Umber

The Eternal Champion, revisited; the adventurers attempt to aid Clement in the evacuation of the Bone March; the mysterious disappearances of Keraptis, Meepo, Alban and Moonshadow are explained.

The ancient elf and her young charge sat in a room of Lord Berrick’s manor, so absorbed that they failed to notice another elven woman, a young version of the elder, walk down the hall and stand in the doorway watching them. ”Can you tell me a story?” the little girl asked.

The old woman smiled. Lighting a half-burnt candle on the center of the table at which they sat, she said, ”Will you illustrate it for me?”

The girl giggled and stared at the shadow of the candle flame, and a moment later a dark butterfly fluttered across the surface of the table, along the floor and up a wall until it danced across the unanticipated elf still standing in the doorway. “Psydney!” the child shrieked, hurling herself at the psion.

Psydney’s bastard sword tucked itself unobtrusively into its sheath, and she met the girl’s charge with a faint smile. ”Callie, how are you?”

“We were just going to tell a story.” She tugged on the psion’s hand. ”You’re just in time. You can help me. Lia’s no good at making shadows play.”

Psydney knelt in front of the child. “Maybe in a little while.” With forced cheerfulness, she added, ”Sister Alonsa asked if you’d like to help her gather flowers for the temple.”

Callie studied Psydney’s face with more than childlike intensity, then looked to Lia. “Go on, Callie,” the old elf said. “The story and I will be here when you get back.” She stared at her daughter meaningfully. ”Psydney will be here as well.” The girl impulsively hugged the warrior psion, then ran out of the room.

As soon as the child was gone, Psydney rose. The bastard sword unsheathed itself and hovered by the window, watchful. ”You don’t fool her, you know,” the old woman said. She looked at the levitating blade. ”I cursed the day you left the Enclave to study the art of the sword. I’m not sure I don’t curse it still. Can’t you put that away for a while? There is little danger here.”

Psydney stood lost in thought. “I was still a child then. I studied the bastard sword because it was the largest blade I could hold, and barely that.” She patted the hilt of Crusader with something like affection. ”I’ve moved on to larger since.”

Lia’s face twisted into a grimace. “The enslaved planetar.”

Psydney sighed. It was an old argument, in form if not content. ”Duty and service are not enslavement to those who embrace them freely.” A shriek drew her attention. The i tipped itself unobtrusively out the window, but it was only the child Aaron teasing Callie on her way to the temple.

Haissha had told them of the boy’s petty thievery. She had banished him from Blasingdell, admonishing him to first go to the temple and pray for forgiveness before seeking his place elsewhere. He sneered as he left for the church, where Sister Alonsa found him hours later, curled up in a ball in a corner of the sanctuary with his eyes screwed tight shut. It took Haissha hours just to extract from him the information that he’d had a vision whose details he seemed too terrified to divulge. Whatever had occurred, he was a changed child, a conversion Haissha was strongly inclined to credit as much to the spirit of Frito as to Pelor.

Now he spent his days honing his skills as a scout rather than a thief, running swift, silent errands for the local shops and farms and visiting the girallons and svirfneblin in their underground homes. He prowled the forest as well, a test of skill that could have proved fatal if Scald and Hadrack didn’t quietly protect him from the occasional lurking beast or goblin.  

Aaron, Callie, Alban, Brin. Children but not children, all of them. Far too young to be made pawns in such a perilous game. Little danger here? “There is always danger,” she said aloud. “It can’t be avoided, but it needn’t surprise us. You taught me that.” When Lia snorted in reply, Psydney said, “What of Alban and Meepo, and the other Blasingdell children?”

Lia shrugged. “Moonshadow has told me that they are safe.”

“Their bodies perhaps. For now. I am less easy about their minds.”          

“What do you mean?” Lia asked.

“I don’t know if I should tell you, if you’re going to turn around and tell The Bard, of all people,” Psydney frowned. “Like you told him about the Wand.”

Lia’s eyes flared. ”Hanen is a good man, and a discreet one, regardless of his life’s calling. And he truly cares about what happens to you and your friends. Not just as pawns in the cosmic game, either, which is more than I’d say for that archmage of yours.”

“No one needs to lecture me on Tenser’s motivations,” Psydney snapped, sufficiently angry and distracted that she hadn’t noticed the middle-aged man who stepped softly into the doorway shortly after Callie left. ”As for The Bard and his discretion -”

“A man may keep a confidence out of duty or out of love, little Sister,” a quiet voice spoke behind her. ”I know of the harsh taskmistress Honor to whom you’ve sworn your allegiance, but do not deny the rest of us our small measure of virtue simply because you do not share its wellspring.”     

Rather than face him, Psydney closed her eyes and looked at him through the i. What spring did feed his apparent virtue? Lia, annoyed at Psydney’s refusal to acknowledge her friend, jumped up with unusual agility for her age and seized the bastard sword, intending to dash it to the ground. To her surprise, it refused to yield even an inch. “What devilry is this?” she demanded.

”It is me,” Psydney replied, turning finally to the bard even as Lia continued to stare angrily at the levitating sword. “Did you know Svengali took them all?” she asked him. “And the Keraptis child as well.”

Hanen entered the room. ”Truly, I  knew nothing of this. We were fellow travelers briefly, but Svengali is not in the habit of confiding in me. Nor I in him.” Passing Psydney on the way to the table, he glanced at her, Lia, and the i. Out of Lia’s sight, he brought thumb and fingers together in a gesture of collapse. “For her sake,” he murmured. The blade vanished, reappearing moments later in its sheath. The bard ushered the old woman to a seat, and Psydney joined them. “How did he part Keraptis from the paladin?” he asked.

Psydney’s anger rose again as she thought of it. “He knocked Sir Geoffrey unconscious in his sleep.”

“Losing his charge twice now must be difficult,” Hanen suggested.

“Difficult!” she exclaimed. “The man is shattered. I couldn’t look Haissha in the face when she asked after him. He blames himself, but how could he have known? He trusted Svengali. Tenser trusted Svengali. Far more than I would have. They never imagined that he would betray them.”

“You said you feared for the children’s minds, not their bodies,” Lia interjected. ”So you know where they are?”

“Yes, Bane tracked them down. They’re at the keep of an acquaintance named Blastir. We visited them there.” She looked at the bard. “Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

”The barest whispers,” he replied. “The few who know him or his brother Achomed don’t invoke their names lightly. But if you’ve all been there and you left again, I can’t believe the children are being held against their will.”

“No, they’ve been ‘recruited’ for an important task.”

“If you’re so worried about them,” Lia asked, “why didn’t you take them with you?”

”How?” Psydney asked impatiently. “By force? Fighting our way past Blastir and Achomed? Even assuming we could succeed, which is by no means certain, that would be a pretty lesson for the children to absorb. No, they have our hands well and truly tied. And if the children come to harm or ill, I’ll see them in hell for it.” 

Lia was bewildered. “But why those children? And why not Callie and Brin?”

”They were asked, and they refused.”

”I can’t accept that. Callie would have told me.”

”She doesn’t remember. Neither does Brin.” Psydney made a plucking gesture with her hand. “After they declined, Blastir saw fit to relieve them of the moment of asking.” 

”Interesting,” the bard mused. ”What drove some to go, and others to stay?”

Lia sniffed dismissively. ”How could Alban acquire good judgment with a kobold for a mentor?”

“Meepo was Tenser’s apprentice,” Psydney said irritably.

”Yes, but as you just said yourself,” the old psion said in a tone of triumph, “Tenser trusted the weretiger.”

“Geoffrey is a blinding beacon of good judgment,” the bard said before Psydney could bark a harsh reply. “And yet Keraptis went. They must have been offered something compelling. Knowledge? Power?”

”They were offered drama!” Psydney shouted. ”End times mumbo-jumbo.” She looked as if she regretted the words the moment they left her mouth, especially since though Lia laughed, the bard leaned forward intently.

”What do you mean?” he asked. She tried to deflect the question, but he persisted until she said hesitantly, ”What do you know about the prophecies of Lyzandred?”

“That they are said to exist. I have never heard any of them.” Psydney sighed. The party had turned them over in their minds so often that she would recall them even if she hadn’t committed them to psionic memory. She recited them now. ”How did you come by this?” the bard asked.

”Strangely enough, bartering with a demon at the castle of the Witchking. He’s some kind of scholar. He’s been working on a translation.”

Klavicus, the bard thought to himself. That explains the burning passion for ancient Suloise linguistics. Perhaps it was time to look the old balor up, find out just how closely he was following events in how much of the multiverse. “But what does this have to do with the children?”  

”I think Blastir intends to use them as a bulwark against what he believes is to come. As a counterpoint to those who would bring about the unmaking of the world as we know it.”

Lia laughed again. “Who would have the power to bring about the unmaking of the world? Not even the gods can do that.”

Hanen had already run the prophecy through his mind, correlating recent events, and he was not laughing. ”What do they think you’ll do?”

The psion rose and began pacing the room. “Who knows? All they do is mutter darkly. And build their child army. Who’s to say the prophecy refers to us? Or to anyone at all? Lyzandred has been a raving madman for centuries.”

”And yet you all worry,” the bard said. “I see potential references to the battle for Blasingdell – Kuhlefaran’s involvement in the creation of the Traveler’s Star; the enemy cleric’s amulet of both the demon prince of Thanatos and the god of death on the one side, the artifact of Fharlanghn and Pelor on the other; the eclipse; the infant Brin born in fire and bathed in blood. But what is the tree? Do you believe she is the Hand who will uproot it? And what of the reborn nation and He who was lost? And he of whip and flame?”

She continued to pace, muttering to herself. ”The Traveler’s Star is a simple piece of wood – for all we know that could be it. Or if we plant the gem and allow the forbiddance tree to sprout…the Hand could be Brin, or Serge’s prosthetic for that matter – how dead does a dead god stay? And who knows anything of the primal gods? And then there’s Caldni Vir…”

“Dead gods?” Hanen interrupted.

The i twitched in Psydney’s sheath. She longed to send it back to the window, but she had made a silent promise to the bard. “Bane wanted to know more about Serge’s lich-given prosthetics,” she said.

“A prudent desire,” he replied.

“So he cast a spell that would grant him visions about it. The vision led him across the planes to Limbo, to something that looked like a large rock drifting in the chaos. Only it was a rock with a face, and a body of sorts.”

“And let me guess – it was missing a hand and an eye,” he said.

She nodded. “And it wasn’t a rock at all – it was a god. Bane said it wasn’t a god from the recent past, either. He thought it was one of the primal deities, long dead, long forgotten.”

“I wouldn’t want to be nearby if it ever revives and comes looking for its wayward body parts.”

Psydney didn’t even want to think about that. “The thing I don’t understand is, how did Lyzandred and the demiliches get a hold of pieces of it? And what does it mean now, for it to be a part of Serge?”

“I think we’re forced to file that under ‘unanswered and possibly unanswerable questions.’” The bard shrugged. “In any case, I don’t see what it has to do with the prophecy.”

The psion gave him a withering glance. “I can, just barely, remember a time when things used to have an intrinsic interest and possibly importance apart from that damned prophecy.”

Hanen smiled winningly. “But it’s so difficult for me to keep more than one important thing in my head at a time.” Very much in spite of herself, Psydney smiled back. “And what’s this about Caldni Vir?”

She reluctantly joined them at the table. ”How much do you know about the political situation in the Bone March?”

”It is said to be grim,” Hanen replied. “The armies massed against the region are vast; some suspect the hand of Ahlissa working behind the scenes. And the loss of Clement hit the defenders hard.”

Psydney sighed. “And what would you say if I told you Clement was not lost?”

“Where is he, then?”

”Probably somewhere between here and the northern valley, as the pegasus flies. Returning to the remainder of his soldiers and several thousand of his people. Laying plans for rebuilding his kingdom.”

The bard stared at her incredulously. “And how, in the name of Fharlanghn, did they get there?”

Psydney refused to meet his gaze. “Through a system of deep caverns connecting the valleys of Blasingdell to the Bone March.” Her voice dropped to near inaudibility. “Led by Caldni Vir.”

Hanen exploded. “You’re telling me that the first Marquis of the Bone March, a man who died nearly a thousand years ago, appeared out of nowhere to lead his people to safety?”

The psion studied her feet. ”Not exactly. We – kind of – brought him with us. His skull at least.”

“What did you do – mount it on a pole? That hardly sounds inspirational.” 

“Hanen, calm down,” Lia interrupted. “Let Psydney tell us what happened.”

The bard fumed silently to himself, as he often did in the presence of someone who knew how to tell a story neither for entertainment nor information. T’lar was good for that – plucking data wholesale from someone’s mind and distilling it to its essence. But even if she were here, he suspected Psydney would object to the procedure, and for some strange reason she and almost all her friends, even the sword-swingers, had wills of adamantite.

“The Witchking’s demon gave me the skull,” she said. The bard laughed to himself, imagining Klavicus’ reaction to that phrasing. “He said it was a paladin. When we were on the Abyss, I asked Crusader if she’d attempt to speak with it, hoping to learn the man’s deity and perhaps a home temple. The skull was so old, she was skeptical of learning anything at all. But then there he was, Caldni Vir, not an echo but the fully aware spirit.”

Lia frowned. “That shouldn’t be possible, even for a planetar, should it?”

”Absolutely not. The only explanation she could offer was that, somehow, he had done it himself.”

”But that should not be possible either,” the old woman insisted.

“Caldni Vir was a man of rare honor, virtue, and strength of will,” the bard interjected. “Even for a paladin. Often such individuals redefine the bounds of the possible.”

”Crusader thought perhaps there was something in his life, something important, that still needed to be done. We knew only of his tie to Clement, so we went to the caverns where we last saw the current Marquis, seeking information. From the harrier of the enemy he had become very much the harried. He had gathered up all the peasants he could, trying to protect them from the invaders, but they were running low on supplies and defenses, and even fresh air.”

”If Clement knew of the existence of these passages,” Hanen asked, “why didn’t they make their escape sooner?”

“The peasants were afraid,” Psydney replied. ”They were convinced creatures of the dark, deep places waited to devour them. Clement lacked the force of personality to lead them through their fears.”

”Could you have defeated the forces arrayed against them?”

“Possibly,” she said. “Bane and Kuhlefaran have the power to affect vast areas of terrain. But the rumor was that the enemy had many charmed barbarians among them; it would be difficult to justify the wholesale slaughter of essentially innocent men. And above all things, I think Clement did not want that kind of intervention from us. He wants his people to become strong enough to reclaim what is theirs as their right, not to receive it as a gift. I believe he would have preferred to let them all die in the caverns, and he with them, rather than accept that outcome.”

Lia’s eyes sparkled. “So you summoned Caldni Vir!”

”Yes. Kuhlefaran duplicated Crusader’s spell, and he stood before us again, confident now, his purpose clear to him before we even spoke of it.”

”And he strode before the people,” Lia continued, ”leading them on.”

Psydney shook her head. “Actually, a white destrier came walking basically out of nowhere. Caldni Vir mounted, and asked for his sword.”

”A bit of a futile request,” the bard commented, ”if all the demon gave you was his skull.”

”Not quite futile,” Psydney said. ”You see, Serge happened to be carrying it. He has been for a while.”

Serge’s blade. Haissha had been complaining about a weapon of his at breakfast just yesterday. Rather stridently, in fact, and far longer than decorum warranted. ”You mean Caldni Vir’s sword was Silvertongue?” he asked. 

”The Justice Blade, he called it,” she replied. How quaintly dull, the bard thought. ”He asked Serge to hand it up to him, and then a strange thing happened.”

“The first thing you’ve found strange?” he teased.

She shrugged. “Yes, well…As the paladin’s ghost, spirit, whatever, held out its hand for the hilt, he and Serge underwent some kind of merging.”

“Something your rogue should be accustomed to by now, from the look of him.”

“Hanen!” Lia scolded. ”Go on, Psydney.”   

“The destrier carried them forward and the peasants, awed by the return of Caldni Vir, followed into the passages. All went well for a long while. The path dove deeper and deeper, with many side turnings, but the paladin never hesitated. Then up ahead we spotted a strange darkness, something unnatural. Bane called for daylight, and the patch of darkness retreated from it, then seemed to recover in strength. Almost as though the dark had consumed the light.”

“How deep were you?” the bard asked. “Were you still on the Prime Material?”

“Bane and Kuhlefaran thought not. They suspected we’d gone so deep that we’d entered a region where the Prime Material touched some small, paraelemental plane. We could probably have fought whatever it was, but no one was eager to see the effects of armed conflict in close quarters on a couple thousand already spooked peasants. So for the sake of expediency, Kuhlefaran joined Caldni Vir at the front of the exodus, employing her continual source of daylight.”

Back to the meat of the matter at last. ”The Traveler’s Star. A Star to lead, and a Star to light the way,” the bard murmured.

”Exactly,” Psydney sighed. “We didn’t even think of it until later. Bane pointed it out. When we emerged, evidently Caldni Vir offered Serge the rulership of the remants of the Bone March populace, and a more personal gift in addition. Serge turned him down, and I don’t know if it was the responsibility for a people or the prospect of paladinhood that was the deciding factor. In any case, when he declined, Caldni Vir conferred his legitimacy on Clement, then vanished. His destrier remained behind, now transformed into a pegasus.”

“I heard Scald caused quite a stir commanding troops in Blasingdell,” the bard remarked. ”I can imagine the effect of a pegasus.”

”The funny thing is, I think it had more of an effect on Clement than the people,” Psydney said. ”Before, he seemed very unsure of himself and his destiny. Almost as if he’d lost faith. Now that uncertainty is gone. He is very much the Marquis again.”

“He who was lost to rule?” Hanen suggested.  

”Rather,” she replied glumly.

”Of course, in the pursuit of prophecy’s fulfillment it is sometimes too simple to find what one is looking for,” he said. ”Still, what we have before us already is suggestive. And you said something about a gem and a tree of forbiddance?”

She nodded. “The gem was an artifact from the destruction of the Wand of Orcus. Bahamut warned us to watch for it, and safeguard it. He said to put it in the ground at a place we cared about. Once planted, it sprouts into a tree with gold and platinum colored leaves, and hedges out evil over some distance.”

”Did he say for how many feet?” the bard asked.

”Think yards. Maybe miles. He wasn’t certain.”

Hanen whistled softly. ”That’s a lot of incense. Where are you going to put it?”

“That’s still under discussion,” she said, in a tone which suggested the discussion was not entirely an amiable one. “The catch is, we can permit evil within its perimeter if we choose, but if a knowingly evil act is committed within its protective radius, the tree will be destroyed.”

“Uprooted,” he said. “Without anyone needing to lay a literal finger on it.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Psydney said. ”Frankly, I’m a little tired of thinking about it at all. The prophecy shadows every decision we make until we are nearly paralyzed by it. And then when we aren’t looking, appears to fulfill itself anyway.”

Lia had grown bored with the political twist the conversation had taken, but mention of the wand had brought something to mind. “The party started last night, and you never told me what happened after Enai destroyed the wand. Did you all just travel back to Celestia?”

Almost grateful for the diversion, Psydney resumed her story from where she’d left off the night before. “To avoid taking the brunt of the dragon’s breath attacks simultaneously, we were scattered. But now that we wanted to leave in a hurry, there was no way for Kuhlefaran or Bane to reach all of us at once. Knowing that the gem had to be protected at any cost, Kuhlefaran moved to its keeper, Enai, and prepared to return to Celestia. Serge was sufficiently close by to accompany them as well.

”And so they winked out of existence on our plane and back to the safety of Bahamut. So we thought. As for the three of us remaining, the dragon had once again brought Magnus to the brink of death, and although I survived a slap of her tail I felt unnaturally weak. Bane, our way home, felt miles distant, and to complicate matters further three of her coterie had dispensed with flight and transported themselves directly to us.

“Worse yet, I was certain that in her most recent attack on Magnus and I, she had not spent herself fully. She was holding a trick up her sleeve, but just as, with a sickening feeling, I guessed what it was I heard Bane’s voice in my head saying, ‘Don’t worry, l’ve got it under control.’

“I managed to restore Magnus to consciousness, barely, and carried him to Bane. Our Grey Immortal ally gave us a break then, as all of the coterie were distracted by the sight of a dragon shimmering into existence. And not just any dragon, but Bahamut himself. Bane penetrated the illusion, but it was a damn good one. As we expected though, when he cast our departure spell the dragon goddess laughed and it failed. To her surprise and outrage, however, Bane laughed as well and said, justifiably smug, ‘Nice one. But I’ve got two.’ He cast the spell again and shifted us away.”

”A neat trick,” the bard applauded.

“But there was scarcely any more to the story at all,” Lia protested. “You could have finished it last night.”

The bard, more accustomed to the ways of tales, and alert to the look of painful memory playing across the psion warrior’s face, drew a different conclusion. “You didn’t reach Celestia, did you?”

“Enai did, fortunately. When Kuhlefaran initiated the shift between planes, Serge saw with his special sight that it was being intercepted.”

“Someone was hijacking her plane shift?” Hanen asked incredulously. “That takes a great deal of power.”

“No one had any idea what had caused it,” Psydney replied. “Serge couldn’t do anything to prevent it, but he could tag along, and that’s what he decided to do. A good thing too, as when they arrived at their destination Kuhlefaran was unconscious.”

“And Enai?” Lia asked.

“Enai probably could have grabbed on to Serge and accompanied them. But monk that she is, she cleaved to her greater duty, and difficult as it was to abandon them she continued on to Celestia and Bahamut with the gem. Which turned out to be a very good thing for me.”

“Where did Kuhlefaran and Serge end up?” asked the bard.

“On the Abyss. Right back in Thanatos. Moments later Bane, Magnus and I were there as well, happily still conscious, ringed around the base of a mountain like points on a compass. Separated, and hundreds of miles away from one another. Demons patrolling overhead, and a strange sense of weakness overtaking Magnus and I, growing worse by the moment. And in the state in which the she-dragon had left me, I couldn’t afford to be much weaker.”

“What could you do?” Lia asked, wide-eyed.

“Before Bahamut sent us on our errand, I had given my bastard sword to Enai, in case she required assistance in a hurry.”

“What good would that do?” Lia asked. She still doesn’t understand, the bard thought. Or doesn’t want to understand.

Psydney spoke awkwardly. “The sword and I share – a certain connection. I can reach it with a thought if the need arises. In this case, I had the need, not the one I had given it to. But I’d never tried across planes before.”

The bard chose his words carefully. “So you – crossed over – to Celestia?”

Psydney nodded. “My arrival was unexpected, but Bahamut healed my injuries and agreed to send me back to the Abyss. Enai insisted on coming along, and entrusted the gem to Bahamut’s care. Knowing that we would be on our own, two warriors with no means of interplanar travel, she asked Bahamut, ‘Is there any way…?’

“The dragon smiled and nodded. ‘I will be listening. Only call my name and I will open a way for you. But do not delay – Orcus knows of all gates as they appear, and can shut them with a thought.’

“Enai considered this for a moment. ‘So he’ll know we’ve arrived. Would you mind – could you – open more gates than the one? Just to confuse him?’ Bahamut laughed then, a rather remarkable sound, I must say, and said it would be his pleasure.”

Hanen broke out in laughter himself. “Oh, what I would have given to see the sight! I don’t know which would have been the more awesome – all those celestial gates blinking into existence, or the look on the demon prince’s face as he tried to close them all.”

Psydney could see how it might amuse the bard, though she shuddered at the memory. “So now all of us were on Thanatos, and Magnus and I were still growing weaker. Bane could feel something pulling at his vitality, but so far had resisted. Serge told us that Kuhlefaran seemed to be almost flickering out of existence. Not dying so much as fading. And each time it happened, I heard a distant voice chanting something that ended in ‘diabolus.’”

“Was there anything special about the mountain?” the bard asked.

“When we were on Thanatos before, talking to the Zombie King, something very strange overtook Bane, Kuhlefaran, Magnus and I. A feeling of disconnectedness, like we’d been cut off from our sources of being – I don’t know how to explain it. And Bane, with his second sight, saw the remnants of a very powerful spell, cast atop that very mountain. It seemed too much of a coincidence that we were drawn there now, so at Magnus’ recommendation we all, from our separate points, began the ascent.”

Hanen was puzzled. “But what spell could have affected all of you in that manner?”

“I assume T’lar told you of the Eternal Champion.”

”And Tenser’s table. The one with no room for the likes of me. Yes.”

“Bane and I wondered earlier, although we had no proof, if somehow what we felt was connected with that, especially as Serge, Enai and Crusader suffered no effects. Perhaps someone was trying to create a champion of opposition? We meant to ask Tenser, but there had been no time. And now, growing weaker with every step up the mountain, I was afraid time was running out entirely, so out of sheer desperation I spoke the words of our champion: Deus ex unitae. I had no idea what it would achieve, but clearly our separate wills were not strong enough to withstand whatever was happening to us.”

“And the Champion assembled itself?” he asked.

Psydney shook her head. “Not exactly. We were one again, in a fashion, but the sword did not come into our hands, nor were we precisely flesh and blood. We did feel an immense Will, opposing our own, and we summoned all of our energy to push back against it. There was a flash of light, a massive explosion, and then Bane and I lost consciousness. When we regained it, we were on top of the mountain along with the only just conscious Kuhlefaran and Jake, tucked inside a cave. Magnus told us what had happened in the interim.” She stared out the window, silent for a long while, absorbed in something clearly unpleasant.

“Which was?” Lia said impatiently.

“Serge reported large squads of balor headed for the mountaintop to investigate, and a circle of fire that looked like the demiliches approaching for who knew what reason now. Enai was still some miles distant. Magnus flexed his fists, preparing for the battle to end all battles, when Crusader suggested quietly that he consider employing Gabriel’s gift. He looked at her skeptically. ‘Half of your party is down,’ she said. ‘We haven’t the strength to face this alone, nor to protect the fallen.’ He sighed and blew the solar’s whistle.

“A stern voice from nowhere in particular proclaimed, ‘The cause is just.’ Then, what began as mere streaks across the sky resolved into forms. Hundreds and hundreds of creatures, creatures no one but Crusader recognized had been summoned at the shrill sound. No gate had been opened, so Orcus could do nothing to stop their advance. Many attacked the balor, although many others broke off to engage the demiliches. ‘Kirin,’ the planetar breathed, astonished at their sheer numbers. They plowed through the balor as if the demons were of no more consequence than air, and they fell in droves against the demiliches, but they bought us precious time.

“Then Magnus and Serge heard shouting from deeper within the cavern. They crept forward and saw a broken sword, the remains of a table with paired handprints reading Power and Freedom, and collapsed around it six dead figures with blood coming from their ears and mouths. And two people, arguing. They recognized one of them.” She wrinkled her nose, as if smelling something unpleasant. “It was Mordenkainen. He was yelling, ‘This is not what the sword was supposed to be used for! It was for a hero!’ The other demanded to know what had gone wrong, but the archmage looked too stunned to reply. If he thought his day was going badly so far, he hadn’t seen anything yet. Magnus stepped out of the shadows, Crusader and Serge at his side, and the archmage’s mouth fell open.

“I’m amazed Magnus had the restraint not to attack Mordenkainen on sight – I’m not sure I would have. The other wizard, who had apparently been sustaining the champion creation spell, had no such qualms about Magnus however, and began to prepare an attack spell. To his infinitesimal credit, Mordenkainen disrupted it, and Magnus sliced through the unprepared enemy like butter. Crusader had considered anchoring the archmage to Thanatos until we could sort out what exactly was going on, but decided against it, and at the first opportunity Mordenkainen disappeared. But not before Crusader healed Kuhlefaran, and Kuhlefaran the rest of us, and he was forced to face for at least one moment what he nearly destroyed.”

The bard smirked. “Mordenkainen is handing out artifacts like candy? Where do I get in line?”

“Personally, I’m not amused,” Psydney said severely. “He almost got us all killed. And let an evil Eternal Champion loose on the multiverse. A Champion that would have been even stronger than ours, with no one to oppose it.”

“Well, he is about balance of power,” Hanen pointed out.

“Destroying one Champion and replacing it with an evil one is not balance!” she raged.

“But it doesn’t sound like he expected that.”

“So what? Then he doesn’t have any business lecturing us about going off half-cocked, making careless decisions, does he? Furthermore, I question his allegiances. What is the Eight other than a means for him to tie up powerful individuals in endless impotent debates while he skulks in back alleys making private deals with demons, because he knows better than anyone? Isn’t that what Tenser saw? Isn’t that why he quit? Isn’t that why he created us?” She laughed, a little manically. “Is that how history will remember us? There were Tenser’s Hunting Hawks, and then Tenser’s Sentient Golems? An epic spell, indeed.”

“What you say about Mordenkainen – that could be a dangerous thing to speak aloud,” the bard said. Seeing the angry look on her face, he added, “Of course, I suppose you’re the wrong people to caution about danger. Even so, maligning the Eight too publicly – ”

“Oh, you two and your politics,” Lia groaned. “What happened next?”

Psydney took a deep breath. She was perfectly happy to leave the topic. “Enai joined us, and –”

“Wait a minute,”the bard interrupted. “I thought she was miles away. I’ve heard she’s fast, but – ”

“Have you seen our new mounts?” Psydney asked.

“They’re hard to miss,” he said. “They scare the heck out of most of Blasingdell, I think. Hell, they give me the willies, with those obsidian bodies and red eyes. So they’re demon spawn? I’m surprised some of you are willing to travel with them. And vice versa.”

“It would be more accurate to say ‘demon-built.’ If you ask them, they say merely that they are Black. They have incredible inter- and intraplanar traveling abilities, and Serge says that, as far as he can tell, they’re natives of whatever plane they happen to be traveling on at any given time. They were the very unwilling servants of two balor, and Enai freed them. Once one of them was released, it transported her to the mountaintop immediately. As for traveling together indefinitely, we did stop by Celestia before returning to the Prime Material. Have you ever been there?”

“Never had the pleasure,” he replied, shuddering to himself.

“Bahamut offers all new arrivals a choice: a chance to atone for their past, as it were, make a fresh start. Let’s just say that even a paladin wouldn’t have a problem with the Black anymore.”

Lia shivered. “Couldn’t he at least have given them blue eyes, then? And some natural skin?”

Psydney shook her head. Elves and their prissy aesthetics. Sometimes she was embarrassed to be one. “Fairness is as fairness does, not how it looks,” she scolded. “In any case, Enai joined us, and we took stock of our situation. Once he was conscious, Jake was very nervous. Bane took a closer look at the staff he had been using to conjure up his Bahamut illusion, and it was extraordinarily powerful.”

The bard grinned. “Powerful enough that, say, a demilich might covet it?”

“Precisely. Having some idea of what was to come, and figuring we might need some help, Jake had snuck into the demilich city and stolen it. Borrowed, he said, but I haven’t noticed the demiliches observing much in the way of social niceties and in any case, he didn’t exactly ask them. We told him to be on his way, that we’d return it for him, an offer he gratefully and expeditiously accepted. Then we checked up on the kirin. The balor were obliterated, but the demiliches looked like they hadn’t taken a scratch. ‘The kirin are going to be slaughtered,’ Magnus fretted. As we wondered whether there was some way to call them off, Crusader suggested blowing the whistle again, and indeed the kirin departed the way they had come.

“So we waited for the demiliches to arrive, hoping to explain the situation. They weren’t openly hostile, or I wouldn’t be sitting here, but they weren’t in the mood for talking, either, so we called on Bahamut and headed back to Celestia. Our last sight of the Abyss was thirteen demiliches sawing the top off of the mountain. We rested in Lunia, visited Tenser, Yiss and Clement, and ultimately came here.”

The bard leaned back in his chair, looking at the psion. “What I wouldn’t give to be a bard a hundred years from now. It’s such a shame that all the best songs can’t be sung until the singing won’t get the subjects killed.” He grinned impishly. “Assuming there’s still a world a hundred years from now. Or even next week.”

Psydney glared at him. “Sometimes, the things you find amusing – ”

A small head wreathed in bright yellow flowers peeked around the door frame at them. Lia waved her into the room. ”Is it time for that story I promised?”

Callie smiled shyly. “Please?”

”Perhaps you’d like Hanen to tell you a story today?” Lia asked.

The girl’s eyes widened in wonder as she looked at the bard. ”A story just for me?”

The bard picked her up and set her on his knee. “A story just for you.” He winked conspiratorially and said in a stage whisper, “Maybe we’ll let Lia and Psydney share a little bit?”

Callie looked at him gravely. “Of course.”

“Lia tells me you do the most wonderful things with shadows,” he said.

The child nodded eagerly. ”I like butterflies, and daffodils, and little dragons like Moonshadow. I tried to do Scald once, but he was too big. Lia says I’ll get better, though.”

“Do you think you could make me a shadow of a little girl, standing against that wall?”

”I’ll try.” She concentrated intently. A vaguely humanoid shape began to form, but it looked a little like a wax statue that had been left too long in the sun. Psydney unobtrusively imposed another on top of it, far from perfect in every detail but realistic enough to save the girl embarassment in front of the bard, and speaking into the child’s mind said, “Try this.” With a model to copy, Callie improved her own shadow, and when the voice in her head said, ”Shall I take mine away now?” she nodded.

”Just what I needed!” the bard exclaimed. “Now to begin. Once upon a time there was a sword. It was not like other men’s swords. It was a little sharper, a little straighter, a little brighter, and it had thoughts, feelings, and in its own fashion a voice. It could travel the world all alone, but for it that was not enough. For what were the endless succession of moments in existence without a friend to share them?

“It knew of many strong men and women who would wield it with skill, some fewer who would wield it with honor, but this too was not enough. And so of all the brave warriors to whom it could have given itself, instead one day it stopped in a meadow where a little girl was gathering flowers. And do you think the little girl was afraid?”

“Of course not!” Callie exclaimed indignantly.

“And why is that?” he asked. ”Because she was a very brave little girl?”

Callie chewed on her lower lip and said hesitantly, with a sidelong glance at Psydney, “No, I don’t think she knew how to be brave…because she could see the sword was lonely.”

”And what do you think she did when she saw the sword?”

She puzzled over the question for a moment. ”Hadrack taught me how to feed a wild squirrel by holding out my hand and being very still. I think she would have done that.”  

“And do you know, that’s exactly what she did. And it was a most excellent idea.” He glanced briefly at Psydney, who thought the i out of its sheath and across the room, then placed it carefully in the shadow-girl’s outstretched hand.

Lia closed her eyes as the bard’s voice wove its tale around her. The sword taught the girl how to defend herself, then how to defend others. It exercised her body until it became strong, and exercised her soul until it became wise. She thought of her own failing body, and the wisdom she could have used years ago, and wondered in what miraculous world the two could have grown together. 

Psydney manipulated the i and new shadows in harmony with the bard’s unfolding story. The little girl traveled with the sword and grew into a woman, and they made new friends and traveled with them. And sometimes the woman was afraid of the power she and her friends wielded, and the influence they had, but at those moments the sword would remind her that they could only follow their own consciences and hearts and no one else’s, and because they had done so they had lived their lives well, whatever the outcome and whatever anyone else thought of them.

Callie made her shadow play, and if in moments of particular excitement the little girl of the story looked more like an orangutan, no one minded at all. The bard asked her funny questions, but she answered them as well as she could, and she had a strange feeling that if she answered differently somehow the story would be different too.

Hanen spoke on and on, spinning a story out of Callie’s soul. Tenser, Mordenkainen, Geoffrey, Haissha, Svengali, even Lia  – meddlers all. Everything this child ever was or would be was already within her, if only the meddlers would be silent and let her hear her own voice. Any one story was as less than a grain of sand, he’d always believed, and yet it was everything. And holding this paradox in one’s head every moment of every day was the essence of performance, and the essence of life.

If Pelor or Fharlanghn were listening that day, and if they thought anything of the tale, they didn’t choose to share their thoughts.