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.
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