River Of Steel
"We are already lost," Ishra said. Less than an hour had passed since they had left Lonewolf and Egania. The small warrior had assumed they were looking for the entrance of a cave, or at least a confined space that could contain a portal. "Terribily lost," Nirahr said. "We have shifted to another plane." He shook his head. "The River of Steel finds you. You should have guessed as much."
"How did you feel the shift?" the woman asked. "Only those born on the planes, can feel the transition and even I did not." Nirahr looked at her with a brooding expression. "I do not have the understanding of the wilderness my girl-friend does, but the fact that this light has no direction or sun says a lot." He touched the rock on one side of the path. "This is not a kind of stone I recognise and I have seen some things... I don't want to talk about it."
A strange fire came into his eyes. First it reminded Ishra of a demon, but then it changed into something different. Others may have mistaken it for the gleam of madness, but the small warrior identified the fire of individual strength. Ishra stood his gaze, but he did not blink. "I have changed my mind," he said. "I was born in the Abyss, from the womb of a demon. I had to fight from my first breath."
The expression of Nirahr took on a strange intensity. "I still have the arcane senses of my heritage. I do sense something terrible within you, something that tickles the terrible pool of hatred in my soul, which worries me more than my desire. I cannot help wanting all woman I meet, even less when they are as beautiful as you are, but there is something... in you, that is more horrible than anything I have met in the Abyss."
He turned to Braktus ans spoke: "You can only hope you are not near, when it takes over. Maybe she has already betrayed you." Ishra turned to her husband, but she was unable to read his face. Did Nirahr try to drive a wedge between her and Braktus for his own reasons, or was he sincere? Ishra remembered the other spirit that impressed itself on her mind occasionally. She could only hope that it was not as bad as the man had said. She sighed.
"Let me have a look at your swords," Egania said. "There is something odd about them." Lonewolf asked: "More odd than the fact that I was able to create moonsteel?" Her mother shrugged. The young mage drew her swords and handed them over. Egania whistled softly. "Perfect balance, light, fast and resilient," she said. The Eternal Wanderer used some magic, in the traditional way of speaking words of power and making gestures while doing so.
"They are adaptive in their power, just like my own sword. Normally only the ethar and dipasalians can make swords like that. You have already been imbued with the power the River of Steel gives. Forging them must have been an amazing experience," she spoke and regarded her daughter. "Maybe you should look for help on the isles of the ethar. The fey live openly among them, or go right to the crystal palace of Emanstaria. It is the fortress of the high fey."
"Time flows strangely there and I have to be sure of its passage," Lonewolf said. "Immortals do not perceive time as we do." She sighed. "I guess I will have to do with what I do have available, but it will be a tough fight." Egania looked at her daughter. She had grown up with the wild people on the south side of the mountain, until she had been exiled by her tribe, when she became to dangerous for them, being unable to control her magic. After that she had lived and fought alone, until she met Nirahr.
It was the first time in many years, the lone wolf was not alone. Egania knew there was one thing she could do.
They had passed three forks in the path. Ishra had chosen the straightest possible way every time, but Nirahr began to disagree with her direction. He had a feeling that there was a logic to all this, she did not see. He tried to bring up the idea a few times, but the small warrior seemed more sure than him. The warrior wondered, why his desire for the woman slowly faded as they moved deeper into the labyrinth.
Nirahr realised that Ishra did not really know, where she was going, when she sent Braktus to climb the wall and get a better view of their surroundings. "I do have an ability to find a path," she said when he was gone. "But it does need a clear destination. There could be all kind of portals and exits in the place, maybe even to the lower planes. I have tried several times, but the River of Steel seems too ambiguous as a destination to home in on it."
"It is too large," Nirahr said. "If it is anything like a real River, which is hundreds or thousands of kilometres long." Ishra sat down on a rock on the path and spread her legs, revealing she was not wearing anything beneath her short skirt. "You should know better than to tempt me," the man said. "A part of me wants to do this, and I am not talking about the one you don't trust," quoth she. The small warrior shrugged. "You know where your dark desires come from. I on the other hand can only seek the forgetfulness of bersek rage... or sex."
"Well," Nirahr said. "I cannot help you. Egania or Lonewolf may have that power, but I am only a simple warrior." Ishra said with a hint of amusement: "I seem to remember tales of you, the butcher and rapist of an evil mage." He sighed and spoke: "I am working on myself, trying to leave all this behind me. I will not force you, even if I could, but if you come too close..." The small warrior said: "I have fought with the fiends. I have seen with my own eyes what they do. You don't need to defend yourself in front of me."
The man remembered that Lonewolf had told him that all this fiendish desire burned in the hearts of mortals and not all could control them. He wondered idly, what deeds Ishra had been forced to commit in the Blood War. Braktus climbed down silently and landed next to his wife. He made no more sound than a soft breeze, but Nirahr heard him strangely loud in the unnatural silence of this place.
He looked at her with a reproachful expression, but spoke: "This place is a labyrinth I cannot not memorise. There are several passages leading underground roughly in that direction." He pointed. "It is our best chance, assuming we are looking for an underground River, which seems to be the best guess." Ishra nodded and led the way, standing up and starting to walk in one graceful fluent movement.
At the next intersection, Nirahr decided for another direction. He was sure that the straight way Ishra tried to go was not the best one to reach a goal here. There was something inherently twisted in the way this place was set up, something he understood.
"Do you know the River of Steel does?" Egania asked. "It gives weapons more killing power, often the ability to adapt to the situation at hand," Lonewolf replied. "It does purify the soul, but not the way people think when they hear the word. The personality becomes more focussed in its main aspects and doubts vanish. It makes people realise, who they really are." She smiled and spoke: "Some think the River evaporates the evil from their souls, but no mortal would be complete without both sides."
"What will happen to Nirahr?" Egania asked. "I don't know. He is not truly evil at heart anymore. I am sure of this," Lonewolf replied. "If I am wrong, I will kill him, but it will hurt. You worry too much." She looked into the eyes of her mother keenly. "We have both fought for the wrong side at some point in our lives. That is how you became to be called the Iron Doom."
The young mage shook her head. "There are worlds, were I am considered a god. I am strong, but not that powerful. Being worshipped just doesn't feel right." The older woman chuckled. "You will find, that you are worshipped by many men," she said. "Beautiful woman usually are, though most will probably be worried about us being that tall and strong."
Lonewolf thought about this. "I really have to go now," Egania interrupted her. "I trust you know, were the exit for the test is." The young mage wanted to ask something, but her mother was already gone. She closed her eyes. Lonewolf knew were she had to go, but she was a bit worried by the fact that she did not know were that knowledge came from.
Finding the path had not become easier, once they had passed below ground. The winding and twisting caves were confusing. Not even Ishra, whose sense of direction had been schooled in the outer planes, could keep track of the way they were going. Braktus seemed unperturbed, but the small warrior could see the subtle lines of stress in his expression.
They passed through lightless passages, which Ishra could only navigate, because she was able to see even in complete darkness. Her husband moved so securely, that it took her quite some time to realise that he was essentially blind. She had no idea, how he was able to walk with the safety he did, but Braktus did not even stumble once on the uneven ground.
Wind rose in the tunnels, howling weirdly through the caves. Ishra looked at her husband, but he seemed oblivious to the sound. The small warrior remembered the terrible wind of Pandemonium, the wind that brought madness and despair. She drew her sword. There could be a fiend or a madman around every corner. Everyone who stayed in those howling windy tunnels for too long became touched in the head.
The Blood War did not usually come here, but that meant little in a conflict raging through endless eons. Fiends would do anything to begin with and then some more if they were desperate or thought they had come up with a particularly clever plan. Sometimes the devils tried to fall into the backs of the demons by coming here, but more often than not even their rigid minds were consumed by the madness of the despairing howl.
War between mortals was already terrible, but one led by fiends, who were far more terrible and evil than even the most depraved mortal, was a constant run of horror. There was no quarter, no mercy and no give. Every fiend was convinced that it was right and that all others were frauds, who had to by eliminated by any means necessary. Ishra did not fully agree with that mentality, but on the other hand only a dead fiend was a good fiend.
She had slaughtered the enemies of her commanders and sometimes her own side too, when it turned on her. There was no way to say what a demon would to someone, who did not follow its orders, though it usually included whipping and poking with weapons to bully underlings into their ranks and prod them towards the enemy. Demon generals knew their troops were unreliable and regularly used mortals, who were better at following orders, but weaker than their own people.
In fact there was no way to say what a demon would do if she did follow its orders either. "Always collect first and fight then," an older veteran had told Ishra once. As often as not fiends were very reluctant to pay mortal mercenaries and only serious use of force could make them change their minds.
Ishra sensed a large presence nearby. She whirled and attacked without thinking. Anything on the lower planes was hostile more likely than not. Without a pause, she drove her sword forward. She changed its direction in the last moment, seeing Braktus and hoping it was really her husband and not some fiend using his shape. The sword drove into the rock, sending sparks flying as it plunged into the hard material.
"You are frighteningly fiendish," the man said, keeping his voice steady with great effort. Ishra could feel his fear. "You are weak," she said without thinking.
The maze was chaos in practice. There was no rhyme or reason to the way it had been arranged. It was not the flow of lava or water, which formed natural caves. It was not the terrible and evil logic of the Abyss into which he had been born. Nirahr chose his way at random, knowing that there was no right way. Any path was as good as any other.
He heard the sob of the woman and followed the noise, drawing his sword. He expected some terrible monster to leap at him, only pretending to be a helpless woman. Nirahr turned a corner and saw an actual woman. She was nude and her legs were scratched. She must have run away from something. When the warrior came closer, he saw that she was bruised. Without thinking he moved into her reach.
"Help me," she whimpered. Unconsciously Nirahr poised one of his legs to kick her. The woman did not even cringe. "Don't," he souted and turned away. He moved a step. "Don't tempt me with your weakness," he said with an agitated voice. "Where I am from everything that moves has to fight to keep on doing so," he said to himself. "You are strong," the woman said. The warrior turned his head to look at her.
The woman had dragged herself into a sitting position. She had a well-built athletic shape. Blonde hair fell over her shoulders in disarray. Clear blue eyes looked at him without shyness in spite of the fact, that she was completely nude. "Kill the bastards, who did this to me," she said. Nirahr did understand vengeance, but this had not been done to him. He would likely get into more trouble than it was worth.
The warrior thought of his girl-friend Lonewolf, but as much as he tried, the woman next to him crowded her out. He tried to think of another solution, one that was more diplomatic and peaceful. "I shouldn't do this," he said. The woman judged his gaze correctly and smiled at him enticingly. "You can have me, when my tormentors are dead."
Suspicion rose in the mind of the warrior. He had lived in the Abyss long enough to suspect treason and selfishness at every corner. Nirahr regarded the woman carefully with the senses of his fiendish heritage. If she was a succubus, she hid it well. "Lead me to them," he said.
She did so with amazing vigour for a person, who had just received a vicious beating. Nirahr noted she moved with the easy grace of a warrior and followed her own subtle tracks more than retracing the way by memory. Maybe she did have access to a small amount of healing magic. The warrior suspected she had been caught in the act with some kind of alien being. Humans could be terribly intolerant.
Stealing something from a god in her own realm was madness. As he grew older, Braktus always wondered why he had agreed to that insane venture. Gods were not as powerful as their priests liked to tell, but within their own realms in the planes, they were omnipotent.
It had to do with a beautiful woman as did so many stupid things young (and sometimes not so young) men did. She was tall and athletic, resembling an even more wild and wayward version of Lonewolf, telling him he had to do just that one thing for her and win eternal love. He had believed her. The woman was very beautiful and very charismatic.
The thief had descended into the tunnels of Pandemonium to find the ring of trust, which the jealous goddess Ythiruna had stolen from Girah recently. Braktus had plugged his ears against the howl of the wind, but the endless darkness and depression of the forlorn tunnels slowly crept into his mind. He was barely able to keep on his purpose, not even thinking of the woman, who had gotten him into this mess.
Now that she was not there in person, doubts crept into his mind. There had been something odd about her eyes, which had never looked into his clearly. Not even the keen senses of the thief were sure of their colour. Perhaps there had been stars in them, which were only in the eyes of the gods themselves. Why would a god need the help of a mortal?
Some people believed that the gods were frauds, powerful beings no doubt, but not as strong and divine as they claimed to be, just addicts to the beliefs of mortals. Braktus shook off these thoughts. Gods could not enter the realms of their enemies easily and not without being detected instantly. They had to rely on agents sometimes and the power of angels did not always do.
Braktus felt the presence of something terrible and vengeful. He reached for two of his daggers. Before he could draw them, the blade of a sword stabbed into his direction. Had he already been discovered by an agent of Ythiruna? The blade did not hit him, but the wall nearby, striking sparks terribly bright in the darkness of the cave. The thief had to close his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he recognised Ishra.
There was a strange madness in her eyes, which was not of this place, a terrible spirit of vengeance without mercy, reminding him of a demon, which he said. "You are weak," spoke she with frighteningly familiar voice. Braktus drew his daggers, hoping she would need some time to pull the sword out of the rock. The blades in his hand gleamed from an unknown source of light.
"Who are you really?" he asked. "I am your wife Ishra," she replied with a strangely docile voice. The small warrior was appalled she had almost killed her husband. "Old reflexes die hard and this place felt like one far more terrible," she apologised. The maddening howl of the wind was gone. "Let us find a way out of here together," quoth the woman. Braktus sheathed his daggers and his wife pulled her blade out of the wall with little effort. Getting it into the rock had required far more strength.
"Fight like a man," a voice demanded. There was a strangely shrill undertone in it. Nirahr said: "If you were a man, you would not have the need to torture and slay those different from you. I have seen more tolerance in the Abyss than in your mind." The other spoke: "That thing can only be a demon." The warrior said: "You have no idea what a real demon is like. If you did, you would be dead or a slave instead of standing here."
The men were typical thugs, brawny and none too bright. Their number might be a problem. "Get out of the way," the leader said. "Let us get to our woman. We will not let some fiend take her away." Nirahr looked at him icily. "If you rape her now, you are no better than a demon," quoth he and raised his sword. An otherworldly gleam entered his eyes. There was something almost toadlike to his face now. "Another demon," one of the men said.
Nirahr smiled grimly. They were closer to the truth, than they knew. He attacked them with the terrible speed of his demonic heritage, decapitating two of them with one powerful strike of his blade. Unconsciously he called upon more powers he had not used for a long time. Three more of the men were suddenly covered in a globe of darkness. His free hand turned into a terribly clawed, thing larger than his human hand. A terrible fear entered the hearts of the thugs.
He stabbed a man and tore open the throat of another with a claw. Nirahr had to parry an attack from the leader. The woman had picked up a sword and killed two of the men already. The warrior grabbed his opponent's sword with his clawed hand, which the blade could not cut and ran him through. Nirahr blocked another attack and moved under the blade that would have decapitated him. He grabbed the head of one man with his clawed hand, fencing with another.
The neck of the one in the claw snapped as Nirahr moved around to fight the other man with his sword. He stabbed that one and turned to the last remaining thug. A sword came out of his chest. The man fell and the woman was standing there. She did not hold a weapon. "I am not weak," she said calmly. "Let us find a quiet place," he said. The warrior bent to one of the corpses and tore a piece of cloth from one of them. He cleaned his sword, realising he had two human hands again.
Without fear the woman led him on. She took his terrible transformation with the same stoicism, as she had taken his attempt to kick her.
Ishra and Braktus had taciturnly decided not to speak about the delusions that had almost made them kill each other. They found an open cave occupied by an old man with frighteningly clear green eyes. His face was framed by long white hair and covered with a beard of the same colour. Instead of engaging in a conversation, he held a lengthy speech about the nature of good and evil, law and chaos and the multiverse. The rhythm of his deep speech and the emotional drain of their previous experience lulled the two into deep sleep.
They awoke with a start and the realisation that resting in this place was a dangerous idea. The old man was still there. "I have guarded you," he said. Suddenly he looked at Braktus with strange intensity. The large thief shivered. The old man looked into the eyes of Ishra. The small warrior felt his gaze pierce right through them and bore into her soul. She knew they would find terrible rage.
Ishra thought about the campaigns she had fought with the demons and the infinite horror of their war. Unconsciously her thoughts turned to Nirahr. He was half a demon himself, but that could be said about many people. The warrior disquieted her in a way different from the way demons did. Images of Nirahr were crowded out by those of her husband, the man she loved. Ishra liked to dwell there, but the piercing gaze also met something else.
Suddenly the probe was gone. "You are interesting one," the sage said. "There is nothing I can do for you, but I will show you the way to the River of Steel, both of you seek. It will give you strength, but it may be insufficient against the enemy you will face."
Nirahr and the woman entered a cave which was partly filled with water. The warrior assumed it was part of a larger underground lake. A bizarre creature was lying on the shore. It had tentacles and a crustacean shell, but the outline was roughly humanoid. "That is your lover?" he asked sincerely. "Yes," the woman replied. She seemed to avoid many words. "I assumed the men got him," he said.
"So did I," quoth she. Nirahr sighed. "I should release you from the promise you gave me," he said. The woman shook her head and spoke: "I will keep my word." The warrior looked at the being in the pool. It was more alien than even he had anticipated, but definitely not a fiend. "He will not backstab me?" the warrior asked.
"No," the woman said confidently and moved closer to him. She hugged and kissed Nirahr with fiery passion. The warrior did not even try to resist her. He wanted to be gentle, but it became hard and intense sex. Nirahr could feel her intense orgasm, wondering if she would feel that with the creature she professed to love.
When they were done, he quickly closed his trousers to be on his way. A look back showed him, that she was moving towards the creature and kneeling next to it. The words she spoke to it were probably healing magic. Nirahr shook his head and returned his mind to the task of getting out of this strange dungeon.
He heard a strange groan from the cave he had just left. Nirahr wondered, if the woman's partner was doing something bad to her. It was not really his business. She had made her choices and had to live with the consequences. Why should he bother?
He turned back.
Egania was visiting her old friend Antonia Numinus, who was an ancient orc, her green skin so dark, it was almost black. She was the supreme war chief of Esgara, but an army would not help against the enemy her daughter was facing. The Eternal Wanderer had come here for another reason. Antonia was a changeling, given a fey soul at birth, making her immortal.
They were in Siema, the capital city of the empire of the orcs, which had been grown from special plants, like all of the settlements in Esgara. Here the wood was so ancient that it had petrified into something harder than any human stone construction. Due to its natural growths, all the lines were rounded, fluent and natural.
"You are worried about your daughter," the orc said. "She said herself she needs a fey alley and that she does not trust the flow of time in Emanastaria." Antonia looked at her friend and said: "Lonewolf is smart and powerful. She has an understanding of the flow of time that none of us have. I do not remember any of us living near enough the old temple. If you are looking for help, you came to the wrong place first.
"If you want an ally for Catherine, your old friend Comihlia Winterpale, is your best choice. You have come to the wrong place first." Egania sighed. "That dryad wants me. I never returned to her, after we killed a god. Even for a full-blood three thousand years are a long time." Antonia said with a smile: "This is going to be one interesting meeting. You have postponed it for too long."
Egania thought about their meeting all those millennia ago, when she had first realised that she did not truly age. She shook hands with her friend and was gone.
The rift between the area of the village and the surrounding plain had decreased in size. The dark barrier was now little more than a shimmer in the air, a reflection where none should be. There was something strange going on near the barrier. Grass grew visibly from seed to great height in minutes, while in other places it grew backward from dry to green to young, until it disappeared. Rodents coming near the area aged in minutes and died of old age, while next to them others of the same species went through a retrograde growth, moving toward infancy again and popping out of existance, when they would return to their mothers womb.
Larger animals avoided the place, their instincts warning them of the danger. Time ran amok at the shimmering half globe. All any observers could have done was hope that this madness would not spread, but not even the gods could see this place.
Nirahr walked through the tunnel, realising he was not alone. He turned around and saw that Ishra and Braktus were following him. The warrior wondered, what they had seen and been through on their journey. Whatever it was, it had not reduced the strength of their relation. Nirahr wondered, how Lonewolf would react, when he came out of this.
There was a light. Nirahr drew his sword. He heard the other two also readying weapons. After their long passage through the darkness, all three feared the radiance was emitted by a hostile creature. Ishra ran past the men, her blade glowing in the dark. Braktus was so quiet and well hidden, not even Nirahr knew where the large thief was. Only some inner sense told him the man was still there.
When he reached the source of light, the warrior found it to be from a spacious cave, through which a river sluggishly flowed. Its surface gleamed like silver in light that looked like it came from a sun. Nirahr looked up, but there were only walls of rock for him to see. If this was real daylight, it came from far above. If this place was constructed, it was done with an art beyond any he was aware of.
He turned his eyes to the stream again. They had found the legendary River of Steel. Ishra moved into the fluid carefully. Silver rippled around her ankles like water. The woman touched the surface with her hand. She took another step. Slowly she bent her knee and went deeper into the river. Finally she sat down carefully and in the end even submerged her entire body. Nirahr thought he saw the head of a demon for a moment, but when Ishra rose from the river, she was as scantily clad as before.
The fluid fell from her body like liquid steel. Nirahr became even more suspicious of the deceptively small woman. Somehow he knew about her demonhide armour, but for a moment he had seen her two souls in terrible clearness and one of them... The thought and vision faded before he could follow them to a conjecture.
Braktus followed the example of his wife. He sat down more towards the middle of the stream. After all he was far larger and there was more body to submerge. He also rose again and moved to meet Ishra. Nirahr looked at them, part of him hoping they would leave before he made his move. The careful approach of the couple did not sit well with his nature. "What are you afraid of?" Ishra asked from the other side.
The warrior did not answer. He went towards the shore of the river. On a sudden impulse he leapt into it headfirst. The fluid did not feel like water. It was thicker and more sluggish on the webbing between his fingers and toes. Powerful movements pulled his toad-like from through the river. He was made for this. With powerful moves he swam to the other side, against the power of the stream, which tried to pull him to unknown places.
Strangely acute senses told him there would be a waterfall. Not even this shape would survive plunging down its depth. He emerged on the other side, looking at the two with keen eyes above a large mouth filled with sharp teeth. He folded his legs under him and leapt out of the water like a frog. When he landed, he was a human warrior in armour again.
The other two adventurers looked at him doubtfully. "You are the problem," he told Ishra. "Not me."