by L. Itram and Ben Yackley Main * Story * Setting * Cast * Illustrations * About * Comment

Chapter 22: (untitled) (Posted on 2/11/04 & 2/29/04 )

Kinto glared up at Auli from his seat on the floor next to the bound-and-gagged Davro. "What?! Your life? Who stole our Shard an' sent us halfway 'round th' world after it?"

Auli lifted one of her long ears delicately between finger and thumb. "You don't want to play 'my life is worse than yours' against me, boy. Now please step aside so I can collect my pay."

"That was your own damned fault," growled Luen.

"An' ye can have Davro when we're done with him," added Viola. "If there's anythin' left."

"Fine. Whatever. Since you're so fond of him, you can keep him." The ex-'sorceress' spun on her heel and brushed past Kai. "Never let it be said that Auli Alcandor is a selfish girl." She hopped down the steps and called back over her shoulder. "Just give him a kick in the shins for me when you're done, 'cause I'm not comin' back. Have a nice life!" And with that she strode across the courtyard into the darkness.

"Oh, no you don't," exclaimed a voice from somewhere behind her. Another answered "Ye're too slow, Luen!" and a lavender shape materialized in her path.

Auli folded her large arms and smirked, in a pose calculated to irritate. "I thought you'd be glad to see the last of me."

"I'll be glad te see th' last o' that grin on yer face," answered Viola. "But th' real trouble's behind ye."

"Hah - you must be thinking of Zeph. I'm nowhere near that stu-- mmf!" She staggered and nearly fell as Luen tackled her from behind.

"What happened to Zeph, anyway?" asked Luen, trying to get an arm around Auli's neck. "And what - happened - to - Clorin?" He hadn't counted on her long reach, however -- a backward twist of one oversized arm and she wriggled out of his grasp.

"You people are so violent!" Auli exclaimed, backing out of reach. "But if you want to play, I'll be happy to oblige you." Two knives appeared in her hands, looking like toothpicks between her large fingers.

"I'm rather curious about Luen's questions," commented Kai, jogging out of the museum and circling around in an obvious ploy to block off her escape.

Luen was the first to move, springing around Auli's side in an attempt to bash her from behind with his chalice - but to no avail; her reflexes were still quicker than his own, and she ducked easily beneath it, spinning the opposite direction to catch him across his chainmailed chest with one of her daggers, a smirk on her face.

"Zeph? Oh, he's history. Probably off on some quest or other."

"So ye just dumped him when ye dinna need him anymore?" Viola grabbed Auli's arms from behind, but had trouble hanging on to them. While she had the advantage in numbers, Auli's freakishly long arms had both more pure musclepower and more flexibility, and Viola soon found herself hurtling through the air,

"He's all yours if you want him." Kai winced slightly at Auli's implication, but other more important thoughts were crossing his mind as he dashed across the front of the museum, looking for a place that was not only out of Auli's striking range, but out from in front of Kinto, who was starting to take on a coppery glow.

"Good looking boy, but no brains and even less common sense!" An uncharacteristically wistful look crossed Auli's face, vanishing almost before a casual observer could have seen it. "If it makes you feel any better, I dumped him gently. He thinks 'Clorin' is training as a healer." She laughed. "Promised to come back and visit, even if it takes ten years. And it probably will."

In the darkness of the museum's entryway, Kinto snorted, staff now sparking brightly. "He may've been a brainless idiot, but at least he had a heart!" A bolt of white lightning shot out from the top of the lowered staff and streaked toward Auli, burying itself in her chest and giving off a brief shockwave. As the lingering sparks faded, Auli stood up, grimacing as an eerie green glow emanated from her eyes and through spiral patterns that had sprouted across her skin like shoots along the ground.

"Auli? What...?"

"'Tis the power o' Clorin..."

"I know. We've seen it before - do it like last time, Kinto! Hit her again, qu - AACK!" Luen's words were cut off by a chop from one of Auli's immense hands to his unarmored neck, sending him gasping onto the cobblestones.

"Luen!" The other three mages ran toward their friend, but Auli's daggers flashed menacingly.

"Oh, no you don't. This ends here. I've had enough of you four, so you're just going to let me leave, right?" She started to back up, daggers still raised. "It's bad enough I never got paid for all this, so I'm just going to have to take my skills and my Instillment elsewhere."

From somewhere above, a streak of light sped through the air like a miniature comet and embedded itself in Auli's left shoulder.

"Evening, kids. Is this a private party or can we drop in?"

Kinto stared in shock at the flaming arrow, then turned to peer at the source, a pair of shadows standing on top of the museum's low roof. "I know that voice..."

One of the figures leapt off the rooftop and landed on the cobbles. "Glad someone remembers me. Hey, Spike! How's life?"

Luen boggled upward at the new voice. "Mia! You're a long way from --" he stopped as the second shadow drifted slowly down toward the crowd.

"She was escorting me to Featherglass," explained Reini. "Um...somebody want to extinguish the lady over there?"

Kai was already putting together a blue-chroma potion as Viola usuccessfully attempted to stifle Auli's flaming shoulder with her cloak. "Uh, there you go -- sorry, I didn't have enough time to judge the proportions, but that should help the burning a little. Here - I'll just pour it on you like this. Isn't that better?"

Auli brushed her dripping hair out of her eyes with a sigh. "'Sokay. Thanks." She rubbed her shoulder and grimaced. "Beats having to grow another one."

"So what's the big event?" demanded Mia.

"Justice bein' done," deadpanned Kinto. "Hey, could one 'f ya check'n see if there's a tall guy still tied up inside?"

Reini slipped into the museum. There was a blue flash through the windows, then she emerged, leading a floating Davro-shaped bundle. "Lemme guess, he's the fiendish mastermind behind all this?"

"Somethin' like that," grinned Kinto. "Zeph woulda been really disappointed in him, tho. We jus' need t'take th'two of them to th'authorities and --"

"Two?" asked Mia. "You mean the green girl headed for the hills right now?"

Kinto muttered something which would have been unprintable if Tximisti had a writing system and sprinted after Auli -- who stumbled mid-stride, an arrow protruding out of her shin. "Will you people please stop doing that?!"

Mia patted Luen on the shoulder. "What say we deliver your package to the closest watch-house while you take care of prisoner number two?"

Luen smirked. "Thanks, much obliged." He slithered toward Auli at top speed.

The former thief staggered to her feet and pulled out the arrow, then placed a hand over the wound. "Thank Clorin for that, at least," she commented as sparks of green light appeared around her fingers. "Hello, Luen. Still want to play?"

Luen grimaced. "I notice Clorin isn't doing much talking tonight."

Auli nodded back, smirking. "Sorry to disappoint you. I'm in the driver's seat now ... just like it should be, right, Viola?" An over-the-shoulder glance at Viola, who had just appeared behind Auli and was just getting ready to spring into a tackle. "Pity about the smell giving your position away... Actually, I should be thanking you, Luen."

"Don't. If I had to choose, you would've been instilled with Nhil. Now, there's an amusing thought, huh? A yapping checkerboard puppy inside your head?"

"Oh no, no, no, I didn't mean that at all. Have you forgotten our conversations already?" Auli twirled as a gleaming thunderbolt shot past her to the side. "...And unlike Viola here, I've learned to see the world through Clorin's eyes. Awfully nice, being able to see spells before they're cast. Nice try, though...Spike, right?"

Luen was stone-faced. "Conversations? When have we ever spoken?"

Auli took a sudden leap backwards, landing with her back to a wall and smirking lopsidedly at Viola again. "So easy to read, you are... Don't you remember? The road to Redstone?"

"You -- you remember that? But -- "

"But you were talking to Clorin? Funny how the mind works, isn't it? You got 'Clorin' thinking, and remembering, and piecing together everything I knew and everything she knew about you..." The mages stood in a row, facing Auli; she was surrounded now, but she certainly didn't seem to have acknowledged that she was trapped. "I suppose I should thank you, Luen; I doubt I'd ever have gotten my memories sorted out without your help. I would have been Zeph's confused sorceress sidekick for the rest of my life."

"There are worse fates."

"Oh, probably. But it wouldn't be much of a life. Hey, Spikehead - don't the Txmisiti have some weird belief about Instilling? Something about having someone else's spirit inhabiting your body?"

Luen shivered, and muttered to himself, quietly. Clorin's spirit... But Clorin was a spirit, wasn't she?

Kinto grumbled. "Don' talk 'bout what y'don' know. You ever met a real dragon?"

Auli grinned again, her eyes momentarily glowing green. "Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to offend. That's what it was like, though. Horrible and frightening. Someone else taking over everything I was -- but she's gone now."

There was a long pause before anyone spoke. Finally, Luen did. He was very quiet, but there was a tone to his voice none of the others had heard in it before - an anger deeper than any they'd thought was inside him. "...Gone?"

"And, Luen, it was all your doing, really. The fact that I can stand here, with my own senses and my own memories ... it's all thanks to you. I owe you my life, in a sense."

Luen's voice got louder. "Your life? What about Clorin's life?"

Auli sighed again, and shrugged melodramatically, long arms waving through the air... then brought them both down again in a pair of flashing arcs, wielding another pair of knives that had, until that moment, been hidden up her sleeves. "Clorin's gone!"

The mages leapt backwards, dodging the blades that glinted in the chroma-light of the Featherglass streets. It took more than enough concentration to stay focused on Auli's attacks; even though she was outnumbered, she was more than a match.

"I still see her markings on you - you're still Instilled!"

Auli laughed sharply, flinging a knife through the air that left a small dent in the stone wall above Luen's shoulder. "You don't get it, do you? That's what Instilling does -- just ask your friend."

"Don' listen te her, Luen. She's jus' tryin' te confuse ye!"

"I'm a summoner! Don't you lecture me about maginaria!" Luen scrambled through his belt-pouch for a crystal that shone like a small irregular ruby, and shot the bolt of red chroma at Auli, hitting her square in the chest.

"Gaaack!" She coughed a few times, smoke leaking from her nose and mouth. "What - what was that?! All right... now I'm really ticked off... I think I should know what's going on in my own head. And Clorin's gone, thank goodness..."

There was a series of slashes through the air as Auli sprung at Luen, knives drawn. "And if I - have to leave you - bleeding on the streets - to make my getaway, I will!"

Luen popped another crystal into the sleeve of his chalice-gun. "You wanted her gone," he said in a low voice, "I'll be happy to oblige you!"

Before the other mages could realize what he was about to do, Luen had already thrust the bowl of his chalice out at Auli. By the time Viola thought to warp herself over, she was too late. Nor were Kinto's reflexes fast enough to stop the process once it had started; Luen had already pulled the trigger. Just as before, there was a rush of greenish energy from Auli into the chalice... It was all over in a few seconds, although it felt much longer at the time. Auli - the old, blonde Auli - lay on the ground, as if asleep. All that remained of Clorin were a glow inside the chalice's crystal-chamber and a stony expression on Luen's face.

"Ye blasted idiot! Ye call yerself a summoner? Yer a bird-brained murderous fool!" Viola started to leap toward Luen, but was pulled back by a pair of hands on her shoulders.

"Don't, Viola... It's too late now," said Kai. "He didn't know what he was doing."

It was silent for a while as Luen looked down at the green crystal, then at Auli, then the crystal again.

"I gave her what she wanted, didn't I?" he said finally, a defensive edge creeping into his voice. "She -- she would've killed me if I hadn't."

"Tisn't what happened and ye know it!" snapped Viola.

Kinto knelt next to Auli and felt her pulse. "No, Luen... This ain't what she wanted. This ain't what anyone but you wanted." He stood up slowly. "Let's get her some help."