Familiar
What if a warlock's patron demands . . . babysitting?
The imp touched its finger to a roadside weed. The leaf shriveled up from the creature’s heat. The imp giggled and scampered toward a nearby bush.
George called, “Xlfthp! Stay by the road.”
“Uh, ‘kay,” said the extraplanar creature. It came back to the dirt road, leaving a trail of scorched grass blades.
“Can’t you keep your familiar under control?” asked Father Loras.
“It behaves better if I let it play while I can,” said George. “This is a relationship, not enslaving a magical being.”
“The warlock knows his trade, Father,” said Sir Maytran. “Let him do as he thinks best.”
The cleric sniffed, but subsided.
Light-fingers Zeb looked disappointed the bickering had been so mild. The rogue seemed to enjoy any discord in the party.
George looked down the road. They were only a few miles from their destination. The hill rose in lonely splendor, crowned with marble columns and walls from a vanished civilization.
He could see the bend in the road as it turned away from the hill as if afraid to get too close to the ruins. Or perhaps not “as if,” just “as.” There was a reason they’d been called here, after all.
George asked, “Before we enter the crypt, can we do a loop around the ruins? See the whole thing?”
The other adventurers traded glances before turning to their leader to answer.
“Why? Are you worried about something ambushing us?” said Sir Maytran.
“No, no, just want to let my familiar see the ruins.”
“Warlock. It’s a familiar. You don’t need to give it treats.” Father Loras looked baffled.
George sighed. “It’s not . . . exactly a familiar.”
Sir Maytran leaned forward. “You swore you did not have an evil service for your powers.” The paladin was tolerant of neutral alignments, but would not tolerate even a hint of Evil among his colleagues. That had been very clear when George applied to join their band.
“It’s not evil. It’s . . . it’s my patron’s child.”
“Wait, we’re running with a baby demon?” Light-fingers Zeb was amused by the idea.
“Not baby. Equivalent to a six year old.”
“So . . .?” demanded Sir Maytran.
George sighed. “I have to make the trip educational.”
Sir Maytran pulled off his enchanted helmet, and the wool coif he wore under it to protect his scalp. He ran his fingers through his hair, making the close-cropped locks stand on end. “Friend George. We are here to kill a lich which has been terrorizing the local villages. We do not have time for entertainment or side quests.”
“Unless you’re going to make it worth our while,” put in Zeb. That drew a glare from the paladin.
“Yes, sir,” said George. “It’s just I promised my patron I’d teach Xlfthp all I could about our plane of existence.”
Sir Maytran cast his eyes to heaven. Praying for guidance? Counting to ten?
“Very well. When we reach the crypt entrance we will rearrange our gear for underground fighting. You have while we’re doing that to take your familiar about.”
“Thank you, sir.”
There was a path to the hill branching off the road. It didn’t have any cart tracks. Nor boot prints. One muddy spot showed a clear footprint. A skeletal one.
They waited a few minutes while Zeb scouted. As usual, he snuck back in and surprised them with a loud, “All’s clear,” even though they were trying to watch for him.
Xlfthp realized play time was over. It kept close to George as the party followed Sir Maytran up the hillside. Everyone was tense and quiet, only speaking when necessary.
At the top Sir Maytran consulted the map provided by the Duke’s chamberlain. It didn’t describe everything, but had enough of the larger roofless structures on it to guide them to the crypt.
As described, the crypt stood almost intact. The pillars were cracked, but the roof still held. Probably because the walls were almost as thick of those of a fortress despite being less than two man-heights tall.
Father Loras translated the inscription on the lintel over the door. “Breach not this gate, lest you awaken the defiler, the ravisher, the betrayer, the corruptor, whose name we spurn.”
The marble doors were scattered about in foot-wide pieces.
Sir Maytran shrugged off his pack. “Let’s get ready for action.”
He jerked his thumb at George, who took the hint.
“Come on Xlfthp, let me show you how the ancients made buildings.”
A ruined building was better for explaining construction in some ways. Structural parts concealed in an intact one now stood in the open. The construction was done with marble from many countries. George identified all he could recognize.
Xlfthp mostly paid attention, though it darted after vermin it spotted in nooks and crannies. George identified their species if they lasted long enough for him to get a good look.
He made the mistake of sitting on a porphyry bench to rest for a moment while Xlfthp incinerated a rat. The inside of his knees began tingling. He jumped to his feet, but couldn’t pull his legs away from the bench. “Ack!”
Xlfthp ran over. “No hurt Georgie!” It stuck its hands under the bench, producing foul-smelling fumes. “Ewwww, sticky!”
The grip on George’s legs loosened as the thing tried to escape the imp. He fell to the cracked marble floor. Twisting around, he could see it clinging to the underside of the bench. The translucent jelly was turning opaque as Xlfthp cooked it to death.
“That is a violet slime. It’s an ambush predator, which feeds on foolish and unwary prey who blunder into its trap. Thank you, Xlfthp.” George felt ashamed. He could have dealt with it himself with a couple of firebolts, but might have burned his legs in the process. He shouldn’t have been so relaxed. Just because they hadn’t entered the crypt yet didn’t mean they were safe.
Well, George had been alert. He’d just focused all his alertness on dangers to Xlfthp. He needed to remember he couldn’t keep the imp alive if he let himself get killed.
“Let’s get back to our friends.”
“Kay.”
Everyone else was finishing their preparations. Sir Maytran bore a shield painted with the sigil of his order and a sturdy mace on an oak haft. Zeb had reluctantly traded his dagger for a lead-weighted sap. Father Loras held a breviary in his left hand and an aspergillum filled with holy water in the right.
Sir Maytran held his arms out wide, letting shield and mace dangle from their straps. He shook his arms. The straps held. “I’m ready. How are the rest of you?”
“I am prepared for what shall come.”
“Let’s make some money.”
“We’re good,” said George.
The paladin pulled the visor of his helmet shut and went through the crypt door. The rest followed.
Not least of the enchantments on the helmet was the gentle glow which illuminated the surroundings without ruining anyone’s night vision. They went down stairs carved into the bedrock of the hill.
Thirty feet underground the passage flattened, widening out into a small room. Scattered bones on the floor pulled themselves together, rising as a skeleton wielding a rusty sword.
Sir Maytran took the first blow on his shield and slid to the right. He backed up to the wall. The skeleton followed him.
Zeb silently slid into the empty space behind the skeleton.
George called on his bond with Xlfthp. A ball of fire appeared between his cupped hands. He compressed it into a gleaming point and threw it at the skeleton. The fire burnt through the middle of a thighbone. The rest of the leg dropped off.
The skeleton balanced on the remaining leg and swung the rusty sword at Sir Maytran’s head. He ducked behind the shield.
Zeb’s sap smacked into the back of the skeleton’s head, shattering the old bone. The undead creature collapsed, becoming just bones again.
The paladin and rogue stomped on the bones to break enough of the long ones to ensure it couldn’t be enspelled again easily.
“That was boring,” complained Father Loras.
“We will have work for you later, Father. Let us not waste the divine grace entrusted to us.”
George asked, “Xlfthp, what bone did I break?”
“A feemur!” answered the imp.
“That’s right. And what did Zeb break?”
“The cranee-oom!”
“Very good!” He noticed the other adventurers rolling their eyes. Maybe that was enough anatomy lessons for today.
Sir Maytran stepped through the doorway.
This corridor had another violet slime clinging to the ceiling. George might have burned it with more enthusiasm than really needed. But they were disgusting things.
“These niches were meant for holding bodies of the lord’s personal guard.” Father Loras pointed at the holes carved into the bedrock on both sides of the corridor. They were all empty.
The paladin just sniffed. Well, yes. The lich was going to have something to protect it. Where it found the bodies didn’t really matter.
The next flight of stairs had another slime, easily disposed of. It opened out into a broad room, too big for the paladin’s helmet to illuminate. Past thirty feet was darkness.
“We’re going to right hand rule it,” said Sir Maytran. “We’ll do a loop of the walls, and if we don’t find more stairs, we’ll start searching the middle.”
They filed along the wall, Sir Maytran leading, Father Loras behind him, then George and Zeb. Xlfthp slid between George and the wall. It didn’t like the darkness.
Neither did George. This was a crypt. They didn’t have banquet halls or warehouses. There was some other reason for this big room, and he didn’t like it, whatever it was.
Nobody spoke. They kept their breathing hushed. Sound might be their best warning of an attack.
Or maybe smell. The crypt smelled of dust always. Except for the occasional whiff of burning violet slime. Any new smell would mean danger.
George estimated they’d walked over a hundred paces before reaching a corner. The wall had been filled with niches like the corridor above. All empty.
Sir Maytran pivoted to follow the wall past the corner. Then he froze.
George held his breath.
A sound. Bone sliding on stone. The skeleton rustle of bones rubbing against each other. Lots of bones.
Sir Maytran shouted, “Back to the stairs! Run!”
George scooped up Xlfthp, hot in his hands, and dashed after Zeb. The rogue was already several paces ahead of him.
Zeb had to slow to stay in Sir Maytran’s light. That might have saved his life. A skeleton appeared just in front of him.
George lifted one hand from his grip on Xlfthp and flung a fireball over Zeb’s head at the skeleton.
The skull blew into shards, but the headless undead swung its blade, cutting Zeb on the upper arm.
The rogue swore foully and struck with his sap, caving in the thing’s ribcage. It collapsed. Zeb stepped on a leg bone and dashed on.
“Xlfthp, that’s a word you should never say,” said George as he followed.
“Kay,” said the imp.
Behind them George could hear the familiar sound of Sir Maytran’s mace on bone, and the priest’s mumbled prayers.
“Not until I give the word, Father,” ordered the paladin.
George shook his head. Sir Maytran’s judgment was honed by many battles . . . but if he was wrong once . . . well. George’s patron would not be pleased.
Two skeletons stood at the entrance to the stairway. Zeb slid between them, snapping a tibia with his sap as he passed.
George concentrated with Xlfthp to generate a bigger blast. The fireball enveloped the heads and chests of both skeletons.
One crumpled. The other collapsed as Zeb landed a left-handed blow with the sap on its hip.
“In! Get in!” shouted Sir Maytran.
George and Zeb rushed into the stairwell, stopping four steps in. Xlfthp dropped to his feet.
The priest followed. Sir Maytran stopped on the floor, blocking the doorway.
With the full light of the helmet on them, George could see Zeb’s right arm hanging limp. Blood dripped off his fingertips.
“You should tell me when such things happen,” scolded Father Loras. He laid a hand on the wound, provoking a stifled gasp from Zeb. Golden light glowed between his fingers.
Zeb raised his arm and flexed it. “I ain’t a whiner. But ‘preciate your effort.”
Loras smiled. That must be a compliment from Zeb.
Thumps and crunches sounded as more skeletons arrived and attacked Sir Maytran. “Just do the minimum,” ordered the paladin.
Zeb transferred the sap to his right hand and knelt on the left end of the lowest step. He smashed any boney fingers which seized a grip on Sir Maytran’s shield, keeping the paladin from being pulled into the mob of swarming undead.
Blows on the paladin’s shield and helmet and vambrace resonated in the stairway, sounding like a strange drum concert, barbarians pounding their instruments in a frenzy.
George flung firebolts over Sir Maytran’s head, trying to keep him from being overwhelmed.
“Me help?” said Xlfthp.
“You are helping,” said George. “You’re giving me fire.”
“Kay.”
A surge of bones pressed against Sir Maytran, forcing him to put a foot on the step behind him. “Now, Father,” he said, voice as calm as if practicing a drill.
“Oh, great and good ones, grant your blessings to these departed ones, that they may have the rest they earned in life, and the peace that all souls deserve, earned or unearned.” Father Loras used his preaching voice, pitched to carry to the far side of the vast room.
Golden light flared, so bright George could see nothing else. But it didn’t hurt his eyes the way close lightning did.
When his vision cleared, the undead were quiet bones again.
Loras sagged. George caught his elbow.
On the other side Zeb supported the cleric, in a casual pose that said he’d been just standing there minding his own business when someone stuck an elbow in his hand, and he was too polite to make a fuss about it.
Sir Maytran kicked at the bones, checking to see if some more powerful undead had resisted the spell and were hiding in the piles waiting to strike.
“Thank you, I’m all right.” Father Loras pulled himself upright.
Everyone stepped out of the stairwell. A few skeletons were approaching from the fringes of the pile. George burnt them down before the paladin or rogue could wade through the bones to them.
“Kill-stealer,” snapped Zeb.
George laughed. “Shouldn’t you be making that complaint to the father?”
“He didn’t kill ‘em, the gods did. I got enough sense to not complain about the gods.”
“I am glad to hear it. I’ve wondered,” said Sir Maytran. “Father, let us risk more light.”
The priest prayed over his breviary, which glowed until the whole room was illuminated. It was easily two hundred paces on each side, with thick pillars scattered about to support the top of the hill above them. Nothing moved.
“There. The stairs are in the middle of the room,” said Sir Maytran. “The builder expected invaders to go around the perimeter. I hate being obvious.”
Father Loras shrugged. “If you’re going to avoid the sensible action because someone might expect you to be sensible, you’ll soon be in a trap of guessing how many layers of expectations your enemy has. Best to act, and see what happens.”
Xlfthp was building a triangular tower of bones. “Feebolah, hummerus, feemor, whee.”
George looked at the others. No one was complaining. Best to let the imp play.
Sir Maytran lifted his visor to accept a sip from the priest’s waterskin. They passed it to the others. George was surprised to find it was cut with wine, a refreshing taste in the dusty crypt.
“Let’s move on. Douse your light.” Sir Maytran lowered his visor.
George waved to Xlfthp. The imp knocked over the tower and scampered to catch up.
There was no door for these stairs. Just a hole in the floor going down. Whoever built this place wasn’t afraid of people running around the room and falling in.
Halfway down Zeb pulled on Sir Maytrain’s surcoat. “Wait.”
The paladin froze. “What?”
“Let me check something.” Zeb slid around Sir Maytran and crept down two more stairs. He started running his fingers over the step below him.
George looked at Xlfthp. This looked like it would take a while, and the imp was easily bored. He went back up a dozen steps and sat. “Want to hear a story?”
“Uh-huh!” The imp leaned into his lap, its heat making him break into a sweat.
He kept his voice to a whisper to not distract Zeb. “Once upon a time there was a brave little tailor. One day he was making a belt in his shop . . .”
The bedtime story was far from finished when Zeb announced, “That’s done it.”
“What?” demanded Sir Maytran.
“That step isn’t bedrock. It’ll move when someone steps on it. I put some spikes in to hold it in place, but step over it if you can, okay?”
Father Loras asked, “What happens if someone steps on it?”
“I dunno, but nothing good.”
“Thank you, Zeb,” said Sir Maytran. He braced against the wall to take the double step down. His foot landing was almost a cymbal sound as every piece of his armor rattled against each other.
The rest of the party stepped over with less trouble. George held Xlfthp’s hands and swung him over.
“More story?” asked the imp.
“More story when I sit down,” answered George.
“Kay.”
There was light at the bottom of the stairs. The doorway opened onto a room, maybe fifty paces on a side. It was the tomb of whoever had been anathematized by the lintel inscription.
Torches shining with magical fire lined the walls. Between them statues stood, lifelike representations of kings and queens and knights. In the center was an ornate sarcophagus, covered with complex drawings and text in small letters. The lid had been shoved off to the right side.
A dead body rose from the open sarcophagus, hovering in the air above it. Its decay had been arrested halfway to being a skeleton. Little skin was left, and no hair. But the heart was visible inside the ribs, bowels twisted above the hips, and bits of muscle and tendon clung to the limbs. The empty eye sockets glowed with a purple light.
It wasn’t naked. A black cloak hung over the shoulders, clean and neat as if it had come from the tailor’s today. Shiny gold ringed the monster’s brow. The crown it wore in life perhaps?
“Hello, my guests. You have been expensive, ruining the troops I’ve accumulated since my return. But when I raise you as undead minions, all shall be repaid. So powerful you are in life. I shall make you more so in death.”
The voice chilled George’s spine. Its chalkboard screech made his hair stand on end. He could see it affected his comrades as well.
“You hush!” shouted Xlfthp.
The humans all broke into laughter.
“Yes, hush, monster,” said Sir Maytran. “We are here to end all your plans. You shall do nothing more while I live.”
“That is my plan. So die.” The lich held a scepter of ancient design. Violet light from it aimed at the paladin.
He caught the beam on his shield and deflected it, shattering the face of one of the queens on the left wall.
The lich screeched and flew forward, swinging the scepter.
Sir Maytran’s shield rang like a gong as he blocked the blow. His own mace swished through air as the lich floated aside.
George ran to the middle of the room, throwing fireballs as he moved.
Father Loras shook the aspergillum to fling holy water onto the lich.
Both attacks raised puffs of smoke where they hit, but the lich did not seem to notice them.
Zeb popped up behind the monster. He’d switched to his dagger when he saw the state of it. The back of the lich’s knee was even with his nose. He slid the point perfectly between the bones, sending the kneecap rattling off the bedrock floor, and pulled to the side to cut the tendons.
“Patelluh,” said Xlfthp.
The lich screeched, hurting George’s ears, and turned about. The scepter caught Zeb in the ribs despite his attempt to dodge, sending him rolling until he slammed into the sarcophagus and lay still.
Sir Maytran leapt forward. The head of his mace struck the lumbar vertebrae, smashing two and misaligning others. Another screech made the room ring.
The attack left him too exposed to defend against the lich as it whirled again and slammed the scepter onto his helmet. Sir Maytran went to his knees.
Father Loras prayed aloud. Sir Maytran took the next blow on his shield and stood.
More blows rained down. The corners of the shield crumpled. Sir Maytran raised his arm higher, using what was left of the shield as best he could.
Another healing spell brought Zeb back to his feet. He used the fallen lid to climb atop the sarcophagus. From the far end, he ran across the edge of it as fast as he could, leaping into the air at its back as the monster focused on Sir Maytran.
Zeb held his dagger high, aiming for the lich’s heart, hidden behind the flapping cloak, but he’d backstabbed enough people that seeing the shoulders was enough to find the heart.
As he ripped through the velvet cloth, the lich darted aside. The dagger cut only fabric.
Zeb tucked and rolled as he realized he would not be clinging to the monster’s back, but bedrock made for a hard landing. He uttered a word Xlfthp had already been forbidden to repeat.
“Enough! You nuisances waste my time! I wished for intact bodies, but if I must raise you from pulverized fragments, so be it!”
George watched the lich to see what its new attack would be. The monster only lifted one hand off the scepter and waved it before battering Sir Maytran with more two-handed blows.
Looking around, George didn’t see anything new arriving. If there were more skeletons in the sarcophagus, Zeb should have said something when he was up there and could see in.
A grating sound pulled his attention to the far wall.
Three knight statues were stepping forward from their places. They were eight feet tall and held stone swords five feet long. Yes, a blow from one of those would shatter every bone in his body and require lengthy repairs before he could be raised as a zombie or whatever the lich had in mind.
George pulled hard on his link to Xlfthp to make the hottest fireball he could throw. Putting it into the middle statue’s face just left a scorch mark. Sir Maytran was only standing up to the lich because of the steady stream of healing spells he was receiving. He’d never be able to fight three statues as well.
“Father! Put some water where I mark! As much as you can!” George put a tiny bit of fire, just a spark, on the floor where the three knight statues would bunch up as they walked past the sarcophagus.
Would the cleric do it? There was no time to explain, but this was George’s first quest with them. He hadn’t earned Loras’s trust. Would he have faith in George?
A sphere of water appeared, fell to the floor, and spread out evenly over the smooth bedrock.
The link with Xlfthp worked both ways. George pulled all the heat he could from the water, giving it to the imp, who greedily accepted it. The water froze so fast it became black ice, invisible to anyone not looking carefully for it.
The center statue reached the ice first. Its first step was without trouble, but when both feet were on the ice it began to lose its balance. Trying to use the stone sword to brace itself just snapped the blade. A foot slid out from under, and it fell.
A heavy weight dropped from eight feet up hits hard. The knight’s head shattered.
The second knight stepped around the first’s body, but lost its balance as quickly. Its chest came down on the first’s outflung arm, concentrating the weight of the impact in one place. It snapped in half.
The statues could learn. The last one picked its way past the bodies, balancing carefully. As it approached the edge of the ice patch, George unleashed a carefully prepared fireball. This one flew at the statue’s chest, then exploded, sending a shockwave against the knight.
It fell back, feet sliding out from under it, and smashed against its brothers. The head and torso held together, but an arm and both legs snapped off.
“You dare desecrate such beautiful art!” screeched the lich. The bellow became a screech as Zeb’s dagger slid into the remnants of a kidney.
The scepter glanced off Zeb’s head, dropping him into a pile where he stood. The lich continued its whirl, shining green light onto George. “Be still, vandal!”
Suddenly George couldn’t move. Not hands, not legs. He’d been shifting to a better position, and his momentum tipped him over in a painful parody of what he’d done to the knight statues.
His arms held their positions as he bounced off the bedrock. His eyelids wouldn’t move, despite trying to flinch at the fast-approaching floor. His chest couldn’t move.
His chest couldn’t move. George couldn’t breathe. That was bad.
“Georgie? Georgie?” Xlfthp rolled George over to look at his face.
Past the imp he could see Father Loras stretched out next to Light-fingers Zeb. The priest must have tried to do touch healing, and been struck. Sir Maytran had his back pressed to the wall as the lich treated him as an anvil. Without healing that wouldn’t last long.
“Georgie?” squeaked Xlfthp.
Sir Maytran slid down the wall, shield still raised, but sitting on the floor. His mace fell limp.
“No hurt Georgie!” squealed Xlfthp. The imp jetted flame at the lich, aiming for its boney head.
The monster whirled and flew at the imp as the flames washed over its face.
The lich’s skull showed no harm from the fire, despite smoking. The golden crown resting on top softened.
Then it began to melt, a couple of spots at first then the rest went liquid together. Violet light flared from the crown then disappeared. The lich’s eyes went dark.
The half-rotted corpse fell to the floor. Rivulets of molten gold sizzled as they ran over the skull and puddled on the floor. A whiff of decay filled the air. Without its enchantment, the body was rotting again.
George wanted to cheer for Xlfthp, but still couldn’t move. His vision was fading.
Sir Maytran’s shield rattled as the paladin pulled it off his arm. He pulled off the wrist strap of his mace next. Then he crawled to George, pulling himself across the floor with his arms.
George could feel Xlfthp’s arms around him, almost burning hot as the imp whimpered, “Georgie, Georgie, you promised me all the story.”
Then he felt a humanly-warm hand grasp his ankle. A gasp filled his lungs. Dry eyes blinked. He hugged the imp back. “I’m okay, Xlfthp. I’m okay.”
He wasn’t “okay.” He hurt like hell. But none of it was going to kill him. Which might not be true for the rest of the party. He let go of Xlfthp and sat up. “Can I help?”
Sir Maytran had rolled onto his back and was panting. “If you put my hand on Loras, I should have enough to wake him. But I can’t heal myself and him both.”
“Easy enough.” George changed his mind about how easy it was once he started pulling the paladin across the twenty feet of floor between him and the priest. Not only was Sir Maytran six inches taller and muscled like a bull, he was covered in steel.
“Blessed gods,” muttered George halfway there, “We’re in almost as bad shape as the lich.”
“Ties go to the heroes,” said the paladin with a chuckle.
George smiled at that, but didn’t have breath to spare for a laugh. Once there, he put Sir Maytran’s hand on Loras’s knee. A spark of gold flared.
The priest sat up. “Blessed gods. I thought we were done. Let me get those legs.”
“I’ll keep. Check Zeb first.”
Father Loras put a hand on the rogue’s head. “Fractured skull. Some internal bleeding. I have enough to wake him, but he’s going to be in pain.”
“Then we’ll all have something in common,” said Sir Maytran.
Light-fingers Zeb woke with moans but no cursing. “How’d we win?”
George had to tell the story.
The rogue gave the imp a respectful nod. “Good work. So, you learn anything today, little guy?”
Xlfthp said, “Moving bones don’t like fire.”
The paladin nodded. “That is an important lesson.”
More stories by Karl K. Gallagher are on Amazon and Audible.
Keep up the good writing
Awwwwwww Xlfthp
I want a Xlfthp too!!