Umber

Skarp stared, a little wide-eyed, at the fiery creature and its hate-filled face bearing down on the youths from above. “What is that?” he asked.

“An undead demon known as an immoleth.” Hanen was convinced the words would mean nothing to the cleric, but tried anyway. “It’s known for two things: the intense heat of its flames and its hatred for all living things.”

The cavernous space of Klavicus’ thorax was dark save for the immoleth’s fire, and judging from the sheen on the young people’s faces and the damp hair clinging to their foreheads, almost intolerably hot. But they ignored their discomfort and spoke urgently among themselves as they glanced from the immoleth to a ringing, pulsing red crystal high above them. A glittering ramp leaned against the crystal on one end and disappeared into the darkness of the chest cavity at the other. Silver droplets shivered from it whenever the crystal throbbed. “I wonder what that’s for?” Hanen muttered to himself.

“It is the sword, is it not?” Skarp replied.

Taking a closer look Hanen saw that he was right. The blade’s point lay embedded within the crystal, and with each shuddering pulse the crystal was trying to eject it. The bard folded his arms across his chest, over his own heart. He didn’t particularly want to watch this, watch the old balor dying in such an intimate fashion – and if this demiplane was a projection of his injury it was growing more obvious by the moment that he couldn’t possibly survive – but he also couldn’t force himself to look away.

Regan was gesturing to the crystal, looking at Po and Reign. Po shook his head definitively, and Reign uncoiled a rope from her shoulder and began scrambling up the ribs in the direction of the crystal while the others turned to the immoleth. “They’d better hurry,” Hanen muttered. When the cleric looked at him expectantly he said, “I’ve been in a few battles in my day, and I’ve watched others fight. They held their own against the black dragon, but if they try to take that immoleth head on it’ll burn them up like paper.”

“They mustn’t,” Skarp murmured. “They mustn’t.”

For a brief moment Hanen thought he had misjudged them, and was glad of it. Seeing Reign climbing toward the crystal the immoleth immediately honed in on her, gripping her in a fiery embrace. But she wrestled free and Sugar Primrose fixed it in place with a spell, then Regan did the same with another, giving the warrior time to flee.

Zane conjured an astral construct as a distraction, but even that bought them at most a few seconds and they knew it. Saphira grabbed the rope and took up the free climb that Reign had begun while Po, encumbered in his armor, waited impatiently at its other end, but the tides of fate were turning against them. “They’re treating everything like a real-world enemy.” Hanen shook his head. “They still don’t understand.”

He stole a look at Skarp; the old priest’s gaze was fixed on the scene before them, his mouth tight with strain and his expression bleak. “For the daimon to destroy the children…” he said softly. “This should not be.”

Hanen was leaned far forward in his chair without realizing it, his hands clenching the arms hard enough to whiten his knuckles. He had no particular attachment to these children of Skarp’s, but he had questions to ask of Klavicus, and if hope against hope there was a road to saving him he wanted to see it taken. “It’s his story,” he snapped at the heedless currents of air. “Stop being so damned literal.”

Desperate now, Sugar Primrose cried out in frustration. “There’s a ritual, vines could ease the climb but it will take too long…”

But even as she said the words the staff itself began to sprout, heightening and thickening, branches low and high twining around vertebrae and ribs, making the difficult scramble trivial. Stars glittered among the foliage, dimly for a moment and then bursting into a pure white light that illuminated the entire space and outshone the lurid glow of the immoleth.

Hanen sank back, now glancing openly at the priest. “If only they’re not too late.”

“Too late for what?” Skarp asked.

Hanen said nothing; replying with Whatever it is they need to do seemed hopelessly banal under the circumstances. Their passage aided by Sugar Primrose’s staff they all began to swarm toward the crystal, the strange ebon horses’ instruction – kill him – uppermost in their thoughts. “Why are we doing this?” Reign suddenly shouted. “What is the difference between us destroying the crystal and letting the sword do it for us?”

That brought everyone to a near standstill, even in the midst of conflict. The immoleth seized the advantage and leapt after Po who, trained in martial arts but somewhat less in the art of brawling, wrestled fruitlessly to escape its grasp. “Whatever you do,” he choked out as his clothes began to smolder, “do it quickly.”

Just then Saphira looked down at her harp and realized that it was resonating to the sharp chime emitted by the crystal; she played a few very soft, exploratory chords, then settled on a minor key and strummed with more authority. The effect on the crystal was dramatic: its spasming resistance to the sword’s progress lessened and its very substance seemed to soften.

Scarcely less galvanizing was the effect on her companions. “About time,” Hanen grumbled as they examined their weapons and implements with fresh eyes, eyes that finally saw them as Klavicus saw them and wondered at last what that meant. Reign’s kukri were only a blur in her hand; the two halves of Zane’s orb circled one another energetically. Regan tapped her sword against a rib; it cut through it as if it were water.

Their enemy, the immoleth, was altering as well. Its form burned a cool blue now, and Po was not injured by its touch. The paladin’s sword billowed out into not just a feather but an entire wing, the fire demon sprouted a wing to match it, and arm in arm, two beings joined in a single flight, they rose toward the quieting crystal.

The tension remained on Opa Skarp’s face but was mingled now with fascination. “They are making an oasis in a blighted place,” he murmured.

Hanen was more inclined to call it a mirage, a pretty, transitory hallucination to ease the passing of an ancient soul, but this was not the time to quibble over narrative interpretation. Reign was still hesitant, unsure of what action to take. “Maybe we have to kill him,” Regan said.

“But why?” Reign persisted.

“I don’t know,” the avenger shrugged, “but my sword is all I have. I’m going to get that sword – ” she jerked her head toward the demon-slaying blade, “out of there.”

She jumped onto the lowest branch of the tree and began to climb. As the altar’s perspective matched hers, Hanen noticed that the tree – the staff – was absorbing material from the bone and flesh on which it grew. For a moment he shifted the view to Sugar Primrose and with a start realized that her eyes were glowing red. He shifted back quickly, hoping Skarp hadn’t noticed. The old priest probably had enough to worry about now.

Regan was just below the point of intersection between the crystal and the sword by then. She reached up and with with less effort than running a knife through cheese severed the connection between them. “I wouldn’t have stood there – ” Hanen began, then winced as a shower of molten metal dropped toward her. She managed to dodge most of it, grimacing as her lower legs took the brunt of the hot alloys. Kerac was right behind her, and when the demon-slaying sword resumed its advance he slipped his holy symbol between it and the crystal. The symbol held fast, and by exerting a little effort he discovered that he could even push it further away.

They had reached a moment’s equilibrium, but what did it mean? The sword was held at bay, the crystal hummed a low, calm tone; the outline of a ghostly heart lay superimposed upon it, but the crystal itself was growing no more organic. The immoleth hovered with Po, watchful but mute, and the youths looked blankly at one another. “Now what?” Reign asked again.

“We’re supposed to kill it, aren’t we?” Po said, and before anyone could suggest a different course of action and dragging the immoleth with him he attacked.

A sudden surge of power knocked them all sprawling, and a strident keening filled the cavity. Giving Po a rueful glance Saphira retrieved her harp and begin to play again, to soothe the restless demon. “Maybe not that,” she murmured. Kerac laid a healing hand on the crystal and felt it grow more malleable beneath his touch. Others joined him, and under their collective ministrations soon an organic heart beat where the crystal had been before, but given Po’s ill-advised assault they were reluctant to approach it aggressively again.

Zane studied the immoleth thoughtfully. “I’ll see if I can reach it.” He spoke no words and made no motion toward it, but Hanen had lived long with psions and knew he was reaching for its mind. After a moment’s concentration he said, “Change. Kill. Replace.”

“We have changed it,” Po protested, “and I tried – ”

“Reign,” Regan cut him off, looking at the now nearly invisible blades in the warrior’s hands. “Before he can react.”

Reign nodded and readied herself. “But replace it with what – ?” Kerac began the question and then his gaze fell on the immoleth. The others followed his eyes and murmured a collective assent. It made a certain sense.

A deep sigh from Skarp made Hanen realize that both of them had been holding their breath. “Perhaps it will finish now,” the priest said.

Hanen gave him a sharp glance. “Perhaps?”

Skarp’s answering look was cool. “Until our view grows wider than this – demiplane – it is impossible to say, is it not?”

The bard frowned and turned his attention back to the currents of air. Reign struck a skillful blow. Po, unsure whether he would survive the act, dedicated his deed to the Avangion and flew with the immoleth into the heart. Leaving unscathed, he returned to the others and waited as…nothing happened. After a time a voice from the region of the heart, or the immoleth, said faintly, “No…strength…”

Breath grew in short supply in Klavicus’ desert home again as the young people looked at one another in renewed confusion. Moments that felt like hours passed before it was suggested to Zane that he had not yet made use of his orb. “Of course,” Hanen mused, “he wouldn’t draw in anyone idly.” Zane stared at the orb for long moments more and then began to channel raw psionic power through it, but before Hanen could see what effect, if any, it achieved the currents of air at the altar flashed a blinding white that obscured his vision.

And then the view returned to the room where the ritual had begun. Hanen clenched his hand into a fist as a surge of energy centered on the demon-slaying blade embedded in the balor’s side burst forth, knocking everyone except Kerac, who was strangely immovable, back against the walls. The sword ejected itself with violent force and flew back at its wielder, shattering the man’s arm. But no ball of fire followed, and though Klavicus lay still as death upon the floor his body was still there, unconsumed by balor flames. Hanen permitted himself, for the first time, some tiny amount of hope.

Po, Reign and Regan scrambled to their feet, weapons at the ready. There were signs of a battle – some of the Veiled Alliance lay unconscious and bleeding on the ground, as did the Urikite guards – that Klavicus’ second surge of energy had again interrupted. But the quiet wouldn’t last forever. Alentha hurried to them. “We have to get out of here, now.”

Kerac looked up from where he crouched beside Klavicus, fingers pressed against the side of his neck. “He’s alive.”

The bard’s hand relaxed; beside him Opa Skarp looked equally relieved. “Alive,” Hanen murmured.

Reign bent down and slung the daimon over her shoulder. “Then let’s move.”

“Not that way,” Alentha scolded Regan as she made for the way they had come. She slid aside a hidden panel in one wall. “Through the sewers. It won’t get you outside the city gates, but you’ll be far away from here.”

“How do we get through the gates?” Zane asked.

Alentha shifted uncomfortably. “The least conspicuous would be a – ah – slave wagon. We’d have to shackle you – lightly, for appearances,” she added hurriedly as she met with scowls on every face. “One of you could ride with the driver if you would be more – comfortable.”

They seemed not overly fond of the idea, but agreed, and elected Saphira to be their eyes, ears and tongue. Although the lieutenant commander’s demon-slaying sword had been destroyed, killing him in the process, Zane insisted on pausing to strip him of his remaining armor as booty, and over Regan’s objections Sugar Primrose left the slowly reviving guards a few elemental presents to remember her by.

Their flight was proceeding as smoothly as could be expected and they were nearing the city gates when a panicked-looking man came running toward the wagon, waving his arms and looking at Saphira with cautious recognition. “You! You!” he called. “Have you purchased goods from the merchant Dali Fen Siri Trator?”

Looking as if she feared attracting more attention if she tried to ignore him than otherwise, Saphira acknowledged him. “Yes, we did.”

“His stash!” the man shouted, growing no calmer for the assent. “Do you have his stash?” She nodded. “I need it! You must sell it to me!”

She studied him with a look of mild disapproval, no doubt seeing a desperate addict separated from his supply. But if he were sufficiently desperate…“We need to get through the gates with minimal interference,” she said. “Provide us a distraction and it’s yours.”

“Done,” he agreed, even as Regan was hissing, “Not all of it,” at Saphira. The bard separated a small portion for the avenger and tossed the rest to the stranger. He caught it with a sigh of relief, then began running for the gates. Even as he ran, though there was no obvious spark his pants began to smolder and then burst into flame. The gate guards were so taken aback by the sight that it took them a moment when he dashed past to gather their wits and chase after him, leaving only a single sentinel behind, and even that guard gave the unexceptional wagon the merest glance before sprinting after his comrades.

It was too curious an incident for Hanen to let pass. Skarp, of course, wanted to follow the wagon into the desert, but Hanen’s facility with the elemental altars was gradually returning and he allowed the youths’ progress to play out in the air currents while flames leapt up from the small, ever-burning fire to follow the source of their distraction.

* * *

The man eluded the guards easily and sped further into the desert, extinguishing the flames – which had done no particular harm to his clothing – as soon as he was out of sight. Anxiety contorting his face, he slowed only slightly in spite of the heat, accelerating again as three thin columns of smoke were visible to his sight.

Four wagons met his gaze. Three were burned to char and one, with a wheel that was mounted somewhat off center, was completely undamaged. An agitated man was poking through the rubble with a spoke. “Master Fen?” the new arrival said in a soft, soothing voice.

In spite of his care in approaching he had to hurl himself to the ground to avoid a powerful gout of flame erupting from the other man’s hands. “Why are you still standing?” the attacker demanded of the prone form. He prepared to launch another assault then, examining his victim more attentively, pressed a hand to his forehead instead. “Don’t startle me like that, Apprentice – apprentice? No, that was before, I’m a merchant – what are you doing here?”

The other man rose and rooted around in the bag Saphira had tossed him. Lighting a dark, slender roll of leaves with the tip of a finger, he held it out. “It is time to relax after your labors, Master Fen…”

He gave the proffered leaf a suspicious glance, then snatched it greedily and took a deep draw. “Yesss,” he extended the s with his exhale. “Perhaps that is a good idea.” He settled himself in the shade of his wagon. “A good idea indeed.”

Dali Fen Siri Trator’s once upon a time apprentice resumed his once upon a time sane master’s perusal of the ruins with more purpose. As his investigations concluded he sighed to himself. “Legitimate merchants,” he murmured. “It will take some time – and money – to hush this up.”

* * *

His curiosity satisfied, Hanen permitted the fire to subside and returned his attention to Skarp’s children. The waggoner had stopped to remove their shackles and their relief at being free was so great that it took them a moment to realize that Klavicus had begun to stir. He muttered a few words, then collapsed into unconsciousness again.

“Did anyone hear that?” Zane asked.

Reign, who had been closest to him, nodded. “To Tyr, by the road,” she repeated confidently. “That’s what he said.”

Hanen and Skarp groaned in unison. The words had been plain to them, and not what Reign had said. “Toward Tyr, but not by the road,” Hanen sighed.

They had far more company than they would have liked as they traveled, and hearing Klavicus properly wouldn’t have allowed them to evade all of it. The cloud of dust behind them was almost certainly the Urikites – probably more hell-bent on capturing the people who had assaulted them and then fled than in apprehending the infamous Preserver – and certainly they would have had a harder time keeping up or even perhaps finding them in the first place off the road. But the buzzards that mysteriously persisted in flying overhead, and the overland dust clouds that kept pace with them even though the road should have given them the advantage were another matter altogether. “Perhaps it does not matter,” Opa Skarp said. “Traveling on foot with the daimon unconscious would be slow and difficult.”

Hanen had his doubts about the not mattering, but kept them to himself. The young people traveled by night and rested by day, and though they were tracked and pursued they remained unmolested for nearly a week. Hanen and Opa Skarp took it in turns to watch them, each promising to wake the other if anything extraordinary occurred, but as the weary days and nights dragged on the only thing out of the ordinary was the fact that Klavicus showed no signs of regaining consciousness.

Very early on the sixth morning since the youths’ flight from Urik Hanen was awakened by Skarp nudging his shoulder. “They are leaving the road.”

Still dressed, Hanen smoothed his rumpled hair as he headed toward the altar. “Do you know why?”

“From what they’ve said, it appears that they shared the same dream. Dark, disturbing images and a voice telling them – ”

“Toward Tyr, but not by the road?” Hanen interjected. Skarp nodded. “Let me guess, they’re wondering why he changed his mind.”

“They believe it in response to a new threat.”

Hanen took his seat near the altar and observed two clouds of dust, one behind as before and one ahead. “They could be friends, I suppose.”

“Although Regan refused to send a message to Tyr,” Skarp reminded him. Hanen had been a little surprised by that; though apparently the youths were some kind of heroes in this place called Tyr and Zane counseled in favor of it, Regan had communicated their situation to a woman called Mahlanda and no one else. In any case, they took the daimon’s repeated message as a new warning and prepared to abandon the wagon and head overland.

Zane spoke with the driver while the others rigged up a litter to carry the unconscious daimon. “Do you want to come with us?” he asked.

Eyeing the Preserver a little nervously, and their dwindling water reserves even more so, the waggoner shook his head. “I’ll take my chances on the road.”

“Should we – ” the psion hesitated before continuing, “rough you up a little? An empty slaver’s wagon…”

“Aye,” the man concurred with a sigh, “that’s probably for the best. But in any case, they’re more likely after you than me.”

The state of their water was also of concern to the youths; it certainly wasn’t enough to get them to Tyr. “The Vale isn’t too far out of the way,” Kerac pointed out. “And it has water.”

It seemed a good plan; they sent a missive ahead to Desverendi, the druid tender of the Vale, and set out. The night’s travel passed uneventfully, and most of the next day, although they were chased out of an oasis by threatening, animated plants of a kind unfamiliar to Hanen. Dust clouds still paced them to the sides, and the buzzards persisted in advertising their position for miles across the desert, but it wasn’t until the end of the eighth day, shortly after they made camp, that the first real sign of trouble threatened.

They were just finishing a hot meal cooked over a small, protected fire when screams rang out in the night a few hundred yards away, carrying with them the sounds of battle. Fingers twitched toward swords but troubled gazes drifted toward the unconscious Preserver. Finally Regan shook her head. “We have what we need to protect right here.”

No one looked happy, not even Regan, but no one contradicted her, and Zane voiced aloud his agreement. They settled back into a watchful guard, the last remnants of dinner untouched, staring glumly into the fire as the screams reached a crescendo and faded, leaving the subdued crackling of the flames the loudest sound in their region of the desert. Several hours later they were discussing guard rotations and preparing for sleep when the sound of approaching feet put them on alert.

Hanen gasped when four creatures looking like nothing so much as somewhat larger then man-sized, dark-skinned praying mantises stepped cautiously within the fire’s small circle of light. They each held dangerous looking, crystalline throwing wedges in an upper hand and strange, double-bladed polearms in a lower, at the ready but not poised for obvious attack. “What are they?” he exclaimed in horror.

Skarp looked toward him in surprise, then nodded in understanding. “They are called thri-kreen. The gythka,” he pointed toward the polearm, “and the chatkcha are unique to them. They are dangerous foes,” he added as Po and Regan unsheathed weapons and Zane drew on psionic energy to match the humming around the thri-kreen, “as those three have already learned.”

Even in their alien insectoid eyes Hanen could read a confident superiority, of wolves observing sheep, that made him shiver. Skarp’s children stood calm and determined in the face of it, however, and merely asked the thri-kreen their business. The slender necks swiveled toward the dark bundle that was Klavicus motionless by the fire. “You have the Great One with you?” Their speech was difficult to understand, accented with clicks and chirps.

The young people let out a collective sigh, with expressions on their faces that said Does everyone between Urik and Tyr know where we are and who we’re carrying? “Say no and send them on their way,” Hanen muttered.

“That would be the worst possible response they could make,” Opa Skarp said, “if they wish to avoid a dangerous conflict.”

Zane, Regan and Po nodded suspiciously, keeping a close eye on the thri-kreen as they drew nearer. “What is wrong with him?” they asked.

“We were aiding him in a ritual,” Kerac offered. “It was interrupted.”

“Has he spoken to you?” One of the four probed the Preserver’s face, neck and torso with long, delicate fingers.

“Only once. He has been unconscious the rest of the time.”

The thri-kreen gently lifted an eyelid then let it fall shut again. “Has he spoken to you?” He sounded even more impatient and disdainful, though Hanen was surprised that was possible.

“We did share a dream,” Kerac said.

“Only one?” The youths nodded. The thri-kreen conferred among themselves briefly, then the one who had been examining Klavicus said, “We will assist you in attempting another.”

Hanen looked over at Opa Skarp. “They aren’t actually going to go to sleep with those – things – awake in their vicinity, are they? What’s to keep the insects from slitting their throats and carrying Klavicus away?”

“The children are the appointed guardians of the daimon. If they hold him in high esteem, the thri-kreen,” he put emphasis on the name, giving Hanen a reproachful look, “would sooner cut off one of their own limbs than harm them.”

The bard shook his head. “I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around anyone treating Klavicus with god-like reverence. What has he done?”

He didn’t really expect the laconic priest to answer, so his disappointment when the man didn’t was fairly minimal. The thri-kreen took up a slow chanting while the youths settled into sleep. They awakened less than an hour later. “That was the Vale!” Sugar Primrose exclaimed as she sat up.

“Good to know we’re supposed to be going where we were going anyway,” Regan remarked dryly. “I’ll tell Desverendi we’re coming.”

“We will accompany the Great One,” the thri-kreen announced. It wasn’t a question, and earned them several sharp glances, but no one tried to stop them. Enlightened self-interest may have played a part in their decision: the thri-kreen told them that the screaming they’d heard had been a group of travelers attacked by Black Sand Raiders coming from the vicinity of Tyr.

“Black Sand Raiders?” Hanen asked.

“Former slaves,” Skarp explained, “who escaped and took to their captors’ profession.”

“Lovely,” the bard murmured as he watched Regan demanding a description of their victims. The thri-kreen were evasive, saying that one human looked much like another to them, but one woman stuck out in their minds.

“Alentha,” Regan growled. “She was going to meet us. Who won the combat? Were there any survivors?” When she learned that the raiders had prevailed and there were no survivors, she kicked at the sand and then stood scowling over Klavicus as if Alentha’s death were somehow his fault.

Hanen slumped in his chair as they finished breaking camp and resumed their trek to the elemental druid Desverendi’s hidden vale. “More hours watching shadowy shapes trudge through a gods-forsaken wasteland,” he sighed.

“Rest if you like. I will watch.”

The bard’s attention was fixed on one shadowy shape in particular, the sole thread connecting the life he’d once lived and the one he found himself thrust into now. Only exhaustion could drive him to lose sight of it, and he wasn’t exhausted yet. “I’m fine,” he insisted. But he knew that he wasn’t.