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.