T Lain - The Living Dead

Devis let his song rise in volume, feeling a familiar, invisible aura of magical energy. He had to time the release of the spell perfectly. If he failed, he would get another beating, but if he succeeded, he might get out of this pit. The lead guard fumbled with the keys. The elf prisoner lolled back over to one side as the dwarf holding him struggled to balance the taller man’s weight. Devis saw immediately that he had been wrong about the armored elf.

He wasn’t unconscious at all. The elf briefly made eye contact with the bard.

The dwarf with the keys dropped the entire ring on the floor and cursed. As the guard stooped to pick them up, Devis shot a look at the “unconscious prisoner” in an effort to let him know that if he meant to try anything, now would be the time.

Devis sang, loud and clear. He heard the deknae lock vibrate with the notes, and then it shattered.

Devis charged the door, which swung open in a cloud of sparkling black shards that had once been the stone lock. The lead dwarf barely got his head raised when Devis released the spell, and the heavy bars of the door hit the dwarf full in the face. Blood spouted from his broken nose, and he toppled backward.

The armored elf flipped his guard into the air with a jerk and flopped the dwarf onto his back. Before Devis could say a word, the elf produced a gleaming short sword from behind his back—the bard glimpsed some very old Elvish script on the blade—and raised the weapon over the cowering guard.

“No!” the bard cried, grabbing the elf’s wrist with both hands and keeping the sword in the air. “We don’t need a murder charge on our heads. We can get out without killing anybody.”

The seething elf turned and met Devis’s gaze. The bard didn’t flinch. “Look—” he realized he had no idea what to call the man, but pressed on anyway, “—friend, I don’t know you, but here we are.” The dwarf on the ground whimpered, pinned by the armored elf’s knees. “It’s time to go.

“Am I wrong? Are you a murderer?” Devis asked the elf. The other man shook his head. “No kill dwarf,” Devis offered.

“Yes,” the elf said, a veneer of sanity returning to his face. “No kill,” he added in a peculiar accent Devis couldn’t quite place.

The dwarf on the ground struggled, and the elf brought the pommel down hard across the guard’s jaw. The dwarf fell silent, still breathing.

“See how easy that was?” Devis asked.

He collected the guards’ weapons, but had one leftover axe.

Devis carried the axe down the cell block until he found a familiar voice. He tossed the axe onto the floor in front of the burly half-orc.

“Can you chop your way out?”

“Shaddup, bard,” the half-orc growled, but he quickly snapped up the axe.

Devis dashed back to his new ally and the unconscious guards. Devis briefly considered stealing a pair of boots, but the guard’s footwear would not have fit Mialee, let alone him. With the elf’s help, he pulled the inert guards into his cell and closed the door with its shattered lock.

The ring of steel on stone rebounded down the cell block. The half-orc had accepted the challenge.

Devis and the mystery elf dashed up the stairs.

The cacophony at the town lockup was still ringing in the distance as the two escapees stepped from one of a thousand dark alleyways crisscrossing the south side of Dogmar.

The elf sniffed the air, then took off at a brisk walk down the muddy street. The rain had finally settled into a light drizzle, but Devis couldn’t bring himself to believe the elf was really planning to follow his nose. Still, they had to go somewhere.

“So, what’s your name?” Devis asked as he caught up to the quiet elf.

“Don’t know,” the elf replied.

“Really. That can’t be easy. I’ve got to have something to call you.” Devis considered. “You’re as silent as stone. How about ‘Diir’?”

“Diir,” the elf said,” ‘Stone.’ Yes.”

“Great! See, we’re already getting along famously,” Devis said. “So what brings you into the good graces of Constable Muhn, Diir?”

“Mialee,” the elf replied.

“Ah. I’ve never been to—Mialee?” Devis pulled in front of the armored elf and stopped him with a finger to the chest. “How do you know Mialee?”

The elf looked past Devis down the street as he answered, “Find Mialee. Old man said so.”

“How do you know she’s here?” Devis asked. He looked back over his shoulder. “And what old man, exactly?” he added. Mialee had been waiting for an old elf.

“Old elf. Got hurt,” the elf replied as he maneuvered around Devis and continued walking.

Devis pressed two fingers to his temple and vowed to go easy on Gurgitt’s house ale from now on. And to have more respect for jailhouse coincidences.

“I can help you find Mialee,” Devis said, catching up to the elf. “We’ll need to find her quickly. That riot can’t last much longer, and we’re wanted men. This way.” Devis angled the quiet elf in the direction of the Silver Goblet. “Keep an eye out for town guardsmen the farther north we get.”

“Wrong way,” the elf said.

“You’ll end up too far north if you go that way.”

“It’s the wrong way,” Diir insisted.

“All right, look. If I’m wrong, we’ll only have gone maybe a half hour out of our way,” Devis said. “Lead,” said the elf.

“Right,” the bard acknowledged. “It’s not far.”

The rain had just begun to let up when Mialee arrived at the Temple of the Protector.

The entire structure looked like the stump of a single, enormous tree, but the elf woman could spot the seams where wood had been expertly worked together while still alive to give the illusion of a solid surface. The wide doors swung outward as she walked up white stone steps. Torches adorning the carved walls beckoned invitingly, as did the blast of warmth.

“It seems we’ve come at a bad time, Mialee,” Biksel said from above.

Mialee stepped between the doors into the cozy torchlight and saw what her familiar meant. The temple appeared empty.

Mialee moved on cat feet through the torchlit space. She opened her hands to let the injured bird take in the surroundings. If the raven was what she suspected….

The bird chirped weakly, but did not speak.

The doors swung shut behind them with a creak.

A crash and several thumps rang from above, falling steadily downward. She spied an archway cut into the wood that led up a spiral staircase. As she watched, a small figure in blue robes tumbled to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.

“Welcome, pilgrims!” a high-pitched voice squealed from the resulting pile of blue robes at the foot of the steps. The figure struggled to her feet, shifting a large leather bag on her hip that clanked with the sound of glass on glass. Mialee noted with surprise that she was looking at a grinning gnome woman who wore the full vestment of a cleric of Corellon Larethian, the Protector.

“With all due respect,” Biksel said to the gnome, “the only true clerics of the Protector are elves.”

“Biksel,” Mialee snapped, then bowed slightly to the gnome. “I am Mialee. I need your help.”

The cleric seemed taken aback by her bluntness, or perhaps by the fact that Mialee did not question why a gnome was the only denizen of an elven temple.

“Uh, all right,” the gnome said. “You came to the right place! I am Zalyn, cleric of the Protector. I see you are bleeding.” The gnome fumbled around in her oversized leather bag and produced a small vial.

Mialee blinked, then remembered that she was wet, bloody, and naked. “No, not me,” she corrected, and shoved the wounded raven’s tiny body under the cleric’s nose. “This is…well, I’m not sure who she is.”