve the problem so elegantly. But the prophecy hinged on both her and Jonturi. What prophecy? Once the shamans were dead, problem solved. Unless there was a bigger picture here. Her hands were tied.
"Come," Platina said. "Our teammates lie in wait on high ground. At the proper time, a segment will lead pursuit into the trap. We must hurry."
[Nuko notes: the burned fly experiment is not a good idea.]