Pathfinder Tales: Lord of Runes by Dave Gross Page A

him.
    “She’ll be fine,” said Illyria.
    “How can you tell she’s a she?” I said. “I thought the lady drakes were bigger.”
    “This one is still a youngster,” she said. “Look at her talons. When she grows into them, she’ll be bigger than her sire.”
    Like he understood what Illyria said, big blue nodded and curled his neck around the little one. After a squeeze, he hopped away, looking back for her to follow.
    Instead, purple hopped over to Arnisant and stretched up to touch noses.
    “Aw,” said Illyria.
    I kept my mouth shut to maintain a manly demeanor. Desna smiled on me, because the drakes flew off before I could embarrass myself.
    “The imps usually aren’t so aggressive,” said Illyria.
    The boss gave me a sidelong look. “I am afraid they were antagonized.”
    Illyria gave me another up and down. “Good for you. The little wretches could use a lesson now and then. I’m sure Count Jeggare agrees.”
    “Radovan, if you would bring the carcasses,” said the boss.
    I snagged a couple dead imps, and we hurried over to his dead pal’s cottage before there was any more trouble.
    At the house, we went straight downstairs. First thing I noticed was the basement was smaller than upstairs. That doesn’t always mean anything, but sometimes it does. I dropped the dead imps on a table. The boss scooped them up and took a stack of parchment out of his satchel. While he did his thing, I poked my head into the other rooms. I found a couple narrow windows high on the walls. They’d be at ground level outside.
    “I’ll be right back.”
    The boss nodded, but he was focused on smearing the imps’ blood on his book. I’d seen him do weirder stuff.
    Arni followed me outside. He sniffed a few spots around the foundation. I pushed back the weeds and found what I was looking for six times.
    Six is four more than two. You can’t fool me.
    Back downstairs, the boss had tied the imps’ ankles to a birdcage. Their blood trickled over the book. Where it touched the parchment, the blood soaked into the pages to form words and diagrams.
    “What have you found?” said the boss. Illyria watched over his shoulder as he smeared blood across each page before turning to the next.
    “Wait a sec.” I pulled books off a shelf and felt around for a latch. Nothing on that one, so I did it again a shelf lower.
    Click. The middle part of the bookshelf swung out, followed by a stink of vinegar, mold, rot, and other bad smells. Some of them were really bad, like so-long-breakfast bad. I tried breathing through my mouth, but that only made it worse. The taste!
    “How did you know there was a room back there?” Illyria asked.
    “I got a knack.” I tipped her a wink. She smiled back. The boss frowned at me, so I added, “There’s six vents outside, only two in here.”
    “What’s in there?” Illyria pushed past me.
    “Wait for me,” said the boss. He squeezed an imp’s body, trying to get every last drop of its blood on his book.
    Illyria didn’t wait. The boss waved me after her while he flipped pages and smeared blood.
    Just as my eyes adjusted, Illyria cast a light on the palm of her hand. For a second all I could see were green stars and a forest of shadows. Then I saw we’d found a lab.
    The space behind the bookcase was twice as big as the rest of the basement. An empty brass vat shaped like a giant toad crouched on one side of the room. Workbenches sat on the other, both full of flasks and instruments. Between them stood a big oak-and-iron slab on a rotating iron frame. Hooks and lenses and other creepy stuff hung from ceiling chains. Jars and cabinets and all kinds of junk filled the shelves and the dark corners of the room.
    “You didn’t know about this place?” I asked.
    Illyria shook her head. Every time she turned, shadows stretched away from her open hand. She looked as curious as I felt.
    The boss came in, wiping blood from his fingers with one of his hankies.
    “Can I get some more light on