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Blood trickled and oozed from the myriad of wounds that liberally decorated her body, but Oscearo did not mind it. She had no fear of death. In fact she was pleased with her victory, which lent her some redemption in the face of her fellow mage's casual mockery. She had at last in her possession a foot chopped cleanly from the leg of a vicious river caiman, and the loss of some amount of blood was worth the gaining of this triumph, however small.
While she waited on the barge she fixed her mind on the sound of her spear thudding against the armored hide of the caiman and the creature's hideous hisses and grunts, which mostly drowned out the voice of memory.
The wait for the barge was a long one, though, and its lumbering progress back to Riverhaven equally slow. When she finally set foot back on dry land, she felt her wounds burning with a simmering heat, and her head was swimming as if it had fallen into the river and been left behind there. She supposed the proper thing to do was to find an empath. She had no fear of death.. but she did have obligations, to the man who was her master if no longer to anyone else in the world.
She directed her feet towards the empaths' guild, and had just come in sight of its door when the world abruptly liquidated itself in a haze of blood red and fire.
There was only the barest thread of her consciousness that was aware of the several passers-by who skirted uninterestedly around her corpse and the diminutive pool of blood weeping from the infected gash across her head; most of her awareness was slipping off into darkness and echoes that resounded up from a past existence.
>"You just think you're so exceptional, don't you? So much higher and mightier than anyone else, like you're some kind of royalty among peasants. Well --" The darkness took hold of her, wrapped her in fetters of black iron, crushed her chest in a vise. "How does it feel to be on the bottom now, princess?"
She screamed into the darkness, except she no longer had a voice; the darkness filled her lungs and her soul and drowned her song in oblivion. Poetry shattered around her in shining fragments that glimmered and blinked into nothing, words of music dribbled off her tongue to dissolve in black slime that slid away from her and vanished. All was blackness and silence, and then...
She was in a world filled up with water and warmth. I am dead, she realized. She had no fear of death. It was warm, and soothing, and made up of the element that was all that remained to fill her soul. The stars were near and brilliant above her, if she cared to open her eyes to them. She floated quietly. If she moved.... But she did not want to move. With her ears below the surface of the water she could almost hear her lost song thrumming through its depths, far, far away....
Time passed, somewhere.
She drifted, and the water hummed. So close... if she could just reach out and take hold of it once more... She rolled over in the warm waters of death, grasping at something she could only hear...
.. and tumbled with a soul-jarring thud back into the world, a month and a half after she had left it.
Oscearo had not exactly forgotten her master's telling her once about the cursed necromantic beings that lived somewhere in the vicinity of Knife Clan, but on the other hand she had not thought about it in a very long while, and what she was thinking of instead was, quite naturally, knives. She had never been to Knife Clan before despite its proximity to the Crossing, so she was reasonably grateful for the steady stream of people to lead her through the woods, past the fallen trees, and onto the trampled but well-concealed path that she likely would not ever have noticed without them to guide her. It was only when she stepped from the path into the clearing that she was reminded of those necromantic beings with great immediacy, and realized that none of her well-armed fellow travelers were actually going to Knife Clan.
In the demands of the moment, she completely forgot what she was now, and having forgotten, she was not afraid; not only because death held no terrors for her, but even more importantly because she knew that these pathetic twisted beings were not likely to kill such a one as she was. She could hear the pulsing harmonies of the streams of mana and air all around her, and it was swift unthinking reflex to arrange them together into what would, with the barest whisper, resonate with her own internal harmony to become the magnificent calamity of Breath of Storms, blasting her foes gloriously to oblivion. --But there was no resonance. In the moment she attempted to cast it she could feel her soul, her songless white-noise soul, jangle discordantly with the spell, more painful than a backfire, and it was lost. She was lost.
Well, that was quite stupid, she had just time to think, and then all was darkness.
* * *
She hung suspended in the Void, solitary, the only one of whatever she was. Everything was dark around her, and she felt nothing but the silent ache of her soul. I am dead, she thought to herself; dead, or in a dream of death. Infinity hovered around her, consuming seconds and eons, hairsbreadths and leagues, digesting them all together into a mass of timeless nowhere. The ache deepened itself into a vast loneliness, spanning the years and the miles that no longer existed. She felt as if she had just arrived at someplace she had always been.
The nothing stretched on into an exhausted forever. I do not want to be here, she thought. The Starry Road was out there somewhere, surely, and even her crippled soul must be able to find it. She let go of herself.
In that same moment she realized that there was something else there that had not let go of her. Divine favour held her, tugged at her, tied her back down to existence; divine favour which she had not entirely even asked for, and certainly not for herself. Helpless frustration, a sensation with which she had become very familiar these past three years, swept over her in an angry tide. Let me go, she railed at the imprisoning divine. I do not want you. You do not want me. I cannot sing, I cannot fight, I am broken, I have outlived my usefulness, I am of no use to anybody at all. Just let me die; I do not fear it. I desire it.
The Void was lightening before her like the grey herald of morning. NO, she told it, but like everything else now it did not listen to her; it lightened to slate, to smoke, to ash, to pearl, and then.. A ray of light as if from an unseen sun sprang like a thought into being. It split the darkness, lanced through the black, pierced her breast like a spear of the dawn and lodged there, burning into her soul. She screamed as she always did in dreams, but she did not wake. She wrapped her fingers around the shaft of light, gripped it as if it truly were a spear, and pulled.
If she removed it or not, she never knew, because as she pulled she began to dissolve into motes of light and white-hot mist, the substance of her being spreading out in a cloud of embers like a dying star. They streaked and fell from the black vault of the heavens into the deeper blackness of the earth.. and in the force of impact she found herself, eyes wide open, in the creche beneath the temple, alive, awake.
Again, she thought. Why?
But there was no answer, no sound at all -- only all around her, softly, the eternal melodious hum of existence.
In the demands of the moment, she completely forgot what she was now, and having forgotten, she was not afraid; not only because death held no terrors for her, but even more importantly because she knew that these pathetic twisted beings were not likely to kill such a one as she was. She could hear the pulsing harmonies of the streams of mana and air all around her, and it was swift unthinking reflex to arrange them together into what would, with the barest whisper, resonate with her own internal harmony to become the magnificent calamity of Breath of Storms, blasting her foes gloriously to oblivion. --But there was no resonance. In the moment she attempted to cast it she could feel her soul, her songless white-noise soul, jangle discordantly with the spell, more painful than a backfire, and it was lost. She was lost.
Well, that was quite stupid, she had just time to think, and then all was darkness.
* * *
She hung suspended in the Void, solitary, the only one of whatever she was. Everything was dark around her, and she felt nothing but the silent ache of her soul. I am dead, she thought to herself; dead, or in a dream of death. Infinity hovered around her, consuming seconds and eons, hairsbreadths and leagues, digesting them all together into a mass of timeless nowhere. The ache deepened itself into a vast loneliness, spanning the years and the miles that no longer existed. She felt as if she had just arrived at someplace she had always been.
The nothing stretched on into an exhausted forever. I do not want to be here, she thought. The Starry Road was out there somewhere, surely, and even her crippled soul must be able to find it. She let go of herself.
In that same moment she realized that there was something else there that had not let go of her. Divine favour held her, tugged at her, tied her back down to existence; divine favour which she had not entirely even asked for, and certainly not for herself. Helpless frustration, a sensation with which she had become very familiar these past three years, swept over her in an angry tide. Let me go, she railed at the imprisoning divine. I do not want you. You do not want me. I cannot sing, I cannot fight, I am broken, I have outlived my usefulness, I am of no use to anybody at all. Just let me die; I do not fear it. I desire it.
The Void was lightening before her like the grey herald of morning. NO, she told it, but like everything else now it did not listen to her; it lightened to slate, to smoke, to ash, to pearl, and then.. A ray of light as if from an unseen sun sprang like a thought into being. It split the darkness, lanced through the black, pierced her breast like a spear of the dawn and lodged there, burning into her soul. She screamed as she always did in dreams, but she did not wake. She wrapped her fingers around the shaft of light, gripped it as if it truly were a spear, and pulled.
If she removed it or not, she never knew, because as she pulled she began to dissolve into motes of light and white-hot mist, the substance of her being spreading out in a cloud of embers like a dying star. They streaked and fell from the black vault of the heavens into the deeper blackness of the earth.. and in the force of impact she found herself, eyes wide open, in the creche beneath the temple, alive, awake.
Again, she thought. Why?
But there was no answer, no sound at all -- only all around her, softly, the eternal melodious hum of existence.
Drawing a slight cut across his palm in a ritualized fashion, the Elothean draws forth a small but useful amount of blood without any real injury, and quickly swipes his other hand over the wound, coating them. With a surge of magic, the blood mutates with terrifying power, and with a simple flick of his wrist, the Elothean sends incarnadine droplets hurtling towards the flying Iconoclast, Ciriasa. Whorls of crimson fury erupt as the blobs burst immediately on contact with Ciriasa's black wings, the explosive force causing chain reactions, knocking Ciriasa back savagely! As the smoke clears, Ciriasa turns slowly, and shakes mildly, the blast having barely singed her leathery scaled wings, as she manages to remain aloft. She smiles, fangs dripping with bright blue ichor, and lasciviously extends an elongated tongue.
Eyes wide with fear, the Elothean flings a sealed-shut vial of glowing liquid at Ciriasa. With a violent sounding crackle, the vial explodes into small glass shards while the reddish liquid within sprays forth. However, the strange solution fails to adhere to Ciriasa in any way, dripping to the ground fruitlessly. The Elothean's eyes flare with arcane power as he attempts to force his will upon Ciriasa. She blinks briefly, her wings briefly spasm, but they continue to flap, her flight uninterrupted. She howls in defiance and begins to advance on the Elothean, who shouts at the Inquisitor, "Ground her, ground her now!" With a lunge, Ciriasa gouges at the Elothean, her claws raking across him with an explosion of blood, staggering him to his knees.
The Grand Inquisitor's spell lands with an burst of holy light, stunning the flying monstrosity and causing her to violently crash into the tainted ground. Quickly shaking off the antithetical energies, Ciriasa spreads her horrific wings and readies herself to leap into the air once more, as Osven screams "Now, the vial, now!"
Battered, broken, the Elothean desperately fumbles and manages to fling a sealed-shut vial of glowing liquid at Ciriasa. With a violent sounding crackle, the vial explodes into small glass shards while the reddish liquid within sprays forth. The liquid sprays against Ciriasa, who reels back in shock. Black energy erupts from the droplets, arcing in chaotic, lightning-like patterns against her body before culminating in a massive outward shockwave! The Inquisitor and the Elothean are both blasted to the ground by severe concussive force!
Ciriasa exclaims, "NO!" and with a hard snap of wings, several ichor-soaked barbs hurl towards the prone figures, savagely lodging into their bodies, hammering a wet staccato. With a mighty leap, she stretches towards the ceiling, and begins a hard dive towards her wounded enemies.
The Elothean quickly kneels with a grunt, and drags the Grand Inquisitor away, as the din of combat can be heard afield. Ciriasa cocks her head and flies off, in search of more pressing prey, and Osven runs after her.
Tearing a barb from his neck and holding a hand over the bleeding wound, the Elothean glances as the Grand Inquisitor and smirks. "Ouch" is all he manages to say, all that can be said. He begins to skillfully yank barbs from the Inquisitors body, bandaging the wounds as he goes, wiping blood from his own puffy eyes as broken hands fail him. The Inquisitor sits up, and rummages through his backpack, procuring an unguent which he rubs into his wounds, and with a grimace, rubs into the Elotheans.
"This doesn't make us friends" the Inquisitor snarls at the Elothean.
The Elothean laughs and opens his mouth to speak, but a voice from the shadows interrupts, "Well isn't this a picture, Philosopher, you and the Inquisitor working together. You will not stop her. You will not stop us."
The Inquisitor begins intoning holy words of power to Ushnish, rebuking the darkness, the foulness of the place. In response, the Elothean quickly chants a spell of his own, and a greasy black mist begins to emanate from his pores as it wraps tightly around him in a miasmatic sphere. The Inquisitor finishes his prayer, and slams his armored boot into the ground. In response, fiery white magma begins to bubble from underfoot, streams of liquid fire coursing around the Inquisitor. Where the Inquisitors fire touches the Elotheans miasma, red and purple shafts writhe in a frenzy of conflict and cancellation. The magma explodes outward, landing on several unseen forms which scream in pain and spasmodically flee, smoke trailing as if from nothing.
The Inquisitor fixes the Elothean with an icy glare, and with a sigh of resignation, the Elothean hands over a spare vial. Quietly whispering words, the Elothean extends a field of corruption to alter the blind spots of any would-be witnesses, imperfect though it may be given the copper scent of his blood, the barely muffled grunts of pain as broken bone and torn flesh pull at his every movement.
"Be sure that you stop her," the Elothean says, his voice giving away his location. "be sure that you finish the job."
Eyes wide with fear, the Elothean flings a sealed-shut vial of glowing liquid at Ciriasa. With a violent sounding crackle, the vial explodes into small glass shards while the reddish liquid within sprays forth. However, the strange solution fails to adhere to Ciriasa in any way, dripping to the ground fruitlessly. The Elothean's eyes flare with arcane power as he attempts to force his will upon Ciriasa. She blinks briefly, her wings briefly spasm, but they continue to flap, her flight uninterrupted. She howls in defiance and begins to advance on the Elothean, who shouts at the Inquisitor, "Ground her, ground her now!" With a lunge, Ciriasa gouges at the Elothean, her claws raking across him with an explosion of blood, staggering him to his knees.
The Grand Inquisitor's spell lands with an burst of holy light, stunning the flying monstrosity and causing her to violently crash into the tainted ground. Quickly shaking off the antithetical energies, Ciriasa spreads her horrific wings and readies herself to leap into the air once more, as Osven screams "Now, the vial, now!"
Battered, broken, the Elothean desperately fumbles and manages to fling a sealed-shut vial of glowing liquid at Ciriasa. With a violent sounding crackle, the vial explodes into small glass shards while the reddish liquid within sprays forth. The liquid sprays against Ciriasa, who reels back in shock. Black energy erupts from the droplets, arcing in chaotic, lightning-like patterns against her body before culminating in a massive outward shockwave! The Inquisitor and the Elothean are both blasted to the ground by severe concussive force!
Ciriasa exclaims, "NO!" and with a hard snap of wings, several ichor-soaked barbs hurl towards the prone figures, savagely lodging into their bodies, hammering a wet staccato. With a mighty leap, she stretches towards the ceiling, and begins a hard dive towards her wounded enemies.
The Elothean quickly kneels with a grunt, and drags the Grand Inquisitor away, as the din of combat can be heard afield. Ciriasa cocks her head and flies off, in search of more pressing prey, and Osven runs after her.
Tearing a barb from his neck and holding a hand over the bleeding wound, the Elothean glances as the Grand Inquisitor and smirks. "Ouch" is all he manages to say, all that can be said. He begins to skillfully yank barbs from the Inquisitors body, bandaging the wounds as he goes, wiping blood from his own puffy eyes as broken hands fail him. The Inquisitor sits up, and rummages through his backpack, procuring an unguent which he rubs into his wounds, and with a grimace, rubs into the Elotheans.
"This doesn't make us friends" the Inquisitor snarls at the Elothean.
The Elothean laughs and opens his mouth to speak, but a voice from the shadows interrupts, "Well isn't this a picture, Philosopher, you and the Inquisitor working together. You will not stop her. You will not stop us."
The Inquisitor begins intoning holy words of power to Ushnish, rebuking the darkness, the foulness of the place. In response, the Elothean quickly chants a spell of his own, and a greasy black mist begins to emanate from his pores as it wraps tightly around him in a miasmatic sphere. The Inquisitor finishes his prayer, and slams his armored boot into the ground. In response, fiery white magma begins to bubble from underfoot, streams of liquid fire coursing around the Inquisitor. Where the Inquisitors fire touches the Elotheans miasma, red and purple shafts writhe in a frenzy of conflict and cancellation. The magma explodes outward, landing on several unseen forms which scream in pain and spasmodically flee, smoke trailing as if from nothing.
The Inquisitor fixes the Elothean with an icy glare, and with a sigh of resignation, the Elothean hands over a spare vial. Quietly whispering words, the Elothean extends a field of corruption to alter the blind spots of any would-be witnesses, imperfect though it may be given the copper scent of his blood, the barely muffled grunts of pain as broken bone and torn flesh pull at his every movement.
"Be sure that you stop her," the Elothean says, his voice giving away his location. "be sure that you finish the job."
Oscearo was sick to death of killing things, but she had lost her song and now she was expected to deal in death instead of life, and the only way to achieve any skill at this was through endless repetitions of killing. Her spear was slick now with the blood of ogres, which were evil and surely deserved to die, but bringing their merited death upon them brought her no pleasure. She had been responsible for enough deaths in her life already and did not particularly wish to be the cause of any more. But such was the way of things.
She was discouragingly aware, even as she did battle now, that she did not live up well to the "warrior" part of her guild name. However strictly she adhered to the martial requirements of the guild, and even in some cases exceeded them, still her spirit was not that of a warrior and she did not joy in combat. It was only a thing that had to be done, for the ultimate good (she hoped) of others. She was not, of course, terribly good at the "mage" part either, but she at least felt herself truly to be a practitioner of magic and a creator of things using it, even if in her present mage-incarnation this came only with what she perceived as an inordinate amount of struggle. It did not help that people kept telling her that she ought to find a different path. She knew no other path but elemental magic in the service of others. The only path besides this that she could see the gods would not let her walk.
I will give up the guild and go away, she thought. I will tell people only that I was taught by the guild, and learned all I was capable of learning, which was little enough, and that was the end of it. I will acknowledge that I am like Mazrian's pitiable cobbler, who joined the guild and smelled elemental magic like burnt toast and went home again to make shoes. Except I cannot even make shoes.
She almost let out a snort of laughter at that, bitter and amused at once, and might even have done so, except it was at this moment that it came to her that perhaps she ought to have been giving less of her attention to her existential worries, and more to her immediate ones. It was just in this moment in which she found herself backed up to the edge of the cliff, and in the next moment when her grip on the blood-slick spear slipped in her parry against the ogre's mace, that she realized the next death she would be responsible for would not be the ogre's.
* * *
In death, as always, she dreamed.
She was standing on a dark pathless way which stretched out before and behind, past to future to eternity. There was no suggestion here in the darkness of where she had been, or might go to, or was right now. Nevertheless there was one way to go which tugged her feet up from the ground and along -- forwards, backwards, sideways; there was no way of knowing which, but whichever it was, it was the way she went. She went along it for a long, long time, or perhaps only a few seconds; it was nothing but darkness and infinity here so there was no way to judge. There being nothing at all to look at where she was as she went along, she looked up.
Above her head, above the pathless path, was a great celestial way paved with stars and bounded by every constellation and planet that she knew. It paralleled her own journey, but she could not reach it to set her own feet upon it. Everywhere there were stars, the souls of all the departed. There was one star, brighter yet softer than the rest, which seemed in its twinkling to be laughing gently at her. She thought she knew it. The celestial way, the constellations, each individual star, seemed almost within reach, if she could only....
She reached one hand up towards the starry expanse of the sky, spreading her fingers as if she could take hold of it and pull herself up, or draw it down to her. As she watched her hand she saw the heavens swirl like water around her fingertips, a slow ripple moving outward in elliptic orbits. The ripples spread, and grew, and where their distortion touched the stars, unsettled and unbound them. The stars began to fall, first one by one, then thicker, faster, dizzying in their number and descent. They fell past her in a flood of liquid light, glowing streaks like a shower of bright golden raindrops. As they fell in a murmuring torrent, she could hear their voices.
"Jaal'khalo.."
"Jaal'khalo.. why did you leave us?"
"Jaal'khalo.. why did you spare my enemies and not my children?"
"Jaal'khalo.. why did you raise this monster?"
"Why did you set it among us, to entice us to our doom? Jaal'khalo.."
"Too young.."
"Too strong.."
"Too soon.."
"Too proud.."
"You failed us, jaal'khalo."
"You failed, princess."
"You failed."
"Failed."
"Failed..."
She was drenched with accusations, blinded by the merciless wet glow of them, speechless as they flooded into her nose and mouth and lungs, and as she tried to scream the sound lodged in her throat, was swept back into her soul, and shivered it in a noiseless howl into nothing.
* * *
The temple and all things that were hummed quietly all around her once more when she woke back into life, but as ever, she had no response to give to them or to anyone.
She was discouragingly aware, even as she did battle now, that she did not live up well to the "warrior" part of her guild name. However strictly she adhered to the martial requirements of the guild, and even in some cases exceeded them, still her spirit was not that of a warrior and she did not joy in combat. It was only a thing that had to be done, for the ultimate good (she hoped) of others. She was not, of course, terribly good at the "mage" part either, but she at least felt herself truly to be a practitioner of magic and a creator of things using it, even if in her present mage-incarnation this came only with what she perceived as an inordinate amount of struggle. It did not help that people kept telling her that she ought to find a different path. She knew no other path but elemental magic in the service of others. The only path besides this that she could see the gods would not let her walk.
I will give up the guild and go away, she thought. I will tell people only that I was taught by the guild, and learned all I was capable of learning, which was little enough, and that was the end of it. I will acknowledge that I am like Mazrian's pitiable cobbler, who joined the guild and smelled elemental magic like burnt toast and went home again to make shoes. Except I cannot even make shoes.
She almost let out a snort of laughter at that, bitter and amused at once, and might even have done so, except it was at this moment that it came to her that perhaps she ought to have been giving less of her attention to her existential worries, and more to her immediate ones. It was just in this moment in which she found herself backed up to the edge of the cliff, and in the next moment when her grip on the blood-slick spear slipped in her parry against the ogre's mace, that she realized the next death she would be responsible for would not be the ogre's.
* * *
In death, as always, she dreamed.
She was standing on a dark pathless way which stretched out before and behind, past to future to eternity. There was no suggestion here in the darkness of where she had been, or might go to, or was right now. Nevertheless there was one way to go which tugged her feet up from the ground and along -- forwards, backwards, sideways; there was no way of knowing which, but whichever it was, it was the way she went. She went along it for a long, long time, or perhaps only a few seconds; it was nothing but darkness and infinity here so there was no way to judge. There being nothing at all to look at where she was as she went along, she looked up.
Above her head, above the pathless path, was a great celestial way paved with stars and bounded by every constellation and planet that she knew. It paralleled her own journey, but she could not reach it to set her own feet upon it. Everywhere there were stars, the souls of all the departed. There was one star, brighter yet softer than the rest, which seemed in its twinkling to be laughing gently at her. She thought she knew it. The celestial way, the constellations, each individual star, seemed almost within reach, if she could only....
She reached one hand up towards the starry expanse of the sky, spreading her fingers as if she could take hold of it and pull herself up, or draw it down to her. As she watched her hand she saw the heavens swirl like water around her fingertips, a slow ripple moving outward in elliptic orbits. The ripples spread, and grew, and where their distortion touched the stars, unsettled and unbound them. The stars began to fall, first one by one, then thicker, faster, dizzying in their number and descent. They fell past her in a flood of liquid light, glowing streaks like a shower of bright golden raindrops. As they fell in a murmuring torrent, she could hear their voices.
"Jaal'khalo.."
"Jaal'khalo.. why did you leave us?"
"Jaal'khalo.. why did you spare my enemies and not my children?"
"Jaal'khalo.. why did you raise this monster?"
"Why did you set it among us, to entice us to our doom? Jaal'khalo.."
"Too young.."
"Too strong.."
"Too soon.."
"Too proud.."
"You failed us, jaal'khalo."
"You failed, princess."
"You failed."
"Failed."
"Failed..."
She was drenched with accusations, blinded by the merciless wet glow of them, speechless as they flooded into her nose and mouth and lungs, and as she tried to scream the sound lodged in her throat, was swept back into her soul, and shivered it in a noiseless howl into nothing.
* * *
The temple and all things that were hummed quietly all around her once more when she woke back into life, but as ever, she had no response to give to them or to anyone.
Nice!
however...
"myriad of wounds" should be "myriad wounds" - 'Myriad' is used exactly like 'Many'
Myriad has been misused so often over so many years in recent history that the misusage has become normalized and acceptable.
It's like scraping my nails on a chalkboard every time I hear it.
That said - Nice!
however...
"myriad of wounds" should be "myriad wounds" - 'Myriad' is used exactly like 'Many'
Myriad has been misused so often over so many years in recent history that the misusage has become normalized and acceptable.
It's like scraping my nails on a chalkboard every time I hear it.
That said - Nice!
As far as I know, "myriad" has been used as a noun at least as long as it's been used as an adjective. It was definitely being used in the "a myriad of.." construction as far back as the 1620s -- I checked my digital copy of Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy just to be sure (because yes, I actually care about language that much), and there it was. And if it was good enough for Robert Burton, it's good enough for me!
On the other hand I do think "myriad" as an adjective sounds nice and could stand to be used more than it is.
Also, thanks to you and everybody for the nice comments!
On the other hand I do think "myriad" as an adjective sounds nice and could stand to be used more than it is.
Also, thanks to you and everybody for the nice comments!
Lirisa.
It was, Oscearo thought, a very promising day for a trip to Forfedhdar. The sun was shining, it was no more than usually damp for this incredibly damp land, and the roads were caked with only the usual amount of mud. Aside from the faint nagging ache behind her temples and a certain vague weakness in her knees she felt quite ready for adventure. It wasn't even really so much of an adventure. Master Perune had told her that she might travel to Forfedhdar if her own researches required it, but for now she was merely scouting the way. She would see how the roads looked as they forged westward, and if it got significantly colder and damper as she went along, and would simply get a taste for what the far exotic realm of Forfedhdar might be like. Then she would come back and fetch Iskra, and... well, perhaps it was better not to think any further ahead than that. It would be an adventure, and it would do them both good to get away from Zoluren and its infinite hordes of inane speechless zombie-persons and the endless barrage of tedious necromancer intrigues. They would surely both return at some point, sooner rather than later. Surely.
But for now she was only scouting the way.
It was late in the afternoon of the next day that she began to think that perhaps this hadn't been the best idea. She had wandered off a trail that came off of a side road that had branched away from the main road in order to see what might be found up a mountain track that curved elusively around a series of bends past mossy boulders and interestingly shaped trees, up and up along the edge of the slope and out of sight. She wasn't sure if she was in Forfedhdar yet or still in Zoluren; she had gone off any route recorded on any map that she had looked at, but since she was certain of where she was, she was not terribly concerned about where the two respective provinces might have chosen to situate themselves. The only problem was that there was something wrong with the inside of her head.
The other only problem, she thought as she plodded unsteadily up the trail, was her legs. The fact that her mind seemed to be floating mistily about with the clouds was one thing, but she felt as if she ought to be able to rely more on her legs, and that they shouldn't feel as if they were made of pudding. The third problem was that it had gotten ridiculously hard to breathe, and also that the edges of her vision were wavering around like the margin of a pond disturbed by a breeze, and additionally that she felt very hot, which wouldn't have really been a problem at all except that it had been approximately five years since she had last felt hot so the astonishment of it was only making her more dizzy.
It is the bad air, some tiny rational splinter of consciousness thought condemningly. The bad, wretched air of this wretchedly damp land. It is not healthy. You should not have spent so much time wandering through the marshes near Riverhaven, and in the Zaulfung, doing whatever it was that Gauthus wanted you to do. She couldn't actually remember what it was that Gauthus had wanted her to do, besides probably die. Well, Gauthus, you are getting your wish now, she thought. I hope you are happy. I hope...
Not being generally accustomed to hoping anything at all, it was likely for the best that she was interrupted in this effort by losing consciousness.
* * *
She was close to death but she could not quite reach it. It was like looking out through a tiny glass window that she couldn't open up, and the stars were shining unreachably through it. They glistened mistily, as if through a thick haze. She wanted so much to go to them. She fixed her gaze on them, as if by doing so her eyes could penetrate the haze and bring them nearer to her, but the harder she stared the thicker it grew. It rippled and gelled, and the stars grew dimmer, and the haze congealed into blackness that oozed across her eyes and nose and mouth, and not so much as a whimper could escape her as the dark absorbed her without a sound.
* * *
Skullcleaver.
Oscearo sat with her back against a huge granite boulder, warmed by the sun, and gazed off down the long slope of the mountainside towards the valley. The breeze across the alpine meadow was chilly, but with the sunshine draped like a second warm blanket on top of the woven one wrapped around her shoulders, she was comfortable enough. She felt like an old woman, soaking up the sun against the chill of her bones, conserving her strength, storing it away against whatever remained of the future.
The hemlock trees further up the mountain behind her sighed as the wind stroked their branches; it also pulled tendrils of hair free from the blanket and trailed them ticklingly against her neck. Along with old woman chill and old woman weakness, she had after all the hair of an old woman too. It brushed her shoulders now, after so many months of neglect. She would have to trim it back to what it had been, before she left this place.
She should have been filled with enthusiasm for leaving this dull inconsequential mountain hamlet, situated amidst obscure mountain slopes approximately halfway between the back of beyond and the middle of nowhere. It wasn't as if she'd come here by choice, or exactly stayed by choice either, for that matter. She should certainly be anxious to leave any place to which she had been confined by illness and weakness, however kind the villagers had been in caring for her. She should--
She frowned, realizing that several of the goats she was watching were straying far closer than was good for them to the edge of one of the farther slopes. She traced a sigil in the air, whistling softly in counterpoint to the harmony of the breeze. In response the air began to freshen and stir on the far side of the goats, vigorously sweeping the blades of grass between them and the cliff's edge; the goats bobbed their heads in annoyance, turned their backs to the wind, and drifted with the air current back up the mountainside closer to Oscearo. She nodded in satisfaction. Goats could be quite sensible animals, with a little encouragement. Minding them was certainly the very least she could do to repay the villagers for the inexplicable trouble they had taken in making sure that she did not die on a remote mountain path, or in the many weeks afterwards in which her death had seemed just as likely. She was not quite sure that she was grateful for what the villagers had done to preserve her life, but she was at least grateful to them for the misplaced kindness they had displayed in doing so.
One of her four-footed charges noticed that her gaze was still settled on it, and ambled up the slope towards her bleating amiably. The others had lifted up their heads to observe someone coming up the path from the village. Before Oscearo could see anything herself the shrill cry of "OSA!!!" swept with the breeze up the path, making the next moment's sighting of a young boy dashing hazardously across the precarious slope towards her superfluous.
"Willace," she greeted him as he collapsed in a panting heap next to her. After several months of his acquaintance, Oscearo knew there was no need to ask what terrible emergency had sent him charging up from the village at such a dangerously headlong rate. That was just how Willace went everywhere. He moved surprisingly fast for such a small, stocky boy. He was compact and earnest, like a mastiff puppy, and with his round blue eyes and sandy blond hair and pale freckled skin, he appeared in Oscearo's eyes endearingly exotic.
"Osa!" Willace exclaimed back at her again as she patiently pondered him. "How are the goats? Is Binny eating bad mushrooms again? Sithra and Gord and I were playing heroes and warrior mages, you should have come! I was being a war mage like you and blowing up mountains and Sithra was trying to blast me with the light and then Gord was all 'wheee-ooo, sproing, I shot you with my magic arrows and now you're dead!' And I was like, 'no way, I'm an evil arch-mage and I'm unkillable and I burned up all your arrows so YOU'RE dead!'"
Oscearo stared. "When was the last time that you saw me blow up a mountain?" she asked.
"You could if you wanted to! You made the mountain stop when it was sliding down on the goat shed. You could blow it up too if you felt like it I bet!"
Oscearo frowned sternly at him. "All I did was convince the water in that very small bit of mountain that it would very much prefer to be solid ice and not part of some very disorderly mudslide, and there never was nor has been nor ever will be any blowing up of mountains. In any case," she added reprovingly, "warrior mages are not evil. Arrogant, yes. Often foolish. Desperately irresponsible. Far too frequently obsessed with power and destruction. But not evil." She paused. "Usually." Observing the boy's doubtful expression, she added firmly, "Nevertheless, warrior mages exist to help people."
"But what about Glimbuc, who made the volcanoes blow up?"
"Mibgluc," Oscearo corrected. "Well. Mibgluc was a very evil warrior mage," she conceded. "However, he was evil because his heart was evil, not because he was a warrior mage."
"But what about the people who ate up the world with blackfire?"
"They were a mix of evil and foolish. But again, they would have likely managed to be evil and foolish regardless of whether they were warrior mages."
"What about--" Willace began again, but Oscearo cut him off at the pass.
"What about," she co-opted, "Lanival? who saved the world from Teiro and his cruel armies?"
"Oh!" Willace looked surprised and excited. "He was a warrior mage. AND a hero!"
"That is correct," Oscearo agreed. "Arhat, too, of course, was a warrior mage. And Paeldryth the air mage, and many others. There have been any number of good warrior mages in history."
"Lots of scary warrior mage heroes!" Willace said with relish, then observed her, frowning. "You're not like them."
Oscearo sighed. "No," she said. "No, I am not."
"Don't look sad, Osa. You're a great warrior mage! You're just different from the scary powerful ones."
"Mmph. Well, that last bit is surely true."
"But you do all kinds of amazing things!"
She observed him skeptically. "Do I, now?"
Willace nodded with enthusiasm.
"Things that are more amazing than the things the scary and powerful warrior mages from stories do?" she asked him.
"Sure! You do things that make people's lives happier!"
Oscraro squinted at the boy and hmm'd. "That seems an odd notion. But in any case," she wagged a finger at him, "how do you know that the scary and powerful warrior mages do not also do those things?"
"Well.." Willace considered for a moment. "Do the other warrior mages help keep people's food fresh?"
Oscearo thought of the warrior mage in the hold of the ship to Ratha, looking abjectly miserable and sunk in the deepest shame as he cast ice spells on the fish being carried to the mainland for the people there to eat. "Yes," she replied to the boy. "Yes, they do."
"Well, do they make breezes to help keep the biting flies off everyone?"
Oscearo contemplated the mages to be found at any hour of the day or night at her guild and wandering through town, casting endless iterations of Zephyr, and felt on surer footing here. "Oh yes," she said. "All the time. They are most extremely zealous about it."
"But..." Willace looked around, then pointed eagerly at the herd of goats grazing contentedly in the grass. "But can they herd goats using nothing but air?"
"Er.. Well.. in truth, they likely cannot."
"So there!" he exclaimed triumphantly.
Oscearo sighed. "That is beside the point. They do not have goats."
"No goats!" Willace looked shocked. "But how do they live?"
"They live," Oscearo said, "in a manner that does not include goats."
"No way! That sounds dumb. Everyone needs goats. But-- oh! You are powerful and scary too. You drove those bandits off. You didn't even have to kill anyone!"
She grunted. "True warrior mages feel no compunction about killing iniquitous persons."
Willace gave her a blank look.
"Warrior mages think it is fun to beat up bad guys," she repeated herself.
"Oh. But you did beat them up! You hit one right in the belly with the end of your spear and he went -OOGHF- and then he puked all over the ground! It was great!" The boy rolled around on the grass in gleeful laughter; Oscearo resisted the urge to put her face in her hand.
"Yes, well," she said. "I am glad they are gone. I hope they do not come back."
"They won't as long as we've got a warrior mage to protect us! Pow! Whop! Pew!"
Oscearo let out a long sigh and turned her head to gaze back out over the valley. Peaceful smoke was drifting from a few chimneys below, and far, far beyond that, the line of mountains smoothed out into low folds and fell away in a soft blue haze. Somewhere out there in the blue was where Zoluren began. Somewhere beyond that was the Crossing, and her old-new life, and duty.
She pushed her hair back slowly from her face and looked back to her young companion. "I cannot stay, Willace," she said softly. "I must go, soon."
"No you mustn't," Willace said with a frown. "You can stay. Ma and pa said it was good having a war mage here. It's fun having you here. Even the goats like you!"
It was true. At this exact moment one of them was pushing its nose contentedly against her arm while at the same time chewing contemplatively on her blanket. Oscearo grunted quietly and patted it on the head. "It is kind of your parents and the others here to say that I am not a burden on them, when they have spent so much of their time caring for an invalid, and sharing their little food with her, and the small space of their homes. But even if their kind words were true, it would make no difference to whether I must leave."
"But ma and pa--"
"Your mother and father already know I am leaving. Soon."
"But.." Willace faltered, not seeming to know what argument to make once reference to the all-conquering will of his parents had failed. "But everyone will miss you," he finally finished.
"That seems unlikely," Oscearo said.
"They will!" the boy insisted. "What if the bandits come back? What if our food goes bad? What if the well dries up after all?"
"Your parents and the other adults are perfectly well able to defend the village from bandits so long as they keep better watch. You will not have any trouble at all keeping your food cold over the winter. And as for the well, I have given the water sufficient encouragement and a severe enough talking-to that it will not be inclined hide itself away again any more."
"What if the mountain tries to fall down again? What then? Primrose and Petunia and Blacky and Butthead will all be squished!"
"The bit of the mountain that was in the least inclined to fall has done it already, and that is that. There is surely nothing left to worry about."
Willace looked up her from beneath deeply frowning blond eyebrows. "But I'll miss you."
Oscearo frowned back at him. "I will miss you too." She realized she truly would. "But it must be done."
Willace's mouth curved down in a sulky expression. "You're going back to-- to that Tirost, and Perune, and Ferrek, aren't you."
"What!" Oscearo stared at him. "Where have you ever heard any of those names from?"
"You! You mumbled a lot when you were sick. Mumble mumble mumble! Are those all your boyfriends? Everyone must like you!"
"No!" She gave Willace a stare to clearly indicate the righteous outrage she felt at such an implication.
Willace appeared not only impervious to her gaze, but actually oblivious. "Well, who are they then?" he asked.
"Perune," she replied a little stiffly, "is my master, back in Zoluren."
"And Tirost? And Ferrek?"
Oscearo tugged at the side of the blanket not being chewed on by Primrose and mmphed. "They are men who in no way resemble anything like a so-called boyfriend, which is surely all you need to know. In any case, I am not returning because of them. I am returning because it is my duty to do so."
Willace gave her a look, put out and puzzled at once. "What's duty?"
"What is duty, indeed!" Oscearo arched an eyebrow sharply at the boy. "I do not know what you young people can be coming to, having to ask such a question." She shook her head in despair of him and all future generations, then folded her arms thoughtfully across her chest. Willace regarded her attentively. "Well," she said. "You may look at it in this way. You have many responsibilities, such as -- towards your goats." She gestured illustratively at Primrose, who nibbled her fingers in appreciation. "You must make sure they are fed, and protected from wild beasts, and sheltered from the weather, and that they do not get scared and stray down the cliffs. And why must you do this? Because you have a duty towards the goats, to keep them well and happy."
The boy continued to stare at her. "But you said warrior mages don't have goats."
"No," she agreed, a little regretfully. She would definitely miss the goats. "But I have a duty towards certain people, and there are many responsibilities that I have shirked by loafing about here, being weak and sickly."
"Are you going to protect people, and make sure they're not scared either?"
Oscearo made a grumbling noise. "That would surely be nice," she said. "But alas, that seems more unlikely than anything."
"Then what are you going to do?" Willace asked. "That's more important than staying here with the goats and everyone?"
Oscearo wished she had an answer for him, but Willace was too young yet for Power. Duty. Death.
Her fingers traced pensive patterns across the smooth metal of her armband as the sun sank slowly behind her, until it was too dark to see the far off slopes, or the village, or even the goats that bleated softly to her beneath the faint glimmer of the stars.
It was, Oscearo thought, a very promising day for a trip to Forfedhdar. The sun was shining, it was no more than usually damp for this incredibly damp land, and the roads were caked with only the usual amount of mud. Aside from the faint nagging ache behind her temples and a certain vague weakness in her knees she felt quite ready for adventure. It wasn't even really so much of an adventure. Master Perune had told her that she might travel to Forfedhdar if her own researches required it, but for now she was merely scouting the way. She would see how the roads looked as they forged westward, and if it got significantly colder and damper as she went along, and would simply get a taste for what the far exotic realm of Forfedhdar might be like. Then she would come back and fetch Iskra, and... well, perhaps it was better not to think any further ahead than that. It would be an adventure, and it would do them both good to get away from Zoluren and its infinite hordes of inane speechless zombie-persons and the endless barrage of tedious necromancer intrigues. They would surely both return at some point, sooner rather than later. Surely.
But for now she was only scouting the way.
It was late in the afternoon of the next day that she began to think that perhaps this hadn't been the best idea. She had wandered off a trail that came off of a side road that had branched away from the main road in order to see what might be found up a mountain track that curved elusively around a series of bends past mossy boulders and interestingly shaped trees, up and up along the edge of the slope and out of sight. She wasn't sure if she was in Forfedhdar yet or still in Zoluren; she had gone off any route recorded on any map that she had looked at, but since she was certain of where she was, she was not terribly concerned about where the two respective provinces might have chosen to situate themselves. The only problem was that there was something wrong with the inside of her head.
The other only problem, she thought as she plodded unsteadily up the trail, was her legs. The fact that her mind seemed to be floating mistily about with the clouds was one thing, but she felt as if she ought to be able to rely more on her legs, and that they shouldn't feel as if they were made of pudding. The third problem was that it had gotten ridiculously hard to breathe, and also that the edges of her vision were wavering around like the margin of a pond disturbed by a breeze, and additionally that she felt very hot, which wouldn't have really been a problem at all except that it had been approximately five years since she had last felt hot so the astonishment of it was only making her more dizzy.
It is the bad air, some tiny rational splinter of consciousness thought condemningly. The bad, wretched air of this wretchedly damp land. It is not healthy. You should not have spent so much time wandering through the marshes near Riverhaven, and in the Zaulfung, doing whatever it was that Gauthus wanted you to do. She couldn't actually remember what it was that Gauthus had wanted her to do, besides probably die. Well, Gauthus, you are getting your wish now, she thought. I hope you are happy. I hope...
Not being generally accustomed to hoping anything at all, it was likely for the best that she was interrupted in this effort by losing consciousness.
* * *
She was close to death but she could not quite reach it. It was like looking out through a tiny glass window that she couldn't open up, and the stars were shining unreachably through it. They glistened mistily, as if through a thick haze. She wanted so much to go to them. She fixed her gaze on them, as if by doing so her eyes could penetrate the haze and bring them nearer to her, but the harder she stared the thicker it grew. It rippled and gelled, and the stars grew dimmer, and the haze congealed into blackness that oozed across her eyes and nose and mouth, and not so much as a whimper could escape her as the dark absorbed her without a sound.
* * *
Skullcleaver.
Oscearo sat with her back against a huge granite boulder, warmed by the sun, and gazed off down the long slope of the mountainside towards the valley. The breeze across the alpine meadow was chilly, but with the sunshine draped like a second warm blanket on top of the woven one wrapped around her shoulders, she was comfortable enough. She felt like an old woman, soaking up the sun against the chill of her bones, conserving her strength, storing it away against whatever remained of the future.
The hemlock trees further up the mountain behind her sighed as the wind stroked their branches; it also pulled tendrils of hair free from the blanket and trailed them ticklingly against her neck. Along with old woman chill and old woman weakness, she had after all the hair of an old woman too. It brushed her shoulders now, after so many months of neglect. She would have to trim it back to what it had been, before she left this place.
She should have been filled with enthusiasm for leaving this dull inconsequential mountain hamlet, situated amidst obscure mountain slopes approximately halfway between the back of beyond and the middle of nowhere. It wasn't as if she'd come here by choice, or exactly stayed by choice either, for that matter. She should certainly be anxious to leave any place to which she had been confined by illness and weakness, however kind the villagers had been in caring for her. She should--
She frowned, realizing that several of the goats she was watching were straying far closer than was good for them to the edge of one of the farther slopes. She traced a sigil in the air, whistling softly in counterpoint to the harmony of the breeze. In response the air began to freshen and stir on the far side of the goats, vigorously sweeping the blades of grass between them and the cliff's edge; the goats bobbed their heads in annoyance, turned their backs to the wind, and drifted with the air current back up the mountainside closer to Oscearo. She nodded in satisfaction. Goats could be quite sensible animals, with a little encouragement. Minding them was certainly the very least she could do to repay the villagers for the inexplicable trouble they had taken in making sure that she did not die on a remote mountain path, or in the many weeks afterwards in which her death had seemed just as likely. She was not quite sure that she was grateful for what the villagers had done to preserve her life, but she was at least grateful to them for the misplaced kindness they had displayed in doing so.
One of her four-footed charges noticed that her gaze was still settled on it, and ambled up the slope towards her bleating amiably. The others had lifted up their heads to observe someone coming up the path from the village. Before Oscearo could see anything herself the shrill cry of "OSA!!!" swept with the breeze up the path, making the next moment's sighting of a young boy dashing hazardously across the precarious slope towards her superfluous.
"Willace," she greeted him as he collapsed in a panting heap next to her. After several months of his acquaintance, Oscearo knew there was no need to ask what terrible emergency had sent him charging up from the village at such a dangerously headlong rate. That was just how Willace went everywhere. He moved surprisingly fast for such a small, stocky boy. He was compact and earnest, like a mastiff puppy, and with his round blue eyes and sandy blond hair and pale freckled skin, he appeared in Oscearo's eyes endearingly exotic.
"Osa!" Willace exclaimed back at her again as she patiently pondered him. "How are the goats? Is Binny eating bad mushrooms again? Sithra and Gord and I were playing heroes and warrior mages, you should have come! I was being a war mage like you and blowing up mountains and Sithra was trying to blast me with the light and then Gord was all 'wheee-ooo, sproing, I shot you with my magic arrows and now you're dead!' And I was like, 'no way, I'm an evil arch-mage and I'm unkillable and I burned up all your arrows so YOU'RE dead!'"
Oscearo stared. "When was the last time that you saw me blow up a mountain?" she asked.
"You could if you wanted to! You made the mountain stop when it was sliding down on the goat shed. You could blow it up too if you felt like it I bet!"
Oscearo frowned sternly at him. "All I did was convince the water in that very small bit of mountain that it would very much prefer to be solid ice and not part of some very disorderly mudslide, and there never was nor has been nor ever will be any blowing up of mountains. In any case," she added reprovingly, "warrior mages are not evil. Arrogant, yes. Often foolish. Desperately irresponsible. Far too frequently obsessed with power and destruction. But not evil." She paused. "Usually." Observing the boy's doubtful expression, she added firmly, "Nevertheless, warrior mages exist to help people."
"But what about Glimbuc, who made the volcanoes blow up?"
"Mibgluc," Oscearo corrected. "Well. Mibgluc was a very evil warrior mage," she conceded. "However, he was evil because his heart was evil, not because he was a warrior mage."
"But what about the people who ate up the world with blackfire?"
"They were a mix of evil and foolish. But again, they would have likely managed to be evil and foolish regardless of whether they were warrior mages."
"What about--" Willace began again, but Oscearo cut him off at the pass.
"What about," she co-opted, "Lanival? who saved the world from Teiro and his cruel armies?"
"Oh!" Willace looked surprised and excited. "He was a warrior mage. AND a hero!"
"That is correct," Oscearo agreed. "Arhat, too, of course, was a warrior mage. And Paeldryth the air mage, and many others. There have been any number of good warrior mages in history."
"Lots of scary warrior mage heroes!" Willace said with relish, then observed her, frowning. "You're not like them."
Oscearo sighed. "No," she said. "No, I am not."
"Don't look sad, Osa. You're a great warrior mage! You're just different from the scary powerful ones."
"Mmph. Well, that last bit is surely true."
"But you do all kinds of amazing things!"
She observed him skeptically. "Do I, now?"
Willace nodded with enthusiasm.
"Things that are more amazing than the things the scary and powerful warrior mages from stories do?" she asked him.
"Sure! You do things that make people's lives happier!"
Oscraro squinted at the boy and hmm'd. "That seems an odd notion. But in any case," she wagged a finger at him, "how do you know that the scary and powerful warrior mages do not also do those things?"
"Well.." Willace considered for a moment. "Do the other warrior mages help keep people's food fresh?"
Oscearo thought of the warrior mage in the hold of the ship to Ratha, looking abjectly miserable and sunk in the deepest shame as he cast ice spells on the fish being carried to the mainland for the people there to eat. "Yes," she replied to the boy. "Yes, they do."
"Well, do they make breezes to help keep the biting flies off everyone?"
Oscearo contemplated the mages to be found at any hour of the day or night at her guild and wandering through town, casting endless iterations of Zephyr, and felt on surer footing here. "Oh yes," she said. "All the time. They are most extremely zealous about it."
"But..." Willace looked around, then pointed eagerly at the herd of goats grazing contentedly in the grass. "But can they herd goats using nothing but air?"
"Er.. Well.. in truth, they likely cannot."
"So there!" he exclaimed triumphantly.
Oscearo sighed. "That is beside the point. They do not have goats."
"No goats!" Willace looked shocked. "But how do they live?"
"They live," Oscearo said, "in a manner that does not include goats."
"No way! That sounds dumb. Everyone needs goats. But-- oh! You are powerful and scary too. You drove those bandits off. You didn't even have to kill anyone!"
She grunted. "True warrior mages feel no compunction about killing iniquitous persons."
Willace gave her a blank look.
"Warrior mages think it is fun to beat up bad guys," she repeated herself.
"Oh. But you did beat them up! You hit one right in the belly with the end of your spear and he went -OOGHF- and then he puked all over the ground! It was great!" The boy rolled around on the grass in gleeful laughter; Oscearo resisted the urge to put her face in her hand.
"Yes, well," she said. "I am glad they are gone. I hope they do not come back."
"They won't as long as we've got a warrior mage to protect us! Pow! Whop! Pew!"
Oscearo let out a long sigh and turned her head to gaze back out over the valley. Peaceful smoke was drifting from a few chimneys below, and far, far beyond that, the line of mountains smoothed out into low folds and fell away in a soft blue haze. Somewhere out there in the blue was where Zoluren began. Somewhere beyond that was the Crossing, and her old-new life, and duty.
She pushed her hair back slowly from her face and looked back to her young companion. "I cannot stay, Willace," she said softly. "I must go, soon."
"No you mustn't," Willace said with a frown. "You can stay. Ma and pa said it was good having a war mage here. It's fun having you here. Even the goats like you!"
It was true. At this exact moment one of them was pushing its nose contentedly against her arm while at the same time chewing contemplatively on her blanket. Oscearo grunted quietly and patted it on the head. "It is kind of your parents and the others here to say that I am not a burden on them, when they have spent so much of their time caring for an invalid, and sharing their little food with her, and the small space of their homes. But even if their kind words were true, it would make no difference to whether I must leave."
"But ma and pa--"
"Your mother and father already know I am leaving. Soon."
"But.." Willace faltered, not seeming to know what argument to make once reference to the all-conquering will of his parents had failed. "But everyone will miss you," he finally finished.
"That seems unlikely," Oscearo said.
"They will!" the boy insisted. "What if the bandits come back? What if our food goes bad? What if the well dries up after all?"
"Your parents and the other adults are perfectly well able to defend the village from bandits so long as they keep better watch. You will not have any trouble at all keeping your food cold over the winter. And as for the well, I have given the water sufficient encouragement and a severe enough talking-to that it will not be inclined hide itself away again any more."
"What if the mountain tries to fall down again? What then? Primrose and Petunia and Blacky and Butthead will all be squished!"
"The bit of the mountain that was in the least inclined to fall has done it already, and that is that. There is surely nothing left to worry about."
Willace looked up her from beneath deeply frowning blond eyebrows. "But I'll miss you."
Oscearo frowned back at him. "I will miss you too." She realized she truly would. "But it must be done."
Willace's mouth curved down in a sulky expression. "You're going back to-- to that Tirost, and Perune, and Ferrek, aren't you."
"What!" Oscearo stared at him. "Where have you ever heard any of those names from?"
"You! You mumbled a lot when you were sick. Mumble mumble mumble! Are those all your boyfriends? Everyone must like you!"
"No!" She gave Willace a stare to clearly indicate the righteous outrage she felt at such an implication.
Willace appeared not only impervious to her gaze, but actually oblivious. "Well, who are they then?" he asked.
"Perune," she replied a little stiffly, "is my master, back in Zoluren."
"And Tirost? And Ferrek?"
Oscearo tugged at the side of the blanket not being chewed on by Primrose and mmphed. "They are men who in no way resemble anything like a so-called boyfriend, which is surely all you need to know. In any case, I am not returning because of them. I am returning because it is my duty to do so."
Willace gave her a look, put out and puzzled at once. "What's duty?"
"What is duty, indeed!" Oscearo arched an eyebrow sharply at the boy. "I do not know what you young people can be coming to, having to ask such a question." She shook her head in despair of him and all future generations, then folded her arms thoughtfully across her chest. Willace regarded her attentively. "Well," she said. "You may look at it in this way. You have many responsibilities, such as -- towards your goats." She gestured illustratively at Primrose, who nibbled her fingers in appreciation. "You must make sure they are fed, and protected from wild beasts, and sheltered from the weather, and that they do not get scared and stray down the cliffs. And why must you do this? Because you have a duty towards the goats, to keep them well and happy."
The boy continued to stare at her. "But you said warrior mages don't have goats."
"No," she agreed, a little regretfully. She would definitely miss the goats. "But I have a duty towards certain people, and there are many responsibilities that I have shirked by loafing about here, being weak and sickly."
"Are you going to protect people, and make sure they're not scared either?"
Oscearo made a grumbling noise. "That would surely be nice," she said. "But alas, that seems more unlikely than anything."
"Then what are you going to do?" Willace asked. "That's more important than staying here with the goats and everyone?"
Oscearo wished she had an answer for him, but Willace was too young yet for Power. Duty. Death.
Her fingers traced pensive patterns across the smooth metal of her armband as the sun sank slowly behind her, until it was too dark to see the far off slopes, or the village, or even the goats that bleated softly to her beneath the faint glimmer of the stars.
