“He was a good man,” Bruenna said. Then the rest of what Lyese had said sunk in. “Master?”
“You’re even slower than Raksha,” the elf girl said, her voice still resonating weirdly between Lyese’s lilt and something deeper and much darker. “I’m not here to get you up to speed.” Without another word, Lyese danced forward, her blade singing. Bruenna parried clumsily, but the elf girl kept coming. The tackle lifted the mage off her feet, and she landed hard on the iron ground. The murderous elf held her pinned with a forearm and two knees then raised her sword as Bruenna struggled just to draw breath. Her sword arm felt numb.
“Why?” Bruenna managed to cough. She closed her eyes, waiting for the blow. “Your sister-”
A wave of heat washed over the mage and she felt the elf’s weight lifted. She sat upright and saw Lyese flying backward, a small goblin flamerocket embedded in her chest. The elf girl collided with great force against the avalanche debris, and the projectile held Lyese fast against the ironstone. The elf’s eyes flashed red and she dropped her sword, then reached up and grasped the sputtering rocket with both hands, and heaved it aside. The sputtering flamerocket spun out of control and exploded against the cliff wall.
“Back off, huh?” Dwugget growled. He offered Bruenna a hand up and she saw that the goblin held an iron firetube trained on the writhing Khanha.
“Thanks, Dwugget,” Bruenna gasped. “How did you know?”
“Always known,” Dwugget said sadly. “Since that ogre brought Raksha and Lyese to me, huh? I’m sorry. He said he’d destroy Krark-Home. There’s a bomb-”
“No!” The elf-if she was indeed that, which Bruenna was beginning to seriously doubt-roared like an ogre. She climbed like a broken automaton down from the rubble and scooped up her sword. She clutched at the bleeding hole in the center of her chest and coughed up a spray of blood, but remained on her feet. She glared at Bruenna. “This was supposed to be a body that would last, Neurok. Now I’ll have to take yours.”
Dwugget stepped up to her side and she heard a loud click as he slotted another flamerocket into the tube. “Can outrun a rocket, huh?” the goblin asked.
The thing that had taken control of Lyese seethed, but stayed put. “Dwugget, what’s going on?” Bruenna snapped. “What bomb?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Dwugget said. “We are lost anyway, huh? That-that’s no elf. It’s something called Vektro. Thing took her body, she’s not in there anymore. It’s Memnarch’s tool.”
“I’m going to gut you too, goblin,” the bleeding elf snarled.
“But it’s her body, Dwugget!” Bruenna said. “I can’t kill Glissa’s sister.”
“I can,” Dwugget said. “I’m already a murderer, many times over, huh?” The goblin raised the firetube and placed his thumb on the lever that would release another rocket into Lyese’s body.
Bruenna lunged sideways and knocked the flametube aside, sending the rocket spinning uselessly into the sky.
“Stupid!” Dwugget shouted. He stumbled with the impact and went over onto his side, Bruenna following, and they crashed together in a tangle of robes and limbs. Bruenna got to her knees in time to see Lyese’s body convulse violently, then drop like a sack of bones. A blood-red humanoid shape rose from her fallen form, hovered for a moment in the air, then condensed into a glowing ball. Bruenna felt the sphere pulse with mana and energy then accelerate into the ether. It disappeared into the haze of war.
“Lyese,” Bruenna gasped and crawled on all fours to the elf girl’s side. She pressed an ear to Lyese’s chest. “She’s alive. Barely.”
Dwugget scrambled to her side, and the mage held him back with her artifact hand. “You’ve done enough, don’t you think?” Bruenna said.
“I had no choice,” Dwugget began but fell silent at a look from the mage that threatened to burn through his skull.
The elf’s eyes fluttered open as Bruenna tore strips from her robe and pressed them against Lyese’s chest wound. “Lyese, can you hear me?” Bruenna said softly, thankful that the nearby fighting had not yet spilled over the rubble.
Lyese stared hard at Bruenna for a moment, then her eyes went wide. “Bruenna,” she said softly. “He’s gone.” The elf girl smiled. “He’s gone. The things he did … made me do. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Against Bruenna’s protestations, the elf girl sat up.
“Wasn’t you,” Dwugget said. “He’s gone.”
“Lyese, you’re badly hurt,” Bruenna broke in. She fished at her belt for nearly empty medical kit. She pulled out a small, transparent gem and held it over the elf’s wound. She whispered a few words in leonin, and the healing stone spread soft golden light over Lyese’s chest. The light grew in intensity until it was nearly blinding then faded. When it was gone, the hole in Lyese’s armor remained, but the blood had turned black and no longer flowed from her chest. The wound had closed, leaving a star-shaped scar on the exposed green skin.
Bruenna wiped beads of sweat from her forehead and sat back on the ground. “If that didn’t do it-”
The elf girl pulled herself to her feet. “Mana bomb…it’s in the Great Furnace,” Lyese said breathlessly. “I-he-Vektro put it there. It will take out this entire mountain.”
Dwugget gasped. “You know where it is? Then we can stop it?”
“No,” Lyese said. “There’s no time. It’s set to go off one hour after the fifth dawn.”
Bruenna stood and spun Lyese around by the shoulders. “The people in Krark-Home are not warriors. You have to get them out of there,” the mage said.
“Me?” Lyese said. “But I-”
“You’re the Khanha,” Bruenna said.
“That was a sham!” Lyese said. “I mean, I remember everything, but it wasn’t me doing it. Vektro was in control. I’m not a leader.”
“You’re the only leader they’ve got,” the mage said. “We’ll be with you, but you are the Tall Queen. I know you didn’t ask for this, but they need you.”
Without waiting for a response, Bruenna reached out to the energies of the Quicksilver Sea and felt the lines of power burn with her desperation. Within seconds the trio was airborne. The familiar flight magic took hold, and the trio floated upward. Lyese’s mouth opened in shock when she saw the carnage on the other side of the iron rubble that had shielded them from the battlefield.
“Flare!” Lyese said. “Let’s go. We have half an hour.”
Glissa could only watch as the elusive Malil-clone disappeared over the edge of the Panopticon disk. The second Malil continued to buzz her as she followed the first and third but hadn’t actually done her any harm, yet. They seemed more interested in annoying Glissa, keeping her distracted. It was working. She had the uncomfortable feeling she was being herded again.
Glissa passed the edge of the disk, noting that though it looked thin relative to the five massive support struts holding up that strange mesh sphere, it was at least four times as thick as she was tall. She rose over the surface, scanning for Raksha, but could spot neither the leonin nor his captor.
She cast a quick glance over her shoulder and saw two identical silver faces peeking over the edge of the disk. They grinned simultaneously and nodded, silently urging her onward. That was one difference between the copies and the original-these Malils seemed to have no affection for their own voices. If they even had voices.
Glissa flew cautiously toward the rebuilt Panopticon, where a bronze access door hung wide open. Next to the door, a flyer hovered a few inches off the ground, riderless. She walked with a calm she didn’t feel across the wide platform, reaching up to scratch her neck with her right claw. In the process, she tapped the ever-present pack slung over her shoulder.
“Geth,” Glissa whispered. There was no answer, though she could tell by the weight that he was still there. She pulled the strap and shook the bag.
“They’re not following,” Geth replied. “Just hovering there, smiling. I know creepy smiles, and sister, I could take lessons from those two.”