T Lain - Return of the Damned

“This won’t hurt a bit,” said the cleric. “May the good lord Pelor protect and look after your soul, and may he see fit to grant me the power to heal that which afflicts you.” With that, Jozan leaned down and touched Naull on the forehead.

A slight breeze picked up, and Regdar could have sworn that, for a brief moment, he heard a choir singing.

Naull’s eyes rolled back into her head, and something clicked audibly. A thin wire bracelet, the same color as the wizard’s skin, came undone from her ankle and fell to the ground.

Jozan picked it up. “Well, well,” he said. “Looks like it wasn’t a curse after all, but a cursed anklet.”

Regdar ignored him. He knelt beside Naull and undid her gag.

“Regdar,” she said breathlessly, the word drifting from her lips as if she thought she’d never have the opportunity to say it again. “I knew you’d save me.”

The fighter undid the restraints holding her hands. Naull sprang forward, wrapping her arms around him and nearly knocking him flat on his back.

“Thank the gods,” she said into his ears, squeezing his neck tighter than a cloaker. “I thought I’d never get away from the blackguard or be able to tell you—” Naull leaped away from Regdar and began blurting out words faster than her tongue could form them. “Lindroos wants bottle. She’s going to New Koratia. City of Fire. The efreeti—”

Alhandra stepped forward, trying to decipher what the wizard was saying.

Regdar put his hand on Naull’s shoulder. “Slow down,” he said. “One word at a time.”

Naull looked at him and took a deep breath, then she smiled and continued. “Lindroos is heading to New Koratia,” she explained. “She’s looking for a jeweled bottle, one that was recently discovered in the ruins of Old Koratia.” Regdar’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“She must be talking about the bottle we retrieved,” explained Whitman, sitting near the fire behind the big fighter.

Regdar turned around, ready to tell the dwarf to shut up, but he decided it wasn’t worth the argument and turned back to Naull. “Why does she want the bottle?”

Naull took another breath. “When we encountered Lindroos in the City of Fire, she was after the key to the city. Remember? She wanted to bring the city out of its pocket dimension and into this plane. Once it was here, and she had the key, she could control the elemental forces of fire.” She squeezed Regdar’s arm. “Our intervention stopped her from getting it that day, but she’s still determined to retrieve it. Problem is, the city’s still on the Elemental Plane of Fire, and we shut the portal that can bring it back to this world.”

Regdar scratched his head. “If you two managed to survive on the Plane of Fire, why didn’t she just retrieve the key while you were there?”

“We never got there,” she explained. “While the city was in transit, Lindroos pulled out a bone staff of some kind and snapped it in half. After that she grabbed hold of my shoulder, and we were transported to some terrible place—” Naull squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “The key was still in the city.”

A tear came to her eye, and Regdar rubbed his hand against her cheek. “Please,” he said. “Continue if you can.”

Naull wiped the tear away. “Wherever we were, it must have been what Lindroos calls home. I think the bone was some sort of magical calling device, something she’d worked up long before in case of an emergency.” She shrugged. “I never found out exactly, but in any case, we never made it to the Plane of Fire and—”

“I’m certain your time with my sister was a terrifying experience,” interrupted Alhandra, “but we’re getting off track. Why does Lindroos want the bottle?”

Naull nodded. “Imprisoned inside is a janni vizier.”

“What does Lindroos want with a janni vizier?” interrupted Alhandra. “Wishes?”

“No, not at all,” replied Naull, obviously irritated at being verbally prodded by the paladin. “Thousands of years ago, the vizier devised another way to access the City of Fire—a way that didn’t require the city to be in this world and would allow a mortal to survive on the Elemental Plane of Fire indefinitely without being burned to a crisp. When the elemental masters discovered what the vizier was up to, they imprisoned her in that bottle.”

“Pardon my ignorance,” said Jozan, “but why would a janni vizier need a portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire? Genies can transport themselves to any of the elemental planes at will, and to my knowledge they don’t even suffer from the climate.”

“You’re right,” answered Alhandra, “but while the city is on the Plane of Fire, it’s not accessible to just anyone. It was originally built to imprison a very powerful efreeti. Getting to the Plane of Fire isn’t the problem, its getting into the impregnable city itself.”

Regdar suddenly understood. “So Lindroos wants the key, and the vizier can help her get it. She wants a prisoner to help her get into a prison.”

“Right,” said Naull. “The vizier in the bottle knows how to get inside the City of Fire.”

“So she can get in and back out with the key,” said Jozan, the look of comprehension spreading across his face. “Then she can open the portal from this side.”

“Not only that,” explained Naull, “but the vizier will be indebted to Lindroos for freeing it. She’ll have access to the elemental forces of fire to do with as she pleases, and a powerful friend who owes her one.”

The group stood in stunned silence for a long moment.

“But what about the efreeti inside the city?” asked Jozan finally. “Does Lindroos have some way of taming it?”

Naull shrugged. “It’s no longer in the city. Once the vizier managed to find a way in, the efreeti had a way out. The prison remains, but the prisoner is long gone.”

“Okay, fine, fine,” said Regdar shaking his head. “Evil people making evil plans. I get that part. What I still don’t understand is how this has anything to do with you and me.”

Naull smiled and wrapped both of her hands around his. “Convenient revenge,” she said. “Lindroos kept me as a slave since last we met, but when she discovered that you had taken the janni’s bottle from her agent—”

“She decided to kill two birds with one stone,” finished Regdar. “Or two humans,” corrected Whitman. “Yes, yes,” said the paladin, “but where is she now?” Regdar’s heart sank. “She’s headed for New Koratia to take the bottle from the duke.”

The group walked for two days straight, barely stopping long enough to rest and heal. The sun rose on the third morning as they approached their destination.

“We’ll be able to see the eastern wall of New Koratia just over this rise,” explained Regdar.

With Regdar in the lead and Whitman and Tasca flanking him, they marched to the top of the small hill and stopped dead in their tracks.

Below the hill, the sun was just beginning to warm the fields outside New Koratia’s easternmost wall. Heavy fog still clung to the ground in large patches, especially to the north and south, where the river entered the city.

Between several scattered copses of trees and the remaining low-lying clouds, a battle raged. An army of black-clad soldiers overran the field. They were accompanied by several units of jann, all bare chested and carrying huge scimitars. They brandished their weapons and fought against what Regdar could only assume was the entire New Koratian army.

In the middle, his blue and gold-guilded standard held high, his elite guard arrayed around him, stood none other than Duke Christo Ramas.

“He’s taken the field himself,” said Regdar, dismayed. “This is all my fault.”