Synizn's Secret Laboratory

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 23179

"You mean you will help us?" Astra asked.

Synizn shook his head, as if Astra's question had somehow disappointed him. "Little fox, if I did not intend to reverse your condition then we would not be having this conversation. You would be dead."

Yes, Astra thought, Synizn could kill her oh so easily, and Fred too. But he hadn't. And that spoke much about him, but she needed to know more. "And are we just little puzzles to you? As you said, what you learn from us you will use to help yourself. But what will happen to Fred and I after you are done with us?"

Synizn strode across the room and bolted the door. "This talk is a waste of time, little fox," Synizn replied as he returned to his desk. Turning his back to her he rummaged through some shelves set off to the side. As he did so he added, "But if it will serve to shut you up then know this, once you have served your purpose I don't really give a damn what happens to you." And then Synizn turned round and without warning tossed a small globe at Astra. "Here, hold this." Astra caught it without even blinking. "Tanna sephis maral," Synizn recited quickly and Astra suddenly felt a warmth in the palm of her hand as the magic words swirled inside of the globe. And then there was only darkness.

"Hehe, it works every time," Synizn smiled. And then he walked over to Astra's sleeping body which now lay prone on the floor. He picked her up and walked over to the wine casks that lined one of the walls. He fiddled with a small, intricate lever and a portion of the wall opened up. This was the secret passage to his inner chamber and laboratory. None but him knew that it was here and he wanted to keep it that way.

When Astra awoke she found herself strapped down in a chair made of hardwood and brass in a room that was dazzlingly bright. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and then she saw Synizn standing over a gray metal stand. "What did you do to me!" Astra demanded, more startled then afraid. "Be still!" Synizn barked at her. "If I am to get at the truth then you must be calm." Astra yanked against her straps in frustration but Synizn ignored her and returned to the odd iron-shaped implements arrayed before him. Astra was securely tied down and he knew that she could not break free.

Looking about the room Astra saw that it was relatively small and made of white stone. Glowing orbs were fixed near the ceiling, their cold light banishing even the smallest shadow. Around her chair, set upright on the floor, were burnished sheets of sandstone framed in rounded blackwood and painted with arcane sygils. They shimmered like mirrors.

"Now, little fox," Synizn said as he turned back toward her, "take a deep breath and let it out slowly."

"My name is not 'little fox'," Astra snapped. "It is Astra!" The princess' patience had finally come to an end. Whatever it was that Synizn intended to do to her, fair or foul, she refused to be treated like some kind of thing. If he was going to kill her then he at least could show her the common courtesy of addressing her by name!

Synizn stared at Astra and seemed genuinely surprised by her anger. And then he quipped, "Have you looked in a mirror lately?" Astra flicked her glance for an instant at the framed sandstones that encircled her chair. A hairy, snout-faced animal was reflected back at her. But, staring once more at Synizn, she repeated herself, her voice strong and unwavering. "My - name - is - ASTRA."

Synizn looked down upon Astra and crossed his arms, and then he flung back his head and laughed. And in that roarous sound Astra heard no malice or anger or exasperation. In fact, Synizn sounded well pleased by her unyielding stand.

Once his laughter had died down Synizn gazed yet again at the princess and said, "Now then, Astra, breathe deep." Astra, satisfied with her small victory, did as she was told. She breathed and she coughed and she did all else that Synizn asked as he poked and prodded her with his iron implements. Strapped down in the chair she was not very comfortable but she knew that mentioning that to Synizn would gain her nothing, not even sympathy. He cared only in his examination of her, her comfort was beside the point.

After some time Synizn turned away from her and bent his gaze instead toward the strange mirror-like sandstones. Since Synizn had first begun examining her the sandstones had periodically flashed and whirled with inner lights and shadows. Astra had never seen the like before. And she had no idea what it was that they were telling the cold-hearted mage. But as he jotted down some notes on a stylus pad that hung from his hip she heard him murmur to himself in an excited tone. Her curiosity suddenly piqued, she asked him what he'd discovered.

She was not surprised when he ignored her but, after having kept herself so quiet and still for so long just as Synizn had required of her, she considered it only fair that he be as obliging to her as she'd been to him. So she repeated herself, louder this time.

Synizn turned to her with a scowl on his face, "I told you to be quiet--" Astra cut him off with a scowl of her own, "I have been quiet. But if you have discovered something about me I demand to know what it is."

Synizn stared at her for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders, "Fine. You're pregnant."

Astra frowned. "I know that already. I can feel them inside me, and Malachi knew about it the minute she saw me. She told me so."

"Oh? And did she tell you that you carry twins?" Synizn asked, a self- congratulatory smirk on his lips. "A pair of healthy, robust demifoxes."

"No, she didn't," Astra murmured as Synizn's news sunk into her. "Twins? And they're healthy?"

"For now," Synizn said.

"What does that mean?" Astra barked hotly, her hair bristling at the implied threat.

Synizn eyed her dispassionately. "If you regain your human form, I cannot say what will happen to the offspring,"

"You mean, they might be harmed?" she said, her mind suddenly clouded by a risk she had not considered before.

"That is a possibility," Synizn answered. "The Crystallic is a mystery and none but Minestus understood its powers."

"But-- but what if using the Crystallic on me kills the babies?" Astra asked, almost in a whisper.

"Then the babies die," Synizn replied matter-of-factly.

And then Astra lapsed into silence. Synizn though was not done with her. There was so much more for him to learn. "Now remember what I said about being calm, Astra. And do not be alarmed. What I am about to do next is going to hurt." Astra glanced up at him absently as he bent over her. Held firmly in one of his hands was a strange device from which jutted long spikes of gold-tipped steel that glowed like white-hot embers.

The screams that came then from that cold, white room would have chilled to the bone any who heard them. But no one did. For the thick walls, glazed with magical runes, kept tight the secrets of that hidden laboratory and silent the pain-wracked shrieks of the Aqualarian princess.

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WolfRun

3/30/2003 12:36:56 PM

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