Obsidian Ridge - Jess Lebow [83]
"Yes, yes, I'd heard. How unfortunate."
"Do you really think the king is going to give you anything in exchange for his daughter? She's safer down here than she would be with him."
Jallal scrubbed his chin. "You see, that's the beauty of all this. The Matron has already brokered a deal. We help him fight off this Xeries fellow, and he gets his daughter back."
"And you get to run your Elixir operations unfettered, is that it?"
"After we dispose of you, yes."
"Well, I guess you've thought of everything then."
"Indeed, we have."
+++++
Like every other place in the Cellar, there was more than one way to get inside the carved stone mansion. Lucky for Evelyne, she had noticed this one-just before those guards had arrived.
Evelyne pressed herself tight up against the cracked stone and looked out onto the courtyard. She could hear voices just off to her left.
"… how unfortunate."
Directly in front of her, a fire raged underneath a strange glass contraption that looked like a giant, see-through centipede. A short, fat man moved back and forth, in and out of her view, magically tending to the fire and casting ice spells on other parts of the centipede.
Feeling around inside her pouch, Evelyne found the two globes she had taken from Quinn when they had first met.
"Alchemist's fire," she whispered, a smile spreading across her face.
Slipping out of the cracked stone, she stayed close to the wall and out of sight. Quinn was being held by the two burly men who had knocked him out. The horned man he'd fought in the water cavern was taunting him. The princess was on the ground by his feet, and everyone else was busy working the giant centipedes.
"Well, I guess you've thought of everything then," said Quinn.
"Not everything," whispered Evelyne. She hurled both orbs of alchemist's fire at the base of the nearest vat.
The courtyard erupted as the glass broke and the substance inside caught flame. It bubbled and popped, spitting bits of sizzling fire in every direction like an angry adolescent hydra.
"Whoa," said Evelyne. "This should be fun."
+++++
"I'm on fire! I'm on fire!" Pello Tasca ran backward from the ruined Elixir still, his clothes engulfed in flames. His arms flailed, trying to scrape the sticky, burning substance from his exposed flesh.
"Brother!" Jallal bolted across the courtyard to Pello's side. Knocking him to the ground, he rolled him in the dirt and beat at the flames with his hands.
Shouts and confusion filled the courtyard as the other guards came running to help. The Elixir had ignited and was slowly seeping toward the second still, a running river of flame.
Taking advantage of the moment, Quinn kicked his legs in the air and flipped over backward, breaking the grip of the two men. They went for their swords, but Quinn was quicker.
"That's for the club in the face," he said, punching the first guard square in the jaw.
The man reeled back from the blow. Quinn followed with a second shot to the gut, which knocked the wind from the guard's lungs and forced him to double over. Spinning, Quinn shifted his weight and kicked the second guard in the groin, dropping him to his knees.
"I'll take that." Quinn pulled the first guard's long sword from its sheath.
With two quick motions, he finished off both men.
In the center of the carved-stone mansion, the second Elixir distillery exploded, sending another rain of sticky fire out over the underworld guards. Pello, covered in a shroud of orange and yellow light, still screamed and kicked the ground.
One of the guards noticed Quinn through the confusion and shouted, "They’re escaping!"
Dropping to his knees, Quinn lodged the tip of his sword in the bonds on Mariko's wrists and ankles. He yanked, and the ropes fell away. Her hands free, Mariko pulled the gag off of her mouth.
"I guess this isn't the time for a warm reunion," she said, lifting herself off the ground.
Quinn tossed her