Nolin's Last Song

"I'm something of a gourmand," confesses the Ivory King in burbling, conversational tones. "For instance, you're familiar with goose liver pate. I've always been curious about stuffed phoenix liver pate." He lifts Nolin's helpless body and takes a huge bite out of his belly, spilling internal organs from the terrible wound.

Instead of screaming, Nolin starts to sing. His voice begins weakly but gains strength, and each of his friends hears the song resonate over the mindlink.

"Pray your gods who ask you for your blood
For they are strong and angry jealous ones
Or lay upon my altar now your love
I fear my time is short
There are armies moving close
Be quick, my love"

Elsewhere, Agar hangs in silvery null-space, gazing in wonder at the 3-D maze of translucent force walls that completely surrounds him. He thinks about moving, and the whole maze instantly swivels and reorients itself to him instead of him reacting to it. "Oh, that's neat!" he tells Proty, who is still perched on his shoulders. "This is what my maze looks like!" He studies the incomprehensible tangle of force planes for a few seconds. "I must be getting slow, little guy. This is easy." As Agar concentrates, the maze begins to whirl and slide around him. Walls speed in, turn abruptly, and recede even as new walls slide forward to take their place. Proty gurgles. "I know it's fun, but Malachite is dead and Nolin is trapped." Agar bites his bottom lip hard enough to make it bleed, but he doesn't notice. "We have to hurry."

Velendo is the first to reach Malachite, turning over the body with a shaking hand and recoiling from what he sees. He glares upwards at the flying dragon. Ignoring the jabbing pain in his joints, he lowers his heavy shield onto the paladin's chest. Cruciel takes his hand, and he can feel the soul of Morak murmuring to him from inside the shield.

"Calphas," Velendo begins, "I know normally that you can't bring someone back to life unless you're in a holy and purified place. But I'm standing in the blessed light of your divine uncle, and I've got an angel on one hand and a saint on the other, and I ask so that I can slay a really horrible enemy. I'd really appreciate it if you'd let this work." And before he can get hit by one of the arrows now beginning to blindly skitter in from the approaching ghoulish troops, he utters a prayer and thrusts his hands deep into Malachite's chilly torso. The knight's soul hasn't had time to even leave the flesh and enter the sunblade Karthos; Velendo's fingers catch it, smooth it, slide it back into place, and warm it just enough to grant the spark of returning life. Frozen lungs take a single, anguished breath. . . and a delighted Velendo casts mass heal on Malachite and anyone else nearby. Blocked by the cube of force, the healing energy doesn't reach Nolin.

Flesh heals. Ice melts. Consciousness returns. And Malachite sits up.

"What happened?" he asks in confusion. As if by reflex, Karthos slides across the rubble from five feet away and sockets itself in Malachite's outstretched hand. "I feel terrible." He looks down and examines the huge rents in his emerald surcoat as he fights off dizziness.

"That's hardly surprising," answers Velendo drily. "You just died." Malachite looks at him and raises an eyebrow. "I brought you back," the old priest clarifies. "You hadn't gone very far. Now get up and let's save Nolin and kill our enemies."

Malachite forces himself to his feet. "Died?" he asks himself, half in doubt. He looks over to the cube, where Galthia and Stone Bear and Mara and Priggle are all beating on the force walls with all the strength they can muster. The sound of their blows echoes dully, like hammers on solid lead. Then his eyes follow the bullywug Burr-Lipp as he launches himself off a pillar with his harpoon clutched in both hands. While still in mid-air the frog throws it at Soder, hoping to impale the undead dragon. Instead the harpoon bounces off, and Burr-Lipp lands awkwardly on the rubble below.

"Damnation," intones the bullywug mentally. "I am glad to see you not carrion, Malachite."

"Me too." He totters forward as the three ghouls on Soder's back leap off the dragon onto rubble below.

"I've got them," calls Galthia. The githzerai looks at the impenetrable cube of force and the Ivory King with disgust before nimbly leaping up the rubble onto what was once a roof. The three ghouls await him eagerly. Above them, Soder chants through a series of incantations, and a huge clenched fist the size of an elephant appears in the air over the rubble-strewn battleground.

"You know," sighs Priggle, "that can't be good."

"Move!" yells Cruciel as she grabs Velendo by the shoulder and swings him around behind her.

WHAM! The fist slams down with enough force to send broken pillars toppling. All of the Defenders targetted by it manage to leap at least partially out of the way, which probably saves their lives. The fist rises once again, positioning itself for another devastating attack, even as Cruciel tests to see if her wings were broken. Untouched behind her, Velendo's face is a study of guilt and worry.

"I'm all right," she says in her voice like silver trumpets. She pulls him back once more, blocking an incoming arrow with a sweep of her shield. Her teeth flash in the sunlight as she catches and holds Velendo's gaze. "I'm all right," she repeats with a little smile. "This is why I'm here."

Suddenly Agar and Proty rematerialize next to them. "See?" Agar is saying. "Easy!" he looks up and lets loose a low whistle. "Wow, crushing fist of spite! That's a rare one! I've never actually seen it used!"

"Agar!" yells Tao in delight. "I thought you were disintegrated!"

"No, but that's a pretty good idea." His brow furrows when he sees the yellow glow of Soder's eyes hovering above him in the darkness, surrounded in Agar's true seeing by more than a dozen magical auras. "I know how spell turning works, you jerk, and I can see the spell on you. First something to burn off the remaining power. . ." He throws a lightning bolt that rebounds and is negated by Agar's own protection spells. "And then another maze. See ya." Work this time come on please work work work work. . . Soder blinks out of existence, and across the battlefield Malachite gives a congratulatory cheer.

Agar spins around. "You're alive!"

"Now I am. Come on, we need to help Nolin." They look over, and blood is pouring down the bard's front and into the greedy, open mouth of the Ivory King. Somehow, Nolin is still singing.

"I feel my body weakened by the years
As people turn to gods of cruel design
Is it that they fear the pain of death
Or could it be they fear the joy of life"

"Stop that, damn you!" One of the Ivory King's arms brushes at his tiny ears. The sound of Nolin's voice has somehow grown louder, and now it carries over the impact of warriors hammering apart the cube of force.

"We're not letting that thing descend again," spits Velendo. He casts a flexible wall in such a way that it provides a ceiling over most of the battlefield, then turns and heals Cruciel. Seconds later, the crushing fist of spite smashes down once again directly over Velendo. This time it is wholly deflected by the wall.

"Good job, but we still need more support," decides Agar. Throwing his mind out into the far reaches of the earth, he calls an elder earth elemental to him. Channelling it through a tiny section of the far realms is simplicity itself for the alienist, and the elemental arrives with earthen tentacles squirming.

"Break open that cube," directs Agar, and the pseudonatural elemental turns its full attention on the task. Above it, Galthia is closing on the three ghoulish archers who have settled on the remains of the mansion's roof. Actually, two are archers, and one is surrounded by dozens of small silver spheres. By the time the monk completes his climb, he has at least one arrow sticking out of his upper arm.

"I've heard about you people," the ghoul surrounded by the floating spheres hisses to Galthia. It was once a ratlike skaven before it became an undead. "I've waited for a chance to see what you're made of. Today should be a holy day. If you're going to interrupt it, at least we can make you holy too." Overly amused by its own pun, the ghoulish ratman propels five of the silver spheres towards Galthia in a blazing array of silvery death. Galthia tries to deflect the first but he's too slow, and four of the five slam into his body. Galthia can actually feel the first sphere, psionically impelled, squirming deeper into his body. Blood sprays out, but the githzerai does his best not to even flinch. Instead, he smiles at the ghouls in front of him.

"My turn." He focuses his ki and his hands move faster than the ghoul can follow. It tries to move the silver spheres into a makeshift shield, but Galthia's fists punch right through it. A few of the silver spheres drop to the ground as the undead is reminded what a shattered collarbone feels like. Behind him, a leaping Burr-Lipp takes down one of the archers.

The force walls are now vibrating every time they're hit. Tao glances at Nolin, blanches, and realizes that Stone Bear and Priggle are better at weakening the cube than she is; song or no, Nolin doesn't have much time left. Tao doesn't have much connection with the Goddess of Nature this deep underground, but a minute previously she had been patrolling a forest path in the shadow of sacred trees. She casts negative energy protection on herself just to be safe, moves farther into the sunlight, and rips open a gate in the fabric of time and space.

"Evergreen! Servant of my Goddess, I call you!" The sunlight of dappled shadows under tall trees shines from the magical gate, but no angel immediately appears. Behind Tao, Stone Bear hammers on the cube as hard as he can. It vibrates like glass but doesn't break.

Nolin's song rings out, loud and sweet and terribly, terribly sad.

"Pray your gods who hold you by your fear
For they are quick and ruthless punishers
Or lay upon my altar now your love
I fear my day is done
There are armies moving on
Be quick, my love"

Velendo looks up to the horribly injured Nolin, realization dully setting in. "Goodbye, Nolin. Burn him good!"

The Ivory King raises Nolin up and opens his mouth. "Yammer, and yammer, and yammer. Do you never cease prattling?"

Nolin manages to twist his head enough to look the ghoul in his beady, black eyes. Whatever the Ivory King sees in Nolin's face, it seems to shake him. "I'm telling you the truth. The only thing in the world to live for is love, and you'll never know it. Which is why you're going to try to rule the undead, creatures that don't know how to love, and you're going to fail."

The Ivory King looks aggrieved. "One last chance, for the sake of my Advisor. You may surrender and submit to me."

The bard's voice is firm. "Never." The ghoul's jaws gape. Over the mindlink, Nolin thinks, "It's been interesting, guys!" Oddly enough, his thoughts sound full of hope and anticipation, and he finishes the song.

"Dona nobis pacem, pacem
Dona nobis pacem et in terra pax
Grant us rest and on earth peace."

His voice never falters.

Velendo's throat catches. "See you on the other side, Nolin."

Agar yells, "You tell him, Nolin!"

The Ivory King closes his jaws around Nolin's head.

And Nolin dies.

"God damn it," Malachite says to himself, taking in a deep breath. Mara chokes back a sob.

Velendo's voice is tiny in the tumult. "Go with Calphas' blessing, Nolin."

Behind his protective screen, the Ivory King lifts his decapitated trophy and deliberately sticks his questing tongue down Nolin's neck. He's clearly smiling.

"My comrade, gone, gone" says Galthia. "How soon before the phoenix awakens and the firestorm takes effect?"

Tao's face is grim. "Instantaneously. And there's no room in there to dodge."

Smoke abruptly rises from the corpse, and the Ivory King suddenly stops looking insufferably smug. He desperately tries to remove his tongue from the corpse, to fumble in his rolls of fat for the controls to the cube of force, to escape.

Too late.

The group stands transfixed as Nolin's transient flesh boils away to expose a radiant gold and red phoenix. Revealed in her glory for the first time in years, Rides The Sun's wings batter at the sides of the cube before wrapping tightly around the large white flabby flesh of the Ivory King. Then the whole area goes incandescent. It's as if the sun itself has been kindled within the cube, and everyone but Stone Bear, Mara and Malachite must turn their eyes away from the glare.

There's a silent scream, like water being boiled out of a dry kettle. The cube is an inferno of fire.

Galthia shakes his head in satisfaction. "At least in death he got retribution."

"Yes," agrees Agar in a hitching voice. Proty keens.

Nolin's holy fire shatters the remaining structural integrity of the cube, and Stone Bear recoils from the sudden heat even as the flame passes away. Although no one else can hear it, his death spirit guide Elder offers words of condolence to the shaman. It's just death. Do not worry. I am with you. I am with you, closer now than I ever have been before. Kill the thing, and I will help. I am coming to you.

"Uh, sure." Stone Bear grits his teeth. This is what you get for fighting near the Goddess of Undeath. "I think we'll let Malachite actually kill the thing. We'll just help."

He turns back towards the Ivory King, still screaming, standing in Nolin's ashes and wreathed in flame.