The writhing serpent swam through the air like a yellow ribbon of light, casting off bolts of lightning that illuminated the tunnel with blinding flashes. My heart sank as it reached a fork with a right angle. I willed it left but had barely formed the thought when it flicked right and disappeared around a corner, plunging us into darkness.
Lungs burning, I sucked in a ragged breath to shout as Kalum came alongside me.
"It's heading for the surface."
Kalum didn't bother to respond as he surged past me. A moment later I heard his hammer strike the stone wall of the passage. As the bell tone of its strike faded, it began glowing with a steady white light that let me glimpse Kalum's silhouette just before he disappeared around the corner in pursuit of the lightning wyrm. Knowing I couldn't keep pace, I slowed to a stop and stood gasping for breath. By the time I had the wind in my lungs to call light into existence, Kalum's pounding footsteps were a fading echo.
I wanted desperately to collapse to the floor of the passage and lay there until my heart stopped pounding, but I leaned into a new run as my casting took effect and the tunnel grew bright around me. Kalum hadn't stopped because he knew as well as I did that if the lightning wyrm reached the surface, not only would we lose any hope of catching it, we'd have to explain to the guild and the elders of Ahnt how we allowed a wyrm of clutch laying age to cast itself into the wind and drift to points unknown.
Sprinting as quickly as I could along the uneven floor of the passage, I came to another fork in the ancient network of tunnels. Pausing to listen, I heard Kalum shouting, the sound of his hammer striking stone, then another shout of rage.
A few moments later I found Kalum standing at the end of a tunnel looking up at the ceiling.
I followed his gaze just in time to watch the yellow glow of the lightning wyrm disappearing up into a narrow crack. A moment later we heard a scream.
Without turning to look at me, Kalum held a hand out in my direction, gesturing me to a stop.
"Heavy impact casting," he said.
Wincing in anticipation but grateful for the chance to catch my breath, I stepped behind Kalum. I covered my ears as he brought his hammer up in an underhanded swing, shouting an activation word.
The tunnel thundered with the force of Kalum's blow and a circular section of the ceiling exploded upward, revealing a brightly lit space. A room, I realized. The tunnels had led directly beneath a residence.
Kalum tossed his hammer up through the hole, then gripped the edge to pull himself up. I followed. Blinking in the glare from a skylight, it took me a moment to understand what I was seeing in the room around me.
We stood in a large bed chamber that still looked richly appointed despite the dust and debris scattered around our makeshift entrance. A naked young man crouched in the corner holding his hands over his head. Despite the ringing in my ears, I could hear him whimpering. In the middle of the room stood a bed occupied by another naked form. A young woman, I realized. Above her undulated the lightning wyrm.
"Jol," Kalum barked.
I launched into the casting that would set an electric current dancing between my palms, drawing the hungry wyrm away from the bed and into range of Kalum's hammer. I was only halfway through the casting when the creature dove with shocking speed and latched its jaws onto the young woman's shoulder.
The man cowering in the corner wailed as the serpent's yellow-blue scales flared brighter.
I stared, marveling that the woman neither moved nor cried out, until my sense of urgency returned a moment later.
"Kalum, get it off her!"
Kalum stepped forward, a grim expression on his face. Holding his hammer in his right hand, he slipped his left into the rubber gauntlet hanging from his belt. As he moved, I noticed the woman's skin had begun to fade from an alabaster white to a slate gray. My stomach lurched.
"Kalum--now!"
Reaching the side of the bed, Kalum hesitated, but when the wyrm seemed not to notice him he steeled himself and extended his gauntleted hand to seize the wyrm around the neck.
It began writhing immediately and released its hold on the woman. Kalum hurled it to the floor behind him and swung his hammer after it. Before the creature could right itself, Kalum's hammer found its midsection and the creature exploded. The detonation sent lightning and blue shards of light in all directions, knocking both of us onto our backs.
When we climbed to our feet, I stumbled after Kalum to the bed where the young woman lay unmoving. Seeing the gray color of her skin I feared the worst, but when I reached the bed, the only healing casting I knew died on my tongue. It wasn't a young woman, but a figure carved from stone with a smooth, nearly featureless face.
I looked from the thing in the bed to Kalum, then to the young man cowering in the corner.
"Is this a golem?"
With another whimper, the young man scrambled to his feet and fled the room. Through the open door we could hear him shrieking for his mother to call the guard.
With a groan Kalum set his back against the wall at the foot of the bed and let himself slide to the floor.
"Settle in," he said.
I sighed and fished in my chest pocket for our guild permits before sinking down next to Kalum. By the time a squad of city guards rushed into the room to level spears at us I'd already rehearsed my speech. While I explained why we had excavated up into a home from a system of ancient sewers, Kalum tipped his head back and closed his eyes.
Our detention proved surprisingly brief and uneventful, helped in no small part by the remains of the lightning wyrm embedded both in the furniture and Kalum's gear. Even the complaints about property damage from the young man and his family were fleeting, quelled by a representative of the Elders' council who appeared and promised reparations. He knew as well as we did that the destruction of a single room in a single house was a price worth paying to ensure the eradication of a lightning wyrm colony.
When we left, using the front door rather than making out own egress, I felt dead on my feet. Thinking of nothing but how long it would take to return to our lodgings and douse myself in cold water, I was a good ways down the sun-drenched street before I realized Kalum wasn't with me. I turned and saw him speaking to one of the guards at the entrance to the house. He grinned at something the guard said, then turned to follow me, leaving the smirking guard behind.
"And what was that?" I asked when Kalum joined me.
"Our bounty is complete," Kalum said. "Time to celebrate."
I fell in behind Kalum, not sure I trusted the eager smile that split his face.
"Kalum, I'm exhausted."
He gripped my shoulder and hauled me along with him as he began walking.
"Just a quick detour," he said.
"Where?" I asked.
"Were you not curious why that cowardly screamer had a stone woman in his bed?"
I had been, but I'd found no opportunity to ask tactfully why a young, very shrill man had a golem in his bedroom.
"Well, it isn't always stone," Kalum said, smirking at me meaningfully. "And when it hasn't been sucked dry by a lightning snake, it can walk and talk..."
"Yes," I said wearily. "I've seen golems before."
"...walk and talk," Kalum said, his smile widening again, "spread its legs, then moan and scream your name."
I wrenched my shoulder free.
"Don't be stupid."
"No," Kalum said. "I have it on excellent authority that they're remarkably lifelike. Soft and warm and wet. And we can get our own. Have some fun before we spend two weeks back in that fucking desert."
Despite my exhaustion, I felt a wave of desire wash over me.
"Impossible," I said. "You're letting yourself be the butt of a joke."
"You got a good look at it," Kalum said, leading me around a corner into a decidedly less manicured portion of the city.
I had, and I'd observed shockingly realistic feminine features I couldn't otherwise explain.
"And how much are they? Golems require incredibly sophisticated enchantments. Getting access to one won't be cheap."
"Oh, I'm sure the man we're going to visit will make the usual kinds of arrangements--by the hour, by the day," Kalum said, waving his hand dismissively. "You know how these things work."
I didn't and, it turned out, neither did Kalum. When we arrived at the establishment recommended by Kalum's smirking soldier, a large, windowless building at the end of a ramshackle alley, the proprietor recoiled when Kalum described his desired transaction. Then he sneered.
"We do not," the man said, "...rent."
Standing in a cavernous room surrounded by a crowd of lifeless but very lifelike figures contorted in various approximations of joy and titillation, I tried to look as disinterested in Kalum's conversation as possible.
"Then what do you do?" Kalum said. His boyish enthusiasm had evaporated, leaving behind a tired, irritated mask.
"We provide companionship."
"Delightful," Kalum said, opening his arms to gesture broadly at the two of us. "That's exactly what we're looking for."
"Long term," the proprietor said slowly, "companionship."
I saw Kalum's expression as he came to the same conclusion I had a moment before: these golems were not intended to satisfy fleeting pleasures. They were not disposable. They were intended to satisfy the sexual ongoing needs of frustrated bachelors and bachelorettes. Indefinitely.
Kalum turned and scanned the crowd of motionless figures. Spotting a curvaceous figure with red lips and blond curls piled high on her head, he pointed.
"How much is that one?"
Lifting his chin, the proprietor told him.
"In silver?" Kalum said, unable to conceal his incredulity.
"In platinum," the proprietor said.