Much had happened as Ivan had described it as he'd worked whatever spell it took to pull my spirit back from Shar's itching fingers. I'd allowed the Dragonborn women to paint over my scars and tattoos, I'd known precisely what to say to Mikhail's questions of faith, and I'd known not to show concern when the dragon came.
But when Mikhail and I entered the cave, I was on my own.
The path through the place was lined with bones and horns, as though the camp had cleaned and saved the remains of every Tiefling they'd ever killed. The stale air reeked of rotting and burned flesh. Planted torches only went a few feet; utter darkness greeted us within minutes. My eyes adjusted quickly to the absolute absence of light, the darkness becoming to me like a dreary day, but it also became obvious that Mikhail's eyes could do no such thing.
"Perhaps my master wishes to come close to me," I whispered gently, pausing my easy advance so that he too would stop. "The way is dark, but I can see it all, all the way up to the altar."
Mikhail stood absolutely still and first glared into the darkness, then squinted into it. At last he turned back, pulled up one of the torches that had been planted into the ground, and came back with it. I watched the entire time, so that my eyes could readjust to the presence of light, and inclined my head in respect when he returned to my side.
"Shall we continue?" he smiled grimly reaching out for my hand. I tried not to betray concern as I placed my hand in his again. Touching him always came with the worried thrill that I might find myself conveniently occupied by his own spirit.
We'd only gotten a few steps farther on before shouts from the camp began echoing in the cave. They sounded strong and militant, as though they were declaring battle. I turned, assuming that Mikhail would want to go and check on his people, but he squeezed my hand.
"No need. They are all well trained, and this is our day."
"Of course, my master; as you wish," I recanted, turning back around and trying to ignore the hollers that sprung around the cave like the flickers of light from the torch. A few minutes after that, the first shrill scream of some young child pierced the enclosing darkness. It was distant, but still sharp enough to be quite disturbing. Mikhail himself paused, then pursed his lips and pressed onward toward the jagged altar before us. Wickedly barbed bear traps and rope traps littered the area- some with the remains of unwary adventurers still clinging to them. Mikhail paused at one point to reset a bear trap that a rat had tripped, and the tough, rusted jaws of it tore the poor creature, still living, in half as he pulled it back.
The altar, and the dais that had been carved around it, was enough to stop me in my tracks. Heaps of gold and jewels had been surrounded by the speared and crushed remains of those who'd been mauled by traps. No one had seen fit to clear the carnage away for some reason, and the sight and stench of it was unbearable. I pulled away from Mikhail, trying to prevent myself from retching, but he gripped my hand like an iron clamp, and I was left to shield myself only with a wavering right hand.
"This strikes terror into the hearts of those who do not follow Her Dark Majesty," Mikhail beamed, completely ignoring my obvious impending illness. "Even as they stretch out their hands to take for themselves this horde dedicated to her honor, they tremble. They sweat. They pay her homage with their fear."
My breath came in small, but audible gags, and I shut my eyes, willing myself to maintain some semblance of decorum as Mikhail reveled in the filth.
"Oh, but of course," Mikhail realized as he watched my form crumple slightly, "Lord Bahamut does not approve?"
I waved my hand weakly, still trying with little success to settle my stomach. Mikhail, perhaps willfully misunderstanding my signal of difficulty, planted the torch again and pulled me to himself. The rapid movement was too much, as I was forced to quickly breathe the putrid air in, and I was sick- all over. The food that had been simple and bland going down reeked like the worst of Orcish cuisine when it returned, and Mikhail found himself plastered from the stomach downward. He let go of me at once, and I collapsed to the ground, still heaving for a few moments before I could control myself.
And chillingly, he laughed.
It was not some simple sound, the product of amusement, but a maniacal cacophony, echoing from the cavern's walls and pressing down on me like a solid hand. Utterly afraid, tears began to come to my eyes as I gasped, gagged and vomited again, by this time giving up little but water and the juices of the stomach.
"Yes, my dearest, indeed. Such would be the Platinum Dragon's reaction, I'm sure." I couldn't look up, but I didn't have to, as Mikhail's soaked robe splatted to the ground. He reached down and slid his hands under my arms, lifting me gently to my feet and wiping the remains of my illness from me with my own scant clothing- a bit of the ceremonial paint came with it, but he did not seem to mind. This done, he disrobed me entirely and picked me up completely, stepping over my pool of sick and carrying me toward a slightly moldy and blood-spattered bed roll.
"Rest here," he counseled calmly, as though we were in the most serene of places. Perhaps he was. "Your fear and revulsion has, I'm sure, pleased Her Dark Majesty greatly. I shall do my best to clean the area before we kneel before the Dark Queen and request her grim blessings."
I had little physical strength left to do anything but what he'd asked, and I tried not to turn my head to notice precisely why there was an arc of old blood across the roll. I didn't dare close my eyes for fear of what creatures would crawl on me, so I found myself staring terrified holes into the ceiling, wondering what god was capable of putting up with, let alone enjoying, such a gruesome display. It seemed a hideously long wait, each second passing as though it had been an age. When Mikhail returned with the torch, he reeked of bile, but I could not even summon the strength to be unwell again.
"Come, let us pray," Mikhail invited, stretching his hand out to me. I accepted it silently, taking my time to get up, trying to prepare myself to see again that gut-wrenching heap of death-splattered treasure.
The altar itself, a twisted metal work that branched up from the ground with five protruding hooks, would have been lovely, if it were not painted in blood with entrails hanging from the various metal spikes. Great care had been taken to adorn it with swirls and loose knot-work engravings, not unlike the ceremonial painting that I'd had to lay still for hours to receive. In addition to the gore before the altar, the thick tree-trunk like work was flanked on either side by large torture apparatuses- a spiked coffin on one side and a spiked metal rack on the other. The rack was fitted with huge gears, hooks, and two different cranks, and sat near what appeared to be a cold fire pot, and my imagination went wild with the images of victims being pulled apart on a heated rack.
I knelt with Mikhail, but could hardly listen to the words coming out of his mouth. I was too busy being disgusted and horrified by the fact that moment by moment, I was becoming accustomed to the smell, acclimatized to the obvious signs of torture. I wondered at the internal health of a society that festered with this type of worship- the type that dragged victims into pitch black caves to be sliced at, bored through with spikes, pulled apart on blistering hot racks and finally tossed in pieces onto a spiked altar.
Worse, I wondered at myself for being able to imagine these things.
Fortunately, whatever worship had been required was able to be suffered through without saying anything at all. After some hour or so on my knees, my legs were angry, stinging and weak when Mikhail drew me to stand and hold on to him.
"We are as one," he said joyfully, dispelling all other thoughts from my mind. "The Dark Queen is most pleased with your rapidly darkening thoughts- your fear has given way to her reverence. Perhaps you were not meant to symbolize the Unified at all, but instead to reclaim this camp for her great and most vicious ways."
"Not so, my lord," I protested quietly, shaking my head. "I am sure I was born with the eyes of the great Platinum Dragon, who had called me out before I had even known of him."
Mikhail kissed the crown of my head, which I accepted with a thin smirk and a curtsey. We walked cautiously in the light of the one torch back over to the bedroll, which really was only large enough for one person to fit comfortably. I made a pretense of wanting to pray, and he went to bed alone.
Never before had I been so grateful for the Bleak Blessing.
While my father, Ceubel, had been a great warrior cursed, as he saw it, with no children save daughters, my mother, Naja, had been a grasping, intelligent woman who had befriended a particularly worthy Drow opponent. Together, Naja and her Drow woman made myself and most of my sisters more kin to shadow than to each other. I would have done them proud that night, silently phasing out of the light into the utter darkness of the rest of the cave. As I walked close to the entrance of the cave, able to clearly see the crude traps that Mikhail had studiously avoided or reset before, I could see great leaping fires and hear cries of battle. It seemed as though the Dragonborn were evenly matched by archers that I could not see and melee fighters that zoomed around them like gnats. Most of their Human cohabitants seemed either turned against them or slain, blood and fire rushing this way and that.
I turned my head over my shoulder.
Why had Mikhail not turned back to help his people when we had first heard the cries arise?
I looked down at the pathway that stretched out before me, lined with the remains of others.
I knelt down and put both hands to a horn that thrust up out of the ground as though it had been one of the carved spikes on the altar to Tiamat.
There had never been a Unified. Not for Mikhail. Not even for a moment.
I picked up a fairly heavy stone and turned back, jaw set and lips pursed.
The screaming behind me strengthened my resolve.
Like the selfish, grasping, prideful anti-goddess he worshiped, Mikhail had only ever cared for his own happiness, his own comfort, his own success.
Tiamat seemed to me, in that moment, very like Shar. And Mikhail seemed very like the selfish man who complained aloud to that goddess every time his name was used to call one of his daughters.
It was nothing for me to walk back through the pitch blackness of the cave, and when I reached the torch, I pulled it up, walked it a few paces away so that the area near the bedroll was untouched by its halo of light, and then picked up my chosen implements again. Quietly, I set down the rock behind me as I knelt next to this creature who'd been called master for years. With both hands gripping the horn tightly, I raised my arms.
I did not know where Mi'ishaen was. For all I knew, she could have been dead, killed while bound as the attackers raged through the Dragonborn camp. The thought of a pair of dull red eyes staring forever into the darkness of death poured force into my upper body, and the horn dove into Mikhail's temple as though it had been a sharpened pact blade prepared for the purpose.
His body jerked- his eyes and mouth opened, but sound failed to come. I watched for just a few moments before turning to the stone behind me. Again I raised my arms, and with a grunt of effort brought the solid thing down against the horn, pinning Mikhail through the temple to the ground. His eyes glazed, but did not close, and I did not check to see if he still lived. I let go, and the stone rolled from my hands over his head and onto the ground behind him with a heavy thud. My body either realized that I'd just murdered someone or that it was very chilly, for I began to tremble, but I would not let myself cry.
"Curse you," I whispered viciously through tight lips. "Curse your goddess, and your gold, and your blind selfish pride."
I got up and retrieved the torch, walking back for the last time to the bedroll and simply dropping it there. I walked off a few paces, then turned to watch, still shivering, as the bedroll slowly began to burn. I did not mind the scent of Mikhail's burning scale and flesh at all, and I don't know how long I stood there, watching as the fire delighted itself with melting the paint and then eating into the scale underneath.
When I finally did tear myself away from the sight to walk back again toward the mouth of the cave, I noted that the torches were all out, and that the witch of the morning was clawing impatiently at the horizon. The battle in the camp was still raging, and a few killed soldiers, some Dragonborn, some Human, some Elven and some kobolds, were scattered all over the place.
As though I were in a dream, I walked forward and pulled a green cloth from one of the Elven soldiers to wrap around my nakedness and tie in the front. As I turned my head slowly and mechanically over my shoulders, I saw two daggers that had clearly been the end of at least one kobold. The blood had dried onto the talon-tipped pommels, leading me to believe that the damage had been done quite near the beginning of the battle the night before. Perhaps the invaders had seen Mikhail and I enter the cave and had thought to take our lives.
I was somehow strangely glad that they had left me the grim honor of claiming Mikhail's life myself.
I walked out with the daggers hanging at my sides, not looking for battle, but instead for the remains of battle. I'm not sure what I must have looked like, but Dragonborn soldiers and invaders alike completely avoided me as I walked down toward the river, which had just about jumped its banks. Mikhail's tent had been burned, and was now a smoking ruin. The Hall of Horns looked as though it had been smashed through with a crude battering ram, and all the furniture in it, altars and all, had been smashed or burned. Many tents were pulled up, smoking, but Ivan's tent, right at the banks of the river, stood whole. I made my way down toward it, but was stopped by a heavy hand on my shoulder. I slowly turned and looked up into a glittering hazel right eye and a scarred left side that had suffered yet another slice. It bled freely, and I put my hand to it, eliciting a slight wince from the other eye.
"It is not hurting until you are touching it," the sonorous voice grumbled. "Maybe I am not seeing the dagger of my opponent soon enough- but, this slice is better here than in my neck."
"What's happening, Aleksei?" I asked disjointedly, aware of a Dragonborn fighting a pair of much smaller soldiers just beyond me.
"It is ending, this battle. Many times this people further south, toward the water, are complaining of bandits, but the ruler is doing nothing. So when I am coming with kobolds to find Bahlzair, who I am not bringing back at all, this people are angry, and are defending themselves. They are not knowing that I am not wishing to take their gold. They are furious. I am saying, 'Let me go, let also my kobolds go, and I will destroy this bandits for you. So they are sending good soldiers; they are saying, 'Do this, and you will be safe leaving from us. You and everyone you are saying is safe. But do not come back.' I am promising them death of Mikhail- but I am not seeing Mikhail...?"
And I smiled. I felt myself doing it. A horrible, bloody grimace that explained more to Aleksei than any description could have done.
"He is much deserving that. My family is being avenged by Shadow Child- this is good story for tavern. But you smell awful, even for battle. Come, we are winning already; let us celebrate."
And with that, Aleksei simply picked me right up off the ground, sat down on the banks of the river, and rolled me in. I tumbled from his lap with a splash, still clutching both weapons. Digging them into the river bed, I gained the ability to control my place in the water and could stand up against the current, which was much stronger than I thought. I whipped my hair up and back out of the water, spraying Aleksei and laughing as some of the black and green ceremonial paint dripped off his left side. It seemed to aggravate the slice just on the outside of the socket of his scarred left eye, but he shrugged the pain off with an easy going laugh.
But even with this joyous reunion, I still worried.
I had seen not one trace of neither Mi'ishaen nor her new-found cousin.
29 February 2012
23 February 2012
Empire Sized Shadows 1:40 An unholy sermon.
I could neither see nor hear for some time, and in the complete darkness and silence, I fell asleep. I can only say this for certain because I do know that I woke up with the ability to see and hear again, and predictably, Ivan was only a short distance away. Finding myself sitting at the foot of a tree, I got up to walk toward him.
But then, in the not-quite-risen sun's pale light, I got a look at precisely where I was.
Rows and rows of small stone markers stretched around me, and seemingly into the horizon itself. A few flowers here, a saucer of some long-dried substance there, a cup full of old honey and dead ants. And in the center of this swath of land sat Ivan, the fog of the very early morning pulling away from his warm body and contenting itself with the chilly stones that stretched away from him in all directions. His back was to me, and he was very still. I would have called his name, but the strange silence and sacredness of the place stole my voice. I could only walk up behind him and lay a hand on his shoulder.
"It was the first place I could think of," he offered brokenly, as though finishing an apology.
I only nodded.
"I killed all these people," he sighed. "Those who touched me had their lives almost sucked from them. Those who looked at me either vomited immediately or simply collapsed to the ground. Whoever dared to follow me, dared to speak to me, suffered greatly. At first there was a cloud that ate into the flesh, then there was fire that rolled with me like a storm- I-"
"You are a conjurer. A gifted conjurer and necromancer at nothing more than 8 or 9 years old. All of this was long ago. You're older now. Why are you so upset about it now?" I whispered quietly, not wanting to disturb the chill silence of the ground. "You can look at me, you know."
"No, I- I must remind myself- I- I must-" Ivan stammered out in protest.
And beneath us, the ground seemed to tremble.
"No!" he whispered fiercely, clearly more to himself than to anyone or anything else. "No- be at rest- at peace- stay-"
"Why? Why must they? And why must you?" I hissed urgently. "Out of respect for them? They didn't respect you. They feared you, and you hated them. They bobbed your tail, supposedly to save your soul."
It seemed as though he contracted into himself somehow. "Stop-"
I leaned into him, trying to get him to look at me. "They took your horns to 'cut off your connection to the demons.' They changed your name. They foisted their gods upon you- gods that never spoke to you or cared about you at all. Gods that barely care about them."
"But, I-" barely managed from a choked throat.
And there was a definite tremor in the ground. A few of the stones closest to Ivan began to lift up as though someone was pushing them from underneath.
"Yes, they did, you know they did. You were a child, with vast power and a good reason to be angry- to feel betrayed and lost. And maybe these nutcases gave you the time, the discipline and the space you needed to grow up a little. Yes, you killed all these people. But you helped the Shadar-Kai- not Bahamut, not Tiamat, not anyone else. And you could raise an army out of this graveyard- it's up to you whether you admit that and do it because you want to, or you keep trying to lock that part of you away, only for it to break out and do even more damage. All your mother wanted was for you to control your power, not to outright deny yourself. You're practically a natural master, way beyond what you were as a child, but you can't possibly control who you are if you won't admit to most of it."
For a few moments, I watched visible cracks split some of the small mounds around us. A strange and sick acrid smell began to arise, and I could feel my skin begin to get irritated.
"See? Look at what you can do. Open your eyes and look, before you desecrate the place for no reason."
Two golden orbs slowly opened and focused. I got up and stood back so that he could look around himself and really understand just how many graves were reacting to his repressed abilities. And eventually, the cracks in the ground stopped growing. A few minutes passed, and my skin no longer prickled- the fog had begun to disperse. Ivan sighed deeply, allowing the breath to straighten his crumpled frame up a bit.
"I- thank you," he breathed. It was a deep release, as though he was grateful to have air after having been held underwater for some time. "When did you become so wise, little cousin?"
"I'm not wise," I shrugged. "Just observant. I have to be. Perhaps that priest of Bahamut would have said the same thing, had he survived his own spell."
"Ah, yes, Clan-father Deitav. He's buried just over there," Ivan nodded, indicating one of the larger stone markers with a steady hand. Oddly enough, while some markers had been pushed almost all the way out of the ground, his had not moved an inch. "I have sat on that grave many times, spoken with that spirit many times since. He had indeed counseled me in that manner many times, but I cannot say that I got his meaning clearly."
"I would imagine that the fact that he's dead didn't help matters."
And beyond us, I could finally make out a few screams, shouts and cries of battle.
"That racket doesn't seem to fit, here," I noted, turning my head to look out at all the stone markers. "How far are we?"
"Not very. Perhaps a mile, maybe a little more. At the time this place was made, the stink of some of the bodies was so bad that they couldn't bear to have buried them any closer to the camp. Those were the ones that vomited themselves to death, mostly, although a few had terrible acid sores all over their bodies."
I must have given him a face.
"I exhumed them, some of them, when I had recovered myself. I studied what I had done- I always was that type of person. I wanted so badly to figure it out- to figure myself out." There was something about the way he said it that reminded me of another scholar of sorts.
"Did you ever get someone very close to death, and feel as though you just had to, I don't know, finish the job, somehow?"
Ivan looked directly at me, which I had to smile at. "Yes. I couldn't really put my finger on it, and I accepted it when I was told that the demons had spurred me on, but-"
"It's a magical reaction in our blood," I explained simply. "Once we get something down to the doors of death, we just have to push them in. The demons, or whoever, don't have to spur you if your blood will naturally do it for them."
"Really? Is that so?" Ivan marveled, leaning his head back slightly as though he were looking at the tops of the trees beyond me. "A very interesting theory. If this is caused by our- unique heritage- I wonder if there are other innate strengths and weaknesses passed on by our ancestors. It would be just as my father had said to those people, so many years ago."
"I bet there are," I encouraged. "There was an Avariel who performed a test on me; that's how I knew about the magical reaction. He says that there is literally magic in the blood that gets it all excited, or something like that. Maybe that's what drove you. Maybe demons have never spoken to you at all."
Ivan gave a bit of a half smirk as he truly pondered the idea. "Intriguing. Magic in our very blood. If that were to be so, it'd be a wonder that more of us aren't blood-crazed warlocks."
"Maybe some of them are scared," I said meaningfully. Dark Humans, indeed.
We sat for few moments in silence, just listening to the screams of those being slaughtered in the camp.
"Take your time," I said calmly. "The Hall of Horns will still be there tomorrow."
"But none of the cultists will be," Ivan scoffed, closing his eyes.
"Good. Let them get torn apart. Let them call to their useless gods, only to have their prayers fall on deaf ears, because they haven't got the gold to pay for their services." I sat down and lay back on the chilly ground. Morning had fully broken, and the sky was glorious with various orangy red streaks.
"You don't revere any gods, do you, Mi'ishaen? Nothing is holy to you."
"There's no such thing as holy, Ivan. Nothing, and no one's worthy to be worshiped."
"Not even Asmodeus?"
"He's to be feared, like a furious mage or a rampaging warrior, perhaps avoided on a bad day, but I wouldn't fall down prostrate before his image or token and swear undying fealty like those idiots. If you're looking for belief, then I believe in greed, hate, war, and death. Those all exist. People have felt them. No one that I have ever known has ever felt the touch of a god."
"Seyashen," he corrected, closing his eyes. "I am Seyashen. And add love to your list. I've felt love."
But then, in the not-quite-risen sun's pale light, I got a look at precisely where I was.
Rows and rows of small stone markers stretched around me, and seemingly into the horizon itself. A few flowers here, a saucer of some long-dried substance there, a cup full of old honey and dead ants. And in the center of this swath of land sat Ivan, the fog of the very early morning pulling away from his warm body and contenting itself with the chilly stones that stretched away from him in all directions. His back was to me, and he was very still. I would have called his name, but the strange silence and sacredness of the place stole my voice. I could only walk up behind him and lay a hand on his shoulder.
"It was the first place I could think of," he offered brokenly, as though finishing an apology.
I only nodded.
"I killed all these people," he sighed. "Those who touched me had their lives almost sucked from them. Those who looked at me either vomited immediately or simply collapsed to the ground. Whoever dared to follow me, dared to speak to me, suffered greatly. At first there was a cloud that ate into the flesh, then there was fire that rolled with me like a storm- I-"
"You are a conjurer. A gifted conjurer and necromancer at nothing more than 8 or 9 years old. All of this was long ago. You're older now. Why are you so upset about it now?" I whispered quietly, not wanting to disturb the chill silence of the ground. "You can look at me, you know."
"No, I- I must remind myself- I- I must-" Ivan stammered out in protest.
And beneath us, the ground seemed to tremble.
"No!" he whispered fiercely, clearly more to himself than to anyone or anything else. "No- be at rest- at peace- stay-"
"Why? Why must they? And why must you?" I hissed urgently. "Out of respect for them? They didn't respect you. They feared you, and you hated them. They bobbed your tail, supposedly to save your soul."
It seemed as though he contracted into himself somehow. "Stop-"
I leaned into him, trying to get him to look at me. "They took your horns to 'cut off your connection to the demons.' They changed your name. They foisted their gods upon you- gods that never spoke to you or cared about you at all. Gods that barely care about them."
"But, I-" barely managed from a choked throat.
And there was a definite tremor in the ground. A few of the stones closest to Ivan began to lift up as though someone was pushing them from underneath.
"Yes, they did, you know they did. You were a child, with vast power and a good reason to be angry- to feel betrayed and lost. And maybe these nutcases gave you the time, the discipline and the space you needed to grow up a little. Yes, you killed all these people. But you helped the Shadar-Kai- not Bahamut, not Tiamat, not anyone else. And you could raise an army out of this graveyard- it's up to you whether you admit that and do it because you want to, or you keep trying to lock that part of you away, only for it to break out and do even more damage. All your mother wanted was for you to control your power, not to outright deny yourself. You're practically a natural master, way beyond what you were as a child, but you can't possibly control who you are if you won't admit to most of it."
For a few moments, I watched visible cracks split some of the small mounds around us. A strange and sick acrid smell began to arise, and I could feel my skin begin to get irritated.
"See? Look at what you can do. Open your eyes and look, before you desecrate the place for no reason."
Two golden orbs slowly opened and focused. I got up and stood back so that he could look around himself and really understand just how many graves were reacting to his repressed abilities. And eventually, the cracks in the ground stopped growing. A few minutes passed, and my skin no longer prickled- the fog had begun to disperse. Ivan sighed deeply, allowing the breath to straighten his crumpled frame up a bit.
"I- thank you," he breathed. It was a deep release, as though he was grateful to have air after having been held underwater for some time. "When did you become so wise, little cousin?"
"I'm not wise," I shrugged. "Just observant. I have to be. Perhaps that priest of Bahamut would have said the same thing, had he survived his own spell."
"Ah, yes, Clan-father Deitav. He's buried just over there," Ivan nodded, indicating one of the larger stone markers with a steady hand. Oddly enough, while some markers had been pushed almost all the way out of the ground, his had not moved an inch. "I have sat on that grave many times, spoken with that spirit many times since. He had indeed counseled me in that manner many times, but I cannot say that I got his meaning clearly."
"I would imagine that the fact that he's dead didn't help matters."
And beyond us, I could finally make out a few screams, shouts and cries of battle.
"That racket doesn't seem to fit, here," I noted, turning my head to look out at all the stone markers. "How far are we?"
"Not very. Perhaps a mile, maybe a little more. At the time this place was made, the stink of some of the bodies was so bad that they couldn't bear to have buried them any closer to the camp. Those were the ones that vomited themselves to death, mostly, although a few had terrible acid sores all over their bodies."
I must have given him a face.
"I exhumed them, some of them, when I had recovered myself. I studied what I had done- I always was that type of person. I wanted so badly to figure it out- to figure myself out." There was something about the way he said it that reminded me of another scholar of sorts.
"Did you ever get someone very close to death, and feel as though you just had to, I don't know, finish the job, somehow?"
Ivan looked directly at me, which I had to smile at. "Yes. I couldn't really put my finger on it, and I accepted it when I was told that the demons had spurred me on, but-"
"It's a magical reaction in our blood," I explained simply. "Once we get something down to the doors of death, we just have to push them in. The demons, or whoever, don't have to spur you if your blood will naturally do it for them."
"Really? Is that so?" Ivan marveled, leaning his head back slightly as though he were looking at the tops of the trees beyond me. "A very interesting theory. If this is caused by our- unique heritage- I wonder if there are other innate strengths and weaknesses passed on by our ancestors. It would be just as my father had said to those people, so many years ago."
"I bet there are," I encouraged. "There was an Avariel who performed a test on me; that's how I knew about the magical reaction. He says that there is literally magic in the blood that gets it all excited, or something like that. Maybe that's what drove you. Maybe demons have never spoken to you at all."
Ivan gave a bit of a half smirk as he truly pondered the idea. "Intriguing. Magic in our very blood. If that were to be so, it'd be a wonder that more of us aren't blood-crazed warlocks."
"Maybe some of them are scared," I said meaningfully. Dark Humans, indeed.
We sat for few moments in silence, just listening to the screams of those being slaughtered in the camp.
"Take your time," I said calmly. "The Hall of Horns will still be there tomorrow."
"But none of the cultists will be," Ivan scoffed, closing his eyes.
"Good. Let them get torn apart. Let them call to their useless gods, only to have their prayers fall on deaf ears, because they haven't got the gold to pay for their services." I sat down and lay back on the chilly ground. Morning had fully broken, and the sky was glorious with various orangy red streaks.
"You don't revere any gods, do you, Mi'ishaen? Nothing is holy to you."
"There's no such thing as holy, Ivan. Nothing, and no one's worthy to be worshiped."
"Not even Asmodeus?"
"He's to be feared, like a furious mage or a rampaging warrior, perhaps avoided on a bad day, but I wouldn't fall down prostrate before his image or token and swear undying fealty like those idiots. If you're looking for belief, then I believe in greed, hate, war, and death. Those all exist. People have felt them. No one that I have ever known has ever felt the touch of a god."
"Seyashen," he corrected, closing his eyes. "I am Seyashen. And add love to your list. I've felt love."
16 February 2012
1:39 How to deal with pirates and bandits.
Three days.
Eight days.
Two weeks.
Aleksei did not return, nor was there any sign of Bahlzair.
The grand spell or ritual or whatever was being worked immediately in front of Mikhail's tent had been well-prepared, but the mystic types that were attending it seemed to be growing rather weary of doing so. I tried not to pay more attention to Ivan than anyone would deem warranted- I didn't want my tail cut off any sooner, and I didn't want him to become the object of any suspicion.
The creek, half-dry when we'd first attempted our cross, seemed to be growing by the day. I wasn't sure what was feeding it, whether it was the melting frost from somewhere or some omen that I was too ignorant of magic to understand, but I began to get the feeling as though I really didn't want to be around when the waters of this rushing river finally jumped the muddy banks.
In fact, Arjaa- the guard who'd attempted to explain her slice of the group's history to me some weeks before- began to personally query some of the guards outside of the Hall, to see if there were any news of the "two-toned male." She was the only guard left to me, now, as I hadn't done anything overtly threatening and people were indeed truly beginning to believe me a convert to their faith. Genuinely curious, I did ask Arjaa some more things about her culture, only to be dumbfounded by the answers.
Just as with many other races, there were differing opinions on how the Dragonborn had come to be. A good deal of Dragonborn had absolutely no deity at all, being born to and wandering with clans that claimed no gods. Further, even the ones that did respect the power Io or Bahamut were not guaranteed to worship them, not were they always on the friendliest terms with other dragons, who had apparently enslaved them in some other land in a distant history. So Mikhail's absolutely rabid fanaticism for Tiamat grouped him with an exceedingly small slice of Dragonborn culture. Not only did he believe in the value of dragons where others did not, he venerated a particularly sanguine dragon goddess, the pinnacle of what other Dragonborn would scorn in their former masters. No wonder even other dragon-worshipping Dragonborn would take his beliefs to task.
Arjaa's family, like a few others in the camp, had been born and raised in Tymanther, which had freed itself from its dragon rulers and had been independent for some time before it crashed out of some other planet- or some such nonsense- into this one. Based on Aleksei's "mountain speech," as she referred to it, he was not from Tymanther, but some one of the other floating landmasses further north. Once I told her that no, he did not breathe fire, but frost, she was absolutely convinced that he'd come from some other land that she'd known nothing about. "Arkhosia" meant nothing to her- that is to say, it was neither her homeland nor a place she would have fought for. While other Dragonborn had mentioned the great empire to her, her family had been absolutely separated from it.
In return, I told her what I could remember of Vor Kragal, the capitol of Bael Turath- although much of it was diving between secret police and my brother's various sharp objects, and being practically put out of the city when he and both parents had died. Arjaa listened carefully, and seemed to dream of what it would be like to live where I had. I wondered what reason she had to do so, until I remembered that she'd pretty much lived most of her life either traveling or stuck on the banks of this pitiful river.
On the early twentieth day, I was jarred awake by a thunderous roar that shook the area. Arjaa, similarly disturbed, leaped up from her bedroll on the floor, grabbed my upper arm, and surged outside to see what was going on.
And before our eyes, in front of Mikhail's tent, was an unimaginably large red dragon, whose sudden presence had pushed just about everyone else in the camp to their knees or on their backs or faces. Arjaa and I stood there, and although she'd said that she'd seen such a ritual before, she seemed just a little too surprised for that statement to be true. Either that, or something was so hideously wrong as to render the ritual unrecognizable to her.
"What's the matter?" I finally dared to whisper as the others in the camp got to proper kneeling or prostrate positions. Arjaa seemed too stunned to move, but after a few more seconds, she spoke.
"He's- very old- very, very old," she breathed. "Old enough for his eyes to just be- globes of lava- ancient." She knelt down and yanked at my arm so that I would do the same, and my eyes scanned the area for Ivan or Silveredge.
I didn't have to look for long, as Mikhail, whose painted red swirls now covered every inch of his body that wasn't dressed, brought a quite-nearly-naked Silveredge before the dragon and knelt down. I couldn't hear what was being said, but after a few moments of what seemed to be peaceful communication between Mikhail and the dragon, the dragon cut a tight circle of fire around the couple and disappeared.
"Over three hundred thousand gold so that he can show up, give a counseling session, spit fire and leave?" I whispered. "Is there anything else to this ceremony?"
Arjaa didn't answer, but we watched together as Mikhail and Silveredge arose, stepped through the fire and made their way toward the gaping maw of a cave outside the camp tents. There was a bone, wood and stone construct that jutted out from the face of the cave as well as sharp objects buried into the ground, and it practically appeared as though the two were walking into a gigantic mouth.
"Perhaps the dragon commanded that the Shadar-Kai be changed first," Arjaa breathed, seeming to be so in awe that I didn't want to press her for details. "They're going to have to scrape up that gold all over again- they better up the toll."
When the two had disappeared into the cave for some minutes, the rest of the camp began to get themselves off the ground and go back to their proper functions.
A gentle breeze blew, and Arjaa had no contest from me as we walked calmly through the camp together. Until the wind brought a certain stench with it.
The smell was a clearer warning to me than a trumpet could have been. While others looked around themselves disgustedly, I grabbed Arjaa and pulled her toward the Hall of Horns.
"Your mate, where is he? Where's his son?" I demanded urgently.
"I don't know, working, I suppose," Arjaa replied blankly. "Someone's got to repair all the armor and sharpen all the weapons."
"Well, they'd better stop what they're doing and get in here. You'd better stick together, or you won't-"
Arjaa stopped dead in her tracks and stared at me. "Are you back to trying at your magic? What are you saying?"
"Go and get your family, is what I'm saying," I whispered fiercely. "I don't do magic; I never have, but I know that smell. There's going to be-"
"Attack! All to arms- to arms! We're being attacked!" came the shout from the eastern side of the camp, where Silveredge had once been held. In moments, there were people rushing around, grabbing weapons, donning armor and pushing non-combatants- which were few- inside their tents. I'd turned my head to see if I could see Ivan, but when I turned back, Arjaa was gone. I wasn't sure if she'd rushed off to take my advice or if she'd answered the call to arms. I realized in this moment, with all the guards and other fighters rushing around me, that I was practically free, so I ran toward Ivan's tent to see if he were alright or if he'd perhaps been pushed elsewhere.
I didn't get very far.
The sky came alive with fire-tipped arrows.
"Fire- fire!" some fighters screamed, moments too late for a few sorry souls. The camp now went from its initial state of relative battle-readiness to a wash of chaos. Tents had been expertly set aflame, and inhabitants had little choice but to get out of them, since the old hides and furs burned incredibly quickly. Kobolds flooded the camp, screeching and slashing with glee at the completely horrified Dragonborn. Surprise of all surprises, Humans and Elves swarmed in behind them, their armor wrapped with copper and forest green- city colors, obviously, but not from any settlement I'd yet seen.
The colors were the last thing I noticed, anyway, before something grabbed me from behind. Since my hair had been unbraided for some days, it wasn't difficult for the assailant to get a good fist full, thus keeping me from really turning around to get a good look. The hands weren't clawed and scaled, but they were rather warm. In moments, I could no longer see nor hear- it was as though I'd suffered some terrible blow to the head, but there was no pain at all. I know I hollered "Ivan!" but I couldn't hear myself. I was quick marched by my captor, and I could only imagine what was happening around me.
Eight days.
Two weeks.
Aleksei did not return, nor was there any sign of Bahlzair.
The grand spell or ritual or whatever was being worked immediately in front of Mikhail's tent had been well-prepared, but the mystic types that were attending it seemed to be growing rather weary of doing so. I tried not to pay more attention to Ivan than anyone would deem warranted- I didn't want my tail cut off any sooner, and I didn't want him to become the object of any suspicion.
The creek, half-dry when we'd first attempted our cross, seemed to be growing by the day. I wasn't sure what was feeding it, whether it was the melting frost from somewhere or some omen that I was too ignorant of magic to understand, but I began to get the feeling as though I really didn't want to be around when the waters of this rushing river finally jumped the muddy banks.
In fact, Arjaa- the guard who'd attempted to explain her slice of the group's history to me some weeks before- began to personally query some of the guards outside of the Hall, to see if there were any news of the "two-toned male." She was the only guard left to me, now, as I hadn't done anything overtly threatening and people were indeed truly beginning to believe me a convert to their faith. Genuinely curious, I did ask Arjaa some more things about her culture, only to be dumbfounded by the answers.
Just as with many other races, there were differing opinions on how the Dragonborn had come to be. A good deal of Dragonborn had absolutely no deity at all, being born to and wandering with clans that claimed no gods. Further, even the ones that did respect the power Io or Bahamut were not guaranteed to worship them, not were they always on the friendliest terms with other dragons, who had apparently enslaved them in some other land in a distant history. So Mikhail's absolutely rabid fanaticism for Tiamat grouped him with an exceedingly small slice of Dragonborn culture. Not only did he believe in the value of dragons where others did not, he venerated a particularly sanguine dragon goddess, the pinnacle of what other Dragonborn would scorn in their former masters. No wonder even other dragon-worshipping Dragonborn would take his beliefs to task.
Arjaa's family, like a few others in the camp, had been born and raised in Tymanther, which had freed itself from its dragon rulers and had been independent for some time before it crashed out of some other planet- or some such nonsense- into this one. Based on Aleksei's "mountain speech," as she referred to it, he was not from Tymanther, but some one of the other floating landmasses further north. Once I told her that no, he did not breathe fire, but frost, she was absolutely convinced that he'd come from some other land that she'd known nothing about. "Arkhosia" meant nothing to her- that is to say, it was neither her homeland nor a place she would have fought for. While other Dragonborn had mentioned the great empire to her, her family had been absolutely separated from it.
In return, I told her what I could remember of Vor Kragal, the capitol of Bael Turath- although much of it was diving between secret police and my brother's various sharp objects, and being practically put out of the city when he and both parents had died. Arjaa listened carefully, and seemed to dream of what it would be like to live where I had. I wondered what reason she had to do so, until I remembered that she'd pretty much lived most of her life either traveling or stuck on the banks of this pitiful river.
On the early twentieth day, I was jarred awake by a thunderous roar that shook the area. Arjaa, similarly disturbed, leaped up from her bedroll on the floor, grabbed my upper arm, and surged outside to see what was going on.
And before our eyes, in front of Mikhail's tent, was an unimaginably large red dragon, whose sudden presence had pushed just about everyone else in the camp to their knees or on their backs or faces. Arjaa and I stood there, and although she'd said that she'd seen such a ritual before, she seemed just a little too surprised for that statement to be true. Either that, or something was so hideously wrong as to render the ritual unrecognizable to her.
"What's the matter?" I finally dared to whisper as the others in the camp got to proper kneeling or prostrate positions. Arjaa seemed too stunned to move, but after a few more seconds, she spoke.
"He's- very old- very, very old," she breathed. "Old enough for his eyes to just be- globes of lava- ancient." She knelt down and yanked at my arm so that I would do the same, and my eyes scanned the area for Ivan or Silveredge.
I didn't have to look for long, as Mikhail, whose painted red swirls now covered every inch of his body that wasn't dressed, brought a quite-nearly-naked Silveredge before the dragon and knelt down. I couldn't hear what was being said, but after a few moments of what seemed to be peaceful communication between Mikhail and the dragon, the dragon cut a tight circle of fire around the couple and disappeared.
"Over three hundred thousand gold so that he can show up, give a counseling session, spit fire and leave?" I whispered. "Is there anything else to this ceremony?"
Arjaa didn't answer, but we watched together as Mikhail and Silveredge arose, stepped through the fire and made their way toward the gaping maw of a cave outside the camp tents. There was a bone, wood and stone construct that jutted out from the face of the cave as well as sharp objects buried into the ground, and it practically appeared as though the two were walking into a gigantic mouth.
"Perhaps the dragon commanded that the Shadar-Kai be changed first," Arjaa breathed, seeming to be so in awe that I didn't want to press her for details. "They're going to have to scrape up that gold all over again- they better up the toll."
When the two had disappeared into the cave for some minutes, the rest of the camp began to get themselves off the ground and go back to their proper functions.
A gentle breeze blew, and Arjaa had no contest from me as we walked calmly through the camp together. Until the wind brought a certain stench with it.
The smell was a clearer warning to me than a trumpet could have been. While others looked around themselves disgustedly, I grabbed Arjaa and pulled her toward the Hall of Horns.
"Your mate, where is he? Where's his son?" I demanded urgently.
"I don't know, working, I suppose," Arjaa replied blankly. "Someone's got to repair all the armor and sharpen all the weapons."
"Well, they'd better stop what they're doing and get in here. You'd better stick together, or you won't-"
Arjaa stopped dead in her tracks and stared at me. "Are you back to trying at your magic? What are you saying?"
"Go and get your family, is what I'm saying," I whispered fiercely. "I don't do magic; I never have, but I know that smell. There's going to be-"
"Attack! All to arms- to arms! We're being attacked!" came the shout from the eastern side of the camp, where Silveredge had once been held. In moments, there were people rushing around, grabbing weapons, donning armor and pushing non-combatants- which were few- inside their tents. I'd turned my head to see if I could see Ivan, but when I turned back, Arjaa was gone. I wasn't sure if she'd rushed off to take my advice or if she'd answered the call to arms. I realized in this moment, with all the guards and other fighters rushing around me, that I was practically free, so I ran toward Ivan's tent to see if he were alright or if he'd perhaps been pushed elsewhere.
I didn't get very far.
The sky came alive with fire-tipped arrows.
"Fire- fire!" some fighters screamed, moments too late for a few sorry souls. The camp now went from its initial state of relative battle-readiness to a wash of chaos. Tents had been expertly set aflame, and inhabitants had little choice but to get out of them, since the old hides and furs burned incredibly quickly. Kobolds flooded the camp, screeching and slashing with glee at the completely horrified Dragonborn. Surprise of all surprises, Humans and Elves swarmed in behind them, their armor wrapped with copper and forest green- city colors, obviously, but not from any settlement I'd yet seen.
The colors were the last thing I noticed, anyway, before something grabbed me from behind. Since my hair had been unbraided for some days, it wasn't difficult for the assailant to get a good fist full, thus keeping me from really turning around to get a good look. The hands weren't clawed and scaled, but they were rather warm. In moments, I could no longer see nor hear- it was as though I'd suffered some terrible blow to the head, but there was no pain at all. I know I hollered "Ivan!" but I couldn't hear myself. I was quick marched by my captor, and I could only imagine what was happening around me.
07 February 2012
1:38 Friendly marriages.
It was just as well that Mikhail wasn't convinced that Aleksei and I should be joined in the way that he intended to join himself to Silveredge. Although I'd never asked his age, I figured that Aleksei was probably my senior by at least a decade. The battle that Ivan did manage to win was, to me, more important. I was allowed to keep my horns. Since apparently his horns had been more like his father's than mine, he was able to successfully argue that removal of my horns would be practically fatal to me, as they wound so close to my head. It was decided, however, that my tail would have to be bobbed when I accepted the faith of Bahamut. I accepted this with grit teeth, hoping that something would work out before Mikhail invented a tail-cutting ceremony. Aleksei was sent out to gather his army of kobolds and find Bahlzair. Half of me hoped that he'd never found him, that he simply disappeared the way the Drow had before him. I was returned to the Hall of Horns to sit in the same chair and suffer almost the same treatment. The only difference was that at times, I was brought out into the sunlight at knife point. I'm not sure whether this was to keep me healthy or what, but it always made for interesting conversation among the other camp members.
These daily parades allowed me to notice that a pile of gold began appearing before Mikhail's tent. No one decided to put it into a purse or a pot of some sort- it just laid bare on the ground, and no one touched it. As days passed, this pile grew, and after a certain point, Ivan and two Dragonborn magic workers of some sort formed a circle around it. One of them was robed in dark crimson, while Ivan and the other magic worker wore their normal white robes. All three were terribly serious, and seemed to chant all day and all night without resting for the better part of a week. On day six of it, the gold pile was enough to practically dominate the entrance path to Mikhail's tent, and I finally decided to ask someone about what in Baator was going on.
"It's the Dragon Ritual," one of the soldiers explained as she filed her talons carelessly. While there was still a knife or a sword at my neck every time I moved, the guards seemed comfortable enough when I was returned to that miserable chair in the Hall of Horns. "The Dark Queen doesn't officiate at weddings or other ceremonies herself, but one of her children is almost always glad to do so, provided we have the gold."
"Does it cost so much?" I asked genuinely. I'd heard of making offerings to gods, of course, but I'd never heard of a god whose response was entirely contingent on whether enough gold was offered. The gods I knew could usually be pacified with a sacrificed innocent or a soul-binding pact.
"Well over three hundred thousand gold," the guard replied, nodding slightly. I wasn't sure if it were a "yes, that costs a good deal" nod or a "it could have been higher" nod.
"Nobody had better mess the incantation up, then," I huffed quietly, listening to the voices outside the hall and trying to pick out Ivan's.
"They've gotten it right the last two times, there's no reason they shouldn't get it right now," the guard responded, fixing me with a quizzical look.
"Two times? There's only ever been two other weddings in this camp before this?" I asked incredulously.
"We don't do this for every little wedding or funeral," the guard shrugged. "The first time I remember it being done was because the master had discovered a cave good enough to build a proper hall of worship to Her Dark Majesty. Then after that it was because a pack of Dragonborn that had been chased out of their mountains had found us. They that insisted on revering Bahamut, at least in conjunction with Tiamat. Before they arrived, he wasn't spoken of."
"So the Unified wasn't Unified until after they showed up?" I probed. At first, the guard gave me a look. "You grew up knowing Bahamut. I'm just converting," I reminded her. "Don't you think it best that I learn more about him, and about the Unified?"
"Oh, well, I'm no priest, but I'll try," the guard relented, scooting her chair a bit more closely to my own. "I grew up when it was still mobile, like most other Dragonborn clans out here. We used to be led by a cleric of Io, who accepted everyone no matter who they were. She taught everyone that Io was all things to all of us- to those of us that were evil, he was evil. To those of us born good, he was good. I don't remember us ever attacking anyone while she was in charge, although we traveled very often. She was quite old and nearly blind when she died, and for a while, there was a real struggle over who was going to take her place. In spite of the other contenders, the master and another, who held tightly to the neutral Way of Io, arose. Master wanted them to fight it out honorably, but instead, the follower of Io avoided conflict by taking all those that supported him and leaving. We still don't know where they went. They disappeared in the night or something, and the master decided to move away from the spot where that happened. As he traveled with us, he received a vision from the Dark Queen telling him exactly where to go. Being from the high mountains, he would have never known to have us settle so far down, but she gave him precise directions. So we set up here and began serving her exclusively."
"And then these Bahamut worshipers showed up one day?" I asked, strangely interested by this tale. I had thought this Dragonborn female to be young, but unless all this had happened in the last twenty years or so, she had to be much older than I'd imagined.
"Pretty much," she laughed, showing a comfort in my presence that I hadn't seen before. "A good slice of some group called the Platinum Cadre came up from some city farther south. When the guards tried to charge them the Passing Homage, their leader dressed him down for being a slave to the greatest enemy of the Platinum Dragon." She laughed again, shaking her head. "I mean, he wasn't yelling at him or anything, just calmly talking to him like I am to you now, reasoning with him as though he were the teacher and the guardsman the student."
"Oh, Mikhail must have loved that," I snorted.
"Well, at first he didn't. They spent weeks arguing with each other, and neither seemed to be able to overcome the other. But then Ivan came, literally raising every dead creature as he walked past and setting any living being he looked at on fire. The leader of the Platinum Dragon clan- or whatever they called themselves, I don't know- he gave his life to stop Ivan from destroying everything living and dead. He literally devoted his entire being to some spell. Ivan stopped in his tracks, completely pacified, and the leader just crumpled to the ground. After that, those that had quietly worshiped Bahamut gave him praise aloud. Mikhail had Ivan chained up, then withdrew for a few days- none of us saw him go in to his tent or come out. When he did come out, he began speaking of the Unified, and he had us go out and collect horns to build a sanctuary that the Dark Queen had shown to him in a vision."
"And thus the hall in which we now sit was built," I sighed deeply. "With its two altars and its walls made of carved horn."
"If it makes you feel better," the guard whispered, clearly checking to see if the other guard were anywhere nearby, "Most of this hall was built from the horns of bison and the tusks of dire boars. I don't know where Ivan's horns are- I wasn't stationed while this was built."
"Oh?" I replied. "Why, where were you?"
"Having a miscarriage," the guard shrugged. "It was my third, so my mate took another wife, and I became a guard so I didn't feel so useless."
And I could only blink stupidly for a few moments before managing, "I'm- I'm so sorry-"
"Thank you, but I don't lose sleep over it. Had I had children, I would have only been married to my mate for three years at best. Because I can't have any, and I think he pities me, he has decided to allow me to remain his wife for the time being. His son enjoys having a female about the house, but I try to stay out of the way. We're all good friends."
"So do most Dragonborn marriages only last three years?"
"They last as long as they need to in order to produce a child," the guard explained graciously. "If that takes four or five years, the master will allow it. Both partners have to be willing to continue to try. In my case, my mate was willing to keep trying, but I-"
"You don't have to explain," I broke in. "Any female can only go through so much."
"What are your marriages like?" the guard asked, putting her elbows on her knees and resting her chin on her fists. "Are they very much longer? Must you choose your mates yourself? When you part, do you remain friends, as we usually do?"
I shrugged, biting my lips. "I don't know. I lost all of my family when I was still a child. My mother and father didn't stop at one child, and were still married when I arrived, so I guess they last longer. Aside from that, I have no idea."
"How did you manage to lose your entire family?" the guard replied, shocked. "I'd always heard that your race was evil and cursed, but goodness- there weren't any uncles, grandfathers, any family friends- anyone at all who could have helped?"
The genuine surprise in her voice and the look of concern that clung to her craggy face struck me.
"You know, Aleksei laments my upbringing as well. Wonders why I don't have a nickname," I offered, changing the subject entirely. "He calls it 'little pet name' or something like that."
"Aleksei- you mean the two-tone male?" the guard smiled, letting the conversation pull away. "He seems very honorable, very respectful, even if a bit beat up. I wouldn't want to meet him on a battlefield, I'm sure. You and his second wife are lucky to have him, even if you are improperly paired. Bahamut and Io seem to have a different idea of who can get married to who than the Dark Queen does."
"Your gods personally dictate who gets married to who?" I laughed incredulously. "I thought you said that Tiamat didn't show up herself. What do you do, ask her first?"
"Well, of course," the guard replied seriously. "I can't just go marrying a Human, or a creature like you- no offense. Such a match would be cursed, unable to have children. You don't just get married because you like someone- that's ridiculous. If you like someone, be their friend. When you get married, you're expected to have children, and to better the clan."
"But the master is going to marry someone who's not Dragonborn," I replied simply. "Does the Dark Queen approve of that?"
"Like I said," the guard shrugged. "I'm no priest. Perhaps it's alright because she saw the Platinum Dragon and will undergo the Rite of Rebirth. I've never seen that ritual, but- among those that believe in Bahamut- it's said to be the way that he first made Dragonborn to begin with. I'd be very interested to actually see it, but it will probably take place inside the sacred cave."
"I'd be interested as well," I sighed.
These daily parades allowed me to notice that a pile of gold began appearing before Mikhail's tent. No one decided to put it into a purse or a pot of some sort- it just laid bare on the ground, and no one touched it. As days passed, this pile grew, and after a certain point, Ivan and two Dragonborn magic workers of some sort formed a circle around it. One of them was robed in dark crimson, while Ivan and the other magic worker wore their normal white robes. All three were terribly serious, and seemed to chant all day and all night without resting for the better part of a week. On day six of it, the gold pile was enough to practically dominate the entrance path to Mikhail's tent, and I finally decided to ask someone about what in Baator was going on.
"It's the Dragon Ritual," one of the soldiers explained as she filed her talons carelessly. While there was still a knife or a sword at my neck every time I moved, the guards seemed comfortable enough when I was returned to that miserable chair in the Hall of Horns. "The Dark Queen doesn't officiate at weddings or other ceremonies herself, but one of her children is almost always glad to do so, provided we have the gold."
"Does it cost so much?" I asked genuinely. I'd heard of making offerings to gods, of course, but I'd never heard of a god whose response was entirely contingent on whether enough gold was offered. The gods I knew could usually be pacified with a sacrificed innocent or a soul-binding pact.
"Well over three hundred thousand gold," the guard replied, nodding slightly. I wasn't sure if it were a "yes, that costs a good deal" nod or a "it could have been higher" nod.
"Nobody had better mess the incantation up, then," I huffed quietly, listening to the voices outside the hall and trying to pick out Ivan's.
"They've gotten it right the last two times, there's no reason they shouldn't get it right now," the guard responded, fixing me with a quizzical look.
"Two times? There's only ever been two other weddings in this camp before this?" I asked incredulously.
"We don't do this for every little wedding or funeral," the guard shrugged. "The first time I remember it being done was because the master had discovered a cave good enough to build a proper hall of worship to Her Dark Majesty. Then after that it was because a pack of Dragonborn that had been chased out of their mountains had found us. They that insisted on revering Bahamut, at least in conjunction with Tiamat. Before they arrived, he wasn't spoken of."
"So the Unified wasn't Unified until after they showed up?" I probed. At first, the guard gave me a look. "You grew up knowing Bahamut. I'm just converting," I reminded her. "Don't you think it best that I learn more about him, and about the Unified?"
"Oh, well, I'm no priest, but I'll try," the guard relented, scooting her chair a bit more closely to my own. "I grew up when it was still mobile, like most other Dragonborn clans out here. We used to be led by a cleric of Io, who accepted everyone no matter who they were. She taught everyone that Io was all things to all of us- to those of us that were evil, he was evil. To those of us born good, he was good. I don't remember us ever attacking anyone while she was in charge, although we traveled very often. She was quite old and nearly blind when she died, and for a while, there was a real struggle over who was going to take her place. In spite of the other contenders, the master and another, who held tightly to the neutral Way of Io, arose. Master wanted them to fight it out honorably, but instead, the follower of Io avoided conflict by taking all those that supported him and leaving. We still don't know where they went. They disappeared in the night or something, and the master decided to move away from the spot where that happened. As he traveled with us, he received a vision from the Dark Queen telling him exactly where to go. Being from the high mountains, he would have never known to have us settle so far down, but she gave him precise directions. So we set up here and began serving her exclusively."
"And then these Bahamut worshipers showed up one day?" I asked, strangely interested by this tale. I had thought this Dragonborn female to be young, but unless all this had happened in the last twenty years or so, she had to be much older than I'd imagined.
"Pretty much," she laughed, showing a comfort in my presence that I hadn't seen before. "A good slice of some group called the Platinum Cadre came up from some city farther south. When the guards tried to charge them the Passing Homage, their leader dressed him down for being a slave to the greatest enemy of the Platinum Dragon." She laughed again, shaking her head. "I mean, he wasn't yelling at him or anything, just calmly talking to him like I am to you now, reasoning with him as though he were the teacher and the guardsman the student."
"Oh, Mikhail must have loved that," I snorted.
"Well, at first he didn't. They spent weeks arguing with each other, and neither seemed to be able to overcome the other. But then Ivan came, literally raising every dead creature as he walked past and setting any living being he looked at on fire. The leader of the Platinum Dragon clan- or whatever they called themselves, I don't know- he gave his life to stop Ivan from destroying everything living and dead. He literally devoted his entire being to some spell. Ivan stopped in his tracks, completely pacified, and the leader just crumpled to the ground. After that, those that had quietly worshiped Bahamut gave him praise aloud. Mikhail had Ivan chained up, then withdrew for a few days- none of us saw him go in to his tent or come out. When he did come out, he began speaking of the Unified, and he had us go out and collect horns to build a sanctuary that the Dark Queen had shown to him in a vision."
"And thus the hall in which we now sit was built," I sighed deeply. "With its two altars and its walls made of carved horn."
"If it makes you feel better," the guard whispered, clearly checking to see if the other guard were anywhere nearby, "Most of this hall was built from the horns of bison and the tusks of dire boars. I don't know where Ivan's horns are- I wasn't stationed while this was built."
"Oh?" I replied. "Why, where were you?"
"Having a miscarriage," the guard shrugged. "It was my third, so my mate took another wife, and I became a guard so I didn't feel so useless."
And I could only blink stupidly for a few moments before managing, "I'm- I'm so sorry-"
"Thank you, but I don't lose sleep over it. Had I had children, I would have only been married to my mate for three years at best. Because I can't have any, and I think he pities me, he has decided to allow me to remain his wife for the time being. His son enjoys having a female about the house, but I try to stay out of the way. We're all good friends."
"So do most Dragonborn marriages only last three years?"
"They last as long as they need to in order to produce a child," the guard explained graciously. "If that takes four or five years, the master will allow it. Both partners have to be willing to continue to try. In my case, my mate was willing to keep trying, but I-"
"You don't have to explain," I broke in. "Any female can only go through so much."
"What are your marriages like?" the guard asked, putting her elbows on her knees and resting her chin on her fists. "Are they very much longer? Must you choose your mates yourself? When you part, do you remain friends, as we usually do?"
I shrugged, biting my lips. "I don't know. I lost all of my family when I was still a child. My mother and father didn't stop at one child, and were still married when I arrived, so I guess they last longer. Aside from that, I have no idea."
"How did you manage to lose your entire family?" the guard replied, shocked. "I'd always heard that your race was evil and cursed, but goodness- there weren't any uncles, grandfathers, any family friends- anyone at all who could have helped?"
The genuine surprise in her voice and the look of concern that clung to her craggy face struck me.
"You know, Aleksei laments my upbringing as well. Wonders why I don't have a nickname," I offered, changing the subject entirely. "He calls it 'little pet name' or something like that."
"Aleksei- you mean the two-tone male?" the guard smiled, letting the conversation pull away. "He seems very honorable, very respectful, even if a bit beat up. I wouldn't want to meet him on a battlefield, I'm sure. You and his second wife are lucky to have him, even if you are improperly paired. Bahamut and Io seem to have a different idea of who can get married to who than the Dark Queen does."
"Your gods personally dictate who gets married to who?" I laughed incredulously. "I thought you said that Tiamat didn't show up herself. What do you do, ask her first?"
"Well, of course," the guard replied seriously. "I can't just go marrying a Human, or a creature like you- no offense. Such a match would be cursed, unable to have children. You don't just get married because you like someone- that's ridiculous. If you like someone, be their friend. When you get married, you're expected to have children, and to better the clan."
"But the master is going to marry someone who's not Dragonborn," I replied simply. "Does the Dark Queen approve of that?"
"Like I said," the guard shrugged. "I'm no priest. Perhaps it's alright because she saw the Platinum Dragon and will undergo the Rite of Rebirth. I've never seen that ritual, but- among those that believe in Bahamut- it's said to be the way that he first made Dragonborn to begin with. I'd be very interested to actually see it, but it will probably take place inside the sacred cave."
"I'd be interested as well," I sighed.
01 February 2012
1:37 Dispater's back doorstep.
I spent the next eight days sitting in the Hall of Horns, flanked by two guards. I was allowed to get up and go to the bathroom, but a blade was always at the base of my neck as I did so. Food and water, meager as they were, were brought to me regularly, whether I was hungry or not. Attempts to refuse food weren't successful, as I'd get smacked a few times with someone's hilt. I'd never heard of a captive being forced to sustain themselves, but I supposed that with all the other wacky things that had happened in this camp so far, I shouldn't be shocked at anything.
Every now and again, I heard news of other travelers along the toll road. Some paid. Some didn't and got killed. Some turned back to Bhairoset in an attempt to find a way around the block. Those usually got killed as well. And more often than I heard of Bahamut, I heard of Tiamat. That name was thrown around often when Aleksei was spoken of, and the conversation usually flopped over into whatever native tongue was left among those speaking, so as to completely prevent me from understanding what was going on. Bahamut was referenced when people spoke in hushed tones about Silveredge's preparations for the Rite of Unification and Rebirth. On or around day six, however, people speaking about her seemed generally happier, and spoke of her as though she were doing well. Even though I didn't understand a word of what they were saying, their manners spoke for them, and I comforted myself with the fact that she probably wasn't dying or forgetting who people were from one moment to the next.
On day nine, there was an incredible ruckus early in the morning, and I was awakened by someone viciously pulling my head back by my hair.
"Come," the soldier hissed simply, forcing me up out of the chair. I was stiff and unable to move as quickly as he would have preferred, so I was practically dragged out of the Hall of Horns and up the side of the hill to Mikhail's tent, where I was forced to my knees before a very free Aleksei. His hair had been braided, and green swirling designs had been painted over the black paint that covered his entire left side. His one remaining hazel eye was a sight, staring unnaturally out like a cut gem. I looked up at him, and something about the way he looked- something about the way he was carrying himself- wasn't quite Aleksei.
"What's going on?" I breathed just loud enough for him to hear.
Aleksei's facial features twisted a bit, and his head twitched just slightly, but he made no verbal reply. A cold feeling of completely unfounded terror began stealing through me.
"Where is Mikhail?" I asked, turning to the guards.
"What business is it of yours what the master is doing?" one of the guards replied, shrugging. "We were told to bring you here, and we have done that. So accept what is coming to you in peace."
"What are you going to do, are you going to cut my horns off? My tail? Are you going to sacrifice me to Bahamut, or Tiamat?" I demanded, hearing the tremor in my voice as I spoke. Aleksei's right eye flashed with a pure rage that ran through me like a spear. "Why are you looking at me this way?" I cried, simply giving way to the fear that something just was not right. "What's gotten into you? What is going on?"
I didn't need to ask any more questions when a Human female gravely handed Aleksei a well-polished, freshly sharpened kilij. The pommel's end sported a wicked-looking talon, which appeared only slightly less dangerous than the blade of the weapon itself. Both guards stood away from me, but not that far away- in case I got up to run, I suppose. But frozen in a position of supplication, I could only manage to say a few words-
"What are you doing, Lyoshenka?"
Aleksei's gaze momentarily changed from that crackling fury that had so rooted me to the ground to the look of understanding that I recognized. But just that quickly, Mikhail walked up from somewhere and laid a firm hand on Aleksei's shoulder. The true Dragonborn that I knew washed right away under the hold, and fear sewed my mouth completely shut.
Bahlzair was absolutely right to have bitten Mikhail, and was absolutely right to want to prevent anyone from touching him. Both Aleksei and Bahlzair were strong, in their own ways, and I was really becoming quite sure that Silveredge could never be mentally dominated. I couldn't say the same for myself.
"The smell of your fear is like a pleasing incense to the Dark Queen," Mikhail smiled grimly. "Speak to her through her scion. Humble yourself before her terrible presence."
But I was literally too horrified to move. I could only stare at the visible fight going on between Aleksei and Mikhail- all happening while both were standing still and looking right at me.
"Have you nothing to say?" Mikhail prodded. "Shall we place you back in the Hall of the Horns to meditate, as Ivan meditated before his conversion?"
It seemed Ivan himself was present. I could only tell because he walked immediately into my line of sight, next to Aleksei. I didn't turn my head to check if his assigned Dragonborn female were with him or not. "Your consort is well, master," he reported, apparently completely ignoring the situation. His voice sounded worn, as though he'd been physically battered. "Her spirit is fully restored, and she is again master of the shadows, instead of their prey."
"Thank you, Ivan," Mikhail sighed, taking his eyes off me for a moment. "I know that one has cost you much, but we will need your help again." When he reached out to physically turn Ivan's sightless gaze toward me, I caught my breath, fearing that somehow he would manage to control Ivan as well. But for whatever magical reason that was entirely beyond me, Ivan was the same golden-eyed Tiefling as he'd been the last time we had spoken. I noted that he did not remove his blindness, but instead reached out to me. I managed to get one hand into his, and he grasped it strongly.
"Quieres que te cuente un secreto?"
I blinked, looking directly at him. Of all the places to start speaking Infernal-
"Tiamat ni vive con su hermano ni con Dispater, aunque hay una entrada al Dis desde su caverna. Sabes por qué no?"
And I gave him a simple, Common, "No."
"Porque jamas viviría ella con la arrogancia de Bahamut, y Bahamut nunca podría tolerar la codicia de Tiamat. El Don Listo de Dispater no le permite la entrada a ninguno de los dos, porque ya en Dis hay de sobra los hermanos y hermanas matándose entre si por toda eternidad. Para qué sufrir con hermanos dotados de los poderes de dioses si puedes sencillamente denegarles acceso?"
First I smirked, thinking of a big black dragon pushing a big white one all over the second level of Baator. Then as I imagined the famously scrawny Dispater and his equally famously thick Lilis attempting to separate the two, I began to giggle.
"Ah, and there you have the overcoming joy of Bahamut," Ivan beamed. "I am weary, but never tired of his service. Does your son yet ail? It seems as though all of this party were unwell in some way or another."
And Mikhail glared at Ivan, momentarily leaving Aleksei alone to pull Ivan closer to him. "Tiamat desires fear and reverence, and you bring her laughter?"
"I thought you served the Unified," I said quietly. "Must all your servants choose Tiamat, or are not some permitted to follow the path of the white dragon?"
"The metalic dragon," Aleksei corrected, sounding very tired indeed. His eye had lost all luster, but though dull and weary looking, was refreshingly and purely Aleksei. "Bahamut is the metalic dragon."
"Welcome back, Lyoshenka," I smiled, breathing a sigh of relief.
"Praise be to Bahamut, Mishka," Aleksei replied, planting the kilij into the ground beside me and putting his black-painted hand on my head.
"How sweet this couple is, united in the joy of the metallic dragon- why do not we celebrate their unification properly, as you and your intended celebrate your own?" Ivan suggested innocently. "Even now, the careful painters must be nearing her lovely shoulders. They were hard at work when I left them."
"The scion will not be unified to a horned creature," Mikhail maintained strongly.
"Did she not gladly give praise to Bahamut, or was that part of the tales I heard a lie?" Ivan questioned. "If with her own will she is converting, who are we to stand in her way? We must allow her to come to the glory that is the metallic dragon, even if, like me, she can only come so far into his radiance."
Aleksei reached down and picked me up by both elbows, patting some of my hair down into place. As he did so, a Human male poked his head into Mikhail's tent.
"Finally, word from Bhairoset. The Drow is not there, either. So we do not know where he could have gone."
"Master- for so I know you are-" I began, to Aleksei's great disgust. "This your son and my master is a great commander of a vast kobold force. If he were to summon them and they were to look for the Drow, perhaps the Drow may be found. In fact, it is by kobold that I myself was first captured, for it was not I that bound him, but instead he that bound me to himself."
"Oh?" Mikhail mused, looking thoughtfully from Aleksei to me. "And why tell me this now? Why should I believe you?"
"No dragon has spoken to me, and I doubt any ever will," I shrugged. "But at least the demons have stopped speaking. If it is Bahamut that has done this, then I will be grateful to him and to those who follow him."
Aleksei looked absolutely dumbfounded, but Ivan's face carried a wise smirk.
"Do you command kobolds, Bloodtalon?" Mikhail asked Aleksei without taking his eyes from me.
"I know their names, and the names of their sons," Aleksei admitted. "There is a whole den not far from here. As many as are alive will not hesitate to answer me."
The way he said "as many as are alive" reminded me of the destruction of the mountain. Spitting in someone's eyes was not the worst that Bahlzair was capable of.
"Then take some soldiers and go. This dark Elf is an affront to the will of Tiamat. He has witnessed her glory and gone away without paying either respect or gold."
And as Aleksei patted my arm to tell me a brief goodbye, I thought about Mikhail's last statement and what Ivan had said about him. I also had to wonder just what Silveredge was intending by going through with a completely unfounded and rushed wedding.
Every now and again, I heard news of other travelers along the toll road. Some paid. Some didn't and got killed. Some turned back to Bhairoset in an attempt to find a way around the block. Those usually got killed as well. And more often than I heard of Bahamut, I heard of Tiamat. That name was thrown around often when Aleksei was spoken of, and the conversation usually flopped over into whatever native tongue was left among those speaking, so as to completely prevent me from understanding what was going on. Bahamut was referenced when people spoke in hushed tones about Silveredge's preparations for the Rite of Unification and Rebirth. On or around day six, however, people speaking about her seemed generally happier, and spoke of her as though she were doing well. Even though I didn't understand a word of what they were saying, their manners spoke for them, and I comforted myself with the fact that she probably wasn't dying or forgetting who people were from one moment to the next.
On day nine, there was an incredible ruckus early in the morning, and I was awakened by someone viciously pulling my head back by my hair.
"Come," the soldier hissed simply, forcing me up out of the chair. I was stiff and unable to move as quickly as he would have preferred, so I was practically dragged out of the Hall of Horns and up the side of the hill to Mikhail's tent, where I was forced to my knees before a very free Aleksei. His hair had been braided, and green swirling designs had been painted over the black paint that covered his entire left side. His one remaining hazel eye was a sight, staring unnaturally out like a cut gem. I looked up at him, and something about the way he looked- something about the way he was carrying himself- wasn't quite Aleksei.
"What's going on?" I breathed just loud enough for him to hear.
Aleksei's facial features twisted a bit, and his head twitched just slightly, but he made no verbal reply. A cold feeling of completely unfounded terror began stealing through me.
"Where is Mikhail?" I asked, turning to the guards.
"What business is it of yours what the master is doing?" one of the guards replied, shrugging. "We were told to bring you here, and we have done that. So accept what is coming to you in peace."
"What are you going to do, are you going to cut my horns off? My tail? Are you going to sacrifice me to Bahamut, or Tiamat?" I demanded, hearing the tremor in my voice as I spoke. Aleksei's right eye flashed with a pure rage that ran through me like a spear. "Why are you looking at me this way?" I cried, simply giving way to the fear that something just was not right. "What's gotten into you? What is going on?"
I didn't need to ask any more questions when a Human female gravely handed Aleksei a well-polished, freshly sharpened kilij. The pommel's end sported a wicked-looking talon, which appeared only slightly less dangerous than the blade of the weapon itself. Both guards stood away from me, but not that far away- in case I got up to run, I suppose. But frozen in a position of supplication, I could only manage to say a few words-
"What are you doing, Lyoshenka?"
Aleksei's gaze momentarily changed from that crackling fury that had so rooted me to the ground to the look of understanding that I recognized. But just that quickly, Mikhail walked up from somewhere and laid a firm hand on Aleksei's shoulder. The true Dragonborn that I knew washed right away under the hold, and fear sewed my mouth completely shut.
Bahlzair was absolutely right to have bitten Mikhail, and was absolutely right to want to prevent anyone from touching him. Both Aleksei and Bahlzair were strong, in their own ways, and I was really becoming quite sure that Silveredge could never be mentally dominated. I couldn't say the same for myself.
"The smell of your fear is like a pleasing incense to the Dark Queen," Mikhail smiled grimly. "Speak to her through her scion. Humble yourself before her terrible presence."
But I was literally too horrified to move. I could only stare at the visible fight going on between Aleksei and Mikhail- all happening while both were standing still and looking right at me.
"Have you nothing to say?" Mikhail prodded. "Shall we place you back in the Hall of the Horns to meditate, as Ivan meditated before his conversion?"
It seemed Ivan himself was present. I could only tell because he walked immediately into my line of sight, next to Aleksei. I didn't turn my head to check if his assigned Dragonborn female were with him or not. "Your consort is well, master," he reported, apparently completely ignoring the situation. His voice sounded worn, as though he'd been physically battered. "Her spirit is fully restored, and she is again master of the shadows, instead of their prey."
"Thank you, Ivan," Mikhail sighed, taking his eyes off me for a moment. "I know that one has cost you much, but we will need your help again." When he reached out to physically turn Ivan's sightless gaze toward me, I caught my breath, fearing that somehow he would manage to control Ivan as well. But for whatever magical reason that was entirely beyond me, Ivan was the same golden-eyed Tiefling as he'd been the last time we had spoken. I noted that he did not remove his blindness, but instead reached out to me. I managed to get one hand into his, and he grasped it strongly.
"Quieres que te cuente un secreto?"
I blinked, looking directly at him. Of all the places to start speaking Infernal-
"Tiamat ni vive con su hermano ni con Dispater, aunque hay una entrada al Dis desde su caverna. Sabes por qué no?"
And I gave him a simple, Common, "No."
"Porque jamas viviría ella con la arrogancia de Bahamut, y Bahamut nunca podría tolerar la codicia de Tiamat. El Don Listo de Dispater no le permite la entrada a ninguno de los dos, porque ya en Dis hay de sobra los hermanos y hermanas matándose entre si por toda eternidad. Para qué sufrir con hermanos dotados de los poderes de dioses si puedes sencillamente denegarles acceso?"
First I smirked, thinking of a big black dragon pushing a big white one all over the second level of Baator. Then as I imagined the famously scrawny Dispater and his equally famously thick Lilis attempting to separate the two, I began to giggle.
"Ah, and there you have the overcoming joy of Bahamut," Ivan beamed. "I am weary, but never tired of his service. Does your son yet ail? It seems as though all of this party were unwell in some way or another."
And Mikhail glared at Ivan, momentarily leaving Aleksei alone to pull Ivan closer to him. "Tiamat desires fear and reverence, and you bring her laughter?"
"I thought you served the Unified," I said quietly. "Must all your servants choose Tiamat, or are not some permitted to follow the path of the white dragon?"
"The metalic dragon," Aleksei corrected, sounding very tired indeed. His eye had lost all luster, but though dull and weary looking, was refreshingly and purely Aleksei. "Bahamut is the metalic dragon."
"Welcome back, Lyoshenka," I smiled, breathing a sigh of relief.
"Praise be to Bahamut, Mishka," Aleksei replied, planting the kilij into the ground beside me and putting his black-painted hand on my head.
"How sweet this couple is, united in the joy of the metallic dragon- why do not we celebrate their unification properly, as you and your intended celebrate your own?" Ivan suggested innocently. "Even now, the careful painters must be nearing her lovely shoulders. They were hard at work when I left them."
"The scion will not be unified to a horned creature," Mikhail maintained strongly.
"Did she not gladly give praise to Bahamut, or was that part of the tales I heard a lie?" Ivan questioned. "If with her own will she is converting, who are we to stand in her way? We must allow her to come to the glory that is the metallic dragon, even if, like me, she can only come so far into his radiance."
Aleksei reached down and picked me up by both elbows, patting some of my hair down into place. As he did so, a Human male poked his head into Mikhail's tent.
"Finally, word from Bhairoset. The Drow is not there, either. So we do not know where he could have gone."
"Master- for so I know you are-" I began, to Aleksei's great disgust. "This your son and my master is a great commander of a vast kobold force. If he were to summon them and they were to look for the Drow, perhaps the Drow may be found. In fact, it is by kobold that I myself was first captured, for it was not I that bound him, but instead he that bound me to himself."
"Oh?" Mikhail mused, looking thoughtfully from Aleksei to me. "And why tell me this now? Why should I believe you?"
"No dragon has spoken to me, and I doubt any ever will," I shrugged. "But at least the demons have stopped speaking. If it is Bahamut that has done this, then I will be grateful to him and to those who follow him."
Aleksei looked absolutely dumbfounded, but Ivan's face carried a wise smirk.
"Do you command kobolds, Bloodtalon?" Mikhail asked Aleksei without taking his eyes from me.
"I know their names, and the names of their sons," Aleksei admitted. "There is a whole den not far from here. As many as are alive will not hesitate to answer me."
The way he said "as many as are alive" reminded me of the destruction of the mountain. Spitting in someone's eyes was not the worst that Bahlzair was capable of.
"Then take some soldiers and go. This dark Elf is an affront to the will of Tiamat. He has witnessed her glory and gone away without paying either respect or gold."
And as Aleksei patted my arm to tell me a brief goodbye, I thought about Mikhail's last statement and what Ivan had said about him. I also had to wonder just what Silveredge was intending by going through with a completely unfounded and rushed wedding.
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