Short Little Stories

The silence in the chamber was broken by the sound of Aubrick’s laughter.

It wasn’t a pleasant laugh – his voice was rough from exertion, from screaming, from days marching through jungle and wasteland and a city of toxic air. But it was earnest laughter – perhaps the first heard since his quest began.

“Looks like… your plan worked… better than you thought. All this way, and we didn’t even have to hit it…”

Tailos merely closed his eyes. He was tired – so very tired – but it was not yet time to rest. From him, even cursed as he was, that was yet a long day off.

“It’s done. It worked. That is what matters, in the here and now. And with their progenitor dead, the spawn will fall soon enough. One would hope this entire forsaken place would shatter into nothingness… but no, that job we must do by hand.”

Though the thick walls of the chamber soaked up sound, they could hear the sound of battle through the single jagged hole in the ceiling overhead. Rent like a wound in the face of the sky, light poured through it, and the sound of their allies triumphing over the monstrous denizens of the city.

Within the chamber, the two companions stood alone.

“Wait…” said Aubrick, the warrior looking around the chamber with suddenly renewed focus. “Where is Rowen?”

Tailos shook his head. “Gone, no doubt to make its presence known to what worshipers still seek the counsel of a god.”

“And you see nothing wrong with letting it walk about, wearing the shell of our friend as casually as it pleases?”

“It did its part. The world is saved. And after all this, I have no friends. That is the price I must bear.” Tailos spoke his words with a bitter smile – and before Aubrick could question them, the mage was gone, vanishing like mist scattered by a breeze.

And, in silence, in the heart of a damned and dying city, Aubrick stood alone on the field of triumph.