Anthology - Untold Adventures - A Dungeons and Dragons Anthology

And a silent voice was carried to her on the wind that came from Threshold, a voice that said, It will end when the githyanki ends.

If Charybole was sure of anything, it was that Zat did not make empty threats. She didn’t know when the next attempt to kill Malargoten would take place, but she didn’t waste any time before preparing for it. She created a bow, a quiver, and a large supply of arrows. Some she dipped in poison, some in other solutions to use against creatures that were immune to poison. She crafted a dagger and a battle-axe, and was never without them.

And one day, almost a year from when she had found Malargoten, a man appeared on the horizon-tall, tanned, heavily muscled, with a thick mane of wild black hair.

Humans didn’t walk the Witchlight Fens alone, and she knew he must have been sent by Zat. As he began walking toward her, she nocked an arrow on her bow, waited until he was a hundred yards distant, and loosed it, aiming it to hit the ground a few yards ahead of him.

“That’s far enough,” she said.

“You are Charybole?” he asked.

“I am.”

“I mean you no harm,” he said calmly. “My race and the githzerai share no animosities. We make no war upon one another. Put your weapon away.”

“Tell me why you have come, first,” said Charybole.

“I think you know,” he replied. “I have come for the githyanki.”

“Whatever the reward is,” she said, “it is not enough. Turn away or prepare to die.”

“Before you fire your arrow, may I ask a question?”

“One question only,” said Charybole. “And whatever it is, it will not soothe me into lowering my guard.”

“My question is simple,” said the man. “The githyanki are your enemies. Why do you risk your life defending one of them?”

Charybole leaned over, picked Malargoten up and held him above her head, and answered: “Does this look like an enemy?”

The man stared at the infant for a long breath, and finally shook his shaggy head.

“I have been misinformed,” he said. “I am as formidable an assassin as my race has produced. I have defeated sixty-three men in mortal combat. There is no one that I fear, no nightmare creature that I will not slay if the price is right.” He paused. “But I do not kill children, not even for gold. Go in peace, githzerai.”

And it was as if the heavens were rent asunder. A single voice screamed “NO!” louder than the thunder, and suddenly the man was surrounded by not three, not four, but six enormous, lobsterlike chuuls, denizens of fetid waters and murky cesspools, their huge pincers clicking open and shut as they approached him. He fought bravely, never took a backward step, but they methodically began tearing him to ribbons. When he was blood-soaked, one eye gone, a gaping hole where an ear had been, the chuuls stood back, and Zat’s voice said, “Now will you do my bidding?”

The man glared up at the sky with his one remaining eye and bellowed, “No!”-and the chuuls were on him again, and this time they didn’t relent until there was nothing left of him but a few white bones and a damp spot on the ground.

Charybole stood her ground, an arrow in her bow, five more clutched in the fingers of her left hand, one for each of the creatures that smelled as foul and loathsome as their dwelling place, but one by one the chuuls vanished as suddenly as they had appeared.

She put her arrows in a quiver, slipped her bow over her shoulder, and picked Malargoten up in her arms.

“It is no longer safe here,” she said as if the infant could understand her. “We must move every day, never sleep in the same place twice. I am sorry to force such a life upon you, but it is better than what Zat envisions, which is no life at all.”

And so saying, she began walking farther and farther away from Threshold.

You can walk as far as you want, said the voice inside her head, you can go to the heart of the Elemental Chaos, you can even descend to the demon-infested Abyss. It makes no difference. Wherever you go, I will find you.

“Until he is bigger,” replied Charybole aloud. “Then perhaps we will find you.”

But there was no response.

They remained in hiding for four years. Which is not to say that they found one secure place and remained there. Sooner or later Zat sniffed them out and sent her minions. Once it was a githzerai assassin, once another human assassin. Once it was a trio of half-fey, half-insect banshraes, once it was a bear, the most recent time it was a devil-spawned cambion, human in appearance but not in blood or powers, brandishing his hellsword.

Each time it seemed certain that this was the end for young Malargoten-and for Charybole, if she had the temerity to stand between the predators and their chosen prey, and of course she always did-but somehow, when the battle was done and the dust had cleared, it was the githzerai and the foundling who emerged alive, and their truly awesome foes who lay dead upon the ground.

“I do not understand it!” said Zat in tones of cold fury. “She is just a githzerai female.”

None of her servants or sycophants had the courage to point out that Zat herself was “just a githzerai female.”

“I have been trying to slay the githyanki foundling for almost five years,” she continued. “Every single assassin and every single creature I have sent should have been able to accomplish its task. What is it about this Charybole? There is nothing in her childhood, nothing in her past, to imply that she should be able to withstand such assaults. Nothing! So how does she do it? Who has trained her to slay our greatest assassins, our most frightening creatures, with nothing but the primitive weapons she has created herself? Not only that, but she defeats them even when I send them in teams, even as she is protecting the githyanki child! How is it possible?”

There were no answers, of course, because no one knew how it was possible.

Zat sat perfectly still, staring into space, for five minutes, then ten more, then another twenty, until her retainers thought she had gone into some kind of trance, or perhaps even turned comatose. Just before they considered calling the wizards to see if they could bring her back to the here and now, Zat stood up.

“I had not wanted to take this measure,” she said coldly, “but I will not be thwarted again!”

Charybole sensed it before she could hear it, and she could hear it before she could see it.

They had found a cave that was free of all other life forms; even bats seemed uninterested in it. It had been a hard trek and a long day, and the exhausted Malargoten lay asleep deep in the cave, free from prying eyes, and safe from whatever was approaching.

Charybole sat on the ground, her weapons laid out before her: a dagger, a sword, an axe, a spear, a bow, and twenty-seven arrows, half of them dipped in poison, half in things that were worse than poison. She was every bit as mystified as Zat that she had emerged victorious from her various conflicts. Still, whatever was approaching, she would not flinch, would not give an inch. She was ready for it, ready to once again defend the foundling who had captured her sympathy and her heart.

She didn’t know what it was, but she knew it had to be big, bigger than anything else she had yet faced, because its approach actually made the ground shake. The wind changed, and suddenly she could smell it. It smelled like nothing she had ever encountered before.

The ground trembled even more, the acrid odor became stronger still, and suddenly it was standing there in front of her, its single angry eye glaring balefully at her. It was an astral dreadnought, Zat’s ultimate weapon, a gargantuan creature whose gaping mouth was filled top and bottom with razor-sharp teeth. Its single eye was black, its tongue a dark blue, its armored scales reddish brown. Its strong arms ended in pincered claws that looked as though they had evolved for the sole purpose of holding githzerai helpless in them. Its lower body was serpentine, but it moved with speed and grace, and even the lack of legs did not stop the ground from vibrating as it undulated across it. Charybole stared at the dreadnought’s body, trying to see how huge it truly was, but there was no end to it; its tail seemed to extend to infinity.