The Death Ray

2

Though he wasn't the tallest of men, Vargussel's spiky hair brushed the rafters of the dark passageway. It was the easiest of prayers to Vecna that caused the tip of his staff to glow like a torch. Without it, he would have stumbled around in whatever inconsequential twilight seeped through the crumbling roof of the abandoned slaughterhouse. As it was, it was difficult enough to avoid the many deep puddles of fetid, vile water. Vargussel's long, green robe was already spattered with muck that obscured the wine-red trim around the hem.

The place was cool but humid, and sweat beaded on his forehead as he picked his way deeper into the dilapidated building. The corridors were designed for cattle, not men. When the place was abandoned decades ago, no one bothered to clean it. The smell was a constant reminder of how low Vargussel had been forced to sink at times in order to inevitably rise so much higher.

Vargussel breathed through his mouth, quickening his step so that he would reach his hiding place deep in the old slaughterhouse before he was overcome by the stench. Sweat collected on his chest and back, under the heavy, quilted tabard in a wine-red diamond pattern mimicking the heraldry of his family. It was an old pattern for an old family-a family that would die with Vargussel if he failed in the coming days, but he would not fail. For his family, all gone but him; for his liege, still waiting and watching from afar, he would Vargussel stopped. His foot splashed in a puddle of syrupy muck that slid over the top of his fine leather boot. Something was wrong. Something was different. Vargussel had come to the old slaughterhouse often enough, for long enough, that he could feel the change in the air.

He wasn't alone.

In front of him was an intersection, one he'd crossed a hundred times. He was a few long strides from the intersecting passage, so he couldn't see around the corners. The ceiling was a bit higher there, the walls close enough on either side that Vargussel could have reached out and touched both walls at the same time. There was no change in the heavy stench of decay. He heard no sound but the odd drip of water and the creak of an old gate hanging from one rusted hinge. The intersections had once been gated so the butchers could heard their charges in one direction or another. The other three gates were missing, long gone.

With his glowing staff still held in his right hand, Vargussel slipped two fingers of his left into a pocket of his robe. There he found a small bead of blue glass, a spell focus he carried, along with many others, everywhere he went. He didn't pull the bead from his pocket but just held it and whispered the brief incantation while closing his eyes in the precise way the spell demanded.

Without opening his eyes again, he could see. The lighting was different, more diffuse. His perspective was changed slightly, as if he'd suddenly become a few inches shorter. Concentrating on steady, even breaths, Vargussel altered his perspective by sheer force of will. Without actually moving a step-he stood stock still, his eyes still closed-he moved his sight forward, up, and around the corner to the right.

The spell showed him the dark expanse of the narrow side passage. Scanning it briefly, lingering on the ceiling, he saw nothing. The shadows were deep, however, and Vargussel wasn't entirely convinced that the passage was clear. Before risking the time to move his sight deeper into the right-hand passage, Vargussel willed his perspective to turn, then slide back to the intersection. He caught a brief glimpse of himself with the magical light on the end of his staff illuminating the crumbling brick, rotting wood, and stagnant mud around him.

He moved his sight into the left-hand passage. When he tilted it up to scan the ceiling, he saw something move.

It was a twitch, really, a shadow expanding itself in an unnatural way. He moved in a bit closer and could see the outline of something clinging to the dark corner where the sagging ceiling met the cracked wall. The thing was vaguely humanoid but skinny. It's elongated arms were more like tentacles and at the end of them dangled grotesque, five-fingered hands that, seen only in shadow, looked more like squids than hands. The thing shifted its head around and twitched its shoulders. It was becoming restless, probably wondering why Vargussel had stopped.

Vargussel let the spell effect fade to darkness. When he opened his eyes, he saw through them normally once again. He touched the medallion hanging from a heavy chain around his neck. It was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. The medallion was shaped vaguely like the head of a dog, with a long snout simply rendered and two large rubies where its oblong eyes would be. Letting out a small, silent breath, Vargussel willed the guardian to come.

Still standing in the same place, Vargussel took his hand away and whispered a quick spell that would protect him-at least a little-in the meantime. It was a minor casting, but wasting it and the clairvoyance was testing his patience. The fact that the Vecna-given light on the end of his staff would burn out half an hour after he cast it gave him a sense of irritated urgency. Still, Vargussel wasn't the type to let an opportunity pass.

"Come out," he said, his voice echoing in the tight space.

Somewhere, a flock of pigeons, startled by the sudden sound of a human voice in the dull silence, took wing. The thing in the darkness around the corner stirred as well but didn't reveal itself.

"I saw you there, my friend," Vargussel said. "A clever hiding place indeed, but you've been found out. Come down and speak with me, and perhaps we can avoid all this nastiness I'm sure you had planned for me-and that I've been planning for you as well."

There was a long silence during which Vargussel considered how to kill the thing if it didn't come down. As if sensing his line of thought, the thing in the corner came out.

It unfolded itself slowly, almost gracefully, like a worm coming out of an apple. It clung to the upper corner of the passage, holding onto a rafter beam with its left hand. Its webbed feet splayed out on the wall and seemed to hold it there like suction cups.

"That's it," Vargussel said, keeping his voice light, unthreatening. "Come down, and introduce yourself like a gentleman."

The thing slid off the wall, making a horrid, wet, sucking sound when its feet came loose. It splashed into a puddle of reeking muck without flinching from either the cold or the smell. Vargussel moved his staff in front of him a few inches and the light fell over the creature.

Its eyes closed against the light and its skin wrinkled around its small, deep-set black orbs but it didn't back away. It might have stood only four feet tall, if it stood erect, but it didn't. The slight creature crouched, not cowering, in front of Vargussel. Naked, its skin looked like burnished steel gone splotchy with rust. The flesh of its long legs and arms was smooth but elsewhere it was wrinkled and sagging, even where it hung from deeply-cut ribs. Its head was narrow, with a high forehead and pronounced jaws. As it stared at Vargussel, it's lipless mouth slid open to reveal two rows of vicious, yellow fangs, each as long as one of Vargussel's fingers.

"Well, then," Vargussel said, "there you are."

"No fear me, human?" the creature said, it's voice high but still menacing.

Vargussel smiled politely and said, "I do not fear a lone choker, but thank you for asking."

The choker, as Vargussel had identified it, was a wretched vermin that would lie in wait for unsuspecting passersby, then squeeze the life out of them. It opened its eyes a bit wider and tipped its head.

"Yes," Vargussel said, "I know what you are."

"How know?" the choker asked. "Why here?"

"I know a great many things," Vargussel replied. "As to why I'm here, that is none of your concern. Suffice it to say that I have laid claim to this dismal ruin for reasons of my own. It is you who is the trespasser."

"No understand," the choker hissed. "Who you?"

Vargussel was about to answer when the floor quivered under his feet. The choker twitched, startled, looking around, and Vargussel knew the creature had felt it too.

"Pay that no mind," Vargussel said. "A storm is coming…thunder and all that."

The choker tipped its head again and nodded.

"Who you?" it asked again.

"I am Vargussel, but you can call me Your Highness."

"Highness?"

"I intend to be duke," Vargussel replied. "By marriage, mind you, but duke just the same. Do you know what that is…a duke?"

The little humanoid shook its head, and its long, tentacle-like arms twitched.

"Well," Vargussel explained, "it is a title that identifies a man of great importance-a man it might do you well to serve."

"Serve you?" the choker surmised, its eyes narrowing again.

"Serve me," Vargussel said.

The choker's right arm shot out toward Vargussel's face like the snatching tongue of a tree frog. Grotesque, wormlike fingers splayed open, reaching for Vargussel's throat to grasp it in a palm lined with jagged spikes. It meant to strangle him, not serve him.

Vargussel didn't flinch, didn't move, and the hand stopped short, no more than an inch from his neck. The man lifted an eyebrow and looked into the darkness behind the choker, where something enormous loomed.

"Wrong answer," Vargussel said, and the choker was snatched backward.

The creature whimpered, then coughed out a sound that might have been a bark. Vargussel stepped forward and held his staff out and up. Light poured over a massive form of steel and wood and glinted off eyes of thumb-sized rubies. It revealed on the thing's chest a duplicate of Vargussel's amulet, and likewise illuminated the shocked, terrified face of the little choker.

The shield guardian-Vargussel's shield guardian-had a hold on the choker. The steel fingers of its left hand wrapped around the creature's slim torso. The choker's arms whipped back in a feeble attempt to ensnare the guardian, but the huge construct, sitting on its knees in the confines of the passage, paid it no mind.

Vargussel shrugged and stepped past, moving around the two creatures as best he could. He came close enough that the choker saw him. Its tentacle arms snapped back into place, then made to reach out again. The shield guardian drove the choker into the wall hard enough to dislodge a ceiling beam.

Vargussel stepped away from the falling dust and blood. The choker squealed, and the shield guardian drew back its right arm, pausing to let Vargussel pass. When its master was out of the way, it curled its metal fingers into a fist the size of a man's head and smashed it into the choker's skull. The creature's neck snapped and one of its black eyes careened into the air only to splash into a puddle of decades-old cow dung.