Warmaster Jack

JACK & DARZ

This text is available under the Creative Commons Noncommercial Attribution Sharealike License.

All Other Rights Reserved

Copyright 2011 by Onyx Tao

I paused as I climbed - staggered, if one can apply that term - up the tree, cursing myself for my own stupidity. Baron had said it, I'd heard it, and I'd even watched it happen, and here I was. Sometimes, too smart is just stupid. Bleeding from a poisoned wound, the dagger still sticking into my kidney, trying not to leave too obvious a trail to the Wolf trackers. That last was helped by a little bit of foresight; a long time ago, I'd had my boots enchanted to leave no trail, and provide me with resistance to the elements. I would be comfortable in snow or desert, if I had my boots on. As a side-benefit to the magic, the boots have never worn out and fit perfectly. Sometimes, I've thought that the money I paid to the Priest of the Green Faith was worth that alone.

Not tonight. I pulled myself another ten feet up the tree, slowly. I had retreated - hidden - as soon as I was attacked, and that, no doubt, had saved me. It wasn't the proper orcish response, but the proper orcish response would have gotten me killed. I wasn't sure if I was going to survive regardless - I could feel the poison numbing my fingers and sapping my strength, but depending on how much of that poison they'd had, I could have been sliced to ribbons with those poisoned blades. It had been an effective, smart, and well-executed assassination.

I had no one to blame but myself.

Another fifteen feet, and then onto the ledge formed by the branch; it would conceal me from the ground, and orcs generally think in terms of holes, not trees, when they're going to ground. I'd been meaning to discuss that flaw in my training sessions - my warriors kept looking down, and not up, but at the moment I was just as happy I'd focused on other things. Those marvelous boots of mine would keep me warm and toasty despite the chill wind and light rain. I thought back to all the times they'd come in useful, and they were were ten times what I'd paid, easily.

This next part would be ugly, and at least I wouldn't be risking damage from exposure while I hid. I pulled out the curative potion I had - I always carry one - and broke the cap. Usually curatives aren't too bad as magic decoctions go, they tend to be fruity or herbal or at least not nasty, and they aren't painful or weird. Usually. I could tell on breaking the seal that this one was different. Where had I picked this one up? Typically I got them from a temple of Desna or Shelyn; I pay full price or maybe even a little more, but they work when you need them.

At the moment, I couldn't think of anything worse that being eighty feet off the ground, bleeding from a poisoned dagger that I hadn't dared to pull out, with a phony curative. And this liquid smelled not like fresh grass, or sweet citrus, or violets, but sour cabbage. I checked the vial again to make sure I had the right one, and it was the one I thought it was. Sour cabbage.

I put one hand on the dagger, and gulped the potion down as I pulled the jagged knife out. I'm glad I gulped it, because it tasted like raw sewage. I've had things that tasted this bad, but usually they're more esoteric, potions to convert oneself to a ghostly mist, potions to change your size, potions to honey your words to entrance listeners ... those can be and usually are unvaryingly nasty. Curatives? Not so much, but it was just fit the night I was having that this particular one ended up tasting like Urgathoa's diarrhea. All that mattered was that it worked. And I could feel something, in that deep wound.

Something crawling, that felt like it was using needles to crawl with.

It hurt. It hurt more than being stabbed had. It hurt more than pulling the barbed dagger out had. It hurt a lot.

I clenched my jaw to keep from making any noise, and looked down at the puncture and the other, more minor, cuts I'd taken. The flesh was drawing together; it was just doing so painfully. I grimaced as something actually snapped back together - I'm not sure what - and refrained from biting through my lip or tongue. The last thing I needed was needles there. What was this? Some hellish Zon-Kuthite healing brew? Where had this come from?

Darz had provided it, way back at the stone circle, I remembered, finally. Well, it was working, even if it wasn't conducive to the quiet stillness I needed to stay alive. A lack of bleeding wounds would be an improvement, if the damn potion would just finish. Eventually, of course, it did. Pain makes time stretch out unpleasantly, but then, that's one of the reasons I carry a curative with me. Unlike, for example, a restorative or something to counter poison. I have those, but they're hidden back at the cave I use as Warmaster of the Sharpened Spit orcs. I didn't bring them with me; I didn't think I'd need them, which is partially true.

The true part of that sentence is: I didn't think.

It had all gone so well, too. I'd reorganized the tribe into warrior societies and a lodge for the sows. Adulthood meant being in a society; being in a society meant unthinking obedience to the elders and the Society's chief. That the societies were secret meant nobody knew everyone in them, nobody knew who reported to whom, nobody should know enough to mount an effective campaign against the Warmaster. Anyone outside a few orcs whom were known to be members of their own society might be - probably would be - members of a rival society. Why? Because I wanted to see if I could turn the fractious orcs into a biddable army. The secret societies had worked. There were a few issues, but they worked. I could issue commands, and expect them to be followed.

There were a few holdouts, so I took them on a raiding party to go visit the Bone Snappers, one of our traditional enemies, and this time, rather than raid, I planned to occupy - remove the boars, take the sows, and expand my tribe. Maybe take over their camp, without a question take over their territory. I went with the advance raiding party - the boars I'd judged unreliable and expendable - and another, larger force would follow, led by Darz. My intention was to expend them. It was a smart plan. Too smart. Sometimes too smart is just stupid.

Our initial raid went perfectly; the Bone Snappers had guards and sentries, but they weren't as good as I was, and they weren't posted in pairs within sight of each other, so killing them felt like one of the early exercises I'd done for Baron, only I really got to kill sentries. Without the sentries, our entry to the Bone Snapper's camp was opposed not by boars with weapons, but boars who'd just finished eating. Daggers, against swords and mauls. They didn't last long, and even securing the survivors - about half or maybe even two-thirds of the boars, say fifty or sixty, wasn't too difficult. Of course, I anticipated some difficulty with them when they found out we were going to kill them rather than keep them as slaves, but again, I'd kept that part secret from the rest of the raiding party. I didn't think I'd have any difficulty convincing them, and what they didn't know, they couldn't tell the prisoners.

I'd even managed to lose the boars I didn't want to keep. I'd had them, and ten boars from the Wolf Society, all chosen by the Wolf Lord, their society master, for their loyalty and skill. I had expected to need troops I could trust. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The Wolf Lord had liked the societies, had taken to my plans enthusiastically, been the first to adopt my training for his young warriors, it had never consciously occurred to me that I was trusting him. Admittedly, even if I'd thought about, I would have judged him worthy of some trust. I wouldn't, however, have put myself in the hands of him and ten of his own chosen boars. The problem was, the societies were loyal to their leaders, and not so much me. In retrospect, a clear defect in the plan.

So instead of the Wolves keeping order while the rest of the advance party pillaged and raped, they'd ambushed me. I hadn't seen it coming, making it an effective ambush at that. Warlord Korrig - the Wolf Lord - had walked up to me with a stolen pitcher of the piss that orcs confuse with beer, told me how well it had gone, and put a poisoned dagger right into me. And the other Wolf warriors were waiting, in the camp, just hanging around, and they went for their swords as if they'd practiced.

Maybe they had. Now, there was another depressing thought. The societies had enough secrecy built into them that these kinds of conspiracies would be hard to detect, although only the highest-ranking society members would be in a position to put one together. I'd have to correct that.

Assuming I survived. Prioritization is a survival skill everywhere. The future would keep, my current task was to reach it. A moment of thought convinced me that I had very little chance against all ten of them, especially if they had poisoned blades. Would Korrig have trusted his wolves with blade poison? I wouldn't have trusted amateurs anywhere near the stuff - without the right training, it's as dangerous to the user as the intended victim. I finally concluded that I had to assume both that they had poison, and that none of them would accidentally poison themselves or each other.

At least I'd gotten away.

Escaping from a midst of attackers was something I'd practiced. It was something I'd picked up traveling, after Baron and I parted. I'd joined a questionable caravan as a hired sword, and I suppose I was a little drunk when some of the other mercs pulled out instruments - a couple of drums, a gittern, and a couple of beaten-up pipes. They were surprisingly good, and maybe that should have been a tip-off, but I was younger, and also maybe a little more than just a little drunk, and that didn't occur to me until later. Plus, I was in a remarkably good mood. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for a little wine and conversation and music without everyone staring at the half-orc freak or making snide comments that they think I'm too dim to understand. Someone - and I don't know who - proposed a dancing contest, and put out a hat for it. Others threw money in, a thin disc of gold, or two, depending on how they felt about it.

I don't generally dance in public, not anymore, for a number of reasons, one of which is that there's a limited number of half-orcs with formal ballet training. However, that evening, Baron was dead and I was moderately drunk, so I tossed in a handful of coins and joined the impromptu contest. I got some surprised looks, but then it was a mellow evening and it could be chalked up to fun. By the time we were ready to start, the hat was full of coins, silver and gold, and I was fairly confident I could win. We agreed on some simple rules. There were twelve of us, and so there would be three initial rounds with a single winner each, and then it would be an elimination. The crowd forming around us would act as the judge, but one of the caravan masters would decide what the decision was, based on the reaction of the onlookers. It sounds more complicated than it was, actually.

I ended up in the last round, and I went second, following a mediocre jig by a halfling. I told the musicians to play a drinking song, Red Run River, and I wondered if they knew the music to that had originally been the Firesword Dance from the second act of Daz Vuggenhem of the Belkzen opera cycle. They might. My performance of the Firesword Dance - complete with razor sharp swords - was at least as good as any night I'd been onstage.

Well, almost as good. I was rusty on the choreography, but I was a better dancer then than I was when I'd done it originally. It's a great solo piece, and not just because it has swords. I'd watched the other rounds, of course, and decided the serious competition was a human dancer. She hadn't done anything as complex as the Firesword Dance, but she'd clearly had some classical training, and the way she melted from pose to pose was graceful beyond words. I'm rarely attracted to human females, but watching her move made her a strong exception. It would be worth the care it would take not to hurt her, even if that meant I couldn't reach climax myself. I found myself wishing I had a potion of strength to go along with the potion of endurance ... I didn't, though, and explaining why I wanted her to take them would almost certainly spoil the mood, even if I could get her in the mood to begin with.

That left four of us. I did a complicated tango dance on my round (shamelessly stolen from Madama Grechlen), and one of the caravan guards lost. She did a fantastic circle dance, and I was certain at that point I was going to lose. The money would have been nice, but as I said, I was enjoying the evening, the music, and the dancing very much. I'd even had my eye on one of the other dancers, the guard who washed out this round. Maybe he could use some consoling.

Bofo Eizler's Groom's Minuet from High and Low got me into the final round. That my competition was the human woman didn't surprise me at all. She whispered, "I'm going to win," to me as she bowed. She probably was. I was mentally rehearsing Fall of the Black Swan, from Yashovem, when I felt it; a tingle down my spine, a tiny hint of magic. I looked around, and I saw the halfing I'd beaten in the first round, grinning at me, a spiteful, nasty grin, and I realized the little shit had cursed me. I throttled my first, second, and third impulse, all which would have resulted in a puddle of red goo. There wasn't much I could do about it at the moment. A few discreet stretches and I knew what he'd done: he'd made me clumsy. Less graceful, in any case. At least it was minor; it would probably wear off rather than have to be lifted. I just smiled back at the halfling, and made myself note his looks, his features, for later. There would be a later.

But the Fall of the Black Swan would be a disaster, even if I could get through the whole thing without falling on my ass. Should I just forfeit, and admit she's the better dancer? She was, so I didn't really mind saying so, but not making her work for the win irritated me. Letting her go first, and then forfeiting ... no, that would be cheating, and it's not as if this contest were important enough for me to cheat. Stupid little shit halfling; I let myself fantasize for a moment about boiling him in glue and tieing the nice shiny corpse to a set of strings as a special little marionette.

Marionette! The Marionette's Gavotte!

Jerky, clumsy, uncoordinated - I'd hated that piece. I still hated it. It's clowning, pure clowning, and I hate being laughed at. Master Huerik had insisted I learn it, and I'd performed it exactly twice: once for him, and once for Baron, and thought, never again. But I wasn't Task, Baron's fuckslave, not anymore. Maybe Jack could do this, and laugh with the crowd when it was over. Could he? Could I? However I performed, if I performed, I was going to look like a fool.

Then a Fool I would be, I decided.

As it happened, she went first, and did something I'd heard of, but had never seen, ghawazi. It's a remarkable style of dancing that emphasizes the torso, and back, rather than legs and arms. The body vibrates, and shimmers, the hips swivel and pivot, and it's almost like sex standing up. She was good at it, astoundingly good, and it was a joy to watch her. I clapped as enthusiastically as anyone as she finished, glimmers of firelight reflecting from the fine sheen of sweat.

"Beat that," she whispered as she passed me.

"Do my best," I said. "Oh, that was wonderful, by the way." Nothing but the truth, and I did get a puzzled look from her. I smiled back, my most friendly tusked grin, and shouted out the musicians, "Well, play something!" To the inevitable confused what?, I yelled, "Somethin' classy!" and mentally apologized to Master Reisling. And the Maestro. After a confused moment, they started something with a three-four beat - I could work with that. I walked - stiltedly, in a sort of exaggerated parade march, up to the area serving as a stage.

I opened with a ridiculous overbalanced pose, and toppled - catching myself with a somersault, and and lifting back into the Marionette's Gavotte. The first laugh came a few moves in, and then spread, as I jerked myself around and around and around, flopping from one pose to another. It's not so much grace that the Gavotte requires as a fundamental knowledge of the initial ballet postures, and it's not an easy dance. And I hate clowning. But it was working, the watchers were laughing, and I finished it with the traditional face-forward drop. I got up, dusted myself off, and bowed. I took some satisfaction in that the cheers were as loud for me as they had been for my opponent.

"That was a surprise," she said. "I have to admit you're ... pretty good."

"Yes," I said, and added "You're better. Would you show me ghawazi? I've only heard of it."

She shot me another surprised look. "You know of it?"

I resisted the urge to lecture about stupid and insulting questions; after all, what I wanted was to learn something from her. I could tell her exactly what I thought of her patronizing assumption that all half-orcs are drooling idiots afterwards. That was how I met Sharza. I traveled with her for six months, and we had much more in common than I would have expected. She taught me any number of remarkable things.

Like how to hide while you're being watched. It's a trick, of course, and once you know how it's done, less remarkable, but the first time she did it, I was astounded. It's actually its own kind of magic, holding yourself ready to dance, letting the possibilities of movement fold around you, and that lets you push yourself, if you know you can, just a little bit into the plane of shadow. I don't leave this plane for that one, but it's more ... it's hard to describe. It's easier to demonstrate than explain. It's more like pulling the shadows towards you, while at the same time pushing yourself into them. It's effective. It's like magic, only better, because there is no magic.

When I did it to Korrig and his wolves, I cordially hoped they were a little astounded. I leaned into the shadows even as I pulled them around me, and ducked.

I ran. I'd never quite needed the magic of my boots like I needed them then, or depended on them. I'd completely, absolutely, forgotten that I was taking myself away from a strong position, where I had allies and resources into a new one; all I was thinking about was how difficult it was going to be to sneak into the Bone Snapper's midst to invade. Korrig, on the other hand, had obviously seen just how much power I'd accumulated as Warmaster, and when I voluntarily walked away from the position of strength in camp ... really, I had a hard time blaming him. I shouldn't have put that kind of temptation in front of him. That wouldn't save him or his treacherous warriors, of course.

But at the moment, I was cowering on a tree branch, hoping I wouldn't be found while I was fighting off the effects of whatever poison Korrig had used. It was strong, whatever it was. Where had he got it? Poison is dangerous, and most would-be poisoners end up killing themselves, either while preparing the stuff themselves, or applying it. I'd had training, of course, and I knew how to use it without getting myself killed, but how had he managed? Luck? Maybe. Could Darz have supplied him? That seemed unlikely, but I couldn't dismiss it. Darz was a priestess of the Mother of Monsters, and although she'd wanted to set the societies up as Mother-cults, it hadn't worked. Orcs aren't particularly matriarchal, and cults centered around childbirth and pregnancy just aren't very attractive to boars. The society for females had worked, though, and I'd assumed that the House of Mare was secretly dedicated to her. No. Darz might support a cultist over me, but not one that didn't follow her Goddess, and Korrig would never follow the Mother of Monsters.

That left Urdrus, the other potential rebel. The orcs wouldn't follow him, he was too dependent on magic, but his support ... that was an important thing, and I'd thought he supported me. Might Korrig have ... no. Korrig was very much a traditional orc, distrustful of magic. It wasn't impossible that either Darz or Urdrus had betrayed me, but after some consideration, unlikely. Korrig was probably acting on his own - and that would explain why he'd waited for this raid, when I was away from them. He probably thought he could simply present himself as the next Warmaster if I was out of way. It hardly mattered how I was dead, after all, I would be dead.

At least the poison seemed to have run its course. No band of orcs had turned up under the tree with torches, a convincing sign that I remained undetected. I considered returning, briefly, and decided against it. No, I'd make Korrig wait. Let him worry, let him fret, let him ... fear. Let his wolves fear. I was more than a match for Korrig and his boars, and Korrig knew it. In a few hours, it would be dawn, and then noon. The sun would hurt my eyes, but it would burn theirs, eyes and skin, and that would be a second ally. I drew a breath, and prepared to wait. Patience is the key to stealth and hunting, and I was definitely hunting.

I waited until the sun was overhead until I came down the tree. I was still suffering from the aftereffects of the poison, but I could still move, and fight. I drifted from tree to tree to tree, back towards our camp outside the Bone Snapper's fort. Even with the shadows as short as they were, they were more than enough to keep me hidden. Korrig had posted sentries, wearing heavy clothes against the sun and cloth wrapped around their head to keep their eyes from burning. It might provide protection against sunlight, but it didn't help them see me.

If Korrig were trying to take my place, he'd have to take my tent. I moved over to it, undid a tie, peeked inside. Dirt floor, a tiny table, and an orc, sleeping on the cot. How easy this would be, I thought, and then paused. It did seem easy, too easy, even for a beginner's exercise in Daggermark. I held my breath, and listened, but all I heard were the noises of the day, and the hoarse breathing of the orc on the cot. Of an orc, I thought, remembering my lessons. It had been quite a while since I'd killed anyone like this ... no, the figure on the cot was moving. Was it Korrig?

I tied my own cloak over the tent to keep the light out, and slit the ties holding the leather to the pole. I slipped in, quietly ... what ... there were bells on the tent flap? Did he really think that anyone coming into a leather tent would come in through the door? I looked down at the floor, almost expecting to see caltrops. Poisoned caltrops. Poisoned exploding caltrops.

But, as I'd seen earlier, there was nothing but dirt. I put the thought of invisible poisoned exploding caltrops out of my mind, and turned my attention back to the orc. It looked like Korrig, but this entire thing screamed trap to me. Maybe I was being paranoid.

I paused again, and this time, I felt for magic. A dull throb, from beneath the thin blanket, near the hip - a potion, perhaps, or an enchanted dagger, or a fetish token. Nothing potent, although magic need not be potent to be dangerous. Nothing else, and some part of my mind was now screaming that I was missing something, this was too easy, not even a stupid boar would do this and Korrig, ignorant as he was, wasn't that stupid. Obviously, I was missing something.

What?

Most likely, something I'd already seen and dismissed as unimportant, that's generally the way these things work. So ... Korrig. Decent fighter, already had a gang when I took over as Warmaster. No connections to the previous chieftain, he'd made a point of fencing with me and decided I could kick his ass, and supported me, if not enthusiastically, but then none of the orcs had been enthusiastic, not at first. None of his get were in my harem. Kept pretty much to himself with his gang, and all of them had become the initial Wolf Society. He'd been the first to accept the idea, claiming wolf. He'd made a joke about already having a wolf ring. He'd liked the training sessions, liked the idea of initiations, liked the lodge concept, didn't fight over the House of Mare. Obviously tougher than I'd initially thought, if he felt he could keep the Warmaster position.

My mind kept coming back to wolf, though, and I had a thought. I might be wrong, I hoped I was wrong, because Darz should have known and ought to have told me if what I suspected was true, but Darz might not have understood how important it was. She might not have even known, even if it were true. I quietly put my dagger away, and pulled out my spare. Unlike my fighting dagger, this one was balanced for throwing, and it had one other useful feature. The blade was coated in alchemical silvering. Silvering wears off, fairly quickly, and that's why this was my spare dagger. Living in Cheliax, I'd long ago decided I'd never be caught without a silver weapon to deal with hellspawn.

Interestingly, silver is also useful against werewolves.

As a werewolf, Korrig, and ten more werewolves would be adequate to take me on. Although I'm surprised I slipped by them if that was the case; werewolves have a good sense of smell. My boots keep me from being tracked by scent, but they don't keep me from having a scent. The frustrating thing was, even after I put the dagger through his eye, all I was left with was a corpse. No way to know if he had been a werewolf or not. I pulled the blade back out, and wiped it off on ...

Black blood? The dagger should have been a deep emerald, not black. When I looked closely, the blood was bubbling, as if the blade were hot. I looked back at the unassuming corpse, which I was now assuming was a werewolf. Well, had been a werewolf. Right now, it was cooling meat.

The smart thing to do would be to kill all of them, I thought as I was putting the tent back together. But a pack of actual werewolves at my command? Tasty! If only I'd known ... I was almost regretting killing Korrig, now. Maybe I could have worked something out. No. It wouldn't have worked; Korrig would have thought I'd let him live because I was afraid. I might be able to intimidate the rest of the pack, now that he was dead. I had to think about that. Did I think that because I wanted to think that, because having a pack of werewolves would be useful, or did I think that because I honestly thought I could make them see me as their master?

One thing at a time. I was pretty sure they would see someone strong enough as a natural master. Wolves are pack creatures, and orcs, too, to a lesser extent. As I understood it, the two aspects merged, orcness and wolfness, although I'd never heard of orcish lycanthropes before. Not that I knew that much about human lycanthropes, now that I thought about it. So, although I suspected they would respect a strong master - that was an educated guess.

And if I guessed wrong? If I just killed them, then they wouldn't be available for use. I hadn't counted on them, though, so that wasn't a great loss. No, not true. Werewolves would be a force multiplier, a tremendous advantage.

If I let them live, and they betrayed me, then ... I realized I wasn't worried about it. I'd survived a surprise attack from Korrig, certainly among the toughest of them if not the toughest. I'd know about them, I'd have Darz and Urdrus (probably) and I'm pretty dangerous myself. Urdrus wouldn't side with them against me, but might Darz? The Mother of Monsters is sympathetic to werewolves, even if these werewolves have no interest in Her. No, probably not. They'd need to join Darz's Mother-cult, before she'd actively betray me, and she was smart enough to know she had to either support or betray me, she wasn't stupid enough to be neutral. That alliance, between Darz and the werewolves to take me down, was just not going to happen.

By the time I'd worked my way back to the Bone Snapper, or rather, the ex-Bone Snapper fort, I'd passed another two wolf-sentries, and that severely tested my resolve, but I refused to second guess myself.

The Bone Snapper fort looked different in the daylight; shoddier, primarily. I'd ordered that it not be burned - I had plans for this fort, but it would need some reinforcement, maybe rebuilding. I shook my head. Maybe Darz would have some ideas; the truth is that orcs are poor architects and stonemasons, and I needed some major work. The sentry on duty, an older warrior named Reggk, didn't seem too surprised when I appeared in front of him. I know it looked like that; one moment, he couldn't see me and the next, he could. It's almost a mental thing, moving unseen, a frame of mind.

"Warmaster," he said. It wasn't very enthusiastic, but then, I'd chosen these warriors for their lack of enthusiasm in my plans.

"Carry on," I said. "I wanted to see how things are going."

"Fine, Warmaster," Reggk offered. "Per your orders. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"There might have been one or two more boars killed than, er, strictly required, Warmaster."

I grunted; they were all going to end up dead one way or the other. "The sows?"

"Hiding in the caves with the youngest. We ... haven't gone to dig them out yet."

Again, per my orders. I nodded. "Sounds like everything is under control, Reggk."

"We serve, Warmaster."

Yeah, yeah. Still, I nodded and continued inside. To call it a disaster would be too generous; the destruction was deliberate and thorough. The flimsy log and mud hovels had been torn down, plundered (to the extent that orc-anything could be called plunder), and the prisoners, who should be the last living Bone Snapper boars, penned in their own slave cells, watched by my own boars. I made my way through the remains of the village, down to the cleft where they kept the slave pens. It's always struck me as funny that the best-constructed, highest-quality buildings are where orcs keep slaves. Strong iron bars, heavy wood walls or stone, and the construction far better than the other living spaces. Nowhere near as comfortable, though. Although, if that was a problem, then they shouldn't have put the slave pens out here, by the cliff. A chill wind climbed the cliff, smelling of pine and the faint tang of burned wood from a burned section below. At least it provided some ventilation from the smell.

Why was I even here? Revenge had sounded good - exciting, even, when I'd been back in the lowlands, in human territories. A smile came to my face as I remembered other, very pleasing cases of pure, unmitigated revenge, and then it dropped off. That wasn't revenge. It wasn't even retribution. It was just stupid, bigoted humans saying stupid, bigoted things.

And suffering horribly for it. Enjoyable, but I wasn't really sure it was fair to call it revenge. Petty retribution, belike.

And that's when I realized what had really been bothering me. If they were werewolves, why hadn't they changed? They could have sniffed me out; my boots keep me from leaving a scent trail but they don't do anything while I'm present. And if they'd changed, they could have killed me. I would have hurt them, badly, but not enough to kill them. This didn't make sense. Maybe only some of them were werewolves? Maybe only Korrig had been a werewolf? Maybe; if Korrig saw it as a source of power then he might not want to share. But would he have thought that a single werewolf with orc backup would be enough to take me down?

Maybe, with the poison. But how desperate was Korrig to adopt such a risky plan? It didn't make sense. And then ... it made sense. My allies. The rest of the pack - probably Korrig's lieutenants - were targeting Darz and Urdrus, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Once in a while, I suppose, I'm entitled to an occasional stroke of incandescent stupidity, but this, setting myself and Darz and Urdrus up for assassination by werewolf orcs, was a little much. Why couldn't I do normal stupid things like forgetting to take a restoration potion with me, or a whispering wind scroll? Oh, right, I'd done that too.

I brought this clusterfuck on myself, and at this point, there wasn't much I could do. Nothing, in fact, that I could do. Either the attempt had worked, or it failed, too late to for me to do anything. If Darz survived, I'd have to apologize. If Urdrus survived ... tougher. Apologies aren't really an orcish thing. Maybe I could find some sorcerer gewgaw, a staff or something. If he survived. I thought about it, and decided to assume he and Darz would.

I'd promised Urdrus a boar for his personal use; I decided to start looking for candidates. That, at least, was something I could do. Hopefully there would be at least one male-oriented boar among the survivors. Two would be ideal; that made me smile. Underpromise, overprovide, that would indeed make a suitable apology for Urdrus. If he survived, of course. I put that out of my mind, and kept looking.

I'd found one when I heard Darz's voice. A sending spell, of course. Betrayed by Wolves. Urdrus dead. Delayed three days. Fifteen lost, eighty-three injured. Wolves are werewolves, no silver here. Now in control. Your status, orders?

Raise Urdrus.That was an easy decision; his magic was useful and restoring him to life could only increase his loyalty, although orcish loyalty is a remarkably elastic thing. What else? Make best time possible. Korrig dead, pack scattered. Under control. What else could I say? These orders are at your discretion. Six words left. This was my fault. Sorry. Sorry! Pathetic, that's what it was ... and Urdrus. That would be an inconvenient loss, if Darz couldn't raise him.

Three days wasn't that long, though, and then noise from outside caught my attention. I'd just finished talking with Griis, and determined he was unsuitable. I hadn't bothered to unshackle him, so I just left him in the tent, and went outside.

The noise turned out to be a riot; the boars in the holding pen were attempting to break out. They weren't armed, of course, but they weren't restrained and the makeshift pen wouldn't hold them long. As I ran over to the pen, pulling my sword out of the sheathe across my back. The question of why they had chosen to riot vanished into the need to put the riot down, firmly.

Besides, it just felt good to kill something at this point.

This time, I didn't accept surrender. It didn't take long before all of them were incapacitated, mostly dead. A few were still breathing, but they'd bleed out soon enough. The fighting was exhilarating; I was feeling much better as I cleaned my sword off.

It didn't last that long. Instead of gutting and cleaning the carcasses, the guards were congratulating themselves on their fighting skills.

"Warriors," I said, warningly.

"Warmaster!"

I pointed to the corpses. "Clean the carcasses. Get them into the smokers."

They looked at me, confused.

"Now!"

"But ... Warmaster. That's not our ..." one of them started, surprised.

"Your task was to keep them in the pen," I snarled. "They're dead. They're not going anywhere anymore."

"But ..."

"Unless you want to join them in the smoker," I said.

The sudden rush of guards pulling out knives and hanging the bodies to bleed out fully was gratifying for a moment, and then I turned back to the tent where I'd left Griis, and stopped. I'd just slaughtered all the remaining boars I hadn't talked to yet. I'd pulled twelve out for Darz - she needed them for some kind of ritual - and they were still safe, but all the rest were dead. Which left me with nothing to do.

I turned around again, went over to the dead boars, picked one up, and started cleaning it. It wouldn't hurt to show the troops that their warmaster could and would do anything he'd ordered them to do.

Darz arrived only two days late with another two-thirds of my warriors; I'd left the remainder at our clan's camp to protect it. We'd just started convincing the sows we weren't planning on butchering them or their nurslings. They weren't convinced, at least not at first, but since the only alternative was starvation, I was confident they would come around in the next day or so. To help them make the right decision, I had cut their water off. I figured it would take a few hours before the first sows came straggling out of the cave where they'd taken refuge. I was wrong; it took them nearly a day and a half; they'd had some stored water inside. It's not as if it made a difference. I was happy to leave dealing with the sows to a lieutenant - Zavig - and see what Darz had to say.

The first thing I noticed was a lack of sorcerer. "Urdrus ..." I started.

"Is fine," Darz said. "He's at the main camp. He's not entirely sure why you had me call him back." The gnoll paused, looking around the devastated remains of the Bone Snapper camp. "I'm not, either."

"Really," I said. "If Korrig's men had been able to concentrate on you, rather than having to deal with you and Urdrus - what would have happened? Just ... out of curiousity?"

"Hard to say, but ..." Darz nodded. "It would have been closer, yes. Are you saying he's that valuable just as a distraction?"

"Yes," I said. "He is. He represents a third power center - and one that is easier swayed than you or me. My expectation was that anyone trying to depose me would try for his support, but what happened, well, that works too."

"You should have warned me that Korrig might attack. It was clever, drawing him out like that ..."

I shook my head. "I didn't know. Korrig caught me by surprise; I had no idea there were werewolves in the tribe, or that he was going to attack. In retrospect, it was a mistake to go off alone with so little support."

"If you hadn't, he might have succeeded," Darz said. "If he'd had time to build his Wolf Society into a strong machine ..."

"Yes. That would have been bad. We'll have to flush out any remaining werewolves, and ..." I paused. "I was actually thinking about that. Is there any way we could recruit them? I mean, think of the advantages."

Darz thought about it for a moment. "They're associated not with the Mother of Monsters," she said after a moment. "In fact, they're ... a little hostile."

Anyone with any sense is hostile to the Mother of Monsters and her crazed cults, but I certainly didn't say that out loud to her priest. Priestess. She might start rethinking some of the troubles she'd encountered in trying to set up an actual cult in my tribe, and I didn't want that, especially now that she was focused on setting up the totemic cults that I did want. "So you don't think it could work?"

"It could," Darz said. "Let me think about it. And we have a ritual tomorrow night."

"We?"

The gnoll nodded choppily. "You and I. You have the sacrifices I asked for?"

"Ten boars, yes."

"We'll need nine, and one sow."

"You said you needed ten orcs, all boars."

"I was wrong," Darz said. "I need nine boars, and one sow. The spells are complex - very complex." Darz paused for a minute, and then said, "They're beyond me. I have scrolls - from ... well, you know. And I've been reading them, and the ritual I got, and it's ... complicated. There are certain choices that have to be made, and certain options that I won't be able to use. I'm ... don't misunderstand me, I'm good, but I'm not him ."

"He?"

"To the best of my knowledge," Darz said.

"How did you come to work for him, anyway?"

" She told me too," Darz said. "He did something for her, and wanted a priest for his own purposes." Darz smiled, a sharp, toothy, smile. "I don't know what the original favor was, but I do know that this way, She knows what he's doing."

"Even when you don't?"

"Yes," Darz said confidently. "I know I'm not the first priest to serve this way."

All I could think was, I hope he knows what he's doing . On the other hand, Darz's (and now, mine, if I was going to be honest about it) patron certainly seemed like he did. And in either case, it wasn't my problem.

"Fine, it's a complicated ritual, you need nine boars and one sow. We have plenty of sows, so just pick one." I looked across the camp, thinking. "They all end up dead, right?"

"Yes," Darz said. "No witnesses."

It was my turn to consider. I've always avoided religion, and religious ceremonies, and in particular, sacrificial rites. Sacrifices rarely realize going into the ceremony that they won't be coming back out. By the time they realize what's going to happen, it's generally too late. The easiest solution is just not to come. Still, intended sacrifices are rarely warned that the rites involve ... sacrifice. I'd just have to be careful.

But not too careful.

Twelve hours later, I was leading a chain of ten Bone Snapper orcs into the forest, following Darz. They were chained, manacled, and strangely compliant - I think Darz must have done something, even if I didn't know what. Even restrained, I'd expected to have to bully them through the forest. I mean, a chain of ten orcs? Heading out with just two handlers? And no arguments? Darz did <something . I may not know what, but I know he did something . It was creepy.

We finally arrived at a small hilltop that had suffered a fire sometime in the past few years. A couple of charred trees remained, and a scattering of smaller trees growing in the now-clear space amidst some smaller bushes and sprouting trees; none were taller than I was. Darz motioned for me - and the mesmerized orcs - to wait, and the gnoll went to the top of the hillside. She found a rock, stepped up onto it, and waved her hands in the graceful and complex motions of a spell - one I didn't recognize, even in its effects. The effects, though, were obvious. Everything in about fifty paces from the gnoll just turned to fine ash - trees, bushes, the charcoal remnants of the burn - everything. "What was that?"

"A precaution," Darz said, absently. She looked up at the sky. "We still have an hour or so before the window opens."

"What happens when it opens? And, anyway, I meant what spell was that?"

Darz shrugged. "We can start when the window opens. We can't do anything more, though, until the window opens."

"What about them?" I pointed to the orcs.

"What about them?" Darz said. "They're here."

"How long will ... whatever you did last?"

"Long enough," Darz said. "Why?"

"Drugs?"

"And magic," Darz said. " Mind fog and a certain snail extract."

Mind fog. Noted. But ... "I didn't know it lasted that long."

"It doesn't, by itself. But ..." Darz smiled knowingly. "That's what the snail slime is for."

"And the spell you just used was ... "

"Sterile cleansing,"The gnoll mage-priest gave me an irritated look. "Yes. I'll cast it again, afterwards, as part of the cleanup." Darz smiled. "I love magic like this ..."

"I know," I said. I must have sounded less enthusiastic than I had thought, because Darz looked at me.

"And what's wrong with magic? You haven't turned any down."

"I don't entirely trust it," I said. "And ... it never quite does what you think it will."

The gnoll nodded. "That's what makes it fun."

"Fun? It's just a tool, like a sword - only less reliable."

Darz shrugged. "Maybe," she said, and glanced up at the sky again. "The window opens when the first star shows, and closes when the last visible star sets - although it won't be visible at that point."

"The window,? I asked.

Darz shook her head. "I don't really understand it, that's just what he said." The gnollish priestess looked pensive. "Unfortunately, this is magic beyond my understanding. I hope to, I want to, and I will, someday, master it, but for now ..." Darz tapped a heavy steel tube. "I have these."

I looked at what could only be a scroll case. "Is that sealed with lead?"

"I believe it is," Darz said, with a smile. "Wouldn't want to get then wet, now, would I?"

"And the inside is lead-lined, too, isn't it."

"Why, yes, yes it is," the gnoll grinned. "You're up on all the tricks, aren't you?"

"Not all," I said. "How soon can you get me a scroll of whispering wind?"

Darz blinked, taken aback. "I ... I can write you one."

"If I'd been able to warn you after Korrig attacked me," I started.

"Wouldn't a sending be more useful?"

"I might not be able to use it successfully," I said. I couldn't use a sending scroll at all; but there was no reason to admit that to Darz. "I want something reliable."

The gnoll nodded. "Point, yes, but how about something that let you trigger one - not a scroll. Something that just sent me a message, for example."

The difference being that it would allow me to communicate only with Darz, not with anyone. Still, it would do ... "Need one for Urdrus," I said, and then I pretended to think for a moment. "Urdrus would need two, as well, one for me, one for you."

"That ... something like that ... a three-way link ..." said Darz thoughtfully. "Yes, that could work. I could make something like that." Her hands twitched, perhaps assembling it in her thoughts.

"Yes," I said, wondering just who could listen in to that kind of thing. Still, for emergencies, it wouldn't matter too much. Someone's always listening in, or at least, that's my operating assumption.

Darz began working the lead seal out from around the cap, and I just kept an eye on the prisoners - although they seemed dazed and content to just stand there. Oh.

"Darz," I asked.

"Mm?"

"How do we ... offer them?" I picked the euphemism at the last moment. They were dazed, but they could still hear us.

"Oh, not a problem, they just have to be in the right places," Darz said, concentrating on the cap.

"Is it trapped?"

"No, but it is sealed," Darz said. "Arcane lock."

"But you have the password,"

"Naturally," said the gnoll calmly. "But the lead has to come off first."

"But if it's sealed magically, why would it be sealed with lead?"

Darz paused for a moment, and then continued picking lead out of the lock. "Good question. I don't know."

"There's a reason, isn't there?"

"Probably," the priestess said tranquilly. "But I have to open it to find out." The final few bits of lead fell to the ground. "There."

I stepped back. "Open it."

"Disdyakis triacontrahedron," Darz muttered, and tugged - ineffectually - at the cap. "That's ... oh. Disdyakis triacontahedron." The gnoll smiled up at me. "Conta, not contra." This time, the cap popped off, and a gout of blood spilled out of the tube, falling onto the ashes. "Oh."

"I thought those were scrolls," I said. I reached down, pulled some ashes aside and let the blood flow out of the largest pools. I certainly wasn't going to touch it. Bright red, smelled fresh, no clotting. Human, or human-derived. Maybe under some kind of preservative spell?

"Such was my understanding," said Darz, a little puzzled, peering into the tube.

"Maybe it's just a tube full of blood," I said. "Is the blood magic, somehow?"

"No ..." said Darz thoughtfully, reaching in, and pulling out a blood-soaked roll of something like black parchment. She unrolled a set of dripping pages, not black as I'd first thought, but of deep midnight blues and dark indigos. "They are scrolls, they're just ... cut into living skin." She tasted the blood. "Elf, definitely elf, but drow, I think." Darz did not look disturbed by these things. She started peeling them apart, wiping off the collected blood and studying them. "Hmmm."

"Fine, so he skinned some drow. Why are they still bleeding?"

"I don't know," Darz said. "If I had to guess, I'd say he skinned some drow, magically tanned their skins, and left them alive."

"Alive? And ... skinned," I said.

"I'd think so. Living blood links them to the scrolls; if they were dead, the scrolls wouldn't bleed. He could have added the bleeding to the scrolls as a cosmetic detail, but it's probably more of a side effect. Reading the scrolls will ..." Darz paused. "Oh. Of course. That's brilliant." The gnoll shook her head. "I've got to find out how he did it."

"Did what?"

"Guessing, I'm just guessing, but I think the elves are part of the sacrifice to enable the summoning," Darz said. "And so when I read the scroll, the elf's life becomes part of the magic. No need to drag sacrifices around, you can keep them safe and chained up wherever you want, and still hold the ritual wherever it's convenient. Brilliant."

Not the word I might have chosen, but certainly it was some level of clever, I had to admit.

"Even better, by the time you're ready to use the scroll, the sacrifice is probably willing - anything to stop the pain." Darz continued. She shook her head. "He's so good."

Again, not the word I'd chosen.

"What if they die prematurely?"

Darz thought about it. "That would ruin the scroll. And it probably takes some magic to keep them alive, without their skin, too." A wide smile split her face. "I hardly think it matters. Everything has drawbacks. It's just so ..." she paused, and I paused, too, wondering what word she'd come up with. "Elegant."

"It's dripping blood all over your robes," I said. "Not what I'd call elegant."

"It will come out," the gnoll said absently, examining the bleeding scrolls. "It's hardly the first time."

I doubted it would be the last, either.

Darz finished her inspection of the bloody documents, and then glanced back up at the sky. Maybe another half-hour or so until sundown. I glanced back at the orcs we'd brought along. They seemed content to just stand there. It's not as if they were in direct sunlight, but even so, it was strange.

The orcs didn't start showing any signs of coming out of whatever drug-mediated magical haze or magic-infused drugged trance until after sunset. "Darz!"

"Mm? Oh." The gnoll looked up, and smiled, pulling one of the bloody sheets out. She looked over at the orcs, and pulled out something - not something, but a snake's tongue and a bit of honeycomb, and a polished crystal orb in the other. The first two would be suggestion, but I wasn't sure what the orb was. "We're ready." A gesture and a phrase. "The God of Bloody War has chosen you - of you - to become the focus of War; all you need do is to welcome the rituals I will reveal to you!" The bulls looked puzzled for a moment, and then enthusiastic. No, not suggestion.Mass suggestion. Handy trick. I wondered if I could get her to make me a scroll of that. Maybe two. Or three. "Behold!" she said, and waved the bloody scroll. A few words, and a glistening blue light erupted from her as the black parchment shredded and dissolved into bloody black slime. It traced an intricate and complicated set of diagrams on the ash, circles within circles within hexagons, linked with graceful curves and lines. The light glimmered; the diagrams were drawn in something like translucent, glowing slime. It didn't look anything like any summoning circle or thuamaturge's triangle I'd ever seen. Those looked like apprentice draftsman's efforts compared to this intertwined complication of glyphs and tangled lines, all laid out in shining, glowing goo.

Darz was busy moving orcs into position, warning them not to step on the lines. Apparently, all of them had fallen for the suggestion , or at least believed her - although I can't imagine why they would; even from a mage like Darz, I'd think that at least one would resist the magic. Or maybe it had something to do with that crystal?

I'd ask later. Darz had gotten two bulls into each of the octagon-ringed circles with the offset triangles, and one bull and the sow into the spikey thing in the center. That left ... us, Darz and myself, and Darz put me into a quaduple circle and himself into what looked like the same diagram, only inverted. That made me feel a little better. Not much, but some.

Another bloody sheet came out, and this time, Darz shouted something - I couldn't make out the words or even the sounds; powerful incantations work that way. Or so I'm told, this was the first time I'd ever actually witnessed a spell that potent. I'm not sure what it did; I didn't notice any kind of change but I could feel the magic, crawling over me, radiating out from the center.

Darz spoke again, in a language I didn't understand, but the orcs seemed to. They turned to her, listening, looking, and then they attacked each other - the boar and sow in the center, the four pairs of boars in the surrounding octagons. What?

And then Darz read the next black scroll.

Green-silver fire leapt from the blue slime, not straight, but twisting in curves and spheres, not outlining the diagram, but completing it, a complex and boggling construction of spheres and solids; intersecting in lines of green fire and where it touched the ground, outlined in blue. Three of the five battles were over, the boar - unsurprisingly - triumphant over the sow, and two of the others defeated. And ... the victors weren't killing the losers, but fucking them. Interesting; and that must be more magic. I glanced across the ... I didn't know what to call it; diagram, schematic, geometric construction, it was all of those things and none, looking across to its creator, Darz. She was watching the battles.

Presumably for all of them to be won, or lost.

The final pair stopped fighting - it looked like a leg had been snapped - and the triumphant warrior was forcing himself on the loser. Darz's gaze shifted to me, and she gave a slight - very slight - smile, and mouthed something at me; I couldn't quite make it out, as she pulled the next bleeding scroll out. She concentrated, muttering what were no doubt powerful magic - magic so far beyond anything I understood that I couldn't even tell if it were arcane or divine. If Darz's master were a theurge like Darz herself, then it might even be some unholy melding of both, at a level of expertise and power far beyond hers. Any occultist would be privileged to be here, to watch this demonstration of skill, but then I don't really consider myself an occultist, and although Darz understood what was happening - or at least I passionately hoped Darz understood what she was doing - I had to admit I was clueless. It was just fairy lights and pretty colors to me, and the latest scroll didn't seem to affect them much.

Oh.

The latest scroll affected me.

I didn't even have a moment to attempt to resist the magic - it swept me up in a indescribable sensation of expansion and suddenly I was ... split, somehow, and still myself. Four of the only one me, each now controlling each of the victorious boars like a handpuppet; it should have been strange, trying to deal with the confusion but it wasn't, it was easy, no harder than taking any other unwilling warrior had ever been. I don't know if was simply earlier practice or entirely an effect of the magic or some combination but fucking four boars at one was easy. It wasn't just synchronization; I was pulling out as I was thrusting into another; holding a third with his face against the ground even as I threatened to dislocate the shoulder of the fourth. All together.

I'd never felt anything this good.

I just luxuriated in it, reveling in it as they whimpered. Two of them were begging for mercy, calling me by some other name, asking for relief, for me to be easier, to stop ...

I ignored them. I was feeling too good to stop, the climax building smoothly in me as I used them, the warm urgent rush of impending orgasm - I wanted to hold it off, slow it down, I'd get there but I wanted to enjoy the unique sensation. And then it occurred to me that I wasn't fucking four at once - I was fucking eight . Eight! The boars I was riding were moving, thrusting, breathing under my control and they were just as much part of the fuck as the sobbing orcs underneath them. Even as I thought it, I could ... hear them, feel the four I was riding, screaming silently as I used them.

With that thought, orgasm hit me, again, and again, and again, and again, and again - my own, multiplied by the four orcs I was puppeting. It was a rush, more than a rush, and I lost track of time - I didn't quite black out, but I certainly wasn't paying attention to anything but the rush. I'm not sure if Darz had read another of those scrolls, or if she had waited for me. I did notice that the all the boar pairs were laying motionless - dead or unconscious, I couldn't tell. The boar and sow in the middle were still fucking, and that was strange; orcs don't usually last long.

Darz looked more than little unsettled. Her eyes seemed fixed and she was swaying from side to side. I waved my hands - I wasn't fool enough to step out of the protective bubble I was in - and managed to draw her attention. She nodded, gave me a thumbs-up, and pulled out yet another of those bleeding skin-scrolls. I had to admit they were starting to seem even weirder than when she'd first shown them to me. I mean, I might well enjoy skinning an elf - but that's pleasure, not business. Mixing the two just leads to trouble, and I hoped there was some technical arcane reason for using still-living elfskin as a medium for this particular magic. Or maybe not; what that would imply about this magic was probably just as disturbing.

And it was too late to do anything about it now, regardless. Darz had finished reading the page ... and a flicker drew my attention back to the couple in the center - the boar and sow. Nothing looked wrong, but ... I kept watching. I'd seen something. And about five minutes later, I saw it again. The boar tensed, as if he were reaching his climax, and then he was thrusting into her again. It was a disruption, one moment he was coming - or, more likely, reached that point where it is inevitable, and then he was starting over. He didn't move back into position, it was as if he and the sow had vanished, replaced with another copy of themselves, beginning again to fuck.

And again. And again. And now, as I watched, it was obvious that they were going faster and faster, there was less time between the resets, and I looked up at Darz. She was ready and waiting with another of those black bleeding pages, and she was watching them, too. Obviously something had to happen, but ... I just waited. And the pair weren't just doing it over, their movements were exactly the same - faster, but the same actions. I was watching the same little slice of time, over and over and over and over and faster and faster, as the two orcs were caught in the loop.

Caught? Could it be ... I looked up at Darz. The other possibility is that we - Darz and I - were caught in the loop, starting as the boar and sow began to fuck, and slipping back to the beginning just at the moment before the boar finished (and after watching them over and over again, I was certain the boar hadn't finished). Could that be what Darz was waiting on? I hoped not, because it was pretty clear that we could wait forever in the five minutes or so it took for this act. Did she look worried? Which was it? Were we caught, or were they? I looked out of the diagram, out of the circle of ashes covering the hillside, down to the trees, and knew immediately. They shivered wildly, the slow gentle sway of the light breeze seen as a tense shaking through the time distortion. I was liking this less and less.

What was Darz calling?

Darz used the scroll as the loop tightened into a blur, the resetting happening so fast we might have been caught between the moment, the orcs in the center caught between release and start, in an abused section of time twisted out of the world and into ... I don't know. Elsewhere.

Elsewhere had no color, no light, no depth, was neither light nor dark - it was just ... elsewhere, and Darz read yet another scroll, watching as it dissolved into blood-soaked rags of dark elven skin.

With a snap that felt like a dislocated bone, we were back in the diagram, now glowing in silver and lambent sheets of a violet-blue smear. Everything was still, stopped, the boar and sow frozen at release, the trees motionless as magic dragged us out of the flow of time and into an eerie frozen night tableau.

Magic flared from another of the bleeding scrolls, and time started again, although slowly, very slowly. The boar's tension eased into the deep relaxation that follows sex, the grunt that accompanied his seed starting like a low deep buzz, getting stronger and louder as our time caught up with the rest of the world - and Darz was already starting the next scroll - it was shredding away into scraps of flesh as she recited - this time, I could make out some of the incantation, and to my surprise, it was mostly gnoll.

That's not the language I think of when I think of high magic. But somehow it made me more confident of Darz's abilities to complete these spells, if Darz's mysterious patron had gone to the trouble of customizing them just for for Darz. Or did it just mean he thought Darz needed the extra help?

With our reentry to normal time, the sounds of the night had returned, the quiet rustle of leaves, a background buzz of insects, even Darz's own slightly throaty chanting. The last of the scroll dissolved, leaving nothing but a stain of red on the gnoll's hands and Darz held herself still.

I noticed it first as a soft popping sound, only it wasn't a sound, but a silence - a short pop of quiet against the already-soft noises of the night. Bubbles - round glistening spheres of red and pink and white meat - flesh, orcflesh, I realized - were drifting slowly up from the motionless boar and sow. As they drifted up and around, they vanished with that peculiar burst of noiselessness, like a soap-bubble popping. I'd have expected blood, or flesh, or something, but there was nothing left, not even the sound. More bubbles were drifting up than were popping, a storm of them, hovering inside the twisting curves of the shifting geometric structures Darz had conjured.

Darz paused and gestured at the four sets of boars, muttering something, and the glows flickered with gold lightnings. The boars inside roused, took a quick look around, and threw themselves at the apparently evanescent walls - a little too late, I thought, but the right idea. The walls held them easily, of course, and their howls and yells filled the air - screams of pain, and I realized the gold lightnings was flickering inside the ... what were they? Some evolved arcane versions of circles of protection? The added sound seemed to be what Darz had wanted, as the imposed silences of the popping meat-bubbles were much easier to make out against that backdrop.

They formed words. Anti-words, words of silence. I didn't understand them, couldn't parse them, but Darz obviously could, as the gnoll answered back to the ... bubbles, the thing that was manifesting in our space and time as bubbles. Whatever language she was talking was unknown to me, and not just unknown, it didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard, and I'm sure it was one of the inherently magical tongues. Just listening to it hurt, caused a pounding tension in my skull, until I tuned it out by mentally reciting opera arias to myself - that helped, although occasionally some terrible sound would slip through, burning my ears and snapping the knot behind my eyes.

I almost made it through the entire first act of Mountains Fall before the noises stopped in the middle of Belkzen's mother's oratorio in the first-act finale and the world exploded into a rotating prism of color, and I followed.

The next thing I remember was Darz slapping me awake.

"Jack?"

I fought my way out of a prismatic faze, and saw Darz - several Darzs, in fact, an overlapping series of them in shades from red through green and into violet. The reddish one raised a hand for another light blow but as I fended it off, the others stopped, and the red one faded back into phase with them. This was interesting; if a little confusing.

"I'm good," I said, although I had no idea if that was true or not.

"Well, we have to clean up," Darz said, "and we have some ..." the gnoll sniffed. "Did you soil yourself?" with the strangest sound of hope.

"You don't have to sound enthusiastic about it," I said. "When the boars came, I came too. But ..."

"Excellent!" said Darz, reaching down to grab my trousers. I must still have been a little overwhelmed by the experience and the continued polychromatic auras dancing over everything, because I was too slow to stop her.

"Stop that!"

"No, I need ... for the boars, I need your seed. Give me your pants, that will do."

"Explain yourself," I said, looking around. "First." The glowing magic had ... burned itself out. Black lines of char were still traced in the ash where the slime had anchored the magic diagrams. Clean white bones glimmered in the center, and ... I stared again at the four sets of boars. They'd been fused together - their torsos merged, arms and legs fused together in a melange of flesh. At least they didn't seem concious.

"For the control, or we'll unleash that thing's spawn uncontrolled, and that would be ... bad," Darz said impatiently. "There is less than an hour before they ripen. Hurry! This is probably the most dangerous part of this!"

Spawn. Something was ... growing inside the merged orcs, and as I watched I could see the merged bellies swell, just a little. Control. Right. "Here," I said, stripping off my trousers and the seed-stained undercloth. Darz grabbed them, and dumped them into a small bowl that was already partially full of liquid - I'm not sure what it was, and I didn't care to ask. The gnoll hurriedly mixed it in, poured in a clear oil, and then walked quickly over to the first orc. She drew some glyphs I didn't recognize on the orc - orcs, on remained of them, and another bloody scroll dissolved as she released its magic on the orc. "There," she said, and repeated the anointing and spellcasting with the other three, as well.

Darz looked relieved as she finished.

"Can you tell me what you just did?" I said, "or are you still ... busy?"

"No," she said. "We're done. Almost done. Just one spell left, but we need to wait for the birth of these."

"Birth of what?"

"They'll look like orcs," Darz said, "but they'll have qualities of imaginary space."

"Imaginary space?"

"Where the Gogg comes from."

Presumably the Gogg was what we summoned, but with mages it never hurts to be certain. "Which was that ... thing?"

"Yes," Darz said. "It's time is orthogonal to ours. As is its space." The gnoll looked pensive. "If it has time and space. I'm not really sure it does."

The polychromatic afterimages around everything showed no sign of fading as I waited with Darz. We waited for the now-merged orcs to regain consciousness, and while we waited, the lump in their merged bellies just grew larger and larger; watching it was unsettling.

"Imaginary space," I prompted the gnoll.

"So I'm told," Darz said, watching the bulging four twinned orcs with fascination - hardly surprising behavior for a priestess of the Mother of Monsters. "But I don't know anything about it. Or what the Gogg was. All he told me was that its price for its mark would be a chance to spawn."

"Its mark?" I asked.

"On you," Darz said. "He said it was something he'd agreed to during your talk. To extend your -" and she snickered, although I wasn't sure if it was at me or him "- design lifespan. He thought there might be some other effects, as well."

Like, possibly, the rainbow outlines of everything I was seeing? Although the outlines of the four merged orcs were narrow, as were that of nearly everything else - only Darz's images were spread out. It meant something, I was sure, but I didn't know what, and I was curiously unwilling to ask Darz about it. "Such as?" I could certainly probe for more, though.

"I don't know - he didn't know. He said it was more straightforward to manage existence in a post-mortal modality."

That is, as some kind of lich. I'd thought so. And how like a lich to say something like post-mortal modality. "Yeah, well, I like living."

"Yes," agreed Darz fervently. "One cannot nurture children in a corpse." She paused. "At least not easily."

I decided not to ask any questions about that. "So ... what's happening with them?"

Darz nodded eagerly. "I was reluctant to do this, at first, but he mentioned that this would be the Gogg's part of the deal, to spawn in our world, and that ..." she paused.

"Was irresistible?"

"Not irresistible, but compelling," Darz admitted. "Although he required some limits I wish he hadn't ..."

"Like?"

"Born from two males rather than a male and a female, they will be mules," Darz said, sounding regretful. "But he was insistent on the point. Even this area will have to be cleansed with searing fire, to be certain there is no contamination."

"And the Gogg agreed to that?"

"It didn't come up," Darz said. "Apparently the Gogg doesn't have a good understanding of how meat procreates."

"Apparently not," I said. "So what was that thing about control?"

"The spawn will be under our - your and my - joint control, the magic imprinted into them as they form," Darz said. "He said they'd be useful."

"What will they look like?"

"Orcs, I think," Darz said a doubtfully. "The Gogg doesn't have a body, it's a ..." she paused, and I waited for her. "A pattern, maybe? I don't know, it's very alien. Still, they will be Goggspawn, and useful." She paused for a moment. "You don't have any spatial discontinuity effects, do you?"

I just looked at her.

"Oh, please," she said. "You're not stupid. I might have made that mistake once - even twice, but I think I've overcome it."

"No, but I'm not up on occultist jargon, either. What, exactly, do you mean by spatial discontinuity?"

"Moving from place to place without transiting intermediate points."

More jargon, but it did make some sense. "Like teleport?"

"Or dimension door," she said.

"Why do you ask?"

"One way to think of the Gogg is as a sentient spacial discontinuity," Darz said. "Or so I'm told - I don't think that I could think of something that way. But using that sort of magic in its vicinity, or that of its spawn, is strongly contraindicated. According to him."

I thought that through for a moment. Why would that be useful? And then it hit me.

"Devils can teleport themselves, can't they?"

"Mmmhmmm," Darz agreed.

I looked over at the orcs. Some of the more reddish outlines were starting to move, as if they were starting to wake up, and as I watched, all of the chromatic afterimages began to shift, move, and then finally the orcs themselves stirred. Interesting. "So," I said, watching the orcs - I did not want to miss their waking up - "they would find themselves locked out of that power."

"They'd find themselves in small slices," Darz said.

"Fatal?"

"Pretty much."

"What's the size of the effect? How close do you have to be?"

"I don't know. But teleporting in or out of that area ... means you'll arrive in sections."

I liked the thought of that, and that made me pay more attention to the four orc merges, doubles, whatever. The beast not with two backs, but two heads. They were looking more and more like huge squashes formed out of orcs, their bellies swollen almost to four times the size of the rest of them - giant squash with some strange limbs growing out of them. One, and then both, of the heads of the nearest looked up at me, and gasped something out. It wasn't understandable, but then it didn't have to be. Some variant on help, what's happening, or even you won't get away with this. I just smiled back at them and nodded, waiting for all of them to be aware, and focus on me. It didn't take long.

"Just so you know," I said in a pleasant voice, "you're serving as incubation sacs for outworld spawn. It's feeding on your bodies, and it's digesting your spirits. The next time you lose consciousness will be the end of your existence." I turned around, taking in the effect this had on the now horrified orcs. "Your last few moments will be painful, but brief, as the things inside you eat their way out." I made another vague circle. "Any questions?"

Judging by the commotion, there were quite a number of questions - I can't imagine why, I thought I'd laid it out pretty clearly, but then the panicked thrashing might be due as much to hope as anything else. I wandered back over to Darz, who was staring at me. "Why did you say that," she whispered, angrily.

"I felt like it," I said. "You enjoy birthing monsters. I like ... watching them suffer."

"But it's not true! The spawn aren't eating their spirits," she said.

"Pity," I said. "No reason to disillusion them, though, so keep your voice down."

"That ... that was a terrible thing to do!"

"Thank you," I said, with a grin. "Thank you very much."

Darz snickered again, and we sat back to watch the Goggspawn break out of the whimpering orcs.