Wild Arms: The Dee Legacy
By Robin “JChance” MacLachlan
Chapter 3: Stray Children
William dreamed unsettled dreams that night. Most of them consisted of an incoherent chase with his pursuer a few turns behind him, the setting shifting between the ancient war as he had imagined it and the burning Adlehyde he had been just old enough to remember. Once, briefly, the clarity of his dream-visions came over the scene, and he found himself in the domed shelter Lully had brought with him. The Elw was there too--bound in ropes and a glowing magic circle, saying something William couldn't make out. Then there was a spell-like chant in a high voice--a child's--and he was thrust back out into the nightmare Adlehyde of that one terrible day in his childhood, and the murkiness of ordinary dreams.
He was grateful when a hand shook him awake, although groggy enough that he misidentified it. “Aunt Em--oh, Connie.”
Connie took a step back and looked at William oddly. “Do I look like your aunt?”
“Oh..no,” he said, stretching, “I was dreaming about the demons attacking Adlehyde when I was little.”
“Not as nice as the Guardian ones, huh,” she said more quietly.
He started collecting the books and notes from the night before. “No, but...those work me pretty hard too, really.”
Connie's face grew more sympathetic, then returned to neutrality as she looked up to someone behind him.
“I remember the pictures right, she's about two of you.” Anne held one hand somewhere in the air at the level of her hat's crown, and the other a fair distance out from her chest.
“Hey! She's not that tall, and don't mock your boss.”
William
changed the subject. “I think it's time
that I told you what I've found here.”
He reeled off what he had discovered, from Vasquez and the Immigration
to Filgaia's civil war and
“Just thinking it means the Sheehys weren't so crazy after all,” she answered.
“Sheehys?”
“Kiflic family lived down the road from us growing up. You know, the whole thing about the Holy Father on some other planet...nice folks, though.”
“Kiflic...they believe he carries their prayers to the Three True Gods, right? It's been too long since I looked into Guardian-rejecting religions. I've been a bit preoccupied with the gods we have right here.”
“Speaking of,” Connie asked impatiently, “those dreams tell you what we've got to do now?”
William pulled a face. “No, just nightmares tonight, regular ones...” He still wasn't sure that the interlude of clarity had meant anything.
Anne's face grew sour. “Speaking of nightmares, it looks like the pretty guy's gotten replaced. And the new one's a real little brat, no offense, boss.” This last was absolutely flung at Connie, but William asked the sensible question before she could retort.
“What's he doing?”
“Come out and see for yourself. All I can tell is he really doesn't want us here.”
The three emerged from the studio, William shrugging on his jacket, then plunking his hat on his head after he was past the narrow door. Dr. Jones was in the middle of a wildly-gesticulating argument with an Elw boy, no more than ten years old in appearance. His brown-furred ears faded into his mop of hair. His apparent age didn't necessarily mean much, though. The Elw could stop their ageing where they chose, or even regress--Mariel the Gardener had retained a similarly young appearance through her thousand-year self-exile on the surface.
As they grew closer, they could hear Jones's voice booming out. “That doesn't change the fact that Lully said we could do what we wanted here as long as we gave the bones a proper burial!”
The child replied in a calmer but equally strident voice, contempt apparent in each word, his strange accent much stronger than Lully's. “As I have already said, even among our harmonious people there are different factions, different interests. And ours has prevailed. This is a site of our heritage, and we must examine it ourselves before we allow you to meddle with it any further.”
“Who's we,” Anne quipped. “He have a Wind Mouse in his pocket?”
“All right, fine, look it over if you don't trust the professionalism of anything with bald ears,” Jones boomed in response, “but we can't stop everything we're doing. We've got a lot of documenting and integrating to do on what we've already dug up.”
“Very well, Jones, but do attempt not to break anything too badly.”
“Thanks for your generosity, Kalam,” Jones bit off, and stalked back to the main tent.
William took on a disconcerted look. “I don't like this.”
“Me neither,” Connie agreed, and Anne concurred with a look.
“I don't just mean having to stop. Kalam is a birth-name, and they usually keep those between them and their friends.”
Anne completed the thought. “He and Doc Jones don't look too friendly...”
Connie nodded. “Something's up, for sure. You think he's a fake or something?”
“I don't know,” William said. “I could swear I dreamed his voice at a particularly disturbing place...”
“Didn't you say they were just regular dreams, though?”
The
conversation was cut off by Kalam beelining
towards them and
As the day wore on, the rest of the camp came to share the sentiment. The child was everywhere, poking into things and shooing people away if
they came too close to any of the actual excavations. A cheer went up when one of the Curan girls “clumsily” knocked him into a hole, but stopped in a hurry as he came up fuming. A sigh of relief was widespread as he finally headed back to his--Lully's--collapsible dome. Looking at the shelter started William thinking, though, as he sat impatiently watching outside his tent.
“Wait...I did have a short vision last night. It was...he's got Lully tied up in there.”
The two women almost spat their coffee, and both turned to him with an arch look. Connie won the race to comment.
“I'd thank the Guardians, but I wouldn't need any help to dream that.”
William grimaced in embarrassment. “It wasn't like that! The rest of the dream was normal, but that part was...different.”
“I'll bet,” Anne chortled. “And, kid, aren't you too young for that kind of joke? 'Specially to beat me to it.”
“I think fast,” Connie shot back. “And it never hurts to dream.”
“I'm serious,” William retorted, frustratedly reseating his hat. “This felt like the other true ones. And isn't it kind of suspicious that he didn't bring his own dome, and Lully didn't say he was leaving?”
Connie acquiesced with a shrug. “You picked the right spot on the first try...let's go check it out. But if you get us kicked out after I've been putting everything back, I'll be pissed.”
Anne stood up. “OK, you're the boss...but I figure you'd better do the talking.”
After a day spent around Lully, none of the three were terribly surprised when the Elw boy popped out of the dome when they were still several yards away. “What do you want?”, he asked even more imperiously than usual.
“To know where Lully went,” William said as he stepped forward, still half expecting to feel very foolish at any moment.
“He went back to Tarjon”--the word came out like a curse--”by the same way that I came here. Teleportation is easy for us if there is someone at either point.”
William slumped a bit. Maybe he was wrong after all. But something still didn't seem right. “I know that the Elw are rather secretive at times, but I'm rather surprised that he left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. He seemed better-mannered than to do that.”
Kalam fixed him with a withering glance. “Have you considered that our manners perhaps are not yours?”
This did not satisfy William, not by a long shot. “I've done some research. That isn't polite for you either.”
The boy answered as if his mind were elsewhere. “I have answered your question. If you continue to harrass me, I shall speak to Doctor Jones and have you removed from the site.” He was doing something odd with his hands, and a strange feeling pervaded the air.
Then Connie rushed forward and kicked him between the legs. The odd feeling vanished, and she followed up with a backhand slap across his face that sent him tumbling to the ground. After a stunned moment, he loosed what could cross any language barrier as several truly vile curses and started struggling to his feet, but the fast-moving girl was already entering the shelter. “Hold him, Anne,” she shouted over her shoulder, “and knock his head on the ground or something if he starts casting again!”
This was easier said than done. Kalam was fast too; Anne found herself holding a double handful of robes, and the boy running madly for the trailhead. He jumped over William's staff as the researcher attempted to trip him, and as the guards moved to intercept him, he shouted a brief spell and vanished in a flash of light.
It was Anne's turn to swear, and she had not quite finished when Lully came stumbling out, rubbing his wrists. Connie followed, holding her knife and a couple pieces of rope. Lully stopped in front of William and bowed deeply. “I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude that the Guardians sent you to my rescue when my mind was bound away from my people's.”
“Please thank Connie,” William responded. “It it weren't for her, we'd have just marched out of here ensorcelled.”
Lully turned to the girl behind him and bowed again. “If there is anything I can do to repay all of you, simply tell me.”
A by-now-familiar look of calculating false innocence sprang to Flynn's face, and she stretched one of the ropes between her hands...then dropped it at the shocked looks this drew from the older two, shooting an accusing look back at Anne.
The tall woman ignored it, and returned to business. “He said 'we.' We expecting any more little surprises here?”
“I do not believe so,” Lully replied. “Their machinations have been exposed, and they are all children--they do not have the power to simply force everyone off the site.”
William was off in thought again. “Who are they? 'Others remember and do not forgive'...I think I'm starting to work out what Rigdobrite needs us to do.”
Lully's look became grave. “Our latest shame...a 'children's crusade' of sorts. Elder Fulcanelli could tell you more. I have several spare sets of ionic wings, if the three of you wish to visit him.”
“That...would more than put us even. And...I take it that teleportation isn't as easy as Kalam said?”
“Although it was indeed how he appeared here, teleporting by spell into the Elw Dimension is...a poor proposition. One could easily appear in midair, underwater, or even in the depths of the Abyss. I have some business to conclude with Doctor Jones, and then we may get under way.”
Lully walked off towards the central tent to inform Jones that the dig could proceed, the usual grace of his movements already returned, but he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Incidentally...my birth-name is Erjon.”
When he was done, he went into his shelter and returned with what looked for all the world like four oval, winged backpacks of some hard white material. Then he looked at the dome and concentrated for a moment, and it collapsed in on itself, the view through the entrance showing the space inside folding as well, like someone moving the mirrors of a kaleidoscope.
Connie had the best view, and she whistled. “Don't have much trouble with packing, huh?” The structure was now compacted to a tiny bundle, and Lully--Erjon--set his wing-pack on it, then pressed it down, eliciting a click. It then hovered up from the ground, a faint light limning the edges of the wings, and he slipped his arms through the straps and fastened a belt around his waist.
The three humans had somewhat harder going with their still-inert devices, especially since they had in the meantime burdened themselves with more ordinary backpacks. In the end, though, they had them on securely enough, following Anne's brainstorm to loop some extra length in the belt around their gear before fastening it around their waists. At a mental command from the Elw, they took off together, and work stopped briefly to watch them go. Connie and William couldn't help enjoying the ride; Anne seemed disconcerted at first, but gradually relaxed as she saw the others' pleasure, and was comforted by the sheer ease of the flight. Somehow, it did not feel as if their full weight hung from the straps, and something shielded them from most of the wind.
The ground rolled by far below, and then turned to sea. They were travelling at a rate faster than any of the Gull Wing series could attain, almost at the speed of Emma's lovely-but-impractical Swift, whose ARM-rockets could break the sound barrier, but exhausted even Rudy within ten minutes. Shortly after, the others were all startled to hear a high laugh coming from William. He was grinning like a schoolboy. The others clustered in closer, within each other's wind-shields, not sure if their wings were responding to Lully's thoughts or their own. “Thin air making you punchy?”, Anne asked, some genuine concern creeping through the mockery.
“No,” William answered, still grinning, “it's just...I feel like a real Dream Chaser now.”
“Dream Chaser?”, the women asked simultaneously.
“It's what my aunt calls Wanderers. She got it from her teacher. I wish I'd been able to meet the Old Man...”
“Old ARMsmeister Tamagomeschi, came through town twice a year, said it too,” Anne replied. “Just never thought I'd hear it out of somebody your age.”
“Daddy's only dream was a big pile of silver,” Connie added. “It sounds nice, though...”
They stayed together, talking, as the invariant blue slid by beneath. Most of it was inconsequential, although bits of the past slipped in here and there, until William hit upon an odd question. “I just remembered where I've seen your sword style before, Anne. Was your father an Adlehyde knight?”
“Nope,” she said, in a definite tone of ”that's a stupid question.” “Solid dirt farmers all the way back, 'cept for Granny the drunk ex-Baskar. Swordmaster was one, though, pensioned off with a bum leg.” She let this drop with a finality that declared the subject of her past closed.
Soon, they were flying over land again, and they descended to a less dizzying height as they passed Rosetta; by the time they reached the forest to its south--several days' ride south, Anne thought, impressed--they were nearly skimming the treetops.
They landed in a clearing, stairs before them leading up to a gigantic magic circle made of stone. Slender cables of some incorruptibly shiny material stretched from it into the ground on all other sides, taking up the energy of the leylines. “This is the gate into our world,” their guide announced.
They stepped up and to the centre of the platform, and there was a moment of dislocation, a sense of fast movement in a direction that made no sense, and a dazzling brightness. Then they stood on a similar platform in a greener forest under a sky of an oddly dark blue, an autumnal chill in the air, with a feeling of burgeoning life all around them. Connie stepped to the edge and rose onto her toes...but the pack refused to take off. She turned to the Elw with a disappointed look. “Hey Lully--Erjon--why won't you let me fly?”
His face took on an apologetic cast. “I too wish I could fly here--but there is too much power in the air. To engage the wings and rise too far would draw it in the form of lightning. And...either name is quite acceptable.”
“OK. I like Lully better anyway. Fits your face.”
The
The village proper stood partly in a shallow, clear river and stretched up the slope beyond, with bridges joining the circular buildings in place of streets. William, from his aunt's tales, expected a monastery-like quiet and purposefulness, but it showed as much activity as one would see in any town its size, although its people clearly went about their business in the sure knowledge that they had all the time in the world, and the low waterfall nearby was louder than the buzz of voices. It seemed that Emma's impressions had been coloured by a comparison with her own nigh-insane energy.
The elder's residence was not hard to find; it stood front and centre, and was easily the largest structure there. The four entered and divested themselves of their now-grounded flying packs, Lully letting his still-burdened one hover. Inside was clearly the haunt of a scholar and experimenter, with an Elw touch but still much the same as anywhere. The tapping of a cane on a set of stairs alerted them to Fulcanelli's entrance, and they found themselves facing something truly rare--an old Elw. The elder, though energetic, leaned heavily on his stick, and a thin grey beard hung from his chin. According to Emma, he had let himself age under the stresses of the Demon War, and had felt the appearance fit him when he became the leader of his race in their exile.
He bowed his head as he saw the three humans. “Welcome, guided ones. I understand that you believe the fulfillment of your purpose is among our lost children, yes?”
Connie shook her head. “And I thought I was direct.”
The grey eyebrows shot up, and Fulcanelli regarded the girl. “This decrepit body is not a stage costume, my child. It is a reminder--that, though my life is potentially unlimited, each moment is precious.” Then he looked back to William. “And your own predominating virtue is curiosity, yes? Well, I shall try to satisfy it as best I can. In the past two years, a...notion...has spread among the new children, those born after our reawakening to the world's concerns fifteen years ago. They learned something of the struggle between our peoples, but not as it happened. They see in it only your kind's folly and perfidy, and the root of our fading for as long as we attempt to coexist. Fully a quarter of this latest generation, our hope, have fallen victim to this twisted half-truth, and departed by the gate or less safe ways to make a stand on the planet's surface.”
William stood mute for a moment, shocked, then spoke. “But...how could you let this happen? Just let all those children wander off?”
“The three of you know the ways, intimately,” Fulcanelli intoned, looking William right in the eyes. “Indulgence.” He turned to Connie. “Mischance.” Then to Anne. “Sheer determination.”
Anne clenched her fists tightly. She looked as if only the fact she faced an aged and respected man was keeping her from throwing a punch. “We could take care of ourselves! If they're all like Kalam, we're talking about little kids here! Don't you high-and-mighty Elw keep an eye on them?!”
William's eyes snapped wide open in horror; he backed off with hands raised as if he expected the old Elw would literally explode. Fulcanelli shuffled back, startled. “We grow more slowly, but, if I may be immodest, we learn at a rate unrivalled by your greatest prodigies. It was far too easy to trust them too far.” His face faded to a deep shame. “Also...we grew complacent about our ability to sense them anywhere within our small and secure world. That they would leave...simply failed to occur to us.”
Her hands unclenched, but she shook her head in disgust. “From what William's said, most of y'all always had trouble using those superbrains you keep between your rabbit ears.”
The elder made a gesture of defeat. “I would love to gainsay this, but our history would give me the lie...Too easily, we fall into habit, and habit becomes tradition. We believed that, fifteen years ago, we freed ourselves from this stasis, but once again we are betrayed by our pride. I can only promise that we will attempt to learn...and thank the Guardians that they have sent us three who share their will, the power of miracles.”
“We'll do your miracle, all right, but you'd better learn.”
“What is it the True Worders say? Even the Bosatz's patience runs out?” William rubbed his forehead wearily. “I just hope they don't have to make a whole new miracle to make the children believe me.”
Lully spoke for the first time since they had entered. “I do not believe that will be needed. You come armed with the truth in a voice they cannot deny.”
“And, perhaps more important,” Fulcanelli continued seamlessly, “the imprimatur of the Falling Star itself. The children are still Elw, whatever they believe. They cannot deny the Powers set above themselves.”
“I hope you're correct,” William replied. “But if I'm to bring it to them, I need to know where they are. Do you have any idea?”
Fulcanelli shook his head. “They have hidden themselves well. However, Vassim has said that he is making some progress...”
Lully cocked his head to the side. “Vassim? The Exile--the former exile, I should say--still has yet to choose a new call-name?”
Fulcanelli made a sympathetic face. “It seems he is the last to think his honour redeemed.”
“Whatever he chooses to call himself, it seems that we know our next destination.” Lully bowed and turned to leave. “Good day, Elder.”
The others began to follow him, but something stopped the long-haired man just inside the entrance. “Lully, my child, please do take your...gadgets with you. I clutter this hall well enough myself.”
Anne bowed her head uneasily before turning to leave, and began rubbing her brow as soon as she started moving. The wing-packs floated into line behind the four like a string of ducklings as they made their exit.
Outside, Lully sent the packs winging homeward, and Connie turned to Anne with, for the first time, a look of admiration undisguised by mockery or competition. “Daaaamn. Lady, you have more brass than an ARM shop, telling off that old man like that.”
“Heh,” she responded, somewhat relieved. “I thought you practically worshipped these guys.”
“I only worship the Guardians, and maybe Jane Maxwell.” This brought a smirk out of Anne, and a slow, “me too” kind of nod. “Saints are people too, and sometimes they need the truth shoved in their face just like us.”
William, on the other hand, though still shaken, looked worried for Anne. “It was true, certainly, but...what did he say to strike you so badly?”
“Not what, how. I can't stand people putting on like I'm so much less than they are. 'Specially when they're talking about having less sense than a burr-bug.”
“I do hope I am not included in your condemnation,” Lully said with a slight smile.
“Nah, long as you don't start talking like an almanac fortune, you'll be fine, pretty boy Erjon.”
Oh, yuck, Connie thought. When did this little adventure story turn into “Everybody Loves Anne”? She wasn't sure if Lully's comment disturbed her more, or her own.
They did not take the way William knew from Emma's stories; instead, they followed the river downstream from Tarjon, soon bringing them to a stone stair carved into a cliff, next to the falls where the river splashed into one of the floating island's miniature seas. At its bottom lay a small quay where a boat of the same white material as the wings was tied. Its cabin was gilded and its prow bore an ornament that looked like some strange bird's head, quite in contrast to the simplicity of Elw houses. However, they would not get to see its performance quite yet; the sky was fading to black without any such formalities as a coloured sunset, and stars were beginning to emerge with an unusual clarity that contrasted with the diffuseness of sunlight in this strange place. The waterfalls where the lagoon reached the edge of the floating island made a night crossing something not to be attempted if at all avoidable.
Whatever their houses looked like on the outside, Elw beds were comfortable, William thought as he lay down on his bunk in the cabin. It was better even than his feather bed at home in Adlehyde, but for some reason he couldn't sleep. He felt strange now that he knew the purpose of his revelations. It was too easy, too close to the end. What would they have to face next? And what lay after the obvious destiny was achieved? As much as he worried about achieving his purpose, as powerless as he had felt when Rigdobrite first began to direct him, he would miss the visions if they deserted him, left him yet another ordinary scholar muddling his way through life.
He spotted a glow near his right hand, and tossed his staff aside like it had bitten him. ...He'd been about to shoot an arrow into the wall. Great control there, Valeria. Whoever owned the boat wouldn't have been happy with that. That was another thing. In the whirlwind of events that the last few days had been, he hadn't gotten the chance to work on Anne's advice about Force. They might be close to knowing their destination, but what would they face in the meantime, and would they be ready for it? It seemed that the advice had sunk in for Connie, though; although she'd remained her manic self, he had noticed something less twitchy and more controlled about her since that night. He lay back down and prayed for sleep, and slowly, unwillingly, it came.
The next day dawned in the same subtle way the last had gone out, and they got under way. No boatman came down to take them; Lully stood at the tiller, and guided them smoothly across, despite the treacherous currents, to a white sand beach on the far side. He and Anne tied up at a simple set of posts driven into the sand, and the four waded ashore. Soon, still leaving wet footprints, they found themselves on a broad grassy ledge beneath the main level of the island. Connie insisted on walking along the edge, which kept Anne and William in a rather nervous state for most of the way. Lully watched her too, but seemed strangely secure--enough that Anne began to get annoyed. “What's with you, Ears? You want me to change my mind about you too?”
“I am keeping my mind clear, in case she does lose her footing, and I must pull her back.”
“Pull her...”
By way of explanation, Lully shifted his attention to a small stone near the cliff at their other side, and made a few strange gestures with one hand. The pebble floated from the ground, and flew into that hand. The other two goggled as he dropped it and went on. “Force is a highly sensitive state. We might wish to let her practice without more stares than mine distracting her.” The other two blinked, shook their heads, and watched their own way.
The ledge showed no signs of ending for a long time, remaining broad and sloping slowly upward as it rounded several corners in the rock above. Finally, though, they came to a tunnel-mouth in the cliff face, below a typically unpretentious dwelling, incongruously perched on a pinnacle like a mad doctor's castle in a cheap novel. The tunnel led to a cellar lit by electric lanterns, through which an underground stream flowed. The four crossed the rather unstable-feeling floating platforms set in it, then climbed a long ladder into a higher, rather cluttered section. Anne booted some bric-a-brac out of their way, and they emerged back into the light. A mage-ape, a distant relative of the Elw--and humans, it had been thought until William's discovery--sat in front of the house contemplatively eating a piece of fruit, and it hooted a greating as they emerged. Lully thought for a moment, then passed on the message. “He says that Vassim is in the middle of something, so we are to go right in.”
They entered, to find a bizarre scene. The Guardian Blade's creator had a table set up in the middle of the room, and was working on something on it, hooked up by tubes to various strange machines. He wore gloves and an apron as well as his usual blue robes and headband, and was spattered all over with some silvery fluid. Then the thing on the table spoke. “All right, Doc, all right! I'll tell you from the beginning, just be a little more gentle, willya? Some of my fans are here, and I don't want 'em to hear me scream!”
“If you stop moving out of the spell's reach, I can promise that you will feel no more pain,” Vassim responded. Then he looked up, towards the door. “Fans?”
“Er...I don't know who...” William looked over the figure on the table. It looked like a young man, with green hair and pale, almost greyish skin. However, it was clear that he was made of metal underneath--both arms and both legs were in the early stages of being reattached They looked to have been neatly severed with a blade. Something clicked, from the stories of fifteen years ago. “You're...that Metal Demon who changed sides, right? Zed, was it?” His companions looked confusedly between him and the patient.
“I'm no traitor--I've always been on the side of righteousness, however I saw it!”
Vassim waved a quick hello to the travellers, wiped some sweat from his forehead with a bloody sleeve, and set back to work with needle and nano-infuser. “Your heart is true silver, miles gloriosus though you be...Now, you were going to tell me how you arrived in such a sad state?”
“Oh, yeah. So I had once again set off in search of the legendary swordmaster Mifune, the only man who can teach even the great Zed new secrets of the warrior's art...and my winding way took me to a cave high in the snowy peaks. No sooner had I stepped across the threshold than I heard a voice. It sounded kinda like a lady's...but kinda like a dog somehow...anyway, what it was saying was, 'I'll say it again, through the air if your desire so fills your mind you can't hear me otherwise. Why should I help you eliminate the creatures that sustain me? Animal desires are...thin. Tasteless. And yours is strong, but it's just one.'
Then I hear this other voice. Slick and mean, the kind of thing I was born to fight. And he says, 'When my plan is complete, everything I am will be magnified. I will be as joined to Filgaia's life as you are--and my desire will be the whole planet's. But I can't do it without you. Does that thought suit your palate?'
So she laughs...howls...something that sounds like both...and says, 'You're promising a lot. Perhaps if you can seize the Teardrop of Adlehyde, I'll believe that you have both the means and the strength of will.'
'I'm not invincible,' he says. 'Enough fleas can kill the strongest horse. I have different methods in mind...I'll call you again when I can give you a demonstration.'
Then the other voice, the girl, starts sounding really fed up, and I hear, 'I am a wolf, not a tame dog...' And I've had about enough of these corny lines, so I kick a stone to announce my presence...”
At this point, the room erupted into laughter. Despite the grim subject matter, Zed's odd imitations of the voices had tickled even Lully, and this latest braggartly assertion pushed the visitors over the edge. Only Vassim, accustomed to the ex-demon's strange ways, kept his calm, methodically patching away.
Zed clenched his one sufficiently working hand and glared at them. “I may be a captive, uh, teller, but I'm telling a story here! Anyway, this metal flying eye thing comes zooming up to me, and goes back, and then the guy comes out. He looks like...like he's Rudy's big brother or something, and he's got the weirdest sword I ever saw in one hand, and no arm in the other. And behind 'im, looking like she's laughing, is this spiky wolf thing, all blue and red...I think it was that one Guardian. Lucidia?”
“Luceid,” Vassim said automatically. “Lucadia is the Sea Dragon.” The three humans grew grave again, Anne particularly, and a barely whispered “Alan” passed between them.
Zed cleared his throat and continued. “Anyway, he's looking for a fight and runs right at me, and I think it's not looking fair. I've got two arms and he's got one. And I know how good you are, Doc, so I decide to spot him one, and play slow and let 'im take the left one. And when I swing back at him, he skitters back, and I think I've got him intimidated. I mean, here's this little punk nobody's ever heard of, facing the great Zed, right? But then, he pulls out this big red light thing, and zip, I'm standing on one leg. From way over there! Talk about a coward's move...and then he comes running in again, swinging up at me like he thinks being a little off balance means he can just fillet me as easy as that.
But I've got a little surprise--I still catch that weird sword of his on mine, and start pushing it down. Then he pulls out a bigger surprise--there's the red thing again, and without him moving a muscle, fwoom! It sweeps down, and there go the other arm and leg. Now, an ordinary warrior might be defeated, but not me--I remember a great secret technique, one only preserved in the picture-stories of ancient Terra! There was this one with a sailor guy who fought with a sword in each hand and one in his teeth...and so I grab Doom Bringer with the old steely whites as I'm falling, and give it a mighty heave with a mere flick of my neck. That bastard of a sword goes spinning through both his legs, and I say, 'It's not so fun when you're the one getting cut up, huh?' But my cursed luck has the last laugh, 'cause he just kinda flows back together, and laughs! At me lying there like a heap of spare parts! I can't stand bullies...
And then, he starts going on and on about what a shame it is to have to kill somebody else metal...and while he's just ranting on, and on, I grab my Teleport Gem, and think about being here hard as I can. And then I'm sitting in pieces on your lawn, thinking it can't get any worse. But no, Doom Bringer came with me, and it drops on my head, wham! I can't get rid of that blasted sword, no matter what--I even gave it to Jack and it came right back!”
Vassim stopped in his work, now far enough done that all of Zed had gestured together with the latter part of his narration, and looked at the braggart warrior oddly. “...How did you grab it? And why did you have one so close to hand...so to speak.”
“In my teeth, obviously! And I've kept one ever since I found that Doom Bringer's curse extended to pushing me far from my intended path...”
“Perhaps,” Vassim replied with mild reproach, reconnecting a last few strands of steely tissue and pulling free all but a few tubes, “though your heart is stalwart and your skills formidable, it is your own sense of direction that sends you astray? I am finished...that remarkable physiology and a few healing spells should do the rest.”
Zed snapped his head to the side and stared at the alchemist petulantly. “Nonsense, Doc! I was concieved in a perfect science!”
Vassim began to make the passes of a spell over the swordsman, and spoke in a half-distracted manner. “Now, you need to rest, and I am sending you to sleep. The last time you needed my care, you tore free two fingers attempting to practice too soon.”
Zed's voice faded as the working took hold. “This is so undignified...and in front of my public...” His eyes closed.
The aproned Elw stood, and finally turned to his nonplused guests. “I apologise. It was something of an emergency situation. Now, I shall make myself more presentable and somewhat less toxic, and we can discuss matters over tea.” He disappeared into the back room.