Brian Thomsen - Realms of the Arcane

The mutant that he'd sent as the real assassin had no ability to think for itself. It had to be guided, and so he had sent Alashar in first. Grenway coughed out a chuckle at the thought that Alashar probably still expected to kill Shadow and collect Grenway's price.

His victory was at hand, and Grenway closed his eyes and prepared his final spell.

The thing barely fit into the snug passageway, but it came at them fast just the same. It was spitting some viscous liquid from dozens of mouths. The spittle let it slide through. Neither Alashar nor Shadow could see past it. Its tentacles seemed to lengthen.

"The lab," Shadow panted.

He was still too weak to really run. He hadn't cast a single spell, and Alashar knew he was completely exhausted. If he had any tricks up his sleeve, he was playing it dangerously close.

The huge bleeding bite in Alashar's left thigh slowed her down, too, and her joints were popping from the cold weakness of the shadow world. She wanted to tell him they wouldn't make it to the lab and opened her mouth to do just that when a sound came from the thing now only a few paces behind them. It sounded like a cough.

Alashar stopped and looked back at it. Shadow stumbled to a stop just behind her and followed her gaze to the front of the mass of green tentacles. Though it hadn't been there only seconds before, the creature now had a face.

"Grenway," Alashar said.

The green, mucous-covered face smiled, and its features stretched like rubber and twitched. The mutant's body was obviously not used to the experience, and if it was capable of not liking something, it was obvious it didn't like the sensation. The face was Grenway's, but even uglier.

"Aaaaaah, Alashar," Grenway's voice whisper-echoed at them through the passageway, like water thrown from a bucket. The face's lips didn't quite move in sync with the voice. The monster was still advancing slowly, and Alashar stepped back, not noticing that Shadow didn't.

"Grenway," Shadow breathed, "I'll blast you to-"

The archwizard's words were cut off when a tentacle shot like a spear from under the green mass and wrapped around Shadow's head. Alashar whimpered when it brushed her temple and pulled slightly at her hair. Shadow's hands came up to claw ineffectually at the tentacle, and only a tuft of jet black hair was visible through the thick limb.

Alashar's heart jumped and she instinctively backed up farther.

"Running, child?" the Grenway face hissed. She brought her whip-rapier to guard position, and Shadow's knees collapsed. The thing was pulling him in slowly, and Alashar could see deep, passionate hatred on Grenway's face.

She heard herself say, "You didn't give me time!"

Grenway laughed. The sound rumbled through the passageway and became a gurgling cough. Shadow was flailing madly on the floor. It was killing him.

Alashar realized she had her chance to run, let Grenway kill Shadow himself. She could get out clean, if she got out now, but Grenway would win. She suddenly realized what had to happen next.

Her fingers tightened around the hilt of her whip-rapier and she slid her feet apart on the rough stone floor. "No, Grenway," she said through gritted teeth. "This time, I win."

The coughing laugh sounded again, and a new mouth, the biggest one yet, opened on the lower side of the great beast. The thing had stopped a few paces from where Alashar stood, and though it spoke to her, Grenway's eyes were fixed lustfully on Shadow. "Grow up, girl," it growled. "You could never kill him."

Her whip-rapier flashed, and she shot forward and down. The Grenway face screamed in frustration and hatred, but not in pain when the tentacle holding Shadow split and fell away under the singing bite of the razor-sharp sword. The tentacle fell away from Shadow's face, and he sucked in a single huge, gurgling breath, his eyes bulging from their sockets, even as Alashar grabbed the collar of his blood-encrusted silk robe and pulled him harshly away.

"I'm not done," she hissed at both of them, "with either of you bastards."

Grenway pulled away from the link with the mutant and screamed his frustrated wrath at the tin-plated ceiling of his laboratory. He grabbed again at the sides of the palantir and watched through Alashar's eyes as she tore his mutant to ribbons. Shadow was still alive, and she now knew her true place in the game.

Yes, he thought, quite a specimen.

"Damn her," he growled.

Alashar's whole body was trembling as she stood knee-deep in twitching pieces of the huge green monster. She didn't remember exactly when it had stopped trying to fight back, but she was aware of that blurry point at which it seemed to resign itself to its fate and let her kill it. She was breathing hard and could barely move her feet.

Behind her, Shadow was panting and coughing, still trying to pull himself together after having been dragged by the head fifteen feet along the rough stone floor. When she turned to look at him, her foot slipped, and she ended up sitting in a pile of dead tentacles and rubbery things.

Their eyes met, and Shadow forced a smile.

"You weren't supposed to be able to do that," he said cryptically.

Anger flared through her, and without willing it, she lunged at him. She grabbed him by the neck. His eyes told her it hurt.

"Damn you," she huffed, "I should kill you after all, you son of a-"

She stopped herself, released his neck, and brought her whip-rapier over her head. Her eyes never wavered from his, but her arm was shaking now almost uncontrollably.

"You were both using me," she accused, "weren't you? Damn archwizards." The contempt in her voice actually seemed to affect him. "Great, petty lords of Netheril," she pressed. "Sitting in the muck and guts and filth of your own little…" She let her words trail off, not having any idea how to express this much outrage.

"Was it me?" he said. His voice was even, ironically so coming from a man half dead, sitting in a pool of stinking yellow-green gore. "You were going to kill me, Alashar. For money. Was it me? Or was it him?"

She let her arm drop, more out of exhaustion than any sudden desire not to slice his arrogant head off. "I woke up in your bed, and it could just as easily have been your prison world. Grenway's… whatever it was… was going to swallow you whole. You could have killed me. I could have let him kill you."

"So that makes us even?" he asked. "You can kill me now if you want to."

"That naga thing wasn't Grenway's, was it?"

He shook his head slowly in reply.

"Then Grenway's not the only one who wants you dead?"

He laughed this time, but with a hint of sadness.

"I might kill you later," she said, smiling, "if somebody actually pays me to. But right now, I think we both have a debt to collect."

The look on his face was the same one she'd seen in the demiplane of shadow. And yes, it was admiration.

Only after making absolutely certain the necessary safeguards were in place did Grenway speak the word that drew the big doors to his sitting room open.

Alashar came in slowly, each step deliberate and careful. Her big green eyes surveyed the dusty, cluttered room. The sack in her hand was soaked in blood the color of a human's. Grenway smirked at the thought that the weaver mage who sold it to him had promised it wouldn't do that. The archmage thought he might have to have someone pay the weaver a visit in the morning.

Alashar stopped a few paces from where Grenway was sitting. The archmage sprawled casually on pillows and cushions spread over a thick rug made from the dark brown fur of a cave bear.

"Well, Alashar, dear girl," he said, "what have you got for me today?" His voice was calm because he knew she couldn't kill him. The fact that she didn't have her strange sword didn't even matter. The room itself would protect him.