The Fated Party

This isn't my best work, but it's readable. I was given a good story prompt, and enjoyed putting 5,200 words to it today. - Inky

*****

The ruined castle was completely deserted. It had once been the seat of a great kingdom some centuries ago, but little of its greatness was left. Thieves had claimed most of the gold long ago. Long-dormant traps, curses, and monsters had claimed the thieves who hadn't claimed the remaining gold. Its stone lay nearly hidden now under moss and vines, and passers-by called the place haunted.

But this old castle still held treasures worth claiming, despite the dangers. None had ever found the King's chamber itself, where he was said to lay in repose. And rumors yet circulated of a great treasure chamber, deep underground, beyond the dungeons, and under the great vaulted caverns.

"I don't like it," said Syrienne, peering left and right as they stood in the great throne-room. Vines draped down from the crumbling roof, and shafts of muted sunlight were the only things to break the stillness.

"There is nothing to fear," said Calyndra. She held up her hand, and a great wind surrounded her a moment as her eyes glowed. Her white cape swirled, and then lowered as the wind subsided. "There are no curses or traps here, save for that tapestry."

"Onward, then," said Derryck. The brute looked down at the raven-haired sorceress and nodded.

Syrienne peered back at her companions. "I still don't like it. But that's why I'm with you two."

"And we needed a thief," said Calyndra. "This castle won't loot itself."

"You sure you don't have a magic spell to make it do exactly that?" said Syrienne, grinning.

"Onward, then," insisted Derryck, hoisting his axe, and heading forward past them.

"Hey, wait for me," said Syrienne, and darted after him.

Calyndra watched the two go. She had teamed up with Derryck years ago, and his strength balanced her magic nicely, but after a few recent mishaps, they had grudgingly decided that they'd needed a thief to avoid besmirching their own neutral alignments any further. Calyndra's shift from white to grey had already cost her some spells, and she didn't dare switch all the way to dark magic. So they had visited several taverns, and when the right thief came along, they had hired her.

Syrienne, for her part, didn't especially like working in a team, but it was helpful to have some power on her side for once. Stealth only got you so far. Also, Calyndra's stories of the ancient castle of Draymeer had too much potential to ignore: Tales of endless caverns of an ancient King's gold could melt the heart of even the staunchest thief.

The narrow steps led them down from the throne room, past the servants' chambers, deeper still to the dungeons. After deftly avoiding two traps, and after Derryck simply destroyed a third with his axe, they reached a great chamber that contained the infamous Maze of the Catacombs, whose twisting rock walls spread out before them into the murky distance. Somehow old dead trees grew at this turn and that despite the lack of sunlight, and a chill breeze blew.

Calyndra's eyes glowed. "There's gold, that way," she said, pointing and turning, and eventually orienting on it.

"That's through heart of the maze," said Syrienne.

Calyndra let the spell fade. "That's where the strongest sign is," she said. "If you want gold, that's where we go."

"Don't worry," said Derryck.

The warrior climbed down from the entrance ledge, and ambled up to the first rock wall. With a swing of his axe, the rock cracked, and with a second swing, a wide gap crumbled into a pile of rubble.

He looked back up at the women. "If we get stuck, we just make our own path," he said.

Calyndra and Syrienne exchanged a glance.

"Alright," said Syrienne testily. "But don't swing that thing too close to me."

Calyndra grinned. Derryck wasn't really as much of a brute as he seemed to be, but he liked showing off, and there was some satisfaction in seeing Syrienne jump.

The women climbed down off the ledge and followed the warrior. It took half an hour of walking — and a few busted walls — they reached the center of the maze. The center was a wide open circle of stone, almost an amphitheater, but no opponents could be seen in it save for a long-dead skeleton laying in one corner.

"Which way do we go?" said Syrienne, looking at the multitude of exits.

Calyndra concentrated, and raised her spell. "That way," she said, orienting and pointing.

Derryck nodded and lead the way.

"Hold," said Syrienne suddenly, grabbing Calyndra's wrist.

The mage dropped her spell.

"What's the matter?" she said.

"We're not alone," said the thief. She turned, and watched.

Something was coming through the mist. There was nothing to be seen at first, but at length, they heard a clicking noise, as if a monster made of knitting needles was approaching.

A creature appeared. It was a woman — of sorts, her arms crossed, and a wry look on her face. But as she came closer, the mists revealed far more to her: A giant, dark-red body underneath her where her legs ought to have been, stretching out behind her to a curling, sharp tail, supported on spindly legs, with two claws at her side. She was very pretty, but wore nothing save for her red hair and a pair of long, golden necklaces that draped over her breasts.

"Welcome," she said.

Derryck whirled around and jumped in front of the women, his axe at the ready.

"Now, now, that's no way to greet your new master," said the scorpion woman.

"New master?" said Syrienne, her daggers raised.

"Well, until I kill you and eat you," said the scorpion woman. "There's not much to eat down here, and it's been so very long since I had a good meal."

Calyndra concentrated. The creature before her was corrupt, her evil alignment evident from a mile away, but Calyndra could also see she had once been human.

"Careful," said Calyndra to her companions. "She's more dangerous than she looks. Whatever turned her into that tripled her strength and speed."

"True on both counts," said the scorpion woman, grinning and showing off her sharp, pointed teeth. "It's a curse, to be sure, but it's so very useful. Now be a good girl and surrender so I don't have to wait for my poison to wear off before I eat you."

Calyndra nodded to Derryck, and the two backed up until they stood side-by-side. Syrienne stood behind them, breathing hard.

"She's a fire monster," said Calyndra. "Susceptible to water."

Derryck nodded. "Can you take care of that stinger? I can handle her claws."

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here!" said the scorpion woman.

"Already on it," said Calyndra. Her eyes started to glow, and she raised her hands. Suddenly, swirling blue crystals shot from her fingertips and surrounded the monster's stinger, encasing it in a ball of ice.

"AUGH!" screamed the scorpion woman, whirling around to try to reach her tail.

"On it," said Derryck, charging forward. He was faster than he looked. In a moment, he was in front of the monster, and then had leapt onto her great claw, and then onto her back.

"GET OFF GET OFF GET OFF!" she cried, spinning around and trying to grab him.

He reached forward, but she was quick, and as she lurched aside, he was thrown off her, his axe flying away. Whirling around to face him, she slammed her tail into one of the rock walls, cracking the ice on its tip.

"Don't presume that I will go down that easy," she said.

"I disagree," said Derryck, reaching to his back. His axe lay across the arena, but as he raised his hand, he withdrew a second smaller axe from its pouch.

"You think you'll take me down with that tiny thing?" said the scorpion woman. She leaned back and laughed.

"It's been awhile since I cracked lobster claws," said Derryck, darting forward, and with a hard thwack! the axe came down on her right claw. A crack appeared, and widened. In a moment, the crack spread from one end of the carapace to the other, and the claw dropped to the floor.

The scorpion woman howled in pain, and then swung at him with her tail, narrowly missing.

Calyndra had been anything but idle; while the two fought, she had readied a spell, and now unleashed it. A great tidal wave of foamy water burst from nowhere and struck the scorpion monster in her side, turning her over, tumbling and rolling until she slammed into the rock wall. The water swirled about her, and then disappeared into the nothing whence it came. Derryck wisely had dived aside, and as the water subsided, the scorpion woman struggled to pull her hair off her face.

"How dare you!" she said, looking back at Calyndra.

She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled, a long, howling sound that echoed through the maze.

Syrienne looked up. "What was that?"

The scorpion monster glared at her. "Reinforcements," she said.

"Cally, Derryck, with all due respect," said Syrienne, "this is outta my league. So — yoink."

Calyndra looked back at her, but there was nothing to look at. The thief was a dark figure racing across the cavern into the mist, and then she was gone.

"Forget her," said Derryck, running over to Calyndra. "We'll deal with her later."

"You're hurt," said Calyndra.

Derryck lifted up his shirt. "Only a scratch."

"A poisoned scratch," said Calyndra. Her eyes glowed, and she held her hand over it, slowly drawing out the poison.

"I'll be fine," said Derryck. "We have to be ready for whatever she summoned."

The scorpion woman had rolled herself over into an upright position. "Oh, you'll see," she said, straining the water from her hair, and she began to laugh. "I'm the least dangerous thing down here. And you'll still be my lunch soon enough."

There was a galloping sound in the distance. A heavy horse. No, two. Three? It was hard to say.

Calyndra had pulled as much of the poison as she had time for, and switched to a shield spell. "Derryck, get your axe."

The warrior nodded, and ran to his fallen weapon.

He reached it just in time. Out of the mist came four creatures. They seemed to be knights on horseback, fully armored, but on second glance, only the horses were alive, and they seemed unhealthy. The knights were little more than armor.

"The four horsemen of the caverns," said the scorpion woman, slowly standing up. "Once knights sworn to protect this cursed land, now nightmares that do little more than kill all unsworn to the king. Even I fear them."

"But you summoned them," said Derryck.

"I did," said the scorpion woman. "They leave behind the bodies once they're dead. I'll still eat."

Calyndra frowned, and strengthened the shield in front of Derryck. "Extra careful, Derryck. They're undead monsters. Easily on par with the gruven we fought."

"We won there, and we'll win here," said Derryck.

Calyndra nodded, and concentrated.

The warrior stood tall, his axe at the ready. The first horseman charged, the horse rearing and then galloping toward him. The horseman's sword raised, and sang through the air —

— and a clatter of armor landed on the floor, Derryck's axe having cleaved it in two while the magic shield blocked the sword. The horse skidded to a halt, confused, and whinnied.

Derryck, firmly on the advantage, slowly began to walk toward the other three, his axe swinging from side to side. Two of the three reared and began to charge at him.

Suddenly Calyndra saw it.

"Derryck, wait!" she cried, her shield spell suddenly collapsing as she began to run toward him.

But it was too late. His foot came down. The stone that it landed on sank into the floor and glowed.

"What?" said the scorpion woman, looking down at it. "What's that?"

There was a burst of light from the stone, and Calyndra knew no more.

* * *

The first thing that Calyndra heard was a woman screaming.

"No! No! No!" she cried.

Calyndra's eyes opened.

There was a young woman with red hair sitting on the floor, and a tiny red scorpion crawling on the ground next to her.

"No!" she cried, trying to grab at the tiny beast. "Come back!"

It scurried, terrified of the giant grabbing at it.

"You can't be free! You can't be gone! I can't be human again! I can't live like this!" she cried.

Calyndra's eyes glowed faintly. What had once been an evil monster was now just a young woman, neutral-aligned, and very confused. The curse on her had been broken.

The former scorpion woman stood, trembling on her human legs, and chased drunkenly after the tiny arachnid, her hair swaying back and forth as she wobbled away. In a moment, the two were gone, vanished into the mist.

Calyndra blinked. Derryck.

He lay on the ground some distance from her, and it was difficult to see in the mist what had happened. One of the horsemen stood not that far away from him, blithely ignoring him.

Calyndra pushed off the floor and tried to stand.

She collapsed, her body uncooperative.

She looked down, and choked in horror.

There was a horse's body where her legs once had been. It was brown-furred, and trailed out from under her long dress. A pile of armor lay next to it.

"The curse," she said.

She immediately recognized it: A fusion curse. Deadly, simple, and dangerous. And permanent, unless recast by its original maker. The same curse that had fused the scorpion woman had now fused her. If there were another such spell hidden in the catacombs, she might use it to become human again, but the odds discovering it neared zero — if it even existed at all.

With some effort, she pulled her awkward limbs under her body and rolled until they were under her. She could work with this. Slowly, carefully, she pushed off the ground and brought herself into a standing position. The horse under her was ungainly, and had been poorly fed, but it was alive, and part of her now.

She took a step, and then another, and approached Derryck. Her worst fears were confirmed: He, too, had been fused. Where had once had the buttocks and thighs of a warrior, he now had an oversized stallion's body trailing out behind his unconscious torso.

She glared at the other horseman. The suit of armor didn't seem to notice her anymore, probably because from its perspective she was now a part of the maze.

She knelt down beside her comrade, and tapped him gently on the cheek. She tapped again, and his eyes blinked open.

"We have a problem," she said.

"Oh?" It was usually an understatement when she said that. The last time they had been trapped by the walking fires of Kradisog.

She stood up and walked a few feet away from him.

"That is a problem," he said.

"You too," she said, pointing.

He looked down, and grimaced at the dark brown barrel protruding from his tunic.

"Well, hell," he said.

With a little effort, she helped him upright and onto his own hooves. He towered over her, but then he had always towered over her.

"You have a cure for this, right?" he said.

Calyndra shook her head.

"Well, hell," he said again.

"I suppose we should forget the treasure for now," he said.

"We lost our thief," said Calyndra, shrugging. "And possibly more. I have to study the damage a bit. This wasn't our best outing."

"Definitely not," he said.

She stepped ahead of him, waved at him back over her shoulder, and started back through the maze. The return trip was faster than their arrival, and it wasn't long before they reached the ledge they'd climbed down.

"Ayup," said Derrick, reaching under her and picking her up. She squeaked as he hoisted her entire body over his head and then landed her on her stomach at the top of the ledge.

"How are you getting up?" she said, her heart racing.

He leaned back on his hind legs, and launched.

Somewhat to her surprise, he landed deftly behind her, all four hooves planted firmly on the stone with a resounding thud. She looked up at him, smiling. He'd always been strong, but his last two feats had required nearly impossible strength. The curse had made the scorpion woman strong, and apparently it had done the same for him.

And possibly for her as well, thought Calyndra, but she was happy to be the dainty woman of the team. Magic was her stock in trade, and even if she was stronger, and even if she was a horse, she was still a mage.

She stood up, brushing herself off, and started up the stairway, with Derryck not far behind her.

She had the strange feeling that he was staring intensely at her as they climbed, but every time she looked back, he was the same stoic warrior he'd always been, his axe at the ready, his eyes looking forward toward danger.

Up past the dungeons, up into the throne room. It was still as quiet as before, still with the shafts of gentle sunlight illuminating it, but now it had a sinister feel. Calyndra was happy when they exited the ruins and stood in the forest clearing outside the castle.

"Well, so now what?" said Derryck.

"I think we make camp," said Calyndra. "I need time to study what happened."

Derryck nodded, and went into the forest to collect wood for the fire.

* * *

"Well," said Calyndra slowly, "I know this much: We're not centaurs."

"But you said we look like centaurs," said Derryck.

"We do, but we're something else entirely. The centaurs of the south are more of a smooth, single design for a creature. We're literally half-and-half." She pointed at her waist, where her human skin blended into brown fur. "This is where I stop, and where the horse starts. Real centaurs have one heart, one set of lungs, and so on. We have two stomachs, two hearts, two sets of lungs, there's two of everything, and the only way it all works together is because of magic."

Derryck nodded.

"It's really strange, but the curse makes it work," she said, looking back over her shoulder. "I can't imagine how we'll ever go into towns again like this, though. Centaurs aren't well-liked monsters."

"Are we monsters?" said Derryck.

"Well — yes," said Calyndra. "We're both aberrations. The magery would seek to either cure us or destroy us, if it knew we existed."

"Cure would be good," said Derryck.

"Cure is unlikely," said Calyndra. "The magery doesn't like monsters. We'd probably be burned to ash, and then dark magic would burn the ash into nothing."

"Oh."

"I was trained to destroy monsters on sight. It's not easy now being one."

"Why destroy them?" said Derryck.

"Monsters represent unknowns. The magery represents stability. We use magic for the betterment of human beings, and part of that means eliminating unknowns. It's been a long time since the War of the Violets, and we're never going back to that. I'm trying very hard not to see us both as abhorrent monsters that could destroy civilization."

"Well, I don't intend to destroy civilization," said Derryck. "And — it's not really so abhorrent, is it?" he said, looking back over his shoulder.

"We're monsters," she said.

"We're still us," he said.

"With monsters attached," she said.

"I — think you look pretty," he said.

She blinked. "What?"

He stood up. "I think you look pretty."

She turned a little red. "But I'm a monster — "

"A pretty monster," he said. He took a step closer.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"Something I should have done a long time ago," he said.

He stepped close and wrapped his arms around her.

"What — what are you doing?" she stammered, looking up at him.

"Holding you."

"W — why?"

"I could have lost you today," he said. "We could have been turned into anything, but we got a second chance."

"I don't — I mean — "

"I should have told you how I feel," he said, "years ago."

Calyndra fell silent. Her hearts beat hard. "You — have feelings for me?" she said.

Derryck nodded.

"I — " She trailed off, and then leaned in close to his chest. "I like you," she said. "I tried not to think about it, to keep it professional. I wish you'd said something before we were turned into monsters."