Thomas Reid: The Ruby Guardian

"Take him," Aphorio commanded, his voice casual and unconcerned.

Marcon shrieked in misery as hands grabbed at him, snatching at his tunic, his wrists, and his shoulders. Marcon felt his halfspear, forgotten in his panic, wrenched free of his grasp. He twisted away, savage, primal, and terrified. The hands were too strong, their grips like steel vises in the carpenter's workroom or tongs the smith employed. They halted his retreat, pulled him backward, off balance, dragging him down to the ground, kicking and thrashing. The guard was pushed to his knees, forced to face the hole in the ground.

Senator Aphorio turned away, back to the rent soil, and began to chant, gesturing, as he had done before, in the hallway of the Palace. Marcon watched, wide-eyed, wondering what terrible magic the man was calling forth. He dared not think about his own role in the ensuing rite.

Marcon felt the rumble well before he heard it. A low, throbbing vibration in the ground, as though all of Faerun groaned, began at his knees and ran through him, fueling his terror. The guard yanked against the hands that held him fast, pulling against those grips of iron, but he was overmatched. He opened his mouth to plead, to beg to be released, but the words died in his throat.

The earth erupted as the senator stepped back, still gesturing. Bits of soil and rock were thrown skyward and showered down, pelting Marcon's face and arms. He cringed, blinking, caught between the stinging dirt in his eyes and the morbid need to see what had surfaced.

The thing that stood, its lower half still in the hole, was taller than two men. It was nothing but bone, dirty yellow and caked with mud and roots, but it was not the skeleton of any creature Marcon had ever known. Its skull was wide and flattened on top, and its snout was long and filled with rows of teeth as sharp and as deadly looking as any dagger. A pair of horns protruded from that forehead, slightly forward and curved up toward the glow of Selune. Two long arms ended in skeletal, slender hands that were mostly claws. Two more hands fanned out to either side as part of what must have once been vestigial wings. All four flexed eagerly as the demonic thing stared at Marcon balefully, with twin globes of sickly green shining in the skull's eye sockets.

Suddenly, Senator Aphorio gestured right at Marcon and uttered a word the guard did not understand. He realized then, too, that the apprentices were no longer there, restraining him. He leaped to his feet, spinning to run, but the skeletal monstrosity was too fast, lunging at him.

Marcon was knocked sideways off his feet as the creature's claws raked his back. Liquid pain radiated through the terrified man as he tumbled to the ground and came to rest face-up, looking up at the demonic skeleton looming over him. Quick as a cat, the skeleton pounced, stabbing at Marcon with both of its wickedly clawed hands. The guard flinched and tried to fend off the attacks, but he was too slow. He felt the knife-like claws sink into his chest, his gut, sliding all the way through his body and penetrating the ground beneath him. With each agonizing blow, he wanted to cry out, but his breath had left him.

The guard turned away, his eyes welling with tears of pain and terror, just as the skeletal beast's head snapped down. Jagged teeth sank harshly into the flesh of Marcon's neck and shoulder, sawing through muscle and tendon. Marcon did cry out then, a pitiful whimper in his own ears that faded to a burbling gasp.

Just as quickly as the skeleton had appeared, it was gone, leaving Marcon lying motionless on the battlefield, his life force ebbing away into the tainted soil. He tried to move, to feel his wounds, but he had no strength left in his body, and all he accomplished was a feeble trembling.

Aphorio's face loomed into view, all sharp angles and shadows from the single torch flickering off to one side. The man peered down at Marcon with an eager, disconcerting smile. "Try to relax," he crooned, reaching out and patting the guard on one cheek. "It won't be long, now," he added. Turning to one of the apprentices, the senator said, "Fetch the decanter. Quickly, now. I don't want him dying on us before we can finish the transformation."

Marcon watched in a pain-rimmed daze as the apprentice disappeared from view and returned a moment later, a large crystal container held before him in both hands. The container seemed to glow with a faint green light.

Or perhaps, Marcon realized in a brief moment of clarity, the contents inside are glowing.

The mortally wounded guard had no idea what was about to transpire, but he wanted no part of it. He began to struggle anew, trying to turn away, to crawl from the field before any more of Senator Aphorio's foul magic could further harm him. But his arms would no longer move, and a cold chill began to creep in, numbing his extremities.

Marcon sobbed in frustration and terror. "Please," he croaked, begging anyone who would listen.

Ignoring him, Senator Aphorio took the decanter from his apprentice, removed the stopper, and waited, watching Marcon struggle feebly. The apprentices, perhaps sensing that the guard's life was fading, gathered in close, watching expectantly.

Marcon looked from one impassive face to another, not understanding such cruelty, terrified of what horrible fate awaited him. He tried again to roll over to escape their cold gazes, but the exertion only succeeded in bringing on a coughing spell-great, wracking hacks that brought with them stinging pain all through his middle. When they finally subsided, Marcon found it hard to breathe. He sensed death closing in, and he was afraid.

He closed his eyes and began to pray to Tempus for the courage to face it.

"Watch closely, now," Senator Aphorio said, as though he were a professor lecturing his students. "It will begin very soon."

As if to make the man a prophet, Marcon felt a rush of heat through him, and he broke out in a cold sweat. Almost immediately, his joints began to ache, and he began to shake, as if a great fever were surging into every corner of his body. Coupled with the dull, burning pain in his wounds, those new sensations overwhelmed him, and he cried out as his prayers were interrupted.

The plague.

The terrible disease of the battlefield had taken him, Marcon realized. He was thankful that he would die before the worst of the affliction could consume him. He prayed that it would, as he felt the fever and chills grow in intensity.

"There," Aphorio said, his voice filled with delight. "Do you see?"

Marcon opened his eyes to see the senator pointing at him knowingly. There was a smile on the man's face, and Marcon hated him.

"And now for the infusion," Aphorio said, and he tipped the decanter over, pouring its contents out upon Marcon.

The guard cried out again and squirmed, futilely trying to evade the concoction, which spilled out not as a liquid but instead as a thick, green, glowing vapor. The heavy, syrupy fog wafted down and oozed over Marcon, coating him in its glow. He tried to swat at it, make it drift away, but it insistently clung to him.

Almost immediately, Marcon began to feel the potion's effects. A strange sort of coldness settled into him, a sensation of sluggishness that suggested he was drifting away, leaving his body. At first, the guard thought that he was dying, that he was making the final journey to Warrior's Rest. But his mind did not escape from his mortal shell as he expected. Instead, it began to recede into a corner of himself. He felt his limbs grow heavy, felt control of his body lessening. He sensed his consciousness coiling up, becoming a mere spectator as his body was consumed and devoured by both the plague and the greenish glow. His heartbeat slowed and stopped, as did his breathing. Yet he remained there, seeing through filmy eyes all that took place around him.