Cherry's Quest for Faith - Part X
“Oh. . . Sharon!” The announcement had quite caught me by complete and utter surprise, but it was not unwelcome by any means!
“Shall we head out and make camp at the spot?” she answered me with that amazing grin on her face.
“Excellent.....I doubt they have...er..any decent inns,” Helena grumbled.
“I would prefer to camp out. I do not wish to raise more attention to ourselves.” It seemed my sentiments were widely reflected by my colleagues.
“Best we don't stay here,” Sharon agreed.
“Two miles north, on the banks of the Frozen River as I said before.”
“....that bad eh? Reminds me of Dark Hold,” Helena remarked again as she stood up.
“Bastard's demanding a thousand in taxes from the citizens. If one makes roughly 250 a year...” Sharon murmured to us and grumbled beneath her breath.
“How do you tax four times a person's earnings?” Saileach asked incredulously.
“Anyway, the dogs are underfed. I'll get them some food and we'll feed them at the meeting spot,” Sharon continued more enthusiastically. With the dogs acquired, we seemed to have accomplished what we set to do in Kelten. With the King's visit looming, loitering seemed unwise, and the northern snows were open ahead of us.
[align=center]~~~~oOo~~~~[/align]
After meeting Ferron the next day two miles north of Kelten on the banks of the Frozen River, we had a uneventful journey north. Even the weather was in our favour, giving us crisp, blue skies and firm snow underfoot for the dogs to draw us along. There was a distinct point, though, that a palpable feeling of gloom could be felt as we drew nearer. The trees began to look lifeless, darkened, brooding. Shadows lurked in amongst them and it was difficult to tell if it was just us moving or if they had a life of their own. The sled teams slowly came to a halt and the dogs growled and barked incessantly, becoming very restless.
“I think we can unhide now. Rex!” Sharon exclaimed. The weasel contorted grotesquely until it had resumed the ogre’s original shape.
“What was that..!?” Helena exclaimed, seeing movement nearby.
“We made it. Be careful, these woods are cursed... But I guess you noticed that already...” Farron remarked, looking towards the woods rather nervously. He seemed more afraid of what awaited them in the forest than the presence of an now-ogre amongst our number. We had, afterall, effectively bought his silence on the matter.
“Aye... Shadow beings I see,” Sharon remarked and it was not long at all before we were assailed by shadows reaching out from the gloom. The dogs barked ferociously as Rexxar’s axe crushed the ephemeral beings as cleanly as if they were corporeal. They left no remains. Vashtalla used his psionic empathy to calm the dogs and keep them controllable for the rest of the journey. I was quite glad about that, actually.
“Perhaps we should keep going, then. Shouldn't loiter,” Sharon recommended. It was a difficult recommendation, though. The forest was dark, even though the trees were leafless and lifeless. It was completely silent apart from the crunch of snow beneath our feet; not a bird, not a cricket, not an animal to be seen or heard.
“We are getting close now. . .” I said. That twinge in my heart returned. She knew where we were. “If you have magic, now is the time to use it.”
“ Alright,” Danae said and warded us with a Magic Circle against Evil.
“This forest is haunted with monstrosities beyond the natural order,” I said.
“I could use a light... It gets dark around here,” Farron said. Sharon obliged him.
“There you are.”
“Thank you. The wife is watching Sheva; I didn't want either of them getting hurt. And if Govenor Volden gives her trouble, Sheva can keep her safe.”
“Thank you for your trust, Farron,” I said to him. Such trust was incredibly rare in these parts where worship of Beltar was part of the state religion. I’m was surprised we actually made it this far without having to pour out some bribes, or having been cheated or betrayed.
“We're heading to the north, towards Shadow Valley. I'll do my best to show you the way, and stay out of trouble.”
“Mrrhm... Whole lotta magic.. best not using it all.. could be a long way yet,” Tahir cautioned us. I only used a couple of protective spells myself. Shadow Shield seemed rather pertinent and appropriate to the occasion.
“Protection. I can handle it,” Sharon quipped. “Let us... continue on our journey now.”
“Yes!” Rexxar agreed enthusiastically. He would have much to do now.
“I hope we're well enough prepared,” Saileach pondered aloud. I believed we were. It was why I had chosen each and every one for the mission.
“Which way am I going, Cherry?” Tahir asked me.
“Follow Farron, Tahir,” I instructed the jann, and Farron organised the sled dogs and led us away.
“We should... get going, yes,” he answered.
“Shadows everywhere,” Saileach muttered to herself rather nervously. It was justifiable too. Only a few cycles beforehand I had used regenerative magic to regrow a leg she had lost to one of the horrors in Pandemonium. She had been reclusive and timid ever since, flinching at every flickering shadow, jostling away from darkened alleys and moving towards far better lit places.
We slowly made our way through the thick forest single file in sled teams, worming our way over the powder-coated ground. The soft crunch of snow giving way before the dogs was the only eerie sound to be heard. There were no winter wrens chirping in the trees, no chickadees flitting about in the icicled twigs and branches, no common or bluejays with their flashes of colour to be seen amongst the white of the snow and the lifelessness of dying trees. It was cold, far too cold for the chirping crickets and cicadas associated with the melt, giving the place an unnerving silence. Yet the shadows did not relent. They attacked us at every turn, and every lurking bough, every hulking trunk, every snow-covered shrub became a potential ambush site.
“Shadows everywhere,” Farron remarked in obvious dismay. “It is... a shame, to see what has happened to this place.” And he didn’t even know half the truth. I’m sure it was once a beautiful sprawling alpine forest filled with the natural denizens of the wild and bursting with its own lifeforce. But now, now it was a gloomy husk of whatever former glory it ever had. Even the evergreen pines were struggling, branches stripped half bare as if a giant hand had run fierce fingers down them randomly. I didn’t have too much time to reminisce, though, as another wave of shadows soon came upon us. It was Rexxar’s voice that alerted me.
“ We need to keep going!” he cried out as his magical axe carved swathes through the normally immaterial beings. It seemed my choice had, in part been justified to have him along, given the ease by which he was destroying the forest haunts. Helena was equally effective with her rather impressive crossbow sharpshooting skills.
“ If an avariel flies past you with a bow is it a fly-by-shooting?” Vashtalla cracked a joke at the spectacle of the winged half-fiend zipping about, firing off endless quarrels and peppering the incorportal blighters from afar, often before Rexxar had managed to stride within range. The echoes of her rapid cranking to lock her bowstring over
All of a sudden, four huge shadowy figures lurched out of a nearby thicket and began an enraged assault. It caught me by surprise and Tahir launched into defensive action, charging forward with shield up and sword drawn. Fierce darkened claws struck down upon it, the metallic shimmy of the forceful strikes echoing through the silence. There was a bright flash to my left and I turned to see Sharon both hands extended, eyes ablaze with concentration as pulverising missiles of pure, unadulterated magical power poured forth from her fingertips, one after the other after the other, an unerring and undeterred display of her raw, wild talent. I looked again. The shadows were gone now, returned back to the nothingness that comprised their ephemeral essence.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked everyone while glancing about worriedly. This was, after all, but a token of what I was expecting to find here.
“ I am,” Rexxar answered, his greasy mane of hair turning. “Not a scratch yet.”
“ Yes,” Namael reassured me likewise. I decided we should continue to press on, and the forest sloped all the more increasingly in a steady incline which slowed the dogs somewhat. Farron lead us forward until we reached a tight pass between two parallel escarpments.
“Hold up a moment,” Tahir cautioned me. I could clearly see why. “Dont like the look of this pass. Looks like a perfect place for an ambush.”
“There may be corrupted animals. . . I'm more worried about them. . .” I replied. It was true, actually. I had long heard stories of the local hunters and farmers of wild, uncontrollable and demented beasts emerging from the forest, covered in festering boils and utterly, insatiably smitten with insanity. It had brought specialist trappers to the region at times, and quite often the blame had fallen on me as being the direct cause for them.
“Any other way around this?” Tahirs questioning and hesitant voice broke me from my reminiscing. Farron signalled for the dogs to stop and they came to a slowing halt, panting.
“No, I'm afraid there isn't. It could get ugly... I haven't dared to come this far alone in a long time.”
I noticed Helena creeping forward at the base of the escarpment at that point so I decided it was time to put more of her skills to use. “Helena. Will you scout ahead?”
“Scout up first and foremost,” Tahir immediately concurred. “Dont want any.. big rocks coming down on us.”
I was quite glad we were both thinking along the same lines. I was not thinking like a warrior, or a general, just a witch with a mission I couldnÂ’t afford to have thwarted at any cost. The rest of us stopped and remained with Farron and the sleds. Saileach looked increasingly nervous and stayed quite close to my side, while Vashtalla remained with the dogs, close to Danae and Sharon. Helena gave me a silent nod and vanished before our eyes into the darkness of the escarpmentÂ’s sunless walls. The silence persisted for what seemed like an age, snapped only by HelenaÂ’s loud and startled curse up ahead.
“Oh ***. . .”
Cherry's Quest For Faith
-
*Tsidkenu
- Posts: 156
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Cherry's Quest for Faith - Part XI
“Come up and get me bitches!” Helena’s taunting warcry echoed down through the chasm. I really wish she had not been so loud and bold about it, despite my gladness for her enthusiasm.
“She has been spotted!” Tahir replied alarmingly and moved quickly into a vanguard position. “Leave the sled here for now. . .”
“She's engaging, to her aid!” I called out, rallying my colleagues into hopeful action. Namael looked similarly alarmed and rushed off ahead as fast as her wings would carry her through the passage. Suddenly the concept of an ambush from above, as Tahir had feared, no longer dawned upon our minds, or at least it certainly was not on mine any more. I wish it had been. Farron’s voice alerted me to that fact.
“Look out, trouble! Oh, be careful!”
So I did look up and I saw Rexxar as he charged forward through the chasm, growling a horrendous roar of war as his eyes turned feral with overpowering rage. I could perceive why now. Up ahead was a veritable horde of shadows, crawling from the natural shade of the escarpments, slithering down the walls like rabid ants, bursting forth from the distant trees as if a flood of darkness had been poured upon us, an eruption of some heretofore unseen fountain of blackened umbral miasma which was seeping out everywhere. Some were simply plummeting, pulsating bolts of energy from HelenaÂ’s crossbow proving their literal and metaphorical downfall as their dead, ephemeral forms dissipated into the icy mountain air.
The fighting was brutal and efficient. RexxarÂ’s axe cut swathes through the horde and he was ably supported by NamaelÂ’s psionic prowess and HelenaÂ’s flashing blades. Vashtalla remained at the rear flank, usng his natural empathy to keep the dogs calmed, Danae remaining close to him also. Tahir moved to take rearguard behind the sleds as Sharon once again began to light up the darkness with flashes of pulsing magical force spewing forth from her fingertips. She quickly realised that there were so many of them that such specific targeting would be wholly inadequate to meet the situation.
Lifting her hands high into the air, beams of sunlight rippled down through the chasm from above and concentrated their energy in SharonÂ’s palms. I knew the spell well as I had prepared a duo of them myself specifically for what I expected to meet in this forest. Sunburst. It exploded in a flash of daylight, eviscerating half the swarm immediately as the rest shielded their eyes and cowered at the brightness. That was exactly the opportunity the sorceress needed to cast a second one immediately and wipe most of the remainder from their lightless existence while Rexxar, Helena, Namael and Vashtalla picked off what remained. FarronÂ’s eyes went wide as he watched the shadows be dispatched with ruthless efficiency. I didnÂ’t have to do a single thing.
“You people are terrifying,” he said to us, watching with a heightened measure of incredulity.
“I chose my friends carefully,” I answered him. Admittedly it was a difficult thing I had asked of him. Why he trusted me, a stranger, a cursed stranger, a cursed stranger with a bunch of weird friends, somewhat escaped me. A jann, a half-angel, a half-devil, an ogre, a former-werewolf, a priestess of a Torillian death god and a space-elf Signer psion sure made for an eclectic mix, whatever our real reasons were for being here.
I watched Nami panting from exertion before my attention was quickly snatched away by a low, guttural growl. It was Helena. Was she losing it? I wasnÂ’t certain so I poised myself and waited as Tahir approached her to say a few things. Behind me I could hear Sharon ruffling her raven locks to free some of the gently falling snow drift.
“Alright. Slowly.” He reached out and squeezed Helena’s tail between his thumb and forefingers. “Focus now.”
She exhaled as she calmed. “Clear.”
I was glad about that. The less worries I had during this part of the mission the better, because I new it wasnÂ’t going to get any easier for them. We advanced beyond the narrow chasm without further disturbance and began our trek down the far side. It was not long before we were beset by another assault of shadows, far more comfortable emerging from the shroud of the darker side of our path and similarly plentiful in numbers.
“Few left. Hrm,” Tahir understated confidently as they approached him. Rexxar charged forward with his trademark RAWR to begin carving rivers amidst the umbral throng. There were quite a few, again, and with Sharon hanging back nearer to the dogs I decided that I had an opportunity to assist this time. I had prepared two special spells in the expectation of meeting swarms of these apparently vapid creatures.
“Undeath to death!” I cried out and launched my spell at Rexxar’s location with absolute impunity. I was actually somewhat relieved that Lyra had ended up bailing on her attendance, as much as she actually wanted to come, because there were several significant hindrances to my mission if she had done so. The first was how to travel with her under the brightness of the Thillonrian winter-kissed sun. Lyra was still a vampire at the end of the day and she would be unable to travel with us during the daylight hours. This would have limited our travel options to night only, something even I was unwilling to do with my acquired abyssal resistances. She did joke prior to the trip about being stuffed inside one of Sharon’s bags of holding because, being a vampire, she did not need to breathe in order to survive in the confined space. It was a possibility, but it didn’t really matter now. Secondly, if Lyra had been here I would have not had the unrestricted ability to hurl the magic I knew I would need to destroy the assailing throng. My eyes narrowed with the satisfaction that only overtakes an exorcist’s heart when the deed is done. The shadows’ negative essences were immediately and irreversibly snuffed out, and I watched their forms vaporise in the sudden burst of necromantic power.
“Come on, we're almost there. Just down the mountain now,” Farron said to me as I turned to look at him once all the shadows had been annihilated. I glanced back behind me to check on everyone. Vashtalla was talking to the dogs, barking and yelping just like them. I smiled at that. It must be a wonderful thing to be so close to the natural world around you. I had long lived alone in nature, at the mercy of its seasonal provisions. I already knew quite a lot about the ebb and flow of the seasons, of what could be used for food, for spell components, for potions, for poisons. Yet watching him speak to the animals was something I’d never been able to do, Corey notwithstanding since he acquired a semblance of his own intellect when I made him my familiar all those years ago. I left the thought alone for now, being disturbed by Tahir’s voice once more.
“ Hrrm.. Detecting... a larger group directly over the cliff infront of us... nothing too large.”
HadnÂ’t we destroyed enough of these things already? How many more were there going to be? And the most disturbing thought of all was that we had not even reached the glade yet! At that very moment I heard a cry for help coming from behind me. It was Farron.
“Ahhh! Help me!” he cried out as about half a dozen shadows hurled themselves straight for him.
“We got it!” Sharon exclaimed and weaved an enchantment upon our guide to guarantee his courage.
I watched as HelenaÂ’s eyes dimmed red again as Rexxar hurled himself into the fray in FarronÂ’s defense, releasing yet another blood-curdling warcry. Helena followed immediately after, her blades a fiery flash of fury likewise. She began muttering to herself, although I knew all the words she spoke that day, words which I dare not repeat again here. I could see the change happening before my eyes; everything about which Namael had told me several cycles previously was starting to unfold. I will not avoid the implication that I was feeling incredibly anxious, a feeling which emerged from me by means of a rather deep gasp for breath. I have no idea how Namael knew what I was thinking, but at that very moment she placed both her hands on HelenaÂ’s head and closed her eyes. Whatever psionic power she used at that moment it had an immediate beneficial effect on the half-fiend.
“Thanks,” she answered Namael appreciatively while the half-angel nibbled at her lower lip. “Looks clear.” I can only presume Helena meant our way forward, but perhaps there were more to her words that I missed.
“It's just down the hill,” Farron answered, panting a bit from the frenetic activity as he paused to catch his breath.
“Let's go there, then,” Sharon answered. Fortunately our progression down the other side of this ridge line was met with far less hostility. Whatever the forest was hiding either chose to remain so, or we had already destroyed them all. Sure enough we emerged into a deep valley. It was interesting because the snow thinned here, despite being incredibly cold. What was left was an utterly forsaken, dearth of a landscape, utterly devoid of all natural life. A tangible gloom clung to the place which began to take its toll on Saileach.
“Too many shadows,” she whispered warily.
“Tame compared to the shadow rift though,” Vashtalla replied. I had never been there, yet I was acquainted with its powers. This, however, was altogether different. Yet altogether familiar. So very familiar.
“Uf...” Danae remarked with a degree of consternation as we entered the valley proper. I am fairly certain she sensed it even more than I could.
“It's... getting very dark down here,” Sharon responded immediately. Now everyone was beginning to feel what I had felt so deep inside since the day my mother bestowed her ‘gifts’ upon me.
“That is really dark,” Rexxar said.
Helena looked up ahead, rolling her shoulders at what lay before them. “It looks like it's about to swallow us...” Namael followed in her footsteps, peering ahead into the thick darkness. Saileach too shuffled a little close to both Sharon and me, apparently more comfortable beside our magically generated luminescence.
“This... this is as far as I can take you,” Farron’s voice piped up from his position at point, halting in his tracks with his dog team. He pointed to the looming shadows which rose up as if to swallow the forest ahead.
“Okay Farron thanks for guiding us!” Rexxar answered in a mood far happier than it ought to have been, I thought. Then again, he did not know what else was about to happen.
I moved forward and without thinking I unleashed a Sunburst upon the darkness to reveal what it was concealing under its umbral veil. “There.”
“Well everything knows we are here now,” Vashtalla immediately commented with a measure of dryness. However, my intuition proved correct. The shadows parted slightly, and the path ahead was clearer to my view. It was not far, and I knew it. Tahir moved forward expentantly, similarly intent on being first through the clouding miasma.
“Okay lets go,” Rexxar answered enthusiastically. I knew I was going to regret, at some point, not telling him beforehand what I was really here to do.
“I think they already did, heh. Will you be all right, Farron?” Sharon said first to Vashtalla and then directed her attention at our guide. She pawed at her money pouch for the outstanding sum we owed him, considering that his mission was now completed.
“Good luck... whoever you are. I... may not be in Kelten when you return.”
“We are travelers from beyond the stars. Go find a happy place and have some children Farron!” Vashtalla told him.
“Aye, I don't blame you,” Sharon replied likewise, offering him his due in coin.
“If possible, I'm going to take my wife and we're leaving town. You've done us a great service. That's if Volden doesn't get to us first."
“No. You have done these lands a great service, Farron,” I answered him, although he too could not have possibly known what was about to happen either.
“Good for you Farron my best wishs for you and your wife!” Rexxar farewelled him with his typical ogre simplicity. I had a feeling that perhaps, once this was all over, just perhaps things might get better for men like Farron and Gavin.
“I didn't do anything really... I'm... I should be heading back,” he replied, rather unsure of himself now. I mean, besides whatever piecemeal rumours he knew about me and the legend of the Cursebearer.
“You did Farron you were our guide!” again Rexxar answered with that simpleton’s grin he wore on his face most of the time.
“Time will reveal the significance of what you have done for us. . . for me. . . today,” I tried to reassure him. He really had no idea.
“You should,” Tahir urged him. “The path we cleaved will not remain safe for long.”
“ Leave immediately once you are ready,” Sharon agreed, nodding.
“Farewell Farron,” Nami also chimed in to farewell our benevolent guide.
“Be safe,” Saileach added in a genuine token of farewell.
“ Get gone. Get safe. Do not die and make this moot,” Tahir urged him again. And with a lash of the reigns, his dog team scooted off up the ridge and he was gone.
I turned to behold the darkness before us with another identical wave of my hands and the chant of a spell completion phrase. Sunburst. Again our path was illumined to us, albeit momentarily.
“Hrm... I shall take the first step then,” Tahir insisted and moved towards the lightened path. “Here we go...”
Our footsteps pressed into the strangely dried out ground ahead of us. Only SharonÂ’s enthusiastic cry of our forward advance quelled the immense fear that I was beginning to feel deep, deep down inside.
“Onward!”
Onward indeed.
“Come up and get me bitches!” Helena’s taunting warcry echoed down through the chasm. I really wish she had not been so loud and bold about it, despite my gladness for her enthusiasm.
“She has been spotted!” Tahir replied alarmingly and moved quickly into a vanguard position. “Leave the sled here for now. . .”
“She's engaging, to her aid!” I called out, rallying my colleagues into hopeful action. Namael looked similarly alarmed and rushed off ahead as fast as her wings would carry her through the passage. Suddenly the concept of an ambush from above, as Tahir had feared, no longer dawned upon our minds, or at least it certainly was not on mine any more. I wish it had been. Farron’s voice alerted me to that fact.
“Look out, trouble! Oh, be careful!”
So I did look up and I saw Rexxar as he charged forward through the chasm, growling a horrendous roar of war as his eyes turned feral with overpowering rage. I could perceive why now. Up ahead was a veritable horde of shadows, crawling from the natural shade of the escarpments, slithering down the walls like rabid ants, bursting forth from the distant trees as if a flood of darkness had been poured upon us, an eruption of some heretofore unseen fountain of blackened umbral miasma which was seeping out everywhere. Some were simply plummeting, pulsating bolts of energy from HelenaÂ’s crossbow proving their literal and metaphorical downfall as their dead, ephemeral forms dissipated into the icy mountain air.
The fighting was brutal and efficient. RexxarÂ’s axe cut swathes through the horde and he was ably supported by NamaelÂ’s psionic prowess and HelenaÂ’s flashing blades. Vashtalla remained at the rear flank, usng his natural empathy to keep the dogs calmed, Danae remaining close to him also. Tahir moved to take rearguard behind the sleds as Sharon once again began to light up the darkness with flashes of pulsing magical force spewing forth from her fingertips. She quickly realised that there were so many of them that such specific targeting would be wholly inadequate to meet the situation.
Lifting her hands high into the air, beams of sunlight rippled down through the chasm from above and concentrated their energy in SharonÂ’s palms. I knew the spell well as I had prepared a duo of them myself specifically for what I expected to meet in this forest. Sunburst. It exploded in a flash of daylight, eviscerating half the swarm immediately as the rest shielded their eyes and cowered at the brightness. That was exactly the opportunity the sorceress needed to cast a second one immediately and wipe most of the remainder from their lightless existence while Rexxar, Helena, Namael and Vashtalla picked off what remained. FarronÂ’s eyes went wide as he watched the shadows be dispatched with ruthless efficiency. I didnÂ’t have to do a single thing.
“You people are terrifying,” he said to us, watching with a heightened measure of incredulity.
“I chose my friends carefully,” I answered him. Admittedly it was a difficult thing I had asked of him. Why he trusted me, a stranger, a cursed stranger, a cursed stranger with a bunch of weird friends, somewhat escaped me. A jann, a half-angel, a half-devil, an ogre, a former-werewolf, a priestess of a Torillian death god and a space-elf Signer psion sure made for an eclectic mix, whatever our real reasons were for being here.
I watched Nami panting from exertion before my attention was quickly snatched away by a low, guttural growl. It was Helena. Was she losing it? I wasnÂ’t certain so I poised myself and waited as Tahir approached her to say a few things. Behind me I could hear Sharon ruffling her raven locks to free some of the gently falling snow drift.
“Alright. Slowly.” He reached out and squeezed Helena’s tail between his thumb and forefingers. “Focus now.”
She exhaled as she calmed. “Clear.”
I was glad about that. The less worries I had during this part of the mission the better, because I new it wasnÂ’t going to get any easier for them. We advanced beyond the narrow chasm without further disturbance and began our trek down the far side. It was not long before we were beset by another assault of shadows, far more comfortable emerging from the shroud of the darker side of our path and similarly plentiful in numbers.
“Few left. Hrm,” Tahir understated confidently as they approached him. Rexxar charged forward with his trademark RAWR to begin carving rivers amidst the umbral throng. There were quite a few, again, and with Sharon hanging back nearer to the dogs I decided that I had an opportunity to assist this time. I had prepared two special spells in the expectation of meeting swarms of these apparently vapid creatures.
“Undeath to death!” I cried out and launched my spell at Rexxar’s location with absolute impunity. I was actually somewhat relieved that Lyra had ended up bailing on her attendance, as much as she actually wanted to come, because there were several significant hindrances to my mission if she had done so. The first was how to travel with her under the brightness of the Thillonrian winter-kissed sun. Lyra was still a vampire at the end of the day and she would be unable to travel with us during the daylight hours. This would have limited our travel options to night only, something even I was unwilling to do with my acquired abyssal resistances. She did joke prior to the trip about being stuffed inside one of Sharon’s bags of holding because, being a vampire, she did not need to breathe in order to survive in the confined space. It was a possibility, but it didn’t really matter now. Secondly, if Lyra had been here I would have not had the unrestricted ability to hurl the magic I knew I would need to destroy the assailing throng. My eyes narrowed with the satisfaction that only overtakes an exorcist’s heart when the deed is done. The shadows’ negative essences were immediately and irreversibly snuffed out, and I watched their forms vaporise in the sudden burst of necromantic power.
“Come on, we're almost there. Just down the mountain now,” Farron said to me as I turned to look at him once all the shadows had been annihilated. I glanced back behind me to check on everyone. Vashtalla was talking to the dogs, barking and yelping just like them. I smiled at that. It must be a wonderful thing to be so close to the natural world around you. I had long lived alone in nature, at the mercy of its seasonal provisions. I already knew quite a lot about the ebb and flow of the seasons, of what could be used for food, for spell components, for potions, for poisons. Yet watching him speak to the animals was something I’d never been able to do, Corey notwithstanding since he acquired a semblance of his own intellect when I made him my familiar all those years ago. I left the thought alone for now, being disturbed by Tahir’s voice once more.
“ Hrrm.. Detecting... a larger group directly over the cliff infront of us... nothing too large.”
HadnÂ’t we destroyed enough of these things already? How many more were there going to be? And the most disturbing thought of all was that we had not even reached the glade yet! At that very moment I heard a cry for help coming from behind me. It was Farron.
“Ahhh! Help me!” he cried out as about half a dozen shadows hurled themselves straight for him.
“We got it!” Sharon exclaimed and weaved an enchantment upon our guide to guarantee his courage.
I watched as HelenaÂ’s eyes dimmed red again as Rexxar hurled himself into the fray in FarronÂ’s defense, releasing yet another blood-curdling warcry. Helena followed immediately after, her blades a fiery flash of fury likewise. She began muttering to herself, although I knew all the words she spoke that day, words which I dare not repeat again here. I could see the change happening before my eyes; everything about which Namael had told me several cycles previously was starting to unfold. I will not avoid the implication that I was feeling incredibly anxious, a feeling which emerged from me by means of a rather deep gasp for breath. I have no idea how Namael knew what I was thinking, but at that very moment she placed both her hands on HelenaÂ’s head and closed her eyes. Whatever psionic power she used at that moment it had an immediate beneficial effect on the half-fiend.
“Thanks,” she answered Namael appreciatively while the half-angel nibbled at her lower lip. “Looks clear.” I can only presume Helena meant our way forward, but perhaps there were more to her words that I missed.
“It's just down the hill,” Farron answered, panting a bit from the frenetic activity as he paused to catch his breath.
“Let's go there, then,” Sharon answered. Fortunately our progression down the other side of this ridge line was met with far less hostility. Whatever the forest was hiding either chose to remain so, or we had already destroyed them all. Sure enough we emerged into a deep valley. It was interesting because the snow thinned here, despite being incredibly cold. What was left was an utterly forsaken, dearth of a landscape, utterly devoid of all natural life. A tangible gloom clung to the place which began to take its toll on Saileach.
“Too many shadows,” she whispered warily.
“Tame compared to the shadow rift though,” Vashtalla replied. I had never been there, yet I was acquainted with its powers. This, however, was altogether different. Yet altogether familiar. So very familiar.
“Uf...” Danae remarked with a degree of consternation as we entered the valley proper. I am fairly certain she sensed it even more than I could.
“It's... getting very dark down here,” Sharon responded immediately. Now everyone was beginning to feel what I had felt so deep inside since the day my mother bestowed her ‘gifts’ upon me.
“That is really dark,” Rexxar said.
Helena looked up ahead, rolling her shoulders at what lay before them. “It looks like it's about to swallow us...” Namael followed in her footsteps, peering ahead into the thick darkness. Saileach too shuffled a little close to both Sharon and me, apparently more comfortable beside our magically generated luminescence.
“This... this is as far as I can take you,” Farron’s voice piped up from his position at point, halting in his tracks with his dog team. He pointed to the looming shadows which rose up as if to swallow the forest ahead.
“Okay Farron thanks for guiding us!” Rexxar answered in a mood far happier than it ought to have been, I thought. Then again, he did not know what else was about to happen.
I moved forward and without thinking I unleashed a Sunburst upon the darkness to reveal what it was concealing under its umbral veil. “There.”
“Well everything knows we are here now,” Vashtalla immediately commented with a measure of dryness. However, my intuition proved correct. The shadows parted slightly, and the path ahead was clearer to my view. It was not far, and I knew it. Tahir moved forward expentantly, similarly intent on being first through the clouding miasma.
“Okay lets go,” Rexxar answered enthusiastically. I knew I was going to regret, at some point, not telling him beforehand what I was really here to do.
“I think they already did, heh. Will you be all right, Farron?” Sharon said first to Vashtalla and then directed her attention at our guide. She pawed at her money pouch for the outstanding sum we owed him, considering that his mission was now completed.
“Good luck... whoever you are. I... may not be in Kelten when you return.”
“We are travelers from beyond the stars. Go find a happy place and have some children Farron!” Vashtalla told him.
“Aye, I don't blame you,” Sharon replied likewise, offering him his due in coin.
“If possible, I'm going to take my wife and we're leaving town. You've done us a great service. That's if Volden doesn't get to us first."
“No. You have done these lands a great service, Farron,” I answered him, although he too could not have possibly known what was about to happen either.
“Good for you Farron my best wishs for you and your wife!” Rexxar farewelled him with his typical ogre simplicity. I had a feeling that perhaps, once this was all over, just perhaps things might get better for men like Farron and Gavin.
“I didn't do anything really... I'm... I should be heading back,” he replied, rather unsure of himself now. I mean, besides whatever piecemeal rumours he knew about me and the legend of the Cursebearer.
“You did Farron you were our guide!” again Rexxar answered with that simpleton’s grin he wore on his face most of the time.
“Time will reveal the significance of what you have done for us. . . for me. . . today,” I tried to reassure him. He really had no idea.
“You should,” Tahir urged him. “The path we cleaved will not remain safe for long.”
“ Leave immediately once you are ready,” Sharon agreed, nodding.
“Farewell Farron,” Nami also chimed in to farewell our benevolent guide.
“Be safe,” Saileach added in a genuine token of farewell.
“ Get gone. Get safe. Do not die and make this moot,” Tahir urged him again. And with a lash of the reigns, his dog team scooted off up the ridge and he was gone.
I turned to behold the darkness before us with another identical wave of my hands and the chant of a spell completion phrase. Sunburst. Again our path was illumined to us, albeit momentarily.
“Hrm... I shall take the first step then,” Tahir insisted and moved towards the lightened path. “Here we go...”
Our footsteps pressed into the strangely dried out ground ahead of us. Only SharonÂ’s enthusiastic cry of our forward advance quelled the immense fear that I was beginning to feel deep, deep down inside.
“Onward!”
Onward indeed.
-
*Tsidkenu
- Posts: 156
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Cherry's Quest for Faith - Part XII
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“Is this what I think it is?” Rexxar asked aloud as we wandered into the ancient glade. I did not want to answer.
“This place feels..familiar... which is impossible,” Tahir commented as he looked around the forsaken, barren place.
“Empathic link?” Namael clarified of him.
“No. I dont believe so.”
I stopped in my tracks and knelt down. I placed my hand palm down on the earth, closing my eyes and taking in a deep, wholesome breath. I nearly gagged. The place radiated impure, defiled taint, something wholly unnatural yet wholly familiar, an evil so very very familiar to me. Not even the snow would dare rest its crystal feet anywhere near this place. It was as if all life had been slowly sucked dry over the course of the centuries. The ravages of decay were even in suspension here, a subversion of the natural order of things; although it was clear enough that all the trees, all the land had been ravaged with at least a millennia of abandonment. Everything about the place was so very familiar, yet so horribly wrong.
“That vision,” Sharon interrupted my raging cataract of thoughts. I looked up to see them all gawking at the scene which was before us. Vashtalla seemed particularly taken aback, canting his head while his narrowed eyes surveyed the devastation with gritted teeth. The shadows seemed to ease off at the top of the mountain, and before us the Falls of Bitterness were frozen over as the ice dropped off the cliff in perfect winter stasis. This was the place Vashtalla had seen in that moment of hypercognition; there could be no other. Again it was Rexxar’s ignorant enthusiasm which stirred me from these nascent memories.
“Okay nothing can stop us lets go!”
“It's. . . so. . . familiar. . .” I mumbled. What was even more peculiar is that everyone else seemed to agree.
“Hmm.Think so,” Namael murmured in agreement.
“It...feels that way,” Helena concurred.
“Mrhrm...” Tahir mumbled along with them.
I did not understand how this was possible, but being so close to my goal I did not really have the time to consider the implications at length. My eyes were naturally drawn to the stones along the forsaken path. I could feel them. A bitter coldness stabbed at my heart and I gagged for breath again.
“A little more pleasant than shadows,” Saileach said softly as her delicate eyes analysed the scene that was unravelling before us.
“I get... images of a ruined castle... an altar... a black monolith while I am here... Ravens and Crows...” Tahir blurted out. I felt a clutch at my heart, as if it were being gripped by a force not my own. I couldn’t tell them that, though.
I pressed on, and the path was not far. The deadness encircled an inner grove which became more apparent the closer we came. Five great dead trees lay spread on the barren, charred ground in the center of the clearing. For them to not have rotted away after all this time something foul was most assuredly at work. Of course I already knew that, as did many of those present. They were the guardians, the sentinel treants that had once graced the grove with their protective oaths. Their lives had been snuffed out by the same vileness that I was bringing back to the place that very day.
In the center of the clearing a withered tree struggled to force its way out of a rock, even thus surrounded with the prevailing death it defied the forces that sought to smother it. If ever an altar to nature's power there was, this was it. Behind it, as if to not detract from the power of its asthetic, sat a small table, presumably for offerings. Yet, the devastation was incredible. A thousand years later and still nothing had managed to reclaim the grove. Even the tree in the altar looked to be fading, though it hung on desperately to what little life remained in it.
“There it is,” Namael remarked in sublime lucidity. Each word was like a piercing arrow in my chest as my heart thumped louder and louder, each beat reverberating that ever increasing dread I had had ever since the day I had discovered the truth about who I was. It had all begun here, and like nature in its truest sense, the cycle had now turned full circle and it was about to end where it was birthed. It was getting very emotional for me now. I covered my mouth with my hand, even though it was already covered with my black facial mask. These were the stones, these were the trees, this was the soil tainted by abyssal power when the curse found its first embodiment all those years ago.
“Mhmmm I wonder what did that?” Rexxar asked while he looked around the place, eyeing the central stone for a particularly long time, as if he wanted to try to wrench it from its resting place.
“The first, Rex,” Namael answered him, although I doubt he understood what she meant. Rexxar had not had the priviledge, as Nami had, of plumbing the secrets in my soul and putting its pieces together one fragment at a time. The seer was the first to delve so far into my past, and at great danger to herself. If it were not for her, this great secret would have remained unlocked, and I would not have been where I was. I’d have still been chained; empty, hopeless and heartless.
I waved all my magic away as I stood at the verge of the druidic circle; it could do nothing for me here. No, what I had to do had been set in stone, as it were, when the curse was given its first birth. A thousand years of desperation, of death, of failed hopes for its abjuration had exasperated my ancestors, yet here I was finally having the moment of culmination within armÂ’s reach. It was a sublime and sombre experience, to say the least.
“What do we do from here, Cherry?” I heard Saileach’s voice from behind me.
“Keep your magic, my friends. . . I. . . no longer need it. . .” I answered her, and them, and stepped inside the circle. I felt all their eyes bearing down on me as if I were some circus spectacle ready to make her most impressive show. I could hear their deep breaths, pensive sighs, scratching feet and nervous fidgets in the relative quiet of the desecration. It was an oddly serene scene, one that caused my heart to beat with ever increasing alacrity as I limped forward to the stone altar. It was mesmerising. I lost myself just looking at it. Staring. Staring. Staring.
“Rex,” Danae spoke softly so as not to disturb me, but hers was the only sound in the grove at that moment. “Let Cherry. Back off a bit.”
“Cherry knows what to do, Rex,” Namael reinforced further. I was glad for it because my mind had become a tempest of whirling thoughts.This was one of those moments that separated friends from acquaintances. I could not tell all of them what I had come here to do, but those to whom it would matter the most I told pieces of what I had learned of myself: my past, my present, and my very unclear future. I could see them desirous, yet hesitant. Eager, yet apprehensive. Anticipating, and yet dreading the unknown as much as I was.
“Oh my bad,” the ogre replied according to what he knew, which admittedly was not a lot at all. “I did not know shes doing a thing here, hehe.” Nami patted his shoulder reassuringly.
“Kind of the whole reason we're here,” Tahir quipped softly, although he still looked fairly cautious and on edge.
“Well I meant in this spot,” Rexxar clarified.
“This is the spot where her curse begun,” the mild half-angel answered him once again.
It was true, of course. This was where it all begun. The devastation before our eyes spoke more than NamaelÂ’s obscure visions, or VashtallaÂ’s acquisition of long lost knowledge lurking deep in the streams of the Astral Sea, or even my mystical satiation from the Spring of Knowledge. It was a story of thirty six generations of witches enslaved to one abyssal master. Thirty six generations scattered, hunted and hated for what they were. Thirty six generations enslaved and ensorcelled by a will greater than their own. Thirty six generations of promulgated sensuality, of prolifigate fornication, of hearts broken, marriages adulterated, of innocent, and not-so-innocent, blood spilled unwillingly upon demonic altars. Until today.
Today, that blessed of all days, it would come to its end.
[align=center]
[/align]“Is this what I think it is?” Rexxar asked aloud as we wandered into the ancient glade. I did not want to answer.
“This place feels..familiar... which is impossible,” Tahir commented as he looked around the forsaken, barren place.
“Empathic link?” Namael clarified of him.
“No. I dont believe so.”
I stopped in my tracks and knelt down. I placed my hand palm down on the earth, closing my eyes and taking in a deep, wholesome breath. I nearly gagged. The place radiated impure, defiled taint, something wholly unnatural yet wholly familiar, an evil so very very familiar to me. Not even the snow would dare rest its crystal feet anywhere near this place. It was as if all life had been slowly sucked dry over the course of the centuries. The ravages of decay were even in suspension here, a subversion of the natural order of things; although it was clear enough that all the trees, all the land had been ravaged with at least a millennia of abandonment. Everything about the place was so very familiar, yet so horribly wrong.
“That vision,” Sharon interrupted my raging cataract of thoughts. I looked up to see them all gawking at the scene which was before us. Vashtalla seemed particularly taken aback, canting his head while his narrowed eyes surveyed the devastation with gritted teeth. The shadows seemed to ease off at the top of the mountain, and before us the Falls of Bitterness were frozen over as the ice dropped off the cliff in perfect winter stasis. This was the place Vashtalla had seen in that moment of hypercognition; there could be no other. Again it was Rexxar’s ignorant enthusiasm which stirred me from these nascent memories.
“Okay nothing can stop us lets go!”
“It's. . . so. . . familiar. . .” I mumbled. What was even more peculiar is that everyone else seemed to agree.
“Hmm.Think so,” Namael murmured in agreement.
“It...feels that way,” Helena concurred.
“Mrhrm...” Tahir mumbled along with them.
I did not understand how this was possible, but being so close to my goal I did not really have the time to consider the implications at length. My eyes were naturally drawn to the stones along the forsaken path. I could feel them. A bitter coldness stabbed at my heart and I gagged for breath again.
“A little more pleasant than shadows,” Saileach said softly as her delicate eyes analysed the scene that was unravelling before us.
“I get... images of a ruined castle... an altar... a black monolith while I am here... Ravens and Crows...” Tahir blurted out. I felt a clutch at my heart, as if it were being gripped by a force not my own. I couldn’t tell them that, though.
I pressed on, and the path was not far. The deadness encircled an inner grove which became more apparent the closer we came. Five great dead trees lay spread on the barren, charred ground in the center of the clearing. For them to not have rotted away after all this time something foul was most assuredly at work. Of course I already knew that, as did many of those present. They were the guardians, the sentinel treants that had once graced the grove with their protective oaths. Their lives had been snuffed out by the same vileness that I was bringing back to the place that very day.
In the center of the clearing a withered tree struggled to force its way out of a rock, even thus surrounded with the prevailing death it defied the forces that sought to smother it. If ever an altar to nature's power there was, this was it. Behind it, as if to not detract from the power of its asthetic, sat a small table, presumably for offerings. Yet, the devastation was incredible. A thousand years later and still nothing had managed to reclaim the grove. Even the tree in the altar looked to be fading, though it hung on desperately to what little life remained in it.
“There it is,” Namael remarked in sublime lucidity. Each word was like a piercing arrow in my chest as my heart thumped louder and louder, each beat reverberating that ever increasing dread I had had ever since the day I had discovered the truth about who I was. It had all begun here, and like nature in its truest sense, the cycle had now turned full circle and it was about to end where it was birthed. It was getting very emotional for me now. I covered my mouth with my hand, even though it was already covered with my black facial mask. These were the stones, these were the trees, this was the soil tainted by abyssal power when the curse found its first embodiment all those years ago.
“Mhmmm I wonder what did that?” Rexxar asked while he looked around the place, eyeing the central stone for a particularly long time, as if he wanted to try to wrench it from its resting place.
“The first, Rex,” Namael answered him, although I doubt he understood what she meant. Rexxar had not had the priviledge, as Nami had, of plumbing the secrets in my soul and putting its pieces together one fragment at a time. The seer was the first to delve so far into my past, and at great danger to herself. If it were not for her, this great secret would have remained unlocked, and I would not have been where I was. I’d have still been chained; empty, hopeless and heartless.
I waved all my magic away as I stood at the verge of the druidic circle; it could do nothing for me here. No, what I had to do had been set in stone, as it were, when the curse was given its first birth. A thousand years of desperation, of death, of failed hopes for its abjuration had exasperated my ancestors, yet here I was finally having the moment of culmination within armÂ’s reach. It was a sublime and sombre experience, to say the least.
“What do we do from here, Cherry?” I heard Saileach’s voice from behind me.
“Keep your magic, my friends. . . I. . . no longer need it. . .” I answered her, and them, and stepped inside the circle. I felt all their eyes bearing down on me as if I were some circus spectacle ready to make her most impressive show. I could hear their deep breaths, pensive sighs, scratching feet and nervous fidgets in the relative quiet of the desecration. It was an oddly serene scene, one that caused my heart to beat with ever increasing alacrity as I limped forward to the stone altar. It was mesmerising. I lost myself just looking at it. Staring. Staring. Staring.
“Rex,” Danae spoke softly so as not to disturb me, but hers was the only sound in the grove at that moment. “Let Cherry. Back off a bit.”
“Cherry knows what to do, Rex,” Namael reinforced further. I was glad for it because my mind had become a tempest of whirling thoughts.This was one of those moments that separated friends from acquaintances. I could not tell all of them what I had come here to do, but those to whom it would matter the most I told pieces of what I had learned of myself: my past, my present, and my very unclear future. I could see them desirous, yet hesitant. Eager, yet apprehensive. Anticipating, and yet dreading the unknown as much as I was.
“Oh my bad,” the ogre replied according to what he knew, which admittedly was not a lot at all. “I did not know shes doing a thing here, hehe.” Nami patted his shoulder reassuringly.
“Kind of the whole reason we're here,” Tahir quipped softly, although he still looked fairly cautious and on edge.
“Well I meant in this spot,” Rexxar clarified.
“This is the spot where her curse begun,” the mild half-angel answered him once again.
It was true, of course. This was where it all begun. The devastation before our eyes spoke more than NamaelÂ’s obscure visions, or VashtallaÂ’s acquisition of long lost knowledge lurking deep in the streams of the Astral Sea, or even my mystical satiation from the Spring of Knowledge. It was a story of thirty six generations of witches enslaved to one abyssal master. Thirty six generations scattered, hunted and hated for what they were. Thirty six generations enslaved and ensorcelled by a will greater than their own. Thirty six generations of promulgated sensuality, of prolifigate fornication, of hearts broken, marriages adulterated, of innocent, and not-so-innocent, blood spilled unwillingly upon demonic altars. Until today.
Today, that blessed of all days, it would come to its end.
-
*Tsidkenu
- Posts: 156
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Cherry's Quest for Faith - Part XIII
“Sharon.”
“Yes?” she answered me, her head perking attentively in my direction. I motioned for her to come close to me. I no longer had need for my material possessions. My staff I handed over, that most useful of walking aids. No-one had ever seen the full extend of my deformity after we had departed from the Spring of Knowledge in Tuatha de Danan. The abysmal taint warped across my body like a coiled snake, starting at the left side of my face and spiralling down the entirety of my right arm and right side before it coiled down across my abdomen and deformed my left leg. I removed my mask. They had all seen it before, my yellow-tainted eye and disfigured face; it was nothing new to any of those gathered present. I handed my cloak to Sharon. It would only get it the way of what I had to do here. Sharon took them with an anxious quirk of her eyebrow, but said nothing. I could hear their nervous fidgets. I could sense that Danae had the soul prism firmly in her grasp now. It was getting close. So very close.
“Keep your eyes open in case something hostile jumps out,” Namael reminded everyone. She was right, again. But they would not come for them. They would come for me. Or, more specificially, what was inside me.
“So we made it, well they werent so tough,” Rexxar boasted. “I could of got here myself.”
“That was the easy part,” Namael cautioned him. “Now , let's wait.”
“ Enough, Rexxer... if you would be so kind. We did not and do not know what to expect from this point,” Tahir told him with a little more compunction.
“Don't worry I am ready!” Rexxars answered.
“But do not enter the circle unless asked. I shall be doing the same, I assure you. Magic is not our business. This is their job,” Tahir explained for the ogre’s benefit. Mind you, Tahir did not know what we were expecting. I knew exactly what was about to happen, at least to me. I reached for my belt pouch and took out my new black book. I had worked on it discreetly during my seclusion from prying eyes after we had returned from the Outlands. I had hoped it would be enough to help the rest of them get through what they were about to experience. I gave it to Sharon and pulled her in close to whisper into her ear.
“Open it when this is all over. Not before.” A silent, reverential dip of her head was all she gave back, a sign that our friendship was a genuine one. This was the last of my deep secrets I would entrust to her. It suddenly struck me then how true her friendship had been. She had been the first to volunteer to my cause, despite being in abject ignorance about my particulars then. I didn’t trust her. I had thought, at the time, that Odette had sent her to spy on me so that the witch-hunter could find the opportunity to slay me unawares. I have never been gladder to have been wrong, at least about Sharon’s intentions! She had been that listening ear when I needed to bewail my woe; that voice of comfort when my heart felt the heavy burden of my sins; that beacon of hope when I was at my darkest point, a shadow away from turning this very event into their mutual, sacrificial deaths. They knew none of where I’d been, or what I’d been through, or what I was more than capable of doing. Yet my own heart had seen a better way, and grasped for it earnestly.
I turned my hastening attention on Saileach, missing the moment Danae discreetly handed the stone to Argent behind me. Her mild attention was pricked immediately, her eyes gazing back in the quiet severity of the impending moment.
“It's time for me to go now, Saileach,” I whispered softly to her. Saileach had been the other one who had been there for me from the beginning. In fact, she was the one who introduced me to Sharon, the other stalwart in this entire quest, for which I would always be grateful. There had been a moment, when Saileach was called away on her higher duty to the de Danan, that I felt she would not see this through to the end. I had always held a faint reservation about her; she was a nymph afterall, even if not as flighty or pernicious as some of the other fey I had met about the Cage. Yet here she was, true to her word.
“. . . Will you answer that question?” she whispered to me. I had expected no less. Off in the distance I heard murmurings. Rexxar was asking what I meant by ‘time to go.’ Danae was murmuring to Vashtalla about something else. These miniscule and temporary distractions could not keep that question at bay for long. I did not want to answer it. So I just turned and hugged her.
“Keep my ribbon in your hand,” she whispered into my ear during that tender embrace. It was her token to me when she left for Pandemonium to continue her duty fighting abominations in the deepest recesses of insanity. She had nearly lost her life to them twice now. Yet I still could not answer her truthfully. My heart was awash with such a conflagration of emotion. I felt it would be wrong to give her a false hope, despite my real hope, that I was going to make it out of this as we all wished I would.
“Only time can answer it now, Feale.” Those were heavy words to say one so close, one with whom I had experienced sensations of love like I never had before. Yet, like all the others, the curse reacted just the same. She was fortunate to escape with her life that night. As much as I wished I could offer myself freely and fully, I was neither free, nor full, to promise any such thing. That was truly the hardest moment of this whole journey. Sharon stood by, her jaw clentched tight as her stoic display of neutrality tried to hide what I really knew was going on deep inside. This was going to scar the both of them. Deeply.
“I'm so sorry,” I whispered to them through my flooding tears. “Please, leave me now. . . both of you.” It was enough. It was time to begin. It was time to do what I had striven all my life for. There could be no more delay.
“Sharon.”
“Yes?” she answered me, her head perking attentively in my direction. I motioned for her to come close to me. I no longer had need for my material possessions. My staff I handed over, that most useful of walking aids. No-one had ever seen the full extend of my deformity after we had departed from the Spring of Knowledge in Tuatha de Danan. The abysmal taint warped across my body like a coiled snake, starting at the left side of my face and spiralling down the entirety of my right arm and right side before it coiled down across my abdomen and deformed my left leg. I removed my mask. They had all seen it before, my yellow-tainted eye and disfigured face; it was nothing new to any of those gathered present. I handed my cloak to Sharon. It would only get it the way of what I had to do here. Sharon took them with an anxious quirk of her eyebrow, but said nothing. I could hear their nervous fidgets. I could sense that Danae had the soul prism firmly in her grasp now. It was getting close. So very close.
“Keep your eyes open in case something hostile jumps out,” Namael reminded everyone. She was right, again. But they would not come for them. They would come for me. Or, more specificially, what was inside me.
“So we made it, well they werent so tough,” Rexxar boasted. “I could of got here myself.”
“That was the easy part,” Namael cautioned him. “Now , let's wait.”
“ Enough, Rexxer... if you would be so kind. We did not and do not know what to expect from this point,” Tahir told him with a little more compunction.
“Don't worry I am ready!” Rexxars answered.
“But do not enter the circle unless asked. I shall be doing the same, I assure you. Magic is not our business. This is their job,” Tahir explained for the ogre’s benefit. Mind you, Tahir did not know what we were expecting. I knew exactly what was about to happen, at least to me. I reached for my belt pouch and took out my new black book. I had worked on it discreetly during my seclusion from prying eyes after we had returned from the Outlands. I had hoped it would be enough to help the rest of them get through what they were about to experience. I gave it to Sharon and pulled her in close to whisper into her ear.
“Open it when this is all over. Not before.” A silent, reverential dip of her head was all she gave back, a sign that our friendship was a genuine one. This was the last of my deep secrets I would entrust to her. It suddenly struck me then how true her friendship had been. She had been the first to volunteer to my cause, despite being in abject ignorance about my particulars then. I didn’t trust her. I had thought, at the time, that Odette had sent her to spy on me so that the witch-hunter could find the opportunity to slay me unawares. I have never been gladder to have been wrong, at least about Sharon’s intentions! She had been that listening ear when I needed to bewail my woe; that voice of comfort when my heart felt the heavy burden of my sins; that beacon of hope when I was at my darkest point, a shadow away from turning this very event into their mutual, sacrificial deaths. They knew none of where I’d been, or what I’d been through, or what I was more than capable of doing. Yet my own heart had seen a better way, and grasped for it earnestly.
I turned my hastening attention on Saileach, missing the moment Danae discreetly handed the stone to Argent behind me. Her mild attention was pricked immediately, her eyes gazing back in the quiet severity of the impending moment.
“It's time for me to go now, Saileach,” I whispered softly to her. Saileach had been the other one who had been there for me from the beginning. In fact, she was the one who introduced me to Sharon, the other stalwart in this entire quest, for which I would always be grateful. There had been a moment, when Saileach was called away on her higher duty to the de Danan, that I felt she would not see this through to the end. I had always held a faint reservation about her; she was a nymph afterall, even if not as flighty or pernicious as some of the other fey I had met about the Cage. Yet here she was, true to her word.
“. . . Will you answer that question?” she whispered to me. I had expected no less. Off in the distance I heard murmurings. Rexxar was asking what I meant by ‘time to go.’ Danae was murmuring to Vashtalla about something else. These miniscule and temporary distractions could not keep that question at bay for long. I did not want to answer it. So I just turned and hugged her.
“Keep my ribbon in your hand,” she whispered into my ear during that tender embrace. It was her token to me when she left for Pandemonium to continue her duty fighting abominations in the deepest recesses of insanity. She had nearly lost her life to them twice now. Yet I still could not answer her truthfully. My heart was awash with such a conflagration of emotion. I felt it would be wrong to give her a false hope, despite my real hope, that I was going to make it out of this as we all wished I would.
“Only time can answer it now, Feale.” Those were heavy words to say one so close, one with whom I had experienced sensations of love like I never had before. Yet, like all the others, the curse reacted just the same. She was fortunate to escape with her life that night. As much as I wished I could offer myself freely and fully, I was neither free, nor full, to promise any such thing. That was truly the hardest moment of this whole journey. Sharon stood by, her jaw clentched tight as her stoic display of neutrality tried to hide what I really knew was going on deep inside. This was going to scar the both of them. Deeply.
“I'm so sorry,” I whispered to them through my flooding tears. “Please, leave me now. . . both of you.” It was enough. It was time to begin. It was time to do what I had striven all my life for. There could be no more delay.