Lady Ruin

whatever had held him motionless, and he was ready to rejoin the fight.

Elidyr looked at the warrior for a long moment, his eyes dancing with amusement, and Lirra couldn’t help feeling her uncle was laughing inside at some private joke. Then he raised his left hand once more.

“You really need to pay more attention, Rhedyn. Didn’t you hear what I just told Lirra?”

Elidyr unleashed a fresh blast of chaos energy at Rhedyn, and the warrior’s dark aspect vanished, as if his shadow sibling had retreated deep within his body, and he collapsed to the floor.

Without another word, Elidyr turned and walked out of the chamber, moving with an unhurried gait and humming brightly to himself. Lirra, still suffering the aftereffects of the chaos energy Elidyr had attacked her with, was too weak to do anything more but glare at her uncle as he departed. She made a vow to herself at that moment-the instant she could stand again, she was going after him.

A weak thought drifted into her mind from the tentacle whip. That’s my girl …

Vaddon opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but he felt a gentle hand on his forehead urge him back down.

“After what you’ve been through, you need to rest,” Ksana said.

An old joke from his days commanding a regiment of undead came back to him, and he uttered it without thinking. “I’ll rest when I’m dead-and maybe not even then.” He pushed the cleric’s hand away and sat up, though he was unable to keep himself from groaning as he did so. You’re getting old, soldier, he thought, and not for the first time. “What happened? I don’t-”

A quick glance around the chamber brought his memory back in a sudden rush.

Lirra!

All weakness fled at the thought of his daughter, and the general rose to his feet, sword in hand, ready to fight. But another glance around the chamber revealed that the battle was already finished. Seven of his men and women lay dead-the volunteers for the experiment and those who’d been selected to guard them. Only Osten still lived. The young soldier was sitting up, fingers gently probing a ragged wound at the base of his throat. Sinnoch stood next to the Overmantle-which seemed to have been deactivated, thank the Host-but there was no sign of Elidyr. Rhedyn crouched on his hands and knees, struggling to stand but having a hard time of it. Vaddon had no idea what had happened to the lad, but it seemed something had knocked the starch out of him. And then he saw Lirra, and the sight of her nearly broke his heart. She stood not far from Rhedyn, and while she looked none too steady on her legs, she appeared to be uninjured. Vaddon was grateful for that, but the sight of the tentacle whip fused to her flesh filled him with almost unbearable sorrow. The general was in charge of the Outguard’s project, and Lirra was his second in command. They were supposed to oversee the experiments at the lodge, not actually take part in them, not like this. The thought of his daughter’s body being joined with an aberration-being one with it-made him feel physically ill, and he would go to the grave before he’d allow Lirra to be afflicted with an inhuman parasite a moment longer.

Vaddon picked up his sword from the floor, rose to his feet through a sheer effort of will and started toward his daughter. Ksana stood and without a word headed over to tend to Osten. Undoubtedly the cleric would’ve preferred Vaddon continue resting, but she understood why he had to do this, and so she said nothing.

Vaddon cautiously approached his daughter, mindful of the way the symbionts had taken over the bodies of their hosts during the experiment. Was Lirra in control of her body or was the tentacle whip?

“Lirra … can you hear me?” he asked.

She faced the chamber entrance, as if she were looking at something-or perhaps for something-but the doorway was empty. She didn’t respond right away, and Vaddon tightened his hand on his sword, fearing the worst. But then she slowly turned to look at him. Vaddon expected her features to be twisted by the evil of the symbiont attached to her, but he was surprised to see how normal she looked. Her skin was paler than usual, but Vaddon was well familiar with the expression of grim determination on his daughter’s face, and for the first time since seeing the tentacle whip attack Lirra, he allowed himself to hope that her iron will had allowed her to resist the aberration’s attempts to usurp control of her body.

“He got away, Father.”

There was an undercurrent of anger to Lirra’s words that Vaddon found disturbing.

“Who did?” But even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. There was only one person missing from the chamber.

“Elidyr.” Lirra practically spat her uncle’s name. “I was just about to go after him. He can’t have gotten far. If we hurry, we’ll be able to catch him.”

Without waiting for Vaddon to reply, she turned and started toward the chamber door. The tentacle whip was coiled around her left forearm, its barbed tip quivering in the air, as if the symbiont was excited by the prospect of the hunt to come.

“Wait!”

Vaddon hurried toward Lirra as fast as his armor would allow. Lirra stopped and turned back around to face him, but the instant Vaddon was within striking distance, the tentacle whip uncoiled from around Lirra’s forearm and lashed toward him. Vaddon quickly raised an armored forearm to block the aberration’s attack, but he needn’t have bothered. Lirra yanked her left arm backward violently, throwing off the tentacle whip’s aim, and the barbed tip missed Vaddon’s face by several feet.

“He’s not a threat!” Lirra snapped.

At first Vaddon had no idea who she was talking to, but then he realized that she was addressing the tentacle whip. From what Elidyr had told him back when they first began the symbiont project, the aberrations possessed a certain amount of intelligence, could understand spoken language, and even communicate telepathically with their hosts, if only in a rudimentary way. But hearing his own daughter speak to one of the damned things as if she were scolding a misbehaving hound deeply disturbed him.

But her words had the desired effect. The whip-somewhat reluctantly, Vaddon thought-drew its length back toward Lirra, wrapped around her forearm once again, and settled down. He slowly sheathed his sword. Lirra appeared to be in control of her body, at least for the time being. And while it might not have been the most strategic of moves, holding a sword against his own flesh and blood didn’t sit well with Vaddon, so battle strategy be damned.

He remained standing where he was, several yards away from Lirra, and he made sure to keep his hand well away from his sword, sheathed or not.

“What happened to Elidyr?” he asked. “I was unconscious for a time and didn’t see.”

“A daelkyr lord reached through the portal to Xoriat and touched him,” Lirra said. “The creature’s touch drove Elidyr mad. He called to the other three symbionts and they bonded with him. It shouldn’t have been possible-a person can’t serve as host to more than one-but Elidyr managed it. That creature’s touch did more than destroy your brother’s sanity, Father. It changed him somehow.” She paused and then slowly turned and trained a suspicious, narrow-eyed gaze on Sinnoch.

Almost faster than Vaddon could track, Lirra dashed across the chamber toward the dolgaunt, unfurling the tentacle whip as she ran. With a flick of her arm, the whip’s coils wrapped around Sinnoch’s chest, pinning his arms and back tentacles in place. The barbed tip of the symbiont hovered in front of the dolgaunt’s face, swaying back and forth as if it was a serpent that might strike at any moment. Sinnoch didn’t struggle against the tentacle whip’s grip, and he appeared undisturbed by Lirra attacking him. He merely grinned that oversized grin of his.

Seeing Lirra move that swiftly made Vaddon realize that Elidyr hadn’t been the only one changed during the course of the experiment. Becoming bonded with a symbiont normally enhanced a host’s strength, speed, and ability to heal to a certain degree, but nothing like what Vaddon had just witnessed. What had happened to his poor daughter?

Lirra leaned close to Sinnoch’s face, and the tentacle whip’s barb tapped the dolgaunt lightly on the nose several times, as if to make sure he was paying attention.

“You were Uncle’s assistant, and you know more about Xoriat and its creatures than any of us here. You must know what happened to him.”

“I might have an idea or two,” the dolgaunt said, still grinning.

Lirra scowled and her lips drew back from her teeth in an expression that was almost a snarl. Though she made no outward move, the tentacle whip’s coils tightened around Sinnoch’s chest, and the dolgaunt let out a pained gasp, followed by an amused chuckle that sent a shiver down Vaddon’s spine.