Miasmora & Wisric's Grand Meridellian Misadventure

     Not hear, no--the princess-turned-evil-sorceress made no sound as she moved--but feel. There was a bone-freezing cold closing in on the Swamp Gas Skeith that was much more sinister than the damp chill of the ancient passages beneath Meridell Castle. The air at Maismora's back was stirred by Isoldeia's presence too, and the Skeith tried very hard not to imagine the air forming itself into terrible spectral claws at the sorceress's command, grasping her, dragging her back into that terrible illusion.

     She hoped it was an illusion, anyway.

     "Wiiiisriiiic!" Miasmora roared again as she rounded a bend, and the circular crossroads chamber came back into view ahead of her. Her voice echoed off the ancient stone and reverberated in her bones, and Miasmora hoped too that Isoldeia's chill hadn't really frozen them, that the warning to her friend wouldn't shatter her into a million million pieces.

     Friend, Miasmora realised. Fine, she thought. Fine! Friend.

     "Wiiiisriiiic!"

     She raced pell-mell down the corridor, trying to remember how many bends they'd traversed on the way there the first time. With each step forward, her breathing became more laboured, and her next roar of warning for Wisric and Caelric came out much quieter than she intended, dampened by the effort of keeping distance between herself and the sorceress at her heels.

     Wisric had to be ready. He had to be, or today was going to turn out to be far worse than she'd been worried yesterday would be.

     "Oh, come now."

     Warmth flooded down Miasmora's spine at the new sound. Light blossomed against the walls, as though the sun had risen in the passageway behind her.

     Miasmora's step faltered, but only for a heartbeat. She'd escaped Isoldeia's tricks once already, and she wasn't going to let herself get sucked back in.

     Unfortunately, that heartbeat was enough for Isoldeia to gain ground on her. Miasmora was pretty sure the sensation she felt along her back now was a whisper of the sorceress's spectral claw.

     The Skeith pumped all of her remaining energy into picking up her pace. That wasn't much--between the (mis)adventure of the last two days, she was flagging. Her hands smarted, and even her well-trained muscles screamed against the effort. For a few seconds, she kept the distance that separated her and Isoldeia, but she knew she couldn't keep it up for long. A handful of strides, maybe, and then the sorceress would start closing the gap.

     Miasmora glanced down at the remaining potion looped at her belt: the second Glowing Pebble Potion.

     She must have thrown the Jumbleberry Potion back there, in Isoldeia's conjured garden. It would certainly explain the injuries to her hands. She wished she still had that now--a weapon she could reuse, even if it had downsides, would be helpful in slowing Isoldeia down and buying Wisric more time to prepare. But she had to make do with what she had--if she timed it exactly right, she might be able to--

     Something caught at the back of Miasmora's shirt. For a split second, the fabric stretched and strained, and the Skeith thought she could hear the first hint of tearing. She thought she could pull free of whatever it was if she just kept running. But the fabric didn't rip, and she was jerked hard backwards.

     Lost her balance.

     Slammed into the wall.

     An instant later, there was a familiar face pressing into hers, the face of a Ghost Scorchio with gleaming red eyes.

     "And to think I let you sleep in my rooms," Isoldeia said, shaking her head. "You would have made an excellent servant. I'll need someone with your strength." That terrible claw snaked its way around Miasmora, pinning her to the stone.

     The Skeith reached for the last Glowing Pebble Potion, intending to smash it in the sorceress's face, but a second spectral tendril caught her wrists, pinned them uselessly to her sides.

     "None of that now," Isoldeia said, again shaking her head.

     Miamsora bristled. This--this creature had the audacity to pretend to be disappointed in her?! A distant, hazy thought suggested this was perhaps not the time to take offense at that sort of thing--Miasmora certainly had more pressing concerns at the moment, mostly that she was pretty sure Isoldeia's plans for her future were not at all the plans she had for herself--but if she tried thinking about anything else, the fear consumed her, and her thoughts froze entirely. So indignation it was.

     And she told Isoldeia as much.

     The Scorchio laughed. Her grip on Miasmora tightened, squeezing out what remained of the Skeith's breath.

     Well, this is bad. Miasmora struggled to free her arms from Isoldeia's ghostly appendages, but the sorceress held her fast. The edges of Miasmora's vision blurred, began to darken, began to--

     "Isoldeia!"

     Suddenly, Miasmora could breathe again.

     Her vision cleared, and she could see, a short distance away, the outline of a Draik walking toward them.

     Isoldeia dropped Miasmora and rounded on Caelric.

     The Draik held up his hands, as though he were surrendering.

     For a moment, as Miasmora caught her breath, she struggled to understand what was happening--why he would do that. Then she spotted Wisric a few steps farther down the passageway, lingering in the smashed doorway to the Old Archive, a look of horror frozen on his Spotted face. Even in the dim light Caelric shed, she could see Wisric's mouth working, as if he were trying to talk Caelric out of this. As if he knew there was no other way.

     And then Miasmora understood.

     She hadn't been able to buy Wisric the time he needed, but Caelric--Caelric, who was more reviled by Isoldeia than any Neopian in Meridell's very long history--could.

     "Wisric!" Miasmora shouted. "Snap out of it!"

     The Ixi met her gaze.

     "The spell!" Miasmora shouted again. "Cast it!"

     "Caelric," Isoldeia said, her voice a poisonous purr.

     "Wisric, we don't have all day!" she shouted.

     A sudden new fear gripped the Skeith. What if there hadn't been enough time for him to learn the spell? What if they were all doomed, and she was the last one to know it?

     But Wisric's voice filled the corridor, strong and steady and familiar.

     Isoldeia roared. She flowed over--through?--Caelric's fading form, the wicked-sharp point of her claw aimed at Wisric's chest.

     "No!" Miasmora shouted. Half a second later, she remembered the Glowing Pebble Potion at her belt. She ripped it from its loop and flung it as hard as she could in the ancient sorceress's direction.

     A blinding flash of light and shadow filled the corridor.

     Wisric's voice cut through it, strong and steady still, finishing the incantation.

     An uncomfortable stillness settled around Miasmora. When her vision finally recovered from the potion's flash, Isoldeia was gone.

     And so was Caelric.

     ***

     "A little to the right," Wisric said.

     Miasmora grumbled--low enough that the Ixi couldn't hear the sound, but loud enough to temper the edge of her frustration. She inched the new Rolltop Desk a little to the right for what had to be the hundredth time in the last thirty minutes. Maybe the thousandth.

     "No, not that far!" the Ixi said.

     With another grumble, she shifted her aching arm muscles and heaved it back to the left another inch.

     He was trying, she thought, to get the desk perfectly centred beneath the crest on the wall. And that, she thought, had to be the worst possible use of her assistance.

     He did need a new desk. By the time they'd gotten an audience with King Skarl and convinced him to reinstate Wisric as his librarian, the old desk had finished crumbling, and they'd found a heap of timber and dust where it had once stood. The newer desk was much nicer. It had half a dozen drawers, some of them large enough to store documents properly, and another dozen cubbies on top to organise his pens and pencils and correspondence and whatever else a librarian of Meridell might need day to day.

     And Miasmora hated it.

     "No, no, go--"

     "Enough!" Miasmora growled, more aggressively than she intended. "Wisric. Either get some measuring tape and stop eye-balling this, or--"

     "Okay, okay!" the Ixi said, throwing up a hoof. "I guess it's fine where it is." He rolled his new chair under the desk. "Thank you."

     "You're welcome," Miasmora said. "Though I'd appreciate if you had more meaningful work for me. If I'm just going to move heavy things around for you, I'd rather just go back to the--"

     Wisric cut her off with a laugh. "No, you wouldn't."

     When King Skarl had re-instated Wisric's old position, he'd appointed her his assistant. Miasmora wasn't sure how well that would go over once it was discovered by the king--she doubted librarians had the authority to just hire assistants, especially assistants that were paid as much as Wisric had instructed that Korbat downstairs to pay her. But when she'd raised that concern with him, he'd just shrugged and assured her the king probably wouldn't notice--certainly not anytime soon.

     Even before his new desk had arrived, he'd taken up his old work compiling the complete history of Meridell. His drafts and notes and reference material was still spread over the floor in one corner of the library, and now, as he rolled his new chair under his desk and sat down at it for the first time, he glanced at the mess with a touch of sadness in his eyes.

     "I wish we hadn't had to use the Old Archive to seal her away again," he said after a moment.

     Miasmora nodded. She knew there was something else on his mind--knew because it was on her mind too, and had been for weeks. But neither of them had yet found the words to talk about it.

     They'd searched the complex deep beneath the castle for hours that day. And they'd gone back not once, not twice, but three times since. Wisric had commissioned special tracking brews from Kayla. He'd gone to Neopia Central to gaze into Kauvara's crystal ball, while she'd gone to Neovia to consult with the seers and fortune-tellers there.

     Miasmora had not liked Neovia one bit. Except for the clothes. The Neopians of Neovia had excellent fashion sense, even if they did smell of dust and cemeteries, and acted like she'd expect walking dust and cemeteries to act.

     . Despite all their efforts, they'd found no trace of Caelric. A book in the library had assured them that a Ghost's fading was just temporary--more like a deep, restorative sleep than anything else. A deep, restorative sleep that could last for months. Or years. Or maybe longer.

     Wisric spun around in his chair and met Miasmora's gaze. Understanding passed between them: It was all right that they couldn't find words; they didn't need words.

     That was happening more and more lately. Not needing words. Sometimes Miasmora felt like she could read Wisric's mind.

     Not that it made him any less infuriating. He was still an insufferable know-it-all, and some days knowing what he was thinking made that worse, not better.

     But Wisric was her insufferable know-it-all, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

     A knock came at the library door.

     "Come in!" Wisric called.

     A courier Jubjub appeared in the doorway a moment later, a letter clutched between his toes. "An answer came from the Brain Tree, Mr. Librarian, Sir." The Jubjub half-waddled, half-bounced toward Wisric's desk, casting a look askance at the mess on the floor nearby.

     Wisric's eyes lit up, and he jumped up to take the letter, tearing it open.

     Even though she cared not a whit to solve the mystery of who had lived in Meridell before it was Meridell, Miasmora found herself almost as excited as Wisric about the Brain Tree's response.

     And the instant she realized that's what she was feeling, she scowled. She tried very hard not to think about the trite lesson that always seemed to find its way into the best stories: that the real treasure was the friend she found along the way.

     Miasmora did have to admit, though, that she was thrilled she'd never have to visit the Rubbish Dump ever again.

     ...unless she wanted to.

     The End.