FIC :: Tower of Fable 4

["C S Armitage" <soren_nyrond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

And here we go again !!!


TITLE: Tower of Fable (4/?) 
AUTHOR: Soren Nyrond
DISCLAIMER: All characters in this part belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Some ideas have been borrowed for elsewhere to illuminate this story: they did once belong to Other Companies (and still do, I imagine), but since they are by way of being generic concepts, I don't think anything's awry.
SUMMARY: It's got Buffy and Willow in it, and an NPC of the classic variety. And a quest and some monsters. Isn't that enough ?
SPOILERS: None except that the plot is Very Old and this bit is (to all intentts) smut-less
AUTHOR'S NOTES: All nice feedback welcome. Thanks to all those who've written so far.


 

Tower of Fable - - Part 4
 

 

"So where do we go now ?" Buffy reiterated.

Willow put on Thinking Face, and Buffy waited.

"There's a big bed upstairs," Randy said, softly.

"Sorry, Toiranda," Buffy said, absently.

"I'm Randy," the girl replied, slightly miffed (not to mention muffed), "and there's a big bed upstairs, with silk sheets and everything."

"We need to find out where they've taken Giles to," Willow said. "This isn't just a portal, like the others were - with this one you can go to a variety of places: it has to be set for a destination."

"If you activate it, won't it still be set to wherever this Necromancer took Giles ?" Buffy asked, while Randy stood by, feeling frustrated.

"Not necessarily," Willow replied. "Think what we've seen: this Necromancer sets traps, everywhere. How likely is it that he's also got a trap set on his pet gate ? Perhaps it drops you in prison, or somewhere worse."

"We need somebody - "

"Who knows how the gate works, or another one." Willow was on the same wavelength.

"And Giles said to look for someone, an elfin girl, with a name - "

"Who we were told had been brought here - "

"Which is why we're here and - "

Randy was breathing heavily, and biting her lips. Buffy and Willow both noticed. They had an idea of what was happening, but .

They both knew that they would have to move on, and Randy - Toiranda - could not come with them. So it would be unfair to raise false hopes in her .

"Here," Buffy said, tossing across her pouch of gold and silver coins, "you've done what we asked. Go back now, while you still can. We have to go on - that's the quest we're on. But you can get out, and go back and have areal life."

It didn't sound wonderfully logical, or reassuring, but it had one advantage to it: Willow was secretly backing it up with the most delicate of spellsof suggestion, telling Toiranda that all was well and that Clomisport, herhome, was where she ought to be, before night fell.

 

"Did we do right ?"

"We might still . well, die," Willow said. "She doesn't have to, now."

"All right - so where - " Something had caught Buffy's inner eye: the one that ran on instinct, the one that could spot a vampire at a hundred paces.

She pointed to the book - the one Toiranda had brought down from the alleged bed-chamber (it might be worth exploring that, later, she thought: perhaps we could have let Randa stay).

The entry had been made eight days before.

"Committed the elf-slut to the Keeper today. She still will not reveal what she knows, and neither starving her nor feeding her helps. Let her awaitmy pleasure there, seeing she will need neither food nor drink, nor know time while she is in its embrace."

"That must be her," Willow said.

"And it sounds like he has a machine of some sort - "

 

It was the blast of cold that warned them. The thing had flown or drifted up the long well-shaft and now hovered, eyeing the two of them up, as if planning which of them to attack first.

"What is it ?" Buffy asked Willow.

"Give me half an hour, a fast modem, and peace and quiet, or else a team ofapprentices and the entire Sages' Guild Library and I could perhaps tell you."

"Oh."

"I do know one thing - "

"Yes ?"

"It's probably not friendly."

Willow was searching her mind (or minds - she was almost getting used to this idea of having access to broader knowledge than her own) for the strongest ward she knew, when the thing dived.

Buffy swung her sword, then dropped it as icy cold ran up her arm and halfway across her chest. She stumbled and fell. Willow threw up her arm, and cried an invocation to the Goddess. The wraith fell back a foot or two, but continued to hover.

"Are you okay ? I mean, alive first, and then okay in a more general sense, as in conscious and able to fight and - "

"Will - I'm here," Buffy breathed. "Give me your half hour of peace and quiet and I'll be ready. My arm may never move again, of course, but - "

"I don't think we - "

The wraith moved in again and Willow raised her wand and let it have the strongest spell she could remember Giles teaching her. Then she remembered that it was a healing spell: Buffy could have made better use .

 

The wraith was enveloped in a white glowing cage: the spell had worked differently, but it was holding it off for now.

Willow bent and repeated the incantation, clutching Buffy's arm: warmth andmovement returned to the limb (Good, Willow thought, one-armed hug not as effective, and one-armed snugglies almost certainly not.)

Willow helped her up and they looked at the wraith. Little by little it was materialising, into the shape of a young man. An inspiration struck Willow, and she chanted a rede that was meant to enforce truthfulness.

The "cage" effect faded, but the young man appeared whole, if very weak.

"I cannot live long, but you have freed my soul from Hell. Whatever aid I can offer is yours, in the seconds I have left."

"We're looking for an elf, a girl - she's with something called the Keeper."

"Deep below," the former wraith said, life waning as they watched. "You have one guard to face, but he . " The last life ebbed from him and he died,before their eyes, at peace at last.

 

 

They stood at the top of the well-shaft.

"We have to go down," Willow said.

"I know."

"Hold me."

"Oh, love."

They kissed, three times, intensely. It seemed about right. It reaffirmedwho they were, why they were there, what they meant to each other.

 

Willow cast a spell that let them drift down the deep shaft gently. At thebottom, they were in what looked like a 30s horror film mad-scientist laboratory. Two lab benches stood, piled with alchemical apparatus, either side of a mortuary slab with a dead body on it. At the farther end of the room there was something that looked like a giant spider, vertical against thewall, all eight legs against its belly. It was all as silent . as a grave, Buffy mused.

"He said about a final guard," Willow whispered.

Suddenly she was knocked forward, and into one of the benches. Buffy whirled away and saw a Frankenstein monster, all sewn-together bits, and arms like clubs and . she dodged a swipe and hacked back with the sword.

The blade caught . stuck - it took all her strength to get it free.

 

She swung again, and the sword was knocked clean out of her hand - time foranother plan. She ran down the lab, towards the far end. Something wanted to take her attention - something about the spider, but she didn't have time.

The monster was careful following her - it must have been told to leave theequipment alone. Buffy had time to pull off the gauntlets she was wearing, and the, ducking under one of the benches, and then the slab, to get timeto unlace her chain-mail. The monster worked back towards her and Buffy flung the mail at its face, and ran for the open area where they had come in.

 

"Willow !"

A groan answered her - Willow was down but not out. She'd obviously landedbadly and - 

Buffy finally got the leather jerkin off and was down to her bra (why she had a bra under armour, she hadn't known, but at least it was comfier than the armour would have been on its own). The monster was coming at her, but now she was Slayer-ready. She somersaulted past it, and pulled a knife from the slab.

When it came at her again, she put the knife in its chest, rolled away, smashed a pestle into its foot, back-flipped, and hurled a bone-hammer straight at its eye.

Three or four more times she managed similar manoeuvres, but finally he thing got a grasp on her. It squeezed like -

Buffy felt her bones start to bend, to br-

 

White light erupted round her.

"Avaunt, fell creature of the undead. Return to what you were: dust to dust, bone to bone, sinew to sinew. Take only that measure of life to which you have right. Let all else flee."

The incantation ran for eight paragraphs, from something called The Hammer of Evil Works, and Willow gave it every last syllable and with all her heart.

 

Buffy, dropped when she wasn't expecting it, didn't bounce too well.

Nor was she expecting to become the apparent focus of an wholesale abattoirbring-and-drop sale, as body parts rained down like demerits at a busted keg party.

But as soon as she realised that Willow was fine and the danger gone, she felt a lot better. She picked herself up, and rounded an arm, a liver, a spleen and two very over-done lungs on her way to her Willow.

"Hi, Buff."

"Hey, Will - some light show. How d'you feel ?"

"Been better. Been wa-ay better. Need backpack." One shoulder-strap had torn and the pack had fallen a foot or two away. Buffy rescued it and Willow grabbed the bits she needed.

"Close your eyes," she ordered. Buffy did and a heat washed over her, after which she felt utterly revived.

"Restoration spell," Willow said.

"Can I do it to you ?"

"Nope."

"Oh."

"No whimpering, Buffy Summers. Help me up. We have an elfin princess to find."

 

That was it - the spider: Buiffy's brain clicked from concern, through combat, to remembering.

She pulled Willow along with her.

It was true: there was a body trapped inside the spider-thing.

"How do we get her out ?" Buffy asked.

"Not a magic thing," Willow said, then, suddenly, she brightened; "But Techno-Girl saves the day." She hopped (one leg still wasn't too good) to a control panel and looked it over. It was in glyphs but they were ones that whatever it was that was helping her could read. One said, in effect "Switch for Turning Off". She pulled it and a whine started up. The spider glowed red inside and then the legs started to open.

Inside was a slim figure, in a filmy gown. The redness grew and grew, and then softened to pearl-pink and the slim woman emerged.

"You would be Urmelwen, I take it," Buffy said.

"Yes," the woman said, in a musical voice. "And you are either here to rescue me or to torture me some more."

"Option One," Willow said firmly.

Then she tottered.

At once Urmelwen reached out her hand to her and, almost as if it were nothing, suffused Willow with the same sort of energy which had Restored Buffy.

"Shall we go ?" Urmelwen said, and snapped her fingers.