Chapter 4 - Ice
To My Dear Distinguished Colleagues:
A little over two years having passed now, I have been
feeling it is time Veil spoke of her time with the priests of the dead
one. Such ghosts should not remain
buried deep inside, after all, and I understand many of you have been showing
curiosity and even some concern, bless your hearts, regarding her memories of
that time. Unfortunately Veil refuses
to speak of the matter, now or ever.
She insists that the telling will make me sad, and will listen to none
of my attempts to convince her that I’m quite a stout old man and capable of
hearing whatever she has to tell me.
I’ll not be giving up any time soon, however. I feel getting her to speak of this could
explain and perhaps heal much of her reclusive nature, and whatever other
hidden shadows still haunt her. She has
been known to spend the occasional hour in the barracks simply staring at the
single jail cell there. Very
distressing, indeed.
In the interests of improving the mood of this letter and
the mood of its writer, lest I spend the rest of the day worrying, I should
like to tell you that Veil has taken up dancing. Primarily elven dances, of course. Knowing her it is likely just another form of exercise for her,
and according to a self-proclaimed expert dance critic among the monks she does
not dance from her "heart". I myself
have not found it makes her performances any less marvelous, however; she is
certainly possessed of the legendary grace elves are so often known for.
Now, that is a much better note to end a letter on.
Sincerely,
Gorion
--
"You’re a sharp pair of lasses, aye," the man who shouted
before continued, his plain face and long red hair seeming faintly unsuited to
a leader of bandits, though the grime that covered them was much to be
expected. "And quite pretty ones, too,
I might add."
Murmurs and growls of agreement were heard from the other
bandits as Mijandra moved to guard Imoen as best she could, though with them
surrounded three of the bandits still had a clear shot.
"So pretty, in fact," the leader continued, "it would be a
travesty to kill you. Right men?" Agreement echoed slightly louder this
time. "Aye, so just drop your weapons
and hand over any other iron you might be carrying, and we’ll do the chivalrous
thing and let you live. Though…," his
face broke into a sickening grin that managed to show as much rot in his
character as it did in his teeth, "we’ll be expecting you to show us your
appreciation for our generosity, won’t we men?"
Cheers of hearty agreement sounded all around them. A darting glance over the rest of the
bandits showed leering smiles and eyes glinting with sadistic lust, much like
their leader’s.
Mijandra did not need to look at Imoen to know the fire that
was building inside her. A fire they
shared. Her knuckles turned white on
the grip of her blades.
They would not be taken alive.
--
"Hold, mage." To
Montaron’s surprise and mild displeasure Xzar heard him, understood, and
obeyed. Two out of three of those was
usually the most Montaron could ever expect from the lunatic.
"What is it, Monty?" the mage asked.
Montaron growled at the nickname and the affection with
which Xzar spoke it. ‘If he tries to
pat me on the head again he’ll be casting his spells one-handed.’ "Bandits up ahead," Montaron responded, not
bothering to hide his disappointment that the mage hadn’t continued walking
obliviously right into their midst.
"Bandits?!" Xzar squealed.
"Oh joy! Where, Monty, where?!"
For the thirty-seventh time Montaron cursed that he wasn’t
paired with another hin, or maybe a gnome, or even a dwarf. As it was the human mage’s dangerously loud
mouth was out of reach for his instinctive desire to clasp a hand over it. The same went for the mage’s neck, which he
once again longed to give a good squeeze.
Since the idea was to be quiet he resisted settling for a kick to the
mage’s shin, though his true desire was to hack both shins off and fix the
whole height problem permanently. But
that would still leave the hundreds of other things he regularly cursed about
his current partnership, and add the new burden of having to carry the mage
around.
"That way, on the road just passed the trees," Montaron
whispered, hoping the mage would get the idea to be quiet. He couldn’t just tell Xzar to be
quiet, of course. He tried that once,
and for days after the mage wouldn’t even whisper, just move his mouth and
expect Montaron to read his lips, not even speaking to cast spells. And did the mage notice that none of his
spells seemed to work during that period?
No, of course he didn’t.
The mad mage did seem to understand Montaron’s request for
stealth this time as he made an exaggerated show of tip-toeing to the edge of
the trees, looking like some fool actor in a play and accomplishing little in
the way of real stealth. Montaron
managed to resist voicing his disgust thanks to his inability to decide what
curses would best express it.
Meanwhile Xzar choked on another squeal. "Look, Monty, look!" he managed to whisper
as he waved Montaron closer. "Fair
damsels! Beset by these bandits!"
That had Montaron’s interest. But as he looked closer all he saw were a typical pair of
grotesquely large and clumsy-looking big folk women, and he cursed Xzar’s race
- and its corresponding taste in women - for the thirty-eighth time. Then he heard the words of the bandit
leader. "These be some of the iron
bandits we be looking for."
Xzar covered yet another squeal with his hand. "Smiting bandits and saving damsels in
distress! We’re heroes, Monty! Heroes!"
"Oh frabgerous day, kaloo kaley," Montaron muttered, drawing
his sword as Xzar began casting a spell.
--
"Put down your weapons," the bandit leader repeated.
Mijandra did not comply, standing with her blades ready for
combat, waiting. They would not be
taken alive, of that she was certain, but she could not resign herself to death
yet, and she found herself stalling.
"You have three seconds.
Drop your weapons before our chivalry runs out."
Mijandra only sneered.
Three seconds, then. Three more
seconds of hope that they might live through this. Then she would strike, and try to take as many of them with her
as she could.
After the count of just one their hopes were fulfilled.
Magic words could be heard coming from their left, seconds
before the bandit closest to that edge of the rode screamed and fell, a
halfling darting back into the trees behind him after removing his sword from
the bandit’s back. The remaining
bandits turned away from Mijandra and Imoen to watch, frozen for the moment in
surprise.
Mijandra shot forward, curving slightly to the right as she
closed on the bandit leader. Imoen’s
arrow shot through the space Mijandra left for her and came to rest in the
leader’s throat. Mijandra diverted her
path in response, stabbing her sword into the gut of the next nearest bandit as
her dagger sank between the ribs under his armpit.
The unseen mage’s spell finished as the remaining bandits
finally started aiming their bows.
Mijandra felt the spell pass over her as she chose her next target. The bandit’s bow was trained on her, and she
began the first few steps of another curved path towards him, eyes watching for
signs that he would fire, body ready to dodge the shot as best she could. Within those first few steps the spell that
left her unharmed gripped him, and he suddenly screamed, threw his bow away,
and started running from her has fast as he could.
Which would not be fast enough, especially now that Mijandra
could safely run straight at him.
Tripping and nearly falling on his own bow didn’t help him, much,
either. Before he could completely
right himself, however, an arrow in the back brought him fully to the ground.
Mijandra turned to see Imoen looking at her as she notched
her bow with another arrow, making a feeble attempt at smiling smugly. Distantly Mijandra recalled this was the
first time Imoen has had to kill anybody.
Something she would want to talk about later.
These distant thoughts were savagely pushed aside as the
battle suddenly demanded Mijandra’s complete attention. Briefly she noted two of the other bandits
gibbering with magic-induced fear, one of them being silenced by another stab
in the back from the halfling stranger as the other ran into the trees. But one bandit had resisted the effects of
the spell, and stood angrily behind Imoen with arrow ready. Four glowing red orbs darted from behind the
trees as the bandit screamed a curse at Imoen’s gender. There were flashes and swirls of magic as
each orb stabbed into him, a fraction of a second after he released his arrow.
The moment the arrow struck Mijandra’s vision changed. She ran forward in time to catch the black
shape of Imoen as she fell, a surprisingly easy feat with everything around her
suddenly moving so slowly. The shades
of Imoen’s face contorted in pain.
Mijandra was afraid to look at anything else. Afraid to look down.
Afraid to see the arrow jutting from Imoen’s stomach. Afraid to see, to accept the likelihood of
Imoen’s death.
When she finally forced herself to look all the fear went
away. Her vision did not show her the
torn flesh of Imoen’s abdomen, or the blood oozing from around the bandit’s
arrow. It did not show her the fatal
wound of a dying sister. It showed
red. Red ice. The beautiful veined red crystal that encased her father’s
killer. But it was different this
time. Now it moved. It grew.
Slowly, so slowly, but faster and faster, it lurched through Imoen’s
body, consumed her bit by bit. Consumed
her joyfully.
It seemed to dance, somehow. Dance its gluttonous joy.
And sing. Mijandra could hear it
sing, and she almost wept at the beauty, at the pleasure it brought. She caressed Imoen’s stomach reverently, her
senses extending beyond her fingertips to go deeper, to feel the red ice move
and grow around her, feel it embrace her and love her, and sing louder and
louder as it came ever closer to Imoen’s heart.
"I feel so cold," Imoen whispered before coughing wetly.
Mijandra’s eyes widened as full awareness of the situation
slammed back into her. The red ice was
not beautiful. The red ice was
vile. The red ice was killing
Imoen. Imoen was dying.
"NO!!!"
The red ice stopped, surprising Mijandra out of her
desperation. It stopped growing,
stopped dancing. But it continued to
sing, a different song now. A miserable
song, so miserable and so different from the song before that Mijandra almost
wept again, almost fell back under its influence. The song begged her, begged her for pity, begged her for… ‘Permission?’
"No!" she repeated, and the song became louder, more desperate. "Stop.
Leave her alone." The song only
continued, even louder, and becoming almost angry. She felt fury at the red ice’s disobedience come from somewhere
inside her, someplace that wasn’t truly her, and she began to push. Where her senses underneath Imoen’s skin had
previously let the red ice flow over her, she now began to push against it, and
it moved.
The song became more miserable than ever before. She pushed the red ice away from Imoen’s
heart, shrank it further and further back to the wound in her stomach from
whence it came, its song becoming more pitiful with every inch it gave. Half-guessing what she was supposed to do,
Mijandra moved a hand to pull the arrow out of Imoen’s back, then put both
hands over her stomach and gave the red ice a final push.
It left Imoen’s body to cover her right hand, and there it
remained on the surface, doing Mijandra no harm as its song begged her to free
it. As she watched Imoen’s breathing
and willed her normal vision to return so she could check the wound, she also
concentrated on getting rid of the red ice.
Like everything else about it the feeling of it on her hand was both
wonderful and repulsive.
Whatever control she had over it could not make it simply
disappear, and as she expected trying to wipe it off did nothing. The solution came as the last remaining
bandit, being chased by the halfling, tripped over Imoen and fell with his head
at Mijandra’s knees. At that moment her
desires coincided with those of the red ice, as they both wished to be free of
each other, and Mijandra’s hand was drawn to the bandit’s neck almost of its
own accord.
There she let the red ice go, and as it left her vision
suddenly returned to normal. Something
she soon regretted as she watched in fine and gory detail lacerations spreading
out from her hand to rapidly cover the man’s wetly screaming face. Blood drenched her hand before she could
think to move it away, though the thought never came, stunned as she was by the
gruesome sight before her. As he
jerked, sputtered, and gurgled in his last moments spatters of blood splashed
as high as her face. And then he was
still.
"What the hell spell was that?" the halfling asked standing
beside her, getting a close look at the fate of his would-be prey.
"Spell? I like spells." Mijandra couldn’t find the strength to lift
her head up and look at the new voice, though she recognized it as the unseen
spellcaster. Her head insisted on
staying down, as her stomach insisted on emptying its contents onto the ground
beside her.
When she was done she felt an exhaustion more complete than
any she had known before wash over her, one that seemed to extend beyond her
body and into her soul. With the last
of her strength she managed to aim her collapse away from both the body and the
vomit, to fall unconscious on a nice and clean patch of road.
--
She stood in a dark forest.
A forest that stretched on for eternity around her, every direction
looking the same, looking darker and more empty than where she already
stood. The prospect of finding a path
out felt utterly hopeless, the thought of moving from her current spot
completely futile.
Then suddenly there was a light in her peripheral
vision. She turned and saw a clear and
shining path through the forest. A
beautiful path lit in red, paved with stones and lined with trees both made of
pulsing red crystal. A path that seemed
made for her and promised to fulfill her every desire.
She took a step forward without thinking, then immediately
stopped. She didn’t like doing things
without thinking. She didn’t like
losing control.
Who made this path?
Where did it go? What desires
would it fulfill, and how? She did not
know the answer to these questions.
Answers she should know before a path should feel like this one
did. She should not feel so drawn to a
path she knew nothing about.
It was a lie. It was
a path someone else wanted for her, a path they wanted to force her down. She did not like being forced. She did not like being controlled.
Mijandra would choose her own path. The only path made for Mijandra would be a
path made by Mijandra. She turned away
from the shining path and walked into the darkness of the forest.
But the shining path was not to be easily ignored. No matter how many trees she passed it
remained the same distance behind, its light ever bright on her back and its
promises growing no quieter in her head.
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