Loose Ends
Lonewolf summoned Nirahr again, being somewhat surprised by the colours of mana she had to use. He looked at her with strange eyes, then his gaze cleared and he smiled. "Thank you," he said softly, then he turned to Ishra and drew his sword with grim expression. Before even the young mage could react, he turned into a light and moved with terrifying speed. When he became material again, he stabbed Ishra through the back and twisted the blade viciously. Before the body hit the ground, he decapitated it.
Braktus drew his daggers angrily. Nirahr looked at the large thief, the fury of heavens in his eyes. Lonewolf moved between the two men and commanded: "Stop!" Both backed away, fearing the power of the mage. "I sensed three souls whipped into the planar pathways by the death of one physical body," quoth she and turned to Braktus. "One was of the woman you love, one was the child of the thing we just killed and the third... well." Lonewolf shrugged. "Even I can only guess its nature."
"It was the surviving spirit of another broken god," Comihlia said. "Ishra is a changeling. When children are born without a soul, spirits of nature like myself take it upon themselves to give them life. Otherwise they could be stillborn, probably killing the mother too, or worse be infused with the spirit of a demon. Ishra was one of these children and the demons are closer in the outer planes. Maybe the fey spirit was too late, for we do not find our way through the planes of thought easily.
"I think the god's spirit did not care there was already a spirit within the body. Standing in high places makes it hard to take no for an answer and unlike the Blood Pantheon, which fell to the folly of its own people, the gods killed in the Spirit War were an unpleasant lot to begin with. Even Ythiruna is more pleasant than the best of that pantheon was.
"We should have guessed sooner that some of their sparks and spirits survived by fleeing to the outer planes, but the bodies in the astral plane made us feel to safe. I hoped the dvine spark I sensed in Ishra was there, because she is a child of Arlaga, who sometimes forgets that she is not mortal anymore." She turned to Lonewolf. "Maybe you have the strength to call back the one soul that Braktus loves and restore the body. Your magic breaches the borders of time and planes." The young mage sighed and spoke: "You ask much."
The dryad opened her mouth to speak words of encouragement, but Lonewolf had already closed her eyes. She felt for her lands and shook her head almost imperceptibly. Slowly the young mage knelt next to the body of the small warrior and picked up a handful of dirt. She spoke the words that were now so familiar. The power of the plains became hers to call upon. Lonewolf touched the body of Ishra and let the energy flow. Time stood still in physical reality.
There were three paths into the planes from the body. One led to Gehenna, the volcanic hell, one led into the Abyss, were the demons lived and one led to Carceri, were traitors went in afterlife and powerful creatures imprisoned their enemies. Lonewolf chose the last route. She was quickly rewarded by finding the soul of Ishra, chained to the rock of an enormous mountain, a wound in the place above her liver.
She must have angered someone really powerful. Lonewolf looked for a bird of prey or a demon resembling one, but there was only a terrible shrieking wind. The young mage cut the bonds and carried the small warrior. Ishra had always been unnaturally heavy in life to account for her terrible strength, but her soul was light as a feather. So light in fact, that the young mage had to hold her with much of her strength to prevent Ishra from being carried away by the storm.
Feeling others trying to follow her, Lonewolf returned along the pathway her magic had created. The other souls were torn away by the wind or fell down the steep slopes of the mountain. Now the really difficult part would begin. The young mage felt others trying to force their way through the pathways to the other planes. Lonewolf hurried along the passage to physical reality, but it was longer than on the way into the planes.
Summoning a wall to block the only path that was now left, Lonewolf turned around and reached for her blades. She had forgotten that this magical projection of herself would not have physical weapons. "Go on," she told the soul of Ishra. "There are others who want yout body. You may have to hold to this broken shell a bit longer. The magic to restore the body is already on its way, but time flows strangely here."
A glimmer of recognition and intelligence returned into the eyes of the small warrior. She continued her laborious way to the land of the living. Lonewolf felt the other two spirits crash into her wall. Closing her eyes she turned to face the calmly, reviewing the magic left to her for this day. Two broken gods, reduced to demon lords battered the wall. The young mage strengthened it with the power of the earth itself.
Gods liked to believe they were the creators of earth, sea and air, but Lonewolf knew better. It was a natural process in ancient times, long before the creation of life, mortal or divine, before even the first spirits. The strength of naked reality itself was the greatest antithesis to a god and its ambitions. The young mage knew it was fortunate that on Sak Dakyb these principles were embodied by the spirits, who had proven stronger than the gods.
The help of one of them would be truly great now. Lonewolf reached out for the spirit of the dryad, but Comihlia was probably too old and powerful to answer. The young mage felt the wall burst. She was hurled backwards through space and time. She felt herself physically thrown around and caught by strong arms.
Lonewolf did not realise she had closed her eyes, until she opened them. The body of Ishra had been made whole again. There was a tranquility in her eyes that had never been there before. She turned and saw that she was in the arms of the dryad. The fey had perceived her call and pulled her back into the world. "Does she only have one soul?" the young mage asked. "Yes," the dryad said gently. "It had a strange wound."
"That punishment is an old favourite with the gods," the young mage said. "This was one hell of a trip. I really need to sleep now. I hope you will keep guard." Lonewolf had already closed her eyes, when the dryad said: "I will."
Ishra blinked and looked at the corn fields waving in the wind, the half-broken village, the large man near her and two other woman. Both looked into her eyes with unpleasant intensity, piercing right into her soul. She dimly remembered someone else doing the same not long ago, but the specifics were lost to her. Both woman were tall and athletic. One had skin pale as snow, the other had been burned bronze by the sun.
The darker-skinned woman with the smouldering grey eyes lay down to sleep. Ishra had the feeling that she had just saved her in more than one way. Another man moved near the sleeping woman and sat down next to her. The small warrior closed her eyes. There was something important she had been doing, but she did not recall much.
Opening her eyes again, she looked at the big man. She was married to this person, whose name was Braktus. Remembrance flooded her mind. The battles in the Blood War, the city of Sigil, the meeting with Braktus, the journey to the River of Steel, the battle with the insubstantial thing with the sinister eyes.
Something was different. There was no presence at the back of her mind. This body was finally her own, as it should be. In spite of all that, she looked doubtfully at the huge sword nearby. Carefully she picked it up, finding it to be strangely light, made for her hands out of alien green steel. Some of the knowledge she once possessed had not yet come back. A part of her mind suggested that someone her size should not be able to wield a weapon that large.
"You are one of us," the pale woman with the cat-like eyes said. "You are an immortal and fey being, a changeling. Most of the knowledge you had will return in a few days. You will know things your former self did not and not know some things you did. You will have to watch your partner grow old and die, while you stay young and strong."
"I love him and will stay with him to the end," Ishra said. "It is all part of the eternal circle of life. We all fall into love with mortals and for us even the lives of ethar are terribly short." She turned to Braktus. "We have to fill this life with as much joy and happiness, as we can." The large thief looked at her strangely. The small warrior wondered, what he was seeing and thinking.
Nirahr saw the two depart into the direction of their village, wondering if they would be safe. He did not feel the pull of evil, but perhaps he would not even feel it, if it was still there. Lonewolf seemed to be convinced, she had defeated the source. The warrior closed his eyes, but the only unusual entity he sensed nearby was the dryad. He turned to the woman.
"It is strangely tranquil here," Comihlia said. "But a little to quiet. The evil of the village has driven away the birds and beasts. Now that the unnatural terror is gone, they will come back in time, but not only the pleasant ones. These plains are home to predators, some of which may have a taste for humans." She smiled and rearranged her scanty dress to reveal more of her shapely body.
Instead of her beauty, Nirahr saw the inhuman spirit of nature, which looked more like a perfect wolf than a human. The dryad looked at him thoughtfully. "What have you become?" she asked. The warrior shrugged helplessly. "I have been born as a half-demon," he said. "When the River of Steel found me, I was something else and now I have changed again. Lonewolf knows the answer, but I will not waken her."
"Why did you agree to be bound to her?" the dryad asked. "I didn't," he replied. "She stole me from another mage." He shrugged. A part of him desired to be truly free, while another insisted that this was an excellent arrangement. Nirahr pushed the answer and his choice away, even though he knew what he would tell his girl-friend.
"I thought you were a snow-leopard or arctic lynx, but I see a wolf," he said to evade the previous question. Comhilia stared at him with her yellow eyes, that were suddenly wolfish rather than cat-like, completely surprised by the man's ability to see her spirit form. Nirahr returned the gaze unblinking, wondering what eyes the dryad was looking into.
"I don't need to rest," Comhilia said. "Let me guard her." Nirahr spoke evenly: "I do not need to rest either. Were I am from it would mean getting killed." The dryad said: "You are not that creature anymore. You should tell the villagers, they can return home. They will trust the son of their leader more than me."
Ishra needed some time to familiarise herself with the house. She had lived here for quite some time, several years at least, but the memory was still strangely dim. It had only been the blink of an eye for her immortal and fey soul, which felt truly free for the first time, since it inhabited this body. There was something important she should know.
Braktus regarded her with strange apprehension and distrust. Ishra knew her eyes were now glowing with the fire of the fey. "What happened to all the gems and coins, I hid in the house, in case we needed them?" he asked. The small warrior closed her eyes and relived that part of her existence in her mind. "I cannot vouch for anything that the other soul did with my body, when it was in control," she said.
"I suspect she caused one of the lords of Arghia to send a goblin army here, with bribes and the promise of an ancient artifact of evil. Most of your wealth should be here." Ishra smiled shrewdly. "I rehid most of it in other places, when I feared the other had watched you checking on them. I should remember most of the places."
It took Ishra longer to find them, than she had hoped. "I know there are others," she said. "But this strange resurrection has affected my memory. I hope it comes back with time." She looked at her husband, who had counted through the gems and platinum coins in the bags. "There is far more left than I anticipated," he said thoughtfully. He looked into the fey eyes of Ishra, which were now a deep green like the leaves of an oak.
"Can you still rage, like you did in some of our battles?" he asked. There must be a tranquil look in her eyes, Ishra thought. "Yes," she replied. "The barbarians call it the gift or rage of the spirits. It still rests within me, but I do not seek its forgetfulness anymore." She smiled coyly and said: "I guess I should get rid of my armour. I do not sense much fighting in the near future."
The demon hide took on solid form, tearing the scanty clothes she was wearing. Ishra took off the helmet, looking at the skull of the demon for a time. It had always felt right to wear a part of her most powerful enemy, but after the experience with the other soul and being violently impregnated by the phane, she was not sure. Finally she shrugged and put the helmet into its chest, hoping she would not need it again.
Braktus helped her taking off the pieces of the plate mail, which were almost impossible to get rid of alone. She carelessly removed and threw into the chest the padded suit she was wearing below, caring little she was now entirely nude. Ishra had not forgotten the effect she had on men in general and hers in particular.
"Get out of that armour," she said. Braktus had already begun to do so. Ishra smiled at him. "Now let us do what lovers do," quoth the small warrior. She helped him get out of his armour and stow it. Then they had intense and passionate sex right where they were.
Roland was quite surprised, when it was Nirahr of the adventurers, who came to the camp the villagers shared with the army of Nurm. The old commander could feel, his son had changed for the better. Dak'Yzal appeared next to him. "You have finally found yourself a decent woman," the young man said.
"You aren't going to tell me, that my previous partner was a succubus?" Roland asked. Nirahr shook his head. "No. She was just a slut," Nirahr said. "Thought she was too good for you and got herself killed by the man, she believed to be better. There is no fathoming some people's judgement.
"What I came to say is that the village is safe enough. We have defeated the evil there, but the blessing that kept it safe for ages is gone. You will probably be better off rebuilding on the Nurm side of the river. The soil and clime is the same."
Roland asked: "Will you not be staying with us?" The young man shook his head. "I am not human, as you know too well," he spoke. "I am not a fiend, but what I have become is no more human or mortal than what I have been. My place is with Lonewolf now."
Dak'Yzal looked at him thoughtfully and said: "Can't you tell us the tale of your adventures and redemption?" Roland looked at Nirahr more closely and saw slanted eyes glowing with the fire of heavens. "I will tell it to all who want to hear," quoth he.
Nirahr was true to his word. He aquired a lute from the army and began to tell his tale with a captivating melodious voice, that carried the audience with him into his youth in the Abyss, his slavery and his love for Lonewolf, into the River of Steel and the sacrifice he made to save another. He had never known he possessed that skill.
Comihlia had expected something spectacular to happen, when Lonewolf took her hand, but there was only a glimpse of a silvery void shot with thrashing veins of the same colour, then she found herself in a familiar grove of trees, too green and lush for the barren land of Norgund. There was Egania sitting with her back against one of the trees not wearing very much, but the large sword of crimson steel with its jagged edge was near her.
"I assume you were successful," she said. "Partially," spoke the young mage grimly. "The souls released from Ishra's body have become two demon lords. I was barely able to keep them from entering it again. Only when those fiends have been slain will our task truly be finished. I fear I do not yet have the strength to fight even one of them successfully. You are older and more powerful than me."
"Just when I thought I could settle down for a bit," Egania muttered. The dryad turned to her human lover. Comihlia was not entirely comfortable with the idea of going to the planes, far removed from her source of power in the earth and her tree. "I hope that has time," quoth she. "There may be more pressing matters on this world, which may require my involvement," Egania said. "Demons cannot easily enter the material world as you know, but if they were gods once, they will build cults that worship them if we wait too long."
The dryad sighed. Egania was right, of course. While Comihlia understood little about demon lords, she feared she knew what the other problem her lover talked about was. Having both adventures pop up at the same time was inconvenient. She would have to find someone else to guard her tree, when she accompanied the other woman and put herself into more danger, than she had since the Spirit War.
"If those demon lords were born from gods you killed in the Spirit War, your victory will only be complete, when they are slain," Lonewolf said. "It is even worse than that," the dryad spoke. "There may be more of these abominations like the creature you fought under in the village. Different in power and make, of course, but no less terrible. Only when all of them are gone, have we truly won. Each of these things carries that corrupted divine spark that makes them more powerful than any other monster."
Lonewolf met the gaze of the dryad squarely. There was strength and determination in those smouldering grey eyes. She seemed to like this land. "This place is amazingly similar to the one were I grew up," quoth she. "I have always been drawn to the wild," Egania said. "I have felt better with the ethar, in the swamps of Fliland, in the mountains were you grew up or here in Norgund than in the great cities. I thought I was changeling, but all true fey disagree with that."
She shrugged. "I may find the truth of that sooner than I would like," she said. Comihlia heard an anticipation of mortality in this statement. The dryad knew some of the answers, but even her knowledge was too fragmentary to come to any satisfactory conclusion. There were more important things than Egania's mysterious immortality. She turned to the young mage, hoping to secure her help against the demon lords.
Comihlia never knew exactly why she did not ask Lonewolf. "I have to go," qouth the barbarian. "I have a village and a lover to take care of." The dryad asked: "I have always wondered, why no other race clings to traditions so short lived?" The young mage shrugged. "It may have something to do with their short live spans. The village has lasted since the rise of the Blood Empires, for thousands of years, which is a long time even for you."
She disappeared in the blink of an eye. "Why did she say 'they'?" Comihlia asked. "We are trolls," Egania replied. The dryad looked at the scantily clad woman. There was no sign of deformity on Egania, neither physical nor spiritial. She was at least three thousand years old and must in fact have been born before... The dryad refused to finish that thought. The implications were too much even for her immortal spirit.
Most of the villagers, who had not already left the camp to live in Nurm decided to return to their homes, ignoring the explicit counsel of Roland and Nirahr, who had warned them of the danger. When they found most of their houses undamaged and in the same state they were in when hastily left only a few days before, many of them laughed at the worries of the old man and the adventurer. Everything was as it should be.
As much as the villagers tried to convince themselves everything was in order, they could not shake an uneasy feeling. Several of the tenements in the centre of the village were damaged. The inn, which had been the centre and meeting place was entirely gone. Some families had to move into houses left by those who had departed to live in Nurm. It was a strange feeling for those who had to change their place.
It felt like intruding into someone elses lives, places filled with strange mementos that had no meaning to them. Roland tried the best to clean out the rubbish of the previous owners and make the new residence his own, but there was little left for him to fill the gaps. Due to the disappearance of the inn had lost much of his own life and its mementos. Dak'Yzal and Nirahr tried to help him as much as possible, but there was little they could really do.
When the sun fell behind the horizon, they sat together and looked at each other silently. The woman snuggled in the arms of Roland, who mechanically embraced her, but was unable to truly feel and appreciate her nearness. There was a strange emptiness in his eyes. "We should be building a new village on the other side of the River," he said wearily.
"I know," Nirahr said with a neutral voice. While he did not want to see the villagers die, he cared little. This could not be his home, in spite of his father. His place was at the side of Lonewolf. He spoke: "I have been in the battle. The magic that protected the village from attack and blessed it with perpetually good harvests is gone. It's real purpose was imprisoning the creature we defeated." He looked at Dak'Yzal, wondering what she was thinking.
The woman said gently: "I feel it too, maybe even more keenly, because I have always lived outside the central circle of the magic. When the widlife driven away by the army and the wards returns, the monsters will come. The people will need our leadership." Roland sighed. Nirahr understood even better than Dak'Yzal how much the inn had meant to him. The man wanted to build a new one, but he knew that it would have to be on the other side of the Nujir.
Night fell outside. "I will not bother you any more," Nirahr said. "I have no need of sleep, but you should rest." Roland nodded. When he was at the door, the young man turned to his father and said: "You have to make them understand that home is not a place. It is the people around them, this community, which seems mostly intact. It will stay home on the other side of the river."
Roland nodded, but he did not know, if he had what it took to convince the other villagers. Several would get killed by monsters at least, before they saw the wisdom and necessity of moving the entire community. He was too tired to think clearly and barely made it to bed before he fell asleep.
Nirahr walked around aimlessly, wondering where to wait for Lonewolf, who he was sure would return to the village. Seemingly by accident, he settled down in the garden of the house of Ishra and Braktus. The small changeling walked out of the door and sat down next to him, wearing nothing. "You don't need to sleep either," he said softly.
The small woman smiled lasciviously, but Nirahr seemed to be more fascinated by the stars in this clear night. "We should not do that," he said. "We are both immortal. Let us wait some more decades." Ishra looked at him. He had changed much in these past days. She was sure that his lust still lurked within, but summoning one image of the tall and powerful Lonwolf did much to make Ishra understand, were his heart truly was.
Little speech passed between them, though both knew they would probably not see each other for a long time. Both stayed were they were until dawn lit the eastern sky. Ishra silently returned to the house, sneaking into the arms of her partner. Nirahr knew stealth had not been one of the small warrior's strong points so far.
He felt a familiar tingle. Nirahr's breath caught in his throat. His girl-friend had arrived. He moved quickly to join her. She smiled at him and kissed him on the lips. He followed her to the centre of the village, where she investigated the broken houses and the empty space, where the inn had been. "What are you looking for?" he asked.
"I was hoping to find at least some remnant of the original temple and its magic to restore the blessing," she said. "But there is nothing left. Not even I understand the magic used here. It must have been constructed by many people over a period of time." She shook her head, baffled by this mystery. "There is nothing left for us to do here," she said.
"Ishra and Braktus were the first to move," Nirar said. "Isn't it strange, that the toughest people in the village were the first to see the danger?" Lonewolf smiled gently and spoke: "They have been in the wild and have faced many dangers. People like us can sense it more clearly than those who have led a sheltered existence. They lost seven people in monster attacks and half their harvest was trampled. I had to send them grain from Esgara to get them through the winter. Civilised people are fools."
The young mage had spent the winter in Siema, capital of Esgara, studying magic, understanding the principle used to build the ward around the village. It was too late now to put that knowledge into action for that place. Winter had passed. A warm spring sun lit the rock, where Lonwolf was sitting. She was entirely nude, her legs crossed. She looked at her lover, who was also skyclad, his eyes slightly narrowed against the brightness of the light.
She was somewhere near the area she had lived in as a child, but there were only the birds to watch them. She said: "I should release you. You have become a true hero, a celestial even." Nirahr shrugged. "I don't like it when people call me a hero. I would be a dead man now, except for you." Lonewolf fixed his gaze. "Exactly," she said. "You sacrificed your own life to save that of Braktus, whom you didn't even like very much, not knowing if you would be resurrected by my magic or my binding. That is what it truly means to be a hero. Put the needs and lives of others above your own."
He looked at her, holding the gaze of her smouldering grey eyes. "You will be my slave to some degree," Lonewolf said. "It is the nature of binding magic. I know of some who only bind non-sentient creatures, but intelligent ones make better allies." She had that discussion with others of her allies, but they all remained bound, some even swearing fealty to her. There was one central difference. She loved Nirahr. Keeping him soul bound just did not feel entirely right. She wondered if she could make him understand.
Probably not. He had hinted that he could only visit material worlds under strict laws. which rubbed him the wrong way. When he was bound to her, he could always do so (at her call). He believed it was a mutually beneficial situation, but only Lonewolf understood the true meaning of the binding. She looked at the handsome nude man she loved.
Lonewolf spread her legs. "I may not be the half-demon I once was," he said. "But my passion and lust are still intense," he spoke. "I hope so," she said and meant it. Nirahr took her hard and with intense passion. Lonewolf tensed for a moment, considering asserting her dominance. She let the thought slip away and enjoyed the raw primal intensity of the sex.