Bruce Cordell: Lady of Poison

The Nentyarch’s home, as described to Marrec by Elowen, was gone, with no evidence of it having ever been there. In its place was a lone ash treean ash tree of towering size, a hundred or more feet high, though still below the height of the overhanging petrified branches, crowned with an oval mass of sickly green leaves. The leaves hinted that the tree lived, but even so, it was afflicted. The bole was twisted, blackened, and terrible. The tree’s leaves seeped a sick fluid, and at its base was a massive swollen cyst, partially burst, though the poor illumination failed to reveal what lay within the cavity.

Immediately before the cyst was a throne of hardened but putrid mud. A figure sat the throne. The Rotting Man.

From where Marrec and the others exited the mist, they stood not more than forty or fifty feet from the throne and that which sat upon it, but Marrec couldn’t help but shudder when he saw the Rotting Man. To his right he heard Elowen cry out, Ususi curse, and even Gunggari take a deep breath. Ash apparently had no reaction, though Marrec didn’t take his eyes from the putrid seat.

The Talontyr was the size of a man, but a man wasted with rot, disease, and madness, from whose pores constantly seeped droplets of blood. The Rotting Man’s body was a battleground for hundreds, maybe thousands, of virulent diseases, all of which strove against each other and the flesh which hosted them.

The Rotting Man could not perish from such ravages. Such was the gift of Talona, the Lady of Poison, the Mother of All Plagues, and other names more gruesome. Rot was the Talontyr’s strength.

Before the Rotting Man’s throne was an altar of rough-cut stone upon which sat a crystal vase. The vase held a slender stem to which a single bone-white petal clung.

To the Talontyr’s right stood Damanda, glowering. She had reacquired her swarm aura.

Surrounding the Talontyr and Damanda were various creatures, all disfigured with lesions, pustules, and other outward signs of sickness, though of course in the Court of the Rotting Man, these creatures obviously drew strength from their condition. Unfortunately, the Rotting Man’s forces created a buffer too wide for Marrec’s special gaze to touch directly upon the author of all their misfortune. Among the creatures arrayed around the throne, Marrec recognized a green-tinged unicorn, a satyr whose eyes were gone but for oozing sores, a score of nixiesor perhaps pixieseach the color of night, a dryad whose ongoing wide-mouthed scream of pain was too raw to be heard any longer, some diseased wolves and bears, plus a few monstrous insects the size of men…

“Ash!”

Marrec glanced back. The child he had so long shepherded was gazing with apparent interest at the large ash tree. Recognizing it. Naming it. Ash and ash…

Before Marrec could comment or question the potential enormity of Ash’s pronouncement, movement drew his eye back to the front.

A bone-slender hand slothfully extended from the rotting garments that clung to the Talontyr. The pointing finger selected Marrec as its target.

A voice, hoarse and phlegmy yet resonant, issued forth. The Rotting Man said, “The game has been amusing, but it is over. I will take the child. Now.”

A beam of virulent power pulsed forth from the Rotting Man’s entire body, washing over Marrec and his friends before any could do much more than blink and draw a breath in surprise.

Marrec fumbled with his spear as his vision cleared, expecting pain, wounds, or worse, but he was fine. Looking around, he saw that his friends were unharmed, too. Of them all, only Ash seemed unsurprised. In fact, she had somewhere acquired a golden glow, a glow of health, vitality, and promise.

“So,” said the Rotting Man, executing a look so sour that Marrec’s stomach threatened to turn.

Struggling for breath, the cleric finally managed to find his voice. He said, “We’ve come too far to fail now.”

The unicorn warrior didn’t know exactly why the Rotting Man’s assault had drained away so ineffectually, though he guessed that already Ash’s nature was beginning to assert itself. He needed to seize the moment, salvage some time for Ash to discover the missing portion of herself. That, after all, was the reason they had come so far.

Marrec continued, his voice gaining in strength and authority, “We’ve brought Ash, the Child of Light here, against all the obstacles you’ve set. We know the girl is but part of the Aspect promised by the Green Powers, among which my goddess Lurue numbers, the Aspect that was sent to end your reign here in Dun-Tharos.”

The cleric knew his speech was too short, but he didn’t quite know where to go from there. Ash was not taking any special action or initiative, unlike what he had imagined, except, of course, her mere presence may have been the only reason he and her other companions yet drew breath following the Rotting Man’s initial assault.

The Rotting Man hacked out laughter. Chuckling wet gasps of amusement, he finally said, “You have brought her to me, haven’t you? All my effort to bring her here, yet where all my servants have failed, you succeed. Marvelous!”

“Not true… you were trying to kill Ash. Kill her so the Aspect could never take full shape.”

“No, I’m afraid not, young simpleton.”

“You fought us hard enough just outside the ring of your fortress,” replied Marrec, confused.

“It is true I expended many of my servitors, many more than I thought I would, truth be told. I did not foresee that you would make common cause with a demon. If I had not thrown my forces against you, you would have begun to wonder why I offered no resistance here at the heart of my strength. You would have wondered if you were walking into a trap, which indeed you were.”

The Rotting Man went on, “You have something that I require. It may be that it retains sentience enough to protect itself and you against my direct touch. However, experience reveals that my servitors are under no such restriction.”

The figure on the throne oroaked something to Damanda. In turn, Damanda screamed, “Bring the child to the Talontyr; kill her guardians.”

Marrec brought up his left hand, his thumb already flipping the cork from the vial he held. As the creatures surrounding the Nentyarch surged forward, Marrec gulped down the contents of his vial. Of his friends, only Gunggari did the same; Elowen raised her living blade and gave voice to a cry of challenge; Ususi began to incant a spell. Ash did nothing.

The rot-eyed satyr charged Marrec, its head down and the ram-like horns positioned to smash him. The elixir Marrec had just drunk, fruity and pleasant, seemed to open his sinuses and expand his lungs. The potion was nothing less than liquid revelation, laying bare all that was shrouded, even Marrec’s own clogged conscious. Facts about himself broke free from his subconscious and begin to bob toward his surface awarenessbut he didn’t have time to take note. More than anything else, the elixir opened a door, however briefly, that had been shut in Marrec’s mindit made a connection where association had fallen away over the last few yearsit granted him a channel to Lurue’s grace.

The blighted satyr collided with Marrec, sending Justlance clattering from his hand, yet the cleric smiled. Not because he retained his feet despite the charge, not because his spear returned to his grip almost instantly Marrec smiled because unfeigned hope woke within him as he contemplated the array of abilities returned him.

Gunggari smashed the carapace of a five-foot-high beetle, then engaged the green-hued unicorn in a desperate battlethe Oslander attempted to beat the unicorn senseless before the blighted creature succeeded in eviscerating Gunggari with its blackened horn.