Dangerous Things
Title: Dangerous Things
Story Continuity: Battle For the Sun
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3286
Summary: It all goes terribly wrong. Cyprian can't catch a break, but he can catch a horn. Right in his stomach. Painful death is imminent, and an unfortunate addition to the group is made.
We were all three of us unprepared for the tiankong airen, twenty thousand silver or not.
“Uhhh...n-no,” Cliff said, upon seeing the thing. It had horns, on its head and on its wings, which were strong and seemed to be, in the darkness of the cave outside the weapons shop, made of the dark metal the fae used in their scythes. It had fur, blue and slicked with grease and the blood of its recent kills - we had found it as it was eating a living, more generic monster and its dead pack. It had fangs, long and prominently featured in its grin, which was the type of grin the kid and his girl had likely seen only on the faces of the monsters in their most horrible nightmares. It was the kind of grin which could speak without words of the sadistic rapture the wearer would take in ravishing your bones and making a skullcap of your kneecaps and tibia while you watched. It had claws that were all horror novel sharpness and arched in a way that was truly intimidating. Its eyes were Easter white and bulged like someone had strangled it. It made little breathless whines and sniffling that amplified the impression.
I was the first to move, for all the good it did me. I didn't charge - I knew better than to charge right off the bat - but I said, “Flammorbis,” which set off the right spell, but unfortunately, the cave was charged with strong dark magic and, since like draws to like, the spell just singed the beast and weaved into the air, which is fascinating to watch if you can find a place charged enough that it happens - but not really when it earns you a yellowy rictus grin and a lily-white gaze transfixed on you.
It occurred to me suddenly and without reason that lilies were symbolic of death in some places. For mystics, it was peace. Sometimes both definitions.
Kristen and Cliff looked at each other, then Kristen charged - never charge, I thought - and kicked the beast in the head. Then she began wailing on it in a way that was less kickboxing and more bar fight without the broken beer bottles. The thing took the beating with good grace, then bit off a brief, high-pitched, breathless note of laughter and...
I was close enough to intervene, as I was trying to sneak attack the tiankong. I intervened, but not as planned. My ax stopped the horn briefly, but I overestimated my strength and underestimated my group's willingness to actually do what they wouldn't stop flapping their yaps about doing just this morning and, you know, slay. The horn cut into me. I tried backing off and cutting at it, and I made a good two gashes in the thing, but it didn't seem as effective as the pain the hole in my stomach was creating.
Mind over matter, I thought, Don't let it get you. Don't let it stop you from fucking its shit up.
When you travel alone, you're used to people not helping you and fighting alone. Not always against big uglies - and the key behind most monsters' scariness is their ass-ugly mugs - but you learn to bear wounds and grin. You don't have to like it - and the pain was making me wish for religion - but mind over matter: you can howl in pain later, when nothing's trying to take advantage of your soft fleshy mortality and end you. But fuck if it didn't hurt. Kristen was beating on it again, her nail gloves and approximation of vital points helping a little, but not much. This thing needed to be pierced through; I had to fill that role while Cliff cowered and muttered like a fancy lord's son. I had the horn out of me, but I had to make this fight a quick one, since I was losing blood at the usual irritating rate someone with a hole in their stomach has. Then-
It made to bite Kristen-
And it bit me when I went to stop it with my ax. Its bite was poisonous, the old woman told me the day before, and she wasn't pulling my leg - it was fast-acting, too. I was effectively going to be in tremendous agony - more than I was already in - for days, but I'd be too delirious to care most of the time, at least. Mind over matter, then. But I could feel myself fading out from the poison - didn't matter, I was going to die anyway, so I figured I might as well make myself useful. With what strength I had, I grasped the helve of my ax harder, and swung-
And broke the horn clean off. And chipped my ax, but what the hell. I backed out while it breathed its agony-
“You gonna...whimper and tremble all day, little girl...or are you gonna end this like a man?” I said to Cliff, who was fighting off hysterics, and I can't remember after that because it was like having my insides eaten slowly by tiny little powerful-jawed insects, but I'm pretty sure I passed out from the pain at some point close to that.
I had dreams of my own, and I was trapped in my head. I awoke.
“Hey,” I said, realizing I was...somewhere. White walls. My room had white walls, the one I slept in for sixteen years. And there was a cradle in that room, useless, forgotten. My head was pounding and my tongue felt heavy and thick and my stomach felt like it was trying to strangle the rest of me, and this was hell.
It made sense then.
And the devil was hot and in a nurse's uniform that looked like a silken black gown made of the darkest shadows, the most evil souls. Somewhere in there were the demons who killed my father, I was sure of it.
“Hello, Cyprian,” the devil said. “How...how are you? The nurses released me earlier. They said...I could wear this. But never mind. How are you?”
“Dead, as you know,” I said. “But hurting. But shockingly good otherwise. I always knew I'd be meeting you one day, you know. Never thought you'd be hot. Mystic legends, you know, say you're...what do they say? Something about a forked tongue of silver. Or a silver tongue. You, though...pink tongue. No fork.”
The devil smiled, but it was uncertain and heartbreaking in a way the devil's smile should never be. Then there was a demon, dressed exactly as a demon should be dressed, in red vinyl pants and a black corset top and leather jacket, with a necklace of silver tongues that looked a little like hand-crafted sterling flames. Blue eyes, blonde hair. Beautiful, with a smaller but attractive bust. But angry. Probably about the bust.
“Be happy,” I said to the demon, who looked surprised, probably that I could speak. “You've got the world on a string these days. Probably always have.”
“World on a string, right,” the demon said. “The string's been fraying a bit these days.”
“You'll get it back,” I said. “Even the most goodly folk turn to evil when nothing else works out. It's not working out for a lot of people.”
The demon laughed, and tugged on the devil's arm. “Come on, princess,” the demon said. “Happy time with Pinky the Basket Case is over. Your man wants to see you.”
I had more dreams. Some involved the devil with a very bendy silver fork for a tongue, and a demon with the same, both with their own variation on an intoxicating kiss that stung like a small, warm pronged sword.
More dreams, and then wakefulness.
It was a bad sort of wakefulness, the kind of morning-after aches and pains that make you glad you blacked out.
I was still in the white room. But there was a quiet, peaceful silence. Peaceful like lilies, and white. Peaceful like death, and blank.
I lay there staring at the ceiling for a crazy amount of time. Under any other circumstances, I would have been insane, but there was nothing to stare at, and the silence was so kind to me I almost forgot I was wounded and dying from poison.
A woman hovered over me, and she stank of death and worry. I would worry too, if I were stuck in hell. Which, I thought, I was. I supposed I should be worried.
“Dear,” she said, “I'm afraid you'll be joining me soon. I worry.”
She seemed so familiar, and I saw something of myself in her without remembering who I was or why looking at her left a bad taste in my mouth.
“Yes,” I said. “I think you should.”
She cried quietly, and the room was still again. And white. Like death.
I slept again. I did that a lot. I dreamed of fangs and a man like myself, with black hair. I dreamed of myself at fifteen and my long pink hair becoming short pink hair, and a passing of innocence that wasn't, not really. Even the shortness didn't last.
I woke up aware, but unhealed. Every nerve in my body burned and throbbed, and my stomach felt like it would melt. After a while, the woman I'd mistaken - probably mistaken - for a demon came in, without Cliff or the devil woman Kristen.
“I remember you,” I said. “You're the woman I refused to sleep with. At the weapon shop.”
“Jaida, yeah,” the woman said. “And you're the man I saved in the cave. Well, sort of saved. You're still dying. But your friends are fine, thanks mostly to me kicking heads in. The demon's, Blondie's.”
“Thanks,” I said. “If I'd known I was going to die - I would have hit that. I would have hit that hard.”
“Hell, why let death stop you?” Jaida said. “My mom and pop never fucked so much as when pop was dying of swamp wyrm poisoning. Which I really didn't need to know, but, you know, mom talks most when nobody wants her to.”
“That a family trait?” I said. Jaida snorted. She said, “Matter of fact, yes. Don't mind what I told you in the shop, I beg of you. Unfortunately, pelvic rest is on your list of doctor recommended activities. Hate to make it more difficult for you in your last days.”
“Tease,” I muttered, but louder than I thought, because Jaida laughed and said, “Oh, yeah, that's me. Sorry, sugar, but you're just as guilty as I am, Mr. You're-Hot-I'd-Hit-It-But-Maybe-Not-So-Much.”
I faded out, and dreamed of the silver-haired man. It wasn't his dream, I don't think. He was still in his shroud.
“You can't die yet,” he said, angrily. “I won't let you.”
“Yet,” I said. “That's comforting, in a way, but death has a way of taking all your neatly-constructed plans and desires and fucking them up. Sort of like life, but more permanent.”
The man smiled, gently. “I can show you the way to life. In fact, I will.”
I wanted to comment on how I'd take death over the constant excruciating pain in my gut and all over besides, but, mind over matter, any animal would have told you life was more important than pain. I wondered how life and pain could be so unequal yet so much a package deal.
We walked. I remembered my life, twenty five years, every minute in less than a minute. It felt like a translation charm on speed and steroids, but it was still pathetic. Twenty five years, and my greatest achievement was raising a single ironduke tree with no personality. I wondered if my dream man saw what I saw or if he was living his life, or if he was just walking. “That's it, is it?” I said. He looked at me, his eyes grim and haunted, and he shook his head. He said, “I'm concentrating on restoring you to life.”
“Nothing dead or alive to restore you to the past of lilies and bramble that only the gods do know,” I murmured. He said only, “You missed a line.”
“So what are you? Dead or alive, and does it matter?”
“I am,” He said, and paused. “I don't know what I am anymore. Alive. Dead. Maybe both. I didn't know if I was alive a week ago, and I don't know now, either.” He looked at me, and said, “Did you keep it - that thing I gave you, did you keep it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It's shiny and pretty, so I couldn't really resist. Reminds me of the sun, and the plants I meet are wild about it, so...”
“Good,” the man said, and he stroked my face with his hand. His hand, which was taking a sabbatical from the rest of his body again. I sighed. “I hate it when you do that,” I said. He laughed, and said, “It will come when called and will stay put with a needle and thread,” which was not what I meant, but worked just as well. He said, “Now, wake up.”
A pain stung my cheek. And again. And again.
“Ow!” I said, and woke up to a woman - Jaida - poised to hit me for what I assumed was a second time. She smiled widely, revealing a curious set of canines that were longer than strictly normal or necessary. She said, “You're up, and you're cured! Now, let's make with the celebratus coitus!”
“That's not a word,” I said. “Wait, cured? What?”
“Cliff Knight, that guy you travel with, was looking for a miracle cure with a doctor here,” Jaida said. “They didn't succeed, and you died. For, like, four minutes. But then you just...woke up. There's no other way to say it. You woke up. You were babbling in Latin, but you woke up. You passed out, of course, but here you are now, healthy and sane. And here I am, a hot warrior woman and part time slut. Did I mention I helped save your life?”
“Forget the sex,” I said. Jaida said, “Okay. For now. But I'm coming with you guys now, you know that, right?”
“Wha - why?”
“Are you kidding?” Jaida said. “Sitting around all day staring at weapons I can't use with a paycheck that barely covers the essentials, or a journey where I could see things I've never seen before, kill them for personal gain, and earn more than 100 silver a day? And in the second place, besides kicking all sorts of ass, I'm pretty good with white magic, which speaks for itself, and I can sew and repair armor. Don't you think sewing would be a useful skill to have if your last pair of clothes - or armor, if you ever get any - gets destroyed?”
I thought of a man who sewed his own hand back on, and frowned. “Yeah,” I said. “But will you be trying to get into my pants the entire time? Could get annoying.”
“My lips and panties are sealed,” she said, smirking. “There's probably better guys out there. More fish in the sea, right?” She frowned. “Besides, Kris told me you're kind of small. But she's nice, so you're probably packing a Tiny Tim.”
“We,” I said, “are not going to get along. I'm feeling pretty strongly about this, you know. I may just murder you in my sleep, spells may stray from their intended targets, and I won't be held accountable. Just getting that out there.”
“Sugar,” she said, smiling, “don't worry about a thing. I'm sure some girls don't mind.”
And she laughed, like the very idea was preposterous. I only wished I was dreaming. I was glad when she left. And...surprised when the old woman I got the tiankong job from came in.
“Oh, you,” I said. “Please, feel free to entertain me with your spotty English. And I'm in need of a second opinion. Ten crooked tiles, or eight?”
“You have smart mouth,” the old woman said, and adjusted her awesome eyepatch, which read NEEDS MORE BOOZE in all capitals. “It does you no good.” She nodded, and said, “My granddaughter joins you. She is slut. Capricious thrill seeker. Make sure the blond coward does not get her pregnant. Use...protection, got it?” And to my horror, she mimed sexual intercourse. I said, maybe a little too quickly, “Yeah, got it. Condoms. Christ, the mental images.”
“You need grow up,” she snapped. “It is only sex. Makes world, makes people. I come tell you why I call winged ogre tiankong airen.”
“He once my husband, Chomu. Not man, mystic. Like you. Like you, with pink hair.”
“You're...Ling,” I said, recognizing the similarities between this woman and the one Chomu, though I never knew his name, dreamed of. “You're lucky you never got into that man's head.”
“I know of Chomu's perverted fantasy of my sister and I,” she snapped, her one keen good eye growing meaner. “I accept the character failure of my husband. It may be why he and I stayed married for fifty year.” She paused, presumably for drama, since that was all it was good for; she had a mind like something a steel trap would fear. She knew exactly what she wanted to say, and precisely how to say it. She continued, “Twelve year ago, Chomu find strange, magnificent pelt. He say to me, wife, I make you dress of princess. I tell him, no, airen, you clothes old and bad, you spoil me too much. So he make robe for himself in place of useful garment, like fool. He put on, and...he change. Slow and terrible, he change from man into...creature. Like in play, Fly Man, he payed for arrogance with humanity. I played his favorite song for calm him at night by his cave, but he growed less human with each year. I...could not bear see him like that. So I search for cure. After seven year, I find none. Then, after eclipse, I try find slayers. For killing Chomu. You come, look like him but not speak like him. I...miss him.”
“I'm sorry,” I said, genuinely. This woman was a good woman, and she knew how to talk. I found myself wishing it was she who would be joining my group. With a woman like that around, Cliff would walk or grow a spine in no time. The woman, Ling, nodded. She said, “I know. You good man, over all. You more like Chomu than I first know. But even if you not him, remember his mistake. You not take strange pelt you find. You know thing too good be true, not true. You know not all as seems.” She stared at me, sternly, then sighed. She said, “Be wary of marble. May be too late, but stay wary. You know not thing, yes? Try learn something of strange marble. Do not use it badly. If you can, do not use it at all.”
And she nodded again and left. I felt for the marble in my pocket, pulled it out, and looked at it. It gleamed like hope, but I'd had bad experiences with hope before. My dream man never said what it was - I'd only assumed it was a piece of the sun, a slightly less stupid assumption when you took into consideration it appeared mysteriously because of a dream.
What was it, and what had it done to me? I leaned back in bed, and felt and examined my stomach. Not even a scar. Huh.
Story Continuity: Battle For the Sun
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3286
Summary: It all goes terribly wrong. Cyprian can't catch a break, but he can catch a horn. Right in his stomach. Painful death is imminent, and an unfortunate addition to the group is made.
We were all three of us unprepared for the tiankong airen, twenty thousand silver or not.
“Uhhh...n-no,” Cliff said, upon seeing the thing. It had horns, on its head and on its wings, which were strong and seemed to be, in the darkness of the cave outside the weapons shop, made of the dark metal the fae used in their scythes. It had fur, blue and slicked with grease and the blood of its recent kills - we had found it as it was eating a living, more generic monster and its dead pack. It had fangs, long and prominently featured in its grin, which was the type of grin the kid and his girl had likely seen only on the faces of the monsters in their most horrible nightmares. It was the kind of grin which could speak without words of the sadistic rapture the wearer would take in ravishing your bones and making a skullcap of your kneecaps and tibia while you watched. It had claws that were all horror novel sharpness and arched in a way that was truly intimidating. Its eyes were Easter white and bulged like someone had strangled it. It made little breathless whines and sniffling that amplified the impression.
I was the first to move, for all the good it did me. I didn't charge - I knew better than to charge right off the bat - but I said, “Flammorbis,” which set off the right spell, but unfortunately, the cave was charged with strong dark magic and, since like draws to like, the spell just singed the beast and weaved into the air, which is fascinating to watch if you can find a place charged enough that it happens - but not really when it earns you a yellowy rictus grin and a lily-white gaze transfixed on you.
It occurred to me suddenly and without reason that lilies were symbolic of death in some places. For mystics, it was peace. Sometimes both definitions.
Kristen and Cliff looked at each other, then Kristen charged - never charge, I thought - and kicked the beast in the head. Then she began wailing on it in a way that was less kickboxing and more bar fight without the broken beer bottles. The thing took the beating with good grace, then bit off a brief, high-pitched, breathless note of laughter and...
I was close enough to intervene, as I was trying to sneak attack the tiankong. I intervened, but not as planned. My ax stopped the horn briefly, but I overestimated my strength and underestimated my group's willingness to actually do what they wouldn't stop flapping their yaps about doing just this morning and, you know, slay. The horn cut into me. I tried backing off and cutting at it, and I made a good two gashes in the thing, but it didn't seem as effective as the pain the hole in my stomach was creating.
Mind over matter, I thought, Don't let it get you. Don't let it stop you from fucking its shit up.
When you travel alone, you're used to people not helping you and fighting alone. Not always against big uglies - and the key behind most monsters' scariness is their ass-ugly mugs - but you learn to bear wounds and grin. You don't have to like it - and the pain was making me wish for religion - but mind over matter: you can howl in pain later, when nothing's trying to take advantage of your soft fleshy mortality and end you. But fuck if it didn't hurt. Kristen was beating on it again, her nail gloves and approximation of vital points helping a little, but not much. This thing needed to be pierced through; I had to fill that role while Cliff cowered and muttered like a fancy lord's son. I had the horn out of me, but I had to make this fight a quick one, since I was losing blood at the usual irritating rate someone with a hole in their stomach has. Then-
It made to bite Kristen-
And it bit me when I went to stop it with my ax. Its bite was poisonous, the old woman told me the day before, and she wasn't pulling my leg - it was fast-acting, too. I was effectively going to be in tremendous agony - more than I was already in - for days, but I'd be too delirious to care most of the time, at least. Mind over matter, then. But I could feel myself fading out from the poison - didn't matter, I was going to die anyway, so I figured I might as well make myself useful. With what strength I had, I grasped the helve of my ax harder, and swung-
And broke the horn clean off. And chipped my ax, but what the hell. I backed out while it breathed its agony-
“You gonna...whimper and tremble all day, little girl...or are you gonna end this like a man?” I said to Cliff, who was fighting off hysterics, and I can't remember after that because it was like having my insides eaten slowly by tiny little powerful-jawed insects, but I'm pretty sure I passed out from the pain at some point close to that.
I had dreams of my own, and I was trapped in my head. I awoke.
“Hey,” I said, realizing I was...somewhere. White walls. My room had white walls, the one I slept in for sixteen years. And there was a cradle in that room, useless, forgotten. My head was pounding and my tongue felt heavy and thick and my stomach felt like it was trying to strangle the rest of me, and this was hell.
It made sense then.
And the devil was hot and in a nurse's uniform that looked like a silken black gown made of the darkest shadows, the most evil souls. Somewhere in there were the demons who killed my father, I was sure of it.
“Hello, Cyprian,” the devil said. “How...how are you? The nurses released me earlier. They said...I could wear this. But never mind. How are you?”
“Dead, as you know,” I said. “But hurting. But shockingly good otherwise. I always knew I'd be meeting you one day, you know. Never thought you'd be hot. Mystic legends, you know, say you're...what do they say? Something about a forked tongue of silver. Or a silver tongue. You, though...pink tongue. No fork.”
The devil smiled, but it was uncertain and heartbreaking in a way the devil's smile should never be. Then there was a demon, dressed exactly as a demon should be dressed, in red vinyl pants and a black corset top and leather jacket, with a necklace of silver tongues that looked a little like hand-crafted sterling flames. Blue eyes, blonde hair. Beautiful, with a smaller but attractive bust. But angry. Probably about the bust.
“Be happy,” I said to the demon, who looked surprised, probably that I could speak. “You've got the world on a string these days. Probably always have.”
“World on a string, right,” the demon said. “The string's been fraying a bit these days.”
“You'll get it back,” I said. “Even the most goodly folk turn to evil when nothing else works out. It's not working out for a lot of people.”
The demon laughed, and tugged on the devil's arm. “Come on, princess,” the demon said. “Happy time with Pinky the Basket Case is over. Your man wants to see you.”
I had more dreams. Some involved the devil with a very bendy silver fork for a tongue, and a demon with the same, both with their own variation on an intoxicating kiss that stung like a small, warm pronged sword.
More dreams, and then wakefulness.
It was a bad sort of wakefulness, the kind of morning-after aches and pains that make you glad you blacked out.
I was still in the white room. But there was a quiet, peaceful silence. Peaceful like lilies, and white. Peaceful like death, and blank.
I lay there staring at the ceiling for a crazy amount of time. Under any other circumstances, I would have been insane, but there was nothing to stare at, and the silence was so kind to me I almost forgot I was wounded and dying from poison.
A woman hovered over me, and she stank of death and worry. I would worry too, if I were stuck in hell. Which, I thought, I was. I supposed I should be worried.
“Dear,” she said, “I'm afraid you'll be joining me soon. I worry.”
She seemed so familiar, and I saw something of myself in her without remembering who I was or why looking at her left a bad taste in my mouth.
“Yes,” I said. “I think you should.”
She cried quietly, and the room was still again. And white. Like death.
I slept again. I did that a lot. I dreamed of fangs and a man like myself, with black hair. I dreamed of myself at fifteen and my long pink hair becoming short pink hair, and a passing of innocence that wasn't, not really. Even the shortness didn't last.
I woke up aware, but unhealed. Every nerve in my body burned and throbbed, and my stomach felt like it would melt. After a while, the woman I'd mistaken - probably mistaken - for a demon came in, without Cliff or the devil woman Kristen.
“I remember you,” I said. “You're the woman I refused to sleep with. At the weapon shop.”
“Jaida, yeah,” the woman said. “And you're the man I saved in the cave. Well, sort of saved. You're still dying. But your friends are fine, thanks mostly to me kicking heads in. The demon's, Blondie's.”
“Thanks,” I said. “If I'd known I was going to die - I would have hit that. I would have hit that hard.”
“Hell, why let death stop you?” Jaida said. “My mom and pop never fucked so much as when pop was dying of swamp wyrm poisoning. Which I really didn't need to know, but, you know, mom talks most when nobody wants her to.”
“That a family trait?” I said. Jaida snorted. She said, “Matter of fact, yes. Don't mind what I told you in the shop, I beg of you. Unfortunately, pelvic rest is on your list of doctor recommended activities. Hate to make it more difficult for you in your last days.”
“Tease,” I muttered, but louder than I thought, because Jaida laughed and said, “Oh, yeah, that's me. Sorry, sugar, but you're just as guilty as I am, Mr. You're-Hot-I'd-Hit-It-But-Maybe-Not-So-Much.”
I faded out, and dreamed of the silver-haired man. It wasn't his dream, I don't think. He was still in his shroud.
“You can't die yet,” he said, angrily. “I won't let you.”
“Yet,” I said. “That's comforting, in a way, but death has a way of taking all your neatly-constructed plans and desires and fucking them up. Sort of like life, but more permanent.”
The man smiled, gently. “I can show you the way to life. In fact, I will.”
I wanted to comment on how I'd take death over the constant excruciating pain in my gut and all over besides, but, mind over matter, any animal would have told you life was more important than pain. I wondered how life and pain could be so unequal yet so much a package deal.
We walked. I remembered my life, twenty five years, every minute in less than a minute. It felt like a translation charm on speed and steroids, but it was still pathetic. Twenty five years, and my greatest achievement was raising a single ironduke tree with no personality. I wondered if my dream man saw what I saw or if he was living his life, or if he was just walking. “That's it, is it?” I said. He looked at me, his eyes grim and haunted, and he shook his head. He said, “I'm concentrating on restoring you to life.”
“Nothing dead or alive to restore you to the past of lilies and bramble that only the gods do know,” I murmured. He said only, “You missed a line.”
“So what are you? Dead or alive, and does it matter?”
“I am,” He said, and paused. “I don't know what I am anymore. Alive. Dead. Maybe both. I didn't know if I was alive a week ago, and I don't know now, either.” He looked at me, and said, “Did you keep it - that thing I gave you, did you keep it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It's shiny and pretty, so I couldn't really resist. Reminds me of the sun, and the plants I meet are wild about it, so...”
“Good,” the man said, and he stroked my face with his hand. His hand, which was taking a sabbatical from the rest of his body again. I sighed. “I hate it when you do that,” I said. He laughed, and said, “It will come when called and will stay put with a needle and thread,” which was not what I meant, but worked just as well. He said, “Now, wake up.”
A pain stung my cheek. And again. And again.
“Ow!” I said, and woke up to a woman - Jaida - poised to hit me for what I assumed was a second time. She smiled widely, revealing a curious set of canines that were longer than strictly normal or necessary. She said, “You're up, and you're cured! Now, let's make with the celebratus coitus!”
“That's not a word,” I said. “Wait, cured? What?”
“Cliff Knight, that guy you travel with, was looking for a miracle cure with a doctor here,” Jaida said. “They didn't succeed, and you died. For, like, four minutes. But then you just...woke up. There's no other way to say it. You woke up. You were babbling in Latin, but you woke up. You passed out, of course, but here you are now, healthy and sane. And here I am, a hot warrior woman and part time slut. Did I mention I helped save your life?”
“Forget the sex,” I said. Jaida said, “Okay. For now. But I'm coming with you guys now, you know that, right?”
“Wha - why?”
“Are you kidding?” Jaida said. “Sitting around all day staring at weapons I can't use with a paycheck that barely covers the essentials, or a journey where I could see things I've never seen before, kill them for personal gain, and earn more than 100 silver a day? And in the second place, besides kicking all sorts of ass, I'm pretty good with white magic, which speaks for itself, and I can sew and repair armor. Don't you think sewing would be a useful skill to have if your last pair of clothes - or armor, if you ever get any - gets destroyed?”
I thought of a man who sewed his own hand back on, and frowned. “Yeah,” I said. “But will you be trying to get into my pants the entire time? Could get annoying.”
“My lips and panties are sealed,” she said, smirking. “There's probably better guys out there. More fish in the sea, right?” She frowned. “Besides, Kris told me you're kind of small. But she's nice, so you're probably packing a Tiny Tim.”
“We,” I said, “are not going to get along. I'm feeling pretty strongly about this, you know. I may just murder you in my sleep, spells may stray from their intended targets, and I won't be held accountable. Just getting that out there.”
“Sugar,” she said, smiling, “don't worry about a thing. I'm sure some girls don't mind.”
And she laughed, like the very idea was preposterous. I only wished I was dreaming. I was glad when she left. And...surprised when the old woman I got the tiankong job from came in.
“Oh, you,” I said. “Please, feel free to entertain me with your spotty English. And I'm in need of a second opinion. Ten crooked tiles, or eight?”
“You have smart mouth,” the old woman said, and adjusted her awesome eyepatch, which read NEEDS MORE BOOZE in all capitals. “It does you no good.” She nodded, and said, “My granddaughter joins you. She is slut. Capricious thrill seeker. Make sure the blond coward does not get her pregnant. Use...protection, got it?” And to my horror, she mimed sexual intercourse. I said, maybe a little too quickly, “Yeah, got it. Condoms. Christ, the mental images.”
“You need grow up,” she snapped. “It is only sex. Makes world, makes people. I come tell you why I call winged ogre tiankong airen.”
“He once my husband, Chomu. Not man, mystic. Like you. Like you, with pink hair.”
“You're...Ling,” I said, recognizing the similarities between this woman and the one Chomu, though I never knew his name, dreamed of. “You're lucky you never got into that man's head.”
“I know of Chomu's perverted fantasy of my sister and I,” she snapped, her one keen good eye growing meaner. “I accept the character failure of my husband. It may be why he and I stayed married for fifty year.” She paused, presumably for drama, since that was all it was good for; she had a mind like something a steel trap would fear. She knew exactly what she wanted to say, and precisely how to say it. She continued, “Twelve year ago, Chomu find strange, magnificent pelt. He say to me, wife, I make you dress of princess. I tell him, no, airen, you clothes old and bad, you spoil me too much. So he make robe for himself in place of useful garment, like fool. He put on, and...he change. Slow and terrible, he change from man into...creature. Like in play, Fly Man, he payed for arrogance with humanity. I played his favorite song for calm him at night by his cave, but he growed less human with each year. I...could not bear see him like that. So I search for cure. After seven year, I find none. Then, after eclipse, I try find slayers. For killing Chomu. You come, look like him but not speak like him. I...miss him.”
“I'm sorry,” I said, genuinely. This woman was a good woman, and she knew how to talk. I found myself wishing it was she who would be joining my group. With a woman like that around, Cliff would walk or grow a spine in no time. The woman, Ling, nodded. She said, “I know. You good man, over all. You more like Chomu than I first know. But even if you not him, remember his mistake. You not take strange pelt you find. You know thing too good be true, not true. You know not all as seems.” She stared at me, sternly, then sighed. She said, “Be wary of marble. May be too late, but stay wary. You know not thing, yes? Try learn something of strange marble. Do not use it badly. If you can, do not use it at all.”
And she nodded again and left. I felt for the marble in my pocket, pulled it out, and looked at it. It gleamed like hope, but I'd had bad experiences with hope before. My dream man never said what it was - I'd only assumed it was a piece of the sun, a slightly less stupid assumption when you took into consideration it appeared mysteriously because of a dream.
What was it, and what had it done to me? I leaned back in bed, and felt and examined my stomach. Not even a scar. Huh.