1:32 Bahamut's new bride.

For a camp bedecked with horns and furs, the Hall of Horns lived up to its name.  Most of the other shelters appeared moveable, but also seemed as though they had not moved in some time.  Stakes had been reinforced.  Patches had been put into battered furs.  Decorative stones lined fire pits that may have been hastily dug, but that were now being developed, tended and depended upon.

All that being said, the Hall of Horns was different.
That place was not meant to move.
It was built entirely of carved horn.

The door seemed to have some writing on it, and I must have gawked at it a little too long, because the leader felt the need to turn back to me and explain it.

"You are right to worry," he commented with a half smirk.  "It proclaims the strength of the Unified against the lords of the Nine Hells."

"The Unified?" I asked as I was fairly pushed inside the carved horn door by two Dragonborn sentries.

"The Lady Tiamat, who rules over all chromatic dragons, and the Lord Bahamut, who is the lord of the metallic dragons, are the perfect balance.  They are holy, both separately and together, and demand unquestioned servitude-"

I can always tell a sanctimonious rant when I hear one.

"Any god that doesn't let you ask your own questions and find your own answers is a weak one,"  I reasoned.  "He or she is concerned that you may one day discover a truth that will lead you away from their service.  And the fact that they are concerned indicates that they have no real means to keep you."

The Dragonborn leader bent slightly to have a silvery white robe put on him by two Human females, who instantly skittered away from him as he turned to me.

"It is no surprise to hear you speak in such a manner," he frowned, walking to stand between two small tables.  One had a multicolored cloth covering it, while the other had a brilliant gold one.  "The Lord Bahamut values your opinion.  The Lady Tiamat craves your blood."

"Who do you listen to, when they disagree?" I asked genuinely.  I had the distinct impression that this scaled fool actually believed in every word he said- which made him all the more dangerous.

"Oh, just because the Lord Bahamut values your opinion does not mean that he will not order me to strike you down.  It merely means that he sees that you think.  You consider.  You think yourself wise, with all the knowledge that you scrape together."

Apparently Aleksei had been hustled in behind me.  I noted that his left eye had been covered- the sight of the scarring must have been a bit more than an annoyance for someone.  I wondered why they hadn't replaced his clothing with the loose robes I had seen the other Dragonborn males wearing when they weren't in armor.  The four guards assigned to him brought him to the leader's right side, behind the altar that had been covered with the gold cloth.

"I've heard of Bahamut before, and I didn't think he was on the nicest of terms with Tiamat," I shrugged.  "So educate me, if I'm wrong."

"The Holy Unified-"

"Sacrilege!" Aleksei cried at once.

"In time, my son," the leader hissed, glaring behind him.

"What if the horned one is controlling him?" one of the Aleksei's guards fretted.  His tail barely moved in her hands, but it was apparently enough to cause her concern.

"Peace, daughter," the leader sighed as though he really wanted to get back to telling me all about the wonderful ways of his cult.  Or, at least I thought he was sighing.  When I looked up to the guard, however, she momentarily had a blank stare.  It was only for a few seconds, and she seemed to return to herself with a renewed desire to hold Aleksei.

I am feeling different, Aleksei had said.  Not myself.
I didn't have time to think too much more about it, as the leader redirected his gaze to me.

"This is a sacred hall- a narrow path between life and damnation.  It is here that those who hear the Unified's voice are reborn in their image.  It is also here that those like you are redeemed from the clutches of the hells.  Children?"

And the guards around me grabbed my arms and put a knife to my throat.  Their leader nodded, turning his back on me to look directly at Aleksei, who glowered at him.

"My son, you must remember your heritage.  You must reclaim your place as a scion of the people.  You must destroy your mental link with this witch!"

"Is this how you are making all your converts, master?  By threatening their friends before their eyes?" Aleksei spat, twisting in the grasp of his guards.

"When you have severed ties with her, we will be able to pry Asmodeus's hands from her soul.  We will be able to make her pure again.  She will be Human again- if you were her friend, let alone her mate, you would have leaped at this chance long ago," the leader replied, crossing his arms over his wide chest.

"That's a lie, who can change anyone from one race to another?" I dared, feeling the knife press close against my throat as soon as I spoke.

"You know the power of Bahamut; you know the Rite!" the leader proclaimed to Aleksei, raising his voice as he got very close to his face.

"And you relegate him to a position of consort to Tiamat!"  Aleksei shouted back, his voice beginning to become thunder itself.  His breath came out in puffs as though it were cold in the room.  "Heretic!  Traitor!"

"Let him go," the leader growled to the guards, who instantly backed away and plastered themselves on the wall just behind him.  The leader grabbed Aleksei's chin and put his forehead right against his.  "You dare call me traitor, Petrinovich?  How many of us had lost all we had, everything and everyone, and yet kept fighting, while you couldn't be bothered with anything but tall tales and healthy bar maids?  Yet you, fallen scion, you from whom the Unified have exacted their revenge in flesh, you call me traitor?"

"I do not know a Petrin-" Aleksei began in a less sonorous tone.

Not myself.
"Let him go!" I hollered.

"Cut her horns," the leader commanded.  At first, I didn't think I'd heard him properly, since he was turned around and I couldn't conceive of what he'd just asked.  But when I was turned around- again forcibly, since I didn't want to turn my back on what Aleksei was going through- I saw a set of stocks lowered and fitted to hold someone in place before a block.

"Why are you doing this?"  Aleksei demanded.  I could hear his chains rattle and a stifled grunt of displeasure.

"With the horns gone, she will not be able to control your mind," the leader reasoned.  The guards struggled to get me into the stocks.

"Stop!" Aleksei hollered.  The stocks closed over me, and in the wood I could smell the fearful sweat of others who had come before me- possibly fairly recently.

"We cannot spare expense in freeing you, fallen scion," the leader replied without feeling.

"I tell you again, I am never a scion," Aleksei sighed gustily.  "I am a defector and worthy to be slain.  I am thinking that this glory would belong to some clan mate, but if Bahamut sees fit to end my life in this place, with members of my race whom I trust less than the Daughter of Dis in the room, then so be it.  But at least let me die by my own name, please, I beg you."

"And what name is that?" the leader scoffed.  "As I see no Stonecrusher here."

"Aleksei Petrovich Voyonov.  That name is the truth."

"And will you be telling your dear friend precisely what clan you are indeed from?" the leader crowed.  I wished I could see the look on his face, as the tone of his voice wasn't far from gloating.  As it was, however, all I could stand to look at without hurting my neck was the ground.

"Bloodtalon," Aleksei admitted, sounding somehow distant.

"Bloodtalon!" the leader repeated, his voice vaulting up and seeming to shake the small sanctuary.  "You struck down those in opposition to our leaders, you cleared an entire rebellious temple of Io-"

"Da," Aleksei sighed.

"You tore a hole into Turathi defenses when you were barely out of the egg, under the direction of a resplendent red dragon-"

"Da," came the slow reply.

"And you once bent your knee to Tiamat, let her glyph be carved into your soul.  But you were gone when the rest of the Bloodtalons let the Turathi walk in unchallenged.  You didn't see the islands fall.  You let a pack of kobolds tell you as you lounged safely with them underground, letting the rest of the war go by while you spun lies so well that even the Drow goddess would be shocked at you."

"I am being sent away, Mikhail.  Maybe the clan father is not saying this to you.  Maybe it seems to you that I am just leaving for no reason."

"You have lost your honor, son, and it is time to gain it back," the leader, who I suppose was called Mikhail, replied.  "Redeem yourself."

There was some clinking, then silence.  Then Aleksei walked over to where I was being held, completely uncontested- I could tell because I suddenly saw clawed, three-toed feet.

"You need to remove her horns first, then you can get rid of the tail.  When she looks more Human, the devils and demons will pay less attention to her," Mikhail explained.

There was a pause, and I could hear the heft of a rather heavy weapon as it split the air.  Aleksei grunted, then planted a massive two handed axe very close to me.  The accompanying sound deafened me, to the point where Aleksei had to take my arm  so that I would realize that I could stand up freely again.

"When I am becoming Bloodtalon, this is big mistake," Aleksei panted, winded from his effort.  "This is my redemption.  The islands fall, and the Tiefling kingdom disappears- this I know.  The war is gone."

"You deny your heritage- you are not worthy to be one of us," Mikhail pronounced gravely.  "Wherever the creatures are, there is the war.  The Unified command us against them."

"Tiamat cares only for riches, power, adulation.  And Bahamut is creating us to defy Tiamat's influence-"

There was an audible gasp from the guards, all of whom glared at us as though we would catch fire at any moment.

"Perhaps this will change your mind about the United's influence- and my own.  You have doubted me from the start, but I have done nothing but good for you.  Come, shadowy daughter."

And from a corner untouched by light, Shadowedge stepped, a renewed vigor in her gleaming eyes.  As though the shadow were sucked into her draft, suddenly the torch light that was sufficient for the rest of the room lit that corner.  She was wearing one of the loose white hooded robes that the others wore, which instantly struck fear in my heart.  But when she knelt and smiled up at me with a rather familiar look on her face, I had a feeling that she had played such games all her life.

I wondered if she'd truly been dominated even once.

"The master has restored my soul by miracle.  A great silver dragon appeared to me as I slept, and he breathed on me, and I stood up and walked right to the master without having to ask where he was.  He took me to this hall, and I have again heard the dragon's voice, asking me to be his bride."

1:31 Religiously challenged.

When I awoke, I was lying on a mat inside a rough shelter.  I instantly tried to sit up, but found a heavy, clawed hand upon my chest.  I looked up and into the eyes of the guard who had been at the bridge earlier- I found that I could not recall his name at all, and that the back of my head ached as though I'd been hit with a bludgeon.

"Best you don't move.  You'll make this harder on him than it has to be," the guard sighed, a look of pity in his eyes.

"What is this place?" I demanded.  "Where are-"

"I can't answer you, Tiefling.  I'm not even supposed to be talking to you.  I'm just supposed to make sure you don't get loose."

"Well, if you don't want me getting loose, then you're going to have to tell me about my companions, because if you don't, I'm going to go find out myself," I replied, practically hissing.  "The Shadar Kai-"

"Was loosing her soul, the master said.  He was very concerned about her, and gave strict commands that she be kept in a well-lit room- and away from you."

"And I suppose he thinks that the reason that the Drow doesn't talk is because I have him spellbound?"  I cried, exasperated.  "Clearly, everything is all my fault!"

"No, the Drow doesn't talk because he's got poison ducts surgically implanted in his mouth," the Dragonborn said, the ridges that served as his eyebrows arching upward.  "His tongue is there, but even when the master worked with him, it was just a useless flap of flesh in his mouth.  The poison is no joke, though.  Seems like the Drow females were working with either a spider or a scorpion- the master isn't sure which.  You didn't know?"

"No," I lied, crossing my arms over my chest.  "I thought he was just mute.  And before that, I thought his tongue had been cut out."

"Even mute creatures can at least move their tongue.  I don't know how the poor guy eats- how do you swallow without choking, when you can't move your tongue?"

"You lean forward a lot, and only put as much in your mouth as you intend to chew and swallow right away," I explained, now raising my eyebrow.  "Or at least that's how I would do it."

The guard shook his head and leaned back against a supporting pole, crossing his own arms.  "Well, that's enough out of you right now.  The master will work with you too, now that you're awake."

And, having a deep disrespect for any authority that seemed to run in my veins along with my blood, I immediately thought, The master can sit on it.  About a minute and a half after that, the ivory-scaled Dragonborn ducked his head into the tent.

"Dziękuję, syn. Proszę zostawić nas w spokoju."  He smiled and tilted his head to the side slightly, almost in a questioning way.


"It sounds great," the guard replied, nodding.  "Almost no accent at all.  I'm sorry I can't speak any back."

"If I can learn, son, so can you.  What I recover, I will then teach you, of course.  Now please, it is time."

With these words, the guard got up, picked up his sword and left the tent.  I sat up, at last, and stared at this "master," who made himself comfortable on the other side of the unlit fire pit.

"I see the furious questions in your heart," he began gravely, "and it is good that you ask them.  Questioning the world around you, and your place in it, will eventually bring you to the point of repentance."

"I have nothing to repent of," I shot back, frowning.

"I will not argue with you," the Dragonborn sniffed, his face hardening slightly.  "However, whether you are aware of it or not, your infectious hellfire spirit is damaging all around you that do not have the will to stand against you.  A creature is gambling with his life the moment he but speaks with you."

"So then let me go my way," I pushed.  "Let me leave, and all you know will be safe again, right?"

"Wrong," he thundered, shaking his head.  "You must heal what you have harmed.  You must be kept in perpetual watch until those that you have affected can be helped.  Thus, you will be placed with my personal guard.  Come."

He got up, and I sighed as I followed him out of the tent.  I was greeted by the sight of Bahlzair- hanging by his outstretched arms between two trees.  Two Dragonborn, aided by one rather servile Human, appeared to alternate between questioning him and prodding him with strange, blunt tipped objects.

"What are you trying to do, suffocate him?" I cried at once.  "What kind of healing can be done like this?"

"This creature had poison ducts implanted in his mouth, and refused their removal.  It seems that for whatever reason, he enjoys being able to literally spit-"

And at just that moment, Bahlzair did indeed spit into one of the Dragonborn faces, causing a hideous scream.

"Release that male!" the leader commanded, staring holes into me.  "Stop controlling him this instant!  He needs medical attention, or he will never recover from the horrors of this Drow experiment."

"Magic workers don't wear leather armor, you overgrown kobold," I growled.  "He's acting on his own accord.  Wouldn't you, if you were tied up and poked at like a common beast?"

"He's being tied up and poked at because he has harmed others under your command.  My own arm is a testament-"

"He bit you because you reached past him to get to Aleksei, who clearly had absolutely no intention of doing whatever you were asking him.  I didn't give any commands," I cut in, moving past him to get Bahlzair down myself.  If I made it, I would have been happy to go ahead and get him down.  But as I thought, I couldn't get all the way there without a team of Humans and Dragonborn guards grabbing me and forcing me to the ground.

"Allow her to rise, children.  Allow her to look upon my son, whom she is claiming that the Drow wishes to defend."

I was bodily turned around by five pairs of hands first, then allowed to get up. Aleksei was still wearing the clothing he came with, was still scarred, and was still missing a quarter of his tail.  And although he was far more suited to be in this camp than any of the rest of us, for whatever reason, he was bound by the feet and flanked by guards.

"This is your greatest crime, Tiefling.  For Petrinovich was born a scion, was born to wipe your kind from the face of the earth.  But he is without wings, without half his sight, even without part of his scales and tail.  If I had not known him before this time, I would not have recognized him-"

"He was already wounded when I met him-" I began.

"I am not your son, for the last time," Aleksei thundered.  "I am never having wings.  It is not me, this Petrinovich.  I am not having a Petrin in my family.  My father was Stonecrusher Pyotr Ivonovich Voyonov."

"So he has said many times, but I know what I have seen," the leader smiled as he turned to me.  "You will help me undo this damage.  You will help me to reclaim this scion."

"I can't do the impossible," I shrugged.  "The man's not Petrinovich.  It's not him."

"I am Stonecrusher by clan.  Aleksei is my given name.  Petrovich from my father.  Voyonov is our family.  But I am never even meeting a Petrin, not in all of my clan.  I cannot be the son of a male that does not exist."

"The name is awfully close- perhaps this is all a mistake," I reasoned.  "Perhaps you just have the wrong clan.  Maybe you're thinking of someone from a clan next door?  Two snow drifts over to the right?"

"This insolence will not be tolerated- I will accompany you to the Hall of the Horns, and you will do what you must do," the leader commanded.  "I have seen all these things in visions, and I read into the hearts within you all, by the power of the Unified."

"Praise be to Bahamut.  Praise be to Tiamat," all the camp members responded automatically, as though we had magically entered a service or a sacred festival.

"Am I a part of this?" I asked flippantly.  "Praise be to Dispater."

Behind me, Bahlzair chuckled, a burbling sound welling from deep within him.

"Oh yes, and praise be to Lolth, and praise be to Shar, while I'm at it.  Bahlzair can't say it, and who knows what condition you've got Jyklahaimra in-"

And I won a solid punch from a guard with that comment.

Empire Sized Shadows 1:30 The possessor.

I did deliver Silveredge two solid kicks when it was time to go, but apparently, she is an incredibly deep sleeper.  I sharpened her katars and handed them to Bahlzair, who nodded solemnly before I'd even said a word to him.  Aleksei, having kicked dirt into the place where the fire had once been, knelt down, picked Silveredge up, and looked to me for direction.  I was about to ask him what made him think that I would be a good candidate to lead the party when I actually looked at that three-quarter tail of his. 

There's something to be said for parties lead by a rogue, but at least I did have the entire length of my tail.

Aleksei, with one eye scarred shut and a wide swath of scale that did not match his own pale scales, would look terrifying and battered no matter what he was wearing.  As it stood, he had a thick, black-and-purple detailed shendyt that looked as though he'd come down from his home village with it. 

Silveredge's clothes had been cut nearly to rags, a far cry from the lovely bodess and dress I'd seen in the market place not so long ago.

Bahlzair- in addition to being an ebony-hide Drow- sported an almost-loinscloth that was, in stark opposition to Aleksei's garment, just long and wide enough to cover what it was supposed to cover.  I'd thought nothing of this when the creature was hiding in and playing around a forge.  But now I realized a rather immediate truth.

We looked awful.

"We have to rob someone," I blurted out bluntly, looking Bahlzair over again.  "Look at what we look like."

"We are looking like the sort of people who will rob people," Aleksei smirked, snuggling Silveredge so that her head rested comfortably on his right shoulder.  "Or maybe just kill them.  But it will be difficult if I am having to carry the Shadow Child."

"Shadar-Kai," I corrected, pursing my lips in thought.

"No, Lyoshenka is saying exactly what he means," Aleksei replied, leaning his head close to Silveredge's.  She seemed to accept the show of affection even in her sleep, and snuggled into his arms like a small child.

I looked over to Bahlzair, who offered no opinion, but simply fixed me with a "hurry it up" look.  At least it didn't radiate the weariness that I felt.  My muscles were screaming from my sparring the night before, and I would have much preferred to simply stay where we were.  But the fact of the matter was that Silveredge needed help- a kind that none of us were able to render- and I didn't want to admit how strange and ominous the curse that she had described really sounded.  Soul-eating shadows?  You think when you're born into a race that made a pact with the lords of the hells that you'd heard everything.

"Maybe we should follow the road for a while, as we think, so that the sun is not going down on our thinking," Aleksei suggested.  Having said this, he turned his back on our campsite and made for the paved road that was some ways away.  Bahlzair shrugged and followed him, leaving me to sigh and scamper after them a few moments later.

We moved in silence- I'm not particularly sure if this was because both Aleksei and I were painfully aware that Bahlzair couldn't verbally reply to us or simply because no one had anything to say- until we caught sight of a creek that cut under a rather shoddy wooden bridge up ahead.  It had been perhaps about a half-day's quick march, and the afternoon sun was beginning to really annoy Bahlzair, who had to practically walk in my shadow as he covered his eyes and squinted.  Instead of being surrounded by trees willing themselves to grow through stony ground, we were instead contending with doughy, clay-based soil that annoyed the center of my feet- well, my hooves- and made unpleasant sounds when Aleksei's bare, clawed reptilian feet squished into it. 

So actually, I had been relieved to see a bridge, until I realized that it was probably a bandit post.  On the other side of the bridge were some guards- I wasn't sure what kind at that point, but two creatures stood sentry-style on either side of the thing, so I assumed that they were guards.

Bahlzair stopped.
I slowed down.
Aleksei, however, plowed right on forward as though he'd never had a bad experience with sentries, guards or bandits.

He crossed the bridge, Silveredge comfortably resting in his arms with a beautiful innocence clinging to her face, and for a few moments, it seemed as though he would pass the guards right by.  Hoping he would, I managed to convince Bahlzair to follow me a bit closer to the far side.  But no such luck.  What was worse, Aleksei had run into a strange team- one Human, one Dragonborn.

"Where are you going with that parcel, sir?" the Human male asked.  He wasn't wearing a uniform, but had the bearing of a proper soldier, as opposed to the normal sneer and shamble of a bandit.  However, referring to a living creature as a piece of cargo didn't win him any decency points in my book.

"Ja govorju ploho," Aleksei rumbled in a low tone. "Otpusti menja, pozhalujsta."

Both guards laughed, and the Dragonborn shook his head.  "No, sir, we don't speak the mountain tongue.  In fact, I don't even speak the plains speak anymore.  You got any Common for us?"

"Very poor," Aleksei sighed, looking behind him to see where we were.

The guards looked up to see me, then back to Aleksei.  "So, that's with you, too?"

And Aleksei said something that, for a moment, forced me to doubt his command of the Common.

"Yes.  This is both my wives.  Please, we are passing through now, yes?"

Apparently the guards didn't believe him any more than I did.  "Do you mean that creature and the Drow?  It seems you've been infiltrated by demonkin, then," the Dragonborn smiled.  "You can pass through, sure, but it's five gold a head for your Elf and your wife.  That horned creature's ten gold."

Aleksei shook his head.  "I am poor, I do not have this money.  I can work."

"Maybe we could use another one of you, Bakari," the Human smirked to the Dragonborn, probably only half-joking.  "You know how he's always complaining that there are too many Humans and not enough of you to keep us from growing horns.  Want to go ask Gunter if he'll take another Arkhosian mountain brother?"

"But what will he do with the rest of them?" Bakari replied earnestly.  This was no bandit, after all, or at least not a type that I had ever dealt with before.  "They mean something to him, even if he hasn't told quite the entire truth about it."

"Perhaps we should encourage him to tell the truth, then?" the Human replied, turning his gaze back to Aleksei, who had begun to let Silveredge out of his arms.  Against his protests, she had wanted to stand on her own, and there were a few moments of concern when her bare toes first touched the ground.  Aleksei made an awkward squishing noise with his own feet, wiggling the taloned toes.

She laughed, sending a noticeable shadow fleeing from her.   She turned around, found Bahlzair and I across the bridge, and began walking back toward us.  Aleksei didn't prevent her, but simply looked at her delicate blue feet as they rapidly turned slightly brown.

"Or we could fight," the guard replied, his eyes narrowing.

Aleksei abruptly turned around and walked back over the bridge after Silveredge, who peeked over my shoulder at Bahlzair.  The Dragonborn guard left his post, and Aleksei sighed deeply.

"Well, are we fighting the Human, or what?" I asked, smirking.

"I am not getting a good feeling from this place," Aleksei admitted.  "I am feeling- different.  Not- myself."

And behind him came the Dragonborn guard and a slightly taller Dragonborn male who looked much more like what Aleksei might have been when all his scales were a uniform color.

"Here he is, and his- um- friends?  I'm not sure if-"

"That's enough, Bakari, thank you," the taller male replied, crossing his arms.  The guard quickly moved away, leaving the male to turn his stony grey eyes upon Aleksei, who still had his back turned to him.  "This is a toll road.  Your brother was willing to let you pass through for free, and only asked that you pay for your companions.  Why have you not done this, so that you may go about your business?"

"I do not have money," Aleksei replied simply.  "I can only offer my arm, whether in battle or for work."

"Posmotri na menja," the male said in a tone that was somehow strong and gentle at the same time.  "Skazhi mne, kto tvoi druz'ja."

Aleksei took two steps further away from the male speaking to him, still refusing to turn around.  Bahlzair, oddly enough, stepped out of my shadow and in front of Aleksei, staring holes into the Dragonborn.

"Nyet," Aleksei replied simply.

"Vy boites' svoego proshlogo. Vy boites' togo, chto vy byli."

"If you don't back away from him right now, I'll give you worse scars than he's got," I found myself saying.  Bahlzair was certainly giving me the sensation that something was going terribly wrong, but Silveredge stood stunned, shadows wrapping themselves around her as though they were her family.

"Skazhite demona ujti, moj syn. Pojdem so mnoj."

And the one mistake he made was to reach forward in the attempt to touch Aleksei, who seemed somehow smaller than normal.  Bahlzair, without a pause or second thought, turned his head and bit the arm that had gone past him.  There was a sound of acid on scale, and a sour smell.  The Dragonborn reached across his body as though he were going to draw a weapon, but Aleksei did in fact finally turn around.  Seeing this, he simply gave Bahlzair a good shake, so that he let go of his arm, and then backed up one step.

"Ona ne demon," Aleksei muttered, drawing just one sword.

"Killing me will not silence the calling that has already carved its name into your soul, Petrinovich.  I can see it, can see you.  The script is ablaze in your heart even now, even as you fight it.  You are still a loyal soldier to holy Tiamat, just as that creature is a Tiefling, an abomination.  That will never change." 

As though the Dragonborn's words had been a balled fist, Aleksei slightly staggered back a half step.

"It's you the male was fleeing.  The threat of justice was too much for him.  I see him throwing himself into the arms of death to escape you- I see that through your very eyes.  You deny this truth, but you must face it.  Now, this female- she has turned your head, has tried to blot the righteous calling from your mind-"

"Nyet," Aleksei managed, his sword lowering slightly.  "ja ne ub'et ee."

"You deny the justice of the holy Tiamat in your mother's tongue?  Do you not see how far you have fallen?  The Nine Hells open their fanged jaws to snap up your soul, my son."

On either side of this prophet gone wrong, Silveredge and Bahlzair were doing some ferocious hand signing.  I truly wished I could understand them.
 
"Come, I will let you and both your slaves pass through, but you must pay-"

"Nyet-" Aleksei replied again, pushed by some strange force to one knee.

"Stop- stop this," I finally said.  "I'm not deaf, and I'm not an idiot.  If you're worried about me stealing his soul, I can just leave.  If I leave, can he pass through with the others?  I can-"

And the Dragonborn looked at me.
Looked right at me.
Locked those steel grey eyes onto my own.
In them, I saw great towers of a burning city, with charred bodies, crawling and writhing in pain.
And then I saw nothing.

1:29 Life in the hungry shadows.

The twilight slipped into evening, the shadows ever growing, licking around the sides of the fire, where the light could not quite reach.  I sat quietly, watching the fight between the two.

Slowly, I could make out a figure in their dance, could almost tell the steps, could almost tell who it was-

And a Drow male gave me a rather sound slap on my right upper arm.

"You'll have to tell her about that," he signed very slowly. 

I blinked at him, momentarily not understanding him at all.  I could not remember who he was, or why he was keeping me company here by the fire.  It seemed he knew that this was happening to me, as he motioned to the ground- I looked down, and words began appearing there.

"Bahlzair.  Arcana.  Potions.  Forge."

I gasped and put both hands to my face, more embarrassed this time than I had been in the times before.  How had I so quickly slipped so far?  It was as though Shar were not only pulling me delicately, as always She would, but somehow something was pushing me toward her endless Shadow- farther, faster than She herself would have ever done.  She enjoyed the suffering, this was a proven fact.  So it stood to reason that never would She rush the pleasure of watching me fall to Her, as we all do in the end.

Bahlzair moved himself until he sat crosslegged from me, and I sighed at how the light from the fire played with his deep black skin while the shadows wrapped themselves around my own periwinkle and tattooed hide.  Nature itself recoiled at me, and lavished itself on him- I dwelt on this thought until he reached forward and pinched me.

"You give in so easily in her absence," he signed, again very slowly.  He had to write out two of the words and sign them again before I understood him.  "The wound was graver than I could heal, I suppose?"

"I must seek out a strong wizard-"

"Why?" came a familiar voice from behind me.  I looked over my shoulder and into the radiant red orbs of a young woman that I somehow knew that I adored.  The way her horns were filed to a most perfect point below her ears inspired me to touch them, to draw my blood on them.  "By Baator, you're disappearing-"

"What is this?" a silvery-scaled Dragonborn intoned, his voice close to suspicion.  "Maybe the Elves are tricking us, are making bad things happen to her?"

"No!  No- it's- it's what I am," I said, scared that so many people were concerned all at once.  I wasn't used to being the center of attention, or the focus of anyone's direct affections.  I thought it wouldn't be hard to accept, but I was wrong.  "My people- we're cursed.  By Shar Herself."

The ruddy hued, dark haired woman spoke first, cutting me off.  "Well, no need to go into the horrible backstory.  It seems like all of us have had someone or something spit in our face as a child or take a solid shit on our future-"

"Or both," the Dragonborn said pointedly.

"We go, we find a strong wizard for you," the woman continued.  "I owe you that, for doing whatever you were doing in that cave all that time.  If you've been suffering with random disappearance this whole time- look, we just do this.  In your travels, have you noted anyone you think up to the task?"

"I- don't think I can remember, right now," I admitted, looking down at the ground.

"Hey, look," she smiled, kneeling before me for a moment.  "Look what I can do."  Without even looking at the fire, she simply stuck her hand into it and pulled a piece of flaming brush from the center.  "I'm almost as flame-resistant as you are, see?"

And I laughed, because of course she would be more flame-resistant than I.  It was in her blood- her hellfire blood- just that quickly I remembered that this was Mi'ishaen.  I found it twice as funny that my feelings for her had remained the same even when I could not remember her name.

"There you are.  You're kind of back," she sighed, her voice on the edge of contentment.  "Now, stay.  You said something before, when we first were talking to Uirrigaen, about how Shar would pull you down to a hopeless death-"

"The Bleak Blessing, my mother called it.  Anything we do anywhere near a shadow, the shadow will reach out to embrace us.   But if we are weakened in any way when it beholds us, it will eat our souls," I explained as carefully as I could.  I had never done so before, since I had almost always been surrounded by those who were already aware of the Plane of Shadow.

"Then you cannot be found weak," Mi'ishaen replied, standing up.  "Let Bahlzair and Aleksei sport themselves with each other.  We've got fighting to do."

I didn't think she was serious, until she drew one of her daggers and smacked my cheek with the flat of the blade.  "On your feet, or you'll get the prettiest of scars right here, where Aleksei doesn't have an eye."

"I guess those two fingers are healing very well," Aleksei snorted, moving to sit down next to Bahlzair.

"They hurt, so I'm alive," Mi'ishaen responded.  Something about that appreciation for pain made my heart beat a little faster.  I managed to find the will to stand up and draw my katars, which seemed a little heavy in my hands.  I tried to tell myself that it was only because I was a little tired.  "Under the weather," as a Human would say.

"Asmodeus kill me where I sit, lay or stand, if I have any mercy on you this night," Mi'ishaen hissed, her eyes narrowing to lava-red slits in her beautiful face.  "If Shar wants you, She'll have to wait behind me."

And she meant it, for we fought as though our people had been at war for hundreds of years, from that moment until the ancient witch of the morning jabbed her nails into my back.  Bahlzair, who had never slept a single night since I had met him, periodically spit at us, and where his spit fell, the ground hissed an acidic reply.  Every now and again, if we fought too close to him, he would grab at our ankles and trip us, not minding which one of us he harmed in the process.  I was bruised and sore by the time I bent my knee in submission, having been disarmed for the fifth time.

"Alright," Mi'ishaen breathed, throwing her daggers toward where my katars had fallen.  "I'm hungry now, and we need to get moving as soon as possible.  Rest as lightly as you can, and I'll give you a swift kick when it's time to go."

I had to bite my tongue so that I would not reply with something like, "My mistress is gracious," but in truth, the gratitude burned in my mind.  The soreness and warm sensation of thankfulness pinned my soul firmly to my bones even when my eyes finally closed, speared through by daylight.

1:28 The dim lights of the dying day.

As soon as Mi'ishaen and Aleksei has gone to catch food, I got up to begin looking for firewood.  Bahlzair merely looked toward the ruins of the cavern, which were still issuing puffing clouds of dust into the afternoon sky.  It was not until I had returned, cut a circle into the earth with a katar, and began searching for flint that he spoke again.  As I am no expert at the Undercommon hand talking, so I had to reply that he was using a few words with which I wasn't familiar.  He nodded, then signed slowly, checking for comprehension.  When he came upon words that left me bewildered, prestidigitation cut the Common meaning of the word into the dirt.  So it was that after a few minutes, I understood his first question.

"This horned thing is a new mistress, is she not?"

When I finally did understand, I laughed.  "She does not wish to be a friend to me," I replied out loud in Common, signing what few words of the sentence I did know.  "She prefers that I hold my head up beside her, as though I were equal."

"But in doing so, you obey her, and your obedience is the obedience of a slave," Bahlzair signed carefully and slowly.  All the words were familiar to me, and he did not have to translate.

"I know," I signed simply.  "But slavery is-" I foundered for an adjective strong enough for Mi'ishaen's aversion to the practice.

"Abhorrent," Bahlzair supplied, signing the word first, then writing it.  "Detestable.  She does not understand slaves who wish to serve, knowing only those who have been forced to do so.  She will not take kindly to being made a mistress."

"But what if she were a different type of friend, one who did not harm me?  Just because she holds my chains does not mean she has to rattle them.  I would do anything she asked, if she only asked me-"

Bahlzair held up his hand to stop my poor and emotional signing with a simple hand.  "Did she ask you to carry on the charade of being dominated all that time?  Or was that a decision you made yourself?" he signed slowly.

I did not answer.
And Bahlzair allowed a smirk to pull at one side of his face.

"Then truly you will do all she asks, for you will teach yourself to stop thinking like a slave.  Go forward in this way of acting.  Do not think of yourself as a separate creature, that only does as it is commanded.  Think of yourself, instead, as the other half of her, seeing what she cannot, doing as she has not yet thought to command.  In so doing, you will find a most protective and caring mistress- and perhaps much more."

He turned back to the mountain, and I left him alone so that I could find stones to strike.  When I had done so, and had finally encouraged the sparks to rise in flame, I sat next to him in the dying twilight.

"What will you do without your friend?" I signed carefully.

"There will never be another like her," he signed.  "I do not wish to serve anymore."

"Your grief strikes me," I said, not able to sign the sentiment appropriately.

Bahlzair nodded, and turned his eyes back to the destroyed cavern.

1:27 Small talk about how we talk.

Thankfully, the wind didn't blow Aleksei's scent toward us, although we probably would have moved on a little faster, if it had.   As it was, we sat down and began to try to figure out where we would go.

"Before, I am on my way to mountain city," Aleksei shrugged.  "I am hearing that it is good town, with laws that are helping everyone equally, so I am thinking that I will be guardsman there."

"Whoever told you that was a good bard," Silveredge frowned.  "Every statute, every bylaw, has its price- if you have enough money, you can really get away with murder."

"Or if you just move fast enough," I reminded her with an arched eyebrow.  She shook her head at me.

"That was an accident.  I knew a woman who was a nobleman's friend, and he nearly killed her in the street with no fear of reprimand, because the she dared to hint that she may soon be getting married."  She looked at her clothes, which had been tied together in knots in the places where Syjenge had cut them.  "These were hers.  I switched with her in an alleyway, with the help of some nosy wives, so that she could get away.  I don't know if her friend ever caught up with her, but I hope he didn't."

"This is not a good friend," Aleksei ventured, his face a mask of scaled confusion.

Bahlzair poked at Aleksei, and after looking at each other for a few moments, dark disgust settled on the Dragonborn.  "That is not a friend at all, Bahlzair.  I am not speaking good Common, but I know that is not 'friend.' "

"It's what she calls it, can we just skip over that?" I sighed, crossing my arms.  "We all know what she means, and some of us know better than others."

Everyone looked at Bahlzair, who rolled his eyes and shrugged.

"I vote that you get a writing tablet or something, so you can quit casting spells on the ground or on the walls," I grunted.  "Or just staring at people- that's creepy.  And how many languages do you really know?"

With a halfhearted shrug, Bahlzair put up three fingers.  Slowly, he used his other hand to take one finger down, then pointed to himself.  He put another finger down and made a circle in the air, then his put down the last finger and jabbed his thumb back toward the mountain cave that we'd left.

"Flouncy Elf language or regular Elf language?" I asked, not quite sure of the last indicator.

Bahlzair allowed his lips to bend into a smug smirk, and lifted his nose into the air with a sniff.

"Okay, flouncy Elf, got it.  A wonder why you learned that one and not the other.  And how on earth do you even speak your own language without being able to-"

Bahlzair put up his hand to tell me to hold that thought, then began an intricate pattern of hand movements that stunned me with their speed.  Silveredge smiled and made a few slow hand motions of her own, and Bahlzair reached over to fix her positioning on some of them.

"So number one, dark Elves have their own hand signing language, and number two, you were sitting around down there in the Underdark long enough to learn some of it.  That jerk really owed quite the debt, didn't he?"

Silveredge turned to look at me, but her eyes in some far-away memory for the briefest of moments.

"The Underdark was... not unlike home, and the people there were more similar to my own than all the stories would have led me to believe.  The Drow know what it is to have to carve survival out of every crevice possible- to have to piece your existence together from a world that would love nothing more than to crush you."

The silence that reigned in the camp after that statement could have choked an Orc to death.

Aleksei got up and pulled his two swords out of the ground.

"Unless you have food with you, we will have to hunt, and find something to burn.  You two can watch this place for threats, since you have more magic and poison between you than is in a Turathi bazaar."

"You're right about that," I smirked.  "On its best days, the market didn't have a lot of teleportation tomes to spare.  Do you... breathe fire?"

"When I am drinking good liquor, sometimes it feels like it," Aleksei laughed.  "But my people are not having fire breath, no.  There is too much ice in our bodies; we are too far north.  I have frost breath, instead.  So, we will have to get flint rocks, too."

"No, I think I can handle that," I smiled.  "And I guess I know how we're going to put the fire out too, I suppose."

1:26 Dark elf arcane tricksters are a mean sort.

Syjenge could not reply to me.  I was no longer in the world he saw.

His eye color darkened as though he would shortly become close kin to those down in the Nine Hells.  His skin lost all color, making him look as though he had contracted a blighting infection.  I wondered if his blood would simply dry up and turn to dust in his veins.

And then he began speaking.  He began telling his high Elven bride- who had not only ceased to care for him for whatever reason, but was also quite dead- of the rolling hills and the sparkling waters of his ancestral home in the Feywild.  Apparently, not many generations ago, his family was true nobility, instead of the money grubbing, dishonorable husk that it had become.  Not long after he bemoaned this fate, he slid from Common into the language that came naturally to him, filled with rasps at the back of the throat and lilting tones that could suddenly rush from moaning to roaring at any moment.

I walked back toward Silveredge with a shiver.  The sound of his voice was unnerving- the sort of sound you wouldn't want to turn your back on.

"We're going to have to boil these or something," I whispered to Silveredge, handing her the katars.  She sniffed at them, recoiled, then smiled. 

And Syjen continued speaking to Ylyssa, or perhaps his ancestors- or someone who could understand him, anyway.  The kobolds shifted from foot to foot like the cowards that they were, some itching unrest passing between them.  Aleksei's face was a mask of cautious intensity, staring holes through Syjen as though doing so could somehow suck understanding, or time, or something out of him.

Some minutes after the kobolds started to get extra twitchy, Syjen fell silent.

His eyes quickly darkened further, until they were almost wholly black.
With the grievous leg wounds that were still oozing dark rivulets of blood, he managed to stand.
Various kobolds screeched in terror, and I wasn't too far off from doing that myself.
He stared down from the dais, directly at me, for an entire minute.
And when he spoke again, it was not his language.
It was mine.

I was so shocked, all I could do was glare at him- I didn't even think about actually translating what was being said.  The kobolds, sensing something sinister, or at least very dangerous, all turned and bolted in one solid mass.  They tripped over each other and generally caused a ruckus as they left. 

Aleksei took this opportunity to cross the room toward Silveredge and I.

"What is he saying?" he asked, when he was able to talk over the kobolds' noise with less than a full holler.

My mind had to work quickly to translate, as Syjen had an awful accent, but was somehow spitting the words out at a speed worthy of a native speaker. 

"It... doesn't make any sense...''Ash in the wind, spark in the stone, fire in the belly, power in the soul, force from my heart, beat in the walls-"

Silveredge's eyes bolted wide in terror, and she grabbed my arm with a force I couldn't imagine such a slender figure could command.  "The- the walls- the walls!"

I turned over my shoulder just in time to see Syjen's skin literally begin to crack, and peel away from his flesh, like old leather.

Silveredge didn't have to drag me out of there, after that.  I hung on to her as though I'd die without her- and honestly, I thought I would have- and Aleksei took hold of her.  We hustled, single file, down the narrow, jet-black hallways.  Aleksei knew the caverns better than any of us, so even when it felt as though we were descending lower into the caverns, I simply trusted that sooner or later, we would hit the open air.  Below and around us, kobolds screamed at each other in tones higher and more frantic than I think I've ever heard.  The ground began to tremble like a child in the bitter cold- and suddenly, we were outside. 

Uirrigaen met us, with his wings fully spread, right outside the mouth of the place.

Silveredge and Uirrigaen looked at each other briefly, then turned away.  A heartbeat later, Silveredge got close enough to me to embrace me, and we suddenly appeared in the clearing where the kobolds had first attacked Silveredge and I.  Over her shoulder, I saw Bahlzair, with a scowl and crossed arms, whose presence was nigh well inexplicable.  It looked as though he were about to lecture us about being late.

"You- you maybe paid a bit more to your master's spell work than you let on?" I said breathlessly, unable to think of much else. 

Silveredge didn't have time to answer me, as we were suddenly pushed to the ground by a strong wind- or what I thought was a strong wind.  It was instead Uirrigaen, coming in to land with Aleksei, who was making a respectable bit of noise about being carried by someone so much smaller than he.  Uirrigaen let him go, and he thudded to the ground a few feet away from Silveredge and I, rolling an inch or two.  He sat up with his back turned to us, facing the living tomb from which we'd just been freed.

"Is your vengeance complete, dark Elf?  Or is there something else necessary to satiate your anger?" Uirrigaen said simply, slowly folding his wings against his back.

Without saying anything, Silveredge, Aleksei and I all turned our gazes to Bahlzair, who had turned so that he was facing away from the mountain cave. 

"Killing me will not bring her back," Uirrigaen continued, "but it may help you.  It may end this suffering, this years-old mourning.  I... know what that is."

There was silence, so complete and terrible, that it was a great shock when the explosion actually happened.  Everyone except for Bahlzair looked at it, and it seemed as though the crown of the mountain simply disappeared down into itself, accompanied by a roar that even sent a tremor out to where we were.  Oddly enough, I was a bit concerned for Aleksei's kobolds.

Uirrigaen turned away from the clouds of ash that pushed themselves into the sky from the place that he had once called home.  He walked up right behind Bahlzair, who was a full head shorter than he was, and crossed his arms.  "Well?"

Bahlzair simply extended his arm and produced a small vial, allowing it to hang from his hand as if he were a dark skinned, plague-bearing tree.

"I see," Uirrigaen smiled grimly, reaching forward and taking the vial without touching Bahlzair.  "I detest you for forcing the choice, but... respect you, for your loyalty to your past life.  I'm sure your mistress would reward you by sparing your back a few lashes."

And with that, the winged Elf flew off.
Into oblivion or freedom, we could not then guess.

Aleksei planted the tips of the swords he'd taken into the ground, walked over to where Uirrigaen had been standing, and promptly urinated there.  Silveredge clapped both hands to her mouth in shock, but Bahlzair, who had turned over his shoulder just in time to catch the sight, laughed wholeheartedly.

I said nothing at all.

1:25 The first audience.

Aleksei, on his way to gather the kobold horde, led me to the hall that Syjen had claimed for his own.  It was rather far from where Ylyssa's room was, but Aleksei smirkingly told me that it was close enough for him not to get lost on his way between the two.

I didn't dare question that statement at all.

At any rate, the writing on the walls was too strong of a tip.

Aleksei and I found that there were three Elven rangers standing around a door at full alert.  I was about to push ahead, but found a scaled hand blocking my path.  I knew Aleksei wasn't just copping a feel by the strength behind the arm- he nearly winded me with it.

"No bard will sing of the courageous death of the rogue who is trying a frontal assault," he whispered fiercely.  "These Elves are ready for your blades; it will be better if they meet mine, instead."

"Where is your sword, then?" I asked.  "Is it stone?"

Aleksei just smiled in response, moving away from me with a wink and a stagger. I crouched down, making myself as small as possible, and nodded.

As though he'd just gotten through winning a drinking contest with five old Dwarves, Aleksei leaned on the walls and sang just slightly off key.  "Gde ved'ma? Ved'ma mertva. Ja kljanus', chto ona mertva; ja kljanus', chto ona mertva. My sozhgli ee telo, no Io szheg ee dushu. Ja kljanus' Vam, ved'ma mertva."

The Elves at the end of the halls looked around themselves with some degree of concern, but only really saw Aleksei when he was a few feet away from them.  They seemed to have a brief conversation among themselves, during which Aleksei affably leaned on two of them.  The third Elf turned to try to squint down the hall again, and with a quickness that astounded me, Aleksei ran him through with one of the other Elves' blades.  The sound of the guard's scream apparently was enough to bring someone to the door- light from beyond it spilled into the hallway, illuminating the blood on Aleksei's borrowed blade and making it gleam as though the edge were on fire.  I skittered down the hallway quickly, and as I slid around and under one Elven guard, Aleksei managed to move his arm from that guard's shoulder to his head, and literally snapped it back.  I pushed myself into the room, finding Syjen with my knives on one side of the room, and Silveredge blankly staring at him from the other side.

The first thing I did was kick the door shut.

"You do realize that you've cornered yourself, correct?"  Syjen began.  "You won't even touch me.  I'll just command her to fight you."

With a simple smile, I turned and extended Silveredge's katars to her, hilt first.  "Then let her bear her own arms," I replied, "and give me mine."

Syjen squinted at me, probably attempting to figure out the situation.  "Come," he commanded Silveredge, who walked right by me and stood at his side, back to me.  "You will fight in Uirrigaen's hall."

I stepped aside, not wanting to start something I couldn't finish right away, and he left the room, with Silveredge trailing behind him.  I walked out behind them both, stepping over the Elven rangers' bodies.   Syjen didn't even look down, but I stopped to notice the arching slashes, the discolorations and the disjointed limbs Aleksei had left behind.  One of the swords had flown away from its master and down the hallway, but the other two were gone.

So the beast who made me work so hard with one two-handed sword is also adept in swinging two one-handed swords around, I thought with a measure of respect.  Are all of Arkhosia's soldiers trained that way, so that they might use whatever weapon comes into their hands as though it were their own?

"You thought I wouldn't notice the sudden darkness.  Or the miraculous freedom Bahlzair and Aleksei suddenly experienced.  Or the writing on the walls- no, that wasn't obvious at all.  How many of Ylyssa's lies did you believe?" Syjen charged suddenly.

I did not respond.

"Did she tell you how terrible of a mate I was?  How I would not touch her?  Did you ask her why?"

"No," I sighed, "But I suppose you'll tell me all about it now.  You seem like the melodramatic type."

Syjen laughed, strangely enough, and we walked the rest of the way to Uirrigan's exceedingly slender hallway in relative quiet.  I say relative, because Aleksei's work became quite loud indeed, and one gravely wounded Elven messenger managed to escape to reach the halls.  He screamed as he ran like a coward, tearing in front of Syjen, who hollered after him for a few moments before he was cut off by the sound and stink of six kobolds.  The kobolds, chasing the Elf as though he were the only food they'd had for months, fell upon the hopeless creature, taking him apart with their small knives and their piercing screeing noises.  In mere moments, the Elf's glistening bone was visible.  Syjen, possibly annoyed more by the delay the attack caused than the actual attack itself, cast a merciless frost spell.  The kobolds scattered, crying in frigid pain.  One of them was trampled, dying underfoot, but his compatriots did not stop to help him at all.  Syjen scoffed, and stepped over both bodies.

As we squeezed through the corridor, Silveredge reached a hand back and began feeling around.  I immediately pushed up a bit closer to her, and she brushed my side slightly.  When we reached the inside of Uirrigan's study, it looked as though nothing were wrong.  Not a thing was out of place.

But Uirrigan was not there.

"So you killed him," I said flatly as I gazed around the place.  "You didn't just hurt him, you killed him."

"No," Syjen replied, standing still with his back to me.  "I was taught to respect winged Elves.  I have simply... misplaced him.  Even if he did manage to somehow... escape... he is the only one of his kind, and will most certainly find himself unwelcome in the world he has been locked away from for more than half of his lifetime.  He wouldn't survive long."

"So then your task is finished, isn't it?" I shrugged.  "Can you not just simply leave?"

"You should scry a bit more deeply next time, witch," Syjen scoffed.  "I'm a trader; I always have been.  I don't... jail anyone.  I market their talents; match them to others who have need of them.  Uirrigaen was a talented alchemist, until stubbornness and age gripped him.  Once that happened, things became... increasingly difficult."  He turned at last, handing my weapons to a motionless Silveredge.  "Take them," he commanded.

Like a simple creature, she simply held out her hands. 

"Good.  Now kill her."

Silveredge turned slowly toward me and picked up her head all the way so that her beautiful eyes gleamed in the light of the few torches that existed.  Behind her, Syjen sat down and crossed his legs as though he were about to watch her dance.

"I am for you," I smiled, dropping down to a defensive stance.

She couldn't quite get the hang of my weapons- in her hands, they obviously felt light, and far too slender.  She didn't use most of the moves that I had seen in our first fight, and I wondered if she noticed that my fighting was a bit stilted as well.  Since Bahlzair had already poisoned her blades, I didn't want to even graze her arm, even just for show.

"Stop," Syjen commanded after ten minutes of half-hearted fighting.  Silveredge's arm stopped in mid-swipe, as though someone had used a paralysis spell on her, and I simply dropped my arms and backed away. 

"So there is mercy in Baator," the Eladrin smiled wickedly.  "Can't bear to harm her, I suppose?"

"I can't even give her a good working this way.  Your spell has dulled her senses, has slowed her reaction time.  Why do you think you found her without a pacification spell?"  I turned the katars, blade toward me, and put them down on the ground.  "Worse yet, although I can work with these, she cannot bear to hold my blades.  Your spell must be keeping her quiet, but they are burning her hands even as we speak.  Who could work well under such conditions?"  I walked fearlessly up to Silveredge's frozen pose and jiggled my weapons until they came free of her hands.  "I can do more than this, you know."

Syjen got up from where he had been sitting on the ground and suddenly appeared in Uirrigan's chair.  "What you can do, go ahead and try to do.  I dare you."

I stood close enough to Silveredge to hear her breathing, to feel her body heat rising from her as she still stood in her position.  "The wound the kobolds gave you, it's healed?"

And Silveredge gave a very short, very quiet hum.

"Bahlzair fixed you up, I trust.  And he gave me what I needed, too.  How good are you at juggling?"

Silveredge put her head down so that her forehead just barely touched my shoulder.  "Anything to draw the crowds," she whispered.

The sound of her voice, which I didn't even know I missed, thrilled through me.  I put my own weapons back into their places in my armor, then picked her head up off my shoulder with both hands.

And just at that moment, Aleksei, probably accompanied by every kobold he could call, pushed through the cavern entrance.  Silveredge calmly stepped to one side, pulling one of my knives back out.  I took my hands away from her, and in one gorgeous, liquid movement, she turned to throw one of my knives at Syjen, who didn't disappear fast enough to keep it from burying itself into his thigh.

I quickly grabbed up one of her katars, surged up the dais, and planted it into Syjen's other leg.  Either that, or the force of my run to get to him, pushed him back down into Uirrigan's stone chair.  Behind me, Aleksei and his kobold army began to fan out into a semicircle.  The Eladrin made only one low, deep grunt of pain, but must have been really in agony, since he didn't move to defend himself.

"Scream, Syjenge," I commanded, gritting my teeth.  I pulled my knife out of his other thigh and quickly tossed it to Silveredge, who caught it, put it down, then picked up and threw her other katar.  I caught that one and dug it into the leg that she'd first hit with my knife, maybe about an inch above the place where it had bit into his flesh.  The kobolds, stinking to the heavens with their recent effort and Elven blood, screeched their enjoyment.  Some of them even clapped or stamped their feet as I began cutting his clothing.

By the time I had Syjen mostly bare, his eyes rolled in his head- slowly, as though he were going to fall asleep or faint.  I pulled both katars out and threw them to Silveredge, who caught them effortlessly, tossing them up into the air above her a few times before she put them down on the ground.

"What- what have you- what is this?" Syjen dared, his dilating eyes suddenly staring into empty space.  "It is- cold- I- I see- I see Ylyssa-"

"Of course you do.  You belong together."  I turned my back on him and walked calmly down the dais.  "You deserve each other."

1:24 Judgement.

"You should have held your tongue," Ylyssa hissed into my ear as soon as we'd gotten about ten feet down the hallway.  I was surprised she could get in so close while the walls were still so tight.

"You should have let Aleksei tear Syjen limb from limb," I shot back, not turning my head to look at her.  "That would have solved at least two of your problems."

"Aleksei's like that with every woman; it seems to be a cultural thing," Ylyssa said quietly.

"Oh, please.  Every woman he sees, he grabs them up into his arms at once?  The protectiveness I believe, but the comfort he shows with you-"

"Was my mistake.  You've never seen a captive grow fond of their captor?   Never seen a wild man warm toward a woman that could keep them under control?"  The walls edged back, and Ylyssa immediately pushed forward to grab my arm.  I looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

"And your mistake was allowing this- captive's crush- to continue?  Allowing Aleksei to feel as though his rather obvious advances were acceptable?"  I stopped walking, and Ylyssa whirled around to fix furious eyes on me.  "Or was the mistake encouraging him?"

"Judge me, since you're so wise," she spat, shaking my arm.  "Tell me, am I better than Syjenge, or even worse?"

"I have two spells to work, now," I replied simply.  "Apparently, I'm to be marketed as a teller of fortunes, or some such idiocy.  But I can't do anything useful for anyone if I'm standing here doling out judgement for you."

"You think I'm useless, don't you?  A flouncy Elf who can't be bothered to wipe her own ass, just as you said before."  She searched my eyes for something- I wasn't sure what.  Weakness?  Compassion?  Forgiveness?

"I think that these walls are as bad for your health as they are for Uirrigaen, and his race.  I think that the forefathers of your clans, or tribes, or clutches, or whatever it is that you call them- that they were short sighted and cruel.  And I think that you should learn to respect the Elves that were forced to live in places like this, and make their lives there."

We walked down to Bahlzair's lair in silence.

At first, it seemed as though there were no one there.  I stood by the hearth, which still held enough heat for me not to want to touch flesh to it.  Ylyssa walked all the way into the place, then walked past me to look out into the hall.

"He cannot cross my wards, I know, so where..." she mused.

And then Bahlzair came out of the hearth.

My eyes widened, but I crushed my lips together to prevent any sound from escaping me.  There was a sliding sound, probably Ylyssa turning around, and then a sudden hum of surprise and confusion.  This melted into a pleasant sound, then soured into something not unlike a muffled scream.

The weight on my ankles dissipated, and I closed my eyes.

"May we never meet another such friend."

"I don't want him to die like that," I whispered, not turning.  I didn't have to.  Once her voice had died away, I knew Ylyssa was dead.  "I want him to be naked, like Silveredge, and screaming aloud, like Uirrigaen.  And I want as many witnesses to his slow, painful death as possible."

"Then it is good that I am speaking with the kobolds, yes?" rumbled a most familiar voice.  "There are many of them sharing that wish for some time now."

"Oh, now m'lord speaks Common!" I hissed, feigning annoyance.  "What an act, you pageant prancer; I wish I had roses for you."

Aleksei smiled and shrugged- the closest to an apology that he could get.  "A long time ago, I am learning that I can go as I like, and listen, when no one is thinking that I am understanding.  So I am doing this very often.  And someone is making diversions necessary, hmm?  So I am thinking, 'Maybe it is time to-' what? 'Bury the shovel?'  No?"

"The axe, Aleksei," I laughed.   "One would say it's time to 'bury the axe' when a quarrel is over.  Why would anyone bury a shovel?"  I turned around to see Ylyssa's body lying on the ground, wide eyed and puffy faced, stuck in a mask of horror.

"You would use the same shovel again to dig your farmland after burying the diseased dead?  You would not bury, or burn, the shovel that is touching that?"  Aleksei replied, also looking down at Ylyssa's body.

Bahlzair snapped his fingers, and we both looked up at him.  Well, I looked up at him. 
Aleksei is seven feet tall, and probably hasn't had to look up to anyone a day in his life.

Bahlzair turned away from us, bustled around behind the hearth for a moment, and produced Silveredge's katars.  I stretched out my hands, and he placed the hilts in my palms, fixing me with a penetrating stare.

"She'll get them.  I was at the other edge of these, once.  They belong in her hands."

Bahlzair slid his hands away, leaving a foul smelling trail on the edges of the blades.  Having witnessed what he'd just done to Ylyssa, I would have considered them poisoned even if he'd only looked at them. 

And that, I thought to myself, is what Aleksei meant when he first told me about him.

"The Elves are not treating the kobolds well, and there are many more kobolds than Elves," Aleksei smiled.  "Without Ylyssane, it will be simple to crush them."

"May their killing be beautiful," I replied.

Bahlzair smiled wickedly, pointing to the bare walls where I'd first seen his shelves full of strange bottles of things.  Scrawled on the walls was some hideously dark script, winding all the way around the room.  As I watched, the script began to run out of the room and down the hall, turning the hallways nearly black. 

"Good," Aleksei grunted.  "Destroying this place is the best thing anyone is doing for it in a long time."

I remembered that there were so few actual lamps that the place would be practically midnight black without Ylyssa's persistent cantrip.  While it would be useful for my purposes, it could also be an indicator to Syjen that something had gone horribly wrong.  I slipped by Aleksei, katars in hand, hoping that I could find Silveredge before Syjen decided to take any revenge on her.

1:23 The last Avariel.

Syjen stared at me for a few moments, his slender nimble fingers turning his knife in his hand.  I stared right back,  not willing to give the impression that he could scare me in any way.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the echo of a memory flew by, in which my brother was sitting, staring at a young wolf that had wandered onto our family's property.  He always seemed, to me, to have been born without natural fear, and I suppose that's what helped him join the army right at the bitter end of a bloody and hopeless war.

"He wants to know whose will is stronger," my brother had told me quietly, without turning to look at me.  "If I turn away from him, he will think that he can come back and force me to cower any time he wants."

"If he thinks that, he's a fool," I laughed, sitting down to play Five Finger Catch with a sharpened bone.  "You'll stare him blind."

In a few moments, Ylyssa moved away from my side, picked up the remains of Silveredge's clothing, and attempted to cover her with them.

"If you are intending to sell her, it won't do to let her catch a chill," she crabbed.  "The witch is just talking, you see how she hasn't made a single move against you.  I'll take her back to my room and-"

"Téigh,"  Syjen whispered fiercely, not taking his eyes from me.  In their crystal blueness, I saw a boiling frustration that I wasn't sure I wanted to be left alone with.  "Faigh amach, a dùirt mè!"

"You really shouldn't speak to your beloved that way," Uirrigan sighed, crossing his arms.  "At some point, she will tire of doing your work."

"And a has-been wizard is telling me to do...what, exactly?" Syjen spat, tossing a hand in the air and turning away.  "Where were you when your wife was put to the sword, counselor?  Not here?  Right here, in this damnable study that you loved more than her?  Don't protest my actions against me- you, of all creatures on this plane."

But, for all the angry noise he made, the fact of the matter was that he had turned first.

Again, from the side of the room, Aleksei offered an opinion that could neither be heard nor understood, laughing wearily as he did.

"By the gods, you raw handbag, if you don't shut your mouth, I'll shut it for you and sew it shut," Syjen sighed.  "Ylyssane, take Jyklahaimra and the pile of flesh at the door, and leave me.  I have another experiment for Uirrigaen to perform."

Completely contrary to her normal attitude, Ylyssa simply grabbed Silveredge's arm and marched toward the door.  When she reached Aleksei, she knelt down and poked him a few times.

"Idite so mnoj; my dolzhny pojti," she said firmly.

Aleksei looked up, smiled, and pulled Ylyssa to his level with a power that she clearly hadn't expected.  She squealed, which drew the attention of both Uirrigan and Syjen.  Syjen rolled his shoulders, but could not apparently soothe his temper that way.  Aleksei, who had just managed to cradle Ylyssa, turned most of his body away from the solid bolt of ice that suddenly flew toward the rosy Eladrin, but not fast enough to prevent a bit of it from hitting her.  The resulting screech of sheer agony rivaled a banshee's.

Aleksei growled, but not for long.  Ylyssa, still panting with the freshness of Syjen's hit, reached up and held the Dragonborn's leathery, snake-like mouth shut with both hands.

"Poydem," she breathed pathetically, barely loud enough to be understood.  "My ukhodim seychas."

And the Dragonborn gave one last grunt, then turned and lumbered off.  While he still smelled horribly of drink, not one step was misplaced as he left.

I turned from that scene to Syjen, who had crossed his arms over his chest as he sat atop Uirrigan's chair on the dais.

"You said there was nothing useful about her blood?" he asked in a regal tone.  Clearly, he had gotten himself back together, and was trying desperately to pretend that he hadn't just had a rather violent temper tantrum.

Uirrigan suddenly disappeared from where he had been, and reappeared at the back of the room, near all his equipment.

"Nothing.  I believe there is an increase of chemicals that flow to the brain that-"

"Is it possible to reproduce this chemical reaction?"  Syjen demanded, cutting Uirrigan off sharply.

"I do not believe so, no.  Like Aleksei's "Arkhosian blessing," this is a reaction that does not belong in an Eladrin body.  In fact, it seems that while Aleksei can control his inborn talent, however, our dear Mi'ishaen cannot at all simply decide to turn the rush of power that occurs when her opponent is bloodied on or off.  In fact, it did not show itself until Aleksei was indeed bloodied and on the verge of falling unconscious, and I was forced to paralyze Mi'ishaen in order to prevent an actual killing."

Syjen looked over his shoulder at Uirrigan and laughed derisively.  "Prevent a killing?  Prevent her from killing him?  When he's now perfectly capable of walking, talking, and rather thoroughly distracting Ylyssane?  Please, Athair, tell me another story, so that I may sleep well tonight."

"If you want someone dead, talk to Bahlzair," Uirrigan replied in a less than patient tone.  "If you want someone to live, then talk to me.  You know that, Syjengen."

"What I know is that you are lying," Syjen charged, sitting up and turning in the chair.  "Are the chemistrals- or whatever you called them- in her body any different than those in any Eladrin body?"

"Not that I can tell without-"

"Then what is the problem?"

"How those chemicals work together, how they change each other, and in what quantities, of course," Uirrigan sighed, frustrated.  "Bahlzair cannot drink as much as Aleksei can, and Aleksei cannot live with poison glands under his tongue, because between the two of them, there are different sets of chemicals at work."

"You have become useless, old man," Syjen grumbled.  "At last, there is nothing more that can be gained from having left you alive so long.  You have studied every captive we have brought in here, and absolutely nothing you've 'discovered' and documented can help those who once helped you."

"You were useless.  All of you.  You helped the Avariels into early graves, every one.  You can't have been hoping that they would adapt, like the Drow?" I laughed, sitting down on the ground to have a look at the tip of my tail, which itched.  "Why should a prisoner do anything for their captive?"

"Enough, witch," Syjen commanded calmly, looking at me with a strangely changed face.  He looked somehow amused, as though I'd done something of which he approved.  "Go down to Bahlzair, and prepare yourself a spell that divines intentions.  If I'm going to market you as a soothsayer, I'll have to be sure that you're a good one.  Or at least that you can successfully fake it more than once."

And with that, I found my ankles unpleasantly weighted.  As could have been expected, Ylyssa stood at the doorway, arms crossed.

"Sell me and be done with it, since I've spoiled myself in your eyes.  But know that you tell on yourself, since you never use these on him," I snorted, getting to my feet and cramming myself sideways past Ylyssa in order to leave the room.

Not two minutes passed before an agonized scream came from behind us.

I didn't look back.