The Staff of Naught (18 page)

“Let the stupid be heroes,” said Lorim as he sidled up next to Tanner with a smirk. “We tradesmen will just stay at home and lead our boring little lives and accumulate the wealth and power.”

Tanner looked down at the little man and started to say something but then closed his mouth with an abrupt slam. “You will accompany us into town trade master,” he finally said and pointed towards his wagon where his wife and children already packed things away.

“He walks too fast,” said Ariana her little arms swinging back and forth as she tried to keep up with Shamki’s huge strides. The half-orc seemed to move languidly his motions smooth and even but somehow he managed to move among the boulders and rocks at a speed the girl could not maintain. Only a few hundred yards into the hills he was already far ahead of she and Humbort. Unerus, his arms pumping wildly, was able to keep up but only barely and Lousa was in between the two groups. “Wait, wait,” called Ariana and the elf featured woman stopped, looked back at the two stragglers, and then paused herself.

“It’s okay,” said Humbort. “Shamki will wait. He always does. He’s my best friend.”

Ariana looked up at the tall fellow with the simple expression on his face. His features were narrow and gaunt but there was always that cheerful grin and she couldn’t help but smile back at him. “You’re right Humbort but we should try to keep up anyway. I wish I was grown up and tall like you.”

“I wish I was smart and brave like you,” replied the tall man with a lopsided grin and he took the girl by the hand and helped her over a nasty patch of rocks that blocked their path. Within a few moments they caught up to Lousa who scanned the rocky terrain ahead for signs of Unerus and Shamki.

“They went around that corner there,” she said and pointed her finger ahead.

“You are better now,” said Humbort to the woman with that smile of his.

“Yes, yes, I’m feeling much better,” she replied with her own smile. “I know there hasn’t been time but I am rather wondering what happened back there? I remember Khemer taking the staff in his hand and Hazle realized what he was doing, the traitorous wretch, I should have seen that was what he was after all along. What a fool I am,” she said and slapped her own forehead. “Of course he wanted to use the staff to bring himself back to corporeal form. How could I not have seen it?”

“What’s corp … corpral?” said Ariana.

“You answer my question first,” said Lousa with a smile and then she pointed to a flash of movement up ahead. “There they are, come on, talk as we go. Khemer took up the staff and then it’s all a blank.”

“He cast a spell at you!” said Ariana. “Out of the staff, it was like fingers of ice and it hit you right in the boobs!”

Lousa looked down at her chest, “They are a rather big target.”

Ariana giggled and Humbort guffawed out loud and began to slap his knee with his hand.

“The next thing I remember was waking up by the fire and you and Shalalee were rubbing me,” said the woman and patted Ariana on the head.

“It was mostly Hazlebub,” said the girl. “She knew what to do. Tylan made the fire big and we dragged you over. You were cold all over, I thought you were dead.”

“I’m tougher than I look,” said Lousa with a smile at the girl. “However, my memory is coming back to me now a little bit and there was a moment there, when you brought the staff over to Khemer, you said something to him, what was it … Illumonor?”

Ariana shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t remember, it all happened so fast,” she said and then began to move ahead over the rocks trying to catch up to the boys.

Lousa watched her scramble away for a few seconds and then shook her head. “Lucifor, no, what was it?”

“There!” said Shamki in his quiet voice as he and Unerus clambered on top of a large black rock, split in half, its inside beautifully smooth and glossy. The half-orc sniffed at the air and pointed down and around a small bend where a small figure dressed in a long purple robe stumbled for a moment as she tried to navigate past a field of broken boulders the staff clutched in her left hand. “She’s alone, no soldiers.”

“What is she?” asked Unerus his sharp eyes able to make out some details from this distance.

“Darkling, evil,” said Shamki and looked back towards where the other three members of the group struggled to keep up. “Catch before she goes ground,” he finished and moved forward. He pointed with a quick flip of his wrist towards an easy path through the rubble and nodded with his head, “you flank.”

Unerus wasn’t exactly sure what ‘flank’ meant but he certainly knew that he half-orc wanted him to circle around to where the darkling moved and get ahead of her. The boy immediately took to foot with quick movements between the boulders. In the meantime Shamki began his own move with a leap that took him at least ten feet across a gap in the trail and landed with a thump that sent several rocks skittering to the ground. The noise immediately made its way to the figure ahead and she abruptly turned and scanned the area for sign of pursuit. It didn’t take her long to spot the swift Shamki who hopped form rock to rock like a billy goat the distance between them narrowed in great gulps.

It took her only a few seconds of movement to realize she had no chance to escape the fast pursuer so she stopped and turned to face him taking position on a rock that gave her a good view. She reached into her cloak and pulled out a small package but then, unable to open it with one hand, put down the Staff of Naught and quickly poured the contents into her palm. When Shamki popped up on a rock she blew into her hand and said,

Powdered spider friends

From the black queen’s heart

To my enemy your venom send!

The powder puffed into the air and then coalesced into a dozen black spiders with red diamonds on their back. The creatures were each about the size of small rabbit and they immediately began to scuttle towards the warrior who did not pause in his pursuit. Lilithia then reached back into her cloak and pulled out several more pouches, “Come no further or you will taste the sweet fangs of the Spider Queen!” she called out and this stopped Shamki although by now he was only a dozen yards away.

“Staff, give,” he said and held out his hand apparently oblivious to the small black forms that closed in on him.

“I’m not accustomed to taking orders from the slave races,” said Lilithia with a demur smile. “You are a strapping young buck though. Normally you half-breeds are all useless but I think I might enjoy giving you a command or two,” she continued and gave her hips a subtle little sway and arched her eyebrows at him. The first of the black spiders scuttled up onto the rock Shamki was standing upon and moved towards his foot although the half-orc kept his blade sheathed.

“We can work out an arrangement,” said the woman and ran her hand over her hip as she watched the spider move towards his foot with a quick glance down.

Almost nonchalantly Shamki picked up his left foot and brought down the heel of his heavy boot down upon the creature that exploded with a satisfying crunch. Three more of the creatures appeared at the edge of the rock as Lilithia gave out a pained shriek.

“Murderous scum,” she called out. “The Spider Queen will have your heart!”

Shamki crushed another one of the creatures with his heel and knocked two more off the rock with a sweep of his blade that he drew with lightning speed.

The woman threw two pinches of something in the air and clapped her hands together,

Black and cave

blind crawling eye

now your vision it will die!

And with that the region around Shamki suddenly became immersed in absolute darkness. “Kill him children!” shrieked Lilithia, send your toxin through his body, vengeance, vengeance.”

“Good, hmmmag” said the voice of Shamki from a rock to the left of where he stood a moment before. Two of the black spiders rested impaled upon his sword, while a third still wriggled feebly.

“How dare you!” shrieked Lilithia. “If you kill me the Shan Ra Kal clan will hunt you down, enslave you and your family, and torture you children!”

“No kill, deal done,” said Shamki with a nod of his head and a smile. “Go now,” with that the half-orc gave a little bow to the woman, jumped off the backside of the boulder, and left her alone on the rock staring after him.

“Fool,” she spat and then carefully put away her pouches and reached down for the staff that was no longer there. She stood, goggle eyed for a moment, her mouth opened and closed with no sound and then her gaze darted left, right, and finally up to where the blazing sun pierced the veils of black magic that protected her from its rays and she shrieked horribly and her vision was suddenly gone. Lilithia covered her eyes and sobbed for a moment collapsing to the rocky ground where she lay with the bright light burned into her brain. Finally after long minutes she rose to her feet and blinked rapidly still unable to see in any direction, “Mother will be unhappy,” she said to no one in particular and slumped her shoulders. She then began to trudge towards a small cave opening that lay ahead.

“There he is,” shouted Humbort and pointed his finger to the big half-orc who sat on a rock while he carefully cleaned his sword with a piece of heavy cloth. “Shamki, Shamki!” he shouted waving his arms back and forth although the warrior did not acknowledge the movement. “Come on,” he waved to Lousa and Ariana and broke into an ambling gate towards his friend.

“They really are friends,” said Ariana to Lousa as the two followed along.

“They are indeed,” said Lousa, “but I’m a little concerned about your brother, do you see him?”

Ariana lifted her eyes and scanned around the rocky terrain for a few moments but didn’t see any sign of him. “He’s gotta be okay, if he wasn’t Shamki wouldn’t be sitting there cleaning his sword.”

“You’re probably right about that Ariana,” said Lousa with a smile. The woman then stopped and looked down at her wool top and pulled it straight, wiped off some of the dust from the road, ran her hands through her long green hair a few times, and then walked towards the half-orc.

“What happened?” asked Humbort who arrived first.

“Wait,” said Shamki.

“What happened?” asked Ariana who arrived next.

“Wait,” said Humbort trying to imitate the solemn pronouncement of Shamki.

“What happened,” asked Lousa who arrived last.

“Wait,” said Ariana and tried to make her voice as deep as possible but then started to giggle loudly.

“What’s so funny?” said Lousa with a look down at the girl who proceeded to break into more girlish laughter which was shortly joined by Humbort although Shamki continued to methodically polish his sword and did not join in. Soon Lousa found herself laughing although she had no idea as to why.

“What’s so funny?” said Unerus who suddenly appeared around the corner, with one hand hidden behind his back, and the two women and Humbort immediately broke into another long spell of laughter which spilled into another session each time they looked at each other. Finally, with a gasp, Ariana looked at her brother and said, “What do you have behind your back brother dear?”

The boy bowed deeply and pulled at the arm bone with the clawed hand at the end, “I don’t know why you make such a fuss about carrying it,” he said and handed it over to Ariana who grabbed it eagerly and put it away in its little sack. “It’s not cold or gross or anything, it’s made of wood, not bone, someone just carved it is all.”

“We need to find out more about that thing,” said Lousa out loud but not to anyone in particular. “It’s up to us to figure out how to destroy it … or if it even needs to be destroyed,” this last with a little nod to Ariana. “Khemer was lying the entire time we can be sure of that. He wanted to bring himself back to life and used us. He was probably the one that tipped off the bugbear about us in the first place. He probably hoped to regain his corporeal form and then, with the help of his allies, kill us and be on his merry way.”

“That’s not nice,” said Ariana her lower lip in a bit of a pout. “We were friends with him mostly.”

“Well, I’m totally lost and Tanner is the only one who has ever been up in these mountains,” said Lousa. “Shamki, do you think you can find your way to Hot Rock so we can meet up with the rest of them?”

The half-orc nodded his heavy head and then looked at Unerus; “Why so long?” he asked and then looked around at the rocky region around them his ears perked.

“It’s like hunting rats,” said Unerus and Lousa gave him a look with raised eyebrows and tilted her head to the left. “Well, when you’re hunting rats you have to be real still, and then when they move you jump ‘em!”

“I don’t understand,” said Lousa with a look down at the boy and a smile on her face. “But, I am glad to see you safe and sound.”

“Well, this time, it was like I was the rat and she was looking for me so I just kind of laid down and waited for her to go away, Shamki. That’s what a meant.”

“Her?” said Lousa with a look to the half-orc.

Shamki nodded his head once at Unerus and made sort of a grunting sound of approval.

“Who is this her?” said Lousa again while her emerald green eyes became the slightest bit darker.

“The darkling girl,” said Unerus with a look up at Lousa his face in a wide grin. “Didn’t you see her?”

Lousa shook her head.

“A darkling?” asked Ariana her eyes wide with excitement. “Really?”

“Yep,” said Unerus and nodded his head sagely. “She had silver hair and real dark skin and she was really pretty, not as pretty as you Lousa.”

The green in her eyes once again lightened and she smiled down at Unerus. “That is very nice of you to say young man. So a darkling woman stole the staff but you managed to get it back from her then? What would the darklings want with this and how was she out and about in the daylight?”

“Working with Lorim,” said Humbort as he vaguely followed along with the conversation.

Shamki got up at this point and began to look at the ground for signs of his own tracks. After a moment he got the scent and began to walk back towards where they left the wagon behind. The rest of the group followed him walking at a far more leisurely pace.